“How did you learn to make a murder look like natural causes?”
“Not that kind of natural. Natural! The grocery guy had a taste to do certain stuff to girls and he’d pay a lot for it. But everybody knows if a guy goes around houses doing that, one of these days some girl’s going to get mad enough to stab him. So when he got stabbed, he got stabbed, naturally.”
“Why did the Boss want him killed?”
“I never knew until now it was to get the guy’s business. It’s how Branco got to the big time, owning a string of shops. Big step on his way to the aqueduct job, right? Now he’s on top . . . Or was.”
“Could you tell me about the next job?”
Isaac Bell coaxed her along, story to story, and Antonio Branco emerged as a criminal as ruthless as Bell had expected. But the gangster was unerring in his ability to couple effective methods to precise goals.
Captain Coligney interrupted briefly when dinner arrived.
Francesca ate daintily and kept talking.
Bell asked, “How did you happen to meet the Boss?”
“I don’t really know. I got in trouble once—big trouble—and out of nowhere some gorillas come to my rescue, paid off the cops. One second I think I’m going up the river, next I’m scot-free. Then I get my first message to go to confession.” She cut another bite of porterhouse, chewed slowly, washed it down with a sip of wine, and reflected, “Sometimes things really work out great, don’t they?”
“Did you help him get the aqueduct job?”
“I sure did! I mean, I didn’t know then. But now . . . There was this guy, celebrating a big, big deal. Practically takes over a whorehouse for a weekend. Champagne, girls, the whole deck of cards. I went to confession. Next thing you know, the guy is dead. Before he died, he told me he won this huge city contract to provision the aqueduct. Guess who got the contract after he died?”
“Branco.”
“You got it, Isaac.”
“What was the last job you did for him?”
“Archie.”
“Were you supposed to kill him?”
Francesca Kennedy looked across the table at Bell and cocked an eyebrow. “Is Archie dead?”
Bell gave her the laugh she expected and said, “O.K. So what did Branco tell you to do with Archie?”
“Listen.”
“For anything in particular?”
“Anything to do with your Black Hand Squad.”
“What did you hear?”
“Not one damned thing.”
“But you learned about the raid?”
“Nothing until then. That was the first thing Archie spilled. And the last, I guess,” she added, glancing about the windowless room.
Bell asked her how she had informed Branco, now that he wasn’t a priest anymore, and she explained a system of mailboxes and public telephones.
“How about before Archie?”
“I did a double. A couple of cousins. You know what the Wallopers are?”
“Hunt and McBean?”
“Oh, of course you know. This was a strange one. Wait ’til you hear this, Isaac . . . Could I have a little more wine?”
“Take mine.” Bell tipped his glass into hers, and cleared the plates and flatware and stacked them in the corner. “How was it strange?”
“I picked up Ed Hunt at a party the Boss sent me to and took him to the hotel where the Boss had booked me a room. What I didn’t know was the Boss hid in the closet. All of a sudden, when Hunt fell asleep, he stepped out of the closet. I almost jumped out of my skin.”
“You saw his face?”
“No. It was dark. I never saw his face until this afternoon. Anyhow, he shooed me out—sent me to the next job—and next I hear, Hunt had a heart attack. Well, I have to tell you, Isaac, if he was going to have a heart attack, it would have been while I was still there.”
Bell said, “As I understand it, a stiletto played a role in the heart attack.”
“Big surprise,” said Francesca.
“You said you went on to the next job. What was that?”
“Hunt’s cousin, McBean. The Boss gave me strict orders. Don’t hurt him. Just put him to sleep and go home. Which I did. Just like with Hunt. Then I learned at confession that McBean’s alive and kicking, not like Hunt. So I’m thinking they made a deal. You hear anything about that?”
“I heard heroin changed hands,” said Bell.
“Which reminds me of a job I don’t think I told you about yet . . .”
Bell listened. One story blended into another, which reminded her of another. Suddenly, he asked, “What did you say?”
“I was telling you how he confessed to me.”
“Would you repeat that, please. What do you mean ‘confessed’? Branco confessed to you?”
“I mean, one night he confessed to me. In the church. I was trying to figure out how to do this guy he wanted dead. All of a sudden, it was like I was the priest, and he started telling me about the first man he ever killed—when he was eight years old, if you think I’m bad. You know what he said? It was ‘satisfying.’ Isn’t that a strange word to talk about murder. Satisfying? And when he was only eight?”