Almost Mortal

by Chris Leibig

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Sam rolled down the passenger-side window.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I work here,” Juliana said. “You okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’ve been on a phone conference all morning. About the DNA and the statistics and whatnot. Just between us, the FBI is fixin’ to declare the case solved. Zeb was the Ripper. Paradisi killed him. Now she’s dead. As far as they’re concerned, it’s wrapped up.”

  “You were right all along,” Sam said. Juliana smiled. “As usual,” he added.

  “Oh my God, my voice mail was full this morning with reporters wanting to ask me about the mother-but-no-father thing. It’s crazy.”

  He and Juliana watched each other closely for a moment.

  “Sorry about your friend, Sam.”

  “See you soon.”

  Sam pulled the Escalade out of the parking lot and headed south. His phone buzzed. This one he needed to take. Ten minutes later he arrived in front of R and S Moving and Storage. One of the automatic bay doors began its slow rise as the Escalade approached it.

  Inside, Acorn, wearing a black suit, stood next to his hearse with Barnabus and Steve Buterab. All three men regarded Sam with folded arms.

  “I fucked up, Cochise,” Barnabus said. “Somehow I got the wrong body.” A blue plastic hospital body bag lay on the round poker table in the center of the otherwise empty warehouse. Barnabus approached the table and, with his pudgy fingers, fumbled with the zipper, then yanked it down about twelve inches, just enough for Sam to see the face of Camille’s killer, Jerome Johnson.

  “Am I good, Sam?” Acorn said. “This is sketchin’ me out, man.”

  Sam took a deep breath. “You’re good.”

  Acorn quickly got in the hearse and backed out of the warehouse while Sam, Barnabus, and Steve regarded Jerome Johnson.

  “I coulda sworn Camille was in drawer seven,” Barnabus said. “I even checked it late last night. This morning I just loaded the bag. Seriously, what are we gonna do about him?” Barnabus gestured towards Johnson.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Steve said. “I suggest you guys get out of here, and maybe, you know, don’t be in touch for a while.” Steve walked across the empty warehouse and disappeared into the room that Sam had always taken for his office.

  “You know, the level at which you’re full of shit is utterly staggering,” Sam said. “You took both bodies. Where’s Camille’s?”

  Barnabus put on his puzzled expression. “If I were to answer that question, you may think I have some knowledge of illegal activity.”

  “Why steal her body, dude? I don’t get it.”

  “Yes you do, dude. You so fully do. Stop pretending to be a pussy. Look, man, I’m just following orders. I’ll be in touch.” Barnabus turned and walked slowly out of the warehouse, Sam trailing behind him.

  “I saw her brains fall out of her head, Barnabus. They sprayed the side of my face. She’s fucking dead!” Sam realized he was yelling.

  “Yes, she was,” Barnabus said. “I told you I’d be in touch.”

  “When, Barnabus? When will you be in touch?” But Barnabus was walking towards his car. For the first time in their relationship, Sam felt the force of Barnabus’s personality as it really was. Endearing? Maybe. Goofball? No.

  “You know when, dude,” Barnabus called over his shoulder.

  Sam drove and drove, only to end up in the empty Holy Angels parking lot after dusk. Across the lot he saw that Andrada’s light was on. He really did not know what he was doing there. Or what he was doing next. He held his mother’s photograph of the old group of friends in his hand. Camille on the end, looking barely a day younger than the moment she was killed almost thirty years later, Raj in the middle, an overgrown teenager compared to the wizened old gangster Sam knew now, and his own mother. Exactly the way he remembered her.

  “Sam.”

  Sam jumped, startled by the presence of Father Andrada by his window. “Father?”

  “Why don’t you come in for a drink?”

  CHAPTER 26

  “SCOTCH?” ANDRADA STOOD BY the rolling bar in the sitting room of the main house.

  “I’ll pass,” Sam said.

  “No, I think you’ll have one.”

  Sam watched the man pour two drinks. His face looked old, but his movements were quick and dexterous, an athlete’s movements. Andrada took a long gulp. They regarded each other.

  “I’ve got to say, Father, you don’t seem particularly broken up about Camille. Your closest friend was shot dead yesterday. She was practically like a daughter to you, wasn’t she?”

  Andrada smiled at Sam. “What I’m worried about is how to persuade the government to allow me to have custody of Camille’s daughter. An uphill battle for an old man. Maybe you can help? I’m willing to tell you everything. But somewhere inside, you already know it. Unlike most, you have the capacity to believe it, a unique capacity. Want to give it a try? Pretend with me at least? First off, Camille is not like a daughter to me, and if you allow yourself to have a little faith, you’ll see you already know she’s my older sister.”

  Sam drained half of his glass. “Do you realize I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  Andrada watched Sam carefully, and he could tell the old man was waiting for him to speak. Their eyes met. The mirrored image. One brown, one green.

  “You want me to believe that Trinity and this Fifika Kritalsh are descendants of the fallen angels cast out of heaven. Camille is over seventy years old. The journal is true. You, of course, with your dark moods and normal aging, are Paul Kritalsh, later Paul Paradisi.”

  “Indeed. And Buterab?”

  I’ve always thought of you as kinda like a son.

  “My father.”

  “And?”

  “You and Camille, or Trinity, or whatever you want to call her, decide to hire me to try to stop the serial killer, thereby connecting with me in the hopes of seeking my services in their lawsuit against God. The whole thing is preposterous, not least of all why you would choose me. I don’t believe in any of that religious shit, even the parts that are more believable than this. Most of all, why would any of you deceive me like this?”

  Sam finished his drink, and the two were quiet for a long moment. Sam felt awkward, much like during the silence that sometimes followed a client’s preposterous story. Andrada’s eyes probed Sam’s playfully now.

  “So what happened to Trinity between running away from home in Bariloche and showing up outside the cathedral in Miami?”

  “That’s another whole story. You’ll need to learn it someday if you take the case.”

  Andrada stood and refilled both glasses. When he returned to his seat he held an inch-thick envelope. He handed the envelope to Sam. They finished their drinks in silence.

  “The rest of Fifika Kritalsh’s journal. The remainder of the contents are rather self-explanatory. Do what you want, Samson. Follow this up, or don’t. Stay in touch, or don’t. Either go for it or leave it alone and continue on your way. But ask yourself this. If given a choice between this story being true or being hogwash, which do you prefer? I think I know. Good luck either way. Finish the journal. You’ll figure it out. I gotta say, I think you already know.”

  •••

  Sam stood by the Escalade in the empty church parking lot. He put his cigarette out on the pavement and opened Andrada’s envelope. He expected a cryptic priest’s note, an overdone religious analogy, or a tidbit of obscure information that got him part of the way there—but then again, hardly close. He focused on the same tight cursive writing he had been looking at for weeks. Sam flipped through the journal and saw that the entries were made only every few months, but went on through the ’80s. Under the journal he found a check for sixty thousand dollars and an Internet printout from Expedia.com. A round-trip ticket in Sam’s name. Montreal. Havana. Leaving the next day.

  CHAPTER 27

 
AUGUST 13, 2015, HAVANA, CUBA

  SAM’S FINGER CLICKED STOP. The video clip depicted the murder differently than he remembered it. Her body had dropped so much faster. He had moved so much slower. At one point, the ABC 7 camera zoomed in on Sam feeling the back of Camille’s head, and the viewer could see a thick chunk of blood and brain ooze onto his hand and through his fingers. Sam was expressionless as he held Camille, even while Plosky’s screams dominated the audio.

  The old women were long gone, maybe sitting out of Sam’s view in one of the cafés lining the Plaza Vieja, or strolling together down a side street, still listening to their friend rehash some old argument with her long-dead husband. Their chatter was beyond his reach. Sam glanced along the tables at the various cafés along the wide plaza, his mind gliding above the noise but fishing nevertheless. Like an eagle? No, a seagull, looking for a bit of dead fish or trash to swoop down and scoop up? Sam was still unclear on whether Andrada conceived of Sam’s trip as a continuation of his, what, investigation? Or as merely a well-deserved vacation. He crushed out his cigarette and gazed across the center of the plaza.

  Slow time. Observe.

  Sam reached into his briefcase and pulled out the journal—staring at the writing that had always seemed familiar, but, in any event, was new. In his memory, he never could get it straight whether he saw her first or recognized the writing first. He did remember that he was holding the birthday card from his mother—her last card to him before she died—when he sensed her approach. His eyes were transfixed on the handwriting in the card. The tight cursive felt bound up with nurturing love as opposed to the menace and mystery the writing in the journal seemed to scream. But it was her writing all the same. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out his mother’s bible, realizing he had never really examined it before. He flipped through it. Spanish. He held on to it for a long moment, staring across the plaza. His thumb tickled the red-rimmed pages. Then he flipped to the first page and saw her writing again.

  Nombre: Fifika y Paul Kritalsh, Buenos Aires, 21-2-57.

  At first he thought the trio of old women were back. But even before his head swung to the three approaching from straight across the plaza, he felt their focus on him, and knew they could not be strangers like the old women. The three woman, two young and one older, wore sundresses, one red, one white, one black. They strode slowly, parting the pigeons as the others had done. But when her eyes met Sam’s, the young woman in the white dress broke into a run just as Sam realized he was doing the same. In seconds they embraced without speaking though the woman’s mantra came into his head with perfect clarity.

  I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry. I love you. I always meant to tell you. Again and again and again until Sam absorbed it.

  It’s not your fault, Mom.

  Sam was not sure how long he and his mother embraced before he turned to the other women, who had now reached them.

  “Aunt Trinity,” he said. Camille smiled at him and touched his arm.

  “And I guess that makes you Grandma,” Sam said to the older lady. Unlike Aunt Trinity, and more like his mother, Fifika, his grandmother carried herself with a certain slumped-shouldered sadness—a melancholy that had always been part of his mother’s personality.

  The three stood quietly for a moment at the center of the largely empty plaza.

  •••

  “So, I gotta ask. Where’s Fidel?” Sam said.

  “He doesn’t get out much these days,” Fifika said.

  The waiter delivered four glasses of red wine. Trinity lifted hers for a toast. Fifika made eye contact with Sam and followed suit. His grandmother held her glass with two fingers, as if unsure of the timing or purpose of the toast, which so obviously was meant to seal a bargain.

  “Ready for the case of the ages?” Trinity said.

  “To my wonderful son, and the opportune time,” Fifika said softly, with the thoughtful, yet hesitant edge in her voice Sam remembered so well. For the first time Sam realized that Trinity and Fifika looked a lot alike except in complexion; Trinity the Trinity tanned and his mother pale and freckled. Trinity smiled mischievously, her eyes dancing with excitement. Sam’s mother, though, was sad and serious. How odd was this pairing, his somber mother and his crafty aunt? And would he ever learn, or indeed believe, who they were and what they had been through?

  “You’ll find out more as we go along,” Fifika said, answering the unspoken question.

  “To the biggest case ever, dude,” Trinity said, mimicking Barnabus’s voice. Sam looked as far as he could into the eyes of Fifika Kritalsh and raised his glass.