Mistaken Identity Page 3

  “Your mother gets her money every week, if you stay quiet. That’s the deal. You know the deal, even though you’re not so good with de English?”

  “Right.”

  “Right, what?”

  “Jes, I know the deal.” Valencia nodded. “I swear.”

  “Ain’t nothing else in the deal. No tubes, nothin’.” Alice stood up, put a hand on Valencia’s soft shoulder, and squeezed. “As soon as you stop being a good girl, I stop the money. What happens to Santo then? Huh, Valencia?”

  “I don’ say nothin’.” Valencia’s eyebrows sloped downward. They were so heavily penciled it looked like a kid scribbled outside of the lines. Same with her lipstick, the color of cherry Jell-O, crayoned on puffy lips.

  “You love Santo, don’t you?” Alice dug strong fingers into Valencia’s shoulder.

  “O’ course I love my Santo. He my baby. I don’ say nothin’.”

  “Miguel’s not gonna take care of Santo, is he? Not on the fights he gets. Hell, he won’t even marry you. Now will he?” Valencia’s brown eyes welled up, and Alice felt disgusted. “Will he, Valencia?”

  “No,” she answered, almost a whisper.

  “Who takes care of Santo, Valencia?”

  “You do.”

  “That’s right. I do. Remember that.” Alice released her grip. “Quit crying. If the baby needs tubes, he’ll get tubes. From me. You hear?”

  “Jes.” Valencia’s lower lip trembled and a tear rolled down her cheek.

  “What you gotta do, Valencia? Do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “You gotta shut up. You gotta shut the fuck up.”

  “I shut the fuck up,” Valencia repeated, bursting into tears, and Alice smiled grimly. Valencia was definitely a loose end. And Alice couldn’t afford a loose end anymore.

  5

  “Please hold my calls,” Bennie said, and hurried by the startled receptionist with a stride that warded off associates and secretaries. She hustled down the corridor of her firm, past pine console tables and a print by Thomas Eakins of a rower sculling on the Schuylkill River. An elite rower herself, Bennie sculled daily on the same river, gliding under the stone arches the artist so faithfully detailed. She usually glanced at the prints as she walked by, but not this afternoon. A twin? Could it be? No way.

  Bennie hadn’t opened the envelope in the truck. It had ridden beside her on the passenger seat, intrusive as a hitchhiker. It’ll prove everything I say is true, Connolly had said. Her voice sounded a lot like Bennie’s and her laugh was almost an echo. But it was a trick, it had to be. Prison was packed with hustlers, all wanting free legal help. Bennie got letters from inmates almost every day, and the mail spiked every time she was on TV. Connolly just had a more original approach.

  Bennie reached her office, shut the door, then yanked the envelope out of her briefcase and opened the wrinkled yellow flap. Inside were three photographs, one eight-by-ten and two smaller ones, snapshot size. The large photo drew her eye. It was in black-and-white, of twelve pilots in front of a grainy airplane. The shadow of a propeller fell on its riveted skin and the airmen faced the camera in two rows, like a jury. The back row was a lineup of men in bomber jackets, grayish ties, and caps with badges on the front. In the bottom row of the photo knelt another line of pilots, in envelope caps of grainy wool. The pilot on the far right, poised uncertainly on one knee, had light eyes that Bennie recognized. Her own.

  She swallowed hard. The soldier’s eyes were round and large as hers, though he was squinting against the sun. His nose was longer than Bennie’s and his lips less full, but his hair was a sandy blond, like hers. Bennie felt a jarring in her chest and turned the photo over. “Formal crew photo,” it said on the back, in a neat, careful pencil. “Lt. Boyd’s Crew, 235th Bomb Squadron, 106th Bomb Group, 2nd Division, 8th Air Force.” The names of the airmen on the top row were written in the same handwriting and they were all lieutenants. Bennie’s eyes raced to the end of the second line. A list of sergeants, then the last sergeant’s name. S. Sgt. William S. Winslow. Bill Winslow.

  Dad.

  Dad? Bennie checked her watch. There was still a chance she could find out today. She grabbed the group photo and snatched up the little photos with only a glance. She’d look at them on the way. She had to get there before visiting hours were over.

  The last rays of the sun streamed dark gold through the Palladian windows, burning long, glowing arches into the Oriental rug. The sitting room was spacious, with worn antique chairs and couches grouped around mahogany coffee tables. Oil landscapes hung on the plaster walls, and a portrait of a somber physician in three-piece suit and watchchain was illuminated by a dim brass fixture. The setting was a model of old-money elegance. Nobody would have guessed it was a mental hospital.

  Her mother’s wheelchair had been positioned against one of the windows, apparently to view the front lawn, newly shorn. The wheelchair cast a distorted shadow, its handles elongated and its wheels elliptical. Her mother’s head made a rumpled silhouette above the plastic sling of the wheelchair. Bennie felt a pang as she crossed the empty room toward the chair. Her mother’s condition was expected to remain stable with medication. It was both the good and bad news.

  Bennie pulled up an ottoman needlepointed with fox-hunters. “Hey, good lookin’,” she said, sitting down. Her mother’s head didn’t turn from the window. “Ma. How are you?”

  The sunlight streamed onto her mother’s face, but she didn’t blink. A tiny woman, her chin and cheekbones were delicate, framed by dense, wavy, gray hair. Pale, papery skin covered her soft jowls, and deep frown lines furrowed her forehead. Her eyes drooped a listless brown, her lids hooded with age. Her only strong feature was a hawkish nose that had always seemed feisty to Bennie until recently.

  “Ma, you gonna say hi to me?”

  Nothing, not even the blink of an eye. Her mother had been this way for two weeks now. The doctors were tinkering with her dosages, but she wasn’t coming around.

  “Ma, the sun bothering you? You want me to move you?”

  Her mother suddenly slipped down in the wheelchair. A blue cotton blanket rode up her legs, exposing knobby ankles under the hem of a chenille bathrobe. Her spongy slippers fit poorly, curling up at the toe. Dark, spidery veins looked sketched in india ink against the translucent whiteness of her shin.

  “Ma, here. Let me help you.” Bennie tilted the chair out of the sunlight, then grasped her mother by her thin shoulders and hoisted her higher. The old woman offered neither resistance nor help; her body was light as an old paper lantern. A scent clung to her, not the Tea Rose perfume she favored, but a bitter and medicinal smell. Bennie pulled the blanket down over her mother’s feet. “Better?”

  No response, but her mother slipped down again, her knees flopping wide open. If she had been sentient she would have been mortified, and Bennie shuddered for her as she pressed her knees together and tucked the blanket tight around them.

  “Ma, sit up straight. You gotta sit up. Can you sit up?” Bennie leaned over, eased her up again, and held her there a minute. “Isn’t that better? Do you feel that? I’m gonna let go now. When I let go, see if you can stay up. Ready? One, two, three.” Bennie released her grip, but her mother slid down into a deep sea of blue cotton, her chin barely above water. Bennie permitted herself a sigh and rearranged the blanket over her mother’s legs and ankles. “You’re not at dinner tonight, Ma. Did you eat in your room?”

  Her mother’s expression remained unchanged.

  “Was Hattie here to visit today? She told me she was. She said you had lunch together. You had some soup, right? Chicken noodle.” Bennie grasped the green-padded armrests of the wheelchair and pulled her mother closer. “You’re not gonna talk? What, do I have to take your deposition?”

  But even that didn’t get a reaction. Her mother’s eyes rested on Bennie without seeing her. If Bennie hadn’t lived it, she wouldn’t have believed it was physically possible. As long as she could remember, Carmella Rosat
o had been ill, and the daughter had grown up taking care of the mother instead of the more conventional arrangement. They’d made a breakthrough with electroconvulsive therapy, but the old woman’s heart had grown weaker. Bennie called a halt to the procedures because she’d rather have her mother depressed than dead. At times like this, she doubted her decision. “Ma?” she said. “Mom?”

  Her mother blinked, then blinked again, and Bennie realized she was falling asleep. Then Bennie remembered. The envelope. The photos in her briefcase. She wasn’t sure what to do. As much as she wanted to know, Bennie felt torn about raising the subject. Her mother was already so fragile. What if the questions sent her into a deeper catatonia? Gave her a heart attack?

  Still, Bennie had asked nothing of her mother all her life and all she wanted now was an answer. Of course she didn’t have a twin and she was entitled to have it confirmed. Anger glowed in her chest, but Bennie ignored it, ashamed. It wasn’t that her mother wouldn’t help, it was that she couldn’t. Still Bennie didn’t reach for her briefcase. She froze on the ottoman, as motionless as her mother in the wheelchair.

  The sunlight faded to the shade of tarnished brass and the room grew cold. Bennie watched her mother’s eyes close and her head nod slowly forward. Her skin looked waxy and pale. Her breathing was shallow. Soon the old woman would be dead. What? Bennie caught herself, in surprise. Not dead, asleep. Soon her mother would be asleep. Bennie ignored the lump in her throat, fished out the envelope, and set it on her lap. “Ma, I have something I want to talk about. It’s important. Wake up. Wake up, Ma.” She patted her mother’s knee, but it had no effect. “Ma, I’m sorry, but there’s something I have to ask you. It’s crazy, but I want to hear you say that. Ma?”

  Her mother stirred, lifting her head with an effort that sent a guilty ripple through Bennie.

  “Great, Ma. That’s great. Now can you see me? Do you see me?”

  Her mother’s eyes were open but unfocused. As far as Bennie could determine, her mother was seeing nothing.

  “Ma, I met a woman today who says she’s my twin sister. She says that I was a twin, that I am a twin. That’s crap, isn’t it? Of course it is.”

  Her mother blinked so deliberately it was almost slow motion.

  “I know it’s strange. Shocking, kind of.” Bennie smiled, because her mother didn’t look shocked. Her mother had no expression whatsoever. “Don’t look so surprised,” she said, with a laugh that faded fast. “Ma. Did you hear me? I know you heard me. Will you answer me?”

  But she didn’t.

  “If you don’t answer, I’m hauling out the heavy artillery. Don’t make me go there. I got pictures. Of my father, she says. You want to see?”

  No reaction.

  “You want not to see?”

  Still no reaction.

  “Okay, since you asked.” Bennie slid the group picture from the folder, the one with the airmen and the airplane. “Take a look at this.” Bennie held it up in front of her mother’s face and noticed fibers of black construction stuck to the four corners of the photo’s back, as if from a photo album. Then she peeked over the photo and scrutinized her mother. The old woman’s eyes didn’t move toward the picture or even appear to see the pilot, so Bennie moved the picture into what she figured was her mother’s line of vision. Still her mother’s eyes didn’t focus on the photo at all.

  “Ma, they’re tellin’ me this is Exhibit A. Is this my old man?” Bennie hooked a finger around the side of the photo. “This one, with the eyes that look like someone you know?” Her mother’s eyelids were sinking again, and Bennie’s hopes with them. “Ma? Are you signaling or sleeping?”

  Her mother’s head dropped onto her chest and she slid under the blue blanket, which engulfed her like a riptide. Bennie’s breath lodged in her throat, then she let her hand and the photo fall to her lap. Why wake her mother up or show her the other photos? There was no point.

  Bennie returned the photo to the envelope and slipped it back into her briefcase, but didn’t move to go. She stayed still, keeping her mother company, watching her slack chest moving up and down, her breathing too shallow to lend any reassurance. Bennie had no answers and she barely had her mother, but she remained. It felt good just to be around her, in her flesh-and-blood presence. Bennie didn’t dwell on how many such times they would have left. In that moment it was the same as it had always been: Bennie and her mother, the two of them, still breathing against all odds.

  And now was there another? A third? Bennie couldn’t imagine it. The Rosatos weren’t the ideal nuclear family, but it was her family and she took its structure for granted, like stars fixed in the firmament. A constellation couldn’t be changed; there was a Big Dipper and a Little Dipper, and that was it. There couldn’t be another Little Dipper, could there?

  Bennie’s gaze strayed through the arched windows to the sky, where the earliest stars were peeking through a transparent canopy of dusk. She remembered that stars weren’t forever, but died from instability within, spewing glowing heat, light, and color into deep space. She’d seen the photos in the newspaper: stellar deaths like pinwheels, cat’s eyes, and whorls of light. From their showy deaths came life and new stars were formed, yet to be discovered, named, and recorded. To be sure, they existed before Bennie knew of their existence. Maybe Connolly was like that, an unnamed star.

  Bennie reflected on it, her eyes bright. She had to concede it was at least theoretically possible. Her mother, dozing in her wheelchair so soundly, could have borne twins. She was tough as a young woman, defiant of convention, and tight-lipped enough to keep a secret of that magnitude. Maybe the secret had contributed to her illness. Maybe it had even caused it. If new stars could be formed and old ones die, didn’t it follow that constellations could be reconfigured? A Big Dipper and two Little Dippers? The thought made Bennie shiver with an admixture of doubt and wonderment, and she sat by the window until night shone with an almost unbearable brilliance.

  On the other side of town, a white police cruiser idled at a gum-spattered curb. Its headlights were on but its radio crackled to an empty car. Joe Citrone was on the pay phone at the intersection. It was dark and this was a rugged section of the city, but he had nothing to fear here. He had grown up only a block over, in the house near the corner. There used to be a luncheonette on the corner, Ray’s and Johnny’s, and Angelo’s Market, the grocery store right across the street. Joe used to like Ray’s, it made the whole corner smell like the steak sandwiches that sizzled on the flat grill. Now the corner stank like shit.

  “He in?” Joe said into the phone. The receiver was all black and greasy. He hated that. Everything dirty, from the crackheads. He couldn’t use his home phone. He didn’t want it in his phone records, in case some mamaluke got ahold of it.

  Joe never took chances. It wasn’t his way. He didn’t have to do anything extreme, just prevent Rosato from taking Connolly’s case. He knew people who could make that happen. “You there?” he said into the receiver. “Now listen up.”

  6

  Starling “Star” Harald yanked open his locker to get a towel for his shower. He felt so goddamn low. His sparring match had gone bad two days in row. Fuck. Inside the locker door was a yellowed picture from the newspaper. Star at fifteen years old, with his arm looped around Anthony. The future heavyweight and his manager, Officer Anthony Della Porta of the Philadelphia police, read the caption. It was only four years ago, but seemed like ages.

  Star had felt heavy during the sparring match. His arms went sore early and stayed that way. He couldn’t land his right cross. It was pitiful. Star caught sight of himself in the mirror stuck on the locker door. His hair was a soaked, shaved fade, and his eyes, bloodshot slits of brown. His nose was wide, still not broken, and a trace of mustache covered his upper lip. He was too fat; he was about two-fifteen and he liked to be around two hundred. Damn. He used to be so pretty, like Ali. He didn’t look so pretty now. Harris fight was comin’ up, but the way he was boxing, Star would get killed. Was he re
ady for the top of the card, a twelve-rounder? His first professional fight?

  Star grabbed the washcloth that Anthony used to replace every day with a clean one. He felt empty inside. It was a year since Anthony got killed, and every time Star opened his goddamn locker he felt like shit. Anthony was dead and Star had nothing left. No manager, no sparring partner, no friend. He’d been managing himself all this time. Couldn’t bring himself to pick a new manager. Kept the same trainers and worked hard, taking the crappy fights promoters threw you when they wanted you to hire a manager they could play ball with. Star had beaten them all; his record was thirty-two wins, thirty by knockout, and only two losses.

  Shit. Star wiped his forehead with his hand, his hand-wraps flapping. He couldn’t keep on the way he was. So much business he had to take care of, it was takin’ him away from his training. Star didn’t know what to do. Anthony would know, he was like a father to him. Didn’t matter Star was black and Anthony was Italian. Anthony discovered him in a PAL program, taught him to box, got him all the way through Golden Gloves. Took him to amateur fights in Philly, Jersey, and New York. Even Tennessee and Kentucky. Put him up against class boxers and punchers, plus down-and-dirty brawlers who stuck shit in their gloves, so Star would know how to fight all kinds when he turned pro. Star fought his way through all of ’em, knocked out Irish and Dominicans and even a black guy with a British accent.

  Anthony found the backers, white stiffs in suits, and picked a name for the syndicate, Starshine Enterprises. It would pay Star a decent salary for a change, plus fifty percent of his purses. Anthony only wanted ten percent to manage Star. He didn’t care about the money, he cared about Star. Anthony was the first man to make Star feel like he was worth anything, like his name wasn’t a joke. Then Anthony got killed, shot dead. Star had known that Connolly bitch was trouble from the jump. He just didn’t know how much.