4
Detective Napoli and a patrol officer took me to the
OCCB’s charmless headquarters to get my statement. Lopez, whom
Napoli obviously didn’t want anywhere near me, stayed at Stella’s
to keep working on the problem the cops were having with the crime
scene.
I figured they were
looking for evidence of a second gun. Or at least a second bullet.
Because the shot fired from the street, through the front window,
couldn’t have been the shot that killed Chubby Charlie. But it was
still the only one the cops knew about by the time I left the
scene. And unless the killer could see through walls and program
his bullets to turn corners, there was no way the shot that came
through the window could have killed the mobster.
If I hadn’t been
hysterical after watching Charlie die, I might have realized this
right away. Or maybe not. I’m an actress, not an assassin. My
familiarity with guns, bullets, and firing trajectories is limited
to what I see on Crime and
Punishment.
But Lucky, whose
knowledge of such things seemed to be encyclopedic, was
baffled.
The cops seemed to be
baffled, too. In between bouts of questioning me, Napoli had
several exasperated phone conversations with CSU personnel back at
Stella’s, and one very exasperated
conversation with Lopez.
At least, I assumed
it was Lopez, since there was one point at which Napoli snapped at
his caller, “Miss Diamond is fine. Now
keep your mind on your job, goddamn it!” I doubted that any other
cop at Bella Stella was asking after my well-being.
Napoli asked me a lot
of questions about myself, about that evening at Stella’s, and
about Charlie. He didn’t ask how I knew Lopez, though. He didn’t
even allude to the acquaintance. But I had a feeling he’d be asking
Lopez plenty about it, once they were
done processing the crime scene.
“You seem very tight
with the Gambellos,” Napoli observed, handing me a diet soda after
we’d been talking for a while.
“No.” I shook my
head. “I’m just a waitress. I’ve been working at Stella’s on and
off since last year, but only when I don’t have a real job—an
acting job. I’m not an insider there, and I don’t socialize with
anyone there. I like the place because Stella is a good employer
and the customers tip well.”
“Oh?” Napoli affected
casual surprise. “I thought Stella and a number of her customers
seemed very fond of you tonight. Protective, too.”
“I think they were
mostly trying to annoy the cops.”
Actually, I did have
warm relationships with Stella and Lucky. And since a number of the
restaurant’s regulars liked the way I sang, they often asked to sit
in my section and I was on cordial terms with them. But I
definitely wanted to quash Napoli’s attempt to suggest that I was
cozy with the Mafia.
He persisted, “I
thought they seemed to count you as one of their own.”
“I’m not Italian,” I
said. “And I think you know, Detective Napoli, that people in that walk of life would
never think of me as one of the family. So to speak.”
“Meyer Lansky was
Jewish, but he and Lucky Luciano were like brothers.”
“Meyer Lansky was a
gangster. I’m an actress waiting tables in between
roles.”
“But you see a lot at
Stella’s, I’ll bet.”
“I keep my head down
and mind my own business,” I said firmly. “For the most part, I’m
not even sure which of Stella’s customers is or isn’t a Gambello.
They don’t carry business cards or wear matching shirts, you know.
I realize there are real mobsters at Stella’s, and I know who the
more famous ones are. That’s all.”
“Famous? Like Chubby
Charlie Chiccante?” Napoli prodded.
I nodded. “Charlie
has been in the news too many times for me not to know who he is.
Er, was.”
I was, I admit,
prevaricating a little. I didn’t like Napoli, and I was uneasy
about his evident conviction that I knew a lot more than I
did.
A number of the
wiseguys who hung out at Stella’s, like Tommy Two Toes and Jimmy
Legs, had also been in the news, so I knew about them. And wiseguys
aren’t discreet. The reputations of guys like Lucky Battistuzzi,
Frankie the Hermit, and Ronnie Romano were openly acknowledged by
the customers at Stella’s, as well as by the staff.
But in cases where I
didn’t know someone’s reputation, his status was usually easy to
guess. If a man was always in the company of made guys and seemed
to be working with them, it was a safe bet that he was also a made
guy, a “button man,” someone who’d gotten “straightened out.” If
someone seemed welcome on the fringes of those tight circles but
obviously wasn’t an insider, he was “connected,” an “associate,” or
a “friend of ours.” These were all terms I’d heard wiseguys use to
describe various shady men and tough guys who had friendly
relations with the Gambello crime family or who wanted to become
part of it.
And then there were
the Buonarottis. None of them were really regulars, but a few
members of that crime family showed up every week. The Buonarottis
were less powerful than the Gambellos and so, with the brashness
born of insecurity, they liked to make sure Stella’s servers knew
who they were—made guys, button men, Buonarotti soldiers. Guys with
“juice”—power, influence, clout.
We also had many
customers who shared the mannerisms and unfortunate fashion sense
of wiseguys (loud shirts, shiny shoes, gold jewelry, and an
ill-advised fondness for colorful sweat suits), but who weren’t
criminals. Sometimes it was easy to tell them apart from the
mobsters, but not always.
“So, besides Charlie,
who else dines at Bella Stella who’s a Gambello?” Napoli asked me.
“You must have some ideas. Some guesses?”
I blinked.
“You’re a lead investigator at the
Organized Crime Control Bureau. Don’t you know?”
“I’d like to hear
your take on it.”
“Why?”
“You seem like an
intelligent woman.”
“You don’t think
that,” I said irritably. “You think I’m a ditz! You’re hoping I’m
so eager to feel important that I’ll show off by trying to lecture
you about stuff you already know—or damn well should know, since it’s your job to know! And in
the course of rambling on about life at Stella’s, maybe I’ll let
some important information slip. Except that I don’t have any important information,
Napoli!”
“Then tell me the
truth about Charlie’s death!”
“I have told you the truth!”
“It doesn’t work,
Miss Diamond. Based on the only possible trajectory of the bullet
that killed Charlie, you had to have
seen the killer.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“If you were near
Charlie when he got shot, then you saw who killed him. There’s no
way you didn’t.”
“That’s what this is
all about? You don’t believe me?”
He shook his head.
“Your story doesn’t hold up against the evidence,
Esther.”
“I’d prefer that you
keep calling me ‘Miss Diamond.’ ”
“So I’m wondering why
you’re lying.”
“I’m telling the
truth,” I said wearily, beginning to suspect there was no way I’d
ever convince him of this.
“Are you trying to
protect the killer?”
“Do I look like I’d protect a killer?” These questions
were getting on my nerves. “Do I look like someone whose protection
a Mafia hit man would want?”
“So Charlie was
killed by a Mafia hit man?” he pounced.
I rolled my eyes.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that’s the case,
Detective.”
Napoli suddenly
switched tactics, making an attempt to look concerned and sound
sympathetic. “So maybe you’re afraid of what the Gambellos will do
if you tell the truth about what you saw. I can understand
that.”
“You don’t do ‘good
cop’ well,” I said. “It just doesn’t work for you.”
He scowled. “Are you
afraid of the killer, then?”
“Generally? Of
course! Because the killer is, you know, a killer. But specifically? No. Because the killer
must know I didn’t see him. I mean, if he thought I did, wouldn’t
he have shot me, too?”
Napoli changed the
line of attack again. “Maybe you’re trying to avoid trouble with
the Gambellos? Maybe you knew they
wanted Charlie dead, and you’re afraid to talk about
it.”
I frowned.
“Did the Gambellos want him dead? I
thought he was a good earner.”
“So you do hear them talk business!”
“No. Charlie told
every waitress in the place that he was a good earner. He also told
us he was good in bed.”
“Or maybe
you wanted him dead,” Napoli
suggested.
“No, he tipped me
well.” After a moment, I said, “That came out wrong.”
Coplike, he changed
the subject without warning. “Did Charlie ever talk about the
Corvino family?”
“Not to
me.”
“To who,
then?”
“I don’t know.
Sometimes I’d be passing his table and I’d hear him say something
like, ‘Those fucking Corvinos. ’ I don’t remember anything more
specific than that.”
“Does anyone else at
the restaurant ever mention the Corvinos?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Almost
everyone.”
“What do they
say?”
“About five times a
night, they say, ‘Those fucking Corvinos.’ ” I had not observed
much originality of expression among the wiseguys at
Stella’s.
“Did anyone mention
the Corvinos after Charlie got shot?”
“Not that I remember.
Mostly, I screamed a lot, then there was a stampede of departing
wiseguys and screaming tourists, then Stella screamed a lot, then
cops showed up . . . I don’t remember much conversation, and
certainly nothing about who might have killed
Charlie.”
“So you think they
already knew who did it?”
“ ‘They,’ who? There
was me, Stella, three freaked-out waiters, our accordion-playing
bartender, and a couple of tourists from Colorado who didn’t see a
thing but thought they should wait for the police, even so. No one
else stayed inside the restaurant with the corpse before the cops
arrived.”
“You know more than
you’re saying.”
“You’re
wrong.”
“What aren’t you
telling me?”
“That I don’t like
your shirt. Tan isn’t your color.”
“By lying to me about
what you saw,” Napoli said, “you put yourself in more danger,
Esther, not less.”
“What’s the
matter with you? This is the third
gang-land murder at Bella Stella in five years! Why is it so hard
for you to believe I’m just a law-abiding waitress who was unlucky
enough to see the latest killing while working there?”
“Because your story
doesn’t fit the evidence,” Napoli said.
“That does it.” I
rose to my feet. “I’m going home.”
“I advise against
that, Miss Diamond.” He rose, too. “You’re a material witness in a
mob hit. You’re in danger now. I want to take you into
protective—”
“No.”
Everyone on Mulberry
Street must know by now that I had insisted over and over to Lopez
and Napoli—as well as to Lucky—that I hadn’t seen a thing. And
whoever the killer was, he must know, too, that I hadn’t seen him.
So I didn’t believe I was in danger of being permanently silenced
if I went about my normal life. But I did believe my normal life would get screwed up
beyond recognition if I went into protective custody. For one
thing, the killer might wonder if he was wrong and I had seen something, and that was precisely what I
didn’t want him to start
thinking.
More to the point,
how was I going to go to auditions while in protective custody? Or
earn money to keep paying my rent? And how long would protective
custody last? A week? A month? Six months? Until the city ran out
of money for guarding me? The rest of my life?
None of those
prospects sounded good to me.
“I have nothing to do
with whatever business got Charlie killed, and I saw nothing,” I
said to Napoli. “So the last thing I want is to be treated as if I
am involved or run my life as if I
did see something.”
“You’re making a
mistake,” Napoli said.
“I’m a witness, not a
suspect, and I’m tired. I’ve told you everything I know, it’s late,
so I’m leaving.”
“You’re not a suspect
yet,” he said ominously. “But your
behavior isn’t helping your situation. And don’t think that your
personal involvement with Detective Lopez will protect you from the
law, either.”
“I don’t need
protection from the law,” I snapped.
I slung my purse over
my shoulder and stomped out of the squad room, wishing a bad case
of shingles on Napoli.
It took me hours to
fall asleep that night.
In my mind’s eye, I
kept seeing Charlie’s shocked expression as he keeled over dead. I
also kept remembering his ranting about how he was marked for death
and nothing could change that.
He knew he was going to be killed.
I hated imagining
what that must be like. Charlie had been a loathsome specimen, but
I recalled his terror in his final minutes of life, and I felt
sorry for him.
I also recalled
Napoli’s parting comment to me, and I wondered what Lopez was
thinking right now, if he was still awake (which seemed likely—I
suspected the cops would be working the case most of the
night).
Napoli would be hard
on him, I had no doubt about that. But did Lopez also think I was
lying, since there was a discrepancy between what the cops thought
had happened and what I had actually seen?
Oy. He and I really
did have a lot to talk about. And, despite how much I had looked
forward to his return, I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation
we were going to have.
It was very late by
the time I fell asleep. And it was very early when the shrill ring
of the phone startled me awake. I flinched, choked, rolled over,
reached toward my nightstand, and grabbed the phone.
“Hello?” I
croaked.
“Were you
asleep?”
“Who is
this?”
“It’s me! Lucky!” His
tone suggested this should be self-evident.
I glanced at my alarm
clock. “Lucky? It’s six thirty in the morning. On a Sunday.”
“I know. We need to
get there early.”
“Where?” I asked, my
eyes stinging from lack of sleep.
“St.
Monica’s.”
“The
church?”
“It’s a safe place to
talk,” Lucky said. “But we gotta get there before people start
piling in for the first Mass.”
“I don’t want to
talk, I want to sleep.”
“Time enough for
sleep in the grave,” he said.
“Ohmigod!” His
mentioning the grave made me remember what had happened last night.
“Charlie.”
“Yep, that’s what we
gotta talk about. Can you be there in thirty minutes?”
“What? Why?” Then I remembered the cops’ conviction that I
was in danger. I sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake as a
terrible fear flooded me. I was being lured to my death! “Lucky . .
. do you have orders to bump me off?”
“What?”
“Are you—Is this—” I
couldn’t force out the words.
“Jesus,” Lucky said. “Those cops really did a
number on you, huh?”
“I-I—” I panted a
little.
“Calm down, kid.
Breathe. Breathe.”
Feeling the first
trickle of relief, I said, “You’re not going to kill
me?”
“Madre di Dio, of course not!”
“I didn’t see
anything,” I assured him.
“No one saw anything,” Lucky said. “It don’t make no
sense. I been instructed to find out what happened. Before the cops
find out. That gives me some time, obviously, because they’re
idiots. But I still need to see you right away. You’re the last
person who talked to Charlie before he got whacked.”
“I’m not sure about
Napoli, he might be an idiot,” I conceded. “But Lopez is very
sharp. You don’t want to underestimate him.”
“Then I guess I got
less time than I thought,” Lucky said. “Be at the church in twenty,
instead of thirty.”
“But—” I heard him
hang up.
When a notorious hit
man—even a semiretired one—tells you to get up, get dressed, and
get downtown in twenty minutes, it’s amazing how fast you can
comply, even on only a few hours of sleep.
I entered the hushed,
shadowy sanctuary of St. Monica’s only twenty-five minutes after
talking to Lucky.
The church was not
very big or fancy, but it had a hallowed, sacred feel. The dawning
sun shone through the stained glass windows lining the high walls.
The tidy rows of dark wooden pews gleamed softly as the muted
morning rays bathed them with ribbons of light. My footsteps on the
stone tiles echoed and bounced off the vaulted ceiling as I walked
down the center aisle of the empty church in search of
Lucky.
I found him kneeling
before an altar nestled in the apse on the north side of the
church. With his hands folded and his head lowered, he was praying.
A painting of the Virgin Mary—improbably blonde and blue-eyed and
wearing seventeenth-century European clothing—looked down at him, a
benevolent smile on her pretty, plump face. There were about thirty
candles flickering gently on the altar. I wondered if Lucky had
lighted them . . . for all the guys he’d whacked, especially the
ones he’d liked.
I cleared my
throat.
Lucky glanced up at
me. “You’re late.”
“Is there any
coffee?” The deli on my block wasn’t open this early on a
Sunday.
“This ain’t no
suburban ecumenical bullshit,” Lucky said, frowning at me. “This
here’s a real church.”
“So you’re saying
there’s no coffee?”
He turned his
attention back to the Virgin without answering me, made the sign of
the Cross, and then rose stiffly to his feet. When he turned to me,
I saw that his face was heavily lined this morning, and there were
bags under his eyes. His short-cropped, gray hair needed combing,
and he was still wearing the clothes he’d worn last
night.
“You haven’t been to
bed,” I said.
He shrugged. “After
you got dragged off by Napoli, I got ordered to come
in.”
I knew from my
sojourn at the restaurant that this phrase meant he’d been summoned
to see the boss. The capo of his famiglia. The don of the Gambellos. Wiseguys never
spoke his name, at least not in such a public place as Stella’s;
they always just used the phrase “the boss.” But it was common
knowledge that Victor Gambello, the Shy Don, was head of the
family. He’d earned the nickname because the stutter he’d had as a
child had left him with a lifelong habit of speaking softly, only
when necessary, and preferably only in private. He was eighty years
old now and in very frail health, so he almost never left his house
in Forest Hills anymore. I realized Lucky must have been out to
Queens and back since I’d seen him last night.
However, just as I
was about to comment on how tired he looked, his face suddenly
brightened with energy and lively interest.
Wondering what caused
this transition, I looked over my shoulder in the direction he was
looking.
A beautiful woman was
entering the church. She was tall, slim-waisted, and curvaceous.
Her black hair was mostly covered by a lacy black veil.
Dramatically arching brows framed long-lashed dark eyes. Her skin
was almost the same rich, golden olive color as Lopez’s. She wore a
black dress and no makeup. An ornate cross hung from her neck, and
she carried a small handbag. I thought she looked about forty-five,
but might even be in her late fifties. Good bone structure, good
posture, and good skin made it hard to tell.
Lucky made a hasty
attempt to straighten his rumpled hair, stepped forward, smiled,
and said, “Good morning, Elena.”
She gave him a cold
glance and walked right past us.
“She doesn’t seem to
like you,” I murmured to Lucky.
“She’ll come around.
I just need to be give her time.”
When I glanced at
him, he looked down and shuffled his feet a little.
Ah. So this was the cause of the blushing I had
noticed the other night. Lucky was sweet on a parishioner at St.
Monica’s.
I said, “I gather you
don’t come here just to save your soul and pray for the
dead?”
“I come here for
that, too,” he said defensively.
The woman kept
walking until she reached the other end of the church. Then she
genuflected before a marble figure of a berobed woman, lit three
candles near the statue’s feet, and knelt to pray.
“Who is she?” I asked
Lucky.
“The Widow
Giacalona.” He nodded to where she was praying. “She’s very devout.
Prays twice a day to Saint Monica.”
I looked at the
statue. “That’s your weeping saint?” When he nodded, I asked, “Have
you seen it weep?”
“Not yet. Only Elena
has seen it so far.”
“Oh.” So much for
miracles. “Who is Saint Monica?”
“Patron saint of
widows and wives.”
“I see.” Probably a
fitting saint for a neighborhood that had seen decades of mob war
between men in the Corvino and Gambello organizations. After a
moment I asked, “Why does Elena light three candles?”
“Widowed three
times.”
“She’s lost three
husbands?” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Three?”
“It’s very
unfortunate,” Lucky said sadly.
“Are you sure
she’s not killing them?” I thought
three dead husbands might indicate something more proactive than
mere misfortune.
“Of course I’m sure!”
Lucky looked offended. “You got a nasty mind.”
I shrugged. “Well, if
her luck’s really that bad, I can understand why she might be
reluctant to marry again.”
“I’m a patient man.
She’ll come around.”
“Maybe. But if she’s
lost three husbands, are you sure you want to be number four? Your marriage could be the
death of you.”
“I’ll be fine.” He
grinned at me. “I’m lucky, after all.”
“If you say
so.”
He watched her with a
lovesick expression for a long moment, then took my elbow and said,
“Let’s take a walk.”
“Can we go find a
coffee shop?” I suggested hopefully.
“No, we gotta talk
here.”
“But you just said
we’re going for a walk.”
“ ‘Take a walk’ means
we’re gonna discuss some business in a place where the Feds can’t
overhear us,” he said patiently. “In this case, we’re already
there.”
“So we can’t go get
coffee?” I asked in disappointment.
“No. We gotta do this
where I’m sure we ain’t being bugged.”
“But a random coffee
shop wouldn’t be—”
“You never know,” he
said.
“What about the
widow?” I asked.
“Keep your voice down
and she won’t hear nothing.”
“And what about the
priest?” I said, as one emerged from a side door and came toward
us.
Lucky looked over his
shoulder. “Oh, good morning, Father Gabriel.”
The priest smiled.
“Hello, Lucky!”
Ah, so this was Father Gabriel, I thought, recalling that
Charlie had mentioned his name when I suggested going to St.
Monica’s.
The priest was about
thirty and very attractive. He had dark hair, soulful brown eyes, a
sensitive face, a nice build, and a warm, friendly manner that was
instantly apparent.
He said to Lucky, “We
don’t usually see you here so early on a Sunday. Everything all
right?”
“Just getting my
worshipping in early today, Father.”
The priest glanced at
me, still smiling, and said to Lucky, “I see you brought . . . a
friend? A relation?”
“Uh, yeah,” Lucky
said. “My niece.”
“Esther Diamond,” I
said.
“My Jewish niece,”
Lucky added. “On my sister’s side. We don’t really talk about
it.”
“Welcome, Esther,”
Father Gabriel said without missing a beat. “We’re happy to have
you here today.”
“Thanks.” I smiled
back. “What time is the service?”
“Not for another half
hour,” Father Gabriel said.
“I’m looking forward
to it,” I said.
“Lucky can show you
around the church while I prepare,” the priest replied. “If you’ll
excuse me?”
“Of course.” I smiled
at him again. He was a hunk, this priest.
He went up to the
altar to get something, then exited the church through the same
side door he had used to enter. Going back to his study, I
supposed, or whatever kind of room priests used to get ready for
Mass. Vestry? Crypt? Dressing room?
Maybe I’d ask the
Catholic guy I was dating.
If he was still
dating me, that was.
“Flirting with a
priest,” Lucky muttered. “You ought to be ashamed of
yourself.”
“I wasn’t flirting,”
I said.
“Oh, then what was
that great big smile you gave him?”
“Well, maybe I was
flirting a little,” I admitted. “That’s
one cute priest.”
Lucky looked shocked.
“There’ll be none of that here, young lady. Besides, ain’t you got
a boyfriend? A possessive one, as I recall?”
“Do I?” I wondered
morosely. “I hope so.”
“Well, he ain’t gonna
like hearing you flirted with a priest,” Lucky warned.
“Then he’d better
not hear it,” I replied.
“Hmph. Come on. Let’s
sit down. We’re wasting time.”
Lucky walked me to
the center aisle of the church, genuflected next to a pew that was
about five rows from the front, and gestured for me to take a
seat.
Then he sat down next
to me and said in a low voice, “The word from the top is, we can’t
have someone feeling free to whack a made guy without permission or
warning. Especially not a good earner like Charlie.”
“So Charlie was
telling the truth about being a good earner?” I mused.
I chose not to dwell
on whether Charlie had also been telling the truth about being
great in bed. It seemed too improbable, and the images invoked by
such pondering wouldn’t be good for my mental health.
“So I gotta find who
hit Charlie, and I gotta whack him,” Lucky said
matter-of-factly.
“I don’t think we
should be talking about whacking in church,” I said
uneasily.
“What do you care?
You ain’t even Catholic.”
“Even so, it doesn’t
seem appropriate.”
“Hey, this is the
place where we confess our sins,” Lucky said. “So we might as well
plan ’em here, too.”
“There’s a certain
warped logic to that,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to be involved
in planning a retaliatory homicide.”
“Huh?”
“Er, I don’t want to
help you whack someone.”
“You think I’d take a
girl along on business?” Lucky said dismissively. “You’re just
gonna help me figure out who done it, so I can make sure he don’t
do it again.”
“I think we should
leave this to the cops,” I said firmly.
“Until when? Until
you get whacked out?”
I flinched. “What
makes you think I’ll get whacked out?”
“Cops think you saw
something, don’t they?”
“But I didn’t!” I
insisted.
“You know you didn’t. But if the cops keep saying
you did, how long do you figure it’ll take the hitter to decide he
should tidy up his loose ends, just in case?” Lucky
said.
“Tidy up . . . You
mean, kill me?”
“A lot of these young
guys . . .” Lucky shook his head. “No patience. No self-control.
It’s disgusting, the things they’ll do when they get a little
nervous.”
I started rethinking
my position on protective custody.
Lucky said, “So it’s
best if you tell me whatever you can, kid. Did Charlie say anything
to you before he got whacked?”
I nodded. This, at
least, was a subject that I didn’t think would make me a potential
accessory to homicide. “In fact, he said a lot.”
“He had problems? He
knew something was up?”
“He knew he was going
to die.” I added, “But Charlie sounded crazy, Lucky.”
“It wouldn’t be the
first time,” Lucky said. “What did he say to you?”
“He said he’d been
cursed, he’d been marked for death.”
“Hmm. Marked for
death?” Lucky nodded. “Go on.”
“He talked about
la morte—”
“He talked Italian?”
Lucky stiffened, as if the use of Italian made the situation doubly
serious.
“A little.
La morte was the only part I
understood. Oh, and something about a dope.”
“A
dope?”
“Um . . . a
doppio?”
“Doppio.” Lucky frowned, puzzled. “A
double?”
“Yes! He kept
babbling about a double.”
I’d told Napoli about
this, too, but he had dismissed it—just as I had dismissed it when
Charlie was clutching my arm and raving about it. Napoli went over
and over some parts of that conversation with me, though, since he
found it noteworthy that Charlie believed he was going to die. The
detective obviously thought that, somewhere in that ranting,
Charlie had made a revealing statement about the anticipated
homicide that I’d either missed, forgotten, or was deliberately
concealing.
Lucky asked me, “What
about a double?”
I thought back. At
the time, I’d been convinced Charlie was having a medical or
psychotic episode, and I’d been more concerned with trying to get
help than with listening to him.
“He said something
about the evil eye,” I said.
Lucky clutched the
pew in front of us. “The evil eye?”
“I thought it sounded
silly, but he—”
“Hah! Don’t mock the
evil eye, kid.”
“He said he’d seen
his perfect double. That it looked, walked, and talked like him. I
thought he had looked at a mirror and had a hallucination, but he
insisted it was real. He said that he’d looked into its eyes, that
it had spoken to him, and so now he was marked for death. I know it
sounds crazy . . .” I spread my hands.
Lucky rubbed his jaw
as he thought it over. I noticed he needed a shave. “But
is it crazy?”
“Well, something was
certainly affecting his brain,” I said. “Remember how strangely he
behaved the other night? The night he came back to the restaurant
and acted . . .” The memory suddenly hit me in a completely
different light. “Acted as if . . .”
Our eyes
met.
“As if,” Lucky said,
“he hadn’t been to dinner yet.”
“Hadn’t asked me to
sing for him,” I said. “Hadn’t been inside the restaurant at all
yet.”
“As if he was . .
.”
A chill crept through
me. “A different Charlie.”
“A second Charlie,” Lucky said.
“Charlie’s perfect
double.” It took me a moment to realize my jaw was hanging open.
“My God, Lucky, we saw him! It? Er, the
double.”
He nodded. “The same
night we saw Charlie.”
“So which one of them
was the real Charlie?” I wondered. “And
which was the double?”
“I dunno. They both
looked like Charlie to me.”
“And they both
behaved exactly like Charlie,” I said.
“But one was a fake.
A ringer.”
“Why?” I wondered.
“And how?”
“And where the hell
did it come from?”
“That was the last
thing Charlie said before he died,” I recalled. “That he didn’t
know who had sent it.”
Lucky thought it
over. “So did Charlie’s double whack
him?”
“Wouldn’t someone
have seen it? Charlie’s double was every bit as big as Charlie,
after all.”
“Yeah, that’s another
problem we got. If the double was the hitter, did it become
invisible or something?”
“Has anything like
this ever happened before?”
Lucky shook his head.
“I been in the business more than forty years, kid. I never seen or
heard of nothin’ like this. It’s weird.
I got no idea what to do about it.”
Wondering just how
big a can of worms I was opening, I said, “I know someone we should
talk to about this.”
“Not your boyfriend,”
Lucky said firmly.
“No,” I said.
“Definitely not him.” Lopez might have me locked up in a padded
cell if he knew what I was planning to do. “Lucky, I’d like to
introduce you to Max.”