by Leslie Karst
“No, I don’t think so. Like I told the policeman, he was kind of loud, with all that bragging and stuff. And sort of rude, too, I thought. The way he kept talking about himself while she just sat there listening. But he didn’t seem especially drunk to me.” Cathy stopped and stared out the picture window, her forefinger tapping her cheek. “You know,” she said, turning back toward me, “that just reminded me of something. The woman he was with had a pad of paper and was writing stuff down.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. It was almost as if she was, like, interviewing him or something. I completely forgot about that till just now.”
Which meant she hadn’t given this piece of information to the cops. “Man, I’d sure love to talk to her, especially if she really was interviewing Gino. And think about it: she may very well be the last person to have seen him alive. Has she been back in the restaurant since then?”
Cathy shook her head. “Not that I know of. And that night was the first time I’d ever seen her in here. I don’t think she’s a regular or anything.”
“Well, if she does come back in, be sure to tell me.”
“Will do.”
“And do see if you can dig up the guest check for their table. It would be great if we could prove we only served Gino one or two beers.”
Elena had just seated several large tables for lunch and was shooting me a pleading look, so I released Cathy back out on the floor to help out. Watching her take the drink orders at table six, I considered what she’d just told me. The question of Gino’s intoxication raised a much bigger one: How exactly had the old fisherman died? Had he in fact fallen over the side of the wharf, as Bobby and his friend apparently believed, because he was so drunk he couldn’t walk straight? Or had something else happened?
But wait, I thought. We don’t even know when he died. How long would it take a drowned person’s body to wash up on a beach? For all I knew, he could have fallen off his fishing boat or something days after he ate at Solari’s. Though the fact that he’d never shown up again at the restaurant after that night suggested otherwise.
Okay, so let’s assume, then, that Gino did die that night, sometime after leaving the restaurant. If he wasn’t drunk, as Cathy had said, how would he have ended up in the ocean? Even intoxicated, it would be hard to fall into the water, given the high railing that ran along most parts of the wharf to prevent such an occurrence.
And then I had an ugly thought: Could he have been pushed?
Maybe that’s what the cops thought, and that was the reason they’d been interviewing people here yesterday. I was about to go in search of my dad to ask him about the police visit when the man at table eight caught my eye and waved me over.
It was Angelo, another one of Solari’s regulars. He was hunched over a cup of coffee at the booth in the far corner of the restaurant, his usual spot. I slid into the red leather seat across from him and he reached out a hand, which I took. His grip was strong, notwithstanding the man’s wiry build, and his skin leathery and smooth.
“You heard about Gino, I gather.”
“Yes,” he said, releasing my hand with a gentle squeeze.
“I’m so sorry. I know you were friends.”
Angelo nodded and turned to look out at the empty bocce court and the steel blue water off Cowell’s Beach beyond. “I haven’t actually spent much time with him over the past couple months,” the older man said. What was he—seventy, seventy-five years old? It was hard to tell; all that time out on the water setting lines and reeling in nets had no doubt taken its toll on the fisherman’s appearance.
“Really? Why not?” I asked. “We certainly saw him here in the bar as much as ever.”
“Yes, and that I think was the problem,” Angelo said with a frown. “I don’t know what was going on with him, but when I told him I thought maybe he should lighten up a little on the drinking, he got really angry and just cut me off. Like that.” The fisherman snapped his fingers. “After all those years.”
I reached out to touch his bronzed forearm. “I’m sure Gino didn’t really mean it. He was just hurt.” As was Angelo, obviously. And now the two friends would never be able to make it right.
“Sorry to interrupt, but here’s your lunch.” Neither of us had noticed Elena hovering with a sandwich piled high with meatballs and marinara sauce. Angelo smiled at the server and leaned back to allow her to set the plate before him.
“So, I was wondering if I could ask you something,” I said as Angelo shook his red napkin out and spread it over his lap. “As I said, Gino was in here pretty much every afternoon, but he always just had his usual two Bud Lights. Do you think maybe he’d started drinking somewhere else as well? Or maybe at home?”
“Maybe. But it wasn’t all that obvious. You wouldn’t necessarily even have noticed it unless you knew him well. That’s the way it often is with alcoholics. They’re really good at hiding it. But he started getting angry a lot more. And he was getting into arguments with me—and other people—over stupid, little things. He’d be irrational. And mean. That’s what did it for me, how nasty he could be.” Angelo cut a meatball in two and stabbed half with his fork. “There’s nothing worse than a mean drunk.”
“So, do you believe it, what they said in the paper?”
The fisherman raised an eyebrow as he chewed his meatball.
“You know, that he was drunk when he left Solari’s that night. That he must have fallen and hit his head and then ended up in the water.”
“It’s possible,” he said, after taking a sip of coffee to wash down his food. “But if so, it wouldn’t be your fault. It’s pretty near impossible to stop someone from drinking who wants to.”
“I sure hope other people feel the same way as you.” I recounted what Bobby and his friend had yelled at me yesterday, and Angelo just laughed.
“Stefano’s boy has always been a hothead,” he said. “I wouldn’t worry too much what he says.” He cut a slice of sauce-covered bread from his sandwich and chewed it while I contemplated what he’d said about Gino. If it was true that he’d had a drinking problem, was Solari’s partly to blame?
Chapter 5
“So, what was Gino like?” I asked Angelo as he took another sip of coffee. “I only knew him as the old man who’d come in here every afternoon and stare out the window. He didn’t talk a whole lot. Except when he was with a woman he was trying to impress, that is.”
Angelo set his cup down with a clunk. “No, he wasn’t generally one for many words when he was with the boys. He’d mostly just listen to others as they’d gab. But when he did open his mouth and speak, it was usually a gem.”
“Like poetry, you mean?”
“Hardly. It was more likely to be profanity. But always spot on.” Angelo shook his head and grinned. “He was a piece of work, was old Gino.”
Elena started over with the brown-topped carafe to refill Angelo’s coffee and I motioned for her to bring me one as well.
“Didn’t you two used to fish together?” I asked once both our cups had been filled.
“Well, we never worked on the same boat, since we both had our own. But we’d go out together sometimes and fish the same spots.”
“Really? You showed each other your spots?” Growing up in a fishing family, I knew how secretive folks could be about where to catch the best fish.
Angelo laughed again, and the sound of his deep, melodious voice made me smile. “Truth be told,” he said, “I would never have voluntarily shown him my places, but back when I first knew him, about forty years ago, he’d wait for me to leave the harbor and then follow me to see where I’d go. I guess he’d heard I had pretty good luck finding the prime spots. I’d try to outrun him, but his boat was faster than mine, so it was useless.”
“Whoa. That’s not good form. I’m surprised that you became friends after that.”
“Nah, it was okay. Back then there were a lot more fish to go around than now. And I kind of admired his faccia tosta—his, you know…”
“Chutzpah,” I supplied.
“Right.” Angelo chuckled and cut another bite of sandwich. “Anyway, it was actually nice having him out there. Even though he didn’t talk much, we were good company for each other as we’d set our lines and wait for the fish to bite. That was how we ended up becoming friends. I guess we just kind of got used to each other.”
I waited while he chewed his bread and meatball and then took another sip of coffee. “Were you two still going out fishing together, up until he cut you off?”
Angelo shook his head. “We hadn’t gone out together in ages. Gino gave up his slip at the harbor about five years back, and after that he kept his boat on a trailer and would take it down to the launch ramp when he wanted to go out. I think that’s when he started using Bobby, Stefano’s kid, to help him crew. He couldn’t handle the launching by himself anymore.”
I could well imagine. The “Monterey” style boats the older fishermen around here tended to use—what they called lamparas, modeled after the Italian feluccas of the early nineteen hundreds—were fairly big and unwieldy and would be difficult for someone in his seventies or eighties to launch from a trailer all by himself.
“Wasn’t Bobby also doing other stuff for him, too?”
“That’s right,” Angelo said. “Bobby’s been quite the godsend to Gino over the past few years. Not just with his boat, which as you know requires a great deal of maintenance, but also around his house.” The fisherman smiled as he took another sip of coffee. “You should see his place. It’s a bit of a wreck.”
“Where did Gino live?” I asked. “In the Barranca?” This is the old Little Italy neighborhood on the West Side of Santa Cruz, where the original Sixty Families had built their homes after arriving from Liguria.
“Uh-huh. On Gharkey, that yellow-and-white place near the corner of Lighthouse. His grandfather built it, I think.”
Like my great-grandfather, Ciro, had done—probably around the same time.
“But his nonno would not be happy with it now,” Angelo went on. “If it weren’t for Bobby helping with repairs, it would probably be just about falling down.”
“Were they close, Gino and Bobby?” I asked, thinking back to the accusation Bobby and his friend had shouted at me. “You know, after spending all that time together?”
“I’d say so. Gino had become pretty reliant on him over the years. Of course, I can’t speak to the last couple months—you know, since Gino cut me off—but I do know he used to talk very highly of the boy. Almost like he was his son.”
Angelo gazed out the picture window for a moment, watching a young man bait his hook and then cast the line out to the inlet that lies between the wharf and the cliffs beyond. After a moment he turned back to me. “Gino never had any of his own children, you know. In fact, he once told me he was going to give his boat to Bobby when he died, because, he said, no one else in his family would appreciate it as much as Bobby would.”
* * *
Driving home after my talk with Angelo, I pondered what he’d told me about Gino and Bobby. If they’d been as close as Angelo seemed to think, Bobby’s venting of his anger about the old man’s death would certainly make sense.
But, then again, if it was true that Bobby stood to inherit Gino’s boat, the fisherman’s passing also resulted in an enormous benefit for him. A boat like that would have to be worth a bundle. Could Bobby have known of Gino’s intended bequest? I wondered as I waved my fob at the keypad at the end of the wharf and waited for the gate to rise.
Cruising through the roundabout, I headed up the hill onto West Cliff Drive and, after waiting for a pink spandex–clad woman with a jogging stroller to get through the crosswalk, turned right onto Bay Street.
I had to brake suddenly when a massive Winnebago lunged out of the Dream Inn parking lot right in front of me, and as I slowed, I noticed the sign for Lighthouse Street. I was only a couple blocks from where Angelo had told me Gino lived. Perhaps a quick detour was in order.
Several doors down on Gharkey Street sat a yellow-and-white bungalow with an old wooden boat on a trailer in the driveway—one of those “Monterey clipper” types so popular among the Italian fishermen of San Francisco and the Monterey Bay. “Bella Adella” was painted in dark green block letters on the boat’s white bow.
This was clearly the place. I pulled over to the curb and surveyed the property: shades drawn shut, paint peeling and showing exposed wood in places, the lawn looking as if it hadn’t been watered or mowed in ages. Angelo had been right about the house being in bad shape.
The boat, on the other hand, appeared perfectly maintained. It had fresh paint both top and bottom, with shiny hardware all over. Not a speck of rust, nor any barnacles or slime to be seen on its gleaming black hull. You could certainly tell what had been most important in the old fisherman’s life, I thought with a smile.
I had just released the T-Bird’s parking brake and was about to continue on home when someone called out my name. “Sally? What the hell are you doing here?” A man emerged from the boat’s wheelhouse and peered down at me.
It was Bobby. But why would he be here now? It wasn’t as if he was still working for his old boss. “I guess I could ask the same of you,” I said.
“I’m just checking on Gino’s stuff to make sure no one’s messing with it. Now that he’s dead.” I couldn’t tell for sure behind the mirrored sunglasses he wore, but I was pretty certain he shot me an accusatory look along with that last word.
“Look, Bobby,” I said, opening the car door and climbing out. “I know what you think, but it isn’t true. We’re not responsible for Gino’s death.”
“That’s not what I heard.” He took another step forward and leaned on the wooden railing. “I heard he was so blotto when he left Solari’s that he couldn’t even walk straight.”
“He only had two beers that night and ate a full dinner as well, so there’s no way what we served him could have gotten him ‘blotto.’” I crossed the sidewalk to stand below him. “But I have heard that Gino had been drinking a lot lately. At least that’s what Angelo says.”
Bobby didn’t respond, and I thought maybe I’d set him off again. He stared at me for a moment but then let out a long breath. “Yeah, I think Angelo may be right,” he said, pushing off from the railing and standing up straight. “I’ve been crewing for Gino for a few years now, but the past couple months I think he mighta been hitting the bottle more than before. I mean, he had always drank. We’d sometimes share a six-pack after coming back from a fishing trip an’ all. But recently?” Bobby ran a paint-spattered hand through his short, curly hair. “I dunno. He seemed out of it a lot, I guess. Not all the time, but definitely sometimes.”
“He still went out fishing, though, right?”
“I don’t think anything would have stopped him from going fishing.” Bobby walked to the stern of the boat, climbed carefully over the gunwale onto the trailer, and dropped to the ground. “And his drinking didn’t seem to affect that at all. He always caught more than me. And then would brag about it the whole way home.”
“But he needed your help on the boat…”
“For some things. Like, he had a hard time launching by himself. I’d usually back the boat down the ramp while he stood on the dock and tied up. But I know for a fact he’d sometimes go out without me.” He laughed. “I’m sure he drove the other people in line at the ramp nuts while they waited for him to launch by himself.”
“So why’d he hire you to help, you think, if he could do it himself?”
“Well, even though he went fishing once in a while on his own, like I said, it was way easier if I was there to help. And I don’t think he was hurting for money.” Bobby gestured toward the house and then the boat. “So why not hire someone?”
I glanced down the driveway where he had pointed and saw that the side door into the building was standing wide open. “He gave you a key to the house?”
“Yeah. I’ve been helping him with boat mainten
ance and fixing things around the house for a while, too. You can see the place needs a ton of work.” Bobby pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, which I now noticed also bore splotches of dark paint. “The cops had that yellow tape up for a couple days after they found him, but it was gone yesterday, so I figured it was okay to come back over and check things out.”
“Would you mind if I went inside? I heard the house was built around the same time as my dad’s place, and I’d love to take a look around.”
Bobby’s manner had been laid-back up till this point, but now it changed. His fingers began to twitch and his eyes darted from me to the house and back again. “Sure,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “I guess that’d be okay.”
I followed him down the driveway and inside the building. The door led into a laundry room/pantry area, and from there we entered the kitchen. The first thing I noticed was the stove, which looked to be from the 1940s. It was one of those white enameled jobs with the griddle in the middle and a warming area. And it was in good shape—clean and obviously well loved. The tile counters were a sort of peachy-orange and brown, and the black-and-white checkerboard floor looked like the original linoleum, scuffed and faded as it was.
But my eyes were most drawn to the pegboard on the wall, upon which hung an array of cookware: cast iron skillets, heavy-bottomed aluminum pans, and a matched set of gorgeous copper pots. “Wow,” I said. “Was Gino really into cooking? I had no idea.”
“Yeah, he was always making something, it seemed like. Lots of pasta sauce and fish, mostly.” Bobby had the freezer open and was pushing items around. After a bit he came up with a cellophane-wrapped burrito. “Lunch,” he said, popping it into the microwave. He didn’t offer me one, but then again, I would have declined if he had.
“I’m a little surprised Gino bought those,” I said with a chuckle. “He doesn’t seem the frozen burrito type, if you know what I mean.” I gestured toward the cookware lining the walls.
“Gino didn’t buy them, I did,” Bobby said.
