Dopplegangster (41 page)

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Authors: Laura Resnick

BOOK: Dopplegangster
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“You think of Sally Fatico’s death as
business?
” I said, stunned.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t hate Lucky for it,” she said darkly. “But Sally . . . well, there’s no denying he brought it on himself.”
“By marrying you?”
“What? No.” She glared again. “Being married to me was what kept him alive after they found out what he was doing.”
I felt lost. “What was he doing?”
“He was cutting into the Gambellos’ truck hijacking business.” Her shoulders slumped for the first time since I had met her. “Sally was a bit of a fool. Dashing and handsome and romantic, and . . .” She sighed. “A bit of a fool.”
“He was
stealing
from the
Gambellos?
” A fool indeed.
“Lucky liked Sally, so he warned him. And when that had no effect, Lucky warned me. Normally I would—”
“Stay out of the business?”
“Yes. But I realized how serious this was. How dangerous. So I told Sally to stop.” She shook her head. “But Sally just didn’t believe they’d kill him. Because he was married to me, and the don was fond of me.”
“I thought the don had tried to strangle you?”
“Yes, well, he has a peculiar way of showing his fondness,” she said coldly.
“So . . . Sally wasn’t killed for marrying a Gambello widow?”
“You read too many tabloids,” she said. “Oh, Don Victor threw a violent tantrum the night I told him I had married Sally. That part of the gossip is true. But Lucky calmed him down—”
“Lucky was there?”
“Lucky was
always
there. I think he’s a workaholic,” she said. “He told the don I was too young to remain a widow for the rest of my life. He pointed out that a priest had married me to Sally, so it couldn’t be undone. And also that the two families weren’t at war, after all. Well, not at the time, anyhow.” She shrugged. “A week later, Don Victor sent me a wedding gift and his blessings.”
“Well,
that’s
a story that’s become very garbled in the retelling.”
“Truth is seldom as well known as gossip.” She shook her head. “And Sally wound up dead, anyhow.”
“So the don ordered Lucky to kill him because he kept stealing from the Gambellos? Even after two warnings?” It wasn’t a clean slate, certainly, but it was much more in keeping with the man I had thought Lucky was.
“And ten years later, the Corvinos killed Eddie for ratting on them to the FBI.” She sighed. “I haven’t chosen my husbands as well as I might have done.”
“Who exactly killed Eddie?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.” The settled expression of resigned unhappiness came over her face again. “It’s business. I stay out of it.”
 
When I came upstairs to the bookstore, Max asked, “Should I go downstairs and guard the doppelgangster?”
I shook my head. “She says she wants some time alone. I checked her bonds in case it was a trick. But they’re secure.”
Max was sitting at the table, reading Middle High German. The area all around us was still covered with doppelgangster detritus. There were several large piles of mingled feathers and dirt, scatterings of pebbles and bird bones, dust all over the place . . .
“We should clean this place,” I said.
“Yes,” Max said.
We looked at the mess for a moment longer.
Then he went back to reading, and I sat down at the table with him.
“Max,” I said, “what will we do with her?”
“
It
, my dear.” He looked up from his book. “It.”
“We can’t keep it tied up down there forever. In fact, if doppelgangsters need to sleep or, uh, use the facilities, we can’t even keep it like this all night. And you know we can’t, um . . .”
“Dispatch it? We’ll have to, at some point, Esther.”
“Lucky won’t stand for it,” I said with certainty.
“That mystical entity’s existence endangers a human woman’s life.” Max closed his book and set it aside. “It must be destroyed.”
“Oh, Max, I feel weird about this. I just had girl talk with her—
it
. I don’t see how we can . . . you know.”
“Girl talk?”
“We talked about men.”
“Ah.”
“It’s disturbing how much that thing seems like the real Elena. It remembers her whole life.”
Max nodded. “Right up until the moment of its creation. But it has no knowledge of what happened this afternoon, Esther. Of your encounter with the
real
Widow Giacalona.”
I nodded. After a moment, I said, “I still think Buonarotti’s involved in this. Everything we said earlier today about him as a likely accomplice still holds true.”
“Yes,” Max said thoughtfully. “That’s a good point.”
“And last night, he got fresh with the widow.
Very
fresh, from the sound of it. She’s furious about it. I doubt a woman who’s chosen to marry three times would be shocked by roving hands, so I think Buonarotti must’ve gotten pretty rough.”
“You think he tried to force himself on her?”
“Yes. And she pushed him down the stairs.”
“Having met him, I suspect he would be enraged rather than contrite,” Max mused. “And today the widow’s doppelgangster appeared.”
“Dressed as Elena might have been dressed last night, if she was on a dinner date that went bad.”
“My goodness! Do you realize, Esther, that we have learned something useful, after all, from interviewing the doppelgangster? Or, rather,
you
have. This ‘girl talk’ is most informative!”
“But Buonarotti . . . Is he the doppelgangster-making type? Is he the subtle, inventive, devious sorcerer you’ve talked about?” I shook my head. “I just don’t see that.”
“No. Whereas he
is
well-suited to be the accomplice whose role is to finish the work, so to speak. And evidently he asked his partner in crime to duplicate the widow,” Max said. “I suppose her violent death might contribute to the eruption of tribal warfare, considering that Lucky is so fond of her—”
“Apparently Don Victor is also fond of her.” I shrugged. “And, who knows, perhaps Don Carmine Corvino is fond of her, too. She married two Corvinos, after all.”
“So the mysterious partner might see a benefit in cooperating with Don Michael Buonarotti’s demand, which would explain why he complied. The widow’s murder might push the two families even further toward the war that our adversary is trying to bring about. Even though, for Don Michael, the duplication was inspired by personal motives.” Max thought it over and nodded. “A rejected and humiliated suitor, a violent man with a short temper and the capacity for brutal, opportunistic murder . . . Yes, if Don Michael is in league with the sorcerer, then the temptation would be irresistible to ask his colleague to duplicate the widow.”
“Maybe you were right, Max.” My heart started pounding. “Maybe the solution
is
just around the corner. I mean, we’re saying . . .”
“We’re saying,” Max said, “that we think Don Michael knows who’s creating the doppelgangsters.”
“So how do we make a Mafia killer tell us what we want to know?”
My phone rang, startling me. I pulled it out of my purse and looked at the LCD panel. “It’s Thack,” I said. It seemed as if I had been trying to talk to him since forever. “Probably calling to tell me the role on
The Dirty Thirty
that I wanted to audition for has already been filled by now.” I flipped open the phone. “Hello?”
“I meant to call you earlier, Esther, but it’s been another crazy day!” There was a lot of noise in the background.
“Uh-huh.” I glanced at my watch and noticed it was past nine o’clock already.
“A vodka tonic, please!”
“What?”
“I’m talking to the bartender,” Thack said. “It’s intermission at
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
on Long Island. My God, the things I do for my clients.”
That explained the background noise. I knew that play.
Everyone
would be racing for the bar. And if Thack was there to watch a client’s performance, he couldn’t even leave early. He’d have to sit through the whole thing.
“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news,” Thack said.
“I thought so,” I said with resignation.
“But the
good
news,” he said gleefully, “outweighs the bad!”
“There’s good news?” It was about time.
“Absolutely! But bad news first. You didn’t get the part of the grad student on
Dirty Thirty
.”
“No surprise there,” I muttered.
“They liked your audition, but they just didn’t think you were right for the part.”
“What?”
“Hey, I said they liked your audition. So don’t obsess about the other half of what I said.”
“But, Thack, I didn’t au—”
“God,
actors
. You guys kill me. So insecure.”
“But I—”
“Hold on, Esther.” Evidently speaking to the bartender, he said, “Can I get ice and lime with that, please?” After a moment, he said to me, “Send help! I’m in a place where you have to
ask
for ice and lime with your vodka tonic.”
“Thack, what are you—”
“Where was I? Oh, right, so you didn’t get the part. But the
Crime and Punishment
casting director—oh, what’s his name? You know who I mean? The one who liked you last year but didn’t think you seemed like a killer? Anyhow—drumroll, please!—he wants you for a
different
guest role on
Dirty Thirty
.”
I sat up straighter. “He does?”
“Yes! It’s later in the season, an episode they haven’t finished casting yet. My notes are back at the office, so I don’t remember the exact shooting dates. I think it’s in July. Anyhow, Geraldo will call you next week with that information when the contract arrives.”
“The contract? I’ve been hired?” I looked at Max with a big smile. “I’ve got the job?”
“Yes! And it’s a bigger part than the grad student role was!”
“Great!” I said, bouncing happily. A job! A real job! I wasn’t just a singing server anymore. I had a guest role lined up on a hit TV series! “What’s the part?”
“You’re playing a homeless bisexual junkie prostitute.”
I blinked. “I am?”
“Yeah, they thought you were absolutely
perfect
for it!”
“They did?”
“I think it was the outfit.”
“The outfit?”
“Yeah, the guy says you wore a tight, low-cut black dress with a . . . oh, a little see-through jacket around your shoulders? Something like that.”
“I
what?
”
“And, as it turns out, it’s probably a good thing that when you called me yesterday to find out what time the audition was—”
“I did?”
“—you didn’t tell me what you were planning to wear.”
“Oh, my God.” Cold horror washed through me.
“Because I would’ve said it was the wrong outfit, since you were reading for the grad student role. But as it turns out things worked out great!” He chuckled. “Never give a good actor too much advice, that’s what I say. Trust their instincts.”
“Thack! I . . .
auditioned
yesterday?”
Max sat bolt upright. Our gazes met.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Thack said. “I just got my drink, and they’re already dimming the lights in the lobby for the next act! I’ve got to go back to my seat. I wonder if I can hide this glass in my pocket?”
“Thack—”
“Anyhow, congratulations, Esther! And Geraldo will call you next week after we get the contract.” He hung up.
I sat there staring at the phone in my hand. I felt like icy ants were running all over me.
“Esther?” Max touched my hand. “
Esther
. Tell me what happened.”
“Max . . .” I heard my voice break with fear. “Max, I’ve been duplicated! The killer’s after
me
now!”
22
 
“Y
our double was wearing the same outfit that you wore the night we met Johnny Be Good in the church crypt?” Max said.
“That’s what it sounds like, from Thack’s secondhand description.” It was the dress I had worn in doomed anticipation of a hot date with Lopez that night.
“That was three days ago,” Max said. “If your double was created then, where has it been all this time?”
“Well, yesterday, while I was looking for Vino Vincenzo in Brooklyn, it was going to
my
audition,” I said, feeling bitter. “Other than that, I don’t know.”

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