Chapter 10: Her Terms

The officers wanted to know what two cars were doing at the end of pier eight.

I stepped out of Ilario's car with my hands in plain sight and told them who I was.

"Ottavio Lucchesi's granddaughter," I said. "I buried him on Tuesday. I came to look at the water."

The older officer looked at me for a while.

He had been to the Lucchesi club on a church fundraiser once, and I could see him remember it.

"We had a call about shots," he said.

"I didn't hear any."

"There's a pistol on the ground back there."

"Then somebody dropped it," I said, and I waited.

I did not say anything else.

He waited too, and he lost.

"Go home, Miss Lucchesi," he said. "And tell your friend with the gray face to see a doctor."

By the time we reached Wilson Avenue, the light had gone orange.

I led Ilario up the porch steps with my arm under his good side.

He locked the front door behind us and stood with his forehead against it.

"Sofa," he said into the wood. "That's the rule."

"I'm not putting you on the sofa."

"Marta."

"Look at me."

He turned around.

His eyes were dark and wild, and his shirt was stuck to his ribs.

I took the end of his tie out of his collar and pulled it, and he came with it, one slow step at a time.

"You'll tear it open," I said.

"I won't."

"Then lie down."

I took him up the stairs to my room, the room I'd slept in since I was six.

I pushed him down on the edge of the bed and he went, because I said so.

He said, "Yes, Marta," under his breath, and I felt it go through me.

I undid his shirt a button at a time.

The bandage was clean, and I touched it and laid my palm flat beside it.