by Ray Daniel
“Yeah. Little bits of data pointing to something.”
“Right. So, we’ve been getting chatter lately that the Iranians are looking to buy secret information about the Paladin missile system.”
“The one that shot down missiles in Iraq?”
“Yeah. The one that Israel will use if their situation with Iran turns into a shooting war.”
“Oh, crap,” I said.
Jael muttered something in Hebrew. From the tone, I took it to mean, “Oh, crap.”
Bobby continued, “Of course, chatter that the Iranians are looking to buy secrets is nothing new. They’re always looking to buy secrets.
So we put this information on the back burner and waited—until we got the second piece of intel. We learned that someone in Massachusetts says he can sell the kind of information the Iranians are looking to buy.”
“What kind of information?”
“The Paladin missile uses radar to track its targets and a big computer to hit the target.”
“Okay.”
“The problem is that the computer is too big to fly. So the missile gathers its radar data and uses a radio downlink to feed the information into the computer. Then the computer sends back guidance instructions.”
“Talevi asked for information on the downlink.”
“Right. If you have the right information about the downlink, you can disrupt the guidance and the missile will be useless.”
“So JT and Patterson were selling information to Talevi?”
Jael said, “That is a reasonable theory.”
I said, “Thanks.”
She continued, “On the other hand, there are two questions that the theory does not answer.”
Bobby asked, “What are those?”
“If JT and Patterson had the information, then why doesn’t Talevi already have it? Why has he decided to abort the mission and kill his contacts—and Tucker?”
Bobby said, “Good point. What’s the second question?”
“How do young men like JT and Patterson get connected to an Iranian spy such as Talevi? Contacts such as those take years to develop. One cannot simply ask for the information in a first meeting. One must understand the contact and the pressures on him to manipulate him.”
I said, “Jael’s got a point. I heard that JT had just started on the Paladin project. How would Talevi have known to talk to him?”
Bobby said, “That’s why I want to keep this investigation a secret. There’s more here to unravel. Talevi has some other contacts out there.”
We emerged from the woods without using our flashlights and snuck past dark houses into Jael’s car. Bobby let me ride shotgun on the way home. We drove away as Klieg lights snapped on in the woods. The crime scene technicians had started work.
We found our way back to the Pike and headed east. I looked into the night and thought about JT being a spy. It explained surprisingly little. Specifically, it didn’t explain why he had been in front of my house holding my childhood drawing of the Paladin. Did he think I had coded the downlink into a crayon scrawl? I would have used yellow for the downlink if I had known it was there. Yellow is the perfect color for drawing something that should be invisible.
Jael drove down the Mass Pike, back toward Boston. We were silent. As we passed through Framingham, I took a habitual glance toward my mother’s house. My mother’s house is about three hundred yards from the road where a wall of dirt, shrubs, and trees shields it from the Pike. Normally I can’t see any evidence of her house, or any other.
Tonight was different. Tonight I could see a column of smoke billowing into the sky, inky black smoke, lit from below by a flickering orange light and shot through with cinders of burning paper.
Lots of burning paper.
Forty-Five
We arrived with the fire trucks, but the house was already lost. Orange flames boiled out of the windows and through the front doors. Flames broke though a window on the side and shot out into the night. They’d immediately latched onto the maple tree outside my mother’s window.
I ran toward my mother’s bedroom. The heat buffeted me, but I fought through it, trying to reach the window, shielding my eyes and yelling for her. The buffeting turned to stinging. I stepped forward into the pain.
“Ma!”
Gloved arms grabbed me and pulled me backward.
I struggled for the window. “My mother’s in there!”
One of the guys yelled, “You’ll die here!”
They pushed me out onto the lawn away from the flames. Cool air washed over me. They handed me off to the fire chief, turned, and ran back toward the house. I struggled after them, but the chief held me.
“They’ve got protection. You’ll get burned just standing near that thing.”
“My mother doesn’t have protection!”
“They’re doing all they can. You watch from over there.” He handed me off to Bobby and Jael, who led me toward a lawn across the street, then turned. “Do you know why this place is burning so fast?”
I looked at the paper shooting into the sky through a new hole in the roof. It hadn’t occurred to me that my mother would have filled the attic with paper. I said, “She’s a hoarder.”
“Sweet Jesus.” He turned and called out, “We’ve got a hoarder! Maximum fire load! Defensive strategy! Defensive strategy!”
I stood on the neighbor’s lawn as the hoses swung away from my mother’s house and started soaking the neighboring houses and the trees. I could see two firefighters trying to check my mother’s bedroom; they couldn’t even get close. Flames melted the window frame, popped the glass, and shot into the night. The firefighters retreated. The skin on my hands ached where I’d been burned.
The chief made eye contact with me and shook his head. Then he went back to directing the effort to save the rest of the neighborhood. More trucks showed up. None of them wasted water on my mother’s little house. The heat drove me and the other spectators down the street. The house became an x-ray of itself. Orange flames filled every window and door, silhouetting the walls and roof. Fire broke through the roof. Flames shot into space.
I stood across the street. A memory dragged and pulled at my mind: gin rummy. My mother and I would sit at the kitchen table, alone because my father was away on business or whatever, and play game after game of gin rummy. I was thirteen and had gotten skillful enough that I had a fifty-fifty chance of winning. My mother would ask me about school and try to listen when I described the program I was writing on my new computer.
Gin rummy morphed into thoughts of tonight’s dinner and the few pleasant moments we’d had in front of the television, where nobody could have distinguished us from a normal mother and son enjoying their time together.
Bobby and Jael stood beside me. Jael placed her hand on my shoulder. She murmured, “Hamakom yinachem eschem b’soch sha’ar availay Tzion v’Yerushalayim.” I didn’t know what it meant, but her touch, and her gentle voice, broke through the fragile wall I had built against my emotions. A tsunami of sorrow pummeled me. I grabbed Jael. She pulled me close as sobs punched their way out of my gut.
I don’t know how long we stood like that, but when the sobbing stopped, I released Jael and stood between my friends, watching my mother’s house burn to the ground.
Forty-Six
The casket rested at the head of the small funeral parlor, flowers covering its oak lid, which remained closed tight against the horror of my mother’s remains. They told me that someone had broken the front window while she slept and poured lighter fluid down the drapes. A single match and the mountain of paper did the rest. She hadn’t made it five feet from her bedroom before she had been overcome by smoke. They assured me that she was dead before she felt the heat of the fire. A small blessing.
I sat next to the casket, wearing a black suit and accepting the condolences of a line of fello
w mourners. Auntie Rosa, my mother’s sister, sat next to me. The mourners had formed a line that snaked from the room’s front door past the casket and on to me. The women talked quietly together and looked at the name cards on the flowers. The men stared straight ahead, lacing their fingers together to form an empty basket that they let hang in front of their suit pants.
They each knelt in front of the casket, the married couples often kneeling together, and, perhaps, said a short prayer. Some reached out and brushed their fingers across the polished oak, murmuring last wishes to my mother, maybe encouraging her on her new journey. Finally they stood, gazed upon me with sorrowful eyes, and offered their condolences.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“She was a great lady.”
“She was.”
“How are you holding up?”
“Okay.”
“It’s a terrible thing.”
“I know.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“Sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“She was a great lady.”
“She was.”
“What can you do?”
“Remember her, I guess.”
There were handshakes and kisses on the cheek for me and hugs for Auntie Rosa, the surviving sister and the last surviving child of Luciano and Belinda Testa.
The initial rush of mourners passed. I sat staring into space, trying to remember how many times my mother had dragged me through a mourning line. I had knelt next to her, my father refusing to get close to the dead. While my mother whispered a Hail Mary next to me, I folded my hands and peered closely at a real dead body, its lips pressed together, prayer beads clasped in its hands. I couldn’t fathom the stillness of the dead, and I’d have sworn that the chest rose and fell in tiny increments. Then my mother would grab my hand, and we’d share our condolences.
“You look sad. Would you like some candy?”
A little girl stood before me in a blue, frilly dress. She held out her hand, displaying an orange funeral home candy.
“Maybe candy would make you feel better,” she said.
Maybe she was right. I took the candy.
“Thank you,” I said. “What is your name?”
My Auntie Rosa intervened. “This is your cousin Maria.”
“I was going to tell him that, Nonna.”
I said, “Nonna? You’re Auntie Rosa’s granddaughter?”
Maria said, “My daddy is over there.” She pointed at Sal, who held forth in a small knot of men that included, improbably, Hugh Graxton.
Auntie Rosa said, “You don’t remember Maria? She’s our little surprise.”
I covered, “Well, she was so small the last time I saw her.”
Maria said, “Yes. I’m older now. I’m nine.”
I smiled, couldn’t help myself. “Wow! You’re an old lady. Sal is my cousin.”
“I know that. Daddy said that Auntie Angelina who died was your mom, and that you were his cousin. You look really sad.”
“I am really sad,” I said, deciding to change the subject. “If Sal is my cousin and you’re Sal’s daughter, then I guess you’re my second cousin?”
“No, silly. You are my first cousin, once removed.”
“I am?”
“Yes. If you have a baby, then the baby would be my second cousin.”
I turned to Auntie Rosa, pointed a thumb at Maria. “She’s only nine?”
Auntie Rosa said, “She’s a smart one.”
Maria said, “If you have a baby boy, then I could marry him because we’d be second cousins.”
I said, “Really. Would you like to marry a baby boy with the name Tucker?”
“Well, sure. But I think I should babysit for him first to see if I like him.”
“That’s an excellent plan,” I said.
Maria said, “Bye-bye,” and ran to join a small knot of kids around the candy dish.
The orange candy melted and filled me with artificial orange goodness. The goodness spread through me and lifted the weight from my mind. I looked around the room, at all the mourners, most of whom I did not know, who had made time to come here and provide a featherbed of support for Auntie Rosa and me.
This was my family. These people had made the time to pay their respects to my mother and offer their support to me. I had done nothing to deserve this other than to be born to Angelina Testa, who had married John Tucker to give birth to me. The orange candy melted away, leaving nothing but sweetness.
I cast my eyes around the room and saw movement at the entryway. A new mourner, someone who was clearly not at home in the traditions of an Italian wake. Lucy wore a blue dress and held her purse to her chest. I rose, waved, and met her at the doorway.
Lucy gave me a peck on the cheek. “Tucker, I’m so sorry about your mother.”
“Thank you,” I said by rote.
“I’m sorry I’m late. I had a little trouble finding the funeral home.”
“I’m glad you’re here. It’s good to see you.” I took Lucy by the arm and brought her into the parlor. It was time to share this family, such as it was. I walked up behind Sal, who was gesticulating at Uncle Walt. Sal turned. I said, “Let me introduce Lucy. Lucy, this is my cousin Sal.”
Lucy shook Sal’s hand and said, “Hi. I’m Tucker’s girlfriend.”
My heart jumped in pleasant surprise. Girlfriend? Well, what do you know about that.
Forty-Seven
The last traces of Lagavulin Scotch dripped onto my partially melted ice cubes. I gave the bottle a little shake, looked down its neck, shook it again, and rested it next to Click and Clack’s tank. The boys were awake, keeping me company under a small pool of light in my kitchenette. A pad of paper lay on the counter before me, its top page blank except for a moisture ring from my glass. The ring was the only progress I had made toward writing my mother’s eulogy.
I said to Clack, “You know, in some places Catholics don’t write eulogies.”
Clack did his statue impersonation.
“I know, right? Lucky bastards.”
I had started the job in my home office, sitting in front of my Linux box, facing a blinking cursor. I had realized that I couldn’t write a eulogy on my desktop computer, so I had switched to my laptop in the kitchen. The blinking cursor was in a different place, but that didn’t help me write.
Obviously, the pain of the wake was blocking my eulogy writing. I opted for self-medication. I grabbed a half bottle of Lagavulin from the cabinet, a rocks glass, and some ice. Poured myself a drink and stared at my screen, downed the smoky liquid, poured myself another glass, and watched the cursor blink on the white screen. I couldn’t write a eulogy while distracted by my background picture of Fenway Park, so I set the editor to full screen mode. The empty eulogy filled the screen. The cursor blinked at me.
“I don’t know what to say,” I’d told Clack. Clack waived a claw.
“You’re right, buddy. I can’t do this on a computer. It’s too
personal.”
I’d closed the laptop, brought it back into my office, and returned with a pad of paper and a pen. The pen had MIT emblazoned on it. I had bought the pen just after my parents had dropped me at school. It was my first independent purchase.
My mother had cried that day—not in a big flamboyant way, but sniffling, her eyes puffy as she kissed me goodbye.
“I’m just ten miles from home, Ma,” I’d said.
“You’re all grown up,” she had said. “It doesn’t matter how far away.”
I had turned from her with a jaunty “here I come, world” step, and entered the dorm. I never slept in my childhood bedroom again.
My glass had gone empty. I had refilled it. Now it was empty again and I was staring at the b
lank paper, trying to dredge up memories of my mother so I could share them, while at the same time pushing them away because they hurt. I remembered the time that she called me a “baby” on the playground. I think I was seven. Then there was the time she slapped me in the face for saying, “goddammit, Ma.” There was the time we ran into Mr. Musto, my middle school math teacher, in the supermarket, and she commended him on being able to teach “my little retard.” I couldn’t count the number of times she had called me a son of a bitch, apparently missing the irony of the insult every time. Why couldn’t I remember the good times?
There’s a story about a funeral in a Jewish shtetl. The rabbi was presiding over the funeral, standing over the body of a horrible man who had hated everybody in the village. Everybody in the village had returned the favor. Still, the villagers had come to his funeral.
The rabbi asked, “Will anybody say something nice about this man?”
Silence.
The rabbi said, “Surely, somebody must have something nice to say about this man.”
Crickets.
The rabbi said, “We are not leaving this funeral until somebody says something nice about this man.”
An old guy in the back of the crowd shouts out, “His brother was worse!”
Could I say that about my mother? Perhaps say, “She was kind of crazy, and her last parenting act was to threaten me with a knife, but there must be others who were worse.”
I said to Click, “They probably don’t want to hear that. They probably just want to hear about the times she was a normal mother.”
I tried to remember normal times. Christmas mornings. Breakfasts. Gin rummy. Watching TV. They all slipped away into darkness, replaced by a knife waving on a goat path in a filthy house.
The empty glass tugged at me. I tottered over to my booze cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. Said to Click, “I’m drunk enough that this will taste okay. You want some?” Click demurred. I refilled my glass.
Lucy had offered to keep me company tonight. I had thanked her but said no. I needed to write this eulogy, and I had guessed that it might take all night. I drank some Johnny Walker Red. I was right; I was drunk enough that it tasted okay.