“And what about you?”
“I’ll go with you while you do your deliveries,” Leo said quickly. “Sound okay, Viv?”
“Fine by me,” she agreed. Two sets of eyes were better than one. And while she didn’t like the idea of Florence going off on her own,Danny would meet her at the subway stop to make sure she got back safely.
She didn’t mention the Fitz Special currently tucked into her purse. There was no reason to make Florence worry any more than she already was.
“All right.” Once Florence was gone, Leo took the boxes from Vivian’s arms. “Where are we heading first?”
“Upper East Side.” Vivian rolled her eyes. “It’s almost always Upper East Side.”
“Great.” Leo smiled. “Assuming we don’t get murdered on the way, that means I can take you to lunch once these are off our hands.”
“Sounds swell.” Vivian couldn’t quite match his lighthearted tone. “A few things happened last night that you might want to know.”
“Pearlie?” Leo’s fork hung frozen in mid-air as he stared at her. “Pearlie was writing those letters?”
“The original ones.” Vivian nodded as she poked at her lunch. The place Leo had brought her was a cute little diner run by a Polish couple, both of them gray-haired and red-cheeked. The food was good, but thinking about Bea’s face the night before had left her feeling like there was a pit in the bottom of her stomach, and eating just made it worse. She put her own fork down and leaned toward him. “And now there’s apparently cops involved? It gives me the shivers. I want to think that since they got the dress, and I didn’t see who they were, they’ll leave us alone now. But how can I be sure?”
“It makes sense,” Leo said, pushing his mostly empty plate away and setting his elbows on the counter where they were seated. The server was several feet away, helping another customer, and most of the other folks in the restaurant were at tables instead of the counter. But he still lowered his voice even further. “Someone got rid of that brandybottle. The only people who could get close enough to evidence to do that either work at Bellevue or for the police.”
“I don’t suppose there’s some unspoken list of dirty cops out there?” Vivian asked without much hope. The tables in the restaurant were covered with lace-edged tablecloths, and a cheerful yellow curtain hung over the bottom half of each window. The counter even had little jars full of flowers spaced along it, next to the morning’s paper. But all she could see were the shadows in the corner of the room. “Guys that everyone knows about but no one talks about?”
Leo shrugged, grimacing. “Sure, to some degree,” he said. His hat rested next to his plate on the counter, and he absently spun it in circles as he thought. “But I’m not in with them enough to know many details. The only guys I know are the ones my uncle has specifically asked me to work with, and even they don’t like me much. But I don’t think that’ll help us narrow it down. Plenty of cops in bed with mobsters these days. Just look at today’s paper.”
“I didn’t see it,” Vivian said, shrugging. “Not much for keeping up with the news. Especially not this week. I always figure it doesn’t have much to do with folks like me.”
“Here.” Leo stood, reaching out to snag one of the papers that was a few feet away from where they were sitting. He shuffled through the pages, then refolded it and slid it toward her. “See there, cop who was killed last month in a suspected mob hit. Young fella, too.”
The article was a profile of the young officer’s service, accompanied by quotes from his fellow officers. Most of the photos were from what looked like his funeral, full of flags and medals and a horse-drawn hearse. But one of the photos was him in uniform. He hadn’t been a good-looking man; his nose was too big for his face, and his eyebrows gave his eyes a scowling expression, even though he was smiling at the camera. But something about the photo made Vivian frown.
“You knew him?” she asked.
“I worked with him when I first came back to the city, just a quick,one-night job for my uncle. And he was dirty as they come. If he got offed in a mob hit, it was probably whoever he was working for tying up some loose ends. Or someone sending the fella he worked for a message. Either way…” Leo shrugged. “Everyone’s got a racket on the side. It’s almost a job requirement.”
It reminded her too much of what Hattie Wilson had described. Vivian shivered, wondering if it was the same man, trying to pay off his family debts and losing his life for his trouble. “He was real young,” Vivian said quietly, glancing through the pictures, but she trailed off as one in particular caught her eye. “Hey, anyone in this look familiar to you?”
She slid the paper over so Leo could take a look at the photo from the funeral, and he frowned in thought as he stared at it. “That guy at the front, in the dress uniform. I think I’ve seen him before, but I couldn’t say where.”
“I think he was the one at the pawnshop,” Vivian said. In the photograph, the man’s face was drawn into a tight expression that showed no emotion at all. Serious and stoic, like the rest of the officers around him. “Arthur, the owner called him. Does it say who he is?”
“Caption says he was the poor bastard’s dad.” Leo let out a low whistle, shaking his head sympathetically. “Gambling problem and a son getting offed on a boss’s orders? Tough time for him. No wonder he said he was getting out of New York.”
“His dad?” Vivian pulled the paper back toward her to take a closer look. “Maybe that’s why the dead fella looked so familiar…” Her voice trailed off again as she stared at the caption, which listed the names of the officers in the picture by initial and last name.P. Rossi, H. Gonzales, G. Flannigan…She looked back at the text of the article, scanning quickly to find the name of the dead man.
“Everything okay?” Leo asked when she stopped talking.
“Yeah.” Vivian gave herself a little shake as the waitress behind the counter came to take their plates away.
“Anything else, kids?” she asked.
“I’m all set, thanks,” Vivian said. She pointed to the paper. “Mind if I take a copy of this?”
“Help yourself,” the waitress said cheerfully, beginning to stack their dishes. “They mostly just get read by the morning crowd. Anything else for you, sir?”
“Nah, that’s it for today,” he agreed, pulling his wallet out from inside his jacket. “Swell meal. Where to next, Viv?”
“That’s all for my day,” she said, folding up the newspaper and tucking it under her arm. Leo gave it a brief glance but didn’t ask why she wanted to take it with her. She was glad about that. If he had asked, she would have had to lie to him. “I’m just going to go see how Bea and her family are doing.”
