Doppelgangster - Laura Resnick [146]
I folded my arms. “I wish . . .”
Well, mostly I wished he didn’t think I was crazy and possibly felonious. He’d gotten past my bizarre involvement in the disappearances that had started with Golly Gee. It was too much, I could see, to ask him to get past this, too.
He cleared his throat. “Keep my phone number. If you need anything. I mean, if you need help or—”
“As in, psychiatric help?”
“As in, my help.”
“Oh.”
“If you do, I want you to call me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Yo, Esther!” Tommy Two Toes said as he passed me. “Are you gonna be singing at Stella’s tonight?”
I shook my head and pointed to my bruised throat.
“Jesus! Well, don’t you worry! That’s stronzo’s gonna pay for what he done,” Tommy said cheerfully. Then he noticed Lopez and flinched.
Lopez gave him a bland stare.
After Tommy was gone, I said, “I get the impression Buonarotti may not be safe in prison.”
“Probably he should have picked a different profession,” Lopez said.
Inside the church, Max was talking with a child who, it turned out, was Don Victor’s youngest granddaughter. They were engaged, Max said, in a fascinating dialectical discussion of traditional Catholicism.
Lucky was kneeling before the statue of St. Monica, but I guess he wasn’t deeply absorbed in praying. When he noticed me nearby, handing Nelli over to Max, he said to me, “Well?”
I came over to join him. “He broke up with me.”
“The bum!”
“Maybe he’s right, Lucky. He doesn’t even know it, but he was cursed with death because of me.” My longing for Lopez was swamped by my horrified guilt over having nearly gotten him killed. “He probably would have been just another cop on the case if I hadn’t drawn Gabriel’s attention to him by talking about him and by my involvement with him.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No, Lucky. Lopez could be right about this. Maybe I’m bad for him.”
Without having realized I was on the verge of it, I started to cry. I turned my face away from the church pews where Max was deflecting the child’s energetic assertion of an omnipotent benevolent deity. I didn’t want him to see how upset I was, since he’d probably blame himself for this.
“Come on, kneel down,” Lucky said. “St. Monica comforts the afflicted, even if they ain’t Catholic.”
I knelt next to Lucky and tried not to think about Lopez’s sad blue eyes and dark face as he told me he wouldn’t see me anymore. I wiped my tears and sought a distraction as I stared at the berobed statue poised above the flickering candles.
Thinking of St. Monica’s most devoted parishioner, I said, “I didn’t see the Widow Giacalona at the funeral. When is she coming back?”
“She ain’t.” Lucky gave a heavy sigh. “She likes it out there in Seattle. Says she’s staying. She’s done with this life. She ain’t never coming back. And she don’t ever wanna speak to me again. Ever.”
“Oh, Lucky. I’m so sorry to hear that.” And after he had saved her life, too.
“Yeah. Well.” The old hit man shrugged. “Love. Whaddya gonna do?”
We gazed up at St. Monica together, two brokenhearted souls seeking comfort . . . And a single tear rolled down the plaster saint’s cheek.
“Lucky! Do you . . .”
“Yeah. I see it!” His gruff voice was filled with awe.
I watched the tear roll all the way down the saint’s face, and I continued staring in silent wonder, until the tender trickle of moisture had dried and evaporated.
“Your saint really does weep for the brokenhearted,” I said. “I thought it was just . . .” I shook my head. “You know.”
“Hey, kid, there’s miracles everywhere,” Lucky said. “You just gotta let your eyes be open to ’em.”
“Wow.” I was still brokenhearted about Lopez, but . . . “I feel a little better.”
“Me, too,” Lucky said. “Ain’t life something?”
My cell phone rang, startling me. “Sorry.” I pulled it out of my purse and glanced at the LCD panel. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Lucky asked in alarm.
“My mother!” How did she always do this? “How does she know I’m in a church, kneeling before a Catholic saint, and crying because my would-be boyfriend just dumped me? How does she always know?”