Always Say Goodbye lf-5

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  She touched the number tattooed on her wrist. Lew’s need to find out what had happened to Catherine should have seemed small compared to that number on Rebecca Strum’s wrist, but it didn’t.

  “Is there anything else?” she asked.

  “Posno,” Lew said.

  She looked puzzled.

  “Posno? That’s a character in some book I think,” she said.

  “Yes, Andrej Posnitki, Posno.”

  “I’ve never read it,” she said.

  Franco shrugged.

  “Would you check the name on the Internet for us please?” asked Lew.

  “Lewie,” Franco whispered loud enough for her to hear. “You know who you’re asking to-”

  “No,” she said, getting up with the help of both hands placed just above her knees. “It’s fine. Now I’m curious about why a man with a face worthy of Munch should want to know about a character in a novel.”

  She moved to the desk by the window and sat slowly, hands on the arms of the wooden desk chair. Lew stood over her left shoulder, Franco over her right.

  “Years ago,” she said, “Well, really not that many years ago, I used to do this for Simon Weisenthal.”

  Her dappled fingers danced over the keys of the laptop and images, lists popped up and then stopped.

  “Thirty-seven-thousand six-hundred and seven hits,” she said. “Not an unusually high number even for as obscure a fictional character as Andrej Posnitki. Colley Cibber, a very minor actor, poet and playwright, has more than ninety-nine-thousand hits. Cibber was an actor known most for the fact that Alexander Pope ridiculed him in The Dunciad.”

  “Posno,” Lew said. “Are there any hits for Posno?”

  Her fingers danced again.

  “More than eighty-eight thousand,” she said. “It seems to be a Dutch name. Let us see. Posno Flowers, Posno Sporting Goods. Is it possible to narrow the search?”

  “We don’t want to keep you from Dante,” Lew said.

  “Dante has waited more than six hundred years,” she said. “He can wait and the students can wait a few minutes longer. Narrow the search.”

  Lew knew what that meant.

  “Posno, crime, murder, trial,” Lew said.

  She tapped in the words, clicked on search, narrowed and said, “One Web site devoted specifically to what appears to be your Posno. Look.”

  On the screen in the upper left-hand corner in boldface was Posnitki, Andrej (Posno).

  It was followed by three paragraphs. Lew and Franco leaned forward to read, but Rebecca Strum said, “I’ll print it for you.”

  She pushed a button, and then another and a rumbling sound came from under her desk. A few seconds later she reached down and came up with a printed sheet. She handed it to Lew and got up, a little more slowly than she had from the green chair.

  “Thank you,” said Lew.

  “One more thing,” she said, and with her book moved across the room and through a slightly open door.

  It took her no more than ten seconds. When she came out, she held a different, thicker book in one hand, a pen in the other.

  “Your wife’s name?” she asked Franco.

  “Angie.”

  “Angela,” Lew said.

  Rebecca Strum nodded, opened the book, wrote something in it and handed it to Franco.

  “I just had a box of them delivered yesterday,” she said. “I don’t have room and I’d rather it go to someone who will read it than have it lay in a box in the darkness of a storage room.”

  “Thank you,” said Franco. “You’re… she thinks you’re great.”

  Rebecca Strum shook her head and let out a two-note laugh.

  “My two children think I’m a petty tyrant posing as a martyr. My husband, long dead, resented my notoriety and I never noticed. I’ve been frequently duped by emotional and financial criminals and used by frauds I didn’t even recognize who played on my ego. A full list of my indiscretions, omissions and petty vices would compare with anyone who has lived as long as I have. I’m not great. It’s enough that I’ve lived this long and can still speak out and write and have visitors, especially those who don’t expect wisdom and don’t expect me to remember when I do not wish to remember.”

  She touched Lew’s arm and Lew and Franco left, the door closing gently behind them.

  “Can you fucking believe that?” asked Franco, looking at the book.

  He opened it as they moved to the elevator.

  “Listen to this,” he said. “‘To Angela, Imagine that we are holding each other’s hand and walking together through the forest of the night.’ And she signed it.”

  “Nice.”

  No one was inside the elevator when the door opened and they stepped in.

  “What do you know about Rebecca Strum?” asked Franco.

  “Not much.”

  “Come on, Lewis. Work with me here. I’ve got a point.”

  The elevator dropped slowly, a slight metallic clatter beneath their feet.

  “Husband’s dead,” Lew said.

  “And?”

  Lew looked away, felt the sheet of paper in his hand.

  “She’s hiding her grief with a smile. She’s resigned herself to the unfairness of life and she’s dedicated herself to trying to understand and comfort others,” said Lew as the elevator stopped.

  “You’re saying it like you’re reading it off a Wheatie’s box.”

  “Jewish woman who lived through the Holocaust,” said Lew as they stepped into the lobby. “What she’s been through is a lot worse than what I’ve been through and she’s taking it better.”

  “Pretty good,” said Franco. “But you’re wrong about one thing.”

  “What?”

  They were on the sidewalk again. Across the street a pretty girl with a blue backpack was hurrying somewhere, talking on a cell phone. Her long dark hair bobbed with each step. Lew had the feeling he had seen her before, a thousand times before.

  “Rebecca Strum isn’t Jewish,” said Franco as they moved back to the truck. “Her husband was a Jew. I think she’s a Lutheran or something like that. Her father was a Communist, landed the family in a camp. You should read one of her books, Lewie.”

  When they got back into the Franco’s truck, the phone hummed. Franco picked it up, said, “Massaccio Towing.” He handed the phone to Lew.

  “Fonesca, my name’s Bernard Aponte-Cruz,” said the man. “I was the one with Claude Santoro last night. We should talk.”

  “When?”

  “Now,” he said. “Right now. Claude had something to tell you. That’s why we followed you last night. We got your number from the side of the truck. He said he was looking for the right time to get you alone. He never got the time. Now the police think I killed him.”

  “What did he want to tell me?”

  “I don’t know, but it had something to do with the bank.”

  “Bank?”

  “Claude was a consultant for First Center Bank. He specialized in banking and insurance law.”

  “He wasn’t a criminal attorney?”

  “No, never,” said Aponte-Cruz. “And he was a good guy. I’m telling you. He was a good guy.”

  “You worked for him?”

  “He was my brother-in-law.”

  “Why did your brother-in-law need you with him last night? Why didn’t he just talk to me?” Lew asked.

  “Someone called him. He didn’t know who. A man, said he should stay away from you or he’d be killed. That’s when Claude called me. I’m not such a good guy. Shit, my aunt and uncle, Claude’s mother and father, they live in Yuma. I’m going to have to call them, tell them. Shit. Claude was their only kid.”

  “Why didn’t he just talk to me?”

  “He wanted to check you out. He was looking for a safe place to talk and Claude was sure he was being followed. We were about to go into the house you were in last night when the cops showed up. Then you and Tow Truck came out and… come on, you know this.”

  “What d
id he-” Lew began.

  The phone went dead. Lew hung up and the phone rang instantly. Franco picked it up and said, “Franco… right, right, I got it. Hold on. He covered the mouthpiece with his palm and turned to me. “Job. Parking lot downtown on Washington. You want me to get someone else to take it?”

  “No,” Lew said.

  Franco nodded and pulled onto the street.

  Lew read the sheet Rebecca Strum had printed out.

  Posnitki, Andrej (Posno)

  Murderer. Assassin. Thief. Born in Kaunus, Lithuania, 1949. Accused of murdering a Russian Orthodox priest in 1969. Fled to Budapest. Fled Hungary in 1976 to avoid arrest and almost certain imprisonment following the murder of five anti-Communist dissidents at a cafe.

  Posno came to the United States illegally, moved from city to city, changed his name frequently. He made his services available to a Russian criminal organization.

  Andrej Posnitki has never been arrested.

  Andrej Posnitki has murdered more than thirty-five people.

  One of those people he murdered in the Budapest slaughter was my father.

  If you have any information or recognize the man below, please contact: Relentless, Box 7374, Boise, Idaho.

  At the bottom of the page was a head and shoulders drawing in black of a heavyset man, head shaved, a nose that veered to one side from being broken, and a neat, short beard.

  Lew held up the drawing for Franco, who looked at it and said, “Looks like the guy who always plays bikers on TV shows or that wrestler, what the hell’s his name, the Blast. No wait, looks a little like that Packer’s linebacker from a few years ago. Even looks a little like my brother Dom if Dom took off a few pounds, shaved his head and face. Dom even has a broken nose, but it goes the other way.”

  Franco demonstrated by pushing his nose to one side.

  “I don’t think Posno’s your brother.”

  “I don’t either,” said Franco. “I’m just saying…”

  Lew was spread too thin, too many people to see, too many strings to follow into the cave. He needed help.

  As they drove, he picked up Franco’s phone, took out his notebook and found Milt Holiger’s phone number. In Lew’s life, he had been able to remember only three telephone numbers. Not his own, not his parents. He remembered Catherine’s phone number before they were married. He remembered his friend Lonnie Sweeney’s phone number, still did, though he hadn’t talked to Lonnie for at least fifteen years. Or was it more like twenty years? The phone number of the Texas Bar amp; Grille in Sarasota where Ames worked. That he remembered. Oh, yes, the number of his aunt Marie, the old number she hadn’t used in at least twenty years.

  Numerically challenged, Lew kept a stained and frayed sheet of paper in his notebook. On the sheet were the phone numbers of people and memories he had fled in Chicago, and people who had squeezed or pushed through the door into his life in Sarasota.

  Lew had tried many times over the years to memorize the multiplication tables. Never could. Still can’t. Ask him how much seven times nine is and he has no idea.

  Milt answered his cell phone after three rings.

  “Lew?” he said.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “Caller ID. I’ve got the number you’re calling from and the name of your brother-in-law Franco.”

  “How’s your time?” Lew asked.

  “Moving inexorably forward,” Holiger said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Roadwork.”

  A blue Mini Cooper driven by a clown smoking a cigar passed by and waved. The clown was in whiteface with a bulbous purple nose. A sad look had been painted on his face. He held up his hand. So did Lew.

  “If I can help, sure,” Milt said.

  Lew told him about the Asian driver and the parking permit, and Santoro’s working for the bank.

  “Take your pick.”

  “Bank,” he said. “I can walk over there. I’ll give you a call. Not much more on Posno on my end. How about yours?”

  “A little.”

  “I’ll keep looking.”

  Lew carefully folded the sheet of paper and tucked it into his notebook, reasonably sure neither he nor Pappas or his sons would find Posno. Lew remembered the sweet, proud smile on the face of Pappas’s mother, who had divided her time between the kitchen and murdering her husband. He imagined Posno, broad, bald, hulking, being thrown into the Pappas kitchen. John or one of the boys would lock the door and Posno would be alone with Pappas’s mother wearing an apron, smiling, holding an oven tin with a red pot holder in her left hand. The oven tin is filled with sweet honey treats. In her right hand, she holds a long, very sharp knife, which is ideal for both slicing phyllo dough and Posno’s throat. He is twice her size, but he doesn’t stand a chance in her kitchen.

  “Lew? You there?” asked Milt.

  “I… yes,” Lew said.

  “I’ll call you when I have something.”

  “Thanks, Milt.”

  The call ended.

  “You see that clown back there?” Franco asked.

  “Whiteface, tufts of red hair, down-turned painted mouth, cigar.”

  “Huh? I meant the clown in the SUV who cut us off. You okay, Lewis?”

  “Sure.”

  But Lew knew he was decidedly not okay.

  6

  Little Duke Dupreesat across from Lew and Franco in a window booth at the Tender Restaurant on 76th Street. Little Duke had parked where he could see both his car and Franco Massaccio’s tow truck through the window.

  They drank coffee, ate the Tender Restaurant’s famous oversized chocolate coffee donuts. The donuts were brought to the table by a powerful-looking black man who walked with a limp.

  The Tender had been Little Duke’s suggestion, a very strong suggestion. People were talking in other booths and at tables. Neat, clean, good food, the Tender was an eye-blinding contrast to the South Side bars in the neighborhood Little Duke had roamed for more than two decades, keeping the peace when he could, showing that he was the sheriff carrying the biggest gun and reputation, most of it myth, some of it true. Lew had seen him in reaction and action twice.

  Little Duke Dupree dressed the part, black pressed slacks, black shoes, a black turtleneck shirt under a black cashmere sports jacket.

  Franco and Lew were the only white people in the Tender. The same was true of the pedestrian traffic outside.

  “Santoro,” said Detective Little Duke.

  It wasn’t a question. It was a name put on the table for Franco’s and Lew’s reaction.

  “We didn’t kill him,” said Franco, huge half-eaten donut in hand.

  Little Duke looked at Lew and put both hands flat on the table.

  “You could have gotten around the cameras in the building, come in during the night, got away. Then you could have come back, let the cameras pick you up. Visual and timed video that when you were in Santoro’s office, he was long dead.”

  “We didn’t do it,” Franco said.

  “I believe you,” said Little Duke. “What were you doing in his office?”

  Lew told him the whole story. He didn’t start it with the date he was conceived or born and he didn’t include the heart of the story, the people. Little Duke took no notes. From time to time Franco nodded in agreement or said, “That’s right.”

  Lew told him about Pappas and his sons, Posno, Rebecca Strum, the Asian driving the car that had killed Catherine. He told it in ten minutes. Told the story but not the characters. Lew knew that Little Duke would check police reports, first, to confirm that Franco and Lew had a run-in with Stavros and Dimitri on the Dan Ryan Expressway and second to confirm that Santoro and Aponte-Cruz had been questioned by the police.

  Little Duke closed his leather-bound notebook and put it back in his pocket.

  “We’ve got Aponte-Cruz,” he said. “No weapon. The appointment book was missing from Santoro’s desk.”

  Lew knew where this was going.

  “Yes.”

 
; Little Duke looked at Lew, his eyes unblinking.

  “Want some advice?” Little Duke asked. “Don’t talk religion with a Baptist and don’t try to stare down a violent crimes detective.”

  “I wasn’t,” said Lew.

  “He wasn’t,” said Franco. “He stares like that a lot.”

  “I do?” asked Lew.

  “You do, Lewie.”

  “You have it?” asked Little Duke patiently.

  Lew had witnessed that same patience the last time he had seen Little Duke Dupree. Lew had been trying to find a possible witness in a fraud case. Little Duke had accompanied him to a house not far from where they were now sitting.

  Two young men, black, stood in their way. One of the young men wore a black sleeveless shirt with a white thunderbolt on the front. He had the body of a weight lifter, the tattoos of an ex-con and the attitude of a drug dealer.

  Little Duke had been patient. Word was that Little Duke’s wife had left him after being there too many times when he had been patient. Word was she was now dead. Lew had heard the word. When it was clear that patience and reason were not going to move the two men from the doorway, Little Duke’s gun had suddenly appeared. He had slammed the butt into the face of both young men, who were unprepared for the instant change in the policeman from a Father O’Mally to Jack Bauer.

  Little Duke had broken both of their noses and wiped the bloody handle of his gun on the thunderbolt T-shirt of the man who was kneeling and holding both hands to his face to slow down the bleeding. Little Duke had stepped past them. Lew had followed. They found the witness, a pregnant girl no more than sixteen, in a second-floor apartment.

  In the booth at the Tender, Franco looked at Lew, waiting for an answer to the question Lew couldn’t remember. Franco’s left cheek was bulging with donut. Then Lew remembered.

  “Do I have what?” Lew said.

  Little Duke looked very patient. He held out his hand palm up. There was a thick gold band on one of his fingers. Lew reached into his back pocket and came up with Santoro’s appointment book. He handed it to Little Duke, who tapped the edge of the notebook on the table and opened it.

  “He didn’t have any appointments until ten,” Lew said. “We were gone by then.”

  “You didn’t have an appointment?”