Page 53 of Nobody's Fool

“So who signed the agreement?”

“Victoria Belmond’s older brother, Thomas.”

I consider that. “Interesting.”

“Or meaningless,” Marty says. “The FBI asked him about it. Thomas said yeah, his sister said they needed someone of age to sign it, so he figured why not. Supposedly Thomas and Victoria were close.”

“Thomas Belmond has a record, right?”

“In his youth, he was in and out of trouble. DUIs. Some drug dealing. A few stints in rehab. He got arrested in a bar fight. There were rumors of him being aggressive with women, if you catch my drift, but this was before Me Too and so my guess is, a lot of it was swept away with money.”

“What’s Thomas Belmond’s deal now?”

“He’s married and working in the family business, but… hold on a second. Let me google.” Marty leans toward his laptop and starts typing in and nods. “Yep. According to his bio, he’s an executive vice president of the Belmond Corporation and lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, with his wife, Madeline, and two daughters, Vicki and Stacy.”

Marty spins the laptop so I can see. There is a photo of Thomas wearing a blue blazer and green tie. I’ve seen him before. Thomas. Tee for short. The Tee-ster.

It’s Smaller Guy Tee.

Marty watches my face. “You know him?”

“Yeah,” I say. “He threatened to kill me.”

Every other Thursday night for the past thirty-five years, the Kierces have had “family dinner” at a Chinese restaurant in West Orange, New Jersey, not far from where I grew up. When my father and mother emigrated to the United States, they lived in Newark, eventually settling into a two-family home in nearby Orange. They shared the house with the Weinbergs. Sam Weinberg, the patriarch, and Dad soon became best friends. The Weinbergs’ extended family—Sam, Sam’s parents, his sister, his brother, their kids—had Saturday night “family dinner” at the Golden China in the Essex Green Mall, usually somewhere between ten and fifteen of them. My dad admired the Weinbergs and liked the idea and thought it would be ideal for his own family.

We too started out at the Golden China, but they closed and then we tried Shun Lee in New York City, but that was too expensive and now we go to Moon Garden. We never had a lot of family like the Weinbergs. For years, it was just the four of us—my dad, my mom, my older sister. Tonight we are four again—me, Molly, Henry, and my dad.

Dad always orders and he always orders the same thing—dim sum, shrimp with lobster sauce, fried rice, spareribs. Sometimes he will order a wild-card dish, but that dish will never make the steady rotation. My mother died eight years ago from ovarian cancer, and my dad suddenly became a desirable widower. He doesn’t shy away from that. He dates a lot, has become what we used to call a “playah,” and while he has introduced us to five or six of his “lady friends,” none has ever been invited to the family dinner.

“They’re beautiful and smart and I enjoy their company,” my dad told me once after he’d had a few too many Woodford Reserves. Then he tapped his chest with his index finger. “But only your mother could reach my heart.”

My dad is the epitome of dapper. He wears vintage suits. He has a thin, perfectly symmetrical mustache; his steel-wool hair is loaded with product and slicked back. He always carries a pocket comb. He is the kind of man who looks like he’s opening a door for a woman even when he isn’t.

Henry gets super excited every time he sees his “Paw-paw”—his face lights up, his feet kick wildly, as if his whole body wants to express what he is unable to yet say in words. Molly adores my dad too, once telling me that my father “closed the sale” for her. We often hear that a woman becomes her mother, Molly explained to me once. When she met my dad, she hoped the same were true for a man. Sweet sentiment, but I have never been dapper in my entire life and take after my mother.

I try to not appear distracted as I mix the lobster sauce into the fried rice, but my father and my wife are the two humans who know me best. I’m not fooling anyone. Henry is in a high chair, his hand coated in rice, the insides of a dumpling leaking out of his tiny fist. Molly stands and reaches for him.

“I’m going to change him,” she says.

“I can do it,” I say.

“Let me. I need to pee anyway.”

It’s a weak-ass excuse, but I get it. She wants to leave me and Dad alone for a few minutes. I’ve wanted that all night too, and yet I’ve also been content with avoiding this discussion; my dad and I have been avoiding it for almost a quarter century.

Dad picks up on the opening. “So Nicole’s killer is out.”

Not the topic I have in mind, but: “Yes,” I say.

“How are you handling it?”

“Fine.”

“Not tempted to, I don’t know, take matters into your own hands?”

“Tempted? Perhaps. Acting on it? A definite no.”

Dad narrows his eyes. I think he believes me. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”