The Real Thing (25 page)

“Hello, Tiana, how are you?” Mel asks.

“It's Christiana now,” I say, “and that has to be my byline for this one. You get it yet?”

A moment later, he says, “Got it. Give me a moment to read it, Christiana.”

I count to ten. He should be done now. “Have you shot it to Phil yet?”

“Just did,” Mel says. “Give him time to read it, okay?”

I growl. “Phil reads slowly and you know it.”

“So he's thorough, okay?” Mel says. “Op-eds are his babies.”

I have to know. “Did you like it, Mel?”

“I wouldn't have sent it to Phil, Christiana.”

Shoot. Twelve years I worked for the man, and I never got a single compliment. This is as close as I've ever gotten.

“Has he replied yet?” I ask.

“Christiana, you know—”

Silence. “Mel?”

“Phil likes it,” Mel says.

Yes! “No cuts?”

“Straight through,” Mel says. “That has to be a first.”

Double yes! “Mel, I don't know how to thank you.”

“Yes, you do,” he says. “Come back to work for me.”

I owe him this much. “I'll think about it, okay?”

“Hmm. Right.”

“I will, Mel.”

“For how long?” he asks. Mel is no dummy.

“I'll call you.”

“After the fight, right?” he says. “I know you're going.”

Mel is still giving me deadlines. “Next week, Mel, I promise.”

“You better, and you know why?”

I have no idea why. “Why?”

“Because it's the right thing to do,” he says.

He got me. “Thanks a million, Mel.”

“Call me,” he says, and he hangs up first.

I do a little shadowboxing after that, bouncing around my space throwing uppercuts.

I feel good.

I just hope it's not too late.

Chapter 29

T
he next morning I run down Van Brunt to the Fairway Market to pick up a copy of the
Times,
squealing when I see my story (“What's Wrong with Fighting for Love?”) and my byline (by Christiana Artis). As soon as my key hits my door, I hear the phone ringing.

Maybe it's Dante.
“Buon giorno
.
”

“You were certainly busy on your sick day,” Shelley says.

I sigh. “Sure was.” While I probably should have run the whole op-ed thing by Shelley before I did it, it's really none of her concern. What's she going to do, fire me for writing a piece for no pay?

“You know,” she says, “if you had written it for
Newsday,
I wouldn't be so nervous. You aren't thinking of leaving us, are you?”

The idea has been bouncing around in my head a lot, ever since I took the job at
Personality
in the first place. My work at the
Times
had burned me out, I needed a break, and
Personality
wanted me. I thought it would simplify my life, and it has. However, I am learning that I thrive on complications. If I'm not struggling, I'm not really living. The sheer grind of walking through Carroll Gardens to Monte's and then to Gleason's and back to Red Hook was a rush. I talked to real people about real issues, issues that interested
me
. I wasn't on assignment and talking to fake people. Although I didn't get but one decent quote in five hours of interviewing (and had a rude sardine staring at me), I felt alive as a writer, as a person.

“Say something, Tiana, you're making me nervous,” Shelley says.

I check my caller ID. She's not calling from the office. Hmm. I can't sit around here all day waiting and watching the neon clock. I have to go-go-go somewhere so I don't go-go-go crazy before tonight's fight. I could go to the office and . . . Hmm. What can I do? I could do some research on Dante's father. That could take a while. And after that, I can simply change and walk to the Garden. I open my wardrobe and select a tasteful white blouse and black slacks, laying them on the bed and plugging in my iron.

“Tiana? You there?”

“I'm here.” Let's see, these will go in a garment bag, and I can pack my curling iron and makeup in my laptop case. “Shelley, I've been thinking. You have to give me more hard news, more investigative assignments. It's what I'm built to do.”

“How in-depth can you go with celebrities?” she asks.

“Indeed,” I say, and I let that hang in the air. I'll need walking shoes
and
dress shoes. Hose? It's supposed to be cold. Knee socks and dress shoes? Who'll know?

“What are you saying, Tiana?”

“It's
Christiana
from now on, and I'm saying that I don't want to interview another celebrity as long as I live. I only want to interview real people from now on.”

“Like who?”

I sigh. Shelley probably doesn't know any real people, besides me, that is. I begin ironing. “Like doctors and researchers on the cutting edge of a cure for a disease.”

“You want to interview nerds?”

I sigh. “Nerds are people, too, Shelley. You don't complain when Jerry fixes your computer, do you?”

“You'd write about computer geeks, too?”

She's never going to get it. “I want to write about heroes like firefighters and cops. Like soldiers, nurses, and EMTs. I want to write about unlikely heroes. Hometown heroes, ordinary people. You know, people our readers can actually identify with. And I wouldn't have to go far. There are plenty of real people around here, over seven million the last time I checked.”

“You're going back to the
Times,
aren't you?” she asks.

“You're missing the point, Shelley. I thrive on reality. At times when I was doing the ‘where are they now?' stories, I was swimming in reality. I love reality. I guess I didn't know it until I left the
Times
and started hanging out with the beautiful people.”

“You don't like the beautiful people?”

“No.” I put the blouse on a hanger and hang it on the doorknob to the bathroom.

“Why not? They seem to like
you
.”

Not all of them. “They aren't real, Shelley. They might have been once, but . . .” I start ironing the slacks. “I want to do stories about that kid who grew up with nothing and is somehow making it despite the odds.” I think about Granddaddy and the sacrifices he made to raise me. “I want to write about the kid who grew up without parents, the kid who was raised by her granddaddy, the kid who worked two jobs to get through Columbia and become a relative success.
That
kid.”

“You know anyone like that?”

I nearly scorch my slacks. “That person is
me
, Shelley.”

“You want to write your autobiography?”

I don't respond.

“Why didn't you say so? You have a few weeks of vacation coming up, right? You could knock it out then.”

“Once again, you're missing the point.” I slide the slacks onto a hanger, hooking the hanger inside the hanging bag. “I was speaking hypothetically. Not rags to riches. Rags to
respectability
, that kind of story.” I think of Dante. “Like the kid who grows up without his daddy, learns to box, loses his mama at eighteen, wins the world title, loses the world title . . . You see where I'm going with this?”

“You're talking about Dante Lattanza, aren't you?”

I start gathering my tools of destruction—my curling iron, brush, and hair gel—and shove them into my laptop case. “I'm talking about anyone in America who had a tough start and is kicking ass now. Folks. We still write about
folks
at
Personality,
don't we? Aren't
folks
the very people we're trying to reach? Aren't
folks
in our demographic? There's only so much unreality regular folks can take. Witness the explosion of reality shows on TV.”

“Oh, those are so fake.”

Only a fake person would think a reality show was rigged. Some of them
are
cheesy, don't get me wrong, but there's something warm and human about them that's missing from so much else on TV or on the silver screen. “We'll talk about this on Monday, okay? I'm getting ready to go in to the office.”

“What for?”

Time for a little lie. “I wasn't sick yesterday and I feel guilty.” Not. I just want to push my office computer to the limit and work some phones. It'll be hard to reach anyone on a Saturday, but that's half the fun of the grind I miss so much.

“So you're not thinking about quitting?”

“Monday, Shelley,” I say, stripping and turning on the shower. “We'll talk Monday. I'm getting in the shower now. Bye.” I drop my cell phone into the sink. It seems to belong there. I may leave it there forever.

But I won't. I still have ten months left on my two-year contract.

Freshly showered and wearing jeans and a white fisherman's sweater under the
pericoloso
leather jacket Dante bought me, I take the New York Water Taxi to Pier 11, splurging and catching a taxi from there to Rockefeller Center as the December skies gray up with snow clouds. My building is almost empty, a few folks scurrying here and there, none of whom I recognize—or want to. When I get to my office, which I have barely used in the last year, I shut the door and go to work.

“I'm going to find you today, Mr. Lattanza,” I say.

There isn't much to distract me in this room. Pictures of Red Hook I had planned to hang last February lie propped against walls. A brand-new mini stereo with the tiniest little speakers still sits in its original box in front of the green tinted window looking out on the Avenue of the Americas. Except for a coffee mug that—ew—still contains something hockey-puck-like, there's nothing on this desk but a computer. I type in my password—“RedHooker”—and I'm on.

I begin my search from what I know. Detectives usually follow the money, right? The last money job I know Dante's father had was in the military. He went to Vietnam. Many of these records are now in the public domain. He should be easy to find.

I first make sure Dante's daddy isn't already dead. It's a lot easier telling a child that daddy isn't coming home than telling a child, “Your daddy's dead.” I sometimes wish Granddaddy had told me exactly that about my parents. There is no one named “Lattanza” listed on the Vietnam Wall, but that doesn't necessarily mean he came back from Vietnam. I then research the database for the DPMO (Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office) and find there isn't a Lattanza who either had been a prisoner of war or was still missing in action in Vietnam. Man, that war ended over thirty years ago. You'd think we could account for every one of our soldiers by now.

I jot that possible story on a notepad. Why is it taking so long? Are there any unlikely heroes out there still searching for our boys? Why haven't we accounted for every single soldier who served in Vietnam?

I know calling the Department of Defense is a waste of time. I'm not next of kin or any kind of kin to Dante's daddy, and it will most likely take a series of Kafkaesque forms to fill out over several months to get any kind of decent information. Besides, it's Saturday. I'm sure they're working with a skeleton crew there. I hate hearing, “Call back on Monday.” I don't want the runaround today, so I Google “military records,” and Military.com pops up first and promises a database of twenty million names.

Hmm. In order to use this database, I have to join. I could lie and say I am military, but luckily, I can join with no service affiliation. I can't get past a second screen unless I type in my employer. I smile and type, “
Personality.
” That ought to confuse someone at Military.com.

I'm in.

I explore every branch of the service for anyone named Lattanza. I scroll through the army. Nothing. The navy. Nothing. The air force. Nothing. Therefore—

A
Daniel
Lattanza, E–4, is listed under the marines, unfortunately with no home address other than the state of New York. Though it doesn't narrow down my search much, that makes sense. He enlisted in or was drafted out of Brooklyn. What's an E–4? I do a side search and find Daniel Lattanza was a corporal.

I pop “Daniel Lattanza” into Google and get nothing.

On a whim, I put “Danny Lattanza” into Google, and a Vietnam Web site for the Second Battalion, Ninth Marines appears first on the screen. Yes! “Hell in a Helmet” tops the welcome page, but I don't see any immediate reference to Danny. On the navigation bar I see “2/9 Members.” Clicking that, I'm taken to a page of names with city, state, year, and some e-mail addresses.

I scroll through the command page. Nothing. Oh, yeah. He was a corporal. He wouldn't be on this page.

I scroll through Echo Company. Nothing.

I scroll through Golf Company . . .

There he is!

I'm good at this
merda.

There's no e-mail address listed after his name, but that's okay. There are other ways, and I know them all. Danny “Boy” Lattanza is in Langley, British Columbia, Canada, or at least he was when this list was updated in . . . June of
this
year.

I'm close. This list was updated only six months ago.

Before checking where Langley is, I go to the 2/9 picture gallery and scrutinize four years of pictures from reunions, all held down in Arlington, Virginia. There are plenty of group shots in front of the Iwo Jima statue, the Vietnam Wall, and the Smithsonian. Many of the pictures aren't captioned—

Though seriously graying, I'd recognize that hairy man anywhere. The caption reads, “Danny Boy and wife, Li.” The woman next to him is half his size and has long gray hair and . . . Asian features. They sure seem happy.

Danny Boy and Li.

Okay, um, I'm not one to jump to conclusions—
much
—but this looks like . . . I don't know what this looks like. He brought her home with him? He gets out in '69 and brings her...

Think
, Christiana.

Okay, he's married to Connie, but he brings Li home, and Connie finds out?

Dante said he never came home. He made that clear. Maybe Danny Boy hit the States and took off for Canada with Li, where they shacked up until Connie died sixteen years later? That doesn't make sense.

Maybe
Danny Boy married Li in Vietnam or Canada, and no one checked to see if he was already married to someone somewhere else.

Or he lied and said he wasn't married.

I surf off to WhitePages.ca where I find a D Lattanza residing at 19967 96th Avenue in Langley, a far eastern suburb of Vancouver. Though I plan to call Danny Boy's phone number, I want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row. I plug his address into Google and see “Li's Convenience Store” listed as a business about 13.2 kilometers north of Langley.

Danny Boy has a business named after his Vietnamese wife, and I'm about to get deeply into his business. I dial the number.

“Li's, Danny speaking.”

He certainly has the same timbre to his voice that Dante has. “Mr. Lattanza, my name is Christiana Artis from
Personality
magazine, and I'm doing a follow-up article on middleweight boxer Dante Lattanza.”