... Tommy tapped on the
glass of the bookstore’s door and Pete Morello lumbered up to unlock
it for him. Morello held two yellow and black cans of beer stacked one
on the other in a beefy hand. He held out the fresh one to Tommy.
... “Thanks,” said Tommy. “Where
are the guys?”
... “Back here,” said Morello.
“The kids’ section. It’s the only part you can’t see
from the street.”
... Tommy pictured them all sitting on stools
a foot high, but in fact they’d brought out some folding chairs.
Fontana and Garibaldi were already there.
... “Hello, Tommy,” said Fontana.
“Have a seat. You like the beer? Sorry it ain’t Peroni, but
you work with what you got. It’s imported, anyway. From Texas!”
... Morello sat down heavily and picked up
a paperback book. “Our book for tonight is The Don’s Right Hand,
by Dominic Abbruzze. Tommy, I’m sorry you haven’t had a chance
to read this yet. You may be familiar with some of it anyway.” He
licked his thumb and flipped through the pages. “Let’s skip
all this bullshit about growing up poor in the Bronx… Okay, here
on page twenty-two. This fuckin’ guy says he was running numbers
in Brooklyn in the early eighties. He was doing no such goddamn thing,
and I should know, ‘cause I was the boss of the numbers. What he
was, was a delivery boy. He’d round up a couple a girls about twice
a week and bring ‘em up to my office.”
... “Jesus Christ, Pete,” said
Fontana. “In your office? Did you count money while you were bangin’
them?”
... “Hey, my old lady would call and
check up on me six, seven times a day. I was lucky if I got to step outside
for a smoke break. Besides, I had a couch. It was comfortable.”
... Tommy snickered. “And they say romance
is dead. Why didn’t you just forward your phone when you went out?”
... The look of dismay on Morello’s
face said that this had never occurred to him. After a moment he shook
his head. “Nah, that would never have worked. Likely as not she’d
just show up at the door.”
... “Well, can you blame her?”
said Vito.
... “Don’t get me wrong, guys,
I love my wife. She’s a good woman, good mother to my children. Makes
a damn good lasagna. I gave her everything she ever wanted. But she’s
too jealous! She just don’t understand how things work.”
... “How is she, by the way?” said
Tommy.
... “Well, when I moved out here…”
Morello shrugged. “She wasn’t invited.”
... “Hey, listen to this!” said
Fontana. “Page thirty-one – here’s how he describes you,
Pete: ‘A fat bastard, mean as a snake but not half as bright–’”
... “That son of a bitch!” thundered
Morello.
... “Guys,” said Tommy. “I
have to go to the bathroom. Is that all right?”
... “All right?” said Fontana.
“What is this, kindergarten? Why you askin’ us? Want me to come
hold your dick?”
... “Easy, Vito,” wheezed Garibaldi.
“It’s from The Godfather.”
... When he got back they were arguing about
Abbruzze’s claim to have bedded one Isabella Stabrone.
... “I’m tellin’ you,”
said Fontana. “I tried to get between those legs, and it couldn’t
be done. It’s like that stuff was welded shut.”
... “Finally met a woman with good taste,
Vito?” said Tommy.
... It went on that way for another half
an hour. When Tommy got up to go to the restroom again, Fontana said,
“What’s the matter, Roccaforte? Can’t hold the booze no
more?”
... “I guess I’m not the man I
used to be. I’ll be back in a minute.”
... Tommy went through an opening at the
rear of the store, past the restrooms, through the stock room, and out
the back door to where he’d parked his car. There were two five-gallon
gas cans in his trunk. On his previous trip to the john he’d emptied
one of them onto the boxes of books. Now he poured the rest over anything
he’d missed the first time. He doused the celebrity memoirs, the
sports books by last year’s champions, teen vampire novels, and political
screeds that could be summed up as “Us Good, Them Bad.”
... When he was done, he packed up the cans
and started the car. Standing just inside the door, he struck a match
and touched it to a stack of sodden magazines. Fire blossomed instantly.
... Tommy quickly locked the door and drove
around to the front. He wrapped a chain around the handles of the front
door and snapped a padlock through the ends. Then he got in the car and
split.
... He drove around for half an hour before
he came back. Three fire trucks were on the scene, pouring torrents onto
the flames that leaped fifty feet or more into the sky. They kept at it
for hours, though it was hopeless from the start. By morning the store
was gutted, just a smoking shell. With the ashes of three dead men inside.
... Tommy laughed. Let Barton figure that
one out!
...
* * *
... He got home at five after seven. “Marie?”
he called.
... She sat up on the couch, blinking at
the morning sun. “Tommy?” she said. Then her face contorted
in anger. “You bastard!” she screamed. “You said it would
be different! You promised!” She scooped up a pile of papers and
threw them in his face, then ran sobbing to the bedroom.
... Not papers, he saw. Pictures. Pictures
of him and Grace, him face down in her forbidden fruit. One clear shot
showed him smiling up from between her legs.
... As Marie came storming back out of the
bedroom Tommy was already working on an excuse, an apology, but when he
saw his gun in Marie’s hand he realized it was too late, far too
late.
... As the first shot threw him back against
the door he had to admit that, really, he couldn’t blame her.
...
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