The Old Turk's Load (22 page)

“I knew it. I just fucking knew it.” He retreated to the cooler and took a calming breath.
Jarkey stood and stared. He wanted to cry, but something was in the way. He approached his old boss, back from the dead, and launched the sincerest right cross he’d ever attempted in his life, freighted with all the pain and guilt and loss he had in him. Smooth as Ali, feet already perfectly positioned, Kelly jacked his torso out of harm’s way. That was that. Then he moved in. They hugged.
Jarkey said, “You fucking asshole.”
Kelly said, “I know, I know.”
Pepsi had never noticed he was gone, but she was glad to see him now that he was back.
It was sweet for all of them. DiNoto’s empire had been torn apart by vicious infighting and was eventually taken over by people who had no beef with Mundi, no grudge about the heroin, no problem with Mr. D. being out of the way. Kelly’s friends got their city back.
For Kelly there was still one nagging thing left to do.The package he’d carried out of Gloria Mundi’s apartment, the letters he’d studied during his quiet hours in Bensonhurst, demanded an answer.
It took awhile. Phone calls and field trips in the Ford. Jarkey back twice to Genzlinger in the newspaper morgue, so happy to be working again for Kelly that he didn’t even voice his obvious question—
Are you out of your fucking mind?
Finally Kelly had everything lined up the way he wanted it. As far as he was concerned, the timing was perfect. School would be back in session, and Agnes’s classmate and Gloria’s protector—Dr. Ruth Warfel, dean of women at Bryn Mawr College—would be in her office.

She was tall and angular, wearing a tailored white blouse, gray tweed skirt and matching vest. Kelly sat in an overstuffed armchair on the other side of her desk and looked out the big window behind her onto the rolling lawn, where coeds roamed like browsing does. Kelly realized she was staring at him, expecting him to speak.

He told her that Richard Mundi had hired him because he was worried about the company Gloria was keeping. However, the investigation had taken an unexpected turn. Gloria’s apartment had been vandalized by her enemies and certain letters had come into his possession. These letters confirmed past issues he’d suspected. There were unanswered questions about the manner of Agnes Day’s death. Serious questions.

She smiled at him, not kindly. “After your initial call I spoke with Gloria. She told me you had performed a valuable, ah, service for her. She urged me to speak with you.”

Kelly smiled back, looking for the right in. “That was kind of you both. Thank you.”
This produced a surprising effect. The dean’s smile fell away and she leaned over the desk at him. “I don’t like to be lied to, Mr. Kelly. My call prompted Gloria to look for the letters, and she discovered they’d been stolen. She told me you were the only person with any possible motive for this theft.”
Kelly kept silent.
“Think about it, Mr. Kelly. Think how it must have felt to discover that those precious letters, from her dying mother, were gone. Think of the sense of violation.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Dean Warfel.”
“Do I? Who else on the planet would have any interest in Gloria’s relationship with her mother? Certainly not the Mafia.”
“Listen, I saw the inscriptions in those yearbooks, and I’ve read the letters. I know how close you and Agnes were, and how close you are with Gloria, too.”
“What of it?”
“Mundi double-crossed me.Tried to have me killed. I believe it was because of what I learned about Agnes’s death.”
Her expression tightened. “These are tragic, entirely private family matters, Mr. Kelly.”
Kelly hesitated, then decided it was time his cards were on the table.“I’m just a guy who stumbled across some unpleasant truths. I think you can tell me what Agnes was talking about when she told you death was pursuing her. It’s all over the letters.”
“Agnes had a habit of poetic expression, Mr. Kelly, and she was unflinchingly aware of the fate that stalked her. I will not have you speak in this manner.”She stared at him curiously.“What don’t you understand?”
“Come off it, Dean. It was Mundi, wasn’t it? He had her killed or drove her to her death somehow. What was going on in that family? I’ve taken this all the way to the end, but it won’t go any farther. I just need to know. Who killed her and why?”
Ruth Warfel continued to stare at him,hard,as if she were scrutinizing a strange life-form. He could see the hostility drain from her, replaced by something more neutral. But also more dismissive. “Mr. Kelly, I never wanted this meeting. When I spoke with Gloria, she told me how you became involved with her father, what happened to you, and how you subsequently, ah, corrected the situation. She told me honestly what she thought of you and urged me to speak with you. To request that you return those letters. That’s the reason, the only reason, for this meeting. You have consistently, completely, and willfully misconstrued every bit of intelligence regarding her mother that has come your way. You’ve now lied to me, and it’s clear that if you truly believe your overimaginative hypothesis, you must be lying to yourself, because the facts do not support it.”
Kelly started to reply, but she cut him off. “Agnes Day Mundi died of congenital heart failure,Mr.Kelly.She led a brave,uncompromising life,and she was deeply mourned by her husband,her daughter, and by me. I want you to return those letters immediately. And then I expect to have heard the last of you. Now get out of this office.”
She seemed to mean business. Kelly picked up his hat and departed.

By the time he got back to his office, the true import of his interview was beginning to sink in. Since his return from the dead he’d been sorting through his ransacked belongings, slowly putting everything back in order. He resumed this activity, in a meditative way, as he pictured Ruth Warfel and what a surprisingly tough customer she’d turned out to be.

He decided that she’d probably been telling the truth about Agnes Day Mundi. He could see, now, that he might’ve misinterpreted a few things about Agnes’s past and her relationship with Mundi. All the stuff about death stalking was hard to interpret. But he had to admit that if she’d thought her husband had been trying to kill her, she’d have written something to her old friend along the lines of, “My husband is trying to kill me.” Well, it wasn’t the first time he’d ever been wrong.

He found Mundi’s case file in the ungainly stack waiting to be restored to the metal cabinets.There, amid Jarkey’s photographs, was a white envelope. It had a familiar look, and he opened it expectantly. Inside were eight $100 bills. He remembered Mundi handing it to him, but he was sure it had contained $1,000. Now
there
was a puzzler. Kelly flipped through the 8 x 10 glossies of Gloria and Gallagher, mulling it over. Then he had an image of Harry Jarkey reaching up to receive two C-notes all those months ago, making some crack about hearing the money talking. He smiled contentedly. Another mystery solved.

Then the phone rang.
It was Julius Roth.
He had an interesting proposition.