At Peace (45 page)

I didn’t know what Cal was up to and I didn’t
care, not now. I’d care tomorrow or the next day but I was hoping
his lunacy would be spent by then, he’d be on another trip, off on
his job as Security to the Stars and I wouldn’t have to bother.

He slid into a parking spot in the street
that had two clear signs that read
NO PARKING
then he cut the ignition.

I stared at the signs then looked beyond them
and around me, seeing that we were deep in the city. I hadn’t been
paying attention. Why Cal took us so far into the city, God only
knew.

Then I looked back at the girls who were both
leaned to peer out the side window.

Then I looked at Cal.

“Cal, you can’t park here,” I told him.

He ignored me and ordered, “Change your
shoes, buddy.”

Here we go again.

“
I can’t wear this outfit with flip-flops
in public,” I informed him.

He again ignored me and repeated, “Buddy,
change your shoes.”

I briefly considered how long it would
take to explain to Joe Callahan why I could not wear flip-flops
with a seven hundred and fifty dollar suit, knowing that even Tim
would not get this concept, hell, even Mike wouldn’t get it and
Mike seemed totally clued into these kinds of things considering
how materialistic his ex had been. Therefore Cal definitely
wouldn’t and I decided it would be an impossible task, we’d end it
in a verbal tussle and I was tired and hungry.

So I declared, “I’m not fighting about
this and I am
not
changing my
shoes.”

His blue eyes locked with mine and I held his
glare.

“
Fuck,” he muttered, giving in which was
more lunacy. Cal didn’t give in and now he’d done it
twice
.

“Language in front of the girls,” I
snapped.

“Baby, they hear it all the time,” he
returned and I felt my eyes get wide in motherly affront.

Cal looked at my face then over the seat to
the girls and asked, “You gonna say fuck because I say fuck?”

“No,” Kate answered immediately.

“No, ‘cause Mom doesn’t like it,” Keira
replied waspishly.

Cal looked back at me and raised his
brows.

I gave in this time, throwing my door open,
getting out and pulling the seat up so Keira and Kate could get out
safely on the street side.

Cal slammed his door, rounded the hood and
walked to us, waiting as the girls got out. As Kate alighted and
closed the door, I looked around Cal and saw a dark haired man in a
nice, semi-shiny, dark blue polo-necked shirt and dark gray pants
stalking toward Cal.

Getting close, the man shouted, “Yo! Can’t
park there.”

Cal turned, the man skidded to a halt and
stared up at him in wonder, as if he was seeing a ghost.

“
Shit, fuck me,
Cal?
” the man whispered.

“Hey, Manny,” Cal returned.

“Cal!” the man, apparently named Manny and
apparently someone Cal knew, was now yelling.

I stared as he leaped forward and threw his
arms around Cal, pounding him on the back in a way that sounded
painful then he pulled back and looked at him.

“Holy fuck, man, Pop’s gonna be frickin’
beside himself, Ma too. They’re both here. Holy fuck!”

“
Manny,” Cal said, moving toward me and
pulling me to his side with an arm around my shoulders, “Vi gets
pissy when you say fuck in front of her girls.”

But Manny wasn’t listening and I wasn’t
moving out of Cal’s arm mainly because I was worried that Manny was
having a heart attack and I’d have to jump in and attempt CPR
(something I’d never done). His eyes had bugged out and he appeared
to be fighting for breath as he looked at me, Kate and Keira.

Then he whispered, “Fuck me.”

“Seriously, Man, the language,” Cal warned,
his voice going low.

Manny’s body jolted then his face split into
a huge smile and he jumped forward, arm extended to me. “Yo, hey,
I’m Manny.”

“Hi,” I said back, taking his hand and he
gripped mine hard, not shaking it, just holding on tight. “I’m
Violet.”

He nodded. “Violet, nice.” Then he let me go
and turned to Kate, hand to her. “Hey, pretty lady.”

“Um… hi,” Kate replied shyly, taking his
hand. “Um… I’m Kate.”

“Katy, like it,” Manny told her, let her go
and turned to Keira. “And you are, sweetheart?”

“Keira,” she took his hand too, staring up at
him, openly fascinated probably because, I belatedly noticed, he
was a very good-looking, well-built Italian-American.

“Keira, pretty name. Excellent,” Manny
finished his round robin approval of our names then he let Keira
go, moved quickly toward the door of the restaurant and announced,
“Let’s get you in, get your asses in a booth, I’ll get Ma and Pop
then we’ll get you some Chianti and a big pie, yeah?”

Without much choice, we followed him;
Cal’s hand in the small of Kate’s back, guiding her in front of us.
I guided Keira with a hand at her waist. Cal’s arm was still around
my shoulders.

I looked up at the green neon sign over the
door that said in slanting script “Vinnie’s Pizzeria.”

Seeing it, it startled me as I’d heard of
this place. Tim and I had always meant to find it and eat there.
Rumor had it that it was a hidden gem, one of the best unknown
restaurants in Chicago especially for pizza or pasta which, if that
was true, was saying something, it being in Chicago. But it wasn’t
easy to find, we knew it was in Little Italy but Tim had looked and
they didn’t even have a phone listing. He’d always meant to use his
cop resources to find the address but he never got around to it
and, in the end, time ran out.

Manny went in first, holding the door and we
all piled through. There were benches on either side of the door
filled with people, more people standing around obviously waiting
for a table and there was a bar, totally packed, again with people
waiting for a table. They might not have a phone, evidenced by the
fact that these people obviously didn’t have a reservation, but
they were far from unpopular.

Once we were in, Manny shoved by us and
pushed through the people to the hostess station.

“Yo, Bella, next booth that’s open, Cal and
his girls sit there,” Manny ordered a young girl who had to be no
more than eighteen and the minute he issued his order her face went
straight to attitude and not the good kind.

“
Man, you nuts? I got…” her head tilted
down and she (and I) looked at the sheet of paper that had
scribbles on it, some at the top with a red mark through them, a
whole load at the bottom that was just a very long list, her head
jerked up and she finished, “about a trillion freakin’ people
waitin’.”

“This is family,” Manny explained.

“Everyone’s family,” Bella shot back.

Manny got serious, I knew it by looking at
him and listening to him and, if Cal’s arm wasn’t still heavy on my
shoulders, I would have stepped back.

“Woman, shut down the attitude, this is my
cousin Cal. Get him and his girls in a fuckin’ booth.”

His cousin?

Oh shit, this was
Vinnie’s
Pizzeria as in dead cousin Vinnie, murdered, like
my brother and husband, by Daniel Hart.

I felt my body grow stiff but Bella’s mouth
had dropped open, she’d shut down the attitude and she was staring
at Cal.

“You’re Cal?” she breathed.

“Yep,” Cal answered.

“
The
Cal?” she asked.

“Yep,” Cal repeated.

“Holy shit,” she whispered.

“Language, Bells, Jesus, there’s fuckin’ kids
here,” Manny admonished and Kate and Keira giggled.

Actually giggled. On the day of their uncle’s
funeral.

If I wasn’t freaked out, exhausted, hungry,
dealing with Cal’s lunacy, an unexpected visit to his family and it
wasn’t the day of my brother’s funeral, I would have kissed
Cal.

Cal heard the giggles, I knew this because
his arm flexed on my shoulders, a reflexive action but one that
spoke to me.

Then again, I thought a lot of the shit
Cal had done spoke to me and I’d been really, really
wrong
.

“
What, we holdin’ a conference? Why’s
everyone standin’…” an annoyed female’s voice came at us, Manny
stepped out of the way, the voice stopped and I saw a very round
but also very attractive older Italian-American woman standing
three feet away, still as a statue, staring at Cal.

Then she started chanting, doing that thing
with her fingers to her forehead and shoulders. “Holy Mary, Mother
of Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus.”

Then she rushed forward, lifted her hands and
grabbed Cal on both sides of his head, yanking it down to her
face.

Cal’s arm fell from my shoulders and he
muttered, “Hey Aunt Theresa.” She pulled him closer and gave him a
loud, smacking kiss on one cheek then the other then back to the
other, jerking his head around while she did this and while I
stared on in rapt shock that anyone would jerk Cal around this
way.

Then she shoved his head away like she was
pissed as hell, she lifted a finger in his face and shouted, “You
never visit! What? We smell? The bed too lumpy last time you
stayed? It’s been two years!”

“Aunt Theresa.”

She wagged her finger in his face. “No, none
of that ‘Aunt Theresa’ business. Chicago isn’t on the moon, Anthony
Joseph Callahan, it’s four hours away!”

Cal’s arm went back around my shoulders, he
pulled me to his side and he said, “Shut up so you can meet
Vi.”

She went statue still again then only her
eyeballs came to me.

I didn’t think she’d like Cal telling her to
shut up, she seemed tightly wound, so I decided not to pull away
from him or make any quick movements. She was already looking at me
with her eyeballs, I didn’t want too much of her attention.

“
And these are Vi’s girls, Ma, Katy and
Keirry,” Manny added, shoving Kate and Keira close in front of Cal
and me,
way
too close to
crazy Aunt Theresa and Aunt Theresa’s eyeballs moved between all of
us, fast.

I wrapped my arm around Keira’s belly and
pulled her to the left side of my front, not a good enough distance
from the frozen, but unpredictable, Aunt Theresa, but at least she
wasn’t standing right in front of her anymore. Cal wrapped an arm
around Kate’s chest and pulled her to his front right.

When Cal did that to Kate, Aunt Theresa
started moving again, doing that hand to the forehead and shoulders
thing, calling loudly, “Oh, Holy Mary, Mother of God, Sweet Mary,
Mother of God!”

“Jesus, Ma, you’re freakin’ them out,” Manny
muttered, she stopped calling out to Mary, turned and whacked him
one, hand open, up the side of his head.

Good Lord, the woman was every
Italian-American stereotype in the book.

“
What in
the
fuck’s goin’ on?” a loud, booming man’s voice shouted from
behind Aunt Theresa, she whirled and there stood a man, a
good-looking one, older, a bit of a pot belly, definitely related
to Manny (thus Cal).

“
Vinnie!” Aunt Theresa yelled. “Cal’s here,
with
Vi
and her
daughters
Katy
and
Keirry
.”

But Vinnie’s face, like his son’s, had split
into a huge grin. He took us all in, giving us that grin and he
walked by Aunt Theresa toward Cal, his arms wide.

Cal let me and Kate go and suffered another
back pounding hug while Vinnie muttered a bunch of stuff in
Italian. Vinnie ended the hug with his hands tight on Cal’s
neck.

“Cal,” he whispered.

“Uncle Vinnie,” Cal replied.

“Good to see you, fuck, son, good to see
you.”

I stared at him seeing he meant this, it came
from somewhere deep. In fact, he was nearly overwhelmed with
emotion. If he burst into tears, I wouldn’t have been surprised. He
missed Cal and it was obviously good to see him.

Vinnie let Cal go and his eyes moved through
us all. “Who do we have here? Honored guests? Why aren’t their
asses in a booth?”

“Table five’s gettin’ bussed, Vinnie,” Bella
put in.

“Well, help ‘em bus it girl, family don’t
stand around at the freakin’ hostess station,” Vinnie replied.

“Right,” Bella muttered then took off as it
was clear Vinnie’s word was law, as it would be at Vinnie’s
Pizzeria, and Vinnie turned to me.

“Vi?” he asked, hand out.

“Yes, Vi, Violet,” I answered, taking his
hand.

“Vi,” he said firmly, his squeeze of my hand
just as firm, his happy grin still in place.

“These are my daughters, Kate,” I reached out
and touched Kate’s arm. “And Keira,” I indicated Keira with my
head, she was still in the curve of my other arm.

Vinnie shook Kate’s hand then Keira’s then
looked at Cal.

“All beauties, Cal, you got an eye.”

I looked up at Cal to see his response was to
tip up his chin.

“We’ll get you seated, soon’s we can,” Vinnie
said, his eyes swept through us again, stopping at Cal, giving him
a top to toe and then locking eyes with him. “What’s with the
getups?”

“
Funeral,” Cal murmured, “Vi’s brother,
Sam.”

Vinnie’s face froze, Aunt Theresa sucked in
breath and I felt Manny’s eyes on us.

“
Cara,
” Vinnie whispered.

I swallowed, Keira pressed into my body, Kate
shoved under Cal’s arm so he slid it around her shoulders.

“Vi hasn’t had anything to eat since
breakfast, Uncle Vinnie, she needs some food,” Cal ended the
silence but he did it quietly.