Giovanni’s Bones

By Leonard Palmer

Fast forward to the weekend of July 4th, 1976. It is the year of the Bicentennial, America's 200th birthday. The city is already alive with excitement. Fireworks are popping. Johnny Jump finds himself standing in a lonely hospital room, watching an old lady gasp for breath. Johnny doesn't want to be here. He needs to be in his cab, hustling fares to make the rent on the apartment he shares with the beautiful Catherine Dupree. But Catherine Dupree is gone, off on one of her cloak and dagger missions.
The man who dragged Johnny to this unwanted tryst with a dying woman is one Crispus Attucks Smith. He wants Johnny to assist him in trying to find the whereabouts of Giovanni Crespi, the dying woman's son who went missing nearly three decades before.The bodies pile up as the awful truth of what happened all those years ago slowly reveals itself in....Giovanni's Bones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312884403

Book preview

Giovanni’s Bones

Giovanni’s Bones

Copywrite

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any for except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review. Queries regarding rights and permissions should be addressed to Leonard Palmer.

ISBN # 978-1-312-88440-3

© 2015 Leonard Palmer

Dedication

For my son Phillip, who has put up with more bureaucratic bullshit in his short life than any ten lifetimes. I have taken inspiration and gained strength from his optimism and his resolve in the face of great challenges. May the Great Spirit guide and protect him. He is a one hundred fold better man than his tormentors.

Thanks

Thanks again to my trio of editors; Professor Thomas Fonte of the University of California, Darelene Davies of Kenosha, WI and Dave ''Aqua Bear'' Supple of San Francisco. Their suggestions have contributed greatly to this work. I thank them for their invaluable assistance.

Quote

What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.

Sterling Hayden- Wanderer

Chapter 1

July 2, 1947

Her naked body glowed.

Harsh light from the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling sketched a radiant outline around her perfect form. She was so beautiful! His hand shook as he held his brush, poised before the bare canvas as he readied to make his first strokes.

It was two minutes past midnight. The night was punctuated with sirens, as the city geared itself up for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.

The smell of victory was still in the air. Although it was only Wednesday, and the Fourth wasn't until Friday, people had already begun to celebrate the festivities. These were working class folks, the men and women who had manned the front lines in the recent world war, and worked the factories and farms that supplied the troops that won the war. They felt the great triumph was theirs, and they wanted their due, even if they had to take it for themselves by celebrating early, and often. Those who owned their own homes or those who had access to back yards in their rented flats had been cooking supper outside. The air was filled with the smells of charred meat, beer and sweat. Children on summer vacation from public school played ball in the school yards, or hop scotched on the sidewalks, jumped rope, shot marbles and played tag while their parents burned hot dogs on outdoor grills. Bright day had segued into a sweltering summer night and people brought blankets and pillows outside and slept on porches or in yards to escape their stifling rooms. The police would be busy tonight, and on into the next day, and the day after that. Busy police meant frustrated police, and frustrated police meant hickory night sticks cracking skulls for the most tenuous of reasons. Best to stay inside, and avoid confrontation.

Which is where they were, in a cramped basement room lit by a single bulb suspended from the ceiling. It cast a garish light that chiseled harsh shadows on the pockmarked brick walls. There were only the two people in the room; a pregnant nude woman coyly posed on a hard-backed wooden chair, one hand resting on her bulging tummy, her other hand behind her head, and a man at an easel, palette in one hand, brush in the other.

The painting came together quickly, the artist working in swift, bold strokes He placed his model in the center of the canvas, surrounded by a lavender background, in honor of the lavender scent she was so fond of wearing. It was easy when your subject was your one true love, he thought; someone who had shared your innermost secrets, your deepest loves and your deepest fears; and was now carrying your baby. There was a depth to it that transcended the usual portraiture: as if the spirit of their unborn child shined beneath the skin. It was his best work, and he knew it. He smiled at his model. She returned the smile, and it lit the dank room. He worked as if his hands were on autopilot, acting independently of his mind. Once the work was completed he would hide it away. No one would see it except for he and she. No one could see it, given the circumstances of the day. Maybe in the future, if things changed for the better, he would reveal it to the public but for now it would stay hidden away.

She smiled again, this time cryptically, and his hand holding the brush gave a subtle upturn to the corner of her mouth, the barest hint of a grin. He stepped back and studied the canvas, and felt himself consumed with fulfillment and exhilaration.

Yes, it was his best work. His heart beat quickly. It was his Mona Lisa, and he was proud.

It was a shame he couldn't hang it on his wall. He would have to hide it in a place where no one would ever find it, waiting for the day when he could proudly display it without fear of retribution, or scorn.

Or worse.

July 2, 1976

It was two minutes past midnight on a sweltering summer night punctuated by sirens.

People were celebrating in advance of the national holiday, the second century of American independence, popping off firecrackers and firearms, blowing off fingers and blowing away friends and neighbors. The police were busy with distress calls, the hospitals with unruly drunks and bloody wounds.

I, however,  was not part of the merriment. I was instead trapped in a hospital room, safely tucked away from the mayhem outside, watching a feeble old woman struggle for breath.

The old lady was incredibly frail, like an angular scarecrow fabricated of dry twigs wrapped in a bed sheet. Her deeply furrowed face was topped with a shock of silver hair.

It was two minutes past midnight, and I was taking time off of my shift driving cab by standing in a hospital room with my current fare, watching this age-wracked woman fight to stay alive as she lay on her hospital bed. The dingy closet-like space was claustrophobic. It reminded me of my prison cell when I was in the joint. It was a memory that I tried to suppress, but these gray walls reeked of formaldehyde and death, and the heels I heard clicking in the halls outside the room reminded me of guards' stepping past our steel-barred rooms. Prison is not a nice place. It's not meant to be, and many men couldn't handle it. The weak tits were discovered early on, and exploited for sex, or money or some other form of personal gain. My combat experience in Viet Nam had hardened my character to violence and deprivation. I quickly earned a reputation as a man to be avoided, and I kept to myself and cultivated my bad ass rep, but I was a prisoner nonetheless, just like the nonagenarian prostrate before us. I had been a prisoner of the system, locked behind bars. She was a prisoner in her own body, on the death row of advanced age, struggling against the hangman's inevitable appointment.

She mumbled something, but I couldn't make it out. Her voice was so faint as to be almost indistinguishable. I leaned forward to better hear what she was saying, my ear inches from her lips.

''Giovanni,'' she muttered. Suddenly she sat bolt upright, and with surprising strength she seized my wrist with a cadaverous hand and held fast. Shocked, I jerked back and peeled away her hand. It took an incredible amount of effort. She was surprisingly strong.

''Figlio mio,'' she said loudly, once, then sank bank into the bed.

''Giovanni,'' she mumbled one last time before drifting off into troubled sleep.

I turned and faced my fare. ''Smith,'' I asked. ''Exactly what was the purpose in dragging me here?''

Crispus Attucks Smith straightened to his full three and a half feet in height, smoothed back his bushy blonde moustache, forced a tiny grimace and said, ''That's Bettina Crespi.'' He pronounced it Kress-PEE.

''So?" I rejoined.

Giovanni Crespi's mother?''

''So?''

Smith scrunched his eyebrows and pinched his face into a frown.

''The famous artist who went missing?''

I started at him, silent. I had a gut feeling something unwanted was coming next.

Impatient with my stoicism, Smith blew out an angry puff of air from his puckered lips.

''The guy was only the most famous painter to ever come out of this god-forsaken hell hole of a town, that's all, Mister Art-Boy. You don't remember all the hullabaloo when that New York art critic discovered his paintings a few years back?''

I remembered the story. It had burned hot in the headlines for a few weeks in the early nineteen-seventies but it had faded away, like all headlines, into the innards of the newspapers and then had disappeared.

''I remember,'' I said, gesturing to the ancient mother fighting for breath. ''But what does this have to do with me?''

''You're an artist. You appreciate artistic genius.''

''I do.'' Picasso was my main man, but I admired all who truly surrendered their souls for art. ''But I still don't understand why you brought me here.''

''This old lady here,'' said Smith, gesturing with his breakfast sausage fingers. ''Wants to know what happened to her son before she passes on to her great reward.''

I looked down at the dwarf, deep into his steel gray eyes. He may have been a pocket-sized caricature of a man, but there was no mistaking the resolve in his gaze.

''He went missing exactly twenty-nine years ago,'' said Smith. Two days from now. July Fourth in nineteen forty seven. Vanished without a trace.''

''And this applies to me how?''

''You surprise me, Johnny Jump,'' replied Smith. ''You being an artist yourself and all.''

''An artist, yes, but . . .'' I hesitated.

''Before her last stroke Bettina asked me to find out what happened to her boy,'' interrupted Smith. ''And she asked me about you.''

''Why me?''

''She heard about you. She heard you were the artist who drove a cab for a living. She heard you gave away one million dollars to pursue your art.''

I groaned. Would that story never go away? It had become the stuff of local legend, and although it was true I emphatically denied it every time when asked. When I entered a room people stared at me as if I were some sort of unhinged folk hero, a man who had done what no other would do: reject cash. A lot of it.

''She also heard through the grapevine that you were a sort of shirt tail detective, and you got the job done once you were on the trail,'' Smith continued. ''She said that only someone like you, someone who was an artist himself and wouldn't sell himself out for money would--could--find out what happened to her son.''

I laughed.

''I don't believe you, Smith,'' I said. ''That old lady has never heard of me. This is your scheme. You cooked this up.''

The dwarf feigned offense. He saw I didn't buy it.

Smith shrugged his shoulders. ''Okay. I did,'' he said. ''She asked me to look into it for her. I just thought you'd like to come along for the ride.''

''Exactly when did she ask you?'' I retorted. ''She's just this side of comatose.''

''It was a few months back,'' he said, grinning sheepishly. ''Before she had the stroke that put her in here. I've been on the trail, but I haven't had much success, I'm afraid.''

''So what can I accomplish that you haven't been able to do in months?''

Smith turned his palms inward, and gestured towards himself. ''Look at me,'' he said. ''My mind may soar with the eagles, but I'm trapped in this shriveled joke of a body. I take five steps to your one. You cover more ground, and you're a cabbie; you know everybody. You're strong as an ox, and a war hero, to boot. You can handle most anything that comes your way. I need you to do this with me.''

I stifled a second groan. I didn't need this. Not now. I had had over a full year of uninterrupted bliss since my last fiasco in Jericho on the banks of the Mississippi; a year of felicitous contentment with the beautiful Catherine Dupree; a year in pursuit of my art between driving my cab and bouts with Jim Beam. I was painting well, better than I ever had. Life was good. I didn't need any distractions. I told Smith the same.

''We're both mutts, Johnny Jump,'' he replied. ''I'm a twisted little dwarf, and white as a sheet, but my parents named me after a black Revolutionary War patriot in some sort of sick joke. You're a milk chocolate complexioned one-quarter Negro Jew with blue eyes and nappy blonde hair. We don't belong. Outsiders. Brothers in arms.''

''Are you going to deny an old lady's dying wish?'' he added. ''Are you going to allow her to go to her grave without knowing what happened to her beloved son?''

''Don't lay that load on me.'' I crossed my arms over my chest, doing my best to convey my indignation, but Smith saw through my charade.

''Oh, and the doctors don't give her much more than a few days before she cashes in her chips,'' he added. ''So we better get cracking.''

Smith smiled. A crooked little smile.

I stared at the wheezing, wizened frame adrift in the wrinkled bed sheets. I groaned again. He had me over a barrel, and I didn't like it.

''What's in this for you, Smith?'' I asked. ''Are you playing some sort of angle here?''

He placed his hand over his heart, his pink breakfast sausage fingers splayed out on his shirt. ''Chasing the Holy Grail, Johnny Jump,'' he said. ''And looking to score some points with the Big Guy upstairs.''

I knew that like me he had no religion, but he was so adamant that I found it difficult to say no. And he was right, we were sort of brothers in arms, two outsiders forged in the brutal fires of prejudice and suspicion.

I sighed in resignation. The little man had bested me. ''When do we start?" I asked.

A wide grin split his face as he flashed two picture perfect rows of white teeth.

''Now,'' replied the dwarf. ''Right now.''

And the Bicentennial was two days away. Catherine Dupree and I had made a date to celebrate the event, albeit late. She would be coming in on the train from Chicago early in the morning on the fifth. I'd be waiting for her at the station with my cab.

''I'll give you three days Smith. Win or lose, I'm finished on the fifth.''

The dwarf shrugged. ''It will have to do, then,'' he said. He held out his hand.

''Deal,'' he said. I took his hand and shook it. I regretted it the moment I did it.

Happy birthday, America.

***

Chapter 2

I'm a graveyard shift driver for Sparky's Cab Company. I have been for the past five years. It's how I pay the rent. I paint (pictures, not houses) in my spare time, pump iron, study the classics and I drink (Jim Beam, not water) to pass the time in between. It's a good life, one that I am satisfied with, and let's leave it at that.

I had been looking to complete work on a new painting after I finished my shift for the night. Catherine Dupree and I had moved into the Red Cardinal Motel on the city's northern fringes, renting a kitchenette cabin where we shared our bed, along with a garage with electric and heat which I had turned into a