Decay

by Zach T. Stockwell

  Terry cut in front of the two detectives and opened the door for them, half-smiling silently at them on their way out. Then he said, “Hey, if there’s anything else you think of, you can feel free to call the office. Just tell the receptionist that answers that you are Gene calling for Terry Edmund. She’ll put you right through.”

  Gene stopped and took out a card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Terry. “The second number down is my cell, and you can reach me there directly. Do you have a card?”

  “No, actually. Fresh out. But if you just Google ‘Edmund & Hart’ the office number will show up.” Terry smiled again as Gene nodded, and then he and Marco walked out of the office and to the elevator together. They took the ride back downstairs, walked out of the lobby, across the street into the parking garage, up another elevator ride, and then across the garage to Gene’s car.

  Then they rode silently together, at a dead end.

  SIX

  It was just after eleven a.m. when Marco clicked on the turn signal to head back into the police station parking lot. Gene, who was reluctant to return to work so soon, suggested they have an early lunch before going back into the office empty-handed. Before committing to the turn, Marco shut the blinker off and continued straight.

  “Where to, then?” he asked.

  ---

  After following Gene’s directions, they wound up in the parking lot of a steak house. Marco thought it seemed too early to be eating a fat steak, but then again, it was almost lunch time. So the two walked in together, and waited to be sat by the hostess. There was no wait, and they were sat immediately.

  The both of them thumbed through the menu for a moment in silence before Gene sparked some conversation.

  “You know,” he said, “for an Italian guy, you don’t have much of an accent. Sounds like you been speaking English as your first language your whole life.”

  “Yeah, well, since I was little, my parents thought it was important for me to speak English fluently. I grew up in North Italy in Milan, which is where my dad works at the stock exchange.”

  Gene was paying close attention, seemingly intrigued by every word that came out of Marco’s mouth. Marco noticed this and was surprised by it, but pleasantly so.

  “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the stereotype of North versus South Italy, but we were kind of the stereotypical northern Italians. We have relatively neutral accents compared to the South, and we were kind of wealthy, thanks to my dad. The South is mostly poor and agricultural, and the North has more major cities, like Milan and Venice. Compared to the South, the North has a lot of money.”

  Gene had always loved the Italian culture, their rich history, and breathtaking cities. He had always wanted to visit Rome and Venice, but never had the chance.

  “I guess that explains why you don’t sound like a cartoon, then,” he said, laughing. When Gene laughed his true, unbridled laugh, his whole body laughed with him. His hands trembled with his shoulders and chest, then his cheeks went red. Marco laughed, too, not because of what Gene said, because he didn’t really think it was that funny, but because Gene’s laugh was contagious. If Gene laughed, no one could help but to laugh with him.

  After Gene composed himself, he asked, “So where is Milan? Never heard of it.”

  This took Marco by surprise, and left him not knowing where to begin. “You’ve really never heard of Milan? You’ve heard of Rome and Venice, right?”

  “Well of course,” Gene responded, chuckling some more.

  “Well when you think of Italy, you think of Rome and Venice, and Milan. Milan is not only one of the largest cities in Italy, but in the entire European Union. We have the, like, second largest economy in the EU, I think.”

  Marco was more than happy to talk about his home city, and the more he talked, the more excited he got. His generally calm conversational tone turned into someone else’s entirely. His words ran together and when he got to talking too quickly, he stuttered frequently.

  “I mean, Milan is, like, the hub of fashion and design, and entertainment, and business, for Italy. It’s like the New York City of Italy. You’ve seriously never heard of it, or seen pictures of it? Nothing?”

  Gene continued to shake his head. “Really, I haven’t,” he said. He got a kick out of Marco’s reaction, though. “What else should I know before you book me a flight?”

  Marco almost began to gush some more when a waitress walked up. In the most polite and pleasant manner, she took their drink orders and disappeared, so Marco continued. “Uh, okay, where do I begin, then?” Marco paused for a while, then a lightbulb went off in his head. “Oh, got it. Let’s start with some history. You know who Mussolini was, right?”

  “Uh, yep. Him, I am familiar with. Go on.”

  “Well in World War Two, Milan was bombed pretty hard by the Allies and took a lot of damage. Then, when Italy surrendered the war in 1943, the Germans came in and occupied the city. But the locals of Milan formed resistance groups, and when the war ended, the resistance groups took control of the city and executed Mussolini along with members of his government, and hanged their bodies in Piazzale Loreto, which is a major square in Milan.”

  Marco told the rich history of his city with such passion that Gene couldn’t help but be engrossed. It was like being told a history lesson by someone who had actually experienced it themselves. His voice inflection rose and fell at all the appropriate times for dramatic effect, and his arms waved with gestures to drive the story home. When Marco cared to be, he was an animated character, but few people ever saw this side of him, and seldom so.

  The waitress walked up to the table, and as she sat the drinks down, she said, “Hot tea for you, sir, and a sweet tea for you.” During his first weeks in Texas, Marco quickly realized that if he ordered tea, by default it will come out iced, so he learned to say hot tea each time. “Are y’all ready to order?”

  After ordering their steaks, the waitress went on her way, and the gentlemen resumed their conversation.

  Gene spoke first, “So other than real cool history, is there anything else special about Milan? And landmarks or anything I might recognize?”

  Marco’s eyes lit up. “How could I forget? Have you ever seen photos of the Milan Cathedral?” Gene shook his head much to the dismay of Marco’s pride, and Marco whipped out his phone to search the internet for photos. It didn’t take but a few seconds, and then he showed Gene photos that encapsulated the beauty of the monument. Gene’s eyes bulged as he took a sip from his cup, but he did not say anything. “Building started late in the fourteenth century, I think. It’s really a beauty.”

  Gene was impressed by the building, but he was unable to match Marco’s enthusiasm, so he didn’t try. “Anyway, what made you decide to move to the States? And what made you choose Texas?”

  Then Marco told Gene his reasons for coming to America, despite having a proud Italian heritage. He told of his ambitions, and how he had originally planned to go to school to be an architect and work in an amazing city like Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, or Dallas. But when architecture proved itself not to be the career for him, he changed his major to Criminal Justice, because the job looked cool in all the American movies and TV shows he had grown up watching. He told Gene of his ambitions to buy a home, meet a girl, and start a new line of Moretti’s in Texas, and spread that proud family heritage to the States.

  After Marco ran out of things to tell about himself, he asked Gene about his life. When realizing he truly had never heard of Gene’s wife or kids, or really anything in his personal life, he had no shortage of questions to better acquaint himself with his mentor.

  “What about you, Gene? Am I ever gonna get to meet the wife?” Marco asked, noticing the simple gold wedding band on his finger.

  Gene clammed up and immediately gained a more serious tone. Gravity came down twofold momentarily.

  “Um, yeah, maybe one day, kid. She passed away several years ago.” Gene looked down at the table, and t
ook a sip of his tea. At this moment, the entire restaurant seemed to have gone silent all at once. The clanking of the dishes in the kitchen ceased, while everyone in the front simultaneously seemed to stop talking, and a long, awkward silence drew.

  Marco picked up a sense that Gene wanted to talk about it, but at the same time, did not. But, ignoring his better judgement to leave the subject alone and move on, he asked anyway. “I’m sorry for that, brother. Might I ask how long ago?”

  “Twelve years, lung cancer. She was a doctor, ironically, and still smoked like a chimney. She wasn’t at all surprised when she was diagnosed, and then refused chemo. She preferred to live the remaining portion of her life happily, knowing she would die, rather than take treatment and be miserably be sick for possibly the rest of her life, with no guarantees. It was noble and I respect her for it, but at the same time there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her. Sometimes I wished she would have taken the treatment, if it meant there was any chance I’d still have her. But I suppose that’s a bit selfish, huh?”

  Gene began to tear up unexpectedly. Marco thought it was incredibly sweet that after twelve years, he still teared up thinking about his wife that long since passed.

  “At that time in my life, I didn’t care whether I lived or died. I took a break from work and lived off our savings and life insurance. I wallowed alone at home for nearly two years before I decided to go back to work, but luckily DPD Homicide took me back with open arms, and I didn’t have to move to a different city.”

  Marco nodded and listened to his story. He was moved by the love he had for her, that he never remarried, and that he still wears the ring. Although, curiosity shot him and he asked anyway. “You never wanted to remarry?”

  “Well, no. I believe that when you find the one person God meant you to be with, then no one can replace them. So how could I marry someone else? That would be like comparing them to my one true love, knowing all the while that they don’t compare. It would be unfair to my second wife, but more importantly it would be unfair to tarnish Carol’s memory.”

  “That’s noble. I respect that,” Marco said simply. “Riposi in pace.”

  Gene looked up at Marco and asked, “What’s that mean?”

  “May she rest in peace.”

  “Riposi in pace, then. Amen,” Gene said, wiping away the lone tear that remained in the corner of his left eye, just in time for the waitress to show up with their food.

  The two of them ate together, at first in silence, but later in more conversation. They talked on less heavy subjects, most of which featured more talk of Marco’s family back home and life in Italy. Then Gene showed Marco some pictures of his only child, a daughter who lives in California, pursuing a career as an actress. The two talked and ate as best friends do, because Gene was indeed Marco’s best and only friend in the United States.

  ---

  They took more than a half hour at the restaurant just to finish eating, and then stuck around another hour just talking at the empty table, and by the time they pulled back into the station parking lot, it was nearly one p.m.

  For most of the rest of the day, Marco sat around, not really doing much of anything. He typed up and printed off all the notes from the two interviews, and put them into his first case file, but that took less than an hour, and from then on he was bored. He had no leads, nowhere to go, no one to talk to, no place to start; they were stuck, and Marco felt guilty for sitting around at his desk, bored, while this woman could potentially be in danger. Plus, he had no other cases yet to work on. Briefing the Captain on the latest developments was the only other social contact he had with anyone for the rest of the day, until he left the station to go home.

  Marco walked out of the station, his bag in hand. He got inside of his old black sedan, which was difficult to get used to again after driving the cloud-on-wheels, and then drove to his cheap apartment. The apartment was on the south side of town, in kind of a high-crime neighborhood, and walking from his car to his door upstairs always made him a bit uneasy, especially at dark.

  He unlocked the paint-chipped golden doorknob, and walked into his one-bedroom abyss. The walls looked like they may have been white at one point, but have long since faded into a yellow tint after years of cigarette smoke. The door opened into a short hallway, which led into the living room. The living room featured the same yellowing paint that was consistent throughout the entire apartment, and was void of any signs of life. There were no pictures on the walls, no paintings, or plants, or decorations. There was one recliner chair in the center of the living room floor, which faced the old box television that sat on a coffee table.

  The living room led into another hallway that split the apartment in half. The doorway on the left side of the hallway led into the bedroom, which incidentally was the only part of the apartment that looked inhabited. His grandmother’s painting hung directly over the bed, and a small framed portrait stood on the bedside table, just behind the alarm clock. The bed didn’t sit on a frame, but instead just consisted of a box spring and mattress. The room was kept tidy with no laundry or trash on the floor. Marco was disciplined in keeping his dirty laundry in a basket in his closet until it was time to wash. Then, he would neatly fold and hang his clothes, and repeat the cycle. This routine seemed so trivial and simple, and Marco always wondered why people could not stick to it without creating a mess.

  On the right side of the hallway, directly adjacent to the bedroom, was the bathroom, which also was the smallest room in the apartment. It had a sink, a toilet, and a shower without a tub. The end of the very short hallway led into the kitchen, which was the only room besides the bathroom that had tile rather than carpet. The kitchen was roughly the same size as the living room, but all the appliances were outdated. The stove did not work properly half of the time, and was notorious for exceeding the correct temperature and burning things; the microwave had not worked in weeks since it died, and the fridge barely stays cold enough to keep the milk from souring.

  Nothing about this apartment was any good, or even acceptable, but Marco had lived here for nearly three years.

  Maybe driving Gene’s car made him have appreciation for nicer things, or maybe the recent raise in pay raised his standards with it, but as Marco walked into his apartment, he stopped, took one look around, and walked back out of the room, onto the balcony, down the stairs, and back into his car.

  The sun had just set behind the buildings in the distance, and now it was dark as Marco sat in the driver’s seat of his beat-up Volkswagen. It was here he decided that, after six years, the low standard of living he had slowly grown accustomed to, was no longer acceptable. The old piece of crap car was no longer acceptable; the smoky, yellowing apartment that reeked of cigarettes and marijuana that wafted over from the neighbors, was no longer acceptable. Marco wanted a bigger space, a couch set, a nicer TV, a full bed that included a frame and headboard, and a new car. He was single and had no pets, no kids, no friends or social life outside of work; so Marco decided it was time to step his life up a bit.

  There he was, in his driver’s seat, ready to go somewhere. He threw the car in reverse and recklessly backed out of his spot, then switched to drive and peeled out of the crumbling lot. Then he just drove. Drove past hotels and past the street that leads to the station. He drove into the city, and all around downtown. He took in the sights of the massive buildings, the happy people on the sidewalks laughing together. He listened to music in his car, despite his speakers rattling and buzzing. Then he drove onto the lot of a Mercedes-Benz dealership.

  He parked and got out of the car, then explored the lot, looking at all the new cars he had always been so attracted to. It wasn’t but a few seconds before he was greeted by an eager salesman, and then they talked. Slowly, they moved the conversation to something closer to Marco’s price range, and then settled on a model. They discussed the specs, the engine capabilities, then they sat in it together. They discussed the speaker system, the navigation, the comf
ort conveniences, down to every small detail of the interior.

  Marco drove the car, and although it didn’t have the same power as Gene’s, it felt the same. It drove smoothly, and the wheel wasn’t too tight. The brakes were not weak, but weren’t too sensitive either. And compared to his old Volkswagen, it had substantial power. Pleasantly surprised with every facet of the vehicle for its price, he ended the drive and followed the salesman into his cubicle. The cubicle itself was nicer than Marco’s apartment entirely. The seats were all leather, and the desk enormous.

  Marco went through the negotiation of price with the salesman, settled on a middle point, discussed down payment, discussed financing, and finally filled out paperwork, closing the deal and making him the proud owner of a brand-new Mercedes-Benz. The pride Marco felt for himself after being handed the keys was kind of overwhelming; he was proud of his accomplishments over the last six years, proud that he made his own life without his father’s money, proud that he progressed so quickly up to the rank of Detective.

  Marco stepped into his new car, which had been fully cleaned and detailed while signing the paperwork, and rode off into the night. He was having so much fun talking about these cars that he didn’t even realize that the car buying process had taken over two hours, and it was now past seven. It was all so euphoric that he wasn’t ready for the night to end. He decided that sleeping in a hotel would be more bearable than his own home, so he did. He paid for an overpriced room on a high floor in the middle of the city, and settled down for the night.

  He watched TV on a flat screen much larger than his box, while lying on a bed that didn’t feel twenty years old. The sheets were clean, cold, and soft. Marco ordered room service, and ate a hotel dinner with a bottle of Coke, then lied in his bed for the rest of the night, eventually drifting off comfortably to sleep, still dressed in the clothes he wore to work.