Wiseguys In Love (26 page)

Say he shot him. Then what? What would happen? He'd have to leave New York, at the very least. The police would be all over the place on this. The police, hell, Solly. He didn't suppose that he could just shoot one of Solly's made men and then forget it all and go back to school. Solly would track him down. He wouldn't be able to do anything else.

Michael looked at himself in the rearview mirror and watched Lisa smile a quick smile at him, and the memory of the kiss in the bar came into his head. He let his eyes linger on the mirror until Tony began to hum, and he watched Lisa look away. He then took a good look at his own face.

He could have it surgically broken and rearranged to keep away from Solly. At least it would be clean, and certainly better than Solly having his face rearranged for him.

His mother. What would happen to her if he killed Tony? Would she still be able to go to church with Gina every morning to bend the priest's ear at her skimpy confessions and then go have espresso and cannoli?

She probably would have to move out of Brooklyn.

And where could he go? His eyes stared at the back of Lisa's head. Could he survive in Michigan? In school? With his face all broken up?

All right, so if he didn't shoot his cousin, then what? His eyes focused back on Tony and he began at his legs, then looked up, over his wide chest and thick neck. He stared at the bulges in the arms of his jacket from carefully worked arm muscles, at the bulge from his holster.

Maybe he could just maim him somehow.

Shit, his mother was right—he went to college. He had brains. Violence wouldn't solve anything … except in Tony's world. In the street, violence solved everything. That was all they knew. All Tony knew. Because no matter how many brains Michael had and no matter how much better skilled and educated he was, none of it would matter. Because Tony was a killer and would do what Solly said, even if it meant killing Michael.

And that was why Michael had to kill him.

*   *   *

“So, what can I do for you?” Solly asked, spinning his big white leather chair around so he could sit.

Sophia heard the click of the door behind her and did not even have to turn around to know that Ralphie was there.

Behind Solly was a big window overlooking the back lawn of the house. That was the only familiar thing in the room. Sophia looked around, startled, and realized it had been a very long time since she'd been in his home.

Huge light gray Formica and chrome wall units with inset mirrors ran most of the length of the walls. The floor was carpeted white, and a white and gray couch sat in the middle of the room. Embedded in front of the couch was a large white stone coffee table, which Sophia estimated must have weighed three hundred pounds. It was polished to such a high sheen that it mirrored a three-foot glass sculpture that sat on top of it. It was of two dolphins flying out over a wave that looked as if it was just about to splash on the table. It looked like pictures she'd seen of big suites in gambling casinos in Reno, not like the dark wood-covered library of Solly's father's. All this white in New York, it must be a mess to keep clean, she thought. She watched Solly sit in the chair behind the glass desk. He placed his elbows on the chair arms and with his hands opened he touched his fingertips together, signaling that he was ready to hear her.

She cleared her throat. She was not going to let this new light decor throw her. He was still the same old snake, just like his father had been a snake before him. The way he was holding his hands proved it. That had been Enrico senior's habit, too. Her eyes narrowed and her hands twisted themselves around and around the heavy bag sitting in her lap.

“I want you to let my son off the hook,” she said, clutching the bag.

“Now, Sophia, what are you talking about?”

Her knuckles were white on the heavy purse, and she felt small in the large white and gray room.

“Don't give me this crap, Solly, I watched you grow up. You leave my son alone,” she continued.

Solly smiled at her.

“I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know where Michael is, Sophia,” he said smoothly.

“You know where he is and what he's doing because you sent him there. You leave my son alone. He's all I have left.” She pursed her lips, wishing Vincent were alive.

He would know exactly how to handle it, whether coming here would be the way to approach it.… He would have taken care of this.

She was guessing.

“Don't you think you're embarrassing your son by interfering in his affairs like this? Sophia, he's no kid.”

“I know what a snake you are, Solly. You let my son out of whatever this is that he's doing for you—”

“He's not doing anything for me,” Solly insisted tiredly.

Off in the distance, she heard a phone ring, and she watched Solly nod to Ralphie. She heard the muted click of the door closing behind him and knew they were actually alone in the room.

Should she do it now? Her hands were damp on the purse.

“If he ain't doing anything for you, then who for?” she asked quietly.

He stared her in the face blankly.

“It's really none of your business,” he said, then suddenly smiled at her and stood up.

“Look, your husband was a good friend of my family's. Why you come here, embarrassing his memory and his son, by interfering where you women don't belong?”

She stopped for a moment, thinking about what he'd said. The weight in her purse seemed to be getting heavier as she felt the metal bulge through the soft side of leather, and she began to feel that this was a big mistake, coming here like this. But she continued, anyway.

“Don't give me this crap, Solly. Every woman in this family knows what you're up to, when you're up to it. You call him back in.”

“I'm tellin' you, I—”

The door clicked suddenly and Sophia watched Solly glance behind her once, then quickly again and frown.

“Solly,” she heard Ralphie's voice, “someone did a job on Joey D.'s car last night.”

“I'll be with you in a moment, Ralphie.” He stared back down at Sophia. “Look, I got business to attend to here. You have to go now.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and she pulled away.

She stood, defiant, clutching the bag.

“I swear, I'll make big trouble for you, Solly. Now who is Michael doing something for?”

Solly eyed her with annoyance. Another one going to make big trouble for him. Every fuckin' time he talked to a woman these days … She was not going to leave until he did something. He debated what that would be. Behind her, Ralphie was glaring at her. Solly's eyes went back to her.

Send her in a circle.

“Rosa Morelli,” he said, then took her by the shoulders and led her to the door. “You want to know what Michael's doing? You go talk to Rosa.”

She nodded, shook his hands from around her shoulders, gave him a defiant smile, and slowly walked out of the room.

Behind her, she heard the big door slam and she shakily walked out to the large front hall. Two men were standing there and one opened the front door silently.

She couldn't do it. She couldn't do what she'd come here to do.

She stood very still for a moment and glanced down the hallway toward the kitchen, wondering whether Gina was in there.

She began to feel her legs go on her slightly, but she took a deep breath and, as strongly as she could, she walked through the hall down to the kitchen, slowly, as she was supposed to, as if she belonged there in this house.

Gina Soltano was sitting out by the screen door, fanning herself with her apron while her cook was busy frying paper-thin pieces of veal. She must have just been to the beauty parlor, because her hair, still salt and pepper–colored even though she was almost seventy, had been coiffed and was looking fresher than it had at service this morning. The leathery skin on her face was wrinkled beyond belief, but there was still the echo of what a beauty she had been in her day. Her usual small pearl earrings dangled from her ears. The only other jewelry she wore was a gold cross around her neck, which shone against the blackness of her dress.

“Gina,” she began, and the woman gave her a big smile and stood up.

“Sophia, what are you doing in my house?” she asked in her thick Neapolitan accent.

Sophia glanced toward the cook and then back.

“English?” she asked.

“She don't speak it. Comes from Palermo this past month,” Gina said, switching back into English, the way they did with Italian when their children were young and they were discussing something that was not for little ears.

“You come out into the garden with me? I want some roses for the table tonight.”

Gina was a good friend. When Sophia finally faced the fact that it might take her a long time to get Vincent into any other line of work, she had become friends with Gina. At first, she supposed it was because she felt she could keep an even closer eye on what Vincent was up to just by listening to Gina's gossip about the doings in her home. But as the years went by, she struck up a true friendship with her. The fact was, there weren't that many women who she could talk to frankly about her life. Her childhood friend Maria had married an honest grocer and moved to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, so Sophia was really alone, except for Gina.

Sophia followed her out into the garden and turned right down a mossy brick path, toward a high boxwood hedge. They walked through a trellised entryway into a wide rectangular “room” of glorious rose varieties in full bloom, separated by the same brick paths. A rickety wooden table was set up at one side, and Sophia waited as Gina went over and pulled on some gardening gloves and a hat. Gina picked up a small basket with a pair of clippers in it and smiled at Sophia.

Sophia followed her down the center path to the tea roses. This garden was Gina's pride and joy, and she remembered when they'd put it in. It matched an old daguerrotype of the garden Gina's mother had had up on the hills above Naples.

“So, what you doing here?” she asked, snipping a half-closed bloom.

“I come to get Michael Antonio off the hook with your son.”

“Why?”

She gulped, not wanting to offend Gina about her son's lifestyle.

“He ain't cut out for this kinda life, Gina. He should have been a lawyer.”

“Things change,” Gina said, cutting off several more blooms.

“You know Michael—he can't do the things Tony does for the family. He's gonna get himself all shot up, and he's all I got left, Gina.”

“He know you're here?”

“No.”

“He wants out?”

“Yeah. There's a good one,” Sophia said, pointing to a large yellow bud.

She followed Gina back down to the bud. It wasn't working. Maybe she should go talk to Rosa.

No, that wouldn't work. Rosa hated her worse than she hated Gina. And Gina hated Rosa worse than anyone. Sophia felt her eyes open.

She knew how to goad her into action.

“Of course, it's all Rosa's fault.”

Gina stopped and turned to her, and Sophia could see her nostrils flaring.

“What's Rosa got to do with it?”

“That's who Solly's having Michael do something for. For that pig.”

It took a moment for Sophia to get the reaction she was hoping for.

“I bet your daughter-in-law put Solly up to it. It's a shame—the woman looks after Rosa better than her own family.”

“Disgradziad,”
she heard Gina mutter.

Perhaps it wasn't fair, putting it this way. Everybody knew Gina hated her daughter-in-law. And Sophia personally knew that she hated Rosa Morelli almost as much, because the daughter-in-law used Rosa.

“So now, my Michael, who don't want no trouble and will go away”—she paused as she said that, knowing that it was as good as a solemn promise—“he's got to do something for that pig Rosa.”

Sophia watched Gina snip another bud and drop it into the basket. They walked back silently toward the rickety table.

“This garden always makes me homesick,” Gina said, taking off the gloves. “You find out what this is all about, and I'll take care of it,” she added, giving Sophia a pat on the shoulder.

Sophia walked out the front door and into the generous driveway.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Solly and Ralphie through the big window of his office. They seemed to be arguing. As she stood waiting, Sophia watched Solly glance out the window and do a double take. He glanced down at his watch, then back at her, and he went a little pale. She looked away confidently.

The black car she'd hired drove up, and she stood staring until the driver finally got out. He grimaced as he walked around and opened the door for her.

She clutched the purse tightly and, as she got in the car, she could feel the bump against her thigh as she sat. She was sticking to the black double-knit dress. The pearls she'd put on were clammy against the back of her neck. She waited for the driver to get back in the car. When he did, she stared at his face in the mirror.

“East Harlem. I want to go to Pleasant Avenue and a Hun' nineteen,” she said quietly.

The car began to pull out and she looked back over to the window of Solly's study. There was no one in the room. She let out a breath and suddenly there were butterflies in her stomach. She was shaking uncontrollably, with her hands still wrapped around the purse. The weight of the gun in it rested heavily in her lap.

She'd almost made a big mistake with him. Vincent would have been proud that she'd caught herself in time.

She felt herself smiling. Always do things the way you know they'll get done. It was like when she tried some new cleanser and then just had to go over the place again with what she knew worked and had worked for years.

Going to Gina was like using a good, old, reliable cleanser.

*   *   *