Read The Accidental Pallbearer for Free Online Page A

learn to cook Italian 24/7 or he wouldn’t have married me. My husband is ethnically confused. Or is the word ‘deluded’? Periodically I remind him he married a coal-black woman.” She raises her glass: “
Salute! Paesan!
”
    Seeing no point in small talk, he says, “Robby” – she’s never called her husband that – “told me a shocking story this morning and I wanted to get your take as I move forward.”
    “How long ago was it Tony secured that retainer for you at Hotel Utica? Eight years is it? When he became deputychief? My, how time flies. They still send you a monthly check for your unique services?”
    “They do.”
    “You run background on their employees?”
    “I do.”
    “Nail employee thieves, that sort of thing, Eliot?”
    “Yes.”
    “Tony swears by you.”
    “As I swear by him.”
    “I believe he swears by you more than he swears by me.”
    Conte croons softly and low:
    “And here’s to you Mrs. Robinson!
    Jesus loves you more than you will know,
    Wo! Wo! Wo!”
    “Why, Eliot Conte, you have a nice voice. Less white, I’d say, than those boys who made that song. I’d say that over the years you and Tony cross-colorized each other. By the way, do they alert you at the hotel when the cheating spouses of the upper crust meet their lovers there?”
    “Yes.”
    “Isn’t that how you put the photographic screws to Judge Carmore? Whose wife, thanks to you, put major screws into the judge in the divorce settlement, which he quickly agreed to lest your dirty pictures hit the internet?”
    No response.
    “Then she committed suicide anyway with those dirty pictures no doubt in her mind of the judge giving head to her sister?”
    No response.
    “How you get pictures like that is beyond me. Shall we eat these wonderful sandwiches? You don’t look well, Eliot.”
    “I’m starved.”
    “Tony tells me the hotel sets aside a few remote rooms which you’ve already technically primed for your pornography. They send the adulterers to those rooms? That a fact?”
    “Yes.”
    “Forgive me, Eliot. Seems like I’ve forgotten that it’s you who’s supposed to be asking the questions.”
    They eat in silence, she nibbling, he wolfing, and when they’re finished she brings out a fresh teabag for him, takes a second glass of the
vino
and says, “I’m so pleased that you want to help Tony and these poor violated women. Tony tells me you don’t have a girlfriend yet. Going through life that way –”
    “I met someone in Troy yesterday.”
    “I’m so happy for you.”
    “I’m working up the courage to call her. Her name is Catherine Cruz.”
    “Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we, sweetheart?”
    “I’m here to gather information, Milly. I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t call me Milly. That’s what Tony calls me when he thinks it’s about time, finally, to play hide the big salami. That’s how you Italian people talk, I believe. Hide the big salami.”
    “Sorry.”
    “You’re a big fella yourself.” (There’s that smile!) “Fire away.”
    “When did this woman talk to you?”
    “Day before you and Tony went to the opera. Friday.”
    “Morning? Afternoon? Evening?”
    “Ten in the morning, exactly, Detective Conte. My, you are detailed!”
    “You remember the time
exactly
, Mrs. Robinson?”
    Sparring. Round one.
    “I was leaving for a 10:45 appointment with my hairstylist when she rang the bell.”
    “No point in asking you her name.”
    “None.”
    “It would help.”
    “Justice done to Coca without mercy would help.”
    “What precisely did she say that indicated to you that she was one of a series of rape victims?”
    “If I were white you’d see me blush. He told her she had the tightest one so far on the force. There have been others and there will be others, I’d guess he hopes with even tighter ones. He’s looking forward to the future.”
    “Tightest which?”
    “Please, Eliot.”
    “How old is she?”
    “Young. Early thirties, I’d say. Three little