“Another dead end,”Carlo sighs once I come back into the apartment after seeing Sophia out. “I need to get onto my PI. See what the fuck he’s doing other than twiddling his damn thumbs.”
He’s already typing up notes from the interview with Sophia, so I go into the study to check my own emails. No Morelli is stupid enough to email me, but my family sometimes gets in touch this way. They prefer it to phoning me. I prefer it, too. Gives me a chance to think about what I want to share.
I bite off a sharp cuticle while I check, but there’s nothing from my family. It’s mostly junk, and I spend a few minutes clearing out my inbox. But then I see an email from someone called “dontignoremefontana,” titled:Do you want me to send this to someone?
When I open the email, there are only two sentences:
You still haven’t done what I asked
I’m not fucking around
Below that brief, irritated message, there’s a video attachment. With a sigh, I start running various programs that Vitali insists we all have on our machines, to make sure we don’t let in any trojans from our enemies. If the ancient Trojans’d had Vitali on their side, he never would have allowed that horse in the gates, that’s for sure. But this attachment is clean.
I play it once and then have to play it back to make sure what I’m seeing is what I think it is.
Yeah. It is.
It’s me, that night at the Alessi compound, down at the long pier where they kept their armada of water toys: motorboats, sailboats, and the Alessi yacht that rivaled old Tino Morelli’sMaddalena. In the video, shaky and dark, I’m walking slowly, my head turning from side to side, looking for something.
I chose a simple rowboat. No motor to attract attention, but big enough and sturdy enough for me to take the chest out with me. The video goes unsteady for a moment as whoever’s taking it is running closer, trying to get a better vantage point. It stops suddenly, and the panting of the videographer is the only noise, apart from waves swooshing gently, and then it focuses back on me, zooms in. I’m looking around, checking to make sure I’m alone. The world tumbles again as the videographer ducks, and I remember that moment. IthoughtI heard something. The video wheels again, comes back into focus as I push the cart down the jetty to my chosen mode of transport, and then heave the metal box into the boat.
The video stops before I get into the boat myself.
I rewind, pause on my own face shining dimly but recognizably in one of the stand lights along the jetty. The asshole has me, alright. I could think of a thousand lies to explain this away, but in the end, no one’s going to believe that it has no connection to Gatti’s disappearance. Especially not Luca—and to him, anyway, I couldn’t lie about it.
There’s only one thing I can do now, which is to take this video to him, explain the situation, and hope he doesn’t kill me where I stand, like he damn well should.
* * *
“That’s an idea,”Carlo agrees, with a mockingly wide-eyed nod when I go out to tell him about the video. “Here’s another: no fucking way.”
“It’s not a discussion. Boss needs to know.” Carlo keeps right on staring at me with one skeptical eyebrow raised. “Look,” I sigh, “The more I’m sitting on this, the bigger and uglier it gets.”
“That’s very true, and it’s why I agreed with you yesterday when you said it wastoo lateto say anything.”
I ignore that and go on. “The Boss haswaytoo much other shit going on right now, and this is vital intel that could affect what happens when the Irish hit. And theywillhit. I owe it to Luca to tell him the truth. He’s a fair man; he’ll understand. Plus I’m not going to just go in there and casually say, ‘By the way, it was me who killed Gatti.’ I’ll soften him up first.”
Carlo drops his laptop onto the sofa next to him and gives me a challenging, “And how exactly do you plan to soften up aMob Boss, Nicky?”
“I’m going to tell him we’re…” I shrug. “You know.”
Carlo winces like he’s got a toothache, runs his hands through his hair and stands up to wander restlessly. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he says in a low voice. “That’ll just make him kill you harder. And me hardest of all. Not to mention how myfatherwill act if this gets out—”
“Listen,” I say, and I go over to where he’s now standing in front of the window, his fists clenched against it, as though he’s wondering if he could push it open somehow and jump. “Listen to me.” I turn him to face me, and he looks green, or maybe it’s the tint coming off the river outside. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. Luca’s the Boss, but he’s my friend, too, and he’s been telling me I should find someone. He got a little piece of relationship perfection for himself, so now he thinks it’s a cure for everyone. So when I tell him about us—”
“Aboutus?”
“—he’ll understand.”
“You think he’s going to besothrilled you’ve got a willing booty call that he overlooks you killing an ally?”
You know you’re much more than that, I’m about to snap, but I bite it back. “I’m going to tell him we’re dating.”
“But we’re—” He pulls away from my hands on his arms and blows out a long, slow breath. “Are youhigh, Fontana? God, Ineedto be. I’d need to be high right now to understand this crazy idea. He’s going to ask why you haven’t already told him this—two weeks ago, one week ago, onedayago when you were right there talking to him—” He breaks off.
I don’t answer for a second, because I need to snuff out the spike of pain that ran through my gut when he started to say what he didn’t end up saying:But we’re not dating.
I guess we aren’t.
