The Hydrogen Murder Read Online Free PDF

lapel.
    Just as when I was a kid, there'd be a parade later in the
day starting at the base of the statue of Christopher Columbus outside Saint
Anthony's Church and flowing down Revere Street to the beach. I remembered
years long past, watching my father march with the Sons of Italy, carrying the
huge bass drum around his strong dark neck. I wondered if they kept the custom
of ending up back at the church with a special mass at its main altar. No
wonder we used to think Columbus was one of the saints.
    I checked the clock. For two reasons, I wanted to arrive
early at Russo's Cafe where I was to meet Matt. The first reason was tied to
another inherited trait from my mother. Josephine would have the table set for
dinner—she called it supper—by four in the afternoon. If you were ten
minutes late, she'd be furious. She'd have been waiting two hours and ten
minutes by then, and blamed you for every second.
      "Why did
you even bother to come?" she'd ask, blowing smoke through her nose and
breathing heavily under her flowered cotton apron.
    I was a little better than that since my lifestyle didn't
permit all-day meal preparation, but still, I had a reputation among my friends
for always being way ahead of schedule.
    The second reason I wanted to be early is that I was
resisting the image of Matt and the rest of Russo's lunch crowd seeing me pull
up in my sleek Cadillac. I didn't want people to think I was running for
office. I began to doubt the wisdom of my deal with the Galiganis.
    "You'll get used to it," Rose had told me. Small
comfort, since it came from someone who thought of six cylinder cars as toys
for teenagers.
    Russo's Cafe, an up-scale sandwich and coffee shop a block
from the post office on Broadway, was at the site of the old five-and-ten where
I bought all my Christmas presents until I was in college. The new owners had
taken advantage of the large room and high ornate ceiling to create the look of
old Rome, with plaster columns and murals of chariots and ancient fountains.
Several armless white sculpted figures were scattered among the small round
tables, as if waiting to be fed.
      Although I'd
arrived early enough to park in one of the few spots around the back of the
restaurant, Matt was already at a table with an espresso and a stack of papers
and manila folders in front of him. As I approached, I could tell he didn't
know whether or not to stand. Feminism confuses a lot of men, I remembered. He
rose halfway and rearranged the table so that the piles of paper were out of
the way of the second place setting. Smooth move.
    I guessed that Matt also had two wardrobes. He was a little
thick around the middle, but not fat, just enough to give him a solid
appearance. His hair had about the same amount of gray as mine, still showing
up dark in photographs, but mostly gray as it fell on the hairdresser's cloth.
His long nose, with its straight downward slope, was also like mine and fit
right in with the Mediterranean decor. As I considered the similarities in our
appearances, I wondered if I was infatuated with my twin. I remembered reading
a pop psychology article that said it was a sign of high self-esteem if you
were attracted to people who look like you. I decided not to pursue that
concept, conscious that a little psychological knowledge is a dangerous thing.
    The second awkward moment after the should-I-stand-for-a-lady
dilemma consisted of a round of call-me-Matt, call-me-Gloria. We eased the
situation by getting to business.
    "Here's the report," Matt said, his voice gravely
as I had remembered. "Not much to go on, but since you know a lot of the principals,
you might have some ideas."
    I settled down to the six pages of single-spaced type and a
sheaf of crime scene photographs while Matt excused himself. I watched him walk
past the kitchen to the men's room, his dark rumpled suit receding into a row
of fake Italian palms. I wondered what percent of my excitement was from seeing
him again and what percent