The Last Kind Words

by Tom Piccirilli

  Mal walked in and deposited the chicken bones in the garbage. My father followed him into the living room. I moved to the kitchen table and continued to sit in the dark, wondering something I had never wondered before. I wondered if my father was lying to me.

  The house stank of boiled cabbage and chicken grease. I headed for my room and made it halfway up the stairs before I heard the phone ring. My mother answered and my belly tightened. She moved to the bottom of the steps and saw me there, held the phone out toward me with a slightly apprehensive expression, the same kind she wore when I was in junior high and some girl called the house. “For you.”

  I was tired. I felt feverish. The stink was killing me. “Who?”

  “Take it.”

  It was my uncle Grey. He asked, “So, you busy?”

  I hadn’t spoken to him in half a decade but he sounded like we’d shared an espresso twenty minutes ago.

  I didn’t know how to answer. “Not really.”

  “You hungry? Meet me at Cirque d’Outre. Nine o’clock.”

  “Cirque d’Outre? The hell is that?”

  “Torchy’s.”

  Torchy’s was our in-joke for a restaurant down on the water in Glen Cove. Since the fifties it had been owned by various arms of the syndicate, changing hands every few years. The wiseguys insured it up the wazoo, opened it as a high-class establishment, brought in the yacht and sailboat crowd, and slowly skimmed off the top until they were so far in the red that they had to torch the place. It had been built up and burned down again under four names that I was aware of.

  “How soon until the next fire?” I asked.

  “A few months at least. You don’t have to worry about getting your toes roasted, you know those boys have never picked up a murder rap off a firebug scheme.”

  I wanted to talk to Grey. I missed his action, his energy. He was already lightening the load I felt. “I’m not dressed for it.”

  “So put on some nice clothes.”

  “I don’t have any nice clothes that fit anymore.”

  “You can raid my closet.”

  “I don’t think I’m in the mood for a big night.”

  “What big night? A chance to sit and relax. Break bread. Have a nice meal. Talk with a beautiful woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “You’ve been home for days and I haven’t seen you yet. Enough with the dodging out the back door. Nine o’clock sharp, right?”

  “Sure.” I hung up.

  My mother wafted in close, sponging down an already clean table. She kept her back to me. That meant she had something to say that she didn’t want to say but would eventually get around to if I stood where I was long enough. I hung back and waited.

  She said, “Watch out for him.”

  She spoke with almost no inflection. I couldn’t tell if she meant I should watch out for him or watch out for him. She didn’t look at me. I slid aside and she raised her chin. I tried to read her face and saw almost nothing there now. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been going out nights. More and more. And not just with the ladies. I think he’s working on some kind of scam.”

  “This is news?”

  “It worries me.”

  My mother had become a nervous woman, with good cause. Collie’s arrest, my abandonment, having to care for Gramp, Dale blossoming into a young woman and all the problems that presented. Now the chance that Mal and Grey were both getting ill. She was the strongest of us.

  “What kind of scam?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But he gets that look in his eye like whenever one of you Rands is working a racket.”

  “You’re a Rand too.”

  “You male Rands,” she said. “You born Rands.”

  “I’ll see if I can find anything out. It seems like he’s set up a double date for us tonight.”

  She went to the sink. It was empty. There were some dishes on the drainboard drying. She looked like she wanted to keep busy. Her hand went to a clean glass and she put it in the cupboard. Then she moved it to the left. Then to the right. Then she closed the door and looked at another glass in the drainboard.

  “Ma, it’ll be okay,” I said.

  “He’ll be with that pretty reporter.”

  “He’s probably just diverting her attention.”

  “No, he’s trying to hold on to his youth with that one. He likes how interested she is in him.”

  “That’s a bad thing?”

  “Yes, because she’s more interested in the story. That’s why he’s bringing you there, really. You’re part of it. She’ll have questions.”

  “I know how to handle myself.”

  “I know you do.”

  She turned and looked at me, and a charge passed through the air between us. She was trying to shield and guard me through her own force of will. Her hands wandered to my collar, then my throat, and then she placed both palms firmly on my cheeks and kind of smooshed me. My lips pursed like a fish and she gave me a quick kiss. Then she ruffled my hair like I was six years old and left me alone with my own trepidation.

  I took a shower and then checked Grey’s room. He was a clothes horse. He had at least twenty tailored suits in his closet. I found a classic white shirt and black suit combo that fit almost perfectly. When I shot my cuffs I looked like any other Rat Pack wannabe circa 1962.

  He had a separate cabinet for ties. There were hundreds. I didn’t see the point. After you got through about twenty, they all started to look alike. He had a real fetish. Or maybe his various women all gave him the same Christmas gift each year. I found a thin black silk one and grabbed a pair of shoes that pinched my heels only a little.

  I checked myself. Flo had been right. I did look a little like Grey.

  He’d stand in the mirror when I was a kid and I’d watch the slow and significant ritual of his grooming. The way he’d use two wooden brushes, one in each hand, to style his hair. Slapped aftershave to his cheeks and massaged his skin, always giving himself a few chucks under the chin right before he finished. Then he’d dab himself with cologne at the hollow of his throat. He’d have a suit already laid out on the bed but would often try on five or six shirts, sometimes all the same color, before he made his choice. He’d hold up ties against his chest and check his reflection from different angles, in different lighting. When he was done I’d be fascinated with the intricacies of tying a double Windsor knot. It was like a stage performance. He’d catch my eye in the mirror and say, “The clothes don’t make the man, the man makes the clothes. But they have to be the right clothes and the right man.”

  Headlights washed against the window. I pulled back the curtain and spotted Dale and Butch sitting in his Chevy, parked at the curb. They were arguing, their faces animated in the harsh dashboard light. I went to my room, pulled out the butterfly knife, and left it on her nightstand.

  I walked downstairs and stood at the front door. I looked down at myself dressed in my uncle’s clothes, on my way to a date I didn’t want to go on, and abruptly felt like a moron. I should be helping Dale. I should be preparing myself to tell Collie to go fuck himself. The list went on. I should be making sure that Danny Thompson wasn’t still plotting to pull forty grand out of Mal’s ass. I should either be figuring out what to say to Kimmy and Chub or I should let it go. I had to watch out for Fingers and Higgins. Sweat broke out on my upper lip. Maybe Gilmore was right. Maybe my coming home had only stirred up all this trouble. And instead of fixing it, here I was playing dress-up.

  My father came up behind me, gestured with his chin at the muscle car, and said, “Your mother right about him?”

  “Yes. He’s a bank-heister wannabe.”

  Two, three beats went by, then he let out a disgusted grunt. “So that’s why he gravitated toward her.”

  I didn’t have to say it. He said it for me.

  “Or her to him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Won’t be able to stop her from seeing the little shithead.”

  “
No, probably not.”

  The rest of the equation passed between us silently. Someone might have to convince him to stop seeing her.

  I started to undo my tie. My old man put a hand on my arm and said, “Hey, no. Go have a night out.”

  “Dad, I should be—”

  “You should be out having a good time with Grey. He invited you. You said yes, right? So go. The reporter is cute. You can field her questions. And she’ll have a cute friend. What’s so wrong with that?”

  Maybe nothing. I took the parkway up to 25A and drove down to the sound. The party boats coasted in on moonlit water as calm as a sheet of glass. They docked behind Torchy’s, and wealthy couples strolled across the massive deck, arm in arm, all pearls and five-thousand-dollar Italian fashion. A ten-piece band led by a young Dino look-alike played fifties crooner tunes. I was twenty minutes early. Grey would already be inside with his date and her friend. They’d be at the bar and he’d be regaling them with stories and letting them drink in his beauty. I let him do his thing and parked on the street for a while, listening to “Till There Was You” and “More” and “A Blossom Fell.” Then I drove in and let the valet take my car.

  Inside, the place wasn’t quite as different as I’d been expecting. But a lot of ritzy restaurants right on the water had the same feel. Large windows so you could watch the party boats coming, an emphasis on seafaring decor that you really couldn’t get away from. Ocean-blue walls, portraits and ancient photos of whalers, framed centuries-old maps of Long Island, seascape oil paintings. This one had a three-tiered setup with a lot of mirrored and well-lit staircases, like they expected Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to put on a show.

  The host wore a black suit that was only a touch more retro than mine. He asked for the name of my party and I told him.

  We got two steps toward the table when Grey appeared at the foot of the bottom staircase, slick and handsome with all the cool and style in the world, owning everyone and everything around him, including me.

  “There’s the boy,” my uncle said.

  He was sixty-two and looked ten years younger. He wore dashing and debonair the way other men wore desperation. I could smell his moisturizer, exfoliants, veggie conditioners, and skin toners. His eyebrows had been trimmed. He was holding a glass of Glenlivet, his favorite liquor. With his free arm he pulled me into a tight clinch and kissed my forehead.

  “It’s good to see you, Terrier. You know I should break your ass for dodging us the past few days.”

  I hadn’t seen him in five years and couldn’t think of a thing I wanted to say to him. I clenched him back and my head felt emptier than it had been since the ranch. I felt protected and fortified. Hugging him was like hugging my father, who never hugged anyone. Grey clapped me on the back and I did the same to him. He shot me a smile and I returned it.

  “Whatever’s been on your mind, let it go for the night,” he said. “All the same shit will be waiting for you when you come back to it. But for now let’s get soused in style.”

  I stalled and held back a step as he turned for the dazzling staircase. Maybe I did have questions after all. They started buzzing me all at once. I wanted to know what kind of game Grey was running on the pretty newscaster and why he hadn’t kept her out of the family’s hair. I needed some perspective on what my parents had endured. I wanted to ask if he’d been to the doctor like Mal and how far the disease had progressed. He shouldn’t be drinking, that much was obvious. But I knew he wouldn’t stop, it was too much a part of who he was. Grey might not answer. He might freeze me out for ruining his night. But of all the Rands he was the one who’d learned to chatter the best. Usually just to play the ladies, but I thought if anyone might shoot the heavy breeze with me, it was Grey.

  As we walked up the steps he said, “You like older women, right?”

  “What?”

  His chuckle broke deep in his chest. “Sure you do.”

  “Look, I just wanted to—”

  “They’re worldly. They’re self-affirming. They know their own needs, their likes and dislikes, and they aren’t afraid to share them with you. Don’t be put off.”

  “Is this about infiltration?” I asked.

  “If you’re lucky.” He sipped his drink. “The twentysomethings, even the thirtysomethings, are usually still trying to figure themselves out, and they think daytime television and therapy and Redbook quizzes are the way to do it. The forty-year-olds, they’re not called cougars for nothing.”

  “Grey, the hell are you talking about?”

  He looked me up and down. “You chose a nice suit. Wrong tie for it, but you did pretty good.”

  We walked to the top tier and he led me to a table at the far corner. I supposed they were the best seats in the place, looking down on everyone else, with the best view of the sound. You could see clear to Westchester, the lights of the party boats bright and inviting.

  The pretty blond newscaster was sitting there with another woman, those azure eyes full of eager delight. A soft scent of citrus danced along with her, tangling with Grey’s cucumber-and-aloe deep pore cleanser.

  I glanced at Grey but he was giving her the sloe eye. I wondered if she had her tape recorder running in her purse.

  Like I’d done yesterday morning when she and her news crew accosted me, I held my chin up.

  Grey either didn’t notice my discomfort or didn’t care. “Terry, this is Victoria Jensen. Vicky. I believe you’ve already met.”

  She held her hand out and smiled brilliantly at me. “If it’s not the Freddy’s Fix-It guy.”

  I did my best to smile back but I knew I wasn’t making it. She let out a warm laugh that had probably driven a dozen men over the edge. “That’s me.”

  “Terrier, I’m glad we can finally say hello.”

  I took her hand. She was looking right through me. “My brother is scheduled for execution in ten days. Do you still want to know what I think of that? And if I have a message for the families of his victims?”

  “I was doing my job.”

  Grey cleared his throat. “Let’s keep it light for the night, shall we?”

  Maybe it was he who’d been played. I thought perhaps she’d maneuvered him into asking me along tonight, but then I realized—she was looking through me, all right, but it was only because she was eyeing him with that perfectly loving gaze. I decided no, not her, the other one.

  The friend. I gave her my full attention.

  Grey said, “And this lovely lady is Eve Drayton.”

  I nodded. “Another reporter.”

  “We prefer the term journalist,” Eve said.

  She didn’t stand. She offered me her hand and I took it. She was on the north side of forty and still quite captivating. Twenty-five years ago she’d been a beautiful teen but had settled into a well-aged attractiveness. Deeply black hair framed her face, with a few strands of silver here and there. There was a bold assurance and natural radiance in her eyes. She was dressed in a classy black dress that hugged her curves but didn’t stifle.

  She openly studied my face and body. Her lips tilted into the barest self-satisfied grin. I sensed a sharp intellect at work, biding its time, already covering the angles. Despite myself I stood a little straighter.

  “How do you do, Terrier,” she said.

  “Hello, Miss Drayton,” I said.

  “Please, no formalities on such a lovely night. Call me Eve.”

  There was something about her I liked, and that spooked me. Maybe it was the attention. Or just standing here in clothes that weren’t my own. I looked over at my uncle. He was canoodling with Vicky. Perhaps Grey did have real feelings for her. You could never figure out someone like him. He always switched up the game.

  The waiter came around to take our drink orders. He was a small, limber guy with a lot of pep in his stride. I thought he had to be in shape in order to run up and down all those stairs so many times in a night. Grey ordered me a Glenlivet. I hated the taste of it, but for some reason we were clearly try
ing to make an impression. He jumped the gun and ordered fresh lobster all around.

  The waiter asked, “Would you like to come downstairs and choose your own from our tank?”

  Grey said, “Only if you install an elevator.”

  Vicky kept a hand on Grey at all times. He didn’t seem to mind. Before my arrival she’d been in the middle of a story, and now she continued. It was about a celebrity actor she’d interviewed out in the Hamptons only minutes before the guy’s wife backed over the mayor’s dog. It wasn’t much of a story. The mayor had screamed, the dog had been crippled, and the actor and his wife had taken off and caused a six-car pileup in Bridgehampton.

  Grey gave her a loving stare. He gave every woman a loving stare. He packed his gaze with a sweet longing and a casual indulgence. It was natural to him. The world came easily to Grey. He knew how to have fun.

  I wanted to know what information was being passed on in the sugary words he whispered into swooning women’s ears. Was he giving away family secrets? Was he doing it and forgetting that it had been done?

  The drinks arrived. I sipped while Vicky laughed. It was a lush and bratty giggle that made my teeth ache.

  “She left out the most significant part,” Eve said, like a mother trying to correct a child’s mistold joke. “The mayor’s dog, faithful Banjo, wound up being featured in a children’s movie the next summer. Banjo has a little wagon now for his hind legs. The movie grossed three times what the actor’s next film made, and he’s still doing community service for his role in the traffic accident. He puts in ten hours a week at a no-kill shelter.”

  Maybe it was a true story. We all laughed like it was. I hadn’t laughed in a long time and it felt good. Eve smiled pleasantly at me. Vicky and Grey went into a huddle. She pointed across his lap at the water and Grey said, “It’s Westchester, sweetie, not Jersey.”

  They were being capricious, acting giddy, the kind of playfulness that would’ve drawn attention if we hadn’t been at the top of the restaurant. They whispered together.