She staggered into the bedroom. Eddie was there, loaded down with an armful of blankets and stripped-off bed linens, and there was a woman in there, too, loading another few pieces onto the pile. She was tall and thin and looked to be in her middle thirties, with the close-set eyes and narrow axe-blade of a nose that stamped her as one of the Barrone clan. She gave Eddie a little shove toward the door and he headed out with a glance back at her; he seemed a little moony-eyed, Tricia thought.
“Go on,” the woman said, and a few seconds later they heard him tromping down the stairs.
Charley came in quietly beside Tricia. The woman, who’d paid Tricia no attention whatsoever, eyed him up and down with considerably more interest.
“Scruffy, aintcha?” She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “You’re papa’s new pet? Eddie told me he’d picked up some strays.”
“You’re Mr. Barrone’s daughter?” Tricia said.
“Among other things,” she said, not taking her eyes off Charley.
Tricia scoured her memory for the daughter’s name, the surviving daughter—the dead one was Adelaide, she remembered that. “Renata,” she said. “Right?”
“Points to the little lady,” Renata said—to Charley. “She might win herself a kewpie doll yet.”
“And you’re married to—” Tricia caught herself.
“Robbie Monge, that’s right,” Renata said, brightening. “The famous bandleader. Read about us in Hedda’s column, did you?”
“Among other places,” Tricia said. She didn’t like this woman, she decided. Didn’t like her at all, and wouldn’t have liked her even if she hadn’t been sizing Charley up like a dressmaker eyeing a bolt of satin.
“Why no ring?” Charley said, nodding toward her hand.
She lifted the hand, stared at it as though noticing for the first time the absence of a wedding band. “I wore one for a while,” she said. “It made my finger itch.”
And she tilted her face down to give him an up-from-under stare straight off the cover of Real Confessions.
“Awful nice to have met you,” Tricia said, emphasizing the awful more than the nice. “But we’re pretty tired and we’ve got an early day. Maybe you could let us get some sleep?”
Renata didn’t take her eyes off Charley. “What is she,” Renata asked, “your kid sister? Or just your kid?”
Tricia’s mouth dropped open, but Charley put a hand on her arm before she could say anything. “Mrs. Monge, Trixie’s right, we really do need to get some sleep. If you wouldn’t mind...?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind,” Renata said. “I wouldn’t mind at all.” On her way out the door she patted Tricia’s forehead. “Pleasant dreams, honey.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
“What a hussy!” Tricia fumed. “She’s a married woman!”
“Didn’t you tell me she’s a widow?” Charley said.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that,” Tricia said.
“How do you know she doesn’t?” Charley said.
“If she does, that’s even worse,” Tricia said. “Her husband’s not even buried yet—”
“Robbie didn’t sound like a prize himself,” Charley said. “Anyway, that’s not the point.”
“Oh? What’s the point, then?”
“The point is she’s Barrone’s daughter, and we might need her help. We certainly don’t need to get into a fight with her.”
“I wouldn’t say a fight’s what she wants to get into with you,” Tricia said. “You might want to check the tub before you climb in.”
Charley wearily slid his suspenders off his shoulders, began undoing his cuffs. “Her cozying up to us isn’t the worst thing that could happen, Tricia.”
“Us? She’s not cozying up to us.”
“So?” Charley said. “One of us is better than neither. We need every advantage we can get.”
He was right, of course—she knew he was right. Still. “Go take your bath,” she said. She pulled off her shoes one by one, threw them at the armchair in the corner. She slung herself backwards across the bed, let her eyes close. “And don’t wake me when you come back.”
“Then move over,” Charley said, “so I won’t have to.”
“I think maybe you should take the chair this time,” she said.
“Swell,” Charley muttered and headed toward the sound of pouring water.
30.
The Vengeful Virgin
When the first rays of sunlight through the blinds prodded her awake, Charley wasn’t in the bed; he wasn’t in the chair either. His shoes were on the floor, next to hers—he’d left the four of them lined up, side by side. She saw his pants draped over the arm of the chair. Her dress, which she’d stripped off and left in a heap on the floor with her underwear, was missing, and in its place was a folded robe. It was too large for her, but she put it on and managed to walk down the hall to the bathroom in it without tripping.
The hallway lights were off and the house was silent. She rapped gently on the bathroom door and prepared to whisper his name, but it swung open under the impact of her knuckles. There was no one inside—but there were her dress and her intimates, hanging from the shower rod and almost dry. Charley’s shirt and undershirt were hanging beside them. She looked at the seat of the dress. The stain from where she’d landed on Jerry’s roof hadn’t come out, not completely, but it was faint enough now that you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t know to look for it; and the smell, at least, was gone.
She got washed at the sink like she’d done for years on cold mornings in Aberdeen: a splash of water, a streak of soap, some more water, vigorous toweling. She brushed her hair back, briefly inspecting the dark roots that had started to show at her scalp. Would she dye it again? If she got out of this mess, would she stay blonde? Or would she go back to the old brown of Aberdeen, quiet and unexciting but safe? It was tempting—to not be Trixie any longer, just Patricia Heverstadt once again, attracting glances as she walked down the street but not bullets. Yet she wondered whether this temptation was like the bargains she’d found herself making while climbing down the rain gutter, the sort you might contemplate in a dire moment but that you’d never go through with in the end.
She pushed the question out of her mind. First things first. Finding Charley (maybe he was in the kitchen, grabbing some breakfast?), finding the guns (would Barrone really let them have them back?), and then finding Nicolazzo and Erin and Coral (the corner of Van Dam and Greenpoint, wasn’t that what Charley had said?).
She pulled the dress on over her head, buttoned it up as far as the missing buttons would permit, drew on her stockings, then padded back toward the bedroom for her shoes. There was one other room on the floor—one other door anyway, halfway down the hall—and she went slowly as she passed it, trying to make as little noise as possible.
She needn’t have bothered. She heard a throaty chuckle from within, a creaking of springs. Then a woman’s voice, coaxing: “C’mon, beautiful. Ain’t you slept enough?” More creaking followed. The people inside weren’t listening to anything going on in the hall.
Tricia moved on. Then stopped dead when she heard a voice, muffled by the door, say, “I really need to go.” It was Charley’s voice.
“What’s the hurry?” Renata asked. “It’s early still.”
“We’ve got a long day coming up,” Charley said.
“That’s not all you’ve got coming up,” she said.