At the time Lou had been recently separated from his wife, so the promotion had gone unnoticed except at the station. Somehow Cerino had heard about this and had decided to give him a party. It had been Mr. and Mrs. Cerino and their two sons, Gregory and Steven. There’d been cake and soda. Lou had even gone out to get Brian.
The irony of the whole thing had been that Lou and Paul had been enemies for so long they had almost become friends. After all, they knew so much about each other.
It took Lou almost an hour to get out to Paul’s, and by the time he mounted the front steps, it was just about the same time of day as when Paul had thrown the surprise party. Lou could remember it as if it had been yesterday.
Looking through the front windows, Lou could see that the living room lights were on. Outside it was getting dark even though it was only five-thirty. Winter was on its way.
Lou pressed the front doorbell and heard the muted chimes. The door was opened by Gregory, the older boy. He was about ten. He recognized Lou, greeted him in a friendly fashion, and invited him inside. Gregory was a well-mannered boy.
“Is your dad home?” Lou asked.
No sooner had he asked than Paul appeared from the living room in his stocking feet clutching a red-tipped cane. A radio was on in the background.
“Who is it?” he asked Gregory.
“It’s Detective Soldano,” Gregory said.
“Lou!” Paul said, coming directly toward Lou and extending a hand.
Lou shook hands with Paul and tried to see his eyes behind a pair of reflective sunglasses. Paul was a big man, moderately overweight, so that his small facial features were sunk into his fleshy face. He had dark hair cut short, and large, heavily lobed ears. On both cheeks were red patches of recently healed skin. Lou guessed it had been from the acid.
“How about some coffee?” Paul said. “Or a little wine?” Without waiting for a response, Paul yelled for Gloria. Gregory reappeared with Steven, the younger Cerino. He was eight.
“Come in,” Paul said. “Sit down. Tell me what’s been happening. You married yet?”
Lou followed Paul back into the living room. He could tell that Paul had adapted well to his reduced visual acuity, at least in his own home. He didn’t use the cane to navigate to the radio to turn it off. Nor did he use it to find his favorite chair, into which he sank with a sigh.
“Sorry to hear about your eye problem,” Lou said, sitting opposite Paul.
“These things happen,” Paul said philosophically.
Gloria appeared and greeted Lou. Like Paul, she was overweight-a buxom woman with a kind, gentle face. If she knew what her husband did for a living, she never let on. She acted like the typical, lower-middle-class suburban housewife who had to scrimp to get along on a budget. Lou wondered what Paul did with all the money he had to be accumulating.
Responding to Lou’s positive reply regarding coffee, Gloria disappeared into the kitchen.
“I heard about your accident just today,” Lou said.
“I haven’t told all my friends,” Paul said with a smile.
“Did this involve the Lucia people?” Lou asked. “Was it Vinnie Dominick?”
“Oh no!” Paul said. “This was an accident. I was trying to jump-start the car and the battery blew up. Got a bunch of acid in my face.”
“Come on, Paul,” Lou said. “I came all the way out here to commiserate with you. The least you can do is tell me the truth. I already know that the acid was thrown into your face. It’s just a matter of who was responsible.”
“How do you know this?” Cerino asked.
“I was specifically told by someone who knows,” Lou said. “In fact it ultimately came from a totally reliable source. You!”
“Me?” Paul questioned with genuine surprise.
Gloria returned with an espresso for Lou. He helped himself to sugar. Gloria then retreated from the room. So did the boys.
“You have awakened my curiosity,” Paul said. “Explain to me how I was the source of this rumor about my eyes.”
“You told your doctor, Jordan Scheffield,” Lou said. “He told one of the medical examiners by the name of Laurie Montgomery, and the medical examiner told me. And the reason I happened to be talking to the medical examiner was because I went over there to watch a couple of autopsies on homicide victims. The names might be familiar to you: Frankie DePasquale and Bruno Marchese.”
“Never heard of them,” Paul said.
“They are Lucia people,” Lou said. “And one of them, curiously enough, had acid burns in one of his eyes.”
“Terrible,” Cerino said. “They certainly don’t make batteries the way they used to.”
“So you’re still telling me that you got battery acid in your eyes?” Lou asked.
“Of course,” Paul said. “Because that’s what happened.”
“How are the eyes doing?” Lou asked.
“Pretty good, considering what could have happened,” Paul said. “But the doctor says I’ll do fine as soon as I have my operations. First I have to wait a while, but I’m sure you know about that.”
“What are you talking about?” Lou said. “I don’t know anything about eyes except how many you got.”
“I didn’t know much either,” Paul said. “At least not before this happened. But I’ve been learning ever since. I used to think they transplanted the whole eye. You know, like changing an old-fashioned-type radio tube. Just plug the thing in with all the prongs in the right place. But that’s not how it works. They only transplant the cornea.”
“That’s all news to me,” Lou said.
“Want to see what my eyes look like?” Paul asked.
“I’m not sure,” Lou said.
Paul took off his reflective sunglasses.
“Ugh,” Lou said. “Put your glasses back on. I’m sorry for you, Paul. It looks terrible. It looks like you have a couple of white marbles in your eyes.”
Paul chuckled as he put his glasses back on. “I would have thought a hardened cop like you would have felt satisfaction that his old enemy took a fall.”
“Hell no!” Lou said. “I don’t want you handicapped. I want you in jail.”
Paul laughed. “Still at it, huh?”
“Putting you away is still one of my ultimate goals in life,” Lou said agreeably. “And finding that acid burn in Frankie DePasquale’s eye gives me some hope. At this point it looks mighty suspicious that you were behind the kid’s murder.”
“Aw, Lou,” Paul said. “It hurts my feelings that you’d think something nasty about me after all these years.”
6
At first Laurie thought the experience was unique enough to be tolerable, but as the time approached eight forty-five she began to get irritated. Thomas, Jordan’s driver, had shown up exactly at the agreed-upon time, eight o’clock, and had rung Laurie’s bell. But when Laurie got down to the car, she learned that Jordan was not there. He was still in surgery doing an emergency operation.
“I’m supposed to take you to the restaurant,” Thomas had said. “Dr. Scheffield will be meeting you there.”
Taken by surprise with this situation, Laurie had agreed. She’d felt strange entering the fancy restaurant by herself, but she was quickly put at ease by the maitre d’, who had been expecting her. She’d been discreetly ushered to a waiting table wedged among others near to the window. Next to the table stood a wine stand icing down a bottle of Meursault.
The sommelier had appeared instantly and had shown Laurie the label of the wine. After she’d nodded, he’d opened it, poured her a dollop, waited for her OK, then filled her glass. All this had been accomplished without words.
Finally at five minutes before nine, Jordan arrived.