her to come to America and marry Salvatore didn’t want her back in Naples. She was penniless, a widow in a strange country.
When Violetta got out of the hospital, she moved in temporarily with Captain and Mrs. Carlucci, Jerry’s idea being that when he caught the sonofabitch who had run them down, he would get enough money out of the bastard’s insurance company to take care of Violetta, to make her look like a desirable wife to some other hard-working young man.
They never found the sonofabitch who had been driving the car. So when Jerry and Angeline, right after he’d made inspector, moved out of their house on South Rosewood Street in South Philly to the new house (actually it was thirty years old) on Crefield Street, Violetta went with them. She was good with the kids, the kids loved her, and Angeline needed a little help around the house.
A number of young, hard-working, respectable men were introduced to Violetta, but she just wasn’t interested in any of them. She had found her place in life, working for the Carluccis, almost a member of the family.
When, as police commissioner, Jerry bought the big house in Chestnut Hill, and did it over, they turned three rooms in the attic into an apartment for Violetta, and she just about took over running the place, the things that Angeline no longer had the time to do herself.
It was said, and it was probably true, that Violetta would kill for the Carlucci family. It was true that Violetta did a better job of working the mayor’s phone than any secretary he’d ever had in the Roundhouse or City Hall. When she handed him the phone, he knew that it was somebody he should talk to, not some nut or ding-a -ling.
“Matt Lowenstein, Violetta,” the caller said. “How are you?”
“Just a minute, Chief,” Violetta said. Chief Inspector Lowenstein was one of the very few people who got to talk to the mayor whenever he called, even in the middle of the night, when she had to put her robe on and go downstairs and wake him up.
The Honorable Jerry Carlucci, who was fifty-one years old and had an almost massive body and dark brown hair and eyes, was wearing an apron with CHIEF COOK painted on it when Violetta went into the kitchen of the Chestnut Hill mansion. He was in the act of examining with great interest one of two chicken halves he had been marinating for the past two hours, and which, when he had concluded they had been soaked enough, he planned to broil on a charcoal stove for himself and Angeline.
“Excellence, it is Chief Lowenstein,” Violetta said.
Violetta had firm Italianate ideas about the social structure of the world. Jerry had never been able to get her to call him “Mister.” It had at first been “Captain,” which was obviously more prestigious than “Mister,” then “Inspector” as he had worked his way up the hierarchy from staff inspector through inspector to chief inspector, and then “Excellence” from the time he’d been made a deputy commissioner.
He joked with Angeline that Violetta had run out of titles with “Excellence.” There were only two more prestigious: “Your Majesty ” and “Your Holiness,” plus maybe “Your Grace,” none of which, obviously, fit.
“Grazie,” he said and went to the wall-mounted telephone by the door.
“How’s my favorite Hebrew?” the mayor said.
He and Matt Lowenstein went way back. And he was fully aware that behind his back, Matt Lowenstein referred to him as “The Dago.”
“The package from Las Vegas, Mr. Mayor, arrived safely at the airport, and two minutes ago passed through the gates in Chestnut Hill.”
“No press?”
“Ardell—Paul Ardell, the Airport lieutenant?—”
“I know who he is.”
“He said he didn’t see any press. We probably attracted more attention taking her off the plane that way than if we’d just let Payne walk her through the terminal.”
“Yeah, maybe. But this way, Matt, we did Detweiler a favor. And if Payne had walked her into the airport and there had been a dozen assholes from the TV and the newspapers . . .”
“You’re right, of course.”
“I’m always right, you should remember that.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor.”
“You free for lunch tomorrow?”
That’s cant, Matt Lowenstein thought, having recently discovered that cant without the apostrophe meant that what was said was deceitful or hypocritical. What Jerry Carlucci was really saying was, “If you had something you wanted to do for lunch tomorrow, forget it.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Probably the Union League at twelve-thirty. If there’s a change, I’ll have