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“So you’re the stoic queen bee down here, huh?” I try to make small talk, putting my coffee down on the table separating us.
“I guess you can say that.” She turns the page.
Some silence lingers.
“You were with Nick, right?” I ask.
“Uh huh.” She’s getting annoyed now, I can tell.
“I knew him well back when we were teenagers. I thought I did, anyway.” I shrug.
She raises her eyebrows at that. “You and me both.”
“Did he… ever seem like he had remorse for the things he did?”
She doesn’t respond.
“Too early for this, I know.” I grab my coffee with both hands and take a nervous sip.
Maria finally sets down her magazine and shifts in her seat, judging me nonchalantly. “I think they had switches, like we do.”
“What do you mean?”
“They go to work, become the ruthless killers they were trained to be, then come home and switch it off. That’s how Nick was, anyway.”
“And our switches?”
She sniffs, amused. “We ignore all the questions gnawing at the back of our heads.”
“You never asked about his work?”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to know. I loved my bear of a man. The mystery behind his side deals made him that much more intriguing in my mind. I’ll tell you one thing, the bedroom was always rocking.” She snorts sadly. “Was it wrong to turn a blind eye? Probably. But what can I say? I fell in love with him.”
I nod and take another sip.
“What about you?” she asks.
“I knew too much, especially when Joey got pinched.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep. It all came vomiting out like a river. He didn’t know what to do and was scared shitless about jail time. So, being the self-centered man he was, he ratted on the Lucrazi capo of lower Manhattan – Big Alonzo Bread Maker.”
“Never heard of him,” Maria admits.
“What?” I’m shocked. “You really were disconnected.”
“ICU nurses work round the clock. Maybe that’s why I was the perfect type for Nick.”
I dip my head. “It must’ve hurt like hell when Leandro came knocking, then.”
Her face goes deadpan. “The biggest shock of my life.”
“You believe him? Leandro, I mean.”
“What choice do I have? He showed us legitimates reports, made Nick admit it in great detail… right before he unloaded three rounds into him. The remorse in his eyes still haunts me as he lay across from me with a bullet in his head.”
I wince. At least for me, my paranoia had been prepping me for that day for a long time.
