The Immortalists(62)
Today, at the Hoffman, there is only Eddie O’Donoghue. He sits in a wooden booth beside the fireplace, nursing a beer. Across from him is a glass of untouched bourbon.
‘Woodford Reserve,’ Eddie says. ‘Hope that’s all right.’
Daniel clasps Eddie’s hand. ‘Good memory.’
‘That’s what they pay me for. It’s good to see you.’
They look at each other: Daniel and Eddie, Eddie and Daniel. Like Eddie, Daniel is at least twenty pounds heavier than he was in 1991. Like Daniel, Eddie must be nearly fifty, if he isn’t fifty already. Daniel’s eyebrows sprawl like intrepid explorers, so fast growing that Mira bought him an industrial trimmer for Hanukkah; Eddie’s face has softened and swelled, like a hangdog, around the jaw. But his eyes, like Daniel’s, are bright with recognition. Daniel is nervous – he can only imagine that something new has emerged in Klara’s case – but he’s glad to see Eddie, who feels like a friend.
‘Appreciate you taking off work to meet with me,’ Eddie says, and Daniel does not correct him. ‘I won’t keep you waiting.’
Daniel is conscious of his worn jeans and sweater, the latter a decade-old gift from Mira. Eddie wears a dress shirt and slacks, a sport coat thrown over the back of the booth. He lifts a black briefcase from the bench, sets it on the table, and unlatches it. Out comes a notebook and folder, also black. Eddie removes a sheet of paper and turns it toward Daniel.
‘Any of these people look familiar to you?’
On the page are at least twelve photocopied photos. Daniel reaches into his jacket pocket for his glasses. Most are mug shots, small squares within which a variety of dark-haired, dark-eyed people scowl or glare, though a couple of teenagers grin, and one young man flashes the peace sign. Below the mug shots are three photos of a heavyset, white-haired woman. They look like security shots taken in the vestibule of a building.
‘I don’t think so. Who are they?’
‘The Costellos,’ says Eddie. ‘This woman here?’ He points to the first mug shot, which shows a woman perhaps in her seventies. Her hair is waved like that of a 1940s movie star, her eyes heavy lidded and cool. ‘That’s Rosa. She’s the matriarch. This is her husband, Donnie; these two are her sisters. This row is her children – she’s got five – and below are their children: that’s nine more. Eighteen people in all. Eighteen people running the most sophisticated fortune-telling fraud in U.S. history.’
‘Fortune-telling fraud?’
‘That’s right.’ Eddie folds his hands and leans back for effect. ‘Now, fortune-telling is notoriously difficult to prosecute. It’s banned in some parts of the country, but those bans are rarely enforced. After all, we’ve got people who predict what the stock market is going to do. We’ve got people who predict the weather and get paid for it. Hell, there are horoscopes in every newspaper. What’s more, it’s a cultural issue. These people, they’re what’s called the Rom, the Romani; you might know them as Gypsies. They ran from the Mongols and the Europeans and the Nazis. Historically, they’re poor, they’re underserved. They don’t go to school – they’re bred for fortune-telling since birth. So when you nab someone on fraud charges, what’s the first thing the defense is gonna do? They’re gonna frame it as a free speech issue. They’re gonna frame it as discrimination. So how’d we do it? How’d we convict the Costellos of fourteen federal crimes?’
Something sour rises to the base of Daniel’s throat. Eddie doesn’t have information about Klara, he realizes. Eddie has information about the woman on Hester Street.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘How?’
‘I’ll tell you a story about a man we’ll call Jim.’ Eddie lowers his voice. ‘This man Jim had lost a child to cancer. His wife divorced him. His anxiety was through the roof, and he was in constant muscular pain. So you have a really sick guy, a guy who no one in the mainstream medical establishment will deal with because he’s so off-putting, such a pain in the ass, that his relationships with conventional doctors deteriorate – you get a guy like that, it’s no wonder he winds up on the doorstep of someone different, someone who says, “I can help you; I can do you good.” Someone like Rosa Costello.’
Rosa Costello. Daniel looks at her picture. He knows she isn’t the woman he met in 1969. Her lips are too plump; her face is heart shaped. In a word, she’s prettier. And yet, in his mind, she morphs. Her face assumes the woman’s bullish chin and flat, unaccommodating eyes.
‘So this is how it starts,’ Eddie says. ‘This reader, this Rosa Costello, she goes, “I’m gonna sell you a candle for fifty dollars, and I’m gonna burn it for you and say this prayer, and you’re gonna notice a difference in your nerves.” And when Jim doesn’t notice a difference, she goes, “Okay, so we gotta do more. Let me sell you these leaves, spiritual leaves, and we’re gonna burn these and say a different prayer.” Fast-forward two years and this man has undergone several healing rituals and two very dramatic sacrifices the sum total of which is somewhere in the vicinity of forty thousand dollars. Finally, Rosa says, “It’s your money that’s the problem, it’s cursed and it’s trouble, so you have to bring me ten thousand more, and we’ll get the hex removed.” The sum was termed a donation; this family was termed a church. The Church of the Free Spirit, they called themselves.’