“You’re gonna wait, right?” Wolfstein asks Dennis.
He nods without looking at her.
She slams the door.
Next to the Laundromat is a dollar store. Rena sees it and darts inside. Wolfstein’s on her trail. The store is narrow, with overcrowded shelves, colorful towels hanging from racks, blow-up pool toys, weird little dancing dogs. Boxes are full of keychains and cheapo rings and those boogery things kids throw against walls to see how long they’ll stick. Rena’s on her tiptoes, searching the aisles.
“What are you doing?” Wolfstein says.
“I just want to get her a little something,” Rena says.
A display case next to the counter is full of small stuffed animals. The woman behind the counter looks like a tragic fortune-teller. She’s wearing a headscarf and a red blouse and has big hands. She’s writing on a yellow legal pad. Her nametag reads MY NAME IS . . . MAD DOG, ASK ME ANYTHING.
Rena approaches the display and digs through the stuffed animals. She finds a brown bear with a pink tiara and little pink sewn-on heart in the middle of its chest and a crooked smile made of thick black stitching. Rena puts it on the counter and asks Wolfstein to lend her money to pay for it.
“You’re going with the bear anyhow, huh?” Wolfstein says, coughing up the dough.
Rena shrugs. “I think she’ll like it. I’m her grandma. It’s a grandma thing to get it.”
“Your call.”
“Excellent choice,” Mad Dog says.
They walk back outside. Rena stands in front of a door marked with the numbers from the address Lucia gave her. Wolfstein’s guessing her biggest hope right now is that Lucia is still there, that she hasn’t bailed or had second thoughts, or—even worse—that she hasn’t gotten into some new kind of trouble. She can also tell that Rena’s deeply confused about whose place this is, about why Lucia would even be holed up in some scrubby second-floor Dyker Heights apartment. She’s not asking those questions now, though; she’s just clutching the little bear to her chest. Wolfstein understands why.
Just as Rena places her hand on the knob of the door leading to the apartment, Wolfstein puts the bag under her arm and touches Rena’s cheek. “It’ll be okay,” she says.
Rena nods. “Thank you,” she says.
Wolfstein looks back toward the street. Dennis is still sitting there in the Town Car at the hydrant. Rena opens the door, and they head up a staircase that smells of mildew. “It’ll be okay,” Wolfstein says again, this time to Rena’s back.
RENA
When Lucia opens the door, Rena reaches out and embraces her granddaughter. The girl’s wearing an oversize backpack. She’s pale, shaken. She takes the hug.
“I’m glad you’ve got new sneakers,” Rena says. “You gave me such a scare. We need to stick together.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucia says.
Rena pulls back and presses the bear into Lucia’s hand. “I got you this. I know you probably don’t like stuffed animals anymore, but it reminded me of you when you were little. It’s cute. Just a dumb little thing.”
Lucia seems to be studying it. She thumbs the tiara, bites her lower lip, fights back tears. “I like it a lot.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
For a minute, it’s almost as if Wolfstein isn’t there—she’s quiet behind Rena—but then she steps into the apartment past them, closing the door, and says, “I think I see the problem.”
Rena looks over near the window and sees a man sprawled there, no shirt on, a bloody shirt wrapped around his arm. It reminds her of Enzio.
The man looks to be out cold, but then he opens his eyes and lets out a prolonged moan. “Rena?” he says. “Oh, Jesus Christ. What’d I do to deserve this day? I gave her the knife. I’ve always gotta be a smart guy.”
Rena recognizes him then. “Is that—?”
“My father,” Lucia cuts in.
“Walt Viscuso? What happened here, Lucia?”
“I found him and then . . .”
“And then the little turd knifed me,” Walt says. “Look at me. I’m dying here, Rena. Call my pal Gilly. His cousin’s a medic. We’ve been sitting here over an hour. I’m bleeding out. My vision’s all blotchy.”
“He gave me the knife to protect myself,” Lucia says. “And then he acted like a creep. He just shouldn’t have given me the knife. I would’ve just left. All he wanted was money.”
Wolfstein chimes in: “Does anyone know you’re here?”
“No. But he has friends. He talked about his friends. Maybe they’ll just show up?”
“Just call Gilly,” Walt says again. “We’ll forget all about this.”
Wolfstein goes over and leans over Walt and starts to unwrap the shirt. He protests, tries to push her hands away. She gets the shirt undone and shakes her head. “It’s nothing. A little cut. He’ll be fine.”
“A little cut?” Walt says. “This is deep, sister.”
“We’ve got a car downstairs,” Wolfstein says to Rena and Lucia. “Let’s go. Look at this place. No one cares about this guy. He can get up and call his pal.”
“Okay,” Rena says, without hesitation.
“I can’t believe I stabbed him,” Lucia says. She’s holding the stuffed bear tight around the neck.
Rena walks over to Walt. The TV is on behind him, a news show in Spanish. She doesn’t remember much about Walt, in all honesty. He wasn’t someone Adrienne brought around. He was another secret she had. That long hair. The loud music he played. Rena couldn’t believe it when she found out he was the guy who knocked Adrienne up. And Vic, he went absolutely bonkers. He wanted the guy’s head on a stake by the Verrazano tollbooths. It was her and Richie—this before she knew of Richie’s history with Adrienne—who talked Vic down and said the guy wouldn’t be a problem, he’d stay out of the picture, the kid would be fine and better off. Vic would be her old man.
Early on, Rena had always imagined and hoped that Adrienne would wind up with a gentleman, someone who’d hold doors open for her and pull out chairs, someone who shaved every day and got his hair trimmed once a week. Of course, Adrienne had raged against her mother’s hopes. Walt represented something vastly different. He was ugly. He was a nobody. Rena knew his parents a little back then. She wonders if they’re still alive. They were terrible people. They drank and they partied, and the father had done some jail time for robbery, and word was he was always peeping on young girls. The mother was a diabetic with bleached-blond hair who wanted everything free.
“You were never worth anything,” she says to Walt now.
“Oh, that’s really nice, Rena,” Walt responds through clenched teeth. “I’m sitting here, wounded, and you take the time to insult me. Thank you.”
“I just wanted to see who he was,” Lucia says. “I wanted to see if I was anything like him, if I could be his daughter.”
“Protecting yourself was the right thing,” Rena says.
“You’ve had a fucked-up couple of days, kid,” Wolfstein says. “I mean, we all have, but you especially.”
“Let’s just go,” Rena says.
“I have the money in this backpack,” Lucia says.
“I don’t care about the money. I care about you.”
“Leave me a few bucks, kid,” Walt says. “Come on. It’s the least you can do. Medical bills and whatnot.”
They leave the apartment, Wolfstein grabbing her money bag, Walt wailing on and on about Gilly and about feeling like he’s going to pass out.
When they get outside, Dennis’s Town Car is still there. People flooding in and out of the Laundromat pay them no mind. No one can hear Walt. Or they just don’t care. They all get in the back of the Town Car, Lucia smooshed between Rena and Wolfstein, holding the bear now like she would’ve as a kid, cradling it against her neck, her pack in her lap.
“This is the famous Lucia, huh?” Dennis says, taking a look at Lucia in the rearview.
“Who’s he?” Lucia asks.
“He’s the driver,”
Wolfstein says.
“Nice to meet you, kid.” He jolts them away from the curb, cutting off a flashy little sports car, and then looks over his shoulder: “So, where am I taking you ladies now?”
“My house,” Rena says. And then to Wolfstein: “We’ll be fine there, right?”
“For a little while, I bet. We’re just people who have to answer some questions eventually, anyhow.”
“I don’t have any food at the house. We’ll have to stop at Meats Supreme. Are you hungry, Lucia?”
Lucia nods.
Rena smiles. “Good. I’ll get everything. I’m excited to be able to feed you. You like braciole? I’ll make braciole and baked ziti and sausage and peppers. We can stop at the bakery and get some cookies, too. Rainbows, black and whites, linzer tarts. How’s that sound?”
“That sounds so good,” Lucia says, settling down a little, leaning close to Rena, almost like someone who desires to be embraced.
Dennis, in the mirror, looks confused. “What about what youse were talking about earlier? Your husband? You were messing with me.”
“Just a little,” Wolfstein says. “I was. Rena was just going along with it. Rena’s a widow.”
Dennis slaps the wheel and laughs. “Boy, you’re a piece of work. You really are.” He sings “Roses Are Red.”
Lucia nudges closer. Rena puts an arm around her and says, “It’s okay. Grandma’s with you. There’s no more trouble coming.”
They get on the Belt again to head to Rena’s neighborhood. When they exit, they’re down by Ceasar’s Bay Bazaar. The water’s right there—Gravesend Bay—and Rena looks all around: the tennis courts, the promenade, the big lot by Toys “R” Us and Kohl’s and Best Buy. She’s not even sure what time it is, maybe late afternoon, judging by the sun. The light on the water is pretty. So is the Verrazano, powder blue against a darker blue sky, speckled with light and shadows. When the bridge was built, she remembers thinking it was the most important thing that had ever happened in the world.
Rena tells Dennis how to get to the store. They drive up Bay Parkway. Dennis makes a left at Eighty-Sixth Street and parks across from Meats Supreme. “I’ll be right back,” Rena says. “I’m just going to get a few things.”
“I’ll come with you,” Lucia says, pulling on her backpack and setting the bear behind her on the rear dash.
In the store, they look over the cheeses and meats first. Rena fills a cart with everything she needs as she scans the shelves and coolers, insisting she doesn’t have anything at home. Parmesan cheese, eggs, Italian bread, mozzarella, provolone, parsley, olive oil, flank steak, ground chuck, macaroni, bread crumbs, cans of crushed tomatoes, garlic, basil, ricotta, Italian sausage, bell peppers.
Wheeling the cart over the sawdust-covered floor, Rena points to a wall over by the fish counter. “There’s Papa Vic,” she says.
“Huh?” Lucia says.
“His picture.”
They walk over and stand in front of it, as if taking in a painting at a museum. It’s the one of Vic with Scorsese, De Niro, Pesci, and Sorvino—that’s the other actor’s name, she finally remembers. Two of Vic’s henchmen, Steve Z. and Willy Zip, are on the edges of the shot, their arms crossed. Vic looks so proud and happy. He’s smiling as big as she’s ever seen him smile, and that’s saying a lot. Sloppy, faded signatures are etched across the bottom part of the picture.
Lucia reaches out and taps her finger against the glass over Vic’s face, leaving a smudgy print. “Cool,” she says.
“I was thinking this should be mine,” Rena says. “I have a lot of stuff, a lot of pictures of Papa Vic, whole albums, but I don’t have anything like this.”
“Take it.”
“You know what? I think I will.” Rena reaches up and plucks the picture off the wall. It’s an old frame, hanging on a crooked nail with a piece of piano wire. The guys behind the fish counter don’t see her. She zips opens Lucia’s backpack and wedges it on top of the money, taking a couple of hundreds for the groceries while she’s in there. Lucia watches over her shoulder as Rena deals with the zipper.
The spot on the wall is bare, a dusty outline where the picture was.
“I feel good about this,” Rena says.
They walk up to one of the registers to check out. The registers aren’t in view of where the picture was. No one here could’ve seen her. Nina is the clerk. Rena knows her from the store and church. It occurs to her then that word about what happened to Adrienne and Enzio could’ve reached here. She looks for some sign of sympathy or gossipy indulgence in Nina’s face but sees only the blank stare of someone who can’t wait to get off work.
“How’re you doing, Nina?” Rena asks, small talk she probably wouldn’t make if not for the picture.
“Every day gets harder,” Nina says. “My husband, you know him? He crapped the bed last night. You believe this? ‘Dan,’ I says, ‘this is how wars start.’ He’s fifty years old, not a hundred. What kind of guy craps the bed? I married wrong, and I married dumb.”
Rena’s reaction is a mix of a downturned grin and a confused sneer.
“Who’s this?” Nina says, cocking her head at Lucia, quickly ringing up items.
“My granddaughter, Lucia.”
“How grown up.”
Lucia forces a smile.
“How’re your grandkids?” Rena asks.
“Don’t get me started. One’s stupid as bricks. The other’s ugly as sin. Takes after the father. He’s a bum, a loafer. My daughter brings home the bacon.”
Rena nods. Nina wouldn’t normally bring up Adrienne, knowing they’re on the outs, so that makes Rena think the news hasn’t gotten here yet, or maybe it’s just that no one around here cares enough to spread the news.
When they’re all done, paid up, bags packed, Rena and Lucia head to the car, careful crossing the street with their arms full of groceries. Dennis pops the trunk. They get in. Wolfstein’s sitting in the front now. “What’s the good word?” Wolfstein says.
“I took it,” Rena says.
“Took what?”
“Vic’s picture.”
Lucia has the backpack in her lap again. Rena unzips it and withdraws the picture and passes it up to Wolfstein.
“I’m proud of you,” Wolfstein says. “Which one’s Vic? Let me guess.” Her finger passes over the obvious nos—Scorsese, the famous actors—and she seems to inherently know it’s not the greasy, too-young henchmen, so she points to Vic.
“That’s my Vic,” Rena says.
“Handsome,” Wolfstein says.
“He was, wasn’t he?”
“Looks like a guy who could take care of things.”
“That’s . . . that’s Vic Ruggiero,” Dennis says, almost choking on his words. “You were married to Gentle Vic? What am I involved in here?”
“Can you take us over to Elegante on Avenue U?” Rena asks. “While we go get some cookies, Wolfstein can fill you in.”
They drive to Elegante, her favorite bakery—and Vic’s longtime favorite, too—between West Sixth and West Seventh. Vic grew up in a house right around here, on Lake Street, with his three brothers and two sisters. They’re all dead, have been for a long time, mostly of natural causes, except for his brother Alfredo, who was poisoned with lye by his whackjob girlfriend in 1972 on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Ruggiero house was always full of action: Vic’s brooding mother, his piano-mad brother Pasquale, his father at the kitchen table with a bottle of vermouth.
Again, Lucia accompanies her, while Wolfstein starts talking to Dennis about the insanity of the last two days. They pass a newsstand on the way in and see the headlines. The Post’s is BRONX BLOODBATH. In the Daily News, it’s SILVER BEACH SLAYING. Both feature pictures of Wolfstein’s house, along with mugshots of Crea and Richie Schiavano and smaller pictures of Adrienne, Bobby, and Enzio. The picture of Adrienne, Rena’s not sure where it’s from. Maybe her driver’s license. Rena steers Lucia away.
The bakery glows bright. The girl behind the g
lass counter wears a cap and speaks in broken English. She’s from Italy—Calabria, Rena remembers—and she’s got a sweet smile. Rena tells Lucia to pick out whatever she wants, and all her energy goes into deciding. When she says something looks good, Rena tells the girl to put it in a box. Rainbows, S cookies, pignolis, sesame biscuits, savoiardi. The girl sprinkles powdered sugar on top, weighs the box, and ties it with baker’s twine. Rena gets a couple of black and whites and linzer tarts in a bag and then pays with what’s left over in her pocket from Meats Supreme.
Back in the car, Dennis has clearly been rattled by Wolfstein’s report. “What’re you going to do?” he asks Rena, but he means it for all of them.
“We’re going to have a nice dinner,” Rena says. She wonders how much Wolfstein told him, if she told him about the money. Between Lucia’s backpack and Wolfstein’s nest egg, there’s got to be close to a million dollars in the car, which is astounding. If anyone’s coming for anything, it’s the money. But that thread may be lost with Crea and Richie gone. It wouldn’t be that hard to put two and two together. But who could know that they have it? Anyhow, in Rena’s current frame of mind, she can’t help not caring about the dough. She’s so glad to have Lucia back. That’s what really matters. And she’s grateful as hell for Wolfstein.
“You can come, if you want,” she adds.
“To dinner?” Dennis says.
“Sure. I’m gonna cook up a storm. My greatest hits. Baked ziti, sausage and peppers, braciole. Cookies for dessert.”
Dennis looks at Wolfstein. “That’s okay with you?”
“You’ve been pretty good to us,” Wolfstein says. “You don’t have anywhere to be, hang on for a bit. Never quite know where you’ll wind up with this crew.”
They drive back to Rena’s and park in the normally empty driveway. Rena looks over at Enzio’s, at his freshly vacant driveway. If the cops have been there, and she’s sure they have been, they’re not treating it as a crime scene.
A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself Page 29
