“So, besides Charlie, who else dines at Bella Stella who’s a Gambello?” Napoli asked me. “You must have some ideas. Some guesses?”
I blinked. “You’re a lead investigator at the Organized Crime Control Bureau. Don’t you know?”
“I’d like to hear your take on it.”
“Why?”
“You seem like an intelligent woman.”
“You don’t think that,” I said irritably. “You think I’m a ditz! You’re hoping I’m so eager to feel important that I’ll show off by trying to lecture you about stuff you already know—or damn well should know, since it’s your job to know! And in the course of rambling on about life at Stella’s, maybe I’ll let some important information slip. Except that I don’t have any important information, Napoli!”
“Then tell me the truth about Charlie’s death!”
“I have told you the truth!”
“It doesn’t work, Miss Diamond. Based on the only possible trajectory of the bullet that killed Charlie, you had to have seen the killer.”
I blinked. “What?”
“If you were near Charlie when he got shot, then you saw who killed him. There’s no way you didn’t.”
“That’s what this is all about? You don’t believe me?”
He shook his head. “Your story doesn’t hold up against the evidence, Esther.”
“I’d prefer that you keep calling me ‘Miss Diamond.’ ”
“So I’m wondering why you’re lying.”
“I’m telling the truth,” I said wearily, beginning to suspect there was no way I’d ever convince him of this.
“Are you trying to protect the killer?”
“Do I look like I’d protect a killer?” These questions were getting on my nerves. “Do I look like someone whose protection a Mafia hit man would want?”
“So Charlie was killed by a Mafia hit man?” he pounced.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that’s the case, Detective.”
Napoli suddenly switched tactics, making an attempt to look concerned and sound sympathetic. “So maybe you’re afraid of what the Gambellos will do if you tell the truth about what you saw. I can understand that.”
“You don’t do ‘good cop’ well,” I said. “It just doesn’t work for you.”
He scowled. “Are you afraid of the killer, then?”
“Generally? Of course! Because the killer is, you know, a killer. But specifically? No. Because the killer must know I didn’t see him. I mean, if he thought I did, wouldn’t he have shot me, too?”
Napoli changed the line of attack again. “Maybe you’re trying to avoid trouble with the Gambellos? Maybe you knew they wanted Charlie dead, and you’re afraid to talk about it.”
I frowned. “Did the Gambellos want him dead? I thought he was a good earner.”
“So you do hear them talk business!”
“No. Charlie told every waitress in the place that he was a good earner. He also told us he was good in bed.”
“Or maybe you wanted him dead,” Napoli suggested.
“No, he tipped me well.” After a moment, I said, “That came out wrong.”
Coplike, he changed the subject without warning. “Did Charlie ever talk about the Corvino family?”
“Not to me.”
“To who, then?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I’d be passing his table and I’d hear him say something like, ‘Those fucking Corvinos. ’ I don’t remember anything more specific than that.”
“Does anyone else at the restaurant ever mention the Corvinos?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Almost everyone.”
“What do they say?”
“About five times a night, they say, ‘Those fucking Corvinos.’ ” I had not observed much originality of expression among the wiseguys at Stella’s.
“Did anyone mention the Corvinos after Charlie got shot?”
“Not that I remember. Mostly, I screamed a lot, then there was a stampede of departing wiseguys and screaming tourists, then Stella screamed a lot, then cops showed up . . . I don’t remember much conversation, and certainly nothing about who might have killed Charlie.”
“So you think they already knew who did it?”
“ ‘They,’ who? There was me, Stella, three freaked-out waiters, our accordion-playing bartender, and a couple of tourists from Colorado who didn’t see a thing but thought they should wait for the police, even so. No one else stayed inside the restaurant with the corpse before the cops arrived.”
“You know more than you’re saying.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“That I don’t like your shirt. Tan isn’t your color.”
“By lying to me about what you saw,” Napoli said, “you put yourself in more danger, Esther, not less.”
“What’s the matter with you? This is the third gang-land murder at Bella Stella in five years! Why is it so hard for you to believe I’m just a law-abiding waitress who was unlucky enough to see the latest killing while working there?”
“Because your story doesn’t fit the evidence,” Napoli said.
“That does it.” I rose to my feet. “I’m going home.”
“I advise against that, Miss Diamond.” He rose, too. “You’re a material witness in a mob hit. You’re in danger now. I want to take you into protective—”
“No.”
Everyone on Mulberry Street must know by now that I had insisted over and over to Lopez and Napoli—as well as to Lucky—that I hadn’t seen a thing. And whoever the killer was, he must know, too, that I hadn’t seen him. So I didn’t believe I was in danger of being permanently silenced if I went about my normal life. But I did believe my normal life would get screwed up beyond recognition if I went into protective custody. For one thing, the killer might wonder if he was wrong and I had seen something, and that was precisely what I didn’t want him to start thinking.
More to the point, how was I going to go to auditions while in protective custody? Or earn money to keep paying my rent? And how long would protective custody last? A week? A month? Six months? Until the city ran out of money for guarding me? The rest of my life?
None of those prospects sounded good to me.
“I have nothing to do with whatever business got Charlie killed, and I saw nothing,” I said to Napoli. “So the last thing I want is to be treated as if I am involved or run my life as if I did see something.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Napoli said.
“I’m a witness, not a suspect, and I’m tired. I’ve told you everything I know, it’s late, so I’m leaving.”
“You’re not a suspect yet,” he said ominously. “But your behavior isn’t helping your situation. And don’t think that your personal involvement with Detective Lopez will protect you from the law, either.”
“I don’t need protection from the law,” I snapped.
I slung my purse over my shoulder and stomped out of the squad room, wishing a bad case of shingles on Napoli.
It took me hours to fall asleep that night.
In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing Charlie’s shocked expression as he keeled over dead. I also kept remembering his ranting about how he was marked for death and nothing could change that.
He knew he was going to be killed.
I hated imagining what that must be like. Charlie had been a loathsome specimen, but I recalled his terror in his final minutes of life, and I felt sorry for him.
I also recalled Napoli’s parting comment to me, and I wondered what Lopez was thinking right now, if he was still awake (which seemed likely—I suspected the cops would be working the case most of the night).
Napoli would be hard on him, I had no doubt about that. But did Lopez also think I was lying, since there was a discrepancy between what the cops thought had happened and what I had actually seen?
Oy. He and I really did have a lot to talk about. And, despite h
ow much I had looked forward to his return, I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation we were going to have.
It was very late by the time I fell asleep. And it was very early when the shrill ring of the phone startled me awake. I flinched, choked, rolled over, reached toward my nightstand, and grabbed the phone.
“Hello?” I croaked.
“Were you asleep?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me! Lucky!” His tone suggested this should be self-evident.
I glanced at my alarm clock. “Lucky? It’s six thirty in the morning. On a Sunday.”
“I know. We need to get there early.”
“Where?” I asked, my eyes stinging from lack of sleep.
“St. Monica’s.”
“The church?”
“It’s a safe place to talk,” Lucky said. “But we gotta get there before people start piling in for the first Mass.”
“I don’t want to talk, I want to sleep.”
“Time enough for sleep in the grave,” he said.
“Ohmigod!” His mentioning the grave made me remember what had happened last night. “Charlie.”
“Yep, that’s what we gotta talk about. Can you be there in thirty minutes?”
“What? Why?” Then I remembered the cops’ conviction that I was in danger. I sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake as a terrible fear flooded me. I was being lured to my death! “Lucky . . . do you have orders to bump me off?”
“What?”
“Are you—Is this—” I couldn’t force out the words.
“Jesus,” Lucky said. “Those cops really did a number on you, huh?”
“I-I—” I panted a little.
“Calm down, kid. Breathe. Breathe.”
Feeling the first trickle of relief, I said, “You’re not going to kill me?”
“Madre di Dio, of course not!”
“I didn’t see anything,” I assured him.
“No one saw anything,” Lucky said. “It don’t make no sense. I been instructed to find out what happened. Before the cops find out. That gives me some time, obviously, because they’re idiots. But I still need to see you right away. You’re the last person who talked to Charlie before he got whacked.”
“I’m not sure about Napoli, he might be an idiot,” I conceded. “But Lopez is very sharp. You don’t want to underestimate him.”
“Then I guess I got less time than I thought,” Lucky said. “Be at the church in twenty, instead of thirty.”
“But—” I heard him hang up.
When a notorious hit man—even a semiretired one—tells you to get up, get dressed, and get downtown in twenty minutes, it’s amazing how fast you can comply, even on only a few hours of sleep.
I entered the hushed, shadowy sanctuary of St. Monica’s only twenty-five minutes after talking to Lucky.
The church was not very big or fancy, but it had a hallowed, sacred feel. The dawning sun shone through the stained glass windows lining the high walls. The tidy rows of dark wooden pews gleamed softly as the muted morning rays bathed them with ribbons of light. My footsteps on the stone tiles echoed and bounced off the vaulted ceiling as I walked down the center aisle of the empty church in search of Lucky.
I found him kneeling before an altar nestled in the apse on the north side of the church. With his hands folded and his head lowered, he was praying. A painting of the Virgin Mary—improbably blonde and blue-eyed and wearing seventeenth-century European clothing—looked down at him, a benevolent smile on her pretty, plump face. There were about thirty candles flickering gently on the altar. I wondered if Lucky had lighted them . . . for all the guys he’d whacked, especially the ones he’d liked.
I cleared my throat.
Lucky glanced up at me. “You’re late.”
“Is there any coffee?” The deli on my block wasn’t open this early on a Sunday.
“This ain’t no suburban ecumenical bullshit,” Lucky said, frowning at me. “This here’s a real church.”
“So you’re saying there’s no coffee?”
He turned his attention back to the Virgin without answering me, made the sign of the Cross, and then rose stiffly to his feet. When he turned to me, I saw that his face was heavily lined this morning, and there were bags under his eyes. His short-cropped, gray hair needed combing, and he was still wearing the clothes he’d worn last night.
“You haven’t been to bed,” I said.
He shrugged. “After you got dragged off by Napoli, I got ordered to come in.”
I knew from my sojourn at the restaurant that this phrase meant he’d been summoned to see the boss. The capo of his famiglia. The don of the Gambellos. Wiseguys never spoke his name, at least not in such a public place as Stella’s; they always just used the phrase “the boss.” But it was common knowledge that Victor Gambello, the Shy Don, was head of the family. He’d earned the nickname because the stutter he’d had as a child had left him with a lifelong habit of speaking softly, only when necessary, and preferably only in private. He was eighty years old now and in very frail health, so he almost never left his house in Forest Hills anymore. I realized Lucky must have been out to Queens and back since I’d seen him last night.
However, just as I was about to comment on how tired he looked, his face suddenly brightened with energy and lively interest.
Wondering what caused this transition, I looked over my shoulder in the direction he was looking.
A beautiful woman was entering the church. She was tall, slim-waisted, and curvaceous. Her black hair was mostly covered by a lacy black veil. Dramatically arching brows framed long-lashed dark eyes. Her skin was almost the same rich, golden olive color as Lopez’s. She wore a black dress and no makeup. An ornate cross hung from her neck, and she carried a small handbag. I thought she looked about forty-five, but might even be in her late fifties. Good bone structure, good posture, and good skin made it hard to tell.
Lucky made a hasty attempt to straighten his rumpled hair, stepped forward, smiled, and said, “Good morning, Elena.”
She gave him a cold glance and walked right past us.
“She doesn’t seem to like you,” I murmured to Lucky.
“She’ll come around. I just need to be give her time.”
When I glanced at him, he looked down and shuffled his feet a little.
Ah. So this was the cause of the blushing I had noticed the other night. Lucky was sweet on a parishioner at St. Monica’s.
I said, “I gather you don’t come here just to save your soul and pray for the dead?”
“I come here for that, too,” he said defensively.
The woman kept walking until she reached the other end of the church. Then she genuflected before a marble figure of a berobed woman, lit three candles near the statue’s feet, and knelt to pray.
“Who is she?” I asked Lucky.
“The Widow Giacalona.” He nodded to where she was praying. “She’s very devout. Prays twice a day to Saint Monica.”
I looked at the statue. “That’s your weeping saint?” When he nodded, I asked, “Have you seen it weep?”
“Not yet. Only Elena has seen it so far.”
“Oh.” So much for miracles. “Who is Saint Monica?”
“Patron saint of widows and wives.”
“I see.” Probably a fitting saint for a neighborhood that had seen decades of mob war between men in the Corvino and Gambello organizations. After a moment I asked, “Why does Elena light three candles?”
“Widowed three times.”
“She’s lost three husbands?” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Three?”
“It’s very unfortunate,” Lucky said sadly.
“Are you sure she’s not killing them?” I thought three dead husbands might indicate something more proactive than mere misfortune.
“Of course I’m sure!” Lucky looked offended. “You got a nasty mind.”
I shrugged. “Well, if her luck’s really that bad, I can understand w
hy she might be reluctant to marry again.”
“I’m a patient man. She’ll come around.”
“Maybe. But if she’s lost three husbands, are you sure you want to be number four? Your marriage could be the death of you.”
“I’ll be fine.” He grinned at me. “I’m lucky, after all.”
“If you say so.”
He watched her with a lovesick expression for a long moment, then took my elbow and said, “Let’s take a walk.”
“Can we go find a coffee shop?” I suggested hopefully.
“No, we gotta talk here.”
“But you just said we’re going for a walk.”
“ ‘Take a walk’ means we’re gonna discuss some business in a place where the Feds can’t overhear us,” he said patiently. “In this case, we’re already there.”
“So we can’t go get coffee?” I asked in disappointment.
“No. We gotta do this where I’m sure we ain’t being bugged.”
“But a random coffee shop wouldn’t be—”
“You never know,” he said.
“What about the widow?” I asked.
“Keep your voice down and she won’t hear nothing.”
“And what about the priest?” I said, as one emerged from a side door and came toward us.
Lucky looked over his shoulder. “Oh, good morning, Father Gabriel.”
The priest smiled. “Hello, Lucky!”
Ah, so this was Father Gabriel, I thought, recalling that Charlie had mentioned his name when I suggested going to St. Monica’s.
The priest was about thirty and very attractive. He had dark hair, soulful brown eyes, a sensitive face, a nice build, and a warm, friendly manner that was instantly apparent.
He said to Lucky, “We don’t usually see you here so early on a Sunday. Everything all right?”
“Just getting my worshipping in early today, Father.”
The priest glanced at me, still smiling, and said to Lucky, “I see you brought . . . a friend? A relation?”
“Uh, yeah,” Lucky said. “My niece.”
“Esther Diamond,” I said.
“My Jewish niece,” Lucky added. “On my sister’s side. We don’t really talk about it.”
“Welcome, Esther,” Father Gabriel said without missing a beat. “We’re happy to have you here today.”
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