visualize what was going on among the individual entities, if money was being borrowed or lent to support one at the cost of another, or if funds were being siphoned off at the top to pay the owners. I spent the morning visualizing my godfather’s life the same way, and plotting the course of my investigation. Then I placed a phone call to an old friend.
After lunch, I arranged for one of the doormen to walk me to my parking garage. His shift ended at 3:00 p.m., which worked out perfectly. I drove my usual route along the Hutchinson River Parkway, keeping a sharp eye on the rearview mirror, but darted onto I-684 at the last second. The entrance ramp twisted and turned onto a straightaway. I gunned the engine on my vintage Porsche 911 through the curve and then ducked into the right-hand lane and slowed down to fifty-five. Every single car passed me for the next ten miles. I didn’t recognize any of them, and I didn’t see anyone following me either.
Not that it mattered. By now it was early rush hour. Cars hugged each other’s bumpers while cruising at the speed limit. Donnie may have gotten away with lifting me off a dimly lit New York street at midnight, but he wasn’t going to be able to pull it off on the highway. The streets of Hartford would be an altogether different matter. It was going to be up to me to be prudent and cautious.
I knew he would be informed of my arrival because he somehow knew the details of the questions I’d asked Roxanne Stashinski at my godfather’s funeral reception. Word would get around that I was back. It was a small community, and people talked. There was always the possibility that Roxy herself had betrayed me to Donnie Angel, or gossiped innocently to someone about the questions I’d asked her. But I doubted it. She had no motive, and I’d known her my entire life. I trusted her as much as anyone outside my family, though that wasn’t saying all that much.
Roxy was my godfather’s niece. She was also my best friend growing up. We’d gone to summer PLAST camps together, and attended Ukrainian School at night until she quit after the seventh grade. Her mother had studied ballet and she’d inherited her long, lithe frame and feline features. As a kid, I’d wished I looked more like her, but mostly I wished I’d fit in as well. Everyone thought Roxy was cool, at Uke camps and at American school. It helped that she was thin and did the kinds of things cool girls did, like smoke cigarettes and experiment with drugs.
Her popularity with boys, in fact, was the beginning of the end of our childhood friendship. During our last PLAST camp together, she turned cold and stopped being friends with me. Something had changed but I didn’t know what, until I caught her giving a blow job to a sixteen-year-old boy from Brooklyn in the tall grass behind the propane tank. We were fourteen at the time.
Twenty years later she had the life every immigrant coveted for his child. She was married to a full-blooded Ukrainian and had two kids. He was a contractor, she was a homemaker, and when they went to church on Sunday, they were the envy of every parent whose children had either left or married outside the culture.
We’d rekindled our friendship five years ago when I’d married her brother.
I picked her up at a car wash two blocks away from the Ukrainian National Home, where she’d been cooking with the other Uke ladies in preparation for bingo night. She was frowning even before she pulled the passenger door open. She still sported killer legs in tight jeans but her face resembled a shrunken raisin. It reminded me of what some famous actress had once said: that as she aged, a woman had to decide whether to preserve her ass or her face. She couldn’t keep both. I guess that’s one of the things I’d always liked about Roxy. We were both flawed. Neither of us was pedestal material.
“The car wash? Really?” Roxy said.
“I’m sorry. I’ll explain. Get in. Quick.”
I looked
After lunch, I arranged for one of the doormen to walk me to my parking garage. His shift ended at 3:00 p.m., which worked out perfectly. I drove my usual route along the Hutchinson River Parkway, keeping a sharp eye on the rearview mirror, but darted onto I-684 at the last second. The entrance ramp twisted and turned onto a straightaway. I gunned the engine on my vintage Porsche 911 through the curve and then ducked into the right-hand lane and slowed down to fifty-five. Every single car passed me for the next ten miles. I didn’t recognize any of them, and I didn’t see anyone following me either.
Not that it mattered. By now it was early rush hour. Cars hugged each other’s bumpers while cruising at the speed limit. Donnie may have gotten away with lifting me off a dimly lit New York street at midnight, but he wasn’t going to be able to pull it off on the highway. The streets of Hartford would be an altogether different matter. It was going to be up to me to be prudent and cautious.
I knew he would be informed of my arrival because he somehow knew the details of the questions I’d asked Roxanne Stashinski at my godfather’s funeral reception. Word would get around that I was back. It was a small community, and people talked. There was always the possibility that Roxy herself had betrayed me to Donnie Angel, or gossiped innocently to someone about the questions I’d asked her. But I doubted it. She had no motive, and I’d known her my entire life. I trusted her as much as anyone outside my family, though that wasn’t saying all that much.
Roxy was my godfather’s niece. She was also my best friend growing up. We’d gone to summer PLAST camps together, and attended Ukrainian School at night until she quit after the seventh grade. Her mother had studied ballet and she’d inherited her long, lithe frame and feline features. As a kid, I’d wished I looked more like her, but mostly I wished I’d fit in as well. Everyone thought Roxy was cool, at Uke camps and at American school. It helped that she was thin and did the kinds of things cool girls did, like smoke cigarettes and experiment with drugs.
Her popularity with boys, in fact, was the beginning of the end of our childhood friendship. During our last PLAST camp together, she turned cold and stopped being friends with me. Something had changed but I didn’t know what, until I caught her giving a blow job to a sixteen-year-old boy from Brooklyn in the tall grass behind the propane tank. We were fourteen at the time.
Twenty years later she had the life every immigrant coveted for his child. She was married to a full-blooded Ukrainian and had two kids. He was a contractor, she was a homemaker, and when they went to church on Sunday, they were the envy of every parent whose children had either left or married outside the culture.
We’d rekindled our friendship five years ago when I’d married her brother.
I picked her up at a car wash two blocks away from the Ukrainian National Home, where she’d been cooking with the other Uke ladies in preparation for bingo night. She was frowning even before she pulled the passenger door open. She still sported killer legs in tight jeans but her face resembled a shrunken raisin. It reminded me of what some famous actress had once said: that as she aged, a woman had to decide whether to preserve her ass or her face. She couldn’t keep both. I guess that’s one of the things I’d always liked about Roxy. We were both flawed. Neither of us was pedestal material.
“The car wash? Really?” Roxy said.
“I’m sorry. I’ll explain. Get in. Quick.”
I looked
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