The Accidental Pallbearer by Frank Lentricchia Read Free Book Online Page B

entrance.”

    “Quick, Eliot,” Castellano ushers him to the back room, “because I don’t want people to formulate ideas that on a Sunday – coffee?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “I’ll pour you one anyway, just in case.”
    “Okay, Tom.”
    “Have one of these,” Castellano pushing a plate of six biscotti before him. Conte takes one, but doesn’t eat.
    “So hush-hush, Eliot, like a private dick, you’re here all of a sudden after how many years? You should know I personally made those biscotti. They don’t come from Ricky’s. My so-called brother.”
    Tom Castellano had been Conte’s first case twenty years back. He’d just married when his wife, the former Candace Bowles, started to step out on him four days after the honeymoon – in the open at the most popular restaurants and bars. When Castellano confronts her, she tells him, “No problem, I get half the shop regardless.” Artistic Flowers was Utica’s most lucrative and had been Tom’s grandfather’s and father’s pride.
    So Conte shows her a photo. She yells, “You’re crazy, I never did that. You somehow created that disgusting picture.” Conte replies in his characteristic soft monotone, “Yes, I did, and I’m going to nail it to every telephone pole in this town and mail one to your blueblood father unless you legally renounce your rights in the shop.” She says, “I’ll sue.” He says, “A lawyer acquaintance of mine will see you tomorrow with the proper documents, lacking only your signature. Keep in mind, Candace, that a psychiatrist, who happens to be an acquaintance, at the proceedings – should it come to that – will recommend Marcy State Hospital for what this photo shows. Marcy State, Candace.” She makes a last attempt: “You want a blowjob, Conte? Is that what this is all about?” Tom had said to Conte at the outset, “I’m not a fag, you know. Because I know what they say about me as a flower person. Believe you me, I got her good on the honeymoon, every which way. I even used devices.”
    She renounces, they’re quietly divorced, but the grapevine was intense for months and Castellano’s humiliation was beyond description and repair. Conte stayed away because he didn’t want to be yet another reminder, and he never told Tom how he’d convinced his wife to be reasonable – never showed him what it pleased Eliot to think of as “ocular proof.”
    Conte takes a bite out of the biscotto, dunks it in the coffee, and finishes it off. Takes another one. Same routine.
    Castellano says, “Good, huh?”
    “They are. They really are.”
    “So what’s the story, Eliot?”
    “Your next-door tenants.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Ever hear any screaming coming from the apartment? Constant baby crying? Like last night?”
    “Screaming? You serious? You’re shitting me, right? The baby cries, they all do, though I don’t have any first-hand experience, thanks to that cunt I should’ve killed with my bare hands. Constant crying? No. You’re thinking spousal abuse?”
    “I presume you checked with his previous landlord before he signed the lease.”
    “Everything was up to snuff. I called down to the paper, by the way. No problems there, either.”
    “There was a landlord previous to that, too.”
    “News to me, Eliot.”
    “See anything out of the ordinary last night or this morning?”
    “Definitely. Last night on TBS I saw
Psycho
for the first time.”
    “Nice, Tom.”
    “I have to confess, when she gets stabbed in the shower? I got turned on. I wanted to fuck Janet when she was getting stabbed. Especially then. I was almost hard. Tell me the truth, Eliot. How abnormal am I?”
    “My guess is that many men share your feelings.”
    “Including yourself?”
    “Anything is possible.”
    It crosses Conte’s mind that Candace Bowles may have had her reasons.
    “He took out the garbage last night, pretty late. That out of the ordinary?”
    “Does he usually take out the garbage late at