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Luca rolls the glass down a few inches, revealing Frank—or is it Beans?—from my visit to the Pits several nights ago. He’s visibly nervous.
“Mr. Marzano,” he says and then looks past Luca and focuses on me. “Miz Scarpetta, ma’am.”
I murmur a greeting.
Luca taps my thigh, and I slide off his lap to the passenger seat. “Were you here when this started, Frank?”
Frank, then.
“No. I just got a call. I’m so sorry—”
“Call from whom?”
His face crumples. “Johnny. Fucking Johnny was inside. He called to see what the hell was going on. There was a fire on the upper level. He wanted to know why no one was getting them the hell out yet.”
“Oh, my God.” I can’t contain the muffled epithet.
“What did he know about the fire?” Luca’s voice is hard.
“Not a lot. He said it was business as usual. They’s getting ready for the fights, prepping the contenders, ya know? The ladies was serving the food and realized the doors wasn’t working—they couldn’t get them open. Johnny goes to investigate and realizes he couldn’t get up to the upper level, either. None of the access points was working. He pulled out his phone to make a call, and that’s when he smelled the smoke and gas. He calls the fire department and found out they was already there—that the fire had actually been going for a while and had been called in. The floors was so thick they didn’t even know it.” Frank stops and swallows, his gaze fixed on me for some reason. “He didn’t panic. He called me. Wanted me to talk to the EMS crews, find out what was going on with the doors, figure out what he needed to do, ya know? Coordinate stuff. So, we was talking.”
“How long were you on the phone with him?”
“We was on the phone for at least ten, fifteen minutes. He was getting more and more worried. Couldn’t figure out why they weren’t opening the fucking doors.”
“Why weren’t they opening the fucking doors, Frank?” I ask. “You went to them, right? Told them the doors weren’t opening?”
He looks at me, head cocked, the picture of confusion. “I did everything I was supposed to, ma’am. The floor collapsed when I was on the phone with him. I heard them screaming—”
“Stop it,” I say roughly. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry, ma’am. I just wanted to assure you that I’m on top of things. This is just a temporary drawback. A stumbling block.”
“What?” How are the deaths of hundreds of innocent people a fucking stumbling block?
“I’ll start scouting out a new location just as soon as I get the go-ahead,” Frank says. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
His declaration isn’t chilling so much for what he’s saying but for how he’s saying it. So much conviction underscores each word. And he’s not looking at Luca, but right at me. He’s saying all of this to me, as if I hold some kind of authority here, as if I need to know—
My father.The Pits are his. This was by his order.
Luca makes the connection, too; I can see it on his face. I can see it in how he reaches a hand into his pocket and begins to slowly ease his gun from his coat.
Quickly, I reach over and put my hand on his arm to stop him, ensuring it looks like nothing so much as a loving gesture to the man outside the window.
It’s not the time.
“I’ll take that back to my father,” I say.
“T-thank you, ma’am.” He dips his head. If he had a fucking forelock, he would pull it, I have no doubt. “I’m sorry.”
I nod.
I bet you are.
He walks away, and Luca rolls the window up. We stare out the window as the gathered crowd of onlookers swallows him up, and then we exchange a look. We don’t need to say anything. Understanding flows between us.
Luca starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot, beginning the drive to New Jersey, to the Scarpetta estate.
