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Carpenter appeared in the doorway to the porch, a body bag over one shoulder and-when he saw the firepower at the kitchen table- a gun in his free hand.
Everybody turned to look at him and there was a moment of silence, and then almost by mutual consent everybody turned back to Frankie as the more interesting option.
Frankie sighed. “Brenda saw the necklace and yelled, ‘Is that for that bitch Maisie?’ and swung that pan and knocked me cold, and when I woke up I was locked in that shelter covered in blood, left for dead-”
“Totally understandable,” Agnes said, and went around the counter toward the fridge, as if she’d given up on him completely. Shane sympathized but kept his eyes on the guns. “-and I almost did die in the river, getting away. I even got a plate here.” Frankiepointed to his head. “Shoulda been dead, but us Fortunatos, we got thick skulls.”
“Jesus,” Joey said, shaking his head but still keeping his gun steady. “You sure fooled me. You musta put on fifty, sixty pounds, you tub o’ lard.”
“Used to have black hair, too,” Frankie said, scowling at him. “Look at this.” He popped a blue contact out of one eye with his free hand, then out of the other, revealing the Fortunato trademark: shark black eyes. “You were a lot lighter twenty-five years ago, too, Joey. We all changed.”
“Son of a bitch,” Lisa Livia said again, but she sounded tired now, and when Shane pulled a chair up to the table for her, between the newly scrubbed Venus and Joey, she came in and sank down into it and just stared at her father, sad and lost.
“I’m sorry, Livie,” he said, but he sounded more uncomfortable than sorry.
“Between you and my mother-” Lisa Livia just shook her head.
Shane cleared his throat. “I suggest we put the guns away. There are a lot of secrets here. And I’m tired of them.”
Frankie nodded at him, keeping his gun out. “So, you know about your parents?”
“What about my parents?” Shane frowned as Frankie looked at Joey. He caught Joey glaring, raising the gun a little, and he stiffened, but Frankie spoke again.
“You know. That I’m your uncle Frankie. Your good uncle, not your lying snake of a shit-head rat-fuck uncle, the Don.”
“Jesus, you’re a bad liar,” Shane said, and Frankie started to swing the gun his way, and Joey raised his even more, and Carpenter said, “Guns away, gentlemen,” from the doorway, in that deep voice that brooked no argument, and then Agnes came around the counter, her arms full of food, looking like she had every dish in the refrigerator, and dumped it all on the table between them.
“This is my kitchen,” she said, an edge of hysteria in her voice, “and enough goddamn people have been shot in it. You are my family, you’re the only family I’ve got, so you’re going to put those guns away and eat something right now. Or there’sgo
She slapped a loaf of bread down on the table and looked at them both, blood in her eyes, and Joey and Frankie both hesitated. “You do not want me angry,” Agnes said, and they both nodded once and, like the unhappy, dysfunctional family they were, they put the guns away together.
Rhett sighed and went to sleep.
“And now you’re go
“What’d you come back for, Frankie?” Shane said as Joey began to help Agnes take the covers off the dishes.
“My granddaughter’s wedding, of course,” Frankie said, craning his neck to look into the bowls. “I read about it in the paper and I thought it would be nice. Hey, are those ribs-?”
“Cut the crap,” Shane said. “Where’s the five million? And what score are you settling with the Don?”
“I was wondering about the five mil myself,” Agnes said as she slung plates around the table like she was dealing cards, clearly still mad as hell. “And the necklace. That was a lousy thing to do to me, Doyle.”
“Aw, Agnes,” Frankie said.
“I mean it. I worried about you, I fussed over you. I fed you-” She smacked the container with the ribs down in front of him hard. “Darlin’, I know it-”
“And you put a necklace on my dog and almost got me killed.” Agnes finished almost throwing his plate at him. “What the hell was that about?”
Frankie looked shamefaced but relieved, Shane thought. Doesn’t want to talk about the Don.
“That was just a joke,” Frankie told Agnes. “Justice for Brenda. I been knocking around all over the world while she stayed here livin’ the good life, never paying for half-killing me, never losing one night’s sleep over it, so I thought, ‘That bitch needs some payback.’ So I put the necklace on Rhett so she’d see it and start to worry-”
“Jesus.” Lisa Livia sighed and look the cover off the turkey bowl. “You are a piece of work.”
“What?” Frankie said, picking up a rib. “I just-”
“Because of you,” Agnes said, her voice like cut glass, “Four Wheels sent his grandson here to die. Because of you, Four Wheels came here and died. Because of you, Brenda thought there was five million dollars here and hired hitmen to kill me.”
“What the hell?” Frankie said, jolted. He looked at Joey, who nodded. “That bitch hired those hairballs?”
“Because of you, she got so desperate, she killed Taylor tonight with a meat fork,” Agnes went on savagely. “I don’t even know what the collateral damage is, what happened when Shane went to Sava
“No, no, this is professional,” Carpenter said.
“-but your joke killed at least five people-”
“Six,” Shane said, thinking of Rocko.
“-so forgive me if I’m not slapping you on the back right now.”
“Aw, hell,” Frankie said, waving the rib at her. “I didn’t kill them, Brenda did.”
“You’re missing the point, Frankie,” Shane said, thinking it probably wasn’t the first time. “But I’m a lot more interested in your first lie.”
“Hey,” Frankie said, and bit into the rib.
“The one about how you came back for Maria’s wedding.” Shane met the old man’s dark shark eyes, hooded now as he bent over to demolish the rib. “You didn’t come home for the wedding; you came home to turn state’s evidence. You came home to roll on the Don. Which means you’re the one he hired Casey Dean to hit.”
“Ah, fuck.” Frankie dropped the stripped rib bone on his plate, a
Silent Carpenter got more silent as Shane shut down any reaction he might have had, to say, “He is.”
Frankie reached for another rib, shaking his head, and Lisa Livia got up and headed for the microwave with the entire bowl of gravy.
“Save some for me,” Agnes said, dropping into the chair on the other side of Joey.
“Get two straws,” Lisa Livia said, and slung the bowl into microwave.
Shane turned to look at Carpenter. Fucking Wilson knew. Carpenter met his eyes for a long moment and then nodded and headed for the basement with the body bag, moving past Frankie without looking at him.
“That means that body bag over Carpenter’s shoulder is your fault,” Shane said. “In fact, we can pretty much trace the entire body count back to you.”
“Now wait just a fuckin’ minute,” Frankie said, trying to look indignant with barbecue sauce on his face.
“So now you make it up to us,” Agnes said quietly from her seat beside Joey.
Frankie said, “Huh?” and Shane almost did, too, but Joey just put his hand on the back of her chair, one hundred percent behind her as always.
“We have many problems, Frankie,” Agnes said, calmer now. “I need this wedding to happen tomorrow. Shane needs to take out Casey Dean. Lisa Livia lost everything she had and more when Brenda emptied the accounts she managed.” Frankie turned to LL as she sat down with her hot plate and heated gravy, but Agnes kept on talking. “And Brenda needs to go down for Taylor’s murder. So you’re going to help us with all of that.”