Thomson said casually, “I didn’t see your car when I came in, Earl. So this is a pleasant surprise. I assumed you weren’t home.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re pleasantly surprised.” Earl sipped his coffee and smiled, as though oblivious to the tension in the room.
Thomson found himself reluctantly admiring his son’s composure. Rockland Military had put a stamp on him, no doubt of that. The benchmark was evident in the tall, aloof way he held himself and the dismissing politeness he could affect when it suited him.
Those were Rockland’s endowments, the molding influence of the hard-assed, stiff-necked army brass (retired) who ran the school. They had worked with Earl’s contempt for authority and instincts for violence — “harness those horses” had been a colonel’s phrase for it, “guide and shape those qualities rather than stifle them.”
They had succeeded, you had to give them that. Earl was totally indifferent to what people thought of him. The swastika he often wore around his neck was a case in point. If people were offended by it, they didn’t have to look at it. There had been a local but minor furor in the press because — typically — he had asked a firm of Jewish jewelers in Philadelphia to make the emblem for him. They had objected to the inscription Earl wanted, on the back: “Munich — 11/9/38,” Munich being one of the places where Crystal Night had been successfully “celebrated” (that was Earl’s word to the Philadelphia jewelers) in Germany’s Third Reich.
The firm had refused to make the swastika and someone, a clerk or a customer present at the time, had tipped off a local columnist. But Earl had found another jeweler who was willing to do the job and, despite the flurry of unpleasant publicity, insisted that the incident proved his philosophical point, which was that people had options and that somebody would always do anything you wanted providing you paid him enough.
“So,” Thomson asked at last, “where’s the Porsche? In for a tune-up?”
“No, it was stolen yesterday, father. I was just telling Uncle Dom about it. A pity because it was in mint condition for the rally. Let’s hope whoever ripped it off is enjoying it. That’s the Christian attitude, right, Uncle Dom?” Earl laughed. “But according to Nietzsche, Christianity and alcohol are society’s two greatest narcotics.”
Lorso shrugged and blew a smoke ring.
Thomson said, “Well, when did this happen?”
“I told you.” Earl was still smiling, but a line had hardened around his eyes. “Yesterday.”
“I was wondering about the time. The insurance people always want to know, for some reason.”
“Well, you can tell them it was yesterday afternoon. Five or six o’clock.”
“Where’d it happen?”
“On Route One outside a pub called The Green Lantern. I had a beer or two and when I came out the old red hornet was gone.”
“The Lantern’s near Muhlenburg,” Dom Lorso said. “It’s run by a colored guy. It’s a bar for coloreds.” He inhaled smoke and blew it out in a thick stream. “Which is not to say there’s something wrong with it.”
Earl stood with a fluid grace which transformed the simple action into a performance. “Yes, Uncle Dom. The Green Lantern is an establishment for ladies and gentlemen of color. Ni-gras, that is. But as Colonel Ward was fond of telling us, the function of the elite in an elite society is to emphasize class distinctions rather than to pretend they don’t exist. Camouflage in warfare is an art. In social manners, it’s just gutless. I wasn’t at The Green Lantern to prove the colonel’s thesis, though. I was hoping to buy a shotgun, but my man didn’t show.”
Thomson said, “Did you report to the police that the Porsche was stolen?”
Earl stared at him. “Look, father. There’s no big deal here. I didn’t call the cops because there are tons of classic wheels in town for the Longwood Show. Probably one of my pals borrowed the Porsche for a quote joke unquote. So be cool. One of those clowns will swing by with the old red hornet. Anything else?”
Thomson’s own temper sharpened. “Yes, dammit. Sergeant Ledge told me he called here Thursday afternoon and left a message with you. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
Earl’s face became tight. His powerful hands clenched. “Why are you always hassling me?” His voice had risen. “You weren’t here, you never are. Ledge called about a problem he was having at Summitt with a character named Harry Selby. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I told him you were in Europe. He said he’s trying to reach you. I’m not one of your clerks in this house, so kindly get off my ass.”
He walked stiffly from the room.
Thomson and Dom Lorso sat in silence for a few moments. They had known each other many years. Their relationship was based on a knowledge of what they had done in the past, and what they were capable of doing, now and in the future, out or pride and ambition and, perhaps most compelling, out of sheer habit. They had long been tacitly aware that their union had become like an old and casually attended marriage, with no unanswered questions between them, no sense of adventure or surprise; they had been left finally with nothing linking them and keeping them together but an unwavering trust.
They had never made the mistake of assuming they knew one another truly well. Lorso was a bachelor and lived in a duplex apartment with a doorman and a fine view of a park. Thomson had been there only once, when Lorso was down with a nagging, persistent flu. A man had been in the kitchen fussing about with a tray of cheese and crackers and drinks. He was balding and plump with wens on his face and wore a plaid belt that matched his tie. A woman in a leather jacket and slim brass chains had been watching TV. Lorso had introduced them to Thomson, but Thomson had never seen them again and had no idea how they fitted into the Sicilian’s life.
Their own relationship was based on business and secured by Dom Lorso’s loyalty to Thomson, but there was one other significant thing between them, which was their shared knowledge of what men were capable of doing to one another.
Lorso lit a cigarette from the stub burning between his fingers. “Earl called Santos from Muhlenburg late yesterday afternoon after his car was stolen. That’s how he got home. Santos drove over and got him. They were back here around seven. Earl had dinner with Adele and they watched TV. So forget what you’re worrying about. Earl was here all night. All the time. I already checked that out with Adele and with Santos. Earl wasn’t involved with what happened to Harry Selby’s kid. Get that out of your mind. He’s proud of you, Giorgio, although I admit he don’t always show it. But where it counts, he’s your son. That trouble with the cunt at Rockland, even that was a way of showing you he didn’t take shit from anybody, that he’s got your kind of balls.”
“But you were worried last night.”
“I told you, that’s what I’m paid for.” Dom Lorso waved at the smoke from his cigarette, which drifted between them like gray webbing. “When I talked to Captain Slocum he’d heard something from Eberle about a red sports car being involved.”
Lorso waved again at the smoke. “When my grandmother lived with us, Giorgio, you know how old people are, she warned us to watch out if we ever smelled garlic in the wrong places, like the vestibule of a church or anywhere in the house outside the kitchen, like around the baby’s room or when you were saying your prayers at night. She always told us to watch out then because it meant the devil was around somewhere. All right, all right,” he said hastily as Thomson smiled and sipped his coffee. “Maybe it’s old-country bullshit, Giorgio, but I got a whiff of garlic when Slocum told me about a red sports car in that accident on Fairlee Road.”