“Who the hell are you?” I asked, pointing the crook of the cane at him. When he didn’t answer, I lowered it, trying to appear less confrontational.

The man mumbled something and his eyelids drooped.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” I wanted to poke him with the cane to get a response but mustered some restraint.

The man’s eyes widened. “Your father was very proud of you. Very proud.” He cleared some more gunk from his throat and ran a hand across his face. “He was a fine man, your father.” I detected an Eastern European accent. Russian probably, knowing my father’s proclivity for anything Soviet.

I leaned the cane against the nightstand. “What’s your name?”

The man shifted and strained, grunting as he struggled to attain a sitting position. I caught hold under his arm and helped him perch on the edge of the bed, trying not to inhale too deeply. He was lighter than he looked and smaller than I first thought. His watery eyes focused on my nose. “Name’s Kassian.”

“Kassian? Is that your first name or your last name?”

“Just … Kassian. What people have been calling me all my life.”

“What are you doing here?”

Kassian swept one arm theatrically. “I live here.”

“Here? In this house? You live here?”

“Yes. Abe said I could live here as long …” Kassian’s gaze flitted around the small room. “As long as I wanted.” He belched, expelling a blast of fetid 100-proof air into my face.

I backed up two steps. “You pay rent?”

“No. Abe was a generous man. Very generous.”

“How long have you been living here?” Aside from the empty bottle on the floor, the room was neat and tidy. A single framed photograph rested on the bureau, and the nightstand appeared freshly dusted.

“Moved in during the summer. July. Beginning of August. Maybe it was June.” His eyes blinked slowly. “It was hot, I know. Very hot.”

And probably as hazy as Kassian’s recollection. I walked over to the bureau and opened the top drawer. Folded underwear on one side, folded socks on the other. I closed the drawer and turned back to Kassian. “Where were you before that?”

Kassian bowed his head and mumbled something. Could have been in Russian, could have been in Martian. His entire body trembled.

I sat on the bed next to him and waited a moment, then spoke in a hushed tone. “Kassian. Where were you before you came here?”

He lifted his head, eyes glossier if that were possible. “Don’t send me back. Please don’t send me back. They lock you in at night. Please.”

“Where?”

“The shelter at the Hebrew Home. Please don’t send me away.” His lower lip quivered.

I didn’t respond, trying to get a handle on things. The Reston Hebrew Home had an excellent reputation. Mom had spent her last three months in the hospice unit and we couldn’t have asked for better care.

Kassian’s face grew red. “Your father saved me. We had a deal. If he was here now, he wouldn’t throw me out. No sir. He was a man of his word. His word.” Kassian gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t pull off the defiant look. Pitiful came to mind. “I don’t have any other family. Abe was all I had.”

I measured Kassian. A diminutive old man whom my father had taken in. Generous, kind “Honest Abe” Handleman, champion of the downtrodden. Who was I to break my father’s promises? Besides, I was too spent from the last eighteen hours of misery to argue. I exhaled. “Relax, relax. You can stay. At least for a while, okay?”

Kassian’s whole body unwound. His face brightened as he licked his parched lips. “I am very thirsty. May I have a drink?”

I picked up the bottle from the floor and examined it. Ruskova Vodka. Never heard of it, but judging from Kassian’s condition, it did the trick. “Sure, but I think you need some coffee.” I helped him to his feet. “Come on, let’s go. Get you sobered up.” Together, we made it upstairs to the kitchen. I got some coffee brewing while Kassian rested his head—facedown—on the kitchen table.

The foul odor in Kassian’s room had quashed my appetite, just as the events of the last two months had beaten down my spirit. I’d caught my wife screwing my business partner. My father had tripped down the stairs to his death. And now I’d found a drunk Russian living in the basement.

I needed a nap. And a drink myself, something a lot stiffer than coffee.

___

When I awoke, I felt worse than ever. Exhausted and disoriented and physically ill. But I didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity; I needed to get over to Lansky’s to tie things up.

Down in the kitchen, I crossed my fingers and opened the junk drawer under the microwave, hoping my father’s routines hadn’t changed in the twelve years I’d been gone. I smiled to myself as I found his car keys, right where he’d been keeping them since I’d been old enough to drive and he’d had to share. I was planning to use his car to get around. He drove a Taurus, but I guess it was better than nothing. Maybe.

Next to the keys, his wallet rested on a pile of paper clips, twisty-ties, old batteries, and a bunch of other crap that had been accumulating since 1975. Stuffed into the wallet’s fold was a bank envelope. I removed it and slid the pack of bills out an inch. Riffed through it. About six or seven hundred dollars, all in fifties. Mad money for a rainy day.

I started to close the drawer but hesitated. My father’s old wallet. Smooth brown leather, worn shiny—twenty years old at least—with about thirty bucks inside. I put everything back the way I’d found it and shut the drawer, feeling a little like a Peeping Tom. Maybe I’d take a closer look in a few days when the shock of his death had worn off. Time would dull the pain, wouldn’t it?

The wind fluttered a piece of flimsy corrugated cardboard someone had slapped over the broken windowpane next to the kitchen door. Where the rescue squad had to break in. According to the EMTs, my father died instantaneously from a broken neck sustained in the fall. No suffering. I wondered if that was true, or if it was just something they said to try to make the grieving relatives feel better. How could they know how much he’d suffered?

I leaned against the counter girding myself for an onslaught of childhood memories, but the rush didn’t come. It was almost as if I’d never left—the surroundings felt so familiar. My parents bought this split-level house more than thirty-five years ago, back when Reston was still out in the Virginia boondocks and the notion of a “planned community” was novel. But while the town around us grew and evolved over the years, the carpet and furniture and wall hangings never changed. Even the less permanent things—the knickknacks and tchotchkes that had a way of infiltrating any home—were exactly as I’d remembered from my visit two and a half years ago, when Mom was fighting cancer. Her funeral had been the last time I’d been back. Now I had to plan my father’s.

Before I left the house, I peeked in on Kassian in his basement room. He slumbered peacefully, so I let him be and drove down to the funeral home, preparing for the worst.

Mort Lansky, the funeral director, met me at the door, and he was exactly how I’d pictured him over the phone, which wasn’t a good thing for Lansky. With his wrinkled parchment skin, chalk-white complexion, and beak nose, he looked as if he’d escaped from an old Charles Addams cartoon. Only his extra-firm handshake convinced me he was from my side of the grave.

I’d never had to do the dirty work before. When Mom died, I’d been assigned to other tasks while my father dealt with the funeral home. I didn’t know what to expect, how it would affect me. In short order, though, Lansky’s calm demeanor settled my nerves and an overall numbness enveloped me. An hour and a half after we’d started, everything had been selected and determined and chosen with the utmost of regard for the deceased’s eternal rest. Tasteful timelessness. No expense spared. When we were finished, I felt relieved, even though I knew I’d just been handled and upsold by a professional con artist dressed in a conservative dark suit with a deeply modulated voice meant to soothe.

___

After the fleecing at the funeral home, I stopped by to see Erik. It was after two o’clock, so I figured it was safe. I checked in at his firm’s reception desk and ninety seconds later Erik came barreling through the door. This time he tempered his embrace, but I still felt the rock-hard muscles underneath. Erik prayed daily to the gods Cybex and Nautilus, and I often thought he chose his designer suits based on which ones showed off his chiseled physique the best. Today he wore a charcoal pinstripe with a muted purple shirt and matching patterned tie. A gold Rolex peeked out from under one cuff.

Erik ushered me back to his office, past those of a dozen other attorneys, many occupied. For the Saturday before Christmas, the office seemed busy.

We sat side-by-side on a black leather-and-chrome sofa, across the office from a modern metal-topped desk the size of a small aircraft carrier. On one side of the desk, a few file folders lined up like planes about to roar off into the wild blue yonder.

“Get some rest? You seemed pretty out of it this morning,” Erik asked, leaning over and squeezing my shoulder.

“Some. Still a little tired.”

“I’ll bet,” he said.

I gestured at his suit. “Nice threads. But isn’t it the weekend?”

Erik clicked his tongue twice. “Need to look sharp. Big client this morning and Katy and I have a Christmas party to go to this evening.”

“Right.” Erik needed to look sharp all the time, whatever-sized client, whatever type party.

He touched my shoulder again, brow furrowed. “What’s going on with you and Dani?”

My soon-to-be ex-wife. I hoped the surprise on my face wasn’t evident—I hadn’t told anyone about our breakup. A few lame, evasive responses entered my mind, but I could tell Erik was on to me so I kept mum and shrugged.

“I called your house yesterday afternoon before I got you on your cell. Dani told me you’d moved out weeks ago,” he said.

“You didn’t tell me you’d spoken to Dani.”

Erik rearranged himself on the couch. “Sorry. Thought it might be better to talk about it in person. I tried this morning in the car, but you wouldn’t have any of it.”

I stifled a sigh. “Yeah. I guess things weren’t working out too well. Hadn’t been for some time now.”

“I’m sorry man. If I can do anything …”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Erik’s tone brightened. “Hey, how’s the liquidation business?”

I stared at him an extra beat. “I’ve moved on there too.” No need to burden him with my soap-opera life now. There’d be plenty of time for that later, over plenty of beer.

“Okay.” Erik patted his knee. Smoothed out the fine, Italian wool. In a few seconds, the uncomfortable moment had passed, and it was just two old buddies again.

“So, what about the estate?” I asked.

Erik took a deep breath. “Well, I wanted to tell you … But, well, let’s just get right to it.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“When your father came to me about doing his will, he made me promise I wouldn’t breach my fiduciary responsibility to him. A client’s wishes in this regard are sacrosanct, you know, and even if you are my best friend …” He paused and fixed me with a laser stare. “I would never violate the confidence of a client. Never. No matter what. So I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you any of this before.” Erik’s glib patter sounded practiced, simply a different permutation of the words he used with his other clients.

“Right. Let the record reflect you’re a true pillar of jurisprudence. Just spit it out, will you?”

Erik’s face colored. “Okay. Sorry. It’s just … this whole thing has me a little freaked.” He got up, plucked one of the file folders from his desk, and returned. As he spoke, he glanced at the top sheet. “I’ll spare you all the details for now, but bottom line, you get the house.”

I’d already assumed that when Erik had given me the key this morning. Who else would my father leave it to? I was an only child.

“And all of its contents,” Erik added.

Kassian’s face—and breath—sprang to mind. I was sure Erik wasn’t referring to the old drunk, but I saw no reason to bring him up. He was simply another guest star in Josh Handleman’s secret soap opera.

Erik leafed through the folder and unclipped a small red envelope from one of the pages. “There’s this, too. Safe deposit key. Virginia Central at Reston Town Center.” He flipped it around in his hand, then read the number on it. “Box 112.” He held the key-sized envelope out to me.

I took it and nicked at one corner with my fingernail. “What’s in the box?”

Erik shook his head. “Don’t know, but it’s all yours. Probably family photos or birth certificates or baby teeth. Something with sentimental value.”

“Not a million bucks in cash?” A grin spread on my face.

Erik swallowed. “No, don’t think so. I checked the itemized list of assets your father compiled, and it didn’t look like there was anything valuable that could fit into a box that size. Sorry.” His Roman features tightened.

“Hey, not your fault my father wasn’t loaded.” I stuck the key in my pocket. I didn’t care as much about money as most people, although having it was better than not having it. Of course, I didn’t care much about old photos either.

Erik squirmed and consulted the folder again. “He left some jewelry—your mother’s, I believe—to his sister Shelley.”

“Good. She wouldn’t want to be left out.” Aunt Shel already owned a house, but she’d appreciate a few baubles. She was a lot more sentimental than I was.

A strange look descended over Erik. He seemed at a loss for words.

“What?” I asked.

“Listen, Josh. As soon as the paperwork for your father’s estate gets filed, it becomes public record. So …”

I shrugged. “So what do I care if people find out I inherited the house? Who gives a crap?” Sometimes he worried about the strangest things.

“No, it’s not that,” Erik said, as he closed the folder on his lap and took a deep breath. “It’s the seven million dollars he left to the Reston Hebrew Home that people might give a crap about.”

Holy crap, indeed.