Liam Mulligan: Cliff Walk Part 22

"Mrs. Maniella is only sixty-two," I said. "This is the story you're going to stick with?"

"That is our position, yes," Yolanda said.

"Oh, boy," I said. "Captain Parisi is gonna love this. Have you talked to him yet?"

"Not yet, no," Yolanda said.

"Figured you'd try the story out on me first?"

No reply.

"Well, if that was your plan," I said, "I can tell you right now there are a lot of holes in it."

33.

Vanessa rose from her chair, walked to the hearth, and added a log to the fire. Then we all went to the wall of windows and looked out at the dark, still lake.

"The roads must be treacherous," Sal said. "You and Yolanda are welcome to dine with us and spend the night. We have plenty of room."

Being a p.o.r.nographer's overnight guest wasn't on my bucket list, but it was better than the alternative.

We ate by candlelight, Sal's wife, Anita, joining us at a carved antique table that could have seated twice our number. Two uniformed servants piled slabs of roast beef, grilled vegetables, and mountains of mashed potatoes onto expensive-looking china plates. Cla.s.sical music, something with a lot of strings, played softly from hidden speakers. Sal pulled the corks on three bottles of Petrus, a pricey red wine whose virtues were wasted on me.

The conversation veered from the Patriots' playoff prospects, which we agreed were not good, to the Red Sox's signing of pitcher John Lackey, which we all deplored. I waited for Yolanda to soften up a little and throw in something about the Cubs or the Bears, but apparently she was still on the clock. After the servants cleared away our plates and returned with hot coffee and generous wedges of apple pie, Anita turned the conversation to President Obama's proposal to reform the banking industry.

"What he should do is restore the wall between investment banks and retail banks," she said. "Inst.i.tutions that trade in derivatives, equity securities, fixed-income instruments, and foreign exchange should not be allowed to accept savings deposits."

I didn't understand much of that, but she didn't sound confused to me.

I stared at her, wondering how many plastic surgeons it took to keep a woman looking that good into her sixties. Then I stared some more, wondering what kind of a woman would marry a p.o.r.nographer. She caught me looking and smiled.

"Go ahead and ask," she said. "I don't mind."

"Does it bother you?" I asked. "The way your husband makes his money?"

"And my daughter, too," she said. "Don't forget Vanessa."

"Her too," I said.

She laced her fingers under her chin and studied me over the top of them. "You've never been a woman, have you, Mr. Mulligan?"

I thought it might be a trick question, so I went with a politician's answer: "Not that I can recall."

"Being a woman is all about choices. Long ago, I made the choice to support my husband's pa.s.sion. Sal's pa.s.sion is not p.o.r.nography. It's not being surrounded by the naked women on his payroll. Sal's pa.s.sion is making money and using it to buy his family nice things. I trust his path. And I like nice things, too."

"But-"

"Everyone involved in the business-the performers, the customers, even my daughter-is chasing something they've dreamed about. Most people just don't dream as big as Sal."

Sal chuckled at that. "Let me tell you what I'm dreaming about this week," he said, and steered the conversation to what I gathered was his favorite topic. Swann Galleries in Manhattan had scheduled a January auction of rare British mystery and spy novels, and he was pretty excited about it. I would have been, too, if the pre-auction estimates didn't make me choke.

After dinner, the Maniellas retired to their rooms. I went to the garage, found my parka still hanging on its peg, and pulled my antibiotics prescription and omeprazole tablets from an inside pocket. Then I reentered the house, pa.s.sed Black s.h.i.+rt and Gray s.h.i.+rt standing watch in the foyer, and entered the library, where Yolanda was sitting on the couch.

"Not what you expected, are they," she said.

"No."

"You thought they'd be pigs."

"Maybe they are," I said. "All that dirty money can buy a lot of lipstick and deodorant."

"They're not," she said. "They're pretty nice when you get to know them."

"Nice for p.o.r.nographers, you mean."

"I didn't realize you were such a puritan, Mulligan."

"Neither did I."

She gave me a searching look. "p.o.r.nography is legal," she said. "They're not doing anything wrong."

"A lawyer's answer."

"I am a lawyer. I leave the moralizing to the preachers."

"Perhaps I'd like them better," I said, "if they didn't keep sending their thugs after me."

"What do you mean?"

"The two ex-SEALs followed my car the other day and cornered me in a Subway parking lot."

"What did they want?"

"To beat me up."

"What happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I showed them my gun, and they went away."

"You carry a gun?"

"Only when I'm feeling threatened."

"Why were they after you?"

"Because I was asking questions about the Maniellas."

"They didn't seem to mind your questions today."

"They didn't answer the important ones."

The candles in the candelabra had burned to stubs, and one of them had gone out. I relit it with my lighter.

"When are you going to tell Captain Parisi that Sal is alive?" I asked.

"Tomorrow, if the roads are better," she said. "It's something I should do face-to-face."

"Taking Sal with you?"

"No."

"Parisi's going to want to question him."

"I'm not going to allow that," she said.

"Mind if I call the captain in the morning and give him the news myself?"

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because it would amuse me."

"I'd rather you didn't, but I can't stop you." She paused and then added, "I guess it wouldn't do any harm."

I picked up the decanter of bourbon from the table and thought about how good it would feel on the way down. Then I thought about what would happen when it hit bottom and returned the container to the table.

"Patricia Smith is going to be at the Cantab in Cambridge the second week in January," I said.

"Is that so?"

"They say her readings are amazing. We should go."

"Maybe, but not together."

"Separate cars would waste gasoline," I said. "Don't you care about the environment?"

"Going together would just encourage you," she said.

Vanessa stepped into the library to announce that our beds would be ready shortly. Then she noticed the way I was looking at Yolanda and asked, "Will you be wanting one room or two?"

"One," I said.

"Two," Yolanda said.

Vanessa chuckled and slipped out of the room.

In the morning, Sal stood on the front porch with his wife and daughter and waved good-bye as Yolanda and I headed down the snow-covered dirt road to our cars. I helped her clear the snow from hers. Then I brushed off Secretariat. I locked my .45 in the glove box and placed a plastic bag holding Grant's two-volume memoir on the floor by the front pa.s.senger seat. I started the car, turned on the heater, and let the engine warm while I made the call to Parisi.

"Guess who I was just talking to," I said.

"I don't play guessing games, Mulligan."

"Sal Maniella."

That five-second pause, and then: "You talking to dead people now?"

"Sometimes I do," I said. "But he looked alive to me. He was walking and talking, and his breath turned white in the cold."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Because if this is your idea of a joke..."

"It's not."

"Then who the h.e.l.l is in the morgue?"

"A retired Navy SEAL named Dante Puglisi. Sal had been using him as a double. They looked a lot alike, and Puglisi had some plastic surgery a few years back to perfect the illusion."

A five-second pause again. "Plastic surgery scars were noted in the autopsy report, but we chalked it up to vanity."

"I would have, too."

"Sal's been playing dead because somebody tried to kill him?"

"Yeah."

"His wife played along by falsely identifying the body?"

"Sal's lawyer claims she was distraught and confused."

"You met her?"

"I did."

"She seem confused to you?"

"No."

"Did Sal tell you who wants him dead?"