A Welcome Haunting - Part Twenty-Five
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
Albany Scion was for sure the only Irish broad in Cafe Hadar that afternoon and definitely the only woman there, probably ever, to wear a sleeveless top with three buttons undone. She was in town for meetings with healthcare clients.
I took a piece of pita bread out of the basket on the table and scooped up some of the humus placed between us.
“Obviously you are the only one I could share this with,” I stated flatly, hiding my damaged condition under a baseball cap and behind sunglasses.
“Is this a confession before leaving or for protection to keep what you’ve earned?”
“The later.”
“That’s encouraging news,” she said with a bright smile. “How good is this for us?”
“Very good.”
“How bad was it?” she asked, taking a measure of the abuse I’d obviously just been through.
“Pretty awful.”
The waitress, a short-tempered and sarcastic Israeli, took our order. We’d been flirting with each other for years. The place was filled with Orthodox women lunching with children on every other lap. All the mothers were so young that they’d be mistaken for babysitters in other neighborhoods.
“So,” she started, “what was it?”
“Preventing an autopsy. One of Jackie’s people died in a car accident up in the Hudson Valley. The circumstances around the accident were suspicious. The county coroner wanted to do an autopsy.”
“Which would have been...” she trailed off.
“Problematic,” I admitted.
“The departed was observant?”
“Occasionally. But enough to make the argument.”
“I suppose that turned on who made the argument,” she quickly and correctly figured.
“Jackie asked the Judge. The Judge asked the Rabbi. The Rabbi asked a certain United States Senator who, I suspect, had an aide call a County Executive or some such. Using the office where I used to work provided the road map leading to me.”
“No autopsy?”
“No autopsy,” I confirmed. “Death by car accident. A shame all around. People mourned.”
“Mourner’s Kaddish was said,” assumed the shiksa.
“He was observant enough. Needed to follow through,” I pointed out.
“Observant enough, right.”
The waitress brought my shakshuka and Albany Scion’s omelet.
“So who killed the Rabbi?”
I looked out at my grandfather on the sidewalk, leaning against a car with his face up to the sky, gathering sunlight
“Who the fuck knows? Does it matter? I did,” I answered wearily.
“Sure, ok,” she conceded. “Why did the Rabbi start talking?”
“An investigation into illegal lobbying practices over a course of years and raiding a non-profit’s bank accounts.”
“Which office was looking at that?”
“Brooklyn.”
“Really?” She was genuinely surprised.
“Yeah. I don’t think he wanted to,” I explained about the DA, “but I figure it was brought to him and these days he couldn’t just ignore it.”
“And now he’s dead and you take the blame.”
“Credit,” I corrected her. “I get the credit.”
We ate our lunch in silence. Light and warmth were streaming in through the large front windows and playing off the glass candle holders and beads adorning the walls. I didn’t mind the pain from chewing or the sharp discomfort around my ribs. I was happy to be alive, enjoying my company and the sound of young mothers, waitresses, cooks and children.
Albany Scion spoke up.
“There is a loose end though, you know.”
I kept eating, looked at her and shrugged. I really didn’t know.
“Do we care who dropped the dime on the Rabbi, who got him jammed up and talking? Cases like that don’t just develop out of nowhere. Could that person find and connect all the dots? Can any of this track back to the Senator? Was the investigation part of a larger piece?”
She knew I wasn’t ignoring her while I finished my lunch. The waitress took my plate away while I ordered a coffee to go. I watched her walk away then turned to the political heavyweight across from me. I exhaled deeply. I felt my blood sugar drop despite a full stomach and bright pinprick spots floated in front of me. Sounds got tinny.
“Fuck me. I’m an idiot,” I said from far away.
“You’re not an idiot, just tired.”
My coffee came, Albany Scion paid the check and we walked out onto Avenue N.
She leaned in to kiss me on the cheek below my sunglasses. “Ok, maybe you are an idiot,” she affectionately chided while slapping down the brim of my baseball cap.
My grandfather, standing behind her, nodded in agreement.