Naked Moon (18 page)

His cousin's burial plot stood down in the oldest part of the cemetery, not far from SFO. The freeway passed on either side, and there was the roar of jet engines overhead. The air tasted of fuel. This part of the cemetery was laid out in concentric circles, the gravel road spiraling through the outer fringes of the old Italian cemetery, through the lonely and crumbling stones toward the inner, more desirable plots. Past the old-lady cannery workers who'd lost their fingers in cans of Del Monte peaches. Past Nick Abruzzi, who'd killed his brother's wife and hanged himself in prison. Past the giant stone fish, a memorial to fishermen and shipwrecked sailors. Past the aged widows with no markers at all, and the restaurant workers and dock laborers all lying in long anonymous lines that reached from here to the end of time.

Down to the family plot. To his mother and Grandfather Pelicanos. To Salvatore Mancuso and Regina. Down there among Avincenza and Tony and Jojo and all the dead relatives whose names were forgotten until you stood among the stones.

The way the graveyard had been laid out, circles within circles, it gave the effect, no matter where you stood, that you had found your way to the center: a hole in the black earth, six feet deep, with the dirt mounded alongside.

Viola lurched toward him, all in black but for her purple
scarf dangling wildly. Her makeup was smeared. The way she approached, he thought they might find some mutual consolation. He wanted to speak with her—after the ceremony—about the people she had described to Chin. Viola stumbled on her heels. He reached to steady her.

She gripped his arm fiercely and pushed her face into his. “This is your fault,” she hissed. “You fucking asshole. You could've helped him. You could've done something.”

“Those people, the couple …”

“Now I'm destitute. The cops are going to take every goddamn cent.”

“I'm sorry.”

She slapped him, making a show of it, the way she brought her hand back, swinging wide. He could have stopped her, he could have grabbed her by the arm, but he did not want to get into it with Viola, wrestling next to his cousin's grave. The priest, his mouth fell open, and one of the kids started to weep, the family closing around the boy, but they'd all, Dante suspected, taken some vicarious pleasure in her action. Viola stepped away from the others, beautiful, alone, petulant. When the ceremony ended, the priest put his hand on her shoulder, but she would have none of that. She shrugged him off and went stomping through the stones.

D
ante departed the cemetery, shoulders slack, his long face even longer now. He peered past the gravestones, surveying the road as he walked, the figures on the horizon. A man with a shovel. More mourners. A woman placing
flowers on a distant grave. Viola was right: His cousin might still be alive if not for his own involvement with the company, but there was little he could do. His cell vibrated in his pocket. On the small screen, he discovered a text message from Jake Cicero.

Meet me at the office. ASAP

It was unlike Cicero. Jake did not send text messages, but rather had an aversion to the whole concept, his fingers too fat and wide, his eyesight too dim, his patience too short to navigate the tiny keyboard. Besides, today was Monday, Jake's tennis day, and every Monday afternoon he went down in his shorts and his polo shirt to meet Louisa at the club. If Jake's life were only Jake's, if it were only Jake and Jake alone, the man might not leave his office except to eat and drink. That's the way it had been for a while, between wives, but things were different now. Dante didn't think Jake would skip out on Louisa.

Dante left the path. He stood among the older graves where the earth had settled, and dialed Jake's cell phone. There was no answer. He tried the office landline, but that call went unanswered as well.

C
icero's office was at the crest of the hill, on an abutment overtop the Broadway Tunnel—in a building that trembled with the traffic rumbling below. Dante wheeled into the parking terrace, on the south side, and pulled in alongside Cicero's sportster. On the front seat sat a box from Coco's on Union, wrapped with a giant yellow bow. Apparently Cicero meant to surprise Louisa later this evening, after they'd finished on the court.

Dante could not imagine Jake wanting to meet him tonight. And he could not imagine him sending a text as opposed to picking up the phone.

Even so, Dante went up.

It might not be the wisest thing, but if something had gone wrong—with Marilyn and Lake, with the decoy—he needed to know. Or if Cicero needed his help …

The office was on the third story, at the end of the hall. The outer door had been stenciled in the old fashion, black
letters on rippled glass. As a rule, Cicero left the door unlocked when he was inside working, but not tonight. Dante used his key. Then he pushed the door open, standing back as he did so, knowing that if there were anyone here—anyone other than Cicero—the real trouble would come now. Cicero's office was toward the back, past the receptionist's desk, and his door stood partly open.

“Jake!”

He called the name a second time, but he already knew Jake wasn't going to answer. Maybe it was the smell, not a strong smell, but a smell with which Dante was not unfamiliar, a vague aroma, like stale clothes too long in the back of a car—a sickly smell, like that of a man who sweats too much, whose perspiration smells faintly of urine and blood. A smell that a nose such as his own—oversized, absurd in its dimensions—was uniquely suited to detect. Though perhaps, too, the odor, the rising certainty, was simply the scent of fear rising from his own skin: the suspicion he'd had from the beginning that things would turn out this way. He'd been selfish, putting his old friend at risk.

When he walked around the corner into Jake's office, the smell was less subtle. He could smell the blood; he could smell the shit. A fly buzzed. A lazy fly, circling slowly. Descending with its thousand eyes. Coming to light on the tiny flap of skin on Jake's neck, rubbing its front legs in the open wound.

Jake had been garroted, strangled while sitting down in his oak chair, the one that swiveled. His back was to the window. The blinds were closed.

Dante understood his mistake. He'd been wrong about Greene. Cicero had been garroted in the same fashion as the others. So Greene was not the murderer, Greene could not have killed Cicero, because Greene himself was already dead, lying in the basement of the Serafina Café.

Dante thought of the prostitute and her contradictory stories regarding who had recruited her. He thought of the story Viola had told Chin, about the man and the woman who'd contacted his cousin. And he thought, too, of the couple he'd seen on the hill outside Marilyn's house.

Greene had not been the agent after all.

Dante examined Cicero's office. There was nothing in the appointment pad. He punched the button on the answering machine and listened to Louisa's voice, asking for Jake to call, sounding a little tipsy, a little pissed. The club they belonged to, out in the Avenues, had a bar courtside, and there were times she and Jake never made it to the court, lingering at the bar instead. Dante glanced over at his partner, who sat with his head wrenched back against the window blind. Then he dialed Louisa.

Louisa did not sound thrilled to hear from him.

“Have you seen my husband?”

“No, I haven't.” Dante turned away from the corpse. “He's not answering his cell.”

“Big surprise. He never answers his cell. I've left half a dozen messages.”

“Did he say anything, earlier?”

“What's going on?”

“Did he have any appointments, that he mentioned?”

“Some kind of divorce business, I don't know. Some couple—he was going to meet them at the office, but that was hours ago.”

Dante glanced at his partner again. The fly had burrowed itself into the wound in such a way that it looked like a black mole on Cicero's neck.

“I'm sure he's on his way.”

“That man, you know, he makes a big deal out of where I go, who I see, suspicious as can be. But where is he now, that's what I want to know?”

“He was down to Union Square earlier,” Dante said.

“Union Square?” Her voice rose.

Union Square was the shopping district, downtown. Dante remembered Cicero talking about Louisa and her thighs, how she looked in her white tennis shorts. It was embarrassing, a man talking about his wife like that, but Cicero could not help himself. She loved looking at herself in the mirror, changing clothes, this outfit, that, and Jake, he loved to lie on the bed, watching.

“He was picking something up,” said Dante.

“For me?”

“I think so.”

“Well …”

He heard a sweetness then in her husky voice, mixed in with a greed she could not help.
The thing I love about Louisa
, Jake had told him,
the thing I can't resist, that girl, she's always out for herself.

In the background, a man laughed too loudly, one of their tennis buddies, those guys who got under Jake's skin, the way
they flirted with Louisa. It didn't mater now. Louisa would get it all. The little condo, and the sports car, and the membership at the club. She would close out the office, cancel the lease. Maybe I should tell her, Dante thought. Maybe it would be easier that way, if she heard it from someone she knew. Nevertheless, he could not get involved with the police, not now. Rather, he needed to clean up after himself, wipe off the prints, do his best to leave without being seen. The body would be found soon enough. Then Louisa could do whatever it was Cicero feared she might do—find another man, younger, who'd drive around in the little silver car and spend all the money Cicero had never got to spend. Never mind, though. Jake would be a saint in her book.

Lucky girl.

“He's on his way, I bet.”

“I'm sure.

“He probably just got caught in traffic.”

“Do you want me to leave him a message?” she asked.

“No. I'll catch him later.”

Dante got off the phone.

He left the building, but he had not gone far when he received another text on his phone.

We have Marilyn.

PART SIX

D
ante lay naked on the bed, inside the nameless hotel, with the revolver on his chest. After leaving Jake, he'd driven to the motel in San Bruno, as planned, then circled back to Chinatown. Now, lying on the bed, listening, he could not escape the feeling he had been here before. The pigeons fluttered at the window, pecking at the rotting sill, as if there were something delectable hidden beneath the paint. Another one of the birds flew in, chest puffed, pushing for its place. The noise rising from the street was meaningless, chaotic. There was the sound of laugher, guttural Chinese, coughing and hacking, of voices calling across the square, and of a rally truck returning. Evangelists, or the supporters of Ching Lee, the mayoral candidate who was challenging the incumbent.

The polls had tightened as the race entered its final week, with Ching Lee hammering Edwards from one side and Gennae Rossi pounding from the other.

Dante's ears were acute. Too acute. Hearing things that weren't there. The rustling of a dress. The old Cantonese, at the far end of the alley, meditating, muttering a Zen koan in the back of his throat.

He dialed Jake's phone, thinking those who'd stolen it, who'd left the earlier message, perhaps they would answer. But it was just Jake's voice, prerecorded, full of ash and whiskey.

They had found Marilyn. Or her double in Ensenada.

The wise thing to do, perhaps, was to wait. To sit tight until the company called, except he knew what they wanted, and he had grown weary of waiting. He went to the closet. The apartment smelled of the previous tenant, the old woman, but her scent was stronger here, where her dresses dangled and her skirts drooped, hanging on metal hangers: half-buttoned blouses, frayed sweaters, old skirts, stylish once but too frayed now even for the salvation stores in the lower Mission. Alongside the dresses hung a canvas bag. He took the bag from its hook and put inside a can he'd bought at the surplus store in San Bruno. The can held a particular kind of phosphorus, white phosphorus, which had particular kinds of uses.