“Hi, Tommy,” Nina finally said. “You want some coffee?”
He was wearing black socks and no slippers. He looked over at Todd and then at the sink. He cinched his terrycloth belt and left.
Bruno uncrumpled the bag like he’d done something wrong. Todd and his mother looked at each other.
“He want some coffee?” Nina asked Mrs. Monteleone.
Mrs. Monteleone shook her head.
Bruno went into the dining room and brought a chair back into the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and then pulled the chair up to the table.
“Where’s the other car?” Nina asked. “If Tommy’s here?”
“It’s in the shop,” Mrs. Monteleone said.
The doorbell rang.
“Now who the hell is this?” Bruno said.
“I didn’t even hear a car,” Nina said. She got up and went to the door. Todd kept his eyes on Mrs. Monteleone, who sat there as if all this was going on in another place.
Nina came back into the hall. “It’s the florist,” she said. “They won’t let me sign for it.”
Mrs. Monteleone got up and followed her to the front door.
Bruno spooned two sugars into his cup and stirred it by twirling the cup in his hand.
He was quiet. Todd had never seen him this way.
“What’re you doing here?” Joanie said in a low voice.
“What’m I doing here? What’re you doing here?” Bruno said. “I didn’t know you knew Tommy.”
Joanie shrugged.
“What’d you, just come over with your mother?” he asked.
She nodded. He seemed satisfied with that. He looked at Todd, and Todd thought for a second he was going to ask, You have anything to do with killing him?
He went back to his coffee. “So how’d you know him?” Joanie asked.
Bruno shrugged. “We were friends. We did some business.”
“Business? What kind of business?”
“What’re you, a cop?” Bruno said. “Business.”
Nina came back into the kitchen with Mrs. Monteleone.
“What’d they send?” Bruno asked. “Flowers?”
Nina looked at him. “It’s a florist,” she said. “Flowers.”
They sat back down. Nina got up to warm up her coffee. It looked like Mrs. Monteleone was going to cry again.
“Ma,” Todd said, “can I go outside?”
Bruno slurped his coffee and looked at him over the edge of the cup.
“Yeah, you go out,” Joanie said. “We’re only gonna stay a little longer. Mrs. Monteleone’s got things to do.”
He stood up. He didn’t know whether to say good-bye or not. Mrs. Monteleone smiled at him.
He went out the way he came in, the front door. He didn’t want to have to look at the Virgin Mary, so he walked down the driveway to the backyard. He’d never seen it before.
It was small and fenced in. The next-door neighbor had a yappy little dog that barked at him nonstop as soon as he came around the corner. It clawed at the fence to get at him.
There was one maple tree in the middle of the yard. He sat underneath it. Its roots went so far under the ground they were lifting the blacktop on the driveway ten feet from the trunk.
There was nothing to do. The grass was worn away to dirt at the places where the roots went in. The dog was still barking and scratching at the fence. He put three fingers down to the dirt and brought them up to his mouth.
The back door opened and Bruno and Joanie came out. They walked over to where Todd was sitting. They both had their hands in their pockets and Bruno was jingling change.
The dog was still barking. It was throwing itself against the fence, making the whole thing shake.
“Nice animal,” Bruno said, squinting over at it. “They bring a lot to a family, don’t they?”
He picked up a stick and threw it over the fence. The dog was quiet, probably checking it out.
“Don’t forget, the old man’s retired now,” he said. “They got nothing. Big Tommy, his idea of savings was whatever was left in the wallet.”
Joanie looked back at the house. “Maybe we could help out,” she said. “You know, lend them a little bit.”
“You?” Bruno said. “Since when do you have a pot to piss in?”
Joanie looked down at the grass and then over at Todd. “What happened to you?” she asked. “What’ve you got on your mouth?”
Todd rubbed it with the back of his hand. “It’s dirt,” he said.
The dog started up again. They listened to it bark.
“So what do you think?” Joanie said.
“What do I think?” Bruno said. He was looking off toward the house. “I think I wanna know what happened.”
Todd looked at his mother. She had her eyes on Bruno. She shrugged like someone was holding her shoulders. “Maybe the police …” she said.
“The police,” Bruno said. “Please.”
“Well,” she said. “Wasn’t he just—?”
“Whaddaya telling me?” Bruno said. “He’s hit by a car wandering around in the dark on Route One-ten?” He exaggerated the pronunciation of the number. He was mad enough that Todd and his mother had to look away.
“This is Tommy Monteleone, now,” he said. “This is not a guy who goes on nature hikes. He lives in a rented room on Nichols Avenue. Nature’s when a bug gets in the screen.”
Todd’s mother put her eyes somewhere else. Todd pulled at the tongue of his Nike. The dog was still barking.
“Shut up,” Bruno shouted. Joanie and Todd jumped.
The dog was quiet.
“Todd, get up,” his mother said. “We gotta go.” He could see how shook up she was.
The dog started barking again, hysterically.
“That son of a bitch,” Bruno said, looking over at the fence.
“Todd, come on,” his mother said. He was up but he was standing around, and she grabbed his shirt sleeve, pinching a bicep. He yanked it free.
“Fine,” she said. “You stay here. I’ll drive the car up onto the grass to pick you up.” She went back into the house, probably to say good-bye and get Nina. He was left standing there with the barking dog and Bruno.
He could feel himself close to crying and fought it. “Bruno,” he said.
Bruno looked at him. “What’re you, gonna whine about this?” he said. “What was she, mean to you? Don’t whine to me. Those people in the house: they got problems.”
Bruno walked off. Todd stood there alone, with the barking dog.
What he remembered all through the ride home was the pitiful way he sounded when he said “Bruno.” He understood he wasn’t thinking about Mrs. Monteleone, or her husband with his blue bathrobe, or the picture of Tommy. He was thinking about the pitiful way he sounded, and the way Bruno looked at him after he said it.
Back in his room, he bridged individual playing cards around the sleeping Audrey. Audrey was on her back with her legs folded in the air. Her head was stretched straight out upside down, and her cheeks hung down from gravity, exposing her incisors. She looked like a sleeping mad dog.
He was using only face cards, leaning them on her side by side, one by one, trying to surround her before she woke up or moved. He had his Ad Altare Dei booklet out and was deciding whether or not he would remind his mother. The meeting Wednesday night was at seven.
The booklet was opened to the first page. He’d filled it out when he’d gotten it.
Ad Altare Dei
Record book of
Todd Muhlberg
221 Indian Hill Road
Milford, CT 06498
Our Lady of Grace Church
$1.75