Lisa Scottoline: Mistaken Identity

Her mother blinked so deliberately it was almost slow motion.

“I know it’s strange. Shocking, kind of.” Bennie smiled, because her mother didn’t look shocked. Her mother had no expression whatsoever. “Don’t look so surprised,” she said, with a laugh that faded fast. “Ma. Did you hear me? I know you heard me. Will you answer me?”

But she didn’t.

“If you don’t answer, I’m hauling out the heavy artillery. Don’t make me go there. I got pictures. Of my father, she says. You want to see?”

No reaction.

“You want not to see?”

Still no reaction.

“Okay, since you asked.” Bennie slid the group picture from the folder, the one with the airmen and the airplane. “Take a look at this.” Bennie held it up in front of her mother’s face and noticed fibers of black construction stuck to the four corners of the photo’s back, as if from a photo album. Then she peeked over the photo and scrutinized her mother. The old woman’s eyes didn’t move toward the picture or even appear to see the pilot, so Bennie moved the picture into what she figured was her mother’s line of vision. Still her mother’s eyes didn’t focus on the photo at all.

“Ma, they’re tellin’ me this is Exhibit A. Is this my old man?” Bennie hooked a finger around the side of the photo. “This one, with the eyes that look like someone you know?” Her mother’s eyelids were sinking again, and Bennie’s hopes with them. “Ma? Are you signaling or sleeping?”

Her mother’s head dropped onto her chest and she slid under the blue blanket, which engulfed her like a riptide. Bennie’s breath lodged in her throat, then she let her hand and the photo fall to her lap. Why wake her mother up or show her the other photos? There was no point.

Bennie returned the photo to the envelope and slipped it back into her briefcase, but didn’t move to go. She stayed still, keeping her mother company, watching her slack chest moving up and down, her breathing too shallow to lend any reassurance. Bennie had no answers and she barely had her mother, but she remained. It felt good just to be around her, in her flesh-and-blood presence. Bennie didn’t dwell on how many such times they would have left. In that moment it was the same as it had always been: Bennie and her mother, the two of them, still breathing against all odds.

And now was there another? A third? Bennie couldn’t imagine it. The Rosatos weren’t the ideal nuclear family, but it was her family and she took its structure for granted, like stars fixed in the firmament. A constellation couldn’t be changed; there was a Big Dipper and a Little Dipper, and that was it. There couldn’t be another Little Dipper, could there?

Bennie’s gaze strayed through the arched windows to the sky, where the earliest stars were peeking through a transparent canopy of dusk. She remembered that stars weren’t forever, but died from instability within, spewing glowing heat, light, and color into deep space. She’d seen the photos in the newspaper: stellar deaths like pinwheels, cat’s eyes, and whorls of light. From their showy deaths came life and new stars were formed, yet to be discovered, named, and recorded. To be sure, they existed before Bennie knew of their existence. Maybe Connolly was like that, an unnamed star.

Bennie reflected on it, her eyes bright. She had to concede it was at least theoretically possible. Her mother, dozing in her wheelchair so soundly, could have borne twins. She was tough as a young woman, defiant of convention, and tight-lipped enough to keep a secret of that magnitude. Maybe the secret had contributed to her illness. Maybe it had even caused it. If new stars could be formed and old ones die, didn’t it follow that constellations could be reconfigured? A Big Dipper and two Little Dippers? The thought made Bennie shiver with an admixture of doubt and wonderment, and she sat by the window until night shone with an almost unbearable brilliance.

On the other side of town, a white police cruiser idled at a gum-spattered curb. Its headlights were on but its radio crackled to an empty car. Joe Citrone was on the pay phone at the intersection. It was dark and this was a rugged section of the city, but he had nothing to fear here. He had grown up only a block over, in the house near the corner. There used to be a luncheonette on the corner, Ray’s and Johnny’s, and Angelo’s Market, the grocery store right across the street. Joe used to like Ray’s, it made the whole corner smell like the steak sandwiches that sizzled on the flat grill. Now the corner stank like shit.

“He in?” Joe said into the phone. The receiver was all black and greasy. He hated that. Everything dirty, from the crackheads. He couldn’t use his home phone. He didn’t want it in his phone records, in case some mamaluke got ahold of it.

Joe never took chances. It wasn’t his way. He didn’t have to do anything extreme, just prevent Rosato from taking Connolly’s case. He knew people who could make that happen. “You there?” he said into the receiver. “Now listen up.”

Starling “Star” Harald yanked open his locker to get a towel for his shower. He felt so goddamn low. His sparring match had gone bad two days in row. Fuck. Inside the locker door was a yellowed picture from the newspaper. Star at fifteen years old, with his arm looped around Anthony. The future heavyweight and his manager, Officer Anthony Della Porta of the Philadelphia police, read the caption. It was only four years ago, but seemed like ages.

Star had felt heavy during the sparring match. His arms went sore early and stayed that way. He couldn’t land his right cross. It was pitiful. Star caught sight of himself in the mirror stuck on the locker door. His hair was a soaked, shaved fade, and his eyes, bloodshot slits of brown. His nose was wide, still not broken, and a trace of mustache covered his upper lip. He was too fat; he was about two-fifteen and he liked to be around two hundred. Damn. He used to be so pretty, like Ali. He didn’t look so pretty now. Harris fight was comin’ up, but the way he was boxing, Star would get killed. Was he ready for the top of the card, a twelve-rounder? His first professional fight?

Star grabbed the washcloth that Anthony used to replace every day with a clean one. He felt empty inside. It was a year since Anthony got killed, and every time Star opened his goddamn locker he felt like shit. Anthony was dead and Star had nothing left. No manager, no sparring partner, no friend. He’d been managing himself all this time. Couldn’t bring himself to pick a new manager. Kept the same trainers and worked hard, taking the crappy fights promoters threw you when they wanted you to hire a manager they could play ball with. Star had beaten them all; his record was thirty-two wins, thirty by knockout, and only two losses.

Shit. Star wiped his forehead with his hand, his hand-wraps flapping. He couldn’t keep on the way he was. So much business he had to take care of, it was takin’ him away from his training. Star didn’t know what to do. Anthony would know, he was like a father to him. Didn’t matter Star was black and Anthony was Italian. Anthony discovered him in a PAL program, taught him to box, got him all the way through Golden Gloves. Took him to amateur fights in Philly, Jersey, and New York. Even Tennessee and Kentucky. Put him up against class boxers and punchers, plus down-and-dirty brawlers who stuck shit in their gloves, so Star would know how to fight all kinds when he turned pro. Star fought his way through all of ’em, knocked out Irish and Dominicans and even a black guy with a British accent.

Anthony found the backers, white stiffs in suits, and picked a name for the syndicate, Starshine Enterprises. It would pay Star a decent salary for a change, plus fifty percent of his purses. Anthony only wanted ten percent to manage Star. He didn’t care about the money, he cared about Star. Anthony was the first man to make Star feel like he was worth anything, like his name wasn’t a joke. Then Anthony got killed, shot dead. Star had known that Connolly bitch was trouble from the jump. He just didn’t know how much.