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It was wedged sideways in the muck, but from what I could tell, it was smaller than either of thecruetswe’d stumbled across. I let go of Shane, but kept my eye on him, figuring he’d have some attachment to it. So far, all the messages that had shown up—all the prayers—had been directed at him.
But Shane only looked puzzled. “I’ve never seen a bottle like that before.”
Neither had I. “Maybe it belonged to Surfer Boy.”
“Well, we can’t just ignore it. What else is there to do around here for entertainment—with our clothes on, anyhow?” He nudged the bottle with the toe of his muddy dress shoe. “You’re the one who found it, Gino. You should do the honors this time.”
At least it would put the question of insider trading vs. money laundering to rest. Besides, if we ignored the damn thing and walked away, I’d only end up tripping over it again.
I grabbed the neck of the bottle and pulled, half-expecting the riverbank muck to put up a fight, but the bottle slipped right out as if it was greased. It was a flat green bottle about the size of my hand, a drugstore aftershave with an aluminum screw-top lid.
Relief churned in my guts. I must’ve been expecting some unwanted memento of my distant past to rear its ugly head. But aftershave had never once touched my old man’s leathery cheeks, not that I ever knew of.
The screw top felt normal. Just a bit of grit where the riverbank muck had slipped into the thread. It wasn’t until I’d pulled it off that the smell hit me—the medicinal herb smell that always clung to Carmine Rossi. And as I stood there staring at it like an idiot, a tightly curled slip of paper sprouted from the bottle’s neck like a plant growing in a time-lapse video.
The bottle hit the soft ground with a stunted thud. But no way was I about to let go of the message.
Because Rossi fucking owed me an explanation.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been seven days since my last Confession. I’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain—too many times to count—and I’ve coveted my neighbor’s wife. But you’ve seen them low-cut dresses Rita Mancini wears. You’d have to be dead not to notice. And with Luciana going around dressing like my grandmother…well, who can blame me?
They were just words on paper. But with the smell of his aftershave stinging my nostrils, they sprang off the page in Rossi’s creaky old voice, right down to the raspy smoker’s wheeze that whistled through his turkey neck every time he took a breath.
The main thing on my mind—one of my crew had an unfortunate accident this week. No, don’t worry, Father, you’re safe. I won’t name any names—and good luck to anyone who goes looking for him. Still, though, you think you can trust a guy, y’know? Then you hear he’s been out meeting with a lawyer from Iceman Lysenko’s crew every weekend and, well…. Don’t loyalty mean nothing at all these days?
Lawyer? No clue what he was talking about.
“What kind of name is Iceman?” Shane asked. I hadn’t even registered that he’d been reading over my shoulder. “Or can’t you say, in the spirit of plausible deniability?”
Plausible deniability.
Gabriel used to talk like that. Fancy and precise.
Like a fuckinglawyer.
And then there was the name of that sailboat of his….
I’d never asked about Gabriel’s work—just some kind of desk job, I’d figured—and he’d never asked about mine. Had he known who I was—had he beensetting me up?—or was our whole fling just the dead mouse in the box of cereal?
A shiver crept down the back of my neck. I chafed it away, and the skin was sticky with drying blood.
No, Padre, calm down, it was just the one guy. Lysenko’s lawyer is long gone—probably got a one-way ticket to Russia. You seen them Russian women, all blonde, with tits out to there? He’ll think he’s died and gone to heaven.
Rossi didn’t know Gabriel and me were screwing. He’d thought I was just blabbing all his secrets.
Never mind that the only thing I was privy to was who owed money and which kneecaps to bust.
Damn.
I’d had a hunch Gabriel would be the end of me, and I’d been right. Just not for the reason I’d thought.
And there I’d gone ahead and carried on with him anyway.
O My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins, because of Thy just punishments….
The paper slipped from my numb fingers and fluttered down into the water. As it sank, the ink lifted off, swirling to the surface like the cigar smoke around the overhead lights in the back room of a strip club.
