“I almost drowned once.”
“What happened?”
“I was a little girl and someone saved me, but I don’t like talking about it.”
“Okay, but look into the tank.” Melendez took a few tentative steps forward. I held my arm firmly across her back to anchor her. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know you won’t, Moe.”
“You see how they swim in circles sometimes and just dart straight ahead other times? No matter how I stare at them, I can’t figure out why they swim the way they do.”
“So?”
“But just because I can’t decipher the pattern doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist, that it’s indecipherable.”
“This isn’t about the fish, is it?” she asked.
“Not really. I’m just frustrated, you know? None of the stuff that’s going on hangs together. Larry having you plant the wire. A desperate little schmuck like Malik Jabbar getting arrested with half a key of coke in his car and then claiming to know who killed Dexter Mayweather. How the fuck would he know who killed D Rex? He was like eleven years old when Mayweather was murdered. And even if he did know, why would anybody give a shit? But somebody cared enough to kill Malik. Larry cared enough to come to me with the tape, to threaten me, and then he winds up dead too. Somebody cared enough to try and kill me and blow Kalisha Pardee’s head off. Why, for chrissakes?”
“Maybe we should find out who Malik’s new friends were,” Carmella said, quickly stepping away from the tank. Her face was white with fear, beads of sweat on her upper lip and brow. She wasn’t kidding about not liking water.
“Yeah, I was thinking that. Who was the A.D.A. who showed up that day you and Murphy arrested Malik?”
“I don’t know. Once we went to our C.O., Captain Martello, with Melvin’s story about D Rex and wanting to make a deal, he told us to put the little shitbag back in holding and that he’d handle it from there. That was the last time we saw the asshole. Then he turns up dead.”
“It was your case, right? Didn’t you-”
“-ask Martello what happened? Sure we did, both me and Murphy, but he took the file and told us not to worry about Jabbar anymore.”
“Okay,” I said. “I think it’s time for me to have a chat with your C.O.”
“Moe, watch out for Martello. He’s a rough bastard. Ice cold, inside and out.”
“Don’t worry about it. You work on finding out about the company Malik kept and try and get any files you can on Mayweather. I’ll handle the rest of it.”
“Is that it?” she asked, sharp edges in her voice. “Am I being dismissed?”
“What is it, Carmella?”
She was silent.
“Oh,” I said, “the kiss.”
“The kiss, yes.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Something.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bay Ridge was a tale of two restaurants.
Within spitting distance of the Verrazano Bridge, Cara Mia was an old-style Italian joint on Fourth Avenue. It was cheap and charming and perfect for first dates. The waiters had been there so long they bled red sauce and there was more garlic in the air than oxygen. The tablecloths were red and white and frayed with age, and Chianti bottle candlesticks caked thick with wax stood at the center of each table. The neighborhood lore was that they used a chunk of old lasagna as a doorstop.
Across the street from Cara Mia was Villa Conte. Villa Conte was everything Cara Mia was not, and less. Renowned for its Northern Italian cuisine, it was almost as well known for its snooty wait staff and Manhattan prices. The decor featured polished marble, marble, and more marble. And there was enough white linen in the place to supply the Ku Klux Klan for the coming decade. Villa Conte had style, a touch of class, and all the charm of a chest cold. I hated the place, but not for its pretentions.
On February 18, 1978, at the best table in Villa Conte, Rico Tripoli broke my heart. It’s one thing when a woman breaks your heart. You understand that when you take the dive with a woman, heart-break is always a risk. But there’s no expectation of betrayal between best friends, brothers, really. That’s why it hurt so much, why it still hurt so much. The story was that Rico had invited me to lunch to celebrate getting his gold shield. Was I jealous? Yeah, a little bit. A lot. In those days, with the city on the verge of bankruptcy, a gold shield was nearly impossible to come by.
I knew my chance had come and gone. Marina Conseco’s rescue had been my ticket to make detective, but, for whatever reason, the department had failed to punch my ticket. In February of ’78, my head was spinning. I’d met Katy Maloney, found and lost her missing brother, and had already made my pact with the devil himself, my future father-in-law. Aaron and I had yet to find the money for our first store, and my knee still ached so badly that my nirvana was shaped like a pain pill. So yeah, I guess the last thing I wanted to celebrate was my best buddy getting his gold shield. What an ass I was.
At that lunch, Rico confessed that he’d sold something even more valuable than his soul to get his gold shield. He’d sold me out. He had played me, using our friendship to manipulate me, to insinuate me into the tragedy of Patrick’s disappearance, to use me as a tool to ruin Francis Maloney’s political career. The worst of it was that he thought I would come as cheaply as he had. Rico and his boss offered me the two things I once would have given nearly anything for: my police career and a shield of my own. It was three years before I spoke to Rico again and another eight until I knocked on his door at the Mistral Arms. And fuck me if it didn’t still hurt just to look across the street at the entrance to Villa Conte.
“Moe,” Margaret whispered, “are you all right? You seemed lost there for a second.”
“I’m fine. Just remembering things. That’s all.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of that myself lately.”
“Come on, let’s go in.”
We were greeted by Senora. She was a frail woman with white hair, a faded white dress, puckered pale skin, and impish smile. Senora was the matriarch of the family that owned Cara Mia. She had been called by her honorific for so many years, I wondered if even she remembered her given name. She sat us at a quiet two-top in the darkest corner of the restaurant.
Margaret seemed very far away. It was a night to feel far away. A teacher of mine once said that history was everywhere you looked. She was right, but there were just some places where you almost didn’t have to look. You could smell it, taste it. It came up to you wagging its tail and tugged at your pant leg, demanding your attention. Cara Mia was that kind of place.
“First date?” I asked.
“How’d you know?”
“It’s in your face, in your eyes.”
And they were startling eyes, blue flecked with gray. She had put a few pounds on her once perfect body and there was some gray mixed in with her satin, blond hair, but it was easy to see why Frank Spinelli considered himself blessed. Twenty years ago, Margaret McDonald was the gold standard for the rest of us on the job. We all measured our girlfriends and wives by her and, until I met Katy, my companions always came up woefully short. The thing about her wasn’t her looks. She was calm and understanding. Married to Larry, she would have to be.
