I moved out of his grasp, going for my door. I was almost there when he yanked me back. I lost my footing, but he kept me steady, keeping me even tighter in his grip. We started fighting in the hallway. He wasn’t hitting me, and I wasn’t hitting him, yet. It was more like I was trying to go one way and he was pulling me in another.
Until he had enough of the game.
He turned me so fast away from the condo that my heels slipped. He didn’t bother catching me before I crashed into the wall. My face smashed against the brick, busting my lip and scraping my forehead, nose, and chin. Before I could recover, he had my hands behind my back like he was the cop, and I was the perpetrator.
“Why can’t you just play nice?” he said, breathing heavily in my ear. “I don’t hit women, but you’re really pissing me off! I just want dinner!”
Dinner must have been code fortake you away, because there was no doubt he wanted more than a few hours. He wanted a lifetime.
I moved my face, and my cheek started to burn from the brick leaving more scratches there. He had me pressed so tightly against the wall. “Fuck you,” I said, my voice a whisper, but the venom in it was unmistakable.
“Ung!” He made a garbled sound as a loudwhack!resounded throughout the hallway.
Cilla had charged out of the condo, and without giving him a chance to run, she’d hit him in the back with a baseball bat. He fell into me before he fell to the ground, covering his head, while she kept hitting him with it.
Bambina started barking around him, but not getting too close to Cilla and her wild arms.
A few girls started to drift down the hallway, coming from an exercise class, and as they moved toward us, they were shoved to the side by two guards on duty.
One of the guards snaked an arm around Cilla’s waist, snatching her up right before she went for Ben’s head with the bat. The other guard picked him up by the collar and started hauling him toward the elevator. He was hanging limp, even though I knew he wasn’t dead. He was groaning.
“You good?” the guard asked Cilla. She was dangling from his hold, like the bat dangled from her grip.
“I’m good,” she snapped, shoving at his hands. “Took you long enough to get here, though!Baciagaloop!”
He dropped her like a hot ball, and I had to catch her before she bounced. She raised her bat at him, and I lowered it before he came back and started more shit with her. It looked like he thought she was either cute or a maniac. I figured they were both about the same to him, judging by the amused look on his face.
Finally, she looked at me after the door to the elevator closed with Ben and the two guards in it.
“Where’d you get that bat?” I said.
“You really need your Italian card revoked, Lombardozzi.” She shook her head at me. Then she touched my face and I winced. “Maybe you’ll get a few coins after all. People are going to think I’m abusing you and feel bad.”
“We’re still going?” I wiped at the blood dripping from my lip.
“Of course,” she said, like it was the most apparent thing in the world. “Your lip might be busted and your face scratched, but we still have to eat. It’ll be a celebration. After that little scene, and what happened to you, there’s no doubt Dalton’s a dead man.”
20
Aniello
The small Italian restaurant in Little Italy was packed with people.
Some of them were families dining out for the evening. Parents wanting a break from the kitchen and doing the dishes. Kids excited about getting a slice or two of the best pizza on the block.
The other clusters of men in the restaurant were part of afamiglia, as well, but a different kind.
Two men were walking up to the restaurant at the same time as me. One of them nodded at me as I held open the door.
I stood there as they entered. I knew their names, ages, and ranks. How tall they were. About how much they weighed. Where they lived. What they did—whether they were makers or hitters.
Neither man was on the list I kept in my mind, so they meant nothing to me.
Both men put hands to the back of their necks as I followed them into the restaurant. They veered off to have the hostess seat them. I kept going, heading in the direction of the private room in the back, following Frank Sinatra singing “My Blue Heaven.”
A table long enough to fit fifteen took up most of the space. Men were already seated, their napkins tucked into their shirts so no sauce spilled on their suits. The dinner had already begun.
Carlo Vallese sat at the head of it. His head was bent over a bowl of pasta. The pinky ring on his little finger glinted against the light when he picked up his glass of red wine and downed a sip.
