by C. D. Reiss
I got to work.
***
I don’t know how long I stood over the rows of numbers and figures. I don’t know how many rivers and eddies of money I followed, keeping my eyes on the big picture and letting the errant details expose themselves, but at some point, it got dark, and Zia Giovanna entered with a sandwich, coffee, and wine.
“You need to eat,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, concentrating on a little notebook of expenses. I’d honed in on a few things and gotten down to the nitty-gritty.
Zia Giovanna just stood there with her hands on her hips.
“What?” I said.
“You’ve been in here seven hours.”
“I’m not done.”
She snapped the book away. “Eat.”
She put the tray on top of the ledgers. I sighed. I was hungry, and the hot tomato sauce made my stomach rumble.
“It’s chicken parmesan,” she said. “Not even on the menu, but Antonio likes it. So I made a batch. You might as well eat it.”
“One minute.” If I ate first, I’d forget something. I slid a slim packet of notations from the pile and disconnected a page from a printout. I snapped up a couple of the dead sticky notes that had numbers I understood, and I sorted through the ledger for all the other red flags I’d identified. Once I knew I had it all, I handed Zia Giovanna back her tray with half a sandwich on it.
“Thank you,” I said. “Grazie, I mean.” She made me nervous: I didn’t know why.
“You didn’t finish.”
“The numbers don’t talk to me if my stomach is full.”
She made a face that made me feel as if I were a sick, crazy, exotic bird. Then she left, and I got back to work. I dammed a river of money, put signage on a river of cash, rerouted a flow of expenses, and took a pile of papers to the kitchen. Zia Giovanna had gone to manage something on the floor, and I worked quicker without her.
Dinner was at a lull, and the kitchen was empty. One waitress flirted with a sous chef who was cutting blocks of chocolate with a band saw. I went around a corner and opened the back of the pizza oven, stepping back when the blast of heat hit my face. The wood was good and hot, smoking and red. The paper would disappear in the flames, along with my spotless character.
As I stood by the flames with the documents over it, I paused. Was I really doing this? Was I really going to cross over? My impending action was not just illegal. It constituted aiding and abetting criminal activity. This was jail time. It was my soul in flames.
I hoisted the papers and books to oven level and was about to throw them in when I felt pressure on my arm. It was Antonio.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Cleaning up the books.”
He took the pile of papers from me and closed the oven. He looked stern and almost confused.
“You are with me, but you’re not to endanger yourself. We’re going to put these back. You’re going to watch it. If anyone asks, as far as you know, the boxes have everything. Si?”
“Si, Capo.”
Zia Giovanna pushed him out of the way and pulled the stack of papers from me, muttering something in Italian. When Antonio spoke softly and patted her on the back, I knew he’d accepted an apology.
“Listen to me.” He pinched my chin. “That you would do this with your own hands, it says a lot. But those books are clean.”
“No, they’re not.” I held up my finger. “You might know your business, but I know mine. You have income streams at the beginning of every quarter that make no sense at all. Your expenses would break the bank of a corporation. All we have to do is get rid of—”
“Basta.” He put his hands up.
“No, I’m not going to basta. You’re going to basta. Either this accountant you had sucks at this, or he was setting you up. I’m going to hope for the former, and you can worry about the latter, but—”
He silenced me with a kiss, a mouth-filling, brain-wiping kiss. By the time he pulled away, I’d lost my train of thought.
“I’m crazy,” I whispered to him.
“Sit with me,” he said.
“Don’t try and shut me up. I want to say what needs saying.”
“Come vuoi tu.”
A corner table had been set with red wine and bread. Antonio pulled the chair out for me and sat across. “I got us osso buco. Zia Giovanna wanted to give you the same sandwich you left on the desk.”
“She’s tough.”
“In her old age, she’s softened. When I was small, she held my nose to open my mouth more than one time. And she was a devil with a wooden spoon. I have scars.”
“I haven’t noticed any.”
“You have to look harder next time.” He poured wine. “We can talk here. About the books. I’m not an accountant; I can’t see what you saw.”
“It was bad.”
“I want you to tell me, but this is the last I’ll hear of it. I don’t want you involved.”
“You sent me here,” I said.
“Not for this.”
I took a deep breath. He was stubborn and for good reason. He was right; I had no business in his world. He needed me to stay out, not only to protect my own purity but because my ignorance of the rules meant I could blunder with my words or deeds. And the stakes were very high: prison, or death.
I extended my hand over the table, and he took it, sliding his over mine.
“I don’t want to be in your business," I said. "I think it’s stupid and dangerous, to be honest. Maybe because I’ve never worried about money. I’ve never wanted for anything, so I’ve never had to consider stealing it or killing for it. But the things I’ve wanted, really wanted, haven’t come to me, either. I’m thirty-four years old, and I’ve never been married. I don’t know how many kids I can squeeze in before it’s too late. And everything has a habit of falling down around me. But I don’t want this to fall apart. You and I. It’s the most impossible thing I’ve ever been a part of, and if we’re not both on board, if we’re not both making every effort to be together, it’s going to get taken away from us. I promise you, Daniel isn’t done. He can take you away from me, and the only thing that’s going to keep him off you until the election is knowing that I’m willing to lower the hammer on him. And I will, Antonio. I will. I can end his career. As God is my witness, if he comes after you, I can destroy him, and I will.”
“If he fell off the earth tomorrow, ten more would take his place,” Antonio said.
“He says the same about you, I’m sure.”
The waitress brought two plates of saucy, sloppy stew, and though I didn’t want to pause the conversation, I was starving.
Antonio put his napkin on his lap and waited for the waitress to leave before speaking. “This isn’t the tradition. Even if you grew up next door, you’d be limited. You have to accept that.”
“You said you wanted to be with me the right way. To get out of this whole thing.”
“That’s between us.”
“Exactly. And if we’re trying to do the same thing, then I need to help you. If that means keeping you out of jail, so be it. I’d be serving a greater good by getting involved.”
He didn’t answer but pushed his food around. I couldn’t believe what I was arguing for, and there was a good chance he couldn’t, either. I was asking him to let me into a criminal life. I was begging to get in so I could get him out. I’d lost my mind, but it was what I wanted.
“Don’t think this is easy for me,” I said. “I’m of two minds about it. I can’t believe I’m asking to commit crimes so you can stop.”
He smiled at his plate, pensive. “You keep two opposite ideas in your mind at the same time. It’s the only way to survive.”
“Let me survive with you.”
He put his fork up against the edge of my plate and pushed the plate toward me a eighth of an inch. “Eat.”
I put a piece of meat in my mouth. “It’s good.”
He ripped a piece of bread from the roll and dunked it
in the sauce. “Have you ever been to an Italian wedding?” He blew on the hot sauce.
“Are they like in the movies?” I asked.
He leaned over. Holding the dunked bread with one hand and cupping his other hand under it to catch any errant sauce, he held the bread up to my mouth. “Did you know, when Italians came here and opened restaurants, they started serving butter to go with the bread. Butter is a luxury where I’m from, see? So, they were giving what they saw as a luxury.”
I bit down on the bread, and he pulled it away while I chewed.
“The expensive places here,” he continued, “they give you good olive oil. Which is wasteful. Where I’m from, the bread is for the sauce.”
“This has what to do with an Italian wedding?”
“There’s the way back home, and there’s the immigrant way, which has fake luxury. Tons of it. It’s embarrassing.”
“Yes, Antonio.”
“Yes, what?” he said.
“The Bortolusi wedding.” I took another forkful of meat and sent it home with a mouthful of rich burgundy. “I’ll go with you.”
“I can’t take you.”
My fork clinked loudly when I put it down. “Are you serious? You think Paulie’s going to try something at a wedding? I thought you guys worked it out.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m just letting you know where I’ll be that day,” he said.
I wanted to throw my fork at him.
Having given me the information and laid down the law, he settled into a few bites of osso buco. Then he looked at me over the rim of his wine glass and caught my expression. “What?”
“How is this ‘getting out by going through’?”
He raised an eyebrow as if I’d just asked him to bend me over the buffet. “Forget it.”
“You decide to bring me closer, then you keep me in a box all over again.”
“I’m figuring out how to do this, same as you.”
“You have to take some risks.”
“Not with your safety,” he said.
“If you bring me, it will show that whatever I said to Daniel that day didn’t hurt you.”
“Or that I’m a fool.”
“It’s business. Your family is undoubtedly in the middle of a negotiation with the Sicilians, but am I right in thinking nothing’s locked down yet? As far as the details go, I mean.”
“You’re right,” he said.
“If you bring me, it empowers you. It’s going to disarm them. They’re going to wonder what the hell you’re thinking.” I took a bite of meat and chewed slowly. “Also, it’ll scare the hell out of Paulie. There’s no use in having a bazooka unless the enemy knows you have it. If you want to keep the peace, that is.”
He sipped his wine, avoiding my gaze. It wasn’t like him. I could have asked what was bothering him, but I had the feeling I knew the answer.
I was right again.
twenty-four.
theresa
e passed the night in the cocoon of the bed. When I was with him, my isolation was acceptable, simply a way to be close, to hear his stories uninterrupted. He talked about the color of Naples, the veiled identities of the camorra, the family he called his own and the one he inherited when his father came back into his life.
“Your father really loves you,” I said, propped up on my elbows. He leaned on the headboard, stroking my shoulder with a fingertip. “He gave mixed messages, I admit. But he only wanted what was best for you.”
“He was trying to keep me safe as consigliere,” he whispered, brushing his thumb over my cheek. “Consiglieri are lawyers who advise bosses, so they aren’t meant for vendettas. But I had to send a message to the men who killed my wife.”
“Did you send the message?”
His lower lip covered his upper for a second. He slid down into the sheets and wove his legs into mine. “You’re going to ruin me, Contessa.”
“Rovinato,” I replied.
He laughed. His eyes lit up, and his cares fell off him. I wondered if I’d ever get to see him smile once a day, or even once a week. As beautiful as he was on any given day, he was a treat for the eyes and heart when he laughed.
twenty-five.
antonio
here’s talk,” Zia Giovanna said, twisting a fistful of dough into a long beige tube. She insisted on making her own bread at five a.m., even when it would have been more economical to leave the bread making to bakers. “My sister tells me they’re whispering over there.”
Zia Giovanna’s sister was my mother. Both held advanced degrees in gossip and hearsay, so in their garden of chatter, a seed of truth often sprouted leaves and flowers of beautiful lies.
“How can they hear each other over the traffic?” I didn’t want to hear her little rumors. I had a ledger spread on the stainless counter. The office had become claustrophobic in seconds. I had rows and columns of numbers to organize since Numbers Niccolò had taken off and left me with them. I wasn’t a numbers guy. I could do the basics, but past that, I’d always had people to organize the larger concepts into smaller processes. Niccolò seemed to have done his job of hiding and cleaning money through the restaurant by means of misdirection and sleight of coin. Theresa had been dead right, though. Once she showed me where the trail led, it was very obvious he’d done a terrible job.
“When you came here, I told you to stay away from Donna Maria. Sicilians. You can’t trust them. They’re animals. You didn’t listen. You never listen.”
I could do numbers and listen to her scold me at the same time. One took up the attention of my brain, the other, my heart.
“But you run.” She pounded her dough, pulling and twisting. “And you sit by her as consigliere, and that puts you in her sight. She knew Paulie was going to fuck up. He’s American. He can’t do anything the right way, the patient way. Even though he wanted Theresa out, he couldn’t do it right. A smart man would have waited to marry into the family then taken you out but—”
“Aspetta. What are you talking about?”
She looked like she was going to cry. She slapped a ball of dough down. “Paulie’s wedding is off. He’s weak. They’re all talking about you beating him, and they’re looking at you to unify the families.”
“What?” I said.
“Your father stepped in. He thinks he has you. He says it will be done. His Neapolitan interests and the American Sicilian. You and Irene.”
I held my hand up. “Slow down.”
“Make this go away.” She pounded her dough, flattening the tube in one place. “Tell them you want the red-haired one. She’s all right. She won’t hurt you. She won’t force you.”
I couldn’t make it go away. I had no way to undo what was done, and if all Napoli was already whispering, it was unlikely my father could undo it without brutal consequences, not just to me, with my disposable life, but to Theresa, who was under my care.
I needed to get out more than ever, and as difficult as that would have been anyway, it had just become nearly impossible.
Was I committed to this? Or was I going to make half efforts? Leaving the life, breaking so many ties, and slipping away was always a nice fantasy when I couldn’t find my way through a problem or when the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be an oncoming train.
After I’d lost Valentina, I’d made choices. I’d gone in with my eyes open, and having made those choices, I never questioned the fact that I’d earned all my own troubles.
twenty-six.
theresa
atrina’s text woke me from a dead sleep. I swung my arm for Antonio, but he was gone. He’d left me alone in his little Spanish house. He must have trusted me with the silver.
—Can you come to the editing bay?—
—Why?—
It wasn’t like me to question Katrina, but I was half asleep, and I missed Antonio already. I should have been thankful that I was out of The Afidnes, but I wasn’t. I felt like I’d stepped out the door to find the stoop had disappeared and the sidewalk was open
beneath me.
—Because you were a part-time script supervisor, and you’re half the team that put the half shots in order and I’m confused right now—
—Fine. Give me 20—
Otto waited outside.
“Do you ever see your wife?” I handed him a thermos of coffee.
“It’s the arrangement,” he replied. “She knows what I have to do, and she accepts.”
“She’s very generous.”
“She is.”
“I want to take my car. Can you follow to the post-production place?” I helped up two fingers. “No burgers, I promise.”
He agreed to follow close, and I let him, not making a move to lose him. I knew his proximity relaxed Antonio, and that was important to me.
“What’s up?” I asked Katrina when she opened the glass door.
“Nothing.” She wouldn’t look at me.
“Nothing? Describe ‘nothing.’”
She walked a pace ahead, looking at the floor. “The type of nothing that’s just unpleasant.” She reached the door to her editing bay and put her hand on the knob.
“Katrina?”
“I didn’t have much in the way of choices,” she said. “I had wonky location permits and my financing was, you know, questionable.”
“You don’t need to review a shot list. That’s what I’m getting.”
“I hate my fucking life. Really.” She opened the door.
Daniel sat in the biggest chair, one leg crossed over the other at the ankle.
This was how a poor kid from Van Nuys got to be a mayoral candidate. First, he showed up where he wasn’t wanted, and he was ready. He was armed with information, and he had a plan. He surrounded himself with people who could help him, and he cut the rest of them loose. He was ruthless in his pursuit, hungry, careful, and above all, shrewd.
