Chapter 2
"I've already given you two weeks, Decker. I've got bills, too!"
Beads of hot perspiration pimpled Ralph Decker's forehead as he cradled the telephone receiver close to his ear so that Bud Carlson, his sole employee, couldn't overhear. "Listen, Tucker," he breathed softly, I've got two thousand of it. If you could give me another week to raise the other five hundred, I'd..."
"You'd what, Decker? Kiss my ass? If you can't afford to lose, don't play the game. You're a rotten bookie, Decker. You spend the money and don't make your pay-offs. I want my fuckin' money!"
"Listen, you bastard! I haven't got it, for Chrissakes, can't you understand that?" The middle-aged electrician's voice was rising like steam.
"You'd better get it... and you'd better understand that!"
Ralph Decker rested the receiver against his chest as Bud passed closely carrying an old toaster. Decker felt his guts knot from the knowledge that Tucker meant business—and Tucker was nobody to fool with. Time and again, Decker wished he could back up time, to the first time Tucker approached him with the bookie proposition... and to the night he gambled the till's money on a drunken poker game and lost the wad. Tucker had come by for collections—hardly a tea party. Hell, he was just one man against the biggest con-men in the state and he couldn't go to the police for protection.
"I've got to have more time, Tucker... please!"
A short pause on the end of the line rose Decker's hopes. "Okay, Decker... this is Tuesday, I'll give you until Thursday to come up with the other thousand."
"Thousand! It's only five-hundred. If you think..."
"I'm not running a welfare agency. I let you have a week on good faith and you blew it. Now, if you come up with the money like the good fellow I trust you to be... and that's two days grace I'm giving you... if you come through, maybe we can keep your deadbeat ass out of the Bay."
Ralph's hand went into convulsive tremors. He switched hands then, wiping the sweat off on his smudged smock. Christ he wished he had a drink... a straight shot of whiskey. "Thursday?"
"Thursday noon. My man and me will be over to pick it up at your house... Make sure you go home for lunch!"
Ralph felt his knees weakening beneath him. Tucker's man had to be that fucking gorilla, Bloater, who had come along for collections.
"Why my place? Meet me downtown somewhere."
"I don't conduct business in public, and I gotta keep my ass away from the cops."
"0-Okay, Thursday noon at my place... I-I'll get the money somehow."
"You bet your fat ass you will!
"Ralph Decker, you take those vitamins right now!"
"Goddamn it, Irma, I've got a headache!"
Sara, busy feeding her two year old daughter looked up in surprise at the sudden exchange between her parents. Tanya, inured to the temperamental displays that marked their parents' later years, continued to gobble up her food nonplussed.
"I have some Midol, Daddy... men take it too," offered Sara, rising from her chair.
Ralph, his face buried in his fleshy palms looked up at his eldest daughter affectionately and managed a smile. "That's okay, baby. Sit down and finish feeding Heidi.
Oh, vomit! Tanya winced behind a forkful of roast beef. Here we go again!
Ralph reached across the table and patted the back of Sara's hand. "Thanks for offering, sweetheart." Out of the corner of a crow's foot eye he noticed his younger daughter's obvious displeasure; he cast her a warning glance. "And you, number two daughter, had better wipe that smirk off your face!"
"Oh, now, Ralph," Irma intruded feebly. "Don't start anything at the dinner table. Tanya didn't say a word!"
"Keep your nose out of this, Irma. If I'd taken a strap to her smart ass as a kid, she wouldn't be handing us this crap now!"
"Ralph! She's never been in any serious trouble. Now keep your voice down or your granddaughter will cry."
Ralph glowered at his wife far long moments, then glanced from one to the other of his offspring. Sara, her face reddened with embarrassment, had turned to feed Heidi, while Tanya stared blankly down at her plate, her full blue eyes brimming with tears.
"You call getting kicked out of school twice nothing? Cheating on exams?"
Irma, too, couldn't help but compare her two daughters. She loved them both for they had come from her womb, but It saddened her that the differences in personalities had been a sore spot for her somewhat reactionary husband. Physically the two girls could have been twins, with Sara a few pounds heavier after Heidi and Tanya slightly leggier and more buxom. Temperament was a different matter entirely. It would have been easier if Tanya had been the son she was planned to be. Irma could still remember the look of absolute defeat on Ralph's face when he'd come into the hospital. She had cried herself to sleep after he'd gone. Oh, he'd tried but he could never get close to Tanya.
"Sara sure as hell never cheated on any exams... she was on the honor roll every semester. But this one..." Ralph shook his head disapprovingly and stabbed at a hunk of meat.
"Daddy!" the older girl pleaded. "If not for Tanya's sake or Mama's, then for Heidi. Please!"
Ralph munched on a mouthful of meat, sourly.
It bothered Sara to witness friction in the family. She couldn't remember it being a night and day ritual when she was still living at home. Perhaps she shouldn't have let Daddy talk her into renting their house and moving back home while Barry was overseas. But then she'd never been able to refuse him anything. It embarrassed her, sometimes, the way he showed his partiality in front of her sister, but then Tanya could be such a spiteful person at times—as if she were going out of her way to cause problems. And Mama, poor hackled Mama, got right in the middle of it. No wonder she was showing her forty-nine years lately. Why her hair was almost all gray! Daddy was fifty-five and he looked younger than Mama—despite the worry lines around his eyes of late.
Irma tried diplomacy. "Ralph, let me put some nice warm gravy on your meat."
Tanya raised her head, fighting back the tears of outrage she was determined not to give her father the satisfaction of seeing. I just wish he was half as cool as Terry's dad... how much class can you have when you run a one-man Goodwill? she thought angrily. She glowered at her sister then, watching her stuff her mouth, then Heidi's, then at her whiny Mama ladling gravy on Daddy's hunk of meat. God how she wanted to get out of this house... and these small town people!
"Sara made a nice apple pie," said Irma hopefully. "That's your favorite, darling."
She's his fucking favorite, Tanya grimaced. He'd still bounce her on his stupid knee if she'd let him!
"Did you make your ol' daddy his favorite dessert, Sara darlin'?"
Tanya felt her knuckles whiten around the hand of her fork as she idly pushed her meat around on her plate. Her temples pounded furiously. "Bullshit!" she muttered under her breath.
"Oh, Daddy," Sara swelled proudly. "You've been working so hard lately and I sorta figured you deserved a little something spec—"
"Bullshit!" This time it was loud enough to be heard. Rising to her feet, Tanya blurted; "Sara this, Sara that... Sara, Sara, Sara! That's all I've heard my whole life. It's—"
SLAP! Her father's hand came down hard across the side of her face.
"Ralph!" Irma cried.
"Butt out, Irma!"
"Yeah, butt out, Mama! The goodwill king is throwing a fit!" Tanya choked, trying with all her might to check the tears threatening to spill down her satin cheeks.
Ralph Decker, on his feet and trembling with rage, managed somehow to restrain himself from whacking his daughter again as she spun on her heels and ran toward the bathroom. Slowly, he relaxed, slumping back down into his chair. Sara, shhhhhing the baby, glowed with infinite satisfaction. Tanya had deserved that!
"Ralph, do you really think..."
"Shut up, Irma!"
Irma rose, her lips compressed in a tight line, her hands busy clearing the dinner dishes.
"Daddy," Sara began as soon as her mother had left the dining room for the kitchen. "If you want my opinion, it's that kid she's been running around with all summer."
Ralph Decker, never one to follow his youngest daughter's string of amatory pursuits, blinked curiously at his surreptitiously beaming married daughter. "What kid?"
"Terry Tucker!"
The color drained instantly from Ralph's heavy face. "S-She's been hanging around with that Tucker bastard?" He barely blinked.
"You know him, Daddy?"
"I know his old man. We'll see if we can't put a stop to this nonsense right now... Tanya Irma Decker, you get your ass out of that bathroom right now!"
A short silence ensued, followed by the sound of a flushing toilet. The bathroom door banged open and Tanya pranced out, haughtily tossing her wealth of honey hair over her shoulder. Ignoring her father blatantly and her older sister seated at the table, she climbed the stairs leading to her room. Ralph, an impatient man, stood waiting at the foot of the steps when she returned, buttoning up a trench coat.
"Where the hell are you going?" he boomed as she inched past him on the stairs.
"Out," she said simply enough, opening the front door.
"You get your ass back here right now, young lady! I have something to say to you!"
"Go to hell!" The door slammed behind her, trapping a cold blast of air in the hallway, adding to the tormented Ralph Decker's chilled bones.
"Let her walk it off. Daddy. She's hot headed, you know."
Down the block and around the corner, Tanya stopped at the drugstore and dropped her dime in the telephone.
"Terry? This is Tanya."
"Christ! That was quick. Your old man throw you out of the house?"
"No, we just had a fight. Daddy hit me, and—"
"He hit you?"
"In the face. It was terrible. C-Can you come and get me?"
"Right now?"
"Yeah, could you, Terry, please?" Oh, that honey voice again when she needed it.
"I can't, Tanya. My cars not working. I think the clutch is slipping."
"Oh..." A long pause followed. "Hey... my Dad's having a board meeting tonight and it oughta be over pretty soon. Maybe I could get one of Dad's guys to run you somewhere... maybe over to Sonja Babson's."
Tanya choked back another sob. She didn't want to spend the night with a girl, she wanted to be with her boy friend... But then anything would be better than going back to that dump and listening to her father grump and her mother whine and her sister coo along with her bratty kid. "H-How will I know him?"
"He'll be driving one of Dad's limos... you know, the big black one you saw?"
"Super! Thanks Terry... I love you!" She blew a kiss over the phone.