He suffered a recurring premonition that something was about to go wrong. Any minute someone would press his face in close, a hand’s width away-
He sipped his tea and listened for his flight number on the intercom.
Once on board his flight, he reached into his pocket and took out Shel’s letter. He already had it memorized, and so he didn’t so much read the words as just let his eyes trail across her loopy script. As he did, he listened for an echo- the memory of her voice, as though she herself were reciting the words. It was a pleasant illusion, despite what much of the letter said. The final paragraph, in particular. His eyes invariably settled there, as though it were some sort of mistake.
Got a new life now, out in B.F.E. with a man named Frank. It’s heaven on earth, except when it’s not. Like I said, it’s complicated. To tell the truth, I could stand to see you. I miss how sane things used to feel with you around. But hey, I wouldn’t know what to do with sanity if I owned it.
Love you, Shel
Sanity, he thought, gently folding the letter closed. I could stand to see you. As the plane descended into San Francisco, the stewardess cautioned against opening the overhead bins too quickly. He thought for all the world she added, “The continents may have shifted during flight.”
He took a cab to the corner of Union and Columbus, where Napolitano’s Bohemian Cafe sat in the shadow of the cathedral. Inside, crowd noise mingled with the shriek of the espresso machine. Berlioz’s
Abatangelo approached the bar and sat beside two secretaries who smiled but did not engage. One of them reminded him vaguely of Shel and he suffered an immediate, embarrassing ardor for her. Behind the bar, his reflection in the mirror peeked through tiers of wine bottles. He made a halfhearted truce with what he saw and gestured for the bartender.
“Dominic here?”
The bartender paused for a moment. “You’re Danny A,” he said.
Abatangelo shot a sidelong glance at the secretaries.
“So?” The bartender shrugged, brought down a bottle of Bardolino and poured Abatangelo a glass.
As Abatangelo tasted the wine, an unbidden smile appeared. He waited for something bad to happen.
“You want a sandwich,” the bartender said, recorking the bottle, “we got fresh-baked focaccia, put some salami on it, coppa, meatball, we got pizza, espresso, cannoli, you name it. Dominic said make you at home.”
“He’s not here,” Abatangelo guessed.
“Sit tight, he’ll be back soon. He knows you’re due.”
With that the bartender drifted away. Abatangelo squared the stool beneath him and settled in to wait. Beside him the two secretaries chattered feverishly, smelling of rain and perfume and chardonnay. Shortly, a commotion broke out from the rear of the bar, and Dominic Napolitano swam through the storeroom curtain, followed by a gray-haired, barrel-bodied woman. This was Nina, his wife. She brayed at his back: “How much? I got a right to know, you piss it away, I gotta right. How much, huh?”
Dominic shouted back, “Go ahead, bust my balls, the whole damn world can hear, what do I care?”
Dominic, looking up, spotted Abatangelo and blinked as their eyes met. He ambled forward and extended a meaty hand. He had small blue eyes and a nose bespotted with large pores. His short white hair accentuated the spread of his ears.
“Nina, look. It’s Gina’s boy, God rest her soul.”
Nina Napolitano stayed where she was. “That ain’t Gina’s boy. That’s Vince’s boy.”
“Nina, don’t- ”
“If this was Gina’s boy, he’d a been at her funeral. But I didn’t see him at Gina’s funeral. I didn’t see him nowhere, never. Not when she lived in that apartment all by herself. Not when she got sick, not at the hospital. Musta had plans.”
Dominic came around the bar and took Abatangelo by the arm. “Come on,” he whispered, “I’ll show you where you stay.”
Nina glared at the two of them as they made their way out through the crowd. She shouted from the bar: “You, the degenerate. Don’t come back to my place till you visit the lighthouse where we spread your mother’s ashes, you hear me?”
On the sidewalk Dominic took out a handkerchief and patted his bare head. He walked with a low center of gravity, gap-legged, with an arm-pumping swivel above the waist and his chin jutting out.
“Your P.O.’s been calling, driving Nina nuts. I swear to God- wants to know your address, ETA, where you’re working, yadda yadda. I tell him, Look, I’m just the home monitor, you wanna talk to Daniel, he’s smart, he knows he’s gotta connect within twenty-four hours. You wanna talk to his boss, now or whenever, call Lenny Mannion.”
Dominic turned toward Abatangelo.
“You should do that, too, incidentally. Call Lenny, I’ll give you the number. You can start whenever, he runs a little portrait shop. School pictures, families, babies, you know? It ain’t art, but it beats washing dishes and kicking back to some asshole for the privilege. And Lenny’s sticking his neck out. I mean, an ex-con, babies around, teenage girls. Know what I mean? No offense. But anybody finds out you been inside, he’s explaining till he’s dead.”
Dominic turned face-front again.
“Anyway, I tell this P.O. of yours, ‘Off my back.’ He still calls. Why? ’Cuz you’re not spending six weeks in some halfway house he’s probably got a piece of, if you know what I mean.”
“I appreciate what you’re doing,” Abatangelo said. “And I’ll call him. Today.”
Dominic shook his head. “I’m not doing this for you, you know. I’m doing it for your mother, God rest her soul.”
He led Abatangelo three blocks through North Beach. Traffic sat stalled on Columbus, horns blared, the sidewalks thronged with bobbing crowds. Abatangelo found himself clutching his paper sack, a yardbird reflex.
Dominic resumed: “Don’t mind Nina, okay? It’s just, I mean, not to make you feel bad, but near the end, your mother lived like a squirrel. And what there was to get, your sister got. Feds took your share. Agents came to probate court, served their papers, it was all written down, boom boom boom. Not that there was much to get. Bloodsuckers came out of the woodwork, their hands out, bills you wouldn’t believe. Poor woman. You coulda maybe thought about giving her a little of that money you made, know what I mean?”
“She wouldn’t take it,” Abatangelo said. “And by the time she was sick, I’d been tagged. They seized everything.”
Dominic snorted. “Like you didn’t have a secret stash somewhere.”
“Not secret enough.”
Dominic studied him. “Some criminal mastermind.”
They stopped in front of a grocery called the Smiling Child Market. Tea-smoked chickens hung in the window and Chinese matrons rummaged through sidewalk bins for dragon beans, lo bok, cloud ear mushrooms. Just beyond the door, the owner stood at the register, wearing a red cardigan and a wisdom cap. Behind him an ancient woman, dressed in black, sat on a dairy carton feeding glazed rice crackers to a cat.
“Jimmy,” Dominic called out, “Jimmy, dammit Jimmy, over here. This is the roomer I told you about. We’re going up, that good?”
The grocer smiled an utterly impersonal smile. In the stairway, searching his pocket for the keys, Dominic told Abatangelo, “His name’s Jimmy Shu. He don’t know where you been, which is good. Never tell a Chinaman everything. He’ll never trust you again.”
Upstairs, the hallway was dark and redolent of ginger and curry and chili oil. The clamor of North Beach filtered through the window at one end, Chinatown the other. Dominic fiddled with the keys in the dim light, holding them near his eyes, then opened the apartment door. They greeted a clutter of take-out cartons, ravaged napkins and
