The Accidental Pallbearer by Frank Lentricchia Page B

given by off-key twelve-year-olds? My choice was to live alone without family, and friends all dead or with Alzheimer’s, what’s the difference, and who comes over except Rudy Synakowski once in a while, I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Conte. I chose, as you can see, without hesitation, the droolers and the incontinent. I’m a little hard of hearing. I have a car and can come and go as I please, but I rarely go. Shall we go off-campus or is this acceptable?”
    Conte tells him what he does for a living and that he’s come to see him about photos he may have taken on a legendary day, fifteen years ago at Saint Anthony, when Filomena Santacroce’s coffin was carried into the church.
    “Silvio’s son’s a private eye? Why didn’t I know that? I knew and forgot it on the road to dementia? You’re in luck, Eliot. I kept negatives of tens of thousands over a fifty-year period, but when I made the move here, I dumped everything except a box of special things – mostly my kids when they were little, got married, you know … they live now in Miami, Santa Fe, Chicago … Larry, my oldest … Larry. Yes. I see them once a year, if I’m lucky. The grandchildren … yes … tell the truth – am I too garrulous? Excessive garrulity is a sign. There are a few folders relating to very special events of a public nature, like the one you’re interested in. That was a big doozy. Everything nicely labeled.”
    “Enzo, the shot of the mobsters arriving at the church that appeared in the paper and was picked up by the major –”
    “That’s the one he wanted – the boss looked at the others but decided on that one.”
    “You had shots of the pallbearer exchange?”
    “Does the bear do number two in the woods?”
    Raspante excuses himself, goes to the bedroom closet, returns with a folder. “Here we are.” They move to the couch, go through the file, isolate five negatives of interest.
    “Who said no, Enzo, to the pallbearer shots?”
    “Editor-in-chief. Rudy and I at the time discussed this
pezzo di merda
. We have our theories. Rudy calls them the grassy knoll perspective.”
    “Who was editor-in-chief at the time?”
    “Still is. Sanford T. Whitaker. That high-toned WASP who’s been writing editorials against your father for years. Thinks his shit doesn’t stink. Your father the corrupt political boss, this and that. Tell you what, I’ll get these developed by tomorrow afternoon. Ordinarily, it’d take a week, but Donny at Daniels’ Photography is a friend of mine.”
    “Didn’t you show these photos to the police?”
    “To Chief Criggy himself, who must’ve buried them, because nothing was ever done that I know of.”
    “But you had the freedom to contact other news outlets and sell your photos for a bundle, I’d guess, and that way it would have been nationally publicized in a hurry – the image of the shooter, no? The
National Inquirer
? The
New York Post
?”
    “Did I say they were my pictures?”
    “Who else’s would they be?”
    “Up to four days, Detective, before Filomena Santacroce was buried in Calvary Cemetery, everything I shot was technically mine. But I never had a contract. Nobody below Sanford had a contract. We got paid twice a month, that was it. I was no big-deal photographer working for the
New York Times
on a cushy contract. You follow me? Then four days before she’s buried, Sanford calls me in and offers me a five-year contract with a twenty-percent raise. Because my work is so wonderful, he says, for so many years, and it’s about time the paper showed its gratitude. So I signed right on the spot! What the fuck did I need to read the contract for, which when I read it, one hour after he says the pallbearer shots are not going in, I find out that what I signed says I own nothing. The paper owns my photos from now on, and if I violate the contract I lose my job and get sued on top of it, and where can I at that age get another job in this area that’s equivalent? Now you