Untitled (13 page)

    I get a chorus of three yeses. Definitely sons. Same big shoulders, though Elio's are bent. Same sharp, dark eyes, except that Elio's are watery.

    "Mr. Elio Siciliano?" says Evvie.

    Now the boys move off. This is of no interest to them. If we were blond, young, and cute, I'm sure they'd stay.

    "Ladies. What can I do for you?" says Poppa.

    "A private word?" I suggest, looking around at the rest of the men working close enough to overhear.

    He leads us into the small shack that serves as his office. We sit down facing him on the only two rickety chairs behind a scarred brown desk. The tiny room smells heavily of cigar smoke. He stands in front of us, arms crossed. He doesn't bother to hide his impatience.

    I've practiced what I'm going to tell him, as tactfully as possible, but now in front of Mr. Macho, I hesitate. Not so, stalwart Evvie. Where fools rush in, she's usually first.

    "Your wife hired us," she blurts.

    "What? You know my Angelina? She sent you here?"

    He seems to loom over the desk at us. I tug at Evvie's skirt to shush her.

    "What she means is—" I start to say, but Evvie's too fast for me.

    "We're private detectives, and we were hired to find out if you're cheating on her."

    Elio bursts out laughing. "OK, what's the joke here? I'm a busy man. It ain't April Fool's, so waddaya want?"

    "Do you know a woman living at Forty-four Magnolia Court?" I ask. Thanks to Evvie there's no use pussyfooting around.

    Now the humor disappears. He leans his arms on the desk and moves in too close for comfort. I can smell his cigar breath.

    "What the hell is this about?"

    Suddenly the room seems claustrophobic. Even fearless Evvie looks scared. I stand slowly.

    "Mr. Siciliano?" My knees are shaking. "First, may I say, don't kill the messenger. We've come here to help you if you would just stay . . . calm."

    "Spit it out!" He's yelling so loud that I imagine even the girls across the street can hear him, along with all the men on the site. Two male faces peer in the one grimy window. Elio waves them away.

    "Your wife was worried about you—" I begin.

    "My crazy wife never worries about anything but herself. Are you saying she hired you to spy on me? To find out if I was cheating on her! I'll wring her neck!"

    Now he's got Evvie mad. "We were supposed to report to her what we found out," Evvie shouts. "If we told her, she'd wring
your nec
k . . . or worse. But we came to tell you first. To warn you."

    "Listen, you old broads, who the hell do you think you are?"

    With trembling hands, I take out our brandnew business cards and hand him one.

    "Gladdy Gold and Associates Detective Agency?" he says incredulously. "You gotta be kidding!"

    Evvie and I just stare at him. He glowers back at us. Through the window I can see the cement mixer outside, churning away. I shudder.

    He slams his fist hard on the desk. Papers fly into the air. "All right!" Elio says. "You bring that jealous lunatic to Forty-four Magnolia Court at eight o'clock tonight! Now get outta here, I got work to do!"

    He didn't need to say it twice. We ran.

S
even forty-five p.m. I am walking with Angelina

    Siciliano from her little gray house at 37 Petunia Drive to 44 Magnolia Court, two blocks away, where the big showdown is about to take place.

    Angelina, dressed totally in black, is wielding her walker like a pair of skis, slaloming her way angrily from side to side, venom dripping from her moving, though soundless, lips. She refuses to speak to me. God knows what's going on in her head. When I came to get her, I "accidentally" leaned against her body. It didn't feel like she was packing a gun. I could only hope not.

    Meanwhile, the girls are hiding in my Chevy, in the dark, in front of the place of assignation. I tried to get at least one of them to stay home so I'd have room to pick up Angelina. Their response to me? Not a chance. Or I could have left the girls stand ing on the sidewalk and driven the car around the corner to get Angelina. Their response? No way. Stand outside in the dark and get mugged? Some associates I have. So, walking it would have to be.

Earlier, after dropping the girls off at home, I had gone to Angelina's house to report on our terrifying visit with Elio. I explained that after her husband had heard that he had been caught, so to speak, in the house of another woman, he had demanded a meeting tonight. At that very same house.

    If she hadn't been only four and a half feet tall, Angelina might have hit the ceiling at that news.

    "Who asked you to tell him? I paid you to tell me."

    I took a deep breath. "Well, it was a judgment call."

    "Ya think I'm gonna pay you for that? It was none of your business to talk to him."

    "But Mrs. Siciliano—your threats—" I began.

    She cut me off and pounded at her heart. "Such
agita
you give me." She grabbed a washcloth and scrubbed viciously at an imaginary stain on the sink.

    I should explain. She and I were in her spotless red 1950s-era kitchen. I subtly positioned my body in front of her knife rack in case she, too, wanted to kill the messenger. When she demanded to know the address, I told her. That made her even hotter.

    "So that's who it is. Now it makes sense. I knew it. The queen of all fleshpots he goes to." She spit. "You're not gonna get me in the same room as that
puttana.
"

    She refused to tell me who it was.

    "I shoulda guessed," she ranted. "Old dogs go back to old bitches. And he has the
coglioni
to tell me to meet him there!"

    "He must have a reason."

    "Yeah, to rub my nose in his filth. And in my own backyard! Do all my neighbors know?"

    That was followed by a string of juicy curses. Since they were all in Italian I could only guess at the gist. But I heard what sounded like
minchia
and
sfacheen,
and plenty of
madonna
s.

    "I'm not going!" Angelina glared at me, arms folded. "You can take a message to my husband, who soon will leave this world, and his whore: Drop dead!"

    Finally, I stopped trying to convince her. I walked to the front door and opened it.

    "Well, I'll be there tonight. I'll send you a written report. And a bill. Good afternoon!"

    That did it. She lunged after me, clutching at my arm to hold herself up. "You better pick me up. I ain't going in there alone!"

    Like my nosy associates—no way would she miss out on tonight.

The girls jump out of the Chevy the minute they spot us coming down the street.

    Angelina ignores them. Just as well, since they've already had a taste of the Siciliano temper.

    Spotting her husband's Chrysler in the driveway of the little pink house, Angelina neatly raises her walker and slams it onto the freshly washed and polished hood.

    The front door bursts open. Elio runs out, enraged, fists clenched. I can hear strains of "Volare" coming from the door chimes. Cute idea, I think. Maybe I could get a set that plays "Hava Nagila."

    
"Stu' gazz',"
he screams at her. "Lunatic!"

    
"Minchia!"
she screams back. "May it shrivel up and fall off!"

    He stands over her, strong hands itching to commit murder. Since she's so much shorter, her fists are dangerously close to his privates, which are directly within her reach.

    By now my girls, sensing that violence is about to erupt any second, are backing off, moving closer to my car in case we need a quick getaway. In fact, Ida already has her hands on the door handle. Evvie is signaling—shall we run for it? I wave my hands to tell them to stay put.

    At this moment I am seriously thinking I've gotten into the wrong line of work.

    The door chimes sing out again as six middleaged adults come rushing out.

    Angelina screams at them. "You, too! Traitors! All of you! In the house of that
puttana!
"

    "Shut your mouth, Angelina!" Elio growls.

    The group on the steps shares the same opinion. They chorus a variation of: "Yeah, Mama, be quiet!"

    I look at my girls and they look back, equally surprised. Mama's children are in the
fleshpot
with Poppa?

    Mrs. Take Charge takes charge once again. Evvie calls out over escalating voices, "Why don't we all go inside? You're drawing a crowd."

    And sure enough, other front doors are opening. Windows are being raised. Cars are stopping.

    We all retreat inside to the tune of the door chimes once again trilling "Volare."

    The house is tiny. In fact, it's a replica of Angelina's place. I'm guessing the two houses were built at about the same time. The décor is very similar, too. I am beginning to get the feeling these two women shopped together at one time.

    Elio looks at each of us and announces, "We are going into the bedroom now, and you will all show respect."

    Barely able to sit up in her bed is an emaciated woman whose head is covered by a scarf. She is surrounded on all sides by medical equipment, and her arm is hooked up to a machine. There are pill bottles everywhere.

    "Aha!" Bella shouts. "That's what I saw through the window and that's what I forgot! Medical equipment."

    Ida swats her shoulder. "Now you remember?"

    Bella shrugs. "I remember when I remember."

    The Sicilianos stare at us. "You were looking in the window?" asks one of the guys we saw earlier today at the construction site.

    Elio cuffs him. "Where're your manners? Intro duce yourselves to the snoops—Gladdy Gold and Associates Detective Agency. This one's Frankie."

    "Detectives?" says another of the men, the spitting image of his father. He introduces himself as Paulie. Come to think of it, all six children favor their father. Elio must have very strong genes.

    "Who hired a detective, and why?" asks Joey. Then Sal and Louie and the one female, Josie, take their turns echoing his question and introducing themselves.

    Elio wags a finger at Angelina. "That crazy one, your mother."

    Angelina and the woman in bed stare intently at one another.

    "What is it, Connie?" Angelina says. "What's wrong with you? You look like hell."

    "Thank you very much. You look well."

    "Never mind about me. What is it with you?"

    "I got the cancer. What else?" Connie whispers.

    "You're dying?" asks Angelina.

    "Do I look like I could swim the Atlantic?"

    "You look like you're dead already."

    "You always did have a way with words, Angelina. It won't be much longer."

    Elio addresses us. "Fifty years she stops talking to Connie. Sisters and best friends they were. Never apart. Back and forth from each other's house twice a day. Turns into hate. Over nothing."

    "You got that right," Angelina says. "Over you. A whole lotta nothing."

    "Don't start," he threatens.

    "Fifty years!" says Ida, flabbergasted.

    "Fifty years," echoes Bella. "You can last that long without seeing a relative?"

    Connie manages to lift herself up slightly on the bed. She looks at Angelina, sadness in her eyes. "Right after the marriage. What did I do that you should hate me and shut me out?"

    "And make all our lives totally screwed up," contributes Josie.

    A roomful of mournful faces look to Angelina for some explanation. Cornered, she lashes out at Connie.

    "Did I need you walking in and out of my house to check on me? Was I as good a cook as you—you, with the perfect marinara sauce? What about the sex? Did I want you inspecting my marriage bed to maybe see if I knew what to do? I was a new bride. I needed my privacy. And you two, always laughing together. As if you had secrets."

    Elio is astounded. "You were jealous of your sister? Did I ever once compare you? Didn't I show you love? All these years you shut her out? For that?" He pauses. "Women!" he adds, as if that explains everything.

    "Don't tell me you didn't have a crush on my Elio." Angelina throws at Connie.

    "Sure, I found him attractive, but once he gave you a ring . . ."

    "So, why didn't you get married? So I wouldn't have to worry anymore."

    Connie manages a small shrug. "Every family has a spinster they can feel sorry for. I was it." She leans back on her pillow, exhausted from the effort. "Did I deserve to have to sneak around to visit your babies, my niece and my nephews?"