The Sins of the Sons

Albany, NY Present Day I found myself staring out the window of my second floor Sherman Street office a lot lately, now that Val had left me again. Staring at the cold, lonely city. The only thing capable of warming my insides—a glass of Jameson —had been biologically attached to my right hand for the past week. Val became the second love of my life after my first love, Fran, died in a hit-and-run more than twenty years ago. She’d left me for another man whom she claimed paid attention to her, loved her for who she was, took her to the movies, ate when she wanted to eat, didn’t drink so much, and was tender with his touch. Not overly macho or masculine. Or how did she put it? Boorish. “Tender,” I whispered to the city skyline. “Tender with his touch. Gee whiz, thanks for that, Val.” The way she described him to me over drinks—on what was to become our last night together—made him sound like the anti-Keeper Marconi. An intellectual by the name of Dr. James Moorehouse who taught philosophy at the state college and came from a wealthy family who owned a house in Palm Beach. All too often, my philosophical outlook came in the form of a fist to the gut or a bullet to the brain, or maybe a two-hundred-sixty-five-pound bench press, possibly a cold beer with a whiskey chaser. And no, I didn’t have a house in Palm Beach. I toughed the winters out right here in the heart of the concrete jungle. There weren’t that many of us around anymore. Real men. Women craved us but hated us too. Modern day women that is. Women who considered us boorish. Women who had the hashtag #metoo tattooed to their backside. The world was moving on and leaving me behind in its wake. I took another sip of whiskey, felt the warmth settle in my veins, and I pictured Val in the arms of another man—Dr. Moorhouse. I pictured them in bed together, their skin pressed against one another. It made me a little sick to think about it, but a part of me wanted to suffer through seeing it if only to convince myself that Val being with another man was a reality now. The only reality. It was happening whether I liked it or not. It was happening, and there wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do about it. I drank more whiskey. “Damn you, Val,” I muttered. “Damn you for stealing my heart then breaking it. Again and again.” Drinking down the whiskey, I turned to my desk, poured another, and resumed looking out onto a city that was gray and freezing like my insides. I studied my vague reflection in the glass. The round face covered with salt and pepper stubble, the short—almost too short—crop of salt and pepper hair, the thick neck, the barrel chest. In the winter I liked to wear a black turtleneck over jeans. I still wore my usual worn brown leather cowboy boots. Some habits are hard to break. I concealed my .45 with a leather coat I bought at a vintage shop in Florence, Italy ten years ago. At the moment, it hung on the hat rack behind the desk. So did the g*n. I sipped more whiskey but hadn’t yet swallowed when I heard the knock on the old glass and wood door. “Mr. Marconi?” a man’s voice said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” I turned slowly, the whiskey glass in hand. “Not at all,” I replied, hoping he was a client and not a salesman. “What can I help you with, pal?” I was a bit jumpy lately, and I kept one eye on him and one eye on the .45. “Mind if I come in?” he asked, a half smile on his smooth, clean face. “I was hoping you might help me with some detecting.” A client. I needed a client right about then, the bank account being what it was—redder than a Christmas candle and emptier than an old fruitcake tin. “Have a seat,” I said, gesturing with my free hand to the empty wood chair positioned in front of the desk. I sat down, set the whiskey on the desk beside the green bottle of Jameson. “Care for a drink?” He sat down, crossed his legs, and adjusted his round tortoise shell eyeglasses. I took note of his expensive charcoal suit under an even more expensive overcoat. The ball knot on his red and black rep tie was tied to perfection against a white Oxford. It was a contrast to his full head of dark hair, and his solid gold cufflinks must have set him back a couple grand alone. If it was the 1920s, he would have been the type to wear a bowler hat, leather gloves, and carry a cane. I smelled money on him like a hungry dog sniffs out people food. He pretended to glance at his watch. “It’s only eleven in the morning,” he said, a half smile painting his face. “Florence,” I said. “Excuse me?” “Florence,” I repeated. “Florence, Italy.” I glanced at my watch. “It’s five o’clock in Florence, Italy.” He issued a pretend, if not confused laugh, re-crossed his legs and I couldn’t help but notice his polished black Florsheims. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “As in, it must be five o’clock somewhere.” I pretended to laugh. “So, what can I help you with, Mister— . . .” “O’Connell,” he said. “Jim O’Connell. He sat up, reached across the desk with his hand. I guessed I had no choice but to take the hand in mine and shake it. I squeezed. It was a small hand, smooth and warm, lacking in strength. Definitely a man who’d never worked a blue-collar job in his life much less lifted a few free-weights at the gym. That is, if you could still find a gym that housed free-weights. Our hands released and we both sat back in our respective chairs. I cathedraled my fingers, elbows on the desktop, assumed my best Jack Marconi smile. “So, what can I help you with today, Mr. O’Connell?” “Oh, please, Jim. I’m a rather casual boy.” And rich . . . “Jim it is.” I pressed my lips together and went wide-eyed like I was waiting anxiously for him to spill whatever was on his mind. For a brief second or two, he looked up at the ceiling as though collecting his thoughts or trying to put words together in a very careful way. Too many individuals confuse private detectives for real cops. That said, we tended to make them nervous, especially when it came to sensitive subjects—like a******y, for instance. I was never a cop but instead, a prison warden, which is sort of like a cop who serves and protects the inside of a concrete and razor wire fortress. “I have a problem,” he finally admitted. “Don’t we all,” I said. He smiled nervously again. “He said you’d be like this.” “Who said what?” “The person who recommended you.” “Who recommended me?” “A man named Miller. Homicide detective at the Albany Police Department.” I nodded, pictured the tall, slim detective in my brain. I knew Miller well. We’d worked together on occasion on jobs the APD couldn’t handle on its own. “He’s a good man,” I said. “And yeah, I can be kind of a jokester, if that’s what you mean.” “Yes,” Jim O’Connell said. “It’s fine.” His face assumed a serious expression again. “You see, one of my best childhood friends recently passed away. His wake was this past Friday, and the funeral was Saturday. I work in Manhattan, so I came up by train.” “I’m sorry for your loss,” I offered. He shook his head. “Thank you. The poor soul fell down the basement stairs. Tragic. He was such a fun-loving young man when I knew him.” “You weren’t still friends?” “I lost touch with my prep school pals after university. You know, life gets in the way, people move out of state or move on, anyway. We simply lost touch with one another.” Prep school. University. I could tell this guy loved himself. “But then he fell down the stairs,” I said. “Your friend, I mean.” “Yes, such bad luck. But he had other problems, as well. Like alcoholism. On several recent occasions, I visited him at his house in Loudonville, and he was in a terrible state.” He shook his head. “It was a sad thing to witness such deterioration in a man who was once so vivacious and strong. We played football together at the Albany Academy for Boys.” He smiled sheepishly. “Rather, I was the team equipment manager. He, however, was All-City. A nose tackle.” O’Connell was the football equipment manager. Now, there was a shocker. I played eight years of football back when the helmets were little more than thin plastic shells with chin straps and maybe a bar or two for a facemask. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t picture O’Connell taking a tackle much less giving one. So, team equipment manager made sense. “And?” I pressed, wanting desperately to get back to my whiskey and staring out the window while wallowing in my own self-pity. “And many people came into town for the funeral. Many of whom, if not most, I haven’t seen in almost forty years.” “We’re getting there,” I said. He sat up straighter, uncrossed his legs, planted both Florsheim soles on the wood floor. “Yes,” he said, “I know you’re busy. I’ll get right to the point.” “Now you’re cooking with gas.” I smiled. “You see, one of these persons who actually still lives in town also used to be one of my best friends at the Academy.” I pulled out a yellow legal pad from the top desk drawer along with a pen. “His name?” I asked. “Steve Long.” I wrote it down. “In fact, Steve and I and the deceased were like the three amigos back in school. As close as three lads can be. Engaged in school activities together. Ate lunch together. Hung out together on the weekends. We even took the same classes so we could be together all the time.” “The deceased,” I said. “What’s his name?” “Mark Mastrullo.” I wrote that down. “One S, two Ls, I assume.” “Exactly,” he said. “Like I said, Mark, Steve, I and did everything together.” I also wrote down The Albany Academy for Boys. It was the most prestigious and expensive country day prep school in the area. All the governor’s sons went there, including the one who now had his own news show on CNN. Privileged kids that came from old Albany money, mostly. “You guys were preppies, weren’t you, Jim?” He laughed. “I guess we wore our share of pink Izod polo shirts if that’s what you’re suggesting,” he affirmed. “Collar up,” I said. “Defying gravity.” “Yes, yes,” he said. “You get the picture.” “Let me guess, Jim. The reason you’re here is that the death of one of your best friends has not only reunited you with the third best friend, but it has also caused something of the past to come back and haunt you, if not bite you on the ass.” His face went pale. “How did you know?” he said. “This isn’t my first hour on the job, Jim,” I said. “So, what happened and why are you here now?” “Steve Long,” he said. “Back in the day, you couldn’t find a more handsome, fun-loving kid. The girls loved him. And he loved them. He also loved to party. He was always drinking beers and doing shots of one liquor or another. The drinking age was younger then, you see.” “Fake IDs,” I said. “Precisely. We all had fake IDs. Well, you see, Steve has changed. A complete one-eighty, you might say. He no longer drinks, no longer indulges in illicit drugs, no longer philanders, and he’s found . . . how shall I say this . . . religion.” “He’s found Jesus,” I add. “Let me guess. Belongs to one of those new storefront Christian churches that have been popping up all over the place.” His eyes lit up. “Very good,” he said. “Alternative Christian I believe they call it. Steve’s church is called the Light of the Earth Church. They’ve bought out what used to be a Price Chopper Supermarket in Latham to the north of Albany. They even bought out the Pizza Hut next door, converted it into a visitor center.” “Waste of good pizza,” I said. Then, “Those churches make big bucks. So, what is it you want me to do about Steve the converted Christian?” He shifted himself forward as if what he was about to tell me was so sensitive, he had to whisper it even if we were alone inside my second-floor office—alone in the entire former Sherman Street garment factory, in fact. He inhaled and exhaled. Profoundly. Then, having worked up the courage to say what he came here to say, he let loose with it. “Something happened when we were seventeen. Something that started out innocently but ended very badly.” He paused. I issued him a swirling hand gesture like, “And . . .” “You see, we were a little drunk and even a little high, I must admit. We’d been drinking on the eighteenth green of the Wolforts Roost Country Club. You know the place?” I nodded. “Yup, I went through a golfing phase for about five minutes a couple of decades ago. When I discovered how much I stunk at it, I tossed the clubs into one of the Wolforts Roost ponds and never looked back.” What I didn’t tell him was that, being self-employed, I also couldn’t afford the monthly dues. “Seems the more I practice the worse I get.” Jim shakes his head. “But I digress.” “Yes, you were saying, Jim?” “So, myself, Mark, and Steve were getting drunk on the eighteenth green in late November when we witnessed an older couple having a bitter argument outside the dining room.” He rolled his eyes. “Older couple. Gee whiz, they were probably somewhere around our ages now. Perhaps younger. That is, he was. But when you’re seventeen . . .” “I get it,” I assured him. “Go on.” “Her name was Tracy, a beautiful blonde who had money of her own from a first marriage. And his name was Martin. Martin Finnegan. Everyone called him Marty.” The name struck a bell, and it had nothing to do with the book, Finnegan’s Wake. But I decided not to let on about it. , Finnegan’s Wake“You see, Tracy and Marty had recently gotten engaged and even bought a house together. By all accounts, they shared a bank account. Well, you see, Mr. Marconi, things weren’t going so well in the relationship. They fought a lot. Bitterly. Sometimes in public.” “Like they were the night you were getting drunk on the green.” “Yes. Apparently, he had emptied out one of their accounts, and she wanted her portion of the money back on the spot. But he was leaving her.” Now I truly recalled the story. Marty Finnegan, prominent Albany real estate attorney and Fin Shane supporter. He was found dead in a patch of woods not far from his mansion in the nearby sleepy suburb of Niskayuna. His death was determined a freak accident—a heart attack. But the family were convinced it was the result of foul play. The case went cold, and it’d been in the freezer for more than three decades now. I could have revealed my knowledge of the story to O’Connell, but this was his show, and I wanted his unbiased take on what might have happened to poor old Marty all those years ago. “This thing you’re about to tell me . . . It’s very difficult for you to admit, isn’t it, Jim? Like, could get you in a world of hurt kind of difficult?” His face went pale, and I swear to Christ, tears formed in his eyes. That’s when I opened the bottom drawer, pulled out the second drinking glass I kept there for guests who needed a belt—like O’Connell no doubt needed right now. I poured him a shot and set it on the edge of the desk. He reached out, took the drink, and stared into the golden liquor. “It is five o’clock in Florence, Italy,” he said contemplatively. I looked at my watch. “Five ten now,” I said. He drank down the shot, set the empty glass back on the desk. “I’ll take another if you don’t mind, Mr. Marconi.” “Call me, Keeper,” I said. “I’m a rather casual boy, too.”