Lady Killer

“Fiberglass.”

“Excuse me.”

Mary smiled. “It’s the simple things.”

Anthony laughed. “So where we going?”

Mary told Anthony the address and relaxed into the neat little car. She could see in the dim light that he had a handsome profile, with thick, dark hair, big brown eyes, and a slim, straight nose. His cologne was on the strong side, but it only reminded Mary of her old friend Brent Polk, who was also gay. Brent had passed years ago, and she still missed him. She felt instantly comfy with Anthony because of Brent, like a gay associative principle.

Anthony said, “My mother wants to hook you up with Dom. She loves you, and she smells grandchildren. Fee-fi-fo-fum.”

Mary moaned. “Uh-oh.”

“It’s a love match. You can keep him out of jail, free.”

Mary smiled. “So what do you do for a living?”

“I’m on sabbatical from St. John’s to write a book. Nonfiction. I published one modest volume on the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti.”

“Interesting.”

“Happily, the critics thought so, and both of my readers agreed. Now I’m working on another, about Carlo Tresca.”

“Who’s he?”

“He was an anarchist, a contemporary of Emma Goldman, who was shot and killed in New York in 1943. His murder was never solved.” Anthony steered the car around the corner, negotiating double-parkers with a native’s skill, and they picked up speed past the rowhouses, lighted front windows, and people walking mutts. “They think it was the Mob who did it, or somebody against the unions he was trying to organize.”

“Whoa.” Mary considered it. “So these are Italian-American subjects.”

“Exactly. I teach Italian-American studies.”

“My life is Italian-American studies.”

Anthony laughed.

“So what do you do about Carlo Tresca? Research the case?”

“Research it and educate people. Right now I’m trying to subpoena the rest of his FBI file, under the Freedom of Information Act. The forms are a real pain.”

“You don’t need a subpoena, just a request.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I can help you with that,” Mary said before she realized she didn’t have the time to help anybody with anything.

“Would you mind if I called you, to pick your brain?”

“Not at all.” Mary dug in her purse for her wallet, extracted a business card, and stuck it on the console as they stopped at a red light.

“Thanks.” Anthony smiled warmly, and Mary felt a pang of sadness for Brent, then for Dhiren and Trish, and for everything that had gone so very wrong.

“It’s good to go home,” she blurted out, her chest suddenly tight.

“It’s always good to go home,” Anthony agreed.

“How nice you come viz’!” Vita DiNunzio cried, meeting Mary in the living room, throwing her soft arms around her, and enveloping her in a hug redolent of old-fashioned Aqua Net and fresh basil.

“Honey!” her father boomed, wrapping her in his embrace, completing the one-two punch of the DiNunzio love attack.

“Hey, Pop, long time, no see,” Mary said, and they laughed, them at her joke, and she at the joyful realization that she could come home whenever she wanted, get loved up, and forget about bad things, at least temporarily. She wanted to drown her sorrows in tomato sauce, having long ago realized she was an emotional eater. After all, what other reason was there to eat?

Her father kept his heavy arm around her, her mother took her other hand, and together they half-led and half-carried her like a parental sedan chair to the kitchen, The Place Where Time Stopped. The small room was bright, ringed with white wood cabinets and white Formica counters, unchanged since Mary’s girlhood. A church calendar on the wall depicted an old-school Jesus against a cerulean background, his eyes so far heavenward the whites showed, and next to him were photos of Pope John, JFK, and Frank Sinatra, attached with yellowed Scotch tape. Wedged behind the switchplate was a brittle spray of palm and Mass cards, the fancy ones laminated. The collection had grown since last month, but Mary didn’t want to think about that.

“So, how are you guys?” she asked, sitting down. On the table were a few old screwdrivers, one with a yellow plastic handle that she would always remember as one of her father’s tools. “You fixing things, Pop?”

“Your mother’s put me to work.” Her father pulled up his chair opposite her, easing heavily into the seat and placing a hand flat on the table.

From the stove, her mother answered, “For…macchina da cucire.”

“Your sewing machine?” Mary translated. Her mother, an Italian immigrant, had spent her working life sewing lampshades in the basement of this house, having almost gone blind with the effort. Mary didn’t get it. “You sewing again, Ma?”

“Si. Your father, he fix alla for me. Alla work good now.” Her mother’s face lit up, and her small brown eyes flared behind thick glasses whose stems disappeared into teased white hair, like an airplane into clouds.

“Your mother’s got a business idea,” her father said, with a soft smile. “Tell her, Veet.”

“È vero, Maria,” her mother answered, her flowered back turned as she twisted on the gas under their dented perk coffeepot, then went into the refrigerator, fetched a pot of tomato sauce, and set it on the stove near the dish rack. Her parents didn’t own a coffeemaker or a dishwasher; her mother was the coffeemaker and her father the dishwasher. The DiNunzios were like the Amish, only with brighter clothes.

“What’s the idea, Ma?” Mary asked, mystified.

“Aspett’, Maria, aspett’.” Her mother turned the knob to fire up the gravy pot, then scurried from the kitchen and disappeared into the darkened dining room.

Mary turned to her father. “She’s starting a business, Pop? She doesn’t have to work, does she?” She offered them money all the time, but they consistently turned her down, their finances a state secret.

“Nah, she wants to work, and the babysitting took too much outta her.” Her father shrugged happily. “What’s the harm?”

“Okay, but let me get her a new machine. She can’t use that old one from the cellar.”

“The Singer with the pedal? Runs like a top.”

“Pop, please.” Mary moaned. “We have electricity now.”

“She loves that machine.”

Mary gave up. Usually, you couldn’t fight progress, but progress never met Vita and Mariano DiNunzio. “Okay, you win. Tell me, how’s Angie? You hear anything?”

“She’s still in Tunisia. Says she’s fine.”

“When’s she coming home?” Mary asked, suddenly missing her sister, a stab of longing like a phantom pain.

“She’ll be back in three months, the letter said. I’ll show you later, it’s upstairs.” Her father leaned over, his elbows on the table. “Hey, what did Bernice say? She go

Oops. “I forgot. I’m sorry. I’ll call tomorrow.”

“It’s okay, Mare. Don’t worry.”

It got Mary thinking. “Pop, you hear anything about Trish Gambone lately?”

“From high school? She was one o’ the fast ones, right?”

“Yes.” Mary hadn’t heard the term in years. “She was in my office today. She’s living with a guy in the Mob.”

“That, I heard from Jimmy Pete. He said the wiseguy is that kid you used to teach. Remember him?”

Boy, do I. “Yes, it is him.”

Her father clucked. “I thought he was a nice kid, but you never know.”

“No, you never do.” Mary didn’t want to dwell on it, not here. The coffeepot started to boil but her father didn’t hear it, despite the hearing aid curled behind his ear like a plastic comma. She rose to get the coffee and turned off the gas under the pot before it percolated into its eleventh hour, then retrieved three mismatched cups and saucers. She set the table and got the pot, then poured her father a cup in a glistening arc, releasing the dense aroma of DiNunzio Blend, coffee distilled to brown caffeine.

“Eccoli,” her mother said from the door, and Mary set the coffeepot down in astonishment. Displayed across her mother’s arms was a perfect little gown of white cotton. Layers of miniature pleats fa