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Authors: Frank Lentricchia
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silence. Martello thinks about the sandwiches. Conte breaks the silence.
“The hammer. You came here to act out the meaning of your surname. Mark the Hammer. Not in friendship. Mark the fucking Hammer.”
“We’re just talking, El. I need your help. If you have it, please turn it over. I leave, no consequences, end of story.”
“Have it?”
“We believe you may have Mirko’s computer.”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t force me to order a search of the premises. Within an hour this place is in shambles.”
“Fuck it.”
“Fuck it?”
“You people have already hacked into Mirko’s computer, the Imam’s computer.”
“Robinson better not have told you this, Eliot.”
“No comment.”
“We’re all over those computers. Sure. Problem is a forensic exam is necessary because everything dumped into the trash can itself be trashed, deleted, and only a forensic search into the hard drive can retrieve what the user is trying to hide. El, I need that computer.”
“Mirko is conducting a clandestine romance, Mark. That’s all it is.”
“How do you know this?”
“No comment.”
“El. Recall the bombing of the Fraunces Tavern near Wall Street, late seventies? Radical Puerto Rican nationalists?”
“No. That would be before you were born, Mark.”
“We know all about Delores Delgado, do you?”
“Make your point, Mark.”
“Her grandfather and great-uncle were the designers and executioners of the Fraunces Tavern bombing. Wall Street area. People died.”
“You’re losing it, Mark.”
“Possibly. But if I’m not? You ready to take the consequences because you were blasé about connecting the dots?”
“What is Kyle saying about this?”
“We don’t discuss this level of my work.”
“Bullshit.”
“I agree.”
“Where does that leave us, Mark?”
“Okay. I’m going. On the way to headquarters I’m making a call. Count on it. I’m advising you.”
“Go ahead. Advise me.”
“Proceed as I do.”
“How’s that?”
“Exercising caution and due diligence.”
Noon, and Conte’s thoughts turn to sausage and peppers. He’s eaten nothing for eighteen hours, since the tomato pie binge of the night before. She said afternoon, to collect her things. He’ll sit at the desk, watch and wait. Conte has no appetite. Perhaps, maybe, a half sandwich at most. Or a quarter. Or none at all. He polishes off both sandwiches and a twelve-ounce bottle of Coke, and then the phone rings. She ignores his hello-with-a-mouthful. “Be there in an hour with Don Belmonte in his all-terrain vehicle. I have frightening news to report—tell you when I get there.”
“Tell me now.”
“Maureen Rintrona. Maureen. She’s walking the dog this morning at dawn. A car pulls alongside, blasting Verdi. She thinks it was Verdi. The driver fires once at the beagle. The light was weak. We have almost nothing to go on.”
“The dog? Not Maureen?”
“Yes.”
“Killed the dog? They killed Aida?”
“Yes.”
He flosses and brushes. Checks his hair in the bathroom mirror. Okay. Face—nothing to be done. Fifty minutes to go. Dusts and vacuums. Pacing again. Staring out again at quiet Mary Street. There. Angel again. Soccer ball again. Maneuvering in the snow. Dribbling east, whipping about on a dime, dribbling west.
Conte hadn’t defined
o’scugnizzo
for her. The orphan boy living on the streets of Naples, by his wits. Poor, homeless, raggedly clothed. A rascal, a rapscallion. A scamp and a Devil. Angel, who insisted on pronouncing his own name the way a clueless English speaker would,
An-gell
, had never commented on Conte’s proper Spanish rendition:
An-hel. An-hell?
Yes. Moreno the Anhellion. He must tell Catherine.
Mary Street’s latest
o’scugnizzo
, and the son that Eliot never had.
CHAPTER 6
While Big Don Belmonte waits in the Wrangler, she tells Conte “I’m here now”—striding through the door toward the bedroom—“only to change into my favorite outfit and to propose that you
“The hammer. You came here to act out the meaning of your surname. Mark the Hammer. Not in friendship. Mark the fucking Hammer.”
“We’re just talking, El. I need your help. If you have it, please turn it over. I leave, no consequences, end of story.”
“Have it?”
“We believe you may have Mirko’s computer.”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t force me to order a search of the premises. Within an hour this place is in shambles.”
“Fuck it.”
“Fuck it?”
“You people have already hacked into Mirko’s computer, the Imam’s computer.”
“Robinson better not have told you this, Eliot.”
“No comment.”
“We’re all over those computers. Sure. Problem is a forensic exam is necessary because everything dumped into the trash can itself be trashed, deleted, and only a forensic search into the hard drive can retrieve what the user is trying to hide. El, I need that computer.”
“Mirko is conducting a clandestine romance, Mark. That’s all it is.”
“How do you know this?”
“No comment.”
“El. Recall the bombing of the Fraunces Tavern near Wall Street, late seventies? Radical Puerto Rican nationalists?”
“No. That would be before you were born, Mark.”
“We know all about Delores Delgado, do you?”
“Make your point, Mark.”
“Her grandfather and great-uncle were the designers and executioners of the Fraunces Tavern bombing. Wall Street area. People died.”
“You’re losing it, Mark.”
“Possibly. But if I’m not? You ready to take the consequences because you were blasé about connecting the dots?”
“What is Kyle saying about this?”
“We don’t discuss this level of my work.”
“Bullshit.”
“I agree.”
“Where does that leave us, Mark?”
“Okay. I’m going. On the way to headquarters I’m making a call. Count on it. I’m advising you.”
“Go ahead. Advise me.”
“Proceed as I do.”
“How’s that?”
“Exercising caution and due diligence.”
Noon, and Conte’s thoughts turn to sausage and peppers. He’s eaten nothing for eighteen hours, since the tomato pie binge of the night before. She said afternoon, to collect her things. He’ll sit at the desk, watch and wait. Conte has no appetite. Perhaps, maybe, a half sandwich at most. Or a quarter. Or none at all. He polishes off both sandwiches and a twelve-ounce bottle of Coke, and then the phone rings. She ignores his hello-with-a-mouthful. “Be there in an hour with Don Belmonte in his all-terrain vehicle. I have frightening news to report—tell you when I get there.”
“Tell me now.”
“Maureen Rintrona. Maureen. She’s walking the dog this morning at dawn. A car pulls alongside, blasting Verdi. She thinks it was Verdi. The driver fires once at the beagle. The light was weak. We have almost nothing to go on.”
“The dog? Not Maureen?”
“Yes.”
“Killed the dog? They killed Aida?”
“Yes.”
He flosses and brushes. Checks his hair in the bathroom mirror. Okay. Face—nothing to be done. Fifty minutes to go. Dusts and vacuums. Pacing again. Staring out again at quiet Mary Street. There. Angel again. Soccer ball again. Maneuvering in the snow. Dribbling east, whipping about on a dime, dribbling west.
Conte hadn’t defined
o’scugnizzo
for her. The orphan boy living on the streets of Naples, by his wits. Poor, homeless, raggedly clothed. A rascal, a rapscallion. A scamp and a Devil. Angel, who insisted on pronouncing his own name the way a clueless English speaker would,
An-gell
, had never commented on Conte’s proper Spanish rendition:
An-hel. An-hell?
Yes. Moreno the Anhellion. He must tell Catherine.
Mary Street’s latest
o’scugnizzo
, and the son that Eliot never had.
CHAPTER 6
While Big Don Belmonte waits in the Wrangler, she tells Conte “I’m here now”—striding through the door toward the bedroom—“only to change into my favorite outfit and to propose that you
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