Doppelgangster Part 2

"Esther . . ." Lopez let his breath out, sagged back against the couch cushions, and looked at the ceiling. "I just had had to get interested in a starving actress." He glanced at me and added, "One with no sense of self-preservation." to get interested in a starving actress." He glanced at me and added, "One with no sense of self-preservation."

I protested, "I have plenty of-"

"Still hanging out with Max?" he asked abruptly.

Another awkward subject. "Sometimes."

Apart from enduring Golly Gee's sour temper at work, I hadn't encountered much Evil since we had eliminated Hieronymus, but I had become fond of Max. So I'd seen him a few times since then. Since Max was nearly 350 years old (though he didn't look a day over 70), he was certainly not a rival for Lopez. But Lopez thought he was crazy and probably dangerous, and he didn't like me having anything to do with him.

"Well," Lopez said after a long moment, "at least I can keep an eye on you at Stella's."

I frowned. "You suddenly have time on your hands? Has the crime rate plummeted in the Sixth Precinct, or something?"

He blinked. "Oh. I didn't tell you, did I?"

"Tell me what?"

"That's what I wanted to celebrate tonight. My transfer to OCCB finally came through."

"It did? Good!" I knew he'd been waiting for it for a while. "But . . . I can't remember what OCCB means," I admitted.

"Organized Crime Control Bureau."

"Oh. I guess that's how you know so much about Bella Stella and the Gambellos. Organized crime. You've been studying up for your new post."

"What happens at Stella's is pretty common knowledge. But, yeah, I take an interest." He eyed me. "Anyhow, since I'll be keeping an eye on the Gambellos, I should be able to keep an eye on you while you're working at Stella's."

"I don't need anyone to keep an eye on me." But I smiled at him. I kind of liked that he felt protective of me. I wasn't used to that, and it made the Big Apple seem a little cozier.

"All the same . . ." He smiled at me, too.

"As soon as I get a night off, maybe we could take another shot at going out and celebrating?" I suggested.

"Not for a couple of weeks," he said with regret. "Tomorrow I've got to go out to Long Island for two weeks of training. I'll be working long hours, so I'm going to stay with a cousin out there. And I'm going to Nyack next weekend."

"You do lead a life of glamour." Nyack was a suburb across the Hudson. Lopez had grown up there.

"It's my dad's birthday," he said. "I thought about asking you to come with me . . ."

"I'm nowhere near ready to meet your parents," I said firmly.

"Yeah, I thought that's what you'd say."

"So you were planning to wine and dine me tonight, get me into bed, and then abandon me for two weeks?"

"That was the plan," he admitted.

"I'm pretty sure that makes you a cad," I told him.

He grinned. "I'm coming back. I just wanted to mark my territory before I go."

"Mark your your territory?" territory?"

"A woman who could forget I was coming over tonight might forget me completely in two weeks," he said innocently. "Unless I make a strong enough impression."

"You're pretty confident about the effect of marking your territory," I noted.

"I just don't want some other guy stepping in while I'm off training to be a more effective officer of the peace."

"I'm going to be on my feet ten hours a day at Stella's while you're gone," I pointed out. "The only man likely to get my attention is a foot ma.s.seur."

"I give a pretty good foot ma.s.sage," he said.

"Yeah?"

He lowered his lashes and nudged my foot with his. "We can start with that when I get back . . . and see where it leads."

Heat crept through me as I looked at him and felt the gentle pressure of his foot against mine. Securing an income a few minutes ago had revived me a little. I was just about to reconsider the possibility of taking a shower when the phone rang again.

Feeling optimistic now, I said, "That could be my agent."

I answered the phone. Then I realized my mistake.

"Hi, Mom," I said morosely.

That sense of looming dread I'd felt when Stella called had been accurate, just a little ahead of schedule.

"Oh, I'm okay," I lied in response to my mother's opening question.

Lopez rose to his feet and made leaving motions.

"Just a second, Mom." I rose to my feet, too, put my hand over the receiver, and said to Lopez, "Two weeks?"

He nodded. "Foot ma.s.sage."

"Maybe I'll ma.s.sage something of yours, too," I said.

He grinned. "I'll show you my favorite places."

As he headed for the door, I said, "You're not even going to kiss me good night?"

"With your mom practically in the room? No way."

"But-"

"Two weeks from now," he said. "Kisses and . . . whatever else you ask for nicely."

As I watched my handsome date leave my apartment without a backward glance at my bedraggled self, my mother said, loud and clear, "How's the show going, Esther?"

2.

"You and me, honey, we should go out sometime."

"I'm flattered." I placed the dinner check on the table and hoped my answer wouldn't affect the size of my tip. "But I can't."

Chubby Charlie Chiccante, a three-hundred-pound capo in the Gambello family, squinted at me as he reached for his wallet. "I'll show you a good time," he promised. "Let me tell you something. In the sack, I'm f.u.c.kin' spectacular. Ask anyone."

I said loudly over my shoulder to Lucky Battistuzzi, who ate here at Bella Stella almost every night, "Lucky, is Charlie spectacular in bed?"

Lucky nodded his grizzled head. "The earth moved for me."

Four male acquaintances of Charlie's sitting at a nearby table heard this and guffawed. A predictable round of jokes ensued. I knew from staff gossip that those four guys weren't Gambellos, they were soldiers in the Buonarotti family. It would be exaggerating to say the Buonarottis were on cordial terms with the Gambellos, but there was enough absence of animosity between the families that Buonarotti wiseguys could dine at Bella Stella, a stronghold of the Gambellos, without bloodshed. Well, as long as they didn't irritate any Gambello soldiers.

Whereas Corvino wiseguys knew better than to come near Stella's. As Lopez had pointed out to me, there was a lot of bad blood between those those two families. two families.

Chubby Charlie rolled his small eyes at the crude jokes the Buonarottis were making, then pulled a red silk handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his suit and patted his shiny face with it. Like Lucky, he was a regular at Stella's. And Charlie, who was in his late fifties, was notorious among the staff; he always ate two full entrees, sweated while he ate, and propositioned his waitress.

Whether Charlie tipped well depended on whether he liked your voice. He always wanted a song with his dinner. If he enjoyed the performance, he left a generous tip. If he didn't, he stiffed you. And no server at Stella's chose to argue about this with a man who was rumored to have killed at least seven people (mostly members of the Corvino crime family). Tonight, he had demanded to be seated in my section, and he'd requested a rendition of "That's Amore." As always, I'd sung to the accompaniment of our accordion-playing bartender.

Now, as Charlie stuffed his red handkerchief back into his breast pocket, he said to me, "So why won't you go out with me? You got a f.u.c.kin' boyfriend?"

Lucky put down the newspaper he'd been reading after finishing his dinner and said to Charlie, "Hey, watch your language, paesano paesano. You're speaking to a lady."

I smiled at him. Alberto "Lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d" Battistuzzi had acquired his nickname due to surviving two attempts on his life as a young man, both both times because an attacker's gun jammed. He had spent almost forty years as a hit man for the Gambellos, but he was reputedly retired now. Or semiretired. He'd once quoted another "Lucky" wiseguy to me, the famous Charles Luciano, saying the only way out of his business was "in a box." According to kitchen gossip, he had probably killed more people than anyone else who ate at Stella's. But despite his profession, he always behaved like a gentleman toward me. times because an attacker's gun jammed. He had spent almost forty years as a hit man for the Gambellos, but he was reputedly retired now. Or semiretired. He'd once quoted another "Lucky" wiseguy to me, the famous Charles Luciano, saying the only way out of his business was "in a box." According to kitchen gossip, he had probably killed more people than anyone else who ate at Stella's. But despite his profession, he always behaved like a gentleman toward me.

"Hey, I'm just askin' her out," Chubby Charlie protested. "What's your f.u.c.kin' problem?"

"You know want to know what my problem is?" Lucky retorted.

"Yeah, I want to know what your f.u.c.kin' problem is," Charlie riposted.

"You're asking what my problem is?"

"Yeah, I'm askin' your f.u.c.kin' problem."

"I ain't the one with the problem," Lucky said. ain't the one with the problem," Lucky said.

"No?"

"No!"

"So who's the one with the f.u.c.kin' problem?" Charlie bristled. "Huh? Come on, wise a.s.s! Tell me!" Come on, wise a.s.s! Tell me!"

I'd worked long enough at Bella Stella to know that this was typical dinner-table talk among wiseguys, so I just accepted the cash that Charlie handed me for his dinner while he was arguing with Lucky, and I interrupted only to ask him if he wanted change. When he said no, I gave him a big smile and tucked a flapping edge of his bright red handkerchief more securely into his breast pocket; he had tipped me very well. I must have been in good voice that evening.

"You'll be the one with the problem," Lucky advised him, "if you don't show some respect. Esther's dating a cop." be the one with the problem," Lucky advised him, "if you don't show some respect. Esther's dating a cop."

Chubby Charlie went rigid and looked at me with an appalled expression. "You date a cop? cop?"

I nodded. I hadn't seen Lopez since he'd left my apartment that Sunday night nearly two weeks ago, and we'd only talked once briefly by phone since then. But we were planning to have another date after he got back from Long Island. Meanwhile, telling customers that I was dating a cop was a quick-fix solution to men like Charlie Chiccante.

"A cop? cop?" Charlie repeated.

"A detective," I said helpfully.

Lucky said to him, "You want that a cop should hear you've been hitting on his girlfriend?"

"Jesus." Charlie looked at me as if I'd nearly given him a case of the clap. "Dates a f.u.c.kin' cop cop."

"And he's very possessive," I said. "Wouldn't like it if he found out you'd even flirted with me." I smiled at him again. "But I was flattered."

(Yes, I was hoping to encourage more good tips. I had bills to pay.) Charlie's shiny face got quite pink as he heaved himself to his feet. He dropped his napkin on the floor and said, "I was just being charming, you know? Didn't mean nothin' by it. Wouldn't hit on a cop's girl."

"Of course not," I said.

He gave a big belch and patted his ma.s.sive belly. "Oof! I'm stuffed! I think I f.u.c.kin' ate too much."

"Oh, really?" Lucky muttered.

Charlie said to me, "Tell Stella the pasta arrabbiata pasta arrabbiata was f.u.c.kin' out of this world tonight." He brought his hand to his mouth to kiss his fingers in an eloquent gesture of appreciation, then fastened his suit coat over his enormous stomach. The b.u.t.tons looked strained. Charlie considered himself a snazzy dresser and often (misguidedly, in my opinion) called attention to his appearance. He dressed more formally than most wiseguys, almost always arriving at Bella Stella wearing a suit and matching accessories (socks, tie, and handkerchief). was f.u.c.kin' out of this world tonight." He brought his hand to his mouth to kiss his fingers in an eloquent gesture of appreciation, then fastened his suit coat over his enormous stomach. The b.u.t.tons looked strained. Charlie considered himself a snazzy dresser and often (misguidedly, in my opinion) called attention to his appearance. He dressed more formally than most wiseguys, almost always arriving at Bella Stella wearing a suit and matching accessories (socks, tie, and handkerchief).

After taking a satisfied glance in the mirror on the nearby wall, Charlie wished me good night and left the restaurant.

"What a schmuck," Lucky said.

"Thanks for stepping in," I said.

"I don't like guys who try to take advantage."

"Me, neither."

"When's your cop coming back, anyhow?"

"Friday." I had told Lucky that Lopez was out of town, though I hadn't said more than that. He was working this weekend (and so was I), so I wouldn't see him then, but I hoped we could get together soon. I was looking forward to that foot ma.s.sage. Or maybe I'd feed him some ice cream again, only this time . . .

"Friday?" Lucky said. "You mean tomorrow?"

Startled out of a very private reverie, I nodded. "Yes."

Lucky said, "Well, good. It's about time. He's takin' a risk, leaving a pretty young woman unattended for so long."