Oona blinked.
Gorgeous green eyes wide open now.
“I knew about the adjournment,” Rollins said, lying.
She kept staring at him.
“You’ve never done any work for the police, is that right?”
“Never.”
“Wouldn’t know any bent cops, would you?”
“I don’t know any cops at all. I don’t even remember the names of the ones who arrested me.”
“In that case, thank you, Miss Halligan, sorry to have bothered you.”
“Not at all,” she said, and looked at him, still baffled, and then looked at her watch again, and hurried off toward the subway kiosk on the corner.
He figured she was clean.
Rollins didn’t get to the end of his list until that Friday, the twenty-first of May. He showed his shield to the doorman of the building on Eighty-First Street, asked him what his name was...
“Luis,” the doorman said.
... and then told him that everything they said in the next few minutes was to be held in strictest confidence, did he understand that? This was an ongoing police investigation, and he was not to reveal this visit to anyone, was that clear?
Luis almost wet his pants.
His sister was an illegal alien from the Philippines.
He nodded and assured Rollins that he would not tell a soul the police had been here.
Rollins went inside and looked at the mailboxes, jotting down several names at random. He came back out again and started asking questions about the various nameplates in the boxes, really wanting to know only about the nameplate for 12C, which read M. WELLES. He tossed in a few red herrings to keep Luis off base, and then he said, “How about Welles? Know who’s in apartment 12C?”
“Oh, yes,” Luis said. “Mr. and Mrs. Welles and their daughter.”
“What’s her first name?”
“Mollie,” Luis said.
“Mrs. Mollie Welles?”
“No, no, tha’s dee daughter,” Luis said.
“What’s the mother’s first name,” Rollins asked, closing in for the kill.
“I don’ know,” Luis said.
“How, about the husband? Know his name?”
“Michael,” Luis said. “Michael Welles.”
And clear out of the blue, he added, “He worrs for the DA’s Office.”
“What it is,” Rollins was explaining to them, “he’s the deputy chief DA in the Organized Crime Unit.”
In the rearview mirror, Petey exchanged glances with Bobby.
The three men were driving through Queens in Petey’s car, which he knew was not bugged because he had it checked by a mechanic every Friday. He’d had it checked yesterday, and he knew it was clean. He almost wished it was bugged, this kind of information. Andrew Faviola fucking a DA’s wife, this was information he’d love them to hear downtown. Rollins was sitting on the front seat beside him. Bobby Triani was in back. The car was a new Cadillac Seville with dual air bags and a telephone. It was a gift from a person for whom Petey had done a favor, like having somebody break his wife’s boyfriend’s legs. Rollins had one arm draped over the back of the seat. He kept turning his attention from Bobby to Petey and back again.
“I checked the minute this spic doorman told me where he worked. Turns out he investigated and tried a very big case five years ago, put away the whole Lombardi Crew, six of them altogether. They’re still doing OCCA time.”
“What’s his name again?” Bobby asked.
“Welles. Michael Welles.”
“Michael Welles,” Petey said.
“Yeah.”
“The Lombardi Crew.”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s possible,” Bobby said.
Rollins knew better than to ask what was possible.
“That she could be the one,” Petey supplied.
Rollins still said nothing.
“You’re sure she’s this guy’s wife, huh?” Bobby said. “The one done the Lombardi Crew?”
“Positive.”
“What’s her name?”
“I still don’t have it.”
Bobby sighed.
Petey sighed, too, and nodded to Bobby in the rearview mirror.
Bobby began peeling off hundred-dollar bills.
“Thanks, Randy,” he said, “you done a good job.”
Rollins liked dealing with these people.
They gave good weight for the pound, and they always paid cash on the barrelhead.
“I hear you’re serious about some girl,” Ida said.
She looked a lot like her father, with Rudy’s strong nose and ink-black hair. Andrew could never be with her without thinking of the little girl she’d once been. The Sunday visits to Grandma’s house. Roller-skating with her on the sidewalk outside. Watching television together in the room Grandma had that looked as if it had come straight from Italy on a boat carrying olive oil, a small, warm, cozy room with red velvet drapes and big heavy furniture and ornately framed pictures of mustachioed men in stiff white collars and cuffs.
Whenever he came to Ida’s house on a Sunday, Andrew spent most of the time there with her. Bobby he could see any day of the week. In fact, he sometimes saw Bobby more days of the week than he could stand. Ida he saw once every couple of months, if he was lucky.
“So who is she?” she asked.
She was at the stove, tasting the tomato sauce bubbling in a pot. She wasn’t such a terrific cook, Ida. She hadn’t been a great stickball player, either, but that hadn’t stopped her from trying. She was wearing a plastic apron over the blue dress she’d worn to church this morning. The apron had the words PLEASE DON’T KISS THE COOK printed on it.
“Where’d you hear that?” he said.
“Your father wrote to me,” she said, and shrugged. “He said when you went out there, you mentioned some girl. He told me he thinks it’s serious. You and this girl.”
“No, I never said anything like that, Ide.”
Ida wouldn’t let it go.
“You can tell me, come on,” she said.
“I’m telling you there isn’t anybody,” Andrew said, but he grinned like a schoolboy.
“Your father said it sounded serious.”
“He heard me wrong, Ida. I told him there was nobody serious. I mean it,” he said, and grinned again.
“Would you tell me if there was?” she asked, and lifted the wooden spoon from the pot and brought it to her lips, tasting the sauce.
“Sure, I would,” he said.
“Or is there a problem?” she asked.
“What kind of problem?”
“I don’t know. She could be somebody’s daughter, for example...”
“No, no.”
“Like I heard, you know, you were dating Tony Cannieri’s daughter, which I have to tell you isn’t such a good idea, Andrew, messing with somebody’s daughter who’s respected like Tony is.”
“I stopped seeing her, Ide.”
“Good. That was a wise decision,” she said, and began stirring the sauce again. “I hope it’s not somebody’s wife you’re serious about.”
“I told you I’m not serious about anyone,” he said, and grinned again.
“Yeah, yeah, come on, this is me.”
“I’m telling you, Ide.”
“’Cause that could be really dangerous, somebody’s wife.”
“It’s not anybody’s wife you would know,” Andrew said.
“Then she’s married?” Ida asked at once, and looked up straight into his face.
“Ida,” he said, putting on the serious little-boy look she knew so well, “I really can’t talk about this right now.”
“She’s married, hmm?”
“Yes.”