Frank Zafiro: Blood on Blood

“Yes. I need to see a safe deposit box.”

“What number, sir?”

“I don’t know. It’s under the name Gar Sawyer. It’s a password account.”

His brow furrowed. “We don’t have many of those anymore. One moment.” He tapped on the computer briefly. “And you are?”

“His son. He passed away recently.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, sir,” the clerk said in practiced tones. He tapped a few more keys, then gave me a disapproving look. “Sir, I’m afraid this box is already being viewed by Mr. Sawyer’s son.”

“That’s my brother. We’re co-executors and according to the will, we’re both supposed to view it together.” The lie slipped past my lips easily. “Can you take me to him?”

The clerk pursed his lips. “This is highly irregular,” he murmured. Then he sighed. “What is the password, sir?”

“Legacy,” I said without hesitation.

He nodded. “All right. If you’ll follow me.”

I tried to keep up with him, but his officious nature extended to his walking speed, too. I lagged behind as we went down a short hallway into a foyer. He paused, waiting for me, feigning patience. I could see the questions in his eyes, but good banker that he was, he minded his own business.

“Room 12,” he said, pointing at a door across the foyer.

“Thank you,” I said, and started that way. Then I stopped. “Will it be locked?” I asked him.

“The doors lock automatically,” he said, as if explaining colors to a child. “To afford privacy.”

“I’ll need you to open the door for me,” I said.

“I can’t do that.”

“You don’t have a key?”

“Of course I have a key. It’s a matter of-”

“If you have a key, then open the door and let me in to see my father’s safe deposit box,” I said, “in accordance with the will.”

“Sir-”

“Unless you want to be named personally in the lawsuit along with the bank,” I told him, “for a clear violation of inheritance law.”

He paused and I knew right then that he didn’t know shit about how the law worked in this respect. Neither did I, but that didn’t stop me. “Knowing actions on anyone’s part merit double damages,” I added.

He frowned. Then, without a word, he walked toward room twelve. I hurried after him, wishing I had a gun with me. I was stupid not to bring it, but when I first got up, my mind was more on the missing Ania than meeting Jerzy. By the time I thought of it, I was almost to the Picco’s.

Fuck it. I’ll find a way.

The clerk unlocked the door and pulled it open. I brushed him aside and stepped through the doorway, letting the solid metal click into place behind me.

Jerzy sat at a table no bigger than the small one that was in our kitchen as kids. He didn’t look up at me right away. The open safe deposit box sat in front of him.

It was empty.

Jerzy stared down at a single sheet of paper. For maybe the first time ever, he bore a lost expression on his face. Whatever he was looking at had surprised him more than my uppercut in the diner.

I took two steps forward and slid out the chair across from him. Gingerly, I lowered myself into the seat. Then I waited.

There was almost no sound in that tiny room. Just the even, heavy breaths Jerzy took and that pounding in my own head. We sat there for some time, him bewildered, me waiting to find out why.

Finally, he looked up and met my eye. There was little of the rancor from our fight just twenty minutes before left in them. He gave his head a short shake. “That son of a bitch.”

“What is it?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he slid the sheet of paper across to me. In Gar’s spidery script, I read the short note.

Boys,

I don’t know what you’re looking for here, but why don’t you go earn it yourself? That’s my legacy and my gift to you. Make your own goddamn way.

Now go fuck yourself.

Gar

I lowered the note. “And this was it?”

Jerzy nodded.

“How do I know you didn’t pocket the earrings already?” I asked, but I knew he hadn’t. That perplexed look on his face had been too genuine.

Jerzy shrugged. “You wanna fucking frisk me, Hero?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Good. Because that ,” he pointed to the note, “was the only thing in this box.”

“He fucked us.”

“Yep. He fucked us.”

We sat in silence for a while longer. My mind was racing. Why would he go to all this trouble if it weren’t true? And we’d validated pieces of his story with independent sources. Jimmy and Speedo were liars but they weren’t lying at the end. The earrings were still out there. They just weren’t in this safe deposit box.

“It was a giant fuck you from beyond the grave,” Jerzy said. “Like Houdini or some shit. Ghost of Christmas Past maybe.”

“Sick,” I muttered, but I couldn’t let go of the thought of those diamonds. Gar stole them. He hid them.

Where?

“Had us running around like the Hardy Boys and Cain and Abel,” Jerzy said, “depending on the situation. Probably having himself a giant laugh this whole time, watching us spin our wheels.”

“I’m sure,” I said, trying to think. My head throbbed and my ribs ached, but I pushed through the fog. He could have hidden the earrings anywhere. But where? All this time, I’d assumed the earrings were in the safe deposit box, so I never considered the question.

“Looking up at us, drinking at some dive bar down some side street in hell,” Jerzy said. “Fucking Gar.”

It had to be somewhere that he knew wouldn’t change much in a decade or more. Someplace semi-permanent. With all the gentrification going on, lots of places were being completely remodeled or even bulldozed. He had to find a place that would still be there when he got out.

“What’s up with you?” Jerzy asked, suddenly staring at me with a keen gaze.

I shook my head. “Nothing. You knocked me out back there. And then this.” I rattled the paper.

He seemed to accept that. Then he asked, “You figure the whole thing was bullshit? All of it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. And to be honest with you, I don’t give a shit anymore.”

“No?” He cocked his head at me. “Lose your appetite, Hero?”

“Fuck off,” I said wearily. I dropped the note onto the table. “You can have that. You probably need it more than I do, anyway.”

Jerzy chuckled but it was a hollow sound. “Fucking Mick. Always so high and mighty. Always thinking you’re so much better than everyone else. You and your bitch of a mother.”

I tensed when he said that and almost launched toward him. Then reason took over and I brushed it off. “Have a little respect for the departed,” I said to him.

“Don’t tell me who to respect.”

“Then don’t,” I said. “But it’s not my fault he loved her more than your ma.”

“I guess the Virgin Margaret Sawyer was just a better lay, huh?”

I ignored his baiting. Because the fog was completely cleared now and my mind was working again. “Either way,” I said, “best as I figure it, we’re done. And if I never see you again, Jerzy? Won’t break my heart. Not one bit.”

Jerzy watched me. “Let me tell you something, Hero. I see you again, you won’t have to worry about a broken heart. Because I’ll fucking tear it out of your chest and eat it in front of you.”

I stared back at him. There weren’t any words to say. Either we were going to have it out again or we were going to walk away for good.

“Enough of this shit,” Jerzy finally said. “All of this has been a big ass waste of my time. I got better things to do.”

“Then do them.”

“I will.” Jerzy stood, turned his back and strode away without looking back.