A Crack in Everything Read online

  “Nino is decent. Benny’s a slow learner, so Nino finds him little chores and does all the rest himself.”

  “And exhausts himself in the process. My father was a lot like Nino. Salt of the earth, but stubborn, unable to delegate.”

  A thumbnail sketch of my client.

  “I saw Nino bully you tonight, and I think I know why.”

  “It was about my cussing.” But of course it had been about Chaz, all of it. With age, Nino was slipping into stereotype, the enterprising first generation American losing ground to the suspicious Italian tyrant. “He’s easily irritated after a few drinks,” I said, more casually than I felt. “And he does drink in the evening.”

  “My father did, too. He died five years ago. Stroke. Dropped dead in his garden, and nobody found his body for days.”

  “How awful. What about your mother? Friends? Where were you?”

  “Switzerland.” Chaz flicked the radio on and off, not bothering to search for a station. “My father had no friends, and my mother died when I was eleven. Melanoma, took her in six months. She’s why I went into research, to find the cure for cancer. The holy grail.”

  My eyes held the road, but I felt Chaz’s smile. It seemed always to carry two meanings: irony and tenderness, affection and indifference. I stole a glance and this time read calm, and something bitter. The radio erupted again. I hadn’t noticed Chaz touch it, but as we neared Brookline he let oldies fill the air. Judy sent in the clowns, Leonard let in some light, then Crystal began to pour out the sad sticky tune my older sister had spoiled for me. Mimi had loved this song and forced me to learn the chords when I was too young to fight back. Brown eyes, blue eyes, how much moaning can a poor girl do? I reached over and turned the radio off.

  When we pulled into the hotel turnaround, Chaz spoke again of his father. “Dad never remarried,” he said, “and never retired. All his sorrow went into their business. One small nursery became a chain of florist shops. Not long before he died, his doctor told me he’d been weakened by a few small strokes. Instead of helping my poor father cope, I went off to a conference thinking I’d take care of things later.”

  He moved closer, his arm straddling the back of my seat. “You could say I let my father die. If I’d taken charge of him, he’d still be alive.”

  Chapter Six

  Taking Charge

  The bedside phone rang in my ear. Tipped off by a 911 call, police had found Nino unconscious in the alley behind his apartment. Paper shufflers from Falkman Hospital were calling because my name had turned up on documents scattered in front of Tavola’s safe.

  I raced down empty streets, and as I shifted and steered, the gate between my mind and my feelings swung shut. By the time I parked and pushed through the hospital doors, my lawyer’s mask was firmly in place. Business first, forms to fill out, papers to sign, and I took care of it.

  Now I watched over Nino, his head swathed in bandages, his skin the color of dust. Plastic tubes drifted down from his nostrils, stirring with each shallow breath. My own face was hot, and a wisp of dizziness sent me stumbling against the bed.

  “I’m here, Nino.” I spoke loudly because I’d read that unconscious people sometimes respond to a familiar voice.

  The IC nurse encouraged me: Mary Foley, a breezy, reassuring name that matched her bedside manner. Mary’s hair, freckles, eyes were all the same ruddy chestnut. A wide white headband held back her hair, a starched nurse’s cap without all the fuss.

  “Is this a coma?” I said.

  “No, but the next twenty-four hours will be critical.”

  “Could he die?”

  She picked up Nino’s chart. “A man his age, anything could happen.”

  Her words stung, and I sat rigid in my chair while she checked Nino’s pulse. My eye kept wandering to the shape of his body under the sheet. How could that motionless lump be Nino? I wanted to ask Nurse Foley, gatekeeper, if, in her professional opinion, there was such a thing as an immortal soul, but I could see she was too busy for philosophy.

  She patted my wrist. “Anything could happen, but probably won’t. The CT scan was negative for fractures. No intracranial bleeding. He’s a sturdy old fellow. Keep talking to him. Do you both a bit of good.”

  Around six, I went to the visitor’s lounge, pressed my forehead against the window, and watched early morning traffic pulse by in the street below. Someone touched my arm. I turned, astonished to see Chaz. I hadn’t heard him, or noticed the sweet spice of his cologne.

  “I got your message. Why didn’t you have the hotel wake me?” he said.

  “At two in the morning? I just wanted to make sure you knew where to find your keys. You shouldn’t have come.” But I was glad to see him.

  “Desk clerk said something about Nino, a robbery. I couldn’t go back to Telford without making sure you were all right.”

  I told him what little I knew from the hospital report. “Nino’s unconscious. I’ve been talking at him. Poor guy probably thinks he’s having a nightmare, his lawyer gabbing when all he wants is rest.”

  “No. He’s grateful you’re looking after him.”

  We stood by the window for a few minutes. Then, while Chaz got us coffee from the cafeteria, I called my friends and canceled my Truro weekend.

  Back in the ICU, Nurse Foley drew the curtains, giving the space around Nino the feel of a room. Chaz stood beside my chair.

  “Nino.” I took his hand. “Open your eyes.”

  Only his tubes moved, breathing in, breathing out.

  “Where will he go after he’s released?” Chaz asked.

  Grateful for all the question implied, I answered without thinking. “Home, of course.”

  “Alone?”

  “I could arrange for care.” An expense Nino probably couldn’t bear for long.

  “Does Nino own his building?”

  “Hardly. And his landlord’s not the nicest guy in town.”

  “Who’s going to run the restaurant?”

  “Tavola could close for a few weeks.”

  But I knew Lombard would be jumping all over the lease if Nino’s restaurant closed. No more sweet talk and high offers. His pals in Inspectional Services would find enough wrong to shutter Tavola for months. Lombard might even sue my shoot-from-the-hip client for slander just to keep the top spinning.

  And I was the top. I’d have to hold Lombard at bay. And for what? For a cause I didn’t believe in? For a stubborn old paesan who lacked business smarts? Even Chaz’s successful father had lost touch with reality at the end. How much more so Nino? Every instinct told me he needed my help to survive.

  “Chaz, would your father have sold his business if you’d insisted?”

  He moved to a chink in the curtain. “Yes, probably. One thing I am sure of. My father would have been safe living near me. He certainly wouldn’t have died all alone.” A tight smile drew down the corners of his mouth. “Grand thing, hindsight.”

  Chaz’s story, his voice, began to intrude on my carefully fenced-off feelings. I looked away. I didn’t want to see his eyes.

  “The worst of it was, I had a chance to intervene and I let it slip through my fingers. A few months before he died, my father gave me power of attorney. He was asking me to take charge. Asking without words, which was the only way he ever asked for anything.”

  “Not everyone can hear that kind of asking.”

  A hospital quiet infiltrated the curtained-off space. Chaz let the silence go on for so long it felt like an expectation, like he was asking me for something, without words, but when I looked, there was no asking in his eyes. No irony either. Concern for me, compassion, maybe. “I know you’re upset,” he said. “Not only because of…” He gestured toward the bed. A bead of fluid dripped from a pouch down the line into Nino’s puffy hand.

  “Ev
en before this happened I could see you were worried. Is Nino in some kind of trouble? I couldn’t help noticing he had almost no customers last night.”

  My empty cup caught his eye, and he nested it inside his own on the bed table, a gesture that to my tired mind spoke of solidarity, shared purpose, the comfort of friendship. “What’s going on, Susan? The vacancies in his building…place looks like a ghost town.”

  “Business problems. Nino’s landlord is renovating and wants Tavola out. He’s offered to buy back the lease for a sum that would settle Nino in comfort for a long time, but Nino won’t budge.”

  “And you think he should?”

  “No question in my mind.”

  “Do you have power of attorney?”

  “Yes, but…” But what? My seventy-three year old half-stand-in grandpa lay unconscious in a hospital bed, unable to think, let alone make decisions for himself. His welfare was completely in my hands.

  “Want my advice?”

  I shook my head. “You’ve already given it to me, Chaz. I know what I’ve got to do.”

  “You’ve got to take charge,” he said softly.

  “Yes.”

  ***

  Lombard’s cigar sliced through the air, a baton at the end of a tedious symphony. “Congrats, Susan. You drove a hard bargain.” He shook his head and smiled, humble, defeated. “Wish you worked for me. I could use a tough little lawyer like you.”

  His good humor and boorish compliments told me I might have given one more turn of the screw, but I contented myself with a few minor changes to the buy-out and the new lease. We wanted a Viking range; permission to sublet; utilities paid by landlord. I initialed every page, and so did Lombard.

  In lieu of an actual Cambridge apartment, Lombard added a monthly sum equal to what he was willing to shell out for one. This money, plus the sublet value of the Harvard Square restaurant, would keep Nino in comfort for the next seven years. In seven years, Nino would be eighty, his savings untouched and ready. Beyond that, nothing.

  At ten o’clock, I signed Susan Callisto for Nino Biondi and drove straight home. The Truro weekend had forced me to clear my decks, and now its cancellation left me free to skip the office today. Sleep was what I wanted.

  ***

  “He opened his eyes after you left,” Nurse Foley told me, when I phoned her a few hours later, after the failed nap. “Closed them right away and didn’t speak, but he’s more alert now. Heartbeat strong and steady.”

  Her good news turned my exhaustion into a compulsion to clean my apartment, the top half of a “painted lady” with pointy hat roofs and bow-window bosoms, high Victorian charm for a Californian. And high maintenance. Routine scrubbings took me to cornices and nooks, and hours later, nooks took me to supper, an osso buco from Tavola, in my freezer since December. As it bubbled in the microwave, I wondered if Nino’s care packages would keep coming from Cambridge, or if this were my last osso buco.

  Around nine, Chaz called and praised me for taking charge.

  “I’m having second thoughts,” I said. “Nino’s going to be royally ticked off at me.”

  “He’ll get over it. You did the right thing, Susan. You guaranteed his future. In the long run, he’ll thank you.”

  Guaranteed his future. I felt better after Chaz said that.

  ***

  Slowly, slowly, Torie raised a white-fringed arm and pointed a talon at me. Her red mouth fell open. A gull’s scream ripped through my head.

  I jolted awake, certain Torie’s cry was a warning from my unconscious. But of what? Heart thudding, I reached over and turned off the lamp that had burned by my bed all night. Friday was dawning, pale light in my window and crunch time for Chaz, whose nominating petition had to be filed by five p.m.

  On my way to the hospital, I stopped at Nino’s apartment to collect a few comforts from home, letting myself in with the key he had given me after his partner died. First, without permission, I collected the photo scraps for restoration. So much of Nino’s fatalism was bound up in the cost of setting things right. If I paid for the photos, he’d complain, but I was certain he’d appreciate my welcome home gift. From Tavola’s freezer I grabbed a container of chicken soup, and by seven-thirty, I was back at the hospital.

  Mary Foley was at her station, same headband, same freckles, as if a day hadn’t passed. “He’s making great progress. If everything looks good on his eleven o’clock scan, I’ll bring him your soup.” She patted my hand. “Didn’t I tell you anything could happen?”

  We crossed the room, and she poked her head around Nino’s curtain. “Don’t get too comfortable, Mr. B. We need your bed for someone who’s really sick.” Before Nino could snap back a reply, she moved off.

  “Very funny,” he said as I came in. “Nobody wants me out of here more than I do.”

  A breakfast tray took up most of the bed table, and while he worried his oatmeal with a plastic spoon, I examined his coffee. If it were any weaker, it’d be dead.

  “Can you remember anything about the attack?”

  “What’re you, a cop now, like your dopey boyfriend?”

  “Can’t remember, huh?” I smirked, just to annoy him, letting the reference to Michael pass. Nino ticked off was Nino on the mend.

  “I remember right up to getting bonked. No more customers came after you and that client left, so we closed, cleaned, prepped. Benny goes home, I have an anisette, and I’m in bed by eleven. Later, something wakes me up, and I go check it out. When I open my eyes again, I’m stuck in this place. Cazzo! The one thing I need to remember…who woke me up…and I can’t. But there had to be three, four of ’em to take me down.”

  “Did Benny hear anything? Doesn’t he live across the alley from you?”

  “How should I know what he heard? Kid’s probably wondering where I am. Maybe you could call him.” He looked around. “Where’s that lying nurse? She promised me real coffee and toast an hour ago.”

  “You’re on hospital time. Ten minutes seems like an hour.”

  He scrunched his face. You do it, those wrinkles said.

  I sighed and picked up my hobo bag. Twenty minutes later I was back with crusty rolls and fresh espresso from the latte bar across the street. The breakfast tray hadn’t moved, and when I plopped the goody bag next to the bowl of congealed goo, Nino pounced on the coffee like a dog on truffles.

  “You’re a good friend to me, Susie.”

  His words pinched my heart. Would he still call me friend after I told him about the lease?

  “When you leave, I want you to go to the restaurant. Put a sign in the window. Say Tavola will be open on Sunday, just for lunch. Be sure to let Benny know.” Caffeine was pumping through his system, fueling the grandiose plans.

  “Forget the restaurant. You’ll be lucky to get out of here by Sunday. They want to do more tests.”

  His hands sprang up and danced in the air. “No more tests! Sunday I’ll be cookin’ with gas. Pasta, salad, two different soups. Pastries from Salem Market. Benny can do most of the work. Lunch’ll be easy.”

  I would have to tell him; he seemed strong enough. There were dark pools under his eyes, but apart from the bandaged head and a few bruises, I’d seen him look worse after a night of heavy drinking.

  “Zi’ Nino, I wasn’t sure when you’d wake up. You looked so…so…”

  “‘Ndundolit’.”

  “Crappy, I was going to say.”

  “Same difference. However you say it, this sucker is killing me.” He touched his bandaged lump, which provoked the usual short-lived bluster. “I know Lombard set me up, and this time I’m gonna prove it. Feels like my memory’s beginning to come back, and if it doesn’t, I’ll make it.”

  “Nino, listen to me. Lombard and I signed the buy-out agreement yesterday. And a new lease for Cambridge.”

&nb
sp; He opened his mouth, and I rushed on, babbling the good news before he could tell me just how bad it was.

  “I really took him to the cleaners. On top of everything else, I got utilities out of him.”

  “I do not believe what I’m hearing.” Like a traffic cop, he put up a palm, the frown on his face slowly turning to rage, and I raced through that red red light.

  “You were unconscious. Nobody knew when you’d wake up. I signed without telling Lombard you were in the hospital with your head bashed in. If he knew, he’d have padlocked Tavola and put you on the street.”

  “I trusted you.” He fell back on his pillow, hair sticking up in inky strands around his bandaged head. In a faltering voice, he asked, “Can you undo what you did?”

  “Maybe. I…you could get another lawyer. But the agreement…I had authority to sign for you.”

  “So Lombard won. His thugs beat the crap out of me and you let him win.”

  “I protected your interests. There was nobody but me to take care of you.”

  “How much did he pay you to do me in?”

  “Don’t insult me, Nino.” I worked my fingers through the straps of my bag. “I did the right thing. You were half-dead.”

  “Better I died.” His chin trembled. “You’re just like the rest of them. Traitor! Get outta my sight!” He pounded his fist, and the breakfast tray toppled, coffee and oatmeal splattering the blanket and my skirt. “Get out!”

  I fled, my hobo bag slamming against my hip. In the lobby I wrenched my shoulder against the glass exit doors, and one of my sandals came apart at the thong. If there had ever been a gate between my mind and my feelings, a torrent of tears now washed it clean away.

  ***

  Work. It had sheltered me in the past and would do so now. I paid the parking lot attendant and let the car drive itself while I planned the rest of my day. Before anything, I would take physical exercise, which would lead to a Zen-like state of detachment. Instead of taking charge, my ego would take a powder, and after that, what was left of me would keep busy with clients and candidates. By midnight, sleep would capture whatever husk of self was still blowing in the wind. Tomorrow I would after all go to Truro, and by Sunday evening, I’d be my old self.