I brought a chair to the side of her bed, sat down, leaned forward. She pressed her fingers over my nose, my chin, my eyes. Her skin was rough and oily both. It was like being gummed by an eel.
“You have a strong face, Victor,” she said. “A Greek face.”
“Is that good?”
“Of course, what you think? I have secret to tell you.” She glommed her hand over the side of my head and, with surprising strength, pulled me close so she could whisper. “I’m dying.”
And I believed it, yes I did, what with the way her breath smelled of rot and decay, of little creatures burrowing into the heart of the earth, of desolation and death.
“I’m dying,” she said as she pulled me closer, “and I need your help.”
It was my father who had gotten me into this. He had asked me to pay a visit to Zanita Kalakos as a favor, which was curious in and of itself. My father didn’t ask for favors. He was an old-school kind of guy, he didn’t ask anyone for anything, not for directions if he was lost, not for a loan if he was short, not for help as he struggled still to recover from the lung operation that had saved his life. The last time my father asked me for a favor was during an Eagles game when I made a brilliant comment about the efficacy of the West Coast offense against a cover-two defense. “Do me a favor,” he had said, “and shut up.”
But there he was, on the phone to my office. “I need you to see someone. An old lady.”
“What does she want?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Why does she want to see me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dad?”
“Just do it, all right? For me.” Pause. “As a favor.”
“A favor?”
“Think you can handle that?”
“Sure, Dad,” I said.
“Good.”
“As a favor.”
“Are you busting my chops?”
“Nah, it’s just this is almost like a real father-and-son thing. Calls on the phone. Favors and stuff. Next thing you know, we’ll be having a catch in the yard.”
“Last time we had a catch I threw a high pop that hit you in the face. You ran off crying.”
“I was eight.”
“You want to try it again?”
“No.”
“Good. Now that that’s settled, go see the old lady.”
The address he gave me was a small row house on the southern edge of the Northeast section of the city, my father’s old neighborhood. A gray woman, round and slumped with age, cautiously opened the door and gave me the eye as I stood on the stoop and announced my presence. I assumed this was the old lady my father wanted me to see, but I was wrong. This was the old lady’s daughter. She shook her head when she learned who I was, shook her head the whole time she led me up the creaky stairs that smelled of boiled vinegar and crushed cumin. Whatever the mother wanted with me, the daughter didn’t approve.
“I knew your father when he was boy,” said Zanita Kalakos in that crypt of a room. “He was good boy. Strong. And he remembers. When I called him, he said you would come.”
“I’ll do what I can, Mrs. Kalakos. So how can I help?”
“I am dying.”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“I know, Victor.” She reached up and patted my cheek. “But it is too late for doctors. I’ve been poked, prodded, sliced like roasted pig. There is nothing more to be done.”
She coughed, and her body heaved and contracted with a startling ferocity.
“Can I get you something?” I said. “Water?”
“No, but thank you, dear one,” she said, her eyes closed to the pain. “It is too late for water, too late for everything. I am dying. Which is why I need you.”
“Do you have an estate you want to settle? Do you want me to write you up a will?”
“No, please. I have nothing but a few bangles and this house, which is for Thalassa. Poor little girl. She wasted her life caring for me.”
“Who is Thalassa?”
“She who brought you to my room.”
Ah, I thought, the poor little girl of seventy.
“Are you married, Victor?”
“No, ma’am.”
One of her closed eyes opened and focused on my face. “Thalassa, she available, and she comes with house. You like house?”
“It’s a very nice house.”
“Maybe you are interested? Maybe we can arrange things?”
“No, really, Mrs. Kalakos. I’m fine.”
“Yes of course. A man with such a good Greek face, you find someone with bigger house. So we are back to problem. I am dying.”
“So you said.”
“In my village, when death it walked into your house on tiptoes and tapped you on shoulder, they rang church bell so everyone would know. Your neighbors, your friends, family, they all came to gather around. It was tradition. A final time to laugh and cry, to hug, to settle scores, to wipe off curses” – she rubbed her lips with two fingers and spat through them – “a final time to say good-bye before the blessed journey. For my grandparents it was like that, and for my mother, too. I went over on boat to say good-bye when it was her time. It wasn’t choice, it was necessity. You understand?”
“I think so, ma’am.”
“So now the bell it is chiming for me. All I have left in my life is to say good-bye. But time, it is running fast, like wind.”
“I’m sure you have more time than you-”
Another wrenching, full-body cough silenced me like a shout. Her hands rose and shook in pain as her body contracted in on itself.
“How can I help?” I said.
“You are lawyer.”
“That’s right.”
“You represent fools.”
“I represent people accused of crimes.”
“Fools.”
“Some are, yes.”
“Good. Then you are just man I need.” She raised a finger and gestured me close, closer. “I have son,” she said softly. “Charles. I love him very much, but he is great fool.”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “Now I see. Has Charles been accused of a crime?”
“Has been accused of everything.”
“Is he in jail now?”
“No, Victor. He not in jail. Fifteen years ago he was arrested for things, too many things to even remember. Mostly stealing, but also threatening and extinction.”
“Extortion?”
“Maybe that, too. And talking with others about doing it all.”
“Conspiracy.”
“He was going to trial. He needed money to stay out of jail.”
“Bail?”
“Yes. So, like idiot, I put up house. The day after he left prison, he disappeared. My Charles, he ran away. It took me ten years to get back house for Thalassa. Ten years of breaking my back. And since he ran, I haven’t once seen his face.”
“What can I do to help him?”
“Bring him home. Bring him to his mother. Let him say good-bye.”
“I’m sure he could come and say good-bye. It’s been a long time. He’s way off the authorities’ radar.”
“You think? Go to window, Victor. Look onto street.”
I did as she told, gently opened the curtain, pulled the shade aside. Light streamed in as I peered outside.
“Do you see it, a van?”
“Yes.” It was battered and white, with a raw brown streak of rust on its side. “I see it.”
“FBI.”
“It looks empty to me, Mrs. Kalakos.”
“FBI, Victor. They are still hunting for my son.”
“After all these years?”
“They know I am sick, they are expecting him to come. My phone, it is tapped. My mail, it is read. And the van, it is there every day.”
“Let me check it out,” I said.
Still standing by the window, I reached for my phone and dialed 911. Without giving my name, I reported a suspicious van parked on Mrs. Kalakos’s street. I mentioned that there had been reports of a child molester using the same type of van and I asked if the police could investigate because I was afraid to let my children go outside to play. When Mrs. Kalakos tried to say something, I just stopped her and waited by the window. I expected the van to be empty, parked there by some neighbor, nothing more than an innocent vehicle left to inspire the wild paranoia of an old, ill woman.
We waited in quiet, the two of us, accompanied by the rasp of her breath. A few minutes later, one police car pulled up behind the van and then another arrived to block the van’s escape. As the uniforms approached the car, a large man in horn-rimmed glasses, a flat-top chop, and a boxy suit came around from the other side. He showed a credential. While one cop examined it and another cop engaged him in a conversation, the man looked up at the window where I stood.