“Two of them. The other was a retired character actor, Jeremiah Cook, did a lot of television back in the day. Best known for a recurring role on Star Trek, where he played some crazy Russian author or something. He made a second career for himself signing memorabilia at Trekkie conventions.”
“Florio has no doubt got him believing he’s owed a bunch of unpaid royalties on that stuff.”
“Yeah, well you can put that in the past tense,” Mike said.
“He’s dead?”
“Yep.”
“How?”
“Cancer, they say, though-get this-his wife, Camille, claimed he’d been in remission since he went to Mexico for some kind of hoodoo, new age treatments. Insisted his collapse came out of nowhere. Sound familiar?”
“How old?”
“Eighty-two.”
“Let me guess. No autopsy.”
“No autopsy.”
It was looking more and more like Florio was either playing with marked cards or on intimate terms with the Grim Reaper. First Buster, then Jeremiah Star Trek, and now Freda was in a coma. He must be ahead $4 million, at least. That’s a lot of ostrich loafers. I had no doubt Mike would dredge up even more payouts before he was finished.
“Okay,” I said. “While we’re on the subject of Florio, there’s something else I want you to do.”
“Shoot.”
“This is probably a long shot, but could you see if there’s any connection between Tommy Florio and a guy named Vince Barsotti?”
He whistled. “That’s too fucking weird, man.”
My attention pricked, like a hunting dog on point. Mike was about to flush something from the bushes.
“Here’s what else I found. TFJ and Associates is a Nevada corporation, registered a few years ago by Thomas Florio Junior and two other dudes. Guess who one of them is?”
“Vincent Barsotti,” I said.
“Bingo.”
“Who’s the third guy?”
“Dude called Liam O’Flaherty.”
“Florio, Barsotti, and O’Flaherty. Sounds diverse,” I said.
“Yeah, well, guess what career path O’Flaherty was on for a good thirty years?”
“I can’t wait to find out.”
“Same path as me, probably, if you hadn’t turned my head around. He did a series of stretches in prison-Irish prison, to be exact. He could con beans out of a can, this guy. Then he took a little break before he became a legal crook over here. He’s thought to be affiliated with the Irish Mob.”
The Mob again.
“What about Florio and Barsotti? Have they done time as well?”
“Nothing on Florio yet. I’m just beginning to work on Barsotti. There’s a big pile of Vincent Barsottis out there.”
“Maybe I can help you with that.” I ran down what I had learned in my two days of old-fashioned door-to-door snooping.
“Nice work.” Mike said. “For someone who’s technically challenged, you’re a pretty good spy. I’ll call you when I find out more. Oh, and Tricia thinks your name is cute.” He hung up before I could respond.
The new pieces of information shifted and re-formed with what I already knew, but the kaleidoscope remained too abstract to decipher. What did Florio and Barsotti have in common, besides Italian last names? One of them was running a scam on older celebrities, and the other owned pigs and luxury cars. How did they end up in business together? And what was their connection to O’Flaherty? To the Mafia? To the Children of Paradise?
I pulled into the hospital parking lot none the wiser. As I headed for the ICU, I had a sinking feeling any answers it might hold were locked deep in Freda Wilson’s comatose mind.
Freda lay still, a felled animal in a nest of tubes and fluids. Wesley sat by her, stroking one swollen hand. Their son stood at the foot of the bed. Gone was the swagger, the sullen, rebellious stance. He looked like what he was, a scared boy whose mother’s survival was at the mercy of machinery, or maybe a miracle. My heart hurt as I took in this tableau of family grief. Human life is so very fragile. My years of Buddhist training underscored an awareness that death can come at any moment, but the sight of Freda made this awareness all too real, and painful.
The steady beeping of mechanical pumps and dispensers told me Freda’s body could no longer function without technological help. How much inner life was still there, I did not know. I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and tried to reach her heart with mine. I felt no corresponding warmth. I did the next best thing, surrounding her with a peaceful light. If she was meant to recover, I hoped it would speed her healing. If not, maybe it would help create more ease for her passage to the next realm.
I left her, and went to the visitor’s lounge to wait. Wesley soon joined me. He looked a decade older than the last time I saw him.
“I’m so very sorry,” I said. He nodded, and his eyes filled. He sat down next to me, and hunched over. His raw pain was palpable.
I reached back to my time in the monastery, all those hours of sitting, practicing loving-kindness toward myself and others. I closed my eyes, and located a powerful droplet of condensed compassion, lodged deep in my chest. I invited the caring to expand, fill my body, spill over. May you enjoy happiness…. It spread like bittersweet syrup. May you be free from suffering. … I tried to direct it to the source of Wesley’s grief, coat it with comfort, or at least leach away some of the soreness. May you rejoice in the well-being of others…. May you live in peace, free from anger, hatred, and attachment…
Wesley lifted his head from his hands.
“She didn’t want to keep me up,” he said. “She started coughing, it was the middle of the night, and she didn’t want to keep me up.”
He turned to me.
“Why didn’t I tell her to stay in bed with me?”
The story spilled out of him now, how she’d been fighting the remnants of the flu for weeks. How last night she ran out of cough drops, couldn’t stop coughing, and finally put on her robe and went to the kitchen, to make a hot toddy.
How he woke up with a start several hours later and stumbled out of the bedroom and found her lying on the living room floor. “I thought she was asleep,” he said. “Her cheeks were so rosy and pink.”
He turned to me, his eyes haggard. “They say her lungs are full of fluid. That her heart is failing. That her … her brain is … that she may never come back.” His voice cracked. “Why didn’t I tell her to stay in bed?”
“Wesley, listen to me,” I said. “It’s not your fault. It may not be anybody’s, but it’s definitely not yours.”
He looked at me. “What do you mean by that?”
I decided to give him the truth.
“Look, I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s something odd going on, something related to Florio. At least two other people he signed contracts with have died under suspicious circumstances. This may be related.”
Wesley shook his head, as if trying to wake himself up. “You saying this isn’t the flu?”
“I’m not sure what I’m saying,” I admitted, “but things aren’t adding up here. Freda may have been the victim of foul play.”
Wesley’s face darkened as he absorbed this new information. He grabbed my wrist, his grip strong.
“You find out anything more, you tell me, understand? Bastards!”
“I will,” I said.
He stood. “I’ve got to get back to Freda.” His body swayed. I jumped up and took his arm to steady him.
“Mr. Norbu, thank you for telling me this,” he said. “I was carrying more weight than I knew.”
I walked him back to the ICU and left him there, holding Freda’s hand. I couldn’t undo what had happened, but I was glad to at least bring him some small relief from his unfounded guilt.
I saw Bill had phoned. No message. I called him back from the parking lot.
“Yo,” he answered. “I got something for you.”
“You up for some lunch?”
“As long as pastrami’s involved.”
I arrived at Langer’s a few minutes early and grabbed a booth by the window. My favorite waitress, Jean, came at me like a heat-seeking missile. She filled my coffee cup without asking.