A Thousand Tombs (10 page)

Early Tuesday morning Gen and Oliver were in San Francisco’s North Beach District, walking fast along the eastern border of Washington Park. A sizable group of slow-motion exercisers was practicing Tai Chi on the grass. Residents were just hitting the streets, and a steady flow of people were pouring out to enjoy the day.

North Beach, also known as Little Italy, is a bastion of Italian heritage and a distinctive feature in a truly unique city. The neighborhood is a perpetual favorite with both tourists and locals, dotted with Old World-style cafés, boutiques, popular bars and nightclubs, and historic landmarks such as Coit Tower and the world-famous bookstore, City Lights. Beatnik aficionados came to visit the Beat Museum and retrace the steps of Kerouac and Ginsburg, who used to hang out here.

Bordered on one side by Grant Avenue, which is the oldest street in San Francisco, and surrounded by the adjacent neighborhoods of Chinatown and the Financial District to the south, Fisherman's Wharf to the north, Telegraph Hill to the east and Russian Hill to the west, North Beach was once part of the Barbary Coast, and back then the docks welcomed immigrants from all around the globe. Hundreds of thousands of Italians immigrated to California, and many of them landed in North Beach.

Two cable car and three major bus lines provide much-needed transportation to the crowded district, and it’s a good thing. Because of its popularity, street parking is hideously scarce, even in a city where the parking situation everywhere is a challenge. Gen and Oliver left his Range Rover in a local pay-by-the-day garage to avoid the crunch.

“What’s eating you?” Oliver asked.

“Who says anything is?”

“I do.”

“And you would know.” Gen adjusted her baseball cap lower on her forehead, as if it could block out Oliver’s piercing gaze.

“It’s not like I’d need to be psychic, it’s written all over your face. It’s got to be either man trouble or a case that’s giving you grief. So which is it?”

Gen blew out some air. “It’s both. I told you about the kid Mack acquired. He’s supposedly homeless, hasn’t got two nickels to rub together, but it turns out he has a cell phone. And he felt the need to hide it under his pillow.”

“And you know this because …”

“I heard it ring. I went and found it.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“No. I told Mack and he came down on me, defended the kid. Came damn close to calling me a snoop.”

“Which you are.”

“Maybe. But he said the kid was okay, and I was out of line.”

“Maybe you were.”

Gen huffed a breath and glared at Oliver. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m on the side where you and Mack live happily ever after.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He stopped and turned to face her, and when she followed suit he grasped her forearms, as if she might run away when she heard what he was about to say.

“Mack’s a big boy, Genny. He’s a freaking police detective, for God’s sake. It’s his house, it’s his turf. Why don’t you just let him call the shots?”

“What’s with you?” She struggled, but he held her.

“The real question is what’s with you?”

She heaved another breath, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “Mack’s gotten sucked in because he sees himself in Luca and believes he can make a difference. But I think by the time a kid is Luca’s age, the stage is set. He is what he is, and I think he’s a liar.”

Oliver bussed her on the cheek and let her go. “Like I said, Genny, Mack’s a big boy. It’s his lesson to learn, it’s not yours to teach him.”

They started forward again along the sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder, and Livvie snaked an arm around her waist and hugged her to his side. “Your feelings may be valid, but face it, mainly you resent the boy showing up. Mack will learn what he needs to from this. Granted, the timing is rough, but you have to deal with it.”

She snorted. “The timing couldn’t have been worse.”

“Why is that?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t,” Oliver replied. “Draw me a picture.”

“God, Livvie.” She pursed her lips and thought about how to say it, but finally just blurted out the truth. “We were just about to move it all forward, if you know what I mean. The kid showed up the same night I was going to stay with Mack for the first time. Understand?”

“Ohhhhhhh.” Oliver draped an arm around her shoulder. “I see. You haven’t done the deed. So you’re disappointed, I get it. And now this boy is living with Mack and it puts a damper on the romance. So why don’t you just invite him over to your house to spend the night?”

“He’d probably bring Luca along.” The self-pity in Gen’s voice was unmistakable. She saw it for what it was immediately: a clear indication that she was wallowing.

“Have you asked him?”

“No. He’s focused on Luca right now.”

“Hence your indignation about some poor kid who needs a helping hand.”

God, she hated that she couldn’t hide anything from Oliver. What would she do when he wasn’t around all the time? No one would keep her honest. Well, except Mack. “There’s something off about Luca,” she insisted.

“Really?” Oliver dropped his arm and they navigated around a slower group ambling up the sidewalk. “Ask yourself if you need to be right about the kid being a delinquent, or do you need Mack to be wrong about trusting him? Either way, if you press the issue you lose.”

She felt a denial rise in her throat and started to spit it out, but Oliver cut her off.

“Think about it, Genny, before you slap me down. Just think about it. You’re trying to control the man, and he isn’t going to like being controlled.”

She bit her tongue and did as he’d asked, she thought about it. They walked in silence for half a block before she spoke again.

“So I went to my first self-defense class last week,” she said. “I learned how to poke eyes and stomp feet and kick a guy in the balls.”

Oliver crowed a laugh, then followed her segue easily and didn’t reprimand her for changing the subject. “Perfect outlet for your frustration, don’t you think?”

That made Gen chuckle, too, and she reached for his hand. “Maybe I should go to one of those classes every day, take the edge off.”

“Wouldn’t hurt.” Oliver squeezed her fingers, then folded both their arms against his side. “Are you going back?”

“Absolutely. The first class was about trying to escape an assailant before he gets you. The next is about trying to get away after someone’s already grabbed you. I can’t blow that off.”

“You can use it the next time some goon throws a punch.”

She laughed again. “Livvie, won’t you miss all this?” She threw an arm out wide, indicating the park and the buildings around it.

“The city? Nah. I’ve started to feel like San Francisco is the houseguest from Hell who’s overstayed their welcome. It’s loud and messy and overcrowded. The street kids have gotten aggressive and disrespectful. It has its charms, of course, and its benefits, but I’ll be here enough that I won’t have time to get homesick.”

Gen nodded and kicked at a piece of paper sliding by on the concrete. “Come on, let’s cut through the park. I’m tired of breathing exhaust.” She grabbed his hand and they hit the grass, but Oliver wasn’t through.

“What I will miss is you,” he said. “Seeing you every day, I mean. You have to come south and visit a lot.”

She nodded again and felt her throat swell, but she swallowed the emotion and didn’t reply for fear her voice would betray her.

“But you have Mack now, sweetie. You have a great guy.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you do.” His voice was firm. “Don’t screw it up, Genevieve.”

She knew what he meant. She remembered saying those exact words to her friend Madison when she tried to throw up roadblocks between herself and her now-husband, Cole.

After all she and Mack had gone through to get this far, she knew she needed to take a breath and trust. Could she get herself out of the way long enough to let that happen?

Gen was contemplating her shortcomings when she saw a familiar face across the green. It was Mr. Vitelli. He was wearing an old hat pulled down low on his forehead, but she was sure it was him. He was walking along with his head down, hands in pockets, apparently deep in thought. Boy, would she love to know what he was thinking about.

Vitelli looked up and glanced around, almost as if he had to remind himself where he was. She raised a hand and started to call a greeting, but let it die. Something told her to hold back. Then instinct told her to hide, and she fell back half a pace to conceal her face behind Oliver’s shoulder.

Vitelli looked at his watch, then quickened his pace, changed course, and headed out of the park.

“What’s up?” Livvie asked, but Gen shushed him and he shut up and kept walking. She pulled her sunglasses from her pocket and jammed them on, then grabbed Liv’s hand and urged him across the street.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“See that man with the hat over there? He’s the old guy who supposedly owns the coin. All of a sudden he looks like he’s on a mission. Let’s follow him and see what he does.”

“Didn’t you say he lived close? He’s probably just going home.”

“Could be,” Gen replied. “But if he is, he’s taking a roundabout route. His house is that-a-way.” She threw her thumb out to the side, indicating north. They were headed east. “Let’s find out what’s up.”

Vitelli moved pretty fast for his age, weaving confidently through the residential streets and away from the commercial areas. He knew where he was going. He peered over his shoulder once in a while, checking out the street.

Gen and Oliver hung back a block, but she knew they needn’t worry about getting caught. Gen’s outfit, ponytail, hat, and glasses made her nearly unrecognizable, and Vitelli had never seen Liv. They were just a couple of walkers out for a bit of exercise.

When Vitelli hung an abrupt left turn and disappeared, Gen sped up. She raised both hands and pumped her arms to either side of her body, mimicking the race-walkers that often passed her by. Oliver followed suit.

In thirty seconds they were crossing the mouth of the alley that swallowed Vitelli, and Gen stopped and marched in place while she swung her eyes down and back, as if she was looking for traffic before crossing. Again, Oliver went along with her charade.

She couldn’t see Vitelli anywhere.

“This way,” she whispered, and ran up the hill one block, then turned left on the street above, the one that shared the alley. She began to peer discreetly between the houses, straining for a glimpse of the hat, wondering where the old man had gone.

Then she saw him.

He was standing between two dumpsters, and he wasn’t alone. Ralph Zuccaro was beside him.

Their heads were bent together, and they were having the type of intimate conversation that made it clear they weren’t meeting for the first time.

“Will you get a load of that,” Gen said. She turned back the way they’d come and began to race-walk again toward the park.

“Who was the big guy with him?”

“The pawn shop owner, Ralph Zuccaro. He’s the one who threatened to call the cops on Luca for having the coin illegally. Now there they are, all chummy and meeting in an alley. What did I tell you? Something’s going on.”

She pointed straight ahead when Oliver began to turn. “Let’s not take the same route back, we don’t want to come nose-to-nose with either one of them.” Once they were a few blocks away, she dropped her arms and slowed to a walk.

“Seems like some sort of conspiracy,” Oliver said.

“Yeah. But what? They sure wouldn’t conspire to turn Vitelli into the cops.”

“You’re the private investigator,” Oliver replied. “I suggest you get busy and find out.”

They’d gone a few blocks out of their way and were approaching the park when they saw Vitelli again. He was striding across the grass, heading for a copse of trees. Gen poked Oliver with her elbow and they swung in his direction.

When they found him again, he was sitting on a bench that was surrounded by shrubbery on three sides; she and Oliver were passing by the open end. As they watched, Vitelli dropped his head into his hands. He shook it back and forth several times, and then his shoulders spasmed with what could only be a string of wracking sobs.

He was crying, and Gen’s heart nearly broke with the pain of seeing it. “Oh my God, Livvie,” she moaned. “I can’t stand it. I have to find a way to help him.”

It was eleven-thirty the next morning by the time Gen made it back up to North Beach. The traffic was depressingly heavy, and when she arrived her attitude was a close match. The strategy had been to get to Ralph’s shop early in hopes of catching him onsite.

But once she walked into the store, she saw her bad luck was holding, because Ralph Zuccaro wasn’t there. Phooey. The appraiser was at the counter alone this time, showing a middle-aged lady a rack of bracelets.

While waiting her turn, she browsed the rings in a tray directly beneath her section of the glass counter. They were engagement rings, each more beautiful than the one beside it.

It was true she’d never been much of a jewelry person, but her heart pinched at the thought she might never possess one of these lovely rocks.

It wasn’t so much the possibility that she wouldn’t own a diamond, or even that she needed to be married. It was the never being asked part that made her sad. She moved on to peruse the earrings, a safer subject.

When his customer left without making a purchase, John strolled down the length of the counter to her. “Back for those rubies?” he asked.

“So they’re real,” Gen replied. “I wondered.”

“We don’t buy or sell anything that’s not. There’s no markup in costume jewelry.” He removed the earrings from the rack and handed them to her. “You should try them on.”

Gen fingered the plastic card they were attached to, then checked the back for the price. They would make a great Christmas present for Gabi, and she could afford them. “Do you take offers?”

John shook his head. “Not me. You’d have to talk to Ralph, he might have a little room to negotiate.”

“Is he in today?”

“No ma’am. Early lunch. But he’ll be back in about an hour, and you’re welcome to browse until he shows up.”

“I don’t have that kind of shopping stamina, and I’m a little hungry myself. I can come back. Where do you guys eat around here? Can you recommend a place?”

“When we go together, we close up shop for an hour or so and eat at a little restaurant down near the athletic club. Ralph’s probably there now. A distant cousin of his owns it, so he goes in every day because they treat him like a king. He needs that. Gives him a chance to blab with them about the famous uncle.”

John was chatty today. Looked like his tongue loosened up when the boss was gone.

“Uncle?”

“Yeah, his mother’s brother.” John blew out a condescending
pffffffft
, then spiked his eyes up toward the ceiling. He was over it, that was clear.

“What happened with the uncle?”

“He was a cop back in the old country. It was a million years ago. But to hear them talk, the guy was almost some kind of shrine, if you believe the stories. He wasn’t a grifter like everybody else over there, you know? Didn’t buckle to corruption.”

John’s expression degraded into a sneer. “Like that made him a saint or something, pretending to be above it all. His family paid the price, though, you can take my word on that.”

“Why would they have paid?”

“Because in Italy, half a guy’s income comes from the old payola. Everybody has their finger in the pie. So if the head of a household turns his back on that, his wife and children are the losers. Baby needs a new pair of shoes, only he won’t get them if daddy’s hand isn’t out.”

“No, he’ll only get integrity.”

John’s tone went hard at her insinuation. “What, you think that’s more important than warm feet? You’ve never been poor.”

Gen watched the appraiser but didn’t reply. The answer seemed obvious enough to her, but then she was raised with money. It was easy to be highbrow when you had it all. Maybe John hadn’t been so fortunate, which would explain the chip on his shoulder.

“So is that why he tattled to the Carabinieri about Vitelli? He told me he didn’t call them, but somebody sure did.”

John shrugged.

“Odd that he did that, you know, since I would swear I saw them together the other day.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“Your boss and Vitelli.” Gen picked up on his interest, and assumed he was suspicious for the same reason she was. She kept her tone casual when she continued. “I think it was them, anyway. Under the circumstances, you wouldn’t expect they’d be friendly.”

John nodded slowly, but didn’t offer his two cents.

“Vitelli’s hiding something, and I think he needs help.” Gen kept her voice innocent. “I think your boss might be playing him in some way. Any ideas about that?”

“I think you must be mistaken.”

Gen opened her mouth to reply, but the phone rang and he moved off to answer it. She’d made a mistake, asking him to rat out his boss. He’d been condescending about Zuccaro early on, but it looked as if he was loyal when push came to shove.

John kept his eyes trained on her the whole time. Just in case she tried to pocket the earrings, maybe. A business like this, they couldn’t be too careful. So she smiled at him and kept her hands on the counter. Lucky for her, though, he did not try to guard his conversation in any way.

“Yeah, he’s gone to lunch,” John said. “Yeah, we’re on for tomorrow. Ralph and I will be at the regular place about noon. Listen, I can’t talk right now, but there’s something you need to know. Yeah, I’ll call you back.”

She waited until he hung up. “I’ll think about those earrings,” she said, then called out a cheerful good-bye and left.

As she passed the neighboring shop she peered in the window, looking for the sullen tenant who’d given her the stink-eye last time she walked by. And there he was, hurrying toward the glass with his hands fisted on his hips.

She looked away quickly, laughing to herself at the fluke that once again, he was looking out just as she was looking in. Today his expression was serious, but not as aggravated as before. She grinned and waved, then scuttled by in case he had a mind to call her out for being such a smart-aleck.

And on the drive back to her office, she considered the concept of dead ends. It happened often, and in nearly every case she worked. There was always a time when the bits and pieces about people and events did not add up, and nothing occurred to offer any forward movement. And when it played out like this, there was only one thing to do.

Stir the pot and see what rose to the top.

Vitelli was in trouble, and she was going to find out just what that trouble was. That it had to do with Luca was a given. But how?