He kept chewing, grinning at me as he did.
“Who heard about Warren Dalton?” Carlo’s righthand man said. “I saw the pictures.” He whistled. “You’d think he’d bother taking the feathers off before he got dirty.”
Here it was.
Conversation started to swirl around the table about the high-ranking government officials who had been caught in a place of debauchery, by their own “political” standards.
“Those other two men involved haven’t been named yet,” Carlo’s righthand man said to me.
Carlo and The Boss both stared at me.
I nodded once.
Another guy whistled. “Seems those two guys would be worried about that.”
“I’d be,” another guy said. “Especially if my wife saw it and was trying to make out distinguishing marks.”
Another round of laughter.
“Trouble seems to be brewing,” the Boss said, probably trying to figure out if I had something to do with the tape being leaked. He knew me better than any man in this room, but he’d keep quiet about it and deal with me himself if he figured out that I did.
Another nod of acknowledgment from me.
“Who knows what will come of this,” Carlo’s righthand man said.
“Worrisome for all involved,” The Boss said to me. His eyes were hard on mine.
I drained my glass. The waitress came in and went to pour me another. I put my hand over the rim, stopping her.
“Two espressos and two tiramisus to go,” I said.
“You got it,” she said, taking the bottle of wine and leaving the room.
“I wonder what the people who put them in office will think of this?” Those were the only words that left Carlo’s mouth the entire time.
Standing from my place at the table, I met him at the head of it. I pulled out my phone and showed him a picture of Rosalia’s face. Not because he asked to see, but because I wanted Carlo and The Boss to know this came from a Dalton’s hand.
It was symbolic to me.
“Mine,” I said. Notone of mine, butmine. Either man could take it as he pleased. Art was never found in bluntness, but in subtlety. “The son made those marks on a woman who doesn’t belong to him.”
“Our merchandise,” Carlo said. He never looked at me after he glanced at the picture. He kept his eyes straight ahead. His mind worked.
The Boss stared at me.
A minute later, Carlo took a paper napkin from the table, a pen from beside his plate, and wrote down four words:
Take care of it.
He set the napkin over a candle, and it caught fire. Right before the flames licked his skin, he set it in a discarded plate, watching as it burned to ash.
The Boss watched me the same way Carlo watched the paper burn. With some curiosity. Some contempt. Some fascination. But most of all with finality.
I said my goodbyes, meeting and keeping Boy’s stare as I left. The waitress handed me my order right before I slipped out of the door.
Down the block some, I stopped at an unmarked cruiser. Two undercover police sat inside. They monitored Carlo twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
The cop in the driver seat rolled the window down. He rubbed his eyes, blinking at me. I said nothing as I held the two expressos and the bag with tiramisu out to him.
