4
I had a dream last night,” Franco said as they watched the doors, waiting for Milt Holiger to come out.
Lew had used Franco’s cell phone to call Milt and ask him to come down. Holiger had said he would be down in a minute. About five minutes had passed.
Lew’s body had changed. Four years in Florida had made a cool Chicago October morning feel like the inside of an ice-cream truck. The dead man they had found a few blocks away contributed more than a little frost.
“You want to hear it?”
“Sure,” Lew said without looking at Franco.
“Craziest damn… anyways, you and me and Ange were watching the Bears playing the Eagles. Bears have the ball. Got it?”
“Got it,” Lew said, eyes fixed on the glass doors.
“Bears quarterback gets the snap, steps back, throws. Ball sails right into the hands of the referee. Ref cradles it like a pro and starts chugging it toward the goal like Thomas Jones. The other refs block for him. Touchdown. Refs celebrate. Crowd goes nuts. Now what the hell does that mean?”
“It’s not just the good guys and the bad guys you have to watch out for, you’ve got to keep your eyes on the peacekeepers because they might steal the ball.”
Franco looked at Lew who didn’t look back.
“You think?” he asked.
“No,” said Lew.
“I’m talking a little nuts like this because of the dead guy, right?” asked Franco.
“Probably.”
“You feel…?”
“Yes,” said Lew, eyes still focused on the door.
“You don’t show it,” Franco said.
“No.”
“It doesn’t mean you don’t feel it, right?” said Franco. “Yeah, I know. I sound like Angie.”
Milt Holiger came through the door. He plunged his hands into his pants pockets. Lew remembered that Milt’s hands and feet were always cold.
“Heredity,” Milt had once explained. “Father, brothers, uncle. We all wear socks in bed.”
Milt was stocky at forty and working to maintain and nurture his still controllable belly. Lots of brown hair with perfect sideburns, Milt looked like the generic weary television series police captain or lieutenant whose shoulders were stooped from hunkering down to ward off the blows of word and fist.
Milt dodged a pair of arm-gesturing lawyer types and walked to his right.
“That him?” asked Franco.
“Yes.”
“Where’s he goin’? Doesn’t he see us?”
“He sees us. He’s dropping bread crumbs,” Lew said, following Holiger through the morning crowd.
Three blocks later they joined Holiger at a table in the rear of a dark narrow inauthentic deli that served neither good Jewish or Italian food. Holiger looked at Franco.
“My sister’s husband,” Lew said. “Franco.”
They shook hands. The morning crowd had dwindled down to six customers besides the three of them. The place smelled as if it had been fried in something sweet and fatty.
“Better off not having people in the office see us together,” Milt said. “I give you information, someone connects the wires and I’ve got trouble.”
“You mean you can’t help anymore?” Lew asked.
“Who said that?”
He put his right hand to his chest. A heavy-legged waitress in a uniform that had once been yellow but now was a forlorn amber placed cups of coffee in front of them. They all ordered toasted onion bagels with cream cheese.
“Okay,” said Milt, picking up his cup. “What do you need?”
“You’re sure there was nothing in the things Catherine left at the office that might make someone want to kill her?”
“Nothing,” said Milt. “Of course you never know, but nothing, no secret deposition, overlooked piece of evidence, name of a bombshell witness, nothing.”
“Active cases?” Lew asked.
Franco was working on his second cup of coffee, his eyes moving from Lew to Milt to the front door of the deli behind the gray shadow where they sat.
Lew, I-”
“I know,” Lew said. “But things changed about an hour ago; a lawyer named Claude Santoro was found murdered in his office on LaSalle Street.”
“Excuse me,” said Franco, getting up. “I’m going to the men’s.”
When Franco was gone, Lew asked, “You’ve heard of Santoro?”
“Not a criminal defense lawyer far as I know,” said Milt. “Want me to check him out?”
“Yes.”
He took out his notebook and wrote.
“Andrej Posnitki, Posno,” Lew said.
Milt wrote and said, “Rings no bells. What else?”
“John Pappas,” Lew said.
“Maybe.”
“He’s the son of Bernice Pappas, father of Dimitri Pappas and Stavros Pappas.”
“Yep,” said Milt writing quickly, “I remember now. A noble family. The old woman, kids. Yeah, I remember John.”
“See what you can find on all of them.”
Holiger looked at his list and read: “Santoro, Posnitki, the Pappas clan. Anything else?”
“Not for now,” Lew said.
Holiger closed and pocketed his notebook as Franco came back and sat next to Lew.
“I’d ask you to come to the house for dinner with me and Ruthie, or we could take you out someplace,” Milt said. “But I know better. If you decide down the line while you’re in town to take up the offer, you’ve got my number.”
“Thanks, Milt,” Lew said.
“No, Lewis, I mean it. Ruthie would like to see you.”
“I’ll-” Lew began.
Holiger held up a hand and said, “Whenever you’re ready.”
He got up. So did Franco and Lew. Milt said, “Good to meet you, Franco. Take care of yourself, Lewis, and call me tonight about this.”
He patted the pocket of his jacket where he had placed his notebook.
“Now?” asked Franco when Milt was gone.
“Uncle Tonio’s,” Lew said.
“Right.”
“You ever hear of Rebecca Strum?” Lew asked as they walked to the garage where Franco’s tow truck was parked.
“Sure, yeah,” he said. “You kiddin’? Angie’s a reader, read all of her books. They’re lined up in the case in our bedroom, a couple in the built-in case in the dining room. Everybody knows Rebecca Strum.”
John Pappas stood against the wall in the kitchen watching his mother lay out the ingredients for her famous Kibbeh Bissanieh, baked lamb and wheat. It was one of his favorites. He enjoyed the smells of the kitchen, the clanking of mixing bowels and wooden spoons, the sound of cracked wheat being crushed.
His mother, wiping her hands on her apron, looked over her shoulder at Pappas for an instant smile and then went back to work. She sang a medley of random lines she remembered from almost forgotten songs.
“‘Born free,’” she sang, “‘Free as a rainbow round my shoulder, free as that old devil moon in your eyes, free as the wind and the rain in your hair.’”
Pappas plucked a pine nut from a small pile in his left palm and dropped it on his tongue.
Stavros and Dimitri were born into the world of their father and their grandmother. Their mother had disappeared when Stavros was learning to talk and Dimitri learning to walk. Stavros remembered her as tall, thin, pale with red hair. Dimitri remembered her not at all. Her name was Irene and she was not to be spoken of. The few times the name Irene had come up-a television character, a waitress in a restaurant-John Pappas had looked at his sons, seeking a reaction. He got none.
It was not a world they would have chosen, but they had accepted it without childhood whimper or teenage rebellion. This was a family in which nothing but complete loyalty would be tolerated.
The brothers didn’t want to walk in their father’s shoes. They didn’t know what might be lurking in those shoes and they did not want to know.
They did what they were told, what they had to do, to protect father, grandmother and each other. But in the end, Stavros and Dimitri, though they might well be willing to die to preserve the family, most certainly did not want to be a part of the family business. John Pappas accepted this. The line of assassins went back forever. It would probably stop with him. It was time.