Chapter 4: Mrs. Corvino, Back So Soon

On Saturday Dario told me at breakfast that he had a dinner with the men from Palermo.

"Don't wait up," he said. "It'll run late."

He kissed my cheek and took his coat.

At six I took the Thursday bottle from the bathroom cabinet and the empty one from my nightstand and buttoned them into my coat.

Then I told the housekeeper I was visiting my mother's grave and drove myself to Bay Ridge.

Ettore was waiting under a streetlight in an old grey sedan with the engine running.

He leaned across and opened the passenger door.

"Dario's Alfa left the house at five," he said. "I have a man on the garage cameras. It's heading for Manhattan."

"Then so are we."

The snow had started in the afternoon and now it came down in thick wet flakes that the wipers could not clear.

Ettore drove with both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road.

I took the orange bottle out of my coat and put it on the dashboard.

"Mirella gave me these on Thursday," I said. "No label. She says they're gentle."

He glanced at it.

"And this," I said.

I put the empty bottle next to the first one.

"This is the one I swallowed in November. I never read it. The label says M. Santoro."

Ettore said nothing for the length of a red light.

"She could have given you her own pills when you couldn't sleep," he said. "People do that."

"Thirty tablets, Ettore. For a woman who takes one a night and swears by them."

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