“George,” I said.
He looked at me.
“I’m a reader,” I said.
I watched Desmond Burke, fascinated, wondering how much he was willing to tell. It was somewhat like watching the old man begin to pull on a thread.
“Bobo was a cousin of Vincent Cataldo,” Desmond said. “Maria was Vincent’s daughter.”
Richie said, “Uncle Felix told me once that Vincent Cataldo had something on Whitey Bulger, but no one ever knew what.”
“To this day we don’t know what,” Desmond said. “But Vincent ended up running his own gerrymandered district, as I ended up with my own.” He shook his head. “I always thought that it amused Whitey,” he said, “pitting Vincent and I against each other.”
“And you took up with Vincent Cataldo’s daughter?” Richie said.
“I did,” his father said. “For the first time in my life, I had power. Including, as I discovered, power over women.”
“How lucky for you,” Richie said.
“I am asking you again not to judge,” Desmond said.
“You’re allowed to ask,” Richie said. “And I’m asking you if Mom knew.”
Desmond nodded. “I finally admitted the affair to her. And she accepted.”
“Easy for you to say,” Richie said.
“No,” his father said. “It is not. And was not.”
He gave a quick shake to his head.
“It was around that same time that Vincent discovered that his daughter and I had been seeing each other,” Desmond said. “And let everyone know that his solution to this particular problem was to have me killed. But Maria told him that if he did that, she would kill herself.”
“So how was it resolved?” I said.
“There was finally a sit-down with Vincent and me,” Desmond said. “He said I was lucky that his daughter had interceded on my behalf, or he would have commenced killing those close to me one by one. But he told me that I had to be the one to break it off with her, without telling her that I had met with her father.”
“Did you?” I said.
“I did. I told her I was Catholic and could never be divorced and that it had been foolhardy of both of us to think that we ever could run away together,” Desmond said. “I think she knew I was lying. But she accepted.”
“The way mom did,” Richie said.
There was something in Desmond’s eyes, like a match being lit suddenly. But he let it go.
“What happened then?” I said.
“A few months after we stopped seeing each other, Maria left Boston,” Desmond said. “On her own. Or was sent away. I never knew which. I was not told where she went, and never saw her again.”
“Where is she now?”
“I swear to you I don’t know,” he said.
“So you don’t know if she’s dead or alive?” I said.
He shook his head. “I always assumed that somehow or someday I would see her again. I never did.”
“You didn’t attempt to find her.”
He gave me a long look. “Nor did she attempt to find me.”
“But now it appears someone is coming for you and those close to you much as her father once threatened to do the same,” I said.
“Perhaps someone who wants to hurt you as he apparently believes you hurt her,” Richie said. “And then kill you.”
“Blood feuds,” his father said. “As mean as brass knuckles.”
“How did Vincent Cataldo die?” I said to Desmond.
“The theory at the time was Albert Antonioni,” he said. “Who had become his partner by then.”
I looked at Richie. He looked at me. We both looked at his father.
“Small world,” Richie said.
“One full of coincidence suddenly,” I said.
“Do you believe in coincidence?” Richie said to me.
“Not even a little bit.”
“Is that all of it?” Richie said to his father.
“As much as is relevant,” Desmond said.
“Even if holding back might keep us all in danger,” Richie said.
“Even if.”
There was one last, interminable staredown between father and son, two pairs of dark eyes locked on each other.
“Please go now,” Desmond Burke said.
We went.
Thirty-Two
We drove back to Melanie Joan’s in Richie’s Jeep. Two of Desmond’s troopers were in a car right behind us.
Richie found a parking spot on River Street. He’d always had great parking karma, there was simply no explaining it. The troopers double-parked halfway up the block and shut off the engine. I tried to imagine the fun that might ensue if one of the good ladies from the neighborhood told them to move it.
We went inside. Richie immediately sat on the floor and Rosie jumped into his lap and began lapping his face. Whatever reservations she’d once had about Richie were clearly melting away, at an increasingly rapid rate. I asked Richie to take her out and he did. When he came back he locked the door behind him, gave Rosie a bone, walked across the living room and kissed me, hard and for a long time, with absolutely no resistance from me. When we finally pulled back, our faces were still very close.
“Lost love seems to be the theme of the day,” Richie said.
“Not here,” I said.
“Meaning you don’t want us to do it in the middle of the living room?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Not here and not in front of Rosie.”
“Where to?” Richie said. “Place is full of possibilities, according to Melanie Joan.”
“Bedroom,” I said.
“I could carry you up the stairs,” Richie said.
“Would be a bad time to lose you,” I said.
“You will never lose me,” he said.
We headed for the bedroom, both of us resisting the urge to run. I asked him to undress me. He did. There had been multiple times in our life together when Richie had struggled, and mightily, getting my bra off. Not today.
“Have you been practicing on the bras of others?” I said.
“Please stop talking,” he said.
I did.
And somehow this time, even after all the other times, was like the first time, with the room in shadows, as if day had suddenly been transformed into night, at least in here, with the shades drawn and door locked and the two of us as together as two people could be, with a coupling informed by fierceness and gentleness and want and need. And love. Eventually I exploded and then he did. Or perhaps it was the other way around, in a moment where it was impossible to know where I ended and he began, in the big bed that Melanie Joan said had seen more traffic than the T.
It was Richie who finally spoke.
“I think you might have scared the baby,” he said.
We were on our backs, on top of covers that had not been pulled back or down. The throw pillows from the bed were scattered around the room as if the place had been tossed.
Which, in point of fact, it had been.
My breathing had not yet returned to normal. Richie’s had. I often joked with him that his standard resting pulse rate was just slightly north of dead.
Then Richie said, “Holy fucking fuck.”
“An apt description,” I said. “If not a terribly poetic one.”
“Either way,” he said.
He turned and reached his head over enough to kiss me above an eye. When I turned back, I saw him smiling.
“Did you know this would happen after we left your father’s house?” I said.
“Ever hopeful,” Richie said.
“Do you think the boys outside are concerned that I may be holding you hostage?” I said.
“They’ll figure it out.”
“You think they may have heard me in the car?”
He smiled again.
“Pretty sure,” Richie said, “that they could hear you in Braintree.”
I punched him in the arm.
We remained side by side in the big bed, in the dark room. Neither of us made any attempt to cover ourselves.
“Do you think I’m starting to look older?” I said.
Richie propped himself up on an elbow and made a big show of turning his head, as if inspecting every inch of me.
“Hey,” I said. “This isn’t a show.”
“Speak for yourself, blondie.”
Then we commenced to do our level best to toss the place again.