The Dog Killer of Utica (6 page)

“Mark Martello.”

“Yes.”

“Who else?”

“Only him.”

“You said ‘they,’ Novak.”

“Forgive me. With a thing like this I feel again the force of the government in my home country. There, it is never one. Always many. Forgive me. Only Mr. Martello.”

“Who said what, exactly?”

“That my Mirko may have entered into questionable contact with our new Imam. Questionable contact, he said. Was he at home? No, I said. Do you know where he is? No, I said. Mr. Martello said if I knew and did not tell that I myself would become questionable.”

“Did you lie to Martello?”

“No.”

“Are you lying to me now?”

“No.”

“I’m reserving judgment, Novak.”

“Please, Eliot.”

“Did he ask to speak to your wife?”

“Yes. I told him she was quite sick and could not be disturbed.”

“Is she sick? Were you lying to Martello?”

“In a way, she is always sick, in a way. Eliot, I fear Homeland Security.”

“We all do.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing.”

“Sit in my home and become crazy?”

“Yes.”

“Can you help me?”

“I’ll talk to Martello tomorrow.”

“Tell him Mirko is good.”

“That’s not the point, Novak.”

“That is the only point, Eliot.”

(Pause.)

“I need to talk to your wife. Tonight.”

Ivanovic leads Conte into the dining room—a table of sumptuous African Rosewood and chairs with merciful seats, in contrast to the flesh-denying Danish furniture in the parlor. Two places set with expensive china and silverware and two serving dishes loaded with pastry. Ivanovic pours the coffee. Though an insatiable pastry hound from childhood, Conte cannot help asking why so much. Ivanovic says, “This is from The Florentine and this from Caruso’s. It is impossible to eat all of these. I know this. Not wise for my cholesterol, but I cannot go to The Florentine without going to Caruso’s. If I go only to The Florentine and Ricky Caruso sees me with the bag, it causes me to believe that I am causing Ricky to feel sad. This thought causes me to feel sad. Now, neither Ricky or I feel sad.”

“You’re a good man, Novak. Now take me to your wife.”

“Not a good idea.”

“Who are the upstairs tenants?”

“We are.”

“The three of you on two floors?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Who lives on the second floor?”

“My wife and Mirko.”

“The attic? Anybody up there?”

“No.”

“When
they
come back,
they
will go through this place with a fine-tooth comb.”

“You may talk to my wife, but she will not talk to you. Since the separation, she went up there and I stayed down here and she will not speak.”

Neither has yet touched the pastries or the coffee. Neither will.

“When she hears me ascending the stairs, she locks the door, unless it is time for me to bring dinner. My wife gets no exercise, Eliot. She is filling out, as they say.”

“Take me to Mirko’s room.”

“He’s not there.”

“I need to look at the room. Now.”

They ascend the darkened stairs—the door to the wife’s room is closed. Sounds of a radio tuned to a rap station. The door to Mirko’s room is open.

“Your wife or Mirko in the attic? Which one?”

“Mirko is gone. I do not lie.”

Conte goes to the desk in Mirko’s room, picks up the laptop, “For the sake of Mirko and your family I’m taking this before
they
do.” Conte notes the large poster of Natalie Portman in
Black Swan
. Grace and pain. A jihadist’s icon? He says, “I’m going to look through the drawers of the desk and bureau.” (Ivanovic believes that all is hopeless now. His family will be destroyed.) Nothing of interest until beneath a stack
of T-shirts he finds a photo of a girl, twenty or so, dark haired, Hispanic, drop-dead beautiful. On the back: “Love, Delores.” Conte’s first theory of the case flashes to mind. Muslim boy and Catholic girl run off from disapproving parents. A cliché, but then most stories are. Checks the closet. Asks Ivanovic if Mirko has a suitcase. They each have only one. Up to the attic to check the number of suitcases. There are three.

Ivanovic offers to drive Conte home. Conte refuses, requesting only that he be given a sturdy shopping bag in which to carry the unprotected computer. Ivanovic suggests he keep the warm woolen socks. Conte refuses and replaces them with his own, still wet. At the door, Ivanovic says, “You must answer a question before you leave. When I said that Mirko was good, you replied, That’s not the point. Tell me now, Professor, what, if not that, is the point?”

Conte opens the door, steps out into the flickering light, turns and says, “I have no idea.”

On the path up to his front door, he checks for footprints in the deepening snow. There’s his, almost covered up. Another set, fresher, leading from the front door to the curb and ending there. She’s gone. Cab? Belmonte? Kyle? Calls Kyle who tells him he hasn’t heard, but would like to. Ditto Don Belmonte. Calls both of Utica’s dying cab companies and is told they don’t give out such information except to the police. When he tells the dispatchers that he’s a P.I., one immediately hangs up, the other hangs up too but not before saying, “Get real, asshole.” Thoughts of Johnnie Walker when the phone rings. Caller I.D.: Antonio Robinson.

“Yeah, Robby.”

“You crazy fuck.”

“Thanks, Robby.”

“Are you all there, El? Are you fuckin’ all there? You sick fuck. Listen to me. A poor son of a bitch on Mary in the vicinity of Nichols suddenly experiences terrific intestinal cramps that lead in one direction only and fuckin’
imminently
! He starts to run, which only makes the situation worse. He’s hoping to get home in time. Tragically, he fails. Then something happens, after which the poor guy runs down Mary with his coat around his middle and his face—I don’t want to get into the face. At a certain point near Kossuth, he darts into an alley where he collapses in humiliation and tries to wash off his face with snow. Thank God, El, thank God he put his cell in his coat pocket and not his pants. He calls his wife et cetera. Here’s where things get ticklish. The investigating detective is so stunned by the story that he calls me at home about the event. Which my wife doesn’t appreciate. He rough describes the assailant. Not that he had to because as soon as the detective tells me what was done to him, I conclude there’s only one man in this hemisphere who’s capable of this unusual act of insanity. What do you have to say, El, before I say more?”

“Nothing.”

“You know you did this, don’t you, El?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? You
guess
?”

Conte doesn’t respond.

“A twelve-step program for rageaholics. There are such things. Because you need attention. You need to find a cure, man, before you kill somebody. You don’t want to do that.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“I believe you that I don’t want to kill somebody. You should know, better than me.”

“Don’t get snotty.”

“Didn’t mean to be, Robby.”

“You snotty cunt.”

“Sorry.”

“When’s the last time the two of us had lunch, just the two of us, never mind the women?”

“Who knows.”

“You crazy fuck.”

He hangs up. Calls Hotel Utica. No one registered under the name of Catherine Cruz.

Without hat or gloves or scarf, without jacket, he steps back out into the cold that’s gotten colder and the wind heavier and the snow driven harder, in hopeless search of the anonymous man he’s humiliated in order to—to what? He cannot say. To ask forgiveness for his appalling behavior? (
Yes
.) To say to a man he’ll never find, “Forgive me, I myself am appalling”? (
Better
.) “Be so kind as to absolve me of myself.” (
Best of all
.)

Down Mary he goes again in the vicinity of Nichols, then farther west to Saint Agnes, Utica’s church of the virgin who was martyred for her faith at thirteen. His search, like her shattering martyrdom, to no avail. Home again now on this deserted street of frail, wind-blasted houses. Mounting the front steps now at 1318 Mary, not shivering. Bone-numbing cold is his element. Inside, he’s careful to avoid reflections of himself in windows and mirrors.

Most grievous transgression of all
, says a voice in his head,
your abandoned babies
.

Conte checking listings of hotels and motels in Utica and its immediate environs. Call them all? Stares long at the phone, but cannot reach for the receiver. Five-hundred-pound boulders attached to his wrists. Head down on desk, drifting off toward oblivion on the Good Ship Depression, as he broods on Angel Moreno, the thirteen-year-old boy next door, who told Eliot, weeks before it was announced … Angel guaranteed it … The Yankees would trade Jesus Montero for Michael Pineda of the Seattle Mariners … “It’s happening, Jefe … Brian like told me …” “Brian?…” “The GM, Jefe … Brian, he cc’d me on the plan … Brian like copies me daily, man …”

Forty-five minutes later Conte’s pulled up from dreamless sleep by the phone:

“Catherine.”

“Yes.”

“You.”

“Yes.”

“Where—?”

“Best Western.”

“North Utica?”

“There is no other.”

“When will you—?”

“Maybe never.”

“But you said—”

“I called Antonio, Eliot.”

(Silence.)

“Told him I’m taking a leave of absence.” (Silence.)

“Starting tomorrow.” (Silence.)

“I’m considering resigning. Strongly considering.” (Silence.)

“Contemplating a return to Troy.”

(Silence.)

“Catherine.”

(Silence.)

“Are you still there, Catherine?”

“Yes.”

“When will I see you?”

“Tomorrow. I need to collect my things.”

(Silence.)

“Goodnight, Eliot.”

“Wait—”

The line goes dead. Head back down on desk until 3
A.M
. when he awakes and walks stiffly, bent over, to the bedroom of the empty bed—pulling off the down comforter—dragging it back to the front room like a three-year-old dragging his special blanket, where he covers himself on the couch in fitful sleep until morning.

Angel Moreno. Cc’d daily by the general manager of the New York Yankees? By Brian Cashman himself? Four
A.M.
, tossing and turning, hatching a theory—and a plan.

At 8 he awakens to an excited young voice in mounting volume—a boy on the street—just outside Conte’s front picture window—kicking a soccer ball in the unplowed snow while announcing in speed-of-light Spanish an assault on goal. GOOOOOOOOOAL! In yesterday’s clothes, with yesterday’s breath, hair spiked out in several directions: Conte opens the front door and calls him over, Angel Moreno.

“Hey! Hey! What d’ya say a cup of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream? How about it?”

“Jefe! You like in a dangerous mood?”

“Up all night, Angel, grading papers.”

“Grading make you crazy? You look wild, man!”

“Hot chocolate, Angel?”

“You drink that shit, Jefe?”

“Cappuccino for me.”

“The chocolate thing, man, it’s for babies and like old people in end-of-life situations. Offer me a cappuccino, Jefe, because I feel Italian this morning.”

“What would your good parents say?”

“I don’t feature speculation, Jefe.”

“You really want a cappuccino?”

“Can you spare one?”

At the threshold: The man, 6’3”, 220. The boy, 5’5½”, 97 pounds. The big man is in over his head.

Utica in paralysis: a no-school day, a no-bus-service day, a no-traffic day except for city plows working against a twenty-three-inch fall of heavy snow. At the kitchen table, Angel raising his cup in a toast and saying, “Jefe, you be the man.”

“Angel, we’ve talked about this before. You
are
the man is correct.”

“You
be
the man, Professor. Angel has his reasons.”

“Tell me why you insist on calling me Jefe.”

“Because you be the
boss
, the
leader
. You be
El Jefe
. Because what is the infinitive form under scrutiny?
To be
. You
are
has like no balls. Whereas
El Jefe
in his self is like unconjugated, man.”

“Tell me something, Angel.”

“Yeah.”

“Where did you learn to talk like that? At thirteen?”

“The Net, Jefe. YouTube. Et cetera. Not to mention my Norwegian colleagues.”

“Angel, let’s review your personal history. When you were seven. Then I want to propose something secret between us.”

“Jefe, I have to say something powerful.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t feature pedophilia.”

“I didn’t hear that, Angel.”

“Just sayin’.”

“You stole a bottle of expensive perfume, when you were seven. You were nailed in the act. Your good parents were humiliated.”

“It was a Christmas present for my mother, Jefe, and as a seven year old I didn’t have the money. Like why would a seven year old have the money? Like why should a fuckin’ little child have to pay for a present for his mother? Where’s the morality in that, Jefe?”

“They grounded you for a year.”

“Yeah.”

“They came to me for advice.”

“El Jefe, yeah.”

“I advised that you’d go crazy if you didn’t have something to do all those weekends.”

“Yeah.”

“So they bought you a computer six years ago.”

“No, Jefe.
You
bought it. They couldn’t afford.”

“You’re not supposed to know that.”

“Yeah.”

“They didn’t tell me you made yourself a wizard.”

“They don’t know the half of it.”

“I think I do.”

“Yeah?”

“You made yourself a radical hacker. A hacktivist.”

“Don’t flatter the truth, Jefe.”

“Brian Cashman cc’s you daily because you hack into his e-mail?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

“Some of my Norwegian colleagues, they like have their sights on the fuckin’ CIA, Jefe, but not me.”

“You draw the line at the CIA?”