He pressed his lips together. “I can’t much longer. I have nothing yet.”
“You can’t throw him to the wolves.”
“I can’t keep him in custody. Believe me, I’d love to lock him up, away from you.”
I imagined Antonio getting gunned down on First Street, two steps out of the building, cars screeching away, return shots fired, a movie in three dimensions. A man dying, bleeding out, his wife and son finally reunited with him. The drama was epic, and I didn’t see how it could happen differently. “You need to protect him. They’re after him. He was supposed to marry Irene, and they killed the last guy who tried to get out of it.”
“I know.”
“We almost got killed in Mexico.”
“He’s a big boy.”
He wasn’t budging.
“What about her? The wife? And the boy? Are you going to be responsible if something happens to them?”
“They’re staying with me.”
“That’s a little off book, isn’t it?” I said.
“There’s no rulebook for any of this. And like I said, my reputation barely matters anymore. The election is a formality.”
“So keeping a beautiful, vulnerable woman at your place…”
“A married woman and her child,” he said.
“You really hate him.”
“Hate’s a very strong word.”
“Protect him, Daniel. If only to keep my heart from breaking again.”
He gave every appearance of considering it. His gaze drifted to the half distance with a little tilt of his head, a lowering of his eyelids, half a swallow. Tick, tick, tick. I had no idea what was going on in his mind, except I did. There was a veracity about him. An honesty that you could see on people who’d had an epiphany. Those who had taken a hard look at themselves and made choices based on what they saw.
He’d never be a politician, but he’d become a man.
eleven.
antonio
loved Valentina. She never gave up on anything. She fought endlessly for things that were destined to die. Her grandmother’s rotting crochet tablecloth. A bird with a broken foot left at the door by our cat. Her Fiat.
We’d met on a rainy day in Napoli because she wouldn’t let that hunk of metal go.
Some cars needed to be put out of their misery. The little ones that didn't go far enough on a liter of gas. The big ones that didn’t go fast. The cars so dented and bruised they hurt the eyes. I could keep a car running a long time. Slow, inefficient, or ugly, I’d fix it even if I wanted to kill it. We had that in common. We let things live too long.
“Take this one, Tonio!” Imbruzio had shouted from his office.
He was fighting with his mistress over money. I could hear them through the door every first and third Monday of the month. She cooed. He excused. She scolded. He got defensive. She whined. He comforted. She cried. He cried. She shouted. He put his foot down. Then either she stormed out or the desk legs started creaking. The putting down of his foot was the critical juncture, and when Imbruzio told me to take the little Fiat cutting a turn from the narrow cobblestone street into our tiny lot, he and his mistress were in the comfort/cry stage.
I put down my lunch and stepped out of the office into the rain. It had been drizzling all morning and had just increased to a light rain. A thunderstorm was imminent, and she looked like a bird with a broken wing.
The Fiat was smoking like a Turkish cigarette, rattling and clanking up to the garage. The car itself had a rust problem, a dent problem, needed a paint job, and shook so hard I thought the carburetor’s idling pin might not just be screwed too loose but was probably missing entirely. When she got out of the car, the little sheets of water turned into a deluge, and the sky lit up as if it were on fire.
I’d gotten the car running again. Cars and vengeance, I didn’t let either go. La vendetta di cent’anni ha I denti da latte.
Yes, we had that in common. We held onto things.