Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [132]
“What about?”
“I prefer to speak directly to her.”
“I would need to know why.”
Giovanna noticed the sorrow around the woman’s eyes and decided to speak frankly.
“It’s a private matter. But I believe the tragedy in the signora’s life can help me avoid a similar fate.”
The woman wordlessly retreated to a back room. The door opened, a young woman exited, and the stooped woman from behind the counter beckoned to Giovanna. “Follow me,” she instructed.
Giovanna found herself in a storeroom lined with dress racks, and she was invited to take a seat at a small desk. The woman seated herself and moved a dress form out of the way. “I am Signora Palermo.”
“Yes, I thought so. Thank you for speaking with me.”
“I am not speaking with you yet, signora.”
“No, but I hope you will. No one knows what I am going to tell you, but you will have no reason to talk to me unless you hear the truth, and even then, I can only appeal to your sympathy.”
It was obvious even to a stranger that this burst of emotional honesty was out of character for this woman, who the signora realized was pregnant. Glancing at Giovanna’s feet, the woman slid a crate beneath them. “Talk, signora.”
“My daughter has been kidnapped.”
The woman’s eyes closed momentarily, and she inhaled deeply. “Do the police know?”
“No!” Giovanna reacted like the woman had made a suggestion, and she only relaxed when Signora Palermo replied, “Thank God.”
“I do not understand why you are coming to me. My Mario is gone. We could not get him back.” Tears welled in her eyes even before she said her dead son’s name, and in seconds she was trying to stifle deep sobs. Giovanna reached for the woman’s hand. Seeing Signora Palermo’s grief triggered the emotion that Giovanna was suppressing, and the strangers ended up crying in each other’s arms.
It was a long time before Giovanna said anything. But eventually she asked, “Signora, do you know who kidnapped your son?” Seeing the fear on the woman’s face, Giovanna added, “I swear on my daughter’s head, no one will know, no one, what you tell me.”
“Why do you want to know then?”
“Because, signora, the only hope I have of finding my daughter is to know their crimes. I must make her safe return more valuable than ransom.”
Signora Palermo stared a long time at Giovanna and then began. “Even my husband does not know my suspicions, because if he did he would try to kill them himself, and I would lose a son and a husband.”
“I understand, signora. Please, I promise you. No one will know we’ve spoken, not even your husband.”
“There was a man. He kept coming and asking for money. My husband was proud and sent him away, week after week. Then a different man started coming—a large brute. I think I heard another man call him ‘The Bull’ once. This man, too, even though he was frightening, was sent away by my husband. The next time he came he was with a tall, thin man with a droopy eye. I saw the cafone look at my Mario, and I pleaded with my husband to pay, but he refused. Two days after their visit, Mario was gone.”
The signora was crying so hard she fought to catch her breath. Knowing it was the same kidnappers, and that they were truly capable of killing, paralyzed Giovanna.
“They sent us letters and asked for a lot of money. We didn’t have that much money. We were supposed to look for a man with a red handkerchief, but we didn’t go because we had only a few dollars. Instead, my husband went to the police; it was all we could do, signora! Two days later they found my Mario’s body.”
Giovanna, consumed by fear, held and rocked the woman, wiping her face with her sleeve. “Did you ever see these men again?”
“No, but another man came to the funeral. He told my husband if we spoke to the police again he would kill us.” Stopping and looking at Giovanna, she wailed, “Signora, Mario was my only son! So I decided to tell the police about the man who defiled my son’s wake. We spoke with the dead policeman, you know, the famous one, and he said only a wolf with no fear would come to my boy’s funeral.”
The trip home