“Good afternoon, sir,” he said to Hector, extending his hand, his accent tinged British, or maybe vaguely Continental. Hector shook his cool, bony hand. Nick leaned forward and said, quite softly, “Could we chat elsewhere? All right? There’s a café around the corner.”
He kissed Laura lightly on the cheek and they whispered a few words in Italian. He led them down the street to the corner café. Bruno had a coffee at the bar while Hector and Nick took a table inside. Nick immediately lit a cigarette; he was a distinctive-looking person, his cheekbones jutting out quite sharply, his nose narrow and delicate. He had wide, large brown eyes and wavy dark hair that he wore in a long, loose style, the ends tucked back behind his ears. He could certainly be Eurasian, in Hector’s opinion, though he didn’t much look like his old photograph. Hector couldn’t see much of himself there, or June either, but then what did he really know? The only varieties he was expert in were the various clans of his family’s tiny Irish-blooded universe, and then maybe the demi-human strains that flourished in the dank, lightless ecology of Smitty’s, identifiable by the bulbous, angry nose, the mustardy pallor, the sorry teeth and hair. Nick was very handsome, but in a perfectly original way. At the orphanage there had been a number of mixed-blood kids, a natural consequence of the war. They were sometimes teased or shunned by the others, but to Hector they looked like no one in creation with their wide, petaling eyes and buttery, earthen coloring. Yet despite their beauty and hybrid vigor he couldn’t help but see them as being somehow vulnerable, too, doomed to their singularity, their species of one, which mirrored, strangely, how he had always felt inside. They could also appear so different from moment to moment, shape-shift when not even meaning to, as Nick was now, the mixing inside him veiling and unveiling this feature and that, depending on the angle, or the light. But one could make the argument: Nick was just about his height, if not build; and he thought he could see something of June’s mouth in the set of his, that certain crimp in her lip, that utter resolve.
The waiter brought their order, a coffee for Nick, nothing for Hector. But Nick didn’t drink his, just smoked and rolled his knuckles on the table. He wasn’t looking at Hector, either, but rather glancing over at Bruno, who was standing at the bar, then to the door in the back, as if calculating what it would take to get away.
“Well, are we going to do this?” he finally said. “I’m not going to say anything more until I have a lawyer.”
“I’m not a cop. I know about the stealing, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“You can cut the bullshit.”
Hector didn’t reply, just looking at him.
“So who the hell are you?”
Hector only told him what he’d said to Bruno, to Laura-that he was his mother’s helper.
“Well, Jesus Christ!” Nicholas said. He nodded toward Bruno, who was watching the soccer match on the television behind the bar. “What about him?”
“He’s a taxi driver.”
Nicholas shook his head. He chuckled at himself and drank his espresso. Then he rose to leave. Hector got up and gripped his shoulder, firmly pressing him back down. Nicholas’s eyes flashed in anger and his neck tensed but he instantly mastered himself, Hector almost feeling through his fingers how the young man geared himself back.
“So what does she want?” Nick said, lighting another cigarette. “And why did she send you? This is all very bizarre,” he added, intoning the word like a Frenchman. Every other word of his sounded as though he had grown up in a different place. Then he said, with an attitude of propriety, “We’re getting along just fine writing letters. If this is about the money she’s sent, I’m sorry, but it’s all spent. I’m quite broke, in fact.”
“She wants to see you. That’s all. She’s here in town.”
“Now?” He said it as a boy would say it, more non-wishing than disbelieving. “Where is she?”
Hector told him the name of the hotel.
At this, Nicholas just smoked for a few moments, then put the cigarette out.
“I can’t see her,” he said. “I’ve been away from her for this long, and it’s better to stay away. Tell her I’ll keep writing her, though.”
“You think she’ll keep sending you money?” Hector said.
“Is that some kind of threat?”
“No,” he said. “Just telling how it is. She’s sick. She’s dying.”
“You’re just saying that. She never wrote of anything like that.”
“It’s true,” Hector said.
Nicholas asked what was wrong with her, and Hector described what he knew of her condition, suddenly hearing himself as if he were indeed some lame, defeated dad come calling on a prodigal son, finally armed with the saddest ultimatum. He was better suited to defending himself, or at exacting revenge, than to this soft task of convincing. Nicholas listened in silence, his tongue slowly working inside his mouth. He stared morosely into his empty coffee cup. Hector said they should go now. But then he answered, “No. I can’t see her. I really can’t. I’m sorry she’s so sick, but I can’t.”
The sentiment was disturbing, but perhaps equally disturbing to Hector was that he was beginning to feel Nick was offending him (this when he believed he could never be offended), offending him to the core with his callousness of course but also because of the fact of their shared blood. It was a terrible new feeling. He wanted to grab him by the throat, shake him silly, maybe even punch him. Their first contact, and this is how he’d play the father: to rough up his own.
Hector said: “I won’t tell her what you said. It doesn’t matter to me what you do. You can write her all you want. But you should know, we’ll only be here today. Tomorrow we’re moving on. Then you’ll probably never see her again.”
He got up and at the bar he paid for the drinks from the rolled wad of cash he was carrying, while Bruno told Nicholas on which piazza the residenza was located. He didn’t appear to be listening. They were heading back for the hotel when Nicholas caught up with them a few blocks later on his scooter.
“Listen,” he said. “What’s your name. Hector?” His tone was now less mellifluously worldly, settling into something squarely lower-brow, as if he now better understood the person he was appealing to. “Listen, Hector. I’m sorry about what I said. I can see you think a lot of my mother and I appreciate that. I was freaked out that you found me. I wasn’t thinking straight. Now I’m wondering about the other people who might be looking for me. I know I’m going to have to leave soon. But listen. I’ll come and see her. I want to. I’m busy at the shop now with a few more deliveries and don’t have any time tonight. But I’ll come tomorrow, tomorrow morning, before the races. You know about the races, yes? Okay? But can you do me a favor? I told you I’m broke, and I’m not going to lie. I’m in some trouble here. I owe money from the race last month. I wrote to her last week to wire fifteen hundred dollars but obviously you were on the way here. She’s never not sent money when I’ve asked. I’m sure you know this. Do you think she would give me some now, if she were here? Do you think so?”
“I don’t know,” Hector said.
“Come on, I think you do. She’d give me what I need. We both know she would. So would you be a good fellow and front me some? I see you have a lot of cash. I’m sure she’ll cover whatever you can give me.”
“It’s all hers, anyway.”
“Well, then. I had asked for fifteen hundred. You may not have that much, but if you can give me a thousand for now, I’d be grateful.”