“That was a very long time ago, Matt. Let it rest.”
“I can’t. The doubt won’t go away. I could never understand why Dad went into that bar, especially at Christmastime. And the doubt is aggravated by the fact that a man who became an organized crime guy bailed him out of it.”
She looked into her nephew’s face. Brushing her thumb across her wedding band, she said, “Your father went into that bar to confront Anthony Rutolo about me.”
“You and Beansy?”
“I wasn’t always a nun, Matt.” She looked down at her folded hands, then looked back at Stuart, a tinge of color suffusing her cheeks. “In those days, I had a reputation for being wild. I was young, foolish, and headstrong.”
Matt Stuart shook his head in mute amazement. He was anxious for her to get where she was going, but he knew she had to get there at her own pace.
“My young rebellion was nothing compared to the kids of today, but it was a very big deal for the daughter of a cop, and from a good Catholic family, to boot.” She looked at the flickering, ever-tended flame of the red vigil light.
“It may be hard to imagine, but Beansy, as you call him, was a real dreamboat, as we’d say, back in those days. Long eyelashes, handsome, a great dancer. And he had a kind of gentleness, a sweetness that was uncommon in boys. I used to sneak out of the house to meet him. One evening we … went too far, the only time it ever happened. And I got pregnant.”
Stuart reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.
“He said he’d marry me. I won’t say he wanted to, we weren’t twenty at the time, but he would have. I just couldn’t face it. My family—your family—was prejudiced against Italians back then; they’d simply not have countenanced marriage. And truth to tell, it wasn’t what I wanted, either.”
“You do seem to have found what you wanted, Aunt Elizabeth.”
She smiled and nodded. “I have. No question. But to go back, Anthony was so kind to me. He was working weekends and after school then, at the family cheese business, and he took on extra hours to pay for the operation. My family never did know. I visited a girlfriend in Schenectady, at their summer cabin, with no phone. Oh, it was all meticulously arranged for secrecy. But somehow your father found out what had happened, and he went to that saloon to have it out with Anthony. They talked, and when your father calmed down, he called me, and I confirmed that Anthony had been as supportive as he could be, and so far as I know, he never spoke a word about the matter afterward. He did feel guilt, I know that. And he did feel a measure of respect for your father, I know that, too. They got to know and understand each other during that conversation in the saloon. Each of them told me something like that, separately.”
“Did you ask him to testify for Dad?”
“He did that on his own. It was his way of saying, ‘I’m sorry’—and because he was there with him when the shooting happened, he knew your father was innocent of any wrongdoing.”
Matt Stuart felt the weight of years removed from him; taking both his aunt’s hands in his, he sat with her in the consoling silence of the chapel and prayed for his father—and perhaps for himself.
She wore a rust-colored turtleneck under a man’s faded denim shirt with the tails hanging out over her jeans. A shaft of sunlight cut across her face as she struggled the bags of groceries out of the shopping cart and into the trunk of her car.
Before he left his house, he had telephoned her at home. When he got no answer, he remembered that she did her grocery shopping every Saturday at Waldbaum’s.
She slammed the trunk closed and shoved the cart out of the way. As she was about to open the car door, he stepped up to her. “Hello, Suzanne.”
Startled, she dropped the keys. He rushed to pick them up and handed them to her. She unlocked the door. “Matt, please don’t make my life more complicated.”
“Can we talk, please?”
She sighed in resignation. “Get in.”
He walked around and slid into the passenger seat.
“I guess congratulations are in order,” she said.
“I’ve missed you a lot.”
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“When you gave me the attendance sheet of Knight’s Round-table, didn’t you think I’d figure out that J.A. was Jennifer Albrecht, your mother?”
“Either way, it was a gamble. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing while those bastards were trying to destroy you.”
“Why did you lie to me about your mother?”
“I didn’t. She met Chief McMahon later on, and fell in love with him. They were together until he died in eighty-one.”
“Did he ever divorce his wife?”
“No. Mom accepted the fact that he would never leave his family.”
“So you came on the Job and assumed your Ice Maiden persona as protection.…”
She inclined her chin, the slightest of nods.
“Protection against those people still in the Job who knew about your mother and McMahon. You were afraid they might use that knowledge as some sort of weapon against you. You were vulnerable.”
“Something like that,” she said, watching another woman pushing a shopping cart over to her car.
He took her hand. “I need you in my life, Suzanne.”
“You just can’t bring yourself to say that you love me, can you?”
“I’m afraid. I’ve been afraid.” He averted his face.
Suzanne gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.
“Since the divorce, since the accident, I’ve walled myself off from any kind of real relationship. I feel like a part of me is dead. I know the Job, I function well inside the Job, but except when I’m with you the rest of my life is empty.” He looked into her eyes. “You’ve come to mean more to me than I’ve dared admit to myself. Be patient with me, please. I can try to change. I will try to change.”
As she listened to his halting words, she realized they were truly felt, that he was struggling with conflicting feelings. For a long moment they looked at each other, their defenses down.
She dropped her eyes. “There are things I can change, too.”
Stuart smiled at her and asked softly, “Could we start by having dinner tonight?”
“Well … sure, I guess so. What have I got to lose?” Almost tentatively, she lifted her hand to touch his cheek.
“Somehow I’d like to think you’ve got something to gain, Suzanne. We both do.”
Her hand moved caressingly from his cheek to the nape of his neck. With the slightest of pressure, she inclined his head toward hers. Quite chastely, they kissed and moved to embrace each other. As they came together, a sudden warm gust of wind swirled a few dry yellow and red leaves, the last dance of summer.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank the following people for their generous help in the writing of Pigtown:
Lieutenant Dan Flynn and Police Officer Dennis Kane, 71 Precinct, NYPD, for sharing with me their special knowledge of Pigtown; Ms. Mary Ann Ajemian, president of the Ambriola Corporation, for taking the time out of her busy schedule to introduce me to the cheese industry; Mr. William Henning, CEO, Swiss Rose International, for his informative talks on the dairy business; Mr. Marvin Haas, CEO, Chock Full o’ Nuts, for teaching me about corporate finance, particularly the Green Bay Exchange; Dr. Keith Manning of Manhattan’s East Side Animal Hospital for sharing his keen insight on rottweilers; Mr. Ray Maluchi for teaching me how to use the Cellmate to intercept cellular telephone calls; Richard Dienst of the law firm Dienst and Serrins, a friend and a terrific lawyer, for taking the time to explain how the NYPD’s “Trial Room” really works; Mr. Chet Dalzitzki, director, NYPD’s Photographic Unit, for teaching me how to use the department’s photographic tracking system; Detective Joe Vincent, Jr., NYPD’s Electronic Intelligence Section, for his insightful instructions on how to eavesdrop on a park bench; my buddy in Charlottesville for again sharing with me his bag of dirty tricks.
My grateful thanks to Sharon Nettles for using
her computer wizardry on the manuscript. And to my good friends Drs. Steven Lamm and Barry Zide for sharing their medical knowledge with me.
My friend and editor, James O’Shea Wade, for again turning his magic pencil loose on the manuscript.
My agents, Knox Burger and Kitty Sprague, for going the extra mile to make the manuscript right and for always being there for me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William J. Caunitz was a thirty-year veteran of the New York City Police Department. During his career, he achieved the rank of lieutenant and was assigned commander of a detective squad. At the age of fifty-one, Caunitz began publishing crime novels, which were noted for their realistic depictions of the daily workings of a police precinct, as well as for their sensational plots. He wrote seven novels, and the first, One Police Plaza, was made into a television movie. Caunitz died from pulmonary fibrosis in 1996. His last work, Chains of Command, which was halfway completed at the time, was finished by Christopher Newman, author of the Joe Dante series.
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Copyright © 1995 by William J. Caunitz
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2833-2
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