“I’ll get a mistrial.”
“I’ll deny it, and who’s going to believe you?”
Louis tried to lift himself on the bed, which brought on a coughing fit. The oxygen hose came out of his nose. Hardy stood and pulled his chair back while the guard came over and pushed a button by the bed. In another minute a nurse was there. The coughing fit had passed and Louis lay still, looking dead.
The nurse replaced the oxygen tubes and checked the bandages on Baker’s chest and thigh. Hardy could see the blood through the gauze-a line of blood and drool had run from Baker’s mouth. There was a low gurgling sound, and Hardy realized it was Baker’s breathing.
The nurse turned. “He shouldn’t really talk.”
Hardy decided to keep pretending to be official until someone called him on it. “I’ll only be another five minutes. This is a murder suspect.”
“Do you want him alive to go to trial?”
Hardy glanced at Baker, then back at the nurse. “Not particularly, but I’ll keep it short anyway.”
Hardy pulled his chair back up and noticed the nurse saying something to the guard at the door.
“Now where were we?” Hardy said. “Oh yeah. You were on Ingraham’s barge.”
Baker was still struggling with his breath, as though he’d been running. “There wasn’t no woman there,” he said.
“You told Sergeant Glitsky you weren’t there.”
“He puts me there, he thinks I did the man.”
“Correct.”
“The man brung me there.”
“Who did?”
“Ingraham.”
“Ingraham brought you where he lives? You want me to believe that?”
“You believe what you want anyway. I’m telling you what happen.”
“Okay. What happened?”
“I get off the bus an’ the man is there waitin’. He goes, ‘Come take a ride with me,’ and I pass on it. But he’s packing.”
“You’re telling me Rusty Ingraham pulled a gun on you?”
Baker nodded. “I told you. He shows me his piece and we go to his car. I figure he’s going to shoot me, but we drive about two miles and next I know we’re on his boat.
“He says he hears I’m tryin’ to be a citizen now, good behavior up the House, like that. We sit drinking water on his couch and he say he hope all that’s true, but in case it isn’t, he wants me to know where he lives so by mistake I don’t ever come near the place, which if I do he’s gonna shoot first, self-defense, do I get the message?”
The gurgling sound came again deep in his throat, and Baker swallowed a couple of times, making a face.
“Then what?” Hardy asked.
“Then I up and leave. I walk around, getting away from there. I’m a free man.” The guard came walking up. “The nurse said two minutes.”
Hardy stood, looking down at Baker. He was still swallowing, a light sheen of sweat across his brow. He opened his eyes. “I didn’t kill nobody,” he said.
The guard rolled his eyes at Hardy. “They never do, do they?” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
A cane in one hand, Angelo Tortoni walked out of Saints Peter and Paul church at Washington Square. His wife, Carmen, held him in the crook of her elbow on the other side, and their two sons, Matteo and Franco, walked in front of and behind him as he turned left off the steps.
He walked slowly, enjoying the beautiful morning, enjoying his wife’s chatter. Carmen was nearly twice the size of Angelo, but was not at all fat. He liked to think of her as sturdy-good solid legs, a hard round culo, a wide waist and melon breasts. She was twenty years younger than he was, originally from Italy and, because of that, well-trained but with a passionate nature and a seemingly innate knowledge of what kept your husband happy, even after a couple of decades.
Several times the Angel had thought his wife would kill him with her energy, but he was beginning now to realize that her enthusiasm was probably keeping him young. She could be tireless in the pursuit of his pleasure, as she had been last night, and then demanding that she got hers, too. Tortoni thought that was fair-he didn’t think there were many women who could bring him to life so often as Carmen did. Even when he thought he didn’t want it.
The little procession crossed the square, then turned up Powell at the Fior D’Italia. Sunday was God’s day. Carmen was happy. Angelo wouldn’t leave the house after lunch-a few neighbors would stop by to pay their respects, perhaps ask a favor or two. Today they would find Angelo Tortoni a soft touch. He turned his head and nodded, smiling, at something his wife said. She looked down almost shyly, squeezing his arm. They slowed even more, turning uphill off Grant.
Angelo’s legs were as good as any man’s, but he enjoyed putting out the message that he was somehow getting frail. It might keep his enemies off guard should he ever need that. But he had found it also served to slow down all his rhythms-to give his words a weight, his judgments a finality that they had lacked when he was young and fast. A quiet voice, whispering, helped, too. When you didn’t raise your voice, people had to come to you, to concentrate on every syllable. It was power.
Franco ran ahead and opened the gate in the white wall in front of his house. They turned into the small front yard, waiting on the walk for Franco to bound up the nine steps and open the front door.
It pleased Angelo that his boys took care of this security, without any supervision, to the steady hum of Carmen’s voice. She was not a gossip, a scold or a shrew, but she liked to take her after-Mass Sunday walk and feel she was catching up on all the news with her husband, who didn’t respond much except to nod or pat her hand. Yet it made her feel they were sharing things in their daily life, although Tortoni knew that nothing could be further from the truth. Carmen knew almost nothing about his daily life, other than that he was a counselor to troubled people, a philanthropist to those in need, an elder in the Knights of Columbus.
The foyer basked in sunlight colored by the stained glass above the doorway. Angelo breathed in the smell of lamb roasting in the kitchen. Garlic and rosemary. He helped Carmen with her coat, kissing the back of her neck before he handed the coat to one of the men. Only then did he notice Pia, the maid, standing by the entrance to the living room, wringing her hands. Carmen patted Angelo’s arm and crossed over to talk to her quietly in Italian. It was probably something about lunch, something they’d burned or forgotten to buy. Well, it was all right, whatever it was.
“There is a woman to see you,” Carmen said, “in the study.”
Tortoni made a face. “Now?” He turned a hard glance on Pia. He didn’t know any women, certainly none who would dare come to his own house on a Sunday before noon. “Do we know her?”
Carmen spoke in Italian. “Pia could not send her away. Don’t be angry with her. The woman looks as though she’s been beaten. She begged for your help.”
Tortoni told Pia she had done the right thing. He would see the woman, find out what this was about.
He nodded to Matteo. He would go into the study and see that the woman was not carrying a gun or a knife in her purse or anywhere else. Tortoni asked Pia if she would bring him two glasses and his bottle of Lachryma Christi, the sweet yellow wine he drank after Mass every Sunday. He took off his coat, placed his cane in the umbrella stand by the door, turned around and gave Carmen a kiss on both cheeks. “Ti amo,” he said. Then, back to English, “I won’t be long.”
The study was dark, but even in the dimness he could tell at a glance that this was a stunning woman. Makeup had tried to cover the welt on her cheek, but an eye was swollen and her full red lips looked bruised. They made you want to kiss them and make them better.
She wore a light tan skirt that now, as she was sitting, came to just over her knees. Her hair was pulled back, held to one side with a mother-of-pearl comb. She reminded Angelo Tortoni of his wife on the day he married her. He dismissed Matteo and the door closed on the two of them.