Bad Luck (23 page)

“Not at all, Mr. Gibbons. I hope I've shed some light on your understanding of my brother.”

Gibbons smiled with his teeth. “When you see him next, give him our best.”

He looked out the window and saw that his car was still there, then he glanced down at the floor. The kid was gone, but the toe of his right shoe was smeared with flesh-pink Play-Doh.

Fucking little sneak! That kid's picture will be in the post office someday. Little son of a bitch!

The nun was busy feeding the baby, busy not noticing his shoe. Gibbons didn't bother asking for a Kleenex. Didn't want to give her the satisfaction. He just picked up his hat from the sofa and walked out with the Play-Doh on his toe and his hand in his pocket on the cuffs.

Little bastard.

oseph kept blotting his forehead with his handkerchief, the nice silk one that matched his silver tie. He kept standing up and sitting down, first pacing the sidewalk, then dropping down on the park bench to wipe his face again. Sister Cil stared across the street at the row of old brownstones, pressing her forearm into her aching stomach. She regretted ever telling Joseph about Mr. Gibbons. It had been a mistake, she hadn't been thinking. Joseph is a baby. He's no help at all.

“You
sure
he was FBI, Cil?”

“I've already told you a hundred times, Joseph. He showed me his identification. Who else would he be if he wasn't a real FBI agent?”

“I don't know. Maybe he was from one of the other families. A spy, like.”

Cil pressed her stomach harder and fingered the wooden rosary beads in her lap. This didn't even deserve a
response. No wonder Sal got so fed up with him. Joseph could be so useless sometimes. Why did she ever tell him?

She'd panicked, that's why. That was stupid. She wasn't thinking straight when she called him. Stupid.

Joseph nervously twisted that nice handkerchief around his fingers, ruining it. “We gotta tell Sal, Cil. He's gonna wanna know about this.”

“No!”

Joseph got up again and started pacing. “You keep saying no, Cil. I don't understand why. Why, Cil?”

Cil wasn't listening. She was staring at their shabby brownstone squeezed in among all the other shabby brownstones, the Center, their too-small brownstone, thinking that if they tell Sal about this and he gets cold feet and abandons the plan to have the champ throw the fight, then it'll be God only knows how long before they get their new building . . . if they ever get it at all. The agencies keep calling with referrals—pregnant girls, young girls with babies, babies who need a home—and she has to keep turning them away because they just don't have the room. She gripped the wooden crucifix in her fingers. This wasn't right. She was being forced to turn away so many. It made her feel like the innkeeper who had turned Joseph and Mary away on Christmas Eve.

Joseph dropped back down on the bench. “Say something, Cil. You're just sitting there. We gotta do something here.”

Cil adjusted her veil, pulled it forward a little at the hairline. Her stomach was in turmoil. Maybe Sal
should
abandon the plan. Maybe she
should
confess to him that Mr. Mistretta didn't want him to bet family money on this boxing match, that he'd been definite about that, that she'd lied about that. Maybe it's not too late. But she couldn't stop staring at the Center. What if it all worked out and Sal did make all that money, what could Mr. Mistretta say then? Give it back? Of course not. The boxing match was just a few days away. So close. It's not as if she were being selfish—the money wasn't for her. It's for the
new building, for the girls, the
babies.
It's for something very important, something that's desperately needed. It's money for an act of charity that should excuse the lie she had told Sal. If the new facility is built, God will forgive her. And if He forgives her, so will Sal and Mr. Mistretta.

“Cil, you're not helping things here.” Joseph blotted his brow and stood up again. “How about this, Cil? How about we go to Mr. Mistretta with this? Ask him if—”

“No!
Absolutely not.” Dear God, no . . .

“But, Cil, if the FBI is gonna put the screws to the fight deal, we gotta protect ourselves. We got
thirty million dollars
tied up in this thing.”

“I said no. Now, sit down and stop panicking. You can't go over Sal's head. That wouldn't be right.”

“What do you mean, it wouldn't be right? You don't wanna tell Sal, you don't wanna tell Mistretta—whatta we do? Just sit around and wait for everything to go wrong?”

The pain in her stomach flared like the flames of hell. “Will you please sit down and calm yourself, Joseph. You're getting all worked up over nothing. When we were kids you were always the nervous one.”

Joseph sat down and glared at her. “Whattaya talking about, when we were kids? I was eleven years old when you were born. What do you know what I did when I was a kid?”

She looked at him and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Sal told me.”

“Fu—The hell with Sal. You think Sal's Mr. Wonderful, and I'm just some
jooch
you happen to be related to. That's what you think. I know.” Joseph was on his feet again.

“Joseph, you're not thinking straight. That FBI agent doesn't know anything about the fight. If he did, he would've—”

Suddenly something rustled in the overgrown forsythia bushes behind them, and they both turned quickly. A homeless man sprawled out on a sheet of cardboard under the bushes sat up and stared at them. He had wild red hair and a wild red beard, wide pale blue eyes. Cil's heart was
pounding. Was he another one, another FBI agent, one of Mr. Gibbons's associates?

But as she stared into the man's face, something occurred to her, something profound. This man's appearance, this was the way she always pictured Barabbas, the way she remembered him from a
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Easter special about Jesus that she'd seen on television a long, long time ago, before she'd entered the convent. She put her hand on her chest and pressed against the thumping. This man wasn't an FBI agent. No. He was a sign. A
sign.

Joseph was as white as a ghost, staring at the poor, unfortunate man. “Calm down, Joseph. You're not thinking clearly. You're not seeing the whole picture. You're only thinking of yourself.”

“Whattaya mean, I'm only thinking of myself? Why shouldn't I think of myself? Nobody ever thinks of me. I
gotta
worry about myself 'cause nobody else does.”

“Just calm down, Joseph.” Calling him down here had been a mistake. Telling him about Mr. Gibbons had been a mistake. If she could just reassure him so he would keep quiet, everything would be all right, everything.

He slid over close to her and whispered in her face. “Listen to me, Cil. I gotta worry about myself. This deal blows apart, I'm left with nothing. I'm supposed to run those cement factories Sal wants to buy with the money we make on the fight. We don't get the money, I don't get the job, simple as that. Mistretta gets out of jail soon, Sal goes back to being a captain. Where's that leave me? Nowhere, that's where. I'll be the gofer, the guy they send out for coffee, taking crap from every bum in his crew. Well, shit on that. I'd rather go back to cutting meat. Even if I have to work for someone else.” He hung his head and looked down at the bluestone sidewalk. “Can't afford to buy a shop of my own again. And I'll be damned if I'll ask Sal for the money . . .” He shook his head. “Man, this, this . . . this stinks, Cil.”

She drew in a deep breath. Tell him everything will be
all right, pacify him enough to keep him quiet at least until after the boxing match. He's a child. Treat him like a child. “Joseph,” she said, speaking to him calmly but firmly, “there is nothing to worry about. The FBI is harassing me as a way of harassing Sal. This is just a new strategy in something that has been going on for years. Now, the boxing match is this Saturday. Logically, what could they do to stop it?”

“Hey, these guys are the government. They do whatever the hell they want.” He was twisting that silk handkerchief again. It was ruined now.

“You're not being logical, Joseph. Think. If the FBI knew that Sal was involved with the boxing match, why would they bother to send an agent to see me? Wouldn't they go directly to Sal or to Mr. Nashe or to Mr. Walker and Mr. Epps?”

“Yeah, but what about the bug we found in your gold cross?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Just reassure him. “Joseph, how many times did we go over what was discussed at the house after he gave me that crucifix? Whatever they heard meant nothing to them.
They don't know anything.”

“Maybe someone squealed, got nervous and ran to the feds.”

“Who would do that?”

“I dunno—maybe Nashe. Maybe he's cutting a deal with them, giving them Sal in exchange for reduced charges on something else they caught him at. Like tax evasion. Guys like that are always going up for tax evasion. The feds get Nashe in a corner, and he cuts a deal with them to save his own hide. You don't think that kind of stuff happens all the time?”

The man with the red beard, who'd been staring at them in a daze until now, flopped back down on his cardboard and turned over on his belly.

Her heart was pounding again. Tell Joseph anything.
Make him calm down. “Joseph, you have so little faith. Don't you think Sal has taken precautions?”

He suddenly turned on her. “Sal, Sal, Sal! Everything is Sal with you.”

She glared at him over her glasses. “Joseph, he has been in this business considerably longer than you have. I think he knows how to handle these things.”

Joseph turned away in a snit. “Yeah, he knows how to handle things. That's why the FBI is crawling all over the place.”

A child! Jealous of his brother, just like a child. “I'm sure Sal is doing something to make sure this investment is protected. Don't you think?”

Joseph hung his head again, disgusted. “Sal doesn't tell me nothing. I'm just a dummy.”

“This jealousy of yours, Joseph—I just don't understand it. You know that Sal has everything under control. You just don't want to say so because you're jealous of him. You ought to be ashamed.”

Joseph snapped back like a mad dog.
“I
ought to be ashamed! You wanna know how your dear brother has everything under control? Huh? You wanna know what he's doing to keep tabs on Nashe so he doesn't screw us? You really wanna know? He's screwing Nashe's wife, that's what he's doing. Real smart, huh? I sleep real good at night, knowing that Sal's getting it on with Sydney Nashe. I bet you feel better now too, huh?”

Her face was suddenly burning. She could feel her hair tingling at the roots under her veil. She was mortified, ashamed, furious with Joseph. He'd only said this to hurt her, to get back at her, just like a child. But Joseph had never lied to her before, and that's what hurt more. How could Sal do such a thing? Adultery is a sin—he knows that—but that wasn't half as bad as the fact that he was doing it with that . . . that woman, that peculiar, ostentatious woman. Mrs. Nashe? How could he?
Why
would he? She was so . . . so cheap. Why with her, of all people? What could Sal possibly see in her?

“What'sa matter, Cil? You got nothing to say all of sudden?” The sarcasm was like poison in his voice. “Aren't you impressed by how clever Sal is? Sleeping with Nashe's wife—a real stroke of genius. She must know everything her husband's doing, right? She sees Sal, she must tell him everything. Right? He's so smart, my brother. You know, I
admire
him. I really do.”