Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [2]
There was only one truth that mattered.
Jennifer had disappeared.
His only sister was gone.
Swallowed by a city not her own.
BOOK ONE
No hero without a wound.
—Bulgarian proverb
1
Boomer
GIOVANNI “BOOMER” FRONTIERI never wanted to be a cop. He was a three-letter athlete during his school years at St. Bernard’s Academy, a private high school in downtown Manhattan his parents insisted he attend. He would leave their cold-water railroad apartment each morning before sunup and return each evening after dark, eating dinner and doing homework at the kitchen table facing the fire escape. He was a model student, never complained about his packed schedule, and kept the friends he trusted to a minimum.
He had two younger sisters, Angela and Maria, whom he would either dote on or ignore, depending on his mood. His older brother, Carmine, had already dropped out of school and followed their father, John, into the heavy-lifting, well-paying labor of the meat market. Their relationship was reserved, at best.
John Frontieri was a stern man who commanded respect and demanded his family’s full attention. His upper body, conditioned by years of lugging 250-pound hindquarters off the backs of refrigerated trucks, was a weight lifter’s dream. He was quick to give a slap of the hand to one of the children if he felt they were out of line, but never hit or screamed at his wife, Theresa, a homely, chunky woman whose face displayed a weariness far greater than her years.
On spring and summer Sunday mornings, after the nine o’clock mass, Johnny Frontieri would change quickly out of his blue dress suit and into work pants, construction shoes, and a sweatshirt. He and little Giovanni would then take their fishing poles and tackle down from the living room closet and rush out of the apartment for a twenty-minute subway ride downtown. There, after a brisk walk, the two would spend the day, feet brushing the sand on the edges of the East River, their backs to the Manhattan Bridge, fishing for whatever could survive the currents.
It was their time together.
“If I catch a shark, can I stay home from school tomorrow?” Giovanni, then nine, asked his father.
“You catch a shark,” John said, “and you can stay home from school for a month.”
“What about if I catch an eel?”
“You reel an eel and I’ll make you go to school on weekends,” John said.
The two looked at one another and laughed, the morning sun creeping past the expanse of the bridge and onto their faces.
“You’re always lookin’ to get outta school, Giovanni,” his father said. “Why is that?”
“I hate it,” Giovanni said.
“Then quit.” His father shrugged. “Quit right now. Today.”
“You mean it?” Giovanni asked, his face beaming.
“You should always walk from somethin’ you hate doin’,” his father said. “Turn your eye to somethin’ else.”
“Like what?”
“You can come work with me if you want. Put in your ten, twelve hours a day, help bring some table money home. Or maybe go down to the docks to work with your cousins. Do a full four-day shift with them and get locked into the union. How’s that feel to you?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” Giovanni said, swaying his fishing line to the right of a swirl, pulling on the reel. “None of it sounds like fun.”
“If you’re gonna forget about school, then you can forget about fun,” John said, sitting down on wet sand, gripping his fishing rod with both hands.
Giovanni stared down at his father and then back across at the water, concentrating on a nibble. “You have fun,” he said after a long stretch of silence. “And you didn’t go to any school.”
“Working man’s fun,” John said. “It’s not the same.”
“Mama thinks I should become a dentist,” Giovanni said. “I don’t know why.”
“I think she’s got a thing for Dr. Tovaldi,” John said, lifting his face to the sun. “She always dresses up nice when she goes to him and gets her teeth cleaned.”
“What do you want me to