11/22/63

“You take it right.” The waitress deposited my Lobster Pickin’s and hustled away. The heap on the platter looked like roadkill, but it smelled terrific and tasted better. Probably a billion grams of cholesterol in every bite, but in 1958, nobody worries about that, which is restful. “Help me with this,” I said.

“Nope, they’re all yours. You out of Boston? New York?”

I shrugged and he laughed.

“Playin it cagey, huh? Don’t blame you, cuz. Loose lips sink ships. But I have a pretty good idea what you’re up to.”

I paused with a forkful of Lobster Pickin’s halfway to my mouth. It was warm in The Lamplighter, but I felt suddenly chilly. “Is that so?”

He leaned close. I could smell Vitalis on his slicked-back hair and Sen-Sen on his breath. “If I said ‘possible mall site,’ would that be a bingo?”

I felt a gust of relief. The idea that I was in Derry looking for a place to put a shopping mall had never crossed my mind, but it was a good one. I dropped Chaz Frati a wink. “Can’t say.”

“No, no, course you couldn’t. Business is as business does, I always say. We’ll drop the subject. But if you’d ever consider letting one of the local yokels in on a good thing, I’d love to listen. And just to show you that my heart is in the right place, I’ll give you a little tip. If you haven’t checked out the old Kitchener Ironworks yet, you ought to. Perfect spot. And malls? Do you know what malls are, my son?”

“The wave of the future,” I said.

He pointed a finger at me like a gun and winked. I laughed again, just couldn’t help it. Part of it was the simple relief of finding out that not every grown-up in Derry had forgotten how to be friendly to a stranger. “Hole in one.”

“And who owns the land the old Kitchener Ironworks sits on, Chaz? The Tracker brothers, I suppose?”

“I said they own most of the land around here, not all of it.” He looked down at the mermaid. “Milly, should I tell George who owns that prime business-zoned real estate only two miles from the center of this metropolis?”

Milly wagged her scaly tail and jiggled her teacup breasts. Chaz Frati didn’t clench his hand into a fist to make this happen; the muscles in his forearm seemed to move on their own. It was a good trick. I wondered if he also pulled rabbits out of hats.

“All right, dear.” He looked up at me again. “Actually, that would be yours truly. I buy the best and let the Tracker brothers have the rest. Business is as business does. May I give you my card, George?”

“Absolutely.”

He did. The card simply said CHARLES “CHAZ” FRATI BUY SELL TRADE. I tucked it into my shirt pocket.

“If you know all those people and they know you, why aren’t you over there instead of sitting at the bar with the new kid on the block?” I asked.

He looked surprised, then amused all over again. “Was you born in a trunk and then threw off a train, cuz?”

“Just new in town. Haven’t learned the ropes. Don’t hold it against me.”

“Never would. They do business with me because I own half this town’s motor courts, both downtown movie theaters and the drive-in, one of the banks, and all of the pawnshops in eastern and central Maine. But they don’t eat with me or drink with me or invite me into their homes or their country club because I’m a member of the Tribe.”

“You lost me.”

“I’m a Jew, cuz.”

He saw my expression and grinned. “You didn’t know. Even when I wouldn’t eat any of your lobster, you didn’t know. I’m touched.”

“I’m just trying to figure out why it should make a difference,” I said.

He laughed as though this were the best joke he’d heard all year. “Then you was born under a cabbage leaf instead of in a trunk.”

In the mirror, Frank Dunning was talking. Tony Tracker and his friends were listening with big grins on their faces. When they exploded into bull roars of laughter, I wondered if it had been the one about the three jigs stuck in the elevator or maybe something even more amusing and satiric — three Yids on a golf course, maybe.

Chaz saw me looking. “Frank knows how to make a party go, all right. You know where he works? No, you’re new in town, I forgot. Center Street Market. He’s the head butcher. Also half-owner, although he don’t advertise it. You know what? He’s half the reason that place stands up and makes a profit. Draws the ladies like bees to honey.”

“Does he, now?”

“Yep, and the men like him, too. That’s not always the case. Fellas don’t always like a ladies’ man.”

That made me think of my ex-wife’s fierce Johnny Depp fixation.

“But it’s not like the old days when he’d drink with em until closin, then play poker with em down at the freight depot until the crack of dawn. These days he’ll have one beer — maybe two — and then he’s out the door. You watch.”

It was a behavior pattern I knew about firsthand from Christy’s sporadic efforts to control her booze intake rather than stop altogether. It would work for awhile, but sooner or later she always went off the deep end.

“Drinking problem?” I asked.