“Sing ‘Malafemmena’ to her every day, and maybe she’ll go easy on you. Amelia,” Gio called out and picked up his broom, “if he gives you trouble, ring your friend Gio, and I’ll come straighten him out.”
Gio mimed a one-two punch that sent a wave of laughter through the store.
“I’ve got business in the basement,” Emory told Gio when the ruckus died down. “You get to spend time with the girls. Try to behave.”
Gio shooed Emory away with the broom’s bristled end, and all but three men retreated downstairs. At the counter, Gio served up pink lemonade and cherry pie and hummed along to his records as he swept the floor. When “Malafemmena” came on, heabandoned his chores and insisted they dance. Each in turn, he twirled Mirabelle and Amelia around the room and chuckled when both stepped on his toes. After a few songs, he excused himself to the back room with a newspaper and a hand-rolled cigarette but let the records play on.
Mirabelle suggested they sit outside, and Amelia followed her to the door, but one of their minders shot from his perch by the window. A young one, he could barely fill out the patchy mustache sprouting from his upper lip and did his best to look intimidating.
“Oh, keep your dick in your pants,” Mirabelle said. “We’re just sitting outside.”
“Stay where I can see you,” Scumstache replied and returned to his post.
Mirabelle ignored him. Everyone saw defiance in her, a wild streak they couldn’t tame, so they clipped her wings and worried about migration. Where the fuck did they think she would fly?
On the steps out front, they lounged in the shade of cotton-ball clouds. Mirabelle liked to go there in spring when the wildflowers thrived for a little while in an inhospitable environment. Beneath an oppressive summer sun, those flowers had burnt up weeks ago.
“What is this place?” Amelia asked and studied the storefront sign.
“A haven for high rollers. The ones who care more about money than a flashy venue. They come here to avoid taxes on their winnings. For profit, of course.”
“Of course.” Amelia sipped her lemonade and asked cautiously, “Why are we here?”
Lie with a smile. It’s what you do best.Emory would never divulge his secrets to Cal Havick’s daughter. Then again, no woman should be reduced to “some man’s daughter,” so Mirabelle offered the truth.
“Emory wants the gambling operation off the radar. The guy who runs this place pushes drugs through here. The Moriartys don’t fuck with the drug business.”
“How come?”
“People in high places will turn a blind eye to a lot of things. Drugs aren’t one of them.”
With a deep frown, Amelia set her glass on the step and surveyed the street.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Mirabelle said. “There are crooked people everywhere.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Amelia lifted her forearms and, with the grace of a pageant queen, twirled her wrists. It mocked with an elegant display of cuts and bruises still healing. “Doyou?”
The pointed question came with an equally pointed look. When Mirabelle declined a response, Amelia asked, “What’s your role in all this? Do you get a say in things?”
The loaded question pried too much. Mirabelle narrowed her eyes and issued a warning to sweet Amelia so coyly sipping on pink lemonade.
“My role is to shut the fuck up when people ask me questions.”
The straw tumbled from Amelia’s lips and rolled along the edge of the glass.
“Let’s say a man like your daddy comes sniffing around. You know what I say? I say that I don’t know Gio from Adam. Or him or him or him.” Mirabelle pointed to each of the Moriarty men inside the store. “I can’t remember names, places, phone numbers. Nothing. My role is silence.”
“And the wives and girlfriends, that’s their role too?”
“The good ones, yes. It takes a special kind to be so ride-or-die for your man that you’re willing to sink with the ship. It’s why Emory wants me to find someone on the outside, settle down, be happy.”
It wasn’t just a want. He’d made her promise with the same gravitas as things spoken on deathbeds.
Amelia scooted a little closer, dug a little deeper. “Why don’t you?”
