Killer Smile (7 page)

“How was Joe connected with your firm?”

“Joe founded it. It was Giorno & Locaro, then it became Giorno & Cavuto.” Frank eased back in his chair, leaving his glasses and the memo on the desk. “Joe was the one who picked this building, bought it bargain-basement, which was key. The man was legend. He owned lotsa property down here, and he could see how important the office location would be, you know.”

“Of course.” Mary did know. The law firm of Giorno & Cavuto owned the prominent corner of Broad & Columbus Streets, in a limestone Victorian that marked the start of the Italian neighborhood. Its turn-of-the-century turret looked like a lighthouse, especially to South Philadelphians who had never seen one. “How well did you know Joe?”

“Not that well. I’m old, but not that old.” Frank smiled. He was about fifty-five, with a surplus of thick black hair, coarse as a boar bristle and not at all tamed by tap water. Crow’s feet appeared whenever he smiled, which was as frequently as a city councilman, and his eyes were ringed with dark, almost tubercular, circles. “Joe was a smart man, an okay lawyer. But cheap! Cheapest man on the planet.”

“How so?”

“I come in, I hadda redo all the plumbing and the electric. Fresh coat a paint, all three floors. New water heater, new toilets, the old ones use too much water. This place hadn’t been touched in years.” Frank gestured around the office, and his pinky ring glinted in the faint sunlight from a sooty window. Traffic was picking up on Broad Street, making noise and casting shadows on the pane. “What are you gonna do? People are people.”

Mary couldn’t help but smile. Everyone in South Philly said things like this, which passed for content. She should have countered with,
Ain’t it the truth,
but said instead: “Well, when I found the memo, I started to wonder. Why would Joe go all the way to Montana to tell Amadeo about Theresa’s death? It’s a long way to travel, especially in wartime. It must have cost a lot, for a cheap guy.”

“Joe would have charged the client, no doubt.” Frank paused. “I don’t know why he went, maybe just to be nice.”

“He doesn’t sound that nice, in the memo.” Mary hadn’t been able to sleep last night, thinking about it and the Escalade. “I mean, to go and tell Amadeo, Your wife’s dead. Get over it.”

“Maybe he went because he was Theresa’s executor, I don’t know.”

“Was he? Did Theresa have a will?”

“I don’t know.”

Mary shook her head, puzzled. “It’s your firm, Frank. If she were a client, wouldn’t you know it? If your founder were her executor, wouldn’t you know?”

“Depends. When did she die?”

“In 1942, right after Amadeo was sent to the camp. Tony was at the front.”

“This is 1942 we’re talking, Mare?
Psh!
” Frank waved his hand. “If there was a will, no way do I have that will anymore. I checked the will vault before, but we don’t keep the wills that old. There’s no point to it.”

This would be the point,
Mary wanted to say, but didn’t. She knew it cost money to archive legal files and solo practitioners like Frank didn’t have the resources of Rosato & Associates.

“Just like Brandolini’s old business files, it’s all gone. I only joined the firm in 1985. To me, 1980 is archives. And 1943 is nowhere.” Frank shook his head, clucking. “When Joe left in 1981, he took his files with him. That’s how they did it, him and Locaro. Split the clients and the files, went their separate ways. That was in 1981. Joe musta had the files for Theresa and Amadeo, but who knows where they are now. She died of cancer, right?”

“No, like it says in the memo, she fell down the stairs in her house. I guess she broke her neck.”

“It’s a sin.” Frank was still clucking. “Poor Tony, that cancer’s no picnic either. That’s what got him. You knew that, right? At least he went quick.”

Mary thought of her mother, then shooed it away. “Did you go to Tony’s funeral? Where was he buried?”

“Of course I went.” Frank checked his watch, a heavy fake-gold Timex, but Mary knew it wasn’t even nine o’clock. He shook it back into place on his wrist and gave a little cough,
hough-hough
. “He’s at Our Lady of Angels.”

Everybody in the neighborhood was buried there, but not Mike. Mike wasn’t there, by her choice. “Is Amadeo there?”

“No. Theresa is. Not him.”

Mary made a mental note. It meant that Amadeo was probably buried in Montana, like the other internee had been.

“Come to think of it, I doubt they had a will. They didn’t have much money, that much I know.” Frank chuckled. “Amadeo used to pay Joe with crabs he caught down Wildwood. They ran all over the office, the way crabs do. You know.”

“Okay, so we don’t know if they had a will and we don’t know why Joe went to Montana. You know what else I don’t get?”

“What, Mare?”

“I don’t get why Tony, when he needed a lawyer to do a will, would come to you and not Joe. Joe was the family lawyer, but when Tony needed a lawyer to trace his father’s property, he came to you.”

“Joe was retired by then. Besides, I’m twice the lawyer that Joe was, believe me. But I won’t speak ill, may he rest.” Frank crossed himself.

“Did Joe have any partners who might know where the file or a will could be?”

“No. Joe went solo, then retired. We went over this before. Things change, Mare.”

“So I hear.” Mary didn’t add,
and it totally sucks
. She kept thinking that lately all she did was chase missing files. “Will you double-check for a file? The house on Nutt Street, I don’t know if they owned or rented, and the bank accounts I can’t find, either personal or Amadeo’s business. There used to be a Girard Bank near them on Nutt, my father remembers it. That was the closest branch of any bank to their house, and probably where they banked.”

“There you go.”

“But Girard got bought by Mellon and that branch got closed, and nobody at Mellon could find records of Amadeo or Theresa Brandolini. It was before computer records, too. All ink and paper.”

“I’m impressed, Mare. You’re doing your homework.”

Mary sighed. Doing-your-homework was her middle name. She had to make up for her lack-of-forte.

Frank checked his watch again. It was only two minutes later. “You say you didn’t find any of his business records at the Library of Congress?”

“National Archives, and no.”

Frank handed Mary the FBI memo. “Win some, lose some.”

Not me,
she wanted to say.
Not this, anyway
. She put the memo back into her briefcase, then retrieved Amadeo’s black wallet, which she’d put in a Baggie for safekeeping. She opened the billfold, slid out the thick packet of scrap drawings, and handed it to Frank. “Last question. Do you remember these drawings? They were in the wallet in the box of stuff you gave me from Tony, when you hired me.”

“I don’t remember the stuff in the box.” Frank barely glanced at the drawings before he pushed them and the wallet back.

“It was only last year. You gave it to me after Tony died.”

“Mare, gimme a break here. I didn’t look in the box.” Frank leaned over the desk, hunching his shoulders at the seams, where the pinstripes matched. “You know the number of people who come in my office with a cigar box? A shoe box? A little wrinkly paper bag from Passyunk Avenue? You know the
crap
these people have, that they save for decades? You think I look at that?” Frank’s voice grew louder with exasperation, but Mary was used to being exasperating. It was the double-checking that put people over the top.

“Do you know if the box was from before Amadeo went to the camp or after?”

“I don’t know. Tony gave it to me. Said it was all his father’s things. That’s all I know. Sue me!”

Mary looked at the drawings. The crude pencil lines. The circles. “I think Amadeo drew it and I think it meant something to him. What do you think?”

“I think I have to get to work. Now.” Frank cleared his throat. “I gotta earn a buck.”

“Just a minute more. Do you know what they’re drawings of?” Mary pointed to one view of the circle.

“No.”

“They look like something, don’t they?”

“No, they don’t.”

“How can you tell without your reading glasses?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Frank picked up his glasses, slipped them on, and thumbed through the drawings. Mary eyed him. Was he just antsy or was it something about the drawings? He seemed more testy than before she’d shown them.

“You can see, he drew it several times. It looks like a circle, doesn’t it?”

“No, it’s a doodle, so what? He’s drawing the same cockamamie thing over and over.” Frank’s glare challenged her over the rims of his glasses. “So this is it. The end of the line.”

“Okay, I’ll let you get to work.” Mary picked up the drawings, folded them, and slipped them back in the wallet, then into the Baggie. “Thanks for your time.”

“No, I meant the end of the line with Brandolini. It’s time to give it up, Mare.” Frank rose, pulling up his belt so that the change jingled in his pants. “You tried to get reparations for the estate, but you couldn’t. There’s no shame in it. You even went to Washington and all.”

“I’m not giving up, Frank,” Mary said, surprised.

“I’m sorry I sent you on a wild goose chase. The boats, the business. It’s time to end the case and cut your losses.”

“It’s no loss. I’m enjoying it, and I’ll find something sooner or later. You know me, I never give up. Remember the game against Vecchia’s Auto? Seventh inning?”

If Frank remembered, it didn’t show. “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t a started it. I wanted to fill Tony’s last wish. Justice for his father and all that, and you know how it is, with the neighborhood all worked up. I’ll tell ’em it’s over, tell ’em to call it a day. They have to let go of the past. You know?”

But this time, Mary didn’t know. “You can’t really blame them. And the past is always present.” She’d never heard herself say something so deep. Was she getting smarter?

“So we’ll hold a big party, all the
circolo,
to thank you for fighting the good fight.” Frank continued as if he hadn’t heard her, and a professional note sounded in his voice. “That retainer we gave you must be almost out by now, so I’m telling you to let it go.”

“You’re
firing
me?” Mary felt her jaw drop, and Frank looked down at her. He was taller than she thought, so she stood up, briefcase in hand. He was still taller than she thought.

“Not firing, just telling you to quit.”

“I don’t want to quit.”

“The
circolo
is my client and we can’t pay you anymore. The money Tony left for the suit is all gone.”

“You haven’t been paying me. I’ve worked this case
pro bono
for a month now.”

“That okay with Rosato?” Frank laughed uncomfortably, and Mary felt an ember of suspicion flare within her chest.
Why would he want to fire a lawyer who was working for free?
She put on her game face.

“That’ll be my lookout. You’ll double-check about those files for me?”

“Ain’t gonna happen, Mare.” Frank had already sat back down, but Mary wasn’t buying. If he was hiding something, he was even a worse actor than her father. Frank wanted her off the case, and something smelled fishier than Jersey crabs. Mary couldn’t believe it, not from Frank. He used to treat the softball team to cherry water ice from a stand on Wolf Street, scooped into pleated paper cups with a flat spoon. Evidently, that was then. She set her jaw, picked up her briefcase, purse, and a white box of pastry she’d got at Isgro’s, then managed a same-old-Mary smile.

“Frank, you check on those files for me, or I’m telling my mother on you!”

“You
wouldn’t
!” he said, with a dry laugh, and Mary left the office.

With the sound of his laughter echoing behind her.

Mary waited at the bus stop outside Frank’s building. There were more than a few buses traveling Broad Street at this hour, and she would normally grab one and be at work in no time. But this morning, traffic was bumper to bumper, stop and go, and she spotted the C bus five blocks away. Waiting for it gave her time to sort out her thoughts. Frank wanted her off the case. Why?

HONK!
Mary started at the horn blast from a Yukon SUV, the driver tailgating a battered Toyota wagon. Traffic was slowing to a complete stop, the cars at the end of the street catching up with the front like an urban inchworm, coming to a standstill that stretched into several minutes. Stoplights blinked red and green with no forward progress. Mary eyed the traffic for the Escalade. It wasn’t in sight. Good.

It was sunny, cool, and clear, good weather for a city with four seasons: fall, winter, spring, and humidity. She decided to hoof it. Her briefcase wasn’t heavy today and neither was the pastry. Philly was so small she could be uptown in twenty minutes, and at this rate maybe even beat the C bus. She headed north, passing people in fresh shirts and pressed pants, carrying newspapers and covered cups of coffee to jobs in the nail parlors, funeral homes, and dry cleaners that lined Broad. A waitress in a black-and-white uniform walked by on her way to the Broad Street Diner, and there were no ties on the street except for her bow tie.

Mary reached the corner and crossed on the red with everybody else, since traffic wasn’t going anywhere. Another block went by before she knew it. Traffic chugged ahead, and she glanced over her shoulder. The C was only three blocks away now, getting closer, plowing cars out of the bus lane. Mary used to be able to beat the C in high school, except when it cheated, like now. Then she did a double-take. There was a black Escalade in the far lane.

She watched the Escalade stop in traffic and stalled to get a look at the driver. She walked slowly, her heart thumping, and swung her pastry box, which would be the acting-casual part. Then the traffic moved on, she slowed her pace almost to a stop, and in one more block she got a glimpse of the Escalade driver — and a dash of coral lip-stick. Same car, different driver. She exhaled with relief. She was being paranoid. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe last night was nothing, too.

She picked up the pace and in no time reached the next corner, then stopped at the corner and looked up at the traffic light. It was red, next to the sign that read
NUTT STREET
. Amadeo’s street. He and Theresa had lived in a house on Nutt, six blocks down, to the east. Mary didn’t move when the light turned green and the covered cups crossed the street. It was only a short walk. The C bus rolled to a stop that belched hydrocarbons and emitted a hydraulic
screech
. The bus doors snapped open, letting riders on, but Mary wasn’t among them.