“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it is—we’re all grown-up now. No more parties, no more dances. I never see anybody. I work, I go home, fall asleep. That’s about it.”
“You ever see Bobby?”
“He moved out of the city. He has a nice place with one of those above-ground pools out on the Island. He hates the city. All the cops, they hate the city.”
Celeste reached out for his water glass and sipped from it thoughtfully, leaving a lip print on it the color of bubble gum. “So how’s it coming?” she said, jerking her head toward the window, the flowers on her hat moving as though a thunderstorm was coming up.
“Okay. We’re having a little bit of trouble with the kids out there. A lot of them are bored with vacation and vandalizing the place in their spare time. They set us back some.”
“Kids’ll be kids,” Celeste said.
“Yeah, well some of them are being a little more than kids. Somebody set fire to one of the models two nights ago. Thank God it didn’t do too much damage.”
“Which night?” Connie asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Night before last. If it happens again, we got a real problem.”
“So you’re not done yet,” Celeste said.
“We’ll be done the models soon. A lot of the others will be finished by October, the rest in November. We sold the first one two days ago.”
“You sold one?” Connie said.
“Yeah, to a young couple who live in Queens. He’s in business. They have one kid, a little girl, must be adopted. She’s Korean. I think they’re Jewish.”
Celeste started to laugh, and the flowers on the hat went wild. “What’s so funny?” Joey Martinelli said.
“She’s thinking about my husband’s father,” Connie said, and she began to smile.
Celeste let out a whoop. “Bring the old man over here in an ambulance,” she said, gasping for breath. “Jews with a Chink kid. Oh my god. He’ll move to another state.”
“My father-in-law isn’t crazy about all this,” Connie said. “He’s ready to move us to a better neighborhood.”
“Hey, I’m always for that,” said Joey, grinning.
“So you move,” Connie said. “I like picking my own neighborhood.”
“I love that guy,” said Celeste. “He’s perfect. My mother says to me last week, ‘Father O’Hearn over to Holy Redeemer gave the damnedest sermon yesterday. It was about Jesus and golf.’ I said ‘Ma, do me a favor. Call the hospital and tell Mr. Scanlan.’”
Joey Martinelli smiled. “That’s some hat you got,” he said, but his eyes were on Connie, who was stretching her legs in front of her, wiggling her toes, cramped from their afternoon in her good pumps. Her skirt had crept up her legs, and the curve of her thighs shone in nylon stockings. “I like that blouse,” Joey said to no one in particular, and Connie crumpled it up in her fist, an edge of white lace falling from between her fingers. Celeste looked from Joey’s face to that of her cousin, and then back again. “Fix me a seven-and-seven, Con,” she said, her eyes narrowed, and she patted the couch beside her. “Joe,” she said, “you come sit here next to me.”
13
SAL’S WAS A TAVERN A BLOCK AWAY from First Concrete. Its door was set on a diagonal at the corner of two busy streets and thrown into perpetual shade by the elevated subway line. It looked like any tavern in America at the time, with neon beer signs in the window and red plastic seats in the booths and gangly bar stools ranged around a long, long bar filled with old men in the afternoons and working men at night. Above the register hung the first dollar Sal’s ever took in, nineteen years earlier. The only thing worth mentioning about Sal’s was that they made a spectacular hamburger out of good-grade chuck that Sal D’Alessandro got from a cop who got it as part of his payoff from a wholesale butcher in the wholesale meat market. All the cops ate and drank free at Sal’s, and if any of their wives called, Sal always said their husbands had just been there and been called out on some emergency. Tommy usually ate lunch at Sal’s. He liked the company and the food.
He took Mark there when, during the last week in July, his brother asked him to lunch. “Jesus, look at this place,” Mark said, staring at the retired guys with gray stubble on their faces watching As the World Turns on the television. Sal came over after they got