Red, White & Dead. Laura Caldwell

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      “Well, since I haven’t ended up with anyone, it’s kind of hard to say right now.”

      “What about that young guy you mentioned?”

      I laughed a little. I hadn’t told my mother how young he was.

      “What?” she said.

      “Nothing. I saw him last night.”

      “Fun?”

      I remembered the feel of my legs around him, my back against the rough wall of the stairwell. I thought of him later in bed, curving around me, how he fell asleep first and I traced the ribbon of red tattooed in a trail down his arm. “Yeah, it was fun.”

      “And so?”

      I shrugged. “Who knows?”

      Theo hadn’t said anything specific about getting together again. It gave me a tickle of discomfort. Was all that stuff about dying to see me just about one thing—sex? Then again, what did I care?

      “And how’s Sam?” my mom asked.

      “We haven’t spoken in a few weeks.”

      “Do you miss him?”

      I shifted around on the chair. “Yes. And no. I mean, I miss lots of things about him, and I miss having someone in my life, but sometimes I don’t mind being alone. I don’t mind deciding what I want to eat for dinner and what I want to do for the weekend. I like that part a lot.” I looked down at the book my dad used to read me, played with its cover. Inside, I had tucked the clipping about my grandfather’s death. “But then again, sometimes it’s lonely.”

      My mother chuckled. “And so goes the circle of life.” She nodded at the book. “So all this about your dad …”

      “Yeah, I don’t know.” You’re okay now, Boo.

      My mother stood away from the counter, collecting other things in her purse—her keys, a small water bottle. “You asked what he was working on when he died. I don’t know all the specifics. I really never did. Your dad didn’t talk much when it came to his work.”

      “Didn’t that bother you?”

      “No. I knew he had to keep quiet because he was working sensitive cases.”

      “He worked for the Detroit police, right? Wasn’t it just the usual robberies and stuff?”

      “Your father worked out of the Detroit police office, and yes, he worked on things like robberies and even a serial killer, but he also profiled for the federal government. The primary case he was working on when he died was federal.”

      “What was it?”

      “A Mob case. The killing of the Rizzato Brothers.”

      “A Mob case?” I repeated. I thought of Dez Romano, Michael DeSanto.

      “Your dad had a certain knack for organized-crime cases. They were always asking him to consult.”

      “Did he ever get any threats from them?”

      “From whom? The Mob?” My mother shook her head. “He was just an average consultant. Never in the forefront.”

      I thought about the man running behind Dez and Michael as they chased me out of Gibsons. He hadn’t been at the forefront there, either. But somehow, whoever he was, I doubted that he was just an average consultant.

      10

      Louis (“Louie”) and Joseph (“Big Joe”) Rizzato were born and raised in Chicago after their parents emigrated from Ischia, Italy, an island off the Gulf of Naples. The Brothers Rizzato, as they were sometimes called, became involved in criminal activity early in life, eventually became Mob enforcers and were known for their violent and often cruel tactics. Louie rose to the position of Mob boss, but roughly six months after that, both brothers disappeared on the same night.

      I looked away from the computer for a moment.

      I had gone home from my mother’s and called Aunt Elena. No answer. I hung up without leaving a message. I wanted to get her on the phone, rather than crisscrossing with messages for weeks.

      I looked then at the stack of résumés by my keyboard, copies of ones I’d sent out and now just waiting for me to follow up on them. When I worked at the firm of Baltimore & Brown, I specialized in entertainment law, mostly because Forester Pickett, the media mogul, had taken a shine to me and given me a large chunk of his work—negotiating contracts for radio and TV personalities, defending the company or hiring local counsel, when cases of all kinds were filed against it. The phrase “trial by fire” had never been more apt. I hadn’t known what I was doing when I started, but I learned, and I learned fast, if only because there was no other way to stay afloat.

      When Forester died and I lost all my work, I’d been set adrift, and unfortunately the city didn’t have much entertainment law work to go around. When actors, musicians and directors from Chicago hit it big, they usually headed for one of the coasts. And so, unless I wanted to move, I was going to have to start thinking creatively about my employment possibilities. I’d already contacted most of the big law firms months ago, and after that attempt rendered nothing I could get excited about, I tried a gig as an on-air legal analyst. I even initiated an investigative report on a very wealthy but very crooked attorney, and that investigation eventually uncovered a class-action lawsuit scam. But after my bizarre run-in with the law as a murder suspect, no station was jumping at the chance to put me back in front of the camera. Hence the pile of résumés I’d sent out for in-house positions at different corporations.

      But I was too curious about that newspaper clipping about my grandfather, and what my mom had said about my dad, to make follow-up calls. I had pushed away the stack of résumés and done an Internet search for the Rizzato Brothers. And found that description of them—known for their violent and often cruel tactics.

      I sat back, away from the computer, and tried to think.

      My father had been working on a Mob case—that of the Rizzato Brothers—when he died. The Rizzato Brothers were Mob enforcers, one eventually a Mob boss, and they had disappeared. Meanwhile, I had been hanging out, rather innocently, with a Mob figure and was being chased by him when suddenly a vision appeared—an auditory one at least—of my dead father.

      It sounded like a load of crazy.

      Enough of this. I turned off the computer monitor and lined up my stack of résumés, then started making job-hunting calls.

      I got a lot of Sorry, nothing right now kind of responses. I got a few vague We haven’t decided anything yet, but we’ll let you know kind of answers. I got a lot of anxiety as it seemed that nothing was opening up and nothing would anytime soon.

      I looked at my watch. Six o’clock in the evening Rome time. I picked up the phone and dialed the number for my aunt Elena.

      She answered this time. “Cara!” she said, hearing my voice.

      It had been so long, and we chatted about everything—Charlie, my employment status, СКАЧАТЬ