“So what I’m saying is, make him good for it,” Labriola fumed. “You don’t make him good for it, Vinnie, then I’ll make you good for it.”
“Yes, sir,” Caruso said. His fingers rose to the knot of his tie. “Don’t worry, Mr. Labriola. I’ll get the money.”
“You fucking better. Because I don’t make threats, right? I make promises.”
Labriola had told him about other promises he’d made to people who’d previously crossed him or disappointed him or simply failed him in some way. They’d ended up at the bottom of the East River or curled into the trunks of old sedans on President Street, he said. And always the stories about Russian roulette, how if you wanted to face down a guy, you offered to play it with him, took the first turn yourself, proved you had the balls to look death in the fucking eye. You did that, Labriola said, nobody ever questioned who was boss. Caruso wasn’t sure the Old Man had ever actually spun the chamber and placed the barrel against the side of his head. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t sure if any of the Old Man’s gangland tales were true. Years before, when Labriola had first given him a job running numbers, he’d believed Labriola was a big-time mobster. Later he’d learned that in fact he was little more than a nickel-and-dime shylock. But by then it didn’t matter whether the Old Man was big or small. He was the guy who’d taken him in after Caruso’s father had vanished, the guy who’d given him work and patted him on the head when he did things right and yelled at him when he did things wrong and in doing that had pulled him from the boiling rapids he’d been shooting down before Labriola had yanked him from the water and given him something to do besides boost cars and raid vending machines for a few lousy bucks. Old Man Labriola had brought him under his wing, given him real work, so that he wore a suit now and looked respectable, and if you didn’t know better, you might even think he was legit.
“So, you gonna straighten this fucker out?” Labriola barked. “ ’Cause if you don’t…”
“I know, believe me,” Caruso said. “I’ll straighten him out.”
“You fucking better,” Labriola warned. “ ’Cause nobody screws Leo Labriola and gets away with it.” He slashed the air, his hand like a cleaver. “Now get the fuck outta here.”
Caruso rose and headed for the door. He’d already opened it when the Old Man’s voice drew him back.
“By the way, what did you think I’d tell you, Vinnie? Huh? To just forget it? Write this fucking deadbeat a ticket? Merry Christmas. Some shit like that?”
“I just thought you should know that in the past-”
“You know what the past is, Vinnie?” Labriola snarled. “A dead body. It fucking smells.”
Caruso nodded and closed the door behind him. He knew that he should be pissed at the Old Man for talking to him like he was a jerk, but each time his anger flared, he remembered how much he owed the guy, along with how much he looked forward to those moments when Labriola seemed to like him, seemed to want him around, even to think that he did a good job.
He knew that if he did enough good jobs, then one day he’d get the Big Assignment. Labriola had never told him what the Big Assignment was, but Caruso had seen enough movies to know that it was a hit that made a guy big. Someday, he thought, Mr. Labriola would put his arm over his shoulder, give him the Big Assignment, then kiss him on each cheek. At that point it would have all been worth it. The waiting by the phone, the times he’d been chewed out. At that point it would be worth it because he’d know that he was the guy the Old Man trusted to carry out the ultimate big deal, the one guy he trusted… like a son.
He knew that moment would come, and because of that, he couldn’t get mad at the Old Man, and so he immediately shifted his anger to the deadbeat bastard who’d landed him in this fix, lulled him into false trust by always being good for it before, and in that way set him up to get hauled over the coals by Labriola. It was, Caruso concluded, all Morty’s fault.
DELLA
She rinsed the coffee urn while Mike ate his breakfast and thumbed through the paper. Nicky gurgled happily in his high chair, his small pink fingers dunking in the milk, reaching for a Cheerio.
“Where’s Denise?” Mike asked.
She turned and saw that he’d folded the paper and placed it on the table beside his plate. “Upstairs. Primping.”
“Primping? Jesus. She’s twelve years old.”
“They start early now,” Della said. “More coffee?”
Mike shook his head and got to his feet. “No. I’d have to piss halfway into the city if I had another cup.” He shrugged. “Probably will anyway.” He smiled that boyish smile of his, the one she’d fallen in love with nineteen years before. Then he turned and trudged up the stairs, his big, hulking shape a comfort to her, like living with Santa Claus. Once he’d made it upstairs, she listened as he moved from the bedroom to the adjoining bathroom, and back again. He’d misplaced something. His keys probably. What a lug she’d married. What a kind, sweet lug.
She walked to the bottom of the stairs. “Look in the hamper,” she called. “They’re probably still in your pants.”
She listened as he did as he was told.
“Got ’em,” he said loudly. “Thanks, babe.”
She felt a modest surge of accomplishment, a sense of being useful, then returned to the kitchen and began clearing the table. She’d just finished wiping milk from Nicky’s mouth when she saw Denise fly down the stairs and bolt out into the yard. Kids, Della thought, they’re so crazy now.
“Okay, I’m off,” Mike said as he lumbered back into the kitchen. He glanced out the window to where Denise stood waiting for her bus. “She okay?”
“Getting to be a teenager, that’s all.”
“Anything I should know about?”
“She talks to you as much as me.” She drew Nicky out of the high chair. “Say bye to your dad.”
Mike kissed Nicky on the cheek. “You be a good boy now,” he said brightly. He looked at Della, and his big, clownish face warmed her. “See you tonight.”
“We’re having tuna melt,” she told him. His favorite.
He kissed her, walked to the car, and got in. Denise offered a grudging, halfhearted wave as he drifted backward into the cul-de-sac.
Della returned Nicky to his chair, then began to load the dishwasher. The school bus arrived and Denise bounded onto it. Then the bus pulled away, and Della glimpsed her friend Sara’s house across the cul-de-sac. It looked cold and cheerless and abandoned, everything her house was not, and she felt inexpressibly lucky to have found a guy who’d take care of her, make sure she had everything she needed, provide a life that was truly without peril.
STARK
As he strolled idly down the aisle of the antique shop, he thought of time, then death, then the sweetness of oblivion, how much he’d come to yearn for the end of life. So easy, he told himself, so easy just to let it go, this chain of days that stretched ahead of him. He imagined the moment, the feel of the pistol in his mouth, the shattering impact, and felt himself instantly disintegrate, burst like a vase of air, leaving nothing behind.
Literally nothing save the few luxurious items he’d purchased because the high craft employed in making them lifted his spirits and took his mind off Marisol.
But now, as he approached the anniversary of her murder, he realized that the power of a beautifully cut piece of glass or a perfectly woven scarf to change his mood had waned enormously during the preceding twelve months. He suspected that his getting older was part of it, though he was only fifty-three. The rest was loneliness, and the fading hope that there would ever be an end to it while he lived on earth. He’d loved once, and overwhelmingly lost that love in a whirl of violence, then lived on in the aftermath of that explosion, its shattering echo forever in his mind. Now, more than anything, as he admitted to himself this morning, he wanted an end to memory. Beyond life he saw a world of utter stillness and eternal dark, and yet he harbored the hope that somewhere in that darkness the soul of Marisol waited for him patiently. The nurturing of this hope, he knew, was an act of will. But if he abandoned it, Henderson would win, and Lockridge would win, and they could win only at the cost of Marisol.