by Ray Daniel
“Yeah.”
“And what did they say?”
“They said my dad might have been screwing around.”
Sal shook his head. “Right to your fucking face? The cops got no respect.”
I looked out the window and drank my espresso. We were silent for a moment, until I said, “You’re right. Lee disrespected my dad. I never thought of it that way.”
“Nobody thinks that way anymore. Respect. Family. Doing the right fucking thing. Nobody cares about that shit. Speaking of family, did you think I forgot my question? When was the last time you saw your ma?”
“Six months ago. On her birthday.”
Sal pointed at me with his biscotti. “That’s a fucking sin, you know? You gotta see your ma.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s not fucking complicated. You go. You see her. You bring her some candy and give her a kiss. What’s so fucking complicated?”
The candy box would have been complicated, but I didn’t say anything.
Sal continued. “You know, she could be dead tomorrow. Then what? Then you spend the rest of your life saying you should have seen her more. You never know when it’s gonna happen. You of all people should know that. Your dad, your wife, even that fucking guy they shot in front of your house. None of them knew it was coming.”
I finished my espresso, noting the brown smear of coffee grounds across the bottom of the cup as I considered the sudden losses in my life. Dad died of an aneurysm and my wife died in a home invasion. Sal was right: neither of them saw it coming, and I always regretted that I wasn’t better to them.
Then this John Tucker got shot …
I looked at Sal. He had finished his espresso as well and was leaning forward to get up to leave. I put my hand out and touched his forearm. I said, “I never said the guy was shot. How did you know he was shot?”
Sal pulled his arm away and stood. He said, “I hear things.”
I remained sitting and said, “And you didn’t mention to me that you heard about this? What else did you hear? This guy was my brother, wasn’t he?”
Sal took a step and loomed over me, pointing a finger into my face. He whispered at me in quiet fury. “What did I tell you? You don’t have a fucking brother. If you had a brother, then someone would have introduced you and said, ‘Hey Tucker, this is your fucking brother.’ You would have bought each other birthday presents and seen each other at Christmas and maybe went to hockey games. But none of that happened, because you don’t have a fucking brother.”
I crossed my arms and said, “Well, we’ll see what his mother says.”
Sal put on his overcoat and said, “Who?”
“Cathy Byrd. John Tucker’s mother. I’m going to see her tomorrow.”
“Yeah, well there’s something you gotta know about Cathy Byrd,” said Sal.
“You know her?”
“Yeah,” said Sal, walking to the door. He opened it and said, “She’s a fucking whore.” He walked out the door and took a left, heading toward the Paul Revere Statue and away from the South End.
Eleven
I probably should have charged out into the street, chased Sal down, and made him explain himself about Cathy Byrd’s whoredom. Instead, I stayed rooted in my seat. My older cousin scared me. Whenever I saw him, I reverted to being a six-year-old kid at holiday dinners, with Sal at the adult table and me at the little table with the plastic dishes.
I asked the barista, “What do we owe you?”
He said, “Don’t worry about it, Sal has a tab.”
I dug two dollars out of my wallet and put it on the table as a tip. Then I left the cafe and turned right toward Cross Street. I worked my way down Cross, over Salem, and into the produce store. I had a buddy there who got me the best produce.
“Tucker!” said Ralph. “What are we cooking tonight?”
“Ratatouille,” I said.
“Dinner for one?” asked Ralph as he picked among the eggplants.
“Nope. Two this time. I’ve got a date.”
“Good for you!” He hefted an eggplant. “Then this is a good size.”
Ralph rooted among his vegetables, choosing green peppers, tomatoes, and the other ingredients of the dish and placing them into a paper bag.
“I was just visiting with my cousin,” I said.
“Yeah? Who’s your cousin?”
“His name is Sal Rizzo. Do you know him?”
Ralph placed the paper bag on the counter and said, “What do you mean ‘Do I know him?’ Of course I know him. I didn’t know you were Sal’s cousin. I’ll have to start treating you with more respect.”
“What are you taking about, Ralph? You treat me with plenty of respect.”
“Yeah, well, you know. There’s respect and then there’s respect, capisce?”
I took the bag. “I guess. How much do I owe you?”
“Don’t worry about it, it’s on the house.”
“No, seriously, Ralph, how much?”
Ralph waved me off, both hands in the air. “No. No. It’s my gift to you. For your date tonight.” He turned and started helping another customer.
The bag of vegetables rested heavy in my arms as I left the store and ducked into Maria’s Pastry next store. I bought two cannoli and put them in the bag with the vegetables. I didn’t say a word, didn’t mention that my cousin was Sal Rizzo. I hustled out of the store, across the park that was once the Big Dig, and into Government Center.
It was time to visit the FBI.
Twelve
City planners created Government Center in the belief that they could free the world of vice by bulldozing vice-infested buildings. They destroyed Scollay Square, the old red-light district, and replaced it with a brick plaza surrounding an inverted pyramid of a building. Apparently the planners had missed the irony of replacing a whorehouse with City Hall.
The whorehouses had moved over to Washington Street to create a new neighborhood of debauchery. This new neighborhood, the Combat Zone, did a flourishing business in porn and prostitution until it was finally destroyed by DVDs and the Internet. Today all that’s left of the Combat Zone is Centerfolds—a men’s club where, I’m told, they have ladies who dance with no clothes on.
After crossing Government Center, I saw a break in the traffic on Cambridge Street and jogged across, a perfectly legal move in Boston where pedestrians run wild and free. Bobby’s office building followed the curve of Cambridge Street. I entered and took the elevator up to the FBI lobby, a plain, carpeted room that showcased large gold FBI letters along the back wall.
The receptionist was a prim woman with small reading glasses. Her short hair exposed dangly earrings made of colored glass. I smiled and told her, “My name’s Tucker. I’m here to see Bobby Miller.”
“What’s the nature of your business with Agent Miller?” she asked.
I raised the bag of groceries and took out the eggplant. “I’m here for his therapy session.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Eggplant therapy?”
“Oh yeah, it’s all the rage. We’re hoping to have his hair all grown back in six months.”
“What do you do with the eggplant?”
“Well, that’s a matter of patient/doctor confidentiality.”
“I see.”
“Let’s just say that the eggplant doesn’t survive the procedure.”
She picked up the phone and dialed. “Agent Miller, a Mr. Tucker is here with your eggplant … No sir, he’s standing right in front of me. I think you should tell him to do that yourself. I’ll bring him in.”
The receptionist brought me to Bobby’s door. I waggled the eggplant at him and asked it, “Did you miss your daddy?”
Bobby said, “Did Monique tell you to shove the eggplant up your ass?”
Monique giggled and walked away.
“No,” I said. “She’s obviously too much of a lady.”
“Well, shove the eggplant up your ass.”
“I’ve got other vegetables, you know.”
“Why do you even have vegetables?”
I walked into Bobby’s office and said, “I’m making dinner for Lucy. The girl from the ballgame.”
Bobby sat in an unadorned box of an office behind an aluminum and Formica desk. His sad and abused work chair squeaked whenever he moved. Bobby motioned me to sit and asked, “So, is John Tucker your brother?”
“I have no idea. My dad’s best friend says that I don’t have a brother.”
Bobby poised his pen over a legal pad. “Who’s that?”
“Walt Adams. He worked with my dad at GDS and said that my dad didn’t screw around.”
Bobby said, “Hmmph.”
“Then I talked to Cathy Byrd, John Tucker’s mother.”
“Yeah? What did she tell you?”
“Nothing. I’m going out to Pittsfield to have lunch with her tomorrow. When my cousin Sal heard, he got all pissed off and called her a whore. Something’s up.”
“What’s Sal’s last name?” asked Bobby, pen poised.
“Rizzo. He’s Sal Rizzo.”
“Your cousin is Sal Rizzo? North End Sal Rizzo?”
“Yeah, I guess. He lives in the North End.”
“Is there any reason you never told me you were connected?”
“Connected? Connected to what?”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Connected to the Mafia. You’re telling me that you don’t know that Sal Rizzo runs the Mafia in the North End?”
“Cousin Sal? That’s ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just an FBI special agent who investigates organized crime. I guess I should just go back into the war room and tear down that whole fucking org chart with Sal Rizzo at the top of it.”
I crossed my arms. “This is bullshit.”
“Shit, Tucker. You got a dead brother you never heard of and a cousin you didn’t know was in the Mafia. That is one screwed-up family life. What do you do on the holidays?”
“I hadn’t thought about it, actually.” It would be my first holiday season since I lost my wife.
“Thanksgiving is coming.”
“I guess I’ll watch some football games.”
“You’re welcome to come to my place.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need to come to your house for Thanksgiving.”
“At least have coffee with me tomorrow in Pittsfield. You could even be useful.”
“Why are you going to Pittsfield?”
“I’m talking to some people about your non-brother’s work. I could bounce some ideas off you.”
“I thought Lee was investigating John Tucker’s murder. What’s your angle?”
“I’m working on a different problem.”
“What problem?”
“I really shouldn’t tell you about it.”
“But you will anyway.”
“I think John Tucker was a spy.”
“Holy shit. This just gets better and better.”
“That information is between us.”
“That’s why you were in front of my house last night.”
“Will you help me?”
I gathered my vegetables and stood. “See you in Pittsfield.”
Thirteen
“The Mafia?” Lucy asked as she drank her Lagavulin on the rocks.
We sat on the couch after a dinner of ratatouille and a dessert of cannoli. My family room ran the width of my narrow condo, with windows facing the street. I had divided that space into a living room and dining room by placing a couch across the center. The space in front of the couch was the living room, the space behind the couch was the dining room. We had moved from the dining room to the living room.
Lucy had arrived a few minutes late and had brought a bottle of red wine. She was wearing a gray sweater dress with a high collar, black leggings, and black leather boots that reached almost to her knee. The sweater hugged her breasts and hips, and the boots exposed a small bit of leg. The outfit covered her body while showing it off. I managed to give her a peck on the cheek to say hello, take the bottle of wine, and get back into the kitchenette without drooling, tripping, or lighting myself on fire. It was a triumph of focus.
Lucy sat on a barstool at the kitchenette counter and looked at the terrarium.
“Who are these guys?” she asked.
“They’re my roommates, Click and Clack. They’re hermit crabs,” I said before I remembered that Lucy was a biology teacher. She obviously recognized hermit crabs. I expected Lucy to bust me for not giving her credit for her knowledge of crustaceans, but she let the remark go. A keeper?
I asked, “So, how was your day?”
Lucy told me about her school day. Apparently she had had a dustup with a parent over one of her kids’ grades. The kid had no interest in biology, no willingness to learn it, and no inclination to study. He failed his midterm test, and the parent came to complain …
I had learned years ago that if I asked a woman a simple open-ended question and listened to her answer, she would carry 95 percent of the communication load and consider me to be a sparkling conversationalist. The approach also kept me from having to answer such questions as whether I had a job (I didn’t), what I did for a living (very little), and why I was single (long story).
This approach didn’t work with Lucy. She finished her story about the helicopter parents, looked at me, and said, “So who is John Tucker? Is he your brother?”
This, too, was a long story, and I told it as I transferred the ratatouille to a serving plate, poured us some wine, and served the meal. Lucy was a probing conversationalist, and apparently she had learned the same trick as I had. Her blue eyes watched me intently. She asked compelling follow-up questions, kept me talking about myself.
Lucy ate some ratatouille. “This is delicious.”
“Thanks.” I ate some myself. She was right.
“So you still don’t know if the guy in front of your house was your brother?”
“Not for sure. I’ll find out tomorrow.”
I told Lucy about Cathy Byrd, John’s mother. I left out the part where Sal had called Cathy a whore. We made small talk about the drive to Pittsfield, which Zipcar I would take, what it would cost, the length of the drive.
For my part, I found myself thinking less about my “brother” and more about the curves under Lucy’s sweater dress. I got up from the table and brought out the cannoli I had bought at Maria’s. Lucy gave a happy moan as she tasted chocolate dusted on the creme filling. The sound transported me to the bedroom, where I imagined sliding my hands along Lucy’s black leggings, feeling the muscles of her thigh. Lucy suggested that we move to the couch. I thought things were moving in the right direction, then she brought up the topic of Sal again.
“Yes, apparently I’m connected,” I said, and kissed Lucy.
She closed her eyes and returned the soft kiss, her mouth tasting of Scotch and chocolate. My breath quickened and I brushed my thumb across Lucy’s breast. She arched her breast into my hand and pulled me closer for another kiss.
Then she opened her eyes and asked, “So why did you move to the South End?”
I blinked. “What?”
“The South End. You told me that you have relatives in the North End and that Sal was mad at you. So why did you move to the South End? Was there a schism in the family?”
My brain, jammed with lust, had lost all functionality. I said, “Ahh—well—err—I guess it never occurred to me. I moved here right after my wife died last year.”
Lucy sat back on the couch. She said, “You’re a widower?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re so young.”
“Yeah.”<
br />
“How did it happen?”
“She was murdered in a home invasion. I moved to Boston right after that. I didn’t want to stay in the house. Sal and my cousins weren’t even part of the equation. I was pretty wrapped up in myself.”
“It was shitty of Sal to give you a hard time about it.”
“No. He’s right. I should make more of an effort. Even if I don’t live there, I can at least visit.”
Lucy reached forward and leaned in on me, giving me a hug. She said into my ear, “I’m so sorry I brought it up.”
I settled into the hug and said, “That’s okay.” I could feel her making her next move. Her body tensed as she was about to stand.
Lucy said, “You know what, Tucker?”
“What?”
“You are a really good guy.”
“Why, thank you.”
“I like you.”
Uh oh.
Lucy stood and said, “I need to be getting home. It’s a school night.”
Naturally.
Fourteen
Gray September clouds scudded across the sky as I drove west on the Mass Pike toward Pittsfield. The road had shifted from being broad and straight into more of a mountain pass. The Pike’s builders had blasted their way through mountains, leaving gouges in the rock alongside their two-lane road.
A brown sign told me that I had reached the Pike’s highest elevation at 1,724 feet—highest at least until Route 90 got a bit higher in Oacoma, South Dakota, at 1,729 feet. I imagined the Pike stretching through New York, skirting the Great Lakes, plunging through Chicago, and shooting across the plains and mountains until it reached Seattle.
I passed under the Appalachian Trail footbridge and toyed with the idea of staying on this road, ignoring the exit, and driving on to a new beginning in the West. I would ensconce myself in the Seattle high-tech scene, visit the Sox when they came to town, and get far away from unwanted family entanglements. I’d be free.
I fiddled with Pandora on my Droid, setting up a Soundgarden channel and wondering what it would be like to live in the city that produced this music. Settlers founded Seattle at the time when Boston was planting the Public Garden and launching the Swan Boats. It was literally a new place. I’d trade the Public Garden for the Space Needle and the Red Sox for the Mariners.