“It’s about time,” I said.
We walked into the kitchen and he sat in his usual spot at the table by the window. He watched me with curious eyes as I got garlic and fast-acting yeast out of the refrigerator.
“So what are we having? Can I smoke in here?” No.
“You do.”
“It’s my house.”
“How ’bout if I open the window and blow it out.”
“Depends on which way the wind is blowing.”
“We could get the ceiling fan going and see if that helps. I smell garlic
“I thought we’d have pizza on the grill.”
I pushed aside cans and jars in the pantry, looking for crushed tomatoes and high-gluten flour.
“The coins we found are English and German;” he told me. `I’wo pounds and one deutsche mark. But this is
where it starts getting real interesting. I hung around the port a little longer than you did, showering and whatever. And by the way, they sure as hell didn’t waste any time hauling cartons out of that container and cleaning up. You watch, they’ll sell that camera shit like nothing happened to it.”
I mixed half a package of yeast, warm water and honey in a bowl and stirred, then I reached for the flour.
“I’m hungry as hell.”
His portable radio was upright on the table, blurting ten codes and unit numbers. He yanked off his tie and unbuckled his duty belt with all its gear. I began kneading dough.
“My lower back’s killing me, Doc,” he complained. “You got any idea what it’s like wearing twenty pounds of shit around your waist?”
His mood seemed considerably improved as he watched me work, sprinkling flour and shaping dough on the butcher’s-block.
“A loup-garou is a werewolf,” I told him.
“Huh?”
“As in a wolf man.”
“Shit, I fucking hate those things.”
“I wasn’t aware you’d ever met one.”
“You remember seeing 1.on Chaney with all that fur growing on his face when the moon came out? Scared the hell out of me. Rocky used to watch Shock Theater, remember that?”
Rocky was Marino’s only child, a son I’d never met. I placed the dough in a bowl and covered it with a warm, wet cloth.
“Do you ever hear from him?” I cautiously ‘ asked. “What about at Christmas? Will you see him then?”
Marino nervously tapped an ash.
“Do you even know where he lives?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Oh, hell, yeah.”
“You act as if you don’t like him at all,” I said.
“Maybe I don’t.”
I scanned the wine rack for a nice bottle of red. Marino sucked smoke and exhaled loudly. He had nothing more to say about Rocky than he ever had.
“One of these days you’re going to talk to me about him,” I said as I poured crushed tomatoes in a pot.
“You know as much about him as you need to,” he said.
“You love him, Marino.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t love him. I wish he’d never been born. I wish I’d never met him.”
He stared out the window at my backyard fading into night. This moment I didn’t seem to know Marino at all. He was a stranger in my kitchen, this man in uniform ;who had a son I’d never met and knew nothing about. Marino wouldn’t look me in the eye or thank me when I set a cup of coffee on his place mat.
“How about ,peanuts or something?” I asked.
“Naw,” he said. “I been thinking about going on a diet.”
“Thinking about it won’t help much. It’s been proven in studies.”
“You gonna wear garlic around your neck or something when you post our dead werewolf? You know, you get bit by one, you turn into one. Sort of: like AIDS.”
“It’s nothing like AIDS, and I wish you’d get off this AIDS thing.”
“You think he wrote that on the box himself?”
“We can’t assume that box and what was written on it are connected with him, Marino.”
“Have a nice trip, werewolf. Yeah, you find that written on camera boxes all the time. Especially when they’re near dead bodies.”
“Let’s get back to Bray and your new fashion statement,” I said. “Start from the beginning. What did you do to make her such a fan?”