Fifteen minutes later, Gadd was knocking softly on the door of Unit 14 at the First Flight Motor Inn. There was no peephole, but she was certain she saw the drapes rustle a moment before the door swung back.
“If you dare to address me,” she said as she squared her shoulders and stepped into the room, “you’ll pay with your flesh.” Her eyes dropped to Tommaso’s hands, finding them empty, then jumped to his face, registering his bald head, receding chin, and happy smirk at a glance. “Moodrow,” she called over her shoulder, “c’mon in.”
Tommaso stopped grinning when Moodrow strode through the door, spun him around, and thoroughly frisked him. “Are you a cop?” he asked.
“Worse,” Moodrow replied evenly. He stood behind Tommaso, one hand on the man’s back, pinning him to the wall.
“Let’s see,” Gadd said, “what have we here?” She walked directly to the closet and dragged out a large trunk. “Christ, it’s not even locked.”
Moodrow looked over, saw the money and the revolver lying on top of it. He wondered, briefly, what he’d do if it wasn’t mob money and therefore a death sentence for anyone possessing it. “Son of a bitch,” he said, “you really went and did it.” He spun Tommaso around. “You have any idea how many people died because you stole that money?”
Tommaso replied by licking his lips. “Are you gonna give me the third degree?” he asked.
“What about the cops, the ones who died on that street? Do they matter? What about your father?” Moodrow, who’d been no more than curious when he’d begun the questions, felt a rush of anger so intense he literally trembled from head to toe.
“Don’t hurt him.”
Moodrow turned at the sound of Gadd’s voice. He looked at her as if she’d just stepped out of one of the cheap prints on the wall. “I’m not gonna hurt him,” he finally said. “No, I’ve got something better in mind. You like to play games?”
Once they got down to it, the production didn’t take all that long to stage. They worked in silence, nodding to each other from time to time, until Moodrow finally picked up the phone.
“That’s an awful lot of money.” Gadd gestured toward the bed.
“True.” Moodrow paused to admire their handiwork. Tommaso’s hands and feet were cuffed to the head and footboards. He was naked except for a white bath towel that’d been drawn through his legs and pinned like a diaper. The money, all of it, was spread over his body like a blanket. “You wanna take it? Maybe retire to the Caribbean, see how fast you can spend the loot?”
“Uh-uh. For the reason we talked about on the way over here.” Gadd worked her tongue over her teeth. “Plus, it’s blood money. There’s blood all over it.”
Moodrow grunted assent as he punched the number of the central desk at One Police Plaza into the phone, then worked himself from switchboard to switchboard until he got Inspector Cohen on the line.
“Yeah, Inspector, I’m fine. How ’bout yourself?” He paused to listen for a moment, then nodded. “And Ginny Gadd’s fine, too. In fact, she’s right here next to me and she wants to speak to you. If you’ve got the time.” Moodrow passed the phone to his partner, said, “Break a leg.”
“Inspector, how are you?” Gadd looked over at Tommaso. He was staring back at her, his look sorrowful and joyous at the same time, an expression she’d never seen before and which she would have thought impossible a moment before. “Look, I’ve got a present for you, a three-million-dollar present to be exact.” She stopped abruptly. “That’s right, Inspector. The money is—I mean, was—Carmine Stettecase’s. And now it’s gonna be yours. Yours and the job’s, of course.” Gadd, smiling softly, again paused to listen. “Actually,” she finally said, “there’s nothing we really want. Right now. As for the future … well, I guess we’re just gonna have to rely on your personal integrity. That’s why I’m calling you, instead of a sleazebag reporter.”
Josie Rizzo plowed through lower Manhattan like a supercharged reaper through a field of corn. Once she got started, she found she couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down long enough to enjoy the dumbfounded expressions until all her customary stops were made. She hit Patti Barbano’s Mulberry Street salumeria first, striding up to the counter, spinning on her left heel, marching back out the door without saying a word. Then Ira’s dairy on Houston Street, Tony’s pasticceria on LaGuardia Place, working west, then north, then east again, demanding they view her in all her glory.
It didn’t matter if they thought her mad, if they failed to catch so much as a glimmer of what she felt. Life, for them, was measured out in loaves of bread, pounds of fish; their opinions meant nothing. No, what was important was that they see and remember. Josie Rizzo was nothing, a mere woman, matriarch by default of a family on the decline, but she’d brought down Carmine Stettecase and all his soldiers. She’d destroyed a kingdom.
By the time she came out of Chu Wen’s Chinese laundry on Tenth and University some two hours later, Josie was fully satisfied, yet disappointed at the same time. The thought of returning to her shabby apartment in Carmine’s brownstone was yanking her chin down into her chest, turning her nose to the sidewalk. Still, there was nowhere else to go. And maybe that was where she belonged, anyway, in that house with all the widows. Maybe this brief moment was all she was entitled to.
“Mama?”
Josie, shocked, stared up through her eyelashes at her daughter, Mary. “Whatta you doin’ outside? You don’t go outside.”
“I’m on my way to see Gildo,” Mary explained. “Somebody has to get him a lawyer, see if he’s okay.”
“Maybe that husband you got …”
“Tommaso’s gone. I already told you that.”
Sensing a trace of pity in Mary’s voice, Josie peered up through her lashes, saw the same trace in her daughter’s eyes and wondered at Mary’s ignorance. For a moment, she was convinced that none of them, not one of the widows, really understood, but then she saw the two men walking toward her from Fifth Avenue and she knew that wasn’t true. They were big men, wearing identical blue jogging outfits, and they were staring straight at her as they came. Not with the amazement of strolling pedestrians, but with the dead, unblinking focus of true predators.
“I did it,” she shouted at her daughter. “Everything. Gildo worked for me.”
“Gildo needs help, mama.” Mary’s tone was soothing, but insistent. “We need money to hire a lawyer.” She groaned. “And I don’t even know where Tommaso kept the checkbook.”
The two men were being paced by a long black sedan. Josie noted the Jersey plates and slowly lifted her head. “Save yourself,” she said to Mary. “Forget about Gildo.”
“How can you say that after all these years?” Mary’s lips curled into a stubborn pout. “And why won’t you help me?”
The taller of the two men lifted his jacket and yanked at the small automatic tucked behind his waistband an instant before the second man did the same. Josie put her hands on her hips, lifted her chin proudly. She held the pose for a few seconds, then, without warning, slammed her palms into her daughter’s chest, knocking Mary to the ground.
“This ain’t for you,” she said.
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copyright © 1996 by Stephen Solomita
cover design by Erin Fitzsim
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978-1-4532-9058-3
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