Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (66 page)

“Hi, Mr. Lancione,” Jessica said. No matter how old she got, he would always be
Mr.
Lancione.

With his right hand, Rocco reached behind Sophie’s ear and magically produced a piece of Ferrara
torrone,
the individually boxed nougat candy Jessica had grown up with. Jessica remembered many a Christmas Day when she had wrestled her cousin Angela for the last piece of Ferrara
torrone.
Rocco Lancione had been finding the sweet, chewy confection behind little girls’ ears for almost fifty years. He held it out in front of Sophie’s widening eyes. Sophie glanced at Jessica before taking it.
That’s my girl,
Jessica thought.

“It’s okay, honey,” Jessica said.

The candy was snatched and stashed in a blur.

“Say thank you to Mr. Lancione.”

“Thank you.”

Rocco wagged a warning finger. “Wait until after your dinner to eat that, okay, sweetie?”

Sophie nodded, clearly plotting a predinner strategy.

“How’s your father?” Rocco asked.

“He’s good,” Jessica said.

“Is he happy in his retirement?”

If you called abject misery, mind-numbing boredom and spending sixteen hours a day bitching about the crime rate happy, he was ecstatic. “He’s great. Taking it easy. We’re off to meet him for dinner.”

“Villa di Roma?”

“Ralph’s.”

Rocco nodded his approval. “Give him my best.”

“I sure will.”

Rocco hugged Jessica. Sophie offered a cheek to be kissed. Being an Italian male, and never passing the opportunity to kiss a pretty girl, Rocco bent down and happily complied.

What a little diva,
Jessica thought.

Where
does
she get it?

P
ETER
G
IOVANNI STOOD
on the Palumbo playground, impeccably turned out in cream linen slacks, a black cotton shirt, and sandals. With his ice-white hair and deep tan he could have passed for an escort working the Italian Riviera, waiting to charm some wealthy American widow.

They headed to Ralph’s, with Sophie on point just a few feet ahead.

“She’s getting big,” Peter said.

Jessica looked at her daughter. She
was
getting bigger. Wasn’t it just yesterday she took her first wobbly steps across the living room? Wasn’t it just yesterday that her feet didn’t reach the pedals of her tricycle?

Jessica was just about to respond when she glanced at her father. He had that wistful look he was starting to have with some regularity. Was it all retirees, or just retired cops? Jessica wondered. She asked, “What is it, Pa?”

Peter waved a hand. “Ah. Nothing.”

“Pa.”

Peter Giovanni knew when he had to answer. It had been this way with his late wife, Maria. It was this way with his daughter. One day, it would be this way with Sophie. “I just … I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made, Jess.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I mean.”

Jessica did, but if she didn’t press the issue, it would give credence to what her father was saying. And she couldn’t do that. She didn’t
believe
that. “I really don’t.”

Peter looked up and down the street, gathering his thoughts. He waved to a man leaning out of the third-floor window of a trinity row house. “You can’t make your life all about the job.”

“It isn’t.”

Peter Giovanni labored under the yoke of guilt that he had neglected his children when they were growing up. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. When Jessica’s mother, Maria, passed away from breast cancer at the age of thirty-one, when Jessica was only five, Peter Giovanni dedicated his life to raising his daughter and his son, Michael. Maybe he wasn’t there for every Little League game, and every dance recital, but every birthday, every Christmas, every Easter was special. All Jessica could remember were happy times growing up in the house on Catharine Street.

“Okay,” Peter began. “How many of your friends are not on the job?”

One, Jessica thought. Maybe two. “Plenty.”

“Gonna make me ask you to name them?”

“Okay, Lieutenant,” she said, surrendering to the truth. “But I like the people I work with. I like cops.”

“Me, too,” Peter said.

For as long as she could remember, cops had been Jessica’s extended family. From the moment her mother died, she had been cocooned in a family of blue. Her earliest memories were of a houseful of officers. She remembered well a female officer who would come over and take her shopping for school clothes. There were always patrol cars parked on the street in front of their house.

“Look,” Peter began again. “After your mother died, I had no idea what to do. I had a young son and a younger daughter. I lived, breathed, ate, and slept the job. I missed so much of your lives.”

“That’s not true, Dad.”

Peter held up a hand, stopping her. “Jess. We don’t have to pretend.”

Jessica let her father have his moment, as misguided as it was.

“Then after Michael …” In the past fifteen or so years, that’s about as far as Peter Giovanni had ever gotten with that sentence.

Jessica’s older brother, Michael, was killed in Kuwait in 1991. Her father shut down that day, closing his heart to any and all feelings. It wasn’t until Sophie came along that he dared to reopen.

It wasn’t long after Michael’s death that Peter Giovanni entered a reckless phase on the job. If you’re a baker or a shoe salesman, being reckless is not the worst thing in the world. For a cop, it
is
the worst thing in the world. When Jessica got her gold shield, it was all the incentive Peter needed. He turned in his papers the same day.

Peter reined in his emotions. “You’ve got, what, eight years on the job now?”

Jessica knew that her father knew
exactly
how long she had been in blue. Probably to the week, day, and hour. “Yeah. About that.”

Peter nodded. “Don’t stay too long. That’s all I’m saying.”

“What’s too long?”

Peter smiled. “Eight and a half years.” He took her hand in his, squeezed. They stopped walking. He looked into her eyes. “You know I’m proud of you, right?”

“I know, Pa.”

“I mean, you’re thirty years old and you’re working homicides. You’re working real cases. You’re making a difference in people’s lives.”

“I hope so,” Jessica said.

“There just comes a time when … the cases start working
you.
”

Jessica knew exactly what he meant.

“I just worry about you, honey.” Peter trailed off, the emotion once again stealing his words for the moment.

They got their feelings in check, entered Ralph’s, got a table. They ordered their usual cavatelli with meat sauce. They talked no more of the job or crime or the state of affairs of the City of Brotherly Love. Instead, Peter enjoyed the company of his two girls.

When they parted company, they hugged a little longer than usual.

17

“W
HY DO YOU
want me to put it on?”

She holds the white dress up in front of her. It is a scoop-neck white T-shirt dress, long-sleeved, flared at the hips, cut just below the knee. It took a little searching to locate one, but I finally found it at a Salvation Army thrift store in Upper Darby. The dress is inexpensive, but on her figure it will look fabulous. It is the kind of dress that was popular in the 1980s.

Tonight it is 1987.

“Because I think it would look good on you.”

She turns her head and smiles slightly. Coy and demure. I hope this won’t be a problem. “You’re a kinky boy, aren’t you?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Is there anything else?”

“I want to call you Alex.”

She laughs. “Alex?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say it’s a screen test of sorts.”

She thinks about it for a few moments. She holds the dress up again, stares at herself in the full-length cheval glass. The idea seems to appeal to her. Finally.

“Oh, why not?” she says. “I’m a little drunk.”

“I’ll be right out here, Alex,” I say.

She steps into the bathroom, sees that I have filled the tub. She shrugs, closes the door.

Her apartment is decorated in the funky, eclectic style, a décor comprising an amalgam of mismatched sofas, tables, bookcases, prints, and rugs that were probably donated by family members, with the occasional flourish of color and individuality purchased at Pier 1 or Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barn.

I flip through her CDs, looking for something from the 1980s. I find Celine Dion, Matchbox 20, Enrique Iglesias, Martina McBride. Nothing that really speaks to the era. Then I luck out. At the back of the drawer is a dusty boxed set of
Madame Butterfly.

I put the CD in the player, forward to “Un bel di, vedremo.” Soon the apartment is filled with longing.

I cross the living room and ease open the bathroom door. She spins around quickly, a little surprised to see me standing there. She sees the camera in my hand, hesitates for a moment, then smiles. “I look like such a slut.” She turns to the right, then the left, smoothing the dress over her hips, striking a
Cosmo
cover pose.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She giggles. She really is adorable.

“Stand over here,” I say, pointing to an area at the foot of the tub.

She obeys. She vamps for me. “What do you think?”

I look her up and down. “You look perfect. You look just like a movie star.”

“Sweet talker.”

I step forward, camera raised, and push her gently backward. She falls into the tub with a great splash. I need her dripping wet for the shot. She flails her arms and legs wildly, trying to get out of the tub.

She manages to rise to her feet, soaking wet, appropriately outraged. I cannot blame her. In my defense, I made sure the water in the tub was not too hot. She turns to face me, rage in her eyes.

I shoot her in the chest.

One quick shot, bringing the pistol up from my hip. The wound blossoms on the white dress, spreading outward like small red hands offering benediction.

She stands quite still for a moment, the reality of it all slowly dawning on her pretty face. There is that initial look of violation, followed quickly by the horror of what has just happened to her, this abrupt and violent punctuation of her young life. I look behind her to see the thick impasto of tissue and blood on the venetian blind.

She slides down the tile wall, slicking it crimson. She sinks into the tub.

With the camera in one hand and the gun in the other, I walk forward, as smoothly as I can. It is certainly not as smooth as it would be on a track, but I think it will lend a certain immediacy to the moment, a certain vérité.

Through the lens, the water runs red—scarlet fish struggling to the surface. The camera loves blood. The light is ideal.

I zoom in on her eyes—dead white orbs in the bathwater. I hold the shot for a moment, then—

CUT TO:

A few minutes later. I am ready to strike the set, as it were. I have everything packed and ready. I start
Madame Butterfly
at the beginning of
atto secondo.
It really is moving.

I wipe down the few things I have touched. I pause at the door, surveying the set. Perfect.

That’s a wrap.

18

B
YRNE CONSIDERED WEARING
a shirt and tie, but decided against it. The less attention he called to himself in the places he had to go, the better. On the other hand, he wasn’t quite the imposing figure he once was. And maybe that was a good thing. Tonight he needed to be small. Tonight he needed to be one of
them.

When you’re a cop, there are only two types of people in the world. Knuckleheads and cops. Them and us.

The thought made him consider the question. Again.

Could he really retire? Could he
really
become one of them? In a few years, when the older cops he knew had retired, and he got pulled over, they really wouldn’t know him. He’d be a just another knucklehead. He’d tell the scrub who he was, and where he’d worked, and some stupid story about the job; he’d flash his retirement ID and the kid would let him go.

But he wouldn’t be inside. Being inside meant everything. Not just the respect, or the authority, but the juice. He thought he had made the decision. Obviously he wasn’t ready.

He decided on a black dress shirt and black jeans. He was surprised to find that his black peg-legged Levi’s fit him again. Perhaps there was an upside to being shot in the head. You lose weight. Maybe he’d write a book:
The Attempted Murder Diet.

He had made it through most of the day without his cane—having steeled himself with pride and Vicodin—and he considered not bringing it with him now, but soon banished the thought. How was he supposed to get around without it?
Face it, Kevin. You need a cane to walk.
Besides, maybe he would appear weak, and that was probably a good thing.

On the other hand, a cane might make him more memorable, and that was something he didn’t want. He had no idea what they might find this night.

Oh, yeah. I remember him. Big guy. Walked with a limp. That’s the guy, Your Honor.

He took the cane.

He also took his weapon.

19

W
ITH
S
OPHIE BATHED
and dried—and powdered, another one of her new things—Jessica began to relax. And with the calm came the doubts. She considered her life as it was. She had just turned thirty. Her father was getting older, still vibrant and active, but aimless and alone in his retirement. She worried about him. Her little girl was growing up by the moment, and somehow the possibility loomed that she might grow up in a house in which her father did not live.

Hadn’t Jessica just been a little girl herself, running up and down Catharine Street, a water ice in hand, not a care in the world?

When did all this happen?

W
HILE
S
OPHIE COLORED
a coloring book at the dining room table, and all was right with the world for the moment, Jessica put a videotape in the VCR.