little colored baby.”
Esther had begun to shake, her small frame trembling beside me, and I wrapped my arm around her, steadying us both.
“I heard him come in,” Theresa said.
“Who?” Sal asked. “Who did you hear?”
“I heard you.” Theresa pointed at Bo, who was so still in the darkened alley, he almost melded with the shadows.
“You found Maude,” she said, addressing him, her voice triumphant like she reveled in knowing his secret. “You cried. I’ve never heard a man cry before. You cried for a long time, and I stayed hidden . . . watching you. Then you took the baby. And you left. And I . . . went home too.” She shrugged. “And everyone thought someone else was to blame,” she said, shaking her head.
“You killed her,” Sal said, like he couldn’t believe it.
“I killed her.” Theresa sighed like it was a relief to say it. “And you all blamed yourselves for not protecting her. Poor Maude. Always so many men throwing themselves at her feet.”
Bo Johnson was crying. It was soundless, but his tears caught the light as they dripped from his clenched jaw and darkened the gray of his topcoat.
“I was afraid for a long time,” Theresa muttered. “I was sloppy, the pills were mine, and I drank from my glass. But no one even asked me about her.” She unclenched Sal’s fist, took the earrings from his hand, and brought them to her chest.
“I took her earrings. I wanted something to remind me of what I’d done. I put them on the stand next to my bed. And every day I looked at them. I was still as invisible to you as I’ve always been. But I was different too. I was . . . powerful. Something changed that night. In me. And I got pregnant. You gave me my babies. And I was not invisible to them.”
There was a moment of silence in the alley, a settling, an acceptance. Not of what had been done, but what had been revealed.
“Did you kill Carla too, Theresa?” Sal asked, his voice soft.
She blinked. Once. Twice. And then she confessed to that too.
“You should not have brought her into my home,” Theresa said, and Sal’s shoulders fell forward as his chin hit his chest.
“And what about Jack . . . did you kill Jack?” he whispered. “Did you hire Mickey Lido?”
Theresa frowned and shook her head, adamant, and her bleached hair danced. But Sal didn’t believe her denial.
“Mickey was a Reina man. One of your father’s soldiers. I couldn’t figure out why a Reina man would hurt Jack. I thought maybe Alexander got to him. But you got to him. You hired him . . . didn’t you?”
“No,” Theresa said.
“Yes!” Sal roared. “Tell me!”
My breath caught, and my legs buckled. Oh God. Oh, Pop.
“Jack was talking about her.” Theresa pointed at Esther. “He was stirring up all the bad times again. He got Benny involved. And that night . . . they were on the radio . . . singing about Bo Johnson. Jack wanted the whole world to know about Bo Johnson and Maude Alexander. He said he wanted justice for them. He wouldn’t shut up about it. He got sick, and he got a conscience, I guess. I just . . . thought . . . if Jack died, Benny would let it go. He’d stop playing with them and go back to his old ways. Benny never made any fuss. It was Jack that was stirring it all up. It was Jack pushing that girl on him.”
“You hired Mickey to kill Jack,” Sal repeated, stupefied. “Jack . . . who . . . loved us.”
“He was dying anyway,” Theresa said, looking at me. “Did you know that, Benito? He was dying anyway. It was . . . an act of mercy.”
It occurred to me then that the world of Murder Inc. and Albert Anastasia wasn’t just my world. It was Theresa’s world too. It’d been Theresa’s world all her life. Mob daughter. Mob wife. And she’d learned how to navigate in it. Hired hitmen, intimidation, drive-by shootings, and sawed-off fingers. Theresa knew who to call.
“Go get in the car, Theresa,” Sal said, his voice level. Quiet. Finished.
She looked stunned, as if she’d just performed a soaring aria and been told it was subpar. She’d been dismissed again, relegated back to her corner. Made to feel invisible.
“But . . . ,” she stammered. “I . . . I am not finished.”
“Go get in the car!” Sal