Sue Grafton: V is for Vengeance

Sophie said, “Your uncle’s been asking for you. Cara’s been in here six times.”

“I’m on my way now. I should be back in half an hour or so. Pop on the premises?”

“He took the limo. Tomasso drove. He said he’d swing by Cappi’s house and take him out to dinner.”

Dante made no comment. What did he care what Pop did with Cappi?

It was still light out, but the day was fading, which made the lights in the guesthouse look cozy. He could smell wood smoke and imagined Cara had laid a fire to warm the old man, who was growing more feeble by the day. When she opened the door for him, she kept her voice low. Over her shoulder, he caught sight of his uncle, whose chair was pulled up as close to the hearth as she could place it.

She was looking at him oddly. “Are you going someplace? Your uncle keeps talking about your leaving. He’s been agitated.”

“No plans at the moment. Lola’s gone. She left for Los Angeles this morning, so he might have caught sight of her going down the drive and thought I was in the car.”

“Well, do what you can to calm him. This is as bad as I’ve seen him.”

Dante crossed to the fireplace, where Cara had set out a chair close enough for easy conversation. Alfredo was swaddled in a comforter, his head sunk on his chest. Only the occasional light snore suggested he was still among the living. Dante hated to wake him, so he sat and sipped his drink. Better to wait in companionable silence than to leave and suffer the silence of the main house. He watched the fire and when he next looked at his uncle, the old man’s eyes were open, fixed on him with an intensity Dante hadn’t seen for many years. Dante said, “How’s it going? You still hangin’ in there?”

“I had a dream about you going on a journey. You kept looking back, motioning like I was supposed to come with you.” He paused to smile. “One of those dreams where I worked hard to catch up, but I couldn’t close the distance. Like walking in deep water up to here.” He laid a trembling hand on his chest.

“I feel like that sometimes when I’m awake,” Dante said. “Meantime, I’m not going anyplace, so you can rest easy on that score.”

“Time’s getting short and there’s something I need to get off my chest.”

“You don’t have to do this now…”

Alfredo shook his head. “Listen to me. This, I know. Shadows are getting longer and I’m cold. My blood pressure’s dropping. Cara won’t talk about it, but I can feel it in my soul. Those hospice people can tell you to the minute, which is why I didn’t want them hovering over me. Cara’s better-looking and she’s got those big tits.”

Dante smiled. “I thought you’d appreciate her attributes.”

“What I’m saying, you don’t want to know or you’d have figured it out years ago. I don’t tell you this to cause you pain, but in order to set you free. You think you’re not going anywhere, but time’s getting short for you the same as it is for me.”

“I’m here now,” Dante said.

“Thing about you is you’ve always broken my heart. You’ve been burdened by more sorrow than any boy deserves except maybe me so let me say this while I can.”

Dante could feel his face grow tense with his effort to hold back tears.

“This is about your mother.”

Dante held up a hand. “Let’s keep this about us, about our relationship. You’re the one I’m going to miss.”

“Not like you missed her. You remember the day your father drained the swimming pool?”

“Spite on his part. Even at twelve, I knew that much…”

“Because her blood was in the water.”

Dante felt his body grow still. The image was as clear in his mind as though he’d been there himself, which he knew he had not. “He killed her?”

“Killing was what he did best. Not like he is now, a wreck of a man. You remember his temper back then. Terrible. Man was a maniac when he was enraged. I don’t even remember now what set him off. Nothing she did. It was all in his head. I was there. I tried to intervene, but he was out of control. You kids were asleep. He made me help him bury her and then he disposed of her clothes and everything else she loved. You were her favorite and that’s why from that time on he beat you bloody every chance he got. He wanted to crush you to get back at her.”

“How’d he do it?”

“He slit her throat.”

“Ah, god.”

“She never would have left you. You should know that about her. How much she loved you kids and how devoted she was. Over the years, I thought you’d ask. I thought you’d realize it was something he did, that it had nothing to do with her. Now I understand with her gone, all you had to hold on to was him. That’s a special hell for a kid. The more you tried to please him, the more you reminded him of what he did.”

Dante felt all the cells in his body rearranging themselves, felt memories shift, felt truth ricochet through his soul. He knew. He did know. What else made sense in his life except his mother… beautiful, young, and faithful to him after all.

Alfredo said, “I wish I could help, but I can’t. I have no counsel. No advice. Take it in and do with it as you will. I couldn’t leave you without letting you know. I should have told you years ago, but I’m a coward. Ashamed of myself, but always proud of you. You’re a good man and I love you more than I can say. If you’d been my son, this would have all turned out differently. You need to leave the country while you can. I’ll be fine. I don’t have long anyway and I don’t want you hanging around on my account. This is our good-bye. You go. I’ll cover your back. I’ll be like the guy left in the fort while all the others escape certain death. I’ll rest easier knowing you’re safe, so you do that for me.”

Dante nodded. He reached out and the two men gripped hands tightly as though they might find a way to give immortality to the bond. Dante felt as fierce and as strong and as clean as he’d ever felt in his life. It was Alfredo’s parting gift.

Late Wednesday afternoon, a uniformed officer finally stopped by my office to pick up copies of the report I’d passed along to Cheney Phillips. In point of fact, what I’d given him was my one and only copy-except for the carbon, which I confess I used to run off additional pages after I talked to him. I knew he’d feel better if he thought he’d corralled all the paperwork in my possession, so I handed the officer two more copies and we were all satisfied. The carbon I returned to its hiding place. As soon as the officer left, I put through a call to Cheney, hoping to fill him in on Len’s attack, the exchange of gunfire between Cappi and Pinky, and my subsequent conversation with Dante. He didn’t pick up the call and I made a note to myself to try again later.

I arrived home from work to find a message from Henry on my answering machine. He’d tried me at the office, but I must have been out the door by then. He said he was on his way to the nursing home to visit Nell. The doctors expected to release her sometime in the coming week. The purpose of his call was to let me know he was flying home the next day. He gave me his flight number and time of arrival-4:05 P.M. He said if I had prior plans and couldn’t get to the airport, he’d take a cab and not to worry. He also said he’d treat me to dinner at Emile’s-at-the-Beach if I was free. This was cheery news. I knew without even looking my calendar was clear, and I was excited by the prospect of having him home. I popped over to his house to make sure his plants were alive and well. It was also time to clean up the mess Pinky’d left in the hall when he dashed off. The tidying up didn’t take long. I dusted, dry-mopped, and vacuumed, and then opened the back door to air out the place.