Death Never Sleeps (9 page)

Michael had to think. In truth, he’d never really synthesized his thoughts about his brother. They were all just a collection of fragments of feelings. But now, Michael knew, it was time to more neatly categorize them, for Samantha—and for himself.

“As a kid, say through my teens, I certainly looked up to him. He was like a sports idol too. He was such a great athlete; you could tell that he had kind of an aura around him that other people and kids saw. Other kids, older than Alex, were also afraid of him. He was a tough guy, and so quick.”

Michael paused, his spirits sagging. “But then, I guess sometime after he was injured and returned from college, it was like his mission in life was over. He wasn’t going to be a professional ballplayer. The aura around him was gone. People can smell it when your run is over.”

Samantha looked into Michael’s eyes. “So things changed?” she said.

“Not to me, but I think to himself. He had to earn a living. Yet, I don’t think traditional success, the way society sees it, meant anything to him. My parents were great about supporting either of us, but you know, eventually you’ve got to find your way. For Alex, that was rough. Baseball had been his life, and there was no reason to think he wouldn’t be playing in the majors. He had been so much better than other kids his age, at any stage of his life, at least until it all fell apart.”

“So what happened then?”

“My father called some of his friends, executives that he knew, and arranged interviews for Alex. But he really wanted Alex to go back to school to get a degree. He figured he’d show Alex what life without one would be like, so the first job he helped him get was with one of the big airlines. My father had a friend there. Alex probably thought he was going to have a cushy desk job, but when he showed up for work, they had him cleaning the toilets in the aircraft lavatories. I think he lasted a day.”

“Did he go back to school?”

“No, you know that Alex hated school. Don’t forget, he’d been thrown out of two high schools until he finally graduated from Rhodes Prep in Manhattan.”

“Yes, the school for misbehaving rich kids.”

“Anyway, we had good family friends who owned a major insurance brokerage firm in Queens, and they took Alex on. He was pretty good at it, eventually earned his own brokerage license and set up his own small business in Whitestone. It gave him some decent income—and eventually served as the cover he needed to be able to pursue his real business. It also allowed him to show enough legitimate income so he could buy a house and spend some of the money he earned in his illegal business without attracting the attention of the IRS.”

Michael looked at Samantha. She was listening intently. “But he changed. He started running around with these shady types, and his girlfriends were no longer nice, smart college girls but hard-edged bimbos.”

“Michael, are you sure he changed, or did the people around him just reflect who he was? Wasn’t he always just a hard-nosed tough guy with no patience for any crap, including the niceties and hypocrisy that most of us just tolerate?”

“You may be right. Listen, for many years I never thought that much about Alex. I mean, I was pursuing my own career. I couldn’t afford to be seen with a lot of his friends, and I certainly couldn’t get too close to his business. I’m actually not sure I remember all my feelings at that point. I just had to stay clear. I didn’t tell any of my business associates what he did. Some only vaguely knew that I had a brother. Don’t forget, he was busted a few times. What company was going to hire or promote a senior executive whose brother was what they considered to be a mobster?”

These were arguments Michael knew Samantha had heard in bits and pieces over the years. “I guess I knew all this, although it’s funny how seldom we’ve discussed it.”

Michael continued, “Maybe the problem too was that I started seeing Alex through the lens, so to speak, of his wives, each of whom I detested. Maybe I had no right to judge. Alex was always the first to say he was a terrible husband. But in any case, I always thought his wives made him worse, either encouraging or enabling his unhealthy behaviors while enjoying the fruits of it—the money.”

“Your brother always had a big circle of friends that he seemed to enjoy,” Samantha said.

“More than that. Although he was antisocial in some ways, it didn’t apply to his friends. He’d do anything for them, and they’d do anything for him. Alex was the most loyal guy I ever met. Remember when he was having some heart problems, and we brought him to see Dr. Roney?”

“Yes. Hadn’t his own cardiologist—I forgot his name—some doctor on Long Island, actually been arrested for hiding a video camera in the ladies’ room of his office?”

“Yes, and despite that and seriously misdiagnosing him, Alex still wanted to go back to him. He said he felt sorry for the guy. I miss him, Samantha. He’s the last link I had to my childhood, and all that history went with him when he died.”

“I know, dear. I know how you feel.” Samantha made an understanding nod.

“But there’s something else I want to tell you. When we were speaking about Alex and his wives, I thought about us, you and me. I wanted to say something.”

Michael’s voice broke, ever so slightly, and he knew Samantha had caught it, just as he knew that she could sense the churning of his emotions. He could feel the hint of moisture in his eyes, something that would usually cause him to veer away from whatever discussion had caused it. But tonight was different.

“What is it, darling?” Samantha said.

“I was thinking as we were talking before about how Alex’s wives brought out the worst in him.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, you brought out the best in me. You found the best things in me, and you wouldn’t quit until you brought them out, no matter how much I protested. You’ve made me happy—in a way no one else ever could. You’ve been an unbelievable mother to Sofia. What we have is priceless. I don’t say it to you often enough.”

“I know you don’t, Michael. But I cherish our relationship, beyond words. Sometimes, though, no matter how content I feel with you, I do miss having Sofia at home.”

“I do too, but right now, I’m happy she’s away at Notre Dame. At least she’s missed all the craziness at home, and I feel like she’s safe, away at school.”

“Michael, I really love you. You know that,” Samantha said, although as Michael watched her, it was clear there was more. He waited as she finally formulated her thoughts. “But sometimes I wonder if this is really enough for you.”

Samantha’s question took him by surprise. “Sometimes you come out with the oddest—but most accurate—observations. I’ve got to think about that, but I’ve had enough emotion for one night. I’d like to enjoy my duck.” He felt a sense of relief as he looked at the beautiful arrangement of dark pink, thinly sliced duck breast.

But as Michael sliced through the tender meat, he couldn’t help but think about Samantha’s question. He knew she was right. His life as it was today was not enough. But the source of his restlessness had nothing to do with Samantha—she and Sofia truly were the joys of his life. No, there was something else happening.
It is ironic,
he thought,
after so many years of keeping my distance from Alex, now that he’s gone, I can’t get him out of my mind.

Chapter 16

Saint Michael’s Cemetery, Astoria, New York

November 16, 2009

“I
hate hospitals and cemeteries. You get into one when you’re sick and the other when you’re dead. I guess I don’t like the admissions requirements,” Michael said as he and Skinny Lester approached Alex’s grave.

Michael often wondered whether the living went to cemeteries to visit the dead or to ruminate about their own lives and mortality. He suspected that as people aged, they were more naturally drawn to where they were ultimately headed.

Since Alex’s murder, Skinny Lester looked to Michael as if he was worn down and rapidly aging each day. Although only in his midfifties, his health was fragile. Two heart attacks had left him weaker than his tall and lean body appeared to those around him, most of whom seemed to be more horizontally built. Although it was clear to even the most casual observer that his cousin, Fat Lester, was neither in good shape nor good health, Skinny Lester was falling apart, despite looking good and fit.

Lester took Michael by surprise this morning when he asked if he wanted to visit Alex’s grave.

Except for an actual funeral, Michael did not go to cemeteries. He remembered taking his father to Saint Michael’s Cemetery several times over the years to visit his own parents’ graves. He would watch as his father would plant flowers near their headstones. As he stood a few feet behind him, he tried to imagine what his father’s emotions were at that moment. He remembered wondering whether he himself would do the same when his father passed away. He didn’t. Most who knew Michael assumed that he simply wasn’t thoughtful enough. Michael allowed and even encouraged that assumption. In reality, however, he knew it would be just too painful to stand over a slab of granite and contemplate the loving parents who had raised him.

As Michael looked out over the cemetery’s hills, he was filled with angst. He stared at the endless landscape of neatly placed grave markers in a perfect geometrical pattern. If life was chaotic, noisy, and random, certainly death appeared to bring perfect symmetry, order, and silence.

But for Michael, the noise was deafening. Just being in Astoria always brought him an uneasy sense of nostalgia. Although he had never lived there, it was filled with the memories of all the long-departed Greek relatives he would visit as a child.

He stood side by side with Lester, gazing at Alex’s grave. But Michael was distracted by the blizzard of thoughts—an attack of memories—brought to his consciousness by this bizarre place and scene. He believed that although people may come to graveyards to speak with the dead, instead, the dead speak to the living. And as Michael stood staring at his brother’s gravestone, he felt an overwhelming barrage of messages and recollections coming from every person now buried who ever touched his life. He now knew why he stayed away.

In order to keep his emotions in check, Michael allowed his mind to wander to other simple, mundane topics. Although he felt intense emotions, he was never comfortable allowing them to show. He remembered how, at his father’s funeral service, sitting in the front row of pews and listening to the eulogy, he had to divert his mind to scenes from the World Series so he wouldn’t risk breaking down in front of his family and friends. He didn’t know exactly where this need to control the exhibition of emotions came from, only that he rarely saw his own parents cry.

Michael had turned off the ringer on his BlackBerry, but he could now feel the vibration indicating an instant message. He took the phone out of his coat pocket and read the one that popped up.

“What are you doing here?” It was from Alex.

Michael continued to look at it until he was sure he had read it correctly. His eyes then moved to his brother’s grave, as though expecting some signal or apparition to appear. He turned to Skinny Lester who appeared to be somewhere else, lost in his own thoughts or memories.

Not finding any clue or verification that the haunting message that he had just seen was either real or imagined, he looked back at his BlackBerry. He clicked on “Reply” and tapped out, “Who is this?”

Seconds later, he watched the screen and felt the BlackBerry vibrate. “Trying to reach you. You must find my—”

But the message stopped there. Michael felt a certain light-headedness as he waited for the remainder of the communication. His mind was racing.
How could it be from Alex? It’s impossible. And what did it mean that I need to find something—what? Who is behind this?

Michael kept glancing down at his phone, hoping there would be more to the message, but nothing else appeared. He scrolled back to reread what had been sent, but it was gone. He felt disoriented. Had he really seen it? He was sure he had, yet … Maybe it was all too much. Maybe he was feeling the strain. He would keep this to himself for now.

He would have preferred not to speak, but it was apparent that Lester needed to. Michael had tuned him out, until something Lester said captured Michael’s full attention.

As he spoke, Lester’s eyes darted between Alex’s gravestone and Michael. It was a nervous gesture, as though Lester was looking for Alex’s approval before continuing his story.

“It was several months ago, maybe three in the morning. We were in Alex’s den, at his house. Just the two of us. We’d polished off almost a whole bottle of Dewar’s. Alex was like a little kid. All of a sudden, he tells me he wants to show me something he’s been working on. Then he turns on his computer. He says that he had Russell help him purchase some fancy new artificial intelligence software from one of those high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, and that he had another company in Scotland that recreated his actual voice, and then another one somewhere else for the imaging or something. I think Russell spent a lot of time putting this all together for him.

“Alex got all excited. I thought he was going to show me the week’s results from the games or something. But he tells me to look at the computer and—holy shit—it’s him on the screen. Alex then asks him a question—and the Alex on the computer answers him. Not only that—but it was in Alex’s voice, and it was Alex looking at you. He was so real, even the facial expressions were perfect. I’ve never seen anything like it. Alex talking to Alex. I couldn’t believe it. They had a conversation with each other. It was funny—no, actually it was scary. Very scary.”

Michael could see that Lester was unnerved, but he didn’t know what to make of his story. “Lester, wasn’t Alex one of the first to use computers in his business?”

“Yeah, Alex was always a little ahead of his time. Alex used computers for two big reasons. First, it allowed us to track the bets, and we’d get up-to-the-minute feeds from Vegas on the odds for any game or event. Knowing when something happens to change the odds on a game is a big edge. We also had each customer’s status at our fingertips. The computer tracked who owed what and exactly what bets they had pending, up to the minute. It was great. Most bookies have everything on a million little slips of paper; it’s crazy.”