Twenty-Three

“You are a fucking idiot,” said Sal.

We sat on a bench in Christopher Columbus Park. The morning sun sparkled off the dirty Boston Harbor water as boats rocked at their moorings under a blue-white cloudless sky. A thick, black iron chain stretched between imposing black mooring posts. The chain acted as a fence, but it wouldn’t keep Sal from pitching me into the ocean if the notion struck him.

“I’m not an idiot,” I said. Snappy comeback. Words failed me around Sal.

“Why would you ask me that? Use your fucking big MIT brain and tell me how I’m supposed to answer that question.”

“I think yes or no should be good enough.”

“Yeah? What if I say ‘No, I’m not in the Mafia’? Would you fucking believe me?”

Nobody could hear us, yet Sal whispered with furious intensity. I thought about his question. He was right. I wouldn’t believe him if he denied being in the Mafia.

Sal wasn’t going to let it drop. “Well? Would you believe me?”

I said, “Yeah, I would.”

“Don’t you fucking lie to me. I can see when you’re lying.”

I crossed my arms and didn’t answer.

Sal went on, “And if I didn’t say no, then you’d be some sort of witness. Fuck. Are you wearing a wire?” He reached over and began to paw at me. He opened my Sox jacket and ran his hands down my chest and back. He patted my thighs and reached up my crotch. It was like airport security.

“That’s not a microphone,” I said.

Sal said, “Fuck you.”

I pushed his hands away. “I’m not wearing a wire. What do you think I am?”

Sal said, “I don’t know what you are.”

“Well, I’ll tell you this. I’m not a liar.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You told me that I didn’t have a brother, and it turned out that I did. You lied to me.”

Sal stood and took a step toward home. Then he turned, stuck his finger in my face. “Of course I lied to you. It was none of your fucking business.”

I stood, not wanting to be loomed over, and got in Sal’s face. “My half brother was none of my business?”

“No. He wasn’t.”

“That’s ridiculous. And I suppose Cathy Byrd wasn’t—”

“She’s a whore,” said Sal.

“You shouldn’t talk that way about the dead.”

“Dead? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“She’s dead. Somebody shot her yesterday, and the Boston Police suspect my mother.” I sat.

Sal sat back down too. “They think Auntie Angelina did it? Idiots.”

Sal’s breath formed small puffs in the morning air. With his greatcoat and suit, he looked like he could either head over to the financial district or back to the North End. He had an early-morning five o’clock shadow, and there was a nick high on his sideburn. The blood had crusted, forming a scab. I tried to fathom how this guy was related to me and what that meant.

Sal said, “She didn’t know about Cathy Byrd.”

“Then how did you know about her?”

“I just knew that my mother said that Auntie Angelina’s babysitter was a whore,” said Sal.

“Why would Auntie Rosa say that?”

“Because your father asked my father for money.”

“Money? Money for what?”

Sal was silent.

Money? I turned the information over in my head. It was another data point in the puzzle. The mystery was like a tough game of Tetris. I twisted the new data, trying to get it to fit in with the other blocks of information and generate a flash of insight. Sal had started to rise when the information about the money snugged into a slot in the puzzle. The blocks disappeared and I knew why Dad had wanted the money.

I put my hand on Sal’s arm to keep him seated. I said, “The house. He wanted the money so he could buy Cathy Byrd a house.”

Sal glared at me. Then he said, “Yeah.”

“He wanted to borrow money from your father.”

“Yeah. It was stupid. We couldn’t lend money to Auntie Angelina’s husband. It would be bad business. My dad offered to give him the money.”

“So your dad bought Cathy Byrd’s house?”

“No. Your father didn’t want a handout. He wouldn’t take the money.”

“So where did he get it?”

“I don’t know.”

We stared across the harbor as a 757 lumbered its way into the air, rising from Logan into the blue sky. Somehow, my dad had bought a house and my mother never saw a hint of the cash.

I said, “Maybe he got the money from Uncle Walt.”

Sal barked a laugh. “That deadbeat? I’ll tell you this: if that son of a bitch has any money, he had better use it to pay his debts.”

“You lent money to my Uncle Walt?”

Sal rose and said, “Tucker, keep your fucking nose out of this. It doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone’s dead. You keep poking around this shit, you’re gonna get hurt.”

I stood. “That’s what Talevi said.”

Sal said, “Talevi? What do you have to do with Talevi?”

“He found me at Bukowski Tavern yesterday and told me the same thing you did. He said I should stay out of this.”

Sal gripped my upper arm in his beefy hand and looked me square in the face. “Do not fuck with Talevi. That guy is a dangerous little shit.”

“Yeah. He threatened to kill me.”

“You fuck with him, you’ll be lucky if he kills you. Last guy who fucked with Talevi got his hands shoved into a wood chipper.”

“I’ll be careful,” I said.

Sal let go of my arm and pointed at my face. “You get out of this fucking thing and go home to the South End.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You do more than think about it. And another thing: don’t you fucking ever tell Talevi that you know me. You got that? Capisce?”

“Yeah. I capisce.”

“Now forget this shit.”

Sal walked down Atlantic Avenue toward the North End, leaving me standing next to a black iron piling. I pulled out my Droid and fired up the Zipcar app. A car was ready over on India Street, so I started walking.

I was heading back to the suburbs to invite Uncle Walt out for lunch.