The Accidental Pallbearer Page 3

  “Who cares, Robby? Because I love my illusions.”

  In the midst of the meal, enough bacon to induce a massive heart attack, and Eliot on Johnnie Walker number six, when Robinson says, “Consider this.”

  “You’re supposed to say: Listen, Eliot.”

  “Kiss my – the man on the train? Mr. Do-Good? Have you considered that you maybe made it worse for the baby and the wife? Have you thought of that?”

  “Shut up, Robby.”

  Long silence. Conte is wondering how a glorified gofer affords a late-model BMW.

  “Right now what’s going on in the guy’s home? His fuckin’ castle? Have you thought of that? Maybe the humiliation leads to a catastrophic spike in rage. Is the baby still alive? Or alive but now in addition to the welts and the black-and-blue marks, a broken arm and cigarette burns on the as-yet-uneviscerated torso? And the big busted wife, what is he doing with her body? Has it crossed your advanced mind?”

  “Write an opera. You have the talent.”

  “I’ve seen everything, my years on the force.”

  Conte smashes his glass against the tiled floor, then passes out, head on plate in the half-eaten omelette. The phone is ringing. Not the one in the kitchen, but the business phone. Robinson goes into the office, sits at the desk, and listens as the answering machine clicks on:

  Hello, Mr. Conte, my name is Ralph Norwald, don’t erase me, sir, I am not calling on behalf of Bank of America, but on behalf of your … uh … my wife, Nancy Norwald, the former Nancy Conte. I am calling you, Mr. Conte, to dispel any thoughts you may have entertained, though “entertained” is not the proper word in such circumstances, is it? concerning the call you received in the wee hours of the morning Eastern Standard Time. That call was not a cruel hoax. Cruel, yes. Hoax, no. This caller who made this call was making this call from the Laguna Beach police station out here in Laguna Beach, California, where you once resided with our wife. You may well ask yourself, Who made this call? Who was this male caller who made this call? In truth, it was a public defender for Orange County, California, who neglected to identify who he is, who is not an impostor, if you’re entertaining that idea, which if you want to quell further paranoiac ideation all you need do is check the online editions of the Los Angeles Times and the Santa Ana Register to certify that our mutual wife is being held without bail for the murders of the daughters you fathered in your youth and hers, in her. Nancy wants you to know that they are real, these deaths, and that she is innocent as the driven … uh … the driven Santa Ana winds, despite the copious blood and brain matter on her nightgown, in which she greeted the police at our door. In subsequent online editions you will learn that Nancy has stated openly and without fear to the authorities that when she and I retired to bed, she, as is the custom, because it is her job, not mine, it was never mine, to turn on the alarm system, she turned it on, but when we arose the next morning we found it strangely turned off and the front door unlocked. No signs of forced entry into the home or into … uh … and we certainly heard no screams from bludgeonings in the night because we were stoned on certain brownies, a Nancy specialty, which we consumed in foolish portions before retirement to bed, as we openly confessed to the police because what do we have to hide concerning these deaths, Mr. Conte? I am calling to plead with you via Nancy on her behalf because she will eventually via her attorney request a character-witness statement from you in person at the trial. Speaking of her attorney, though we are extremely rich due to my plumbing practice, Nancy insists, though I think her foolish in her bullheadedness, that she be defended by a public defender to show that she has nothing to hide by having a lousy lawyer. She has a point there. Kindly send me an e-mail and we can go from there. Norwald at excite dot com. We are all in mourning, Mr. Conte, together in this. My awkward articulation to you cannot convey our deepest feelings. When do words ever?

  Robinson returns to the kitchen to find Conte still passed out. Shakes him. Nothing. Shakes him harder. He’s awake. Robinson sits him up, picks gently from his hair fragments of omelette, applies a cold washcloth to his face and hair, hauls him to his feet, guides him to the bedroom, and says, “Better pee first, man.”

  “Doan need to.”

  “At fifty-five, we always need to.”

  Robinson guides him to the bathroom. Exits. Conte pulls down his sweatpants and pees half in the bowl, half on himself. Removes his bepissed sweatpants and emerges from the bathroom stumbling to bed, nude from the waist down. Says, “I wan’ my sleeping medisaytion.”

  “No. It’s dangerous on top of all that booze.”

  “Give me you mean.”

  “No.”

  “I wan’ see man in the castle. Talk’em out of it shoot’em.”

  “Goodnight, buddy. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “I wan’ my –” and he’s out.

  Robinson pulls up the covers, tucks him in, turns off the lights, and on the way out picks up the copy of Moby-Dick and locks the door behind him. One of the new Bosnians out walking his pit bull, not recognizing the chief, thinks, Let them stay where they belong. Good to have a bad dog around the black element.

  Robinson is beginning to feel the onset of panic. A plan will have to be discussed to take Michael C out of play. Heavy rain. Weirdly, at this latitude, in late October, a rumble of distant rolling thunder. Tomorrow, Antonio Robinson springs from the weeds.

  CHAPTER 5

  Three hours after his only friend tucks him in, Eliot Conte hurtles from black oblivion to hyper awareness. He switches on the bedside lamp. Sits shivering in the dark on the edge of the bed in a flickering light. 1:30. They always end this way, his ritual Saturday-night binges – with a violent onset of consciousness, booze-dehydrated, in the grip of tyrannous thought. With longing, head in hands, Conte groans as involuntary memory retrieves Catherine Cruz’s towel pressed softly to his face, but its seductive fragrance is lost – he needs it back now – the Cruz bouquet beyond memory’s grasp. They too were lost? Emily and Rosalind? They were dead? He wants to press Catherine Cruz softly to his face.

  Shuffles in slippers and robe to the kitchen where he swallows in one long pull a tall, cold glass of orange juice, eats a handful of potato chips, puts on the coffee, then returns to the refrigerator and stares in, looking for something. Lasagna, three days old. Nausea surges up into his throat. Strides off to the bathroom, removes his robe, quickly tossing it to the floor behind him, and kneels vomiting hard into the toilet – substantial heaves concluding with indescribable shapes bobbing afloat in the darkened water. He gazes in a long while before flushing. Washes face with cold water, brushes teeth twice, shuffles back into the kitchen. Pointless to return to bed because sleep will not catch him until dawn. Remembers and wishes he could honor his paternal immigrant grandfather’s self-lacerating curse: “If only I could vomit the poison of myself! Porca Madonna!”

  At his desk now, sipping a mug of espresso sweetened with two splashes of anisette and fixated in his stupor on the flashing light of his answering machine. Conte is about to play the recorded message when he hears it, a cry – it wasn’t in his mind, it had to come from outside – the high pitched rhythmic chant of a soldier at boot camp in a drilled march. Hut! Hut! HutHut! Hut! HutHut! Goes to the front window to see him approaching the pool of light cast by the street lamp, in a slow jog, in the rain, the man known in Utica as The Runner, who twice daily – at mid-morning and again in mid-afternoon – cruises Utica’s neighborhoods, rich and poor and in between, in jogs estimated to be each an hour long, though no one could say for sure, because who could have cared enough to follow and time him? Seven days a week and yet he’s no rail-like specimen of those who train for marathons. The Runner is stocky, average height, African-American, late forties (a Caucasian’s clueless guess). Speculation had it that he was a psychological casualty from Gulf War I.

  The observant Uticans gossip, Do you know him? No. Do you know his name? No. Do you know anyone who knows him? No. Where does he live? No idea. The Runner
was more gossiped about than Silvio Conte. Hut! Eliot, who was home more often than not during working hours, has never heard or seen him on Mary Street. Why now at this hour? Hut! The Runner has been spotted twelve months a year through withering heat and knifing cold, over snow and ice, but in this monsoon? Hut! Hut! HutHut! as he moves through the pool of light beneath the street lamp opposite Conte’s house and while passing turns to look at the backlit hulk in the window as he, The Runner, raises both arms high in a grand gesture of greeting to the man in the window – “Good mawnin’!” Conte is hailed! He feels an almost irresistible impulse to bolt out there in slippers and robe and join The Runner – chanting with him through Utica’s rain-slick nighttime streets, chanting shoulder to shoulder with a mystery.

  Returns to his desk, sits, then rises immediately, ignoring the flashing light in order to consult each of his city directories and phone books, they go back twenty years, the year of his Utica return. Jed Kinter. Phone number, address. Rents the second floor apartment of the house adjacent to Castellano’s Artistic Flowers with Elizabeth Kinter and their child, Mary Louise. Tom Castellano is proprietor of the shop and also owner of the house where the three Kinters live and where Castellano occupies the first floor. Three different addresses: the current for three years, the earliest fifteen years back. No record of a Jed Kinter in the oldest phone books and directories. Until three years ago, Kinter lived alone.

  Conte dials the number at 2:35 A.M. After several rings, the answering machine picks up. Conte hangs up. Calls again at 2:40, several rings, hangs up. On his third call at 2:45 an angry male answers, cursing, only to hear a familiar, soft voice say: “I know who you are. I know where you live. Keep your son Mary Louise safe and have a nice day.”

  To the kitchen, a second cup of espresso, anisette again, but in a heavier dose, then back to the desk, hits play button and listens, statue-like. Saves the message, opens his laptop and finds the Los Angeles Times, takes notes, then the Santa Ana Register for the ugly version. No hoax. Listens to the message again, takes notes. Walks to the window facing the street, this back-lit hulk now weeping and shuddering for the first time in thirty years – not since he’d wept, also alone, as he drove away from his babies and wife for good.

  Conte believes his ex to be innocent of these crimes. He couldn’t say why. The name Ralph Norwald – out of the past from his UCLA days, he and Nancy newly married, but recalls nothing more than that. This Norwald sounded a bit mental. On the other hand, he thinks, that’s what talking to an answering machine might do to a normal person. Doesn’t really know if they can subpoena him for character testimony. If they can, he’ll fight it.

  Pacing, tries to retrieve the image of Catherine Cruz. Hopeless. He can only weep. Cannot distract himself. 3:50. Will not attend the funeral for Emily and Rosalind. Crawls into bed, not bothering to remove slippers and robe. Broods until 5:35 on himself, the person he least wants to think about, or be with.

  Four hours later, Eliot Conte is pulled up, slowly this time, from peaceful sleep and a pleasant dream of Detective Cruz, by the insistent ringing of his doorbell.

  CHAPTER 6

  Conte opens the door to find Robinson with a bag of groceries and the answer to a question that Conte has not yet asked but is about to ask: “Would I use my key when I knew you’d be drunk asleep with that fuckin’ .357 Magnum in your bedside-table drawer?”

  “Come in, Robby.”

  “Brains blown all over the walls et cetera.”

  “Good morning, Robby.”

  Robinson sets the groceries on the kitchen counter as Conte sits in despair. Robinson says, “You need to eat bland after last night. Very bland. Now get off your ass, sad sack, and put on the coffee while I do the rest, like the mother you’ve been missing ever since you were eight. Cheer up, El, I’m here.”

  “Okay, Robby.”

  “Saw your father as usual for our Sunday brunch at Uncle Henry’s. How a guy looks that good at that age is a fuckin’ mystery. I mean, he’s fuckin’ inhuman. This waitress, early fifties tops, was definitely thinking it over. Actually writes her phone number on the bill. The old guy got a kick out of it. He’s irresistible on several levels, as Utica, not to mention Albany, has known for several decades. Irresistible except to the son.”

  Conte sips coffee, doesn’t respond.

  “Silvio could pass as your slightly older brother.”

  Conte stares into his cup.

  “This morning, the way you look, your younger brother.”

  Conte puts his cup down, says, “Maybe he could try passing as my father. He should give it a shot.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You bite the hand that feeds.”

  “You certainly don’t.”

  “You bet I don’t. Unlike you, I never had a real father – whoever, wherever the hell he is, he couldn’t shine Silvio’s shoes.”

  “Do you shine my father’s shoes, Robby?”

  “I’ll let that one go, because if I don’t …”

  “Or do you shine each other’s shoes?”

  Robinson places before his friend two eggs, sunny side up, cream of wheat and apple sauce. Conte rises, the aromas are too much, rushes to the bathroom and mainly dry heaves. Hears Robinson shout out, “What you get for that smart mouth of yours.” Conte returns, eats the cream of wheat, leaves the rest. Saying what a fuckin’ shame, too bad I already put away a big brunch, Robinson finishes off the eggs and the applesauce, then goes to the cupboard, returns with two slices of bread, salts and peppers the yolk residue, mops it up, all the while never so much as giving a glance at Conte across the table.

  “Shall we change the subject, El?”

  “When have we ever? Silvio Silvio Silvio.”

  “For once join me and your father at the 11:00 High Mass.”

  “No.”

  “For his sake. Make him happy.”

  “No.”

  “Silvio passes the basket during the Offertory. Silvio dispenses communion elbow-to-elbow with Father Gustavo. He’s your father, El. He loves you.”

  “My father who art not yet in Heaven.”

  “Man, you’re a stone killer.”

  “Good politics, Robby. That’s all it is, a religious show.”

  “Your father believes, man.”

  “In himself alone.”

  “You believe, El?”

  “No.”

  “I believe, El.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Shall we change the subject, El?”

  “Silvio Silvio Silvio.”

  “Did you listen to the call from the coast?”

  “Same as you did.”

  “You were awake while I listened?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know I listened?”

  “You said ‘the coast.’ ”

  “Eliot Conte, Private Eye. Yeah.”

  “A five-year-old would’ve picked up the clue.”

  “When are you going out there to spill her blood?”

  “Get real.”

  “No urge to avenge your daughters?”

  “Get real.”

  “You’re letting this cunt get away with it?”

  “She didn’t do it.”

  “You know this?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t know this.”

  Conte says nothing.

  “You’re letting her off, but you’re hot to go after this perfect stranger? This Kinter?”

  “Yes.”

  “What can you do to stop Kinter and ensure the child’s and wife’s safety? Only one thing I can think of.”

  From out of the pouring rain, Hut! HutHut! Conte goes to the window. The Runner stops in front of the house. Black, broad-brimmed, rain-repellent hat. White T-shirt. Red running shorts. White running shoes. He points to Eliot, then to himself. Repeats the gesture. Smiles. Hut! and moves on. HutHut! Conte returns to the kitchen.

  Robinson wants to know, “What’s so fascinating about that fuckin’ whack job?”

&nbs
p; “I think he wants to communicate.”

  “I think you’re still bombed, bro.”

  “I think he wants to communicate with me.”

  Robinson is hyper-alert: “About what? Why would he want to communicate with you? For what reason? Are you trying to tell me something?”

  Conte says he needs to revive himself with a shower and shave and asks Robinson to lock the door when he leaves for Saint Anthony. Robinson replies, “I’ll still be here unless you take more than forty-five minutes to do your fuckin’ ablutions.” (“Ablutions” induces Eliot’s first full grin in weeks.) Robinson goes to the front room, picks up one of the numerous high-end clothing catalogues, sits in the cushy reclining chair slowly thumbing the pages of Bullock & Jones of San Francisco, noting articles he’d seen to advantage on Conte’s generous frame and jealous of his friend’s ability to pay such prices – Robinson’s own elegance of dress an imitation, one-third-price-knock-off of Eliot’s. Fuckin’ Eliot with his mortgage-free house, peanuts real-estate taxes, thanks no doubt to Big Daddy … drives an eight-year-old Toyota Camry, does his own laundry, does well enough in his private-dick practice to support his sartorial excesses and the opera CDs, his only entertainment expense. No girlfriend to blow his money on. Madame Hand and Her Five Fair Daughters. Eliot, you bitch … Who went for the high-tech surveillance devices? Obviously Silvio. And what does Silvio get in return for his investment of fatherly love? Eliot, you fuckin’ ingrate. And me with a spoiled wife and five kids who don’t want to grow up. And this fuckin’ Michael C who will destroy everything I’ve got.

  Conte appears and Robinson says, “I have to leave in five minutes and you have to listen to me. We have a problem with a serial rape crisis in this town and my assistant chief – that’s right, Michael Coca – he’s the one. The women will not bring charges and no one knows exactly how many except Coca. Just one, one brave one confided in my wife, who confided in me, and now I confide in you. The victims are all married to my patrolmen, who don’t know the story, because the wives have been told by Coca that their husbands in this fuckin’ economy will lose their jobs, because Coca sits ex-officio chair of internal affairs and will bring their husbands down regardless they were never out of line. Tells them he wants to dip his wick on a regular basis. Coca will never be brought to normal justice. In other words, El, this is your type criminal specialty. I have no evidence. He uses condoms. No victims who will come forward. My hands are tied. Even Silvio’s hands are tied, God forbid it ever comes to his attention with his fragile heart. On what basis do I say serial? Something the one who confided in my wife said he said during the act. Let’s talk more if you want to, I can’t miss Mass. I have to go now. See you later. You do what you do – I don’t need to know your methods. Only Coca needs to know. Me, I’m not even curious whatsoever. El, I’m realistic. Hear me out. No one here is talking about icing anyone, capeesh? But Coca needs to have the fear of Our fuckin’ Lord rammed hard up his ass. Speaking of which, I don’t want to be late for Mass. This is my sincere hope: Five days from now we listen to Bohème without this misery hanging over our heads. You’re looking a lot better, by the way. Almost handsome.” He winks. “See you later.”