She set the skirt over her leg. “Where did you go last night?”
I leaned my weight against the wall and sighed. “I had to know, Georgie.”
“I told you to leave it alone.” In all the time I knew her, I’d never heard a growl in her voice aimed at me. “And now what?”
“Now I owe Mr. Big.”
“Joe told me. Fuck, Leo!”
“I know! I know!” I wanted her to tell me how wrong I was, but then again, I didn’t want to hear it. I was fine being in denial for a couple more hours. “I’m in my own version of hell anyway, so I won’t even recognize a difference. Except for the car with an air conditioner that he bought for me. It probably has about a million dollars’ worth of emotional interest tacked on it, but…at least I’m staying cool, right?”
“I don’t know all the specifics.” Her voice was so low, it raised goosebumps on my arms. “But I know if you had listened to me, you could have avoided all of this.”
“What are you talking about?”
She sighed, picking up the needle and thread and looping it through the rented fabric. “Tullio Bigatti doesn’t allow his men to sell drugs. He might have known that Jerry broke Angelo’s arm, but he had no idea who Angelo was or why Jerry had done it. He started to become suspicious of Jerry only recently. Nothing done in the dark ever stays hidden. Your visit probably confirmed Bigatti’s suspicions. If he hadn’t found out not long before. These are all recent developments. Like…if this news was a body, it would still be warm.”
“Angelo was delivering…”
“Yeah, he was.”
I knew Angelo wanted to help me, like Phoenix had said, but it seemed eerily like how my dad got into the game. Then he started using.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Back up a few words.
Big didn’t give me all those specifics. He alluded that he knew, but the asshole really didn’t. He let me believe he knew what my brother was doing.
I was starting to become very confused very fast about his intentions. Okay, I stole from him, and he felt he was owed, even though I didn’t see a penny of it, but why all the fucking drama?
“Am I paying you to sit around and chat with Georgie?” Vinny appeared out of nowhere.
“You’re not paying me to fix your costumes, but here we are.” Georgia looked up from what she was doing. “Consider it swapping my talents for a little of Leo’s time.”
Vinny mocked her, grumbling her words out. “She stays until you’re finished! That’sit. She already owes me for bailing her out.” He left, mumbling to himself.
Georgia lifted her eyebrows.
“Oh, you didn’t hear about that, social butterfly of the mob world?” I said. “But you heard about my unfortunate meeting with Big?”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No. I’m enjoying the river of denial I’m floating on right now.”
“Beware of those crocodiles on that river. Those are very real.”
“Warning heeded.”
She sighed. “Gotta get this skirt to Danny.” She lifted the pink silk poodle skirt from her legs. “She’s opening tonight.” She hopped from the barstool and set her arm around my neck, pulling our heads together. “We’ll be all right.”
It was something we started saying to each other after we first met. It was four words of light, even when things looked the darkest for us.
“We’ll be all right,” I repeated.
The night grew busier, and Georgia and I divided and conquered. She mostly helped with last-minute costume issues. I kept everyone on time.
I was watching the end of the ’60s routine when someone tapped me on my shoulder.
One of the girls. “Paul is in the bathroom and says she can’t come out.”
