says as they burst out into the street. “We're just standing there and these three guys elbow in—big guys, grown-ups. One pulls out a sawed-off, sticks it in Johnny's face, and bam!”
They're running down Hanover Street now, heading for the pizza joint. Nicola can hear sirens approaching. “What did you do?” she yells.
“We—none of us—did nothin'! The whole thing was, like, two seconds. Then they back out the door, get into a car, and they're gone.”
They round the corner and Nicola sees there's a small crowd outside Gennero's, like maybe it's lunchtime and they're in line to order a slice.
“Who was it, Ricky?” she asks, panting.
“I dunno.”
Nicola stops, grabs the kid by the shirt, and spins him against a brick wall so hard his head comes away bleeding. “Don't gimme that shit! Who was it?!”
“No, I swear, Nicola; I don't know them!”
“Yeah, like you don't know your mother, eh? You chickenshit!”
She slaps him full across the face and he doesn't even try to stop her. Then she wades through the crowd, and when old man Gennero in his stained apron yells, “Hey! No!” and tries to stop her, she bodychecks him aside and keeps going, right through the door and into the place, where the air is fragrant with pizza dough, tomato, garlic, herbs, and the lingering, acrid smell of fireworks on the Fourth of July.
The restaurant is deserted.
But Johnny is there. He's sitting on the floor in the corner beneath the niche where Gennero has a blue and white statue of the Virgin. His head is hanging down as if he's napping or something. The wall and the Virgin behind him are splattered red, like somebody had flung an institutional-size can of tomato sauce. The sirens are very close now.
She expects to be horrified, and in some corner of her brain she is, but she is oddly separate from that part of herself. It's as if she's Kojak; she's trying to make sense of the scene before her, trying to take it all in. She is about to lift Johnny's head—it's a reflex; she knows he's dead, but she wants to see his eyes—when the cops arrive and one of them grabs her.
“Come away from there, girlie; that's not for you,” the cop says quietly. He's from Southie; she can tell by the Irish accent. He's trying to be gentle, assumes she's in shock, and he's correct.
“Take your fuckin' hands offa me!” she screams. “That's my brother!” And now she's crying and flailing punches.
In one swift, sure, graceful move, the cop scoops her off her feet, carries her out the door, and gently sets her in the backseat of a squad car, where, empty of fury now, she sits stonelike, staring, like someone waiting for a long traffic light to change. Another cop, a lady, kneels on the pavement by the open rear door and talks quietly to her, trying to get her name. Nicola suddenly folds at the waist, clutching her stomach. The lady cop sees it coming and pulls her out of the car so she can throw up in the street. The woman strokes her long hair and says soothing things to her as Nicola retches; she has no idea what the woman is saying, but it helps.
Randi was snoring. She didn't know why, but she found this endearing, only one of many sweet things about the witch's dog. She leaned over and stroked his velvet head. The snoring stopped; the dog heaved a damp sigh, shifted position, and was once again asleep.
Nicola wished she could sleep, too, but she was thinking about Andrew now—happy to be rid of Johnny, at least for a while, but no less troubled for thinking about Andrew. What the hell was wrong with the guy? “Don't you understand how I feel about you?” he'd yelled. Yeah, I do, but you're out of here in a few days, for Christ's sake. Probably the guy was just plain out of it; still shell-shocked by his wife's walking out on him. Either way, it was meaningless. What kind of man falls in love with you after only a few days? A lunatic, that's who.
And yet, she was almost certain there was nothing else crazy about him. Softhearted, perhaps, but not softheaded. That was it, then: He was a scheming Lothario. Maybe his wife really left him because she was tired of all his affairs. No, if that were the case, he wouldn't have seemed so surprised when she'd invited him home, and then