by Robin Kaye
Nick cleared his throat. “Do you want to call it a draw and eat?”
Rich nodded. “Yeah, I’m too old for this shit. But you’d better tell me why you were screwing with Rosalie and lying to her.”
“I’ll tell you everything. Don’t hit me again until after I finish. Fair enough?”
Rich shrugged. “Okay. But it better be good.” He followed Nick to the kitchen.
Nick slid the pizza onto the granite counter top, went to the refrigerator, and pulled out two beers. He handed one to Rich and put the other on his eye. The damn thing was still watering. He was glad it was red and swelling. Otherwise, the pizza boy would have thought he was crying. As it was, he was going to have one hell of a shiner.
Rich looked around Nick’s kitchen and whistled. “Shit, this place has changed since the last time I was here.”
“Yeah, I’m not living in the basement apartment anymore. I bought the building and turned it back into a single family.”
“How are your mom and Vinny?”
“Good. I bought Mom a brownstone a few blocks away. She doesn’t have to work any more, so she’s enjoying herself. She’s got Nana living with her. Vinny and Mona still have the restaurant, and they’ve had three kids. They’re good. I hear you’ve done well for yourself—a professor at Dartmouth—who’d a thunk, huh?”
Rich nodded. “I bet if you asked one of those cops who arrested us how we’d turn out, he’d have said we’d both end up at Rikers Island doing hard time.”
“No chance of that. One stint in Juvie, and I’d had enough to know I never wanted to be behind bars again.”
Rich closed his eyes and shook his head. “Shit, Nick, I’m sorry about that. I asked my parents to help—”
“You what? After what I did, you asked your parents to help me out?”
“The only reason you got into trouble was because you followed me. You were the kid brother I never had. And I should have taken better care of you.”
“Hold on. You’re Rich Ronaldi, right? The Rich Ronaldi who caught me sleeping with his girlfriend the day we got arrested?”
“Hell, you were what—fifteen? And you were bombed. Sophia and I’d been fighting about something—I don’t remember what—and she used you to get back at me. I knew how it was. I just never expected her to tip the cops off after I dumped her.”
Nick sat on a bar stool. “That makes sense. Sophia was the snitch. I always wondered how we got caught.” He opened his beer and took a long pull.
“You didn’t know?”
Nick wiped his mouth on his sleeve and shook his head. “No. I pleaded guilty and was sent to Juvie. I guess in the end, it was the best thing that could have happened. I learned enough to know I wasn’t cut out for crime. I didn’t like doing time.” He opened the pizza box, grabbed a slice, and pushed the box over to Rich. “Vinny helped me out, got me through high school. I got a job as a mechanic, put myself through Columbia, and opened my own place. I’ve been lucky.”
“Yeah, now you’re a big shot. I come back every now and then. I heard about how well you were doing. I would have looked you up, but I didn’t think you’d appreciate a visit from me.”
Nick shook his head. “Christ, I feel like we’re in one of those reunion shows on that women’s channel. What is it?”
Rich nodded. “Lifetime.”
Nick raised an eyebrow.
“Hey, I have girlfriends.”
“Yeah, well, don’t expect me to say how much I’ve missed you and give you a hug or something. It’s not going to happen. I am happy to see you, though.”
“Yeah, same here. Except for all the shit I heard from Gina about you and Rosalie. I had to pound you for that.”
“Understood. But in my own defense, Lee’s the one who wanted no strings and no commitments. I was just following her rules, and I thought it’d be over long before you came to town for spring break.” Nick took another bite of pizza and talked with his mouth full. “My relationships usually don’t last a month before the woman starts making wedding plans.”
“Why did you lie to Rosalie about who you are?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Rich. I figured you’d have a problem with your little sister seeing the person who got your ass thrown in jail. My mistake.”
“Anyone would be better than that asshole, Joey.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Besides, you had nothing to do with our arrest.”
Nick shot Rich a you-gotta-be-kidding look.
“Okay, you had something to do with it, but only because you were a normal, horny fifteen-year-old and acted like one. Hell, you should never have been there in the first place, and you wouldn’t have, if it weren’t for me.”
“Oh, come on, Rich. Let’s face it; we were both looking for trouble, and we found it together. I knew what the hell I was doing. Though maybe not when I did Sophia. I can’t remember that.”
“Wow, that sucks—too drunk to remember your first time.”
“How’d you know it was my first time?”
“Come on, Nick. This is me you’re talking to.”
“Right. I could never pull one over on you.” He took a long draw on his beer.
“So, are you going to do the right thing and marry Rosalie?”
Nick choked and coughed. Marriage? He couldn’t breathe. Rich smacked Nick on the back. It took him a minute to catch his breath. “Why would I need to marry Lee? Hell, why would she need to marry me?”
“Gina called me and asked me to fly down. She said Rosalie’s sick.”
“Sick? What’s wrong with her? Is she back in the hospital?”
“Calm down. No, she’s not in the hospital, but I’m worried. I’ve never seen Rosalie so skinny. She looks like hell, and Gina says the sight of food makes her queasy. Gina doesn’t think she is, but it sure sounds to me like she’s pregnant.”
“Pregnant? Did you say you think she’s pregnant, as in, having-a-baby pregnant?”
“Yeah, that’s usually how it goes. A woman gets knocked up, then nine months later, she has a baby.”
Oh, God, a baby. He was going to be a father. Nick sat down, before he fell down. He hoped to heaven he’d be a better father than his old man, not that he could be worse. “You didn’t ask her?”
“Hell, no, A guy can’t ask his little sister that. He goes to the boyfriend, beats the shit out of him, and makes the boyfriend ask.”
Nick nodded. It made perfect sense to him. “Christ, a baby.”
“Yeah, a baby. What the hell are you going to do about it, Nick?”
Nick smiled so big, it cut his face in half. He was elated. A baby. Man, that was it. Screw the rules. A baby took precedence over the rules any day. He and Rosalie were having a baby. How cool was that? He pictured a little girl with Rosalie’s curly hair and smile and a little boy who looked just like him. Damn, he’d get her back for sure now. They’d get married. She and Dave would move into the brownstone. They’d have to get rid of the furniture, though. No kid of his was going to grow up in a fuckin’ museum. No, they’d do it up just like Rosalie’s place, only bigger . . . and neater.
Rosalie couldn’t go on eating pizza and takeout every night. When they were together, he’d always cooked for her. She needed to eat healthy stuff. He’d have to find out what to feed a pregnant woman. God, a kid—they were going to be a family. A real family. Like they were before, only now, they’d have a dog and a kid. Shit. They’d been a family before, but he’d never seen that. They spent time together. They had fun, even when they weren’t making love. On Saturday mornings, before he went into work, they’d hang out in bed, drinking coffee and sharing the paper. They didn’t talk. They didn’t screw. They were just together. It was comfortable. That wasn’t something he could see himself getting sick of. Vin was right. He’d found the right one, and he’d been too stupid to see it. He was a putz.
“Nick. You there?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. What did you say?”
“I asked,
what you were going to do about Rosalie and the baby.”
“I’m going to stop being a putz.”
“Does that include doing the right thing and making an honest woman of her?”
“You let Lee hear you talking like that and she’s going to kill you, you know.”
“You see her anywhere within earshot?”
“No, but that’s going to change, real soon. Well, if I can talk her into it. God, what if I can’t?”
Rich put his arm around Nick. “I don’t think you’ll have too hard a time convincing her. When I came down for spring break, she told me she’d just gotten dumped. . .”
“I didn’t dump her; she dumped me. She’s the one who stepped out. . .”
“Look, I’m just telling you what she said. Don’t argue with me.”
“Fine. What the hell did she say?”
“She said that she really liked you, but she did something stupid, and you dumped her. She looked like she’d been crying for a week.”
“When did you come down?”
“Let me think. The eighteenth, I think. It was a Tuesday.”
“She went out on the Friday before. She never told me where she was going. I was waiting for her, expecting her to be home for dinner.”
“What do you mean, home for dinner?”
“I’d been staying over at her place.”
“She let you stay? As in an overnight stay? She never let anyone spend the night. I used to tease her, because she’d been with asshole Joey for two years, and she’d never woken up with him, except during conversations. She used to tell me that after sharing a bathroom with me, she’d never share a bathroom with another male.”
“She never had a problem sharing a bathroom with me. We used to have a lot of fun in the bathroom—”
“Stop. You’re talking about my sister here. That’s way too much information.”
“Look, all I’m saying is that we were practically living together. Hell, there was no practically about it. We were living together for a few months. I only stopped by here to pick up my mail. That Friday, I was waiting for her to come home. I’d planned to tell her the truth about who I was, and how you and I knew each other—tell her about my rap sheet.”
“What rap sheet? You were a minor. You have no rap sheet. Hold on. You’d better not have a rap sheet. You said you cleaned up your act.”
“I did. But Lee deserved to know the truth about everything, and I’d planned to tell her, but she didn’t come home.”
Rich tossed his bottle in the recycling bin and went to the refrigerator to get two more beers. He handed one to Nick.
Nick popped the cap and shrugged. “I knew things were tense, but I thought we were doing okay. I knew you were coming home, and if she found out about me before I had a chance to explain, she’d dump me faster than week-old garbage. Instead of spilling my guts, I spent the night calling hospitals. I thought she was dead or something. I went out of my mind with worry.”
“Where did she go?”
“She didn’t say. What the hell was I supposed to do? We’d made a deal when we started seeing each other. No commitments, no strings. She’d said we’d be together until it stopped being fun for one or both of us, and I guess it had stopped being fun for her, because she stepped out on me. She was the one who moved on. I was just the last one to find out about it.”
“Shit, Nick. I’d have left too, but she did say she’d gotten scared and done something stupid.”
“Then why didn’t she tell me that she screwed up? She never called me, not a word, nothing. God, Rich, I waited for her to do something.”
“Maybe she was waiting for you to do the same thing? Maybe because of that deal of yours, she figured since you left, if you wanted to see her again, you’d contact her.”
“I sure as hell will now.”
“Listen, buddy, you’d better check the attitude at the door if you want to get anywhere with my sister. Baby or no baby, she doesn’t take crap from anyone. She doesn’t need a man to have a baby. Sure, she’ll never live it down, and my mother will disown her, but I don’t think that’ll bother Rosalie too much.”
“I’ll carry her to the church if I have to. It worked when I took her to the hospital. She ended up thanking me for that one. Just wait, you’ll see. She’s going to marry me. And damn soon, too.”
The doorbell rang and rang again before Nick could reach it. “Coming! Jesus, what is this? Grand Central Station?” He opened the door to Lois and Tyler. Ty ran to Nick and clung to him, something the kid hadn’t done since he was about eight. Ty was shaking.
Nick caught Lois’ eye. Shit, she looked scared, and Lois never looked scared.
Nick rubbed Ty’s back. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Tyler, tell Nick what you told me.”
Rich cleared his throat and stepped into the foyer. Nick nodded to Rich but didn’t let go of Tyler. “Rich Ronaldi, this is my assistant, Lois, and her son, Tyler.”
Lois shook Rich’s hand. “Ronaldi as in Rosalie’s brother?”
“Yeah, I am. It’s nice to meet you. I can see you need some privacy, so I’ll just be going—”
Lois shook her head. “No, you need to hear this, too. I called the police—”
Rich held his hands up. “Whoa, it was just a fight—”
“Not about you. Tyler, tell them what happened.”
Tyler stepped back and looked at his mom. Lois laid her hand on Ty’s shoulder. “I was at Gianelli’s body shop today,” he said.
Nick bent down and looked Tyler straight in the eye. “Yeah?”
“I was dropping off a driver’s side mirror, but the guy working on the car wouldn’t sign the order, so I had to wait for Mr. Gianelli to sign it.”
“Okay.”
“I was leaning against the wall next to Mr. Gianelli’s office. It wasn’t like I was trying to listen, I swear, but Mr. Gianelli was yelling, so I couldn’t help it.”
“Who was he yelling at?”
“Some guy he called Jackie. And Jackie sounded scared. He said that they were in more trouble than just losing the money from Premier Motors. He said Rosalie Ronaldi and her assistant Gina were on to them and that the bitches. . .” Ty ducked his head “ . . . sorry, Mom. He said they were talking to his girlfriend, and she knew everything. He’d be finished if it came out. He’d not only lose Premier Motors; he’d lose everything. His wife and his home, and he’d spend the next fifteen years in jail.
“Mr. Gianelli said he’d take care of them. All three of them. Isn’t Rosalie Dave’s owner?”
“Yeah, buddy, she is.”
“I got out of there and ran all the way back. I’m sorry I didn’t get the order signed.”
Nick grabbed Tyler and hugged him close. He and Lois never lost eye contact, and volumes were spoken with one long look. Nick rubbed Ty’s back, still not letting the boy go. “Did anyone see you standing there?”
“I don’t think so.”
Nick tried to rein in his emotions before he let Tyler go. He felt so many things at once—relief that Ty was safe, anger about what the boy had heard, thankfulness that he’d heard it before it was too late. Those were understandable, but nothing could have prepared him for the cold terror he felt knowing Rosalie was in danger.
Lois hugged her son. “We just got out of the police station and came right here. I don’t know if they took us seriously. I’m worried, Nick.”
It was Friday night. Rosalie should be home. He called the apartment. The machine picked up. “Lee, it’s Nick. I need you to call me. It’s urgent. Please.” He left the same message on her cell, and at her office. Then he called Gina’s cell, thankful he still had her number memorized. The call went straight to voice mail.
“Shit.” Rich grabbed his jacket. “I remember Rosalie saying something about working late.”
Nick grabbed his jacket on the way out. “We’ll start at her place, and if she’s not there, we’ll try Premier Motors. Let’s go.”
Chap
ter 18
NICK AND RICH JUMPED INTO THE MUSTANG AND SPED TO Rosalie’s. Henry and Wayne opened the security door for them and unlocked Rosalie’s place. Dave was all over Nick before he grabbed his leash and went to the door to stand guard. Rosalie was gone, and so was her briefcase. The place looked the same as it had before Nick had moved in, with one exception—there were tissue boxes everywhere. Some held tissues; others served as tissue garbage cans.
“Do you know where she went?” Rich asked. “It’s important.”
Wayne tapped his pointer finger on his top lip. “She called and asked if we’d take care of Dave. She said she was going to be late.”
Nick smiled. “Thanks. Look, is it all right if we take Dave with us?”
Rich stepped up. “Why?”
Nick attached Dave’s leash. “Dave is a regular attack dog if he thinks Lee’s in danger.”
Rich smiled. “Works for me. And since she’s my sister, I say we take the dog. You boys have a problem with that?”
Henry dropped the protective neighbor facade. “She’s in danger? We’re going, too.”
Wayne started dithering. “We are? Don’t you think we should wait here in case she comes back?”
Nick thought, what the hell. “Wayne, you stay here. Call Henry if she returns. Henry, you’re in the back with Dave. Let’s roll.”
The Mustang broke the land speed record all the way to Manhattan. Nick parked illegally in front of Premier and had Henry stay in the car as the lookout, with instructions to text message a warning should anyone suspicious come by. He took Dave’s leash and motioned Rich to follow.
It had been years since Nick had worked at Premier, but he knew the only way to get in without anyone noticing was through the back. He ran down the alley and swung himself onto the delivery bay. Nick had wondered if he’d have to haul Dave onto the platform, but the pooch made the jump without a moment’s hesitation. It was as if Dave sensed Rosalie was in danger.
It was like old times. Nick and Rich used the same hand signals they’d used as kids. Strange, after twenty years, they’d fallen back in synch, as if they’d never been apart. As the three of them skulked to the backdoor, Nick cursed under his breath. The door had been left open. That door was never left unlocked. Ever. Someone had already broken in.