Page 85 of Hanging and Burning

“Yeah. Um. And all these years later he remembered what I’d said when I was a kid. So when he told me about a place with the same name out there, I asked him to ask them about Aurilia Fox. He did, but nobody there knew anything about her.”

“Who did he talk to?”

“It was this guy who did security for the nightclub. That’s how he found out about Mr. Antonucci.”

“How?”

“He owned the company that did their security, and—and he had something to do with the old Carnelian Oyster back in New York. When I heard about that I went out there and me and David went to Star Shield headquarters, but Mr. Antonucci wasn’t there. We left him a message, but he never called us back.”

“And you came back to New York?”

“Me and Randy did. He was dealing but he also started doing silverwork. I kind of talked him into trying to make a living off of that. He started doing that and came back east only when he needed to make some money. But mostly he was out in LA.”

“And so, what happened to get him in trouble again?”

Twyla’s eyes turned sad.

“One day, when I didn’t know she was my mom, Aurilia told me that my mother’s real name was Dalia Shorts. We had gone out for my birthday last year and we had champagne. I told Randy about it. He was out in LA and I guess he asked them at the Oyster out there about her, her and me.

“After that Randy came back to New York for a while, to make some money. And then—and then one night these two guys grabbed him and pushed him around. They asked something about Dalia Shorts and about me. But they didn’t know that Randy always carried a gun because of his dealing. He pulled that out on them and started shooting. After that we started talking about what it all could mean.”

“But they got to him in LA, not New York,” I said, as gently as I could.

“I know. Him and me were gonna go down to Florida and so he was tryin’ to do this deal. But somethin’ happened and the people he was dealin’ with tried to rip him off. That’s what he said. He believed it. But I thought that maybe it had somethin’ to do with the people wanting to know about Dalia Shorts, so I told Jocko—”

“The bartender?”

“Yeah. Jocko’s cool, he wasn’t gonna hurt you, just knock you out and let you sleep it off in a room at the back of the bar.”

“What did he do when you told him about the trouble you and Randy were in?”

“He had told me about a place I could hide in the park.”

“And Randy went back to LA?”

“All his stuff was there. And nobody knew where he lived.”

“I guess they did,” I said.

“Did I get my friend killed, Mr. Oliver?”

“No. Your friend was killed by an evil older than either one’a you.”

“Evil?” she said, trying to make the word make sense in the real world—the world outside of churches and old books.

“You never knew about this place where your mom is, did you?”

“No.”

“But Randy knew all about Mara.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Go on inside and tell your mom that someone will call her and say, ‘Jiggs got to move his feet.’ Can you remember that?”

She repeated the rarely used code words.

“Okay,” I said. “You tell her that when that person calls her, she should do exactly what they say.”