wide she has no choice but to look at me. Then I stare at her and say to our server, “She will have the carpaccio of beef with watercress and garlic aioli and eggplant croquettes, and I will have the veal chops with lemon sage sauce and the risotto with arugula and goat’s cheese.” I quickly glance at ’Tone from the corner of my eye to see if he makes a face; he merely scribbles and nods. A few years ago I ate the veal here, a dish so memorable that recalling it now required no effort. The beef, on the other hand—don’t remember anything even close to it on the menu. Not that it matters; they’ll be making it today.
Melody turns the corners of her mouth down like she’s trying to hold back a smile, but as she speaks, it escapes. “Raw beef was a risk, Jonathan. So was eggplant, especially for lunch.”
A calculated risk; I saw her eat—and enjoy—the same dish at an Italian eatery two relocations earlier.
“Did I fail?”
She studies me with a look like she’s sizing me up for the first time, fights putting the smile away. “Not yet.”
I order a bottle of wine and ’Tone leaves us. We’re the only people in the entire room.
She takes a deep breath, sits up straight. “You wanted to talk.”
Not as much as I feel that I have to. All those words, all the scripting I tried to memorize in the car while she slept, have vanished now that she faces me, her feminine voice misguiding every remark and thought that attempts to surface, her eyes sparkling with a hope or need for something real and life-sustaining.
Here goes nothing. Here goes everything.
I nod as I put my elbows on the table and lean toward her, speak at a low volume as if someone is seated at the table next to us. “Do you wonder,” I say, “how it is that I knew what was on this menu without even taking a glance?”
She shrugs. “Photographic memory?”
I lean even closer, speak even softer. “We’re the only customers in this restaurant because they’re not open yet, and will not be open for probably another hour. We were given the best table in the place because they would not give me anything less. We will sit and eat a delicious meal, the finest they will prepare today, and we will drink a bottle of wine, and when we’re done with our dessert and cannot finish another bite, we’ll get up and walk out of here without paying a cent.”
More sour milk. “Should I be impressed?”
“You should be concerned, Melody.”
She leans toward me, shows no sign of intimidation. “I’ve been concerned my entire life, Johnny-boy. Every time I start my car, enter my apartment, see some guy standing near me in a coffee shop who looks even vaguely Mediterranean. This is why we’re here? For you to explain why I’ve spent my life in Witness Protection? I know more about it than you ever could.”
“No, what I’m showing you is the depth of my family’s influence, okay? Are we in New York right now? Nowhere close, yet the folks here will do whatever I ask of them. People think you can run away to Tennessee or Ohio, but the truth is we have a presence in those places, too. I mean, really, you think there are all these Italian families vying for the same chunk of business in the five boroughs? Get real. Forget the Mafia, what about the damn Russians or the Chinese or the Dominicans? Even the fu—lousy street gangs are tapping into what used to be our exclusive interests.”
“Nice. So you move to the suburbs like everyone else, bringing all your crime and misery with you.”
We’ve gotten off track and I’ve only been working this issue for one minute. I take off my glasses and rub my eyes. “You’re missing the central issue here. You can’t hide, Melody. The marshals they assign to you cannot move you far enough away. You can’t outrun a sunset.” Then, as I unfold my napkin and place it in my lap, I add, “We could have snatched you long ago.”
Another server emerges from the kitchen, puts a basket of warm bread on our table, and displays the label of a bottle of Medici Ermete Concerto Reggiano Lambrusco to me. I put my glasses back on, nod in approval, tell him I’ll do the pouring. He rips off a few lines in Italian that mean nothing