analogous to Genevieve’s, confined with her questionable father and then Zack Meecham.
“Oh, Mingo House meant the world to Genevieve. I think she fantasized about it being her family home. She wanted to be ‘to the manor born’ and she ‘adopted’ Mingo House in a way. In hopes that it might adopt her.” His voice broke with an unfeigned grief. “And look what happened.” He shoveled more veal through his lips, feeding his sorrow. For a slender man he had an enormous appetite, devouring his veal and requesting more bread by tapping the wire basket on the table and calling out “Signore!” He was also consuming enough wine to deplete the vintage, and, as he grew drunker, he again tried running his finger down my hand, so I had to keep my hands inaccessible, in my lap. “And, signore, more
vino
!”
“Ah, the Mingoes,” Bryce sighed, as he pushed his empty plate away, almost pushing my butter knife off the table and onto the concrete cupid. “Of course Clara Mingo was a certified nutcase, with her séances and spiritual photographs. Did you know she was a friend of Mary Todd Lincoln’s? Mary stayed at Mingo House and consulted Clara about contacting Honest Abe. I think Tad stayed there too. Genevieve couldn’t look at a penny or a five-dollar bill without picturing Clara and Mary summoning the Great Beyond.”
Then he mumbled something about “my little girl” and poured so much of the second bottle of wine into his glass that it slopped over and flooded the bread basket. He drank the whole glass in one quaff and smeared away tears from his eyes. He stood with the wobble of a minutes-old colt, mumbled something about needing a men’s room, collided with a planter, and sent an empty wine bottle careening onto the pavement, where it shattered with a humiliating crash that caused the whole world to gawk—our fellow diners, the restaurant staff, the couples strolling hand-in-hand along the sidewalk. “How ghastly, how ghastly,” he said.
Dmitri appeared, followed by the maitre d’ and a woman I assumed was the manager. Bryce now seated himself not in his chair but on top of a concrete harlequin, where he began weeping, softly at first, and then with the wailing of professional mourners at Third World funerals.
“Sir, I must ask you to leave.”
“My child, my child,” Bryce wept. Defiantly, he hurled our bread basket to the ground.
The woman, the manager, repeated her request. “Sir, please, you must be on your way. You’re disrupting everyone’s…” Bryce fished for his wallet, found six fifty-dollar bills, forked over the money, and told me, “You will see me to my home, Mr. Winslow.”
What choice did I have? He clung to me, weightless as a puppet, as I steadied him up Newbury Street, down Clarendon, and through the South End to his bow-fronted townhouse on Union Park. “I owe you so much.” Actually, I owed him for my portion of our dinner, for the wine and veal Umbria I had left cooling on my plate.
We had just entered the front hall of Bryce’s home when he suddenly announced, “I’m going to faint. My collar, it’s too tight. I can’t breathe, I’m having a panic attack.”
Clearly Genevieve’s murder had dealt him a serious blow. I helped unbutton his shirt and peel the jacket and shirt from his torso. His tie was secured in a Gordian knot that took me forever to dissect. He was hairless and he wore a ponderous gold crucifix on a chain around his neck, some seriously Catholic bling. His pants were stained; had he wet them or doused them with wine? Mercifully, he was able to remove them himself, until he sat in his scarlet bikini briefs on his long leather sofa. Seeing this stranger brought so low embarrassed me, and I forgot about the urge to escape. Tattooed on his left and right biceps, respectively, were a cross and a heart, rendered in crude, light ink, as if done with a fountain pen. “Will you be so kind as to bring me a hot towel? I have heated towel racks in the
“Oh, Mingo House meant the world to Genevieve. I think she fantasized about it being her family home. She wanted to be ‘to the manor born’ and she ‘adopted’ Mingo House in a way. In hopes that it might adopt her.” His voice broke with an unfeigned grief. “And look what happened.” He shoveled more veal through his lips, feeding his sorrow. For a slender man he had an enormous appetite, devouring his veal and requesting more bread by tapping the wire basket on the table and calling out “Signore!” He was also consuming enough wine to deplete the vintage, and, as he grew drunker, he again tried running his finger down my hand, so I had to keep my hands inaccessible, in my lap. “And, signore, more
vino
!”
“Ah, the Mingoes,” Bryce sighed, as he pushed his empty plate away, almost pushing my butter knife off the table and onto the concrete cupid. “Of course Clara Mingo was a certified nutcase, with her séances and spiritual photographs. Did you know she was a friend of Mary Todd Lincoln’s? Mary stayed at Mingo House and consulted Clara about contacting Honest Abe. I think Tad stayed there too. Genevieve couldn’t look at a penny or a five-dollar bill without picturing Clara and Mary summoning the Great Beyond.”
Then he mumbled something about “my little girl” and poured so much of the second bottle of wine into his glass that it slopped over and flooded the bread basket. He drank the whole glass in one quaff and smeared away tears from his eyes. He stood with the wobble of a minutes-old colt, mumbled something about needing a men’s room, collided with a planter, and sent an empty wine bottle careening onto the pavement, where it shattered with a humiliating crash that caused the whole world to gawk—our fellow diners, the restaurant staff, the couples strolling hand-in-hand along the sidewalk. “How ghastly, how ghastly,” he said.
Dmitri appeared, followed by the maitre d’ and a woman I assumed was the manager. Bryce now seated himself not in his chair but on top of a concrete harlequin, where he began weeping, softly at first, and then with the wailing of professional mourners at Third World funerals.
“Sir, I must ask you to leave.”
“My child, my child,” Bryce wept. Defiantly, he hurled our bread basket to the ground.
The woman, the manager, repeated her request. “Sir, please, you must be on your way. You’re disrupting everyone’s…” Bryce fished for his wallet, found six fifty-dollar bills, forked over the money, and told me, “You will see me to my home, Mr. Winslow.”
What choice did I have? He clung to me, weightless as a puppet, as I steadied him up Newbury Street, down Clarendon, and through the South End to his bow-fronted townhouse on Union Park. “I owe you so much.” Actually, I owed him for my portion of our dinner, for the wine and veal Umbria I had left cooling on my plate.
We had just entered the front hall of Bryce’s home when he suddenly announced, “I’m going to faint. My collar, it’s too tight. I can’t breathe, I’m having a panic attack.”
Clearly Genevieve’s murder had dealt him a serious blow. I helped unbutton his shirt and peel the jacket and shirt from his torso. His tie was secured in a Gordian knot that took me forever to dissect. He was hairless and he wore a ponderous gold crucifix on a chain around his neck, some seriously Catholic bling. His pants were stained; had he wet them or doused them with wine? Mercifully, he was able to remove them himself, until he sat in his scarlet bikini briefs on his long leather sofa. Seeing this stranger brought so low embarrassed me, and I forgot about the urge to escape. Tattooed on his left and right biceps, respectively, were a cross and a heart, rendered in crude, light ink, as if done with a fountain pen. “Will you be so kind as to bring me a hot towel? I have heated towel racks in the
Similar Books
