A House on Liberty Street

by Neil Turner

  “Merry Christmas,” I translate.

  “Merry Christmas,” Mike mumbles around a mouthful of cake.

  The cake is delicious, though it has little in common with Mama’s panettone. Mama’s loaf is a much lighter holiday fruitcake than the weighted footballs Americans indulge in.

  “Tell us about your folks,” I suggest to Mike.

  “Nothing much to tell. Both career civil servants, devout Baptists, tough-as-nails parents.”

  I cock an eyebrow. “Tough as nails, huh? An abused child, were you?”

  He laughs. “Hell no, but Mom and Dad—especially Mom—was a holy terror whenever we got out of line.”

  “Did all of you go to college?”

  “My folks didn’t give us a choice, God bless ‘em. So, we got us a doctor, an Air Force pilot, an HR drone with the city, a cell phone engineer at Motorola, a state social worker, some dumbass working at the Public Defender’s office, and a baby sister following in the dumbass’s footsteps at Northwestern Law.”

  I arch my eyebrows theatrically. “Two attorneys in one family?”

  “Hey, if we can accommodate Doctor Williams’s ego and his snooty physician wife, there’s plenty of room around the dinner table for the likes of me and Sara.”

  Papa smiles at Mike. “You have Christmas with your Mama and Papa?”

  “Every year.”

  “You are good boy, Michael.” I almost expect Mike to get a pat on the head. The wry grin he turns on me while Papa breaks off another chunk of cake suggests the same thought has crossed his mind.

  “You go to the church at Christmas?” Papa asks Mike.

  “We do.”

  Papa nods his approval. “What religion?”

  “We’re Baptists.”

  “You have the presepio at the church?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A life-size Nativity scene. Presepio is a big Italian tradition at Christmas,” I explain, remembering how badly Papa always wanted to take us to experience Christmas in Italy. “It’s the centerpiece of an Italian church over the holidays. Papa used to do the carpentry and then we’d go on a tour of Chicago churches that had presepios. You should see some of them, Mike. Spectacular.”

  Mike looks at Papa. “You do some woodworking?”

  Papa nods.

  “His family’s trade back home was carpentry,” I say. “He’s good. Unfortunately, Papa couldn’t get his foot in the door with the trade here.” It was always a sore point with Mama, who felt Papa should swallow his pride and do the trade school courses the State of Illinois insisted on before they would consider him a bona fide carpentry tradesman. Papa refused to suffer what he regarded as a humiliation and instead spent thirty years doing laundry at Cook County Hospital. It’s not something he’s dwelled on.

  “Best is living presepio,” Papa proclaims.

  “We’ve only got a little nativity scene,” Mike says. “But let me tell you, we Baptists love to sing. There’s lots and lots of singing in our church come Christmastime.”

  “Messa cantata,” Papa notes with approval.

  “Sung mass,” I translate. “The traditional midnight service on Christmas Eve.”

  “You go to Orsomarso for Christmas and epiphania, Anthony,” Papa says. It’s nice to see life stirring in his eyes, even if it’s a yearning to relive the traditions of a hometown he’ll almost certainly never see again. Given his obvious love of Orsomarso, I can’t figure out why he never went home to visit. His explanation that “I am in America now” has never quite rung true.

  “Is Orsomarso where you’re from?” Mike asks Papa.

  “Yes. Is small village in hills of Calabria. Very old.”

  “Tell me about it,” Mike says.

  Papa studies him. “Yes?”

  “Please.”

  I settle back and listen to Papa relate tales of his childhood, peppering the stories with asides to explain the traditions of his homeland, such as the meatless feast on Christmas Eve and dressing in their finest for midnight mass. Yarns of Father Christmas follow (Babbo Natale in Papa’s telling) and the excitement of La Befana visiting with gifts for the bambini on epiphania.

  Mike expresses horror at the notion of making kids wait until January sixth for presents.

  Papa shakes his head in response. “Is good, Michael, not same as here. Christmas is for store in America, all toys and money. Is not like this in Italy. Better, I think.”

  “Maybe so,” Mike says thoughtfully. “Maybe so.”

  My thoughts turn to the upcoming exposé of Amy’s saga. “The Tribune will be running the story about Amy soon.”

  Papa’s brow furrows. “I no understand why you do this now.”

  I explain again about trying to infect the jury pool in his favor.

  “I no understand this infecting.”

  “The State has been leaking crap to the press claiming you have a history around Cedar Heights of being a general pain in the ass,” I tell him. “The hope is that—”

  Papa’s eyes flash. “They say this in newspaper?”

  I nod.

  “Because we try to keep our home?”

  “Pretty much,” I reply.

  He squares his shoulders while fury flares in his eyes. “Is time to stop this, Anthony! You stop them!”

  “I’ll try, Papa. I know how much the house means to you.”

  His eyes burn into mine. “For your Mama, Anthony. You do this for my Maria!”

  We chat for another few minutes before Mike announces that he has to get back to the office. After Papa and I share our customary hug, Papa turns and surprises us by embracing Mike as well. “Buon Natale,” he says to us before he’s led away by a guard. Mike and I wordlessly make our way outside.

  “Welcome to the family,” I say when we step into the parking lot.

  “He’s quite a fiery guy if the right buttons get pushed, huh?”

  “He’s got a long fuse,” I reply with a chuckle. “You don’t want to light it.”

  I ponder the unwelcome implications of Papa’s temperament on a witness stand before Mike asks, “You ever been to his hometown?”

  I shake my head. Michelle and I went to Tuscany a couple of times, but we didn’t get to Orsomarso. Maybe we should have. I push the thought aside. More regrets I don’t need. I wink at Mike. “Thanks for letting him go on about Italy. It’s been years since I’ve heard him reminisce like that.”

  “It was interesting,” he says. He takes a step toward his car, then turns back to me. “Experiencing him like that puts a different spin on things.”

  “How so?”

  “I really like the guy. Wouldn’t it be great to get him out of this hellhole and send him to Orsomarso next Christmas?”

  I shake my head with a grim chuckle. “And you accuse me of having wild-ass dreams about winning this case.”

  Mike claps me on the shoulder. “That was before I started catching glimpses of how formidable you Valenti men are when y’all get riled up.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I was six, I woke up at three forty-five on Christmas morning terrified that Santa wouldn’t leave presents if he found me awake. I squeezed my eyes shut and snuggled deep under the covers where I hoped Santa couldn’t see me awake. Right, like I was gonna fool the guy who gets to every house on the planet in a single night. When sleep wouldn’t come, I crept to the top of the stairs to peek around the banister to see if Santa had already been and gone. He had! Two hours of delicious anticipation followed while my mind’s eye filled with images of the treasures that waited beneath the Christmas tree. Presents would be followed by hours of playtime and meals and treats and storytelling—our home fairly bursting with love and affection. But that was then, and this is now. A vintage Valenti family Christmas will not weave its traditional magic through this house today. It’s Christmas morning and the alarm clock display again reads three forty-five, but this year I don’t need to creep to the top of the stairs to confirm that Santa hasn’t been here. I alre
ady know he isn’t coming.

  What the hell am I doing awake anyway?

  Deano is wheezing and pawing at the bed. The poor old bugger can’t clamber up anymore, so what’s he up to? I thought I heard something when I woke up, but I can’t hear anything now. Maybe Deano thought so, too, but his hearing is going. After listening for a minute longer, I burrow back under the covers in an effort to shut out the world. For the first time ever, I’m free to do anything I like on Christmas Day, including sleeping it away. Sleep eludes me, however, leaving my mind free to wander down avenues best not explored. To realize that one walks the earth alone is at once profoundly terrifying and profoundly liberating. If nobody else cares, I don’t have to, either. There are no longer expectations to live up to, no appearances to keep up, no possibility of continuing to fail myself and others. It occurs to me that Kris Kristopherson had it right when he wrote the lyric to “Me and Bobby McGee”—freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

  Screw it, I decide while tossing the covers aside. So long as I’m awake I may as well put the time to use. While the coffee maker begins to gurgle, I realize that I’ve been smelling smoke ever since I woke up. A quick check confirms that nothing is smoldering in the kitchen, but the acrid smell is growing steadily stronger. While I’m on my way to check the basement, I notice the glow of orange and yellow apparitions dancing across the living room window. I grab the phone and hurry over to discover whose house is ablaze. When I look outside, it isn’t a neighbor’s house I see going up in flames. It’s our front porch!

  I cram my feet into a pair of boots and rush out the front door, where I almost topple right into the flames. My first thought after I stumble back is, get the hose! I’ve scampered all the way to the kitchen before I remember that the hose is tucked away for the winter. Does Papa have a fire extinguisher? I don’t recall seeing one, so I gallop down the basement stairs and grab a pail. On my way back upstairs I realize that I haven’t called 9-1-1. After sliding the pail under the kitchen tap and twisting the faucet all the way open, I dial 9-1-1 and report the fire while pushing Deano out the back door, then hang up and sprint to the front door to dump the pail of water onto the flames nearest the door. I’ve only been running back and forth with buckets of water for a minute or two when I hear sirens and see the reflection of approaching emergency lights in the windows at the far end of Liberty Street. A fireman is hurrying up the walk when I step back outside with my next pail of water. Good thing they’re here—I’m sure as hell not getting the upper hand on the flames with the pail, though I’ve kept them away from the door. I spill water on the flames again and head back inside for a refill.

  “Sir!”

  “In here!” I yell back as I jam the pail under the tap again.

  A fireman hurries in behind me. “Get out of the house!”

  “One more pail.”

  “Sir, you need to get out. Now!”

  Once the pail fills, I hustle back outside and empty it on the flames. Two firefighters are standing ready with a fire hose nozzle while another pair finish connecting the hose to the hydrant in the Vaccaro’s front yard. I decide to keep battling the flames until they finish setting up. When I turn to head back in, the door is closed and the fireman who followed me in earlier bars the way inside.

  “One more!” I shout, expecting him to step aside.

  “I can’t let you back in the house.”

  We’re eye-to-eye when the first deluge from the fire hose crashes into the wall and soaks me from head to toe. It’s only then that I realize I’m outside in boxer shorts, a t-shirt, and a pair of winter boots—shivering and shaking like a drenched dog.

  With the firefighting officially taken over by the pros, I stumble down the steps to the sidewalk and into the driveway. Mr. Vaccaro wraps a blanket around my shoulders. A firefighter immediately supplements it with a foil blanket.

  “I called the fire department, Anthony,” Mr. Vaccaro tells me, which explains the arrival of the first fire trucks within a minute or two after my call.

  “Thanks,” I mutter. How in hell does a porch covered in snow burst into flames in the middle of a winter night? Not spontaneously, I’d wager. Brittany safely in Europe seems like a damned fine idea.

  The firefighter who kept me out of the house walks up to us. “Any idea how this started?”

  I shake my head as the last flames flicker and fail under the torrent of water from the fire hose.

  “I smell gasoline,” the firefighter mutters, eyeing me carefully.

  I sniff the air and nod. “You’re right.”

  “Hopefully, you’ll never find yourself in this situation again but if you do, get out of the house right away and wait for us,” he says. “Be thankful for the snow. That fire would have burned a lot faster if the wood had been dry. You gave it every chance to follow you in through the open door.”

  I meet his eyes. “Firefighting is best left to professionals and I should listen when I’m told to get my ass out of the house?”

  “That’s right,” he agrees with a chuckle. “I got a wife and teenagers at home. I don’t need people ignoring my orders on the job, too.”

  Six hours later, the sun is up, the fire trucks and investigators are gone, and the latest excitement at the Valenti home is over. I’m at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and my laptop, searching through the real estate transfer records for the sales of the Palumbo, Priolo, and DeLuca properties. Mr. Rosetti wasn’t kidding when he said they were offered a healthy premium above the market value of their homes two years ago. I’m intrigued to discover that the purchaser of record for all three properties was a numbered company. The printer starts spitting out copies of the records. I’ll study them later.

  A late breakfast of canned pears and toast is followed by a shower and shave. Then it’s back to business. I hunt through corporate record databases in hopes of unmasking the beneficial owners of the numbered company that purchased the rental houses on Liberty Street. None the wiser after two hours, I conclude that I’ll need the resources of Fleiss Lansky LLP to successfully deconstruct that puzzle—if it can be unraveled at all.

  It’s early afternoon when I finally put my computer to sleep and try to call Brittany. The call goes straight to voice mail. I slap together a ham and cheese sandwich and wash it down with a Stella Artois while I wait for Brittany to call back. When she still hasn’t called by late-afternoon, I climb into the Porsche as darkness falls. Time to visit the family patriarch in jail.

  Papa is a million miles away during my visit, uncommonly reticent to share the family memories and anecdotes that are his Christmas stock-in-trade. Neither of us is much company for the other. Despite being in the same room, Papa and I are each very much alone today. We’re both relieved when I decide to leave after an awkward hour.

  Pat’s Hyundai is parked out front when I arrive home. She trudges up the driveway to intercept me when I step out of the Porsche. With a nod at the charred front porch as we climb the steps, she asks, “What happened?”

  “Somebody decided to have a little bonfire.”

  Her eyes smolder. “Who?”

  “The cops and fire department are investigating but between the fire itself and the firefighting effort, whatever evidence there might have been was trampled or melted.”

  “You okay?”

  “Sure,” I reply as my eyes drift to the street after I unlock and push the door open. An image of a bicycle-mounted figure wearing a hoodie pops into my mind. Could that be our mysterious arsonist?

  She stares at me a moment longer, shakes her head, and then marches angrily into the front hall. “You’ve spent Christmas Day hiding from the world, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been working.”

  “On what?”

  I recite the laundry list of distractions I’ve used to pass the day.

  “You’re such an idiot,” she says before handing me a gift-wrapped package. “Merry Christmas, Valenti. If it wasn’t Christmas Day, I’d kick your ass.�
��

  “Merry Christmas. I didn’t get you anything.”

  “All I asked for was a little time with my friend. You couldn’t give me that?”

  If she’s hoping to make me feel bad about not showing up at her parents’ house or even calling to say I wasn’t coming, she’s succeeding. The upside is that she referred to me as a friend. After she wriggles out of her coat and stuffs her mittens, scarf, and cap into a sleeve, I trail Pat into the living room like a whipped puppy. She stops dead to stare at tropical fish swimming around on the television screen. “The Aquarium Channel? You stood me up for this?”

  I used to watch this channel with Brittany when she was a baby. It’s been on in the background a lot since she left for Europe.

  “You really know how to make a gal feel special, Valenti. I’ve been stood up before—maybe not on Christmas Day, mind you—but never for fish pictures!”

  Sensing a lack of genuine anger behind her words, I risk a grin. “Better than me standing you up to watch a bunch of big sweaty men playing with a pigskin?”

  She responds with a sardonic smile. “Just getting back from the jail?”

  “Yes, and I stopped to see Mr. Rosetti to get current addresses for the Priolo, DeLuca, and Palumbo families.”

  “How was your father?”

  “In jail for Christmas,” I reply with a shrug.

  Pat’s eyes stray to the printed copies of the real estate sales transactions that are scattered on the coffee table. “Are these the rental houses?”

  “Yup.”

  She whistles after reading the first record and then glances at the others. “I don’t get it. My parents’ house is pretty much like these places and it isn’t worth anywhere near this much.”

  “Helps explain why they sold out, doesn’t it?”

  She nods thoughtfully. “I’ve been digging into the Trib archives. The surest way to beat eminent domain seems to be by screaming bloody murder and making enough noise to give the politicians cold feet. That game plan worked here two years ago. It might work again. Quite a few of your neighbors were mentioned in the stories.”