Known to Evil

Don’t you like the food?” Katrina, my wife of twenty- three years,asked.

“It’s delicious,” I said. “Whatever you make is always great.”In the corner there sat a walnut cabinet that used to containour first stereo record player. Now it held Katrina’s cherished BlueDanube china collection, which she inherited from her favoriteaunt, Bergit. On top of the chest was an old quart pickle jar—the makeshift vase for an arrangement of tiny wildflowers of everycolor from scarlet to cornflower blue to white.

“But you’re frowning,” my beautiful Scandinavian wife said.“What were you thinking about?”

I looked up from the filet mignon and Gorgonzola blue cheesesalad to gaze at the flowers. My thoughts were not the kind of dinnerconversation one had with one’s wife and family.

I have a boyfriend now, Aura Ullman had told me that morning.I wanted to tell you. I didn’t want to feel like I’m hiding anythingfrom you.

“Where’d you get those flowers, Mom?” Shelly asked.

His name is George, Aura told me, the sad empathy in the wordsmaking its way to her face.

I had no reason to be jealous. Aura and I had been loversover the eight months Katrina abandoned me for the investmentbanker Andre Zool. I loved Aura but gave her up because when Katrina came back, after Andre was indicted for fraud, I felt thatshe, Katrina, was my sentence for the wrong I had done in a longlife of crime.

“I saw them at the deli and thought they might brighten up ourdinner,” Katrina told her daughter.

Shelly had been trying to forgive her mother for leaving me. Shewas a sophomore at CCNY and another man’s daughter, thoughshe didn’t know it. Two of my children were fathered out of wedlock;only the eldest, sour and taciturn Dimitri, who always sat asfar away from me as possible, was of my blood.

Do you love him? I hadn’t meant to ask Aura that. I didn’t wantto know the answer or to show vulnerability.

He’s very good company . . . and I get lonely.

“Well?” Katrina asked.

Something about those flowers and the echo of Aura’s voice inmy mind made me want to curse, or maybe to slam my fist downon the plate.

“Hey, everybody,” Twill said. He was standing in the doorway tothe dining room; dark and slender, handsome and flawless exceptfor a small crescent scar on his chin.

“You’re late,” Katrina scolded my favorite.

“You know it, Moms,” the seventeen- year- old man replied. “I’mlucky to get home at all with everything I got to do. My PO gotme workin’ this after- school job at the supermarket. Says it’ll keepme outta trouble.”

“He’s not a parole officer. He’s a juvenile offender social worker,”I said.

Just seeing Twill brought levity into the room.

“It’s not a he,” Twill said as he slid into the chair next to me.

“Ms. Melinda Tarris says that she wants me workin’ three afternoonsa week.”

“And she’s right, too,” I added. “You need something to occupyyour mind and keep you out of trouble.”

“It’s not people like me that get in trouble, Pops,” Twill sang. “Italk so much and know so many people that I can’t get away withnuthin’ somebody don’t see it. It’s the quiet ones that get in themost trouble. Ain’t that right, Bulldog?”

“Can’t you be quiet sometimes?” dour Dimitri said.

Twill’s pet name for his older brother was an apt one. Like meDimitri was short and big- boned, powerful even though he rarelyexercised. His skin was not quite as dark brown as mine but youcould see me in every part of him. I wondered why he was so angryat his brother’s chiding. Even though Dimitri never liked me muchhe loved his siblings. And he had a special bond with Twill, whowas so outgoing all he had to do was sit down in a room for fiveminutes and a party was likely to break out.

“Leonid.”

“Yes, Katrina?”

“Are you all right?”

Even though we’d drifted apart like the continents had— longago— Katrina could still read my moods. We had a kind of subterraneanconnection that allowed my wife to see, at least partly, intomy state of mind. It wasn’t just Aura’s decision to move on thatbothered me. It was my life at that table, Dimitri’s uncharacteristicanger at his brother, and even those delicate flowers sitting where Ihad never seen a bouquet before.

There was a feeling at the back of my mind, something that wasburgeoning into consciousness like a vibrating moth pressing outfrom its cocoon.

The phone rang and Katrina started. When I looked into hergray- blue eyes some kind of wordless knowledge seemed to passbetween us.

“I’ll get it,” Shelly shouted. She hurried from the room into thehall, where the cordless unit sat on its ledge.

Katrina smiled at me. Even this made me wonder. She’d beenback home for nearly a year. In that time her smile had been tentative,contrite. She wanted me to know that she was there for thelong run, that she was sorry for her transgressions and wanted tomake our life together work. But that evening her smile was confident. Even the way she sat was regal and self- assured.

“Dad, it’s for you.”

Standing up from my chair and moving into the hallway, I felt asif I were displaced, another man, or maybe the same man in asimilar but vastly different world: the working- poor lottery winnerwho suddenly one day realizes that riches have turned his blood tovinegar.

“Hello?” I said into the receiver.

I was expecting an acquaintance or maybe a credit- card companyasking about a suspect charge. No one who I did businesswith had my home number. The kind of business I was in couldn’tbe addressed by an innocent.

“Leonid,” a man’s voice said, “this is Sam Strange.”

“Why are you calling me at my home?” I asked, because thoughStrange was the legman for Alphonse Rinaldo, one of the secretpillars of New York’s political and economic systems, I couldn’tallow even him to infringe on my domestic life, such as it was.

“The Big Man called and said it was an emergency,” Strangesaid.

Sam worked for the seemingly self- appointed Special Assistantto the City of New York. I say seemingly, because even thoughAlphonse Rinaldo was definitely attached to City Hall, no oneknew his job description or the extent of his power.

I had done a few questionable jobs for the man before I decided to go straight. And while I was no longer engaging in criminalactivities I couldn’t afford to turn him down without a hearing.

“What is it you want?” I asked.

“There’s a young woman named Tara Lear that he wants you tomake contact with.”

Sam rarely, if ever, spoke Rinaldo’s name. He had an internalcensor like those of old- time printers who replaced “God” with“ G- d” in books.

“Why?”

“He just wants you to speak to her and to make sure everything’sall right. He told me to tell you that he would consider thisa great favor.”

Being able to do a favor for Special Assistant Rinaldo was likewinning six lotteries rolled into one. My blood might turn intohigh- octane rocket fuel if I wasn’t careful.

Not for the first time I wondered if I would ever get out fromunder my iniquitous past.

“Leonid,” Sam Strange said.

“When am I supposed to find this young woman?”

“Now . . . tonight. And you don’t have to find her, I can tell youexactly where she is.”

“If you know where she is why don’t you just tell him and he cango talk to her himself?”

“This is the way he wants it.”

“Why don’t you go?” I asked.

“He wants you, Leonid.”

I heard Twill say something in the dining room but couldn’tmake out the words. His mother and Shelly laughed.

“Leonid,” Sam Strange said again.

“Right now?”

“Immediately.”

“You know I’m trying to be aboveboard nowadays, Sam.”

“He’s just asking you to go and speak to this Lear woman. Tomake sure that she’s all right. There’s nothing illegal about that.”

“And I’m supposed to tell her that Mr. Rinaldo is concernedabout her but can’t come himself?”

“Do not mention his name or refer to him in any way. Themeeting should be casual. She shouldn’t have any idea that you’rea detective or that you’re working for someone looking after herwelfare.”

“Why not?”

“You know the drill,” Strange said, trying to enforce his personalsense of hierarchy on me. “Orders come down and we do aswe’re told.”

“No,” I said. “That’s you. You do what you’re told. Me— I gotground rules.”

“And what are they?”

“First,” I said, “I will not put this Tara’s physical or mentalwell- being into jeopardy. Second, I will only report on her state ofmind and security. I will not convey information that might makeher vulnerable to you or your boss. And, finally, I will not be a partyto making her do anything against her will or whim.”

“That’s not how it works and you know it,” Sam said.

“Then go on down to the next name on the list and don’t evercall this number again.”

“There is no other name.”

“If you want me you got to play by my rules.”

“I’ll have to report this conversation.”

“Of course you do.”

“He won’t like it.”

“I’ll make a note of that.”

He gave me an address on West Sixtieth and an apartmentnumber.

“I’ll be staying at the Oxford Arms Club on Eighty- fourth until this situation is resolved,” he said.

“You can call me there anytime,day or night.”

I hung up. There was no reason to continue the conversation,or to wish him well, for that matter. I never liked the green- eyedagent of the city’s Special Assistant.

Alphonse had two conduits to the outside world. Sam wasthe errand boy. Christian Latour, who sat in the chamber outsideAlphonse’s office, was the Big Man’s gatekeeper and crystalball combined. I liked Christian, even though he had no usefor me.

I stood there in the hall, trying to connect the past fifteen minutes.Dimitri’s uncharacteristic barking at his brother and theirmother’s newfound confidence, the crude vase and its lovely flowers,and, of course, the memory of Aura in her heartfelt concernand almost callous betrayal.

I went to the closet in our bedroom, looking to find one of my threeidentical dark- blue suits. The first thing I noticed was that theclothes had been rearranged. I didn’t know exactly what had beenwhere before, but things were neater and imposed- upon with somekind of strict order. My suits were nowhere in sight.

“What are you doing?” Katrina asked from the doorway.

“Looking for my blue suit.”

“I sent two of your blue suits to the cleaners. You haven’t hadthem cleaned in a month.”

“What am I supposed to wear?” I said, turning to face her.

Sometimes when Katrina smiled I remembered falling in lovewith her. It lasted long enough to get married and make Dimitri.

After that things went sour. We never had sex and rarely evenkissed anymore.

“You have the ochre one,” she said.

“Where’s the one I wore home tonight?”

“In the hamper. The lapels were all spotted. Wear the ochre one.”

“I hate that suit.”

“Then why did you buy it?”

“You bought it for me.”

“You tried it on. You paid the bill.”

I yanked the suit out of the closet.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“It’s a job. I have to go interview somebody for a client.”

“I thought you didn’t take business calls on our home phone.”

“Yeah,” I said, taking off my sweatpants.

“Leonid.”

“What, Katrina?”

“We have to talk.”

I continued undressing.

“The last time you said that I didn’t see you for eight months,”I said.

“We have to talk about us.”

“Can it wait till later or will you be gone when I get home?”

“It’s nothing like that,” she said. “I’ve noticed how distant you’vebeen and I want to, to connect with you.”

“Yeah. Sure. Let me go take care of this thing and either we’lltalk when I get back, or tomorrow at the latest. Okay?”

She smiled and kissed my cheek tenderly. She had to lean overa bit because I’m two inches shorter than she.

I put on the dark- yellow suit and a white dress shirt. Since I was goingout for such an important client I even cinched a burgundy tiearound my neck. The man in the mirror looked to me like a bald,black- headed, fat grub that had spent the afternoon drying inthe sun.

I was shorter than most men, and if you didn’t see me nakedyou might have thought I was portly. But my size was from bonestructure and muscles developed over nearly four decades workingout at Gordo’s Boxing Gym.

“Hey Dad, ” Twill called as I was going out the front door of oureleventh- floor prewar apartment.

“Yeah, son?” I said on a sigh.

“Mardi Bitterman’s back in town. Her and her sister.”

Mardi was a year older than Twill. She and her sister had beenmolested by their father and I had to intervene when Twill got it inhis head to murder the man.

“I thought they had moved to their mother’s family in Ireland.”

“Turns out that they weren’t related,” Twill said. “Her fatherbought Mardi from some pervert. Her sister, too. I don’t know thewhole story but they had to come home.”

“Okay. So what do you want from me?” I was impatient, evenwith Twill. Maybe the fact that his relationship to me was the sameas Mardi to her father cut at me a little.

“Mardi’s taking care of her sister and she needs a job. She’seighteen and on her own, you know.”

“So?”

“You’re always sayin’ how much you want a receptionist. I figuredthis would be a good time for you to have one. You know,Mardi’s real organized like. She’d tear that shit up.”Twill was a born criminal but he had a good heart.

“I guess we could try it out,” I said.

“Cool. I told her to be at your office in the morning.”

“Without asking?”

“Sure, Pops. I knew you’d say yes.”