Where Love Has Gone (28 page)

“I’ll get another Coke,” Dani said. When she came back Sylvia was watching a younger singer who was making a guest appearance.

“He’s not really singing,” Sylvia said. “He’s just moving his lips to a playback.” “How do you know?”

“You don’t see the orchestra, do you? Besides, they got a big echo in his voice. They can’t do that except in a recording studio.” She studied the close-up of the singer for a moment. “But he’s real cute, only not as cute as Fabian. Did you get any mail today?”

Dani shook her head. “No, but I didn’t expect any.”

“The others got mail. I expected a letter from Richie but I didn’t get one. He said he’d write every day.” Concern came into her voice. “You don’t think the finks are holding it out on me, do you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“If I don’t hear from him by tomorrow, I’ll die!”

“Don’t worry, you’ll hear from him,” Dani said consolingly. Silently the two girls sat sharing the Coke.

7

__________________________________________

I got over to the Wharf just a little ahead of the dinner rush. The vendors were busy stocking their stands, laying the cracked crabs artistically on the shaved ice, trimming the borders of their carts with the gay glass cups of fresh-cooked pink shrimp. There were stacks of fresh-baked sourdough bread and rolls, and over the whole area hung the heady aroma of the fish market.

I walked past Tarantino’s toward the Maritime Museum. The fishing boats were tied up for the night, bobbing slightly with the swell of the water, and along the Wharf were more stands. One, almost in the middle of the block, was covered with a faded tarpaulin. Across it was printed RICCIO.

I stopped. A man working at the next stand, his hands deftly setting out crabs, said out of the side of his mouth, “They’re closed today.”

“Do you know where I can find them?”

He put down the crabs and walked toward me. “You a reporter?” I nodded.

“They’re at the funeral parlor. The funeral’s tomorrow morning. You come to interview the family?”

“In a way.”

“The boy was no good,” he said. “When he was a kid he’d never come to help out on the stand. He wouldn’t dirty his hands with the fish, like his brothers. He was too good for them. I told his father he’d come to a bad end.”

“Which funeral parlor?” I asked. “Mascogani’s.”

“Where is it?”

“You know Bimbo’s?” he asked. I nodded.

“Across the street from Bimbo’s, about a block down.”

“Thanks.” I started back up the block toward my car. I found a place to park on Jackson near the funeral parlor. It was a white stone and marble-front building. I opened the doors and went inside.

I stood in the dim, softly lighted foyer until my eyes adjusted, then walked over to the glass- covered directory on the wall. In a moment a dark-suited man came up behind me.

“Can I help you, sir?” he said in a hushed voice.

“Riccio?”

“Right this way.”

I followed him to the elevator. He pressed a button and the door opened. “I don’t know if the family is still up there. They may have gone to supper, but you can sign your name in the book just inside the door. Room A.”

“Thanks.”

The door closed. When it opened again I stepped out. Room A was just across the corridor.

I looked in the open door. Through an archway at the far end of the room I could see the coffin resting under a blanket of flowers. My footsteps made no sound on the heavy carpeting as I walked toward it. I stopped alongside and looked down.

So this was the man my daughter had killed. At first glance, he seemed to be merely sleeping.

The morticians had done their job well.

He had been handsome, with thick black hair coming to a slight widow’s peak on his high forehead. His nose was straight and strong, his mouth firm though even now slightly sensual. His lashes were almost as long as a girl’s. I felt a sense of pity well up inside me. He couldn’t have been much past thirty.

I heard a sigh behind me, almost a groan. I turned, started.

A little old man was sitting in a corner of the alcove, to the side of the archway, on a small straight-backed chair. I hadn’t noticed him when I came in, though I must have walked right past him. He looked up at me, his dark eyes glittering in the candlelight.

“I’ma th’ fath’,” he said. “You knew my son?”

I shook my head. I walked toward him. “My sympathy, Mr. Riccio.”

“Grazie,”
he said heavily, his tired eyes searching my face. “My Tony, he not sucha bad boy like they say,” he said. “He justa want too much.”

“I can believe that, Mr. Riccio. No one is ever as bad as people say they are.” Voices came from just beyond the archway. “Papa! Who are you talking to in there?”

I turned to see a young man and woman in the archway. The young man looked very much like the man in the coffin, though his features were slightly heavier and coarser. The young woman was dressed in black, the kind of black that only Italian women seem able to achieve in times of mourning. Her hair was covered by a lace shawl, her face patient with a sad, tired kind of beauty.

“This another my sons. Steve,” the old man said. “And my Tony’s
fidanzata
, Anna Stradella.”

The young man stared into my face with a shocked expression. “Papa!” he said harshly. “You know who this man is?”

The old man shook his head.

“He’s the girl’s father! You can’t talk to him. You know what the lawyer said.”

The old man looked up into my face. He turned back to his son. “What I care whata the lawy’

say? I look into this man’s face when he is stan’ by the coff’. An’ I see in it the same kin’ sorrow that I gota in my heart.”

“But, Papa,” the young man protested, “the lawyer said not to talk to him if we’re going to sue. It might prejudice our case!”

Mr. Riccio raised a hand. “Stop!” he said firmly with a curious kind of dignity. “Later the lawyers can fight. Now, we are joosta th’ same. Two fathers, whos’a childr’ bring them sorrow and shame.”

He turned back to me. “Sit down, Mist’ Carey. Forgive my boy. He’sa still young.” “Thank you, Mr. Riccio.”

The young man turned angrily and walked from the room. The girl stood there watching us. I pulled two chairs from the wall and held out one for her. She hesitated a moment, then sat down. I sat in the other.

“My condolences, Miss Stradella.”

She nodded without answering, her eyes dark in her white face. “Your little girl?” Mr. Riccio asked. “How is she?”

I didn’t know what to say. How harsh would it sound for me to say all right, while his son lay there in the coffin a few feet from us?

He sensed my feelings. “Poor kid,” he said softly. “She’sa nothing but a baby.” He looked into my face. “Why did you come, Mist’ Carey?”

“To find out about your son.” I saw his eyes widen. “Not to bring him shame,” I added quickly. “But to learn something about my daughter.”

“Do not be embarrass, Mist’ Carey. It’sa only right to want to help you’ daughter.” “Thank you for understanding, Mr. Riccio.”

“Now, what you want to know?”

“Did you son have any close friends?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Friends?” he asked. “No. No friends. Anna who he was going marry would be his friend. His brothers, Steve and John, they woulda be his friends. But he no want any of them. He want to be a big society man.”

The old man smiled bitterly, his eyes clouding with a memory. “When Tony wasa littla boy, he say to me, ‘Pop, Pop, look up from the dock. Up there on the top of Nob Hill. I’m going to live there someday. Way up there where you no can smella the fish!’

“I laugh. ‘Tony,’ I say. ‘Go study your lesson. Play baseball like a good boy. Maybe someday you be lika the Di Mag brothers an get your Pop a big restaurant ona the Wharf. Stop dreaming.’

“But Tony, he always dream. When he finish school he don’ want to be a baseball play’ lika the Di Mag brothers. He wanta be an artist. He grow a beard and hang out in the coffeehouse. He come home late every night and sleep late every morning. He no go out on the boat with his brothers. Hisa hands are too delicate. When he’sa twenty year old he get job with an art dealer. A fat lady. Then a

year later he get another job. Big place this time. Near Gump’s.

“One day he come down to my stand with a pretty lady. ‘Thisa my boss’ wife,’ he say. They eat the shrimp and the crack crab and they laugh like two kids. Then they go away. A little later I read in the pap’ where the boss and his wife, they geta divorce. I worry about my Tony’s job, then one day he comes down to the stand in a brand-new car. Expensive. Not American car. Foreign.

“‘Pop!’ he said. ‘I got it made. I worka for the boss’ wife now. She’sa big time. Big money. An’ you know where I live?’

“‘No,’ I say. ‘Where you live, Tony?’

“He point up to the hill. ‘Right up there, Pop,’ he say. ‘Right up there on Nob Hill like I always say I will. And you know, Pop, it’sa true. You never smell the fish from up there!’“

He glanced over at the coffin, then back at me. “Tony, he can’t smell the fish from there either.

From there, he can’t smell nothing at all.”

I sat there silent for a moment, then got to my feet. “You’ve been very kind to talk to me, Mr.

Riccio. I apologize for disturbing you at a time like this.”

The old man looked up at me and nodded, but already his eyes were far away. He looked back at the coffin, his lips moving silently. “I will pray for your daughter,” he said, “as well as for my son.”

I looked down at the girl. “Miss Stradella.”

She glanced at the old man but he was still staring into the coffin. Her eyes came brightly alive in her face. “Wait outside for me!” she whispered.

I stared at her for a second, then nodded and started across the room. I passed the younger son in the outer room. He glowered as I passed and then started toward the alcove. I didn’t wait for the elevator. I went down the stairs to the street.

I leaned up against the car, waiting. She came out into the street and I saw her looking for me. “Miss Stradella,” I called.

She hurried toward the car. When she reached me, she looked back over her shoulder at the funeral parlor. “Better get into the car. Steve and his father will be coming out any minute now. I don’t want them to see me talking to you!”

I opened the door and she got in. I shut the door and went around to the other side. I got in and started the motor. “Where to?”

“Anywhere,” she said nervously. “Anywhere away from here.”

I cut out into traffic and turned back away from the Embarcadero. We went a good half-mile before she spoke again. Her voice was harsh and tense. “You’re looking for the letters?”

I shot a surprised look at her. I hadn’t thought it would be this easy. “Do you have them?” She didn’t answer.

“Blackmail’s a pretty dirty business,” I said. “You can spend more years in jail for it than you’ve got left.”

“I haven’t got them, Mr. Carey. But I know who has.” Then the tears welled up into her eyes.

“Damn Tony and his soul to hell!” she swore angrily. “I never should have listened to him. I should have burned those damned letters as soon as he gave them to me!”

I pulled the car over to the curb and cut the motor. “Who has them?”

She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. She didn’t look at me. “My brother.” “Where is he? I want to talk to him.”

She still didn’t look at me. “I don’t know. I gave them to him Friday night. I haven’t seen him since.”

“You gave them to him?”

“Yes. He tricked me out of them. He came by my apartment at ten thirty and said Tony had asked him to get the letters. Of course I gave them to him. I was glad to get rid of them. Then at eleven o’clock I heard the news on TV and I knew what he was going to try to do.”

“How did you know?”

She looked at me. “Lorenzo was just like Tony. Always with an eye for the big buck. He was in my apartment when Tony gave the letters to me. He heard what Tony said about them. I wanted to burn them then but Tony wouldn’t let me. ‘Those letters are our insurance policy,’ he said. He said that when the time came for him to be free of the old lady, they’d be his guarantee that we’d have enough money to live on for the rest of our lives.

“Tony could always talk me into anything. He was real good at that. It was always the big deal. Tomorrow. When he went to work for your wife he said it was just a question of time. He couldn’t stand her, he said. Just to touch her made him sick but she was crazy about him and when the time was right there would be the money. Always the money. He used to come down to my place to get away from her.”

“Did you read the letters?”

She shook her head. “No. He gave them to me in a big brown envelope. It was sealed.” “Did he ever say anything to you about my daughter?”

“No. Wait a minute. Yes, he did. Once, about a year ago. He said the kid was growing up fast and if the mother didn’t watch out there’d be a real beauty in the family. And the old lady wouldn’t like that.”

“He never said anything else?” “No, nothing else.”

“Does anyone besides you and your brother know about the letters? Tony’s brothers?”

“Tony and his brothers fought like cats and dogs. They thought he was no good and he thought they were jerks. He never told them anything.”

I took out a cigarette and lit it. “Did Renzo call you?” she asked.

“No. He sent a letter to my former mother-in-law. He said that he’d read the letters and if she

wanted them she’d have to pay plenty for them.” I looked at her. “Where does your brother live? Maybe we can find him there.”

She laughed. “Don’t you think I tried that? I went there looking for him. His landlady said he moved out late Friday night. She doesn’t know where he went.”

“Has he got a girlfriend?”

She shook her head. “He runs around a lot but I don’t know any of his girls. When Mama died two years ago, Renzo moved out. I only see him when he needs money.”

“You live alone?” I asked.

She nodded. She began to cry. “I always thought Tony would come home someday.”

He came home all right, I thought, but not the way she’d thought. “I’m sorry, Miss Stradella.” “Don’t be. I’m not crying because of Tony. That was over a long time ago. I knew that even if his