Final Stroke (19 page)

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Steve wanted to go somewhere to talk. “Not Hell,” he
said. “Make me whole somewhere.” And so, because she knew Steve needed a place with as little distraction as possible, Jan drove them to Ilonka Szabo’s restaurant. When Jan told Ilonka they’d come for a quiet lunch, Ilonka wiped her hands in her apron, kissed Steve on his cheek, said something in Hungarian as she wheeled Steve to a table, told Jan there was no need to order and that she would bring some
thing light, and left them alone to talk.

Jan knew Steve wanted to go over who he’d seen at the funeral. “Make me whole,” he had said, and she knew this was a phrase he’d gotten from Marjorie. A mob phrase from Marjorie’s late husband. At the funeral Steve had told her to remember, “Dino, Rickie’s son,” and when she reminded him of this, things began falling into place and she worked with him to get it out.

The restaurant provided a perfect environment for communica tion. The recording of Hungarian violins was turned low. The few other patrons there for late lunch were finished and soon left. When
Jan asked Ilonka if she minded that they sit and talk for a while, Ilonka was more than cooperative, saying she’d be closing until dinner time, but they should stay as long as they wished and that she would be in the kitchen preparing the dinner menu. It took time to get it all out, but the atmosphere seemed to instill a greater patience in Steve. In Ilonka’s restaurant, empty except for them, he was able to keep his thoughts from wandering and he told it with relatively little prompt ing from Jan.

He told her that the man he had pointed out at the funeral was the son of Rickie Deveno, who quit the mob years earlier and changed his name to Rickie Justice. Jan recalled the names, and when Steve began describing the incident at the produce market, she remembered him having told her about it. The incident at the market in which Steve confronted the son named Dino had taken place years earlier, when Dino was a teenager working at the market. And today, this kid from the past named Dino was at the funeral and seemed to have gone back to the life his father had abandoned.

Marjorie had spoken of the Chicago mob in rehab, not in detail, but enough. Marjorie’s husband had been a kingpin in the mob, and now Steve felt that Marjorie’s nephew played the role of mob kingpin quite well, and the kid named Dino was obviously one of the nephew’s thugs. Mixed in with the description of Marjorie’s husband having been in the mob was something about him having been good to Viet
nam veterans. From other things Marjorie had revealed in rehab, it seemed her husband inherited an old hatred of the Kennedys from his mob predecessors and, in later years, became interested in politics himself. Something about “getting out the votes” and “getting rid of Carter,” so perhaps he worked for the Reagan campaign.

When Steve mentioned the nephew named Max, Jan recalled him vividly. “Maximo Lamberti, but everyone calls me Max,” he had said.

The way Max looked at her as he held her hand reminded Jan of thugs she’d known in the past. Maybe he was high up in the local mob, but once a thug always a thug.

In contrast, Marjorie’s son Antonio, whom they’d also been in
troduced to, did not seem to be allied with Max and his thugs. Dur
ing the service, Antonio held his hand in front of his face at one point and appeared to speak harshly to his cousin Max. Although Jan had not heard what was said, she felt Antonio had been upset that Max brought his entourage to the funeral.

Antonio was shorter and much thinner than Max, and was going a little bald. Now that she thought about Antonio’s baldness, she was certain, because of the contrast, Max had worn a hairpiece. Not only was Max’s hair too thick, but the hairline at his forehead was too far forward on this six foot tall man who probably weighed in at well over two hundred.

When Jan recalled Steve telling her earlier he thought Marjorie’s son Antonio might be gay, she had to admit that at the funeral she’d seen a gentle man, a more fragile man. Especially when she contrasted him to his cousin Max.

While Steve tried to recall everything Marjorie had ever conveyed to him about her family, he indicated there were certain phrases Mar
jorie had used. She had said, “Dead issue” and “Dead seed” and “Fam
ily secret” and “Carter smarter” and “Keys to the kingdom” and “Fly in the ointment” and even some kind of litany of road routes. Finally, after wracking his brain for some time, Steve said, “Max the fly.” Yes, Max was the fly in the ointment, the black sheep. She waited before asking a question, and when he was silent for a while she asked Steve what the reference to Carter meant. He said it must have something to do with the son. Something about the father hating Carter and the son not hating Carter.

But what did any of this have to do with Marjorie’s death? Just because some members of her family were in the mob or were associ
ated with the mob, and just because Marjorie might have objected to family members being in the mob, and just because father and son might have had differing political views, why would Steve feel this had anything to do with Marjorie’s death? When Jan asked why he felt this way, Steve shook his head and said, “Maybe … maybe not. Something long time ago … something dug up. One key … many keys. Who knows?”

For a moment, after succeeding in getting out all he had gotten out, Jan felt Steve was withdrawing. That shake of his head and the lowering of his voice seemed to say, “In my condition I can’t do any
thing about it anyway, so maybe I should let it go.”

Steve stared at her silently from across the table, the glow of the candle on the table reflecting in his eyes making him seem distant and vulnerable. Not his old melancholy self like before the stroke, some
thing different. He looked like he needed more than rehab at Hell in the Woods, or going through old magazines trying to reconstruct the past. That’s when Jan decided to tell him about the investigating she’d done.

“Ever since you brought up the fact that you had a funny feeling about Marjorie’s accident, it’s been bothering me. We both wondered why no one bothered to clean up the puddle in the hallway that night. I began to wonder if someone felt they should leave it there for a while as proof she
did
slip and fall, that is
was
an accident. I also began to wonder about Marjorie dying en route to the hospital. Why would the paramedics take time to wipe up the blood if Marjorie was still alive and might be saved?

“So, yesterday and the day before, I did a little checking. I spoke to that nurses’ aide who found Marjorie, the one who took Marjorie’s
walker back to the nurses’ station. When I first met her in the hos pital administrator’s office, I could tell she was reluctant to say any thing that might get her in trouble. So this time I met her for lunch, treated her to lunch to be exact. We spoke about other things at first, to make her feel comfortable. Then I brought up Marjorie’s fall, tell ing her that whatever she said I’d keep between the two of us. Well, maybe the three of us.

“Anyway, I found out she’s pretty sure Marjorie was dead when she found her. And the reason the paramedics reported the death took place in the ambulance was that she knew one of the paramedics and he suggested they do it that way to avoid unnecessary paperwork as well as any problems she might have with her superiors because of her being new on the job.

“After that I got in touch with the ambulance service and spoke with the two paramedics. They were pretty touchy about the whole thing, but I had a feeling they’d be that way if anyone came asking about time of death of one of their patients. They wouldn’t admit to anything except that sometimes determining the actual moment of death is tricky, especially in an emergency. When I asked about wip
ing up the blood, they said one of them had time to quickly wipe it up while the other was wheeling Marjorie out and that it did not delay their departure.”

Jan could see this had aroused Steve’s interest. He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. He smiled a big old smile like the one he always gave her when she came to visit. Then he said, “You fishy kid.”

He laughed at this, apparently realizing how silly it sounded, then said, very slowly, “Went fishing … but something else. You did it … back to square one.”

“So,” she said, “you think I did good on my fishing expedition?”

“Yes.
”
“Think I eliminated the possibility of a conspiracy at Hell in th
e

Woods?” “Could be.” “Should I check some more?” “No.” He’d said it a little loudly, and repeated it more softly,

squeezing her hand. “No.” “You said something earlier about Marjorie indicating there was

something in the past that might be the key.” “Keys,” said Steve. “More than one.” Then Steve squeezed her hand again and frowned. “No more. Us.” “Us?” “Yes.” “You want to talk about us?” “Take care.” “We should take care of ourselves instead of fishing around?” Steve smiled. “Yes. You rest. Go with Lydia. Me back to rehab.” On the way to the funeral she had told Steve that Lydia was driv

ing to Wisconsin for a long weekend to visit friends from college. “You

mean you remember me saying Lydia is going on a trip?” Steve smiled. “Yes.” “And you want me to go?” “Go. Vacation. Getaway.” She stood, went around the table and hugged him. “The hell with

going away now, especially after the magic you did in your head today,

pulling out details the way you have.” “You should go,” he said, looking up at her. Before they left the restaurant they said goodbye to Ilonka who

gave them a box of strudel to take with. “New low fat recipe,” said Ilonka, smiling and wiping her hands in her apron.

When Jan arrived home that night she changed then went into the kitchen. She put ice in a glass, a shot of Johnnie Walker, water. Maybe Steve was right. Maybe it would be good to get away for a long week
end with Lydia, especially the way Steve insisted before she left him.

In the living room she went to the stereo cabinet and rummaged through a shelf full of CDs and old cassette tapes. Several tapes Steve had added to her collection when they married. She selected one of Steve’s tapes and put it into the cassette deck. When she sat down on the sofa and the music began, she felt a melancholy wave of nostalgia for this music of ancestors she and Steve shared, both of them having had grandparents who lived in Hungary. But this was not the real reason for her nostalgia. The real reason was because the tape she se
lected was the same one Steve had played for her ten years earlier just after they met.

She remembered he had gone out to his car to get the tape when, while asking questions related to her husband’s murder, he found out she was half Hungarian. She stood and took her drink to the window and looked out into the parking lot.

When she’d gone to the window ten years earlier in the previous apartment on the second floor and looked down into the parking lot, there had been an unmarked police car parked there, the police left to guard her because of her brief but terrifying kidnapping earlier that day. When Steve went out to his car to get the tape, he waved to the cops in their car on his way down the sidewalk, then ran back to the apartment like a little kid, his prize in his hand, his coat tails flapping like a bird too young to fly.

It was violin music. A music she remembered from long ago.

Something her grandfather played for her on his small record player at the nursing home before he died. She had been in high school then, already dressing pretty outrageously—jeans with holes, tee shirt with no bra—and she remembered that her grandfather seemed the only person in her family with whom she could communicate.