Chasing the Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page B

kneeled to the ground then and dug his hand into the thick loam the gravediggers had mounded at the edge of the grave. He threw in a handful of dirt, and his uncle sobbed.
    There were other traditions as well. One of them had its roots in a sentimental tradition of the fading Italian nobility, who in their waning years would paste photographs and remembrances of themselves into scrapbooks.
Il Libro di Vita Segreta
, these were called, remembrances of a secret life, and at some point this tradition had migrated to the middle class, then to the peasants, and they had brought it with them over the sea. Usually these books were entrusted to a family priest who passed them along to the deceased’s children after death.
    At the end of the service, Father Campanella walked up to Dante. Like his friends, Dante’s father had mocked the religion—with all its smoke and its hand waving and its embroidered vestments—but in the end they all succumbed. Or the people who were left behind succumbed for them, submitting the corpse to Father Campanella.
    “Your father had a final gift for you,” said the priest. He smiled wanly, and Dante realized his father had put together an
Il Libro
. Dante was surprised. It was not the kind of thing his father would do—but then Dante knew how it went. When the end was coming, the priest would stop by. He would ask to see some old pictures. He would listen to your old stories. And the next thing you knew, there you were with a pen in your hand and a bottle of glue.
    “I’ll stop by the church, Father,” Dante said.
    He knew the routine, how the priest used it as a chance to get you on your knees, to pray for the soul of the deceased, and for your own soul, too. He was curious about his father’s book, maybe, but he did not know if he could submit himself to the old priest.
    The mourners came, pressing close. All of North Beach, it seemed. They embraced him. They kissed his cheeks. The old men in their dry-cleaned suits. The shopkeepers and the hangers-on. People whose names he no longer remembered. Old women with their perfumed smell and their cigarette stink, their teary eyes and rouged-up cheeks. There were some young ones, too, mixed-bloods, children of children, thin kids with freckles and yellow hair. And somewhere among them all was Marilyn Visconti, who brushed against him in her black skirt, her eyes lingering a moment as she took his hands between her own.
    Then there was Wiesinski. The only representative from Dante’s days at the SFPD.
    “We’ll get together.”
    “Sure.”
    “The Naked Moon.” He winked. “We’ll tie one down. For old times’ sake.”
    After the funeral was over, while walking back to the limo, Salvatore had a second alone with his nephew. Or he thought they were alone. He didn’t realize until later that the mayor had been a few steps behind him, within earshot, though it was also true he did not know exactly when the mayor had appeared, or what he had heard, or whether or not it mattered. This is my brother’s paranoia, he told himself, not my own.
    “You and I, we need to talk.”
    “Yes.”
    “Come to my house. Thursday afternoon—twelve. There’s some family business. Your father . . .” he hesitated. “You and I, we’ll talk. We’ll have a glass of wine.”
    Dante nodded. “Who’s handling the estate?”
    “Tony Mora.”
    “Mora?”
    Salvatore explained. Mora was the man who’d been standing with Marilyn, back at the Diamond Mortuary. An attorney. And as Salvatore explained, he watched Dante’s eyes go dark.
    “Here,” said Uncle Salvatore.
    He reached into his pocket. In the end, by the grave, he had done nothing—and now he handed Dante the envelope, as his brother had wished him to do. “Take this. Safekeeping. You never know what’s going to happen.”
    The second he gave Dante the pictures, he regretted the action. The mayor was behind them and had seen, maybe, but then he told himself it made no difference.
    “Family