Gulliver couldn’t quite believe the words that had just come out of his enemy’s mouth. Remembering the faces of the women in the photos on Joey Vespucci’s mantel, Gulliver realized that all of them looked at least a little bit like their mother, Maria. He could do simple math too.
“Holy shit!” Gulliver said without meaning to.
“That’s right, Dowd. Joey would have me cut up into little pieces and fed to the pigs on his friend’s farm in Jersey if he knew. Now you know. That’s three people in the world who do—Maria, me and you.”
“How?”
“How do you think? Me and Maria, we slept together and made a beautiful baby.”
“I figured that part out. I mean, how did you and Maria get together in the first place?”
Tony looked as if he had just swallowed a handful of broken glass. Gulliver guessed this was something Tony had hardly discussed even with Maria. By talking about it here, Tony was handing Gulliver a dangerous weapon. Something Gulliver could hold over the big man’s head forever.
“I’ll do it.” The words came out of Gulliver’s mouth as if by themselves. “I’ll take the case, but first I need to know everything.”
Tony gave Gulliver a look full of mixed feelings. Joy. Relief. Worry. Panic. Pain. Love. It was a look of a thousand things.
“Joey’s older than me, but we been kicking around together since we was kids in Gravesend. Both of our dads were, you know, in the business. Fact is, my dad was higher up the food chain than Joey’s dad was, but I was always better with my hands than my head. I never wanted to be nobody’s boss. I like being strong, but power don’t interest me much.”
“This is interesting, Tony, but…”
“Anyways, Joey always got the girls. Always. He’s such a handsome guy, and he can talk. Man, can he talk. Always could. My mom used to say Joey could charm a snake without a flute. But when we was in high school, Maria and I was always circling each other. You know how it is. I liked her. She liked me. And we even got together once. I was her first.” Tony beamed with pride. “But then Joey noticed her when she got all pretty, and that was that. Joey, he always gets what he wants.”
Gulliver nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“I could live with him and Maria being together. All I ever wanted was for Maria to be happy. And if Joey made her happy, then I would eat it and be glad for them. Thing is, Maria was never enough for Joey. Even when we was kids and he took her away from me, he had other girls all the time. But that wasn’t my business no more. Maria made her choice, and it wasn’t me. After a few years, Joey had worked his way up, and he brung me with him. I been by his side ever since.”
As Tony spoke, he seemed hurt and angry. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists. His top lip twitched. His eyes turned mean and cold. Ice cold. Gulliver guessed these were things Tony had kept inside a long time. And only when he said them did he feel how deeply he was hurt by them and how mad they made him.
“Didn’t it kill you to be so close to Maria all the time?”
He shook his head—hard. Almost like he was telling himself not to answer. “I guess I always hoped she would come back to me or…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Or if something violent happened to Joey, you would be there waiting for her.”
“Something like that.”
“Okay, Tony, I get that much. You went along with it for a lot of years. Then you stopped going along with it. What changed?”
“Like I said, Joey always had other women. But he also never got crazy with it. Never did stuff to risk his marriage or hurt his little girls. Then Joey got real involved with a model he met at one of his clubs in the city. Her name was Azraella Parks. She was barely twenty years old. Maybe twenty years younger than Joey. She was cute, I guess, if you like women that weigh less than one of my legs. But she got to Joey bad. Real bad. He couldn’t get enough of her, and I was always covering for him with Maria best as I could.”
Gulliver said, “But Maria knew.”
Tony nodded.
“And that’s when the affair started between you and Maria?” Gulliver asked.
“Yep. It was hot and heavy for a while there. I mean, Joey was never around or nothing. And me and Maria had lots of years of catching up to do.”
“What happened?”
“After a few months Azraella kicked Joey’s ass to the curb for that actor. Devon Jenner. You ever hear of him? He has that sitcom about the nasty crippled guy with the two cute nurses who live with him.”
“Sure. The guy who got hurt in a skiing accident and never walked without a cane again, right?”
Tony laughed. “That was no skiing accident, Dowd. That was me. Joey wanted me to kill him, but I wouldn’t do it. I told Joey it would be too easy to trace back to him. Then, the week after I broke the prick’s legs, Maria found out she was pregnant. You can figure out the rest from there. And for eighteen years now, Bella has been our secret. Making her is the one good thing I done in my whole life. I can’t lose her.”
“Does Maria know you came to me?”
“Yeah. I told her how good you was at this sort of thing, and she gave me her blessing and her help.”
“Does Joey know?”
Tony said no. And that Joey had used all of his contacts and pull, but no one could find Bella.
Then Tony laughed. It was a sad laugh. “He even hired some ex-cop private eyes to help find her. But they ain’t found shit.”
An hour later, Tony walked out of Gulliver’s office. He was just as full of mixed feelings as when he arrived. But they were now somewhat different mixed feelings. For one thing, he had just handed Gulliver Dowd his life on a silver platter. Maria’s life too, for that matter. He had risked it all, telling the little man about their affair and about Bella. He had no way of knowing if Gulliver would keep his secret. It wasn’t like they were buddies. Beyond that, he was not at all comfortable with the fee the private eye had demanded. Gulliver had refused the large sum that Tony offered him to find his girl. What Gulliver wanted in return for finding Tony’s secret daughter was just as dangerous as any affair Tony had had. Just as dangerous as anything he’d ever done. Gulliver wanted answers. Not just any answers. Gulliver wanted the answers that were in the envelope he’d been forced to burn to save his girlfriend’s life.