Stuart Kaminsky - Always Say Goodbye

“I’ll tell him again,” said Ames.

“I’ll call him as soon as I get to Sarasota.”

There should be more to say, to tell, but Lew couldn’t do it. Ames would listen and somewhere inside him he would judge. His code was simple, right out of John Wayne. There was right. There was wrong. You didn’t need a god or a devil to tell you that. Ames would judge in silence and support his friend. The listener who did not judge, Ames knew, was Ann Horowitz.

“Good enough,” said Ames.

They hung up.

By the time Lew parked the car back at Toro’s and walked to Cabrini Street, the dead man in the car across from Angie and Franco’s house had been taken away, and the car towed. The small crowd was gone. Franco and Angie stood in front of their house, coffee mugs in hand.

“Cold?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said. “Think it’s too early to call Terri?”

“Nah. Let’s do it.”

They had just hung up when Lew came through the door.

“Lew,” Angie said. “You look…”

“I need a shower. Franco, are you busy today?”

“I’m as busy as I want to be,” said Franco. “If I wanna hustle, there’s always plenty of work. You need a ride or something?”

“A ride and something,” said Lew, heading for his niece’s room.

Lewis,” Angie said. “A man was killed in a car across the street last night.”

“Looks like the drawing you’ve got of that Posno,” said Franco. “They’ve even got ID.”

“And the police know about those other two,” said Angie. “That they were looking for you before they got killed.”

“Santoro and Aponte-Cruz,” said Franco. “Manny had to tell the detectives.”

“I know,” said Lew. “I think I’ll take a shower now.”

In his office-home in Sarasota, Lew had no bath, no shower, just a sink and a toilet stall that he shared with other tenants in his building and whatever homeless person may have made his or her way there. He did his showering at the YMCA, where he worked out. Teresa’s shower, however, had something his building and the Y didn’t have: privacy.

He shaved, soaped, rubbed and shampooed, hoping to not lose more hair, and rinsed. He dried himself with the towel Angie had laid out for him, then brushed his teeth, and brushed back his hair. Showers had their own sense of humor. When water pelted, the mirror told Lew that his hairline had decided to beat another hasty retreat. The battle line was moving back.

He put on fresh clothes, packed, called the airline to change his ticket, put on his Cubs hat and met Angie and Franco in the dining room. There was half a lemon cake on the table. Angie cut a slice for her brother and put it on a plate.

“I’m going back tomorrow,” Lew said, accepting the fork his sister handed him.

“And the guy who killed Catherine?” she asked. “You don’t have to be here to testify or something?”

“No.”

He dug into the cake. The taste and smell brought memories without images.

“Guy’s got to be punished, Lewie,” said Franco. “Taken down, put away.”

“He’s punishing himself.”

“Something happened here this morning,” Angie said, nodding in the general direction of the street. “Before you got here, remember?”

“ID., photo,” said Franco. “It was Posniti.”

“Posni tki,” Lew corrected.

“Right,” said Franco.

Lew nodded, ate and asked if he could use the phone. Before he could, Angie said, “Someone broke into the locker in Uncle Tonio’s warehouse. He didn’t see who but he almost shot him.”

“Uncle Tonio’s okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“It ends today?” Angie said. “I mean what you came back to do?”

“It ends today.”

“Sure?”

“No.”

Lew picked up the phone, punched in the numbers and waited two rings.

“Hi,” he said. “I found him.”

“Good, and-,” said Milt Holiger.

“That’s all,” said Lew.

“That’s all? Who is it? Did you kill him? Is there…?”

“No more,” said Lew. “If I told you and something happened that led to an investigation-”

“Then all I could say was you told me you found the person who killed her, but you didn’t tell me anything about him.”

“Or her,” Lew added.

“Got it.”

“One more thing,” said Lew. “Andrej Posnitki was found dead in a car parked across the street from my sister and brother-in-law’s house. Can you find out when it happened and what killed him?”

“Not a problem,” said Milt. “I’ll tell whoever’s handling the case that it might be linked to the killings of Santoro and Aponte-Cruz.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll call you when I have something. You’re going back to Florida?”

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

“Cup of coffee and a couple of sinful donuts before you go?” asked Holiger.

“Let’s see how the day goes,” said Lew.

“Call you later.”

Lew said, “Goodbye.”

The man across the desk was James Edward Simms. Lew didn’t have to ask him. The name was embossed on his office door and the brass plate on the desk. Simms, slim and smiling, looked like a white-haired doctor in a magazine ad for overcoming erectile dysfunction. He put the printout sheets in an envelope, and handed the envelope to Lew.

“Thank you,” said Lew.

“Please call me directly if you have any questions or need anything,” said Simms.

It wasn’t the right time or place to ask for a joke. Simms probably had some good ones, ones Ann would appreciate. Simms probably had a safety deposit box filled with jokes. Lew didn’t ask. He stood up and Simms came around the desk, guided him out of the office and escorted Lew to the front door.

“I’m glad you came by, Mr. Fonesca. Have a good trip back to Florida. Goodbye.”

Franco was parked to his left in a bus stop. When Lew got in the truck, Franco handed him the phone.

“Holiger,” he said.

“Lew? I just got off the phone with a guy in the P.D. The body in the car may have had Andrej Posnitki’s wallet in his pocket, but he isn’t Posno. Traced the fingerprints. Dead guy’s name is Terrance Chapel, fifty-five, picked up twice for panhandling using some very aggressive persuasion, two more times for petty theft, meaning grabbing fruit and potato chips from street-vendor carts. No known address. Chapel was homeless. Conclusion: Posno is still out there.”

“Maybe,” said Lew.

“The dead man isn’t Posno, Lew,” said Holiger.

“Three o’clock good for you?” asked Lew.

“Three? Fine. Where?”

“Dunkin’ Donuts on Jackson,” said Lew.

“See you then. Maybe I can come up with something more? Lew?”

“Yes.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Just fine,” Lew lied. “See you at three.”

When he put the phone back on the charger pad, Franco reached past Lew, pushed open the glove compartment and took out two Snickers bars. Lew managed to catch a Milky Way that tried to escape. He put it back in the compartment, and accepted the Snickers bar from Franco.

“Where to now?” asked Franco tearing the wrapper.

“The Dark Tower,” answered Lew.

Franco understood.

“Suits me,” he said, pulling into traffic.

There were no cars on the street in front of the Pappas house. The sun was bright, air cool. Lew remembered reading about the note left by a Mexican poet who jumped off his apartment balcony twenty years earlier: “The sun is bright. The clouds are beautiful. The air is warm and I am in a good mood. It is the perfect time to die.”

The door opened about fifteen seconds after Lew had pushed the button. The smell that met them was a temptation. Bernice Pappas stood in the doorway. She looked at them, wiped her hands on her dress and said, “We’re celebrating. Come in.”