Always Say Goodbye

9

Man said it was urgent,” said Ames.

He was sitting at Lew’s desk, blinds open, sun dancing in dust, sending a yellow band across the floor. Outside beyond the Dairy Queen lot, a sports car whoomed up a few gears and shot away.

“How each of us sees urgency is a matter of perspective,” Ann Horowitz said. “What is urgent to this man may not be to Lewis.”

She was in her office on Bay Street, a patient sat in the closet-sized waiting room beyond her wooden door. Ann was purposely keeping the patient, Stephen Mullex, waiting beyond his appointed time. Mullex should complain about his hour being cut short. She wanted him to complain, to assert himself. If he didn’t complain, she would make that the issue of the session.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ames said evenly.

“One man might well say he has an emergency, and mean it and sound like it, screaming, crying, when his car won’t start and he will be late for a tuna match.”

“Tuna?”

“Tennis,” Ann corrected herself, wondering what, if anything, her slip might mean. Age? The ghost of Freud?

“Another man might call the police from his home and calmly announce that his family was being murdered by two men with axes downstairs and add that there was no hurry because everyone was dead.”

“Were they?” asked Ames.

“Hypothetical,” Ann answered. “How would you react?”

“Find a gun, knife, chair, lamp and go down after the guys with axes,” he said. “By the time the police got there, they’d all be dead.”

“Unless he killed his family,” said Ann.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s possible. If Lewis calls you, would you please have him call me at the Texas Bar and Grille. I left a message on his sister’s phone, but he hasn’t called back.”

“I do have another number,” she said.

Ames said nothing, waited.

“He asked me not to give it out. It’s his brother-in-law’s cell phone.”

“Ma’am.”

She looked at the digital clock on her desk. The numbers were large. The time was ten minutes after the hour. Stephen Mullex had been kept waiting long enough. Ann gave Ames the number of the phone in Franco Massaccio’s tow truck.

“I can be disbarred for betraying this confidence,” she said.

“You’re not a lawyer. You’re a psychologist.”

“Then getting disbarred won’t hurt my career, will it?”

“No ma’am, it won’t.”

“I was making a joke, Mr. McKinney.”

“So was I,” said Ames. “Thanks for the number.”

“Have Lewis call me.”

She hung up. So did Ames. He dialed the number Ann Horowitz had given him, got an answering machine and said: “Lewis, it’s Ames. Call me at your office.”

Ames McKinney had a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in civil engineering. He had, less than a decade ago, been rich. He had written a book published by the University of New Mexico Press, Some Things a Man Can’t Walk Around: Individual Responsibility in Nineteenth-Century America. The book had been well-reviewed in journals and even a few newspapers in New Mexico, Texas and Colorado. It had even been nominated for a Chino best nonfiction award. He had never mentioned the book to Lew or anyone else. When Ames’s partner had taken all the money in their business and hid in Sarasota, Ames had come here, found him and the two had shot it out on South Lido Beach. The partner died. Ames had spent minimal time in jail because he had a witness, Lewis Fonesca. He owed his sad little Italian friend, but beyond that Ames liked him.

Ames called the Texas Bar amp; Grille and told Big Ed that he’d be coming back late. The collection of old guns on the wall, the choice of twelve different beers, the thick all-meat nearly raw burgers the size of a pie plate and Ed were the prime attractions of the Texas Bar amp; Grille. Ed, who grew up in New England, had decided one day to sell his chain-link business, part his hair down the middle, grow a handlebar mustache, buy a shinny vest and go West to become a saloon keeper. He got as far as Sarasota. He was red-faced and happy.

“Do what you gotta,” said Ed.

Ed was also fond of saying, “There are some things a man just can’t walk around,” “Suit yourself,” “I said I’d do it and that I full intend to do,” “I’m a peaceable man so let’s not have any trouble here.” He had always avoided “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” There are some cliches a man’s just gotta walk around.

Two hours later, after finishing the paperback copy of a Larry McMurtry novel, Ames picked up the phone and dialed the number Earl Borg had given him.

Pappas sat on the sofa listening to a CD of Dionysious Savopoulos’s Garden of the Fool. The singer was one of his favorites, had been since he first heard his voice on on a Greek radio station almost forty years ago in Philadelphia. Philadelphia was home, had been home. It was where the good memories were, at least many good memories plus the ghosts of many friends and enemies. Philadelphia, in Greek, means “City of Brotherly Love.” Savopoulos had been a kind of Greek combination of Frank Zappa and Bob Dylan with strong traditional Greek influences.

Pappas wanted to squeeze the coffee cup, but if he did, it would break. One of the reasons for using the delicate cups was that they were so delicate. They reminded him that he should have a soft touch. Sometimes, however, he forgot.

Loose ends. Holes. Sticky fingers. Weak sons. Weak knees. Mother is always right. Like Hell. If mothers were like Bernice, they were wrong at least half the time and when they were wrong, they were wrong big time. I mean, I’m telling you, big, big time. But a mother is a mother. This one could kill and bake and loved her family.

Enough. Tomorrow he would personally take care of Posnitki. Their relationship was far too dangerous for Pappas and his family. The dead Posno would take to darkness behind the wall of death whatever information he had on Pappas. Posno would also take with him responsibility for all he had done in Pappas’s name. He would even take with him responsibility for crimes he didn’t commit. The door would be open.

Pappas felt his legs bouncing nervously. He got up, cup still in hand, and began to sytros, the traditional dance move that was simply part of him, the dance move popularized in Zorba The Greek, Never On a Sunday and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Right foot out, arms up, circle counterclockwise in a shuffle-drag. The music wasn’t quite right, but the dance was of the blood and the song in Greek.

It was a celebration now, a wake, a near-ecstasy. He smiled, eyes closed. He didn’t hear the door open or close, but he did sense a presence near him. He could smell his mother, sweet of honey, crisp of phyllo. He opened his eyes. She was dancing next to him and smiling.

He imagined Posno next to him, dancing, smiling. Posno, his dark round face, bald head, deep eyes, heavy lips. Posno dressed in black knit shirt, slacks, shoes and jacket. Had they once danced like that? Pappas wasn’t certain.

“Tomorrow,” Pappas said. “He will die.”

“Tomorrow,” his mother repeated. “It will be easy.”

“Yes,” he said, moving his shoulders to the distinct beat, but he knew it would not be easy.

The SUV stayed inside the speed limit and out of the passing lane as it moved south on I-56. Three cars behind, Lew Fonesca knew where Victor Lee was heading. Lew had been down this highway before, before and after it had been widened.

Lew had no change of clothes, no phone, no credit cards. He had three hundred and eighty-two dollars in his wallet, all of what was left of the cash he had brought with him to Chicago. It should be enough. It would have to be.

He would have to call Angie and Franco as soon as he could, but that might not be soon. Victor Lee had stopped only once, at an Exxon station to fill his gas tank and buy something in a paper bag, probably a sandwich and a drink. Lew was parked at a pump four lanes over. He filled his own tank, went in to pay, looked out the window and saw Lee leaning back in his seat, rubbing a finger on the skin above his nose.

Lew took a chance, got a handful of change, moved to a phone against the wall near a window and fed the slot keeping his eyes on Lee, who now sat up and turned on the ignition.

“Massaccio Towing,” said Franco.

“Franco, I’m following the guy who killed Catherine.”

“Where are-?”

“Franco, listen. I have to go. I’ll try to call tonight, but I won’t be back till tomorrow, maybe later.”

“Lewie, McKinney is trying to reach you.”

“I’ll call him when I can.”

“Lewis, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and hung up.

He hurried out of the Exxon, but he didn’t run.

The direction they were going, the diploma, the university degree Lew had taken from Lee’s desk, pointed the way. Somewhere Lew had a similar diploma from the same institution. It too had been in a drawer, probably still was in Uncle Tonio’s warehouse.

He turned on the radio, pushed buttons, flashing past Chicago FM stations he could still pick up, Spanish, Polish, Japanese, Swedish. Searching for a voice, any voice. He hesitated at a Greek station. Whatever song was playing made him hesitate and think of Pappas. He listened to the plaintive music that somehow felt right and left it on.

On the seat next to him was Lee’s painting of the dark mountains of the city with the one spot of light.

In two hours, they would be in Urbana-Champaign.

Lew knew the way to I-56 and south through the corn fields, seed towers, bales of hay, dairy cows who had long ago stopped looking up at passing cars and noisy trucks, turnoffs for small towns, roadside diners with names like Mom’s, Eat Da Voo, Minnie amp; Zane’s.

What was it Ames had said once when they were driving across Florida from the Gulf Coast to Miami on the Atlantic Coast? They had passed farms, horses, cows and penned-in hogs.

“Government pays people not to raise hogs, not grow tobacco,” Ames had said. “Some people even buy farms just to not grow or raise something. You don’t and I don’t raise hogs or grow tobacco. Why doesn’t the government give us money? Or better, why don’t they stop giving money to people for not raising anything.”

It was easy to remember this on-the-road exchange because it was the longest single speech Lew had ever heard from Ames McKinney. Lew hadn’t said anything after the speech. He wasn’t sure if Ames was or wasn’t joking. Lew didn’t want to find out. He did wonder what his friend would make of the massive fields on both sides of the highway.

Lew picked up a Springfield FM radio station. An English professor who specialized in the history of the early eighteenth-century British novel at Sangamon State University was taking on the president of the United States, solemnly doing his part to condemn and execute the president for everything from how he liked his eggs prepared to what he was or wasn’t doing to stop the three-hundred-year-old battle between two small tribes in Gabon. The professor, with a reedy, excited voice, seemed to have memorized or was reading a list of offenses about which the professor had strong opinions. Lew listened through oil drilling in Alaska (the professor was against it), housing for the homeless (he was for it), saying Jesus in school or Wal-Mart (he was against it), abortion (he thought it was a good idea), intelligent design (he didn’t see much evidence for it).

There was a call-in number. If he had a phone, Lew would have called in and asked if the man had any jokes he could share.

Lew turned off the radio when Lee stopped at a gas station to refuel and pick up a cup of coffee and a prepackaged box of half-a-dozen glazed chocolate donuts. Lew hurried to the men’s room, past the urinal and into the stall that had a door that closed but didn’t lock.

Lew finished and started to get up. The outside door to the men’s room opened. Under the partition Lew could see Victor Lee’s legs as he moved to the urinal.

“You’re driving the white Cutlas?” Lee asked flatly.

“Yes.”

“You’re following me.”

“You?”

“The SUV,” Lee said.

“I’m driving down to Urbana,” Lew said. “Class reunion. I think I did see you on the road but…”

“Forget it. Sorry,” said Lee, flushing the urinal.

Lew waited till he heard the door close. Lee was going out the front door with his coffee and donuts when Lew moved to the refrigerator case, pulled out a sandwich wrapped tight in see-through plastic, grabbed a bottle of vanilla Diet Coke and pulled out his wallet to pay the skinny sullen girl behind the bulletproof glass window. Lee was just pulling out of the lot. Lew thought he could see the man holding up a donut.

“No protein,” Lew said.

“Fresh out,” the girl said, brushing back her stringy straw-colored hair. “Had some last week I think.”

“Some…?”

“Protein.”

She handed him his change.

“I was talking about the man who just left,” Lew said.

“Your friend, the Jap guy?”

“He’s not my friend and he’s Chinese.”

“Same difference,” she said, sliding the change to Lew through the two-inch gap at the bottom of the glass plate. “All gonna get our jobs. Indians, Japs, Chinks. We’re fuckin’ obsolete.”

She looked at him, arms folded, waiting to see if he would agree.

Lew shrugged. Lee’s car was out of sight and he was probably two donuts to the wind.

“Got nothing against them,” the girl said, brushing her hair back again. “Sister’s husband is one of ’em. Good guy. Works in a tire shop in Chester. Oh, shit, almost forgot. Chink guy with the donuts and no protein told me to give you this.”

She picked up a small lined sheet that had been torn from a notebook and slid it to him. It had been written quickly, was hard to read: Boneyard Tavern tonight.

There was no signature.

There was no need to hurry.

“You’re from Chicago, right?” the girl asked.

“Right.”

“Been there,” she said, looking over her thin shoulder in the general direction of Chicago. “Too big. Been to St. Louis too. Too big in a different way. Know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

Lew looked down at the sandwich. It was tuna salad on white. He unwrapped it.

“How old are you?” he asked.

She turned to face him.

“Young, mostly. Seventeen. You?”

“Forty-two.”

“You hitting on me?” the girl said with a smile. “Wouldn’t be the first.”

“No,” Lew said. “The man who left this note…”

“The chink,” she said.

“Did he say anything?”

“To me? Just ‘Give this to the guy in the washroom.’ He did say something to himself though, come to think on it. He said, I think he said, “‘No more.’”

Ames McKinney waited for two hours. The sun was going down and a quartet of teens who said fuck a lot were laughing in the DQ parking lot beyond Lew’s office window.

He picked up the phone and punched in the number Earl Borg had left. It took Borg one ring to answer.

“Yes.”

“Name’s McKinney. I work with Lewis Fonesca. He’s out of town.”

“And you can help me?”

“I can try,” said Ames. “Till he gets back.”

Silence.

“I have an thirteen-year-old daughter,” Borg said. “She’s missing.”

“Called the police?”

“No. If I told them what happened, they wouldn’t believe me. I have a… let’s call it reputation and history with the police that make me less than reputable. The problem is that my daughter does not have my name. Neither does her mother. We were never married. I have no evidence, except the word of the girl’s mother that she is mine. And I doubt if the girl’s mother would vouch for my paternity to the police.”

“You think she was kidnapped?”

“I’m certain.”

“Know where she might be?”

“Yes, and who took her. There is a reason I can’t look for her myself.”

“Tell me what I need to know,” Ames said.

“Don’t do anything till you talk to Fonesca,” Borg said.

“Won’t.”

“Okay,” said Borg, who told his story.

When Ames hung up the phone, it began to ring immediately.

Inevitable. He had put it off. He didn’t want to do it, but he had, he was sure, very few options. From the alley on the South Side, he had fired a single bullet in the hope that it would get Lew Fonesca to back off, let his wife’s memory rest, go back to Florida. It was a hope he had no faith in even when he fired, the shot coming closer to Fonesca’s head than he had planned.

Okay, so he could simply shoot himself, which he had no intention of doing for many reasons. It would cancel any insurance payments. He could kill Lew Fonesca. That he did not want to do. It wasn’t that he was against killing. He had done it before, twice in the last two days. No, he truly liked Fonesca. Fonesca, sad as he was, didn’t deserve to be murdered.

Fonesca wanted to know who had killed his wife and why. Not unreasonable, but if he kept looking, Fonesca would find out what he had done. It would end the shooter’s life, his reputation, his family, his freedom.

Fonesca had to die.