A Family Matter

by Chris Laing

  He shook his head again. “She left town when you were just a kid, so why would you want anything to do with her now?”

  Before I could reply he shifted forward in his chair and lowered his voice. “Look, you’ve heard the same story I have that she’s part of the Tataglia Mob down there in Florida. If Bernie’s right and she really is here, it’s got to be on Mob business. So if I were in your shoes I’d stay the hell away from her.”

  I shrugged his arm off my shoulder and gazed toward the revelers at the bar, envying their Christmas mood. Of course, he was probably right about my mother. And I was almost certain that Bernie’s offer of information about her was just a desperate attempt to save his brother’s ass. But couldn’t there still be some sort of mother-son bond, as Isabel had suggested? Shit – I thought I’d gotten over this confusion years ago.

  Liam arrived at the table with a tray: two more Pellers and a big fat corned beef on rye for me. He reached for the empties and said, “You guys just get back from a funeral? Cheer up; it’s the holiday season, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Frank looked up at him. “I’m advising Max on his love life.” He pointed a thick finger at me. “You can see how crappy it is.”

  When Liam left, I sprinkled some salt and a dash of vinegar on the fries then slid the plate between us. “Tell me about that murder at Paddy Greene’s, Frank. Are you sure Nick Fiore’s your man?”

  For a few seconds I thought he might launch into his usual song and dance about sharing confidential police business with mere civilians. But he surprised me. “Looks like he’s guilty, but I’m not certain yet.” He picked up a sizzling French fry in his finger-tips and blew on it. “The City Planning Committee was considering an application for a big apartment complex funded by a holding company controlled by Tedesco. And get this –” he was jabbing the French fry at me like a pointer. “The Chairman intended to reject it. Sounds like a motive to get rid of him, eh?”

  “Maybe. But it might’ve been just a warning that went off the rails.” I was thinking about Bernie’s remark that the police got the wrong guy.

  “What makes you say that? Something Bernie told you?”

  “Yeah. He said Nick and Sal Angotti met up with the Chairman and –”

  “Hang on a minute.” Frank leaned closer and lowered his voice, “You sure he said Sal Angotti?”

  I nodded and took another juicy bite of my sandwich and chewed on it while I waited for him to continue.

  “Angotti was a member of the Magaddino crew in Buffalo until he dropped out of circulation a few months ago. Cops down there thought he was deep-sixed because he’d become too hard to control and was bringing heat on the family. So it’s interesting that he’s shown up here. Your pal Tedesco must be desperate if has to hire a loose cannon like Angotti.”

  My “pal” Tedesco. Sure as hell, he was no pal of mine. Just a few months ago his thugs had delivered a painful message to Isabel and me when we came too close to exposing his involvement in the murders of two Hamilton businessmen.

  Frank wiped his fingers with a paper napkin. “You were telling me what Bernie said about his brother.”

  “Nick told him that he didn’t kill that councillor.”

  He bellowed a guffaw and a young couple at a nearby table looked our way. Then he lowered his voice. “And that’s Bernie’s proof that Nick didn’t do it? Because he said so?”

  “I asked him if Sal Angotti did it.”

  “And?”

  “He didn’t know.”

  Frank leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Dammit, Max, everybody knows that Bernie’s a dumbbell. But it’s news if Salvatore Angotti’s in town. And if Bernie actually saw your mother and Tedesco together … ”

  I cut him off. “Then something big might be –”

  “Yeah,” and he reached over and snatched the last French fry off my plate.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Next morning, I awoke shivering; my sheet and blanket lay in a tangled heap on the floor. I glanced at my alarm clock – 0630. A stiff wind rattled the frosted panes in my bedroom window as I groped my way to the bathroom in the half-light. I scoured my face with an ice-cold wash cloth, trying to scrub away images from my nightmare of my mother and Tedesco, their heads together, refining their plot to seize control of the city’s Planning Department now that the chairman was out of the way.

  In the kitchen, a chilly draft seeped from the crack around the back door. I clicked on the mantle radio and set the coffee pot on the stove to percolate. The CHML weather guy said it would be cloudy, cold and breezy, maybe a few flurries.

  Then Vic Copps rattled off the overnight NHL scores followed by his “editorial” comment. “With only seven weeks remaining before the first puck is dropped at the Olympic Games in St. Moritz,” he said, “the controversy about the team chosen to represent Canada rages on. Some folks say the middle-aged men on the RCAF Flyers squad won’t be able to cut the mustard. And now the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association plans to supply players to bolster the team after its 7–0 loss to the McGill University Redmen.” My brain was too foggy to follow Vic’s report so I snapped off the radio.

  I poured a cup of Maxwell House and opened the ice-box only to find I was out of milk. It was probably too early for the Royal Oak Dairy guy, but I checked anyway. When I stepped onto the back porch, a frigid gust of wind whipped open my pajama top and I clutched it closed with my left hand as I lifted the lid of the milkbox with my right. There was my empty bottle, dammit, the milk ticket still stuck in its neck.

  A narrow shaft of light from the kitchen door fell across a shape beside the milkbox. It looked like a pile of old clothes. So I stepped toward the door and kicked it open to cast more light out here.

  I was right about the clothes. But, they were worn by a corpse.

  A man’s body had been dumped in a ghastly heap on my back stoop. It was facing away from me, the hair matted with dried blood. One arm was tucked beneath him, the other was bent at an awkward angle, his shirt sleeve dangling loose, missing its cuff link. His grey pants were twisted on his legs, the crotch soaked through. I recognized his shoes right away – black and white wingtips, the toe caps now scuffed and ruined. When I last saw them they were spit-shined and gleaming in the balcony of the Tivoli Theatre.

  I’d seen more than my share of dead bodies, but you never get used to that electric jolt that sizzles up your spine, trying to paralyze you. I drew in a deep breath and knelt on my good knee to move the body onto its side; Bernie Fiore looked straight through me with that glassy-eyed dead-man’s stare, a bloody crust behind his left ear where he’d been shot. Twice. His skin was the colour of January in Regina. The breath I’d been holding came out in a rush and I eased him back as I’d found him. That fecal stench of death engulfed me and I gripped the porch railing to steady myself as my stomach clenched.

  For a horrifying moment I was back on that blood-drenched shore in Dieppe. Death and destruction boomed around me. Dead and dying comrades lay strewn along the slippery, rocky beach and bodies were bobbing face-down in the water. I closed my eyes and heard Bernie telling me in the Tivoli, “I don’t want nobody to see me talking to you, Max.”

  I staggered back into the kitchen and slumped at the table. My gut heaved as another wave of nausea churned through me. A dead body on the battlefield was one thing – a corpse dumped on your own doorstep was quite another matter. Especially when it belonged to a guy I’d been meeting with yesterday.

  It took me three tries to dial Frank’s number.

  “You’re talking a mile a minute, Maxie. Now, take a couple of deep breaths and start over.”

  I was pacing between my front door and the kitchen while I awaited Frank’s arrival, trying to calm the surge of emotions that still gripped me. He said he’d be here in half an hour, after he’d made arrangements with the coroner’s guys to pick up
the body. I quit my pacing to look out the living room window, the eastern sky brightening now as the neighbourhood was coming to life. I watched a guy across the street backing his ’39 Plymouth coupé out of his driveway, heading off to work. A couple of young women hurried arm in arm toward King Street, huddled in their winter coats, their breath coming out in white puffs as they chatted. People leading ordinary lives, going about their daily business. God, how I envied them.

  Frank pulled up in front of my ground-floor apartment on the corner of Emerald and Hunter Streets but remained in his car. I could see his cigarette smoke leaking from the driver’s window that was opened a crack. A moment later a white van pulled in behind him, two guys in the cab. The driver got out, his white uniform glistening in the early morning sunlight as he hustled forward to have a word with Frank. Then a police car arrived and a young guy with a flash camera jumped out of the passenger side and joined the huddle at the curb.

  When I’d called Frank I described the scene on my back porch so he led the coroner’s attendants and the police photographer directly there and they set to work. I watched through the window of my kitchen door as the camera’s flash lit up Bernie’s limp body in stark relief. Then Frank examined him in much the same way as I had done. Finally, he waved for the guys in white to load the body onto their stretcher and take it to their van.

  By this time, a small group of neighbours had gathered to gawk and gossip on the sidewalk, attracted by the hubbub at my back door and the coroner’s vehicle at the curb. I was jealous of them, too. They could just walk away.

  I sat at my kitchen table, now wearing an old pair of pants and a wrinkled, dirty work-shirt I’d yanked out of the laundry basket. Frank had completed his inspection and left his men to finish up. He helped himself to a cup of coffee. “No milk yet,” I told him. “Should be here soon.”

  He pulled up a chair beside me and set his cup on the table. “A tough thing to wake up to, Maxie. You handling it all right?”

  I tried to nod but it came out as a shake of my head. “As well as I can. A big shock though – seeing Bernie like that.”

  “I can imagine. Two shots, back of the head. Looks like Tedesco’s sending you a Christmas card and it has sweet Fanny Adams to do with ‘Peace on Earth’. Now tell me the real story about Bernie Fiore.”

  I sat upright in my chair, looking him straight in the eye. “I know it’s not much, but I’ve told you everything. And I’m convinced Bernie was on the square – he was just looking for help to spring his brother from jail.”

  He lifted his cup and blew across the surface of his coffee. Then he tried a small sip but set the cup down in a hurry. “Got a can of Carnation?

  I made a face and shook my head.

  He stepped to the sink and ran a little cold water into his cup. “Sounds as though you liked Bernie.”

  “Well, he wasn’t a smart guy but he was loyal. I’ll give him that.”

  Frank returned to the table. “Whether he intended it or not, Bernie’s stuck you smack-dab in the middle of this business. But what do we know for sure? He met you at the Tiv and now he’s dead. And we only have his word for it that your mother’s back in town meeting with Tedesco. Likewise that Sal Angotti’s here and might’ve killed that City Controller.” He shook his head again. “Bernie was trying to get his brother out of jail and he probably made up this whole damn story about your mother just to get your help. You said it yourself – he wasn’t a smart guy.”

  I was about to reply when I heard someone outside the kitchen door. I hustled across the room, peeked out the window, then opened the door. The milkman stood on the porch, gaping at the coroner’s guys at the curb as they lifted the stretcher with Bernie’s body and slid it into their van.

  “Sonovabitch,” he said. “Was that a dead body those guys were carrying?”

  I had to tug the bottle of milk from his grasp. “Yeah, but it’s all over now. You can read about it in tonight’s paper.” And I shut the door.

  I got busy at the kitchen counter clearing away the dishes, keeping myself moving and trying not to think about Bernie’s corpse. But even in death, his empty stare blamed me for not helping him. Had he been executed simply for meeting with me at that Bogart movie? That seemed far-fetched.

  Frank was keeping an eye on me but didn’t speak until I took a seat at the table.

  “There’s another way of looking at this,” he said. Then he edged toward me and gripped my arm. “Supposing I’m right about Bernie – that he lied about your mother because he thought you’d want to see her and you’d be grateful to him for that info. Then he fed you all that crapola about Angotti in order to get his brother off the hook.”

  I mulled that over. “It’s possible, I guess. But why was he killed? And why would anyone dump his body at my place?”

  “Here’s what I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with your mother or Angotti. You told me Bernie was being followed, right? So maybe Tedesco was having him watched because he was skimming from his collections or some other damn thing. And in the beginning it wasn’t connected to you. But when Bernie was seen meeting with Max Dexter, pain-in-the-ass private detective, Tedesco sees that as an opportunity; two birds with one stone, eh? He figures he’ll get rid of the problem he’s been having with Bernie and use his dead body to scare the shit out of you – to let you know he hasn’t forgotten that you killed one of his guys a few months ago. And that maybe you’ll be next on his to-do list if you don’t butt out of his damn business.”

  I was staring at him while he was speaking and realized I’d been holding my breath. I swallowed several times and wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead with my shirt sleeve. “Is this supposed to make me feel better? My mother’s not in town but Tedesco’s lining me up in his sights?”

  Frank added milk and sugar to his coffee as I spoke and then he drank it down in three gulps. He got to his feet, put on his overcoat and fished out his car keys. “Just a theory, Bud, but think about it. Meantime, I’ll see if I can get a car stationed nearby – in case you have more visitors.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  After Frank left I called my office and spoke with Isabel, explaining my delay this morning.

  I listened to her breathing – a sharp gasp as I described finding Bernie’s body. “Oh, my gosh, Max. A dead body at your back door? Are you all right? Do you want me to come over?”

  “No, no. I’m feeling better now. But it was a big shock to see Bernie … like that. So I might be a little late this morning. ”

  There was a long pause on the line.

  “Isabel? You still there?”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve considered taking the day off, have you, Max?” Her voice was firmer now. “For heaven’s sake, finding a corpse on your doorstep must be a terrible shock to your system. You could take some time off to recharge your batteries. I wouldn’t think less of you if you did.”

  Damn, I was hoping Isabel might not have realized the extent to which the discovery of Bernie’s body had shaken me up. I swallowed hard and my face felt like it was on fire. Why was I having such trouble admitting my feelings to this woman who now meant everything to me?

  “Maybe you’re right, Iz. Maybe I’ll take it easy today, stay home and clean up my apartment. So I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodbye.”

  I replaced the receiver in a hurry, my mind filled with self-doubt, up to my knees in pity for poor old Max. Then I plopped into my comfy chair in the living room, put my feet up on the ottoman and tried to clear my mind.

  Tried, but failed.

  I couldn’t dismiss Frank’s theory – that Tedesco was using Bernie Fiore’s body as a scare tactic, to remind me that my own body could be dumped just like Bernie’s – anywhere and anytime he damn well pleased. But did I get Bernie killed by being seen with him? Or did Bernie bring about his own death? And … was I next?

&
nbsp; An insistent knocking on my front door interrupted those dark thoughts and I tucked my shirt into my pants as I peeked through the window before opening the door.

  An eager young guy gripping a flash camera in his right hand tipped his fedora in my direction. “Morning, Mr. Dexter. I’m Pete Homulos from The Spectator. Hope you don’t mind a few quick questions – I won’t bother you for long.”

  I gave him my hard stare. “Thought you guys got everything you needed from the police and the coroner’s people. Sorry, I’ve got nothing to add.”

  I tried to close the door but the reporter slid forward, wheedling his way inside. “Did you know the dead man at your back door? They’re saying he was a gangster, is that right?”

  “If he was then you know more than I do.” I tried to reach for his arm and shove him toward the door but he side-stepped me and brought up his camera, the flash blinding me.

  His coat-tail was still in my grasp as we grappled in the doorway and I stumbled forward, pushing him onto the step. I’d regained my eyesight and was able to grab his arm. “If that photo turns out, you can’t use it without my permission.” I had no idea if that was true but maybe he didn’t either.

  He shook himself loose and was bustling toward the street when he slowed and called back over his shoulder. “You gave me permission when you invited me into your apartment. Merry Christmas, Mister.”

  I was about to respond but caught myself. If I’d told him to go to hell, he’d probably use that in his story. You couldn’t win with these birds. I watched him cross the street, jump into a rusty red Chevy and drive off. Then I noticed an unmarked black Ford parked a few doors down on Emerald Street, a wispy vapour trail leaking from its exhaust pipe, the guy in the driver’s seat smoking a cigarette and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Frank said he’d have a cop stationed nearby and I breathed a little easier seeing him there.

  I slammed the front door and leaned my back against it, catching my breath. “Pushy buggers, those newshounds,” I said aloud. Then I imagined my picture in tonight’s paper. I hadn’t had time to bathe and shave this morning or even comb my hair. I was wearing that old pair of pants I’d pulled out of the laundry and my dirty shirt hung loose after the struggle in the doorway. That photo would probably make me look like a drunken bum who was about to pass out in an alley behind some bootlegger’s joint in the north end of town.