“This is about you?”
“No! Fuck!” The curse was pure exclamation. Not a lead in or a modifier.
He paused for half of a microsecond, but I caught it. When he and I were together, I hadn’t liked cursing. I thought he didn’t do it until I found his texts to Clarice, and I found out just how well he used the word fuck.
He put his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands. “He’s the capo of the Giraldi crime family, Tinkerbell.”
If I’d had a muscle in my body that wasn’t tensed to pain, they caught up. Even my toes curled. “You’re making that up.”
His face was red and sweaty. He looked more like a man and less like a mayor than he had since the morning I discovered his infidelity. “I wish I was. I wish I was only jealous.”
My ex-fiancé didn’t get jealous often, but when he did, he burned white hot. I’d never betrayed him or any of my boyfriends. My relationships had ended because of educational choices (Randolph went to Berkeley, and I went to MIT) or because the other party strayed or because there was nothing worth bothering with, as was the case with Sam Traulich. He was a nice guy, just completely incompatible with me.
Sam and I stayed friends, and when he’d called to ask if I had any contacts at Northwestern Films, I agreed to a lunch. It had gone long. At three thirty p.m., Sam and I were laughing over some crumb of nostalgia when Daniel stormed into the little diner. At first, he was thrilled to see me alive. He’d apparently been calling the office for hours about our dinner plans, and no one knew where I was. My cell battery had died, so he tracked me down by having his friends on First Street look into my credit card transactions for the previous two hours.
For some reason, that didn’t bother me.
Once he’d gotten over his initial delight, he got a good look at Sam, who was burnished brown from the sun, joyful as always, laid-back, and in good humor. Daniel put on his politician game, apologized, and appeared to forget about it. We made it to dinner on time. Life moved on.
But not for Daniel. I was shocked to find out years later, through a mutual friend, what had followed. As an extraordinarily popular young prosecutor, Daniel had arranged for Sam to be picked up by the police, brought in, roughed up, and detained. Daniel visited the detainee and mentioned that if he ever kept his girlfriend too long again, Sam would be joined in his cell by at least three gang members who owed him favors.
I had been livid. I slept on the couch for three weeks and barely spoke to him. That was the last intolerably stupid thing Daniel ever did on my behalf.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m listening. Antonio is what... in the mafia?”
“Yes.”
“You mean there’s still a mafia?”
“Yes, Virginia, there is a mafia.”
I paused for a long time. On the one hand, he might as well have told me Antonio was a leprechaun. On the other, I couldn’t say I was surprised.
thirteen.
I texted Antonio.
—I have my one question—
—I want you to ask it in person—
—Agreed—
The address was in Hollywood Heights, overlooking the Bowl, on a hairpin turn that looked like a sheer drop on the right and a fortress wall on the left. A thirty-foot long, fifteen-foot high dumpster was visible over the hedge, and crashing and banging drowned out the scrape of cricket wings. I edged past a pickup truck that looked as though it had survived a demolition derby and parked next to a low sports car covered by a grey tarp.
The house was Spanish with a red tile roof, leaded stained glass accents, and thick adobe walls. Tarps swung from rafters, and every wall’s plaster had been cracked down to the lathe. I followed the banging and crashing, nodding at the rough men pushing a wheelbarrow of broken house detritus.
“Is Antonio here?” I asked.
I couldn’t imagine him hanging around a scraped-to-the-beams structure, but one of the guys thumbed toward the back of the house. I thanked him and headed in that direction. The pounding, thumping sounds were followed by the tickle of pebbles hitting the floor. The air got dusty, and the smell of pine hit me as I saw him.
I’d always been attracted to clean cut, educated men, men who had people to change their flat tires, drive them around, break down their walls. They exerted themselves mightily in gyms and squash courts. But none of them had ever looked like Antonio. He hoisted a sledgehammer and brought it down. The wall crumbled under the weight, and he wedged the head behind the wall and yanked it out, sending a shot of plaster and shredded lathe toward him. He didn’t stop, though. Didn’t even pause. His wiry muscles shifted and pulsed. The satin sheen of sweat on his olive skin brought out every muscle and tendon.
I knew women who liked that sort of thing: a sweaty man doing physical labor. I had never understood the appeal until that moment. He brought the sledgehammer down with a coil of force, like a righteous god smiting an errant creation off the face of his earth. The movement was so dramatic the gold pendant around his neck swung around to his shoulder.
“I know you’re there, Contessa.” He brought the hammer down again.
“Don’t you have people to do this for you?”
He tossed the hammer down as if he was done with the day’s violence. “It’s my house, and demo’s too much fun to delegate.” His face was covered in dust, sweat, and a smile.
“You should hire yourself,” I said.
“Like it?”
“It’ll be nice once you mop. Dust. You know, maybe a few pictures on the wall.” I swept my hand to the view of the city, the busted everything, the sheer potential.
“Let me show you.” He headed out an archway, indicating I should follow.
He led me onto a balcony on the west side of the house. The terra-cotta floor looked to be in good shape, and the cast-iron railing curled in on itself, making a floral design I’d never seen.
“I love this view,” I said, understating the grandeur of the ocean of lights. “I could look out on this all night.”
He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and poked one out. I refused his offer, and he took out a big metal lighter.
“Sit here at night, have a glass of wine. Or in the morning, a cup of coffee, just look over the city.” He lit his cigarette with a click clack, his profile something out of an art history class. He put his fingertips to the back of my neck, his stroke so delicate I didn’t lean into it, just stayed as still as I could.
“You had a question?” he asked, tracing the line where my shirt met my skin.
“Are you a leprechaun?” I asked.
“Only when St. Patrick’s Day lands on a full moon.” He was smiling, but I could see the question had confused him.
“I’m sorry. I had a real question, but I forgot which one I picked.”
Because they were all ridiculous, of course. If he was some cartoon capo, he’d have a dozen guys around him all the time. He’d wear pinstripes and a fedora. He’d carry a gun. He’d say capisce a lot.
“Do I get any questions?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“I’m an open book.”
He laughed softly, smoke trailing behind him. “Right. Open, but in a different language.”
He gave me an idea.
“I’m not going to ask you a question,” I said. “I’m going to tell you what happened to me today.”
“Let me make you coffee.”
The kitchen was in bad but useable shape. The beige marbled tiles with little mirrored squares every few feet, dark wood cabinets, and avocado appliances told me the place hadn’t been redone since the seventies.
Antonio sat me in a folding chair at a beat up pine table. “Best I have for now.”