“No ma’am, it won’t.”
“I was making a joke, Mr. McKinney.”
“So was I,” said Ames. “Thanks for the number.”
“Have Lewis call me.”
She hung up. So did Ames. He dialed the number Ann Horowitz had given him, got an answering machine and said: “Lewis, it’s Ames. Call me at your office.”
Ames McKinney had a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in civil engineering. He had, less than a decade ago, been rich. He had written a book published by the University of New Mexico Press, Some Things a Man Can’t Walk Around: Individual Responsibility in Nineteenth-Century America. The book had been well-reviewed in journals and even a few newspapers in New Mexico, Texas and Colorado. It had even been nominated for a Chino best nonfiction award. He had never mentioned the book to Lew or anyone else. When Ames’s partner had taken all the money in their business and hid in Sarasota, Ames had come here, found him and the two had shot it out on South Lido Beach. The partner died. Ames had spent minimal time in jail because he had a witness, Lewis Fonesca. He owed his sad little Italian friend, but beyond that Ames liked him.
Ames called the Texas Bar amp; Grille and told Big Ed that he’d be coming back late. The collection of old guns on the wall, the choice of twelve different beers, the thick all-meat nearly raw burgers the size of a pie plate and Ed were the prime attractions of the Texas Bar amp; Grille. Ed, who grew up in New England, had decided one day to sell his chain-link business, part his hair down the middle, grow a handlebar mustache, buy a shinny vest and go West to become a saloon keeper. He got as far as Sarasota. He was red-faced and happy.
“Do what you gotta,” said Ed.
Ed was also fond of saying, “There are some things a man just can’t walk around,” “Suit yourself,” “I said I’d do it and that I full intend to do,” “I’m a peaceable man so let’s not have any trouble here.” He had always avoided “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” There are some cliches a man’s just gotta walk around.
Two hours later, after finishing the paperback copy of a Larry McMurtry novel, Ames picked up the phone and dialed the number Earl Borg had given him.
Pappas sat on the sofa listening to a CD of Dionysious Savopoulos’s Garden of the Fool. The singer was one of his favorites, had been since he first heard his voice on on a Greek radio station almost forty years ago in Philadelphia. Philadelphia was home, had been home. It was where the good memories were, at least many good memories plus the ghosts of many friends and enemies. Philadelphia, in Greek, means “City of Brotherly Love.” Savopoulos had been a kind of Greek combination of Frank Zappa and Bob Dylan with strong traditional Greek influences.
Pappas wanted to squeeze the coffee cup, but if he did, it would break. One of the reasons for using the delicate cups was that they were so delicate. They reminded him that he should have a soft touch. Sometimes, however, he forgot.
Loose ends. Holes. Sticky fingers. Weak sons. Weak knees. Mother is always right. Like Hell. If mothers were like Bernice, they were wrong at least half the time and when they were wrong, they were wrong big time. I mean, I’m telling you, big, big time. But a mother is a mother. This one could kill and bake and loved her family.
Enough. Tomorrow he would personally take care of Posnitki. Their relationship was far too dangerous for Pappas and his family. The dead Posno would take to darkness behind the wall of death whatever information he had on Pappas. Posno would also take with him responsibility for all he had done in Pappas’s name. He would even take with him responsibility for crimes he didn’t commit. The door would be open.
Pappas felt his legs bouncing nervously. He got up, cup still in hand, and began to sytros, the traditional dance move that was simply part of him, the dance move popularized in Zorba The Greek, Never On a Sunday and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Right foot out, arms up, circle counterclockwise in a shuffle-drag. The music wasn’t quite right, but the dance was of the blood and the song in Greek.
It was a celebration now, a wake, a near-ecstasy. He smiled, eyes closed. He didn’t hear the door open or close, but he did sense a presence near him. He could smell his mother, sweet of honey, crisp of phyllo. He opened his eyes. She was dancing next to him and smiling.
He imagined Posno next to him, dancing, smiling. Posno, his dark round face, bald head, deep eyes, heavy lips. Posno dressed in black knit shirt, slacks, shoes and jacket. Had they once danced like that? Pappas wasn’t certain.
“Tomorrow,” Pappas said. “He will die.”
“Tomorrow,” his mother repeated. “It will be easy.”
“Yes,” he said, moving his shoulders to the distinct beat, but he knew it would not be easy.
The SUV stayed inside the speed limit and out of the passing lane as it moved south on I-56. Three cars behind, Lew Fonesca knew where Victor Lee was heading. Lew had been down this highway before, before and after it had been widened.
Lew had no change of clothes, no phone, no credit cards. He had three hundred and eighty-two dollars in his wallet, all of what was left of the cash he had brought with him to Chicago. It should be enough. It would have to be.
He would have to call Angie and Franco as soon as he could, but that might not be soon. Victor Lee had stopped only once, at an Exxon station to fill his gas tank and buy something in a paper bag, probably a sandwich and a drink. Lew was parked at a pump four lanes over. He filled his own tank, went in to pay, looked out the window and saw Lee leaning back in his seat, rubbing a finger on the skin above his nose.
Lew took a chance, got a handful of change, moved to a phone against the wall near a window and fed the slot keeping his eyes on Lee, who now sat up and turned on the ignition.
“Massaccio Towing,” said Franco.
“Franco, I’m following the guy who killed Catherine.”
“Where are-?”
“Franco, listen. I have to go. I’ll try to call tonight, but I won’t be back till tomorrow, maybe later.”
“Lewie, McKinney is trying to reach you.”
“I’ll call him when I can.”
“Lewis, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and hung up.
He hurried out of the Exxon, but he didn’t run.
The direction they were going, the diploma, the university degree Lew had taken from Lee’s desk, pointed the way. Somewhere Lew had a similar diploma from the same institution. It too had been in a drawer, probably still was in Uncle Tonio’s warehouse.
He turned on the radio, pushed buttons, flashing past Chicago FM stations he could still pick up, Spanish, Polish, Japanese, Swedish. Searching for a voice, any voice. He hesitated at a Greek station. Whatever song was playing made him hesitate and think of Pappas. He listened to the plaintive music that somehow felt right and left it on.
On the seat next to him was Lee’s painting of the dark mountains of the city with the one spot of light.
In two hours, they would be in Urbana-Champaign.
Lew knew the way to I-56 and south through the corn fields, seed towers, bales of hay, dairy cows who had long ago stopped looking up at passing cars and noisy trucks, turnoffs for small towns, roadside diners with names like Mom’s, Eat Da Voo, Minnie amp; Zane’s.
What was it Ames had said once when they were driving across Florida from the Gulf Coast to Miami on the Atlantic Coast? They had passed farms, horses, cows and penned-in hogs.
“Government pays people not to raise hogs, not grow tobacco,” Ames had said. “Some people even buy farms just to not grow or raise something. You don’t and I don’t raise hogs or grow tobacco. Why doesn’t the government give us money? Or better, why don’t they stop giving money to people for not raising anything.”
It was easy to remember this on-the-road exchange because it was the longest single speech Lew had ever heard from Ames McKinney. Lew hadn’t said anything after the speech. He wasn’t sure if Ames was or wasn’t joking. Lew didn’t want to find out. He did wonder what his friend would make of the massive fields on both sides of the highway.
Lew picked up a Springfield FM radio station. An English professor who specialized in the history of the early
