by Ray Daniel
Walt said, “Who?”
“Cathy Byrd. JT’s mother and my father’s second wife.”
“Second wife? What the hell are you talking about?”
I told Walt about the house, the murder, and the pictures—all the pictures of my father enjoying a happy life with his other family.
Walt said, “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.”
“He never told me about any of this.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’m sure. Do you think I’d forget him shacking up with some hot little number out in Pittsfield? Do you think I’d forget about a second kid? As far as I knew, you were John’s only kid, and he was kind of stuck with your mother.”
“Stuck with my mother? What does that mean?”
“Come on, Tucker. I mean, you lived with them. Could you call that a happy marriage?”
“How would I have known?”
“I mean, with all due respect to your mother, she had problems. She was unstable. He was always tiptoeing around, trying not to set off the land mines.”
The food on my plate looked like a pile of dead fish on white rice. I wasn’t eating that. I poked at a piece of salmon with my chopstick.
“If things were so bad, why didn’t Dad divorce her?”
“He just didn’t believe in it. He figured that he had made his bed and that he could lie in it. Plus, I think he was afraid of the Rizzos.”
“Well, that can’t be true,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because he asked my uncle to lend him the money to buy the house for Cathy.”
Walt bit into the egg roll in his hand. Flecks of shredded vegetable fell out of the egg roll onto his plate. He chewed and then washed the fried mass down with a chug of his Budweiser. “He asked Frank Rizzo for a loan? Was he crazy?”
“Why would he be crazy?”
“Because the Rizzos are in the Mafia, Tucker. Didn’t you know that?”
I pushed my plate away. “No. Apparently, I was the only one who didn’t know it.”
“That’s because you never paid attention to your family. The Rizzos are crazy bastards.”
It was time for my gambit. “Then why did you borrow from them?”
Walt reddened. “What did you say?”
“Sal said that you owe him money,” I said.
Walt pushed his plate aside and pointed his fork at me. “That’s bullshit. I don’t owe Sal anything.”
“That’s not what he says.”
“Tucker, I love you like a nephew, but we’re done here. This is all none of your business. Just back off.”
“I can’t back off. They think my mother killed Cathy Byrd.”
“She probably did. Your mother is a lunatic.”
I was standing and our beers had tipped across the table. My fist was balled. I pointed at Uncle Walt.
“You shut up!”
“Will you sit down, for Christ’s sake? You’re making a scene,” said Walt.
I leaned on the table. “You fucking take that back.”
“Sit down!”
The restaurant was silent. Even the buffet line had stopped moving. The lunchtime crowd stared at me. I stared back. A guy in a business suit broke eye contact with me. Two women who had been talking went back to their conversation. A serving spoon clinked at the buffet table. I sat and the restaurant slipped back into motion.
Walt said, “Look. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about your mother.”
I drank my water. “So you don’t owe Sal money.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s none of your business. You mind telling me what you’re trying to accomplish?”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“Why?”
“Because I know my mother didn’t kill Cathy Byrd, and I’m going to prove it.”
That was what I said, but as I paid for lunch and Walt and I walked to our cars, I reflected upon the real reason. Two days ago I’d had a clear picture of how the world worked and who I was. I was Aloysius Tucker, the only son of John and Angelina Tucker. I had family in the North End—loud and Italian, but just a normal family. I was a widower, but I was getting on with my life. I was inching toward having a girlfriend.
Suddenly, all that was gone. I was Aloysius Tucker, the older son of John Tucker, who had another family with another wife and another son. A wife and a son he seemed to prefer to my mother and me.
These new people, these other people, had been murdered, and my mother and I had been dragged into it. My father had set wheels in motion that threatened to crush us. He had set up a mythical world that had shattered and left me without a foundation. I couldn’t live without a foundation. I wouldn’t stop digging until I knew exactly where I stood and what I was standing upon. I refused to live the rest of my life as a puzzle piece looking for a place to fit.
Twenty-Five
My Droid uttered its name in its spooky robotic voice as soon as I pulled out of Lotus Blossom’s parking lot. Lucy. A little happy flutter skipped through my stomach. I believed it was time for her to have a unique ringtone.
I stuck my Bluetooth headset into my ear and continued down Route 20 in Borg-like comfort.
Lucy said, “I’m calling you with a question of etiquette.”
“Good. You’ve come to the right place. I’m all about politeness.”
“If a girl were to go to a man’s house, let him cook her a delicious meal, neck with him a little on the couch, and then leave abruptly, would it be okay if that girl called the man for a follow-up date?”
“If the girl wants to be known as a brazen hussy and part of the general moral decay that will soon be the death of our beloved country, then yes. It would be fine.”
“Good. Would you like to go out on a date tonight?”
“Absolutely. What did you have in mind?”
“I thought we’d be tourists.”
We agreed to meet at six o’clock at the Samuel Adams statue in front of Faneuil Hall, and I continued driving down the old Indian trail that was Route 20. Colonists had widened it to create the Boston Post Road. The road took you from Boston, through Springfield, and down to Hartford, Connecticut. I imagined what the road would have looked like before all the trees had been cut down for fuel and farming. New trees grew along the road, but they were much younger than the path I followed.
Your mother is a lunatic.
I had told Walt to take it back, but that didn’t make it wrong. The slide into hoarding, the temper flare-ups, the slapping—I had grown up with all these things, integrated them into my life, into what I called normal.
I opened that corner of my mind where I had shoved my motherhood baggage and was overwhelmed with its crushing weight. My vision narrowed to the car in front of me, the sunny day eclipsed by my mother’s shadow. Could she have killed Cathy Byrd? Did the Rizzos have some genetic flaw that had turned my uncle and cousin into Mafiosos and my mother into a killer?
I couldn’t see it. The woman couldn’t even buy a cell phone. How would she get a gun? Of course, my mother’s sister Auntie Rosa was married to the mob, so my mother was connected. But why now?
The shadow cleared and I was driving on a sunny September day. I wasn’t on Route 20 anymore, I was on the Mass Pike, heading into the city. I had navigated Route 128 and the exchange without conscious thought. My Bluetooth headphone dangled from my ear. I thought about Pittsfield. Dialed Information, called General Dynamics, and asked for a name, then got connected through.
“Patterson,” said a voice.
“Dave Patterson, this is—Mr. Bologna, from yesterday’s meeting.”
“Oh,” said Patterson.
“Dave, I have a confession to make,” I said.
“Really? Wha
t’s that?”
“My last name isn’t Bologna. It’s Tucker.”
“Tucker?”
“I’m Aloysius Tucker, JT’s half brother.”
“Oh, shit. Jesus, I didn’t mean to say all those things about you yesterday.”
“You seemed sincere.”
Silence.
“Dave? Are you still there?” I asked. Cell reception is usually perfect on the Pike.
“Yeah,” said Patterson. “Why did you lie to me?”
“That was Bobby’s idea. He was investigating something and didn’t want to distract you.”
“What do you want?”
“I wanted to tell you that I never heard of JT or his mother until JT was murdered in front of my house. Since then, things have gone off the rails. JT’s mother was killed and a guy named Talevi threatened me. Also, I found out—Well, never mind. I saw you in those pictures in JT’s house. You’re his best friend. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
Silence.
“Dave?” I prompted.
Patterson said, “Look, Aloysius—”
“Please call me Tucker. Everyone calls me Tucker.”
“Okay, Tucker. I wish I could help you. I really do. But I can’t.”
“Do you have any idea why JT was coming to see me at my house? Why was he carrying the cover of the Paladin spec?”
A pause, then, “I don’t know why he would have done that. He hated you.”
I said, “Hated me? Why would he hate me?”
“Because you got to sit in the front row at his father’s funeral and he had to sit in the back.”
“I didn’t—”
“I was there. It was fucking horrible. Everybody was comforting you and your mother. They ignored JT.”
“Yeah, but nobody knew.”
“That made it even worse. Mr. Tucker never told JT about his other family. He let JT think that he was married to Ms. Byrd. We never knew why JT’s mom wouldn’t take the name Tucker. We thought it was some women’s lib thing. Turns out they weren’t married at all. JT was never the same after that funeral.”
“So who killed him? Was it Talevi?”
“He wouldn’t—I don’t know. How would I know? Look, I gotta go. Give me your cell. I’ll call you if I think of anything.”
I recited my Droid’s number and the line went dead. I told my Droid to dial Bobby Miller.
Bobby Miller answered, “What’s up, Tucker?”
“We need to talk.”
Twenty-Six
“Great. Just fucking great,” said Bobby Miller. We were sitting kitty-corner at the bar of the Millennium Bostonian Hotel, next to Faneuil Hall, drinking Oban 14-year-old Scotch whisky. The bar’s cold marble top contrasted with the warm maple paneling and complemented the array of liquor bottles displayed along the wall. Bobby’s head reflected the light from one of the glowing incandescent tubes that hung from the ceiling. Big windows behind him showed traffic oozing along North Street like rush-hour sludge. Bobby had just learned about my confession to Patterson.
“I’m sorry,” I said and swallowed some Scotch.
“You made me look like a fucking idiot.”
“I thought I might learn more if he knew who I was.”
“And did you learn anything?”
I looked into my Scotch; it was gone. “I learned that my father was an asshole.”
Bobby said, “Welcome to the club. We all learn that eventually. Shit, our kids are gonna learn it too.”
“No,” I said, “I mean a real asshole. He never told JT about me or about my mother, just like he never told us about them.”
“Why would he?”
“It would have been the decent thing to do.”
“It would have been a stupid thing to do. You saw those pictures in his old house. That was one happy motherfucker right there. Why would he screw that up?”
“He couldn’t be happy with me? With my mother?”
Bobby waved the bartender over to reload us. “Don’t be so hard on him, dude. Only two people know what goes on in a marriage. Judging them won’t help.”
The Scotch was having the desired self-medicating effect, easing me into a Zen-like state where I focused on how my body moved and what was happening in the moment. My father’s indiscretions and my mother’s lunacy were fading into the background.
“How about my Uncle Walt? Can I judge him?” I asked.
“What did he do?”
“He owes Sal money.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“No. Sal did.”
Bobby said nothing. He looked into his Scotch, looked up at the ceiling, got up from his chair, and headed out to the bathroom. The Millennium bathrooms were through the lobby and down the hall. Bobby would be gone for a while. I puzzled about his departure, took out my Droid, checked the time. Quarter to six. Opened Angry Birds and got three stars on a particularly tough pig fortification.
Bobby returned. He stood next to me, shot down his Scotch, and then grabbed me by the back of the neck, looking into my eyes.
I said, “Hey!” and resisted his grip, but he wouldn’t relent.
Bobby said, “I was in the men’s room when you said something, to yourself, about Sal Rizzo’s business. I never heard it, because if I had heard it, then I’m sure it would have made you into a material witness.”
I swallowed.
“Never,” said Bobby, “never, never, never, tell me anything Sal says. You got that?”
“Yeah, but—”
Bobby’s grip tightened. “Fucking never.”
“Okay. Okay.”
Bobby released my neck, patted my shoulder, and sat back down. “It’s for your own good. It would be a terrible thing to have to testify against your own family.”
I rubbed my neck. “I guess.”
“Family’s the thing, my friend. You can’t choose them, but you gotta love them.”
“So was JT part of my family?”
“Whether you wanted him or not, he’s definitely part of your family. Hell, he’s making trouble for you and he’s dead. Imagine if he were alive.”
I drank Scotch and thought about the trouble JT had created. I said, “Bobby, what am I going to do about my mother?”
“Did she kill Cathy Byrd?”
“No, she didn’t kill Cathy Byrd.”
“Then don’t sweat it, leave it alone.”
“That’s what Talevi said.”
Bobby said, “Holy fuck, you are just full of surprises today. How do you know Talevi?”
“He came to visit me at Bukowski yesterday. He told me to leave this thing with my mother alone or he’d kill me. How do you know Talevi?”
“He works for the Pakistani embassy. We think he’s a spy, but he’s got immunity and we haven’t been able to prove it. I’ll tell you this, he’s a mean fucker.”
“That’s what Sal said.”
“What did I just tell you about Sal?”
I raised my hands in surrender. “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
“But now that you brought it up … How does Sal know him?”
I finished my Scotch and waved off the bartender. Threw cash onto the bar. “Don’t ask me.”
Bobby said, “Now you’re getting the hang of it.”
I said, “No. Seriously. I have no idea what’s going on. All I know is that Talevi told me to drop it.”
Bobby finished his own Scotch and threw his cash on the bar. He said, “If it were anyone but you, I’d tell them to drop it. Let Lieutenant Lee and me handle it.”
“But you’re not going to say that to me?”
“It’s a waste of breath with you. I’ll tell you this, though.”
“What?”
“If your uncle lives out west and owes money, then he owes it t
o Hugh Graxton, not Sal.”
“Who’s that?”
“He’s the guy who runs all the action between Newton and Worcester.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re not related to Graxton, and I’d love to nail that bastard. Let me know if you learn anything else about him.”
“Sounds like you don’t like the guy.”
“If you ever meet him, you won’t like him either. He’s a mouthy asshole.”
“What’s wrong with being a mouthy asshole?”
“Good point. You two might get along fine.”
“Okay. I gotta go. Lucy’s going to be waiting for me.”
“You have fun.”
“Will do.”
“And be careful.”
“Sure, Bobby. Whatever.”
Twenty-Seven
Samuel Adams stood on his pedestal, his face stern, his right foot tapping the ground, and his arms crossed with a newspaper rolled up in his left hand. The sculptor Anne Whitney had either caught him in the act of demanding that British troops leave Boston or scolding his dog for pooping on the rug. It was hard to tell.
The statue stood in the middle of the broad stone plaza that fronted Faneuil Hall. Peter Faneuil had built the structure in 1742 and donated it to Boston so that the city might have a central marketplace. The Boston Town Meeting had voted to accept the gift by a close vote of 367–360, honoring a long tradition in New England of regarding anything that is new or free with profound suspicion.
Whether it was due to my forays into the suburbs, my dustup with my mother, or my introduction to a dead brother, Boston seemed especially alive tonight. The crowd breathed life into the place, lifting my spirits and showing me the bright side of life.
It was a warm September evening. Breakdancers twirled and leapt while their friends worked the crowd, collecting money in a Red Sox hat with an oversized logo splashed across its side. Mayor Kevin White’s gigantic statue strode into the tourist attraction he created, his jacket thrown over his shoulder, his free hand gesturing to an invisible conversationalist.
I scooted through the gap between the statue and the breakdancer crowd. Faneuil Hall lay in front of me. Commuters charged through the plaza on their way to the Government Center train station, dog walkers led their charges, and shoppers rushed home with their loot.