We Were Kings (26 page)

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Day Boulevard, South Boston

LYNNE STANDS ATOP
the roof, smiling at him. The wind at this height sets her hair flowing, and she has to push it out of her eyes. She is saying something, calling to him, and she lifts an arm and waves and he laughs because he can't hear her and he tells her to wait, he must come closer, but there is no sound and then she goes to the edge of the roof and steps off, and she falls as she bursts into flame.

Cal opened his eyes. He was sitting in the car, smoke twining lazily upward from a cigarette in his hand, the ash fallen onto the seat and his lap. A soprano was singing the Ave Maria on the radio, so achingly beautiful it left him cold, and he switched it off.

There was a rap on the passenger-side door, and Cal turned his head. Dante was on the sidewalk; he'd struck the door with his knuckles, and now he leaned in the window. “You ready?” he said.

Cal ground what was left of the cigarette into the ashtray, worked his way out of the seat, shirt sticking to the vinyl, and climbed out. He reached into the backseat for his suit coat and put it on while Dante watched. Dante wanted to say that it was too fucking hot for it, that most of the mourners had already disposed of their jackets, but he said nothing and instead took his own coat from the backseat and put it on. For a moment they stood looking at each other and then Dante nodded his head toward the house and Cal stepped onto the curb and they walked the block down Day Boulevard, past the parked cars, to Owen's house. As they went up the steps, a slim, snow-white herring gull—a female, perhaps, or a young male—swooped low across the boulevard, shrieking, scattering the fat, beach-fed seagulls, and Cal paused, watching it climb back into the sky and turn toward the sea, moving toward a distant point he could not see and so quickly that it was soon gone. He hesitated on the steps and then, sensing Dante watching him, walked up onto the porch and opened the screen door.

In a corner of the parlor, Anne sat with a group of family members, her face blanched of color, and Cal worried that the shock of Owen's death and the heat had taken a terrible toll upon her. When he and Dante paid their respects, she looked at them with the eyes of a noctambulist. They went to the drinks table, where bottles of liquor were arranged alongside trays of sandwiches. On the floor, a tin tub filled with melting ice held half-submerged bottles of beer. Cal opened two beers for them and gulped deeply from his. He turned his face, streaming with sweat, toward the fans placed in the wide windows that looked out on the street and the beach. He tugged at his tie. The fans swept the curtains back and pushed the hot air about the crowded room, but otherwise they didn't do a damn thing. Out on the Avenue the sun glinted in the puddles of water left by the rain, and he could see the steam rising off them.

Dante sat at the upright piano with a beer and considered the songs that three years previously he and Owen had sung together after Lynne's funeral. He didn't know what Owen had thought of him or if he'd ever seen him as anything other than a junkie, but in the end, perhaps it didn't matter. Owen had treated him with respect—asking him to stand up and be there for Cal and be more than the junkie he was. He'd expected something of him, something a junkie could never have done and would never have been asked to do. Dante stroked the polished mahogany, lifted the piano top, and laid his fingers gently on the keys. The phonograph was playing in the other room and so no one could hear him. He leaned his head to one side so that he could hear the soft notes. The piano was out of tune—he doubted Owen had played it since Lynne's funeral. Slowly, he closed the lid again. Cal came and sat by him on the bench, handed him another beer, although he'd barely drunk any of the first one. In the other room, the phonograph played a tinny version of “Carrickfergus” and the singer was flat and without emotion, but Dante thought of Owen and listened to it anyway; they had played the same song together three years before.

Giordano greeted Cal and Dante as he and the other high-ranking police officers were leaving. Although he'd glimpsed him at the wake and at the funeral, he had aged since the last time Cal had seen him up close. His cheeks sagged and the skin was sallow. The once-lustrous black hair was gray at the temples. He looked as if he'd lost weight. Like a dog with its hackles up, ready to pounce at the slightest sign of aggression, Cal expected to feel something in preparation for the encounter, but he felt nothing, only numbness.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Giordano said, and Cal was surprised when Giordano held out a hand, which Cal shook. He had to admit he was grateful for the condolences, even if they came from Giordano. In a week or even days it might be different, but for now he'd take it.

“Thanks. It's a loss for all of us.”

“He was good police.”

“The best.”

“We're going to get the fuckers who did this.” Giordano looked at Cal as if he expected an argument. Cal didn't know if the commissioner had said it to console him or to warn him.

“Good,” Cal said. “Owen deserves that.”

Fierro came over, and his presence seemed to make Giordano feel he'd been relieved. He nodded at them and then turned toward the door, and his junior commanders followed.

“What did he want?” Fierro asked; his eyes were red-rimmed and even more tired-looking than usual. The ever-present cigarette butt hung from the right side of his mouth.

“Told me he was sorry for Owen's death. Said Owen was good police.”

Fierro nodded, took the butt from his mouth, and tapped the ash into an ashtray on a side table. “I thought he might be trying to recruit you, get you back on the force. Owen always bemoaned the fact that being a cop had changed so much, said they needed more cops like you.”

“More cops like me? That's a laugh. Owen might have wanted me to be a cop again, but I can guarantee Giordano wanted no part of it.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you want?”

“If Giordano ever offers to take me back, then he's more of a fool than I ever gave him credit for.” Cal shook his head, swallowed the rest of his beer, and put the empty bottle down. He looked toward the door, where Anne was saying farewell to mourners. Suddenly, she broke down, and an older woman held her, trembling, in her arms and then left the room with her. The record that had been playing ended and then the tone arm slipped and there was the hiss and pop as the needle skimmed across the acetate. “No, Fierro,” Cal said, “that boat sailed a long time ago.”

Fierro was looking at him the way Cal had often seen him look at an eviscerated cadaver, as if he might somehow work secrets from the desiccated flesh, the layers of skin and bone. A secret that might explain the life the victim had lived or what had happened in the moment shortly before his death that had led him to be stretched out on his examining table.

“If you say so,” Fierro said.

Owen's daughter, Fiona, wide-eyed and disoriented, came into the room and walked aimlessly among the mourners as if she were looking for her father, as if she expected that at any moment he might step out and surprise her. Cal watched her, then placed his beer on a windowsill and went to her side. She was looking at the throng of people in the room, bewilderment on her face, and when Cal touched her shoulder, she glanced up at him. “Hey there,” he said. “How're you doing?”

She stared at him with her large blue eyes and then, after a long while, blinked. “Mommy says Daddy is in heaven now,” she said.

Cal remained silent, waiting. He was on his fifth beer and he didn't know what to say. Her hair had been put back with two red barrettes and he could smell that it had recently been washed. A line of perspiration beaded the top of her brow, at the hairline.

“She says that he's with God because he was so good.”

He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.

“God takes all the good people,” she said and looked at the room again.

She leaned her head against his side and he put his arm over her and held her there and they stood that way for a long time as Cal heard from upstairs the distant sounds of Anne's wailing and the women with her trying to soothe and comfort her, pleading with her to be quiet, while outside, beyond the glass, in the full glare of the noon sun, Lynne was stepping off a rooftop and falling to her death over and over again.

_________________________

North End

THE LATE-AFTERNOON SUN
sucked the color out of everything—the intensity and vastness of the sky was gone, and all the buildings and cars appeared bleached out and blurred in the heat. Dante had been at Uphams Corner since seven that morning, and after hours of being in the humid darkness of the welding pit, his eyes still hadn't adjusted, and the light made him dizzy. He was hungry and realized he had to eat something before he felt even worse. The European Restaurant was close by and he decided to treat himself to an early dinner.

The past week had been good for business at Uphams Corner Auto. The endless heat wave had caused many car radiators to break down; there were multiple blown gaskets and countless tires in ruin from the hot asphalt. Money was coming in steadily, and at any other time, he'd have been grateful, but now his mind was occupied so frequently with Vinny's murder that he couldn't think of much else.

He had already visited the lakes several times this week. What would he accomplish by going there and standing vigil yet again? Yesterday afternoon, he had taken Maria along with him, and while she played at the lake's edge, grabbing twigs and sticks and throwing stones into the water, he sat on a rock and tried to figure out the exact spot where the stolen Plymouth had settled into the muck below. He'd seen the sun rippling against the water, mallard ducks gliding along the surface, the shadow of carp patrolling the shallows, and the occasional outdoorsman paddling a canoe off in the distance, but he had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Yet the ominous feeling persisted—something was going to go wrong.

It was nearly dusk when Dante returned home, his stomach full of pasta and clams, his head light from a few glasses of wine. In the kitchen, Claudia was packing the fridge with groceries. She had on the same unflattering dress he'd seen her wearing the past few days, her slender frame hidden by its puritanical cut and stiff, boxy waistline. Taking a quick glance at her, one would assume she was wearing too much eye shadow and rouge, but it wasn't makeup; her face was still bruised, although the bruises were slowly healing, each purple-hued and tinged with yellow. Beneath the swelling and the scabs, her old face was reappearing, but it was not the one she had worn when she was with Vinny—it was the one from before, when she'd lived in Scollay Square, desperate and alone. It was the face of a woman afraid of life, afraid of living.

Dante reached into the fridge and grabbed a bottle of beer. He pried off the cap, flipped it into the trash bin, and, after his first haul off the beer, asked, “Why so much food?”

“I'll be away.”

“Where's away?”

“I'm going to stay with Daria in Connecticut. They have a room for rent. I'm going to see if I like it there.”

Dante was staring at her, and she knew it, but she kept her eyes on the lunch meats wrapped in wax paper that she was placing on the bottom rack next to a jar of applesauce and several tins of sardines.

“Maria is already in bed. Just so you know, she has a temperature.” Her voice was monotone and terse.

“Okay.”

“And I talked with Mrs. Berardi earlier. She's going away for a couple of days to visit her son. She won't be around to help out.”

“Okay,” he repeated. He wanted to ask her more questions but he knew what the result would be. “I'll check on Maria in a bit.”

She closed the fridge, folded the paper bags, and put them under the sink. “I'll be catching a Greyhound out of Saint James. Tonight.” With her eyes downcast, she walked around him.

“Let me drive you.”

“No. I can handle it.”

“When do you think you'll be back?”

“I'm not too sure. I'll call sometime and let you know.”

She padded into the hallway and he heard the bedroom door click shut, quietly, as though she were trying not to wake Maria in the next room.

Dante drained the rest of his beer, opened a second bottle, sat down at the kitchen table, and looked out the window. He watched as people moved about the sidewalks, gathered on stoops and in front of shops and restaurants, all of them seeming no more real than images on a cinema screen. And as the last of the day's greasy light fell through the gaps between the buildings, he smoked and finished the beer.

How long would it take for Claudia to forgive him?

In the end, he knew there was nothing else to do but give it time. And if time couldn't heal that wound, then nothing would.

After taking a cold shower, he dressed quickly and came out to the sitting room to see that Claudia had already left. Traces of a lilac perfume lingered in the air.

He entered Maria's room, sat down on the cot, and put his hand on her forehead. It was damp and warm. From deep in her pale throat came a tremulous murmur—she was dreaming. He wondered if he was there in her dreams with her, and he leaned back against the small headboard, one foot up on the mattress and the other on the floor, and cradled his daughter, hoping it would make her feel protected in some way.

He felt sleep press down on him, his breath drawing shallow and his eyes shutting as if from an immense weight. From within the darkness, an image slowly materialized. Ribbons of silver moonlight frantically danced and glinted like polished steel as a hot breeze rippled the lake. Bodiless, Dante hovered above the surface, and without having to hold his breath, he dived into the water and swam down to the murky bottoms. There he spotted the car, as quiet as a grave, and the dark shapes of sunfish and perch taking up residence in the metal husk alongside the pale bloated body in the front seat. The car door slowly opened without sound, and a current pulled at the passenger and made the arms move, the head slowly turn. Before Dante awoke, he saw a cadaverous hand reaching for him, and he knew that if it grabbed him, it would never let go.