Peril

But three days had gone by and now he had no choice but to act. Still, he didn’t look forward to revealing anything intimate to Della. She was Sara’s friend, after all, not his, and although he didn’t know the actual depth of their friendship, he suspected that Sara had told Della at least a few private things.

The thought that Sara might have had this kind of intimate conversation with Della filled him with apprehension. Suppose he asked Della straight out, What did Sara say? Did he really want to know? If he asked her about another guy and learned that there was one, what would he ask next? The guy’s name? Why would he want that? Would he ask how long it had been going on? What good would such information do him now? Or would he simply tell Della the truth, I don’t care about any of that. I just want the chance to get her back.

His father’s face suddenly thrust itself into his mind and he knew with what contempt the old man now regarded him, his pussy-whipped son. On the shoulders of that thought, he headed across the cul-de-sac and knocked at his neighbor’s door.

Della opened it. “Hey, Tony.”

“I was . . . I . . . You haven’t heard anything, right? About Sara?”

Della shook her head.

“She’s missing. I mean, she just sort of . . . left, I guess. . . . The thing is, I was wondering if she said anything to you. You and her being friends and all, I thought she might—”

“No, Tony,” Della said. “She didn’t say anything to me about—”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony said hastily. “I just thought maybe . . . You know.” He stepped away from the door. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No, that’s okay,” Della told him. “I mean, I wish I could help you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Tony said. He turned to leave, faced the empty house across the cul-de-sac, its dark windows, and stopped. “I just—” He turned back. “I don’t know what to do.” He started to say more, stopped briefly, then said, “Would you mind if I came in for a minute, Della?”

She looked at him in a way he’d never seen before, as if she were afraid of him.

“Just to . . . talk,” he added.

She nodded but he could tell that it was hesitantly.

“Of course, if you’re busy . . .”

“No, that’s okay,” Della said, her voice still oddly strained. “I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

In the kitchen, Tony sat at the square wooden table, his hands folded around a brown mug, sipping it occasionally, trying to find the right words but always failing. “I think my father’s looking for her,” he said finally.

Della nodded stiffly and pressed her back firmly against the door of the refrigerator.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Della said.

Tony took a sip from the mug. “She didn’t say anything to you, did she? I mean about leaving me?”

Della shook her head.

“You know if maybe there was some other friend she talked to?” Tony asked.

“No. I don’t think she talked to anybody.”

“I guess not,” Tony said. An aching sigh broke from him. “She sure didn’t talk to me. But then, I didn’t talk to her either.” He tried to smile. “You and Mike talk?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Just the usual stuff. Every day. The kids.”

Tony’s gaze roamed Della’s kitchen. He envied Mike this simple, contented wife, so different from his own. But that was what had drawn him to Sara in the first place, wasn’t it? The way she was so different from the girls in the neighborhood, the ones his friends had already married or were about to. “I liked her accent,” he said.

“What?”

“Her accent. Sara’s. You know, southern. The thing is, I’d be good to her if she came back.”

Something in Della’s face altered, and she suddenly unfastened herself from the door of the refrigerator and sat down at the table. “I’m really sorry about this, Tony.” She touc????his hand. “Really.”

He drew his hand away, feeling like a worm now, the type of guy his father hated. Not like Donny, whose wife wouldn’t have dared leave him. Or Angelo, who’d never stop busting his chops if he didn’t get Sara back, make her keep her mouth shut, get back to the old routine and stay there.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, and got to his feet. “I better be going.”

Della walked him to the door but stepped back quickly when he turned to say good-bye, her eyes fearful again.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Tony said, though he didn’t know in exactly what way he’d bothered her, and certainly could find no reason for her to fear him. Why would she? They had been neighbors for years, and he’d never done anything to cause her the slightest unease. He saw clammy dread in her eyes and knew that it was the same fear he’d seen in the cringing figures who stood before his father, men who’d crossed him in some way.

“Has anyone else talked to you about this?” he asked. “My father, I mean. Or somebody who works for him?”

Della shook her head. “No.”

“I have to find Sara before my father does,” he told her.

Della said nothing.

“So, if he talked to you—”

“He didn’t talk to me,” Della blurted, then stepped back from the door. “Really, Tony.”

“Okay,” Tony said.

He walked back across the cul-de-sac. By the time he entered his house he’d come to believe that Della had lied to him. It was even possible that his father already knew where Sara was. Perhaps he was already headed to some motel on the Jersey Shore, Caruso behind the wheel of the big blue Lincoln, ready to do whatever the Old Man said he had to do to bring Sara home.

MORTIMER

He saw Caruso first, a thin, taut wire of a guy, the type who seemed always to be walking point. In the war, they were the ones who’d usually bought it first. Bought it so quickly, Mortimer had come to the conclusion that there was something about them, all that fidgeting perhaps, that God just didn’t like.

“Mr. Labriola should be here in a few minutes,” Caruso said as he scurried up to him. He glanced out toward the swirling traffic. “Drives a Lincoln.”

“There’s no place to park around here,” Mortimer said.

“Oh, he won’t park,” Caruso said, “the car will drive up and you’ll get in.” He glanced about nervously. “You better have your story straight. You don’t, he could take you to some fucking car-crushing joint and nobody would ever see you again.”

“You got a hell of a boss,” Mortimer said.

Caruso’s face turned threatening. “Speaking of which, Batman didn’t change his mind, did he?”

Mortimer shook his head as a stinging pain swept across his abdomen, bending him forward slightly.

“What’s the matter?” Caruso asked.

“Nothing,” Mortimer groaned.

“You’re pretty out of shape there, Morty,” Caruso told him.

Mortimer lowered himself onto the steps at the entrance to the park. “Yeah.”

“You should get on the old treadmill. Get rid of that fucking paunch you got.”

“One fifty-four, that’s what I weighed in the army,” Mortimer told him. He could not imagine how it had happened, the physical deterioration he’d undergone since then, not only the vanished hair, the spreading belly, and drooping, worthless dick, but the lethal forces that were consuming him now, his liver going south, dragging him into the grave.

“You was in the army?” Caruso asked. “When was this?”

“Sixty-seven.”

“ ’Nam?”

Mortimer gave no answer. “So, is Labriola gonna show up, or not?”

“He’s always on the dot,” Caruso said. “Why, you got a fire to go to?”