M ary hurried down the street under the gray sky, her trenchcoat billowing behind her, her handbag bumping against her side, and her pumps clacking self-importantly on the filthy pavement. There was no one else on the street this early, especially in this seamier side of South Philly. Trash blew in the gutter, and the rowhouses were badly maintained, the awnings cracked here and there. Plywood boards covered most of the first-floor windows, and she hurried past a noisy auto-body shop where she drew an anachronistic wolf-whistle.
She picked up the pace. His house used to be number 3644. She wasn’t sure if his father still lived here, but nobody moved in South Philly, or if they did, the neighbors would know where they’d gone. It wasn’t the kind of information you got from Google. Mary approached the house, the typical two-story with shutters that needed painting, and she noted with a city-girl’s eye that the brick hadn’t been repainted in years. She walked up the steps, knocked, and waited. There was no answer, so she knocked again, trying not to be nervous.
In the next minute the door opened, and an older man she barely recognized stood stooped in the threshold. He had to be around seventy, but seemed much older. He was bald, and his skin was gray as the stormy sky. Lines etched his face behind greasy black eyeglasses, which sat so heavily on his ears they bent them forward. “Yeah?” he asked, his voice quavering.
“Mr. Po, I don’t know if you remember me. We met a long time ago, when you used to-”
“Pick up my son from your house, from studying. In high school.” The old man smiled shakily, his lips dry, and he pointed at her with a tapered index finger. “I remember you.”
“How nice.”
“Never forget a face. Names, yes. Don’t know your name.”
Mary introduced herself and raised a pastry box she’d brought. “Would you mind if I come in a minute, to talk with you?”
“No, come in. I like a little company.”
“Great, thanks.” Mary stepped in as he opened the door and backed up, admitting her to a living room that had no lights on. It was modestly furnished, with an old-fashioned dark green sofa against the far wall under a rectangular beveled mirror that hung in every rowhouse in Italian-American history. If Mr. Po was in the Mob, maybe crime really didn’t pay.
“Come on inna kitchen.” Mr. Po gestured, and Mary followed him into a dark square of kitchen that was the same dimensions as her parents’, though it smelled of stale cigar smoke. A patterned curtain covered the only window, in the back door, and cabinets refaced with dark fake-walnut ringed the room, matching a brown Formica counter. On the right side of the room sat the sink, stove, and an old brown refrigerator covered with fading photos.
Mary sat down and opened the box of pastry while she stole a glance at the photos, some from as far back as high school. She recognized instantly those light blue eyes and that lopsided grin. He was dressed in a black football uniform, and there were pictures of another boy, bigger and brawnier, and a studious girl with glasses and long, dark hair. Mary didn’t know the boy, but she recognized the girl. Rosaria, his sister, older by a year.
Mr. Po shuffled to the sink in brown moccasins. “You like some coffee? It’s instant. See, I got Folgers.” He held up the red-labeled jar like Exhibit A.
“Thanks. I bought some sfogliatelle.”
“Good girl.”
“Where’s Rosaria these days?”
“Were you in her class?”
“No, but we were in choir together. We’re both altos, so we stuck together. She was nice. How is she?”
“Got a kid.” Mr. Po shook his head, abruptly cranky, which warned Mary off the subject. She looked away, and her gaze found one of the smaller photos on the fridge: a picture of a little brown-haired boy in a green-and-gold baseball uniform. The green cap had a B on it, and the front of the shirt read Brick Titans. Mary made a mental note. “Mr. Po, I came to you because I want to find Trish.”
“Know why you came. The police got here already, yesterday, ahead a you. You’re wonderin’ where Trish and my son went. Tell you what I told the cops. I don’t know where they are. How you take your coffee?”
Mary blinked, surprised. She broke the string on the pastry box, moving aside a Daily News, which lay open on the table near a black magnifying glass. A curvaceous jug of Coffee-mate, a plastic-crystal sugar bowl, and a colorful stack of Happy Birthday napkins sat in the middle of the table.
“Cream and sugar onna table.” Mr. Po spooned some Folgers into a mug he got from the cabinet, and the brown crystals made a tinkling sound. “He always liked you, my son did. Talked about you a lot.”
Mary felt a disturbing thrill. It threw her off. It wasn’t why she’d come. She had to find Trish. Time was slipping away.
“Used to say you were smart. A nice girl, a good girl. Different from the others.”
Mary smiled, in spite of herself.
“Puppy love, I guess.” Mr. Po turned, lifting a sparse gray eyebrow. “You’re the one that got away, eh?”
“Nah,” Mary said, though she wasn’t about to tell him what had happened.
“Too bad. He wasn’t my real son, you know. I’m his uncle. My brother was his father. A drunk.”
Mary hadn’t known the whole story. “But you raised him, right?”
“Me and my wife did. Now she passed, too. We raised him with our son. Him and his sister, we treated ’em like they were ours.”
“That was very kind of you,” Mary said, meaning it, but Mr. Po only shrugged knobby shoulders.
“Blood is blood.”
“When did you see him last?” Mary asked, getting to the point.
“Six months ago, maybe more. He don’t come home much anymore. The things they’re sayin’ about him, it’s lies. He didn’t kidnap Trish, or whatever they’re sayin’.”
“So where do you think they are?”
“They’re young. They go where young people go.”
Right. “I know they had problems, and he was abusive to her.”
“That’s not true. That ain’t the boy I raised. I think he changed.”
“So do I.” Mary felt surprised at the words coming out of her mouth, and Mr. Po eyed her from the stove, seeing her as if for the first time.
“Funny how life is, eh?”
“Yes. When did he start to change, Mr. Po? What changed him, do you think?”
“The wrong crowd.”
The wrong crowd being the Mob? Mary wasn’t going there, at least not yet. She needed information. “Did he ever talk to you about Trish?”
“No.” Mr. Po turned off the pot, picked up the handle, and poured the hot water, crackling in protest, into the mug. “High school sweethearts. He started seein’ her after you, right?”
Ouch. “Right. When did you hear they were missing?”
“Yesterday on the TV.” Mr. Po reached in the silverware drawer, took out a spoon, and mixed up the coffee.
“Aren’t you worried about him? It’s going on two days.”
“My boy can handle himself.”
Mary hadn’t even considered that somebody could have abducted them both. She knew from Fung that they’d left the house alone, but that didn’t preclude anything. What if they had both been abducted? Maybe a Mob thing? Maybe this guy Cadillac? Mary filed it away.
“I taught him how to take care of himself. In the basement, I taught him how to throw a punch. I made sure he knew that. That’s a father’s job.”
“You don’t think he’d hurt her?”
“No. No way. He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t hurt nobody. He’s a lover, not a fighter. His brother, maybe, he’s a fighter. But him, no. He’d never raise his hand to a woman.” Mr. Po came over and plunked down the mug of coffee, which smelled like cardboard.
“It was hard for me to believe, too, knowing him the way I do.” Mary made it up as she went along, trying to get Mr. Po to open up. She waited while he sat in the wooden chair catty-corner to her, his eyes downcast behind his glasses, which were sliding down his veined nose.
“Gonna drink your coffee?” he asked after a minute, looking up.
“Sure, thanks.” Mary shook in some Coffee-mate and spooned in sugar, then took a sip of the horrible brew, biding her time. “I’m wondering where he could be.”
Mr. Po eyed the sfogliatelle, then pulled the pastries to him by hooking an index finger inside the cardboard box, his fingernail oddly long.
“They didn’t tell anybody they were going anywhere, and her girlfriends are all worried. Giulia Palazzolo, Missy, Yolanda. You remember that crowd?”
Mr. Po snorted softly. “Spaccone.”
Mary translated. Show-offs.
“Not good girls. Not like you.”
Mary felt a weight on her leg and looked down. Mr. Po’s gnarled right hand was resting on her skirt, while he was biting into a pastry as if nothing were happening. It was so unreal that it took her a second to process. She stood up abruptly.
“Who’re you, honey?” asked a loud voice behind them, and Mary turned. A brawny man in a T-shirt and blue polyester sweatpants stood in the doorway, his expression a scowl, his posture a challenge. He thrust his strong jaw forward, threw back his massive shoulders, and displayed unashamedly his substantial paunch. His head was shaved, exposing a script neck tattoo, and he had rough features, like Mussolini in sweats.
“Used to go out with your brother in high school,” Mr. Po answered, slowly eating his pastry.
“I was wondering where he was,” Mary answered, standing between the two of them, suddenly afraid. No one knew she was here. She hadn’t told anyone. She had lied to Judy. She went for the door, but the brother stood his ground, blocking her.
“Where you goin’?” His breath told her he was the cigar smoker. A diamond stud glinted from a fleshy earlobe.
“I was just leaving.”
“Then why were you comin’?” He grinned at the double entendre, then his grin vanished. “You one o’ these bitches callin’ baby bro a murderer? You one o’ them?”
“No, I was just looking for him.”
“It’s his business where he is, not yours.” The brother raised his voice. “He’s lyin’ on a beach somewhere with his girl. He don’t need anybody goin’ on the TV news, tellin’ this, that, and the other that he killed her.”
Mr. Po said, “Lay off her, Ritchie. She’s a lawyer. Trish went to see her, but she threw ’er out. She knows your brother wouldn’t hurt his girlfriend. They go back.”
Mary’s mouth went dry. She’d been foolish to think Mr. Po wouldn’t have heard something, accurate or not. But it could play to her advantage.
“Right, Mare?” Mr. Po asked, looking up. “My son’s your old flame.”
Gulp. “Right.”
“You’re still in love with ’im, aren’t you?” Mr. Po chuckled, dropping pastry flakes onto the table.
Mary didn’t know what to say. She had to get out of here.
“You were into baby bro?” Ritchie’s grin returned, menacing. He took a step closer, but Mary edged backward, like a nightmare cha-cha.
“Yes.”
“How come I never met you?”
“I don’t know. Did you go to Neumann?”
“Neumann?” Ritchie laughed. “No, honey, let’s just say, I was away.”
“Stop scarin’ her,” Mr. Po said from the table, his tone sterner, and Ritchie stepped aside with a ham-handed flourish.
“Excuse me. Please, go.”
“Thanks. ’Bye now.” Mary walked to the door as calmly as possible, but heavy footsteps pounded behind her. She startled as Ritchie appeared beside her and opened the door, flinging it wide.
“Boo,” he said, with a wink.
It wasn’t until Mary was safely in the backseat of a cab that she breathed easily enough to get out her BlackBerry and plug the word Brick into Google. The results came up after a nanosecond: Brick the movie, Acme Brick, Brickwork Design, the Brick Testament, whatever that was, Brick Industry, and finally, the Official Township of Brick site. She connected to the link, and a glorious green-and-blue website filled the little screen. Brick Township was in south Jersey and was known locally as Brick. The site boasted, Brick Township Celebrates “ Safest City in America ” Honors!
She scrolled down farther, and there was no other town on the first five pages. It had to be Brick, New Jersey, that Rosaria had moved to. Mary logged onto www.whitepages.com and plugged in Rosaria with her last name, praying that she’d kept her maiden name. In the next second, a single address and phone number popped onto the screen, in glowing blue letters. She called it.
“Hello?” a woman answered, and Mary recognized the distinctive alto.
“Sorry, wrong number,” she said, and hung up. She leaned forward and asked the cabbie to take a right, toward her garage.
She’d need her own wheels.