“I was real sorry about Boom Boom, Vicki. I know how close you two were.”
Bobby’s the only person I allow to call me Vicki. “Thanks, Bobby. It’s been tough. I appreciate your coming.”
A chilly April wind ruffled my hair and made me shiver in my wool suit. I wished I’d worn a coat. Mallory walked with me toward the limousines carrying the fifty-three members of the immediate family. The funeral would probably eat fifteen thousand out of the estate, but I didn’t care.
“Are you going to the party? May I ride with you? They’ll never miss me in that crowd.”
Mallory agreed good-naturedly and helped me into the back seat of the police limo he’d commandeered. He introduced me to the driver. “Vicki, Officer Cuthbert was one of Boom Boom’s many fans.”
“Yes, miss. I was real sorry when Boom … sorry, when your cousin had to stop playing. I figure he could’ve beat Gretzky’s record easy.”
“Go ahead and call him Boom Boom,” I said. “He loved the name and everyone used it … Bobby, I couldn’t get any information out of the guy at the grain company when I phoned him. How did Boom Boom die?”
He looked at me sternly. “Do you really need to know that, Vicki? I know you think you’re tough, but you’ll be happier remembering Boom Boom the way he was on the ice.”
I pressed my lips together; I wasn’t going to lose my temper at Boom Boom’s funeral. “I’m not indulging an appetite for gore, Bobby. I want to know what happened to my cousin. He was an athlete; it’s hard for me to picture him slipping and falling like that.”
Bobby’s expression softened a bit. “You’re not thinking he drowned himself, are you?”
I moved my hands indecisively. “He left an urgent message for me with my answering service—I’ve been out of town, you know. I wondered if he might’ve been feeling desperate.”
Bobby shook his head. “Your cousin wasn’t the kind of man to throw himself under a ship. You should know that as well as I do.”
I didn’t want a lecture on the cowardice of suicide. “Is that what happened?”
“If the grain company didn’t let you know, they had a reason. But you can’t accept that, can you?” He sighed. “You’ll probably just go butting your head in down there if I don’t tell you. A ship was tied up at the dock and Boom Boom went under the screw as she pulled away. He was chewed up pretty badly.”
“I see.” I turned my head to look at the Eisenhower Expressway and the unpainted homes lining it.
“It was a wet day, Vicki. That’s an old wooden dock—they get very slippery in the rain. I read the M.E.’s report myself. I think he slipped and fell in. I don’t think he jumped.”
I nodded and patted his head. Hockey had been Boom Boom’s life and he hadn’t taken easily to forced retirement. I agreed with Bobby that my cousin wasn’t a quitter, but he’d been apathetic the last year or so. Apathetic enough to fall under the propeller of a ship?
I tried to push the thought out of my mind as we pulled up in front of the tidy brick ranch house where Boom Boom’s Aunt Helen lived. She had followed a flock of other South Chicago Poles to Elmwood Park. I believe she had a husband around someplace, a retired steel-worker, but, like all the Wojcik men, he stayed far in the background.
Cuthbert let us out in front of the house, then went off to park the limo behind a long string of Cadillacs. Bobby accompanied me to the door, but I quickly lost sight of him in the crowd.
The next two hours put a formidable strain on my frayed temper. Various relatives said it was a pity Bernard insisted on playing hockey when poor dear Marie hated it so much. Others said it was a pity I had divorced Dick and didn’t have a family to keep me busy—just look at Cheryl’s and Martha’s and Betty’s babies. The house was swarming with children: all the Wojciks were appallingly prolific.
It was a pity Boom Boom’s marriage had only lasted three weeks—but then, he shouldn’t have been playing hockey. Why was he working at Eudora Grain, though? Breathing grain dust all his life had killed his father. Still, those Warshawskis never had much stamina anyway.
The small house filled with cigarette smoke, with the heavy smell of Polish cooking, with the squeals of children. I edged my way past one aunt who said she expected me to help wash up since I hadn’t handled any of the preparation. I had vowed that I would not say anything over the baked meats beyond “Yes,” “No,” and “I don’t know,” but it was getting harder.
Then Grandma Wojcik, eighty-two, fat, dressed in shiny black, grabbed my arm in a policeman’s grip. She looked at me with a rheumy blue eye. Breathing onions, she said, “The girls are talking about Bernard.”
The girls were the aunts, of course.
“They’re saying he was in trouble down at the elevator. They’re saying he threw himself under the ship so he wouldn’t be arrested.”