The Lonely Witness

by William Boyle

  “What are you looking for?”

  Dom goes back to the table and sits down. “You threw out my coffee? I like that shit cold.”

  “Your name was right there on the side. Diane sees that, then what?”

  Dom shrugs. “Vincent stole a purse full of jewelry from me.”

  “You had a purse full of jewelry?”

  “I told you, my father’s a jeweler. He’s got so many pieces he made for my mother and grandmother, diamonds, pearls, gold, you name it. He has this closet in the attic of our place where he keeps it. We live a couple of doors down from that Jewish high school. Big old house He’s got my mom’s old purses and shoe boxes filled with shit. Ziploc bags stuffed in jacket pockets. You ever went in there, you’d just think it was a closet of nothing. Clothes in plastic, old bags, shoes. You dig around a little, bam.”

  “And?”

  “I snagged a couple of the purses, figuring he wouldn’t miss them. I hate my old man. He never gave me a thing. Never taught me his trade. Never taught me to play piano. Just beat the shit out of me and yelled and acted all disappointed. He thinks I’m uncultured. Low. He’s ashamed I’m my age and still live at home. I figured this was my ticket out, sell all the shit for some good bank and go down to the Caribbean. I had a guy in Borough Park was gonna buy everything for what I considered a good price. I had a Russian in Coney was gonna hook me up with papers and a new ID. I was gonna start over. Date a waitress, hang out on the beach, drink beers with limes on the rim, like in those commercials. No more Homestretch.”

  “Start over, just like that?”

  “Right. But I learned the hard way what I should’ve known all along: talking gets you nothing but trouble. I was drunk off my ass one night and I mentioned it to Vincent, and his little cockroach brain started doing backflips. I told him I’d stashed the purses in my trunk since I couldn’t keep them in the house. He wanted that dough. He wanted out. Three nights before what happened, my car was broken into. Nothing missing but the jewelry. Not my radio, not my piece in the glove compartment, not my Jordans on the floor in the back. I knew it was Vincent. Who else?”

  One thought crosses Amy’s mind: Vincent was hiding the jewelry in Mrs. Epifanio’s bedroom. Had to be. And Dom, somehow, doesn’t know Vincent went there three days in a row—the three days right after the jewelry was ripped off. It’s the perfect hiding spot, with Diane having the key and the room mostly unvisited and untouched.

  “What is it?” Dom says.

  “You learned talking gets you nothing but trouble?”

  “I’m telling you because I can sense you’ve got a code. You’re no thief. Help me find the jewelry, and I’ll cut you in.”

  “Didn’t you say your father had more up there? Why not just go after that?”

  “The truth is, I want to be done with him. I want to get this stuff—my stuff—and go.” He scratches his jaw. “I got a limited window of opportunity here. With Vincent dead, who knows what becomes of all this jewelry if I don’t find it soon? And if my old man gets wind of what I’ve done, he’ll fucking lock me in the basement and chain me to the boiler. He did that to me once, you know that? When I was nineteen and conned a guy I didn’t know was Paulie Lo Biondo’s kid out of the keys to his motorcycle and a five-hundred-dollar bottle of Scotch. Help me out here, Amy. Please. I’ll give you five grand.”

  The way Amy figures it, she’s got three options: (1) She tells Dom, and they go and get the jewelry at Mrs. Epifanio’s. The purses are probably just stuffed behind the dresser or in one of the drawers. Easy. She gets Dom off her back that way, and she’s got five grand for her troubles with which to start over in Williamsburg or maybe even LA. (2) She doesn’t tell Dom, and she keeps the jewelry to herself, if it’s there. That’d make her something else altogether, something she never saw herself capable of being. It’d also open up a world of logistical problems. Who would she sell the jewelry to? How do you make contacts like that in this world? (3) She gets Dom out of her hair right now and reports everything to the police. The murder, the jewelry, whatever else. It means coming clean about her own strange behavior, but that’s the cost. She might have to spend the rest of her life trying to understand why she’s made the decisions she’s made in the last few days, just as she’s always been hung up on her high school years. Being with Alessandra again made her remember what desire was, all the things she’s sought to control and tamp down in her religious life. She’s desperate. Maybe she’s always been desperate.

  After a moment of hesitation, she says, “Can you give me the five thousand now?”

  “I can probably scrape it together.”

  “Go get it. I think I know where your jewelry is.”

  14

  Dom says he trusts her. He’s going to borrow the money from Bernie at Homestretch and then he’ll pay Bernie back when he sells the jewelry to the Borough Park guy. Amy wants the money first because she doesn’t want to wait on him. Waiting on him means not leaving. It also means another avalanche of potential problems—things falling apart for Dom, his father catching on, the murder coming to light. The money’s not much, but it’s more than she has now, and she desperately needs something to start over with. She’s not a criminal. She’s not greedy. A chance has fallen into her lap. The God-fearing side of her could make a case that this is all meant to be.

  But Dom doesn’t trust her that much. He wants her to come with him to get the money from Bernie. And then he wants to go with her to wherever she thinks the jewelry is. She hasn’t yet told him where exactly she believes it’s hidden. He makes a couple of veiled threats. “Don’t do anything against me,” he says. “Be a good girl, okay?”

  Amy puts on the wig and packs her backpack. There’s not much she wants or needs, just what’s in the egg crate in the closet: sketches of her tattoos and more old clothes. The bag’s not big enough to fit the few records she held on to. She doesn’t care. She gets her toothbrush and makeup from the bathroom. Her Walkman and tapes. She leaves the library books and everything else. When Dom’s not looking, she grabs the envelope with the knife and picture in it out of the freezer and stuffs it in the front pocket of the backpack. She looks around. She’s not coming back. It already feels like an apartment where no one lives.

  Dom says his car is parked in the St. Mary’s lot. They need to get out of the apartment without Mr. Pezzolanti seeing them. Amy devises a plan to distract him: she’ll go out and ask him if he has batteries she can borrow for her Walkman. He won’t think twice. She could easily run over to Eighty-Sixth Street and grab a package, but he won’t think of that because he’ll be flattered she’s asking him for help. When he goes in to get the batteries, Dom can escape to his car. Amy will wait for the batteries and then meet him there.

  “How do I know you won’t just take off on me?” Dom says.

  “I haven’t yet,” Amy says.

  “True enough.”

  The plan goes off without a hitch. While Mr. Pezzolanti skitters inside, Dom rushes to his car. Amy waits for the batteries. Mr. Pezzolanti brings back ten double As in a sandwich bag fastened with a stringy green twist tie.

  “I only need two, Mr. P,” Amy says.

  “Take them all,” Mr. Pezzolanti says. “I won’t use them.”

  Amy takes the bag. “You sure?”

  “Of course, of course.”

  “Thanks, Mr. P.” Amy’s tempted to hug him and say thanks for everything, but she knows that’ll make him aware that something’s off.

  “I really do like the hair.”

  Amy walks up the block and turns into the St. Mary’s lot. Dom is sitting behind the wheel of a red Dodge Daytona that must be from the eighties. The trunk is open a bit, the lid kept in place with a frayed length of bungee cord. She’s about to get in the passenger side when she hears someone call her name.

  She turns. Monsignor Ricciardi is sitting on the bench at the far end of the lot closest to the rectory. He’s wearing jeans and a Fordham sweatshirt, and he’s got a brown bag in his
hand. Crumbled bread is scattered at his feet, a few pigeons pecking at it on the wet pavement. “Amy, that’s really you?” he says, rising and walking over to her.

  “Monsignor, I’m sorry, I’m in a rush,” Amy says.

  “You look so different.”

  “I know. It’s nothing.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine.”

  He leans down and looks at Dom in the car.

  Dom raises his hand from his thigh, giving Monsignor Ricciardi a nervous little wave.

  “Is that Dominic Mescolotto?” Monsignor Ricciardi says.

  “Hey there, Father,” Dom says.

  Amy is stunned into silence. She was hoping not to be seen with Dom here. She was hoping not to be seen at all. She would’ve also guessed that there was no way Monsignor Ricciardi could know Dom, who clearly isn’t a churchgoer. But she always underestimates how tangled the wires of the neighborhood are.

  “How’s your mother?” Monsignor Ricciardi says to Dom.

  “Just terrific,” Dom says.

  Monsignor Ricciardi explains to Amy: “Dom’s mother helps out with flower arrangements at Emilio’s on Bay Parkway. We go way back, though she no longer attends Mass. Every time there’s a funeral, I talk to Mrs. Mescolotto.” He pauses. “In fact, I’m sure I’ll talk to her later today, because of Diane Marchetti’s son.”

  Amy looks away, over the roof of Dom’s car, at the row houses across the street. An old woman she doesn’t recognize sits on an overturned egg crate, shining a pair of men’s shoes with newspaper and black polish.

  “How do you two know each other?” Monsignor Ricciardi asks.

  “We don’t, really,” Amy says.

  “I’m just selling her something on eBay, that’s it,” Dom says. “One of them old Casio keyboards. It’s in good condition. I’m taking her to look at it now.”

  Monsignor Ricciardi nods. “You’re taking up keyboard, huh, Amy? Gonna give Katrya a run for her money? With the outfit and the hair, maybe you’re joining a band?”

  “Maybe,” Amy says, aware that she’s being short with Monsignor Ricciardi in a way that she’s never been.

  Monsignor Ricciardi’s face tells her he recognizes her tone: someone who has no interest in him or what he’s peddling. “Can I talk to you a sec before you go?” he says.

  “Sure,” Amy says, stepping reluctantly away from Dom’s car.

  “Privately, if you don’t mind?”

  “Like I said, I’m in a rush.”

  “To buy a keyboard? Just come feed the birds with me a minute.”

  They sit on the bench, Amy keeping her backpack between her feet. Monsignor Ricciardi opens his bag and takes out a piece of stale Italian bread, hands it to Amy. She accepts it. She looks across at Dom in the Daytona. He’s antsy, jerking around under the wheel, pawing at his phone. Amy crumbles the bread and tosses some on the ground.

  “I met your father,” Monsignor Ricciardi says.

  “You what?” Amy says.

  “He came and introduced himself to me.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I understand how hard this must be for you. If I may speculate, I think Fred coming back into your life like this has been real tough for you. He told me everything. Must be quite a shock to the system. Things like this, they can cause us to slip back into old bad habits. I can’t help but notice that Fred’s arrival has coincided with you abandoning your responsibilities.”

  “Abandoning is a strong word. Just … stopped. Out of necessity, at first. I was helping Mrs. Epifanio. Other things have gotten in the way.”

  “People depend on you. They look forward to seeing you. We’ve gotten several concerned calls. ‘What happened?’ ‘Is Amy okay?’”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do any of it.”

  “This is about your father?”

  “It’s about me.”

  “Talk to me, Amy. I’m here to listen, to help. We don’t want to lose you, that’s all. A lot of people around here love you. A lot of people are awfully grateful you’re in their lives. I’m one. You’ve made this parish better.”

  “That’s nice of you to say.”

  “It’s true. I’m not just saying it.”

  Amy crumbles a bit more bread and tosses it in the direction of the pigeons. If word gets around, especially if Dom is found out, she knows how this will look to Monsignor Ricciardi, in retrospect. Like she’s an accomplice. And he doesn’t even know she’s got the murder weapon in her bag and that she’s on her way with Dom to pick up the jewelry that Vincent stole. She thinks about decisions, how all these lines cross at once. Vincent steals from Dom; Dom stabs Vincent. Mrs. Epifanio. Diane. Fred and Alessandra thrown back into her life in the middle of this mess.

  “Thanks for your concern, Monsignor,” she says. “I’m fine. Everything’s good.”

  “Your father wants to reconnect with you. I want to help him do that. I think he deserves your forgiveness,” Monsignor Ricciardi says. “I think that’s a good place to start.”

  “I didn’t ask your advice,” Amy says. She gets up and walks back to Dom’s Daytona.

  Dom hits the gas, and they scream out of the lot, Monsignor Ricciardi left scratching his head on the bench, pigeons pecking around at his feet.

  Amy feels unsure about trusting Dom. She’d have to be stupid not to doubt him. One thing she knows is that he killed Vincent, whatever the circumstances were. He could be bringing her anywhere. She certainly doesn’t believe he’s honest, and she sees the holes in his story, but she does believe what he told her about the stolen jewelry, and she believes they’re headed to Homestretch to get five thousand bucks from Bernie. And that money is where her mind is at right now. She’s tried not to let her mind get consumed by money, but she’s in a jam, and money’s what you need when you’re in a jam.

  “A keyboard?” Amy says.

  Dom shrugs. “You know what I heard about that guy?” he says, turning onto Twenty-Third Avenue.

  “About Monsignor Ricciardi?”

  “Yeah, who else?”

  “What’d you hear?”

  “I heard he eats his macaroni with maple syrup.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not shitting you. Macaroni with maple syrup. My mother told me that.”

  “Who cares how he eats his pasta? He’s a nice guy. He’s always been nice to me.”

  “I know, I know. My mother likes him, too. That’s just weird, right? What’s he, Canadian or some shit?”

  They’re at Homestretch in no time at all. Dom pulls up right out front and leaves the car idling. “Bernie says we’re good,” he says. “I texted with him while I was waiting for you to get done with Father Whatshisname. You wait here.” He climbs out and hustles into the bar.

  Amy just sits there, more time to consider how absolutely goddamn crazy this situation is. Vincent’s blood is probably still on the sidewalk just up the block. She opens the glove compartment. Earlier, when he was telling her about how Vincent stole the jewelry from his trunk, Dom had mentioned the other things Vincent didn’t take from the car. A gun in the glove compartment was one.

  It’s here, and the exact kind she’d imagined. Something bought at a pawnshop or from a van in some alley. Dirty. Probably hot. She thinks this is a good opportunity to get rid of the knife. To put it right there next to the gun. She takes the envelope out of the front pocket of her backpack and empties the knife onto her leg. She wipes it down with her shirt. She scoops it up with the envelope and deposits it in the glove compartment behind the gun. She closes the glove compartment, wiping down the latch with the sleeve of her cardigan. She’s relieved. That’s one inexplicable bad decision adjusted. The knife’s back where it belongs. The picture she’s keeping for now. She tucks the envelope back into her backpack.

  The door to Homestretch claps open, and Lou comes bounding out. The guy in sauce-stained whites who hit on her relentlessly when she was here. He motions for her to rol
l down her window.

  She doesn’t.

  He talks through the glass. “You’re in the same clothes and I’m in the same clothes,” he says. “How about that?”

  She doesn’t respond.

  “I saw you through the window. I like the hair. A lot. Tell me it’s a wig. I’m fucking fascinated by wigs. Had a teacher in grade school I was in love with, wore a wig. Found out later she was sensitive about a bald patch she had over her ear.”

  “Leave me alone,” Amy says.

  Lou’s breath is fogging the glass, his voice only slightly muffled. “Tell me one more thing. You’re not with Dom, right? Can’t be. Come on. How’d that happen? Beautiful girl like you? He’s a fucking caveman. You want a drink? Have a drink with me. Forget Dom. One time, I saw him eat a dead cockroach off the bar on a dare. He won’t give a shit. He’s used to losing.”

  Amy takes out her phone. She opens her contacts and clicks enter for Alessandra. The phone rings five times and goes to Alessandra’s voice mail. Amy doesn’t say anything. Lou’s still standing there, like an animal in a zoo waiting for her to throw him a handful of food. He bangs on the glass as Amy closes the phone. She entertains the idea of taking out the gun and showing it to Lou, but that’d be dumb.

  A bald man in his sixties, toothpick clenched between his lips, turns the corner from West Tenth and notices Lou. The man’s in a nice suit, wearing a purple flower on his lapel. Fancy watch. Gold rings on both hands. His head is shiny. The wispy hair on the back of his head is greasy and curly. Amy watches him in the rearview mirror first and then turns to watch through the glass as Lou’s attention is diverted to the man.

  “Lou, where is he?” the man says, raspy-voiced, ballooning his chest out.

  “He’s inside with Bernie, Mr. M,” Lou says.

  It takes Amy only a second to ascertain that this is Dom’s father. Tony Mescolotto. Trouble.

  “Bernie’s the one who called me,” Tony says, and then he takes a good long look at Amy. “Who’s she?”

  “Just some broad from the bar,” Lou says.

  “How do you know my son, sweetheart?” Tony says, leaning close to the glass.