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There was no help in sight at the moment. Lucky Battistuzzi hadn’t arrived for dinner yet, and the other two tables in this section of the restaurant were too noisy and boisterous to pay any attention to me and Charlie. We were in a quiet alcove, but I nonetheless hoped another staff member would notice my problem before I had to make a scene and possibly push Charlie over the brink into a heart attack—or a violent psychotic episode. Meanwhile, I kept trying to loosen his grip on me.

“Death? Oh, ‘la morte’—okay, now I get it,” I said. “Charlie, you’re hurting—”

“Okay? It’s not okay, you stupid broad! Don’t you get it? I’m a dead man!”

“You will be if we don’t get you to a hospital,” I agreed.

“A hospital can’t change what’s going to happen to me!”

I had a sudden bright idea. “But you said maybe a priest could? St. Monica’s is just around the corner. Why don’t we go see the priest there, Charlie?”

“You mean Father Gabriel?” he asked with a frown.

I had no idea who I meant, but since the suggestion had created a pause in Charlie’s ranting about death and a double, I said, “Yes. Father Gabriel. Let’s talk to him. Maybe he can help you.”

“You think there’s an exorcism for un doppio?”

“A dope?” I asked in confusion.

“A double. Don’t they teach your people nothin’?” He suddenly let go of me and made an exasperated gesture. I staggered backward and rubbed my left forearm as Charlie said, “Ain’t Jews got this, too? From the old country? Wherever that was for you guys.”

“Got what?” I asked.

“You see your perfect double, a thing that looks and walks and talks and dresses exactly like you . . . And it means you’re gonna die by nightfall.”

I stared at him, surprised and perplexed. “You’re telling me you’ve seen—”

“Ain’t that what I been saying?” A look of dark fear contorted his fat features. “I seen my perfect double today. I been cursed. I’m marked for death.”

“Charlie, you saw someone who looks like you,” I said. “Or maybe you’re having some heart trouble. That’s why I think we should go to the hospital—”

“No!”

“—or to St. Monica’s,” I said quickly. “To see Father Gabriel. We’ll go right now.” And while the priest was talking to the gangster, I’d call 911. “We’ll tell Father Gabriel what you’ve seen, and we’ll ask him what it means.”

“I know what it means.” Charlie shook his head and added with a haunted expression, “I just don’t know who sent it.”

I heard the tinkling of breaking glass, a sharp whistling sound, and a soft thud. I looked around for a second, wondering what it was. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I said, “So do you want to go now?” No answer. He just sat there with a stunned expression on his face. “Charlie?” Still no answer. “Charlie?”

That was when I saw the huge red stain blossoming on his chest.

“Charlie!” I screamed.

Without even blinking, he slid out of his chair, fell to the floor, and lay there dead.

3

It was a confusing crime scene, because all the wise guys who’d been at Bella Stella when Chubby Charlie got shot had immediately fled, while others arrived for dinner afterward—and decided to hang around on the street to annoy the cops.

I was sitting in a corner of the restaurant, dizzy with shock. Stella Butera, a voluptuous woman, sat next to me, holding my hand and occasionally patting my back.

Stella’s hair, an improbable shade of gold, was teased and curled into a dramatic fall of riotous waves. She wore heavy mascara, her pink fingernails were very long, and her clothes were usually tight and always shiny. Ever since her lover, Handsome Joey Gambello, had gotten killed here five years ago, she’d had plenty of offers for nocturnal companionship, but she’d reputedly remained faithful to his memory. (In fact, she was having a quiet affair with her accountant, but the public pretense of untouchable celibacy suited her complicated relationship with the volatile Gambellos, several of whom perpetually competed to take over Joey’s side of her bed.)

“I can’t