chairs and makeshift tables made of odd pieces of lumber laid over broken barrels. The requisite keg rested in its place of honor at the center of the room. Several dozen empty tin cans sat on the floor in front of it, awaiting customers.
“Ianuzzi?” Frank shouted, looking around.
A burly man with a cigar clenched in his teeth came forward. He appeared to be in his thirties, and he was far more respectable looking than the hag who ran the first dive they’d checked. In his shirtsleeves, he wore a vest with a watch chain stretched across it. His lush mustache was neatly trimmed, and his dark hair lavishly pomaded. He shouted something in Italian to his customers, who rose as one and made for the door. Some hunched their shoulders and ducked their heads in anticipation of blows from the coppers’ locusts, but no one paid them any mind.
“I want to ask you some questions, Ugo,” Frank said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“No ’stand,” Ugo tried with an elaborate shrug.
“Maybe you’ll understand this,” Frank said. “I want to talk to you about Emilia Donato.”
Ugo’s expression hardened. “Emilia is whore,” he declared. “I no see her, long time.”
“Then you won’t mind answering a few questions about her.”
“I know nothing. I no see her. She run away, long time.”
‘I know all about why she ran away from you, Ugo,” Frank said pleasantly. “And just so you know, I don’t think much of men who beat women, especially when they’re expecting a child.”
“She lie, all a time, lie. No believe her,” Ugo advised, gesturing with his hands. “She run away, go to pimp. I no see, long time.”
“It’s a real shame about your memory being so bad,” Frank said. “I’ll bet it gets a whole lot better after a couple hours at Police Headquarters.”
Ugo protested vigorously, but a few well-placed blows from the locusts changed his mind. Eventually, he agreed to accompany them up the street to Headquarters.
“They steal all my beer,” he complained when they dragged him out of his dive, leaving his keg unattended.
“Then you’ll just have to steal some more to replace it,” Frank pointed out. He hadn’t ever really considered how profitable such a dive could be. The stolen beer was free, and Ugo certainly didn’t pay any rent for his basement space. Except for a few cents’ worth of chemicals to give “life” to the flat beer, he had no expenses at all. Each night he’d take in the entire day’s earnings of dozens of beggars, and it would be pure profit.
Frank gave Ugo an hour in the airless cellar cells at Headquarters to consider his predicament before moving him into a basement interrogation room. When Frank joined him, he looked a little less arrogant but a lot more annoyed.
“Nice business you’ve got there, Ugo,” he remarked as he sat down across the scarred table from his prisoner. The table and a few chairs were the only furnishings in the room. A single window high on one wall provided a little light during the day and none at night. A gas jet on the wall cast eerie shadows. “Is that where you met Emilia?”
Ugo was still being tough. He just glared at Frank, refusing to answer.
“How long since you’ve seen her, Ugo?” Frank waited. No answer.
“I think you saw her yesterday, Ugo,” Frank said, still pleasant. “I think you met her at City Hall Park. She wanted to show you her new dress.”
Ugo was getting uneasy, but he still wasn’t going to say anything.
“I think you met her in the park, and she wanted you to marry her. You refused, and she got mad. You had a fight, and then you killed her.”
Ugo’s swagger evaporated. “No kill nobody!” he insisted, terror widening his eyes and draining the color from his face.
“I can’t blame you,” Frank said reasonably. “You must have been tired of her asking you to marry her.”
“I no can marry her,” Ugo said. “Have wife already, and children.”
This was a surprise, although Frank didn’t let on. “Where are they?”
“In Italy. Three children,” he said, holding up three fingers. “No marry Emilia. Have wife already.”
“That didn’t stop you from seducing her, though,” Frank pointed out.
Ugo frowned. “See-deuce?” he repeated uncertainly.
Frank made a gesture with his hands that overcame the language barrier. Ugo’s face lit with understanding.
“I no see-deuce. She do it. She think I marry her then.”
Frank thought it unlikely that a girl like Emilia would have traded her virginity for anything less than a promise of marriage, but he let Ugo’s lie pass for now.
“And when you refused, she left you?” Frank guessed.
“She go to pimp,” Ugo said, aggrieved. “I tell you, she whore.”
“Is that why you killed her? Because she became a whore?”
“I no kill nobody!”
“I think you got mad at Emilia. You didn’t want her bothering you anymore. You didn’t want her begging you to marry her. But she kept coming back, so you decided to stick a knife into her and be done with it.”
“No! I no see Emilia, long time. I no kill!”
“Is that how the Black Hand kills someone, Ugo? The way you killed Emilia?”
Ugo was looking around wildly, as if searching for a means of escape. “I no kill Emilia!” he insisted. Frank was discouraged. He was acting far too much like an innocent man. Frank wanted Ugo to be guilty so he could close the case, but it looked as if he wasn’t.
“Somebody killed her, Ugo,” Frank said. “And here you are. If you confess, I don’t have to look for anybody else.”
Ugo obviously knew that the police routinely beat confessions out of innocent men in order to close dif ficult cases. Or even easy ones, if they didn’t feel like working too hard.
“I no kill Emilia!” he cried frantically.
“Then start answering my questions, Ugo,” Frank advised him.
“I answer! I answer!”
“Good.” Frank folded his hands expectantly on the table. “Now tell me about the Black Hand.”
8
SARAH WAS BONE WEARY AS SHE MADE HER WAY down Bank Street late Saturday morning. She wasn’t sure how much of her fatigue had been caused by the middle-of-the-night call to deliver a baby and how much by her depression over not being able to help find out who’d killed Emilia Donato. At least the earlier rain had stopped, but the gray sky matched her mood perfectly.
As usual, her next-door neighbor was out sweeping her front steps, or pretending to, even though the porch would have been washed clean by the morning rain. In reality, she was waiting to welcome Sarah home and find out how her delivery had gone.
“Good morning, Mrs. Ellsworth,” Sarah called when she was within hailing distance.
“Good morning, Mrs. Brandt. Were you on a delivery?”
“Yes, a little boy. He’s doing fine, and so is his mother.”
“That’s a blessing.”
Sarah thought of all the unwanted children in the world, children like Emilia Donato. Were they blessings? Sarah didn’t think she wanted to know right now. “Mrs. Ellsworth, would you come in for some tea? I’d like to ask your advice about something.”
Since Sarah had never asked Mrs. Ellsworth for anything at all, the older woman looked startled for a second. In the next second, however, she looked extremely pleased. “I’d be happy to help in any way I can, my dear. Just give me a moment to take off my apron!”
Sarah went into her house, and after removing her cape and opening her umbrella and setting it on the floor so
