Chương 3
Sophie looked between them. “Is she family?”
Tony answered before Vincent could. “That depends on whether she’s holding a wooden spoon.”
Vincent’s mother had hired Teresa Romano when Vincent was sixteen. Teresa had buried two husbands, raised one son who moved to Arizona and called only when he needed money, and remained in the Torino family’s old brick house because she considered retirement a conspiracy designed to make old people useless. She had no patience for Vincent’s work and less fear of it.
The house had reinforced doors, cameras on every approach, and no connection on paper to any of his companies.
It was the safest place he had that still felt like a home.
Vincent put his jacket on.
Sophie’s shoulders rose.
“You’re coming with us,” he said.
“Where?”
“Teresa’s.”
“You said she wasn’t nice.”
“I said she was secure.”
“What if my mom comes back?”
Vincent looked at her.
She knew the answer before he spoke. It passed across her face and left her older.
“She won’t go to the apartment first,” he said. “Not if she gets free.”
Sophie lowered her eyes to the pasta.
“What if she thinks I’m there?”
“I’ll leave someone.”
“What if she calls?”
“We’ll know.”
“What if—”
Vincent waited.
Sophie put down the fork. “What if you don’t find her?”
Tony studied the floor.
Vincent had promised men many things in rooms where promises were another form of currency. He had promised protection, repayment, silence, punishment, mercy. Every promise contained an unstated condition. Every promise could be interpreted later, trimmed to fit what circumstances allowed.
The child was asking for something that could not be trimmed.
“I’ll find out where she is,” he said. “Then I’ll bring her home if she’s alive.”
Sophie flinched at the last three words.
Vincent did not take them back.
After a moment, she nodded. “Okay.”
Tony carried her untouched pasta to the kitchen. Sophie tucked the remaining crackers into the waistband of her leggings.
Outside, the Cadillac’s engine still ran. The wind had strengthened, lifting paper napkins along the curb. Marco’s sedan was gone. The alley looked wider without him.
Sophie hesitated beside the rear passenger door.
“You sit in back,” Tony told her.
“Where do you sit?”
“Front.”
“Does he sit in back?”
She pointed at Vincent.
“He owns the car.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Tony looked at Vincent, then opened the opposite rear door. “Tonight, he sits in back.”
Vincent entered from one side. Sophie climbed in from the other and kept close to the door. The upholstery swallowed most of her small body. She buckled herself without help.
As Tony pulled away from Bella Vista, Sophie watched the glowing rear doorway shrink through the window.
Vincent unfolded the five-dollar bill in the darkness.
He had seen larger payments arrive in suitcases with combination locks. He had watched men slide deeds, diamonds, account numbers, and photographs of their own relatives across tables when they needed something badly enough. None of those offerings had felt as binding as the damp scrap of paper in his palm.
He folded it neatly and placed it in the inner pocket of his suit, over his heart.
Sophie saw him do it.
Neither of them spoke.
Teresa met them at the side door wearing a gray robe over a Mets sweatshirt, orthopedic slippers, and an expression that suggested every failure in Vincent’s life had brought him to this exact inconvenience.
She looked at Sophie first.
The anger left her face.
“Come inside, sweetheart.”
“I’m not your sweetheart.”
Teresa opened the door wider. “Good. I have too many already.”
Sophie stepped in.
The old house smelled of furniture polish, garlic, and the faint medicinal scent of the cream Teresa used on her knees. The hallway walls held family photographs. Vincent appeared in some of them as a boy with narrow shoulders and a permanent scowl. He avoided looking.
Teresa crouched with effort in front of Sophie.
“Are you hurt anywhere besides your hands?”
“My shoulder.”
“Can you move it?”
Sophie raised her arm halfway and stopped.
Teresa looked at Vincent. “Doctor.”
“No hospital,” he said.
“I didn’t say hospital.”
“I’ll call Kaplan.”
“Kaplan is seventy-eight.”
“He’s still licensed.”
“So was my second husband when he drove through the garage door.”
Tony coughed into his fist.
Teresa stood. “Call Dr. Shah.”
Vincent did.
Dr. Nisha Shah had treated injuries for people who preferred not to explain themselves in emergency rooms, but she was not one of Vincent’s employees. She had inherited a debt from her brother years earlier and paid it in full. After that, she continued answering Vincent’s calls because she believed injured people were injured people, then charged him triple for the moral discomfort.
While they waited, Teresa led Sophie into the kitchen.
“You want cocoa?”
“No.”
“Tea?”
“No.”
“Milk?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“I already had water.”
Teresa opened the refrigerator. “I’m going to make cocoa. You can refuse it when it exists.”
Sophie sat at the kitchen table.
Tony checked windows and doors. Vincent stood in the hallway and called Salvatore Rinaldi.
Sal answered on the third ring, his voice warm and sleepy.
“Vin. Everything all right?”
“Dario Vale and Gus Serrano.”
There was a pause. Not long.
“What about them?”
“Where are they?”
“I thought you sent them to Florida.”
“I sent them out of my territory.”
“Then I guess you should call Florida.”
Vincent looked through the kitchen doorway. Sophie was watching Teresa stir milk in a saucepan. Her feet did not reach the floor.
“They’re here,” Vincent said.
Sal yawned. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Doing what?”
Vincent let silence open between them.
Sal’s voice lost its drowsiness. “Vincent.”
“A woman was taken three nights ago. Elena Martinez.”
“I don’t know her.”
“She cleans Bella Vista.”
“You want me to know the cleaning staff now?”
“I want you to answer the question I asked.”
“You didn’t ask one.”
“Where are they?”
May you like
Sal breathed into the phone. In the background, a television audience laughed.
“I’ll make calls,” he said. “If they’re back, it wasn’t through me.”
