Death Will Help You Leave Him (5 page)

“I can’t!” Luz flung a look, wild with panic, at us over her shoulder.

Jimmy put a hand on her other shoulder in wordless reassurance.

“I’m afraid it’s too late to change our minds, baby,” Barbara said. “We’re right behind you.”

Jimmy started to whistle through his teeth, unconsciously as usual. Barbara and I both recognized the off-key Civil War military march, one of his favorites. Barbara dug an elbow into his ribs, and he shut up. Luz lifted her chin, straightened her spine, and must have told herself some variant of “Forward, march!” But before she could take more than a step or two into the tightly packed mass of people filling most of the room, a dark, solid figure pushed its way out of the crowd to loom over us.

“Luz. You shouldn’a come. You shouldn’ be here.”

She had told us that those who knew her wouldn’t betray her. She hadn’t said they wouldn’t be hostile.

“Vinnie.” She waved a hand feebly toward us. “This is Frankie’s cousin Vinnie. My friends. Barbara and Jimmy. And this is Bruce. Please!” Her voice conveyed a plea:
Don’t make trouble. Don’t give me away.
“I just want to say goodbye.”

Vinnie frowned. His bushy black eyebrows almost met above a massive beak of a nose. I doubted even a broad smile would make more than a centimeter of breathing room in the middle. He dwarfed even Jimmy, who is burly and far from short. In fact, he looked like a real bruiser who probably worked out every day and bench pressed three hundred pounds. His black hair sprayed out around his head in curly tufts. Tightly knit fuzz sprouted above his tight collar and knotted tie and popped out below impeccable French cuffs. His heavy gold cuff links and navy blue suit looked expensive. Drug money? The suit might have been tailored for him. Like Jimmy, he’d be hard to fit. But he still looked like a thug who had robbed a banker for his clothes.

“You shouldn’a come,” he repeated.

Luz started to cry. The tears welled up on the lower rim of her eyelids and spilled over to roll one at a time down her cheeks, like raindrops on a windowpane. Vinnie changed his tack.

“Okay, okay, f’Godsake don’t cry,” he said gruffly. “Ya here, ya here, but you gotta pull it together.” His eyes under the heavy lintel of his brows slunk left and right around the corners of his face like spies in an old noir movie. Like us, he didn’t want Luz to make herself conspicuous.

Luz did her best to comply. She squared her shoulders, shook away the drops on her cheeks with a quick toss of her head, and somehow sucked the remaining tears back up into her body. All without making a sound. She still looked miserable.

“Can I see him?” she mewed.

Vinnie clucked his tongue in an exasperated kind of way.

“I better take you.” He swiveled to scout over the heads of the crowd. “Sooner the better, none a the family’s over there right now.” He shot a baleful glare at Jimmy, Barbara and me under the brows. “You come too,” he ordered. “Stay close.”

Luz fell in behind him like a duckling following its mother as he bulled his way through the clusters of mourners. We flanked them, slightly to the rear. I did not want to trip on this guy’s heels. Vinnie provided a muttered commentary over his shoulder as we passed each knot.

“Fellas from the neighborhood.” I guess that meant childhood friends. The fellas, four or five of them, glowered silently at each other. Adjacent to them, a separate knot of women, dressed and made up to the nines, chattered away like starlings. They must be the wives, presumably invisible to Vinnie. I strained to hear them as we brushed past, so close I could smell powder and perfume.

“Netta’s holding up pretty well.”

“It hasn’t hit her yet.”

“She’s gotta put up a good front for Massimo and Silvia. They’re shattered.”

“Not that Frankie ever gave them a day’s peace of mind, or Netta either.”

“Stella!” The other four reproached her in unison. Evidently plain speaking was not welcome.

“That one I could talk to,” Barbara breathed as we brushed past. She swiveled her head as far around as it would go, trying to fix Stella in her memory. I stared too. Round face, high domed forehead like a Renaissance madonna under light brown hair pulled back tight. Petite and nicely rounded, with a lively expression and intelligent eyes.

Vinnie jerked his chin at a couple of men, maybe in their mid-thirties. They had on expensive-looking dark suits, morose expressions, and identical ears that flared out memorably from their heads.

“Netta’s brothers. Them you wanna stay away from.”

No argument from me on that one.

The next bunch showed the first hint of ethnic diversity in the room. Their skin tones ranged from fish-belly white through café au lait to French roast. A variety of face and body types to match.

Vinnie growled deep in his throat, like a suspicious dog preparing to defend his territory.

“Them even I wanna stay away from.”

At the same time, one of them, an African American with a gleaming shaved head and skin the color of golden oak, looked up. I heard Barbara mutter something about cheekbones to die for. Women. The man caught Luz’s eye. She stopped short.

“Ishmael. I— I didn’t know you’d be here.” She sounded frightened.

“Shee-it, Luz, same to you, girl. Looks like Frankie getting himself reformed didn’t work out so good.” Ishmael grinned without humor. I told myself that his teeth couldn’t possibly be filed to a point. The hard eyes and the way he seemed to enjoy his own meanness just made it look like they were.

Luz drooped where she stood. It was probably the best possible way to deal with him. This guy had alpha male written all over him. Either you assumed the position or you got your throat torn out.

“No,” she said, nothing but sadness in her voice, as if she had taken his taunt literally.

Vinnie had already taken himself at his word and moved on. Luz stood bowed in front of Ishmael as if rooted. By tacit consent, Jimmy and I flowed up behind her to put a bulwark at her back. We crowded Barbara to the rear. Not that she’d thank us. Barbara can get kind of sassy in her cool counselor persona. Claims she’s met plenty of drug dealers as well as addicts and held her own with them. She thinks she’s tough as nails. The truth is, she meets only the safe ones with the clipped wings. At least she had the sense to zip the lip for once.

“We’ll get together soon, have a talk about old times,” Ishmael said. I don’t know which was more menacing, the mock-jovial voice or the eyes like stones. “I know where you live.”

Jimmy shook himself loose first. He nodded curtly to Ishmael as he turned away, sweeping Luz up with a solid arm around her shoulders. I put my hand under Barbara’s elbow. To my relief, she let me steer her away from trouble.

“Come on,” Jimmy said. “Vinnie’s waiting for us. Looks like he’s cleared a path to the casket.”

I peered at Frankie on his bier. He had worn that determined jaw and grim mouth long before the undertaker had wired it shut. His slicked-back dark brown hair revealed the arrowhead of a widow’s peak. His eyebrows had a distinctive half-moon arch. They made a statement. Yep, I had definitely copped rock from this guy a time or two. It didn’t make me mourn his passing. Even though he was in the program. Did anonymity run out with death, like an expired credit card? Or did it sit there accumulating mojo, like an unpaid traffic ticket?

Barbara peeped at him from behind Jimmy’s reassuring bulk. As she’d said, she wasn’t at her best with the embalmed. With a little gasp and moan, Luz fell to her knees on the padded rail. Jimmy stepped forward and knelt unselfconsciously beside her. Barbara hooked her arm through mine. I’m too compact to hide behind, but I didn’t mind if she snuggled up. Vinnie bobbed and crossed himself but then backed off. He would have communed with his dead cousin earlier. He probably wanted to get away from the Other Woman and her friends too. Us.

“I can’t help it,” Barbara whispered, “ ‘casket’ makes me think of Snow White.”

I turned my head to grin at her.

“Feeling Jewish?”

“Shhh. Dissociated. Like I’m at the movies. There really is no way not to look, is there.”

Frankie’s family had spared no expense. The glossy hardwood coffin with its burnished brass handles reflected track lighting and the flames of tall white candles set in massive candelabra, also brass. The effect was theatrical. The coffin was lined in puffy pale blue satin, like a baby boy’s cradle. Its cover curved over the lower half of the body, with a glimpse of blue satin just visible, folded back at the waist. At least two dozen elaborate floral arrangements had been placed around the bier. A couple of wreaths were draped over the closed part of the coffin. Two giant urns, elevated on stilt-like tripods, stood sentry at the head and foot. Lilies predominated. Their heavy, languorous scent filled the air. In the close air of this pompous and depressing room, I understood why they call that smell funereal.

Frankie lay with his hands folded across his chest. The waxy fingers curved around a silver crucifix on a chain.

“Do you think his parents knew about the dealing?” Barbara murmured. “I bet they were enablers.”

Protecting him from the consequences. Keeping the addiction going. What had Frankie’s parents thought of his going into rehab? Had they denied he needed it? Had they thought he would come out cured and live happily ever after? Would they have resented the cheerfully intrusive tone that rehabs take with families?

Frankie’s face had that look of a good fake of a human expression that the embalmer’s art can bestow. It was not reposeful. You could see why they call the dead stiffs. I eased myself around toward the head of the coffin, pretending to examine the flowers more closely. I figured I should take the chance to read the cards. If this murder had been personal, the killer might have sent flowers. Barbara had the same idea, except she really did want a better look at the flowers too. She stuck her nose right into the lilies. Then she had to wipe a dab of pollen off her nose and pinch her nostrils to avoid sneezing her head off.

From where I stood, I could see Luz’s face. The dramatic lighting cast its beam on her. She looked transfigured by grief. The tears fell unchecked. I glanced around to make sure nobody who looked like family was nearby to wonder who this unknown Niobe might be. While I watched, she put a hand out to caress his cheek and then snatched it back as if she’d burned it.

Barbara caught my eye and mouthed, “Enough.” Jimmy still knelt next to Luz. I started to turn away, momentarily off balance as I swiveled. Something cannoned into me at thigh level. I clutched at plump, soft flesh encased in dark maroon satin and organza: a little girl, formally dressed.

“Oops, sorry!” As I relaxed my hold, a little boy crashed into her. He was equally formal in a pint-size dark blue suit. First communion garb. This time, I cracked my calves against the edge of the kneeler and almost did a backflip onto the open coffin. Jimmy, getting up all in one solid piece, blocked my fall. Barbara reached out to steady me. Luz, still crying and praying, ignored the commotion.

The two children regarded us with unwinking stares. If they’d been cartoons, their captions would have read, “Who the hell are you?” and “You don’t belong here.” The little girl had liquid dark eyes, rounded chubby cheeks and a thick bow-shaped upper lip like a cartoon goldfish. Her brown hair fell in fat ringlets below a matching satin scrunchy. The boy had a grim mouth for such a young face. His ears flared like those of the guys Vinnie had identified as the wife’s brothers.

“Is that your Uncle Frankie?” Barbara asked.

“It’s my Papa,” the boy said.

“He’s not really here,” the little girl added. “He’s in Heaven.” She put a chubby thumb in her mouth and started to suck.

The boy tugged at her arm until the thumb came out, glistening with saliva. She started to wipe it on her satin dress. He clutched at her wrist to stop her. Whisking a starched handkerchief from his breast pocket, he dried her hand. She used her free hand to poke him in the stomach, giggling when he said, “Ow!”

She darted away. He ran after her. We all looked at each other. Jimmy shrugged. I hoisted one eyebrow. Barbara turned to Luz as she got to her feet, moving like an old lady with a bad back. “Children?” Barbara said. “He had children? Luz, did you know?”

Luz turned toward us a face that looked deader than Frankie’s.

“They were the only reason he stayed so long. But he was working it out. He was beginning to understand that maybe a loveless marriage wasn’t so good for them either.”

“But you said— you lied to us. Much worse, you lied to the police. Luz, that is really, really bad.”

“I’m sorry, Barbara. I would have told you, honestly, only— I lied to the aunts. I couldn’t tell them I was sleeping with a man who had a real Catholic marriage. I just couldn’t. And then, Tia Margarita was there when those detectives asked me. I’d have told them when they came back, but they didn’t ask me again.”

By now the police would know. The detectives would have interviewed the family. They didn’t have to go back and ask her again. The fact that she’d lied about it simply became a part of their investigation.

“I don’t mean to guilt-trip you,” Barbara said. She reached out to rub Luz’s back, as if to erase the disappointment and reproach she couldn’t hide. “I know how bad you feel already. But— the couch?”

“He swore to me, and I believed— believe— him,” Luz said defiantly. “It was an empty marriage. Emotionally, it was over.”

We all stood there in embarrassed silence for a minute or two. I felt relieved when Frankie’s cousin pushed his way out of the crowd again. Other mourners were beginning to drift toward the coffin, too.

“Come pay your respects to Massimo and Silvia now,” Vinnie said. “And then you should leave.”

Obediently, we followed him.

Frankie’s parents sat on a dark red velvet couch. A glass-topped side table held a box of tissues and an ornate brass lamp whose dark red shade cast a morose ruddy light on them. The father’s hands were tightly clasped, as if a moment’s relaxation would make him disintegrate. The mother’s lap held a heap of crumpled tissues. As we approached, she twisted a strip of tissue in her fingers, over and over. Both wore unrelieved black and had silver hair, lackluster as if sorrow had dulled it. They looked shriveled and old. I had a hunch that Frankie’s death had withered them. The cluster of sympathizers around them parted to let us in. I hoped the parents wouldn’t recognize Luz as Frankie’s unwelcome girlfriend on the side. When I glanced at Barbara, I saw her lips move as if she was praying the same thing. If they’d seen a picture of Luz or heard her name, nothing short of divine intervention could avert a scene. In the program, they said, “Be careful what you pray for.” God could probably provide a fire or a heart attack to take the focus off this unfortunate meeting.