“So what about that offer?” Charlie asked. “You gonna tell me yet?”
Mia sighed and dropped her hand. “I haven’t worked out all the details.” She walked to her vanity and busied herself with spritzing on some perfume.
“Bullshit.”
She whirled to face him.
His eyes were hard. “I know you’re up to something. With Paolo, with Bobby, Joey. Nobody can look me in the eye or give me a straight answer. What’re you hiding?”
Mia stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she said, “I kept you out of it for your own safety.”
He strode toward her and grasped her shoulders. “Kept me out of what? What are you planning?”
“Charlie,” she warned. “I will tell you when the time is right. That time isn’t now. Just trust me.”
His hands tightened slightly on her arms. “I won’t stand by and watch you get yourself killed.”
She glared up at him and shook off his grasp. “You have no faith in me at all, do you? You think I’m still just some dumb little girl, don’t you?”
“Mia—”
“Pay close attention to the papers tomorrow,” she said coldly, sidestepping him and opening the door. “Then you’ll see what happens when men underestimate me.”
Paolo reappeared at the club around two a.m., when guests began to drift out of The Divine, fed, drunk, entertained, and with their selected bed partner. Hyman was pleased with another fortuitous night.
Raquel accompanied Mia to her dressing room, where Joey now stood guard. He glanced at Mia and nodded slightly before shifting his eyes away, focusing on the hallway.
It was more than a simple acknowledgment. Mia’s belly turned a backward flip, but she kept a firm grip on her control as she and Raquel stepped inside the dressing room.
While Mia packed up her small case of cosmetics and other toiletries, Raquel carefully packed all of her costumes except the one she was wearing into the garment bag.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to put your street dress back on and pack that in here?” Raquel asked, gesturing to Mia’s sheer, billowing, bloodred dress.
“It would certainly be more comfortable, but that’s all right, Cousin,” Mia said, patting her shoulder. “We’ll be home soon enough, and I’ll hang this up right away.”
“All right.” Raquel buttoned the garment bag and cradled it in her arms as Mia latched her small suitcase.
“Well, did you have fun, garment girl?” she asked with a smile, looping her arm in Raquel’s as they strolled out of her dressing room and down the hall.
“I did.” Raquel beamed. “It’s so much more exciting with a job to do. I don’t know how you managed before I came along.”
Mia chuckled. “Me either. Don’t ever leave, all right?”
Raquel turned sparkling brown eyes on her. “Not for anything. But, can we go home and visit sometimes?”
Mia hugged her arm. “How about every Christmas and a couple long months in the summertime? Would you like that?”
“Yes, but will Mr. Goldberg let you leave for that long?”
He would never allow that, but Mia didn’t want to dash the girl’s hopes. She was practically buoyant after an exciting evening.
If only she knew about the real excitement.
“I think we can work something out,” Mia said finally. “He knows how important you are to me. How important family is.”
“I must admit,” Raquel said, “while I do like it here, I miss my brother and his wife and their children very much. And, well, home.”
“I completely understand.” Mia thought of long, cool nights in the blood orange grove talking with Don Catalano, listening to the stories of the days long before her birth, sipping homemade wine and eating the succulent fruits from the trees that hung overhead. She thought of late nights leaning against the balcony outside her room, feeling the salty air on her skin, listening to the crash of the ocean, the cry of gulls.
She missed home, too.
“We’ll always make time to sail home,” she promised her young cousin.
At the club’s back entrance, Paolo waited with Gloria. He met Mia’s gaze briefly. His dark eyes were bright and piercing, lit by some inner fire, and she felt the burn of them before he turned away to open the car doors for them. Raquel sat up front beside Paolo, and Mia and Gloria sat in the back.
Mia kept up the quiet chitchat Raquel started, wondering if they had seen so-and-so’s dress and did they think so-and-so’s jewels were real, and did they find Will as handsome and resplendent in his tailored suit as she did.
“Charlie seemed troubled,” Gloria said to Mia. “Moody. More than normal. I noticed when he came back from your dressing room. Did you two have a spat?”
Mia shrugged. “I guess it was a minor disagreement. Business. We don’t quite see eye-to-eye.”
“Don’t let that come between you,” Gloria said softly, surprising Mia. “I can see how much he cares for you, and you for him, you stubborn thing. He wants to love you, Mia. If you care, you must let him.”
The words touched her heart with a strange pang. She covered Gloria’s hand with her own. “I will, soru.”
Gloria smiled. After a moment, she said, “I prepared the gifts for Signor Bagnoli’s daughter’s wedding.”
“Thank you,” Mia said, relieved. She had nearly forgotten about the gifts she’d intended to bring.
“I love weddings,” Raquel piped up. “It’s been so long since I attended one. And a real American wedding.”
“It’ll probably be a little of home, too,” Gloria said. “The Bagnolis are a good Sicilian family. His daughter is quite the American girl, though. It should be a nice time. Many people are coming to pay him respect.”
“He’s a good man,” Mia said. She’d put a guard detail around his bakery. Since the detective had tracked her there, she feared he would return and the bakery would suffer the same fate as her shop. Worse, that Signor Bagnoli or his wife would be hurt.
“How are things with the shop?” Gloria asked. “You’ve been spending a lot of time away from the hotel. Is there trouble with the insurance?”
“No,” Mia replied. “It appears the insurance will cover everything. Hyman said it’s up to me to decide if I want to rebuild or not.”
“And?” Raquel twisted around. “Do you?”
Mia nodded. “Yes, but bigger and better. With my design choices. Of course, that’ll mean something I’ll have to do that I really don’t want to.”
“What’s that?” Gloria said.
“Take a loan from Hyman,” she said wryly. “He loves being owed money.”
Gloria chuckled. “It might be worth it.”
“Perhaps.” Mia flashed a smile at Raquel. “It would give Raquel something to do.”
“Unless Trudy wants her job back,” Gloria said, “though I do hope she’ll remain Emilia’s governess.”
“She’s quite fond of Em,” Mia said. “She’d be hard-pressed to quit.”
“I suppose it makes me selfish to say so,” Gloria said, “but that makes me happy. Emilia is fond of her, too.”
As they lapsed into comfortable silence, Mia caught Paolo’s gaze in the rearview mirror. They gleamed with approval of her performance, how she’d given nothing away that anything was amiss.
At the hotel, Paolo dutifully carried her garment bag and suitcase to Mia’s room while she kissed her family goodnight. The guards outside their room, furnished by Charlie, shuffled off a few feet out of respect.
“We’ll get Emilia first thing in the morning,” she promised Gloria.
“She’s so excited for her new dress,” Gloria said with a tired smile. “She’s never been to a wedding before, you know.”
“It’ll be a wonderful day to celebrate something so lovely,” Mia said softly. “Goodnight, Glo. Goodnight, Raquel.”
They bid her the same, and she walked down the hallway the short, few steps to her room, then opened the door. She cocked an ear, waiting to hear
their door shut. A moment later, she heard the latch. Then she looked at Paolo, leaning against the wall beside her door. He had dropped off her things and stepped back outside.
“Let’s go,” she said.
He nodded, and lifted a hand. Mia glanced over her shoulder down the hall. The two guards nodded at them, their faces solemn.
Mia and Paolo walked down the hallway back to the elevators, rode them down, and went back to the car. It was still warm from having just been running. She slid into the back seat and Paolo behind the wheel, and in the next moment, they sped toward the Lower East Side.
It was nearly four in the morning. The sky was still black, heavy clouds puffing up high and concealing the stars, threatening another April storm. The ground was wet and shiny from a rainstorm that had passed over the city a few hours ago. The air smelled clean, fresh, promising new beginnings with the rising sun.
The old neighborhood was oddly silent. It had nothing to offer young whoopee-seekers. No speakeasies, no jazz clubs. No brothels or card halls. There might be the occasional get-together hosted in a home, but most people knew where to find the liveliest places to have fun. A family-based community was not it. Therefore, silence at this hour was common.
And yet, there was an ominous quality to the silence, one that reeked of death. An echo of stillness that seemed to bounce off the corners of her mind, over and over.
Paolo turned a corner onto Mulberry Street, where so many hardworking, family-operated businesses lined the street on either side. It was one of the hearts of the neighborhood, where people came to do their shopping, to socialize, to fix things, to make a life. The tailor’s shop had been burned here, because of the degradation that had poisoned the community. Other shops suffered from theft, vandalism. Others still paid exorbitant protection fees to a man who cared nothing for them, a man who employed other men to peddle that poison, to commit atrocities that would destroy mothers and families for generations.
Paolo rolled to a stop.
Mia opened the car door and stepped out. Her heeled evening shoes slid a little on the slippery ground. The edges of her gauzy dress trailed in a pool of water before she stood up. The only sounds in her ears were the click of her heels with each step forward, the jingle of her long, bejeweled earrings as they swayed, brushing the tops of her shoulders.
She paused, her soft breaths in and out now the only sounds in the still, still night. She surveyed the fruit of her plan.
A small, cold smile pulled at one side of her mouth.
Lying side-by-side along the block, in the middle of the street, were bodies. Eighteen of them.
They were the corpses of the men who worked for Jacopo “Gems” Morelli. Bodies of the men who, in life, had murdered children. Raped young girls. Peddled drugs to young people with bright futures. Vandalized property that belonged to hardworking immigrants who had nothing else to their names. Ruined lives. They’d also organized hits on her friends’ businesses, murdering more than half a dozen of those men. They’d encroached on the business dealings of the powerful Mr. Masseria. They’d destroyed her shop and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of liquor.
At the meeting she’d had at Johns of 12th with Paolo, Bobby, and Joey, they’d identified these men, gone over who they were, where they lived, and what their habits were. After ensuring they were peddlers for Jake and that the murderer of Signora Cancio’s son and Signora Franco’s daughter’s rapist were among them, Mia systematically ordered them all executed, as punishment, as a favor to the people of her community, as a warning to Mr. Morelli that he should be very, very careful. That his attempts on her life, the destruction of her shop and business, the attacks on her people would not be taken lightly.
Mia walked down the long row of dead men, gazing down at them without feeling. The man who had murdered Signora Cancio’s young son appeared to be covered in a thin layer of melting ice. Even the blood that coated what had once been his face glistened with tiny icicles under the street lamps. That had been Joey’s handiwork. He’d told her he had an in with the owner of the restaurant the child-killer liked to eat at, and the restaurant owner had a large ice box he was willing to let Joey use for a day or two in exchange for fifty dollars and Joey’s gratitude.
Next, she stopped in the middle of the row and looked down at the man who had raped the daughter of Signora Franco. Mia studied his face—the slack jaw, the heavy-lidded eyes that no longer saw anything, the yawning U-shaped gash across his throat, courtesy of a deftly wielded garrote. Paolo had wanted him for himself.
All of these men might have had lives that could have stretched on for many more years. But they had chosen to cast their lots in with a man like Jake Morelli. And even if these dead young men were not all guilty of heinous crimes like the ones Mia was aware of, that didn’t matter. They still worked for Jake, still peddled his poison, and had to be lines in her message that he had made a grave mistake in underestimating her. Their blood belonged on Jake’s hands, not her own.
She reached into the pocket of her evening jacket and withdrew the ace of hearts card she’d taken from the poker game with Jake and kissed the center of it, over the hole made by his knife. Her lipstick left a red stain. She knelt and placed the card on the young man’s chest, face up.
Mia stepped back, taking in the long stretch of dead men for another beat before turning to walk back to the car. No, this blood was not on her hands. She would sleep soundly tonight.
Paolo waited beside the back door and opened it for her as she neared. Before climbing in, she lifted a hand to his cheek.
“Grazie,” she said softly.
He bowed his head, then scooped up her hand and kissed the back of it. A simple, ancient sign of respect and loyalty.
She climbed back into the car, and did not look back.
Chapter Twenty
The wedding of Signor Bagnoli’s daughter to her groom was scheduled to take place at eleven o’clock the first morning of May, with a lavish reception to follow at a neighborhood social hall that afternoon.
After dressing for the day in a prim, jade satin dress with sheer bishop sleeves, flowing chiffon side panels for movement, and a matching satin ribbon tied in a small bow at the shoulder, Mia joined Gloria and Raquel in their suite for breakfast. Both women seemed to be in high spirits, and Gloria was particularly excited about picking up Emilia soon, though she was certain the girl would fuss terribly over having her hair brushed and plaited for the wedding.
Mia smiled and laughed with them, chatted, resuming the same innocent role she’d played last night. They would find out soon enough what had happened. Part of her preparations had included paying a few reliable homicide detectives that one of Bobby’s men knew to clean up the scene that morning, after the people of the neighborhood saw it and understood she was striking back for them. That she had taken vengeance for them, as she’d promised she would.
The guard outside Gloria’s suite knocked on the door. “Paper, Mrs. Scalisi,” he called.
“Bring it in,” she replied. “Thank you.”
The door opened, and the young man entered the suite, a different guard than the one from last night. He handed Gloria the paper. Then he walked back into the hall and pulled the door shut behind him.
Mia poured herself another cup of coffee. Though she was altogether pleased with how seamlessly things seemed to have gone last night, she was tired. She felt she could sleep for an entire day. Hyman had allowed her to miss rehearsal with the promise she would show up earlier in the evening to at least run through her setlist quickly with the band once before her scheduled performance, so she likely had no time for a nap. Late tonight, after the club, she would meet with Paolo, Bobby, and Joey to learn about how things had gone, if there had been any trouble, and to give them the money to pay the loyal men they’d hired whom she would likely never meet. Then again, she mused as she took a sip, perhaps she should meet them. Reliable, trustworthy, loyal men were hard to come by these days, and she needed every one
she could get.
She’d asked Joey and Bobby to lay low today. She trusted them to cover their tracks properly, but after the events of last night, she thought it would be best for them to stay close to their homes, in case someone had inadvertently spotted them last night and recognized them today.
It had been useless to try to convince Paolo of the same. As soon as she’d broached it when they’d returned to the hotel in the wee hours of the morning, he grunted and dismissed her words with an annoyed wave of his hand.
“Oh, sweet Mother,” Gloria breathed, staring down at the newspaper.
Mia glanced up, pausing with her coffee cup halfway to her lips.
“What is it?” Raquel asked, setting down the small plate over which she nibbled a pastry.
Eyes downcast, Gloria slowly turned the paper around so they could read the headline:
Eighteen Dead in Gangland Massacre, Bodies Displayed on Mulberry Street
Beneath the headline was a grainy photo of the bodies laid out on the street, taken from a nearby rooftop.
Unbidden, Mia felt that iciness that had swept over her last night as she’d surveyed the scene in person. She resumed drinking her coffee. “How unfortunate.”
A heavy silence sank down among them. She felt the stares of both women as she reached for a piece of biscotti and dipped it demurely into her coffee.
“Not as good as Signor Bagnoli’s,” Mia told them, “but really, the hotel makes quite a nice biscotti. Don’t you think, Raquel?”
“A-ah,” her cousin stammered, glancing at Gloria, who maintained her silent, level stare at Mia. “Yes. They’re very tasty.”
“Not as good as Isabella’s, either, I’m afraid,” Mia said, setting down the cookie and brushing off her fingers. “I loved the ones she made with the blood orange juice and the dark chocolate. Delicious.”
“Yes,” Raquel said faintly, her gaze dropping back to the newspaper.
Mia leaned across the table and plucked the newspaper from Gloria’s hands, then folded it to conceal the grisly photo and set it on the side table beside the sofa. “No use in having such unpleasantness lying around at breakfast. It’s supposed to be a happy day.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “We should leave to get Emilia. Are you girls ready?”
Princes of the Lower East Side: A 1920s Mafia Thriller (A Scalisi Family Novel) Page 33
