Free Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? by Stephen Dobyns

Vasco appears to be a general consultant; at other times he’s a security consultant or a slot adviser. The job remains vague. But spending time in New England will give Connor a chance to see him. In fact, this Monday evening Connor is supposed to have dinner with Vasco at Paragon, the most exclusive of the Foxwoods restaurants.
    â€”
    D etective Benny Vikström’s wife, Maud, at times makes Vikström a casserole for dinner that he especially likes: salmon, sweet potatoes, shredded carrots, egg yolks, and yellow raisins. They have it tonight, and Vikström thinks of it as their “orange dinner” apart from the raisins, which are almost orange. With the dinner comes a nice green salad with orange sweet peppers and butterscotch pudding for dessert, maybe with whipped cream, possibly turned orange with food coloring.
    So it is with a degree of irritation that, as Vikström is tucking his napkin into his shirt collar, there comes a familiar
tap, tap-tap, tap, tap
, which signifies that his partner, Manny Streeter, is waiting on the porch.
    Vikström understands that Manny could have arrived a half hour earlier or a half hour later and it wouldn’t have mattered, but Manny knows that his partner eats dinner at seven o’clock on the dot, and he has timed his arrival for its nuisance value. It’s a way for Manny to share his existential disappointment.
    â€œNot again,” says Maud.
    Vikström goes to the door. The weather is turning cold, and Manny wears a charcoal gray overcoat and a blue watch cap to protect his shaved head.
    â€œI got news for you,” he says.
    Vikström lets Manny enter and waits. Manny hangs up his coat on a peg by the door but keeps on his blue watch cap. As he walks through the living room, he says, “They still haven’t found the head. It’s absolutely vanished. They brought in a dog, but even the dog can’t find it.” Reaching the dining room, he pauses and nods to Vikström’s wife. “Good evening, Mrs. Vikström. Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”
    â€œMay I get you a plate?” This is nice of Maud Vikström, because what she really wants to ask is,
What head?
    Manny stares at the “orange dinner” longer than is polite. “I don’t think so, not tonight. Looks good, though.” Manny glances around the dining room as if he has forgotten the reason for his visit.
    â€œSo what’s going on?” asks Vikström. “Or is this a social visit?” He stands by his chair, uncertain whether to sit down. He hopes that whatever is “going on” won’t mean leaving his dinner to be heated up later in the microwave. Maud Vikström stares at Manny’s large, silver belt buckle showing the dying, spear-carrying Indian on the dying horse. She always stares at it. Maybe she doesn’t know it represents a work of art; maybe she thinks it indicates a kind of fetish.
    Manny assumes a
Would you ever believe
it?
expression, lifting his eyebrows and pursing his lips. “It looks like it wasn’t an accident after all—I mean the truck and Fat Bob business. It looks like it was done on purpose.” Manny’s been holding this back so that he can drop it on Vikström at dinnertime like a sharp object. He describes his talk with the woman over the music store who told him how the truck rushed backward to the street, and he describes his talk with J. Arthur Madison. “The guy said he saw a man signaling to the truck driver—what’s his name, Poppaloppa.”
    â€œPappalardo.”
    â€œWhatever. He was making hand movements and Poppaloppa hit the gas. They had it all arranged. The guy doing the signaling looked like a short Elvis, or at least that’s what the witness told me.”
    â€œA short Elvis?”
    â€œYou know, the hair. That’s what J. Arthur Madison said. He’s a lawyer. Do you remember seeing anyone like that? I vaguely