God, I miss them so much.
The evening goes on. Rosa brings out dessert—torta della nonna, the custard still warm, pine nuts golden on top—insisting that I take a piece even when I groan that I couldn’t possibly. Even Sammy seems to thaw slightly toward me, or at least is less inclined to scowl when he looks my way. And between us, Dami seems relaxed and happy. I’ve never seen him smile or laugh so much, either at Rosa’s stories or my occasional sarcasm, or at Sammy’s description of the fishmonger he usually goes to, who knows Rosa personally and is always terrified she’ll send back the fish.
Eventually, Rosa says she needs to clean up. I offer to help load the dishwasher, and Vito helps dry things that need to be washed by hand. Sammy gathers together the trash to take it out, but Dami stops him. “I’ll come with you. I meant what I said, Sammy—you keep your eyes open and don’t take risks.”
I’ve just finished stacking the dishes in the dishwasher when I find another small trash can under the sink that needs to be taken out. “I’ll run this bag out to them,” I tell Rosa and Vito, who barely hear me. Rosa’s been busy chattering in Italian, and Vito’s hanging on her every word.
With a smile, I head toward the back door of the kitchen and find my way after Sammy and Dami. It’s easy enough, because they’ve left the door that opens to the street ajar, and cold air is seeping into the dark hallway.
But I pause there behind the door as I hear my name.
“…glad you’re getting along better with Caligula.”
“I’m not,” Sammy says. There’s a rustle of plastic bags. “I hate him. I always will. But for your sake, Damiano, I’ll put up with him.”
There’s a pause. “Well,” Dami says at last. “Love and hate ain’t got nothing to do with Family. So that’s good enough for me, Sammy.”
“How much longer will he be here?” Sammy sounds forlorn.
“A while.”
“Why are you being soniceto him?”
“Hey.” There’s a warning in Dami’s voice. “You don’t get involved in business, Sammy. What I plan to do with him?—”
“He’s aClemenza,” Sammy spits.
There’s a silence, and then Dami speaks again, but so quietly that I have to lean closer to the gap to hear. “…keeping him away from some people who are looking for him. A group that calls itself the Clemenza Loyalists. They want to crown him king, put him in as a figurehead, get the Clemenza Family going again. Now, you don’t want those fuckers gaining ground again any more than I do, right? Right. So trust me on this, Sammy.”
“I always do, Damiano.”
The Clemenza Loyalists aren’t all dead and gone.
In fact, they’re alive andlookingfor me.
Why not go to your Loyalists?Dami asked me, when he was wondering how I’d ended up at the Obelisk. I remember, too, how quickly he changed the subject when I showed no knowledge about them.
And just a few days ago, he looked me right in the eye and told me they were dust.
“Come on,” he’s saying, “let’s get back inside. I don’t like the look of that van over there.”
I slide silently back up the hallway and make my way down again much more noisily, trash bag in hand. “Oh, hi!” I say when we all run into each other. “You missed one.”
I hold it out to Sammy. He takes it with a wide, fake smile. “Thanks,” he says, but then Dami grabs it from him.
“You two get back to the kitchen,” he growls at us. “When I come back inside, we’re going into lockdown again.”
“Yes, Damiano,” Sammy says, and slides past me, that smile still plastered on his face.
I watch Sammy go on ahead obediently, but I wait there until Dami comes back in. “What did I just say?” he sighs.
“I know. But I wanted to do this.”
I wind my arms around his neck and kiss him, press my mouth to those lying lips to find out what deceit tastes like.
Daniel King’s cut-off words echo in my head as I do.Do you have any idea what some people out there would pay to see a Clemenza?—
See a Clemenza what? Suffer, as Dami suggested King was going to say at the time, before a right hook silenced him? Or see a Clemenza rise again, take control of the Family, resurrect it?
