The Fifth Man

by James Lepore

  Anna then opened the accounts folder in her hard drive and found the file for Massi, Joseph, whose lease was dated September 1, 2002, and whose address was listed as 15 White Oak Terrace, Bloomfield, New Jersey. In the file cabinet beneath her desk were the manila files where she kept hard copies of all of her accounts. She slid the drawer open, thumbed through until she found Massi, Joseph and pulled it out. Clipped to the inside cover was a copy of Mr. Massi’s driver’s license, which contained the photo ID required of all new lessees. There he was, Matt Massi’s grandfather. An assassin. She looked for a long moment into Joseph Massi’s somber, black eyes. She had not yet owned Wall Storage when he rented his unit and so had never met him face-to-face, but she had no doubt he was the real thing, and that his duffle bag held something of grave importance.

  What was it? Human bones? Drugs? A million dollars? Another smile. A close look in the mirror, a couple of smiles. An internet search. Matt Massi had done this. The young and handsome Matt Massi, with his dark, grave eyes, thick black hair and confidant smile. And his attitude, one she had not come across before, the air of royalty about him, of a prince born to be a king.

  Her thoughts turned from the Massi family to the one she used to have, and from there to the metal box in the bottom drawer of her desk, where she kept the yellowing photographs of her parents and grandparents that were all that remained of her past. She retrieved the box, opened it, and picked up the top picture of her and her father and Chessa together on their porch in the summer of 1988, taken by her grandmother. She remembered clearly, like it was yesterday, the day it was taken and, as she stared, her mind drifted to another day, the one in 1989 when she was ten years old and her life changed forever.

  Her father’s old Skoda would not start that morning. It was too far for her to walk to school, and so she was there, in her small second floor bedroom, to hear the hissing of a car on the road that led to her house. Had her father called a neighbor to take her to school? Looking out her window, she saw him splitting wood in the snow-covered front yard, her German Shepherd, Chessa, helping him bring logs to the pile on the front porch. The long black car, the largest she had ever seen, stopped in front of her house. A tall, handsome man, his short hair blond like hers, but with a widow’s peak, got out and walked toward her father. Chessa stiffened and growled and the man drew a pistol from the pocket of his long overcoat and shot her. The rest was a blur, but a blur imprinted on her psyche as if with a chisel on stone: her father raising his arms high, turning to look up at her, staring directly into her eyes before being pushed into the car, the sound of her shoes on the steps as she ran downstairs and then outside, the car receding in the distance, Chessa lying on her side in the snow, breathing hard and fast, taking her last look at the world—at Anna—before she died. Anna’s yellow hair standing on end, her scalp tingling in the cold winter air.

  Anna stared at the photograph. She did not know until much later that her father had been part of the underground resistance against the police state the Soviets had imposed on his homeland. In the box was a letter from Václav Havel to her grandparents.

  “We have confirmed that your son, Antonin, died in Karvina Prison in March, 1989. He was tortured and killed by the StB for his lifelong efforts to dislodge the Soviet yoke from the neck of our people…”

  Anna slipped the photograph back into the metal box and returned the box to its drawer. The children had come in. She could hear them getting drinks in the kitchen where, on the floor, despite her determined efforts, a faint shadow of the blood stain from Skip’s head wound remained visible. She touched her side again, remembering the blow she took from the bat, and the second swing he took, slipping and missing her and hitting his forehead on the corner of the kitchen island. He’ll be back, she thought, fear for herself and her children replacing memories of her father. He’s lost his mind. This time, I will be ready.

  5.

  Manhattan, August 21, 2012, 6:00 p.m.

  Matt had shut his cell phone down for the ride to and from the Jersey shore. He turned it on when he got to his apartment on Carmine Street, a spacious five-room fourth-floor walkup that could house a small family and that his mother had furnished for him before his return from Europe—a bedroom, a study, a full kitchen, a living room/dining room combo, built-in bookshelves in all of the rooms, even the kitchen, many of them lined with the books Theresa had been storing for him at her big house in Jersey before she moved to Manhattan. When he turned his phone on, he was surprised to see a message from Natalya, the singer at Sabrina’s. “Matvey, Nico gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind. That was a lot of fun, Matvey. Please call me. We will do it again. Also, can you please erase the picture? Very embarrassing.”

  They had drunk wawdka in Natalya’s apartment above Sabrina’s, and played music from her collection, dancing to the Ronettes and the Rolling Stones in her small living room. Before the night was over, Nico and Natalya had revealed their birthmarks, ass cheeks side-by-side. Matt had snapped a picture with his iPhone. He laughed now, remembering the proud smiles on their faces as they looked at him over their shoulders, mooning him in tandem. They may not be who they said they were, but they were a lot of fun. And Natalya, a brunette under her blonde wig, was a knockout with a sweet face and an even sweeter body. Now she was calling him.

  Matt took a shower and when he came out he dressed and then dialed a number that he knew would not be answered. He opened the package of books that had arrived from the Columbia bookstore and began browsing as he waited for a return call. Modern Times, by Paul Johnson; The Road to Serfdom; Robert Conquest, Milton Friedman. Ivy League orthodoxy did not interest Matt. A double major, in history and economics, he was in a one-on-one honors program in which he was free to read, and write, as he wished. His mentor, the head of the history department, had promised to have his collected papers published, but Matt knew he would not allow it when the time came. The ringing of his cell phone broke into his thoughts abruptly.

  “Dad,” he said, after sliding the unlock bar and pushing the speaker feature on his phone.

  “Matt.”

  “There’s something you need to know,” Matt said, getting right to the point, hoping he had done the right thing in calling this particular number.

  “Hold on, Matt,” his father said, his voice light, even teasing. “First, how are you?”

  “Good. Fine. School starts in two weeks.”

  “And your mom?”

  “She’s fine. She went a little overboard furnishing my apartment. We’re having dinner tonight.”

  “Tess?”

  “She’s joining us.”

  “She’s coming over here for a few days.”

  “She told me.”

  Matt had been nervous waiting for his father’s call. He had dialed this number only once before, when he was sixteen and had finished last in the mile event in a high school track meet. His father had admonished him then. This number is not for hurt pride, Matt. Now he seemed breezy, unconcerned. Gods in tall buildings, Nico’s phrase, came to Matt’s mind, though he knew that the metaphor was not quite accurate when it came to his father, who might own tall buildings, but did not, as far as Matt knew, have an office in one.

  “What’s up?” Chris Massi asked.

  “Two things.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I got a letter from a self-storage place at the shore. I thought it was Uncle Joseph’s, but it was Grandpa Joe’s. Dad, there was two million dollars in it in a duffle bag.”

  Silence, in which Matt could hear the humming of his new refrigerator and his own quiet breathing as he pictured his father in his office on the top floor of that crazy old house in Piraeus.

  “What did the letter say?” Chris Massi asked, finally.

  “What letter?”

  “The one from the storage company.”

  “That Joseph Massi had pre-paid the rent for ten years,
that if he didn’t renew I was to be contacted.”

  “It’s old man Velardo’s money.”

  “The Boot?”

  “Yes.”

  “What should I do with it?”

  “It’s yours. Whatever you want.”

  “Mine?”

  “There were rumors about this money, Matt. I never knew if they were true or not. Now I do. Your grandfather was holding it for the old man, but he’s dead and so is most of his family that matters. It’s the spoils of war. Joe Black obviously wanted you to have it.”

  “There was no note, Dad. Just the cash.”

  “He wasn’t much of a letter writer, my father.”

  “Dad…”

  “It’s your money, Matt.”

  “What should I do with it?”

  “Think of it as a test.”

  “A test?”

  “Yes, you passed the first part. You told me.”

  “What’s the second part?”

  “What you do with the money.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want the money.”

  Silence at the other end. And then: “Your grandfather left it to you, Matt.”

  “Why?”

  “He must have had his reasons.”

  Matt had lived with his father in Manhattan from 2003 to 2007, while he went to high school. Except for a handful of Chris’s short absences, and the weekends Matt occasionally spent with his mother in New Jersey, they had had dinner and conversation together every night during those years. As a consequence, Matt had learned to read his father’s silences, so he knew for a fact what this last one meant.

  “What’s the second thing, Matt?”

  Matt paused for a second before answering. Two million dollars. Fuck. Most people would be ecstatic, but Matt was not most people. He saw the money as a burden, not a blessing. And then there was the oddness of the situation, his father’s matter-of-fact tone, as if…as if what? But his father had moved on. That part of the conversation—the part where he might have an opportunity to complain or make a joke or ask for advice—was over. That’s what his father’s silence had meant.

  “One of my shipmates is here,” Matt said, finally. “The Russian guy I told you about, Nico.”

  “Nico Pugach.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about him?”

  “He wants to sell me some diamonds.”

  “Are you interested?”

  This question stopped Matt in his tracks. Are you interested? Later, when the Nico Pugach affair was over and done, he would realize exactly what the question was and what his father had meant it to be: a turning point, a choice to make.

  “Should I be?” he replied, slightly stunned, but without hesitation. “He says I would have the contacts to re-sell them for a huge profit.”

  “So he thinks he knows who you are.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he know about the two million?”

  “No.”

  “Does anybody?”

  “No. Well…”

  “Well what?”

  “I had to get a locksmith. There was a padlock on the duffle bag as well that needed to be sheared off. He saw the top layer of cash.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “I know. When he left, I rented another unit and put the duffle bag in it.”

  “Good, that’s it? Nobody else?”

  “No, no one else knows.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did Nico mention a price? Any details?”

  “Five hundred thousand. He said they’re worth ten million retail, several million or more to a middle man.”

  “When are you seeing him?”

  “Later tonight.”

  “Tell him you’ll think about it. Call me at this number tomorrow at this time. If I don’t call you back, call again the next night at the same time. Keep doing that until I do call you back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Matt.”

  “Yes.”

  “Be careful of this Nico. From now on only meet him in public places, always someplace you know. Don’t go anyplace alone with him, not even in a car or taxi. Understand?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I have a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Is this why you made me take a year off from college?”

  More silence. His father, like a Zen master, a very incongruous Zen master, had said to him many times, take everything at face value, take nothing at face value. He had puzzled over this obviously contradictory advice for years, until Nico showed up in America and seemed so different—and then asked him for half a million dollars.

  “That’s a good question. And you know what I say about questions.”

  “They’re the royal road to consciousness.”

  “Yes.”

  “I learned last semester you stole that from Freud. Sort of. He said it was dreams that are the royal road to consciousness.”

  Chris Massi laughed his deep throaty laugh, a sound that filled Matt with happiness because it was so rarely that he heard it.

  “We’ll talk about Freud when I see you.”

  “When will that be? Are you still coming home in two weeks?”

  “Maybe not,” his father replied. “But you may have to come here. We’ll see.”

  “Of course.”

  “You understand what I’m saying about Nico, Matt? You’ll be careful?”

  “I will.”

  “Good.”

  “Dad.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about my question?”

  “The world is a dangerous place, Matt. Most people delude themselves into thinking otherwise. I wanted you to see it for yourself.”

  “Dad, did you see this coming? From Nico?”

  “It’s nothing, Matt. Nothing that can’t be handled.”

  Nothing and everything, Matt thought, thinking like his father, surprising himself.

  6.

  Manhattan, August 21, 2012, 8:00 p.m.

  “That’s a heck of a climb,” Tess Massi said.

  “It’s free and it’s safe,” Matt replied.

  “Is that what Mom said?”

  “Who else? Look around. I get off the plane, I go to her apartment, she gives me the keys, and here I am.”

  “Except for the four flights, it’s perfect.”

  Brother and sister, sitting across from each other on plush easy chairs, looked around at Matt’s living room. It was perfect: subdued, masculine, the furniture solid and handsome, an oversized, ruby-colored Persian rug on the newly polished hardwood floor anchoring it all with quiet elegance.

  “Does the fireplace work?” Tess asked.

  “Mom says it does.”

  “I’m surprised there’s no piano.”

  Matt smiled. He and Tess had been forced by Theresa to take weekly piano lessons for several years on the Steinway in Theresa’s demi-mansion in New Jersey.

  “It’ll probably just show up,” Matt said. “She’ll hire a crane to get it up here.”

  “Along with Mrs. Pescatore,” Tess said. “Remember those pinches? The black and blue marks?”

  “Jesus, Tess, I was thirteen.”

  “Shocking, feeling up your fifty-year-old piano teacher. You’re lucky she just pinched you.”

  “I think I have permanent muscle damage,” Matt said, grabbing his right bicep with his left hand, smiling, remembering the wide-bodied Mrs. Pescatore, how he had trembled with her heavy breasts so near. Trembled and, unbelievably, touched.

  “How are you doing,” Tess asked.

  “Good.”

  “I
’m jealous.”

  “Why?”

  In the pause that followed, Matt eyed his sister. Two years older, raven-haired, her eyes big and luminous, an A student, mature beyond her years, confident. She had been their father’s favorite, a thought that still hurt but, thank God, not too badly anymore.

  “Well,” Tess answered, “I would like to have done it.”

  “What?” Matt said. “Spent a year on an oil tanker? I worked ten hours a day, fourteen when I had the watch. You saw the pictures I sent you, where I slept, who I bunked with. Are you kidding?”

  “I mean chosen.”

  “Chosen?” Matt had never found it easy to get a good read on Tess’s interior life. Now he was slightly stunned. Had the wheel turned?

  “Yes, Matt,” Tess said, “chosen. By Dad.”

  “You would never have lasted.”

  “I don’t mean to do what you did.”

  “Then what?”

  “Teo…”

  “Tess.”

  “Do you know what Dad does?”

  “What he really does?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not stupid, Tess.”

  “I didn’t say you were. Don’t be so sensitive.”

  “I’m not being sensitive. He took over for Grandpa. It’s obvious.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Tess…” Matt stopped himself. Or rather, another insight did. “Let’s not go there,” he said.

  “That’s not it,” said Tess. “I know what he does. I know what Grandpa did, what Uncle Frank does.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’re missing something.”

  We’re missing something? Despite himself, Matt felt gratified to be joining Tess in analyzing something that—and this he freely admitted to himself—he had never thought needed analyzing. His dad was who he was.