The Misfortune Cookie

There are various schools of impassioned thought in my craft about whether it’s better to work from the inside out or the outside in. Method acting versus technical acting. Do you produce real tears onstage because you dredge up your inner emotions eight shows per week, or because you reproduce the facial expressions and respiratory patterns that physiologically precede crying? I’m not a passionate proponent of one school over the other, because I’ve always found that if I work from both outside and inside, the two processes meet somewhere in the middle and produce a result that’s convincing and sincere. And sometimes one side works faster than the other. When I played Miss Jane Aubrey in The Vampyre, for example, working on the accent, posture, and body language of a genteel Englishwoman in the early nineteenth century helped me understand some of Jane’s more obtuse choices in that play (such as her submissive thralldom to the notorious Lord Ruthven, the vampire who marries her and then eats her—and not in a nice way).

So pretending to be in a good mood that night at Bella Stella helped me focus on thoughts and feelings that supported this pretense, and I started actually having a good time and enjoying myself.

True, the facade was fragile enough that if anyone asked me to sing a ballad, let alone a torch song, there was a real risk I wouldn’t get through it without choking up. But since it was New Year’s Eve and everyone was in party mode, all the requests I got were for upbeat numbers: Fly Me To the Moon, Mack the Knife (boy, do gangsters love that song), Beyond the Sea, That’s Amore, and, of course, New York, New York.

Jimmy “Legs” Brabancaccio, a Gambello soldier who actually had quite a good voice, rose from his dinner table to wow the crowd with his rendition of My Way. Then, at the insistence of our customers, a waiter named Ned sang Mack the Knife (I mean, they really love that song). Then Ronnie Romano, also from the Gambello crew, sang a traditional Italian ditty that was unfamiliar to me, but that our accordionist knew. Ronnie had a reedy, off-key voice, but he sang with heart.

Ronnie and Jimmy Legs were sitting at a table in my station, at their insistence. I was sort of a favorite with the Gambello crime family, since my friend Max and I had inadvertently wound up helping them out a couple of times. Victor Gambello, the Shy Don, had made it clear in public that he considered us friends of the family. He had also tried to help us when Max and I were recently held prisoner for about eighteen hours by Fenster & Co. (Call it a misunderstanding. We’d had a slight arson mishap while confronting Evil.)

Despite Stella Butera’s connection to the family, I found it a little odd that wiseguys hung out regularly at the restaurant, since three Gambellos had been murdered here in recent years. First there was Handsome Joey Gambello, who was shot to death. Two or three years later, Frankie Mastiglione got fatally knifed here while he was only halfway through his dinner. Then just seven months ago, Chubby Charlie Chiccante was shot while I was waiting on his table. I was an eyewitness, which had led to my becoming more familiar with the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau (OCCB) than I’d ever expected to be.

Of course, all the shooting and stabbing probably made it a little odd that I hung out here, too. But between Stella’s management style and the good tips I earned, it was the best non-acting job I’d ever had, despite the mortality rate.

“Hey, Esther! Another round!” Jimmy Legs shouted at me, trying to be heard above the cheerful din of the crowd and the soaring tones of Ned giving his all to Feeling Good.

“Not for me,” said Lucky Battistuzzi.

“Aw, come on, Lucky!” Ronnie urged.

“Nah, you get to be my age,” said Lucky, “and you gotta pace yourself. Besides, the boss said he might want to see me later.”

I knew that references to “the boss” meant Don Victor Gambello, who was in his eighties, chronically ill, and seldom left his Forest Hills house, out in Queens. He also seemed to be an insomniac, since it wasn’t unusual for him to summon Lucky in the middle of the night.

“Tonight?” I said. “But Lucky, it’s New Year’s Eve.”

The old hit man shrugged philosophically. “We don’t really get days off in Our Thing, kid.” He added, “Just like you, huh?”

Due to the way that facing off against Evil encourages the most unlikely people to become bedfellows, so to speak, Alberto “Lucky Bastard” Battistuzzi, who’d gotten his nickname by surviving various attempts on his life, was someone I considered a trusted friend. Somewhere in his sixties, with short gray hair, an expressive, heavily lined face, and shrewd brown eyes, he wasn’t inclined to share any “professional” secrets with me, and I wasn’t rash enough to encourage him to do so. But I had seen enough to know that Lucky, a semi-retired Gambello capo, was someone on whom the Shy Don relied.

“And I’m glad to be working New Year’s Eve,” I assured Lucky. “No income, no eating.”

“So get your boyfriend to take you out for dinner,” Ronnie said darkly. “Cops get regular salaries, don’t they?”

Ronnie had never approved of my dating a police officer—let alone one who was a detective in the OCCB.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said. “We have nothing to do with each other.”

“How’s that?” Lucky looked puzzled. “When we was investigatin’ that polterheisty demon business at Fenster’s last week, I thought it kinda seemed like you and NYPD’s Boy Wonder were getting ready to start choosing china patterns.”

“No, you imagined it,” I said tersely, feeling my stomach sink. “So that’s another round for Jimmy and Ronnie, but nothing for you?”

“I’ll have a cup of coffee,” Lucky said. “What’s wrong with these young guys? The way the good detective looked at you, especially when he thought you was about to go down for the dirt nap, I thought for sure—”

“Are you guys done with these dessert plates?” I asked loudly. “Why hasn’t the bus boy removed these yet? Ralph! This table needs clearing!”

“Coming!”

“If Esther’s not interested in that guy,” Ronnie said censoriously to Lucky, “that’s for the best, case closed, and you shouldn’t poke your nose in.”

“Thank you, Ronnie,” I said.

“A girl like Esther with a cop?” Ronnie shook his head. “It ain’t right. It was never right. It’s good that it’s over.”

“It never got started,” I said firmly, as Ralph the bus boy started clearing their table. “We went on a few dates. That’s all. There was nothing else between us.”

“Oh, if I were gulling-bull enough to believe that,” Lucky said, “you really think I woulda survived this long in my line of work?”

I frowned. “I think you mean gullible.”

Ralph, who was moving with more rapidity than grace, knocked over an empty wine glass while clearing the dishes.

“Careful!” I grabbed it before it could roll off the table, then I wiped up the spot where a few remaining drops of red wine had spilled.

“Oops! Sorry,” Ralph said anxiously. “Did it spill on you?” He almost tipped over another glass as he gestured at Jimmy.

“Watch out,” I said, moving this other glass out of Ralph’s reach before he wound up knocking it into Lucky’s lap.

“Sorry!” Ralph said again, agitated now. “Are you okay?”

“We’re fine, kid,” Lucky said to the bus boy. “But do us a favor and back away slowly with your hands in plain sight.”

Coming from a notorious Gambello hitter, the comment, though intended as a joke, obviously made Ralph nervous. I thought he probably didn’t have the temperament for working at Stella’s. Or the coordination to work in a crowded restaurant.

Jimmy Legs confirmed that impression, after Ralph headed toward the kitchen with his load of dirty dishes, by saying, “That kid nearly scalded me last week when he was topping up my coffee. He’s a menace to