Stuart Kaminsky - Always Say Goodbye

At night, the warehouse made the transformation to haunted castle, dark except for small night-lights on some of the buildings, looming, moaning distant sounds from traffic on the expressway and the occasional bark of guard dogs inside some of the surrounding buildings.

Franco parked in front of the loading dock that was also the main entrance. Uncle Tonio’s warehouse looked exactly the way it had more than twenty years ago when Lew had last seen it. It also looked nothing like it had twenty years ago. It was just as massive, but the man saw what the boy had not. The warehouse was sagging, with small, narrow and not clean windows. The concrete block walls were cracked. Lew stood still in front of the loading dock.

“What?” asked Franco.

“The castle’s gone.”

“What?” asked Franco, walking past Lew. “Castles? You worry me, Lewie.”

Lew moved to Franco’s side and they climbed up the steps of the dock. The rusting handrail shook. Franco had called Uncle Tonio who said he would meet them. And he did.

Uncle Tonio was at the open double door in front of them, arms at his side, legs apart. He wore what he always wore, dark slacks, a sweater in the fall and winter, and highly polished shoes, a long-sleeved light blue or white shirt and a colorful tie with matching suspenders. Uncle Tonio’s supply of sweaters, shirts and ties was nearly infinite, probably the tax-free tariff of hundreds of shipments. He never wore the same clothes twice.

Tonio’s hairline was now, as always, receded as far back as Lew’s. Tonio was lean and no more than five foot eight. He was, Lew thought, what Lew would be at seventy-two with some big differences. Tonio’s eyes danced. He bounced on his heels. His natural look was a smile.

“Come here,” he said, stepping in front of Lew, examining his face and giving him a hug.

Tonio smelled, as he always had, of peppermint.

He touched Franco’s arm and said, “Come on.”

They followed him inside. Tonio closed the doors behind them. Light through the few dirty windows and fluorescents tingled ahead of them as they followed the quick-paced Tonio down a wide aisle of wooden pallets on both sides. The pallets were stacked with cardboard and wooden boxes, fifty- and one-hundred-pound thick brown paper bags. The walls of merchandise were three or four times as high as Lew. Lew remembered that there were three more such aisles, each almost as long as a football field.

“Just got in from China,” Tonio said, nodding at a pallet full of brown boxes. “Fifty-thousand pair of women’s underpants, choice of pink, white, black. Would you believe there’s this big town over there where all they do is make women’s underwear?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He disappeared to the left. Lew and Franco followed. In front of them was a light.

“There,” he said. “Herman opened it for you.”

Franco and Lew shook hands with Herman. Herman was lean, black, hair still dark, and had served in Korea with Tonio.

“Good to see you,” Herman said.

Lew nodded.

The irony of Tonio and Herman’s friendship was that Tonio was a dark Sicilian and Herman a light-skinned offspring of the melting pot removed from Africa by six generations. People sometimes mistook them for brothers.

That was fine with Tonio and Herman. Herman had twice saved Tonio’s life. They never spoke about Korea. Not to strangers, friends, family or each other.

In front of them was a steel-mesh-enclosed area with its sliding door open. The lock and key were in Herman’s hand. Ceiling lights in the room were bright. The wall to the left where they entered the enclosure was lined with neatly sealed cartons labeled with black Magic Marker: KITCHEN; BATH; LAUNDRY ROOM; DINING AREA; LIVING ROOM; BEDROOM; OFFICE; LEW’S CLOTHES; CATHERINE’S CLOTHES. On the other two walls were Catherine and Lew’s furniture: bed; sofas; chairs; tables; desks; lamps; file drawers. It could have been a furniture show room.

“Sliders,” said Tonio. “Take a look. When we lock up, we slide ’em closed. Temperature inside is a steady seventy-four degrees. Nobody but family goes in, nobody but Herman.”

“Thank you,” Lew said.

“Hey, I took care,” said Tonio. “Angela supervised the packing and moving.”

They stood looking. Lew recognized everything but it all looked unfamiliar. He had come in search of a piece of the past that might lead to who had killed Catherine. But here was his life with Catherine, a small lovingly kept museum.

“Franco,” Tonio said, touching Franco’s shoulder. “Let’s leave Lewis alone. Lewis, you know how to make your way back to my office from here?”

“Yes,” he said.

“When you’re ready. Want something to drink, eat?”

“No,” Lew said.

“I could use something to eat,” said Franco.

“We got it,” said Tonio.

When the last echo of their footsteps and voices were gone, Lew spent another minute or five looking at chairs, tables, bookcases, cabinets. Then he made himself move to Catherine’s file cabinet and kneeled.

Half an hour, one drawer, and one slightly aching back later, he stood to stretch.

“Find anything?”

Lew didn’t turn. He recognized the voice.

“No.”

“What’s in your hand?”

Lew held up a framed photograph of himself and Catherine at a lodge in Wisconsin. It had been in the front of the drawer, either put there by Catherine or packed there by Angie.

“Wife?” asked Dimitri.

“Yes.”

“Someone killed Posno’s lawyer,” Stavros said.

Lew turned. Stavros’s single unblinking eye was focused between Lew’s eyes. Dimitri, at his side, was still looking at the photograph in Lew’s hand.

“Posno’s lawyer?” Lew said.

“Followed you when you left our house last night,” said Stavros. “Posno’s lawyer and another man.”

“Aponte-Cruz,” said Dimitri.

“Aponte-Cruz,” Stavros repeated. “Now, the lawyer is dead. Our father doesn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Why?” Lew asked.

The brothers glanced at each other.

“Our father likes you,” said Stavros.

Lew shook his head. That wasn’t the answer.

“He wants you to find whatever your wife had on Posno,” said Stavros. “He wants to be sure Posno doesn’t get it before you do.”

“What do you want?” asked Lew.

“Me, personally? I want Posno dead,” said Stavros. “He took my eye. I’d settle for his eye. Is it here, your wife’s files on Posno?”

“So, Posno killed his own lawyer?” Lew answered the question with his own question.

“Maybe,” said Dimitri. “Maybe lots of people didn’t like him. He was a lawyer.”

“You’re here to protect me from Posno,” said Lew.

“Right,” said Stavros.

“But you have guns pointed at me.”

“Things get complicated,” said Stavros nervously.

“I know,” said Lew.

“Keep going through the drawers,” said Stavros. “We’ll watch. You find something, you give it to us and we go away.”

“Just be-” Dimitri began.

He stopped speaking because a thick arm was around his neck. Franco lifted him about a foot off of the ground, took the gun and threw it to Lew and let Dimitri fall on the concrete floor. Stavros, at the same time, was seated on the floor, his head back against the steel meshing. Uncle Tonio had punched him in the kidney, hard. Stavros had gone down groaning.

“Got by us,” said Tonio. “Sorry. Saw their car parked near the dock. Franco recognized it.”

“We were eating Polish sausage sandwiches,” Franco explained, eyes moving between the brothers on the floor. “Saved you one.”

“Thanks,” Lew said.

“These?” asked Tonio, looking at Stavros and Dimitri. “What?”