“Okay, okay, keep your shirt on. I didn’t find out much of anything, anyway,” he says finally. “I'm looking at a bunch of people and nobody seems to know anything.”
“That's impossible.”
"Not impossible,” he counters, “it's just weird. Everybody’s here, right? All the players from both families… somebody should know something. And yet… nichego. I mean, you are right… It's really fucking weird. Usually somebody would know something about somebody somewhere… But nothing. Like a ghost. Maybe a third party?”
I cut my eyes toward him. “You really think that?”
He shakes his head. “No, I really don't. But there's no reason Don Lauro would send guys like that after her. Not when he’s got Nuncio and Paulie and Jimmy just hanging around with nothing better to do than babysit her anyway. Geez. These guys.”
We stand there for a minute, sucking our teeth and feasting our eyes on these guys. What a bunch of pansies. It amazes me that they’re even still around. What is it, tradition? Nostalgia? They’re a bunch of dinosaurs. They should be extinct.
“Is there any reason there would be a third-party?” I say, feeling a little bit lost. My understanding of this Chicago landscape is that the Italians and our family keep dancing around the same neighborhood. They take a little land back, and then we take a little land back. They take a little action back, then we take the same action back.
It's just thumb wrestling, but sometimes it gets a little bloody. But there's no room for the Puerto Ricans or anybody else as far as I know.
“What about the casino?” I muse. Some of our guys on the west side have been pushing into the loan sharking around the casino by the airport. That can introduce a new element, if the borders were outside this neighborhood, but something about that doesn't feel right either.
Alek shrugs one shoulder. His eyes won’t leave the far end of the room, and I watch him stare into the crowd with a small smile on his face. He hasn’t stopped watching her, not even for a second.
“I gotta think it's not that complicated, Roman,” he admits. “I gotta think that maybe we’re missing something…”
Missing something? That's an understatement. “Okay, like what?”
He chews his lower lip as his eyes scan the room. Even though he's not muscle, Alek's still pretty savvy about relationships. He can read a room as well as anybody. “Like, maybe you brought something back with you? From Atlanta?”
I want to object, but my breath freezes in the back of my mouth. Maybe he's got a point. I guess in my line of business sometimes blood gets on you and it doesn't wash off.
“I highly doubt it,” I inform him, but I know it is possible.
He sighs for a long time, rocking back and forth on his feet. Automatically, his eyes find Marie again in the crowd. It’s almost like I can see a tiny mirror image of her, reflected in his pupils.
He scrubs his palm across his face. He's a good-looking guy, still as pretty as the day Mama made us. Unscarred, clean-shaven and he does something to his eyebrows too. Something feminine. Don Lauro probably should have given Marie to him. Pretty people belong together.
“Well, what can I say. I'll keep my ear to the ground on this, Roman,” he assures me. “Something will shake loose, it always does.”
I nod slowly, watching Marie make her way across the empty dance floor toward the elevated bride’s table. She's walking slow, holding up the front of her dress slightly with one hand. Already drunk. That figures.
“I think this will be okay,” Alek says in a low voice, and I know he is talking about Marie. When did he get to be such a romantic? I can’t imagine.
“It’s not going to be okay, Alek, not at all.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, brother,” he complains. “Just try it. Try to like it. Try to like her. You do already, I can tell.”
“I do not.”
“Yeah, you do,” he needles, elbowing me in the ribs, hard. I forget that he’s as strong as me sometimes, until he does something like that. “You really do.”
CHAPTER 12
ALEK
Marie opens up the door just as I'm coming up the steps. Her hands drop to her sides and those big brown eyes open as wide as saucers.
“Honey, I'm home!”
“What… What are you doing here?” she hisses, her eyes shifting left and right, looking for Nuncio or one of those guys.
I hold the box out in front of me. “We’re moving in,” I explain and gently nudge my way into the foyer. Looking around, I give a low whistle. “Wow, nice place! Roman loves wood floors and lots of windows. He's going to be so excited. Now just stand back for a sec...”