Summer Cool

13

The funeral of Roberto Hermano was not an elaborate affair. All those attending, if they hadn't been scattered throughout the church, might have filled one long pew. The church itself was a model of pre-Vatican II Catholicism-a miniature gothic that must have been, in its polished wood and cleaned stained glass heyday, an inspiration to its congregation. Gloomy, dark, muggily cool, with shadows in the corners, the eye was drawn upward to the vaulted, painted ceiling and its now-faded representations of cherubs floating among the clouds.

Paine's eye was drawn to Hermano's mother, a short, weeping woman in black who had draped herself over the casket parked on its gurney at front and center, and refused to move. The priest waited patiently while two or three family members-cousins or uncles or brothers-tried to persuade her to sit down. But she would have none of it.

"My Roberto!" she wailed. "What have they done to my baby?"

Paine knew what they had done to her baby, and he hoped the police hadn't been stupid enough to tell his mother. He was dead, which was enough.

"Roberto! My Roberto!"

The man Paine was looking for was sitting alone in the far right front. There was a weak pool of light to his left, and he sat shunning it, in the shadows. Paine made his way up the right aisle, past the carved stations of the cross on the wall-representations of Jesus dropping the cross, Jesus being whipped, Jesus being nailed to the cross-and slid into the pew, in the deeper shadows to the right of the man.

"I saw you come in here," the man said, in a slight Spanish accent. He was slim, impeccably dressed. The open jacket of his silk suit showed a spotless white silk shirt, pale blue silk tie knotted tight and small and perfect. His face was smooth as a baby's, the eyes large and brown, the hair pulled back into a short tight black ponytail. In his right ear was a tiny gold earring. "You sure as hell didn't try to hide."

"I've got nothing to hide, Philly," Paine said.

"Bullshit you don't. I could get my balls cut off, stuffed in my mouth, just like Roberto, just for talking to you."

"You don't seem worried," Paine said.

Philly smiled slightly. "I'm not," he said, "because they'd do it to you first."

"Who killed Roberto, Philly?"

"Good question," Philly said. "The guys who might have done it are sitting five pews behind us."

Paine turned slightly to see three conservatively dressed black men. Their attention was on the antics of Hermano's mother, which they followed with mild interest.

"Are they the South American boys?"

"Let's just say they work for the South Americans."

"Did they kill Roberto?"

"No. "

"Then who did?"

"That's what everybody here wants to know."

"Was it Jim Coleman?"

"Maybe. I heard Coleman disappeared. But any of fifteen people might have done Roberto. He was very smart, but he was also very stupid. He played a lot of cards, Paine, tried to make everybody happy. The South Americans think they've lost a great friend, because he was helping them set up. But at the same time, he was working for Bob Petty, who was setting them up. And at the same time, he was working for Coleman, who was setting himself up with the South Americans for a little piece of their pie when he made sure that Petty's sting didn't work." In the near dark, Philly moved his fingers up and down. "And there was Roberto in the middle, jerking all the strings. And he was very good at it, too."

"You also said he was very stupid."

Philly turned to look at him in the dark. His slight smile came back. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"What about you, Philly-you finished with drugs?"

The smile stayed. "Look at this body, Paine-does it look like I put drugs into it? You remember the way I used to look." The smile widened. "I'm a beautiful man, Paine."

"One more thing, Philly. Is there any possibility that Bob Petty was on the take?"

Philly looked surprised. "Petty? No way."

"Are you sure?"

"You know, I was thinking about this. With Petty taking off and all. The kind of man he is, him leaving a job behind. I wouldn't be surprised if he was going to catch Coleman too when this whole thing went down. I just couldn't see him leaving like that."

"You think it might have been something else? A woman?"

Now Philly's smile was wide. "What do I know about women? Are you asking me if I think it was a man?"

"Okay, I'm asking you."

Philly shook his head. "You know, Paine, you know a lot, but there's a lot you don't know. It wasn't a man. Not Bob Petty."

"You sure?"

Philly turned his eyes on him in the shadows again; this time, there was no trace of humor in the eyes or around the mouth. "I'm sure. You know, I didn't have to say word one to you, never have."

"I know that, Philly."

"You helped me once, I appreciate that. But that favor went out a long time ago. You were a cop then, you're not a cop anymore." The humor was still absent. "You know, there was a time I wasn't sure about you. You know, I would be very good to you."

"Sorry, Philly."

The humor crept back into the corners of his eyes; the slight smile came back. "No harm in asking, Paine."

"No," Paine said. "Thanks, Philly."

At front and center, the uncles and cousins had managed to get Mrs. Hermano to sit down. The priest had come down off the altar, and was slowly circling the coffin, sprinkling it with holy water. He went back to the altar, returned with an incense burner; raising it up high with one hand, he began to circle the coffin again, swinging the burner, sending puffs of incense toward the ceiling.

Paine got up to leave. As he reached the back of the church the scent of incense reached his nostrils. He turned to see that almost everything was as it should be. The three agents for the South Americans were still regarding the ceremony with interest. A small cloud of incense had reached up beyond the low lights to mingle with the painted clouds and cherubs on the ceiling. And Philly sat quiet, impeccably dressed, in his far corner in the shadows. Only now he had taken out what appeared to be a silk handkerchief, and was silently wiping at the corners of his eyes with it.