Mystery Tribune / Issue Nº14

Santo Next Door-1

Santo Next Doorby Lori Roy

Santo Giordano never thought he’d live in a house like this. 3,000 square feet. Five bedrooms. Three bathrooms. Mediterranean, they call it. Mrs. Giordano, God rest, picked it out. She had been unnerved by the idea of living on an island, and she insisted they buy a house that was high and dry. Lord knows, it’s that. Twelve stairs just to walk in the front door. Another twelve to walk down to the pool and back yard. But here he is—living in what his buddies call a stucco palace—and in all his seventy-eight years, he’s never had as much trouble with a neighbor as he’s having now.

Clinging to the bannister and stifling a groan, Santo makes his way down to the pool deck. It’s that knee of his. The doctor says one of Santo’s legs is two inches shorter than the other because of that knee bowing like it does. Giving his leg a shake, he walks to the back fence where he can look out at the Gulf of Mexico and down on the seawall that hems in his lawn. It’s a concrete barrier, a dam of sorts, between his yard and the Gulf. Every waterfront house has the same. Santo just spent $30,000 putting in a new one because his neighbor couldn’t be bothered to maintain his. Good seawalls, like good fences, make for good neighbors.

When Santo first saw the sinkhole in Brian Keeper’s yard, it was a few feet off the property line separating them. Santo pointed it out to his neighbor and suggested a little care would stop it from becoming a problem. The small hole meant Brian had a crack in his seawall. Water was seeping through and when it seeped back out, it was taking Brian’s yard with it. Toss some gravel down in there and you’ll stop-up that leak, Santo told him. But his neighbor didn’t listen, and now the small hole has grown into a five-foot crater. Each night, Santo lays awake, knowing with every passing minute, the crater creeps closer. He can feel it, like a tug on his gut. And he can smell it, the putrid, earthy smell of the slime and algae that grows on the crater’s walls. Eventually, Brian’s seawall will fail. It’ll buckle, crack and then collapse, and half his damn yard could get washed away. If Santo hadn’t put in a new, reinforced seawall of his own, which included driving a concrete barrier between his property and Brian’s, Santo might have lost his yard, too. And still, that creeping crater keeps him awake every night.

The doctor says one of Santo’s legs is two inches shorter than the other because of that knee bowing like it does.

“Hey, there, Santo.”

Missy Wallingford has crossed through the front lawn and down the side of the house to stand at the back gate. Missy has been coming around ever since the one-year anniversary of Mrs. Giordano’s death, which came and went a month ago. But Santo doesn’t mind. Not really. She’s a sweet gal—sturdy, not too pushy. Mostly, she doesn’t try to hide her years behind red lipstick and bright pink cheeks. Leaning on the gate, she gives Santo a finger wave.

“Hello to you, too,” Santo says, shaking out that knee so he can walk without a limp. “What brought you out on this hotter than hell day?”

“I’ve been calling,” she says, smiling and softening her voice as Santo draws near. “But I know how you hate the telephone.”

She pauses as Santo steps up and rests his hands on the waist-high fence that separates them. When Santo doesn’t open the gate, she continues.

“Nobody’s been to mow the ball field in over a week. It’s unsightly by now and those little-leaguer coaches are calling my office to complain.”

“Who was on the schedule?”

Missy tips her head toward the neighbor. “Dr. Keeper,” she whispers. “He’s been having troubles, is how I hear it. Though I don’t like to gossip.”

“Well, I know his seawall’s gone to hell,” Santo says, glancing at the crater devouring the neighbor’s yard. “You hearing something else?”

“Have you turned on your television this morning?”

“Never do.”

“Flip on your local news, and you’ll see. But again, it’s not my nature to gossip.”

Santo lifts the latch and opens the gate.

“Not gossip if it’s private between friends,” Santo says, ushering her into his backyard with the sweep of a hand. “Come right on in and have some tea.”

◆

Dr. Brian Keeper, DDS, leans on his desk, head in hands as yet another man wearing a dark-blue jacket walks past his office door. This is Florida, and still these jackasses are wearing dark-blue jackets. Giant yellow letters are splashed across their backs, down their sleeves, on their breast pockets. Enough already. For God’s sake, everyone knows they’re FBI. Marching past Brian’s office, their arms filled with boxes, not one of those agents has glanced Brian’s way. Box after box, his entire practice is being siphoned off. Leaning back in his chair, he uses a single finger to separate his window blinds. The TV trucks are still out there. With his remote, he flips on the news.

Two hours ago, his attorney made a statement. We are cooperating fully with all FBI requests, he said, and are confident that upon review of Dr. Keeper’s practice, no wrongdoing will be discovered. He and Brian both know that isn’t true. Brian drops his head to his desk, burying his face, because he sure as hell doesn’t need to watch the reporter drone on any longer about allegations of insurance fraud and malpractice. He sits up at the sound of a familiar voice.

“Things been getting worse for a while.”

Brian clicks up the volume. Yes, that’s Tyler Bowling. He stands next to the same reporter who has been in front of Brian’s office all morning. Leaning into the microphone, one hand holding onto it, Tyler is all too eager to talk. That son-of-a-b***h. He still owes Brian for three crowns he put on his wife six months ago.

“Yanking teeth that don’t need yanking,” Tyler says. “Drilling on little kids. And now you’re saying he’s been toying with the insurance companies. Sure won’t ever bring my family here again. We’ll be going to the new place up the street.”

Brian clicks off the television and slings the remote across his office. “Problem, Dr. Keeper?” It’s the agent standing guard in Brian’s doorway.

“Are you f*****g kidding me?”

The agent turns away as files continue to march past. Brian stands up, walks across the room and slams his door. In his last call, the lawyer said Brian needs to plan on cutting a deal within two weeks. It’ll show good faith. The fine will only be a few hundred thousand, a quarter million at most. And maybe Brian will keep his license if he accepts oversight. Hard telling on that front. Jesus Christ. Only a quarter million, as if Brian has that kind of money. Christ, he’s struggling to keep the lights on.

On the desk, his cell phone vibrates. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. It’ll be Catherine again, wanting to know what’s going on. What should she tell her mother? Her friends? What’s going to happen to us? As if Brian gives a God damn what her mother thinks. He flips the phone over and sees that it’s Santo Giordano calling. Letting out another long breath, he flips the phone back over and lets it roll to voicemail.

◆

Santo has worked his way across the outfield and is halfway done when he shuts down the riding mower to make a call. Truth is, it’s a rough ride. His back aches, and one leg has fallen numb. But mostly, he’s just so damn tired. He hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months, not since that damn hole sprung up. For the third time, Brian Keeper doesn’t answer. He never answers. Wiping a kerchief over his balding head, Santo takes a long drink from his water bottle, pulls his ball cap back on and restarts the mower.

It’s the hottest damn part of the day and here he is, rambling around on this contraption so a bunch of ten-year-olds can play baseball. But he sure does like coming out here on a Saturday morning to watch them. He was never lucky enough to have a son of his own—or a daughter, because the girls play now, too—though he did grow up with two brothers. God rest them both. Three years ago, Santo and a handful of the younger men on the island, all of them fathers, fought to build this ball field on an unused patch of land. He’d paid for nearly the whole damn thing out of his own wallet, and still they’d had to battle the homes association for permission to build it. Missy, bless her heart, was a big help. Now, all the dads and Santo take turns mowing. There’s a schedule, and everyone does his part. Most everyone. Men like Brian Keeper, there’s always one in the bunch, make Santo regret his generosity.

Finishing up on the first-base side where the shade is good, Santo parks the mower and is sweeping it clean with a whisk brush when Missy appears again. She’ll have been watching him from her office on the second floor of the bank building. He didn’t hear her pull up, but there she is. Maybe he made a mistake inviting her through his gate this morning. He’d been happy to hear what she had to say, but it puts him off-center to think of being too familiar with another woman. Sure, when he was younger, he didn’t have trouble slipping a little something past Mrs. Giordano. Back then, he’d treated those women as disposable. He used them once and tossed them away. He’s not proud to admit having behaved that way, and if he would have been blessed with a son, he’d have taught him better.

“Buy you a beer at Smugglers?” Missy calls out from over near the third-base dugout.

Waving his corn-bristle brush in Missy’s direction, Santo smiles and laughs out loud. Good for Missy Wallingford, offering to buy him a beer. Most ladies Missy’s age wouldn’t set foot in Smugglers. They’d complain about the smoke or the sticky floors. He glances at his watch. It’s nearly four o’clock, and here on the island, four o’clock is close enough. He won’t bother trying to call Brian Keeper again.

“It’s a date,” he shouts back.

◆

Brian slows as he nears his house. Three times, his old neighbor has called, and three times, Brian let it roll to voicemail. Santo’s garage is closed and his golf cart, which is always parked outside during the day, is gone. Pressing the button on his garage-door opener, Brian knows exactly when to speed up. He slips into the garage just as it opens wide enough to allow his car to clear the door, hits the button again and it closes behind him.

He sits inside the car, its engine running. For a moment, he considers it. He doesn’t have to turn the key. The garage would fill with exhaust quickly enough, and his problems would be gone. Fast. Painless. No more worries about what might happen to him now. No more nothing. He’s scared, is the truth of it. Scared of what one man can do to another. He cringes. He’s not a man made for pain. He draws in a deep breath, holds it, and then the door to the laundry room flies open. Catherine bursts into the garage. Brian turns off the car.

Catherine’s been crying. No mistaking that. She didn’t even try to clean herself up even though she knew he was on his way home. Her hair, a suspicious shade of red this month after a decent brown last, is mussed and hangs in her face. Her eye makeup is smudged, and she wears one of his white undershirts, which is what she wears when doing housework. They can afford a cleaning lady, or rather they could afford one before today, but still she does all the cleaning herself. Every night, Brian comes home to her stories of what she scrubbed, sorted or vacuumed that day. Holding up a hand as he steps out of the car, Brian silences her before she can get herself going.

“Have you been packing?” he asks.

She nods. “But I don’t understand,” she says, smoothing the hair from her face. “Why leave? The attorney said you could cut a deal. I saw it on the television. What does that mean? What does cut a deal mean?”

Brian pushes past her, drops his jacket on the back of a chair and grabs the whiskey from over the sink.