“I’ll try to remember that.”
“Good and I’ll try to kick some ass this afternoon.” Vinny gave her a reassuring hug and left.
***
“The people call New York City Deputy Mayor Anthony Cipriani to the stand,” Gold said as he watched Cipriani rise to his full six-foot-four inches of stature. He walked in an odd way, drawing his knees high to the chest like a stork or a crane.
He was sworn in and Gold went to work with a deliberate eagerness that Vinny found troubling. “For the record, would you please state your full name?”
“Anthony Michael Cipriani.”
“And you’re the brother of Samuel Cipriani, the deceased?”
Cipriani grew visibly stricken. It was as if he collapsed in on himself at the mention of his brother’s name. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“Are you okay to go on?”
Cipriani took a long moment but finally nodded.
“Mr. Cipriani, how would you describe your relationship with your brother?”
“We were very close. We always were. In fact…” His throat tightened and he swallowed with difficulty. “I probably…I probably wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for Sam.”
“How’s that?” Gold asked, trying to sound unrehearsed.
“I had childhood leukemia. The doctors tried every therapy in the book but none of them worked. My folks were sure that I was going to die, but then Sam gave me some of his bone marrow. It literally saved my life.”
“So you loved your brother very much.”
“Yes.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “I’d do anything for Sam. Anything. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time together.”
“Can you please elaborate, sir?”
“Sammy was a good-hearted man but he got mixed up with the wrong group of guys, and well…what can I say? He spent almost all of his adult life in prison. But I didn’t love him any less because of it.”
“Of course not.” Gold flipped the page on his legal pad. “Sam was very fortunate. He had a big brother who stuck with him through thick and thin and a doting girlfriend as well, didn’t he?”
For the first time since the legal proceedings began, Cipriani made eye contact with Theresa without showing any hostility—only for a second and then he looked away. “Yes, he and Theresa were deeply in love. She visited him in prison even more than I did. In a way, she did as much to save Sam as he did to save me. She was always there for him.”
“So with so much support…” Gold paused. “I’m at a loss, sir. Why is Sam Cipriani dead today?”
Vinny jumped up. “Objection, Your Honor, calls for speculation.”
“Objection sustained.” Whorhatz turned to Gold. “Please rephrase.”
“Of course, Your Honor.” Gold thought for a moment. “Do you possess any knowledge that might assist the court in understanding what happened to your brother?”
Cipriani glanced at Theresa again, this time guilt was unmistakable in his expression. “Seven years is a long time, a long time to be without your brother, and a long time to be without the one you love. Theresa and I…” He closed his eyes for a moment. “We helped each other through it.”
The jurors looked from one to another as a murmur rose among them.
Gold waited until the courtroom was once again silent. “Are you saying that the two of you were intimate?”
“Emotionally, yes. Not physically. We spent more and more time together.” He looked at her again and saw that she was crying. “It helped to ease our pain.”
Vinny had a sense of doom, a sense that something terrible was about to happen.
And then it did.
Cipriani was still looking at her when he spoke again. “All that time together…we fell in love.”
Gold played it out, waiting for just the right moment to hit a crescendo. Like a maestro directing a rehearsed symphony orchestra, he knew just when to transition from a whisper to a roar. “But you never acted on it, did you? That’s to say, you never made love.”
“No. Never. But we wanted to. We ached to. She once told me…” He broke down and sobbed. “I’m just as guilty as she is. She told me that we could never be together as long as Sammy was alive. I…I just never realized how far she would go.”
The murmur grew into rolling thunder, juror talking to juror and stranger talking to stranger in the audience. Vinny was able to pick out Lisa’s familiar voice above the others as she said, “Holy fuckin’ shit!”
Theresa cried hysterically. Vinny did his best to calm her down but Cipriani’s testimony had destroyed her. She erupted like a volcano.
“Silence!” Whorhatz yelled. He banged his gavel repeatedly. “We’ll have silence in this court.”
It took a long time for the commotion to subside—one by one the voices went quiet until the courtroom was silent again.
“Resume,” Whorhatz said.
“Please forgive me, Mr. Deputy Mayor. I had no intention of tearing open such a large and painful wound.” Gold turned to Whorhatz. “No more questions, Your Honor.” He struggled to suppress the gleam in his eye as he returned to the prosecutor’s table.
“I think we’ve had enough excitement for now,” Whorhatz said and with a rap of his gavel. “One hour adjournment. I’m sure the Deputy Mayor would appreciate a little time to himself.”
Chapter Sixty-Five: God Smacked
“What’s with Gloomy Gus,” Ma said as Vinny dragged himself through the front door of Lisa’s parent’s home at the end of the day.
“Lay off him, Ma,” Lisa said. “He got blindsided in court today. The deputy mayor testified that Vinny’s client had a motive for killing his brother. Vinny put her on the stand after the recess and she denied everything he said, but the damage was already done. He don’t need none of your crap tonight.”
“So sorry, Vinny my boy,” Ma said as she pinched his cheek. “Give me your briefcase and coat. Augie’s inside watching the news. Go keep him company until dinner is ready.”
Vinny seemed powerless and deflated. He put down his briefcase and allowed his coat to slide off his shoulders into her arms before trudging into the den, lifeless, hanging on by a thread.
“What the hell happened to him, Lisa?” Ma whispered. “Your fiancé looks like someone died. Was it that bad?”
Lisa took her by the arm and dragged her into the kitchen. “I just told you. An important witness gave some very damaging testimony today. Up until now the DA couldn’t prove motive, but now he’s got motive up the ass.”
“Goddamn lawyers,” she swore as she held her fingertips together. “I’d like to kill every last one of them.”
“Yeah? How about Vinny? You want to kill him too?”
“Of course not. But are you sure you want to stay for dinner? Maybe you ought to take him home and put a smile on his face.”
“You mean take him home and screw his brains out? Is that what my dear mother is telling her youngest daughter to do?”
“Come on will ya. Who are you, Jane the Virgin? The poor guy doesn’t look like he’s gonna make it through the night. Least you could do is let him die with a smile on his face.
“Enough already. I suppose you never had a bad day?”
“I never looked like that even on my worst day. Vinny looks like a five-year-old whose puppy got run over by the milk truck twice. What kind of lawyer is he gonna be if he comes home looking like who-did-it-and-ran every time he gets slammed around in court. Maybe he ought to open a pet store. You can’t get agita like that from a tank of goldfish.”
Lisa noticed a peculiar look on Ma’s face. “What? What are you holding back?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing my ass, Ma. What’s going on?”
“All right already.” She went to the door and peeked out to make sure she wouldn’t be heard. “I was gonna tell you but when Vinny came through the door looking like death warmed over…”
Lisa fell into a chair. “Oh God. What? Is it Dad?”
; Ma nodded, her brave face melting like butter over a flame, her lips clenched, her eyes becoming glassy. “The doctor called with his test results.”
Lisa braced. “And?”
Ma dragged a chair next hers and sat down. “He’s got early onset Alzheimer’s, Lisa.”
“They’re sure?”
Her chin quivered as the words came out. “Yes. They did some cognitive tests and he had issues with like five out of ten of them.”
“That don’t sound conclusive. That’s only half.”
“I know but the doctor wanted to be cautious so he did some additional tests and it turns out that it’s hereditary. Augie’s got some kind of genetic mutation. The two of us always used to joke about his Uncle Terry losing his marbles. We didn’t know enough at the time but thinking back, well, he probably had the same thing.”
A tear trickled down her cheek. “What’s gonna happen to him, Ma?”
“Now don’t go thinking the worst. The doctor said there’s no proof that early Alzheimer’s progresses any faster than when it happens later in life. We just gotta keep an eye on him is all. They got some medications for this and your brother Dino is gonna have to be more of an adult. He’s gonna have to be less of a playboy and spend more time in the garage with Dad to make sure he don’t get into any trouble.”
“I can spend more time there too.”
“No, Lisa, you and Vinny are just getting started. He’s finally got his career on track and God knows it looks like he’s gonna need all the help you can give him. No. I love your brother to death, but Dino’s got his car and his women and he don’t seem to care about nothing else. He’s gonna have to step up…for the family. Your father will be all right,” she said sounding as if she were trying to convince herself. “Now give me a hand and let’s get some dinner on the table for those men.”
***
Vinny barely had the strength to greet Lisa’s father. “Hi, Augie,” he said and collapsed into a thickly padded chair. Augie seemed wrapped up in the news and was quiet while Vinny pried off his boots and closed his eyes.
“Look at this son of a bitch,” Augie complained as he pointed at the TV screen.
Vinny had begun to doze, but his eyes snapped open when he heard Augie’s comment. “What? What happened?”
“Nick ‘The Knife’ Galatino’s kid, Matteo. He got busted on racketeering charges.”
“The mobster’s son?”
“Yeah.”
“The one who was supposed to be a legitimate businessman?”
“Yeah.”
“The one who’s always on TV talking about how the mafia does more good than harm?”
“Yeah. Turns out he’s a no good wise guy just like his father. They can’t help themselves these wise guy’s kids. It’s in their blood.”
“Being a mobster is in their blood?” Vinny asked with skepticism.
“Like automobile repair is in Lisa’s and Dino’s blood. It’s hereditary.”
“You saying there’s a gene that made this kid a thug?”
“That’s right. It’s passed down from generation to generation. I’ll bet the very first Galatino was a piece of shit and every Galatino down the line since.”
“That’s impressive, Augie. I had no idea you knew so much about that kind of stuff. You ought to give up the garage and start one of those look-up-your-family-tree companies.”
Augie gave him the finger without turning around. “Vinny, I love you but sit on this a while, will ya? I’m trying to watch the news.” After a moment, he turned with a huge grin on his face that dropped the second he saw Vinny’s face. “Holy shit, Vinny. What the hell happened to you?”
“What?” Vinny asked.
“What’s with the puss? You look like you ate some stale corned beef. Marone. Vinny. You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay. I just had a bad day in court.”
“Maybe you ought call out sick tomorrow. You know, play hooky.”
“You can’t do that with a trial going on, Augie.”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t. It ain’t done.”
“Who says?”
“Me. I says.”
“Then you’d better get your shit together before court tomorrow morning because the way you look right now your client’s going to the fuckin’ chair.”
“Gee. Thanks for the words of encouragement.”
Lisa was standing in the doorway tapping her foot impatiently.
Ma shouted from the kitchen. “He needs, like a vitamin B shot or something. I told Lisa to take him home and throw him some ass.”
Lisa frowned. “Are we finished discussing the therapeutic value of my vagina yet? Because if we are, dinner is on the fuckin’ table.”
***
A meatball fell from the ladle with a thud that almost cracked the dish. “A good Italian dinner will fix you right up, Vinny. How many meatballs you want?” Ma asked.
“One.”
“Bullshit,” she said, dropping another bocce ball into his dish and dumping a trough of sauce on top of it.
Augie picked up the remote and turned on the small TV in the kitchen.
“Augie, we’re eatin’,” Ma complained. “Shut the friggin’ thing off.”
“I want to hear more about the Galatino kid’s arrest. I knew that kid would go bad. Like I told Vinny, it’s in the blood.”
Vinny had been resting his head on his hand, despondent and exhausted, but suddenly came alive. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Augie asked while staring at the TV.
“What you said—about the blood.”
“I said it’s in the kid’s blood, Vinny. You’re really out of it, aren’t you?”
“In the blood? That’s what you said, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
Vinny reached for his briefcase and frantically tore through it.
“Whatcha looking for?” Lisa asked.
“A business card.”
“A business card?”
“Yeah.”
“Whose?”
“Hercules.”
“Hercules the pimp?” she asked with uncertainty.
“Yes, Lisa. Hercules the pimp.”
Ma rolled her eyes. “Call Creedmoor, Augie. They’ve both gone off the deep end.”
Chapter Sixty-Six: Special Delivery
Soft bossa nova music whispered from Anthony Cipriani’s audiophile-quality hi-fi while he slipped his dinner dishes into the dishwasher and sipped the last of a 2005 estate bottle of pinot noir. There’s a marked difference between being lonely and feeling alone. At the moment, Cipriani felt both tugging at him. He switched off the lights in the kitchen and wandered over to the panoramic windows in his high-rise apartment, uncertain of how to fill the empty evening hours. The sky was clear with bold stars as he looked out on the city, lights twinkling on and off in the apartments and office suites before him. He wasn’t expecting anyone and was surprised when his doorbell chimed. He set down his wine glass and hurried to the door, somewhat confused because he hadn’t gotten an advance call from the doorman.
“That you, William?” he called out expecting a reply from the building concierge. He opened the door and was stunned. Standing before him was the most visually alluring young woman he’d ever seen. Her hair was done up like Rosie the Riveter with a red and white polka dot bandana. She was wearing skin-tight spandex coveralls and red six-inch patent leather platform pumps. She was hanging onto a leather tool bag. He looked her up and down. “Okay. Is this some kind of gag? Who sent you?”
“I’m here to fix your plumbing.” She reached down and grabbed his package. “You got a bad clog here.” She laid her hand on his chest and drove him back into the apartment. “Looks like a tough job,” she said in a seductive voice. “Good thing I’ve got a mouth like a Hoover.”
His eyes snapped open like overwound window shades. Despite knowing he shouldn’t, he yielded to her advance. “Okay, who sent you? Was it Wallace?” he asked with a
huge grin on his face. “My birthday isn’t for another week.”
She slowly unzipped her coverall, her ample breasts emerging inch by inch until they were almost fully exposed. She stepped forward, teased him with her mouth against his, then bit his bottom lip.
“Ouch!” Cipriani touched his lips and found a drop of blood on his fingertip.
“Sorry.” She dried his bloody lip with a tissue and stuffed it in her pocket. “If you don’t like it rough I can be really submissive.” She turned around presenting her sumptuous rear end. “Smack my ass, papi. Show me you’re the boss. Give that big fat culo a good swat. Come on. You know you want to.” She twerked, pressing her butt against him until he was on the verge of exploding.
“I’ve got a feeling you’re trouble.”
“How’s this feel?” She took his hands and pulled them around her until they were on her large soft breasts. “That’s more like it, papi.” She then grabbed his necktie and dragged him toward the bedroom like a conquest in tow. She undid his tie before pushing him onto the bed and bit off his shirt buttons with her teeth one by one.
“I’m not going to regret this, am I?”
“Of course not, papi. No worries,” she whispered in his ear, her breath warm and intoxicating. “No regrets—nothing except right here and now.” She licked his earlobe. “And what happens in Shangri La stays in Shangri La.” She undid his belt and slid off his slacks. “You with me on this?”
He moaned defenselessly.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said and spoke no more.
Chapter Sixty-Seven: Baby Food
Lisa tried without success to buoy Vinny’s spirit. She gave him encouragement and tried to support him as best she could but was dead on her feet by the time they got home. It was almost midnight. She was ready to crawl into bed and ritualistically walked to the front door to make sure it was locked before turning in for the night. As she tested the deadbolt, a large black SUV swung into the driveway, its tires screeching, the blast of the stereo loud enough to dislodge brick and mortar. She squinted to make out the faces of the pair in the front seat but didn’t recognize them. Their images grew clearer as they got out and approached the front door. “Hey, Vinny,” she called out. “You expecting anyone?”
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