Spoonbenders

Irene gave him a look, then said to Graciella, “What are you looking for, exactly?”

“The money,” Graciella said, and Teddy laughed.

Irene went to work like some kind of…computer person. She got the machine running, and for the next five minutes did nothing but grunt and talk to herself, eyes scanning the screen, while Graciella hovered behind her. He’d have never expected his telepathic daughter to learn accounting, but he had to admit it was a pleasure to have a child with such arcane skills.

Teddy, ensconced in an overstuffed womb chair designed, evidently, to lure clients into childlike trust, watched the women as long as he could before boredom overcame him. He checked the Rolex. They’d been here five minutes. “Tell her about the teeth,” Teddy said to Graciella.

“I think she’s busy,” Graciella said.

Irene looked up. “Did you say teeth?”

“You’re distracting her,” Graciella said.

“It’s pertinent to the situation,” Teddy said. “It’s why we’re here.”

“Teeth?” Irene repeated.

“I want her to hear it from you,” Teddy said to Graciella. Then to Irene: “They’re proof that Nick Junior is an innocent man.”

“He’s not completely innocent,” Graciella said. “But he is the father of my children. I have to think of them.”

“Teeth,” Irene prompted.

Graciella leaned back against the window ledge, crossed her long legs, and frowned as if deciding where to start. She looked terrific in a tight green skirt and a Creamsicle-orange blouse, a combination that he wouldn’t have thought would work but most certainly did. More evidence that women were braver than men.

“This can’t leave this room,” Graciella said. Irene nodded, waiting for her to continue. Graciella said, “You know Nick Junior is on trial for the murder of Rick Mazzione. And you may have read that Nick Senior owned a piece of Rick Mazzione’s business. Took it, really, when Rick fell behind on his loan payments. Rick tried to pay up, but the debt was never settled, and Rick began to complain openly about this. He was perhaps getting angry enough to go to the police. Maybe he already had. So Nick Senior decided to find out.”

Irene took in this information like a pro. No girly gasps, no derailing questions. But she was definitely evaluating each sentence. That was why Teddy wanted Graciella to tell the story. If Teddy had done it, Irene would know only that Teddy believed what the woman had told him. With Irene, you always had to be thinking of the secondhand-story problem.

“This is where my husband gets involved,” Graciella said. “Nick Senior told him to invite Mazzione to a meeting, and then drive him out to a construction site. They began to…ask him questions. Nick Senior didn’t like the answers, and got angry. He punched Mazzione in the mouth.”

Irene nodded. “Teeth.”

“He knocked a few of them loose. Nick’s hand started bleeding, which only made him angrier.”

“He gets angry easily,” Teddy explained to Irene.

“I’m getting that impression,” Irene said.

“My husband told me that Nick Senior went a little crazy then. He started pulling Mazzione’s teeth out with a pair of pliers. All of his teeth. Except for the molars. He couldn’t get the molars.”

Irene looked at Teddy. “You were friends with this guy?”

“Work friends,” he said. “Not the same thing.”

“Then Nick shot him. Not my husband. Nick Senior.”

“Your husband told you this?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you believe your husband.”

Teddy almost laughed. The secondhand-story problem, in action.

“Nick Senior made my husband bury the body on his own,” Graciella said. “When they found it, months later, it was missing those teeth, and they weren’t at the crime scene. My husband had saved them. He kept them in a cigar box in his sock drawer.”

“Because keeping souvenirs of human body parts is a normal thing to do,” Irene said.

“Monks keep bones of saints,” Teddy said reasonably.

“You don’t have to defend him,” Graciella said. “My husband’s not perfect. And he doesn’t always think through his actions. But in this case, it’s a good thing.”

Irene raised an eyebrow. “Because…”

“Nick Senior’s blood is on Mazzione’s teeth. They put him at the scene of the crime.”

“They wouldn’t take Junior’s word for it?” Irene asked.

“My husband won’t testify against his father. He’d never do that. But I will absolutely turn the teeth over to the district attorney. I’ve already hinted to the police that I have proof. That may have been a mistake, though. Nick Senior seems to know I have something.”

“You can’t get cops to shut up,” Teddy said. “Plus, Nick Senior may have bought a few of them.”

“Or a lot of them,” Graciella said.

“So why haven’t you done it?” Irene asked. “Turned them over. Gotten Nick Senior charged.”

“Because the charges may not stick, and I want something more than his arrest,” Graciella said. “I want independence.”

Somehow, when Graciella was melodramatic, it worked, like orange on green. Who knew?