“No, thank you, Mrs. Parma.”
“Are you sure? No trouble.”
“Well, if it’s no trouble.”
“Sit. You’ll eat and then we’ll talk. Like civilized people. Sit.”
I sat. It was no use arguing with Joey Parma’s mother when she decided you needed to be fed. You would eat and you would enjoy.
Mrs. Parma’s house was dark, the curtains drawn, the lights low. I could barely see my way into the kitchen to the little Formica table to the side, but Mrs. Parma, in a long housecoat and slippers, bustled about her territory with an assuredness born of long practice despite her failing sight. When she opened the refrigerator and bent down to feel for the platter of veal, the light illuminated the lines on her cheek, her lean prowlike nose, the dark circles beneath her eyes, the stoic tragedy of a woman who lost her son years ago and had just now gotten around to burying him.
She hummed as she cooked, pouring olive oil into the pan, dropping in breaded pieces of veal that sizzled with excitement, placing a square of baked rigatoni in the oven, slicing a sausage and adding it to the pan. She took fresh greens from the crisper, brought them to her nose and then held them gently in her gnarled fingers as she sliced the greens roughly, chopped the garlic, fried it all up together before splitting a lemon and reaming it over everything. It filled the kitchen, the smell of meat and garlic, the spices, the sizzle of oil, the delicious clatter of her knives and pans and dishes, the sound of her soft humming.
“You want maybe wine with your veal, Victor?”
“No, ma’am, that won’t be necessary.”
“I have a bottle already open.”
“Will you join me?”
“I’m not hungry. Who can eat after all these years? But I’ll have some wine, if you don’t mind.”
“Mrs. Parma, it would be a treat to share some wine with you.”
She reached into a cabinet, pulled out two plain water glasses, filled them with a dark Chianti. She lifted her glass. “To my Joey,” she said.
“To Joey.”
She took a drink and seemed to slump for a moment, the outline of her body beneath the housecoat sagging before she recovered, pressed a hand to her forehead, returned to the stove.
“Mange,” she said as she put the plates in front of me.
I manged.
She sat with her third glass of wine, leaning on an elbow, as I put the empty plates in the sink, rolled up my sleeves, turned on the faucet.
“I’ll take care that, Victor.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. I filled the sink with water and soap, scrubbed the plates and pans clean, rinsed, left everything on the rack. I cleaned the counters with a sponge, I put away the garlic and oil, the salt. As I worked, she sat heavily at the table. She was a small woman, short and thin, weighed maybe ninety pounds, and still, to see her at that table was to see the force of gravity work on some huge awful weight.
“My Joey was an altar boy, Victor. Did you know that?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, drying my hands on a dish towel.
“In his little white robe, with the other boys, swinging the incense. Oh, he was angel. Sweet as marzipan. I have picture, do you want to see?”
“Yes.”
She started to rise, sighed, and sagged back into her chair. “One moment, please.” She took a sip of her wine. “He was good boy. In his heart. But that don’t matter much in this world. It wasn’t easy being Joey Junior. Joey Senior was a man, my God, Victor, yes he was. Just the stench of him, coming home after a hot day wrestling with the meat, it made my head swim. Did you know him?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Let me tell you, it was no easy thing being his wife. It was harder being his son. You needed to be smarter and stronger to survive him. I was. Look at me, the size I am, he was twice as big as me, and still I was stronger than him every day of his life. But Joey wasn’t. My little Joey. Forever trying to prove himself and proving nothing. Though always sweet, Mr. Carl. Always. Did you see how they came out for the viewing?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lined up around the block. Such a crowd. They came out of respect for Joey Senior, and they came for me maybe, but they was also there for my baby. People loved him. He could have taken the shop, turned it into something for himself. Politics maybe. But that would have meant standing behind his father six days a week. So he became something else, even if what he became was crap. One day it was like a switch was turned, first he was just a sweet kid, and then he was ruined. Sad, desperate, stupid. Not a good combination. But as a boy, such a face on him.”
She put her hands to her eyes as if to cover her sorrow. A thick golden ring shone on her forefinger, with a diamond chip in the center.
“That’s a beautiful ring, Mrs. Parma,” I said.
Her face lifted. She smiled as she bent her hand toward me, like a young woman showing off an engagement diamond. “Pretty, yes. You like? I wear it all the time. To me it is special. Joey gave to me years ago. A birthday gift.”
“May I see it?”
“Of course,” she said as she twisted the oversized ring off her finger. “He could be so sweet. He was an altar boy, did you know that? In his little white robe. I have picture. Do you want to see picture?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She pushed herself up from the table, successfully this time, and rubbed her back as she left the kitchen.
While she was gone, I examined the ring. It was heavy, it felt solid, masculine. I nipped the bottom with my teeth and left a small mark. Nice. On the inside were the initials TG. I tossed it in my hand and then placed it gently on the center of the table.
When Mrs. Parma returned to the kitchen a few moments later she was carrying a picture in a frame. Three boys in white robes, young boys, eight or nine, posed in front of a church, butcher boy cuts with bangs hanging down. The boy on the right was chubby, happy, with a smile that could melt butter. Joey? Was Joey ever that happy? He was leaning against the boy in the middle, a broad, sturdy lad with a fierce smile and dark eyes. To the left was a tall thin boy, standing apart from the other two.
“Such a face,” said Mrs. Parma, sitting back at the table, twisting her ring back on. “If only he could have stayed like that. But boys grow up and disappoint, every one. That is the way of it. Even you, Victor. Is your mother proud? Truly, in her heart? Joey Senior was just a boy himself when I first set eyes on him. Striding down the street in his uniform. Who could tell what was inside of him?”
“I wanted to again say how sorry I am for your loss.”
“I know you are. You took care of him that last time, when he told me he was falsely accused. My Joey, always a bad liar, but he couldn’t help himself. He was allergic to the truth. But things were turning around for him, so he said.”
“Is that what he said?”
“That night, before he went out. He said he had a plan would turn things around for him.”
“Did he tell you what the plan was all about?”
“No. Never. My Joey never told me a thing. In fact, the policeman who came, he asked the very same thing. The black man with the Irish name.”
“Scottish name,” I said. “McDeiss.”
“That’s it, yes. I made him some veal. A man his size, he eats a lot of veal. He asked about you as much as he asked about Joey. But I knew nothing about Joey’s business. I knew enough to know not to know. He was my son, Victor, my boy, and I loved him like he was still my little Joey, but I knew what he was. And for that they killed him dead?”
“Who’s they?”
“Who knows? I don’t. But he was never very smart with money.”
“Joey told me he had a girlfriend.”
“That’s a lie. Not my Joey. He was never one for the girls, had no handle on them. Not like his father, who knew how to have his way. For my little Joey there was only me.” She twisted the ring on her finger. “I was his girl.”
“Do you know why he was going out the night he died?”