Always Say Goodbye

7

Inside Toro’s garage, Lew sat behind the wheel of a white 1993 Cutlas. The car had belonged to Ernest Palpabua, a Samoan former left tackle for the Green Bay Packers and later a wrestler. Ernest had plowed the Cutlas into a horse. It turned out to be a stroke of luck for the Samoan, but not for the dead horse or the Cutlas.

The horse belonged to a park policeman. The Cutlas belonged to Ernest Palpabua and Ernest belonged to the media. His encounter with the horse landed him on the front page of the Sun-Times, photograph and story. That night the Marigold Stadium, where he was wrestling, was jammed. Ernest, now suddenly known as the Samoan Horse Killer, was popular. He had enough money for a new car. Toro bought the old one and Lew Fonesca now sat in it.

Lew hadn’t driven in Chicago for a little more than four years. He didn’t want to do it now.

The car was idling in the shadows in front of the wide entrance to the garage, hiding from the October sun. On the other side of Taylor Street beyond the entrance, he could see the walls of a soot-stained three-story yellow brick apartment building. In front of the entrance to the apartment was a small circle of dirt in the cracked concrete sidewalk. Inside the circle was a lone stunted tree, its few yellow leaves fluttering in the wind.

The leaves were beckoning him to come out of the shadows. Lew didn’t trust the leaves.

When he and Franco had gotten back to the house, Angie had been there. Franco, the book tucked under his arm, had eagerly told her what had happened, ending with the confrontation with the four young men and the bullet that hit the truck.

Angie didn’t look happy. She didn’t even look tolerant.

“Let me get this straight. You were in a black neighborhood,” she said. “Four guys confronted you. Someone shot a gun. There’s a hole in the truck.”

“Well, that’s the short tale,” Franco said.

“It’s the one I prefer,” said Angie. “Who was the shooter trying to kill or was he just having his usual afternoon of street target practice?”

“Ange, you don’t know what it was like.”

“I had to be there,” she said.

“Yeah, you… no. I’m glad you weren’t there. Listen.”

Franco, book still under his arm, retold the story, adding a dance of hand and body movements.

Lew had sat at the dining-room table, hands folded in front of him. Though he had said nothing, his sister’s eyes returned to him as Franco savored his tale. Angie spoke to her brother without saying a word and Lew answered silently.

“You should have seen, Ange,” said Franco with a shake of his head. “You should have seen. We’re gonna grab something to eat and go after the guy in the car that-”

He was going to say, “killed Catherine,” but he caught himself. Franco held the book out to Angie. She looked at it.

“I just finished this one,” she said.

“I know,” said Franco. “Open it.”

She did and read the inscription: “‘To Angela, Imagine that we are holding each other’s hand and walking together through the forest of the night. Rebecca Strum.’”

She looked at her brother.

“Is this real?”

“Yes,” said Lew.

“What’s she like?”

“Probably what you’d expect her to be from her books,” said Lew.

“You haven’t read any of her books, Lewis,” Angie said.

“I’m going to.”

“Think I could meet her?” asked Angie.

Franco put his arm around her and said, “Sure. We just knock at the door. Right, Lewie?”

“I’m going alone,” Lew said in answer.

“What do you mean?” Franco said. “Go where?”

“He means,” Angie said gently, “he’s going alone to find the man who killed Catherine. Call Toro. Tell him to get a car ready.”

“That right, Lewie?”

Lew nodded. It was right.

“Hey,” Franco said, “What if…?”

“Lew can deal with ‘what if,’” Angie said.

Now, behind the wheel of the Cutlas, window slightly open, Lew could smell the grease of the garage, hear the shush of the wind bending the beckoning tree.

He remembered Rebecca Strum’s inscription for Angie. There’s a forest of the day too, he thought, and only one hand he wanted to hold. He turned on the radio and pushed the buttons seeking a voice, any voice. What he did not want was music.

He stepped on the pedal and drove into the day.

“The ulcer,” said Dr. Royale after he finished his examination of John Pappas.

Donald Royale was John Pappas’s physician for one reason: he made house calls and asked no questions about why John didn’t come to his office the way the rest of the dysfunctional family did. Dr. Royale did not believe in agoraphobia. Oh, yes, there were half-crazy people like Pappas who didn’t or wouldn’t leave their houses, apartments, mental hospitals or sewers, but the reasons were all different. Lumping them together and giving them a name was of no help in treatment. Each case had to be dealt with individually. It needed a psychiatrist. Dr. Royale wasn’t a psychiatrist. He didn’t even want to talk to his patients about their fears of flying, shellfish, small spaces, death, water, tomatoes, Africans and going outside their homes. Such cases he immediately referred to Jacob Crasker, who was a psychiatrist. For Jake Crasker’s prescriptions, the borderline crazies would pay mightily. For Jake Crasker’s willing ear and tough-love advice, they would pay even more.

There were times when Dr. Royale believed the cost of Jake Crasker’s treatment was the price these people deserved to pay for not taking care of the problem that they created. Royale had his own problem, a painful, twisted and inoperable vertebrae. He had lived with it for more than fifty years. He took pain pills, new ones when they came out, and prided himself on not letting the pain ever show. He stood straight, smiled benevolently and catered to the well-to-do. Dr. Royale was corpulent and double-chinned, hair brushed back and flat, the collar of his shirt always a bit sweat-stained under the same blue suit he always wore. Donald Royale was a mess, but John Pappas also knew he was smart and a damned good doctor.

The examination was done in Pappas’s den-office and now they sat across from each other, Pappas in his usual seat on the sofa by the low table, Royale in the same place Lew Fonesca had sat the day before.

“So,” said Pappas, “I just keep taking that white stuff and that’s it?”

Pappas knew what the white stuff was and Dr. Royale knew he knew. Pappas smiled. He lived for games like this.

“That’s it,” said Royale. “And something new.”

“What?” asked Pappas, reaching for an apple in the silver bowl on the table.

“You should get out of this room, this house,” Royale said. “It’s closing in on you and your ulcer. You didn’t call Dr. Crasker for an appointment.”

Pappas held the green shiny apple in his hand and looked at the doctor.

“I’ll think about it. What else? You were going to say something else.”

“Forget it,” said Royale, getting up and reaching for his black leather bag.

The bag, which looked exactly like the black leather bag in Norman Rockwell paintings, had cost almost five hundred dollars. Dr. Royale didn’t want to risk his retainer, but his obligation to his patient overcame his love of fine new cars, a home in the Bahamas, another in Maywood and an apartment on 57th Street in New York that was a block away from Carnegie Hall. All of them had hot tubs that soothed Royale’s spine.

“I think you should see Dr. Crasker.”

“Shrink? You want me to get shrink-wrapped?”

He bit into the apple, grinning.

“He would be willing to make a house call. Talk to him once. Then decide,” said Royale.

“I told you last time I don’t need a therapist,” said Pappas, taking another bite of apple before he had finished chewing the first bite. His words came out with a gentle spittle that rained on the fruit. “Nothing wrong on that end. Trust me.”

“I have a choice?” asked Royale.

“You take care of the body. I’ll take care of this.” Pappas tapped his head, still chewing. He got up, stepped around the table, remnant of apple in his left hand, jaws working. He put his hand on Royale’s shoulder and guided him to the door.

“Suit yourself,” said Royale.

Pappas dropped his apple core in what looked like a ceramic bowl big enough to hold a bowling ball. The bowl was decorated with white figures of almost-nude men chasing one another around the bowl. Dr. Royale had been told it was ancient Greek. Pappas was using it as a garbage receptacle.

“Want me to walk you to the door?”

“No,” said Royale.

“You know, Doctor, you should get more exercise, work out a little. Forgive me, but you’re a little overweight. You’re busy, okay, but there’s always a little time.”

“I’ll consider it,” Royale said with a smile.

Taking advice from a neurotic patient who wouldn’t listen to advice himself was not a likely scenario for Donald Royale.

“Oh, wait, almost forgot,” said Pappas, snapping his fingers.

He moved to his desk and picked up a white paper bag. He handed it to Royale who knew from the smell that he was holding a bagful of loukoumathes, Greek donuts. Royale had considered trying again to convince Pappas to be seen by a therapist, but the prospect of losing the retainer and the goody bags of homemade Greek pastries was more than Dr. Royale could bear.

Pappas’s mother, amazingly healthy, was beyond help. He was sure of that. Bernice Pappas, multiple murderer, made him uneasy. Whenever he treated her, she had looked at him with unblinking eyes as if he were an uncooked pork loin ready for roasting. At least it felt that way. Pappas? Well, there was definitely something wrong inside the head to which his patient had occasionally pointed. Pappas was alternately grandiose, paranoid, given to long ramblings about everything from Mayan Indians to the difficulties of establishing colonies in outer space. Royale couldn’t give it a name. Crasker could and, if given the opportunity, would give it a name. Donald Royale really didn’t want to know his patient’s secrets, certainly didn’t want to know the body count for which these people were responsible.

The sons might be salvageable. Probably not, but Royale was the family physician and he took his responsibility seriously.

Dimitri seemed almost normal, in need of his father and grandmother’s approval, unwilling to step out of the circle of his family. Stavros, whose eye socket had healed well, was loyal to his father and dedicated to getting the man who had turned him into a cyclops, the man who was his father’s enemy, the man whose name Royale had heard whispered. Posno.

When the front door had closed behind Royale, Pappas went down the stairs and to the kitchen where his mother sat drinking coffee and reading her favorite magazine, Cottage Living. She looked up over her glasses.

“The ulcer,” Pappas said, touching his stomach.

“Stress,” she said. “You’ve got too much stress in your life. Get rid of the stress. Get rid of Posno and then just kill the little Italian.”

He nodded. She was right. She was a great cook but more than a little crazy. It ran in the family. His grandfather, Bernice’s father, he had been crazy too, killed some people with a shotgun in a fishing village in Greece, had to get out of the country.

“They were looking at me with eyes of the devil,” the old man had explained once, a year before he died.

Yes, his mother was nuts, but she was also right.

“The boys are out looking for Posno,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “It’s time for Posno to die.”

She kept repeating that. She was right, but she kept saying it and he wanted her to stop.

“It’s time,” he agreed.

A remnant of forgotten nightmare burst open. The doorbell had been ringing, ringing. Pappas had hurried to open it. When he flung it open, there stood Posno, grinning.

“Is this a bad time?” Posno had asked.

The doorbell had not been ringing. Posno was not there. But even Posno in his fleeting daydream had been right. It was a bad time.

Posno knew that Stavros and Dimitri were trying to find him. He had played with them, dangled hints, whiffs, suggestions through the words of a doorman, a waitress, a drugstore clerk.

Now he looked down at the street as the car parked and the brothers got out. They would go to his apartment. He had already moved out, but he had left hints, clues-a parking stub, a receipt for dry cleaning, a pad of paper with names and phone numbers. All of it was invention, none of it led to him. He enjoyed the moment. He liked the boys, was even sorry that he had shot Stavros. The shot had been a warning to the father. He had not meant to hit the son.

Couldn’t be helped now.

While the brothers bumbled on, Posno came down the stairs in the building, went through the alley door and to his car parked a few feet away.

Fonesca. He had to find and kill Fonesca. Posno had decided that Fonesca couldn’t be allowed to find Catherine’s file. Something might go wrong. He might turn it over to the police before Posno could take it. Fonesca might not even find it, at least not this time, but would he come back? Wherever the file or files were, someone finding them, if anyone ever did, might not know they were important. No, the biggest threat to Posno was Fonesca. If he lived, the little man with the idiotic baseball cap could be the end of Andrej Posnitki.

Posno drove to his new apartment.

As Lew Fonesca pulled out of Toro’s Garage on Taylor Street, the killer sat drinking a fresh too-hot cup of coffee. The cup was white ceramic with a quotation from his favorite

president, Teddy Roosevelt, printed in red block letters: DON’T HIT AT ALL IF YOU CAN HELP IT; DON’T HIT A MAN IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY AVOID IT; BUT IF YOU DO HIT HIM, PUT HIM TO SLEEP.

He had entered Claude Santoro’s office just after the sun had come up and found the lawyer behind his desk. Santoro had looked up with four seconds remaining in his life. Santoro had recognized the man who entered his office and took four steps toward his desk. Santoro couldn’t remember the name of the man who now raised a gun and pointed at his face. If he had time, he might have remembered who his killer was, but probably not. If he had time, lots of time, he might think of a reason why someone would want him dead, but he had no time. If he had time, he might have done something to save his life.

The man with the gun had fired. The silencer had worked. He wasn’t sure it would. He had never used one before.

He unscrewed the silencer, dropped it in his pocket, and tucked the gun into the holster under his jacket. Then he had gone around the desk, checked the drawers and the dead man’s pockets and stuffed the things he had taken into a jacket pocket. He had left enough to make it appear nothing had been taken. He had flipped through the dead man’s appointment book. The killer’s name wasn’t there. He hadn’t expected it to be. As he left, he was careful not to leave any fingerprints. His, if found, would be easy to match.

He had stood up and found himself looking into the dead eyes of Santoro, who had not even had time to register surprise.

He had neither hated nor disliked the lawyer. The two times he had met him briefly he had found Santoro pleasant, even likable. This had not been about hate or retribution. It had been necessity. If Santoro lived, the man who faced him now would go to prison. He would lose everything: his freedom, his home, his family, his self-respect. He had seen no choice. For a few moments just before entering Santoro’s office, he had considered shooting himself, but that had passed. He had too many promises to keep. There were too many dark streets to drive down before he could sleep.

And, he recalled, carefully sipping the too-hot coffee, having once killed, it had been easier to kill Bernard Aponte-Cruz. Aponte-Cruz had been in Santoro’s apartment when the killer got there to search through the dead man’s papers.

Aponte-Cruz had a gun on the table a few feet from where he sat. A heartbeat later, the killer, who had killed no one before that day, was a double murderer.

And then Fonesca. He had followed Fonesca and his brother-in-law to the South Side diner, had parked in the alley, had waited. He saw Little Duke Dupree come out of the Tender. He knew Little Duke. When the detective was out of sight, the four young black men had moved from the sidewalk where they had been laughing, chattering.

He had heard one of the young men say, “Let’s have us some fun.”

“Pa-thetic,” said another young man. “Messin’ with couple of scared white civilians. Pa-thetic. That’s all we got to do?”

“GG, just lean and be cool, chill, freeze,” said another member of the group. “Dry ice.”

“Whatever,” said GG, leaning against the tow truck and crossing his arms.

And then Fonesca and his brother-in-law had come out and the hassle had begun and Franco had grabbed one of the young men and then

… the killer had fired.

He was not a bad shot. He wasn’t a great shot. The bullet had pinged into the truck door a few inches from Fonesca’s head. It wasn’t until he had actually fired that the man who had already killed twice with this same gun realized that he had not meant to kill Fonesca. Had he killed him, the killer could have lived with it. He had been living with his guilt for four years and he had added murder to his shopping cart. But he couldn’t kill Lew Fonesca unless he had to. Maybe the other thing he had done to deal with the Fonesca problem would be enough to send the man back to Florida empty-handed. Then again, it might not be enough.

As Lew Fonesca pulled out of Toro’s Garage on Taylor Street and passed the thin small tree waving to him, the man who had run down Catherine four years ago and almost killed Rebecca Strum rose from his desk and looked around. The cardboard box he had filled with things from his drawers and on top of his desk sat on the floor near the door. He didn’t pick it up. He had sort of planned to take the box, to the extent that he had planned anything.

He walked through the open door and down the hall past the cubicles on his right where people worked silently and seldom looked up. He had withdrawn all of the money in his bank account. The thick wad of bills was wrapped inside a blue dish towel in the trunk of his car. It wasn’t the same car he had been driving when he killed Catherine Fonesca. He had gotten rid of that car, sold it at a loss to Ralph Simcox, the mechanic.

It was early. He would go to the cafeteria and watch the clock. He would finish out his last day. No one would care. They would be happy to see him go. There was no denying that he had been drinking, though he had done his job, but there was also no denying that he brought an aura of gloom and doom when he entered the Mentic Pharmaceuticals building each morning. His expertise would be missed, but he could be replaced. Everyone can be replaced.

He was alone in the cafeteria. The lights weren’t on but the sun was still high and the windows were tall and wide. The light on the coffee machine was glowing red but he didn’t get a cup. He sat facing the brace of trees across the well-trimmed lawn.

As Lew Fonesca pulled out of Toro’s Garage on Taylor Street and passed the thin small tree waving to him from the small circle of dirt in the cracked concrete sidewalk, Dimitri and Stavros Pappas were waiting.

They followed in the car they had rented, Dimitri driving because he had two eyes. Fonesca knew their car, which was why their father had told them to rent this one, a bronze Mazda.

“We’re really going to kill him?” asked Dimitri, staying back, being careful, remembering a few days ago when they had been cut off by the tow-truck driver.

They followed as Lew headed for Dan Ryan.

“You’ve got a gun. I’ve got a gun,” said Stavros, his head and eye turned forward.

Stavros put his hand on the white paper bag between them, reached in and came up with two small, round cheese tiropeka. He held out one to his brother who took it and said, “That’s not an answer. I like the guy. I feel sorry for him. Why does Pop want us to kill him?”

“To keep him from finding the papers, files, whatever his wife left. There’s something in them that could hurt Pop. Hell, Dimi, you know that.”

“I thought there was something in the files Pop could use to get Posno off our backs.”

“There is,” said Stavros.

“Then why did we stop looking for Posno? I could see us shooting him.”

“We can’t find him. Fonesca is right in front of us.”

“I know that,” said Dimi.

They drove. Ten minutes. Twenty.

“We’ve never killed anyone,” Dimi finally said, as much to himself as his brother.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Stavros said, reaching into the bag for another pastry.

His stomach would surely bother him later. He was lactose intolerant. He had forgotten his pills. His grandmother always made her pastries with cream. It always gave him a stomach problem even when he took the pills, but he couldn’t stop himself. No one in the family could resist his grandmother’s cooking. Immediate brief comfort won out over common sense. It always did. He pulled out a sticky square of baklava.

“Five of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sons became successful composers. You didn’t know that.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Stavros. “What’s your point?”

“I want to go home and practice on my viola. My chamber group has a concert tomorrow. You remember that?”

“No.”

“Well, we do. I want to play music, not kill people.”

“We’ll put that on your headstone: Dimitri Pappas. He wanted to play music, not kill people.”

“Okay, so laugh.”

“Hah.”

“You want to be somewhere quiet, creating Web pages, inventing computer programs, whatever it is you do. You don’t want to kill people either.”

“Have a melomakarona.”

He handed Dimitri a Greek Christmas cookie. Dimitri popped the whole cookie into his mouth. Ahead of them Fonesca weaved the white Cutlas through traffic into the right lane. They followed. When he exited, they slowed down.

“We lost him,” said Dimitri.

“He’s right there,” said Stavros, pointing at the car ahead of them.

“I don’t see him,” said Dimitri. “I think we should turn around and tell Pop we lost him. I think we should tell Pop that we’re not going to kill anyone. If he wants someone dead, fine. He or Grandma can do it. They’ve done it before. They’ve got the experience.”

He pulled the car off the road and stopped. Fonesca joined a stream of traffic moving away from them. Stavros turned and looked at his brother.

“We lost him,” Stavros agreed, handing his brother the last pastry in the bag. It was another Christmas cookie.