The Accidental Pallbearer (10 page)

Nibbles at his sandwich with his laptop open, Google-distracted from himself, in search of a story that surely commanded several days of front-page coverage in the
Observer-Dispatch
, about the event that took place while he was away in Austria, fifteen years ago. He’d been told about the heat wave of that August, but only as an afterthought. Because the major topic of conversation all that fall was the most spectacular – theatrical, really – execution in U.S.
Mafia history. The triple assassination of the legendary Albert Aristarco of Staten Island and Frank and Salvatore Barbone, Utica’s double representation in the upper echelon of Cosa Nostra – in Utica’s oldest Catholic cemetery, at the burial site of Aristarco’s godmother, Filomena Santacroce, dead at ninety-six and her nurse thinking, Good riddance to the nastiest bitch I ever attended.

The archived article in the
O.D
. foregrounds the facts that he’d not forgotten. Who could? The shooter was one of the pallbearers, a last-second replacement for one of the official pallbearers, Filomena Santacroce’s nephew, Raymond DePellaccio, who suffered a paralyzing lower-back spasm just as the casket was about to be lifted from the hearse and up the steps into Saint Anthony, where Father Gustavo awaited to celebrate the Requiem Mass.

A follow-up account refreshes his memory: heavily enhanced police protection was ordered both for the Mass and the interment. Two police vans, each bearing twenty officers in bulletproof vests and helmets: one for the Church, the other for Calvary Cemetery. The mayor and chief of police at that time, both now dead, presumably of natural causes, were intent on seeing that disaster would not strike in Utica, whose ill repute still lingered from the fifties and sixties – the Sin City of the East, as New York City tabloids had headlined it. The van scheduled for Saint Anthony was in place when the hearse and the cars of the mourners arrived. The van whose officers would form a protective ring at the cemetery around Aristarco and the Barbones – a circle of steel and firepower – never made it because this van, according to three witnesses, had run a red light (a fact vigorously disputed by
the police) and broadsided a city bus. Minor injuries for some of the bus riders and eleven policemen, but not the driver, who alone wore a seat belt. Death the consequence of this accident for the three Mafia heavies, each of whom was shot in the head with a small-caliber hand gun. Small caliber, the streetwise reporter had informed his readers, so the discharged round had sufficient force to rattle about inside the brain – up and down and all around – but not enough power to exit. A search for Raymond DePellaccio, the original pallbearer, turns up his obituary: dead several weeks after the shooting, of natural causes.

Description of the substitute pallbearer gives Conte a thrill. Several bystanders at the church and cemetery offer accounts to the police and the press that resemble the description that Janice McPherson had given him of the man she saw on that blazing August morning fifteen years ago. The rude man who refused to return her greeting. Jed Kinter’s visitor. If that man and the substitute pallbearer were in fact one and the same, then Bobby Rintrona was right: Kinter hadn’t kept his nose clean.

About the murdered Mafiosi, Conte gives not a damn. Let those vile bastards kill one another, it was a police matter that the police shouldn’t even bother to investigate. But if Kinter were involved and could truly be implicated and put away, then his baby and wife would be out of harm’s way for good, and about that possibility Conte cares too much, like a man who has something to prove.

He manages to eat the salad, but only half the sandwich. Closes his laptop. Nothing to be done until tomorrow, when he’ll have to hold off Robinson so that he can pursue a plan
of inquiry he’s beginning to hatch that will require him to speak to Rudy Synakowski, the reporter who did the original stories, and Enzo Raspante, the photographer, whose photos outside Saint Anthony – picked up by the major news services – had appeared on the front page under the caption:
NINETY MINUTES TO LIVE
.

He declines the kind invitation from Johnnie Walker – instead packs up his .357 Magnum and spends the next two hours at the police range (a time-killer like the opera) firing 125 rounds with lethal precision into human silhouettes at twenty-five and fifty yards. Then home again to play Joan Whittier’s call numerous times, as he makes a transcript. Near midnight, takes the transcript to the twenty-four-hour Fed-Ex – Kinko’s station in New Hartford and mails it to Laguna Beach. When the clerk guarantees delivery by Wednesday morning, no later than 10:00, Eliot Conte feels a thrill not unlike what he felt when he examined his fifty-yard target and saw that he’d clustered five shots in the circle marking its heart. Nancy’s heart. Norwald’s. Kinter’s. Michael C’s. His own.

Tuesday – sun at last, in a cloudless sky. Conte can’t remember when he’d slept so well – eight hours, uninterrupted, deep and no dreams that he can recall. He’s sitting at his desk over coffee – showered, shaved, dressed for the day and with no thoughts of Johnnie Walker and about to call Rudy Synakowski – when his doorbell rings. Father Gustavo, who asks if Eliot might spare him a few minutes.

Conte offers coffee, Father Gustavo says he’s had his cup for the day, “thank you,” but he’ll take “orange juice if available, but hold the vodka.” A forced chuckle from Father G. Conte does not practice his Catholicism, has not set foot in Saint Anthony since his confirmation at age twelve. After an embarrassing silence at the kitchen table, the nervous Father G says that during his post-Mass meeting on Sunday with Antonio Robinson and Silvio Conte, Antonio had revealed the “enormous tragedy” that had struck Eliot’s daughters and “you, yourself.”

Conte says nothing.

“Would you like to talk about it, Eliot?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“This is what they think I’m on earth for. I have other functions, but this is the one they want.”

“Grief counseling?”

“I despise the phrase. Grief cannot be counseled. There is no so-called ‘closure’ for the grief, and you will never ‘get on with your life.’ The phrase sickens me.”

“The language of psychobabble, Father.”

“Yes, and the tip of the iceberg in this contemptible age. Your heart is damaged beyond repair. I didn’t come here, my –” he suppresses “my son.” Father G is ten years Eliot’s junior. “I didn’t come here to urge you to speak of the unspeakable, about which we should remain silent.”

Eliot remains silent. A long pause.

Father G says, “Touché,” then adds, “Silvio is distraught, I’ve never seen him this way. He spoke of seeing the children as infants, when he flew to California as a proud grandfather. His grief is enormous.”

“I don’t carry vodka, Father, but we do have Johnnie Walker. Would you like a shot? On the rocks with a splash of water? Pure rocks?”

Father G considers. He’s not much of a drinker, but wouldn’t mind one now. He finds Conte compelling and intimidating. He’d like to win him back to the fold, thinking, absurdly, that if Conte can’t be won, then there is little hope for the Church in this terrible country.

Father G says, “I won’t push it. Your father tells me you drop in to see him once a month, if that. When was the last time?”

“Don’t recall.”

“He’s at the end of his life.”

“I know that.”

“He hopes for reconciliation.”

“I don’t.”

“After all that he’s –”

“Done for me?”

“You said it.”

“What does it prove, Father? Except that he, maybe in guilt, honors the forms of parenthood?”

“But not the spirit?”

“If he did it in guilt, I’d take it as a positive sign.”

“Ah. But you accepted his largesse. How do you, if I may ask, grade yourself in the daddy department?”

“Bless me father, for I have sinned.”

“And for penance, you awake, do you not, in the middle of the night without the distractions of daylight, to think the thoughts you flee?”

“You said the Requiem Mass for Filomena Santacroce, did you not?”

“I say Requiems all the time. Who was she?”

“Fifteen years ago. On a very special day in Utica history.”

Pause.

“Yes. Filomena Santacroce. Yes.”

“You remember that day?”

“I was questioned closely by the police and that Polish reporter.”

“Synakowski?”

“Yes. Of course, they questioned me endlessly about this pallbearer. Endlessly and repetitively. The pallbearers brought the casket before the altar and placed it upon the catafalque.
I told them this. Six pallbearers. Three on each side. Then the pallbearers turned and went to the back pews. I told them this. Did I notice anything specific about the pallbearers? One in particular? I told them no, but didn’t tell them why, because it was none of their business, but now, in the spirit of openness, which I hope you’ll soon join me in, I’ll tell you why I didn’t pay attention to the pallbearers. If there were twenty-five pallbearers I would not have noticed, my – uh, Eliot.”

“It’s okay, Father. I call you Father, it’s only fair you call me son.”

“I am not your father, let’s throw away these cold protocols. Your father is Silvio, but if I had a son like you I’d be proud. As Silvio is proud. I’ll tell you now where my focus was on that day of murder. After my first year as a priest in Watertown, I entered a Trappist monastery in South Carolina because as a heterosexual who likes – loves to look at women – I wanted a barrier against temptation, because I wanted to keep my vow of chastity, but in the monastery I noticed that some of the brothers did not resist because they could, and did, find consolation in one another. You take my meaning? This only brought to mind what I had given up, and I found the situation terrifically unfair and painful. So I left. I came to Saint Anthony seventeen years ago to live face to face with my heterosexual passion. You know, if a woman smiles at me, Eliot, it is as good as if she – on that day, I was focused on a young woman who sat in the front row. She was beautiful. Her skirt was up over her knees. Her legs were open enough for me to – instead of a whiteness of panties up in there, I saw a patch of darkness, and the soul of Filomena
Santacroce at that moment was in the hands of the Devil. The pallbearers? Give me a break. I beg you, Eliot, pray for the repose of my –”

“Eternal soul, Father?”

“My penis.”

“Bless me father, for you have sinned.”

“Yes, my son, frequently.”

To Father G’s dismay, Conte gets back on track, “So you didn’t –?”

“One thing only. One of the pallbearers, I could not say then or now which, walked in a somewhat odd manner. Perhaps he was drunk. I mentioned this, but neither the police nor the Polish reporter found that observation to be of any interest. One of the cops said, ‘Some of these old pallbearers already have one foot in the grave.’ He thought he was funny.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“For what?”

“For sharing your memory.”

“I fucked her.”

“What?! Who?”

“The woman in the front row. I fucked her every which way to Sunday, as I believe the saying goes, for a month, and she was the best p – before I got a hold of myself. That is to say, when I returned to the not inconsiderable pleasures of self-abuse.”

“You’re a witty man, Father.”

“Eliot, if you wish to open up, in all seriousness, you know where I can be found. All will be held in confidence.”

Father Gustavo leaves, having not touched his orange juice. Eliot imagines a fifth of Stolichnaya. Imagines spiking
the O.J. with what it amuses him to think of as “meaning.”

Conte calls Rudy Synakowski at the
Observer-Dispatch
and invites him to lunch. Synakowski says, “Thanks, when?” Conte replies, “Today, at 12:30.” Synakowski is startled, but doesn’t show it because he’s a supremely composed man, always has been. At Proctor High, he and Conte were distantly friendly. Distant friendship was a Synakowski specialty. Since his return to Utica, Conte has seen him at great intervals for a drink at The Chesterfield. They’ve never shared a meal. Synakowski asks, “The Chesterfield?” Conte replies, “My place. Would pasta
al pesto
be okay?” Synakowski’s composure is almost cracked. Known at Proctor as the Polish Prince, he resembled the original Polish Prince, the pop singer Bobby Vinton, though with a cooler, more sharp-edged visage. The girls he dated had invariably referred to him, with a Mona Lisa smile, as “Blue Velvet.”

After lunch and the polite, meaningless words – Synakowski still nursing his glass of pinot noir, Conte on his third glass of seltzer – the Polish Prince says, “You have something on your mind, Detective.” It pleases him to address Conte as “Detective.”

“I do, Rudy. A matter of ancient history.”

“Shoot.”

“Exactly. About a shooting.”

“Only one worth talking about, Detective.”

“Shall we talk, Rudy?”

“Someone hire you to break the unbreakable case?”

“No.”

“Pure, unmercenary curiosity?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“You were at Saint Anthony and also wrote the piece on the accident at the Parkway and Oneida Street. I read your articles yesterday.”