The Dog Killer of Utica (3 page)

The class went the full two and a half hours. Conte lost in a book. Conte happy. Because he felt—as Saint Anthony says we feel in perfect prayer—that he did not exist at all.

4:30, class out and Conte exists again—returned unhappily to himself—walking fast toward the parking lot accompanied by his strongest student, Mirko Ivanovic—apolitical son of Bosnian Muslims who had carried their child when he was three to America’s promised land (Utica!) only to see him grow up into a fanatical English major. Mirko’s parents would have preferred that he prepare himself for the sanctioned thievery of Big Business, but they were good parents, above all they were good, who would not impose their will, so they nursed their desires in silent prayer, and in secret stupefaction marveled that this exceptionally bright son of theirs could be enthralled by the books of a long-dead American, who in his lifetime achieved great commercial and critical disasters. With disturbing adulation, in his parents’ speechless presence, no less, the devilish Mirko routinely refers to the writer of difficult storybooks as Muhammad Melville.

Diminutive Mirko jogs now to keep pace with his powerfully striding giant of a teacher, as he, Mirko, extends between quick breaths an invitation to attend an interfaith gathering on Sunday at the new mosque in East Utica—at Mary and Albany—a short walk from your house—professor—just a getting to know your—a getting to know your Muslim
neighbors—kind of thing—special coffee—divine pastries baked by our ch-chaste—our chaste—mothers and sisters—Conte struggling all the while with a brutal image that has seized the center of his mind, of Robert Rintrona shot down in the street and drowning in his own blood. They reach the car. A sudden flurry of snow, cutting wind. The ever-polite Conte suppresses his impatience to get home, where Catherine Cruz will greet him with perhaps hopeful news. He accepts the invitation. Mirko says “Inshallah” with a curious trace of sadness, or is it fatality?

It’s Monday, his and Catherine’s date night, their eat-out night, but Conte cannot imagine eating, in or out. What he imagines in vivid detail is a few triple Johnnie Walker Blacks, no ice. He needs to call his sponsor. Needs to go to a meeting. He’s driving along the Parkway—elevated terrain directly south of his home in lower East Utica. The Parkway, site of a number of Utica’s most expensive homes, now bordering dangerous territory. Conte’s vision of triple Johnnie Walkers is penetrated by the sirens of fire trucks, ambulances, police cruisers. The all too familiar sounds emanate from just below the Parkway, in the Cornhill section of white flight, which the Irish, the Germans, the Jews—three versions of middle-class pretension—fled long ago, to be replaced by honest working-class blacks and their cancerous parasites from the black criminal class—the drug dealers, the prostitutes, the pimps, and the arsonists who set fire to rundown two- and three-family houses, sometimes on behalf of slum lords, sometimes just for the hell of it. Conte thinks of the clamor of those sirens as the music of Utica’s inferno.

He turns off the Parkway, cuts down to the Cornhill
district on Seymour Ave.—the street where she once lived and where he would cruise in high school days in hopes of seeing her for whom he carried a torch—departed years ago to Las Vegas, married to a lout and womanizer. The house of her youth and beauty is ablaze. Another on Dudley Ave., also ablaze. Anthony V. Senzalma had called Cornhill the “Zone of Black Fire” on his talk show and in an Op-Ed he’d written for the
Observer-Dispatch
that brought him useful death threats. (Conte needs to go to a meeting.) He’s weaving his way around cordoned-off, smoke-filled streets of flashing lights and burly men at labor made more difficult, and dangerous, by a strong wind that jumps the fire to two other houses on Brinkerhoff. At last he reaches Freddy Barbone’s liquor store on Mohawk at South Street, where he hasn’t appeared for a year, since the day before he entered The Program in order to become, as they say, a friend of Bill Wilson.

Freddy steps out from behind the cash register with a booming “Hey! Hey! Johnnie W! Mr. Johnnie Walker himself is back! For some Black!” Throwing his arms wide as he approaches Conte for a hug. Conte freezes, arms at his side, dead-faced. Freddy freezes too, with a look of fear, two feet away, his arms still out. (Rumors of Conte’s unpredictable explosions of volcanic rage have reached his ears.) A comic moment, not enjoyed by either actor.

“Long time no see, Eliot,” embarrassed, retreating behind the cash register. “Ever get the Mass card I sent when your great father passed? Because I never heard from you.”

“Because I never got it.”

Because Freddy had not sent a Mass card. Because why
would he? Because while it was always important to make gestures of respect to the powerful father when he was alive, once the old fuck was dead Freddy calculated the profit and the loss and concluded why waste the time and cash on this booze-bag loser of a son, this joke of a private dick who while the father was alive, they say, made money taking secret and bribe-worthy photos of extramarital blow jobs. Freddy’s contempt was only confirmed when he’d heard that Conte had retired his practice as a private investigator, was living easy off the inheritance and teaching part-time at the college in the English department. Literature teaching? Freddy cannot imagine anything resembling
more
the act of whacking off furiously in the doorless stall of a public toilet.

Barbone had assumed for the last year that Conte had tried to kick the habit, but clearly he failed, this pathetic bastard, and now here he is and Freddy, though Conte has yet to make a request, is bagging a fifth of Eliot’s poison of choice and refusing payment.

“Hey! No way, my friend!”

Conte puts his credit card on the counter, saying not a word.

Freddy, forcing a snort, says “What are you going to do, detective? If I don’t accept it? Shoot me? You can pay for the next one.”

Conte says nothing.

Freddy runs the credit card, Conte signs.

Freddy, brightening, “I hope to see you again soon because the pleasure of your company is all mine. Know what I got under here, Eliot?” He points to the counter. “Fuckin’
niggers come here with their gasoline, they find out what I got under here. By the way, ever shoot anyone?”

Eliot pulls up to 1318 Mary to find Catherine Cruz standing on the front porch, shivering in a lightweight sweater, smoking, who had quit in solidarity a year ago on the day she’d accompanied him to an open meeting where he qualified: “I’m Eliot. I’m an alcoholic.” He approaches carrying his Johnnie Walker in the brown bag with Barbone’s Booze emblazed on it in red. She flips the cigarette into the gathering snowstorm. They go in. Without a word. He’s convinced: Bobby is dead. She’d received a call from an ex-colleague in Troy with connections to the spokesman at Saint Jude. Then she’d bought a pack, and who would blame her, and now he’ll join her in resumed addiction and drink with impunity because Bobby is dead. She leads him into the kitchen where the table is set and the aroma from a pizza box from Napoli’s fills the room.

She, pointing to the bag, “That’s the store on Mohawk and South, northeast corner. Correct?”

Bobby’s gone—she’s avoiding breaking the news: “What’s the difference where I bought it?”

“My partner and I stop in there once in a while to warn Freddy not to sell to minors. Don Belmonte, you know Don, he says he’s almost willing to pay to have Freddy burned down. Don was close to your father, he tells me.”

(They back away from each other to opposite ends of the kitchen.)

“Catherine.”

“Yes?”

“Stop this game.”

“Going to drink, Eliot?”

“I earned it, same way you earned that cigarette.”

“Meaning?”

Conte does not reply.

“That stuff sends you deeper into depression.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Why?”

“Enough.”

He takes the bottle out of the bag: “Go ahead, light up again while I pour myself a big one.”

“I bought the pack. I threw away nineteen and kept the one you saw. That’s it.”

“Let’s figure this out in fairness to both of our sad sides. I pour out one shot—like this. I dump the rest down the sink—like this. Going going gone. I knock back this shot but not before you go fetch the butt, light up, and inhale deeply. Then we get down on our knees and pray for the repose of his eternal soul.”

She walks over. Puts her arms around him. He’s aroused. She puts her hand on his crotch: “Bobby is alive and so is this thing in my hand. Listen: I’m weaker than you. You find that hard to believe, I know. I smoked. You don’t have to match me with that shot glass.”

“Don’t lie to me, Catherine.”

“In tough shape, El, but he’ll pull through, with what consequences we don’t yet know. He’s alive. You can visit in a few days. You will see him again. You two will talk about pirated Pavarotti gems.”

“Bobby didn’t die?”

“Bobby didn’t die.”

He pours the shot into the sink. Sits, heavily, suddenly exhausted, wanting to go to bed for a week: “At least he didn’t die.”

(Long pause.)

“At least, El?”

No response.

“At least? I don’t get that.”

“I’m hungry. Tell you after we eat.”

“Tell me now. At
least
? I don’t get that.”

“After we eat. Tell me about Bobby’s situation while I tear into this.”

(Long pause. Conte is eating. Fast. She doesn’t eat.)

“The shoulder wound. The bullet passed through. He’ll likely have permanent trouble with range of motion with that arm, but—”

Conte with a mouthful: “Since he isn’t a big league pitcher, who cares?”

“Yeah, El.”

“Sweetheart, this isn’t pizza as you always call it. It’s tomato pie. Say tomato pie.”

“The neck wound was superficial despite the heavy bleeding and—”

“According to a local historian and writer who knows everything, you know Gene? Tomato pie is a Utica invention. 1914. O’Scugnizzo Pizzeria. The owner was the Neapolitan inventor of tomato pie in this country. Some claim an earlier, Trenton, New Jersey origin, but Gene disputes the Jersey pretender’s claim. Eugeno—”

“Eliot.”

“Eugeno Burlino was the original owner of O’Scugnizzo Pizzeria.”

(Extended silence while he eats.)

“El. Where are you? Come back.”

“The meaning of O’Scugnizzo is embedded in nineteenth-century dialect and the culture of the poor. It means—”

“Okay. I’ll play. O’Scugnizzo on Bleecker. Don and I go there for a slice once in a while, midafternoon.”

“You and Don Belmonte, that beautiful mountain of a man, pushing seventy, or I’d be jealous. Continue, please. The fucking medical report.”

“The lung shot. That’s the problem. Caused something according to my source inside Saint Jude which he called a
tension pneumothorax
. Don’t ask. It’s dramatic is all I know. The wounded lung fills up with too much air like a big balloon. It keeps inflating and inflating. Putting pressure on all the structures around the lung. Blood vessels get compressed. The trachea gets shoved to the side. The heart gets shoved to the side. Blood can’t flow normally.” (Conte continues eating.) “Bobby goes into shock. Without emergency treatment, intubation, surgery, he dies in an hour or so.” (Conte wipes his mouth. Takes another piece.) “They open him up and they save him. He’ll live but he almost—”

“There’s twenty-five pieces in this box. I’ve scarfed four to your zero. More Diet Coke?”

She reaches across, takes his hand. Says, quietly, “He’ll be okay. Will you?”

“Anything is possible.”

“They think in surgery they may have damaged something
called the laryngeal something-or-other nerve. It will cause significant hoarseness. Nerves are tricky. It might never fully heal.”

“Which makes him an even more colorful guy. The routine obscenities sound even dirtier.”

(They relax, a little.)

“Eat, Catherine.”

She nibbles. She says, “I’ve listened to perp talk for too long.
At least he’s alive
? I’m going to take a big leap here. You knew for some time that Bobby was in danger. This was not some pissed off guy he once helped put away in Troy. This is a guy hired to do assassination. A Utica plate, presumably. You knew this was coming, didn’t you? Which is why you said
they
killed him. ‘Tell Eddie or Ellie that it finally,’ is what Patrolman Dominguez heard.”

He won’t look at her. Pushes his plate aside. Says, “What Bobby was trying to say was tell Eliot that what he feared for a year has finally happened. I didn’t know it was coming—I feared it was.”

The phone rings in the front room. The answering machine: “El, it’s me. Call me back soon. Very soon.”

She says, “Sounds like Chief Robinson.”

“I’m ready to tell you the story.”

“Let’s sit on the couch. I want to be close.”

“Right here,” he says.

The answering machine again: “I know you’re jumping to conclusions about what happened to your pal down there.”

Conte walks slowly to the phone. Begins to call. Hangs up. Picks up the receiver, hesitates, then calls: “Come over later. Let’s say at eight. Have you lost common sense? This is
a conversation that can’t be had on the phone. Catherine will be out for a couple of hours.” Hangs up.

“Where do I go for a couple of hours?”

“Call your partner and suggest a drink. At Grimaldi’s. Tell him we had an argument and you need to talk, but watch your tone. Anybody who sits in close proximity to you on a daily basis, as he does, will have thoughts.”

“Tell me the story.”

“It begins a year ago, when I got into a situation in Troy and you and Bobby picked me up and brought me in for questioning.”

“Situation? You were destroying a pay phone with your bare hands.”

“You remember when Bobby promised me if I ever needed anything, ‘within so-called legal limits’? Because he knew who my father was and wanted to get on my good side? After I leave you two, I take the train home and sit opposite an abusive father who slapped his crying baby hard, less than a year old, black-and-blue marks from abusive episodes are visible. The wife, too, he’s after.”