by Ray Daniel
My mother turned on him and said, “Where is she?”
“Ma’am?”
“Where is the little whore?”
Cathy Byrd is a whore. Sal had said that.
“She’s dead.”
“Dead? How could she be dead? She must only be in her fifties.”
Lee said, “She was murdered this morning. That’s why I’ve come to talk to you.”
“Murdered?” My mother turned to me. “Did you have something to do with this?”
I said, “No, Ma, I—”
Lee said, “Tucker was a witness this morning.”
My mother slapped me, her hand flashing out of nowhere and catching me across the cheek. Her fingers burned across my skin, leaving red trails of maternal hatred.
My mother screeched, “Does the whole world know about this? Do they all know that your father made a fool of me? How long have you known?” The screeching went up an octave as my mother lost control. “How long?”
“I just said—”
Lieutenant Lee said, “Mrs. Tucker, if we could just step inside.”
My mother turned on him and switched to deadly politeness. “I want to thank you, officer, for bringing this to my attention.”
Lee said, “Yes, but I need—”
My mother turned to me. I was cradling my face. She said, “Go home. Go back into your little hole.”
Lee said, “Just a few more—”
My mother said, “Goodbye, Lieutenant Lee.” She turned and stalked up the lawn into her dark house, leaving Lieutenant Lee and me in the street. The suburban night was silent, though I could see curtains rustling in the front windows of the other Campanelli ranches. We had created quite a spectacle.
The crazy we grow up with is like a pair of dirty underwear that lies unnoticed in the bathroom until we realize that a guest has seen them. Then we see our shabby world through their eyes, and feel the shame that we probably should have felt all along. My humiliated blush hid my mother’s red fingermarks on my cheek.
Lee walked me to my car and stood over me as I levered myself into the Volvo. I looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Lee said, “I’ve seen worse.”
“Not from where I sit.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
I closed the door, started the engine, and rolled down the window. “Why did you come here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No. I must be missing something.”
“I came to see if your mother has an alibi.”
Twenty-Two
I stood on my front stoop and imagined the contents of my refrigerator: eggs, milk, almond butter, orange juice, and a Pyrex bowl of leftover ratatouille. I was starving, disoriented, and depressed. Ratatouille was not going to help. The only solution for this combination of ailments was Bukowski Tavern on Dalton Street, where I could find an endless supply of beer and comfort food.
Bukowski Tavern is a long, low bar, built into the side of the Hilton’s parking garage. The red façade juts out of the concrete walls, like a brilliant ruby set in a steel pinky ring. A bar runs down one side of the space, across from small round windows that overlook the Mass Pike. I’d had enough of the Pike for one day, and sat at the bar.
Mikey the bartender greeted me. “Dude!”
“Hi, Mikey. You still got that Dogfish 90?”
Mikey shot me with his finger, cracked open a bottle of the IPA, and poured it into a tall glass. I took the glass and downed two-thirds of it in one gulp.
“God, I needed that,” I said.
Mikey looked concerned. “Dude?”
“What a shitty day, Mikey. I got shot at, I found out that my dad screwed my babysitter and had a kid with her, and my mother slapped me in the face.” I pointed to the handprint.
Mikey wagged his head and looked down at the bar. “Dude.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I need a Barfly Burger and some sweet potato fries.”
Mikey snapped his finger and pointed at me, nodding. “Dude!”
I downed my ale, relishing its hoppy goodness. “And another one of these.”
Mikey brought me my beer. I reveled in solitude and played Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a game that simulates the eternal struggle between mechanical engineers, who build weapons, and civil engineers, who build targets. In the game, I launched various weaponized songbirds at rickety structures erected by hapless pigs. The swine were doomed. The game rewarded me for wreaking the most havoc possible with the fewest number of birds. It was an engineering problem I couldn’t resist. I forgot about my crazy mother, her disgusting house, and my unremitting guilt and unleashed hell upon the pigs.
I sensed someone standing over my shoulder. I turned to look into the eyes of a small, bald, dark-skinned man sporting a graying goatee beard and a rumpled brown suit. He indicated the seat next to me. “May I sit?”
I said, “Sure,” and went back to destroying the pig homeland.
He said, “I need to speak to you, Mr. Tucker.”
“Mr. Tucker is my father. You can just call me Tucker.” I pressed a button on my Droid and the Angry Birds disappeared. “How do you know my name?”
The guy ignored my question and said, “I am Talevi.”
I drank my beer, waiting to see where this would go.
Talevi continued, “What do you plan to do about the death of your brother?”
My mother was right. Everybody knew this secret but us.
I said, “I plan to avenge him, raining fire and sweet death upon the dogs that took him from this Earth.”
Talevi’s eyes widened. He said, “Really?”
“No, not really,” I said, “I have no idea what to do about my brother. I didn’t even know I had a brother until today.”
“Then why were you in Pittsfield?”
“How did you know I was in Pittsfield?”
“The same way that I knew to find you here,” Talevi said. “I have sources.”
“And what do your sources think I should do about my brother?”
“Nothing,” said Talevi. “Nothing at all. They, and I, would like you to stay away from this sorry business.”
Mikey brought my burger. He looked from Talevi to me, pointed his chin at Talevi, and said, “Dude?”
“Don’t worry about him, Mikey. He was just leaving. Could you bring me another Dogfish?”
Mikey turned to get the beer. I took a fry from my burger plate and ate it slowly. I downed the rest of my beer, and took a bite from my burger.
Talevi said, “So?”
“So what?”
Talevi moved his hand and put it on his hip. The hand caught under his suit jacket and pulled it back to reveal a gun, in a holster, under his arm. I ignored the gun. Depression takes the edge off existential threats.
Talevi said, “Do not worry about your brother. He was a very bad man, you know. You should not risk your safety over him.”
“A bad man, you say. What did he do?”
“This is none of your business.”
“Hey, you brought it up.”
“He got what he deserved. There is nothing more to be done about it.”
“And Cathy Byrd?”
“What about her?”
“Did she get what she deserved?”
“I cannot say.”
“Because I’m figuring that she got royally screwed in this.”
Talevi leaned close. “If you do not become involved, this will end. Are we agreed?”
I said, “You know what, Talevi? There’s nothing I’d like better than to say yes. I’d love to tell you that I’m going to ignore my dead half brother, and my dead babysitter, my dead cheating father, and my crazy mother. I’d like to do nothing more than go back to the life that I had two days ago.”
&
nbsp; “This is good.”
“But my mother is being investigated for murder. So even if I told you now that I was going to ignore this mess, I probably wouldn’t do it.”
Talevi shook his head. “Very disappointing.”
“Yeah, well, that’s life.”
Talevi stood. “Ignore this thing, Mr. Tucker. Go back to the life you had two days ago.” He turned and I watched him wind his way out of the narrow tavern.
Two days ago I’d been a guy at a ballgame with a pretty girl. I was worried about the Red Sox bullpen, the lifespan of hermit crabs, and how I was going to spend the impending holiday season. It was my first autumn living in my new place, and my first Thanksgiving alone since my wife, Carol, had died.
I didn’t know what to do about the holidays. Carol and I used to spend Thanksgiving with her family. In December, we’d take my mother out to a restaurant for a holiday dinner, then fly to Barbados for a couple of weeks of warm weather. Christmas in Barbados doesn’t get captured on greeting cards, but it doesn’t suck.
That life was gone. There was no Carol, no need to visit her folks, no pattern or order to the holidays. I was staring down the barrel of a Thanksgiving spent alone in my condo, watching football, talking to crustaceans, and cooking a turkey for one.
Shit. I had become a character in “Eleanor Rigby.”
Of course, I did have family. Sal was clear about that. I guess my mother would go to Auntie Rosa’s for Thanksgiving. Perhaps I could wangle an invitation. There could be Christmas with the Mafia. I’d show up outside Sal’s house in the North End, holding a bottle of wine and getting my picture taken by an FBI guy sitting in a car across the street. I’d have to make sure that Bobby got my good side.
I had finished my burger and downed my third beer. The combination of grease, starch, and alcohol had improved my mood and reduced my inhibitions. If I was going to have Thanksgiving at Sal’s house, I needed to know some things.
I dialed my Droid.
Sal answered, “I’m busy. What do you want?”
I said, “We need to talk.”
Twenty-Three
“You are a fucking idiot,” said Sal.
We sat on a bench in Christopher Columbus Park. The morning sun sparkled off the dirty Boston Harbor water as boats rocked at their moorings under a blue-white cloudless sky. A thick, black iron chain stretched between imposing black mooring posts. The chain acted as a fence, but it wouldn’t keep Sal from pitching me into the ocean if the notion struck him.
“I’m not an idiot,” I said. Snappy comeback. Words failed me around Sal.
“Why would you ask me that? Use your fucking big MIT brain and tell me how I’m supposed to answer that question.”
“I think yes or no should be good enough.”
“Yeah? What if I say ‘No, I’m not in the Mafia’? Would you fucking believe me?”
Nobody could hear us, yet Sal whispered with furious intensity. I thought about his question. He was right. I wouldn’t believe him if he denied being in the Mafia.
Sal wasn’t going to let it drop. “Well? Would you believe me?”
I said, “Yeah, I would.”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me. I can see when you’re lying.”
I crossed my arms and didn’t answer.
Sal went on, “And if I didn’t say no, then you’d be some sort of witness. Fuck. Are you wearing a wire?” He reached over and began to paw at me. He opened my Sox jacket and ran his hands down my chest and back. He patted my thighs and reached up my crotch. It was like airport security.
“That’s not a microphone,” I said.
Sal said, “Fuck you.”
I pushed his hands away. “I’m not wearing a wire. What do you think I am?”
Sal said, “I don’t know what you are.”
“Well, I’ll tell you this. I’m not a liar.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You told me that I didn’t have a brother, and it turned out that I did. You lied to me.”
Sal stood and took a step toward home. Then he turned, stuck his finger in my face. “Of course I lied to you. It was none of your fucking business.”
I stood, not wanting to be loomed over, and got in Sal’s face. “My half brother was none of my business?”
“No. He wasn’t.”
“That’s ridiculous. And I suppose Cathy Byrd wasn’t—”
“She’s a whore,” said Sal.
“You shouldn’t talk that way about the dead.”
“Dead? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“She’s dead. Somebody shot her yesterday, and the Boston Police suspect my mother.” I sat.
Sal sat back down too. “They think Auntie Angelina did it? Idiots.”
Sal’s breath formed small puffs in the morning air. With his greatcoat and suit, he looked like he could either head over to the financial district or back to the North End. He had an early-morning five o’clock shadow, and there was a nick high on his sideburn. The blood had crusted, forming a scab. I tried to fathom how this guy was related to me and what that meant.
Sal said, “She didn’t know about Cathy Byrd.”
“Then how did you know about her?”
“I just knew that my mother said that Auntie Angelina’s babysitter was a whore,” said Sal.
“Why would Auntie Rosa say that?”
“Because your father asked my father for money.”
“Money? Money for what?”
Sal was silent.
Money? I turned the information over in my head. It was another data point in the puzzle. The mystery was like a tough game of Tetris. I twisted the new data, trying to get it to fit in with the other blocks of information and generate a flash of insight. Sal had started to rise when the information about the money snugged into a slot in the puzzle. The blocks disappeared and I knew why Dad had wanted the money.
I put my hand on Sal’s arm to keep him seated. I said, “The house. He wanted the money so he could buy Cathy Byrd a house.”
Sal glared at me. Then he said, “Yeah.”
“He wanted to borrow money from your father.”
“Yeah. It was stupid. We couldn’t lend money to Auntie Angelina’s husband. It would be bad business. My dad offered to give him the money.”
“So your dad bought Cathy Byrd’s house?”
“No. Your father didn’t want a handout. He wouldn’t take the money.”
“So where did he get it?”
“I don’t know.”
We stared across the harbor as a 757 lumbered its way into the air, rising from Logan into the blue sky. Somehow, my dad had bought a house and my mother never saw a hint of the cash.
I said, “Maybe he got the money from Uncle Walt.”
Sal barked a laugh. “That deadbeat? I’ll tell you this: if that son of a bitch has any money, he had better use it to pay his debts.”
“You lent money to my Uncle Walt?”
Sal rose and said, “Tucker, keep your fucking nose out of this. It doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone’s dead. You keep poking around this shit, you’re gonna get hurt.”
I stood. “That’s what Talevi said.”
Sal said, “Talevi? What do you have to do with Talevi?”
“He found me at Bukowski Tavern yesterday and told me the same thing you did. He said I should stay out of this.”
Sal gripped my upper arm in his beefy hand and looked me square in the face. “Do not fuck with Talevi. That guy is a dangerous little shit.”
“Yeah. He threatened to kill me.”
“You fuck with him, you’ll be lucky if he kills you. Last guy who fucked with Talevi got his hands shoved into a wood chipper.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said.
Sal let go of my arm and pointed at my face.
“You get out of this fucking thing and go home to the South End.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You do more than think about it. And another thing: don’t you fucking ever tell Talevi that you know me. You got that? Capisce?”
“Yeah. I capisce.”
“Now forget this shit.”
Sal walked down Atlantic Avenue toward the North End, leaving me standing next to a black iron piling. I pulled out my Droid and fired up the Zipcar app. A car was ready over on India Street, so I started walking.
I was heading back to the suburbs to invite Uncle Walt out for lunch.
Twenty-Four
With its peaked roof, demure gray exterior, beige trim, and carefully manicured landscaping, the building on Route 20 in Sudbury could have been a bank, a doctor’s office, a small museum, or a McMansion. Instead, it was a Chinese restaurant called Lotus Blossom. The restaurant had tossed away any attempt at looking Chinese and had, instead, fit itself into the suburban homogeneity that surrounded it. Uncle Walt insisted upon eating here.
Uncle Walt wanted to sample Lotus Blossom’s lunch buffet. I had gone with the white rice, buffet sushi, stir-fried vegetables, pot stickers, and my guilty pleasure, a piece of General Gau’s chicken. Walt had loaded up on egg rolls, chicken wings, fried wontons, and crab rangoon. If it was fried, gooey, or crispy, it was on Walt’s plate.
Uncle Walt stuck his fork into a crab rangoon, squirting white goo onto the dish. He held up the fried pocket, dripping ooze.
“You gotta try this!” said Uncle Walt.
“No. I’m good,” I said.
“You’re missing out.”
“You want any sushi?”
“Is it cooked?” asked Walt.
“No. It’s sushi.”
“Get back to me when it’s cooked.” He popped the rangoon into his mouth and went after an egg roll.
“How do you stay so thin, eating like that?”
“I only eat this stuff on special occasions, like when you call me twice in the same week. We haven’t talked in years and suddenly you’re out here all the time. What’s up?”
“Cathy Byrd was murdered yesterday, and they think my mother did it.” I watched Walt for any reaction to her name. There was none.