The Misfortune Cookie ed-6 Read online

  “As soon as the ball drops,” I promised Freddie over my shoulder. Midnight was only minutes away, and Stella had turned on the TV so we could watch the annual countdown ritual in Times Square, about fifty blocks north of here.

  “A duet!” shouted Tommy Two Toes. “Esther and Ed should do a duet!”

  “Ned,” said Ned. “My name is Ned.”

  “Whatever. We want you should do a duet with Esther.”

  “As soon as the ball drops,” I repeated.

  Brushing past me on his way to the bar, Ned muttered, “Anything but Mack the Knife again.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I swear, I hear that song in my sleep ever since I started working here.”

  “I’m glad you weren’t as serious with Lopez as I thought,” Lucky said to me, still riffing on his theme. “Because it really burns me up that he ain’t helping us at all.”

  “That bum!” said Jimmy Legs.

  “Well, he is an OCCB detective,” I pointed out, though I had no interest in defending Lopez. “Helping the Gambello family isn’t anywhere in his job description. Just the opposite, in fact.”

  “But he knows we wasn’t involved in the Fenster hijackings!” Lucky said in outrage. “He knows that better than anybody, since he’s the one who arrested the real culprits. And now who’s suffering for the crimes committed by a couple of rotten kids with too much time on their hands? We are. How is that fair? But is your boyfriend standing up for us? No!”

  “He ain’t her boyfriend,” said Jimmy Legs.

  “Good riddance,” said Ronnie, clinking his glass again with Jimmy’s.

  After several heavily loaded Fenster trucks were hijacked during the Christmas shopping season, the NYPD came under heavy pressure from the media to solve the crimes. Consequently, OCCB came under heavy pressure from the Police Commissioner, because the Gambello crime family, who had a history of hijacking Fenster trucks, were the obvious suspects. But, actually, the heists were the brainchild of a vengeful Santa and a demented Fenster who used mystical means to recruit unwitting accomplices for the robberies. (According to news accounts this week, the NYPD vaguely attributed the couple’s control of their unwilling accomplices to drugs and “psychological conditioning.” None of the dupes could remember anything about those events, there was no evidence against them, and the two villains who had manipulated them were pleading guilty. So it looked like the case file was closing quickly on that one.)

  Nonetheless, the initial erroneous assumption that the Gambellos were involved in the heists meant that OCCB—which “had to show juice,” as Lucky had put it, due to all the media scrutiny—brought a whole new meaning to the phrase “thorough investigation,” digging deep into the Gambellos’ lives in their search for evidence. And this was still proving to be extremely uncomfortable for the Gambellos, though they were cleared in the Fenster hijackings when the arrests were made a week ago.

  That was the same night Lopez came to my apartment and had his way with me, then left a few hours later for his shift on Christmas morning. And never looked back.

  That bum.

  “Here we go!” Tommy Two Toes shouted, startling me.

  Stella Butera, wearing tight leopard-print clothing covered in sequins, appeared next to me and bellowed, “Ten! Nine! Eight!”

  I blinked and realized the old year was ending. The big ball was descending in Times Square. The crowd on the TV screen, like the crowd inside Bella Stella, was counting down to a fresh start. A new beginning. A chance to get it right this time.

  I joined in. “Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!”

  Everyone in the restaurant started cheering and embracing. Stella gave me a bone-crushing hug, then allowed Jimmy Legs to kiss her. I gave Lucky a hug and kissed his weathered cheek. Ralph the bus boy tried to hug me and somehow wound up nearly poking my eye out. In a way, this was a relief, since it gave me a convenient excuse to let a few tears trickle out of my eyes. I was feeling emotional now.

  That year is over, the year when I met Lopez. It’s done. I swear I’m going to move on. He’s in the past now.

  I stumbled toward the bar with one hand pressed gingerly over my eye while a mortified Ralph apologized to my retreating back. Amidst all the cheering and hugging, the accordionist began playing Auld Lang Syne. Everyone in the restaurant started singing. Everyone but me; I was elbowing my way through the crowd so I could get some ice from the bartender for my throbbing eye.

  I leaned quietly against a wall for a few minutes, trying to keep out of the way as I soothed my eye with a couple of ice cubes wrapped in a linen napkin.

  I’d met Lopez in the spring, and for the rest of the year, I’d had a lot of highs and lows because of him. The highs, though few and far between, kept making up for the lows . . . Until this past week. Now that I was out of the apartment and working again, now that it was a new year, a fresh start, time to shake off old troubles and bad habits . . . I realized just how low I had been in recent days because of him, and I was determined not to go back there. So I made my New Year’s resolution while huddled in the corner of a crowded mob hangout with a cold, wet napkin pressed to my teary eye.

  From this moment on, I vowed to myself, I am getting over him. From this moment on, I’m only going forward and upward.

  Feeling better, I dropped my melting ice cubes into the sink behind the bar, dropped my damp napkin into the laundry, and checked in with the kitchen, where I was expecting an order to be ready for a couple of late diners.

  “Table seventeen?” said the cook. “Yeah, we just sent that out a second ago, Esther. That kid Ralph took it for you. He felt real bad about blinding you, or something?”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said, grabbing some parmesan and heading for my table to make sure they had everything they needed.

  Since Ralph was loaded down with plates of food and I wasn’t, I nearly caught up to him. A few more steps, and I could have prevented what happened next. As it was, though, I was only close enough to shout a warning when Ralph stumbled, his hand tilted, and a big serving of lasagna flew straight at Lucky’s head. Thanks to the reflexes that had probably saved his life on several occasions, Lucky sprang out of his chair when he heard me shout and saw the pasta flying straight at his face. But he wasn’t quite quick enough to escape contact, and it hit him squarely in the chest. A huge mound of gooey cheese and steaming tomato sauce clung to him lovingly for a moment, as if temporarily immune to the laws of gravity, then tumbled to the floor with a messy splatter that flecked his shoes and trousers with glistening red spots of savory sauce.

  After a collective gasp, the whole restaurant fell silent, staring in awkward anticipation at the notorious old mobster who was now a sullied mess. Ralph looked white as a sheet, and I feared he might faint from sheer terror as Lucky scowled at him.

  “You know,” Lucky said slowly, “I never whacked anyone for personal reasons. Not even once.” He looked down at his ruined shirt, then back at Ralph. “But I could make an exception.”

  Ronnie and Jimmy guffawed. Ralph started hyperventilating. Stella grabbed the bus boy’s arm and dragged him away before he could pass out or vomit, either of which seemed possible. I snatched up the discarded linen napkins lying on Lucky’s table and started dabbing at the mess on his chest. Our accordionist began playing again, and the rest of the customers went back to their revels.

  “That’s not gonna do any good,” Lucky said to me as I blotted and smeared. “What a mess.”

  “Come on,” I said briskly, taking his arm. “We need a sink.”

  “That kid needs to find another line of work,” Lucky grumbled as I led him through the restaurant. “Something where he ain’t endangering life and limb. And lasagna.”

  “He’s going back to school in a couple of days,” I said soothingly.

  “Christ, I hope he ain’t studying surgery or something like that.”

  When we got to the door of the ladies room, which was my destination, Lucky balked. “I can’t go in there!”r />
  “All right.” I pulled him across the narrow hall at the back of the restaurant and pushed open the other door. “Men’s room, then.”

  “Hey!” A man inside exclaimed when he saw me entering.

  “Oops.”

  “Sorry!” Lucky dragged me back out of the room. “She’s sorry.”

  Realizing the man was standing at the urinal with his fly unzipped, I closed my eyes until after Lucky had shut the door.

  “You can’t go in there.” The old hit man was scandalized. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Very distracted tonight.”

  For God’s sake, get him out of your head, would you? It’s a brand new year. Move on, already.

  “Give me those.” Lucky said in exasperation as he snatched the napkins out of my hand. “I can deal with this myself. You go . . . do things.”

  “Maybe you should take off your shirt and soak it for a few minutes,” I said.

  “Oh, and then what am I gonna wear?”

  “I’ll check the staff room and see if we’ve got any extra—”

  “Never mind. I’ll figure out something. You just move along,” Lucky said to me. “That guy you interrupted in the john won’t want to see you standing here when he comes through this door.”

  True enough. I nodded and went back out into the restaurant, leaving Lucky to try to clean about a pint of Bella Stella’s special sauce off his clothes.

  As I passed Lucky’s table, Jimmy asked me, “Has Lucky killed the kid?”

  “No, but I think he’ll be in the bathroom for a while,” I replied.

  “We should have a name for that dish,” said Ronnie. “How about Lucky Lasagna?”

  “With extra sauce!” Jimmy added.

  While they enjoyed their laugh, Freddie the Hermit insisted it was time for the duet that Ned and I had promised.

  “All right,” I said as Ned finished wiping a table and nodded his agreement.

  “Mack the Knife!” Tommy Two Toes shouted.

  “Yeah, give us Mackie again!” Ronnie said.

  “That does it,” Ned said to me, losing all will to live. “I’m going to go drown myself in the kitchen sink.”

  “Wait, wait.” I grabbed his arm as he turned to go. “I’m not taking requests for this one, fellas. It’s dealer’s choice.”

  “Fair enough,” said Freddie. “Let the lady decide!”

  The accordionist asked me, “What’ll it be, Esther?”

  I thought of my New Year’s resolution. “From This Moment On.”

  “I’m not sure I remember all the words,” Ned warned me.

  “Just follow me,” I said with determination.

  He did, and although we’d never worked together before, we performed well as a duo. So well that the customers demanded another song and we promptly complied. The crowd was jubilant, the joint was jumping, and by the time we were on our third song, The Best Is Yet To Come (in keeping with my personal New Year’s theme), the two of us were literally dancing on tabletops.

  Ned leapt from Tommy’s table to Freddie’s while singing about what a ripe plum he had plucked from the tree of life.

  Ronnie and Jimmy were swaying and singing along as I danced atop their table. Giving Ned a flirtatious look, I raised the hem of my black skirt to show him a modest flash of stocking-clad thigh as I sang that he ain’t seen nothin’ yet. This went over well, and our audience gave a boisterous cheer as I inched my hem a little higher and kept singing, smiling at Ned.

  At that exact moment, Detective Connor Lopez entered the restaurant, wearing a dark blue vest with “NYPD” printed on it and his badge prominently displayed as he shouted, “Police! Nobody move!”

  2

  Yin-yang

  Complementary yet contradictory forces, often represented as female and male.

  More than a dozen cops barreled into the restaurant right behind Lopez, all of them wearing NYPD vests or jackets, all of them armed and shouting.

  One of them was saying into a megaphone, “NYPD! Stay seated! This is the police! Do not move! Stay where you are!”

  Holy shit.

  “It’s a raid!” Ronnie screamed as he leapt to his feet. “Police raid! Run! Run!”

  “Are you nuts?” Jimmy stayed seated and tried to tug Ronnie back down into his chair.

  Frightened diners were already screaming. Some jumped out of their seats and were strongly (and loudly) encouraged to sit right back down. Other people were sliding out of their chairs to hide under their tables. The accordion squealed atonally as the staggering musician got squeezed between the panicking people and the cops who were ordering them to stay calm.

  A confused customer bumped hard against the table Ned was still standing on. The actor lost his balance as the table rocked; he flailed briefly, then flew headfirst into a pair of cops. The impact carried all three of them to the floor, shouting and groaning, while startled diners around them shrieked in alarm.

  “What the hell . . . ?” I glanced around frantically, unable to form a coherent thought. My heart was pounding, my breath coming in little pants. I looked at Lopez, who was standing in front of my table, staring up at me in apparent shock, his jaw hanging open, his eyes wide with horror.

  Not exactly the expression a woman hopes to see on a man’s face the first time they meet again after spending a passionate night together.

  “It’s a raid!” Ronnie screamed while being strong-armed by the police and Jimmy Legs. “Save yourself!”

  “Will you calm down?” Jimmy shouted at his colleague. “They’ll put a bullet in you if you keep this up!”

  “He’s right!” confirmed a grimacing, redheaded cop who was trying to subdue the panicking mobster. “You’re tempting me, Ronnie!”

  “You can’t shoot him!” Jimmy turned on the cop in outrage. “I want my lawyer!”

  “Viva la revolución!” someone in the kitchen screamed. “Viva la libertad!”

  Everyone paused for a moment to look in that direction.

  Then Ralph dropped a whole tub of dishes. It fell to the floor with an earsplitting crash of shattering ceramic and glassware, and everyone started screaming again.

  “Sorry!” Ralph wailed. “Sorry about that!”

  Still on top of my table, I gaped down at Lopez. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

  He blinked, as if surprised to hear me speak. Then he frowned thunderously. “What are you doing?”

  “Working!”

  “No, what are you doing here?” He was scowling up at me as if my very existence offended him.

  “Working!” I repeated, staring down at him while people all around us continued screeching, shouting, and bounding around the restaurant in agitation.

  Stella was bellowing, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I got rights! I’ll sue! Get out of my restaurant!”

  I looked away from Lopez long enough to see a couple of cops shove Stella up against the wall next to Ronnie, Jimmy, Tommy Two Toes, and Freddie the Hermit. They were all being frisked, along with four or five other Gambello wiseguys. A policewoman started searching Stella, who continued shouting threats and questions despite being ordered to pipe down.

  Lopez said something to me.

  “What?” I looked down at him again, unable to hear him above the roar of the crowd.

  “You’re not supposed to be here!” he shouted, as if accusing me of breaking a promise.

  And then it hit me.

  You bastard! You slept with me and then didn’t call!

  “You weren’t supposed to start working until next week!” he shouted up at me.

  “Hey, Lopez, some help over here?” hollered the redheaded cop who was handling Ronnie and Jimmy.

  He ignored that and continued shouting at me, “You told me you weren’t getting any shifts here until after the holidays!”

  Lopez’s rich blue eyes, fringed with thick dark lashes, were bloodshot and shadowed by dark circles. His straight, shiny black hair was r
umpled. His strong face, exotically good-looking, appeared drawn and tired, and his golden-dark skin looked a little sallow tonight—at least in this light. The vest he was wearing added some bulk (I vaguely realized it was one of those bulletproof things), but under it, he had a slim, lithe, athletic build. And now that he was here in the flesh, the last person I had expected to see tonight, looking almost edibly gorgeous despite his apparent fatigue and furious scowl . . .

  I wanted to kill him.

  I wanted it so much, my hands bunched into tight fists, clutching the fabric of my skirt, and my shoulders started creeping upward in vengeful wrath as my chest swelled with righteous indignation.

  “You can lower your skirt any time now, Esther,” he added irritably. “I think the wiseguys are getting enough excitement for one night.”

  “What?” I looked down and realized that I was still holding my skirt hiked up to display a flash of thigh. In fact, in my agitation, I had tugged my hem up almost to my panty line and was displaying a lot more than I’d realized. “Oh!”

  I dropped my skirt and smoothed it over my legs.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Lopez demanded. “Lifting your skirt for these guys!”

  “Don’t talk to me like that!” I snapped.

  Jimmy Legs roared, “I want my phone call! I want my lawyer!”

  “I will sue you bums into the next century!” Stella bellowed.

  “Everyone calm down!” the megaphone cop ordered the agitated diners. “You’ll all be able to leave as soon as an officer collects your information.”

  “But I don’t have information!” a sweating man wailed. “I don’t have any information!”

  “As soon as an offer gets your personal details,” the cop amended.

  “You’re not getting my details!” Freddie the Hermit’s date insisted, now clustered with the regular diners.

  The cop said doggedly, “Please wait quietly in your seats until—”

  “This is still a free country, buddy!” someone cried. “You can’t hold us prisoner here!”

  “No one here is a prisoner,” said the cop, clearly growing exasperated.