“Fine,” I say. “But if I get fucking whacked, Finch will kill you himself.”
Frank grins. “I’ll take that chance.”
* * *
Angelo does driveus in the end, but waits in the car parked on the street outside, giving off waves of disapproval. But I have a gun, and so does Frank, and the pub is more of a boutique beer bar than the run-down place filled with Irish mobsters I expected. It’ssovery un-Frank that I wonder how the hell he ever found it. The Guinness must really have a hold on him.
“So,” he says, coming back from the bar and setting down the first pint in front of me. “What’s going on, Georgie?”
“Actually, I wondered howyouwere doing. You and Cee. It’s been a while since we chatted.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because you’re always going around with Angelo or having dinner with Finch these days,” he mutters.
“Come on, Frankie. You can’t grudge me spending time with my husband.” I ignore the Angelo issue for now. “We haven’t even been married a year.”
“Still need a few more months before the shine rubs off, eh?”
“Something like that. Anyway. How’s the baby? Got a name for her yet?”
Frank hunches his shoulders and cups both hands around his beer. “Maybe. Cee’s going back and forth. We just call her Bubbles right now. She’s real small. The doc said she was doing okay when we went for a checkup yesterday, but I can’t tell. Just looks like a squirming bit of pink to me. And Cee…she’s not sleeping, she’s like a zombie. I’m worried about her. Every sound in the night, she’s out of bed, panicking there’s something wrong with Bubbles. MeantimeI’mthinking it’s a Clemenza or a Fuscone coming through the window or creepin’ up the stairs…”
“We’ll put security on your place,” I say at once. I offered it after Tino’s death, after Chicago, and again after the attack on Snapper Marino, but Frank refused every time.What sorta man needs backup to protect his own wife, he’d said at the time, and I wondered if there was some underlying message there to me, with rotating guards at the door 24/7, not to mention Angelo, Marco…
And again, Frank waves it off. “We can’t even tell who’s for us and against us right now,” he grumbles. “What’s the point in putting a possible Fuscone plant at my damn door?”
After my ultimatum a few weeks back, we lost no more men. I was mildly surprised, but I’m still worried. Because things aren’t always running smoothly. Not enough that anyone else seems to notice—cops where they’re not supposed to be, or out-of-date floor plans, or a ship not coming in to dock when it was supposed to. The sort of thing that happens in our business, which relies not insignificantly on luck. My Capos have proved smart enough to have contingencies in place, so these obstacles are only minor irritations.
It’s only me, gathering together intel on the bigger picture, who sees a wider pattern of disruption. I also just have a gut feel about it, and I’ve learned to trust those certainties when they happen.
Someone’s leaking information.
Frank’s phone buzzes, and he glances at it, smirks, then types back a quick response.
“Anything I should know about?”
Still half-distracted, he shakes his head. “Just a buddy.” He slides the phone into his pocket. I know my brother well, and the look on his face is the same look he used to get when Nonna questioned him about exactly where her two grandsons had been the night before.
Like he’s hiding something.
“Francesco D’Amato,” I hiss. “Are you fucking around on Celia?”
“What?” Startled, he misses his sip and slops Guinness into his lap. “Ah, jeez,” he groans, mopping at his crotch with a napkin from the dispenser on the table. “What the fuck, Georgie? How can you ask me something like that? Ofcoursenot. I love my wife, and we’ve got ababynow. I can’t be thinking about my dick all the time. Unlike some people,” he finishes, muttering the last part.
“Then who the fuck is making you look so guilty just with a text?”
He glares outright at me. “Itoldyou, a buddy of mine. We were gonna catch up, but I bailed on him becauseyouwanted to come out. And now I’m getting grief from him, too, because I owe him a drink. Okay?”
“Okay. Sorry. You just looked…”
“What?” he snaps.
“Forget it.”
“What did you wanna talk about?” He’s pissed again, which isn’t what I wanted at all.
“Actually, it’s about Celia and the baby. I’m…concerned.”
Originally there were only four of us on this earth who were supposed to know about Celia faking a pregnancy: Me, Finch, Celia and Frank. Then I agreed we had to tell Angelo and Marco, who are so interwoven in our lives that it would be impossible to keep it from them. And now Hudson knows as well, and I don’t trust him. Not because he’s done anything to make me suspicious, but simply because I’ve found it prudent to distrust others until they prove their worth.
