There’s a slight hitch of breath. “Yeah?”
“I’d like a word with you.”
* * *
I hearthe shower upstairs start an hour later, and then Carlo comes down, following his nose as I fry up more bacon this morning. I fill him in. “Sophia Vicente’s coming around here at eight.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “You already got in touch with her?”
“Her mom owns a bakery. She gets up real early to help. Sounded more than happy to skip out on work and come see me.” I slide Carlo’s plate over to him as he grabs his own silverware from the drawer. “I want you to lead the show, Harvard.”
He glances up. “Is this to make up for taking over yesterday?” He stuffs his mouth full of fried egg and makes a happy noise.
“No. This is because you know how to question folks and get them to answer.”
He chews more slowly, swallows. “I can’t ask about or hear about anything—”
“You won’t.”
He really doesn’t. Sophia Vicente, who shoves a box of cannoli into my hands when I meet her in the lobby, is not the kind to run her mouth. I only know her to speak to her—that is, I’ve seen her at Family events, and as Vollero’s granddaughter I’ve heard about her from time to time, but pretty quickly I begin to wonder how well Vollero really knows her.
“Thank you,” I say, looking down at the cannoli.
“Mama insisted,” she tells me in a bored voice. “Said it would be polite.”
“It is,” I agree.
“Yeah? You don’t look like a guy who stuffs his face with cannoli,” she continues, looking me up and down.
I make a mental note to drop most of the cannoli back down to the lobby when Jonesy starts his shift later on. “Why don’t we go up?”
She’s silent in the elevator but bristling with energy. Even out of the wedding dress and heavy makeup she’s a beautiful girl—woman, I catch myself. She wouldn’t thank me for infantilizing her. But dressed in blue jeans and a faded old t-shirt, she also seems like quite a different woman from the one who simpered down the aisle of the church just a few weeks ago.
She sees me looking at her out of the corner of my eye and raises one meticulous eyebrow. “What?”
The elevator doors open and I grin as I wave her in front of me. “I like your style.”
She gives me this look like she thinks I’m a clown as she stalks out of the elevator and into the lounge. Carlo is standing there, dressed at his best in a three-piece suit and looking every inch the sharky New York lawyer he is.
“Carlo Bianchi,” he greets her, shaking her hand with that slick smile. “You may remember me? I drew up your prenuptial agreement. So pleased to see you, again, Mrs. Gatti.”
“Fuck off,” she says, shaking back with vigor. “It’s Ms. Vicente. I filed for an annulment.”
Carlo looks slightly startled and I have to stifle a laugh. “Can I get you some coffee, Ms. Vicente?” I ask.
Once she’s settled with an espresso and we’re all seated in the living room, Carlo leans forward with his elbow on one knee. “Thanks for coming,” he says. “I want you to know—”
“I came here for two reasons,” she says coolly, throwing back her shiny blue-black hair over one shoulder. “One, my grandpa said I had to. And two…” She lifts her chin and looks straight at me instead of Carlo. “I have a proposal. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, if you’ll hear me out after.”
Carlo, who has not been included in the deal at all, waits for me to give my response. Both Sophia and I know that she’ll talk, because she has to. But I like that she has the guts to ask for something in return. And I’m intrigued. What do I have that she wants? “I’ll listen. But you answer everything Carlo here asks you.”
She looks back to him. “Ask away.”
She doesn’t hold anything back, but it becomes clear quickly that she knows nothing of use to us. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more than I have,” she says, once Carlo’s questions fade away. He’s taken several pages of notes on his legal pad, but I can see from his expression that he’s ready to move on to the next bright idea one of us has about the blackmailer.
Sophia saw her new husband less than Carlo and I did, and she has no idea if he was conducting any Giuliano business that night. That’s the real intel we wanted to find out—whether Gatti had been instructed to take out Carlo. But Sophia has no idea, even when I ask her straight out. She just shrugs and says with some regret, “We hadn’t really spent much time together yet. I was hoping to gain more of his trust on the honeymoon.”
“How?” Carlo bursts out. “I mean,” he adds, “I don’t know if you were aware, Ms. Vicente, and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you if so, but—”
