The Dog Killer of Utica by Frank Lentricchia Read Free Book Online

Not because you believed you needed an armed guard in case Antonio went off the deep end. The gentlest man you’ve ever known, you always say. Who nevertheless did murder. A pussy, you said. Who did murder. He’s sweet, we both said. For what possible reason did you want me here? To make me an accessory after the fact? I’m finished.”
    Conte rises to embrace her. She backs away. She says, “Answer me.”
    (Very long pause.)
    “So you could know exactly who you were living with.”
    She says nothing.
    “Are you leaving me, Catherine?”
    She says nothing.
    “Catherine. Have you stopped loving me?”
    Looking the saddest he’s ever seen her look, she says, “How could I ever do that?”
    “Will you go to the D.A.? I think you have to.”
    “How could I ever do that? Explain to me, Eliot, how I could ever do that.”
    He moves to her. She steps back.
    “I owe you the truth, Catherine. Antonio was wrong about my motive for bringing the hit man to his execution.”
    “You mean Antonio’s hot air that you needed to have the abusive father–hit man killed because he was your so-called double? You deliver him to his death and somehow lose your guilt for leaving your babies?”
    “Yes. Bullshit.”
    “But in your mind your kids would be alive today if only—”
    “Yes.”
    “We both failed our kids, Eliot. You’ll never escape the thought that if you only had stayed.”
    “You write big checks for Miranda.”
    “I do.”
    “Guilt checks?”
    “Of course, Eliot.”
    “It helps?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Nothing to be done, Catherine?”
    “Try to live now.”
    “Are we?”
    “Barely. Barely. I’m committed to you no matter what you did. Level with me.”
    “I did it for Antonio.”
    “Who meant more to you than even your own father.”
    “The hitter knew of Antonio’s role in the triple hit.”
    “Which is why you wanted him dead.”
    “Yes.”
    “Loyalty to Antonio trumped thou shalt not kill.”
    “Yes.”
    “Loyalty trumps everything? Your only moral principle?”
    “Definitely.”
    “You have a Mafia mentality, Eliot.”
    “You just told me, didn’t you, you wouldn’t go to the D.A. in spite of what you know? You, an officer of the law, no less.”
    “Want me to say I also have a Mafia mentality?”
    “I want you to say we’re in this together.”
    “Eliot, we’re in the pitch dark together.”

CHAPTER 4
    Face to face, still, in the front room.
    Conte moves to embrace her. She again backs away.
    He says, “Where are we, really?”
    No response.
    “I need to talk with Mirko’s father.”
    No response.
    “I need to go now.”
    She turns her back—walks to the window—stares out at the storm. By morning, no vehicles will move for three days, the employees of the supermarkets will stay home, and the few remaining Mom-and-Pop corner grocery stores will do booming business for the first time in a long time, and likely for the last.
    He leaves in a heavy leather jacket and scarf. No hat. (Conte never wears a hat.) Steps west on Mary, destination 608 Nichols Street—glancing down his driveway with some relief. Good. He’d parked behind her. No way out unless she walks or takes a cab. Where could she possibly go, anyway, whose only social companions were also his? Kyle Torvald and Mark Martello, every two or three weeks for dinner. Antonio and Millicent Robinson, just once in the six months since she’d moved to Utica, as Robinson and Eliot drifted apart.
    Huddled into himself—eyes downcast and shoulders hunched up against the wind and cold—walking west, always west on Mary, he reaches Bacon, first of the three cross streets he must cross—then Milgate, then Jefferson—dropped deep inside himself now as the surging music in his head almost perfectly obliterates matters of murder—it was glorious, the concert in Berlin he and Catherine and Bobby and Maureen Rintrona had taken in, in Troy, in high-definition telecast, a month ago—all that vocal opulence again flooding