Death Will Help You Leave Him (11 page)

“Some days aren’t bad. But I’m still dealing with the wreckage of my past,” I admitted. An AA phrase. “I guess Frankie never had a chance to put things right.”

Kevin nodded.

“Yeah, that’s the part that’s always sent me back out. I can’t deal with it— too messy. So first it’s a six-pack, then a few shots in the bar— well, more than a few— and before I know it I’m on a dark street corner again looking to score.”

“Gotta do something different this time, man,” Mars advised.

“I know.” Kevin shook his head. “It doesn’t help that half the fellows in the bar
are
the wreckage of my past.”

“People, places, and things.” I hoped I didn’t sound pompous. “I wonder what Frankie would have done if he had lived. They say no relationships the first year. But he already had the girlfriend uptown and the wife in Brooklyn. That situation alone probably made him drink and drug. And the dealing— sometimes they won’t let you get away from the places and things, and they’ve got some ugly ways of getting the message across.”

“Too true,” Mars said. “Frankie kind of boasted once or twice that he’d always been able to handle the Mr. Bigs. But before, he’d always done what they wanted. Cut the stuff, get it on the street, get the money back to Mr. Big, make sure you can account for every nickel. And keep your mouth shut.”

“Amen to that,” I said.

“Frankie did keep his mouth shut pretty good,” Mars said.

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, “no names, no hints. You know how some people hint around when they know they should shut up but they can’t stand to keep a secret? Frankie didn’t do that.”

“No trail of bread crumbs,” I said.

“Exactly.”

The trouble was, to find out who killed Frankie, we needed bread crumbs.

“He said he always paid his debts,” Mars said.

“What did he mean?” I asked. “He didn’t owe any money to the bigger fish? Kept out of trouble? Or he didn’t let anyone get over on him, like he always got even? Say, if someone cheated him.”

Or cheated on him,
I thought. Frankie had been jealous, even paranoid. Snooped in Luz’s email. Made wild accusations, then walked out. The asshole. Luz, poor fool, was devoted to Frankie. She couldn’t have faked how devastated she was by his death. If she’d stabbed Frankie in her own apartment, she would have confessed. She had apologized for calling Barbara in the middle of the night and asking her to come. That was a pretty small misdemeanor compared to murder. Then again, the police might not see it the way Jimmy and Barbara and I did.

“How is that little girl?” Kevin asked. Great. Now a runty Irish gay guy was going telepathic on me. “I felt sorry for her.”

“Yeah, so did we,” I said. “That’s how come we went to the funeral with her.”
Don’t overexplain
, I told myself.
Stay cool.
“She’ll be okay.”

She’d be better off without him. He’d told these guys about his ugly side. But I bet he’d still thought of it as making sure his women knew the score. I could imagine him tallying up imaginary slights and errors. I wouldn’t put it past Frankie to call abusing them a way of paying his debts.

“She’ll be better off without him,” Kevin said. Telepathic.

Barbara and I took the Toyota to Bensonhurst.

“I’m glad we didn’t take the subway,” she said as we sped across the Brooklyn Bridge. The East River sparkled below us, and we could see the bright colors of fall foliage on the Brooklyn side. “You know what my maternal introject always says.”

“It’s a gorgeous day, you should be outside,” I recited. I knew all about Barbara’s mother in her head.

The scenic route to the neighborhood where Frankie’s father had his bakery swung around the tip of Manhattan. We could see the Staten Island and Statue of Liberty ferries plowing a creamy wake through New York Harbor. And the bridge was always worth a visit. Jimmy and I had walked across it once after dropping acid. But that’s another story.

Once we found the neighborhood, locating the bakery wasn’t hard. The sign said
Iacone & Sons, Since 1922
. Massimo’s father or maybe even his grandfather must have been the original baker.

“I guess Frankie was the only son,” I said as we hesitated on the sidewalk. “No wonder Massimo was shattered.”

“This sign is old,” Barbara said. “On the website, it was Iacone’s Bakery. No sons to carry on. I bet Frankie broke his father’s heart a long time ago. If Massimo wanted him to go into the family business, oy, had he got the wrong number.” She did the punch line in a Yiddish accent. When Barbara likes a joke, you get to hear it a lot. “Do you think he’ll be here?”

“Massimo? One way to find out.” I started toward the door.

“Wait a minute.” Barbara pulled at my hand. “We need a strategy. What are we going to say?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “A dozen cannoli, please?”

“Stop it!” Barbara wrenched my arm hard enough to make me glad I wasn’t prone to dislocated shoulder. “Though we should buy something. Look at those little puffy things in the window, don’t they look good? What do you think they are, almond? And, ooh, look at the display case in there. I see at least three different kinds of darling miniature cannoli— chocolate, the regular kind, and some with rainbow sprinkles on them.”

I had to laugh.

“You’re like a puppy that smells bacon. I was kidding! What happened to needing a strategy?”

“We can say again how sorry we are about Frankie. He’ll remember us from the funeral as friends. And then we’ll order the cannoli.”

“And where in this agenda do we ask the questions, Sherlock?”

“I plan to order a
lot
of pastries,” she said. “In between picking three of this and three of that, we can ask all the questions we want. Come on, we’re wasting time. Let’s go in.”

I followed her into the store.

It was set up as a café, with lighted display cases running down one side and white wrought iron chairs and small tiled tables on the other. The smells of sugar and yeast socked me in the nostrils the moment I stepped through the door.

Barbara stopped short. I bumped into her and had to grab her shoulders to keep my balance.

“Mmm, heavenly!” she said, inhaling from the diaphragm up.

The store was empty of customers. Behind the counter, a woman was placing lemon tarts one by one on a tray. Her head was bent, her face hidden. A red and white bandanna covered her hair, presumably to keep it out of the merchandise. At the sound of Barbara’s voice, she looked up. I recognized the round face and high Renaissance forehead. It was Stella from the funeral. The one who’d known Frankie well enough, and cared about Netta enough, to speak ill of the dead.

“Can I help you?” she asked with a friendly smile. “Oh. I know you, don’t I? Not from here. I know all our customers. Oh! Frankie’s funeral.” Her expression grew guarded. “Friends of Frankie’s?” Declaring herself as someone on Netta’s team.

“Not
close
friends.” Barbara went smoothly into action. She bustled toward the counter, exuding warmth and charm. “It was a sad thing. We felt it was important to show up. Mostly, we felt so sorry for Netta.”

“You know Netta?” Stella was still suspicious.

“No, but we heard enough to know she must have had a pretty hard time,” Barbara said. “She must have had so many different feelings when— when it happened. Those tarts look delectable, are they lemon? I want a few of everything. They all look so good!”

Stella smiled and seemed to relax. Evidently the way to her heart was through her
sfogliatella.
She must bake as well as work behind the counter.

“I made these myself,” she confirmed. “I love it when people like my pastry. Do you want to taste it? This one came out a little lopsided. I’m kind of apprenticing with Massimo.”

“And how does he feel about that?” Barbara asked with a fine air of insouciance. It’s a standard therapy question, but most shrinks don’t spew crumbs as they speak. Barbara licked a droplet of lemon filling off her upper lip. “He’s okay with a girl following him instead of a son?”

“Oh, it took him a while to get used to me. I’ve known him since I was a toddler— I call him Uncle Massimo— so I wouldn’t let him intimidate me. And when I finally made a perfect Italian wedding cake for a big customer when Massimo had the flu, he threw up his hands and decided I was here to stay.”

“Decided to relax and enjoy it, huh?” Barbara grinned and licked her fingers. “This tart is delectable. We’re definitely going to want some of those. Frankie never worked in the bakery? Netta didn’t want him to?”

“When Netta married him,” Stella said, “she thought he
was
going to work in the bakery. Personally, I think he never had any intention of going into the business. Oh, he had to work here summers when he was a kid, Massimo wouldn’t have let him get out of that. Believe it or not, he wasn’t a bad baker. But the moment he was old enough to stay out late and get away with not telling his parents where he’d been— well, Massimo and Silvia couldn’t see it coming because they didn’t want to see it. But all us kids could.”

“You all grew up together?” Barbara asked. “Oh, those baby cannoli look great, let me have half a dozen each of those. Netta too?”

“We’re really only a few families that lived within a couple of blocks of each other. My husband too. He’s a lawyer; he works in the city, not like most of them. We knew we were it for each other the day he punched a boy who’d pulled my braids. Actually, Frankie was the boy who did it. We were seven. Frankie was bigger than the rest of us, and he always had a mean streak. Hot temper, too.”

“Were Netta and Frankie childhood sweethearts too?”

“Not like me and Gil. His name is Guillermo, and everybody used to call him Billy, but when he went to law school he decided Gil sounded more dignified. Netta was the queen of the neighborhood. All the boys were crazy about her, the cousins, everybody. Frankie got her attention the most because— well, he was kind of compelling, you know? Like a snake charmer. Bigger than life.”

“Charismatic,” Barbara said.

“Yeah, if that means what I think it does,” Stella said. “Netta kept all the boys dancing around her, thinking they might get to first base. Everybody except my Gil.”

“What base did Frankie get to?” Barbara asked.

“Ah, that’s a very good question!” Stella said. “Home run. They didn’t announce their engagement till she was already— well, you get the picture.”

“She wouldn’t have—”

“Are you kidding? Her brothers would have killed her. The whole neighborhood would have made her life a misery. And believe me, they would have known. In a place like this, everybody always knows everything, even when you can’t imagine how.”

Now they were communicating without even finishing their sentences. Barbara was on a roll with the girl talk. I didn’t want to get in the way. I retreated steadily backward. When the backs of my knees hit one of the wrought iron chairs, I eased myself down, trying not to creak or scrape in any way as I sat.

“And once the kids came,” Barbara went on, “I suppose—”

“No way. Not in this neighborhood. The older generation still thinks the Pope knows best. You make your bed, you lie on it. Even if Netta had wanted to, and I’m not so sure she did. She was still kind of hooked on him, you know?”

“Oh, yes,” Barbara said. “Addicted to the relationship. But she still must have had a hard time. Did he— did he ever—?”

This time, it seemed to me she might have to finish the sentence. We had two questions: did Frankie cheat on Netta, and did he hit her? Yes to both, but did Stella know? According to her, the whole neighborhood knew anything she knew. So if she knew, anyone who loved Netta had a motive.

As they talked, Barbara pointed to one treat after another. Stella lifted them out of the case with tongs and packed them up with as much care and fancy paper as if they were Christmas presents.

“She always forgave him,” Stella said. “She always stood up for him. Even when she spent nights alone— when the kids were sick, when her parents died. He didn’t want this last baby. You could read the signs, you know?”

Barbara nodded. That extra X chromosome must carry the gene for second sight. They could read the signs.

Stella lowered her voice and leaned across the counter.

“I think there was somebody else. You know, not just anybody, but somebody special. Where would it have ended? You want a shopping bag for these, or should I just tie them all together with string? I can put a wooden handle on it if you want.”

As Barbara handed over her credit card, the door opened and a couple of customers finally came in. I got up and ambled over to the counter.

“Massimo,” I said in Barbara’s ear.

“Massimo isn’t working today?” she asked Stella. “We would like to pay our respects.”

Stella shook her head, her face solemn.

“Massimo and Silvia are having a hard time.”

“I understand. I’m so sorry,” Barbara said.

“Sorry,” I mumbled along.

Stella sighed.

“They look ten years older,” she said. “They won’t get over this for a long time. Ever.”

Barbara took the pile of fragile boxes, tied together in tiers like a wedding cake. She handed them to me. Now I knew why I’d come along. We strive to serve and never to yield, or whatever the Marines say. Or is it the Marines? Jimmy would know. Barbara took her receipt and then Stella’s hand, which she patted and held for a second.

Where would it have ended? That was the only thing we already knew.

Barbara and Luz walked along the south edge of the Central Park reservoir. Barbara set the pace with a brisk gait she insisted was a very slow run, and Luz trotted in her wake, trying to keep up. It had not rained since the night of Frankie’s death. The changing leaves glowed topaz and cherry amber. A concrete causeway bisected the shimmering water. On it, gregarious seagulls perched, taking a break from the sea, and cormorants stretched their glossy necks and spread their wings to dry. The track crossed a paved plaza, a stone Parks Department building squatting to the left and a rustic bridge arching to the right. Barbara called a greeting to a white-haired man who maintained a precarious balance as he stood on his head on a slatted park bench.