(Condolences)
‘Ezra, turn off the damn violins. We’re not at the fucking opera.’
‘A difference there is,’ Knightsbridge informed his visitor, ‘between an opera and the symphony. You, an Italian, should know this before you crawl out from your crib for a cannoli.’
‘Right. I should be a flipping tenor.’
‘Beats breaking legs.’
‘I don’t break legs. Punched a guy in the gut today. He went down like a—’
‘Don’t say this.’
‘Like a ton of bricks.’
Ezra sighed and sat down. ‘Clichés like that, I hate so much.’
‘Sure you do. Keeps me awake at night, what you care about. Hey, that long-legged thing walking down the street just now. The blondie. Like she was carried on a breeze. Was she in here?’
Ezra Knightsbridge worked the edges of truth throughout his days. For him, lying was a practiced art that required both purpose and strategy. Life and death could be at stake. One should never lie out of fear, or from a posture of weakness. That was a game for the segment of society collectively identified as losers. He could lie to Arturo Maletti, claim that the young woman had not been in his shop. Except it broke a cardinal rule. He did not know what the other man knew. Had he seen her emerge from his shop? No one should lie when the quizzical party might know more than he let on. A lie should only fill a vacuum of ignorance and not be combative with the truth.
‘She dropped by. Why ask?’
‘Why did she drop by?’
‘This is your business? How?’
‘One of your thieves, Ezra? A girl like that, I could be interested.’
‘You hop from the bed of the boss’s daughter to raping a juvenile delinquent, this is your scheme?’
‘Then she is one of yours.’
‘She’s not. She is a student of music. She came by to visit her accordion, play tunes. She misses her accordion. She works to raise the money back I lent her. The instrument here, her collateral.’
Arturo Maletti gazed at the accordion with the mother-of-pearl inlay. A prop gave a story its presence, its focal point. Always advantageous. That the instrument belonged to a ‘crazy Hungarian’ who played weddings, who was frustrated that people wanted only ‘The rock and the roll, no more the polka,’ he’d keep to himself.
‘Let me buy it for her, Ezra. She’ll date me then. She might adore me.’
‘How do I sell what is not mine? Also, do I assist an idiot with his idiot plan to defile an angel underage? You are filth, Arturo. She is silk. Get her out of your head or I will be done with you. You know what means that.’
‘No. I don’t.’
‘The father of the daughter of the boss has it confirmed who does the doggie style with his married little girl. The slow torture, Arturo. The miserable death. The body parts missing. Find them in the river.’
‘You can shut up now.’
‘Keep your filthy mind off my customers. Why are you here? Something wrong you did?’
‘Always so suspicious. I need your help. I’ve done nothing to interest the cops. Still, a couple of detectives came after me.’
‘Then what? After they came after?’
‘I ran away. I gave them the slip.’
‘You know why they came after?’
‘Can you help me find out?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘What I said. Do you?’
‘Of course.’
‘What do you mean “of course”?’
‘You didn’t talk to your girlfriend today?’
‘Which one, hey?’
‘You think this is funny? Your girlfriend’s husband is shot dead in his own house, and who is the suspect? The one who is laughing.’
‘Her husband’s dead? Savina’s! When did this happen?’
‘When? Last night it happened. You weren’t there?’
‘Get off it. I wasn’t there. If I was there, I’d know.’
‘If you were there, you would say you were not. Same difference.’
‘It’s not the same difference. There’s a big difference.’
‘For you, maybe. For the police? Not so much.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If Savina didn’t do it, her lover did. You’re the lover.’
‘You’re the only one who knows that, Ezra.’
‘Maybe I was the only one, once. Me and Savina, we knew. That was before the fingerprints.’
‘What fingerprints?’
‘You left yours behind in the car of the dead boy. Remember telling me?’
‘I smeared them.’
‘Not so well, my connections say. Also, fingerprints are inside Savina’s house. Yours. Why are you here when you should be running? You bring trouble on my house, on my business. Why?’
‘Ezra—’
‘Who has called me? Who wants to talk?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Figure it out.’
‘Tell me who.’
‘Tell me who you think.’
‘Savina?’
‘Not Savina. Are you an idiot, or only stupid?’
‘The police?’
‘The police don’t tell me they’re coming. What’s the matter with you?’
‘Then who?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘I don’t know who!’
‘That’s the problem,’ Ezra informed him. ‘You do know who.’
‘Who?’
‘The husband is killed in the house of the daughter. Who is interested in the lover now?’
Very quietly, Maletti said, ‘Not Joe Ciampini?’
‘He’s coming to see me.’
‘Why you?’
‘It’s you he wants to see, but he can’t find you today. Where have you been?’
‘Driving around. An errand. Are you lying to me?’
‘Lying is not something I do. I don’t have the knack. Stick around, he’ll be here soon.’
‘Joe Ciampini?’
‘Him.’
‘Why …?’
‘Stick around. Find out.’
‘No, I’m going.’
‘Where can you run to, Arturo? You killed the daughter’s husband.’
‘I never did.’
‘Cops think so. Mr Ciampini agrees. Who told him that? Must be the daughter, and she was there.’
‘This is crazy. Savina would never say that.’
‘Sure she would, if maybe she killed him herself. You see? But I don’t accuse her. Joe Ciampini is coming to talk about you. Stay. Talk with him yourself. Accuse his daughter to his face yourself.’
‘What kind of advice is that? Ezra, that’s insane.’
‘I might be an old man, but I don’t want to die this young. The truth I will say to Mr Ciampini. What else?’
‘Ezra! This is nuts! What am I supposed to do?’
‘Run,’ Ezra told him.
‘Run?’
‘Fast. Best option, run far. The police have your fingerprints in dark blood. If you are innocent – how can you be? – it will come out. If you are guilty – how are you not? – you will be hunted down like a dog with rabies, foaming at the mouth. You decide.’
Maletti was standing, his head in disarray. ‘I’m getting out of here,’ he said. ‘Can you help me?’
‘I will try to smooth things with Mr Ciampini. Best I can do. But he’s not an easy man to convince. It is the right choice, running. That’s what I would do if I was you, except I would never be so stupid to be you – sleeping with the boss’s daughter, then shooting her husband dead.’
‘I didn’t do that, the shooting.’
‘That matters? No one will believe you. Run, Arturo. Where will you go?’
‘I got a friend. He has a place in town. He’s out of town.’
‘You have the key?’
‘He has mine, I have his. In case.’
‘Hiding is the same as running when you do it right. That is true.’
Maletti beat it out of there, fast.
Satisfied that he had no customers, Ezra Knightsbridge consumed a butter biscuit. Then he got on the phone.
‘Is he in?’ he asked the man who answered. He told him who was calling.
He waited. A different voice said, ‘Ezra, not a good time.’
‘My condolences.’
‘You heard?’
‘Why we should talk. My place. At your convenience, Mr Ciampini.’
The pause was appreciably pregnant. ‘Keep a light on,’ the man said. ‘I’ll be down after dark. No sooner. Maybe later.’
‘Thank you, old friend,’ Ezra said, and they both hung up.
He wasn’t sure how this next meeting would go, but he was sure that Arturo Maletti was a dead man. He was not the one to do the killing. That was something to arrange. The sooner the better. If Quinn was to live, Arturo Maletti had to be sacrificed. A good end to a bad life. Simple.
Ezra tidied up his space to prepare for his visitor.