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“In my purse,” Zia Rosa said, as if it should be obvious.
Bruno was in front of his great-aunt before being aware of having moved. He sank to his knees, and held out his hand. “Let me see it.”
She stared at him, troubled. “Tony didn’t want you to read this letter,” she said. “He didn’t want you to know the bad stuff he done.”
“I would never judge him. He saved my life. Let me see it, Zia.”
She sighed, heavily, and unsnapped the clasp on her huge purse. The room was silent but for her muttering and rummaging.
Finally, she pulled out a battered envelope, and handed it to him.
Bruno pulled out a sheaf of thin, crackling onion skin typing paper, covered with hand-typed, single-spaced words. He felt light in the head. There were about ten pages. He ran his eyes over the first page, and could hear Tony’s gruff, smoke-roughened voice in his head.
To Whom It May Concern: This is the true and factual account of Antonio Ranieri, born in Brancaleone, Calabria, Italy, of my dealings with mafia bosses Gaetano and Michael Ranieri, from the years of 1973 through 1988. This document was made on this day of January 16, 1999, in Portland, Oregon, before witnesses…”
Wait. This was off. He read it again.
“No. Zia, this can’t be right,” he said. “This date is 1999 not 2004. The thugs came in ’04. I didn’t even come to Portland until 2004. Remember? I was twelve when I got here.”
She snatched the letter back, and squinted through her bifocals. “No, honey. This is right. This one’s the original, see? In 2004, he was just sending a photocopy of the one he’d sent before, with the fingers. To remind Michael and Gaetano that the bargain was still in effect.”
He was baffled. “What bargain? Why did he send it in 1999?”
Zia Rosa looked blank, and then her eyes got very big. “O Cristo Santissimo,” she breathed. “You mean, you don’t remember, honey?”
Bruno fought the urge to scream in her face. “Remember what?”
No one seemed to want to breathe. Zia Rosa crossed herself.
“Some bastard took you away from your mamma, when you was seven, honey,” Zia said. “It took your mamma and Tony over a month to get you back. I figured you was old enough to remember that.”
Bruno shook his head. He did not remember that. But he did not like the way his insides felt, hearing about it. Shivering, cold. Small.
“Magda called Tony for help,” Zia went on. “It was a guy who was in bed with that junkie shithead, Michael. Some drug pusher business partner of his.”
“But who?” Bruno burst out. “What was his name? What the hell did he want with me? It wasn’t like Mamma had any money.”
Zia Rosa shook her head. “Tony didn’t tell me details. He figured it was safer that way. Magda got Tony to write that letter, to put pressure on Michael to get you back.”
Bruno swayed there, searching in his memory for something that corresponded to this new information. All he found was a blankness, and creeping sensation of fear. He shook it off. Pulled the letter back.
“But if Tony held this over the Ranieris, then how could they let Rudy kill her?” he demanded. “Wasn’t she protected by it, too?”
The light in Zia Rosa’s eyes faded. She suddenly looked very old. “He couldn’t do nothin’ for her, honey. She broke the bargain, see?”
“What bargain?” he yelled. “You’re not making any fucking sense!”
“Zitto, cafone.Don’t you use that tone with your auntie.” But she patted his cheek as she spoke, to soften the scold. “The deal Tony struck was that Magda got her boy back, and kept her nose out of it. She and her boy got left alone, Tony hung onto the letter, and everybody played nice. But Magda was too pissed. She wouldn’t stop digging.”
“Digging for what?” His voice cracked. “What was she digging for?”
Zia Rosa shook her head. “All’s I know is that Tony was worried, because Magda kept goin’ after that dirty prick. She wanted to make him pay for what he did to you. And they got her. At least she was smart enough to send you away. Only smart thing that girl ever did, God rest her sweet soul.”
“But I…but she…” His mouth worked, his mind whirling for a way to avoid conclusions that made his guts churn.
“Tony told her to stop. But she couldn’t. She loved you so much. Not that I blame her for bein’ pissed, after what thattesta di cazzodid. She said you wouldn’t talk for months after she got you back.” She sniffed. “Hard to imagine, you not talkin’, but it’s true. Not a peep, except at night. You screamed the place down. Almost got her evicted.”
“Oh, God,” Lily whispered. “Bruno. Your nightmares.”
