Doppelgangster Read online

  He pushed the spoon aside as he said, “Because filing a false report with the police is illegal.”

  “No one filed any false reports!” I put the spoon back in the carton.

  “And now Golly’s explanation—like yours, Esther—is vague, contradictory, and makes no sense.”

  “I haven’t given you an explanation!” I snapped.

  “That’s right. You really haven’t.” His expression said he was waiting for one now.

  Oops.

  I decided to change the subject. “Can we please focus on my crisis for a minute? I’m out of work!”

  He had the grace to look a little contrite. “Okay. Fair enough. Are you—”

  “Worried about bills? Yes! I’m also worried about paying rent! Worried about when I’ll get another acting job! And trying to find a way to earn a living until then.”

  He let go of my sticky hand and put his arm around me. “I’m really sorry this happened,” he said soothingly. “I know you were hoping the show would run a while, maybe even move to Broadway.”

  I leaned into his arm. I’m not prickly, I like being comforted. I admitted, “I guess I wasn’t being realistic. We never really got off the ground, and an expensive show needs to come out of the gate like gangbusters to succeed these days.” I sighed wearily. “But I did think we’d at least make it through summer. So now it’s May and I have no prospects for a summer job. I’ll have to find a way to make some money.”

  Lopez had spent enough time with me by now to know that actors differentiate between a real job, which means acting, and just earning money—which means waiting tables, office temping, and other between-job gigs that keep us from starving. In New York, an actor who is “resting” is usually working fifty hours per week somewhere to pay exorbitant rent on an apartment the size of a phone booth. I was lucky, at least, in that I could reduce my expenses by getting a roommate for the second bedroom in my rent-controlled apartment. Although what qualified as a “second bedroom” in Manhattan would scarcely have passed as a small walk-in closet in most other cities.

  However, I really liked my space and my privacy; and I also hoped Lopez might start coming over more often. So I’d rather work for a change in my fortunes than let someone move into my apartment. Especially since this city (brace yourself for a shock) is full of weirdos.

  “Look,” Lopez said, giving my shoulders a gentle squeeze, “why don’t you change—um, shower and change—and I’ll take you out for a nice dinner. Maybe it’ll cheer you up a little, and we can come up with some ideas for—”

  “I can’t,” I said apologetically. “I’ve spent the past two hours making phone calls, and now—”

  “I thought you spent two hours being depressed and forgetting I was coming over,” he said.

  “I did that, too. I’m a multitasker.” I shrugged. “I’m freaking out right now, but this kind of thing is a standard part of my profession. When you’re suddenly thrown out of work, you have to get on the phone right away to start looking for another job and figure out how to keep paying the bills. No delays, no moping. Even if you’re flat on your back and crawling into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s at the exact same time you’re making those calls.”

  “So you were on the phone looking for work today?” he said in surprise. “On Sunday?”

  “It’s a twenty-four-seven city. A cop ought to know that.”

  “Good point.” He took the spoon from me and helped himself to another bite of ice cream as he asked, “Any luck yet?”

  “I don’t know. I had to leave messages with everyone.”

  “So bring your cell phone to dinner,” he suggested, “and let’s go out.”

  It was a generous offer. I’d have been tempted to strangle a date who spent half the evening on the cell phone, but he was evidently willing to put up with it under special circumstances.

  I considered it briefly, but I thought of the effort it would take to shower, get dressed, and primp for a nice evening out with a well-dressed man, and I felt exhausted. Then my stomach churned again, reminding me that eating a lot of ice cream when you’re upset isn’t always such a good idea.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I just don’t feel up to it right now.”

  He looked disappointed but said, “Okay. I can understand that.”

  I felt terrible. A man who didn’t sulk under such circumstances was worth more than rubies. “I’ll make it up to you,” I promised. “But I’d be rotten company tonight. Now that I’ve made all my calls… now I just want to lie on my couch moping.”

  “So you’re saying sex is also off the menu tonight,” he guessed.

  I jumped a little, startled. It was the most direct he’d ever been about wanting to get me into bed.

  The blue of his eyes suddenly looked darker. “I had plans.”

  “And you dressed for the occasion,” I noted.

  His gaze dropped to my mouth. “I didn’t do that for you. I did that for the hostess at Raoul’s. I hear she’s hot.”

  “You were going to take me to Raoul’s?” It was a pricey restaurant in Soho with a reputation for good food and a romantic ambience. I felt even worse about canceling our date when I recalled, “Oh! You said you had something to celebrate tonight?”

  “Yeah.” He removed his arm from my shoulders. Leaning back against the cushions, he said, “But I see it’s not a good night for a celebration. So we’ll do it next time.”

  “Did you make reservations?”

  “I’ll cancel.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You didn’t know you’d lose your job today.”

  I rose to my feet. “I’ll get dressed. Er, shower and get dressed. And we’ll—”

  “Suddenly you’re feeling better?”

  “Well, no,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to spoil—”

  “Then let’s save it for a night when you’re in the mood.” He smiled and added, “For everything.”

  “I’m sorry. I feel terrible about this.”

  He waved aside my comment. “Forget it. Raoul’s is the wrong place to take a woman who isn’t hungry. If I’m going to pay that much for dinner, we have to eat every bite.”

  I smiled. “Spoken like a man on a cop’s salary.”

  The phone rang. I grabbed the receiver… but then I just stared at it without pressing the TALK button. I felt a sudden sense of looming dread.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Lopez asked.

  “I’m afraid it’s my mother,” I said.

  “She calls on Sundays?”

  “No, she calls whenever things are going badly.”

  As the phone continued ringing, he said, “Don’t you want to talk to her?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “She’s not one of the people you called today?” he asked.

  “Good God, no!”

  He blinked at my tone. “Then how does she know things are going badly?”

  “I’ve never figured that out,” I said. “She just has this uncanny sixth sense. Whenever things are at their lowest, she calls me. And within minutes, she manages to make me feel even worse.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s her gift.”

  “Maybe you should get a phone with caller ID.”

  “I can’t buy a new phone, I’m out of work.” I’m an actress, my budget is tight. My current phone would remain in use until it died. “I should never have given my home number to my mother!”

  I knew even from our short acquaintance that Lopez was much closer to his parents than I was to mine. However, since his mother pestered him often by phone, perhaps he sympathized with my problem.

  “Here, I’ll answer it,” he said. “If it’s your mom, I’ll tell her you’re in the shower.”

  “You can’t do that!” I clung to the cordless receiver when he reached for it. “I’ll have to explain what a strange man was doing in my apartment while I was showering!”

  “I’m not that
strange,” he said. “Besides, she must realize you date. I mean, if my mom realizes that I date, then surely—”

  “Dating and being naked in the next room are not synonymous in my family. Anyhow, then she’d fight with me about dating someone who’s not Jewish.”

  “How would she know I’m not Jewish on the phone?“

  There are things that Gentiles just don’t understand about Jewish mothers.

  Realizing that any caller who was not my mother would give up in another ring or two, I girded my loins and answered the ringing phone. “Hello?”

  “Esther! Esther Diamond! Sweetie! It’s Stella,” boomed a robust female voice in a strong Queens accent.

  “Oh, Stella,” I said with relief. “Thanks for returning my call so soon.”

  I met Lopez’s eyes and smiled. He took the ice cream carton from my lap and ate another spoonful.

  “Are you kidding?” Stella said. “I called back as soon as I got your message. Of course we can use you around here! A good voice, sturdy feet, and a strong back? There’s always a place for you at Stella’s, sweetie. You wanna start this week?”

  “I’ll be there tomorrow.” We made arrangements, and then I said, “Thanks, Stella.”

  “No problem, sweetie.”

  When I hung up, Lopez noted my relief and asked, “An audition? A job?”

  “Well, I won’t starve or lose the apartment. I got my old day job back. The one I had right before Sorcerer! Waiting tables. Though ‘day job’ isn’t quite accurate. I usually get off work around two o’clock in the morning at Stella’s.”

  “Stella’s?”

  “It’s a restaurant called Bella Stella in Little Italy.”

  He frowned. “On Mulberry Street.”

  “You know it?” That didn’t surprise me. It was a pretty famous place.

  “Of course I know it, Esther. There’ve been two mob hits there in the past five years, and Stella Butera launders money for the Gambello crime family.”

  Okay, so it was notorious as well as famous.

  Bella Stella was a Mafia hangout, particularly popular with the Gambellos. This notoriety, of course, also made it a hot tourist spot, as well as a stomping ground for certain celebrities. Stella perpetually claimed to be thirty-nine, which was probably a dozen years younger than her true age. The restaurant had been given to her long ago by Handsome Joey Gambello, who’d been her lover for more than twenty years—right up until the night he was assassinated in the restaurant’s bathroom five years ago.

  Lopez said, “Look, I know this is only our third date—sort of—but I don’t want you working there. It’s not safe.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “Nobody there is going to kill me. I’m just an actress. Er, waitress.”

  “When somebody sprays a sawed-off shotgun across the room, the bullets don’t go out of their way to avoid law-abiding citizens,” he pointed out.

  “No innocent bystander—or waitress—has ever been harmed at Stella’s.” I’m no fool, I had checked before the first time I started working there.

  “Not yet,” he said. “That would be bad for business, and if there’s one things wiseguys love, it’s making money. They’ve been careful at Stella’s so far. But sooner or later, it’ll happen. A waiter or tourist will get killed in the cross fire.”

  Since his expression implored me to take him seriously, I did. “I read up on those hits,” I said. “There was no spraying of shotguns.”

  “No,” he agreed, “Handsome Joey Gambello was whacked five years ago with a twenty-two caliber, two shots straight into the head. Very professional. Then two years ago, Frankie Mastiglione got shivved while gorging on pasta al forno, and no one realized he was dead until he fell facedown into his dinner after the hitter had already left.”

  So Lopez had evidently read up on the murders at Stella’s, too.

  “Cops know all sorts of interesting things,” I said.

  He continued, “But all it takes is one bullet, Esther. Or one hitter who thinks you may remember his face.”

  “I suppose so,” I admitted. “But, then, all it takes is one cab that runs a red light or one lunatic on the subway, right?” Or one sorcerer’s apprentice run amok.

  “Spending all your nights at Bella Stella raises the odds of dying young,” Lopez insisted. “The Gambellos have been at war on-and-off with the Corvino family for decades. Things are quiet between them these days, but it wouldn’t take much to trigger another war. And that could make Stella’s a dangerous place to work.”

  “How do you know so much about this?” Before he could answer, I said, “Never mind, I get it. You’re a cop, and they’re criminals. Of course you know.”

  “Actually—”

  “Look, as day jobs go, this is a good one for me. Wiseguys tip well. I make better money at Stella’s than anywhere else, and that’s important.”

  “And I want you to live long enough to spend whatever you make.”

  “Plus, since we’re all, you know, singing waiters—” This was a special feature of Stella’s; the waiters and waitresses performed on request. “—Stella treats us like actors. She makes it easy for me to get time off for an audition or a quick job, like one day of filming on a soap opera. Most restaurants make that sort of thing a real headache for me. I even got fired from two other places because of it.”

  “My point is—”

  “I understand your point,” I said. “I do. But working at Bella Stella is a good between-jobs gig for me. And I can start earning right away, too. So I’m not going to give it up.”

  “Esther…” Lopez let his breath out, sagged back against the couch cushions, and looked at the ceiling. “I just had to get interested in a starving actress.” He glanced at me and added, “One with no sense of self-preservation.”

  I protested, “I have plenty of—”

  “Still hanging out with Max?” he asked abruptly.

  Another awkward subject. “Sometimes.”

  Apart from enduring Golly Gee’s sour temper at work, I hadn’t encountered much Evil since we had eliminated Hieronymus, but I had become fond of Max. So I’d seen him a few times since then. Since Max was nearly 350 years old (though he didn’t look a day over 70), he was certainly not a rival for Lopez. But Lopez thought he was crazy and probably dangerous, and he didn’t like me having anything to do with him.

  “Well,” Lopez said after a long moment, “at least I can keep an eye on you at Stella’s.”

  I frowned. “You suddenly have time on your hands? Has the crime rate plummeted in the Sixth Precinct, or something?”

  He blinked. “Oh. I didn’t tell you, did I?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “That’s what I wanted to celebrate tonight. My transfer to OCCB finally came through.”

  “It did? Good!” I knew he’d been waiting for it for a while. “But… I can’t remember what OCCB means,” I admitted.

  “Organized Crime Control Bureau.”

  “Oh. I guess that’s how you know so much about Bella Stella and the Gambellos. Organized crime. You’ve been studying up for your new post.”

  “What happens at Stella’s is pretty common knowledge. But, yeah, I take an interest.” He eyed me. “Anyhow, since I’ll be keeping an eye on the Gambellos, I should be able to keep an eye on you while you’re working at Stella’s.”

  “I don’t need anyone to keep an eye on me.” But I smiled at him. I kind of liked that he felt protective of me. I wasn’t used to that, and it made the Big Apple seem a little cozier.

  “All the same…” He smiled at me, too.

  “As soon as I get a night off, maybe we could take another shot at going out and celebrating?” I suggested.

  “Not for a couple of weeks,” he said with regret. “Tomorrow I’ve got to go out to Long Island for two weeks of training. I’ll be working long hours, so I’m going to stay with a cousin out there. And I’m going to Nyack next weekend.”

  “You do lead a life of glamour.” Nyack was a suburb ac
ross the Hudson. Lopez had grown up there.

  “It’s my dad’s birthday,” he said. “I thought about asking you to come with me…”

  “I’m nowhere near ready to meet your parents,” I said firmly.

  “Yeah, I thought that’s what you’d say.”

  “So you were planning to wine and dine me tonight, get me into bed, and then abandon me for two weeks?”

  “That was the plan,” he admitted.

  “I’m pretty sure that makes you a cad,” I told him.

  He grinned. “I’m coming back. I just wanted to mark my territory before I go.”

  “Mark your territory?”

  “A woman who could forget I was coming over tonight might forget me completely in two weeks,” he said innocently. “Unless I make a strong enough impression.”

  “You’re pretty confident about the effect of marking your territory,” I noted.

  “I just don’t want some other guy stepping in while I’m off training to be a more effective officer of the peace.”

  “I’m going to be on my feet ten hours a day at Stella’s while you’re gone,” I pointed out. “The only man likely to get my attention is a foot masseur.”

  “I give a pretty good foot massage,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  He lowered his lashes and nudged my foot with his. “We can start with that when I get back… and see where it leads.”

  Heat crept through me as I looked at him and felt the gentle pressure of his foot against mine. Securing an income a few minutes ago had revived me a little. I was just about to reconsider the possibility of taking a shower when the phone rang again.

  Feeling optimistic now, I said, “That could be my agent.”

  I answered the phone. Then I realized my mistake.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said morosely.

  That sense of looming dread I’d felt when Stella called had been accurate, just a little ahead of schedule.

  “Oh, I’m okay,” I lied in response to my mother’s opening question.

  Lopez rose to his feet and made leaving motions.

  “Just a second, Mom.” I rose to my feet, too, put my hand over the receiver, and said to Lopez, “Two weeks?”

  He nodded. “Foot massage.”