Doppelgangster - Laura Resnick [21]
“You don’t do ‘good cop’ well,” I said. “It just doesn’t work for you.”
He scowled. “Are you afraid of the killer, then?”
“Generally? Of course! Because the killer is, you know, a killer. But specifically? No. Because the killer must know I didn’t see him. I mean, if he thought I did, wouldn’t he have shot me, too?”
Napoli changed the line of attack again. “Maybe you’re trying to avoid trouble with the Gambellos? Maybe you knew they wanted Charlie dead, and you’re afraid to talk about it.”
I frowned. “Did the Gambellos want him dead? I thought he was a good earner.”
“So you do hear them talk business!”
“No. Charlie told every waitress in the place that he was a good earner. He also told us he was good in bed.”
“Or maybe you wanted him dead,” Napoli suggested.
“No, he tipped me well.” After a moment, I said, “That came out wrong.”
Coplike, he changed the subject without warning. “Did Charlie ever talk about the Corvino family?”
“Not to me.”
“To who, then?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I’d be passing his table and I’d hear him say something like, ‘Those fucking Corvinos. ’ I don’t remember anything more specific than that.”
“Does anyone else at the restaurant ever mention the Corvinos?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Almost everyone.”
“What do they say?”
“About five times a night, they say, ‘Those fucking Corvinos.’ ” I had not observed much originality of expression among the wiseguys at Stella’s.
“Did anyone mention the Corvinos after Charlie got shot?”
“Not that I remember. Mostly, I screamed a lot, then there was a stampede of departing wiseguys and screaming tourists, then Stella screamed a lot, then cops showed up . . . I don’t remember much conversation, and certainly nothing about who might have killed Charlie.”
“So you think they already knew who did it?”
“ ‘They,’ who? There was me, Stella, three freaked-out waiters, our accordion-playing bartender, and a couple of tourists from Colorado who didn’t see a thing but thought they should wait for the police, even so. No one else stayed inside the restaurant with the corpse before the cops arrived.”
“You know more than you’re saying.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“That I don’t like your shirt. Tan isn’t your color.”
“By lying to me about what you saw,” Napoli said, “you put yourself in more danger, Esther, not less.”
“What’s the matter with you? This is the third gang-land murder at Bella Stella in five years! Why is it so hard for you to believe I’m just a law-abiding waitress who was unlucky enough to see the latest killing while working there?”
“Because your story doesn’t fit the evidence,” Napoli said.
“That does it.” I rose to my feet. “I’m going home.”
“I advise against that, Miss Diamond.” He rose, too. “You’re a material witness in a mob hit. You’re in danger now. I want to take you into protective—”
“No.”
Everyone on Mulberry Street must know by now that I had insisted over and over to Lopez and Napoli—as well as to Lucky—that I hadn’t seen a thing. And whoever the killer was, he must know, too, that I hadn’t seen him. So I didn’t believe I was in danger of being permanently silenced if I went about my normal life. But I did believe my normal life would get screwed up beyond recognition if I went into protective custody. For one thing, the killer might wonder if he was wrong and I had seen something, and that was precisely what I didn’t want him to start thinking.
More to the point, how was I going to go to auditions while in protective custody? Or earn money to keep paying my rent? And how long would protective custody last? A week? A month? Six months? Until the city ran out of money for guarding me? The rest of my life?
None of those prospects sounded good to me.
“I have nothing to do with whatever business got Charlie killed, and I saw nothing,” I said to Napoli. “So the last thing I want is to be treated as if I am involved or run my life as if I did see something.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Napoli said.