The large Italian gentleman was, Sonny realized with a sinking heart, Mr. Paulo Cassandro, Pietro’s brother. He had just had his picture in the newspaper when he had been arrested for something. The Inquirer had referred to him as a “reputed mobster.”
“Sonny Boyle, right?” Mr. Cassandro asked, smiling and offering his hand.
“That’s me,” Sonny said.
“Pleased to meet you. Marco’s been telling me good things about you.”
“He has?”
“I appreciate your coming here like this.”
“My pleasure.”
“Get him a glass,” Paulo Cassandro ordered. “You hungry, Sonny? I get you up from your dinner?”
“No. A glass of wine would be fine. Thank you.”
“You’re sure you don’t want something to eat?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, maybe after we talk. I figure I owe you for getting you here like this. After we talk, you’ll have something. It’s the least I can do.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Marco tells me you’re pretty well connected in your neighborhood. Know a lot of people. That true?”
“Well, I live in the house my mother was born in, Mr. Cassandro.”
“The name Frank Foley mean anything to you, Sonny?”
Sonofabitch! I didn’t even think of that!
“I know who he is,” Sonny said.
“Me asking looks like it made you nervous,” Paulo said. “Did it make you nervous?”
“No. No. Why should it?”
“You tell me. You looked nervous.”
Sonny shrugged and waved his hands helplessly.
“Tell me about this guy,” Paulo said.
“I don’t know much about him,” Sonny said.
“Tell me what you do know.”
“Well, he’s from the neighborhood. I see him around.”
“I get the feeling you don’t want to talk about him.”
“Mr. Cassandro, can I say something?”
“That’s what I’m waiting for, Sonny.”
“I sort of thought you knew all about him, is what I mean.”
“I don’t know nothing about him; that’s why I’m asking. Why would you think I know all about him?”
“I got the idea somehow that you knew each other, that he was a business associate, is what I meant.”
“Where would you get an idea like that?”
“That’s what people say,” Sonny said. “I got that idea from him. I thought I did. I probably misunderstood him. Got the wrong idea.”
“Sonny, I never laid eyes on this guy. I wouldn’t know him if he walked in that door right this minute,” Paulo said.
“Well, I’m sorry I had the wrong idea.”
“Why should you be sorry? We all make mistakes. Tell me, what sort of business associate of mine did you think he was?”
“Nothing specific. I just thought he worked for you.”
“You don’t know where he works?”
“He works at Wanamaker’s.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know. In the warehouse, I think.”
“Just between you and me, did you really think I would have somebody working for me who works in the Wanamaker’s warehouse?”
“No disrespect intended, Mr. Cassandro.”
“I know that, Sonny. Like I told you, Marco’s been saying good things about you. Look, I know you were mistaken, and I understand. But when you were mistaken, what did you think this guy did for me?”
Sonny did not immediately reply.
“Hey, you’re among friends. What’s said in this room stays in this room, OK?”
“I feel like a goddamned fool for not knowing it was bullshit when I heard it,” Sonny said. “I should have known better.”
“Known better than what, Sonny?” Paulo Cassandro said, and now there was an unmistakable tone of impatience in his voice.
“He sort of hinted that he was a hit man for you,” Sonny said, very reluctantly.
“You’re right, Sonny,” Paulo said. “You should have known it was bullshit when you heard it. You know why?”
Inspiration came, miraculously, to Sonny Boyle. He suddenly knew the right answer to give.
“Because you’re a legitimate businessman,” he said.
“Right. All that bullshit in the movies about a mob, and hit men, all that bullshit is nothing but bullshit. And you should have known that, Sonny. I’m a little disappointed in you.”
“I’m embarrassed. I just didn’t think this through.”
“Right. You didn’t think. That can get a fella in trouble, Sonny.”
“I know.”
“Ah, well, what the hell. You’re among friends. Marco says good things about you. Let’s just forget the whole thing.”
“Thank you.”
“You know what I mean about forgetting the whole thing?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“You know what you did tonight, Sonny?”
“No.”
“You wanted to be nice to the wife. You wanted to surprise her. You know a guy who works in the kitchen out there. You come to the back door and told him to make you two dinners to go. He did.”
“Right, Mr. Cassandro.”
“That it was on the house is nobody’s business but yours and mine, right? And you didn’t see nobody but your friend, right?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Cassandro.”
“Marco,” Paulo Cassandro said. “Get them to make up a takeout. Antipasto, some veal, some pasta, some fish, spumoni, the works, a couple bottles of wine. And then take Sonny here home.”
“Yes, Mr. Cassandro.”
Paulo Cassandro extended his hand.
“I would say that it was nice to see you, Sonny, but we didn’t, right? Keep up the good work. It’s appreciated.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cassandro.”
“You see anybody here by that name, Marco?”
“I don’t,” Marco D’Angelo said.
“Sorry,” Sonny said.
“Ah, get out of here. Enjoy your dinner,” Paulo Cassandro said.
Impulsively, when he reached the Media Inn, at the intersection of the Baltimore Pike and Providence Road, Matt continued straight on into Media, instead of turning left onto Providence Road toward the home in Wallingford in which he had grown up.
Except for a lantern-style fixture by the front door, there were no lights on in the brick Colonial house at 320 Wilson Avenue; Mr. Gerald North Atchison, restaurateur and almost certain conspirator in a double murder, was apparently out for the evening.
There was time for Matt to consider, as he slowly approached and rolled past the house, that driving by wasn’t the smartest thing he had done lately.
What if he had been home? So what? What did I expect to find?
He pressed harder on the Porsche’s accelerator and dropped his hand to the gearshift.
To hell with it. I’ll go home, and hope I can look-what did Wohl say Amy said? A condition of “grief shock”?-sufficiently grief-shocked to convince my mother that I am not the sonofabitch I have proven myself to be.
Jesus! What if Amanda calls the apartment and Milham’s girlfriend answers the phone? Amanda will decide that I am letting some other kind female soul console me in my grief shock! And be justifiably pissed. Worse than pissed, hurt. I’ll have to call her.
And that’s not so bad. She said not to call her. But this gives me an excuse. Jesus, I’m glad I thought about that!
There was a sudden light in the rear of the house at 320 Wilson, growing in intensity. Matt looked over his shoulder-it was difficult in the small interior of the Porsche-and saw that the left door of the double garage was going up.
He pulled quickly to the curb, stopped, and turned his lights off. A moment later, a Cadillac Coupe de Ville backed out of the driveway onto the street, turned its tail toward Matt, and drove off in the other direction.
With his lights still off, Matt made a U-turn, swore when his front wheel bounced over the curb he could not see, then set off in pursuit.
Why the hell am I doing this?
Because I think I’m Sherlock Holmes? Or because I really don’t want to go home and have Mother comfort me in my grief shock?
Or maybe, just maybe, because I’m a cop, and I’m after that bastard?
Not without difficulty-the traffic on the Baltimore Pike through Clifton Heights and Lansdowne toward Philadelphia was heavy, and there were a number of stoplights, two of which left him stopped as the Cadillac went ahead-he kept Atchison in sight.