Always Say Goodbye: A Lew Fonesca Mystery Read Online Free PDF

but he had been known to use whatever was available to threaten, maim or slay his enemies.
    He had no family. He had no friends.
    “The devil always provides,” he said.
    Posno worked alone. His fees were fixed and no one who hired him questioned or failed to promptly pay.
    His appearance was calculatingly menacing, but his voice was calm and he had a passion for poetry. He read it, listened to it on CDs, even gave occasional open microphone readings of his own work at a small bookstore and coffeehouse within walking distance on Broadway.
    One of Posno’s enemies, his primary enemy, was John Pappas. Not long ago the two had been inseparable, partners.
    Pappas had been in the kitchen at the back of the Korean restaurant on Clark Street when Posno had picked up a butcher knife, its blade still carrying globules of animal fat. He had brought the blade down at the weeping man kneeling in front of him. The man had tried to cover his head. Two severed fingers spun past Posno’s face. Blood gushed from the Korean’s split head, turning the man’s apron from dirty white to a moist splotch of red.
    Pappas stayed in the corner, watching. No blood touched him.
    Pappas had been in the hallway behind Posno who rang the bell. The tones inside played the first nine notes of “Anything Goes.” This was followed by footsteps and a woman’s voice behind the door saying, “Who is it?” Pappas had answered, “Your neighbor upstairs.”
    “Mr. Sweeney?” she had asked.
    “Yes, I need some wine, any kind, for a dish my wife has just started cooking.”
    She opened the door. The man who stood in front of her was definitely not Mr. Sweeney. It was Posno, who stepped forward quickly, and put his thick hands around her neck before she could scream. Pappas had stayed outside.
    And there was Jacobi, right on Maxwell Street, among the crowd in front of a shop that sold shoes, seconds. Shoes, paired and tied together by their shoestrings, were piled high on a cart in front of the store. Posno had a thin, sharply pointed steel rod up his sleeve. Jacobi was rearranging shoes to keep the stack from falling. When Posno struck, deep under the man’s ribs, the shoes came tumbling as Jacobi grabbed the side of the cart. Posno had jumped out of the way. The heel of a shoe hit him above his right eye. He knew the thin rod was leaving a wet trail inside his sleeve that he would have to clean himself. Pappas had watched. He had no jacket to clean, no blood on his hands.
    Yes, they had been partners. Pappas had the connections, could get the clients, but Pappas couldn’t kill. It had been a good partnership.
    Pappas came from a large, extended Greek family, a tradition, a culture. Posno had arrived from nowhere, alone, throbbing with anger balanced by poetry.
    Pappas had distanced himself, came close to ending his very existence. They both knew that if the Fonesca woman had left her evidence file and it was found, it would be Posno who went down. He would take Pappas with him. He would be better off if there were no Pappas and he knew Pappas would be better off without him. The two men had much that separated them but much more in common than either liked.
    Posno turned from the window, reached into his pocket, took out his mini tape recorder, pressed a button and slowly spoke, not knowing whether the words were his own or something that had fixed to his memory, something waiting for this moment.

    Speak not of tomorrow
or how long a man
may be happy.
Change, like the
shifting flight
of the hummingbird
or the dragonfly,
is swift and sudden.

    He hit the pause button and, still watching the sailboat heading toward the horizon, pushed it again and said, “Catherine Fonesca.”

2
    FRANCO GOT OFF the Dan Ryan at Jackson Boulevard, went east to Racine and then south on Racine to Cabrini Street in the heart of Little Italy. A block away was Taylor Street, both sides of which were crowded with Italian restaurants brought back to life when Lew was a kid by