“Johnny Porciello was a nobody until he started dating you.”
“He should have stayed that way,” Kat mumbled.
I reached across the bar and slugged her in the arm.
“Hey!”
“Traitor.”
“I’m just stating facts,” she shot back.
Perkins took a small sip of her second drink.“Facts.Ha.Johnny’s new friends are, or perhaps I might say, were?I don’t know.Either way, they’re connected to the D’Antonio family.But not Johnny.”She fiddled with her straw for a silent moment.“When he turned up on the radar, a lot of folks were asking questions.”Her scrutiny shifted to me.“And the only link we had wasyou.”
I gave her my best unemotional bartender stare.“Do I need to cut you off already?”
Perkins shrugged.“If you do, I’ll just walk next door to your competition.”
“And I’ll call them and tell them not to serve you.”She hadn’t said anything that made me want to hug her, even though I sympathized with her jobless situation.
“February twelfth.Adelmo Conti died in an automobile accident.”
My fingers began to tingle.They did that before I fainted.I gripped the bar so I wouldn’t go down.There were photos from the accident.I’d seen them.So much blood.Poor Adelmo was still alive when the airbags went off and saved his life.But seconds later either Johnny or his lover, Dianora, shot him.And simply for knowing all of that, I could go down as an accessory.It would be a difficult fight to clear my name simply because of my family’s connection to organized crime.My grandfather fucked up by cultivating his nefarious reputation.
Perkins stared at me.“The very next day, your files, Johnny’s files, and the accident’s files were sealed.”She frowned.“Not only sealed, deep-sixed.Why?”
My head was light.The tingling was well past my fingers now.It was in my cheeks.I stared at the heavy polish on the bar surface.It was an ancient piece of wood.It had been harvested from an ancient oak in the late 1800s after the Second Great Chicago Fire.
It was used for the bar at a brothel-slash-bar in the notorious Levee District.In the 1920s the establishment was shut down.The bar was torn out to make room for apartments when the place became a boarding house.
Casey found it in a barn where it had been stored for sixty years.
He sanded the scars, refinished it, and set it here to remind everyone that survival isn’t pretty.I traced a particularly nasty gouge.He claimed it was likely a knife jabbed into the surface.
“I run a bar, Bridget.I wouldn’t know.”
The tingling subsided a bit.
She frowned and turned to Kat.“I’d tell your friend exactly what I think, and not hold back.She has a right to know.”
Kat’s gaze was soft as she studied me.“I’m so glad you dumped that asshole before you married him.He was bad news.”
“And?”If she didn’t like Ringo, I wanted to know why.
“Well, I hope you see the similarities in whoever you date next before it’s too late.”
We seriously needed to talk, alone.But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon because the afternoon regulars shuffled in and the pace picked up.I retreated to the back room to hide from everyone.
At seven, Kat put a slice of pizza in front of me.
I’d been reviewing the rents and balance sheets from my two other businesses.The landscaping firm was between winter and spring seasons.There was no snow left to plow, and lots of outflows for hiring workers to plant flowers and re-mulch the green spaces encircling the suburbs like so many taxidermied trophies.
“Thanks.”
She took a seat across from me.“Bridget left.I poured her into a cab.”
My foot tapped against the desk leg.
“She’s not that bad of a person.”
