“And to what do I owe the impending pleasure of your company?” Spike said.
“I am hopeful that you can help me bring order to the world of objective facts,” I said.
“Boy,” he said, “I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody has asked me to do that.”
I asked if I could bring Rosie.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“You know she bothers the customers sometimes,” I said, “especially when they bother her.”
“We can only hope,” Spike said. “Objectively or otherwise.”
Spike was waiting for me at a table he’d held for us near the bar. He was wearing a gray blazer over a gray shirt of almost exactly the same color. Tonight he had a diamond stud in his ear, an accessory that came and went.
“Any particular reason for when you wear the earring and when you don’t?” I said.
“I’m feeling kind of awesome,” he said.
“Any particular reason for that?”
“Look around,” he said. “Business is fucking awesome.”
We sat down at the table, Rosie on the chair Spike had provided for her between us. As much as she would sometimes bark at strangers and other dogs when we were out on a walk, a crowded, noisy room did not seem to bother her as much. She was a complicated girl. Like her mommy.
“I got tired of being inside my own head,” I said to Spike, and he said it had to happen eventually, and told our waitress that he wanted two filthy martinis, extra olives, and to tell the bartender not to get crazy with the vermouth.
I said, “Why do we even bother with vermouth? Have you ever asked yourself that?”
“It would diminish us,” Spike said, “to order vodka with olives.”
Our drinks came promptly, along with a calamari appetizer Spike knew was my favorite, and some chopped-up chicken for Rosie. Spike fed Rosie some chicken. He and I clinked glasses and drank.
“So where are we?” Spike said.
“Settle in,” I said.
“Happily,” Spike said. “The night is young and there’s no telling how many vodka-with-olives we might drink before we’re through.”
It was not a linear presentation. Spike was used to that. He knew about the body at the skating rink, didn’t know that the gun found on Dominic Carbone had turned out to be the one used on Richie, Peter, Buster. I told him that I knew hardly anything yet about Carbone, other than the fact that he had worked for Albert Antonioni. I told him about how Albert had made sure Maria Cataldo had a proper burial, and where Maria had been born and where she’d died. I told him that Desmond Burke thought it had been Albert who’d capped Maria’s old man. But may have lied about that. Because he could.
“Albert sure do get around, do he not?” Spike said.
“Be interesting,” I said, “to know more about what he was doing when Desmond was sowing his wild oats, so to speak, before Maria got sent away by her father.”
“Could Albert have had a thing with Maria before Desmond came along?” Spike said.
“Worth knowing.”
“Think Desmond would know?” Spike said. “And if he did know, would he tell?”
“Knowing Desmond,” I said, “I might have to extract the information surgically.”
“Would explain a lot, though,” Spike said.
“Wouldn’t it,” I said.
“Got another question,” Spike said. “You think that Richie would know if Desmond and Felix decided this Carbone guy was the shooter and had him taken out?”
“No,” I said.
“Even though him getting shot was the thing that started this?”
“Even though.”
We reached down for our glasses at the same moment. Synchronized martini drinking. Maybe it should be an Olympic event. Why not? I thought. I knew badminton was.
“Belson thinks Carbone is too good to be true,” I said.
“You think it’s him?”
I shook my head. “Desmond and Felix find out it’s him and manage to lure him to a skating rink in Southie? Makes no sense.”
“What in this thing does?” Spike said.
Rosie growled suddenly, first time all night, at an older woman suddenly standing over our table, closer to Spike than to me. Pointing at Rosie.
“I wasn’t aware pets are allowed here,” the woman said.
“Actually,” Spike said, “they’re not.”
He gave her his most brilliant smile now, one that he usually reserved only for dudes. And one I was convinced could turn straight ones gay.
“But he’s sitting right there between the two of you,” the woman said.
“He’s a she,” I said. “Her name is Rosie.”
“Whatever,” the woman said, exasperated.
“Rosie doesn’t see herself as a dog,” Spike said. “Per se.”
“Are you trying to be amusing?” the woman said.
Spike looked at me, then shook his head sadly. “If they have to ask,” he said.
I knew it was bitchy, but I reached over and fed Rosie some chicken.
“Well, if the dog stays, I’m leaving,” the woman said.
Spike smiled at her. I smiled at her. Rosie growled. The woman turned and left. I had never actually seen someone turn on their heel. But I was pretty sure she just had.
Spike said, “So what’s your next move? Finding out more about this Carbone guy?”
“I think it might be easier just to speak to Albert again.”
“Fuck,” Spike said. “I was afraid of that.”
“If it’s any consolation to you,” I said, “I feel the exact same way.”
Thirty-Six
There was no way of knowing, and might never be a way of proving, if the Burkes had ordered a hit on Dominic Carbone. Or if they had even determined that he was the man who had been stalking them. No way to know, at least not yet, if Carbone had some kind of relationship with the Cataldo family, or what was left of it, and had any real skin in this game.
And if it had been someone other than Desmond or Felix Burke who had ordered a hit on Carbone, who had? And why?
I also had absolutely no idea what was going to happen when Desmond found out that Maria had died in Providence, and that Albert Antonioni had been the one to make sure she got a proper burial.
Other than all that, the gods were smiling on me.
What I mostly knew, at least in the world of objective facts, was that Albert Antonioni’s name kept popping up more regularly than old girlfriends did with the president, even though he’d led me to believe he had hardly anything to do with Desmond Burke anymore, whether the subject was guns or anything else.
“He’s probably had more guys killed than Vladimir Putin,” Spike said before I left the restaurant. “But he might have enough of a heart to have done right by Maria Cataldo.”
“I still need to know why he was the one to whom it was left to have her buried,” I said. “And why she died at Rhode Island Hospital.”
“Why would he tell you that?”
“Sucker for a pretty face?”
“Okay,” Spike said. “You’ve obviously been overserved.”
“I’d like to find a way to head off a war between him and the Burkes, if that is what’s looming,” I said. “But it’s not as if I can ask Felix to set up a meeting.”
“Richie doesn’t even want you to cross the state line,” Spike said.
“I might have already asked Mike Stanton to call the guy we used last time,” I said. “But he said the guy’s number was no longer in service.”
“So how do we get back to see him?”
“We’ll think of something,” I said.
“Is that the literary we?” Spike said. “Or does that mean me?”
I smiled at him.
“Had a feeling that’s where this was headed,” he said.
It was time to go. Spike said that just because somebody had shot a guy from Rhode Island didn’t mean that I should suddenly stop looking over my shoulder. He insisted on standing with Rosie and me on the street in front of the restaurant until we were not only in the Uber I’d ordered, but also verifying that it was in fact that Uber I’d ordered before I gave the driver my name.