Lady Killer (17 page)

M
ary grabbed the stiff hand strap as the Yellow cab lurched down Market Street and around City Hall in stop-and-go traffic. She had to pick up her car from the impoundment lot; she’d need it for her next move. The morning rush hour was coming on, and the sky was clouding up, as if heaven and earth were on nasty parallel tracks. Mary tried not to take it as a bad sign. Or maybe you saw bad signs everywhere after you’d walked out on your life.

“Reg?” she said into the cell phone, having finally reached Brinkley. “First, I want to explain about last night, about me and Bobby Mancuso.”

“No need.”

“I dated him in high school, and that’s it. I would’ve mentioned it to you but didn’t get the chance, and it’s kind of personal. It really didn’t—”

“No matter, thanks for the tip,” Brinkley said coldly, so Mary moved to her next point.

“Anything new on Trish?”

“No.”

Mary could’ve guessed as much. She’d been checking online like a fiend. “I assume Ritchie and his father didn’t tell you anything last night.”

“Can’t go into that. By the way, I hear you talked to the feds.”

“I thought it would help the cause. I hope that was okay.”

“Sure,” Brinkley said, but Mary wasn’t convinced.

“Did you learn anything from Mancuso’s autopsy?”

“I can’t discuss that with you.”

“I swear, Reg, the more I know, the more I can help.”

“Don’t help. Sorry. Listen, I gotta go.”

“But what about Trish?”

“Mary, we’ll follow up.” Brinkley’s tone softened a little. “We’ll do our job. Go back to work. Make like a lawyer.”

Gulp.
Mary pushed those thoughts away. “Just tell me, what did the trace evidence show? I would assume there’d be dirt on his shoes, threads on his clothes, stuff that would show where he’d been and where the house could be—”

“That’s for us, Mary.”

“The feds know who Cadillac is, but they wouldn’t tell me.”

“Please, God in heaven, don’t go anywhere near the Mob.” Suddenly Brinkley sounded like himself again, her pal of old. “If anything happens to you, your mother will never forgive me.”

“Okay, but I thought of something else.” Mary had a new idea this morning. “A good place to look around would be his old friends. Trish’s diary doesn’t mention any old friends, but everybody has old friends. He needed a friend, that’s what his sister told me. If he were going to confide in someone about his house, obviously it wouldn’t be someone in the Mob. It could—”

“Mare, I gotta go. Stay out of it. We’ll find Trish, one way or another. See ya.” Brinkley hung up, and the cab stalled past the federal courthouse, heading east toward the Delaware River.

Mary pressed the button to end the call, feeling suddenly at a loss. She inched farther from Bennie, Judy, and her job, and watched traffic fill Market Street. She was unsure where she was going, even where she’d been. A white SEPTA bus rocked side to side in front of the cab, then took a right turn, unblocking the orangey sun that rose at the end of Market, bathing the street momentarily in a golden light. She squinted at the momentary brightness, then held on tight as it flickered away, thinking to herself.

And planning her next move.

Half an hour later, Mary had parked outside the main entrance of her old high school, St. Maria Goretti. The school occupied a three-story yellow-brick building in the heart of South Philly, at Tenth and Moore Streets. It had since been renamed Neumann-Goretti High School, having merged with its brother school, but it was housed in the same building, remarkably unchanged paneled windows with steel sills and a bank of stainless-steel-framed glass doors. A tall concrete statue of St. Goretti watched over Tenth Street, and Mary hurried past her up the steps, an unexpected lump in her throat as she pulled open the door and stepped inside.

The school was smaller than she remembered, but it smelled the same, an overheated mix of city street, floor wax, and drugstore hair product. It was characteristically quiet because classes were in session; an empty, glistening corridor with tan floor tiles extended ahead of her and to her left. The cinderblock walls had been repainted beige, and the lockers that lined the hall were a matching color. Inside was the same as when she’d been here, except that the walls had been white, and when she turned the corner she stopped short at the sight of the old school uniform, displayed in a glass case, as if she herself were an artifact.

Mary felt a pang, standing there in the fluorescent lights, eyeing the heavy blue jumper with the SMG emblem displayed next to a set of four ribbons, each a different color. The ribbon used to be fastened to the uniform at the underarm, to hold her locker key in her jumper pocket, and they all used to twirl it endlessly, a Goretti trademark. For a minute, she couldn’t leave, standing in front of herself, her emotions rushing back at her, all the joy and shame of her senior year.

Then she straightened up and willed the feelings away. She had to get to work.

Not long after, Mary was sitting in the cozy Development Office, at a spare desk near a turquoise tin of imported almond biscotti, neat piles of the school’s promotional materials, and a coffeemaker. Carolyn Edgar, the development officer, was an attractive middle-aged woman with a warm smile, a chic brush of grayish-blond hair, rimless glasses, and a camel-hair sweater she wore with herring-bone slacks. Mrs. Edgar was new to the school, and her position hadn’t existed when Mary had gone here, before God needed marketing.

“Here we go, dear.” Mrs. Edgar set the two Bishop Neumann yearbooks in front of her, one padded green, with the Crystal and Crossroads crossing over each other like an X, embossed with the old Neumann logo. On top, Mrs. Edgar set a red yearbook that read Goretti Graffiti. “I thought you might like to see yours, too.”

“Good idea.” Mary smiled, though it wasn’t on her agenda. She picked it up and opened to a page of black-and-white photos, big-haired girls in itchy jumpers, recognizing the faces right away. Joyce DelCiotto, Madeline Alessi, and Eileen Duffy, all wearing their NHS pins proudly as a cartoon sheriff wears a badge. “I remember the dress code. Earrings no bigger than a quarter.”

“We still have that rule.”

“Good. I suffered, so should they.” Mary skipped ahead to her own picture in the seniors section. “Oh, no.”

“Everybody says that.” Mrs. Edgar smiled, taking a seat behind her orderly desk and hitting a few keys on the computer.

Mary cringed at the way she used to look. Her eyes were tiny behind thick glasses, her curled hair stiff with hairspray, and her teeth a tangle of braces. It wasn’t until then that she remembered Trish used to call her Tinsel Teeth.

“Why is it you needed those Neumann yearbooks again?” Mrs. Edgar asked, looking through her bifocals at the computer monitor. A large wooden crucifix hung on the cinderblock wall, and behind her were bookshelves and an air conditioner wrapped with a Hefty bag and duct tape.

Mary tried to think of a good reason. “I’m doing a reunion party, and I just want to jot down a few old addresses.”

“Oh, you don’t need the yearbook for that. I’ll just print you out a copy from the database. It’ll only take a minute or two.”

Uh-oh.
“Great. Well, maybe, I’ll just look at the books anyway, for fun.”

“Go right ahead. Now, you want both Goretti and Neumann addresses for your year, correct?”

“Yes, thanks.” Mary set the Goretti yearbook aside and reached for the Neumann yearbook. She opened the book and thumbed through it quickly, the front section a black-and-white flip book of grinning boys, nuns, and coaches. She slowed when she got to the next section. Sports. Bobby had played football, and she turned the pages until she saw him, front and center, in the team photo.

“Here we go,” Mrs. Edgar said, half to herself. “I’ll just print this and you’re good to go.”

“Thank you.” Mary looked at Bobby’s football photo, ignoring the catch in her throat. It was so hard to believe he was really gone, or that he’d grow up to be a monster. In the picture, he stood tall in a black-and-gold football uniform, grinning self-consciously and holding the football, displaying the old-fashioned Wilson script. The team grinned in a say-pizza way, and Mary scanned the young faces, none of which was familiar. Who would have been his friends, back then?

Mrs. Edgar was saying, “I see your name and address in the database. Do I have them correct?” She read off the name and address.

“Yes, right.” Mary eyed the photos, her memories coming back. She never went to football games at Neumann and didn’t travel in the jock crowd. She didn’t recognize any of them except for Bobby. She read the names under the front row of the photo:
J. Ronan, M. Gordon, R. Mancuso, G. Chavone, B. Turbitt.
None of the first names was listed, and none of the last names jogged her memory. She wracked her brain. Chavone maybe, but she didn’t remember that he was Bobby’s friend.

Mrs. Edgar was saying, “We’ve been sending you the materials for Spirit Day, the walkathon, and the new journalism scholarship. Did you get them?”

“Yes, thanks.” Mary flipped through the yearbook, looking for Bobby among the candids of boys in plastic goggles in chem lab or hanging in the hall. He wasn’t in any of the activities photos, either. She skipped to the back of the book, to the seniors’ individual photos, and turned pages until she found the M’s.
Robert Mancuso.

“I see that we have an office address for you, and it’s a law firm. Are you a lawyer, dear?”

“Yes.” Mary looked at Bobby’s senior photo. His eyes were clear and his smile broad, and her gaze dropped to the caption he’d written:
Wildwood forever! Shout out to the Bad To The Bone Gang—Jimmy 4G, PopTop, and Scuzzy! We’re history!

“I ran into Sister Helena in the office while I was fetching those yearbooks, and she remembered you fondly. She had to go, but sends her love to you and your parents. She said you’d been in all the papers, apparently involved with another Goretti grad, who’s gone missing. Are you she? The famous lawyer?”

“Not exactly.” Mary hid her excitement, not over the alumnae lists, but over the caption of Bobby’s senior photo. Jimmy 4G, PopTop, and Scuzzy had to be Bobby’s three best friends. Now that the caption had jarred her memory, she recalled him talking about a Jimmy. She flipped backward to the G surnames and scanned them, but there was no last name that started with a G that also had Jimmy or James as a first name.

Mrs. Edgar continued, “I’m not surprised that you’re a big success, of course. So many of our Goretti girls have gone on to be professionals. Doctors, lawyers. Kathy Gandolfo, you know, the TV newscaster, she went here.”

“Really.” Mary considered the Jimmy 4G problem. So it was a nickname, not a last name. She flipped back and scanned the pictures of the Jimmys until she found one with the last name she recognized. Waites. Jimmy Waites had to be Bobby’s friend. She had no idea what the G stood for, but it didn’t matter. She made a mental note.

“By the way, Mary, I notice that you haven’t made a contribution to the school in quite some time. We have so many items on our wish list. We need computers, and desks for one room are $5000. Audio-visual equipment is $1000, and we still need $6000 to paint the cafeteria.”

“Really, hmm.” Mary tuned her out, searching for the other two of Bobby’s friends, cross-checking their senior photos to see if they mentioned him. She skimmed the first names and found one. Paul Meloni. He mentioned the Bad to the Bone gang, too. Bingo!

“Of course, if those amounts aren’t within your means, we’d be happy for any amount you can spare. It all adds up, and I know you understand that much of your professional success is due to the education and values you learned here.”

“I sure do,” Mary said, but she was turning the pages, looking for Scuzzy.

“So, do you think you’re in a position to make a contribution? I hate to be so direct, but it’s rare that I get a captive in my office. You’re like the little fly in my web.” Mrs. Edgar laughed. “May I put you down for a hundred dollars?”

Mary lucked out on the next page. John Scaramuzzo. He had to be Scuzzy. She set down the yearbooks, having identified all three members of the Bad to the Bone gang. She felt like cheering. “Yes!”

“Wonderful!” Mrs. Edgar turned to the printer, slid out some sheets, and handed her the address lists, across the desk. “Don’t forget these.”

“Thanks so much.” Mary could barely hide her excitement, and Mrs. Edgar beamed.

“You’re welcome. Now, did you bring your checkbook, dear?”

Huh?
Mary blinked.

Fifteen minutes later, she burst through the front doors of the school with the addresses, a hundred bucks lighter.

Hurrying from her past into her present.

M
ary found it almost impossible to believe that the short, overweight accountant in a Bluetooth and an Italian suit was Jimmy 4G Waites. He had a salesman’s grin, but had aged more than his thirty-odd years; two deep wrinkles divided his eyebrows, and soft jowls draped his mouth like a pug’s. His hair was almost gone, with a brown-gray fringe encircling a thick, flattish head.

“I understand, but you’re not hearing me.” Waites spoke to the air, his brown eyes darting around the large, bright office, alighting on nothing in particular. “You wouldn’t be doing this if he wasn’t a friend. He’s asking you to invest five mil? Tell him you’re comfortable with one. You can afford to lose one.”

Mary waited in a leather sling chair opposite a glistening glass desk. The accounting firm had three floors in swanky Mellon Center, and Waites’s office was beautifully appointed with Danish modern furniture. A huge square of window overlooked the mirrored skyline, the reflections of the skyscrapers dull in the overcast sky. Mary had introduced herself to Waites’s secretary as an old high school friend, and Waites had gestured her in just as he picked up the phone, waving his fleshy hand with enthusiasm, thinking she was someone he was supposed to recognize.

Waites was saying, “Then if it doesn’t work out, which we know it probably won’t, you two stay friends. I always say, you can have bad deals with good people, but you can’t have good deals with bad people. Got it? Good. See ya.” He pressed his Bluetooth to hang up. “Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay.” Mary introduced herself. “I went to Goretti, graduated the same year you did, from Neumann.”

“You look familiar.”

“I had braces, glasses, and an inferiority complex.”

Waites laughed. “That makes two of us.”

“But I’m here about Bobby Mancuso.”

Waites’s smile faded. “I read that he was killed last night. I couldn’t believe it.”

“I know. You two used to be friends, right?”

“Hold on, not recently.” Waites’s gaze darted nervously to the hall outside his office, then he lowered his voice. “I haven’t talked to Bobby since the summer after graduation. That was a long time ago. I heard he got in with the Mob, but I didn’t know anything about that. Live by the sword, die by the sword.” Waites focused on her, frowning behind costly rimless glasses. “Wait a minute. Who did you say you were, anyway?”

“I was a friend of his, I don’t know if he mentioned me. I tutored him and we went out a few times.”

“I don’t remember your name, but my family only moved here in the second half of senior year.” Waites rubbed his face. “I saw in the paper they think he kidnapped Trish Gambone. I didn’t even know he was still seeing her. Is that what this is about?”

“Yes.” Mary cut to the chase. “I’m trying to find Trish. She’s still missing. I thought if you had stayed in touch, you might know—”

“Like I said, we didn’t stay in touch. Not at all.” Waites sounded like he was speaking for the record, though none existed. “I don’t know what he did with her, if that’s where you’re going.”

Mary switched tacks. “Okay, that aside, I’m trying to locate a house he bought, where he could have taken her.”

“I didn’t know he bought a house.” Waites looked outside again. “Look, we didn’t stay in touch, as I said, and I don’t want to get involved.”

“Did he ever talk about a place he went, a place he liked especially?”

“No.”

“Did he have any hobbies, that you knew of?”

“Does boozing count?” Waites snapped, and Mary faked a smile.

“Did he drink, even then?”

“Oh yeah. Too much, and he was a mean drunk. Yelled. Screamed. Not good. Punched a hole through a wall more than once.”

“Scary.” Mary shuddered.

“Yes.”

“Was there anyplace you went together, back then? In the yearbook, he mentioned Wildwood.” She took the photocopied page from her purse and handed it to him. “Does that help?”

“Bad to the Bone, eh?” Waites eyed the photo, reminiscing for a minute. “It’s sad.”

“It sure is.” Mary was liking him better. “It all turned out so well for you, and obviously not for him. I wonder how that happens.”

“I’ll tell you how.” Waites looked up, his thin lips a grim line. “I had a great dad. Bobby didn’t. That guy was a jerk.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He just was.” Waites tossed the page back to Mary. “He put Bobby down all the time. Favored the real brother, who was a thug, always in and out of trouble. Bobby’s house was hell. He did everything he could to get out of it. It’s the reason he played ball, I think. He never talked about it, but you could tell. Except for the sister. He was tight with his sister.”

“Rosaria.”

“Right.” Waites nodded. “Bobby was a great guy, a quiet guy, but he kept a lot inside. You knew that, if you knew him. We did go to Wildwood, once. Rented a house there one summer, bussed tables. Kids gettin’ crazy down the shore, you know.”

“Where was the house?”

“God knows.” Waites scoffed. “I doubt it’s even there anymore.”

“Did you ever go anywhere else, back then or later?”

“No.”

“Did he say he liked Wildwood or anything like that?” Mary was thinking of Rosaria, in Brick. “Did he mention liking the Jersey shore?”

“No way.”

“Why not?”

“He couldn’t swim. Almost drowned that summer, one day when the undertow was bad.”

Mary hadn’t known. She eliminated the possibility of a shore house. “Did he have any hobbies you knew of? Fishing? Hunting?”

“Not that I know. I wasn’t that close to him. Scuzzy was the closest. They were tight.”

“Scaramuzzo?” Mary’s heart leaped with hope.

“Yes. They stayed in good touch, too, at least until Scuzzy died.”

“When was that?” Mary groaned inwardly.

“Two years ago. Blood cancer. He wasn’t even thirty.”

“How about PopTop? Paul Meloni? Was he close with Bobby?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t stay in touch. I liked the guy but I’m busy.” Waites gestured at the credenza, covered with school pictures, like kiddie mug shots. “I got six kids.”

“A good Catholic.”

“No, married three times.” Waites chuckled again, then stopped. “Last I knew, PopTop was in drug rehab. Neumann graduated the best, but I hung with all the losers. I’m a late bloomer, let me tell you.”

“Does he still work for the school district?” Mary checked the addresses she’d copied from the library.

“No. He got fired. I know where you can find him, though.” Waites tore a Post-it from a yellow cube, scribbled an address on it, and handed it to her, stuck to his fingerpad. “Here you go. Now, if I could get back to work.”

“Sure, thanks for your time. If you think of anything else that might help me, will you let me know?” Mary stood up and handed him her business card, though now it had an expiration date. “Call on the cell.”

“No sweat. Thanks for coming by.” Waites stood up, nodded a little good-bye, and Mary went to the door, then turned, curious.

“By the way, what’s Jimmy 4G stand for?”

“I didn’t have a lot of dates, back then. It means ‘Jimmy waits for girls.’ Get it?” Waites smiled. “Bobby gave me that nickname. He was king of the nicknames.”

“What was his?”

Waites paused. “Come to think of it, he didn’t have one. He gave out the nicknames, so I guess he never got one.”

“Thanks,” Mary said, and for some reason, it made her sad.

Olde City was the colonial section of the city, a grid of skinny cobblestone streets bordered by the Delaware River. The oldest street in America, Elfreth’s Alley, was here, and many of the vintage brick buildings had been refurbished to house hip restaurants and artsy shops. But gentrification hadn’t reached everywhere, and on one of the grimier back streets sat a skinny glass storefront, mashed like a ham sandwich between two brick houses. It was a tattoo parlor, and a chipped black-iron grate covered the front door, which bore a printed sign that read, UNDER EIGHTEEN PARENTS MUST SIGN WAIVER! Mary yanked open the door and went inside.

Every square inch of the walls of the small room was plastered with samples of colorful tattoos: American flags, orange koi fish, flowers, hearts, banners of every color, and Chinese and Egyptian letters. Dragons with curling tails and flaring nostrils hung next to Jesus himself, and the praying hands looked incongruous, if not sacrilegious, next to hollow-eyed skulls and daggers that dripped blood. The shop wasn’t busy, and a man with a shaved head and a faded CitySports T-shirt was tattooing a black banner on a young man’s forearm, which read IN MEMORY O. The machine made a loud buzzing sound, attached to a cord wrapped with electrician’s tape.

“Can I help you?” asked a man behind the counter, and Mary walked over, trying not to freak at the inked tarantulas that crawled up his bare arms to encircle his neck. He obviously worked out, because his shoulder caps bulged under a jungle of green-and-black leaves, hiding a striped Bengal tiger about to pounce.

“My name’s Mary DiNunzio and I’m looking for Paul Meloni.”

“That’s me.” He extended a multicolored hand across the counter and they shook. His brown hair was cut so close that his head looked like a rifle bullet, and he had round, dark-brown eyes and a long, bony nose. He wore a blue tank top and jeans, and a row of small hoop earrings hung from one ear. “How can I help you?”

“I came to talk to you about Bobby Mancuso. I knew him in high school.”

“Oh, man.” Paul’s features went suddenly soft under his illustrated exterior. “What a shame, huh? I couldn’t sleep last night after I saw it on the TV.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s a cryin’ shame, is what it is. Bobby, man.” Paul exhaled, looking away.

“I’m trying to find Trish Gambone.”

“I read about that, I know.” Paul’s ripped shoulders fell. “I couldn’t believe it. I knew they were having problems, he told me that, but it sounds like he just lost it.”

“You two stayed in touch, huh?”

“Yeah, more or less. We saw each other maybe every couple months or so.”

Mary considered it. An odd alliance, a drug dealer and a former addict. “Do you know where Trish could be? Where he could have taken her?”

“No idea.”

Mary tried not to get discouraged. She felt so close to something. “Did you know he was planning anything like that?”

“No, not at all.” Paul looked puzzled. “Far as I knew, they were fine.”

“Did he tell you he was going to ask her to marry him?”

“No, not really. We used to talk about me, with my sobriety and all, and I was on him about his drinking. Either that, or we talked sports.”

“Did he tell you that he used to yell at her, threaten her?”

“No, but it doesn’t surprise me. When Bobby drank, he lost it, even in high school. We used to drink together, him and me, but I been clean and sober for five years now.” Paul cocked his shorn head. “How did you know him, again?”

“I used to tutor him in Latin.” Mary couldn’t give up. “I really need your help. I know he bought a house. Do you have any idea where that house might be?”

“Nah. Didn’t even know he had a house. I thought they lived together.”

“They did, but I think he had another house he kept a secret. Did he tell you about that?”

“No. He mighta told Scuzzy, but he passed.”

“But he confided in you.”

“Yeah.”

Mary switched tacks. “Did you know he was in the Mob?”

Paul checked behind him, but no tattoos appeared to be listening. “Look, it got him dead, and I don’t wanna speak ill. He was my friend. He stuck by me through some hard times, and when I got the job here, he’d drop by.”

Mary was starting to panic. If she learned nothing here, she was out of leads. “Paul, I’m trying to find that house. Trish could still be alive.”

“I don’t know anything.” Paul edged back from the counter, and the other tattoo artist looked over.

“Do you know if he was close to anybody in the Mob?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he ever bring anybody from the Mob here?”

“No.”

“Did he ever mention anybody, any names?”

“We didn’t talk about that.” Paul chuckled. “Do I look stupid?”

“Did he ever mention anybody named Cadillac?”

“No.”

“Did he ever get picked up or dropped off by someone driving a Cadillac?”

“No, he drove the new BMW. He loved that car.” Paul hesitated, then frowned, thinking. “I heard him on the cell, a few times. He used to get calls, you know, and he’d go outside to take them. He’s not gonna take a call like that in front of me.”

“So do you remember any of the names?”

“Yeah. One.” Paul leaned closer, over the counter. “I’ll tell you, but you didn’t hear it from me, right?”

“Right.”

Paul looked uncertain.

“Please, I swear.”

“Okay.” Paul sighed. “He used to get calls from a guy named Eyes. I remember that name more than the others.”

Mary felt her pulse quicken. “Eyes. A nickname, obviously.”

“Yeah. That was Bobby, with the nicknames.” Paul looked over when the door opened behind them, and a gaggle of young women entered, chattering and laughing. He acknowledged them with a wave. “Be right with you, ladies.”

“You know anything else about Eyes?”

“No, just what I told you.”

Mary handed him a business card she had ready in her coat pocket. “If you remember anything, or think of anything that might help, will you call me?”

“Sure.” Paul slipped the card in his jeans and smiled at the girls. “What’ll it be, ladies?”

“Butterflies!” they answered.

And Mary took off.