Stuart Kaminsky - Always Say Goodbye

Yes, they had been partners. Pappas had the connections, could get the clients, but Pappas couldn’t kill. It had been a good partnership.

Pappas came from a large, extended Greek family, a tradition, a culture. Posno had arrived from nowhere, alone, throbbing with anger balanced by poetry.

Pappas had distanced himself, came close to ending his very existence. They both knew that if the Fonesca woman had left her evidence file and it was found, it would be Posno who went down. He would take Pappas with him. He would be better off if there were no Pappas and he knew Pappas would be better off without him. The two men had much that separated them but much more in common than either liked.

Posno turned from the window, reached into his pocket, took out his mini tape recorder, pressed a button and slowly spoke, not knowing whether the words were his own or something that had fixed to his memory, something waiting for this moment.

Speak not of tomorrow or how long a man may be happy.

Change, like the shifting flight of the hummingbird or the dragonfly, is swift and sudden.

He hit the pause button and, still watching the sailboat heading toward the horizon, pushed it again and said, “Catherine Fonesca.”

Franco got off the Dan Ryan at Jackson Boulevard, went east to Racine and then south on Racine to Cabrini Street in the heart of Little Italy. A block away was Taylor Street, both sides of which were crowded with Italian restaurants brought back to life when Lew was a kid by the University of Illinois Chicago campus. The university had embraced the neighborhood, threatened to engulf it, and eventually came to a mutually advantageous understanding.

Lew had grown up in this neighborhood of stubborn, proud, often brilliant and sometimes crazy, first, second and a third generation of primarily Sicilian immigrants. He knew the streets, the parks and many of the families that had not been pressured out from the west by the constant expansion of the University of Illinois Medical Center, and from the east by the university’s ever-growing Chicago campus.

Some thought the university had saved the neighborhood with dollars. Some thought the university had ended the neighborhood. Some lost their homes and had to move out, mostly to Bridgeport near the White Sox’s Cellular Field and an enclave of Italian-speaking residents within the mayor’s Irish home turf.

Franco and Angela had stayed in Little Italy in a three-bedroom, eighty-year-old frame house on Cabrini Street across from Arrigo Park. There was a newer model Ford Pinto in the driveway, but not enough room for the tow truck.

“So, remember Toro’s Garage?” Franco asked, pulling into a parking space on the street. “Still there. I throw business his way. He lets me park my cars. Got five now. Toro, he fixes ’em up, sells ’em. We split the profits. You need a car, you got your pick. I usually park at Toro’s and walk home, but today…”

He parked between a Lexus and a dingy gray Saturn.

They got out. Lew’s sister was in the doorway, hands at her sides, examining her brother as he crossed the street. Angela and Lew were born a year apart. He was the older. The family resemblance was clear, but there was something strong, almost pretty about her. She was wearing jeans and an orange long-sleeved pullover. Her dark hair was pulled back and tied with an old-fashioned orange ribbon Lew had given her for her twelfth birthday.

She came forward to meet them.

“Lewis,” she said. “All right if I-”

“Yes,” he said, putting down his bag.

She took five quick steps and hugged him. He felt her breasts, large like his mother’s, press warmly against him. He tried to hug her back, wanted to hug her, couldn’t. He didn’t want too many doors open, not now, not yet.

Franco stood quietly a dozen feet away.

“Welcome home,” she said, finally stepping back. “Hey, I’m crying. I was always the crier, right? Me and Pop. Let’s eat.”

“Wait,” said Franco. “I picked up fifty bucks on the way home from a guy who was having car trouble. Let’s celebrate. Il Vicinato. Pollo Vesuvio. ”

Angela looked at Lew and knew what to do.

“Tomorrow, maybe,” she said.

As they moved into the house, Angela said, “I’ve got that envelope. Thick. Guy brought it here a few days ago. Well-dressed, little pudgy, you know?”

Lew knew who he was.

“It’s on your bed, Teresa’s bed,” she said, taking his duffel and handing it to Franco who walked off with it.

Nothing had changed except for the large screen television in the living room. Sicilian memories pre-1950s. Nothing modern. Everything comfortable, musky dark woods. Chairs and a sofa with muted dark-colored pillows that showed the indentation of three generations of Fonescas who had lived here.

“Drink?” she asked, touching his shoulder as Lew sat in the chair Catherine always sat in when they came here. “Sangria? Just made a batch from Uncle Tonio’s wine.”

“Sure,” Lew said.

“Coming up,” she said with a smile.

When she left, Franco came back in the room and moved to the window.

“I figure they know how to find us,” he said. “They got my license plate number. They’re doing the same thing to us we’re doing to them.”

“I know.”

“What do we do now?” Franco asked, moving from the window with a smile and a clap of thick hands.

“Drink sangria, close our eyes, hope the wheels slow down, have something to eat,” Lew said as his sister came back with a tall green and blue ceramic pitcher on a tray surrounded by three tumblers. The pitcher, which Lew had forgotten, had been made by his great-grandfather when he was a boy in Palermo. Seeing it, Lew remembered.

He wanted to go back to Sarasota. Now.

“So, after dinner?” Franco asked, holding his beaded glass of sangria.

“I’ve got some reading to do. And then I need a nap.”

“Okay,” Franco said.

“A toast,” Angie said.

The glass felt moist and cold in Lew’s hand and the almost transparent slice of lemon floating on the wine looked like the reflection of the moon.

“Great to have you back, Lew,” said Franco, holding up his glass.

“Find peace,” said Angie.

They waited for Lew.

“ Cu a fissa sta a so casa, ” he said.

It was one of no more than a dozen things Lew could say in Italian. They drank.

Franco looked puzzled.

“‘The fool should just stay home,’” Angie translated. “When do you want to eat?”

“If I sleep more than three hours, wake me up,” Lew said, putting his empty glass on the tray, picking up and chewing on the lemon moon.

They nodded and Lew went to Teresa’s room, closing the door behind him. He hadn’t remembered his niece’s room, hadn’t remembered how small and neat it was, bed against the wall now covered by a sky-blue blanket covered with soap-bubble circles, her grandmother’s rocking chair in the corner near the only window, an old walnut teacher’s desk complete with inkwell. A computer keyboard and mouse sat in front of a darkened monitor. Next to the desk stood a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, its shelves shared by books, CDs, DVDs and colorful three-ring notebooks.

If it weren’t for his search for Catherine’s killer, he would have darkened the room, taken off his shoes, gotten into bed, curled into a ball and slept for a day, a week, forever.

On the bed was the thick envelope. He was reaching for it when there was a knock at the door.

“You sleepin’?” asked Franco.

“Not yet.”

Franco opened the door. In his left hand was a bag of potato chips. He popped a handful into his mouth. A single orange-red crumb floated to the floor.

“Lewie, we’re worried about you. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it. You missing it, Lewie?”