Stuart Kaminsky - Always Say Goodbye

“Santoro,” the beefy cop said, looking up from the open wallet.

Santoro, the passenger, didn’t respond. He kept looking at the door as if he could see Lew in the darkness.

“And Cruz.”

“Aponte-Cruz,” said the man with the tied-back hair.

The beefy cop handed the wallets to his partner who knew what to do, call in their identification. He moved back to the police car.

Franco and Lew left the house, moved to the tow truck and climbed in.

“What are you doing here?” the beefy cop asked Santoro.

“Here?” asked Santoro, watching Lew. “We just parked for a few minutes, talk a little before we get something to eat. Here’s as good as any place.”

“You’re loitering,” said the beefy cop.

Santoro looked down at the hood of the Lexus and shook his head with a smile.

Franco backed the tow truck into the street. Franco and Lew looked down at the men named Santoro and Aponte-Cruz. Santoro met Lew’s eyes and smiled. Lew couldn’t read the smile.

Dinner, rigatoni with shrimp, had reminded him of his grandmother’s cooking, Sundays at her house. She hadn’t learned any of her recipes in Sicily. She had learned them from cookbooks, mostly written by second- or third-generation American recipe gatherers, most of them Jewish. Her food was good. Lew’s mother had not carried on the tradition, but Angela had picked it up like a loose football and run with it. Franco had been a lean Massaccio when they were married.

Franco’s friend Manny Lowen, the beefy cop, still in uniform, had come by. He had a bowl of rigatoni with grated Parmesan and told them that the two men in the Lexus were Claude Santoro and Bernard Aponte-Cruz and that Santoro owned the car.

“Santoro’s a lawyer,” said Manny, working on a coffee and one of the last of the Greek deserts Angie had put out on a plate. “No criminal record. Lots of money. Lots of friends. Office up high on LaSalle Street. You want to find him, he won’t be hard to find. He’s in the phone book. The other guy, Aponte-Cruz, another story. He’s a leg breaker for rent. Did four years downstate for breaking up a restaurant owner on Elston Avenue in front of witnesses. Owner came out on the other side with a limp, a twitch and a tendency to look over his shoulder a lot.”

When Manny had left, Angie said, “You need my car tomorrow?”

“I can drive him,” said Franco, failing to resist the last Greek cookie.

“Lewis?” Angie asked.

Lew didn’t like driving anywhere. He didn’t like driving in Chicago in particular. These weren’t streets. They were bumper-to-bumper miles of memories. He accepted Franco’s offer.

The phone had rung while they were still at the table and Franco had answered.

“Franco… got it… fifteen, twenty minutes tops.”

He hung up, said, “Work,” and kissed Angie on the cheek as she patted his hand. “Lewis, see you in the morning.”

And he was gone.

“Can I ask?” Angie had said, folding her hands on the table when Franco had left.

“Yes.”

“You going to see the rest of the family?”

“Not this time.”

“Uncle Tonio?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

He started to reach for the last baklava on the plate and changed his mind. What he really wanted was a DQ chocolate cherry Blizzard. He knew his comfort food and that was it, something he had not tasted before Catherine was killed.

“You’re thinking about giving up, aren’t you?” Angie said. “Thinking it wasn’t such a great idea, your coming here?”

“Something like that,” Lew said.

“Don’t,” she said.

She got up, came around the table, hugged her brother from behind and kissed the top of his head. There was nothing more to say. Not now. He helped Angie clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Then he went to Teresa’s room where he called Ann Horowitz.

“It’s me,” he told her when she answered the phone.

“We start with a joke,” she said. “You have one?”

“How many advisors to the president does it take to change a lightbulb?”

“I don’t know, Lewis,” said Ann Horowitz. “How many?”

“I don’t know. The president has appointed a committee to investigate and they’ll let us know the answer as soon as possible.”

It was almost ten at night in Chicago, which meant it was almost eleven in Sarasota. Ann and her husband went to bed around midnight and Lew had been told he could call until then. Now he said, “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“You are trying to find out how your wife was killed,” she said, “and who was responsible.”

“You’re eating,” Lew said.

“Frozen Twix and green tea,” she answered.

“How is it?”

“So-so,” she said, “but I like to try new things.”

“I don’t,” Lew said.

“Where did you get the joke? Did you make it up?”

“No,” he said. “A Greek hit man told it to me. His mother baked us Greek pastries.”

“Good?”

“Yes,” he said.

“The trick is not just in the ingredients,” said Ann. “It’s in sharp, even cuts of the phyllo.”

“She killed her husband and his cousin with a very sharp baking knife,” he said.

“Tonight?” she asked calmly.

“No, about six years ago. Tell me again, what am I doing here?”

“I assume you’re not asking a what-is-the-meaning of-life kind of question.”

“No.”

“Good,” she said. “You are there to bring to an end a part of your grief and to come back and tell me whatever it is you have not yet told me.”

“I…”

“Not all of it,” she went on. “I will not deprive you of your grief and depression. Without them you fear you would be looking into dark emptiness, that there would be no more Lewis Fonesca for Lewis Fonesca believes he is defined by his grief and depression. I know, not because of my brilliance as a therapist but because you have told me repeatedly. I don’t need to have you do it again, so I’ve done it for you. You are a tough town, Lewis.”

“I know.”

“It’s not a compliment. Okay,” she said with a sigh, taking a crunchy bite of Twix. “I’ll give you some reasons for finding out what happened to Catherine. You pick one or more or all of them. Ready? No, of course you’re not ready, but you need the halftime pep talk. So, first, you owe it to her. It’s selfish to cling to the darkness and videotapes on your cot, memorizing the lines from Mildred Pierce. Your Catherine deserves to lie in peace with the final line written by you. Call it a loving eulogy. Or try this, someone is responsible for your wife’s death. You don’t want them to forget what they have done. Also, you don’t know what or who you might find. Your sense of the world, your two-room world, may be forever changed by what you find. And that could be good.”

“Or bad.”

“Or bad,” she agreed. “Or something that can’t be defined by good and bad.”

“All right,” he said.

“Good. Remember, no matter what you find, you can always come back here to your misery.”

“That’s comforting,” Lew said.

“And in your case, I know you mean that. Are you going to go to the cemetery?”

“No. There’s nothing there but a stone cross.”

“It’s not what is there, Lewis, but what you bring there with you. The Daily Show is coming on. Good night.”

She hung up. Lew was sitting in the pillowed wicker chair in Teresa’s room, the phone in his lap.

When Ann hung up, he sat there thought about Catherine’s missing file, the one Pappas and Andrej Posnitki and, for all Lew knew, maybe Claude Santoro wanted as well. All of the things in Catherine’s and his apartment had been been boxed, taped and taken to his uncle Tonio’s warehouse on Fullerton by Angie, Franco, Tonio and some of Tonio’s men after Lew had left Chicago. Lew hadn’t wanted to look at any of it then. He didn’t want to now.