Chapter Thirty-six
It took Angelo a half hour to find Maji at the party, what with having to shake hands and take congratulations every second step. After the obligatory mingling, they took a breather by the parapet on the veranda, looking out at the late afternoon haze over the Sound. Behind them, Gino and Lupo talked with Arthur Lucchetti and Big Mike Garafalo, another capo.
“Where’s that northside breeze you promised?” Arthur asked Gino. “It’s muggy as the city out here.”
“I ordered Cuban weather,” Gino joked. “Gets the blood up. Have a mojito, try some roast pork, dance with your wife—you’ll thank me later.”
“I thank you already,” Arthur assured him. “It’s good to be in business with you again.”
“Thanks, Art,” Gino replied. “That means a lot, coming from you.”
“But that speech your mother made at the end?” Big Mike added. “As if we could retire, just like that.”
Gino cleared his throat. “Ma’s got notions. You know how they get at that age.”
“No disrespect meant,” Big Mike backpedaled. “It’s not the worst idea I’ve heard.”
Lupo laughed. “Believe me, the older you get, the better it sounds. Aren’t you sixty yet, Art?”
“Sixty-two. Three grandkids already. But my daughter don’t bring them around. Mrs. B’s got a point about the rackets.”
“That ain’t your rackets,” Big Mike ribbed him. “That’s your cooking. Learn to make a decent gravy, they’ll come around.”
Lupo left the men talking Italian cooking and joined Maji and Angelo. “I think they’re ready for supper, Ang. Why don’t you give them the food tour?”
Ang cocked his head at the dismissal and looked at Maji. “’Scuse me, babe. Duty calls.”
“Enjoying the party?” Lupo asked when he and Maji were alone, the men having moved off to try the pork and other enticements.
“What’s not to love,” she answered, leaning one hip against the low wall. “I get to meet dozens of people I’ll never see again.”
“Now that sounds like a jilted girlfriend talking, and we both know better. You never expected Angelo to keep you here. And I trust he didn’t promise to take you to Austria.”
She shook her head and turned so he could see the heart tattoo on the back of her left shoulder. “But I really will miss him. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“I didn’t know the Army allowed tattoos on women.” He didn’t touch the ink.
Maji turned back to meet his eyes. “They let their standards down, all kinds of ways.”
“I didn’t mean any offense, young lady. You’ve been of real service to the Family. More than we realized, of course.”
So, Maji thought, either Ricky told you or you just put the pieces together. And Gino? She shrugged. “Where I come from, friends look out for each other. He’s had my back, too, when I needed him.”
“And after Angelo flies away to a new life?” Lupo paused. “Perhaps you might need a new friend to exchange favors with.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “I got friends my own age, thanks. No offense.”
He laughed, fortunately. “Not that kind of favors. I meant the Family business. Believe it or not, we could use a woman now and then. Someone with street smarts, and good aim. And your kind of moxie.”
“Oh—sorry. That’s flattering, really. But my ass already belongs to the Army. Even at part-time, I’m done being owned.”
Lupo smiled graciously. “Well, I hear re-employment for veterans isn’t all we hope it might be. If you find yourself in need of pocket money, don’t forget us.” He drew a business card from the breast pocket of his still-crisp suit. As she looked it over, he took a Cuban cigar and a glass of champagne off the passing server’s tray.
She accepted the glass and made a show of tasting the bubbly. “The less I know about your business, I figure, the better for me.”
He smiled, clipping the end of the cigar. “Wise. Still, your discretion is what impressed Gino and me. That, and you know how to keep your cool in a crisis.”
Maji shrugged. “Guns don’t scare me as much as maybe they should. But I really don’t like using them. Oh—please don’t light that thing just yet.”
He clicked the lighter closed and slid the cigar into his breast pocket. “Of course. Now, what services you might provide would be negotiable. All we insist on is loyalty—and discretion.”
Maji raised one eyebrow. “Ang’s secret didn’t hurt anybody but him. And this thing you’re celebrating tonight, I’m happy being out of the loop on that.” She handed his card back. “Whatever kind of favors you have in mind, I’m not the woman you’re hoping for.”
Hours later, Angelo headed toward the girls’ table to check in with all the women he loved. On the way, he overhead Big Mike say to his consigliere, “One percent? Hell, I’d have gone to ten, never thought to bitch about it.”
His mother waved him to a seat at the table as he approached. Rose and Sienna smiled to see him, and Maji gave a little nod. Nonna didn’t even look up, her head close to Gina Lucchetti’s so the two could hear each other. Latin horns and guitar wafted up from the lawn along with the smell of roasting pork. It was a perfect night.
“How’s the food? They do okay?” he asked the whole table.
“I got you a plate, but Ri ate it for you,” his mother said. “It’s good if you like garlic.”
“I’ll get you another,” Rose said, standing before he could protest. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Relax awhile.”
Sienna reached behind Maji and put her hand on her upper back. “Ri keeps making up new things whenever we ask her what this means. What is it, really?”
“I told you,” Maji said. “For long life, laugh daily.”
“Or was it, For stupid tourist, stupid slogan?” Angelo said, then flinched. “Ow! Pinching is juvenile, Ri.”
“So are your jokes.”
Sienna laughed. “God, you two fight like a real couple.”
They all looked at each other, as what Sienna had meant registered. His mother scowled at Sienna. “Watch your mouth.”
Sienna blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything.”
“Well, don’t mean it to yourself—for a couple more days, anyway,” Angelo said in a low tone. “Can you manage that?”
“I said, I’m sorry.”
Rose saved her cousins any more discussion by setting a heaping plate in front of Angelo with a flourish. “Ropa vieja, cooked off-site and finished on the grills,” she said. “Moros y christianos, also known as white rice with Cuban-style black beans.”
“If you don’t love those, I’ll take them,” Maji offered. It was good to see her appetite back.
“Plátanos maduros,” Rose continued, ignoring the interruption. “They’re almost out already. And of course the yucca.”
“That’s where the garlic is,” his mother added. “Chunks of it.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think I’m kissing anybody tonight,” Angelo replied. He popped a caramelized disk of fried plantain into his mouth and groaned. “If this was my last meal, I wouldn’t complain.”
Maji stood abruptly. “Lemme get you a drink. The usual?”
Maji left the table, nodding to Paola as she came to take a seat with the Benedetti women, and crossed the veranda to the bar. She let two middle-aged women with matching blond highlights in their dark hair go ahead of her. A man, one of so many in Cuban shirts and pressed slacks that she had stopped trying to tell them apart, insisted on letting her go ahead of him. So she got a glass of red wine for Rose and stood aside with it. When the wiseguy took his beer and headed back to his own table, she approached the bar again.
“The usual for Angelo,” she said in Spanish. “And a Coke for me, hold the rum.”
Rey poured the two tall glasses for her. He scanned for other guests nearby before speaking. Apparently he didn’t trust that no one else spoke their language. “You want to dab some on you, like he does?”
Maji shook her head. “Not part of my cover. And I’ve had too much champagne already. Fortunately, rice and beans really soaks it up.”
“Yeah. When we’re all done here, come hang with my family sometime. Without the motorcycle, of course.”
Maji realized that Bubbles hadn’t told him that she almost never drank, even when she wasn’t driving the zero-tolerance machine. She wondered just how much of their teen years he knew about. “Sure. Thanks.”
“You holding up okay, Rios?”
Maji nodded and sipped on her Coke. She should get back to the table. “Glad to be done soon. You, too, I’m sure.”
“Hell yeah. La B—” he stopped himself from saying Bubbles’s distinctive name. “The wife misses both of us.”
“Has she seen this?” Maji ran her hand over her jaw, in reference to the neat line of facial hair he wore.
“Nah. I gotta shave before I get home tomorrow. She’d go crazy if I showed up in this drag.”
Maji was about to give him some encouragement in that direction, when Ricky’s voice rang out behind her. “You better take your boyfriend that G and T before he gets jealous.”
She turned her head only. “Hi, Ricky.”
“Nice ink,” he said, pressing one finger onto the brush strokes on her back while running his eyes over her bare arms and shoulders. “What else you got?”
“Nothing you’ll ever get to see.”
He swayed slightly and grinned lopsidedly. “That makes two of us, then.”
“Watch it.” They both turned at the sound of Gino’s voice. “Ricky, go ask my daughter to dance. She looks neglected.”
Ricky bobbed his head and walked away. Gino turned back to Rey. “He’s cut off. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. What can I get you?”
“Gimme a red.” He spared a glance for Maji. “And you. Wait for me.”
When he had his glass, Maji handed him Rose’s. “Would you? Thanks. I didn’t know how I was going to juggle.”
As they walked back to the family table together, she felt Gino’s sideways glances. Finally he asked, “Lupo have a chat with you?”
“Yeah. But I think I disappointed him.”
“Just as well. You done plenty already. ’Course, you do understand—”
She took a chance, cutting him off. “Discretion, yeah. I may not be in your business, but where I came up, we had our own omertà.”
“Good. Then we understand each other.”
By nine p.m., the children at the party were getting whiny or falling asleep in their mothers’ laps. Maji felt all the Coke she’d consumed gnawing at her stomach. It was too full of the food she’d shoveled in to try to kill the buzz from the champagne. And now there was a queasy feeling creeping in. “I need some air,” she said, pushing back from the table.
“Sure you don’t want to lie down?” Rose asked.
“No,” Sienna objected. “You’ll miss the fireworks.”
Maji swallowed. Something was definitely not sitting right. “Just a walk.”
“I’ll go with you,” Rose offered.
They descended the long stairs on the bandstand side of the veranda in silence. At the bottom, Rose said, “Let’s get farther upwind of the grill.”
Of course. She’d been inhaling the scent of cooked meat for hours. You idiot, Rios.
They skirted the few couples dancing on the temporary parquet floor. A café table at the far side offered some semblance of privacy. Nobody could hear them, at least. “How are the guys doing down there?” Rose asked, her eyes toward the waterline.
“Dunno. No comms tonight. Have you seen Frank?”
“No. He’s probably down there with them. He’s not much of a party person.” Rose paused. “You mean I could have been whispering in your ear all evening, in private?”
Maji looked across the little table at her. “Yes, but then people really would have stared. More than usual, I mean.”
“I hadn’t noticed anyone staring at you.”
Maji shook her head. “Not at me. You turn heads everywhere you go. And not just tonight, all dressed up.” Although she did look gorgeous, in that dress that hugged all the right spots and the makeup that made her eyes impossible to miss, even from a distance. “You could never work undercover.”
“Why, Sergeant Rios,” Rose said, batting her eyelashes, “are you flirting with me?”
“Just being honest.”
A small burst of light broke the skyline, followed by a modest pop. Then a squee sounded, followed by a smiley face overhead, and a bang. The dancers cleared the floor, the music petering out. Maji looked up at the veranda and saw the throng of guests, some with children in their arms or on their shoulders. “Guess it’s showtime.”
The band started up a little Sousa, which corresponded fairly well with the brilliant streaks and bursts overhead. Within moments, Frank emerged from the darkness beyond the dance floor, smiling when he spotted them. Rose stood and greeted him with a hug, and they stayed standing, looking up together. Maji watched them sharing the moment. What would she tell Rose later, if asked for her impressions of the men at the party? Frank’s story, even if she knew it, wasn’t hers to tell.
At the first lull in the action, Rose peeked around Frank’s torso and motioned to Maji to join them. Maji stood and slid a hand around Frank’s waist on the opposite side of him from Rose. He draped his free arm over her shoulder, his warmth welcome against the cooling night. “All good at the shoreline,” he whispered to her.
Rose’s fingertips traced the lines on Maji’s uncovered back, from the space between her shoulder blades to just above her waist, where the snug bodice tied the dress front and the skirt together. Maji moved her palm from Frank’s hip to the small of Rose’s back and pressed lightly. It was as close to a dance as they could ask for tonight.
When the finale was over, the sky hazed with smoke from the fireworks, the band returned to salsa. The three of them broke apart, Maji slipping away first.
“You won’t dance with me, will you?” Rose asked her.
Maji shook her head. “Not tonight. Frank?”
“Sure.” He took Rose’s hand and led her onto the floor.
Maji sat and watched them, realizing shortly that she needed to move again. Too much acrid residue in the breeze coming off the water. She rose and made her way to the far edge of the floor, near the base of the stairs.
“No show for us tonight?” Ricky said as he reached the bottom stair. His breath carried a mix of liquor and cigar smoke.
“No show for you ever, Little Dick.” The snide nickname just slipped out.
Ricky seemed too drunk to notice. “Then I’ll just go cut in,” he said, weaving across the floor toward Rose and Frank.
Maji followed, keeping some distance. She watched Rose shake her head and saw Frank’s mouth move. And then Ricky put his arm between them, as if he could step into the space and displace Frank as lead. Maji stood still, watching Rose react calmly but decisively.
Before he knew that she’d done anything at all, Ricky was on the ground, seated, looking up at them. “Hey.” He sounded confused, torn between anger and hurt.
“You tripped,” Maji said. She put her hands under his armpits and helped him stand. “Let’s find you a seat.” Near your wife, preferably.
Ricky threw an arm around her shoulder, the hand landing on her breast. She moved it aside and leaned up into him, starting to walk him before he could get his bearings. At the foot of the stairs, she turned him and set him down. He landed heavily on the second step, then leaned back against the third and fourth, looking up at her. “Why you nice to me?”
Frank appeared at Maji’s elbow. “Go get him some water,” she instructed.
Ricky turned his head as Frank went up the stairs, his eyes following him. “He said you don’t like me. ’Cause Ang don’t. Why don’t Ang like me?”
“You call him bad names, for one.” She perched near him.
He shook his head. “No. Before he was a fag, he didn’t like me then, too. Either.”
“You can’t be Carlo, Ricky,” she said. “No matter what you do.”
He nodded his head slowly. “Yeah.” He sat quietly, digesting the deep news slowly.
A flash went off over by the grills, then another. “Hey!” Ricky roared, standing abruptly. Maji tried to steady him, but he batted her away and headed toward the source of the light.
“What on earth?” Rose said from beside Maji.
“Stay back,” Maji said, as they watched Ricky grab a cell phone from one of the servers. “Retrocédan!” she ordered, striding toward Ricky. The server and her two alarmed-looking friends moved back as instructed.
“Spies,” Ricky said, waving the phone at the frightened women. He raised the phone up, preparing to throw it on the ground. “Spics,” he spat, as Maji’s arm caught his. She twisted it behind him with one hand as she removed the phone from his grip with the other.
“Here,” Rose said, taking the phone from Maji.
Ricky twisted in Maji’s grip, his face purpling with rage. “Fucking cunt! Get your hands off me.”
“Breathe, Ricky,” Maji replied. But not on my face. “Take a deep breath.”
He paused his struggle. “Stupid spics. Didn’t you tell them no photos? Even the wives and kids know better.”
Maji repeated the main message loudly, in Spanish. In English, she said, “Rose, show us what’s on the phone.”
Rose clicked through the photos for them. Nothing but the server’s friends. “See? No harm done.”
“Wipe them all,” Maji said. Rose hesitated. “Now.” Rose played with the buttons, and displayed the phone again.
“Thank you,” Maji told her. “See? You did your job, Rick. Can I let you go now?”
“Yeah,” Ricky mumbled.
Maji let her grip go and started to step away. “Hey!” she heard. Just in time, Frank.
Maji’s head jerked back as Ricky grabbed a fistful of her hair, leaning into her face as she arched backward. “I was Carlo, I woulda fucked you both in front of that faggot, and then whacked all three of you.”
Maji felt her dinner rise up into her throat. Then her head was free, and Ricky was puking near her feet, holding his crotch.
Frank was wrapping both arms around Rose, pulling her backward. “Ri!” she called, struggling forward against Frank’s protective hold.
Maji shook her head, to warn her off. And then she threw a full meal onto Ricky’s feet. The air smelled terrible, but at least less like smoke now.
“My shoes!” Ricky said, trying to straighten up. The way he winced, Maji guessed that Rose had landed a front rising kick solidly between his legs to set off the puking chain reaction.
Frank let Rose go and threw a cooking towel at him. “Screw the shoes. Go around the side and dump ’em. Mrs. B will kill you, you track puke in her house.”
“They’re four hundred dollars kicks, you moron!” Ricky gagged, and spat to the side. “She owes me four hundred.”
Frank stepped up into his face, not even showing how disgusting Maji knew that must be. “You just threatened to rape and kill her, you asshole. Call it even.”
“Fuck you.”
Frank didn’t flinch when Ricky’s spittle hit him. “You want me to report this to Gino, give him the blow by blow?”
“Fuck you,” Ricky repeated, but weakly this time. He stepped on the back of one shoe, and kicked it off. He stepped on the other with his sock-covered foot and wobbled. Frank steadied him. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
“C’mon,” Frank said. “I’ll take you inside.” He turned to Rose and Maji. “You two okay?”
Maji looked to Rose, who nodded. “All good, Frank. Thanks.”
Rose examined Maji from a few feet away. There was vomit on her skirt hem and shins. And feet, no doubt. She held out her hand, and Maji took it. “This way,” Rose said.
They stepped into the rec room-turned-casino, away from the grill’s odors and the noise of music and voices. A pair of dealers stopped talking to each other and headed for separate tables. “No, no,” Rose said. “Continúan. Estamos cansadas.”
The male dealer smiled at them and reached back for a chair by the wall. “Here. Rest.” He eyed Maji. “Perhaps some water, también?”
“Mil gracias,” Maji said, sinking onto the chair.
The female dealer returned promptly with a paper cup and a damp towel. Rose wiped Maji’s legs down while Maji drained the cup.
“You gave him the handshake, didn’t you?” Maji asked.
Rose looked up at her and saw amusement. Rose felt herself color. “I did. Maybe a poor tactical choice, but…”
“No. You did fine. Thank you.”
“You could have handled it, probably better. I just—those words, and he had you like that—I just…”
Maji took her hand. “I know. It’s okay.” She pulled her skirt edge up and wrinkled her nose. “I better go change, though.”
“I’ll go with you.” She read hesitation on Maji’s face. “Don’t you argue with me, Rios.”
“Hooah.”
They jogged barefoot through the damp grass down to the blissfully quiet empty house. Rose waited while Maji stepped into the shower, her dress an empty shell on the floor outside the bathroom. The smell of smoke on her own dress made her want to change, too. She could join Maji in there…No, that wasn’t fair. Maji was still on duty, and a little shaken up, besides. Sometime in the last few weeks, Rose had stopped thinking of her as invincible. The water stopped, and Rose tapped on the door.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to go change.”
“Okay.”
When Rose stepped out of her own bathroom, wrapped in a towel, she expected to find Maji standing in the doorway waiting, in a fresh Ri getup with redone makeup. Instead, there she was on Rose’s bed, curled up in tight jeans and a leopard-spotted top, snoring. Rose quietly pulled on her nightshirt, turned off the light, and lay down beside her.
Three hours later, the blare of the fire alarm bolted them both upright.