Free Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy by Jeremiah Healy Page A

the city on the Southeast
Expressway, more typically known as the Distressway. Originally named
after Boston mayor "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, his famous
descendants should be ashamed of its current condition.
    Zuppone continued. "I was one of the Kennedy
kids there, I'd kick in a coupla bucks from the trust fund, get these
potholes fixed."
    The holes were more like craters, but Zuppone's
Lincoln Continental ate them up, just a slight "whump"
noise from the tires.
    "We were in my Prelude, our heads'd be through
the moon roof by now."
    Zuppone rolled the toothpick. "Never could see
them foreign jobs, myself. Uncle of mine had a Lincoln back in the
fifties, and I always promised myself one." He caressed the
wheel lovingly. "And the stereo system's dynamite. Watch."
    Or listen. When we'd gotten in the car, his starting
the engine brought some soft, solo piano music. Now Zuppone pressed a
few buttons that made the sound bounce all over the cabin, front to
back and side to side.
    I said, "That a radio station?"
    "Uh-unh. Tape, but it's a homemade jobbie,
forty-five minutes a side, so you don't have to change it so often."
    "Easy listening."
    Zuppone glanced at me, to see if I were kidding.
"George Winston."
    "Never heard of him."
    "Guy records for Windham Hill, New Age stuff."
    "Hot tubs and healing crystals?"
    " I gotta tell you, I don't know from nothing
about the philosophy side of the shit. I just know, I put in the
tape, and I feel good, you know?"
    We rode for a while, Zuppone taking the Route 3 prong
instead of 128. The traffic petered out, but he kept the Lincoln at a
steady fifty-five, the tires barely slapping the junctions of the
asphalt in a way you felt rather than heard over the music. The
leather upholstery was the same color as Primo's coat and supple to
the point of buttery. But a cold softness, not the way I'd want my
last car ride to feel.
    Zuppone picked up the telephone nestled between us
and hit a button. After no more than one ring, he said, "It's
Primo . . . Yeah . . . Ten minutes . . . Right."
    He hung up, looked at me. "You were in Vietnam,
right?"
    I said, "Right."
    "One of the people you're going to meet, he was
there, too. Let him talk about it, he wants to, but don't like . . .
encourage him, okay?"
    My turn to look at Zuppone. "Okay."
    He noticed me looking and shrugged. "You made it
easy on me, coming along. I make it easy on you. One hand and the
other, you know?"
    "Can you tell me where we're heading?"
    The toothpick changed sides again. "You ain't
figured it out yet?"
    I thought back to Sinead Fagan being emphatic about
not discussing "family" with Mau Tim Dani. "I figure
the super at an apartment building this morning called the owners,
and now I'm going to meet them."
    Zuppone nodded. "You're
close."
    * * *
    We left Route 3 and started winding through suburban
intersections with three gas stations and a convenience store on the
corners. After a couple of turns, the retail areas gave way to narrow
streets with small homes, which in tum gave way to wide streets with
large homes. One of the wide streets matured into a boulevard, the
center strip less impressive than Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, but
with big shade trees far enough south and close enough to the ocean
to be showing the full leaf stage of spring.
    Zuppone eased the Lincoln into a long driveway that
curved gracefully past high hedges toward a white Greek Revival
mansion, fluted pillars supporting the roof over the main entrance.
He parked behind a Mercedes and a Volvo, the piano music dying
abruptly as he turned off the engine, the air vibrating inside the
car.
    Primo got out before I did, the door thunking solidly
against the frame as he closed it. He made sure I was still with him,
then walked up the flagstone path to the side entrance. He rang the
bell but pulled open the door without waiting for anyone to say or do
anything.
    I followed him through and into a huge kitchen, the
pans all copper and polished. They hung from rings in