“Oh!” I blinked, and hoped that maybe . . . but then I saw how sad he looked, and I knew for sure where this was going.
“Esther . . .” He frowned and looked down.
I gathered from the subsequent silence that he had decided not to ask what I was doing at St. Monica’s the night the priest had killed himself and Buonarotti had lost his marbles. Or why I had given my phone number to a Corvino capo, who dropped that piece of evidence when he was brutally murdered at Vino Vincenzo. Or whether I still believed I had seen Max decapitate Lopez’s perfect double.
I could see him filtering through all the things he couldn’t not think about when he looked at me now, and my heart sank. He was standing within a foot of me, but he was way out of reach.
Finally, he said, “It’s not just your friendship with Max.”
“I know.”
“And it’s not just the crazy things you said the other night.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Or even just the crazy things you keep doing.”
“Oh?”
His expression was so unhappy, it made me want to put my arms around him.
In a low voice, he said, “I concealed evidence. I withheld information. I lied to my sergeant and to my captain. I let you and your friends leave a crime scene, and half my report about that night is fiction.”
I nodded. I hadn’t asked him to do any of that. It didn’t matter. He’d done it to protect me. He was afraid he’d do it again.
“The priest is dead, Buonarotti’s going to prison, no innocent people got hurt . . .” He let out his breath and shook his head. “But we got lucky, that’s all. I can’t . . .” He tried again. “You and I . . .”
“This went badly for us, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“And you like me and wish things were different.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But things being what they are, you’re not going to call me anymore or ask me out again.”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“And since you’re the one breaking up with me,” I said, “why do I have to write all your dialogue?”
That surprised him into a smile. “Sorry.”
I folded my arms. “I wish . . .”
Well, mostly I wished he didn’t think I was crazy and possibly felonious. He’d gotten past my bizarre involvement in the disappearances that had started with Golly Gee. It was too much, I could see, to ask him to get past this, too.
He cleared his throat. “Keep my phone number. If you need anything. I mean, if you need help or—”
“As in, psychiatric help?”
“As in, my help.”
“Oh.”
“If you do, I want you to call me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Yo, Esther!” Tommy Two Toes said as he passed me. “Are you gonna be singing at Stella’s tonight?”
I shook my head and pointed to my bruised throat.
“Jesus! Well, don’t you worry! That’s stronzo’s gonna pay for what he done,” Tommy said cheerfully. Then he noticed Lopez and flinched.
Lopez gave him a bland stare.
After Tommy was gone, I said, “I get the impression Buonarotti may not be safe in prison.”
“Probably he should have picked a different profession,” Lopez said.
Inside the church, Max was talking with a child who, it turned out, was Don Victor’s youngest granddaughter. They were engaged, Max said, in a fascinating dialectical discussion of traditional Catholicism.
Lucky was kneeling before the statue of St. Monica, but I guess he wasn’t deeply absorbed in praying. When he noticed me nearby, handing Nelli over to Max, he said to me, “Well?”
I came over to join him. “He broke up with me.”
“The bum!”
“Maybe he’s right, Lucky. He doesn’t even know it, but he was cursed with death because of me.” My longing for Lopez was swamped by my horrified guilt over having nearly gotten him killed. “He probably would have been just another cop on the case if I hadn’t drawn Gabriel’s attention to him by talking about him and by my involvement with him.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No, Lucky. Lopez could be right about this. Maybe I’m bad for him.”
Without having realized I was on the verge of it, I started to cry. I turned my face away from the church pews where Max was deflecting the child’s energetic assertion of an omnipotent benevolent deity. I didn’t want him to see how upset I was, since he’d probably blame himself for this.
“Come on, kneel down,” Lucky said. “St. Monica comforts the afflicted, even if they ain’t Catholic.”
I knelt next to Lucky and tried not to think about Lopez’s sad blue eyes and dark face as he told me he wouldn’t see me anymore. I wiped my tears and sought a distraction as I stared at the berobed statue poised above the flickering candles.
Thinking of St. Monica’s most devoted parishioner, I said, “I didn’t see the Widow Giacalona at the funeral. When is she coming back?”
“She ain’t.” Lucky gave a heavy sigh. “She likes it out there in Seattle. Says she’s staying. She’s done with this life. She ain’t never coming back. And she don’t ever wanna speak to me again. Ever.”
“Oh, Lucky. I’m so sorry to hear that.” And after he had saved her life, too.
“Yeah. Well.” The old hit man shrugged. “Love. Whaddya gonna do?”
We gazed up at St. Monica together, two brokenhearted souls seeking comfort . . . And a single tear rolled down the plaster saint’s cheek.
“Lucky! Do you . . .”
“Yeah. I see it!” His gruff voice was filled with awe.
I watched the tear roll all the way down the saint’s face, and I continued staring in silent wonder, until the tender trickle of moisture had dried and evaporated.
“Your saint really does weep for the brokenhearted,” I said. “I thought it was just . . .” I shook my head. “You know.”
“Hey, kid, there’s miracles everywhere,” Lucky said. “You just gotta let your eyes be open to ’em.”
“Wow.” I was still brokenhearted about Lopez, but . . . “I feel a little better.”
“Me, too,” Lucky said. “Ain’t life something?”
My cell phone rang, startling me. “Sorry.” I pulled it out of my purse and glanced at the LCD panel. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Lucky asked in alarm.
“My mother!” How did she always do this? “How does she know I’m in a church, kneeling before a Catholic saint, and crying because my would-be boyfriend just dumped me? How does she always know?”
I considered not answering, but I’d just have to call her back later. “Might as well get it over with,” I muttered. I rose to my feet and flipped open the phone. “Hello?”
My mother’s first words were, “ ‘Singing Server Sees Slaying’?”
“You read the tabloids?” I blurted.
“No, dear. But people love to share good news with a proud mother.”
I sighed and started walking down the aisle. “It’s all over now. They caught the killer.”
As I guiltily headed for the exit before she could ask where I was, she said, “Please tell me you’re not still waiting tables at the restaurant where this happened.”
“Actually, I am. But things are looking up, Mom. I just got cast as a homeless bisexual junkie prostitute.”
“How nice,” she said.
“On a TV show,” I said.
“Oh, good. This way a maximum number of people nationwide can see my daughter in that persona.”
Outside in the sunlight, New York City greeted me with robust noise and color and life. Sometimes besieged by Evil, and sometimes full of heartbreak, but always full of wonders.
Acknowledgments
Blame my friend Mary Jo Putney for putting the idea of Mercury Retrograde into my head, though any misstatements about it in the text are strictly m
y own error. Apart from that, I once again owe MJP many thanks for her practical help and moral support.
I also extend my gratitude to Naomi Wiener and the Israeli science/fiction fantasy community, Karin Laub in Jerusalem, Denise Little and my friends at Tekno Books, Hilary and Tim Warmoth, Linda Howard, Valerie Taylor, Zell Schulman, Pat McLaughlin, Jerry Spradlin, Betsy Wollheim, Marsha Jones, Elaine English, and my parents, who all made it possible, in their various ways, for me to write this book and to see it published, after some hairpin turns in fate, while juggling many commitments and crossing the ocean twice.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Acknowledgements
Dopplegangster Page 36