Alle Kapitel von The Revenge of the Underboss’s Bride : Kapitel 71 – Kapitel 80

Downtown at ten was fluorescent and coffee that had given up. Alvarez put pages in front of us like a teacher who hated the class and still needed it to pass. “Sign what you saw,” she said. “Do not sign what you guessed.” I wrote the whisper, the empty chair, the tea, the phone in the air, the pin in the bag. I did not write the original book. I did not write where it lived. Vincent wrote the back stair, the glass, the knee, the name Harvest like a hat. Alvarez read both. “You left a cousin out.” “Gina stayed in her room,” I said. “Put that. She is tired of being the door and I am tired of writing her that way when she is not.” Alvarez made a note. “The sock phone has one thread. A number that bounces. One message after you broke the live feed. It says package incomplete. Next box is the girl with the bruise.” Elena. Vincent’s head came up. “Where is she.” I was already on my own phone. Elena answered on the first ring, which was either good or a script. “I am in

The priest from Spring came because I asked and because Grell had already made him a post office. He wore plain clothes and an expression of a man who would bill God later. He stood by Carmine’s bed and looked at the two will copies Alvarez had allowed us to hold for the afternoon under her glare. “This one is Grell,” the priest said, tapping the real. “I do not need a lab. I buried that man’s handwriting in my head with the envelopes. This other one wants to be him and drinks milk.” Carmine’s good eye shone. “Say that Monday.” “I will say I held an envelope for a girl and a scarred man. I will say a rectory burned after they left. I will not say God prefers either page. Do not ask me to.” “I will not,” I said. Vincent stood at the window again. Sunday trees. No wave. DeLuca came, then Russo, then Bellomo who could not stay away from a bed that still made weather. Ten minutes each. Bottled water. No speeches long enough to kill a man. Bellomo looked at Carmine and then

The doctor closed Carmine’s eyes because no one else could make their hands do it first. The room kept the orange peel smell. It felt rude. Vincent stood at the foot of the bed and did not blink enough. “No hospital theater,” he said. “No press at a service. No wheel to an annex. He stays in this house until the court is done using his name.” The doctor nodded, already tired of arguing with the living. “I can sign what I have to sign. I cannot make a dead man a filing.” “You do not have to,” I said. “He filed with his mouth. We have it.” Gina cried into her own collar in the hall. Elena sat on the floor with her back to the doorframe and stared at her knees. Russo waited for an order like a man standing in smoke. Vincent gave them in pieces. “Call Vance. Call Alvarez. Call the priest. Do not call the captains until I say the sentence. If Bellomo hears a rumor before a fact he will sell the rumor.” I stayed by the bed until the nurse covered Carmine to the chest. Then I

Bellomo did not get into the conference. Russo did, with a look that said the hall was a market. “He is selling theft if you win and unfit if you do not,” Russo said. “He is a weather vane with a tooth.” “Let him spin,” I said. “At noon he will have to point.” The priest drank water from a bottle like the rest of us. “I do not like annexes. They smell like rooms where people practice being true.” “You only have to be bored and accurate,” I said. “That I can do.” Alvarez came in, shut the door, and dropped a photo on the table. Reid on our front step yesterday. Time stamp. Sweater. No sling. Mouth half smiling. “Sunday product,” Alvarez said. “If the judge wants a deputy who stays still, I have a deputy who sells timeshares on stone.” Vance took the photo. “Good. Do not add a speech to it.” Vincent stood at the narrow window and watched a slice of hall. “Julian will come back from the recess with piety. He practiced it when he was twelve and someone died who was not u

I did not run. Running would have given the room a weather system and the van a head start with no one on the phone who could move a badge. I wrote on the edge of Vance’s pad, hard enough to cut paper. Van. Mother. Now. Vance read it, stood while the judge was still saying control, and did the only useful rude thing left. He walked to the bench with his phone turned out, not a speech, a picture. The judge stopped. “What is this.” “A van this court just heard about,” Vance said. “It left their gate and went to a sick woman’s house. I am asking for two minutes and a detective.” Alvarez was already at the door. The judge’s mouth was a line. “Two minutes. If this is a trick I will end more than a recess.” I looked at Vincent. He was half out of his chair. “You stay for the sentence,” I said. “If you leave, Julian gets the room. I will not give him the room and the van.” Vincent’s eyes were wrecked and clear. “You do not go alone.” “I go with Alvarez. That is the cr