The Recipe Cops

by Keith Weaver

  Sanford was dumbfounded. He realized that their special spot had always been The Recipe Cops for him. He had never questioned where the name came from. Having Maria’s account of how it had got its name made the place ten times as important for him. Even though Joe knew what was behind the name The Recipe Cops, he had never discussed it with Sanford, and he knew why now. Explaining it, examining it, analysing it, would have been like revealing to a child that her favourite fairy tale was a load of crap. Joe had kept intact the name The Recipe Cops, a term that was meaningless in any ordinary semantic sense, but was still full of mystical significance for Sanford. It was then, and in some ways was even more now, a little mystery, a little piece of magic.

  For what seemed a long time, Sanford sat in a reverie, listening to the sounds of Genoa all around him.

  God bless you Joe.

  Suddenly back in the present, Sanford suggested that they pay for lunch and take a taxi back to the hotel. A few words from Maria to the waiter organized that. Within twenty minutes, they were back in Sanford’s suite. He expected Julia to be fatigued, but the surroundings and the companionship of the day had shifted her into adrenaline overdrive.

  Maria began making noises about going home, and Julia’s face fell.

  “But aren’t you at home here Maria?” she asked somewhat plaintively.

  “I feel completely at home here Giulia, but I have my house to look after.”

  Julia almost did a pout, but then her face cleared. “Could I come and stay with you Maria?”

  Maria turned to Sanford, and he could see a bright inner light burning behind her eyes.

  “I don’t see why not”, he said.

  “Are you coming too, Daddy?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I’ll just come over during the day. How’s that?”

  “Okay. Can I take my new suitcase?”

  “I think you’ll need to take it. You can’t carry your clothes in a plastic bag. So, maybe Maria can go and help make sure you have everything you need.” He had barely finished the statement when they were bustling off to the bedroom.

  Sanford’s mind returned to the emails he had sent earlier. Genoa so far had been like a sweet dream of discovery, marked by a single nightmare episode that Sanford knew would fade quickly for all of them. In comparison to what he expected from the next two weeks, even just thinking about the realities that would be waiting for him back in Toronto was unwelcome. But he tipped all that over the side in order to tune in to the happy chatter trickling out from the bedroom.

  A ping from Sanford’s iPad indicated another incoming email. Surely it couldn’t be Meloni at this time of his night.

  It wasn’t.

  Dear Jim,

  You might have heard already, or you will soon hear, about the fate that befell a slimy little bastard called Lulu. I think that is the last loose end tied off. This saves you the trouble and risk of going after the little prick yourself. Call it my last parting gift. Enjoy your life. You won’t hear from me again. Don’t try to contact me. You won’t find me.

  Harold.

  Sanford was mystified. He really had no idea what Harold was talking about. He sat there puzzling over the words for a few minutes, then gave up.

  He was about to write a quick friendly note to Maxwell, just to keep in touch, when his iPad pinged a second time. It was another email from Conway. When Sanford opened it, he was surprised at how long the email was.

  Conway related a number of details. There was a lot of chatter in the underworld, he said. Even though the picture Sanford had sent was not great quality, being a picture taken of a picture, Conway had had no trouble finding people who could identify the two men. (Apparently, Conway’s world never slept.) The older one was Charles Jeffers, which was what had attracted Sanford’s eye to the photo of two men he had spotted when he was in the apartment with Howell, where Helen’s cellphone had been found. While Howell had been busy making notes, Sanford had used his phone to take an image of the framed picture. Conway’s reply indicated that the younger man in the picture went by several names, but the nickname everyone knew him by was “Lulu”. Lulu was one of Jeffers’ gophers. The two of them apparently did small jobs together, but Lulu undertook any shit work that Jeffers wanted done.

  This information had Sanford reeling already, but the real kicker was the last three sentences in Conway’s email: Lulu was found yesterday morning in a cheap hotel off Dundas Street West in Toronto. He was lying naked on the bed and had been strangled manually. More details when I can get them.

  Sanford sat in stunned silence for at least a minute.

  “Holy Christ”, he muttered to himself, feeling a tsunami of anger, hatred, and revulsion begin to overwhelm him. Helen’s death hadn’t been what he reluctantly had come to suspect, kinky sex gone wrong! More likely, Lulu had tried to throttle information out of Helen and went too far! Or maybe he got something from her and thought it was what he wanted. Or maybe, having unmasked himself, he just finished Helen off, eliminated a source of incrimination, just another task in a busy day. Sanford was breathing heavily, and realized that his fists were clenched so tightly that one of his fingernails had pierced the skin of his palm. Take it easy, Jim boy! Remember who depends on you now. Working yourself up into a lather won’t change anything for the better.

  And then, without warning, a huge wave of compassion swept over Sanford, compassion for Helen, and sadness at a great love gone wrong. He realized, in cold finality, that an impossible last flicker, a final, dim, wildly irrational hope he had been harbouring, that he and his now dead ex-wife Helen, his beloved Helen, still could have pulled it all together again, had been extinguished savagely. Any chance to retrieve the love of his life had been doomed long since, any pretence to the contrary had been stripped away roughly, and he was now face to face with the cold reality. Helen, his poor, beautiful, suffering Helen, was dead, murdered. That book had been closed and pulped. Sanford could almost hear a number of doors slamming.

  Portals in Literature and Life. Joe was with him once again.

  Sanford thought almost immediately of Helen’s parents, Gillian and Philip. At least they would not have to stagger under these dreadful last details about their daughter. This was part of the story that, with luck, they would never know. Lulu was dead. Both the Jeffers brothers were dead. The police would never get to the bottom of it. There might be supposition, theories, but those would never make it beyond the case notes.

  The only people who knew now were Sanford and Harold. He cursed the old bastard Harold under his breath. It was Harold who had caused all this. Sanford realized how much he really did hate the old swine. But at the same time he had to admit to a grudging respect for the man’s thoroughness and the degree of his awareness.

  Images flooded Sanford’s head. Helen as a young woman. So engaging, so beautiful, so alive. Flashes of the wild, exhilarating ride that had carried them intimately into each other’s lives. Their wedding – small, simple, scintillating. Then the birth of Julia, an event that Sanford had relived hundreds of times.

  The image of the past struck him with massive impact. The carriage. The railway carriage that had once contained all his dreams, the place where once he could actively connect past and present, was now decoupled, receding away from him down the line. And it had decoupled everything else as well, was carrying away all that joy, all those unfolding but now frame-frozen dreams, into an irretrievable past.

  By a force of will, Sanford thought of the future. The first innocent phrase entering his mind was that it would be what it would be, but that was swept away by a much more forceful and positive statement. No! It will be what we make it!

  And what would they make it?

  Literally, there was a new life to be constructed. Julia had to get to know everything possible about her grandfather, Joe. That meant spending time at Joe’s place. But it was at least as important that she get to know her living grandmother, Maria. That meant spending time here in Italy.

  A pic
ture was forming in Sanford’s mind. And the more he thought about it, even though it seemed slightly crazy, the more comfortable, the more natural, and the more right it felt. Julia would spend time living in Italy. She would get to know her Italian roots. And the shock, the surprisingly pleasant shock for Sanford, was that he would have to do the same, because the roots here, for him, were even closer and deeper.

  Sanford knew, without question, what he had to do.

  “Gianni? Is something wrong?” They were both standing before him. The concern was evident in Maria’s voice.

  Sanford wiped his cheeks which were wet from tears.

  “There are some painful things I have to get used to Maria, but no, nothing is wrong. In fact, everything is suddenly right.”

  Sanford led them over to the sofa, and they sat, Julia between him and Maria.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, Julia …”

  Thirty-one

  The beginning of the rest of Sanford’s life remained with him as a series of images. The events of the evening of Jeffers’ attack faded. An interesting tapestry began to appear as the lives of Maria, Julia, and Sanford began weaving themselves together.

  The Italian images were an invitation to discovery.

  Julia and Maria spent a week together, and fell naturally into a bond that was between grandmother and granddaughter, but also between friends. Sanford joined them every day at some point, and they had dinner together every evening, at Maria’s place, but also at small local restaurants where everyone knew Maria. During the day, Sanford stayed out of their way, mostly, but also found himself a crash course in Italian, and worked at it for several hours each day.

  For their third evening meal taken at a local restaurant, they walked ten minutes from Maria’s flat to a small osteria, where they were met at the door by a wiry man, tanned deep brown. His dark eyes twinkled. He took Sanford by the hand and said “Finalmente! Il figlio di Giuseppe! Benvenuto!”, and he kissed Sanford on both cheeks. He hustled them into his small, cosy restaurant, seated them at what turned out to be Maria’s special table, and then began making big hand gestures and issuing instructions to his staff. Bottles of wine appeared on the table, as if dropped there by a genie. Corks popped, and the restaurateur, whose name was Maurizio, appeared to pluck wine glasses from the air and began to fill them. He stopped suddenly.

  “Che vorrebbe bere?” he said suddenly, standing there waving bottle and glasses in his hands, inclining his head toward Julia. In his head, Sanford translated: What would she like to drink? He hoped that Julia would remember the everyday phrases they had been practising, would remember what to say. She demonstrated that she was Joe’s granddaughter.

  “Vino bianco!”

  Maria and Maurizio looked at Julia in surprise. Maurizio did an ecstatic little dance.

  “Bravissima! Bravissima! Parla italiano!”

  Sanford winked at Julia, gave her a hug, and whispered “Well done!”

  Maurizio was in a high-speed chatter with Maria but managed to pour half a glass of white wine for Julia.

  “E un po’ di acqua minerale”, Sanford said.

  Maurizio waved his arms energetically, the wine sloshing dangerously near the rim of the glass.

  “Formidabile! Tutti e due parlano italiano!”

  Somehow, all the glasses were filled, and Maurizio then turned slightly more serious, raised his glass, and said “Al mio amico Giuseppe!”

  They all drank, to Maurizio’s friend Giuseppe, then Maurizio rushed off to welcome someone else.

  “Joe and Maurizio knew each other?” Sanford asked Maria.

  Maria nodded, chewing a tarallo. “They became quite good friends. Maurizio never got used to the fact that Joe could speak such – what’s that word again? – such fluent Italian. Joe came here most days for a drink with Maurizio, and Joe and I ate here probably twice in every week that Joe was in Genoa.” Maria looked around the comfortable little restaurant. “I think they miss him.”

  “We all miss him, Maria.”

  They went back to Maurizio’s place twice more. There were day trips to many spots in and around Genoa, but after Sanford had rearranged their previous travel agenda, they also travelled further afield in Italy. Maria accompanied them to Milan, to Bologna, and of course to Rome. For Sanford, almost every day, but particularly during their days in Rome, there were strong chords of déjà vu, and he put that down to many barely remembered fragments that Joe must have related during the time, during the fifteen or so formative years, when Joe had had the strongest influence on the young Sanford. In Rome, they walked themselves almost to death, and Sanford took hundreds of pictures, many of them shots of Julia and Maria in front of well-known sites, but also next to twee restaurants, in small lanes, and in stands of pines. They spent a half day at The Victor Emmanuel Monument, and they took photos of each other at just the spot where Maria and Joe had photographed each other when they were in their twenties.

  After a lot of discussion, Maria agreed to travel back with them to Canada for a visit. The remainder of their holiday in Italy was an extended dream, a dream that Sanford was reluctant to see end.

  Then there were the arrangements to return to Canada, and Sanford could see that there was a glint of curious expectancy and excitement in Maria’s eyes.

  During the flight back to Toronto, Sanford was lost in thought.

  Despite buying a seat for Maria almost at the last minute, he did manage to bargain a swap so that the three of them could sit together. Maria wanted the aisle seat, and Julia wouldn’t sit anywhere except next to Maria, so Sanford was shunted to the window. He watched the two of them as they read comics in Italian, but soon Julia began nodding off. Maria glanced across at Sanford occasionally, but her expression was impossible to read. Expectant, certainly. But there was something else as well. Something connected to Joe.

  Without having to think about it, plans began forming in Sanford’s mind. What they would do in Canada. Return trips to Italy. But he could also see important discussions that would unfold.

  There was Aileen.

  Aileen had been spared, by Joe, from what might have been a lonely and sadly barren life. Joe, who must have become early on a friend and confidant, had sensed a mutual advantage, and had entrusted Jim to her to raise as a son of her own. And she had done a job that was second to none, but the price she paid was a perpetual fear of having her dream shattered. That was why Joe had agreed reluctantly not to tell Sanford about his origins. Aileen was petrified that her son Jim would become distant, or, worse, that she would lose him altogether. Sanford’s gratitude to Aileen was now fathomless.

  There was Joe.

  By agreeing to keep Aileen’s secret, Joe had also committed himself to silence on being Sanford’s father. So he had raised a son without the son ever knowing that his friend and mentor was really his father, at least not while the father was alive. It was clear to Sanford that Joe had not intended this to be an arrangement permanent for all time, that Sanford would have learned the full story of his own past following Aileen’s sudden death, if fate then hadn’t taken Joe as well. But even given all that, Joe could not leave a written record of Sanford’s past, which Sanford would then undoubtedly read, in case Joe happened to die before Aileen, thereby leaving her to answer all the tough questions, and placing her squarely before the greatest fear in her life: the risk of alienation from her son Jim. Even for someone having Joe’s strength, what a sacrifice this must have been! Joe had also kept from Maria the fact that she had a granddaughter. Why? Having had time to think the matter through, this now seemed pretty evident to Sanford. What could Maria have done knowing that fact? Well, nothing, without the potential of causing both Aileen and Joe great grief, if somehow the truth had slipped to Sanford, especially while Aileen was still alive. And if she had known and simply kept quiet? To put Maria in the position of having to live with that bottled-up knowledge would have been cruel on Joe’s part. So, Joe had just kept quiet. Even Aileen’s death Joe
had kept from Maria, at least until Joe had had a chance to unveil the full picture for Sanford, an outcome cruelly short-circuited by Joe’s sudden death. Chance and circumstance had rendered it a no-win situation for everyone.

  Sanford now was reconciled also to the dark element in his past.

  Harold.

  Sanford was convinced now that Harold was almost amoral. Almost. He probably did have, at one time, some considerable feeling for Aileen, but he had no guiding light on how to act in concert with those feelings, and with respect to Aileen he had behaved abominably. At best, he was a man ill-equipped to handle even the simplest moral situations. At worst, he was somebody whose serious psychological defects left the deck stacked against him. At bottom, he was an inveterate criminal and liar, and his refined and accomplished low cunning had turned these characteristics practically into an art form. It was Harold’s actions that had caused their paths to cross those of the unspeakable Jeffers brothers. In the end, Harold had taken the easy way out and just bought himself off from any perceived commitments. He was now out of their lives, and good riddance.

  In Canada, Sanford treated Maria to all the touristy things. He recalled images of Maria in his condo in Toronto, and like all first-time visitors, she stared for half an hour at a lake so big that one couldn’t see the other side. They strolled through the university.

  “Here it is, Maria”, Sanford said, pointing to a large ornate building.

  “This is where Joe attended university?”

  Sanford nodded. “Yes. Right here.”

  “Can we go in?” she asked.

  “Certainly.”

  They wandered the halls for about fifteen minutes. Maria peered into rooms, while Sanford scanned the walls until he found what he wanted.