“Is your dad home?” Lou asked.
No sooner had he asked than Paul appeared from the living room in his stocking feet clutching a red-tipped cane. A radio was on in the background.
“Who is it?” he asked Gregory.
“It’s Detective Soldano,” Gregory said.
“Lou!” Paul said, coming directly toward Lou and extending a hand.
Lou shook hands with Paul and tried to see his eyes behind a pair of reflective sunglasses. Paul was a big man, moderately overweight, so that his small facial features were sunk into his fleshy face. He had dark hair cut short, and large, heavily lobed ears. On both cheeks were red patches of recently healed skin. Lou guessed it had been from the acid.
“How about some coffee?” Paul said. “Or a little wine?” Without waiting for a response, Paul yelled for Gloria. Gregory reappeared with Steven, the younger Cerino. He was eight.
“Come in,” Paul said. “Sit down. Tell me what’s been happening. You married yet?”
Lou followed Paul back into the living room. He could tell that Paul had adapted well to his reduced visual acuity, at least in his own home. He didn’t use the cane to navigate to the radio to turn it off. Nor did he use it to find his favorite chair, into which he sank with a sigh.
“Sorry to hear about your eye problem,” Lou said, sitting opposite Paul.
“These things happen,” Paul said philosophically.
Gloria appeared and greeted Lou. Like Paul, she was overweight—a buxom woman with a kind, gentle face. If she knew what her husband did for a living, she never let on. She acted like the typical, lower-middle-class suburban housewife who had to scrimp to get along on a budget. Lou wondered what Paul did with all the money he had to be accumulating.
Responding to Lou’s positive reply regarding coffee, Gloria disappeared into the kitchen.
“I heard about your accident just today,” Lou said.
“I haven’t told all my friends,” Paul said with a smile.
“Did this involve the Lucia people?” Lou asked. “Was it Vinnie Dominick?”
“Oh no!” Paul said. “This was an accident. I was trying to jump-start the car and the battery blew up. Got a bunch of acid in my face.”
“Come on, Paul,” Lou said. “I came all the way out here to commiserate with you. The least you can do is tell me the truth. I already know that the acid was thrown into your face. It’s just a matter of who was responsible.”
“How do you know this?” Cerino asked.
“I was specifically told by someone who knows,” Lou said. “In fact it ultimately came from a totally reliable source. You!”
“Me?” Paul questioned with genuine surprise.
Gloria returned with an espresso for Lou. He helped himself to sugar. Gloria then retreated from the room. So did the boys.
“You have awakened my curiosity,” Paul said. “Explain to me how I was the source of this rumor about my eyes.”
“You told your doctor, Jordan Scheffield,” Lou said. “He told one of the medical examiners by the name of Laurie Montgomery, and the medical examiner told me. And the reason I happened to be talking to the medical examiner was because I went over there to watch a couple of autopsies on homicide victims. The names might be familiar to you: Frankie DePasquale and Bruno Marchese.”
“Never heard of them,” Paul said.
“They are Lucia people,” Lou said. “And one of them, curiously enough, had acid burns in one of his eyes.”
“Terrible,” Cerino said. “They certainly don’t make batteries the way they used to.”
“So you’re still telling me that you got battery acid in your eyes?” Lou asked.
“Of course,” Paul said. “Because that’s what happened.”
“How are the eyes doing?” Lou asked.
“Pretty good, considering what could have happened,” Paul said. “But the doctor says I’ll do fine as soon as I have my operations. First I have to wait a while, but I’m sure you know about that.”
“What are you talking about?” Lou said. “I don’t know anything about eyes except how many you got.”
“I didn’t know much either,” Paul said. “At least not before this happened. But I’ve been learning ever since. I used to think they transplanted the whole eye. You know, like changing an old-fashioned-type radio tube. Just plug the thing in with all the prongs in the right place. But that’s not how it works. They only transplant the cornea.”