Dopplegangster

by Laura Resnick

  He looked like a hippy who’d been cast in a Guys and Dolls revival.

  As Lucky continued talking, Max glanced down the aisle and saw me walking toward him. “Oh, excuse me, miss? We’re looking for . . . Esther?”

  “Max?”

  Lucky’s jaw dropped. “Kid?”

  Nelli’s tail wagged harder, expressing her happiness at the reunion.

  I said to Lucky, “What did you do to Max?”

  Lucky preened. “Ain’t I a genius?”

  “I should never have left the bookstore today,” I said with conviction.

  “Oh, dear,” Max said fretfully. “Do I not look the part?”

  Lucky said, “Ignore her. You look perfect. But don’t say ‘oh, dear.’ Say ‘fuck.’ ”

  “I can’t say that!”

  “Then say ‘Madonna’ or ‘bite me.’ ”

  “It’s a lot to remember,” Max said, starting to look flustered.

  “You’ll do fine.” Lucky gave me a stern look. “Tell him he’ll do fine.”

  I nodded. “You’ll do fine, Max.”

  “But, Esther, is my ensemble not convincing?” Max asked.

  “Well,” I said honestly, recovering from my shock, “I am not the expert on what will make these guys take you seriously. Lucky is. So let’s go with his judgment on this.”

  “Exactly,” said Lucky. “And may I say, kid, even without my help, you did a great job. You could almost be Danny’s eldest daughter.”

  “He lets his daughter dress like this?”

  Lucky asked, “Where’s Father Gabriel?”

  “In the crypt.”

  “Everything’s all set up?”

  “You are going to pay him for all that food, aren’t you?”

  “Won’t have to,” Lucky said. “Danny called for the sit-down, so he’ll make a big donation to the church when he gets here and sees the spread. He’s a vicious bastard, but he knows what’s right. At most, I might have to pay for the wine.”

  “There is no wine.” I explained why not.

  Lucky shrugged, then nodded.

  Max asked, “So . . . we won’t need to ask for a receipt?”

  “A receipt?” Lucky said. “At a sit-down?” Suspecting the source of Max’s sudden interest in fiscal paperwork, I said, “Did you receive another letter from the IRS today?”

  “Yes. It appears to be a litany of dreadful threats. It’s most distressing,” Max said morosely. “It also doesn’t really seem to be written in English. That is to say, the words are English, but they make no sense.”

  “That sounds normal,” Lucky muttered.

  “I wonder if this is all because Mercury is in retrograde?” Max mused.

  “Okay, what does that mean?” I said.

  “It’s astronomy,” Lucky said.

  “Astrology,” Max corrected. “When Mercury, the astral body that rules communications, is on the other side of the sun from Earth, then communications here become confusing and difficult. It happens three times per calendar year, on average, because Mercury’s solar orbit is so much smaller than Earth’s. And while Mercury is in retrograde, which typically lasts for about three weeks, letters get lost, messages get garbled, comments get misinterpreted, people have trouble keeping their appointments, and so on.”

  Lucky looked alarmed. “Let’s hope everyone keeps tonight’s appointment. We got serious business to discuss!”

  I thought about how hard it was for Lopez and me to get together lately, and about my trouble communicating with my agent to get the audition I wanted; I’d left another message on his answering machine late this afternoon. I also thought of my missing evening wrap and the lack of communication about it between Father Gabriel and Mrs. Campanello.

  “How much longer did you say will Mercury be in retrograde?” I asked anxiously.

  “Oh, another ten days,” Max said. “I wonder if the IRS will stop harassing me then? Or at least make more sense?”

  “You want I should take care of this little problem for you?” Lucky offered.

  “No!” I said sharply, forgetting about my communications problems as I envisioned the implications of Lucky’s question. “I will look over Max’s IRS correspondence when I have time. You will stay out of it, Lucky.”

  Lucky looked annoyed by my tone. “Whatever. Max and I will go downstairs and have a word with Father Gabriel now. Esther, you stay up here and direct all the arrivals to the crypt.”

  “Of course,” I said. “It’s how I’ve always longed to spend a Tuesday evening.”

  14

  After everyone arrived at St. Monica’s for the sit-down, I wasted an hour of my life watching wiseguys stuff their faces (and, boy, can wiseguys eat) and listening to them brag about the women they had bedded and the punks to whom they had taught a lesson. Realizing that if I was alive at the age of one hundred, I’d still look back on tonight and regret this squandered hour of my sojourn on this planet, I took Lucky into the stairwell to have a quiet word with him.

  “I thought we were here for a sit-down,” I whispered.

  “This is a sit-down,” he whispered back.

  “No, this is more like a family reunion in hell.”

  “It’s a process,” Lucky said. “This ain’t a meeting between lawyers and accountants, you know. We’re blood enemies. You gotta allow time for everyone to get comfortable with each other and get used to makin’ eye contact without reaching for their pieces.”

  “I thought no one brought pieces!” I whispered in alarm.

  “Relax, no one did. I searched ’em as they came in. That was a figure of speech.”

  “Well, it’s been an hour. Aren’t they comfortable yet?”

  “It ain’t a good idea to rush things,” Lucky said. “Anyhow, officially, Danny’s the one who called for this sit-down. So protocol is, it’s up to him to bring up our mutual business.”

  “Our ‘mutual business’?” I repeated sharply. “You mean the killings, Lucky?”

  My tone annoyed him again. “Madonna, you’re edgy tonight. Maybe you shoulda stayed home.”

  “No, I’m just wondering how you could have . . .” I bit my lip and reined in my temper. Lucky’s ruthless murder of Elena’s husband was not a subject to be discussed in whispers in the stairwell and under these circumstances. “Never mind. Let’s go back in.” I avoided his eyes and brushed past him.

  When we reentered the crypt, my gaze sought out Max, who was sitting with Father Gabriel. The priest seemed to be accepted here as a sort of referee. And Lucky had been right to insist that Max and I adjust our appearances. I looked exactly the way the Corvinos (and most other wiseguys) thought a woman should look, so they found me unthreatening and accepted my presence though the avid ogling of the two Corvino soldiers made me feel self-conscious. (The Gambello soldiers, who knew I was dating a cop, averted their eyes from my tight outfit.) Meanwhile, the only comment that Max’s appearance inspired was an unabashed compliment from Tommy Two Toes on his snazzy ensemble.

  Max and I had been introduced to the others as friends of Lucky’s. This was no casual phrase among wiseguys, I knew that much. It meant Lucky was vouching for us, guaranteeing that we were trustworthy people. Mobsters took such a voucher very seriously; if we turned out to be rats, snitches, or trouble, then this introduction could cost Lucky his life. I tried to be touched by his faith in us, but I could only think of him murdering a Corvino for the sin of falling in love and getting married.

  While the wiseguys conversed and stuffed their faces (how could they still be hungry?), Max got up and offered (yet another) plate of prosciutto and cheese to Nelli, who began gobbling it eagerly as soon as he set it on the floor for her. I suspected her digestive system would make him regret this benevolence around three o’clock in the morning.

  The wiseguys were talking about money. That was what wiseguys often talked about at Bella Stella, too. It was their favorite subject.

  “So then this gavone at the car dealership,” Tommy Two Toes said to everyon
e, winding up for the punchline of the seemingly endless anecdote he had been telling, “says to Little Paulie that he ‘knows some people,’ and he tries to offer Little Paulie a knockdown loan—from the family!”

  Lucky silently crossed the crypt to make himself a cappuccino, but the five other gangsters present, including Tommy, guffawed loudly. Father Gabriel looked at Max, and Max looked like he wanted to ask what a “knockdown loan” was. Since he didn’t, though, I gathered that Lucky had advised him not to ask such questions. All I knew was that there were different kinds of loans, with different kinds of outrageously high interest rates (known as “vig” or “vigorish”) and different kinds of punishment if the borrower failed to repay on time.

  As the laughter died down, Nelli finished eating her prosciutto and walked across the room to gaze longingly at the cannoli tray.

  Lucky, who was standing nearby, asked, “Doc Zadok, is it okay if I give her one of those?”

  “Hey, you shouldn’t oughta give no sugar to a dog,” said Jimmy “Legs” Brabancaccio, the other man, besides Tommy, who had joined Lucky here tonight to represent the Gambello crime family. Jimmy had nearly stormed out of the crypt upon learning there was no wine, but Lucky had calmed him down. “Sugar is bad for a dog’s pinkies or somethin’.”

  “I think you mean pancreas,” I said absently.

  “Pancreas? Yeah, that’s it!” Jimmy Legs looked at me with newfound respect.

  Lucky shrugged and said to Nelli. “Sorry. We gotta keep you healthy. You got important work to do in this dimension, helping protect the city from Evil.”

  I realized that Max had also explained some traditions during the afternoon he and Lucky had spent together.

  Nelli whined and gazed imploringly at Lucky. After a moment, he gave in and slipped her a pastry.

  “What are ya doin’?” said Jimmy Legs. “You’re gonna make that dog sick.”

  “Just one won’t hurt her,” said Lucky. “Everything in moderation. Ain’t that right, Danny?”

  Danny “the Doctor” Dapezzo’s cold, sharklike eyes met Lucky’s. “That’s right.”

  Danny had been accompanied here tonight by Mikey Castrucci and Fast Sammy Salerno. They were both thick-necked Corvino soldiers with short dark hair, loud shirts, casual pants, and gold jewelry. Danny, a balding capo who looked about fifty-five, had a trim build, maintained good posture while the others slouched, and was dressed with tidy propriety: brown trousers, a pale shirt, a brown tie, and a tan sport jacket. He ate sparingly, spoke quietly, and lectured the other men at the table about diet and exercise. At a casual glance, he would blend into the woodwork or disappear in a crowd. But after watching those cold eyes for a while, I found it all too easy to believe that he had developed a high skill level at cutting fresh corpses into small pieces.

  As the conversation continued, Jimmy Legs passed around a photo of his new love—a snazzy boat he’d recently acquired.(Not bought; acquired.)

  Lucky accepted the photo, stretched out his arm to hold it farther away, and squinted at it. “Not bad.”

  “Not bad?” Jimmy repeated, offended. “She’s a beauty!”

  “Give it here,” Danny the Doctor said, reaching into his pocket for a pair of reading glasses. As he put them on, he said, “You’re getting old, Lucky, you should get a pair of these.”

  Lucky shrugged off the comment and petted Nelli, who burped at him.

  Danny studied the photo and said, “Yeah, I used to have a little boat like this, before I upgraded.”

  Jimmy’s predictable response was interrupted by Fast Sammy, who said to Danny, “Hey, ain’t those glasses new boss? They look good.”

  “I hate them,” Danny said curtly, handing the photo back to Jimmy. He took off the offending spectacles and gave them a contemptuous glance before putting them back in his pocket. “But my old ones are missing, goddamn it. Those frames were real gold, you know.”

  Mikey Castrucci, speaking with his mouth full, looked at the rack of costumes along the far wall and said, “So what’s with all the fuckin’ bunny costumes?”

  “The children wore them in our Easter play,” Father Gabriel said.

  “That’s fuckin’ stupid,” said Mikey. “When did you ever see a fuckin’ pink rabbit? For real, I mean?”

  “My six-year-old granddaughter was in that play,” Danny said quietly. “And she was adorable, so watch your goddamn language.”

  Mikey shrugged. “I’m just saying, boss. In nature, there ain’t no such thing as a pink bunny, so why—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Danny ordered.

  Mikey complied.

  Although Corvinos and Gambellos rarely ate in the same restaurants, apparently the church was neutral enough turf that members of both families could be parishioners without violence breaking out in the middle of Mass.

  “Yo, buddy,” said Fast Sammy to Max, who was telling Nelli apologetically that the prosciutto was all gone now. “Uh . . . Doc Zadok, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “What the hell kind of a dog is that, anyhow?”

  “Well, she ain’t precisely a dog.” Max did not sound like a wiseguy. He sounded like Lord Peter Wimsey or Sir Percy Blakeney (a.k.a. the Scarlet Pimpernel)—some fictional historical aristocrat with a man-about-town speech affectation. And his slight Eastern European accent made the overall effect seem almost surreal. “She’s actually my fa—”

  “She’s part Great Dane,” I said quickly. “And part, um . . . we’re not really sure.”

  As the men looked my way, Mikey and Fast Sammy gazed lasciviously at my legs. I considered telling them I was dating a cop.

  “So she isn’t a purebred animal?” asked Danny Dapezzo.

  “No,” I said.

  “I only have purebreds in my house,” Danny said fastidiously.

  “Whatever,” said Max.

  Busy enjoying another cannoli that Lucky had just slipped her, Nelli ignored us all.

  “Why are parts of her blue?” Tommy Two Toes asked.

  “There was a slight accident in Doc Zadok’s laboratory a couple of days ago,” said Lucky, reddening a little. “The mess ain’t worn off the dog yet.”

  My own blue stains had finally faded. But I washed regularly with soap and water, and I doubted Nelli did.

  “You should be more careful where you let your mongrel roam,” Danny said to Max.

  “Bite me,” said Max.

  Danny rose to his feet with menace on his cold face. “What the fuck did you just say to me, you prick?”

  Max looked at Lucky in confusion, obviously wondering why one of his newly-acquired phrases had caused such offense.

  “Hey, you insulted the guy’s dog,” Lucky said to Danny. “You expect Max to just take that from you? With the dog sittin’ right here?”

  Danny glanced from Max to Lucky to Nelli. His eyes were like a snake’s, beady and empty of expression. After a long, tense moment, he said to Max, “You overreacted.”

  “Sure,” said Max.

  “I’ll give you a pass. This time.” Danny sat back down and added, “What the fuck did you bring a dog to sit-down for, anyhow?”

  “She’s necessary for our business tonight,” Lucky said.

  “How is a dog necessary?”

  “Are you opening the floor for discussion?”

  Danny grunted. “Yeah. Enough of this bullshit. I’m opening the floor.” He cleared his throat, glanced at Jimmy Legs and Tommy Two Toes, then looked at Lucky again. “We want to make it clear, before any unnecessary and unjust retribution occurs, we got nothing to do with the unfortunate hits that your family has experienced. As God is my witness, no Corvino had a hand in these deaths.” He crossed himself.

  Father Gabriel, looking uncertain about the etiquette, crossed himself, too.

  “Why should we believe you?” Lucky asked.

  “What would we gain from these hits?” Danny challenged.

  “One of our capos is dead, and he was a good earner. The don’s nephew is dead, so
the boss is in mourning.”

  “Like I said, what do we gain from any of that?”

  “You think if we get distracted by a few mysterious hits,” Lucky said, “there’ll be an opening for you to move up and become the number one family in this town.”

  “We are the number one family in this town,” Danny shot back.

  “In your dreams!” said Tommy Two Toes.

  “Watch your mouth, you babbo,” Mikey Castrucci snapped.

  “Whoa, hang on,” said Lucky. “Danny and me is senior here, we’ll do the talking.”

  Danny cast an angry glare over the assembled group and said, “Let’s stick to the point.” He looked at Lucky. “We ain’t done these hits, and we ain’t seekin’ another war with the Gambellos.”

  “Okay, let’s say for a minute that I believe you,” said Lucky.

  “Really?” blurted Fast Sammy.

  Danny hit him in the head. “Go on, Lucky.”

  “I’m gonna cut right to the chase and ask you a real specific question, Danny.”

  “I got nothin’ to hide.”

  “Have you seen your own perfect double lately?”

  There was a puzzled silence. Then Danny said, “Huh?”

  “Although my boss thinks you guys probably did these hits and we should just wipe you off the city map once and for all . . .” Lucky shrugged, ignoring the muttered curses of the three Corvinos at the table. He pulled out a chair and sat down, too. “We got an alternative theory about these hits that we want to discuss. And my friend Doc Zadok is the one who’s gotta explain it to you.”

  Recognizing his cue, Max stood up, straightened his tie and adjusted the rakish angle of his fedora. “Thank you, Lucky.” He looked around the room for a moment, then punched his fist into the air and said, “Yo, fellows! Listen up!”

  I blinked.

  “Oops, I nearly forgot. Before we begin,” Max said, “I need to ask: Are any of you Lithuanian?”

  “Lithuwhat?” said Jimmy Legs.

  “To be clear, I have absolutely nothing against Lithuanians,” Max assured them. “Well, not personally. But there are certain professional boundaries which I am honor bound to respect.”