Chapter 16: Forty-One Women on a Stoop

I did not call the police.

I called the one number in Bay Ridge that never failed me.

"Forty-one," I said into the phone, when the church hall's night line picked up. "Fausto's building, on Fourth Avenue. Now."

Then I got into a cab and told the driver to run the lights.

I knew it was fifteen minutes on a good night.

I did not have a gun, and I did not have Teo.

I had a purse, a steel watch and a list of names I had paid every month for six years.

The cab turned onto Fausto's block, and I saw two men on the stoop.

They were holding Fausto between them by the arms.

Blood ran down the side of his face from a cut over his eye, and his cane lay in the gutter.

A black car idled at the curb with its back door open.

"Stop," I said, getting out.

Both men looked at me.

One of them was Benny's driver, a heavy man with a flattened nose.

"Mrs. Landolfi," he said. "Go home."

"Let him go."

"Boss wants a word with the old man. Nobody's hurting him."

"He's bleeding," I said.

"He fell."

Fausto lifted his head.

"Mara," he said, thickly. "Go."

I stayed where I was.

I took my phone out and held it up and started recording.

"State your name for the camera," I said.

The heavy man laughed.

Then I heard footsteps behind me.

A lot of footsteps.

They came from both ends of the block, in low heels and flat shoes and slippers, women in winter coats thrown over nightgowns.

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