Wendy Hornsby - The Color of Light

“Sounds more like puttanesca than baked ziti,” Mr. Bartolini said, winking at me. “But you’re the boss, son. You’re the boss.”

“Maggie, I think your number is up,” Beto said, pointing his chin toward the service area; my number was fifty-eight, the number on the call board was fifty-four. “Papa, stay put. Can I get you a coffee?”

Mr. Bartolini, who seemed fatigued, started to nod, but stopped himself. He turned and looked up at Beto, and as if scolding, he said, “I run this place for forty years. You think I don’t know where to find the coffeepot?”

“Suit yourself.”

As I rose to follow Beto, I patted Mr. Bartolini on the shoulder. “Take care.”

“Try the pastrami,” he said. “Today it’s extra special.”

Beto leaned his head close to mine as we walked toward the deli cases. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re right, Beto,” I said. “He’s getting a little fuzzy around the sides. But he seems to be okay.”

He nodded. “Some days are better than others, and today’s not so good. If you asked him what happened this morning, he couldn’t tell you. But ask about something ten, twenty, thirty years ago and he’ll tell you every detail as if it happened yesterday.”

“How old is he?”

“He’ll be eighty-four in August.” He glanced around, checked on his father, who hadn’t moved from his seat. “For his age, he’s doing all right. You know, I’d understand it if he wanted to go live in a happier time. But he seems to be stuck in a bad place. A very bad place.”

“He misses your mom.”

Beto gave my arm a squeeze, seemed to shrug off his mood as he went behind the counter where he had spent so much of his life, selling good food to hungry people. In one continuous flow, he grabbed a take-out container, asked one of his staff to serve his dad some coffee, and unpinned a card from the bulletin board next to a wall phone. He reached over the high counter and handed me the card.

“This is the number for the gal my wife told you about,” he said. “She did a real good job on the estate sale for her cousin.”

“Thank Zaida for me,” I said, slipping the card into my pocket.

“How’s it going over there?” he asked, referring to Mom’s house.

“Making some progress,” I said. “After my cousin and University Housing take a look around and tell me what they do or don’t want, I’ll be ready to call in someone to cart the rest off.”

“It’s a big job. Let me know if I can help.” He had already piled enough ziti into the container for several meals before he added a last scoop and snapped on a lid. “But don’t be in too big a hurry to finish over there; I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll be around,” I said.

“Hey, I heard Kevin knocked on your door.” He looked up, gave me his version of a leer. “Thinking of rekindling the old flame?”

“Beto!” I feigned shock. “He’s a married man.”

“Tell him that.” A sardonic laugh. As he filled a second container, unbidden, with grilled peppers and sausage, he said, “So, are you bringing your new guy to the party Saturday?”

“I should know better, but I’ll ask him. What else can I bring?”

“Bring? To my house?” He pointed a big spoon toward his chest. “You gotta be kidding. Between my dad, my mother-in-law, Auntie Quynh and me we’re having an Italian-Mexican-Vietnamese feast.”

“Tums, then?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Bring some of those.”

There was a local branch of the bank I use down the street from the deli. After I said good-bye to Beto and Bart, I shouldered my shopping bag, its contents much heavier and more expensive than I had anticipated when I dropped in to say hello, and walked over to use the ATM to get cash for the weekend. The bank had stationed a uniformed guard out front, probably to shoo away the street people who sometimes aggressively panhandled bank customers coming out with their pockets full of fresh money.

When I got closer, I recognized the guard, Chuck Riley, a retired Berkeley detective who lived down on the corner of my parents’ street, across from the Bartolinis’. I knew him to be a blowhard, with a quiet, put-upon wife and two notoriously wild daughters, one of whom, Lacy, was married to my friend, Detective Kevin Halloran. Dad always said that Chuck must have been a pretty good money manager to afford a house in that neighborhood on a cop’s salary, unless he or his wife, Marva, had inherited a fair amount, though that didn’t seem likely. Marva canvassed the neighborhood regularly, selling everything from Amway to Tupperware; Mom avoided her. The Rileys still lived in the same house; maybe Chuck needed this post-retirement job to maintain it.

Like many old acquaintances I had run into that week, I noticed how much he had aged since I last saw him; they all probably said the same about me. Probably in his late sixties or early seventies, he was still thin enough to be described as lanky, but now a bit stooped. Age aside, he looked sufficiently intimidating in his crisply pressed uniform with a gun holstered on his Sam Browne belt to do his job. He gave me a fish-eyed going-over as I used my card to gain access to the ATM lobby.

“Hello, Mr. Riley,” I said.

“It’s been a while,” he said, smiling when he recognized me. He touched the shiny bill of his cap in a sort of military salute. When the lobby door lock clicked, he pulled it open and held it for me.

While I waited for a man who had finished his business inside to fumble his cash into his wallet before leaving, I asked, “How are you?”

“Good enough,” Chuck said, still holding the door. “How’s your mother?”

“Mom’s doing well. You know she moved?”

“George Loper mentioned that. You’re in town closing up the house, I understand.”

“I am.” I shifted my shopping bag higher on my shoulder. “How’s your family?”

“Hanging in.” His smile became closer to a sneer when he said, “But I suppose Kevin already filled you in on the details, eh?”

There were ugly undertones in that question. What sort of nasty spin was Karen Loper putting on Kevin’s visit to my house that morning as she made her rounds?

The answer to Chuck’s question was, no. Kevin had said nothing about his wife’s family at all, and never mentioned his wife, Lacy, by name.

Wallet satisfactorily stowed away, the man inside the ATM lobby finally came out. Without addressing Chuck’s last remark, I said, “Nice to see you, Mr. Riley,” and stepped past him. When I came back out a few minutes later, he had his back toward me, giving directions to a tourist holding a map.

I hiked the bag up on my shoulder again as I turned and walked away.

An afternoon breeze blew in off San Francisco Bay, full of salt and fish and a hint of petroleum fumes wafting up from the freeway. It was early for rush hour but traffic streaming out of the City was already so heavy that the line of cars seeping over the Bay Bridge and up the freeway looked like one continuous snake undulating along the shore as far as I could see in any direction. Grim going for those trapped in it.

Instead of cutting across the campus, as I normally would, I detoured for a look at my elementary school. On the way, I passed the pharmacy where Dad had spotted Isabelle watching for me. Bay Laundry and Dry Cleaners was two doors down. It would be pointless, I knew, to go in and ask whoever was there who might have been driving their delivery truck on a particular Monday morning over thirty years ago. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, I thought, and not for the first time. Even though the chance of solving a thirty-year-old murder was remote, especially when there was scant surviving evidence, maybe the right question to the right person might dislodge an essential bit of information out of hibernation. Who knew?