Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [121]
“Okay if I ask you somethin’?” Pins said, pushing aside his glass of beer.
“Doesn’t look like you’re here to drink,” Nunzio said, “and we’re not open for lunch. So I figured it was talk you wanted.”
“The way things are going,” Pins said in soft tones, “it doesn’t seem like it’s going to end good for any of us. You included.”
“Everything’s gone your way so far,” Nunzio assured him. “You’ve done some damage, caused the lady a few headaches, and, most important, you got her attention.”
“That’s right,” Pins said. “Those are all the reasons I’m worried.”
“Well, you’re not wrong there,” Nunzio said. “I’ll give you that.”
“There’s a weak link in every team,” Pins went on. “I’ve been around long enough to know that. I don’t want to be the weak link here.”
“You’ve held your end,” Nunzio told him. “It wasn’t your talkin’ that got the lady sniffin’ in our direction.”
“It just seems to come easier to the others,” Pins said, his words backed by Ella now singing “Good Morning Heartache.” “The action, I mean. It’s like they’re waitin’ for it. Me, I’m always kinda hopin’ we just take her down, cuff her, and hand her over to the feds.”
“You wanna walk?” Nunzio asked, spreading his hands across the bar. “Might not be too late. Word can spread that you’re out just as fast as it spread that you were in.”
“Maybe I will have another beer.”
Pins slid his glass toward Nunzio, who tapped out a refill with a foamy head and reached under the bar for a wooden bowl filled with pretzels.
“They’re scared too, you know,” Nunzio said. “We all are. And there’s good reason to be. Not all of us are gonna make it outta this one alive.”
“I know that,” Pins said. “Except with them, you can’t read it on their faces. With me, you pretty much can. I think that’s the difference. It’s a look that’s easy to spot—by a cop or a shooter.”
“They’re one up on you, Pins,” Nunzio said. “They’ve been around the action so long, they learned how to hide the look. But that don’t mean it ain’t there.”
“What’s your story?” Pins asked, finishing his beer. “Why are you in this? You got a good life here, solid business, steady. You don’t need to be in the middle of a war.”
Nunzio stared at Pins for several moments, then turned and reached for a bottle of Seagram’s and two shot glasses. “Knowin’ my story ain’t gonna be any help to you,” he said, topping off both glasses.
“You don’t have to tell me, you don’t want to,” Pins said. “I was just curious.”
Nunzio swallowed his drink in a gulp, wiping his lips with a folded paper napkin. “I got a daughter. Sandy,” he said, his voice calm, his body tense. “You may have seen her around the times you been in here. She waits on tables the nights I’m short help.”
“I talked to her once,” Pins said. “Seems like a nice lady.”
“She’s a good kid,” Nunzio said. “Her whole life, she never gave me any trouble. Married a good guy too. His name was Frank. Irish kid from a hardwoiking family. He worked two jobs and was going to classes over at Fordham at night. They were crazy in love with each other. Were gonna have a big family and be together forever.”
“But they aren’t,” Pins said.
“Lots of times forever ain’t that long a stretch,” Nunzio said. “In Sandy’s case it was only three years.”
Pins rested his hand on top of the older man’s. “You can stop there. I think I know the rest.”
“I don’t think you do,” Nunzio said. “They had a baby. A doll of a girl named Theresa. She was only three months old and she already had my heart.”
Pins grabbed for the bottle of Seagram’s next to Nunzio’s elbow and poured out two more drinks. He moved one glass closer to Nunzio.
“August 6, 1972.