Page 41 of Identity Unknown
One day you’ll see, amore. Everything I tell you will be true. I know this because what will be already is, and has been before.
“… It was that summer in Italy, right?” Marino goes on, and I’ve not attended carefully to him.
“I’m sorry. I missed the last few things you said,” I reply. “Maybe move the mic closer to your lips. You’re cutting in and out a little bit.” It’s true, but that’s not the reason I wasn’t listening.
“I was talking about when it happened,” he goes on.
“When what did?” I don’t want to discuss this with him.
“Don’t make me say it.”
“Say what?”
“How pissed I was at you for a really long time for fleeing the coop the way you did.” His face is stony as he stares out his window, patches of blue showing through clouds.
“You’ve been pissed at me at one time or other for as long as we’ve known each other.”
“First, you were going to quit and run home to Miami. Then you suddenly decided to leave the country with no warning.” He looks out at the sky continuing to clear as the sun dips lower. “I had to find out fromStylemagazine that you were teaching forensics in Rome for the summer. You didn’t even bother to say goodbye or send a fucking postcard.”
“That’s ridiculous. At that point we weren’t friendly in the least,” I remind him, my attention tugged back to the floor again.
At times the vibration of the helicopter gives me the uncanny sense that Sal’s body is shivering inside its plastic cocoon.
“Well, I knew something must have happened while you were gone,” Marino says. “When you came back you’d changed.”
“That was the point of going.”
“You were different because of him.” He avoids saying Sal’s name when possible, always has, and maybe now I understand. “I knew for sure what was going on a couple of weeks after you were back. We ended up at a homicide in Gilpin Court, a drive-by shooting in the middle of the day. Remember?”
“There were more than one. I’m not sure—”
“I met you as you got out of that tank of a Mercedes you drove in those days. As I was walking up, I overheard you on that big-ass mobile phone you carried around back then. Youwere telling whoever it was that that you missed him,” Marino says. “And I asked you about it. You acted like he was nothing special, but I knew he was.”
“And you were right,” I reply, and I see it in Marino’s eyes.
The hurt after all these years. I’ve always been with someone. But it’s never been him.
“Are you going to come clean about it? You know, full disclosure? Seems like an important detail that could be used against you if you’re not careful.” He’s almost lecturing me.
“The romantic element of the relationship was short-lived and a very long time ago,” I reply.
“Really? Then how come I’ve caught how upset you are when you think I’m not looking?”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t do the job. It just means I care. And of course I cared for him. I cared very much.” I swallow hard, emotions threatening.
“I’m not trying to pick on you, Doc.”
“Good.”
“I just don’t want other people doing it.”
I stare at the lead-gray partition between the cabin and the cockpit, wishing I could hear what Lucy and Tron are talking about. I wonder where we’re going and what else they’re keeping from me about why Sal had to die so hideously.
“What about next of kin?” Marino starts in with other questions. “Who needs to be notified once the ID is confirmed?”
“His parents are gone, his mother dying a few years ago. But he has a sister,” I reply. “She lives in Rome, and Sal was there with her just a few weeks ago.”
“I guess he never married.”