I Hid a Mob Boss in the Stacks, So He Claimed My Nights novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Pie at the Lake

Lucio takes her to a lakefront diner after a week of nights, has her read him the pie list, and at her door the broken step nearly drops her into his arms.

"You haven't eaten since Tuesday," Lucio said.

It was the sixth night.

I had come to the reading room at nine with a thermos of coffee, the same as every night.

He had been sitting there with his eyes closed and his hands loose, listening to me turn pages.

I put the thermos down.

"I eat all the time."

"Six nights. Coffee, and half a granola bar on Friday that you gave to the page who forgot his lunch."

I stared at him.

"I notice what I hear," he said. "I notice what I see. It's most of what I do."

"That's creepy, Mr. Castaldi."

"Yes." He opened his eyes. "There's a diner on the lake that serves until two. An hour. A booth, a window, a waitress who has known me since I was in short pants. You can bring the book."

"My terms say here."

"They do."

He waited. He did not push, and he did not smile, and he did not ask again.

That was the part that did it.

I thought about my kitchen and my father asleep in his chair.

I thought about the granola bar I had given a boy who forgot his lunch.

"One hour," I said. "And if you stand up before I do, I'm walking home."

He stood up when I did.

The car was a black Lincoln with a driver, a thin man in a cap who held my door and looked at nothing at all.

The diner sat on the edge of the lake, under a sign with half its neon gone.

Inside it was warm and bright and smelled of fried onions.

A waitress with gray curls and reading glasses on her head put two menus in front of us.

"Lucio, honey, you look terrible," she said.

He did not touch his.

"What's good?" I said.

"The meatloaf," said the waitress. "The chicken noodle soup, and the grilled cheese with tomato if you want to be a child about it."

"I want to be a child about it," I said. "And the soup."

"Same," said Lucio.

"You don't want to look at the menu?"

"I'll have what you're having."

"That's a bad way to do business," I said. "I'll know what you'll order every time I order it."

"Then I'll order what you do for the rest of my life, and you'll never be surprised."

The waitress went away, and I felt my face get hot.

The food came, and it was good.

I ate the whole sandwich and half of his soup.

He watched me do it, and I did not look too closely at his face.

"Who stabbed you?" I said, when I was done.

He turned his coffee cup a quarter turn on the saucer.

"Someone who thinks I'm slow," he said. "He'll learn."

"That's not an answer," I said.

"It's the one I have."

I tried again. "Will it happen again?"

"Not while you're reading," he said.

I did not know what to do with that, so I asked about his father instead.

"He died in May," Lucio said. "The week of the funeral, I stopped taking the paper. I didn't want to see it."

"I'm sorry. My mother died six years ago."

"What did she read to you?"

"Everything." I was surprised at how fast it came out. "She read the cereal box if there was nothing else. My grandmother did too. They both read aloud, all the time, so I do it by myself now, when it's quiet. It's why I talk to the shelves."

"I know," Lucio said. "I heard you. I walked in on it."

It was easier than I expected to laugh.

"The pie," said the waitress, coming back. "I'll tell you what we've got, hon, or you can read the board."

"The board," Lucio said, before I could answer.

She pointed.

Behind the register, someone had written the pies on a whiteboard in loopy marker.

Every line of the handwriting tilted up at the end.

"Read them to me," he said to me, low, so the waitress would not hear. "I like the way you say them."

So I read the board.

"Lemon meringue. Coconut cream. Apple, with or without cheese, which is a crime. Pecan. Chocolate silk."

"Lemon," he said.

"That's my pick."

"Then it's mine."

The hour went by.

When he took me home it was after midnight, and Fifty-fifth Street was white at the edges with the first hard frost.

He walked me up the path to my father's door, because I let him.

I stepped onto the third step with my heel and it went through.

The wood had been soft for a year, and Tata had promised every month to fix it.

I felt my weight go out from under me.

An arm closed around my waist and pulled me back against his coat.

His hand was flat against my ribs, hot through my sweater.

I could feel him breathing.

Neither of us moved.

His mouth was a few inches from my ear, and I felt him say my name more than I heard it.

"Zofia."

All of me wanted to turn around.

I did not turn around.

"Is that in the terms, Mr. Castaldi?" I said.

He let go at once.

He stepped back down the walk, and I heard him take a breath that did not sound entirely steady.

"Good night, Miss Dobrzyn," he said.

I went inside, and I did not look out the window.

I did not sleep either.

At six my father came into the kitchen in his undershirt, filling the kettle.

"Zofia," he said, without turning. "There's a car at the curb. A black Buick. It's been there since two."

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