'Jonah?'
'Yes?'
'Shall we go?'
'Go?'
'They don't serve food in my lobby.' We drove to the entertainment district, where old warehouses on Richmond, Adelaide and surrounding streets had been turned into massive nightclubs that turned drunken patrons out into the streets by the thousands at closing time. Spewing, pissing, weaving around in search of their cars, getting into fist fights over nothing. Occasional gunshots ringing out, usually directed at bouncers who had turfed out punks whose manhood was measured by the length of a gun barrel.
At this time of night, though, it was peaceful, the coloured lights of restaurant signs sharp and clear in the brisk autumn air. The temperature had dropped. Hollinger had drawn her coat closer around her as we walked up John Street. I wanted to put my arm around her, warm her the way her eyes warmed me, but it seemed a little soon for that. Maybe on the way out, with a good meal and a glass of wine or two inside me.
A black belt in karate, an expert in Krav Maga, a guy who could dismantle most opponents before they knew they were in a fight, and I felt like a hapless schoolboy around this woman.
Man, it felt good.
Then I saw the name of the restaurant we had stopped in front of, and my stomach dropped like an elevator whose cables had snapped.
It was called Giulio's.
She had said it was a place that served real southern Italian cooking. I should have asked the name. Because there was no way in hell I was going in there, not with Hollinger. One look at the owner, one hint that he and I had a relationship, and I'd be lucky if all she did was slap my face and walk out. Lucky if I didn't wind up cuffed.
Giulio's was now owned by none other than Dante Ryan, once a notorious hit man for the crew run by Marco di Pietra. He had told me this weeks ago on the phone, thanking me for my help in getting him out of the contract killing line and into something he could live with, telling me I'd never have to pay a bill in the place. That I could put my name on a stool at the bar. He'd told me how the man who had run it for forty years, Giulio himself, seventy pounds overweight and proud of it, had finally been ready to retire just when Ryan was looking to buy a place. He said he was keeping the name, the staff and most of the menu, adding just a few dishes from his mother's own collection of Calabrian recipes.
He said he was there every night, menus in hand, greeting guests the way Giulio did, even putting on a few pounds for the cause.
So how exactly was I going to explain to Hollinger-a cop who'd spent the last four months pondering the deaths of the Di Pietra brothers and their associates-that Dante Ryan was a personal friend of mine.
'Uh, listen,' I said.
'Yes?'
'Let's go somewhere else.'
'Why? I thought you liked Italian.'
'I, um…'
'What?'
'I had Italian for lunch.'
'Jonah. We agreed on Italian before lunch. Why would you-'
'I forgot.'
'You forgot?'
'My client took me out. She insisted on Italian.'
'I can't believe-'
'Plus this place got a shitty review.'
'Where?'
Grab that shovel, Geller. Dig yourself a deeper hole.
'One of the papers.'
'Which one?'
'Come on, Kate. This street is full of restaurants.'
'All of which require a reservation, which we happen to have at Giulio's.'
'You don't feel like a good steak or something?'
'If I did, I would have made reservations at a steak house. Jonah, what's going on?'
'I just don't feel like Italian.'
She crossed her arms over her chest, tightening up, widening the space between us. Pretty soon I wouldn't be able to see across it. 'This is not starting well,' she said.
'Greek?' I asked.
'Fuck Greek and fuck steak. There's something you're not telling me and I don't like it. I get lied to all damn day, Jonah. I get lied to by suspects, by snitches, by reporters-Christ, half the time by my partner. I do not need it from you.'
'Kate…'
'What!'
I put my hands on her shoulders. They didn't relax one bit. 'I can't.'
'Tell me why. Right now and no bullshit. I have a very keen detector for it and I'm this close to calling it a night.'
'Walk with me for a minute,' I said. — I don't claim to know how many people Dante Ryan killed during his time in the Mob. I do know he was in it some twenty years, and he hadn't spent his time stuffing envelopes. Then he was given a contract that required him to kill a five-year-old child, a boy the same age as his own son, Carlo, and he hadn't been able to do it. He sought me out and demanded my help in finding out who had ordered the hit, determined that the boy not be part of the price the father had to pay for trying to get free of a Mob enterprise.
We did it, too. Saved the lives of the boy and his parents. Saved each other too. And somehow became friends. Ryan had decided by then he had to get out of his old life in order to save his marriage, his soul, and I had helped. He had helped me too, in his own way. If it wasn't for our misadventures, I'd still be at Beacon Security, working other people's cases instead of my own. And there was a spark to him you don't find in everyone, a warmth you wouldn't expect in a man who had done all that he had done in his life. An old-fashioned devotion to his family. Generosity and loyalty to anyone he considered a friend.
I could explain it to myself, rationalize it a dozen different ways. But what could I say to Hollinger, who was searching my eyes with hers, hoping for some truth. We found a table at a small cafe a few doors down from Giulio's. The hostess told us they'd had a last-minute cancellation and took our drink orders: Black Bush for me and a vodka martini for Hollinger. It gave me a few more minutes to look for a starting point to my story. I was still looking for it when the drinks arrived.
'This isn't going to be easy,' I said.
'Great opening, Geller. I'm brimming with confidence.'
'Do you know who owns Giulio's?'
'No,' she said. 'Should I?'
'No. But you would have if we'd gone in there.'
'Why?'
I sighed like a shot-out tire. 'Does the name Dante Ryan ring a bell?'
There was a candle in an amber glass on our table. Its flames were dancing in her eyes, until they narrowed and the reflecting flames grew smaller. She said, 'Alarm bells. Big loud ones.'
'He's the owner.'
'Okay,' she said. 'I get it. You were trying to protect me, is that it? You thought I'd be uncomfortable, vulnerable somehow, eating in a place owned by a mobster?'
She had given me the perfect out. But taking it wouldn't have been right. If Hollinger and I were going to go anywhere, she needed to know the truth-at least about this.
'There's more to it,' I said.
'How much more?'
