The Accidental Pallbearer Page 9

  Conte quickly replies, “You could stop by Ricky’s – or you could treat your special angel to some special Blue Velvet.”

  After Synakowski leaves, Conte empties the half-full bottle of wine into the sink. This time with no desire to lean over and inhale.

  An hour later, as he’s about to leave for Our Hearts Are Full, the phone. Synakowski with the names of the three witnesses to the accident – one dead, the second moved away, address unknown, the third, Nelson Thomas, 414 Ontario Street, no phone. “And one other thing, Detective. Several at the cemetery saw the shooter fall twice as he fled on foot. For what it’s worth. They said he seemed clumsy on his feet.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Conte asks the coiffed senior-citizen receptionist at Our Hearts Are Full if Enzo Raspante is available for visitation. She responds, “Shall I assume you’re a friend or relative?”

  “We have a mutual friend at the Observer-Dispatch.”

  “How nice! It’s a darn cold day you-know-where when he gets company. I’ll call … Enzo, dear, you have a visitor … A Mr. Eliot Conte … No, not Connolly … No, not Connery … CON-TEE … C-O-N-T-E … Just a moment, I’ll ask him … He wants to know if you’re Irish … No … he’s not, dear … Enzo … Enzo … I’m Irish and you like me, don’t you? That’s very naughty of you to talk that way, Enzo … You know I won’t … He wants to know if you’re related to Silvio … Yes, he is … He’s on his way, dear.”

  Enzo Raspante’s living room features a treadmill, dumbbells of various weights, photos signed “To Enzo” by Rocky Marciano and Joe DiMaggio, as well as the usual family pictures. In sweat clothes, Raspante: steel-grey crew cut, little hair loss, none of the obvious collapses about the face and neck, a flat stomach. At eighty-three, he looks like an extremely fit sixty-year-old who could pass for mid-fifties.

  He shakes Conte’s hand, “You got me in the middle of my daily workout,” and proceeds to do fifteen rapid push-ups and twenty-five squats. Offers Conte a seat, “So what the heck is a man of my tip-top condition doing in this place? Walkers and wheelchairs galore, they constantly stare into space, odors of an unmistakable, drooling at the dinner table? Not to mention late-afternoon concerts given by off-key twelve-year-olds? My choice was to live alone without family, and friends all dead or with Alzheimer’s, what’s the difference, and who comes over except Rudy Synakowski once in a while, I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Conte. I chose, as you can see, without hesitation, the droolers and the incontinent. I’m a little hard of hearing. I have a car and can come and go as I please, but I rarely go. Shall we go off-campus or is this acceptable?”

  Conte tells him what he does for a living and that he’s come to see him about photos he may have taken on a legendary day, fifteen years ago at Saint Anthony, when Filomena Santacroce’s coffin was carried into the church.

  “Silvio’s son’s a private eye? Why didn’t I know that? I knew and forgot it on the road to dementia? You’re in luck, Eliot. I kept negatives of tens of thousands over a fifty-year period, but when I made the move here, I dumped everything except a box of special things – mostly my kids when they were little, got married, you know … they live now in Miami, Santa Fe, Chicago … Larry, my oldest … Larry. Yes. I see them once a year, if I’m lucky. The grandchildren … yes … tell the truth – am I too garrulous? Excessive garrulity is a sign. There are a few folders relating to very special events of a public nature, like the one you’re interested in. That was a big doozy. Everything nicely labeled.”

  “Enzo, the shot of the mobsters arriving at the church that appeared in the paper and was picked up by the major –”

  “That’s the one he wanted – the boss looked at the others but decided on that one.”

  “You had shots of the pallbearer exchange?”

  “Does the bear do number two in the woods?”

  Raspante excuses himself, goes to the bedroom closet, returns with a folder. “Here we are.” They move to the couch, go through the file, isolate five negatives of interest.

  “Who said no, Enzo, to the pallbearer shots?”

  “Editor-in-chief. Rudy and I at the time discussed this pezzo di merda. We have our theories. Rudy calls them the grassy knoll perspective.”

  “Who was editor-in-chief at the time?”

  “Still is. Sanford T. Whitaker. That high-toned WASP who’s been writing editorials against your father for years. Thinks his shit doesn’t stink. Your father the corrupt political boss, this and that. Tell you what, I’ll get these developed by tomorrow afternoon. Ordinarily, it’d take a week, but Donny at Daniels’ Photography is a friend of mine.”

  “Didn’t you show these photos to the police?”

  “To Chief Criggy himself, who must’ve buried them, because nothing was ever done that I know of.”

  “But you had the freedom to contact other news outlets and sell your photos for a bundle, I’d guess, and that way it would have been nationally publicized in a hurry – the image of the shooter, no? The National Inquirer? The New York Post?”

  “Did I say they were my pictures?”

  “Who else’s would they be?”

  “Up to four days, Detective, before Filomena Santacroce was buried in Calvary Cemetery, everything I shot was technically mine. But I never had a contract. Nobody below Sanford had a contract. We got paid twice a month, that was it. I was no big-deal photographer working for the New York Times on a cushy contract. You follow me? Then four days before she’s buried, Sanford calls me in and offers me a five-year contract with a twenty-percent raise. Because my work is so wonderful, he says, for so many years, and it’s about time the paper showed its gratitude. So I signed right on the spot! What the fuck did I need to read the contract for, which when I read it, one hour after he says the pallbearer shots are not going in, I find out that what I signed says I own nothing. The paper owns my photos from now on, and if I violate the contract I lose my job and get sued on top of it, and where can I at that age get another job in this area that’s equivalent? Now you have them, you’re the right man, and I hope to Christ you’ll raise holy hell.”

  “Would you like to have dinner at my house tomorrow night? I’m a decent cook.”

  “Being of sound mind and wishing to stay of sound body, I don’t allow myself to drive at night.”

  “I’ll pick you up at 5:30. How’s that?”

  “I’ll be good to go, Houston.”

  Conte rises to leave.

  “Enzo, I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Tell me something, Detective, do you sense a comic quality to my personality?”

  “You’re a delight, Enzo.”

  “Tell me something else. Do you think people on the dementia superhighway are as effortlessly humorous as I am?”

  “Never, Enzo.”

  “Would you join me now in a cup of coffee, Detective, so that we might enjoy everyday chatter? The Yankees and so forth? It would please me greatly if you would. Please, linger awhile.”

  “I’ll take mine black with sugar.”

  “Detective Conte, I am not the man I used to be. That’s my truth. What’s yours?”

  “I was never the man I used to be.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Home from Our Hearts Are Full, Conte finds a UPS package at the front door: his new BlackBerry. At his desk: the light flashes on the answering machine. Tom Castellano:

  Eliot, the mystery of Mrs. Kinter and child is solved. I got a FedEx letter this afternoon from Reading, Pennsylvania. Here’s what it says: “I want to thank you so much for being such a nice landlord and I am so sorry for leaving without saying good-bye. I am not coming back ever and please do not disclose my location to my so-called husband under no circumstances please.” Hope that relieves your mind, El. To be honest, I think you have the type mind that can’t be relieved because they haven’t yet invented that type laxative. Come on over and see me sometime, big boy.

  Opens e-mail. One new message: Robinson:

  What’s going on with the thing? W
hy is it so tough to see you since Sunday morning? The thing needs elimination one way or the other. The longer we wait, the worse.

  Conte replies:

  Have devised the strategy. Millicent tells me she and Denise are still very close. Need M to take D out of town for the weekend. Suggest NYC for Broadway shows. Get her out of town Friday thru Sunday and all will be well. Out of touch until the thing is cured. Trust me.

  E-mails Synakowski:

  Rudy, what can you tell me about your colleague Jed Kinter?

  Goes to the bathroom, flosses and brushes teeth. Changes shirt. Returns to his desk. Synakowski has answered:

  Not much. No friends here that I know of. Competent in what he does. Walks by without saying hello or returning a greeting. A stranger to basic civilities. A short man. One thing: it was Whitaker who brought him in fifteen years ago. He visits Sanford’s office once a week and Sanford draws the blinds. Enzo used to say it’s all about fellatio. When I asked Enzo if he thought Kinter was brought in to give Sanford head, Enzo said he was convinced it was the other way around. A leading theory at the paper is that Sanford plays in the closet. Here’s something else that will whet your appetite. Enzo once got into the personnel files, don’t know how, a long time back. We all have them – background experience etc. No file on Kinter. Find the spider at the center.

  Notebook in hand he heads off to dine at The Chesterfield, the most Italian of restaurants in Italian Utica, on Bleecker, a ten-minute walk from home and about 100 yards from Nelson Thomas’ residence, around the corner, at 414 Ontario. Conte dines at The Chesterfield twice a week, where they know and care for him well.

  Two entrances. One to the bar, the other to the dining room – a long rectangular space with a short wall of windows giving onto Bleecker, and at the opposite end, swinging doors to the kitchen. One of the long walls paneled in darkly stained knotty pine, with signed photos of Jerry Vale, Vic Damone, and Perry Como. Opposite this wall of heroes, a wall of artistically ruined brick. Tables covered in red-and-white checkered cloth. Conte sits at the table closest to the kitchen. Two couples at the other end.

  He assumes he’s entered the dining area unseen, but less than a minute after sitting down, Rosie Pontenero, the owner’s wife, appears with a Johnnie Walker on the rocks, saying, “You’re not getting enough sleep. Too much on your mind, El?”

  “What’s on my mind, Rosie, are three hot peppers stuffed with sausage, a bowl of the greens, and a large Coke.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Some extra garlic bread.”

  “That it, sweetheart?”

  “Not hungry tonight, Rosie.”

  As soon as she disappears into the kitchen, Conte takes his drink quickly to the rest room and pours it into the toilet. He’s back at the table just before she returns with the garlic bread and Coke.

  “Another Johnnie, El?”

  “I’m good.”

  “I always thought so,” stroking his shoulder. “We love you here. Keep it in mind, sad eyes.”

  “I love you too, Rosie.”

  “Dom and I are trying to think of a perfect lady for you, on the thought I’m not available. Sit tight, dear, I’ll give you the salad.”

  He has no strategy for “the thing.” Has no idea why he’d committed to resolving “the thing” by the weekend. E-mails Robinson from his BlackBerry and asks if Michael C has a favorite drink that he indulges in after work. Rosie brings the chicory and dandelion greens in olive oil and lemon juice – known at The Chesterfield as Utica Greens. Halfway through the greens, Robinson responds:

  Campari on the rocks, nightly, since I’ve known him. We had dinner at each other’s all the time. Always Campari on the rocks.

  Conte asks if C has a security system. Answer:

  Too fucking cheap.

  Conte:

  Let me know if M has arranged NYC as soon as possible.

  He’s setting a detailed process in place, of specific actions, but to what end? Get in the house. Slip it into the Campari. Come back that night to find Coca in a deep, drug-induced sleep, helpless, unable to lift a finger. On the living room floor, at his mercy. Then what? Strip him naked, tie him up, wrist to ankles. To what end? Then what? Turn out all the lights. Wake him with high-concentrate smelling salts. Disguise himself. Including the voice. Think of a costume. Then what? To what end? Buy two dildos. Then? Turn on the lights. Conte opens his notebook and sketches a spiderweb with the name “Sanford T. Whitaker” at the center. Sketches another web with the name “Eliot Conte” at the center and two moths caught in the web, drained of life, and labeled “Rosalind” and “Emily.”

  “El, dear!” Rosie with the stuffed peppers and a refill of the Coke. He looks up. “Come back from wherever the heck you are and come with me to the kitchen. You need first aid! My God, El! Look at what you’ve done to those cuticles! Let’s not worry about the tablecloth, sweetie. Lord! Look at what you’ve done to yourself!”

  After Rosie takes care of his hands – after he’s eaten everything on his plate and all the garlic bread – after he’s paid the tab – he’s out on the street, the night turned upstate late-October cold, shivering in his sports jacket, turning the corner on Ontario as a man leaves 414 in jogging gear. A stocky African-American, Hut! HutHut! Down Ontario he goes, away from Conte, down Gilbert he goes, gone.

  Collar turned up against the wind and shoulders hunched against the cold, Conte tracks The Runner down Gilbert, where at its foot Conte turns left along Broad. (Should he have turned right? Where is Nelson Thomas?) On this ill-lit east-west thoroughfare he walks brooding through the devastated old industrial district – roughhouse saloons, broken beer bottles, drifting fast-food trash and the occasional condom, sagging with semen, from chain-link fences hung with care. And there they are – the haunted block-long buildings, those hulking brick corpses where once his mother and her friends worked in the textile mills. Reinhabited in the 1960s by General Electric, now long vacated for good. At the corner of Gilbert and Broad, where he began his brooding journey, what he never noticed. In deep weeds, alongside a baby carriage without wheels, an actual corpse.

  CHAPTER 15

  Conte can’t shake the chill, even after turning up the heat and donning his newly (online) acquired Icelandic sweater. At his desk, googles “mickey”: named for an infamous Chicago bartender. Among options: chloral hydrate: red with a slightly bitter taste. Perfect: like Campari. Problem: prescription only. Could ask boyhood-pal-become-pharmacist, but won’t put Vince on the spot. Rintrona wants to help. About to call him when he hears footsteps on the front porch and the door swings open and Antonio Robinson walks in with Eliot’s hard cover copy of Moby-Dick, which he tosses from three feet away, thunderous onto the desk.

  “Couldn’t put the son of a bitch down, El. I’m the ship, man, but I’m not going down. This Pequod,” tapping his chest, “me, I don’t go down.”

  Robinson paces.

  “But that’s not how Melville’s story ends, Robby.”

  “But that’s how our story ends. We survive, we two alone. The motherfuckin’ white whale doesn’t.”

  “Michael C doesn’t survive?”

  “Loosely speaking.”

  “Best book ever written, some say, anywhere, any time.”

  “Oh yeah? That a fact, Professor? I took two lit courses at Syracuse. Lit for Jocks. Know what I say about literature, all due respect, El? Fuck literature, what I say. Because it’s worthless when you really need to get something done.”

  “Somehow I don’t think you’re here to discuss the practical value of Melville’s masterpiece.”

  “I’m here to discuss and assess your practical value. You tell me you have devised a strategy. I like that word. Stra-te-gy. The word of a practical man. Now I need detail.”

  “Don’t trust me, Robby?”

  “I fear you’re impotent to act because you’re distracted with this fuckin’ Kinter. I think you’re not devoting yourself to the real thing. I think you’re grieving for yo
ur kids, no matter what you say.”

  “Don’t tell me what I’m doing with my time.”

  Robinson pulls up a chair. “Let’s have a drink and relax a while, shall we?”

  Conte brings him a Johnnie Walker on the rocks, seltzer for himself. Robinson nods in approval:

  “You’re going ascetic? This is good. Denying yourself? This is very good. You chose the path of the philosophical assassin? In Lit for Jocks, we read a comic book version of Crime and Punishment. You’ll work toward total clarity. You’ll burn off all purposes except one. You’ll be on edge for the thing. You’ll drive the edge right through his fat fuckin’ throat. According to the comic book version. El, I’m impressed with the dedication.” He toasts Conte and says, “You’re on the path to what you’ve needed to do for a very long time.”

  “You want Michael dead, don’t you?”

  “This is how I see it, El. There’s the mild-mannered professor type. Soft-spoken. A harmless bear of a man. My sweet friend for life. An obsessive reader of serious writing, a connoisseur of Italian opera, but Italian opera is the bridge to another man – the man of extremity and crazy ass passions. This other man is the man who made a dangerous UCLA exit. He’s the man of violence on the train. The rage monster within. Dr. Conte and Mr. Eliot.”

  “You want Michael dead, don’t you?”

  “His fate is in your hands. Whatever you do, I know he’ll never again bother –”

  “You?”

  “Women. Me? Yes. Me as Chief of Police with the sacred responsibility to keep Utica safe for the innocent. What are you, all of a sudden? Casting aspersions? My dear wife had a feeling. She had an inkling due to your line of questioning. Millicent believes you’re not to be trusted to do the right thing.”

  “What do you believe, Robby?”

  “I think you’re my only friend. I think in every way we’re brothers. I think we share a father, though you’d never put it that way. He loves us both equally. Yes, he does, El, don’t contradict me. Don’t you dare contradict. I think you want to help me. I know you want to help. I need you, El.”