Spoonbenders

“I used to play cards with him,” Teddy said, which was not a lie. “And some nights I’d bring his pizza home to the kids.”

“I’ve heard about that pizza,” she said. “Nick Junior said his dad wouldn’t let him or his sisters eat in the restaurant, but sometimes he’d bring home leftovers.”

“That sounds like him,” Teddy said. “I used to see how he treated little Nick. Back in the day, it was fine to spank your kids. Beat them even. But sometimes Nick Senior—well, I wouldn’t be surprised if your husband grew up hating him.”

“He doesn’t hate his father,” Graciella said. She put a spin on the word “hate” that made it seem as if several other options were available.

“That’s good, that’s good,” Teddy said. “Fathers and sons, that’s tricky business.” He considered what he wanted to say. He was glad they were having this conversation with lots of noise to cover it and no one too close, yet in sight of lots of people, so that she’d be reluctant to slap his face. Finally he said, “I saw in the papers that your Nick’s going to take the stand. Testify in his own defense.”

“Maybe. According to his lawyer.”

“So he’s not?”

“I’m not talking about this with you, Teddy.”

“Because I’d be awfully relieved if he didn’t.”

This made her raise an eyebrow.

“You know what everybody’s saying,” Teddy said. “A lot of speculation about what he’s going to say, and who he’s going to say it about.”

“My husband’s going to say whatever he wants to say to defend himself.”

“Of course he will, of course he will, that’s perfectly—”

“Why the hell do you care what he says?”

Damn. He’d made her angry. “Graciella, please. I don’t want to step out of line. But I wanted to offer some advice.”

“You want to offer advice,” she said icily. “To me. About my family.”

He forged ahead. “Tell your husband not to do it.” She opened her mouth to object and he said, “Please, trust me. Your husband may not want to go to jail, but if he does this thing, I’m afraid of what Nick Senior will do.”

“He won’t be doing anything,” she said. “The police have a lot of security around my husband.”

“I mean to you, Graciella.”

She stared at him, and he couldn’t read her expression. Fear? Anger? Some cocktail of them both? He pressed on.

“The police can’t help you. Witness protection won’t help you. Read the papers. Reggie Dumas, the last guy who testified against the Outfit in the eighties? He was in WITSEC. Two years later, they found his body in his backyard—in Phoenix. It took them years, but they got him, all the way out in the desert.”

“I’m such an idiot,” she said, almost under her breath.

“Don’t be hard on yourself,” he said. “Not everyone—”

“You work for him, don’t you?”

“Pardon?”

Looking at him now, her mouth a hard line. That cocktail was at two parts anger, one part fear. “Is this about the fucking teeth?”

“Teeth? What teeth?”

She stared at him.

“Graciella, please. I just wanted to warn you. I don’t think you understand what Nick Senior’s capable of.”

“Oh, I know he has a temper,” she said.

“A temper? The things I’ve seen him do. Do you know what degloving is?” He raised a hand. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have brought that up. The point is, your father-in-law’s a sick S.O.B.”

“Are you done talking about my family?”

“It’s your family now. But if your husband sells out his father on the witness stand, you’re not the family anymore, not as far as Nick Senior is concerned.”

Graciella stood up. “Get out of here,” she said.

He pulled himself out of the chair. “Please, I only came because—”

“Get out.”

Now the parents were looking at her—and, by extension, him. He straightened the Borsalino and lowered his voice.

“You have no reason to believe me,” he said. “I’m a cheat and a storyteller. I used to make my living conning people out of their cash. But I promise you, I’m telling the truth. I don’t work for Nick Senior. I’m just here to help.”

He held out a playing card. “I’ve written my number on this. If you need me, call.”

She refused to take it from him. He placed it on the lawn chair, tipped his hat, and walked toward his car. Behind him, a shout went up on the field, and red-shirted children celebrated and green-shirted children despaired, or vice versa.

In the months after he and Maureen were recruited and packed off to Maryland, their romance accelerated on its own, like a bike going downhill. It wasn’t only that they spent so much time together—working side by side every day at Fort Meade, taking the same bus back to Odenton, going home to neighboring apartments. The move itself had changed Maureen. Finally outside her mother’s influence, as she said, she’d blossomed. She laughed more easily, seemed less careful about every sentence she uttered, no longer seemed to worry what strangers on the street might think of them holding hands. And at night, Mo lit up like a kerosene torch. By spring they were making love with the lights on.