MAXIM
It tooksome convincing that I wouldn’t be a dick bag (her words), but Marianna finally acquiesced to Sasha and I joining her on this hit of hers. For safety. She grumbled about how I shouldn’t be slacking off from my job while she threw various items into a duffel bag in a hidden closet in the Morelli basement.
She insisted on driving, said our car was too fancy for trying to do secret illegal things, and now drives us in a black sedan, Sasha’s long legs folded up in the back seat while she drives.
He’s looked entirely amused through the whole of this.Prick.
Marianna makes a few calls, succinctly issuing orders to the people on the other line, never having to repeat herself nor explain further than her few-word requests. She speaks with a brutal efficiency that would be hot if she wasn’t actively orchestrating the death and clean up of a man.
Honestly, I hope Sasha is taking notes. He takes far too long on things like this, drawing out hits when they ought to be quick. Maybe that’s why he and Marianna get along so well: they’re both comfortable ending lives.
By the time we get to where we’re going, we’ve made three stops and we’re an hour out of Boston in fucking Swansea.Marianna maneuvers through residential streets until we park in a quiet suburb. She waves at a woman who jogs by, and the woman smiles back, nodding as she jogs down the road.
“In the middle of the morning like this?” Sasha asks, awe tainting his voice. “What about the witnesses?”
“I’m not doing anything sketchy,” she says, and opens the trunk to retrieve the bouquet of flowers we picked up. “Just bringing flowers and an early lunch to the family. Get the sandwiches.”
I do as she says, retrieving the take out bag from the back seat and follow her up the walk to the house where she rings the bell.
“No one is like her,” Sasha mutters to me as we follow. “No one.”
An Italian man lets us in, giving Mary loud kisses on both of her cheeks before handing her off to his wife to do the same.
I’m on edge, but they’re perfectly nice. The man is her great uncle, it turns out; her own father’s godparents. They were at the wedding but in the hubbub of the day were only able to greet us briefly.
“The flowers are nice,bimba.”
“Well you only turn seventy-four once,Zia,” Marianna says as she retrieves a set of plates from a cupboard before handing them to me. “Set the table.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I muse, setting the plates on top of the pink place mats that match the pink and red candles down the middle of the table. A remnant from Valentine’s day, maybe.
And then we do the damndest thing. Marianna sets half a hoagie and a bit of chips on all of our plates, her great uncle retrieves bottles of seltzer water, and we eat a meal.
Twenty minutes bleeds into thirty while the old couple tells us about the various dramas of their neighborhood, all completely mundane; no mention of illegal activities of any kind,and when they ask about our honeymoon, Marianna kisses my shoulder over my suit coat and it shocks me into stillness.
An act, I remind myself.Always just pretending. For appearances sake.
“We were in Mexico but then Willa had her baby. Do I look tan?”
“Not at all,” her aunt says, and laughs.
“Too much time in the bedroom,” her uncle muses, and I have to drain my water to keep from choking on my bite, wincing at the bubbles.
“Guilty,” Mary says before leaning over the table and retrieving everyone’s empty plates. Sasha protests, standing to clean up, but her uncle directs a question at Sasha, keeping him at the table. I follow Mary into the kitchen.
“What are we doing here?” I take the plates from her before she can load them into the dishwasher herself. “You’re going to kill someone here? In her lovely home?”
“We’re eating lunch, Maxim,” she says like I’m stupid. “Now we’re cleaning. Then we’re gonna play a few rounds of cards. Then we’re gonna pose for a few photos my auntie will want to take on her iPad and then we’ll go.”
I blink at the explanation, speechless not for the first time today.
“Why? You got somewhere to be? I told you this would take a while.”
I load the rest of the plates and watch as she breezes back into the dining room, deck of cards in hand.
The next forty minutes go on just like she said, even the pictures on the iPad, Marianna and I posing on the old leather couch, my arm around her waist while I’m unable to look away from the gentle smile she wears for her family, no hint of what we’re supposed to be doing today.
“Beautiful,” her aunt says. “I’m going to change the background on these on Facebook, you’re going to love it.”
