“I’m not the marrying kind,” I said shortly, and brushed my fingers off on my now-empty plate.
“Then take a lover, at least. All work and no play… You know what they say.”
I gave a polite smile. “I shouldn’t keep you any longer. You’ve been very generous with your time.”
He stood with me and extended his hand so that I could kiss the Morelli ring. “Good hunting,” he murmured.
“Thank you.” I gave him a nod and turned to leave.
But when I reached the door, he called lightly, “Oh, and Angelo?”
“Yes, Boss?” I turned in the doorway, already half-gone.
“No more luncheons with the enemy. Not unless you inform me first.” His blue eyes were as cold as I’d ever seen them.
A shot of pride in him went through me. He’d come a long way in a short time.
“As you wish, Don Morelli.”
Chapter Four
Baxter
Perhaps Villiers was right, I pondered as I blew on my fingers to try to keep them warm. Perhaps Iwasa little obsessed with Angelo Messina. There was little else to explain what I was doing in a frosty Central Park at this time of night, peeking out from behind a tree to watch the Morelli Underboss wandering off paths and through trees. I wondered what was going through his mind.
Past crimes?
Future ones?
His favorite TV show?
It was impossible to tell.
It was getting colder as the hours dragged on. This wasn’t the first night I’d tailed him, but it was the first night he’d gone into Central Park.
Initially, while I tracked him through the Park, I’d wondered if the rumors were true, that Messina really did prefer the company of men, if he was cruising tonight. I’d amused myself with the idea, thinking about the great legend of the Morellis lowering himself to rough trade in the Ramble. But the idea refused to go, grew larger in my mind, unhelpfully supplying visuals as I trailed him through the quiet pathways, ducking behind trees on the odd occasion he stopped to check the surrounds. He wasn’t acting any more suspiciously than the average traveler through the Park late at night, but thiswasAngelo Messina.
I remembered my bet with Hanson, and felt glad I’d paid out before he’d died. The man had been correct—Messina was smarter than the average bear when it came to being tailed.Andshaking one. Half an hour ago I’d started to wonder exactly who was watching whom, but it had become a game.
The man was dangerous, no doubt about it. But he wasn’t, despite what Captain Walsh might think, a thrill-killer. He’d never been taken for anything, not even jaywalking. There had been mentions of a sealed record from childhood, but nothing and no one could get the state to open that up for perusal. As far as I knew, it had been completely expunged from the system.
He must have learned early and fast how to cover up after himself. Biographical details had been thin on the ground when I wrote my dossier on him. Born in Sicily, but arrived in America before his ninth birthday. Parents—dead. Siblings—mostly dead, and the survivors lived in Italy still. They had no contact at all with their youngest brother. He’d been a surprise baby by all accounts, all siblings already well into their teens and twenties.
And then Angelo, too, had left his parents early. From what I’d been able to piece together, he was a chronic runaway as a child before he showed up again on the radar with a high-profile hit on a Clemenza Capo. And from there, Messina had a long and bloody criminal career that had made him fabulously wealthy, famously feared, and—so he seemed to think—untouchable.
At least, that was what his walking around in Central Park tonight seemed to suggest. It was almost as if he were offering himself as—
A noise in the trees behind me made me start and turn suddenly. I could have sworn I’d seen a figure moving, darting out of sight. I moved forward slowly, peering into the blackness, straining my ears, my fingers itching towards my gun.
There was nothing there.
And when I turned back towards Messina he, too, had disappeared like he’d only ever been a figment of my imagination. An apparition.
I glanced around half-heartedly. I might have lost him in the Park, but I could guess where he was going: home to his apartment on the Upper East Side, which I’d tracked him to one night. I’d be able to pick him up again if I followed, but was there any point? The last few nights, he’d stayed in. I’d given up by three a.m. on those occasions, since I had to get to work by eight. Villiers was already getting suspicious of my yawns.
And yet I walked on with purpose despite myself. Why was I even following him? It certainly wasn’t because I expected to catch him carrying out a hit on some randomothermobster wandering Central Park at—I checked my watch—well past midnight.
If anything, I was following him because I wanted to prove to myself that I wasright, that Messina and the Morellis were not the ones behind these attacks. If there was an attack at a time when I had eyes on Messina, I could bring it as evidence to the Captain.
