Motherless Brooklyn

“Why do you speak for Tony?” I gritted my teeth as I spoke the words. It wasn’t actly ticcing, but I’d begun to echo The Clients’ verbal rhythms, the cloistered Ping-Pong of their diction.

Matricardi sighed and looked at Rockaforte. Rockaforte raised his eyebrows.

“Do you like this house?” said Matricardi.

I considered the dust-covered parlor, the load of ancient furnishing between the carpet and the ceiling’s scrollwork, how it all hung suspended inside the shell of the warehouse-brownstone. I felt the presence of the past, of mothers and sons, deals and understandings, one dead hand gripping another-dead hands were nested here on Degraw Street like a series of Chinese boxes. Including Frank Minna’s. There were so many ways I didn’t like it I didn’t know where to begin, except that I knew I shouldn’t allow myself to begin at all.

“It’s not a house,” I said, offering the very least of my objections. “It’s a room.”

“He says it’s a room,” said Matricardi. “Lionel, this is my mother’s house where we sit. Where you stand so full of fury it makes you like a cornered dog.”

“Somebody killed Frank.”

“Are you accusing Tony?”

“Accusatony! Excusebaloney! Funnymonopoly!” I squeezed my eyes shut to interrupt the seizure of language.

“We wish you to understand, Lionel. We regret Frank’s passing. We miss him sorely. It is a soreness in our hearts. Nothing could please us more than to see his killer torn by birds or picked apart by insects with claws. Tony should have your help in bringing that day closer. You should stand behind him.”

“What if my search brings me to Tony?” I’d let The Clients lead me to this pass in the conversation, and now there wasn’t any reason to pretend.

“The dead live in our hearts, Lionel. From there Frank will never be dislodged. But now Tony has replaced Frank in the world of the living.”

“What does that mean? You’ve replaced Frank with Tony?”

“It means you shouldn’t act against Tony. Because our wishes go with him.”

I understood now. It was Tony’s Italian apotheosis at last. I was thrilled for him.

Unless it had been this way for years without my knowing. Maybe Tony Vermonte and The Clients ran deeper than Frank Minna and The Clients ever had.

I considered the word replaced. I decided it was time to go.

“I need your permission-” I began, then stopped. Who were The Clients, and what did their permission consist of? What was I thinking?

“Speak, Lionel.”

“I’m goi to keep looking,” I said. “With or without Tony’s help.”

“Yes. We can see. And so we have an assignment for you. A suggestion.”

“A place for you to apply your passion for justice.”

“And your talent for detection. The training instilled.”

“What?” Just a measure of the day’s angled brightness penetrated the heavy curtains of the parlor. I glared back at a row of thuggish midcentury faces staring out from picture frames, wondering which was Matricardi’s mom. The hot dogs I’d eaten were rumbling in my stomach. I longed to be outside, on the Brooklyn streets, anywhere but here.

“You spoke with Julia,” said Matricardi. “You should find her. Bring her in as we brought you. Let us speak with her.”

“She’s afraid,” I said. A frayed knot.

“Afraid of what?”

“She’s like me. She doesn’t trust Tony.”

“Something is wrong between them.”

This was exhausting. “Of course something’s wrong. They slept together.”

“Making love brings people closer, Lionel.”

“Maybe they feel guilty about Frank.”

“Guilty, yes. Julia knows something. We called her to see us. Instead she runs. Tony says he doesn’t know where.”

“You think Julia has something to do with Frank’s murder?” I let my hand trace a vague line in the dust on the marble mantelpiece. A mistake. I tried to forget I’d done it.

“There’s something on her mind, something weighing. You want to help us, Lionel, find her.”

“Learn her secrets and share them with us. Do this without telling Tony.”

Losing control somewhat, I inserted my finger into the grooved edge of the mantel and pushed, gathering a shaggy clot of dust.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Now you want me to go behind Tony’s back?”

“We listen, Lionel. We hear. We consider. Questions occur. If your suspicions are grounded the answers may lie with Julia. Tony has been less than clear in this one area. However strange and damaged, you’ll be our hands and feet, our eyes and ears, you’ll learn and return to us and share.”

“Founded,” I said. I reached the end of the mantel and thrust the accumulated dustball past the edge, following through like a one-fingered shot-putter.

“If they are,” said Matricardi/em› I 201C;You don’t know. That’s what you’ll find out.”

“No, I mean founded, not grounded. Suspicions founded.”

“He’s correcting,” said Rockaforte to Matricardi, gritting his teeth.

“Find her, Essrog! Founder! Grounder! Confessrub!” I tried to wipe my finger clean on my jacket and made a gray stripe of clingy dust.

Then I belched, really, and tasted hot dogs.