Motel Sepia

Today, like many Sunday mornings, Aldo's walk detoured into a breakfast place where he satisfied his brain's call for black coffee and a fresh bagel smothered with cream cheese and strawberry jelly. It would also give him a chance to scan The Trib's baseball standings. By the time he returned home, Marge would be in church. He claimed he found his religion in nature. Damn! The Cubs lost again. After beating the Pirates -- big deal -- 6 to 2 at Forbes Field on Thursday, they lost the second game in a row to the Dodgers in Brooklyn. Still, their record was 32 and 23. Could this be the year? Warren Hacker pitched a good game Saturday, but not good enough to beat Dodger ace Billy Loes. Jim King hit a three-run homer for the Cubs, but that was it. Ernie Banks was 0 for 4, and Miksis 0 for 5. He continued to scan the newspaper. My God! More than 80 spectators killed in a crash at the Le Mans car race. Aldo liked cars, but he thought car races were a waste of gasoline. Murder. Never a shortage of that in Chicago. How many go unsolved? Quite a few, he suspected. Not suspected. He was lying to himself. He knew many killings were never explained. Cops and prosecutors didn't spend much time on ne'er-do-well victims or dead men believed to have ties to the criminal world. Naperville's groomed avenues were like a park interrupted by cars. Arezzo's walking path eventually led to the sprawling Centennial Beach area where his mind directed his feet on a zigzag route along ponds and flowers that looped back on a homebound path. He was weary of the hoopla surrounding the inauguration of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, tired of the constant talk about bomb shelters and frankly worried about plans to turn Naperville into an even bigger bedroom boom town. He had to admit there was good news. Their grandchildren would be getting the new Salk vaccine to prevent polio. He crossed over to Porter Avenue and then ambled north on Webster and past Naper Settlement. He had completed some two miles when he turned west onto the groomed grounds of Grace Episcopal Church. While early-service people prayed inside, he adored the splendor of God's creation outside. On the quiet backside of the church lot, he slowed and stopped at a park bench. Looking upward, he simultaneously paid homage to a knurly oak. He didn't notice the man approach. Before he could sit down, an arm girdled his neck and a solid hand clutching a course rag collapsed roughly around his mouth and nose. He instinctively struggled against the person's overpowering grasp and headlock. In seconds, his breathing was cut off. The cloth over his face contained some sort of toxic substance -- perhaps chloroform -- that caused his body to quickly limp into submission. Arezzo was no weakling, yet his body could not combat the combined strength of his attacker and the noxious substance that permeated the cloth and drifted into his respiratory system. He dropped to the ground and glanced upward, in a fog. The drug magnified the unusual stoutness of the assaulter, and launched tremors in Arezzo's body. Still, his weakened senses assembled a misty notion of his assailant. "Well, well, Mr. Aldo Arezzo, the comfortable Mr. Aldo Arezzo," his attacker said. There was a pause in the man's gravelly bass voice. His eyes reflected profound evil. Veins in his neck bulged as blood rushed to fuel his obsession with mission, his covenant with death. "I am a messenger from Eddie Ralston," he said with a calm but deliberate swagger. Arezzo didn't require an introduction to either Ralston or his paid goon. He knew their history, and he knew that their combined moral assets were less than those of a depraved jackal. He also was certain that his life had come to an end, that his casual comment to be home in a couple of hours was now an empty promise. A hazy image of his wife's face, her beautiful eyes, the sheen of her hair, forced their way into an otherwise aura of pending horror. "You surely remember him, Eddie the Rhino Ralston?" said the voice that conveyed words as though filtered through fine sandpaper. "Eddie says to tell you that your bookkeeping system stinks. He has this persistent opinion that you cheated the company out of thousands of dollars, but the good news is that he is generous and you needn't pay it back." The big man, his entire countenance carved by a profound vileness, dropped the sedated rag and thrust his left hand forward. He grabbed Arezzo by the hair. In a singular motion, he yanked back his victim's hazy head and slammed the body against the metal arm rests of the park bench. Arezzo lost consciousness and sank back to the ground. The attacker violently jammed his left hand beneath Arezzo's jaw, and like a vise pinned him to the bench seat. With his right hand, he thrust a wide-bladed knife deep into Arezzo's torso. Blood spewed outward instantly, some splashing on the attacker's right hand. Another slash hit new abdominal arteries, and in seconds the pristine church lawn turned into a recoiling scene of death. The juxtaposition of murder and church, sick and satanical at best, boosted the killer's spirit. More thrusts, really unnecessary to accomplish the task but a requirement of punitive power, penetrated the body and the Sunday morning's serenity. Aldo Arezzo's dreams died quickly.