Judy raised a warning hand. “That’s enough. Whatever happened, it’s not Mary’s fault and you know it.”
Giulia shot back, “Shut up, you don’t know me at all.” Then she fixed her dark gaze on Mary. “Alls I know is, my best friend’s missing and I don’t know what to do about it. Her mother’s outta her mind from worryin’. We’re all sick about it.” She glanced irritably around the conference room. “What’s the deal? Can I smoke in here?”
“No,” Judy answered, and Giulia’s eyes glittered.
“I don’t like you, girl.”
“Love is all around.” Judy flashed her a peace sign.
“Giulia,” Mary broke in, “tell me what happened, as best you know. It was Trish’s birthday, right? And he had some kind of surprise?”
“Yeh. We thought he was gonna propose, and she was afraid because she didn’t want to say yes. The only way she’d accept is if he put a gun to her head.”
Mary felt a chill, bone deep. “Do you know if he was taking her out to give her the surprise? Or was he bringing it home?”
“They never shopped for a ring, but I dunno. Wait. Lemme think.” Giulia calmed down as she sorted out her confusion. “She called me at seven o’clock, all nervous that he’d be home any minute. Now that I think about it, she did mention they were going out.”
“Okay. Did she say anything else?”
“We set it up so she’d call me after the surprise, to let me know if she could go out to celebrate.”
“Would he let her do that?” Mary asked, surprised.
“No way, never. We only said it so she had an excuse to call me after she got the surprise, so I’d know she was okay.”
Mary’s heart ached at the scheme set up by these women, desperate to protect themselves.
“But she never showed up and she never called. We called her cell about a million times and her house. Then we went and stopped by her house and she wasn’t home. Neither was he. We chilled there awhile and-”
“Where? At her house?”
“Yeah, I have keys. I used to go over there a lot, borrowin’ clothes. So anyway we went to T’s house but she never showed up, and then we went home. She never even went on the computer. We IM each other at night but I didn’t get nothin’ from her. No e-mail, no IMs. Nothin’.”
Mary understood why the Mean Girls had behaved the way they had. This was the worst-case scenario.
“None of us slep’ a wink.” Giulia turned to the others for confirmation, and they nodded unhappily. “So we went back over her house this morning, and she still wasn’t home, so we called the cops.”
“Good,” Mary said.
“Not really.” Giulia snorted. “We told ’em what happened, and they said she mighta eloped, which we know she didn’t. They said they couldn’t do nothin’ about it because it wasn’t forty-eight hours yet. They said, what if they went on a vacation? Or a cruise?”
“You believe that?” Missy muttered, disgusted. “They were all about that baby girl who got kidnapped, Amber Alert.”
Mary didn’t enlighten her. “Giulia, did you tell the police that he was in the Mob?”
“Totally. We thought it would get them interested, but with that dumb baby, it’s like T don’t even matter.” Giulia threw up her hands, nonplussed. “They had like fifty million phones ringin’. The cop said, if she isn’t a little kid or an old guy, she has to wait the forty-eight hours.”
Yolanda shook her head, gravely. “T’s dead, I can feel it. I had a dream.”
Mary’s gut tightened, but she knew enough not to ask anybody from South Philly about their dreams. She wanted to finish today. “You called the salon, and she’s not there?”
“We didn’t have to call. We all work there. T got us our jobs. She didn’t show up today, and we didn’t either. The boss said it was okay.”
Yolanda sniffed. “On the other hand, if we don’t show, the world don’t end. We only do manicures, except for G, who’s gettin’ into waxin’. She’s movin’ up. Or down.”
“Shut up!” Giulia shoved her, but didn’t miss a beat. “Mare, if T didn’t go to work, something’s wrong. She’d never ditch a full book. Plus it’s not like her. No matter how hungover she was, she always went in. I’m scared, Mare. Real scared.” Giulia’s eyes glistened, and she wasn’t so streetwise anymore. She was just a girl whose best friend could be dead. She wiped her eye with the side of an index finger, and Mary handed her a Kleenex box from the credenza, but Giulia waved it off. “I’m not cryin’.”
“It’s to wipe your mascara, then.”
“I don’t wear mascara, it’s eyelash extensions. T has ’em, too.” Giulia drew an airy circle around her eyes. “Plus, see, my eyeliner ain’t runnin’. It’s permanent. Me and T got it tattooed on, together.”
“Tattooed on your eyes?” Judy interrupted, incredulous, and Giulia nodded.
“Yeah, sure. You never have to reapply, and your eyeliner always looks good, even when you wake up.”
“My lipliner’s permanent,” Missy added, and Yolanda nodded.
“So’s my eyebrows.”
Judy looked, dumbstruck, from Giulia with her tattooed eyes, to Missy with her tattooed lips, and finally to Yolanda with her tattooed eyebrows. Mary was too upset to care. She put down the Kleenex box.
“Didn’t it hurt?” Judy asked, astounded, and Giulia shrugged.
“No more than a Brazilian.”
Mary couldn’t hear anymore. Catholics shouldn’t get Brazilians. In fact, the words Catholic and Brazilian should never appear in the same sentence, except for: Brazilians are very good Catholics.
“Anyways, I’m not like some very negative people.” Giulia jerked a spiked thumb toward Yolanda. “I’m not saying he killed her. I can’t go there, not yet. Alls I know is she never woulda gone away without tellin’ us. That means she’s in trouble, real trouble.”
Mary felt it, too. It was too coincidental to be otherwise. “Has anyone seen him?”
“No, he’s gone, too. They’re both gone.”
“Does he go to work?” Judy interjected.
“Whaddaya think, blondie?” Giulia looked at her like she was crazy. “He packs a peanut-butter-and-jelly in a paper bag?”
“There’s no call for that,” Mary said. “She’s only asking if he has a regular job, on the side. A front or whatever you call it.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Giulia leaned forward in the chair, her eyes meeting Mary’s directly. “You gotta help us find T.”
“I’m in,” Mary said, her chest tight.
“Great.” Giulia smiled briefly, and Missy sniffled.
“Preciate it, Mare.”
“Me, too,” Yolanda said, grim.
Judy touched Mary’s elbow. “Can I talk to you a minute?” she asked, then turned to the Mean Girls. “Would you wait for us in the reception area, please?”
“We get the message.” Giulia rose with a smirk, pushing out her chair, and so did the others.
“Thanks,” Mary said, and both she and Judy waited while the Mean Girls left the conference room. In the next minute, low laughter came from down the hall. Judy cringed, then turned to her.
“Mary, don’t let them guilt you into this. This isn’t your problem, and it could be dangerous. He’s in the Mob.”
“I can’t not.” Mary felt a tug in her chest. She had a full day of work, including calls for Dhiren and another for Dean Martin, but Trish was out there somewhere. She couldn’t help but feel responsible. “I have to help, this time.”
“Why? They’re using you, don’t you see that?” Judy gestured outside the door. “They’re laughing at us, right now. Didn’t you hear?”
“It’s not for them, it’s for Trish.”
“What do you owe her? She was horrible to you.”
“This is life and death, Jude. You saw them. They need help. They’re…”
“Dumb?”
“A little.”
