Always Say Goodbye

13

At five minutes to three, Franco dropped Lew in front of Dunkin’ Donuts and went to park the truck. The sky grumbled an introduction to a promise or threat of rain. At a newsstand four doors away, two men stood arguing. Lew stopped. He recognized one of the men. The one he didn’t recognize had a round belly, blue sweatshirt, rolled-up sleeves and arms moving to the beat of his anger. The angry man pointed a threatening thick finger at the sidewalk as he said, “Right here. Right now. You got a brother could help you. Fine. Get him here fast so I can lay him on his ass and get back to work.”

The man he was talking to was about the same height as the angry man but from another world. His belly was still under control. He wore a dark suit with a tightly knit, loosely wrapped purple tie. The tie had little spots of sunlike orange. His hands were folded against his chest and he neither turned his head nor lashed out at the raving man who was in his face.

People flowed around them. No one had yet struck a blow, no one had addressed the passing crowd.

“What’s it about?” a slouching man in a well-worn khaki Army surplus topcoat asked Lew.

The man was black, in need of a shave or a good beard trim. He pulled and shifted from leg to leg as if he were cold and tugged at his dirty red watch cap. At the side of the watch cap was an orange T.

“So waddya gonna do about it?” the hairy man said.

“You from Tennessee?” Lew asked the man next to him.

“Been there, been there,” the man in cap said sagely, “but born right here in Detroit.”

“We’re in Chicago,” said Lew.

The man in the cap looked around at the buildings, the street signs, the people and said, “Chicago? I need to wake up and call Leanne. Leanne, that’s my daughter. She lives here in…”it

“Chicago.”

“Yes. You see I’ve been a little under the weather since the war.”

“Which war?” Lew asked as the hairy man began to poke the well-dressed man in the chest with a finger.

“Pick two, your choice,” said the man with the cap, hunching up his shoulders, hands in his pockets, moving from foot to foot. “World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Kosovo, Afghanistan, good old Iraq, some secret places I couldn’t even pronounce when I was there and a couple I never knew the name of. Pick two and I’ll jab them in your eyes like Moe in the Three Stooges.”

The hairy man was inches from the well-dressed man now. The hairy man was now shouting, insisting, “Cash, now, all of it.”

“I didn’t take your newspaper,” the well-dressed man said calmly.

People were pausing now. Something was about to happen. It had to. The hairy man became aware of the gatherers and tried to up the language ante.

“You have taken that which is rightfully mine,” he said, face turning red. He slapped his open fist against his chest, making a thumping sound like that of King Kong.

“This paper is mine,” the well-dressed man said calmly, wearily. “Brought it from home this morning.”

“I saw you take it, you lying son of a bitch.”

The hairy man’s spittle sprayed the other man, but the other man showed no emotion.

“You’re wrong,” said the well-dressed man.

The hairy man swung a brick-sized right fist at the other man’s head. The well-dressed man stepped to his right and the hairy man’s momentum took him into the unwelcoming arms of a couple from Duluth celebrating their fifty-ninth anniversary.

“Just like on the television,” said the man in the red cap. “Someone ought to help that fella.”

Lew wasn’t sure which “fella” he was supposed to help.

The hairy man, fists clenched, making growling sounds, was striding toward the man in the suit. The man in the suit didn’t move.

“Which one?” asked Lew.

“Which one? Donald Trump with a good haircut, that’s who? I’d bet you a buck against him if I had a buck.”

“You’d be picking a loser,” said Lew.

“You know somethin’ I don’ know, right?”

“Right,” said Lew.

“Well, I know other stuff you don’t know.”

“I’m sure,” said Lew as the hairy man moved in.

“Just this A.M., over by the drain over there at Navy Pier, a guy named H. Lee zwooped a knife right into the arm of another guy name of Crazy Proof, on account he carries an old shit-up piece of paper says he’s crazy. How’s your day, man?”

The hairy man was moving slowly now, determined to end the show, satisfy the onlookers.

“I had a nice lunch and watched a guy shoot himself in the head,” said Lew.

The man in the cap nodded knowingly and said, “I seen stuff like that too. Guy named Willie, Silly Willie they called him, jumped off a roof. Splatter, you wouldn’t believe ’less you saw it. Your guy? Lot’s of blood?”

“Lots of blood.”

The hairy guy feinted with his body, shouted, “Newspaper!” and threw his weight into a decent right cross. The well-dressed man grabbed the lunger’s sleeve as he punched and helped his momentum carry the man through a space made by the crowd.

The hairy man landed on his face, tried to get to his knees, groaned and looked around. He had temporarily lost track of time and space. The fight was over without a punch landing. The crowd clearly felt cheated. The man in the red knit cap said, “Well, least we didn’t pay for a ticket.”

“Small blessings,” said Lew.

“Amen, brother. You think you might…”

Lew fished a handful of change from his pocket and handed it to the man.

The crowd was almost gone. The well-dressed man was helping the dazed gladiator to his feet, being careful not to cover himself in blood.

“Thank you,” said the red-capped man.

“What were you before?” Lew asked.

“Before what? Oh, first a soldier and then I was a very bad preacher of bootlegged and distorted meanderings randomly recalled from the Holy Bible.”

The man in the suit was steadying the bleeding man with one hand and speaking to him softly. The bleeding man nodded in understanding as he stained Jackson Street.

“Whomsoever will take my hand,” the man in the cap suddenly bellowed. “So shall he walk with me through the valley of monsters and devils and emerge on the path to a bright eternity. And that is no shit.”

People were not attracted by his call to salvation.

“I still got it,” the man said, smiling. “Haven’t done that in years. Feels good. Come on. Get down. Feels good. Feels good.”

“It doesn’t feel good,” said Lew.

“Give it half a shot.”

“It’s not in me.”

The man in the knit cap plunged his hands into his coat pockets, backed away and looked at Lew saying, “I see that now.”

He turned his back and swooped through the crowd.

“Do I have any blood on me, Lew?” came a question from Lew’s left.

Lew turned to face the well-dressed man. There was no visible blood on Milt Holiger.

The bloody man, the crowd and the preacher had drifted away. A new line of hurrying pedestrians and grinding cars took over.

“His newspaper,” said Holiger, looking at Lew. “I once had a guy, little guy, mean face, lips pushed out like this.”

Holiger jutted his chin out and opened his eyes wide.

“Little guy says I’m wearing his pants. Won’t give up. Stays in my face. He was too pathetic to hit. I told him where the Goodwill store was on Madison and gave him a buck. He, can you believe it, struts away mumbling about my stealing his pants. Guy had maybe a twenty-four waist, tops. The pants were thirty-eights.”

There weren’t many people inside the Dunkin’ Donuts and there was no line. Milt Holiger ordered a black coffee and a sourdough donut. Lew ordered a coffee with cream and double sugar and a corn muffin. Franco came in. He nodded at Holiger, looked over the counter at the trays of donuts, muffins and pastries.

“Hard to decide,” Franco said. “Okay, a chocolate chip muffin, a chocolate-frosted donut, not the fluffy one, the cake kind, and a coffee straight.”

Lew paid for all three orders and headed for a small table for two in the back near the restrooms.

“It’s okay. I’ll sit over there,” said Franco, nodding at an empty table across the room.

“Gracie got accepted at Vanderbilt,” Holiger said, pulling his chair up to the table.

“And your son?”

“Alan’s still straight A at Northwestern,” Holiger said, tearing his donut in half and dipping one of the halves into his coffee with his right hand. The left he used to keep his tie from dipping into the coffee. “So you want to tell me more about the person or persons who killed Catherine?”

Lew looked at his muffin and coffee but didn’t reach for them.

“His name is Victor Lee.”

“And you haven’t turned him in? You want me to do it?”

“No.”

“He’s alive, right? Wait. Maybe I don’t want to know,” Holiger said, working on his coffee and muffin.

“He’s alive. I talked to him.”

“What did he say?”

“He’s suffering.”

“He said he was suffering?”

“I could see he was suffering,” said Lew, touching his coffee cup but still not lifting it.

“Where is he now?” asked Holiger, starting on the second half of his donut.

“Lost,” said Lew, looking over at Franco who had finished both his muffin and donut. “Pappas is dead.”

Holiger paused, soggy wedge of donut halfway from the table to his mouth. Then he leaned forward, but it was too late to stop the end of the donut from dropping into the coffee.

“Killed himself right after lunch,” Lew continued.

“Today? How do you know?”

Holiger checked himself to be sure no drops of coffee had splashed on him.

“I was there,” said Lew. “Catherine, Pappas, Posno, Santoro, Aponte-Cruz, all dead.”

“Posno, dead?” said Holiger.

A very fat young man with a well-trimmed beard had replaced the two who had left the next table. The fat man was wearing a Chicago Bears jacket and cap. He glanced at Lew and went to work on some large iced drink covered with whipped cream.

“And another hundred people just got off of the train,” Lew said. He thought he had said it to himself but Milt Holiger said, “Train?”

“Nothing,” said Lew, breaking off a corner of the muffin.

“Lew, you all right?”

Their eyes met. Holiger’s concern was sincere.

“Making a dollar a minute,” said Lew.

“You’re losing me here, Lewis.”

“Catherine’s missing files don’t have anything to do with Pappas, Posno or Victor Lee,” said Lew.

“They don’t?”

“No,” said Lew.

Franco had finished eating. He stood and looked at Lew, who motioned him back down. Franco sat.

“Okay, but what about Santoro and Aponte-Cruz?” said Holiger. “Did Pappas own up to killing them before he died? Did-what’s his name-Lee kill them?”

“Pappas didn’t kill them. Neither did Lee.”

“You know who did?”

Lew took the folded bank statement and the bullet he had taken from the door of Franco’s truck out of his pocket and placed them on the table in front of Holiger.

“You did, Milt,” Lew said.

A woman, trying to keep her bulky flower-patterned bone-handled purse from falling from under her arm, held her white paper bag in front of her, scanning for an open table. There was none. She sighed and headed for the door.

“I think Catherine’s missing file is the one with bank statements in it,” said Lew.

“Lew,” Holiger said with a sigh.

“You’re holding the one I picked up from the bank this morning,” Lew said. “You told me you went to the bank, talked to someone. You didn’t. They log in every visitor. They’ve also got video surveillance. You’re not going to be on that tape are you, Milt?”

Milt Holiger looked down at the statement and the bullet that rested on top of it. He touched neither.

“No.”

“I saw the computer file,” said Lew. “The file shows individual checks, front and back.”

“You know I can…”

“That bullet’s going to match your gun, isn’t it?”

Holiger looked away and played with a crumb on his plate.

“It’s also going to match the bullets in Santoro and Aponte-Cruz,” Lew went on.

“I could have changed guns,” Holiger said.

“Why? No one suspected you.”

“You’re right,” said Holiger, readjusting himself in the chair.

“You’ve been taking our mail, our bank statements, forging checks,” said Lew. “You’ve got real identification. You really are a State’s Attorney investigator. You had the mail rerouted. I can find out where.”

Holiger looked around the room. Smiling faces. Sad faces. A fat young man with a well-trimmed beard holding a donut in one hand, coffee in the other. Franco in a stare down with a thin woman holding a coffee cup who wanted his table. The two young women, one black, one clearly Latina, behind the counter in trim uniforms serving, scurrying.

“A post office box,” said Holiger. “The mail goes to a post office box in White Plains. In your name. Lew, I didn’t start writing the checks till almost a year after you were gone. You left no address. You could have been dead.”

“When I left there was less than a hundred dollars in the account,” Lew went on. “Then, all of a sudden, four hundred thousand dollars. Now there’s a hundred thousand.”

Holiger shook his head, reached up to tighten his tie, changed his mind.

“You want to be exact? Four hundred and twenty-two thousand, Catherine’s life insurance. I had it deposited in your account. There’s one hundred and nine thousand dollars and forty-seven cents in there now.”

“And no one at the bank or the insurance company asked any questions?”

“Why should they? I had it directly deposited into your joint account. Lew, I was in the hole. One kid in college, another about to go. Ruthie’s diabetes is, well, it’s bad.”

“You killed two men, Milt.”

“No, I…”

“Santoro was working for the bank,” said Lew. “He came to you to see if he could find a lead to me. So, you killed him, him and Aponte-Cruz.”

“I could say I’ll find a way to pay you back the the rest of the money,” Holiger said, leaning over the table, whispering.

“How are you going to get three hundred thousand dollars, Milt?”

“I don’t know. Overtime?”

Holiger smiled. Lew did not.

“You murdered two people, Milt.”

“You’re going to turn me in. That guy Lee, he murdered Catherine and you didn’t turn him in.”

“He killed Catherine. He didn’t murder her.”

Franco had lost the stare down contest with the waiting woman. He was up now and heading toward the table where Lew and Milt Holiger sat.

“Lew, Ruthie, the kids, what are you going to do?” asked Holiger, sitting back, eyes closed, rubbing his forehead with his fingers.

“What are you going to do?” asked Lew.

He hadn’t touched his coffee or the muffin. Franco was standing next to the table now.

“I don’t know,” said Holiger. “I’m not going to shoot myself or jump off the Sears Tower if that’s what you’re hinting at. There are too many people dead in the last few days. You know why, Lewis?”

“Yes, because I came back to town.”

“Okay, I’ll turn myself in, plead… I don’t know what.”

“Not going to eat that, Lewis?” Franco said.

Lew shook his head no. Franco picked up the muffin.

Lew stood up. Franco saw the bullet on top of the unfolded bank statement.

“I’ll call Dupree tomorrow,” said Holiger. “I want to tell Ruthie first.”

Franco looked puzzled.

“What?” he asked. “What’s goin’ on?”

Holiger looked up at Franco and then at Lew and said, “Watch the ten o’clock news tomorrow.”

Lew walked past tables toward the door, Franco at his side. Franco bumped into the table where two black men wearing identical blue long-sleeved turtle-necked sweaters swept up their coffee cups before they spilled. Franco excused himself. Lew looked back at Milt Holiger, who was staring down at the bullet.

“Mind telling me what that was all about?” Franco said.

“I’m going home,” said Lew.

And after the family dinner that night, he did.

Stuart M. Kaminsky

Always Say Goodbye: A Lew Fonesca Mystery