The Italian market ran three blocks or so along Ninth Street in South Philly, roughly between Wharton and Fitzwater streets, and was home to some of the best Italian food in the city, probably the country. Cheese, produce, shellfish, meats, coffee, pastries, bread-for more than a hundred years, the market had been the beating heart of Philly's large Italian American population.
As Jessica and Sophie walked up Ninth Street, Jessica thought about the scene in Psycho. She thought of the killer entering the bathroom, throwing back the curtain, raising the knife. She thought of the young woman's screams. She thought of the huge splatter of blood in that bathroom.
She held Sophie's hand a little tighter.
They were on their way to Ralph's, the landmark Italian restaurant. They had dinner once a week with Jessica's father, Peter.
'So how was school?' Jessica asked.
They walked in that lazy, no-place-to-be, not-a-care-in-the-world way that Jessica remembered from her childhood. Oh, to be three again.
'Preschool,' Sophie corrected.
'Preschool,' Jessica said.
'I had an awfully good time,' Sophie said.
When Jessica had joined the force, she'd spent her first year patrolling this beat. She knew every crack in the sidewalk, every chipped brick, every doorway, every sewer grate 'Bella ragazza!'
— and every voice. This one could only belong to Rocco Lancione, owner of Lancione amp; Sons, purveyors of fine meats and poultry.
Jessica and Sophie turned around to see Rocco standing in the doorway of his shop. He had to be in his midseventies now. He was a short, plump man with jet-black dyed hair and a blindingly white, spotlessly clean apron, courtesy of the fact that his sons and grandsons did all the work at their meat store these days. Rocco had tips missing from two fingers on his left hand. A hazard of the butcher's trade. To this day he kept his left hand in his pocket when he was outside the store.
'Hi, Mr. Lancione,' Jessica said. No matter how old she got, he would always be Mr. Lancione.
With his right hand, Rocco reached behind Sophie's ear and magically produced a piece of Ferrara torrone, the individually boxed nougat candy Jessica had grown up with. Jessica remembered many a Christmas Day when she had wrestled her cousin Angela for the last piece of Ferrara torrone. Rocco Lancione had been finding the sweet, chewy confection behind little girls' ears for almost fifty years. He held it out in front of Sophie's widening eyes. Sophie glanced at Jessica before taking it. That's my girl, Jessica thought.
'It's okay, honey,' Jessica said.
The candy was snatched and stashed in a blur.
'Say thank you to Mr. Lancione.'
'Thank you.'
Rocco wagged a warning finger. 'Wait until after your dinner to eat that, okay, sweetie?'
Sophie nodded, clearly plotting a predinner strategy.
'How's your father?' Rocco asked.
'He's good,' Jessica said.
'Is he happy in his retirement?'
If you called abject misery, mind-numbing boredom and spending sixteen hours a day bitching about the crime rate happy, he was ecstatic. 'He's great. Taking it easy. We're off to meet him for dinner.'
'Villa di Roma?'
'Ralph's.'
Rocco nodded his approval. 'Give him my best.'
'I sure will.'
Rocco hugged Jessica. Sophie offered a cheek to be kissed. Being an Italian male, and never passing the opportunity to kiss a pretty girl, Rocco bent down and happily complied.
What a little diva, Jessica thought.
Where does she get it?
Peter Giovanni stood on the Palumbo playground, impeccably turned out in cream linen slacks, a black cotton shirt, and sandals. With his ice-white hair and deep tan he could have passed for an escort working the Italian Riviera, waiting to charm some wealthy American widow.
They headed to Ralph's, with Sophie on point just a few feet ahead.
'She's getting big,' Peter said.
Jessica looked at her daughter. She was getting bigger. Wasn't it just yesterday she took her first wobbly steps across the living room? Wasn't it just yesterday that her feet didn't reach the pedals of her tricycle?
Jessica was just about to respond when she glanced at her father. He had that wistful look he was starting to have with some regularity. Was it all retirees, or just retired cops? Jessica wondered. She asked, 'What is it, Pa?'
Peter waved a hand. 'Ah. Nothing.'
'Pa.'
Peter Giovanni knew when he had to answer. It had been this way with his late wife, Maria. It was this way with his daughter. One day, it would be this way with Sophie. 'I just… I just don't want you to make the same mistakes I made, Jess.'
'What are you talking about?'
'You know what I mean.'
Jessica did, but if she didn't press the issue, it would give credence to what her father was saying. And she couldn't do that. She didn't believe that. 'I really don't.'
Peter looked up and down the street, gathering his thoughts. He waved to a man leaning out of the third-floor window of a trinity row house. 'You can't make your life all about the job.' It isn t.
Peter Giovanni labored under the yoke of guilt that he had neglected his children when they were growing up. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. When Jessica's mother, Maria, passed away from breast cancer at the age of thirty-one, when Jessica was only five, Peter Giovanni dedicated his life to raising his daughter and his son, Michael. Maybe he wasn't there for every Little League game, and every dance recital, but every birthday, every Christmas, every Easter was special. All Jessica could remember were happy times growing up in the house on Catharine Street.
'Okay,' Peter began. 'How many of your friends are not on the job?'
One, Jessica thought. Maybe two. 'Plenty.'
'Gonna make me ask you to name them?'
'Okay, Lieutenant,' she said, surrendering to the truth. 'But I like the people I work with. I like cops.'
'Me, too,' Peter said.
For as long as she could remember, cops had been Jessica's extended family. From the moment her mother died, she had been cocooned in a family of blue. Her earliest memories were of a houseful of officers. She remembered well a female officer who would come over and take her shopping for school clothes. There were always patrol cars parked on the street in front of their house.
'Look,' Peter began again. 'After your mother died, I had no idea what to do. I had a young son and a younger daughter. I lived, breathed, ate, and slept the job. I missed so much of your lives.'
'That's not true, Dad.'
Peter held up a hand, stopping her. 'Jess. We don't have to pretend.'
Jessica let her father have his moment, as misguided as it was.
'Then after Michael…' In the past fifteen or so years, that's about as far as Peter Giovanni had ever gotten with that sentence.
Jessica's older brother, Michael, was killed in Kuwait in 1991. Her father shut down that day, closing his heart to any and all feelings. It wasn't until Sophie came along that he dared to reopen.
It wasn't long after Michael's death that Peter Giovanni entered a reckless phase on the job. If you're a baker or a shoe salesman, being reckless is not the worst thing in the world. For a cop, it is the worst thing in the world. When Jessica got her gold shield, it was all the incentive Peter needed. He turned in his papers the same day.
Peter reined in his emotions. 'You've got, what, eight years on the job now?'
