“I was thinking maybe since you obviously knew some of the gentlemen in Teddy Marino’s crew, you could maybe ask around for us a little.”
The venom splashed in the pit of P.F.’s stomach. “Why the fuck should I do anything for you?!”
Sadowsky broadened his grin and his accent. “Well, shit, I was thinking about your Mr. D’Errico and those questions he was asking. Your cooperation would certainly cast them in a different light. I’m not saying anybody would outright lie for you, but the truth has a way of being shaded.”
This feeb might have a future in New Jersey politics, P.F. thought.
“Well, if I admit I know people in Teddy’s crew, aren’t I opening myself up for more questions?” he countered.
“It’s strictly off the record,” said Sadowsky, hands in his pockets like he was carrying the most valuable lint in the state. “You scratch mine, I’ll scratch yours. No one else needs to know about it.”
P.F. watched a few more of the black people on the corner drifting back to their houses when the Mormon- looking F.B.I agents tried to question them. He hated to do anything to help the feebs. It violated something in his bones. On the other hand, he wanted this job at the Doubloon as badly as he’d wanted to lose his virginity. And these old questions about his past with Paulie could hang him up.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, hoping that would be enough.
“Well, Father D’Errico should be calling back in a few days, so I’d try to do better than that,” Sadowsky pressed him. “Remember, I’ve got supervisors too and they’re squeezing me for answers.”
“Shit rolls downhill,” P.F. muttered.
“Even faster when it rains.”
Only after he said this did P.F. notice it had begun to drizzle again. Something about the death of a DiGregorio brought on the rains. The street took on a sleek shine and the rest of the people went back into their houses. Sadowsky put his collar up and lit a cigarette. He probably likes this, thought P.F. Standing in the rain, smoking a cigarette while they haul a body off to the morgue. Maybe it makes him feel like he’s on some old
“I’ll get back to you soon as I can,” he told the agent.
“That sounds just fine.” Sadowsky patted his shoulder. “And by the way, if things work out with you getting the job at the casino, do you think you could get me seats for the title bout this fall? I always do enjoy a good fight.”
23
THE WORLD CAME BACK to me in pieces. First there was the ache in my ears. Then the throb in my right ankle. The brown metallic taste in my mouth. And the hangover that felt like a broken tooth in my brain.
I propped myself up on one elbow and looked over at Rosemary, just waking up on the pillow next to me.
Her body gave off a sweet, heavy female odor and her face was smooth and unspoiled by makeup.
“Jesus,” she said, her eyelids fluttering. “What got into you last night?”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
She rolled over and winced like an injured athlete hobbling in off the field. “We did it from all points on the compass and a few I hadn’t been to before.”
I sat up straight and the hangover poked at the top of my skull, like it was trying to break through the bone. “So how was I?”
She got up and drew the bedsheet around her breasts. “You were a little out of control.”
I felt a raw soreness in my right hand and looked down at it. There was a light red welt in the palm. Slowly I started to remember. This hand gripped the gun that killed Nick DiGregorio.
The rest of the night began to reassemble itself in my mind. Nicky’s eyes opening wide. The heat coming off the barrel of the gun. Going back to the car with Richie. Getting a drink. Finding one drink wasn’t enough; it took almost a pint of Chivas to calm down. That powerful feeling. That feeling of being powerful. To give or take a life. I’d felt like my dick was twelve inches long and I could fuck the earth with it. I flashed on taking Rosemary home from the cluband balling her in every room of my house. My wife and kids weren’t home.
I still wasn’t sure if I’d acted like that because I wanted to lose myself and forget what I’d done. Or if I’d been maybe a little turned on by it. Just considering that possibility made me feel disgusted with myself all over again.
“You want a cup of coffee?” Rosemary was staring at me.
“Yeah, yeah, sure. The instant’s on the kitchen counter.”
She left the room, trailing the bedsheet behind her.
I stood naked and shivering with the sunlight coming through the blinds and my mother’s eyes watching me from the black-and-white picture on the chest of drawers. Jesus stared down, exasperated, from the cross above the bed.
I wondered how long it would be before I was punished for what I’d done.
In the kitchen, I heard Rosemary putting the morning news on television and the clatter of pots and pans. I pulled on my boxers and went in to see what all the commotion was about.
“What have you got in that flour can?” she asked, pointing to the red canister on the counter. “Something weighs a ton in there. I was trying to move it and get at the coffeepot.”
“Just don’t move anything around too much.” I watched the TV weather girl with glazed eyes. “My wife and kids will be coming back here soon.”
“Where are they now, anyway?”
“I’ve had her over at her mother’s awhile.”
“Something smells like a cat in here,” she murmured.
The light coming through the window above the kitchen sink shifted, stripping shadows off the far wall. And all of a sudden, I was reminded why I had to kill Nicky. It was so my wife and children could come home and be safe.
Maybe I wasn’t so bad after all. But then the phone rang. My heart gave two dull thumps and stopped. I was sure it was some relative of Nicky’s promising to come get me.
But it turned out to be a friend of my daughter Rachel, looking for a play date.
“She’s not here right now,” I said, out of breath from sprinting across the room to pick it up. “Can I take a message?”
“Okay,” said a little voice that could’ve belonged to a boy or a girl. But then he or she hung up.
I just stood there for a second, feeling the cold sweat on my neck and looking at Rosemary’s long brown legs. How could I have brought her back here? What was the matter with me? She put one foot on top of the other and made a bow with her knees as she sipped her coffee and watched the news. She had beautiful thin ankles, not the swollen kind Carla had. This was who I should’ve married. But then I saw what she was watching on TV. There was a black-and-white mug shot of Nicky DiGregorio on the screen. Trying to look tough without a chin. The announcer was saying he’d been found dead under the Boardwalk last night.
“Did I tell you about this dream I had?” I said suddenly, just to distract Rosemary.
She turned and looked at me blankly.
“It was about my mother.” I found myself in a panic, trying to come up with something. “She always used to have these weird dreams. Like she’d dream of teeth and say that meant something bad was going to happen. Or after my real father disappeared, she’d dream about him crying. And then she’d say, ‘I don’t know what your father wants from me. He doesn’t have a grave for me to put flowers on.’”
“So what was your dream?” Rosemary tapped her bare foot on the scuffed linoleum floor.
“Oh. I don’t know. I guess my mother was crying to me this time.” I was just making it up. “What do you think it means?”
Rosemary looked down. “I think you need your floors swabbed more often.”
