'Thanks for listenin'.'
'Thanks for tellin' me. I got bad news, though.'
'What's that?'
'While you were talkin'? I ate all the ice cream.'
'No.' Annie chuckled. 'That's good news.'
CHAPTER 33
Tuesday, 18 Jan 05— Canarsie
Mary Catherine Franco.
Sounds so churchy. So Boston Irish. Neither of which my mother was. She was born Mary Catherine Stenthorst. Good Swedish name. Sounds like stamping your feet in the snow and ordering your horse to stand. Nothing churchy about that.
Mary Catherine Franco.
She loved snow and daisies and sugar cookies with lemon icing. She was young once and pretty. Beautiful even. She turned men's heads. She was slim and tall, very Nordic. A blonde Julie Newmar, only not so jaded. Or stacked. I got her height and her flat chest. Better than being barrel-shaped like Dad. She had gorgeous cheekbones. She could hang clothes on them. But she hated her eyelashes. Called them stumpy. Td sit on the toilet watching her curl them, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, swearing at them as she layered on coat after coat of mascara, an old-fashioned sweating on the sink. They always drank old-fashioneds before they went out. Dad showed me how to make them. I forget now, but something about muddling sugar and bitters— that's what he called it, muddling. Critical step—you muddle the sugar and bitters in a teaspoon of water, add ice, bourbon and a maraschino cherry. I loved the cherries after they'd been soaking in the booze. Sure sounds good right about now.
See, that's how I know Tm an alcoholic—it's ten in the morning, the middle of winter and my toes are frozen yet an icy, dripping, old-fashioned sounds like heaven. And I don't even like sweet drinks. Tm a rummy, just like Hemingway's drunks. Sounds so much more genteel than alcoholic. Alcoholic is so clinical. Has no charm. Rummy sounds quaint, amusing. If a rummy sticks a gun in his mouth and almost pulls the trigger it's amusing. If an alcoholic does it it's desperate. There's a lot in a name.
Like Mary Catherine Franco. Lace Irish, Catholicism, white dresses. But not my mom. She was Cat. Always Cat. Never Mary Catherine, and Catherine only when my dad was frustrated with her. He called her everything starting with 'cat'—catawampus, cataclysm, catamaran, Katmandu—he'd come home from work and sweep her into his arms, singing, 'How do you do, Katmandu?'—catapult, katabatic. When she was in a down cycle, all depressed and lethargic on the couch, he'd hold her head in his lap and stroke her hair, calling her 'my catatonia.'
He loved her. He loved her so fucking much. Through the ups, the downs, the in-betweens. There couldn't have been another woman. Yeah, okay, so maybe he knocked off a piece here and there. My mom wasn't exactly available when she was depressed but as far as loving another woman, I can't see it. Not enough for her to still be prowling around his grave after all this time.
And the lows just weren't that bad while he was alive. They were more spread out. Seemed like she was more manic while he was alive and then afterward more depressed. Lucky me. But sometimes the highs were as bad as the lows. Like the night she decided we needed new dishes. She took every plate and bowl we owned and smashed them against the wall. My father tried to stop her but she was just laughing and hurling china. Neighbors called the cops. Thought someone was getting killed.
Crazy cat. Katzenjammer. Cat Ballou. Catamount.
Mom.
CHAPTER 34
Frank snapped out of a doze to see an elderly white woman walking from the direction of her father's grave.
'Oh, shit.' Rocketing from the car, Frank trotted up to the departing woman. 'Excuse me. Are you here for the Deluca funeral?'
The woman stared with wide, rheumy eyes. 'The Deluca funeral? Oh, no.'
'Oh. Which one then?' Frank pressed.
'I'm not here for any funeral. I was visiting my brother.'
'Oh. Your brother.' Frank made a show of looking beyond the woman. 'Is there a funeral goin' on here?'
'Not that I know of.' The woman turned, searching too.
'Shoot. I hope I got the right day. Maybe I got the time wrong. I coulda sworn it was this mornin'. Well, thanks anyways.' Frank pretended to move away but stopped to ask, 'Say, who's ya brother? You're a dead ringer for Frankie Ford.'
'Oh, no.' The woman smiled. 'My brother's Samuel Abrams. He died of cancer two days past Thanksgiving.'
'Aw, geez. That's terrible. I'm sorry for your troubles.'
'Yes, well, thank you. Maybe you could ask about your funeral at the office.'
'Hey, that's a great idea. I'll do that. Thanks. Sorry to bother you.'
'Oh, it's no bother.'
The woman waved and Frank headed to the office. From a corner of the building she watched the old lady leave, relieved she caught her and disappointed she was nobody.
Inside the office, Frank said, 'Mornin'. Can you tell me where Samuel Abrams is buried?'
'One minute,' the receptionist told her. 'I check for you.'
Frank followed his directions to Abrams' plot, satisfied with the fresh prints and flowers at Abrams' stone. She checked her father's grave. No prints that weren't her own.
Returning to the Nova she poured coffee and fidgeted. She remembered to call Charlie Mercer and arranged for him to take over surveillance. After talking to him she dialed the squad.
'Homicide, Detective Lewis.'
'Sister Shaft. S'appenin'?'
'IT, that you?'
'S'me. S'up?'
'Da-amn, girl. Where you at?'
'Sittin' in a rusty Nova, freezin' my ass off outside a cemetery in Brooklyn.'
'Yeah, whassup up with that? When you comin' home?'
'I'll be back Monday. That's the plan. How's things goin'?'
'Let's see. Bobby's in court. Diego's at the morgue. The new guy's weird.'
'How so?'
'Kept callin' me Queen Latifah.'
Frank laughed.
'Yeah, funny, right? I got in that home's face and told him if he called me Queen Latifah one more time I was going to fuck him up so hard make Queen Latifah look like Pee Wee Herman.'
'Great.' Frank cringed. 'How'd that go over?'
'Let's just say Larry be givin' me some space now.'
'Try not to kill him before I get back, okay?'
'Yeah, maybe. We'll see 'bout that.'
'Just ice, Joe Louis. He's not so bad.'
'Skinhead best not be gettin' in my face again. That's all I gotta say.'
'What else? Anyone doing any actual police work or ya'll just hanging out playing kindergarten?'
'We're working,' Lewis huffed. She filled Frank in as she absently registered the street. There were faces she'd become familiar with, regulars catching the bus, the old man walking his Airedale, another old man with an obese poodle, a dark woman her age that limped by every day around noon.
