“Yeah, I saw it. Boy, he must have pushed that Cadillac a quarter mile.”
“Where did you get the new car?”
“Boosted it.”
“So you're still good a
t some things.”
“The only things that work on me are my fingers. I can't see. I can't hear. I can't piss.”
“You can fix those things.”
He pushed the cookie around. “There's some things I can't fix.”
“Grandma told me.”
He looked up, surprised. “She told you? Aw jeez. Christ. I'm telling you, women are such blabbermouths.”
I poured out two cups of coffee and handed one to DeChooch. “Have you seen a doctor about it?”
“I'm not talking to a doctor. Before you know it they're poking around and telling you to get one of them implants. I'm not getting a goddamn penile implant.” He shook his head. “I can't believe I'm talking to you about this. Why am I talking to you?”
I smiled at him. “I'm easy to talk to.” And also, he had hundred-proof breath. DeChooch was doing a lot of drinking. “While we're talking, why don't you tell me about Loretta Ricci?”
“Cripes, she was a hot one. She came to bring me one of them Meals-on-Wheels and she was all over me. I kept telling her I wasn't any good for that anymore, but she wouldn't listen. She said she could get anyone to . . . you know, do it. So I figured, what the hell, what have I got to lose, right? Next thing I know she's down there and she's having some luck with it. And then just when I'm thinking it's going to happen she keels over and dies. I guess she gave herself a heart attack from working so hard. I tried to revive her, but she was goddamn dead. I was so pissed off I shot her.”
“You could use some anger-management skills,” I said.
“Yeah, people tell me that.”
“There wasn't any blood anywhere. No bullet holes.”
“What do I look like, an amateur?” His face crinkled and a tear slid down his cheek. “I'm real depressed,” he said.
“I bet I know something that'll cheer you up.”
He looked like he didn't believe it.
“You know Louie D's heart?”
“Yeah.”
“It wasn't his heart.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Swear to God.”
“Whose heart was it?”
“It was a pig heart. I bought it at a butcher shop.”
DeChooch smiled. “They put a pig heart back into Louie D and buried him?”
I nodded my head yes.
He started to chuckle. “Then where's Louie D's real heart?”