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He looked her in the eyes and thought, I think I know what’s on yours, baby.
He said, “What’s on yours, baby?”
Ann was quiet, looking out the window at the park, clearly searching for the right words.
She said, her voice chipper, “I think we should, too.”
“I thought we had an understanding,” Canidy heard himself automatically saying, “that it’s the guy who’s supposed to—”
His voice trailed off when he caught sight of the tear on her cheek.
He kissed it.
“Sorry I said that, Annie. You know I love you. Yes?” He paused, then went on: “No one has ever reached me the way that you do.”
Her hand stopped making the circles.
“There’s a ‘but’ coming,” she said somewhat icily.
“Baby, if I were to ask for a hand in marriage, my heart tells me that there is absolutely no question it would be yours—”
“But…” she repeated.
“But my brain tells me that I’m just not ready. This is not the time. For us, for anyone.”
Canidy saw more tears on Ann’s cheeks.
He wiped them away as he went on: “It just would not be fair to you, Annie. Not with this war, not with my job.”
Ann sniffled. She was quiet a long moment, then nodded gently.
“Maybe this damn war will end soon,” he continued, “and then everything changes.”
She cleared her throat.
“Then,” she said, trying to sound strong, “I’ll just have to settle for right here and right now.”
He leaned over, wrapped his arms and legs around her, and gave her a long, soft kiss.
Then he whispered, “Why are we in this bed?”
“I…why, I forget,” she said with a straight face.
And after a long moment, she giggled.
And then her hand was under the sheets again, searching…and finding what it was looking for.
AFTERWORD
This book is a work of fiction based on actual events.
We may never know the exact depth of aid that Mafia boss Charles “Lucky” Luciano and his syndicate of ruthless wiseguys provided to fight the Axis in America and abroad.
What is known is that on V-E day—the very day that victory was declared in Europe—Thomas Dewey, the former prosecutor who was then governor of the great state of New York signed for the release of Luciano from Great Meadow Prison.
It was May 8, 1945, and Luciano had served just shy of ten years of his thirty-to-fifty-year sentence. He would not have been eligible for parole until 1956.
Charlie Lucky was deported—aboard a cargo ship—from the United States of America. He died in Italy in 1962.
