They had stopped beneath a streetlight, where Tess had parked. She was still thinking about Gwen, her death, the details of the autopsy. She felt unfinished somehow. Unfinished-she remembered the fresh tattoo on Gwen’s ankle, the line on her leg.
“Show me your ankle,” she said to Adam Moss.
“What?”
“You heard me. Show me.”
Reluctantly, he propped his loafered foot on the hood of her car and rolled down his sock. There it was, the same black band that police had found on Gwen’s ankle. Only this one went all around the ankle.
“Meyer’s mark,” she said. “And you think you weren’t a slave. They branded slaves, Adam. Holocaust victims, too. You sat there and took it, but Gwen Schiller wouldn’t. That’s why she ran.”
She turned her back on him as she unlocked her car, overwhelmed by the unbidden image of Meyer Hammersmith, leaning over Gwen Schiller with his needle, slowly and deliberately inking a black band around her ankle so she would forever be his. Had she kicked him before she ran, jackknifed her legs into his soft stomach, bruised his chin with her flailing feet? Tess hoped so. She really hoped so.
“Look,” Adam said, “we can get them back. We can avenge Beth’s-Gwen’s-death. I know enough to destroy Dahlgren. There’s all sorts of sleazy shit going on with his campaign, stuff that could land Meyer in jail.”
“Dahlgren’s only a small part of the problem. He can’t help me.”
“But he’s my part.”
“Fine, you take care of your part, and I’ll take care of mine. Just stay out of my way, Adam. Because when it comes to protecting people I love, Nicola DeSanti has nothing on me.”
chapter 31
IT WAS SPIKE WHO CONVINCED NICOLA DESANTI TO MEET at this tavern, the Point, by persuading her that its West Baltimore location was quieter, less likely to draw scrutiny than Domenick’s. She arrived with only Pete and Repete. The terms were no weapons, but Tess doubted the DeSanti clan had honored this request.
After all, she hadn’t.
“You know why we’re here,” Spike said, after everyone had taken their places at a long table in the middle of the bar, the one used for large parties, for birthdays and anniversaries. Sometimes for wakes. “We have to work something out, so everybody’s happy, so nobody bothers nobody anymore. I don’t see why that should be so hard.”
“Who’s the little guy behind the bar?” Nicola said, pointing with her chin.
“My assistant,” Spike said. “He needs lifts just to get out of bed in the morning, you don’t need to worry about him. I’ll vouch for him.”
This earned Spike a sour look, which he ignored.
Nicola DeSanti settled in with a sigh, fishing a package of cigarettes from her bright red pocketbook, sending Pete to fetch an ashtray from one of the other tables. With her teased brown hair and polyester pantsuit, she might have been settling in for a hot night of bingo at the local parish.
“You know, Spike, I came here because we know the same people, we have mutual friends who’d like everybody to get along, because it’s better for them if people aren’t feuding,” she said. “Baltimore is a small town. But you don’t run anything, you don’t have any clout. I’m here out of respect to them, not to you.”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “I also know that all you really wanna do is run your business without anyone coming down on you. Gene Fulton’s dead, Nickie, and Kenny Dahlgren’s headed to Congress. Pretty soon, Tess’s father is gonna be the closest thing you got to any grease on the liquor board.”
“Who you kiddin’? He’s out of there, too. All that old shit is going to come up the surface, and there’s not a thing you or I can do about it. I’m gonna ride it out, and get along without Gene, rest his soul.”
Spike nodded, as if to commiserate: Such bad luck to have your politically connected stooge killed while he was trying to burn down an enemy’s house.
“Maybe your boys here should have thought about that before they killed him.”
“Don’t talk shit, Spike. These boys didn’t have nothing to do with that. They weren’t even there that night.”
“Really? Someone was. The investigators found three gasoline canisters. A source tells me they got a print hit this week.”
“No way,” Pete said. “There aren’t any prints on those cans.” Repete nodded. “No prints.”
“How could you be so sure?” Tess asked. “Unless you wore gloves, of course.” The fact was, she and Spike had made up the part about the prints. They weren’t even sure Pete and Repete had fingerprints on file, but it had seemed like a safe bet.
The look-alike uncle and nephew rolled their eyes at Nicola, as if they had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. “He slipped, Gee-gee, honest. We couldn’t save him, so we just got outta there.”
“People are always slipping around you,” Tess said. “You go to fetch Gwen Schiller, to make sure she’s not talking to anybody about Meyer Hammersmith, and she falls and cracks her head open. You go to Philadelphia and you kill the woman you find in the apartment, then try to kill Devon Whittaker.”
“That was Gene,” Pete said quickly. “Gene was running things. We just helped him out sometimes.”
“I checked Gene Fulton’s schedule and he visited five different bars that day, all over Baltimore,” Tess said. “He couldn’t have been in Philadelphia.”
“But-” Pete began.
Nicola leaned across the table and smacked him, then Repete. It was a short, matter-of-fact slap, just hard enough to get her point across.
“Shut up. You’re not supposed to be talking here. I didn’t even know why they wanted you here, but now I guess I do.” She turned back to Spike. “You want I guarantee these two will be good from now on? I can do that. Right, boys? I can make them be good.”
Pete and Repete rubbed their reddening cheeks and nodded ruefully. “No you can’t, Mrs. DeSanti,” Tess said. “They’re out of control. They’re responsible for the deaths of at least three people. Gwen’s death may well have been an accident, but it seems to have given them a taste for it. Hilde, Gene-people keep dying around them. It’s only a matter of time before they do something you won’t be able to cover up.”
Nicola studied Pete and Repete. Tess could see her innate loyalty warring with her instinctive shrewdness. Shrewdness won.
“What do you want?”
“Gwen Schiller’s dead, there’s no bringing her back, and no reason to try them for her death. Make them confess to Gene Fulton’s murder, and the arson. Even if Fulton did fall, the autopsy shows he died from smoke inhalation. When they left him in the house, they were guilty of manslaughter. Gene was a good employee, Mrs. DeSanti, he did whatever you asked him to do, he gave good value for your dollar. He didn’t deserve to die while doing your work.”
“I can’t let my babies go to prison,” she said.
“You should,” Tess said. “I wouldn’t sleep at night, knowing those monsters were coming and going under my roof. One day, they’ll get bored and kill you, too, because they think they know better than you how to run your business. They’re already dealing behind your back. And using. Which makes them big security risks for you. Stupid and on drugs is no way to go through life.”
The boys shook their heads vehemently, almost convincing in their outraged innocence. “We never would do such a thing, Gee-gee,” said Pete, and Repete lived up to his nickname, parroting his uncle’s promises. “We know you don’t want anyone around you to get mixed up in that.”
“No, Nicola prefers clean scams, like prostitution and video poker,” Spike said. “You still do that thing where you let women who are behind on their bills raffle off blow jobs at your bar? I always liked that one.”
Nicola glared at Spike. “Who are you to talk? You’re a two-bit bookie.”
“Never took a bet on a dog race,” Spike said placidly. It was an important distinction to him, for reasons Tess couldn’t fathom.
“We don’t sell drugs, and we don’t do them,” Pete repeated. “Never, never, never,” Repete said.
