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I know this whole thing is a mistake. But sometimes, even when you know something is going to go badly, there’s nothing to do but go ahead with it, so, despite all the misgivings, I join the line of cars waiting to turn into the parking lot at the Anthony Verderame Funeral Home in Flushing.
In front of me is a black Mercedes like Howard’s, only bigger. In front of that is a black Cadillac Esplanade. Behind me is a black sports car with a silver jaguar lunging for the tail of my dented red Toyota RAV4. Every other car appears to be a black Lincoln Town Car.
Bobbie and I exchange glances that question whether we could be any more conspicuous. The line crawls, and if our car is a tip-off that we don’t belong here, the preponderance of men in black suits with dark glasses heading for the funeral steps really cinches it.
“We should not do this,” Bobbie says emphatically. “This is a mistake.”
The line of cars turning into the lot has multiplied into two lanes and we are part of the inner one, next to the curb. We couldn’t leave if we wanted to. Which, despite the looks we are getting from the mourners, I don’t.
“At least we shouldn’t park here, so that we can make a quick getaway,” Bobbie says, and she has a point. Of course, there isn’t one available spot on the street as far as the eye can see.
I tell her she is worried about nothing. I don’t tell her that my heart is pounding so hard I can hardly breathe around it, that I am drenched from my armpits right down to my waist. I also don’t tell her that I still haven’t come up with a plan beyond getting in the door.
We park the car, leaving our keys with the attendant, and climb the steps to the chapel.
It occurs to me that the casket could be closed, an eventuality I hadn’t planned for. Of course, that assumes I’ve planned at all, beyond “bring the ring to the funeral.”
A man whose chest strains the confines of his size 48 suit welcomes us. He points out Joe’s mother. I expect an old Italian woman in a black dress with her stockings rolled below her knees. Mrs. Greco doesn’t disappoint. The man offers to take us over to pay our respects. It sounds like one of those offers you don’t refuse, and I nod my thanks.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to Joe’s mother, and of course, I am, because there must be nothing harder for a mother than to bury her child, no matter how old he is. I don’t tell her how I come to know this, how my mother’s life was ruined by my younger brother’s death and what it’s done to the rest of us, but I do tell her that I know. She tells me Joe was a good boy. A good son. And she introduces me to her other son, Frank, who is bigger than the usher who greeted us.
Frank, towering over me, asks me how I knew Joe.
“We’d see each other at The Steak-Out,” I say, and sense Frank’s body stiffen, so I add, “occasionally,” to sort of soften the statement.
“Wednesdays?” he asks. I don’t know what the right response is.
“Sometimes,” I say. “Just a lunch every now and then.”
“Like once a month,” he says. I get the sense that we are talking in code, only he’s a cryptographer and I’m talking Pig Latin.
His jaw is working overtime and the grip he has on my arm tightens as he leads me toward the casket. I look back at Bobbie, who gives me a what-do-I-do-now? face. “My friend,” I say, pointing toward Bobbie, but Frank’s hold on my elbow is firm and unyielding.
“You’ll want to say goodbye,” he says firmly, all but ordering me to look into the casket at poor, dead Joe. This is what I wanted, after all, isn’t it? The chance to look in that casket and replace Joe’s ring.
“Well, I…” I start to say, realizing I should have put the damn thing in my pocket instead of my purse. I pretend to tear up, though it’s not hard to force out tears when you’re scared to death, and I open my purse for a tissue.
Naturally, Frank offers me a clean handkerchief. I have to say that Mrs. Greco raised her boys right, damn her. I cough into the handkerchief until I sound like I’m about to die on the spot.
“I think I’ve a lozenge in my purse,” I tell Frank and root around until I find the ring.
I cough one more time and put the ring under my tongue as I do.
Now all I have to do is not swallow it before I look into the casket, cough it into my hand and then touch dear, dear Joe one last time.
I realize I can’t do this with my eyes closed, and so I look down at Joe. The hole in his head has been plugged up, and if my mother could see him now, spiffy in his gray suit, serene in repose, she’d tell me how wrong I was to let this one go.
Frank puts his arm around my shoulder. I smile at him, lips closed, ring beneath my tongue, and I wish he’d give me a little space. Sniffling, I bow my head and look over at Bobbie, who is still standing with Mrs. Greco. I signal her as best I can that I’m stuck with Frank at my side, and spit the ring into Frank’s handkerchief.
“Is your mother all right?” I ask Frank loudly, hoping that Bobbie will get the hint. I fan my face with the handkerchief to clue her in about what she can do, and the ring falls out. I look down and cover it with my foot, claiming it’s my lozenge.
Frank offers to get it, and just as he begins to bend down Bobbie starts fanning Mrs. Greco and calls Frank’s name. “Your mother,” she says, and Frank is gone as fast as a guy who makes Refrigerator Perry look small can vanish.
I bend down, pick up the ring, and lean over the coffin. “Frank,” I say, and then realize I’m bidding a fond farewell to the wrong Greco. “Joe,” I start again, reaching my hand into the coffin and touching Joe’s hands, which are placed low on his lap.
They are clammy. Cold. They feel waxen. I manage to slide the ring on as far as the first knuckle. And then two men approach the coffin from different sides.
Softly, patting his hands with one of mine, I say, “I’ll miss our lunches.”
“Not as much as he will,” the man near Joe’s head says.
I’m still holding Joe’s hands. My left hand is trying to push the ring on and my right is trying to hide what I’m doing. The ring refuses to budge. If I let go now, it will look like I was trying to get the ring off, not on.
If I don’t let go, with his hands basically on his crotch, it will look like I’m sexually assaulting a dead man.
I could try to faint, but I’m not the world’s best actress. Beside me, both men appear to be waiting for me to finish saying goodbye to Joe.
“Oh, my God,” I hear Bobbie shout. “She’s fainting!” I turn, along with everyone else, to see poor Mrs. Greco sliding to the floor.
I jam the ring as far as I can up Joe’s finger and turn.
“Get out now,” one of the men whispers at me, and I take off, grab Bobbie’s hand, and we run out of the chapel like Jimmy Choo is giving out free samples down on the corner.
The parking lot is hopeless, so we hobble a few extra blocks to catch the LIRR heading for home. Ordinarily, women from Long Island only use the railroad to get to and from the city, and even then, the rule is pretty much only for Wednesday matinees and only if you’re too old or too poor to drive in. Don’t get the wrong idea. There’s nothing wrong with the railroad. The cars are clean and the service is good. I don’t understand it, either. It’s just one of those Long Island Rules.
I figure we can take a cab home from the station and go back tomorrow for my car. And we hide in the ladies’ room until we hear them announce the train.
“How in the world did you get Joe’s mother to faint?” I ask Bobbie after we’ve caught our breath. She claims that luck was just with us.
As we slip into the railroad car and the doors slide closed behind us, I notice a man in a black suit watching us. He rubs at his nose and I see there are two fingers missing on his right hand.
I tell Bobbie it looks like our luck has just run out.
CHAPTER 5
Design Tip of the Day
“I always recommend that clients splurge on their bedding. A person spends something like one third of his or her life in bed, and that’s too much time to be relegated to second-class status. With good quality sheets and towels available reasonably at every outlet mall and on the Internet, why wake up feeling like you’ve spent the night at Bob’s Cabins Off Interstate 6 instead of The Plaza on Central Park?”
—TipsFromTeddi.com
My car is waiting outside my house the next morning with a note on it. “Courtesy of the Nassau County Police Department.”
Which can mean only one thing. I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.
When I come back in the house, Dana is in the kitchen whispering to Kimmie, the nicer of Bobbie’s twin daughters. Kimmie nudges her, and Dana throws her a look before telling me that Drew has called and said I should wait for him.
“I wouldn’t let a man tell me what to do,” she says as she gathers up her book bag and heads for the open door.
“How about a police officer?” Drew says in response, and laughs when Dana reddens and pushes past him, Kimmie in her wake. “That one’s gonna be a handful,” he tells me, like he’s raised any kids of his own.
“Yeah, well,” is all I can say. That and it would have been nice if you’d given me enough warning to put on some makeup and decent clothes. Of course, I don’t say that.
“Just like her mom,” he says, looking me over from toe to head. “A real handful.”
I ask if he wants coffee and fumble with the maker.
“What I’d like is to know what the hell you were doing at Joe Greco’s funeral.”
That’s it. He doesn’t say more.
“Saying goodbye?” I suggest.
He just waits.
“I was one of the last people to see him alive,” I say. “Closure?”
“Just how well did you know him?” he asks, and his tone implies I was having sex with the man on a regular basis.
I tell him I didn’t know the man at all. Not even his name.
“Never saw him with his pants down?” he asks.
“Only dead,” I remind him, like if he’s trying to trap me, he’s failed.
“Lunches on Wednesdays?”
This is clearly a clue, but I say nothing.
He takes out a small tape recorder and places it on the counter. I hear myself telling Joe I’ll miss him.
I repeat that I didn’t know the man, though I admit that it does seem fishy.
“Everything with you seems fishy,” he says. “But until now you’ve always been honest with me and didn’t play games.”
I tell him I’m being honest about not knowing Joe, but the way it comes out it sounds as cagey as it is.
“I’m asking you, as a police officer, what you were doing at Joe Greco’s funeral, crying over his dead body.”
“Are you jealous?” I ask. It’s a dangerous question, but it could take us off the subject at hand, and give me time to think.
He tells me he’s not jealous, he’s angry. “I’ve put myself on the line for you, Teddi. Not once, not twice, but enough times to get the whole damn department betting on what you’ll do next. You know what it took to ditch Hal this morning so that I could take care of this alone?”
I ask him what he’s talking about, but my skin is already crawling.
“The Department’s a club, a fraternity. Christ, it’s a legal gang. It’s got rules, codes, and there’s no such thing as secrets.” He looks embarrassed, but seems to shake it off. “And you, Teddi Bayer, are one interesting woman.”
“What does that mean?”
He tells me that I’m as smart as I am interesting, and he doesn’t mean it as a compliment. “So you figure it out. And while you’re thinking on it, you want to explain your relationship with Joe Greco to me? Or to some guys down at the station?”
I tell him again that I have no relationship with Joe Greco, but I can see that isn’t going to be enough.
I tell him I was returning a ring. He asks what kind of a ring. I tell him a diamond. I’m so angry I’m letting him jump to every wrong conclusion he can.
“Joe Greco gave you a diamond ring?” he says. “You need a sugar daddy that bad, kiddo?”
I tell him that my mother didn’t think he was too old for me and he just laughs.
“Your mother, as we both know, is a whacko.”
I nod. “Whacko enough to use a men’s room when the ladies’ room is occupied. Whacko enough to take a dead man’s ring from where it was left on a sink ledge in that men’s bathroom. Whacko enough to give it to her husband, and whacko enough to be mad at her daughter for taking it back and returning it to the dead man’s finger.”
Drew just sighs. Then he asks if I have any proof.
“That my mother is whacky? I have a police detective’s assessment.”
He gives me a sick little smile.
“And then there’s the hospital report from Sunday when I took my father there to have the ring removed from his finger when he couldn’t get it off. Will that do?”
“Was that so hard?” he asks me, and the hand on the counter is balled in a fist. “When the hell are you going to realize I’m on your side?”
“Against whom?” I ask, and I’m trembling because I don’t want to need him on my side. I don’t want to need anyone on my side. I want to stand alone, be left alone. “I didn’t ask to be part of this mess. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person.”
Drew comes to his feet and pushes me against the refrigerator. I can feel Alyssa’s latest drawing behind my back. He presses himself up against me and kisses me like he is making up for three months of being AWOL. He kisses my mouth, my cheeks, my neck. He kisses my eyelids until I’m forced to close my eyes, and he kisses my forehead so tenderly that if he wasn’t pressed against me I’d just melt in a puddle on the floor.
And then he pushes himself away from me. “Damn it to hell, woman,” he says. “You could have just given me the ring.”
I could have, I think to myself. But I wouldn’t have gotten kissed like that if I had.
He shakes his head at me. “Damn it,” he says again, grabbing up his jacket and heading for the door.
“Drew,” I say, wanting to tell him about what Frank Greco said about Wednesdays, like Joe met someone regularly, and what the other man by the casket said, but he doesn’t turn around. He just waves his hand over his head.
“Damn it all to hell,” he says again and then slams my door.
At 10:00 a.m. I call two potential clients and then answer a bunch of questions on my Web site about shelving, including why Miss Stake’s shelves look like the library’s instead of her sister’s. I tell her to arrange the books by size instead of alphabetically, and to pull all the spines to the front edge of the shelves. And she wants to know how to stop them from making the room look smaller (paint the backs of the units the same color as the walls and put very few items on them).
Then I meet Mark Bishop, my carpenter, at The Steak-Out.
Mark is young, big and strong, and he’s built well enough that seeing a bit of his butt when he bends over is still a treat. He’s got a million girls calling him and showing up to “help him work,” and he is two hundred percent male.
The best part is that he’s a tease and a flirt, always coming on to me, always pretending he’d throw over all his little chickies for one roll in the hay with me.
He takes one look at me today and he can see that I’m already done in. “Come to papa, gorgeous,” he tells me, and I let him give me a big bear hug. “When are you going to give in and let me take care of you?”
I tell him that on what I pay him, he can’t afford to take care of me. “Who’s talking about financially?” he asks with a wink.
