“That dead one, she still bothering you?” his grandmother asked.
“Not so much lately. You still dreaming of her?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, the pocketbook swinging, catching Dane painfully in the ribs. “The other one.”
“JoJo?”
“I only wish.”
“So which, then?”
“The one who's buried nearby her… what's his name, the Jewish fishmonger?”
“Aaron Fielding.”
“So pushy, how he fights his way in.”
“Do you know why?”
“Not yet. I don't like him doing that. Where's it say I have to put up with that? I refuse to listen. He wants my attention, he can go about it by showing some manners. This is how it's done? They want you to notice, so they just bully right in?”
Next time, Dane thought, I'll make sure I make the time for him. These dead, they'll take you right down with them if you turn a deaf ear.
The smooth thrum of a finely tuned engine made them both look to the narrow roadway. Grandma swung her chin and let out a prim grunt of dissatisfaction.
Phil Guerra's '59 sky-blue Caddy drew up beside them. The Magic-Mirror acrylic lacquer finish blazed in the sunlight and almost managed to snap Dane's attention from his grandmother's hair.
“It looks like a rocketship with those
“It's supposed to.”
“You men, every one of you likes this thing, but I say it's ugly. You ever decide to boost cars again, you should start with that one.”
“I think I just might,” Dane told her.
“Ah,
Phil parked up ahead, near Dane's parents' graves, and waited while Dane and Grandma walked the rest of the way down the path. Phil opened the door and got out, wearing aviator glasses, his caps too white in the middle of that artificially tanned face. He acted like he was leaning back against the car, but Dane noticed he wasn't really touching it. Looking cool but afraid to mar the shine.
“This one's wife,” Grandma whispered. “She always smells like gin and she cheats at bingo.”
When Dane was a kid he used to go to the bingo parlor with her all the time. The biggest payout was something like $25. “How the hell do you cheat at bingo?”
“She tries her best. Yells out ‘Bingo!' and half the time the numbers don't check out. She disrupts the game. She's always talking, gossiping, bothering the other players. Butting into everyone's business, looking at their boards. It's a mental assault, what that woman does. A psychological tactic.”
Jesus, Dane thought, these old ladies take their shit very seriously.
He stood close to her, feeling the stolid weight of seventy-eight years of firmness and consistency. She took his hand and squeezed it. The fact that her father, husband, and son had all died in the line of duty seemed a fact of duration. As if her endurance drew murderers to try their hand against her blood. The death of cops hovered around her, the way it did around Phil Guerra, the man who'd killed Dane's dad.
Under her breath she said, “When you start moving you don't stop until it's finished. You can do it. Understand me?”
“What?”
Look at how much you're still a little boy. Walking and holding your grandmother's hand, feeling small in the eyes of Uncle Philly.
Dane had a moment where he thought maybe he'd missed out on the anniversary of one of his parents' deaths. Or maybe forgotten a birthday. Was visiting their graves so important today? Dane looked at his grandma and she was smiling with a false geniality. She said, “Nice to see you, Phil.”
“I stop by when I can, Lucia. It's good to remember.”
“Yes, it is.”
“My own mama taught me that.”
“A kind and decent woman,” Grandma said.
“I visit her and my dad when I can. Some of the rest of the family.” He sniffed. “Cold today.”
“It'll be a bad winter.”
“That's why me and Mabel are going to Florida. I'm getting out. We've been here too long.”
Dane looked into his grandmother's face, wondering if this was why she'd brought him here. To listen to this one little fact about Phil leaving. Telling him in her way that the clock was ticking. You have to take him out soon if you're going to do it. Before he finally escapes.
You'd think you'd have fewer questions the older you got, but it only seemed like you wound up with more. One leading into another.
They stood there and prayed in front of his parents' graves, his grandmother muttering in Italian. While Dane had his eyes closed, Phil put his arms around him. Drew him in close, pressed his cheek to Dane's the way the Mafiosi in the fifties would kiss somebody right before they punched his ticket.
“I miss them,” Phil whispered.
A wedge of hate snapped loose inside Dane's body and lodged in the back of his head. He thought of how easy it might be to reach over and grab your partner's gun, hold it up to his temple, and pull the trigger. No brawling, no real force necessary. One swift motion and all the brains go out the other side, you don't even get any blood on your slacks.
You stared at the graves and the graves stared back.
“I'll drive you both home,” Phil said, showing those teeth.
Dane thought his grandmother would shrug off the offer, but she said, “
So now Dane had to watch his grandmother clambering into a '59 Caddy, squeezing herself into the back because she'd never sit in the death seat. Whenever Dane drove her someplace, she'd perch directly behind him, talking in his ear the entire time.
But this was different. She relaxed and stared out the window while Phil Guerra drove up through Wisewood and out the gates, making a wide left for the Danetello house without slowing down or looking both ways. They cut off an oncoming Miata and the blaring horn made Phil giggle.
Halfway up the block, he pulled to the curb in front of the house and put his hand on Dane's leg, gripping pretty hard. Dane got the point and didn't get out of the car. Grandma must've seen the move. She shoved the seat forward and crushed Dane against the dash while she climbed out. He grunted, staring into the dust that had gathered there and thinking, Christ, it's never easy.
“I'm going to talk to Johnny a little longer,” Phil said.
“You sure you don't want to come in for coffee and
“I wish I could, Lucia, but I need to get home soon.”
“Say hello to the wife for me.”
“I'll do that.”
“Always nice to see her at bingo!”
Phil drew away from the curb without checking his mirror and nearly took out a Chinese delivery kid on a bicycle. The kid screamed and almost flopped off the bike but managed to keep from going down.
Phil looked over and stared through the yellow lenses of the aviator glasses. The hell kind of statement was he trying to make wearing those things? “It true that you and Big Tommy Bartone had a shoot-out in a hospital in Bed-Stuy?”
“No,” Dane said.
Phil was connected and had the story down. Big Tommy wouldn't have lied about the specifics, not even to save his ass. He'd play it up that Dane had spent time in the army, knew all kinds of Special Forces moves. He had a reputation firm enough to bear up under the brunt of that, and it would make the rest of the crew that much
