Brooklyn Wars

by Triss Stein

  “Do tell. I am always interested in these family life stories, as a world unknown to me.”

  “There’s this man. Joe.”

  “Met him at your house. Your contractor.” He looked me over and I felt myself turning red. “I get it. More than a business relationship. How does Len figure in this?”

  “I don’t know! But they talk to each other. It’s too late to say I’ll never introduce them—they’ve known each other for years—but I can say they can’t be buddies, can’t I?”

  “Do I look like Dear Abby?”

  “You asked. So I’m going to make you listen. So there.” And I told him about Joe dropping in and my dad’s role in that.

  “So it turns out Joe isn’t stalking me,” I concluded. “My dad is. I can’t live like that.”

  “Move away.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s the obvious solution. Move someplace strange, like Des Moines. Or Sioux City. No way Len’s gonna follow you there. Problem solved.”

  “And my work? And Chris?” It was so silly, I almost laughed, but I wasn’t ready to give Leary the satisfaction. The thought did cross my mind that a college teaching job in someplace far away would solve more than one problem. Of course it would create others. Lots of them.

  “Figure this one out on your own. I can’t solve all your problems.”

  That did make me laugh and I caught a fleeting smile from Leary as well.

  “You gotta tell Len to butt out. Make it loud and clear. He’s a Brooklyn boy like me. We don’t do subtle.”

  “I have told him. I do tell him.” I sighed. “He doesn’t listen.”

  “Does it cross you mind…?” He was not looking directly at me but over my shoulder, at an empty spot on his empty walls. “…your very youthful mind that he might be lonely?”

  That stopped my racing thoughts. Leary had said the L word. Lonely. I think it was the first time since I’d known him.

  He was still looking away from me.

  “Maybe. I guess. But I don’t even hover over Chris like that, and she is still a kid. Almost still a kid.” I heard my own words. Possibly she would disagree about the hovering. More than possibly. And I was not about to admit to the occasions I casually walked past her school at dismissal time for the chance of running into her.

  I jumped up to clear the table, put the extra food away, wash the dishes.

  “I must be heading home. I’ve left you enough for lunch or dinner tomorrow. No more pasta today!”

  “Yeah? Who’s hovering now?”

  Was it in the genes?

  “I’m not answering that, you troublemaker. You know I’m right. Eat up the rest of the broccoli tonight!”

  “Hey. About that Conti? You might find an article or two in my file cabinet. Try the third row, maybe bottom drawer.”

  Leary’s apartment is a mess. Unless a home aide was there earlier, I scrub the sink when I do the lunch dishes, scrub both table and chairs before we eat. I’ve never seen the sofa fabric under the piles of papers and clothes. But the room he uses as an office is immaculate. Every item he ever wrote is available in a file in a drawer in a wall of file cabinets. There was not a stray paper on his desk, where he knocks out men’s adventure stories under various pen names.

  Ever since I’d discovered this treasure room, I’ve wanted to ask him if he knew how much this revealed about him and what truly matters to him. I doubt that I will ever have the nerve.

  The Conti file was exactly where he said it would be. They always were. A small file but a few very old items Leary wrote and a few more that I had not seen elsewhere, not written by him but here, I assumed, for background.

  I would take them to be copied and added to my own background material. Leary objected to that idea, concerned I would not return them, but that’s all a game by now. He knows I will take care of the file. I know he will say yes. And he knows I know.

  “Yes, my own desk is covered with paper and files. Yes, I will keep your file separate, in a special place, no chance of mixing it up. Fair exchange for the ziti? Satisfied?”

  “Guess I have to be. You’re not the flaky kid you used to be. I’ll trust you.”

  “You sound like my dad. And that is not a compliment.”

  “Good man, your dad.”

  “Oh, yeah? Not feeling it today.”

  Before I left, I thought of another way to thank Leary.

  “How would you like to meet a young reporter?”

  “Oh? Who, what, where?”

  “She’s a friend of mine who’s just been assigned to Brooklyn. She is smart and all, but she sure could use some advice.”

  That was throwing Lisa under a bus, but I knew it would intrigue Leary.

  “Yeah? And who is she reporting for?”

  I grinned. “Ask her yourself when I bring her around.”

  I gave him a quick peck on the cheek, moving in too fast for him to duck. On the way home, I stopped to copy his files, and then I would have a few quiet hours of work. Much needed. I hadn’t forgotten my advisor put me on a deadline. Ridiculous at my age and academic status. Did she think it would be useful?

  And if I was honest, could I say it would not be?

  I thought now about how I had no idea how to job hunt in my world. None. I would have to stay in New York until Chris finished high school. And then there was Joe. How to even start? And who could advise me?

  When I got home, there was a message from Mrs. Pastore.

  “Can you come over after dinner tonight? About eight? The Conti women are getting together and they want to keep it on the down low, so it’s at my house. They seem to think you know things.”

  Well, no wonder I was having trouble getting work done. I was constantly sidetracked by these events. And what Conti women did she mean? Would there be a whole gang of his relatives? And the girls on the side? And a random thought, how in the world did elderly Mrs. Pastore pick up a phrase like “on the down low,” anyway?

  I gave myself my marching orders. To the desk. Put Leary’s originals away in a safe place. Open the copies. Read and learn. Stay focused on work so I could not think about anything else.

  The interview with Conti was fascinating. In his twenties, he sounded a lot like he did when I had seen him, every bit as cocky but perhaps less belligerent. Maybe the belligerence had come along with the long career.

  And here was a scrawled note in Leary’s nearly incomprehensible writing. I deciphered it slowly and painfully: “Cleaned up work force during McCarthy hearings in 1950s. Sen. McC looked at Army at Fort Monmouth, scared other military in area. No Coms now and since then.” There was a name, Vito Palma.

  This had never made it into a story. It was merely a stray comment Leary kept because it could be useful sometime? Or did he have a purpose? He was such a pack rat, it was hard to guess. I would have to ask him, but first, I wanted to talk to Phyllis. My daughter’s grandmother.

  All right, “wanted” was an exaggeration. I never actually wanted to talk to her, but now, I needed to. Here was her uncle’s name on pages that connected him to Conti, the closing of the Yard, and perhaps to the McCarthy hearings?

  I ran a quick search. There was almost nothing about the Yard and the McCarthy hearings but—aha!—definitely some suspicions or fears about Communist infiltration before the start of World War II. And Communist was a legal political party then. I didn’t know that. Leary would laugh at me, so I would not tell him.

  Now I needed to steel myself for the phone call. I made some notes to keep myself focused.

  ***

  “Erica? Are you going to tell me you discovered something about my Aunt Philomena? I thought I would hear from you before now.”

  “I know your Uncle Vito and your aunt both worked with Michael Conti on committees. I have pictures.”

  �
��Hmm. So I was right about that. I knew I was.”

  Interesting. That’s not what she said when I was there.

  “But what does that have to do with Philomena’s life?”

  “I found something a little odd, too. Let me explain it to you.”

  She didn’t like what she thought she heard.

  “No one in my family was ever a Commie. Ever. That is very insulting.”

  I took a deep breath. “That’s not what I said.”

  I told it to her again.

  “There was an investigation at Fort Monmouth, not so far away. Could they have been worried about that?”

  “No, no.” She stopped. “Well, I don’t know if they were or not.”

  “Do you remember any kind of scandal at the Navy Yard?”

  “No scandal! My family was never involved in anything like that. Great patriots, that’s what they all were. Wonderful, hard-working people. You need to investigate in some other direction.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I need to lie down. Good-bye.”

  And she hung up on me. Just like that. None of this made me anxious to look further into her Aunt Philomena, that’s for sure. I had real work to do and a child to feed.

  The child came home, anxious for dinner, but also wanting to talk while she shoveled soup and a grilled cheese sandwich into her growing body.

  “So, Mom, about my party? Can we discuss it, please? I have good news.”

  The best news would be that she wants to have a sleepover, with pizza for dinner and waffles for breakfast. Ten girls in nightgowns on the living room floor.

  “I talked it over with Grandpa and he wants to pay for it.”

  “You did what?” I could not believe what I heard. Literally. I thought I had misunderstood.

  “Isn’t he sweet?” She was too busy reaching for a second cheese sandwich to see my face. I rearranged it quickly into a mask of a reasonable human being.

  “Sweet? Grandpa?”

  “M-o-m.” She stretched it out to three syllables as only a teenager can. “Yes. Yes he is. I explained the whole thing and he said he’d be happy to give me a party for my birthday.”

  I had lost interest in my own grilled cheese.

  “Did you call him and ask?” I stopped before I started telling her how I would feel about that.

  “Of course I didn’t! I know you would not like that, me asking. He called me. We do talk on the phone. He’s too old for any other way to stay in touch, I guess. So we talk.” She gave me a sidelong look. “You should try it sometime. He likes to talk on the phone.”

  “Oh, Chris.” I couldn’t let my desire to yell at her for lecturing me—what nerve!—sidetrack the main issue. Much as I wanted to. “Tell the truth: did you ask him for help?”

  “N-o-o.” Another three-syllable response. “We were talking, as people do, and I told him I was going to a party next weekend and he asked what we planned for mine.” She looked at me with reproach. “He does remember I have a birthday coming up. And so I told him I didn’t know, we had no plans and he came up with this idea.” The words “so there” were implied in her tone, but she wisely left them unsaid. They would not have helped her case.

  I didn’t want my father to do this. I did not want him to encourage her desires for things we could not afford. I did not want him to provide something that I would have liked to give her. I did not want his bossiness on planning a party. Not that he knew how to do it. And not that I did either.

  Chris looked at me with so much hope my heart twisted a little.

  “Let me think about this. It makes me uncomfortable but I will talk to him and see exactly what he has in mind. It might cost a lot more than he thinks. Okay?”

  “Okay. I guess.” She was already up, clearing the table while eating the last of her third sandwich. “I have to make it be okay, but Mom? Please, not too long. I hear from my friends that it takes a lot of time to plan a big party.”

  What big party? I hadn’t agreed to that, but she was halfway upstairs while I was still trying to formulate the right response.

  There was a time I would have turned to Darcy, my friend with all the answers. Surviving raising four children into adulthood, of course she had answers. I might still call her but I really wanted to talk to Joe. He always had both wise ideas and a shoulder to lean on, but he had his own problems to worry him this week. He’d call me when he was ready to.

  Yes, I should make a date with Darcy.

  For now, I had to step over to the Pastores’ house and meet with the Conti women. There was no way I would turn down that invitation. Just as I was getting ready, there was a call. Chris and I picked it up at the same time, on different phones.

  “Chris, darling.” Phyllis. Before I had a chance to say a word, I heard “I’m glad it’s you. I don’t want to talk to your mother.” Really? That’s when I should have put the phone down. As if.

  Was she still mad at me for the very words, “Communist” and “family” in the same sentence? She went on, “I found something about Philomena. I mean, it was hers. A book. I’m going to send it right to you for your project. I was wondering what is the best way to mail it?”

  “Uh, Grandma? Mom would know better than me.”

  I heard Judy in the background. “Mom, I’ll take it to UPS tomorrow. I told you.”

  “That is expensive. So Chrissie keep an eye out for it, okay?”

  I put the phone down then. As I was putting my jacket on, I thought this little get together would be family life from a whole different angle than my conversation with Chris. Or my non-conversation with Phyllis.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mrs. Pastore hustled me in and downstairs to the kitchen at the back of the house. We would be well hidden from the street.

  “Nicole?” someone called. It was Annabelle Conti, visibly disappointed to see it was only me. Jennifer was there too, looking as out of place in the old kitchen as Annabelle looked comfortable. They both had small wineglasses and large slices of cheesecake in front of them.

  “Sit, sit,” Mrs. Pastore urged. “Dessert wine or a coffee? And biscotti or cheesecake? From the bakery,” she added apologetically. “I didn’t have time to bake today.”

  I sat as commanded, still wondering why I was here. Annabelle moved her chair to make room for me and passed the cheesecake, so I guessed she was no longer angry.

  When the doorbell rang again, Mrs. Pastore brought in a woman dressed in leggings, boots, and a coat that was a confection of fluffy pink mohair and lavender fake fur trim. Her long blond braid was threaded through with strands of magenta hair. Her clothes were of equally extreme style, the boots expensive soft magenta suede, the velvety tunic adorned with bright appliqué. She flicked Jennifer’s overhanging fur coat off the remaining chair.

  So that’s what Mrs. Pastore meant by the Conti women. Two wives and a daughter.

  “Nikki, it’s cold tonight. How can you be warm enough in that flimsy jacket?”

  “Well, Mom, this flimsy jacket came right from the designer’s studio and cost more than you’ve spent on all coats in the last decade. Believe me, it is quite warm enough.”

  “Still going for the art student look, I see,” Jennifer murmured, but loudly enough so Nicole heard. As intended, I was sure.

  “And you are still wearing fur? Animal skins are so last century.”

  Annabelle slammed her glass on the table.

  “This is not what we are here for.”

  “Mom, you started it. I don’t need your comments….”

  Maybe this was not so different from my life with Chris after all, except for the better clothes. Annabelle was saying, “You are still my daughter and I still worry.”

  Jennifer leaned forward and patted Annabelle’s hand. “You ar
e right, dear. We are who we are, but bickering is not the reason we are here.”

  Annabelle sucked in a deep breath. “We are here to share our information about Michael and make a plan to deal with the harassment by the police department.”

  I started to say, “But he was murdered. The police have a job to do.” I was immediately shut down.

  “Not your turn to talk.”

  “We will get to you in good time.”

  “You be patient.”

  Only curiosity kept me in my seat at that moment. My desire to walk out in a huff was at war with my desire to know what the hell was going on here.

  “Everyone coming to order?” Jennifer looked around the table, resting her eyes in turn on her stepdaughter and her…what do you call a husband’s ex-wife? Predecessor?

  “Let’s get to it. Michael was a first-class bastard. Pardon my language about your father, Nicole.”

  Nicole muttered, “Not what you used to think.”

  “Yes, dear.” Jennifer’s smile was mocking. “I got older and wiser. You will too. Someday.”

  “We all know what he was.” Nicole’s pretty face was distorted by her clenched jaw. “Big ego, lots of damage.”

  Her mother nodded emphatically. “Exactly how he was. Or became. Honestly, when he was young he was so exciting. And he was fun.”

  “Mom! He took me to meet his girlfriend and told me how to lie to you about where we went.”

  “I meant before. When we were younger. And now, to learn, all that time, he was involved with Mary Pat? It hurt, to learn he loved her.”

  Jennifer said in her cultured voice, “Loved? Not Michael. There are cruder ways to put that. We all know he was chasing skirts all along, right? But I have proof.”

  She slapped an envelope on the table and removed some photos.

  “I hired a private eye. An expensive one. And look what he found for me.”

  I looked. Of course I did. Black-and-white photos of Michael Conti, smooching a young woman at a bar. Leaving an out-of-town hotel with another one. In the backseat of a limo with a woman and his hands where they did not belong.