Prologue
She wakes up earlier than usual. It’s not even eight yet. The apartment feels empty, but that doesn’t surprise her, because it is empty most mornings. To make sure, she gets out of bed, opens the curtains, waddles down the narrow hallway, stops at the second bedroom and listens briefly. Not a sound. Of course not. She would have heard the flat door open, no matter how late. She is a light sleeper.The kitchen greets her with familiar comfort. Welcome, my lonely friend. Make yourself a cup of tea. Sit down by the window. Look out, check the weather, think about what to wear for work. Stop listening. Nobody is home but you.Just another day in the big city.Vancouver is still sleepy. Yawning and slowly stretching like a lazy lion, rubbing its exhausted eyes, waiting for the helpers to brush the filthy remains of last night’s excitement from the concrete floor of its den.The water kettle switches itself off and she pours the boiling water over the tea bag and waits one minute, standing in front of the kitchen counter. It has to be exactly one minute, no point in doing anything else but stare at the twirling surface inside her cup. Sixty seconds later–the second dial on her kitchen clock is within her periphery—she discards the bag, heaps three generous spoonfuls of sugar into the cup, followed by so much cream that the tea instantly cools to drinking temperature, and sits down at the kitchen table.Still thinking it’s just another day.A gentle traffic hum outside, no sound inside her kitchen. Correction: no sound inside her flat, this two bedroom, one bathroom borderline apartment. Borderline because its location touches a good neighborhood and the Eastside. The street she lives on stops the filthy guts of downtown spilling over into suburbia. Her kitchen window points toward the high-rise monuments of downtown Vancouver. Very pretty at night, not so attractive at daytime when the not-so-high and not-so-modern buildings that envelope the skyscrapers become visible. She doesn’t want to look at the decaying grey buildings any longer that provide a battle ground between city planners who want to sell it to developers and Eastsiders who have occupied them.Just another day. And it is so quiet.Melissa turns on the TV, not realizing that it is exactly eight o’clock now. The channel is set on CTV and there is a ‘Breaking News’ banner flashing in bright orange below the female morning anchor. She increases the volume. The excited voice of the lady anchor fills her kitchen. She takes a sip of her sweet, sweet tea and leans back a little.“We have a developing story of a brutal attack on a customer at Starbucks coffee shop on Robson Street. Apparently a young woman has stabbed another woman inside Starbucks. Our reporter Emily Jackson is on location. Emily, what can you tell us…?”The upper body of a reporter, holding a microphone in one hand and fighting her wind-swept hair with the other, comes into the picture. Melissa hadn’t noticed that it is quite windy outside. Well, it’s October, at least it’s not raining. Behind the reporter a yellow band is restricting access to the crime scene. She sounds overly excited. “From what we have learned, a young woman has suddenly attacked a woman inside the coffee shop you see right behind me. We don’t know yet if the customer was already seated or still standing in line to place her order. We also don’t know the identity of the attacker or of the victim yet or have any information about the motive. Apparently the attacker suddenly produced a knife and threw herself at the woman, yelling obscenities on top of her voice. As you can see behind me, police have cordoned off the area and are processing the scene.”The anchor interrupts her. “Do we have any information about the condition of the victim? Is she badly hurt? Or…”An autumn gust blows hair over the reporter’s face. She nearly loses her microphone, trying to control the strands with both hands, but fumbles it back into position when she realizes that the camera is focused on her again. One side of her pretty face is completely covered with hair. It looks ridiculous and Melissa catches herself thinking the reporter would look a lot prettier if she had a different hairstyle.“The ambulance has transported the victim to the emergency ward of St Paul’s…”The reporter’s voice travels along Melissa’s attention span and loses its grip. Background noise quality. She likes that. And God, her tea is good.

Another developing story news-flash banner demands her attention again. The anchor sounds triumphant: “We have just received a video-clip from one of our viewers. We would like to warn you that some viewers may find the content of this video-clip offensive in nature…”

The clip starts. The picture is shaky, the filmmaker hassling for a good position between other coffee-shop customers who have jumped up to look what is going on in the middle of the room. The back of shoulders and heads pop in and out, screams of horror and confusion can be heard. Their unedited sound quality provides an unnerving authenticity to the unfolding drama.

An arm rises up in the air and down again, in kind of a wood chopping motion. Up and down, in one swift move, no hesitation whatsoever. In fact, the chopping goes on. Up and down, up and down—accompanied by ‘Oh my God’s’ and ‘Oh no, oh no’s’. The filmmaker edges closer, seems to get up on a chair, because he is above the scene now, holding his iPhone or whatever device he’s got, high above the center of the customer-circle that inched away from the dangerous situation. The victim of the attack is on the floor now, mercifully blurred by the rapid movements of the inexperienced cameraman, or maybe by CTV’s editing. The attacker, the young woman, wearing a black hoodie, is over her and chops into her with such vengeance that Melissa can feel the force of her hatred, furious and powerful. The victim is trying to protect her face and chest with crossed hands. The mad attacker continues to stab her wherever she can—face, arms, torso, it is impossible to make out exactly in the shaky clip where her knife slices into.

Bodies pop in and out of the picture and mercifully block most of what is going on. Several of them finally muster enough courage to intervene. The picture goes even more shaky and blurry. Then the anchor speaks again.

“We have word from the police that the victim you have just seen being attacked inside Starbucks on Robson about an hour ago is in critical condition. The young woman has been overpowered by three heroic young men…”

and now it happens, it’s not ‘just another day’ any longer

“they were performing a citizen’s arrest and held her captive until the police arrived…”

the anchor’s voice fades, just like the reporter’s before, because all of Melissa’s focus concentrates on what she sees on the screen. Meanwhile the filmmaker has managed to muscle himself closer to the group of guys who have pulled the young women off her victim and have now pinned her to the ground. Her face appears. The filmmaker zooms in. She smiles victoriously straight into his camera, as if she has achieved a very special feat.

Melissa is standing now, holding on to her cup of tea, frowning with the exhausting task of connecting what she sees on the screen with the reality of her life. It can not be. It can not be. But it is.

The tea cup slips from her weak hands, falls to the floor, spills its content on the cheap vinyl kitchen floor before rolling under the table.

It is. It is.

It is…her daughter.

ONE OF THE STRANGEST THINGS ABOUT THE CITY was the sudden way it disappeared around the edges. One minute you were down on Sunset Boulevard surrounded by glass and concrete, and the next thing you knew you were up on Mulholland Drive, alone in the rough country. From a high window or a rooftop almost anywhere in Los Angeles you could see the mountains, and there was always something ravenous up there looking down.
I was up among the hungry creatures, standing at the edge of a cliff, with Hollywood and Santa Monica far below me in the distance. One step forward and I would be in midair. I was looking down and wondering if Haley had considered how suddenly you could go from city to wilderness. Then I wondered if it was a distinction without a difference, if the city might be the wilderness and the wilderness the city, and maybe Los Angeles’s edges seemed to disappear so suddenly because there really was no separation between sidewalks and mountain paths, buildings and boulders. Up in the mountains or down in the city, either way the carnivores were in control.
I imagined Haley, out of her mind, running full speed off the cliff. I wondered what it had been like, that final second or two before she hit. Had she realized what was happening? Did she recognize the city lights below for what they were, or did she really think she was flying toward the stars? And did she think of me?
Stepping closer to the edge, I slid the toes of my shoes into the air. I looked down two hundred feet, toward the spot where she had broken on the rocks. I stood one inch from eternity and tried to imagine life without her. I could not summon up a single reason why I shouldn’t take that final step, except for one. I thought about the kind of animal who would drive someone to do what my wife had done. Predators like that were everywhere. I should know. I had trained for half my life to be one of them. I was hungry, looking down on the city. If I was going to live, the hunger would have to be enough,
for now. But I would sink my teeth into him, sooner or later. I would do that for Haley, and for myself, and then maybe it would be my turn to see if I could fly.
I stepped back from the edge.

He was handsome.

Not that I was really checking anyone out, or that I even looked at guys in that way anymore—married going on ten years now, and
Neil, my youngest, my stepson actually, just off to college. I glanced away, pretending I hadn’t even noticed him. Especially in a bar by myself, no matter how stylish this one was. But in truth I guess I had.

Noticed him. Just a little. Out of the corner of my eye . . .

Longish black hair and kind of dark, smoky eyes. A white V-neck T-shirt under a stylish blazer. Late thirties maybe, around my age, but seemed younger. I would’ve chalked him up as being just a shade too cool—too cool for my type anyway—if it wasn’t that something about him just seemed, I don’t know . . . natural. He sat down a few seats from me at the bar and ordered a Belvedere on the rocks, never looking my way. His watch was a rose-gold chronometer and looked expensive. When he finally did turn my way, shifting his stool to listen to the jazz pianist, his smile was pleasant, not too forward, just enough to acknowledge that there were three empty seats between us, and seemed to say nothing more than How are you tonight? Actually the guy was pretty damn hot!

Truth was, it had been years since I’d been at a bar by myself at night, other than maybe waiting for a girlfriend to come back from the ladies’ room as part of a gals’ night out. And the only reason I even happened to be here was that I’d been in the city all day at this self-publishing seminar, a day after Dave and I had about the biggest fight of our married lives. Which had started out as nothing, of course, as these things usually did: whether or not you had to salt the steaks so heavily—twice, in fact—before putting them on the grill—he having read about it in Food & Wine magazine or something—which somehow managed to morph into how I felt he was always spoiling the kids, who were from Dave’s first marriage:
Amy, who was in Barcelona on her junior year abroad, and Neil, who had taken his car with him as a freshman up at Bates. Which
was actually all just a kind of code, I now realized, for some issues I had with his ex-wife, Joanie. How I felt she was always belittling me; always putting out there that she was the kids’ mother, even though I’d pretty much raised them since they were in grade school, and how I always felt Dave never fully supported me on this.

“She is their mother!” Dave said, pushing away from the table. “Maybe you should just butt out on this, Wendy. Maybe you just
should.”

Then we both said some things I’m sure we regretted.

The rest of the night we barely exchanged a word—Dave shutting himself in the TV room with a hockey game, and me hiding out
in the bedroom with my book. In the morning he was in his car at the crack of dawn, and I had my seminar in New York. We hadn’t
spoken a word all day, which was rare, so I asked my buddy Pam to meet me for a drink and maybe something to eat, just to talk it all through before heading home.

Home was about the last place I wanted to be right now. And here it was, ten after seven, and Pam was texting me that she
was running twenty min late: the usual kid crisis—meaning Steve, her hedge-fund-honcho husband, still hadn’t left the office as promised, and her nanny was with April at dance practice . . .

And me, at the Hotel Kitano bar, a couple of blocks from Grand Central. Taking in the last, relaxing sips of a Patrón Gold
margarita—another thing I rarely did!—one eye on the TV screen above me, which had a muted baseball game or something on, the other doing its best to avoid the eye of Mr. Cutie at the end of the bar. Maybe not looking my 100 percent, knockout best—I mean,
it was just a self-publishing seminar and all—but still not exactly half-bad in an orange cashmere sweater, a black leather skirt, my Prada boots, and my wavy, dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Looking decently toned from the hot-yoga classes I’d been taking, texting back to Pam with a mischievous smile: Better hurry. V. sexy guy @ bar and think he’s abt to make contact. *grin* And giggling inside when she wrote me back: Hands off, hon! Ordered him esp for me!

Then better get your ass here pronto 🙂 I texted back. “Yanks or Red Sox?” I heard someone say.

“Sorry?” I looked up and it was you know who, who definitely had to be Bradley Cooper’s dreamy first cousin or something. Or at
least that’s what the sudden acceleration in my heart rate was telling me.

“Yanks or Red Sox? I see you’re keeping tabs on the game.”

“Oh. Yanks, of course,” I said, a glance to the screen. “Born and bred. South Shore.”

“Sox.” He shrugged apologetically. “South Boston. Okay, Brookline,” he said with a smile, “if you force it out of me.”

I smiled back. He was pretty cute. “Actually I wasn’t even watching. Just waiting for a friend.” I figured I might as well cut this off now. No point in leading him on.

“No worries.” He smiled politely. Like he’s even interested, right? “Who happens to be twenty minutes late!” I blurted, thinking I might have sounded just a bit harsh a moment ago.

“Well, traffic’s nuts out there tonight. Someone must be in town. Is he coming in from anywhere?”

“Yeah.” I laughed. “Park and Sixty-Third!” Then I heard myself add, not sure exactly why, “And it’s a she. Old college friend. Girls’ night out.”

He lifted his drink to me, and his dark eyes smiled gently. “Well, here’s to gridlock, then.”

Mr. Cutie and I shifted around and listened to the pianist. The bar was apparently known for its jazz. It was like the famous lounge at the Carlyle, only in midtown, which was why Pam had chosen it— close to both her place and Grand Central, for me to catch my train. “She’s actually pretty good!” I said, suddenly not minding the thought of Pam stuck in a cab somewhere, at least for a while. Not to mention forgetting my husband, who, for a moment, was a million miles away.

“Donna St. James. She’s one of the best. She used to sing with George Benson and the Marsalis brothers.”

“Oh,” I said. Everyone in the lounge seemed to be clued in to this. “It’s why I stay here when I’m in town. Some of the top names in the business just drop in unannounced. Last time I was here, Sarah Jewel got up and sang.”

“Sarah Jewel?”

“She used to record with Basie back in the day.” He pointed to a stylishly dressed black woman and an older white man at one of the round tables. “That’s Rosie Miller. She used to record with Miles Davis. Maybe she’ll get up later.”

“You’re in the business?” I asked. I mean, he did kind of look the part.

“No. Play a little though. Just for fun. My dad was actually an arranger back in the seventies and eighties. He . . . anyway, I don’t want to bore you with all that,” he said, shrugging and stirring his drink.

I took a sip of mine and caught his gaze. “You’re not boring me at all.”

A couple came in and went to take the two seats that were in between us, so Mr. Cutie picked up his drink and slid deftly around
them, and asked, motioning to the seat next to me, “Do you mind?”

Truth was, I didn’t. I was actually kind of enjoying it. And I did have a rescue plan, if necessary. I checked the time: 7:25. Wherever the hell Pam was!

“So this friend of yours,” he asked with a coy half smile, “is she real or imaginary? Because if she’s imaginary, not to worry. I have several imaginary friends of my own back in Boston. We could set them up.”

“Oh, that would be nice.” I laughed. “But I’m afraid she’s quite real. At least she was this summer. She and her husband were in Spain with me and my . . .”

I was about to say my husband, of course, but something held me back. Though by this time I assumed he had taken note of the ring
on my finger. Still, I couldn’t deny this was fun, sitting there with an attractive man who was paying me a little attention, still reeling from my argument with Dave.

Then he said, “I suspect there’s probably an imaginary husband back at home as well . . .”

“Right now”—I rolled my eyes and replied in a tone that was just a little digging—“I’m kind of wishing he was imaginary!” Then
I shook my head. “That wasn’t nice. Tequila talking. We just had a little row last night. Subject for tonight with friend.”

“Ah. Sorry to hear. Just a newlywed spat, I’m sure,” he said, teasing. This time I was sure he was flirting.

“Yeah, right.” I chortled at the flattery. “Going on ten years.”

“Wow!” His eyes brightened in a way that I could only call admiring. “Well, I hope it’s okay if I say you surely don’t look it! I’m Curtis, by the way.”

I hesitated, thinking maybe I’d let things advance just a bit too far. Though I had to admit I wasn’t exactly minding it. And maybe in a way I was saying to my husband, So see, David, there are consequences to being a big, fat jerk!

“Wendy,” I said back. We shook hands. “But it sure would be nice to know where the hell Pam is. She was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.” I checked the time on my phone.

“Would it be all right if I order up another of whatever you’re drinking?” He raised his palms defensively. “Purely for the imaginary friend, of course . . .”

“Of course,” I said, playing along. “But no. One more of these and I’ll be up at that piano myself! And trust me, I wasn’t playing with anyone in the eighties . . . Anyway”—I shrugged, deadpan— “she only drinks imaginary vodka.”

Curtis grinned. “I’m acquainted with the bartender. Let me see what I can do.”

My iPhone vibrated. Pam, I was sure, announcing she was pulling up to the hotel now and for me to get a dirty martini going for
her. But instead it read: Wend, I’m so sorry. Just can’t make it tonite. What can I say . . . ? I know u need to talk. Tomorrow work? Tomorrow? Tomorrow didn’t work. I was here. Now. And she was right, I did need to talk. And the last place I wanted to be right now was home. Will call, I wrote back, a little annoyed. I put down the phone. My eyes inevitably fell on Curtis’s. I’d already missed the 7:39.

“Sure, why don’t we do just that?” I nodded about that drink. I’m not sure exactly what made me stay.

Maybe I was still feeling vulnerable from my fight with Dave. Or even a little annoyed at Pam, who had a habit of bagging out when I needed her most. I suppose you could toss in just a bit of undeniable interest in the present company.

Whatever it was, I did.

Knowing Dave was out for the night on business and that it was all just harmless anyway helped as well. And that there was a train every half hour. I could leave anytime I wanted.

We chatted some more, and Curtis said he was a freelance journalist here in town on a story. And I chuckled and told him that I was kind of in the same game too. That I’d actually worked for the Nassau County police in my twenties before going to law school for a year—having signed up after 9/11, after my brother, a NYPD cop himself, was killed—though I was forced to resign after a twelveyear-old boy was killed in a wrongful-death judgment. And that I’d written this novel about my experience, which was actually why I’d been in the city today at a self-publishing conference. That I’d been having a tough time getting it looked at by anyone, and that it likely wasn’t very good anyway.

“Care to read it?” I asked. I tapped the tote bag from my publishing conference. “Been lugging it around all day.”

“I would,” Curtis said, “but I’m afraid it’s not exactly my field.”

“Just joking,” I said. “So what is your field?”

He shrugged. “I’m a bit more into current events.”

I was about to follow up on that when the pianist finished her set. The crowded room gave her a warm round of applause. She got
up and came over to the end of the bar, ordered a Perrier, and to my surprise, when it arrived, lifted it toward Curtis. “All warmed up, sugar.”

Curtis stood up. I looked at him wide-eyed. He shot me a slightly apologetic grin. “I did mention that I played . . .”

“You said a bit, for fun,” I replied.

“Well, you’ll be the judge. Look, I know you have a train to
catch, and I don’t know if you’ll be around when I’m done”—he put
out his hand—“but it was fun to chat with you, if you have to leave.”

“I probably should,” I said, glancing at the time. “It was nice to talk to you as well.”

“And best of luck,” he said, pointing as he backed away, “with that imaginary friend of yours.”

“Right! I’ll be sure to tell her!” I laughed.

He sat down at the piano, and I swiveled around, figuring I’d stick around a couple of minutes to hear how he played. But from the opening chords that rose magically from his fingers, just warming up, it was clear it was me he was playing when he coyly said he only played “a little.”

I was dumbstruck, completely wowed. The guy was a ten! He wasn’t just a dream to look at, and charming too—he played like he was totally at one with the instrument. He had the ease and polish of someone who clearly had been doing this from an early age.
His fingers danced across the keyboard and the sounds rose as if on a cloud, then drifted back to earth as something beautiful. It had been a long time since goose bumps went down my arms over a guy.

Donna St. James leaned over. “You ever hear him before, honey?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“His father arranged a bunch of us back in the day. Sit back. You’re in for a treat.”

I did.

The first thing he played was this sumptuous, bluesy rendition of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and the handful of
customers who were paying their checks, preparing to leave, started listening. Even the bartender was listening. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Whatever my definition of sexy had been an hour ago, forget it—he was definitely rewriting it for me now.

I didn’t leave.

I just sat there, slowly nursing my margarita, growing more and more intoxicated, but not by the drink. By the time he segued into a sultry version of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” it was as if his soul had risen from that keyboard and knotted itself with mine.

Our eyes came together a couple of times, my smile communicating, Okay, so I’m impressed . . . The twinkle in his eye simply saying he was happy I was still there.

By the time he finished up with Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” goose bumps were dancing up and down my arms with the
rise and fall of his fingers along the keys. With a couple of margaritas in me—and fifteen years from the last time anyone looked at me quite that way—the little, cautioning voice that only a few minutes back was going, Wendy, this is crazy, you don’t do this kind of thing, had gone completely silent.

And when our eyes seemed to touch after his final note and didn’t separate, not for a while, I knew, sure as I knew my own name, that I was about to do something I could never have imagined when I walked into the place an hour before. Something I’d never, ever done before.

 

PROLOGUE

Sometime before Charlie moved out, I began reading the obituaries. It became a daily routine, like morning coffee. I didn’t just scan the listings; I read them closely, noting dates of death, ages of the deceased, names of survivors. If there were photos, I studied faces for clues about mortality even though they were often grinning and much younger than at death. Sometimes there were flags at the top of notices, signifying military service. Salvadore Petrini had a flag. Aged 64. Owner of Petrini’s Market. Beloved husband and father and stepfather and brother and uncle. Viewing and Life Celebration at St. Patrick’s Church, Malvern.

Some notices were skeletal, giving no details of the lost life: Sonia Woods went to be with the Lord on August 17. Viewing Friday, from 9 to 11, First Baptist Church. Service to follow. These left me disturbed, sad for the deceased. Was there, in the end, really nothing to be said about them? Were their lives just a finite number of breaths now stopped?

For weeks, I followed the flow of local deaths and funerals. I tried to surmise causes of death from requests for memorial contributions in lieu of flowers. The American Cancer Society. The Vascular Disease Foundation. The American Heart or Alzheimers Association. When there were epigraphs, I read about careers accomplished, volunteer work conducted, music played, tournaments won. Lives condensed to an eighth of a page. Less, usually.

Though the notices were brief, the words and patterns of language had a gentle rolling rhythm, comforting, like prayers, like nursery rhymes. And between listings, stark and straight lines divided one death from another, putting lives neatly into boxes, separating body from body. Soul from soul. Making death quantifiable and normal, a daily occurrence neatly announced on paper in black and white, on pages dense with ink, speckled with gray smiling photos. Smiles announcing that death wasn’t really so bad.

I don’t know why I was compelled to read those listings every day. At the time, I’d have said it had to be about the death of my marriage. After all, my own life, in a way, was ending. My life as Charlie’s wife was dying, but there would be no public acknowledgment of that demise. No memorial service. No community gathering to mourn. Maybe I read the listings to remember that I wasn’t the only one grieving, that others had lost even more. Still, I would have felt better if the obituary page included dead marriages and lost identities: Mrs. Charles Henry Harrison (nee Elle Brooks) ceased to exist on (date pending), when the couple’s divorce became final. Maybe it would help to have some formal recognition of the demise of my former self. Maybe not.

It’s possible that my own losses brought me to the daily obits. But I doubt it. Looking back, I believe what drew me was far more ominous. A premonition. An instinct. For whatever reason, though, every morning as I chewed my English muffin, I buried myself in the death notices, studying what I could about people who were no more, trying to learn from them or their photos or their neatly structured notices anything I could about death.

Of course, as it turned out, the notices were useless. None of them, not one prepared me for what was to happen. According to the obituary columns, the circumstances of one’s life made no difference in the end. Dead was simply dead. Final. Permanent. Without room for doubt. The pages I studied gave no indication of a gray area. And the boxes around the obituaries contained no dotted lines.

Genre: Suspense

Published by: Oceanview Publishing

Publication Date: Feb 5, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-60809-074-7

          

Reeling from his wife’s unsolved murder, Malcolm Cutter is just going through the motions as a chauffeur and bodyguard for Hollywood’s rich and famous. Then a pair of Guatemalan tough guys offer him a job. It’s an open question whether they’re patriotic revolutionaries or vicious terrorists. Either way, Cutter doesn’t much care until he gets a bomb through his window, a gangland beating on the streets of L.A., and three bullets in the chest. Now there’s another murder on Cutter’s Mind. His own.

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BLOOD FLOWS SOUTH: BOOK ILa famiglia è tutto

Family is everything

Dominic Mangini

Chapter 1

A Present for Maria

Brooklyn, New York—Winter 1982

Zeppe Mangini paced the busy sidewalk while nursing a cappuccino. He felt it was a sure sign that the world was falling apart when people sold cappuccino in paper cups, but he sipped the drink to draw warmth and to make himself appear busy. Every few steps he glanced across the street to the apartment at 1255. Tommy Nunzio had lived there since he was a kid. Tonight he would die there.

Zeppe finished his cappuccino, waited for a break in traffic, then half-walked, half-jogged across the street. The horn from a souped-up Camaro blared as he reached the sidewalk. He tugged on his cap, covering a full head of coal-black hair, then nodded to his brother, Dominic, standing by the front steps.

“Dom, you sure there’s no other way to do this?”

“This is the cleanest. He’ll buzz you in.”

Zeppe paused, scrunched his face up a little. “Yeah, but that ain’t right. I’m—”

“Do it.”

Zeppe hit the buzzer, fidgeting as he waited for Tommy to answer. The last time his finger hit this button it was to ask Tommy out for a beer. Now…

“Who is it?”

“Tommy, it’s Zep. Open up.”

They walked into the building and climbed the stairs to the third floor. Zeppe cringed with each groan of the old wood, bringing back images of him and Tommy as little kids, and Mrs. Nunzio hollering at them, warning them about playing on steps. Zeppe took a few seconds to catch his breath, and to calm the rotten feeling he had in his gut, but he couldn’t chase away the image of Mrs. Nunzio. As he reached the top of the third floor, he half expected to be greeted by the sweet aroma of garlic coming from her kitchen.

His face scrunched again, a nervous tic he had since he was kid. “Dom, can’t we buy him a little time?”

“Not on this one,” Dominic said, and stood to the side.

Zeppe knocked on the door, hands shaking more than his stomach ached. After a few seconds the door opened. Dominic moved fast, pushing Zeppe aside while he shoved his gun into Tommy’s stomach. “Keep your voice down.”

Tommy backed up, hands in the air. “What’s going on? What—” His look shifted from Dominic to Zeppe, then back again. He froze, his eyes growing large. “Zeppe, what’s this about?”

Zeppe closed the door with the heel of his foot, never taking his eyes from Tommy.

“You shouldn’t have crossed Vito.”

“That’s enough,” Dominic said.

Tommy cocked his head toward Zeppe, lifting his eyes in a pleading gesture. “Zep, can you help me out?” His voice cracked when he asked.

Dominic raised the gun to Tommy’s head and pulled the trigger. Twice. The small caliber bullets bounced around inside his skull, dropping him to the floor. There was little pain. Even less blood.

Dominic knelt beside him, checked his neck and pulse. The two in the head had done the trick.

“Let’s go,” Zeppe said, but as he reached for the doorknob a noise from the bedroom alerted him. “You hear that?”

Zeppe and Dominic stopped. Listened. A fan hummed in the bathroom and the ever-present noise of the fridge came from the kitchen, but something different from the bedroom. “Turn off the lights,” Dominic said, then crept toward the back room, gun drawn. “I’ll go in low. Hit the light once I’m in.”

Dominic crouched, pushed open the bedroom door and crept forward, his gun leading the way.

Zeppe waited for him to get in, then hit the light. “Mother of God! A goddamn baby.”

Dominic glanced about the room, barely big enough to hold the crib, a rocker, and a small chest of drawers. The baby fussed, tiny hands covering its eyes. Dominic picked the baby up, pried open the diaper, then lay the baby on his shoulder. “It’s a girl. Can’t be more than a few months old.”

Zeppe still had his gun out. “I’ll check the rest of the place.”

He returned in a few minutes, gun tucked into his pants. “Place is clean,” he said. “So what do we do?”

“Call Vito, but use the phone booth. I’ll wait here.”

Zeppe thought about the baby all the way down the stairs. Vito would be pissed; they should have known beforehand. He exited the building, crossed the street and called Vito.

“Hello.”

“Yeah, it’s me. We got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

A long pause, then, “We delivered the message, but we found something unexpected.”

“Don’t make me guess.”

“A baby.”

“How did we not know about a baby?”

“I don’t know. I never heard of no baby, but sure as shit it’s his. Got pictures everywhere, baby clothes, baby food in the fridge and cabinets. A room fixed up.”

Zeppe waited through more silence.

“Leave it.”

“Leave it? Christ’s sake, boss. It could die.”

“Leave it.”

“Okay, you got it,” Zeppe said, and put the phone back on the receiver. Ain’t no way Dominic is leaving that baby.

Head hung low, Zeppe walked back across the street, up the steps, and into the apartment where Dominic waited with the girl. “Vito said leave it.”

Dominic was a small man, but intensity always surrounded him, an aura of danger that even Zeppe wasn’t immune to. He had seen men far bigger than his brother back down after meeting his glare.

“I’m not leaving her,” Dominic said, and he held the girl a little tighter. “Do you know Tommy’s wife? Where is she?”

“I don’t know, Dom. I heard she left him a few months ago, but I didn’t know about the baby. I swear. I wouldn’t have done this if I knew.” Shouldn’t have done it anyway. Goddamnit.

“Did Tommy have family? Brothers or sisters?”

“His brother died last year. Remember?” Zeppe paused. “There might be relatives, but none I know of.” There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of Dominic leaving that baby alone, or with child services. Regardless, Zeppe felt he had to try. “Child services would—”

“I wouldn’t leave a dog with them.”

“Dom, I know how you feel, but—”

“Take her with us.”

“Are you nuts?”

“We shouldn’t be in this situation, Zeppe. It was your job to check this out.” Dominic shook his head then handed the girl to Zeppe. “It’s cold outside. Make sure she’s warm.”

“Okay,” Zeppe said, “whatever you want.” He took the baby from Dominic, and held her close.

“I’ll wipe everything clean.” Dominic looked around, checked where they’d been, then went to the bedroom and got extra clothes, a blanket, diapers, bottles. When he returned, he handed everything to Zeppe, cracked the door and looked down the hall. “Wrap her tight. I don’t want that baby catching cold.”

Zeppe wrapped the blanket around her, making sure to cover her head. “What the hell are we going to do with a baby?” He said it to himself, but Dominic answered.

“Taking her to Maria.”

Zeppe’s head was shaking as soon as Dominic finished. “Dom, you’re my older brother, but you’re as nuts as Maria.”

Dominic turned to face Zeppe. “If you ever say that about Maria again, I’ll kill you.”

They walked to the car in silence. Zeppe handed the baby to Dominic then got behind the wheel to drive. “Where to?”

“First the warehouse, then to Maria’s.”

#

Dominic stared at the baby as Zeppe drove, letting his finger trace along her forehead. “She’s quiet for one so young,” he said, no trace of the vehemence that tainted his voice earlier.

“Yeah, I guess she likes you.”

“And look at those eyes. Such big brown eyes.”

“Beautiful,” Zeppe said, but he never took his eyes from the road.

When the little girl smiled, Dominic smiled with her, but soon afterward turned somber. He thought of the fate Maria suffered because of him. If anyone should have had children it was her, but she refused to marry Dominic because of what he was, and she refused to marry anyone else. He saw the pain when she sat at the playground and watched the children play. Pain she didn’t deserve. Perhaps this was God’s answer to his prayers.

There would be birth certificate issues and people to pay off…but that could be arranged. The bigger problem was getting Maria to accept the baby and then making sure no one ever told the truth. That was the difficult one. Truth had a way of creeping through cracks and oozing to the top, no matter how deep it was buried. He knew he could trust Zeppe, and he could trust Maria…but something in his gut ate at him. This would take careful planning.

Zeppe pulled up to a warehouse. Dominic got rid of the gun and changed clothes. Half an hour later he turned down the street to Maria’s house.

“Turn the corner and park on the street after hers,” Dominic said. “We’ll walk.”

“Dom, it’s cold, and that baby—”

“The baby will be fine in the blanket. I’d rather not be seen on Maria’s street.”

After Zeppe parked, Dominic checked to make sure no one was watching then signaled Zeppe to bring the baby. They walked around the corner and up to Maria’s house.

A few knocks brought Maria to the door, surprise registering on her face when she saw them. “What are you doing here?” Her voice not much above a whisper.

Maria was the same as always—as plain as her tawny hair and as quiet as a church at night. “Came to see my beautiful friend,” Dominic said, and removed his cap.

She brushed her fingers through the sides of her hair. “Beautiful? I’m already graying.”

Dominic hugged her and kissed her forehead. “I love that gray,” he said, then nodded to Zeppe, who handed the baby to Maria.

She went wide-eyed. “Whose baby is this?” She held the girl against her and peeled the blanket back one layer at a time. “She’s so small. Where’s the mother?”

Dominic brushed the baby’s red cheeks with his finger, and nudged her head with his nose, sniffing in her scent. For the second time tonight a smile lit his face. “Babies are so innocent. You can even smell it on them.”

Maria walked through the house, humming a tune while she rocked the baby in her arms. “You didn’t answer me, Dominic. Who does she belong to? Some woman friend of yours?”

“I’m surprised at you for saying such a thing, Maria.” Westminster chimes were signaling the half-hour. Dominic waited for them to stop; they were Maria’s favorite. “We found her on the street corner. She was in a stroller, freezing.”

Maria looked at him, perhaps trying to judge the truth. “I’m sorry, Dominic, it’s just…I thought…” She shook her head and continued walking. “Who would do that to a baby?” She kissed the girl’s head several times. “Poor baby,” she said, then turned to Dominic. “What can we do with her? Did you call those…services people?”

“You know I would never do that; besides, you always wanted a child. Now God has sent you one.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t keep her.” Maria made the statement, blessed herself when she said it, but a plea rode on her words.

“You must keep her. God has given you a gift. Someone who didn’t care abandoned her, now someone who does care will raise her.”

Maria stared at Dominic for a long time, then she hugged the baby as tears formed in her eyes. “There is no way I can keep her, but I will watch her for a while.” She walked with her for a few moments, then said, “In the meantime, I’ll call her Concetta.”

Dominic nodded, a smile on his face. Maria would never let go of that baby. “Concetta Gianelli. A good name.”

“I told you, Dominic, I can’t keep her. What would the neighbors say? They will—”

Zeppe shook his head. “Tell them a relative died. Trust me, they won’t say anything.” He leaned over and kissed Maria on the cheek, then kissed the baby. “I promise you.”

Dominic looked at Maria, then Zeppe. “If Maria keeps Concetta, no one is to know where she came from. Understand? No one.”

“Don’t worry,” Zeppe said. “Just the three of us.”

Maria nodded, clutching the girl as if someone might take her. “Yes, just the three of us.”

Zeppe turned and headed for the door. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Good night, Giuseppe.”

“Yeah, good night, Maria.”

As the door closed behind Zeppe, and Maria walked to the kitchen, Dominic made the sign of the cross, asking God for forgiveness. It was one thing to kill a man—but to take his baby and claim it as a gift from God might be pushing things too far. That was the kind of thing that could haunt a person in both lives. And what will Maria do if she finds out the truth? Even worse, what will this little girl do if she finds out?

FEBRUARY 5th to FEBRUARY 19th, 2013

A BULLET FOR CARLOS
by GIACOMO GIAMMATTEO

*GIVEAWAY ENDS FEBRUARY 19th AT 6PM EST*

DISCLAIMER / RULES

Caveat:  If you visit often, then you know Vincent Zandri has been a favorite author of mine, since I read his first book Moonlight Falls back in May of 2010.  Since then I have read most of his books and enjoyed each and every one.  One thing I want to stress is, that just because it is a Vincent Zandri novel, I will always write an honest review as to what my thoughts are on any particular book.