“What would she say? Would she say, ‘Cover up for me and let the man who killed me get away’? Would she say that?”
“No,” Mr. Gennaro said.
“Eddie,” Mrs. Oennaro said sharply.
Gennaro stared at the tabletop, shaking his head slowly.
“No,” he Said again.
Then he stood and walked into the next room.
“Eddie,” Mrs. Gennaro said again, louder, and sharper.
‘ Gennaro came back into the kitchen with a cardboard beer case filled with small books covered in red imitation leather, each little book with a brass lock. Gennaro put the diaries on the table in front of Jesse and went back to the other side of the table and sat down.
“This is them,” he said. He nodded at his wife. “She got the keys.”
“I won’t give them to you,” Mrs.
Gennaro said.
“You don’t have to,
ma’am,” Jesse said.
“I raised a decent gift,” Mrs. Gennaro
said. “She was a decent girl until that Portugal…”
“She was decent anyway,” Gennaro muttered.
“I don’t want him prying into those books, Eddie,” Mrs.
Gennaro said.
“He’s going to,” Gennaro said
and kept his eyes on the table.. “I want him to.”
“Don’t you care what I want?”
Mrs. Gennaro said.
“I want the guy caught,” Gennaro said.
Jesse picked up the beer case with the diaries carefully stacked in it.
“How you going to open them without the keys?” Mrs.
Gennaro said.
“Probably pry them open,” Jesse said,
“with a screwdriver.”
Mrs. Gennaro looked at the diaries without speaking for a moment, then she said, “Wait a minute.”
She left the kitchen. Jesse waited. Gennaro sat silently staring at the kitchen tabletop. After a moment Mrs. Gen-nato returned and gave Jesse a collection of little brass keys tied together with a red ribbon.
“I want them books back,” she said,
“with no damage.” get them back to you, ma’am,“ Jesse said.
Neither of Tammy Portugal’s parents said anything else Jesse carried the diaries fom the house.
0
Northshore Shopping genter. ‘I’ne nose of the car pointed north so that the afternoon sun streamed in over I- Iasty’s shoulder and made him a dark silhouette as Burke turned in the seat to look at him.
“Some/hing will have to be done about
Stone,” Burke said, squinting, trying to look at Hasty. But the sun was too fierce. Burke gave up and looked away.
Hasty was silent.
“I-Ie knows,” Burke said. “He
knows I was in Denver.
He knows more than that. Sonora bitch doesn’t say much, but he knows.“
“Maybe he doesn’t say much because he
doesn’t know.”
Hasty said.
“He knows,” Burke said. “We made
a bad mistake with him.”
“Mistakes are part of life,” Hasty said.
