by E. J. Simon
Almost as an aside, Alex continued speaking while turning on his cell phone and waiting for the indication that he could begin dialing. “We’re different. Same fuckin’ parents and all, but he’s more of a loner, more introverted. He loves books … He’s strange that way. Our whole family would be playing poker or whatever, and Michael would be in his room, reading.”
Maria gave a sympathetic smile. “You know, Alex, that’s not so odd. He’s just different than you that way.”
“It’s not just that. Listen, I love him, but he’s always stayed away from a lot of our family and even some of the friends we both grew up with. These people all ask me about him. ‘How’s Michael? Where’s Michael?’ I think some of them follow him through me. I tell them, ‘Listen, I don’t see him that often myself.’ He’s a good guy, but I’ve never been able to really figure him out.”
Maria appeared puzzled. “But anytime I’ve been around him here, he’s always very nice, very sociable. He couldn’t be that introverted or a loner if he runs a major corporation.”
Alex shrugged. He knew Maria was right, but for him, it didn’t change the mystery of his brother’s personality, a mystery that only those closest to Michael could see.
As Alex looked around the room, that uneasy feeling that someone was watching him returned, despite the otherwise secure sensation he had from being in the familiar confines of his regular hangout.
With his cell phone pressed tightly against his ear, he waited anxiously for Michael to answer. He wondered what the time difference was between Queens and Paris and then felt a flush of relief when he heard his brother’s voice.
“Hi, Alex,” Michael answered. “For you to be calling at this hour, either the Yankees signed a big free agent or some old ballplayer died.” Alex chuckled, remembering that Michael was critical of his habit of forwarding the e-mail link to the obituary as soon as any celebrity or sports figure died.
“Michael, first of all, I’m surprised you’re awake. It’s good to hear your voice. Maria here wants to know where the fuck you are now. I think she likes you.” Alex laughed and looked at Maria. “Are you in France again? What the hell do you do there all the time? Your wife must do all the talking; you can’t speak French. Of course, she does all the talking anyway.”
“Never mind my wife, I’m trying to figure out why you never marry the women you seem to enjoy being out with.” From the noise in the background and the tone of his brother’s voice, Alex could tell that Michael was enjoying himself.
Alex’s voice shifted to a near whisper. “Listen, Michael, when the hell are you coming home? There’s something I have to show you. I can’t talk about it on this fuckin’ phone. You won’t believe it though.”
As he waited to hear Michael’s reaction, Alex’s gaze shifted from the outline of Maria’s breast, visible through her sweater, to what was at first just a blur of movement coming from over Maria’s left shoulder in the bar, maybe fifty feet away. He saw the skinny young man with the Mets cap who seemed to be staring, eyes unnaturally wide, right at him.
Something was wrong, very wrong. His mind raced, trying to locate or identify the tormented face he realized was focused on him. He flipped through a virtual filing cabinet of acquaintances, enemies, people he might have crossed, guys who owed him money—but nothing registered. He quickly looked behind him to see if maybe this kid was focused on someone else, but no one was back there. No, this crazed kid was coming at him.
Alex had been in many fights over the years, although not in the last ten or even twenty. Still, he felt he could hold the kid off until the crowd at Grimaldi’s, many of whom knew Alex, could overtake him.
He heard Michael’s voice on the phone, his mind now relegating the conversation to the background. “Alex, I can’t really hear you.”
Alex saw the stranger pull the gun from his coat pocket. Well, this would be different from any fight he’d ever had.
Clear and defined as if a spotlight had been shining on it, Alex saw the bright silver barrel and the opening from which would come the bullets he knew would end his life. His mind went into slow motion.
In a succession of helter-skelter images, Alex watched the highlights of his life flash before him: his parents; the Dodgers baseball camp in Vero Beach; his first car, the blue Buick convertible; the Tudor-style home he grew up in; his first, second, and third wives; a well-worn Rawlings infielder’s glove; his laptop computer; flashing images of the day’s pending bets; his son, George, and grandson, Pete. He wondered what would become of them. He saw his current wife, Donna, and a series of his friends and wondered if she would wind up marrying one of them when he was gone.
It was strange, he thought, there was still so much time left. He remembered hearing about how time stood still in a dying person’s final moments. And so it seemed now. He looked into the young stranger’s eyes. “What the fuck do you want?”
But the kid said nothing. He was closing the gap between them rapidly. Now, Alex knew, there was little time.
“Shit.”
He thought of trying to lift the table over him for protection, but he knew it was too late, and even as he calculated his chances, he worried about injuring Maria if he threw over the heavy table toward her. He knew that was an odd concern, considering the circumstances. Maybe he was a nice guy, as she said. His eyes darted toward Maria who had only just sensed his distraction. She turned around, seeing the stranger close in. She screamed.
Alex could still hear the tinny voice of Michael on his cell but dropped the phone as he saw the skinny young man approach.
Why? What did I do? Who did I piss off? He was trapped, wedged in between the table and the wall behind him. There was no room. There was no time.
In those final seconds, he thought of the secret he had not had a chance to tell Michael. It was too late now, he realized, but Michael would find it. Michael was smart; he would figure it out. Michael would find him.
Chapter 5
Whitestone, Queens, New York
November 4, 2009
Greek churches are designed to make you feel like you’re in God’s waiting room.
It begins as soon as you enter, with the musky smell of incense; the feel of the red velvet cushions on the hard, varnished dark wood pews; and the larger-than-life ancient icons of Jesus and all the saints gazing out at the mortal world. With its Byzantine architecture, monumental stained-glass windows, and ever-present gold religious statues, the Greek Orthodox church on a quiet Queens street provided an unlikely backdrop for Alex’s polished mahogany casket, the center of everyone’s attention.
“Alex is on his way to heaven,” proclaimed the large, bearded, and gloriously robed Father Papadopoulos near the end of his eulogy. Many of Alex’s friends and loved ones sitting in the pews were not so sure.
“Did we walk in on the right funeral?” asked Lester Fink, also known as Skinny Lester.
“Alex’s having a fuckin’ shit right now listening to this crap,” said his cousin, Fat Lester, also known as Lester Fink (but only on his driver’s license). Skinny Lester and Fat Lester had known Alex since they were all kids growing up in Queens and were loyal employees of his betting and loan-sharking business. Despite his tough-guy demeanor, Alex had always taken care of his friends and employees.
In his midfifties like his cousin, Skinny Lester was tall and lean, with a former college basketball player’s frame and the look of someone who struggled to fill out his clothes. He wore a dark brown suit under his tan overcoat, both of which seemed to hang loosely on him.
Fat Lester was five foot six and weighed nearly three hundred pounds. Unlike his cousin, he appeared to be bursting out of his unfashionably wide-lapelled sport coat. The sleeves were two inches too short, and the coat had not been buttoned in the last decade. But Fat Lester’s girth had provided Alex with at least the appearance of a physical enforcement threat for those clients who might be delayed in paying their debts.
“I can’t believe he’s in that box,” said F
at Lester. He eyed the casket with his typical sense of suspicion and doubt about anything beyond the daily observable and routine activities of his unconventional life, including eating, drinking, occasional cocaine, and collecting the betting slips from drops across New York City. “I’m just waiting for him to put his fuckin’ leg through the fuckin’ lid and then get up and look at us like we’re nuts sitting here.”
“Les, if we don’t figure something out pretty quick, we’re goin’ to be in the same box,” Skinny Lester whispered to his cousin.
“What do you mean, the same box? How we goin’ to be in the same fuckin’ box? We couldn’t fit even if we wanted to, and I don’t.”
“Asshole, I don’t mean literally. I’m saying that we got some clients that are looking to get paid. The big one being Mr. Sharkey. We’ve got no money to pay anyone. Alex had all the receipts, and I don’t know where all the fuckin’ cash is now. The ones that owe Alex money don’t give a shit. But Alex owes Sharkey seven hundred grand. He’s going to be looking at us.”
“Holy shit,” groaned Fat Lester, gazing toward the cross above the altar, as though the Crucifixion had finally become real to him and the heavens suddenly seemed within reach.
“We have to talk to someone. I don’t know if it’s Donna. I mean, she’s a widow now, for Christ’s sake. Maybe Michael,” Skinny Lester said. “We’ve known Michael since he was a kid, but he’s never had anything to do with the business. I don’t know how much Donna knows.”
“Alex always said that Donna didn’t know shit.”
“Well, someone’s got to know something because there’s got to be at least a few million that Alex has stashed somewhere. Some of that was for Alex. Some of it’s to pay off in case anyone hit big,” Skinny Lester said.
“Jesus, I’m going to get an ulcer from this shit,” Fat Lester said, breathing heavily now. “I got that pain in my stomach again, and I got a bad taste in my mouth, like that acid coming back up.”
Skinny Lester thought about Michael. The last time he’d seen him was ten years ago at a birthday party for Alex when Michael made one of his rare appearances. All he knew about him now was that he was very successful, traveled a lot, and had a nice family. Despite the awkward timing, he knew that he would have to at least let Michael or Donna know today that they needed to talk about Alex’s affairs.
Skinny Lester could hear the growing stress in his cousin’s voice; he knew he needed to reassure him, despite his own nervousness. “Relax, Les. I’ll take care of it.”
“Take care of it. How the fuck are you going to take care of it?” Fat Lester said, a bit too loud. Several heads turned their way.
“I have a plan.” Despite his reassuring words, Skinny Lester knew he had no plan, except that they had to locate Alex’s cash so they could settle the accounts. “I just wish I could talk to Alex one last time.” But as he sat back in the pew, he thought about that night several months ago, drinking with Alex in his den, and the strange thing that Alex had showed him. It was a scene he hadn’t been able to get out of his head since then.
Chapter 6
Alex’s immediate family filled the first two rows of pews. On the left side, facing the altar, Michael sat with his wife, Samantha, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Sofia, who had just flown in from college at Notre Dame.
Directly across in the front right row were three women, all of whom had been married to Alex. On another occasion when all three of his wives were together, Alex referred to them as “Murderers’ Row,” a reference to the hard-hitting New York Yankees lineups of the twenties.
Seated first, on the end, was Alex’s current wife, Donna, who was thirty-five with long, straight black hair. She was a well-built woman with firm, prominent, and expertly stylized silicone breasts that were spilling out of the top of her short black dress. A shapely yet slim pair of legs showed underneath dark black stockings. Donna was followed by Alex’s two former wives, both of whom would fit the exact same description as Donna’s with the exception of their ages. Greta was forty-six, and Pam was fifty-four. All three were scented with the same fragrance—Alex’s favorite, Chanel No. 5—and all three were devoted clients of Dr. Armando Simonetti, a prominent Park Avenue plastic surgeon. And all three loved—and hated—Alex. Somehow, these were not mutually exclusive passions where Alex was intimately involved.
Next to Alex’s second wife, Greta, sat his only son, George. At twenty-three, he was a large, hulking presence, underdressed as always in a black-and-silver heavy-metal-themed sweatshirt barely concealed by his dark green, ill-fitting sport jacket. His black wavy hair and a ponytail gave him a Christ-on-steroids appearance. Next to George was his own son, Alex’s only grandchild, Pete, a five-year-old seemingly oblivious to his immediate surroundings and circumstances, if not the entire planet, while glued to his electronic game.
Suddenly feeling his BlackBerry vibrating, Michael reluctantly reached into his pocket for it, catching Samantha’s attention.
“Jesus, Michael, put that thing away. It’s a funeral, for God’s sake,” she whispered.
Michael looked pained. “I know, but this is crazy. Someone just sent me Alex’s picture.”
“Alex’s? Well, that’s nice,” she said.
“I’m not sure. This is more strange than nice.”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong?” Samantha now turned toward Michael.
“Well, the picture is okay. It’s just Alex behind his desk, in his den.”
“So, what’s wrong?”
“There’s a quote or some saying, underneath the picture.” Michael was straining to read the small print without attracting the attention of the others in the pews.
“What does it say?” Samantha asked.
“It says, ‘Life is a dream, and death is waking up.’”
Samantha turned back, an expression of confusion on her face. “That is so odd. Who would send something like that?”
“I have no idea. I don’t recognize the sender’s e-mail address.” But as Michael continued to stare at the small screen, the e-mail began to dissolve until it disappeared. The screen went blank. He clicked onto “Recently Deleted” mail, but there was no sign of it there either. “That’s strange. It’s gone now. It just disintegrated right on the screen.”
“Michael, are you sure it was there in the first place?”
“Yes, of course. But I can’t imagine who would have sent it.”
Just before turning her attention back to the altar, Samantha smiled and said, “Maybe Alex did.” Michael nodded and, perplexed, stared ahead at his brother’s coffin.
The pews behind him were packed with a broad assortment of cousins, nieces, nephews, Alex’s devoted employees, and a colorful spectacle of his “business associates,” most of whom appeared to be genuinely saddened by Alex’s death. Michael could hear the low murmurs of grief and an occasional sob coming from a group of women sitting behind him; an unknown hand had given him a sympathetic pat on the back as he’d entered the church.
As Michael watched and listened, his mind sped back to the years when he and his brother were home and very young. He wondered if Alex had been happy or at least content with the life he had lived. He tried to imagine how things might have been different if Alex had married a different woman—or different women. Or, Michael thought, was he simply projecting his own preferences and prejudices onto his brother, who was clearly different than he was?
Nevertheless, he was intent on not doing what he believed most people did at funerals: flashing back through one’s memory of the person inside the casket. For, despite the day-to-day distance he had kept from his brother, the memories would be too painful to relive now. But, as he always did at funerals, even as a child, he couldn’t help asking himself as he looked at the casket, Where is this person now?
Michael always believed, from too early an age, that one’s whole life was almost irrelevant without the answer to that question. Too much of life, he thought, was simply a race to a finish line with no cl
ue as to where that line was or what was on the other side of the tape.
All this uncertainty was likely the source of that persistent feeling of angst that he had; that shadowy fear of something he couldn’t put his finger on. But he knew what it was. It was his inability to juxtapose this beautiful life with eternal extinction. What was the point of a great dinner in Paris with people you loved, when you were all going to wind up in a box? How strange that all the buildings and houses would still be standing, yet everyone who ever breathed would be gone.
Michael was awakened from his nightmare by Samantha’s gentle tap on his arm; it was time to file by the casket and leave the church. The Greek custom was for the casket to remain open during the funeral service at the church and then, in full view of all the mourners, for it to be shut—forever—at the conclusion of the service. Michael always felt this was undue torture for those left behind, but perhaps it allowed the deceased a final view of everyone in attendance. Fortunately, Michael thought, his brother’s casket was closed. Alex never cared much about traditions or customs.
As they began their exit, Michael took his sister-in-law’s arm. “Michael, I need your help,” Donna whispered. “I need to speak with you alone. Please. You have no idea how important it is.”
“Okay, don’t worry, Donna. Let’s talk while we’re at the wake after the burial. We’ll just find a quiet table at Grimaldi’s away from everyone for a few minutes.”
As Michael approached the church’s door, Greta Garbone, Alex’s second wife, caught his arm. He turned around and looked closely at her. Her hair was disheveled and her blue eyes appeared to be bloodshot. She seemed unsteady. Michael was unsure whether she was gripping his arm to catch his attention or to keep her balance. Despite moving to within inches of his face, she was nearly screaming.