Robert j randisi ed, p.20
Robert J. Randisi (ed), page 20
“Yeah, I was faking it.” I said.
I drove down to Rosenberg and Stone and caught Richard just as he was about to go home. He was surprised to see me, but ushered me into his office to hear my report.
“Well,” he said. “You got a line on the guy already? That’s good work. How did you do it?”
“Rang his doorbell.”
Richard frowned. “I don’t like that. You tip the guy off. Make him wise. Then you can’t tell if you get an honest result.”
“It was the right move in this case.”
“Really? You mean you found out? Great. So what’s the story with his back injury? Is he faking it?”
I shook my head.
“Not anymore.”
Back to Table of Contents
LAYING DOWN TO DIE - A Nick Delvecchio story by Robert J. Randisi
I’m the only PWA president to serve a term of three years (1997-99). There’s a reason for that. During my tenure we started planning Eyecon ’99, of which I was one of the organizers. It was simply prudent for me to stay on through Eye-con rather than to hand the reins of the organization over to someone else, who would then have had to be brought into the loop.
In addition to being the founder of PWA, I served as the first vice president under Bill Pronzini. I did not become president until some fifteen years later when, at a PWA Awards function, the membership elected me by acclamation. I guess they figured it was about time. It was a touching scene, to say the least. My tenure was—well, let’s say eventful.
This story appeared in Deadly Allies II (Bantam Books, 1994), and featured my Brooklyn P.I. Nick Delvecchio. The year 2001 saw the publication of Delvecchio’s Brooklyn (Five Star, 2001), a complete collection of Delvecchio stories. This, however, remains my favorite as it was a bit more socially conscious than my other stories. It also contains actual lines of poetry written by someone very close to me.
1.
All death is tragic. Particularly when it’s accidental. After all, someone dying as the result of a fluke, or an act of carelessness? Tragic, to say the least. Now natural causes, that’s probably the least tragic of all. I mean, what can you possibly do about that? A man goes to the doctor one week and is given a clean bill of health, and the very next week he clutches his head and drops to the floor, dead. Happens every day, right?
So where does murder fit into this equation? Well, in my opinion, murder is just a step below accident. What keeps murder from being at the top of the list is that it is a deliberate act. One person sets out to take the life of another person. There’s nothing “tragic” about that—it’s just a damned shame!
And where does suicide fit in?
Who the hell knows?
I stared at the casket from my seat in the back of the chapel. I chose to sit there alone because I was not a family member. In fact, I was not even a close friend. I was someone who had known the deceased in high school, and met her again eighteen years later for one evening—and then she was dead.
High school was not the favorite time of my life. I know people of varying ages who claim that, given the chance, they’d go back in time to their high school days. In my opinion, people like that just can’t deal with being grown up. Given the opportunity to go back to the happiest time of my life, I’d stay right where I am. I guess that means I haven’t had the happiest time of my life yet. So what? I think that’s good. Gives me something to look forward to—and to me, looking forward is miles better than looking back.
Last week, however, I did step back in time, sort of. It was the evening of my eighteenth high school reunion. I had been invited to reunions before—the tenth, and the fifteenth—and had not gone. Why I decided to go to this one is still a mystery to me. (Why they even had an eighteenth reunion is a mystery to me. Don’t they usually have them at ten, fifteen, and twenty, like that?) Well, it wasn’t a total mystery to me why I was there. Sam had something to do with it.
Samantha Karson is my neighbor. She lives in the apartment across from me. We’re friends—just friends, although why that situation hasn’t. . . progressed after living across from each other for a few years is a mystery. Sam’s a beautiful blonde with the body of Bardot, the hair and eyelashes of Sissy Spacek, and a face that’s all her own.
The day that I received the invitation to the reunion was an afternoon that we had decided to have lunch together at a nearby diner.
“That’s when you graduated?” she asked, looking at the invitation.
“You know how old I am, Sam.”
“I know.” Her smile was teasing. “It just looks so. . . archaic in print.”
She put the invitation down and looked at me across her turkey club. Sam was on another diet. She was a full-bodied young woman who, as far as I could see, was proud of that fact. Why then was she constantly trying to lose five pounds?
“I think you should go.”
“Why?”
“Why shouldn’t you go? Didn’t you have some friends in high school?”
“Sure, I had some. . .”
“But not a lot?”
“A few.”
“Any girlfriends?”
“A few.”
“Aren’t you curious about what’s happened to them? What kind of adults they’ve become?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I might be disappointed.”
She stared at me then. “Or maybe you think they’ll be disappointed in you?”
Okay, so I decided to go to the damned thing. . .
The reunion was held in Marine Park, at a hall on Avenue N called the Something-or-other Château. I admit to some degree of nervousness as I entered through the front door. That disappeared, however, when I saw this huge apparition from the past advancing on me. He had his arms spread wide, a wing-spread I readily recognized as belonging to Tony “Mitts” Bologna.
“Nicky-D, you sonofabitch!” he shouted, and crushed me in a bear hug that took me to within an inch of my life. As it was, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to have kids.
“Tony Mitts!” I surprised myself because I was shouting back at him with almost as much enthusiasm.
It was then that I silently thanked Sam for talking me into going.
It was much later when I cursed her for it. . .
From my vantage point in the back of the chapel I could see Tony Bologna’s back. His shoulders were shaking. Sitting to his right was his mother. Her shoulders were ramrod straight. On his left was the mother of the deceased. She was alternately patting and rubbing his back, the way I thought his own mother should have been doing.
I looked up toward the casket again, where Mary Ann Grosso was lying, all dressed and made up to look “good” in death. God, I hated when people said of the dead, “They look good!”
Mary Ann Grosso simply looked dead, which was a far cry from the way she had looked the night of the reunion. . .
Tony Mitts was just the start of it at the reunion. In rapid order I met up with Sammy Carter, Joey “the Nose” Bagaletti, and Vito “the Ace” Pricci. The four of us used to hang out together in high school, which a lot of people found odd, because while three of us were Italian, Sammy was black. We were fond of telling people he was “Black” Italian. Among ourselves, we also said that if anybody didn’t like it, “Fuck ’em.”
We staked out a place at the bar, watching the girls go by.
“Boy,” Vito said, “most of these girls have really porked up, huh?”
“Especially the Italian ones,” Sammy said, nodding his head in agreement.
“What are you complainin’ about?” Tony said to Sammy. “I thought skinny black guys like you liked your women big and fat.”
Sammy fixed Tony with a hard stare. “You gonna start that ‘fat-assed black girl’ stuff again, Tony Mitts? You were always doin’ that in high school and I didn’t like it then!”
“Yeah, yeah. . .” Tony said.
Eighteen years ago Tony was always teasing Sammy about his girlfriends having big asses. It was true, but Sammy had always acted like he didn’t like it.
I examined my three high school friends critically. Tony had always been big, well over six feet, but he’d never been fat, and he still wasn’t. He’d kept himself in remarkable shape, but then as an athlete he would. We called him Tony “Mitts” because he had hands the size of catcher’s mitts. It was better, he said, than what they used to call him in grammar school—Tony “Baloney.” Ah, grammar school kids had no imagination.
Sammy was as skinny as ever, and his hair had receded to the halfway point on his head. The bald part of his head, though, gleamed, the way Lou Gossett’s and George Foreman’s heads do. I wondered why he didn’t just shave it.
Vito had gone to fat, which he was always threatening to do in high school. His arms, though, still threatened to burst the seams of his clothes. We would have nicknamed him “the Arm” except Tony was called “Mitts” and we didn’t want another body part in the group. So, because of his affinity for cards— poker mostly—he had become Vito “the Ace.”
“Anybody seen Mary Ann?” I asked.
Suddenly, Tony smiled. “She’s here.”
“Yeah,” Vito said, slapping Tony on the back, “she came in with Tony, the lucky dog.”
“Man,” Sammy said, “she looks good, even if she ain’t got an ass on her.”
“You want to see her?” Tony’s tone was anxious.
“Sure.”
I agreed not only because he was so anxious to show her off. I was curious about what Mary Ann looked like after eighteen years.
“Come on.” Tony took my arm in a grip of iron.
“See you guys. . .” I barely had time to say before he dragged me off.
I really had never gotten to know Mary Ann Grosso well in high school. I’d never gone out with her, although I knew a lot of guys who claimed they had. They all claimed to have scored, too, except for Tony. He said he never had, and no one else had, either.
He pulled me over to a table where a bunch of people were sitting. As we approached I was able to pick Mary Ann out with no problem. If anything, she was even more beautiful at thirty-six than she had been at eighteen. She had long dark hair that hung to her shoulders. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were very dark, and her eyes brown. I remembered that she had always had beautiful skin without a trace of acne, and she still did, smooth and pale.
She had been a lovely young girl, but she had grown up to become a truly beautiful woman.
“Mary Ann, here’s Nick,” Tony said. When she frowned he said, “Come on, you remember Nicky-D!”
“Of course. Nicky.” I knew that she wasn’t lying, she did remember me. She held out both hands and I took them. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you, Mary Ann. You look. . . wonderful.”
“Don’t she, though?” Tony blustered right over her soft “Thank you.” He was obviously very proud of her, and when he told me that they were to be married, I realized why.
That was last week, when they were truly happy.
This week Mary Ann was dead.
2.
After the service I decided not to accompany the family and friends to the cemetery. I stopped to tell Tony that and he grabbed my arm tightly.
“Come to Mary Ann’s mother’s house, Nick.”
“Tony,” I said, “I don’t want to intrude. . .”
“Her mother wants you there, Nick. She wants to talk to you.”
“I didn’t think she’d even remember me.”
“She doesn’t. I told her you were a detective.”
“Tony—”
“Please, Nick.” His eyes were as pleading as his tone of voice.
“All right, Tony.”
“Thanks, buddy.” He was relieved. “We should be back at the house by two. Okay? There’ll be lots of food.”
“I’ll be there.”
He finally let go of my arm and I felt the blood starting to flow again.
I stood out in front of the funeral home and watched the procession of cars leave. I became aware then that someone was standing next to me.
“It’s a damn shame, ain’t it?” Vito asked. I hadn’t seen him since the reunion, and hadn’t noticed him inside.
“Yeah, it is.” I looked at him “I didn’t see you inside.”
“I didn’t go in.” He shook his head. “Couldn’t. I didn’t want to see her like that.”
“Are you going to the house?”
“Nah.” He shook his head again. “You?”
I nodded. ‘Tony asked me to.”
“They’re gonna hire you, ain’t they?”
“I’m afraid they’re going to try.”
“Why afraid?”
“It’s going to be hard turning them down.”
“Why turn them down?”
“I don’t investigate suicides, Vito.”
“Then there’s no problem Nick.” He slapped me on the back. “She didn’t kill herself.”
“How do you know?”
“I knew her—I knew her as long and as well as Tony did. She’d never kill herself.”
“Are you saying she was murdered?”
“I’m sayin’ she didn’t kill herself, Nick. That’s all I’m sayin’.”
“Vito—”
“Gotta go.” He moved away from me abruptly. I watched him walk to the parking lot and get into a new Chevy. I realized that I didn’t know what he did for a living. I don’t think we ever talked about it at the reunion. I recalled talking to everyone else about what they were doing for a living, but now that I thought of it, Vito always seemed to avoid the subject. He seemed more willing to talk about the past, not the present.
I wondered if he’d meant to imply what I thought he’d been implying when he said he knew Mary Ann as well as Tony did?
I got to the house at two-thirty. It was in Bensonhurst, on Sixty-third Street. Actually, it was walking distance from my father’s house, where I grew up.
“Nick,” Tony Mitts said as I entered, “God.” He came at me in the hall and clamped down on my arm again. “I’m glad you came.”
“Take it easy, Tony—”
“I been trying to take it easy, Nick, but it ain’t that simple. You don’t know. . .”
“Don’t know what, Tony?”
“Look, lemme tell Mary Ann’s mother you’re here, all right? Get somethin’ to eat and I’ll find you. Get a beer, ’kay?”
He was talking a mile a minute and he was gone before I could respond. I went looking for a beer and found one in the kitchen. I also found a girl crying. It took me a minute, but I recognized her as Grace, Mary Ann’s sister. If I remembered correctly, Grace was about two years behind us in high school. She wasn’t as pretty as her sister, but there was a resemblance, and she had the same smooth, pale skin.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, clutching a handkerchief and crying softly. I took a St. Paulie Girl from the refrigerator and turned to her.
“Grace?”
She looked up at me, hastily wiping away the moisture from her eyes. She frowned, trying to remember who I was.
“Grace, I’m Nick—”
“Delvecchio,” she finished. “I remember. I had a terrible crush on you in high school.” She blurted it out, and then clasped her hand over her mouth.
“Did you?” I asked. “I never knew that.”
She took her hand away from her mouth and said, “Nobody did—only Mary Ann.”
There was an awkward silence, which she broke.
“It’s nice of you to come, Nick.” she said. “I didn’t think you’d remember. . . us.”
“Well,” I said, “I was at the reunion. I saw Mary Ann—”
“Wasn’t she beautiful?” she asked, her eyes shining either from tears or from pride. “Even more lovely than she was in high school?”
“Well, yes, she was,” I said, not really knowing how to answer. I mean, what did she want me to say? She seemed to really mean it, but I had two older brothers, and I wasn’t always so happy about that fact. Were there times, I wondered, when she didn’t idolize her sister so much?
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Grace said, starting to sob into her hanky. “Not. . . not like that.”
It occurred to me then that I still didn’t know exactly how Mary Ann had died.
“Nick, there you are,” Tony said bursting into the room. He didn’t even seem to notice Grace. “Come on, Mary Ann’s mother wants to talk to you.”
“Grace,” I said, “are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Nick,” she said, waving her hand. “Go ahead, Mother wants you.”
“Why don’t we talk later? Huh?”
“Sure,” she said with a little smile, “why not?”
“Come on, Nick!” Tony said, grabbing my arm.
Old friend or not, I was tired of having my arm mangled.
“Tony, take it easy, all right? I’m coming.”
He released me like my flesh was hot and said, “Sorry.”
“Lead the way.”
I followed him down the hall.
3.
Tony took me down a hallway past a couple of bedrooms to a room at the end. Inside, Mrs. Grosso was sitting on a bed, staring out the window. What was she seeing that no one else could see, I wondered.
From the looks of the room it was a girl’s—most probably Mary Ann’s. That was confirmed when I saw a framed photo on the dresser. It was Mary Ann and Tony, arms around each other, laughing. From the looks of the scene behind them it had been taken at Coney Island certainly during happier times. It also looked to be an older photo, not when they were in high school, but certainly not much later.
“Mrs. Grosso?” Tony said.
For a moment she didn’t seem to hear him, and then she turned her head and looked at us. I wondered how old she was. Sixty? Sixty-five? She was still an attractive woman, obviously Mary Ann’s and Grace’s mother. She had the same skin: I remembered Tony telling me she had lost her husband about five years ago. And now Mary Ann. All she had left was her daughter Grace. No, check that. Let’s say she still had Grace. That was something, wasn’t it?
