“Fuck,” he sighed.
“We really need to talk,” I said.
“Just a minute, honey.”
“Don’t honey me, you rogue.”
“I was talking to my wife, wiseass. Hang on.” He covered his mouthpiece and spoke to someone else, then came back on the line: “We’re putting Carlo to bed in an hour. I’ll come by after that on one condition.”
“What?”
“There a decent pizzeria near your place?”
Ryan arrived with a Barolo-a 1999 Ornato, he said. “Didn’t want to take another chance on the plonk you keep in that closet.”
I had sworn off wine because of the Percocet but that was before a Barolo arrived. I swirled the garnet- coloured wine gently in the glass, inhaling its rich dark cherry aromas. It tasted even better than it smelled.
The pizza I’d ordered had hot Italian sausage, roasted red peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and onions. “They call this combination Calabrese,” I said. “What do you think?”
“First of all, I’m only half Calabrese, on my mother’s side. Second, I’ve never been there. But from how my mother cooks, I’d say it’s authentic enough.” He dealt with a long string of cheese coming off his pizza and wiped his chin. “Where my mother was born was some rugged place, what I hear. The people too. No one you want to mess with. A lot like Sicilians. Calabria’s right across the straits from Sicily and the one thing they had in common? The government up in Rome was always screwing them both. Screwing them or ignoring them. That’s why the Mafia wound up running things in Sicily and the ’Ndrangheta in Calabria. Someone had to.”
Ryan finished his first slice and washed it down with wine. “If my dad had come from there too, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” he said. “I’d be a made man, a lifer, and that would be that.”
“What discussion are we having?” I asked him.
“Hey, you asked me to dinner. Said you needed to talk. How about you tell me what the discussion is, then I’ll tell you if we’re having it.”
“Here goes,” I said. “I don’t care so much that Marco tried to cut me in the park. That he sent goons chasing me around East York. But beating up an old man who couldn’t defend himself… Ryan, they cracked his skull, his ribs, his jaw. At his age, he’ll never be the same. If he lives through the night.”
“So what do you want to do?” he asked.
“Go after him,” I said.
His dark eyes seemed to warm from the inside. “Really.”
“What else can I do? Hide the rest of my life? Hide all the people around me? Look over my shoulder because this freak has it in for me? No. I’m not going to stand around while I or people close to me get shot at or beaten or killed.”
“You’re going to kill Marco Di Pietra.”
I took a deep breath and listened to the words echo inside me. They rang absolutely true. It made me feel like I had lost my moral compass. Like I’d dropped it under my heel and ground it back into sand.
“Yes,” I said. “If it’s me or him, it might as well be him.”
“You’re going to do this alone?”
“Not too many people I can ask for help.”
He put his pizza down and wiped his hands on a paper towel. “Cara made something very clear to me tonight. The only way to get back with my family is to find another line of work. But my thing isn’t something you just walk away from. The kind of exit program we have, you don’t wanna know.”
“No one leaves?”
“Made guys, never. They take an oath that their thing will always come first: before family, before the law, before their own lives. Some old guys are allowed to step down when they get sick-like Vinnie Nickels if he’d hurry the fuck up-as long as they’re not under indictment or active investigation. You know they’re not going to flip.”
“But you’re not made.”
“No, I’m what they call an associate. Like I’m some fucking greeter at Wal-Mart. But even though I never took the oath, I might as well have. I know where bodies are buried. Literally. Any that weren’t burned or dumped, I fucking buried.”
“And if Marco was gone?”
“His brother Vito would take over for sure. I’ve only ever worked for Marco, no one else, so I might be able to work things out with Vito. I got no beefs with him. No loyalties to anyone else. No legal problems hanging over me. Nothing he’d have to worry about. Maybe he’d let me retire.” He pulled out his cigarettes. “Mind?” he asked.
I had eaten enough for the moment. I went and got the ashtray.
“So are you throwing in with me?” I asked.
“Answer one question first. Where’s the gun I gave you?”
“Um…”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Sorry. It’s still in the trunk of the car.”
“Man, what are you gonna do if someone shows up with a gun? Excuse yourself while you run down eighteen floors?”
“I forgot.”
“You know your kung fu shit won’t stop a bullet, right? You’re not delusional on that point?”
“Not on that one, no.”
“It’s a hell of a piece, Geller. Costs like a grand on the street.”
“I’ll tuck it in my underwear tonight.”
“Get serious. How are you going to kill a depraved fucker like Marco if you won’t even handle a gun?”
Since I had no logical answer, I was relieved to hear someone knock three times on my door. Ryan had his Glock out before the third knock. He put his finger to his lips and pointed to the door. We both got up and moved toward it. He motioned me to the left side, where the handle was, and braced himself against the wall on the right, gun up beside him. I peered out through the peephole and saw no one.
“Who is it?” I called.
“Katherine Hollinger.”
Oh, God. The good detective sergeant at my door. I was giddy enough around her with just Percocet in my system. Now there was half a bottle of Barolo in me too, not to mention the wild-card stool softeners. “Just a minute,” I said.
Ryan looked at me inquisitively. I nodded at the balcony door. He put his gun away and padded quietly to the door and slipped outside. I opened the front door and there Hollinger was, in jeans and a T-shirt under a coral linen jacket. Her black hair was out of its clip and framed her face like a pair of loving hands.
“Hello, Jonah.”
“Hi.”
She looked at me as though expecting to be invited in, but I stayed parked in the threshold.
“Got a minute?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“You going to ask me in?”
“Uh-uh.”
She looked past me at the coffee table and saw the pizza, the wine, the two glasses. “Oh,” she said. “Company?”
“You’re good,” I said.
“You still have no idea.”
She was starting to acquire a tan. By midsummer there’d be dusky skin to go with her jet-black hair and lioness eyes. Eyes I couldn’t stop looking at. I hadn’t come up with the right colour yet, having pondered hazel, honey and caramel. I was determined to keep trying.
“What’s up, Detective?” was the best I could say.
“That’s Detective Sergeant to you. Just wondering if you’d given any more thought to who tried to kill you.”
“I’m not convinced that’s what happened.”
