Soul Patch

Once Jabbar got arrested and yapped about Mayweather, as he must have been instructed to do by Junior Motta, Martello decided he wasn’t going down and he wasn’t going to do the dirty work himself. So he enlisted the help of his fellow executioners, Larry McDonald and Ken Burton. It wasn’t the first time either Martello or Burton had blackmailed Larry into aiding their causes. Martello’s making captain and Caveman Kenny Burton’s remarkable career survival were no longer mysteries. Larry had called in a lot of markers over the years on their behalf. After all, what choice did he have?

Like I said, I didn’t get through the whole letter. When he got to the part about how I knew him, really knew him, better than anyone and how I had always understood him, I stopped reading. Even in death he was trying to work an angle, to manipulate me, to gain the upper hand. He was right, of course. I did understand him. He hadn’t taken his own life out of guilt or some sense of justice. Larry Mac could live with the murders without losing a second’s sleep. What he couldn’t live with was the loss of control, because no matter how high he climbed he would never be able to climb past blackmail. The closer he got to being king, the better pawn he’d be.

On a Saturday night, about a month after the shootout at Martello’s, we dropped Sarah off at my brother’s house and I took Katy to dinner. Things had gotten better for us, but we never did have that talk about Nebraska. I guess my brushes with death and infidelity had woken me up to what I had. Sometimes, though, I still wonder about what would have happened if Fishbein hadn’t died under the wheels of that bus. Would I really have had the courage to confess my sins of omission and complicity to Katy? I guess I’ll never know.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“It’s a secret. Don’t worry, I think you’ll like it.”

After I parked the car, I reached in the back for the brown paper bag I’d brought home from work that day, and tucked it in the crook of my arm like a baby.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a surprise,” I said. “I think you’ll like it.”

When we strolled up to Cara Mia, Senora greeted us at the door.

“Table for two,” I said. I pointed to an empty two-top in a dark corner. “Can we sit over there?”

Senora smiled approvingly and showed us to the table.

“What’s this all about?” Katy asked.

I didn’t answer and asked the waiter for two empty wine glasses and a corkscrew. When he brought them, I pulled the bottle out of the brown paper bag.

“Mateus Rose! Moses Prager, I haven’t had Mateus Rose since-”

“Do you remember the first time I kissed you?”

“On the corner of Second Avenue and East Ninth Street in the Village. You called me a vance. You said it was Yiddish for a wiseass woman who wants to be kissed.”

“That’s right.”

“Moe, come on, what’s this about?” she asked again.

“It’s about the past, and about leaving it behind.”