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“Ain’t happening.”
“You had a heart attack. You need to go back.”
“I’m fine.”
“Where are you now? Are you at home?” he asked her.
“No. I’m at a secret location.”
“Are you at the Mark Hopkins again?”
She threw up her hands. But then she said levelly, “Of course not. That’d be the first place you’d look.”
“This isn’t safe, Nana. You need to be under a doctor’s care.”
“I know. And that’s why Doctor Jensen is coming to check up on me here at my secret location daily, beginning tomorrow. And so are a team of home healthcare nurses. I got it all arranged. I’m not stupid,” she told him.
“It’s still not as good as a hospital.”
“Tough shit,” she said.
Dante sighed dramatically. And after a pause he asked, “What was Charlie doing at the hospital?”
“I called him and told him to come see me.”
“How did you call him? I didn’t give you his number.”
“I got it from your call log when I told you I wanted to borrow your phone to send a text,” she explained. “I mean seriously, who the hell am I going to be texting? Maury Baumgartner? Gloria Mazetti? My friends are older than dirt, Dante. They don’t text. You’re so gullible.”
“Christ,” Dante muttered.
“Also,” she continued, “what kind of idiot chains the boy he’s smitten with to a blonde hottie? I mean, who does that? What do you want, for these two to fall in love while they’re forced to spend all this time together, and then leave you out in the cold? What were you thinking?”
Dante sighed again, then said, “Look Nana, I gotta go. Do you swear the doctor and some nurses are going to be coming and checking on you?”
“I swear it on your grandfather’s grave.”
“Grandpa isn’t dead, Nana. He’s living in Florida with a thirty six year old waitress named Prudence.”
She spit on the floor and yelled, “He’s dead to me!”
“I’m calling Doctor Jensen’s office as soon as we hang up. I’m verifying that he’s really coming to check on you.”
“You’re so suspicious.”
“I love you, Nana. Please take care of yourself,” he said.
“I love you too, Sugar. Be safe.”
“I will,” Dante said, and he disconnected the call.
“Mrs. Dombruso,” I asked, “why is Dante on his way to Sicily?”
“Because he got a good lead as to the whereabouts of that bastard Sal Natori,” she told me. “And maybe, just maybe, he’ll finally have a chance to kill that son of a bitch.”
Chapter Twelve
“Wait…Dante is flying halfway around the world to kill someone?”
“Didn’t he tell you?” Mrs. Dombruso asked as she handed my phone to me.
“He did, actually. I didn’t believe him.” I stared at her incredulously. “And…you’re ok with this?”
“Well, I’m worried about Dante, of course. Natori’s a very dangerous man. But this needs to be done. My grandson will never rest until he puts Sal Natori in the ground.”
“Dante’s in danger?”
“Yeah.”
I sank onto a corner of the bed and murmured, “This conversation has just gotten absolutely surreal.” With his free hand, Austin rubbed my back comfortingly.
Mrs. Dombruso got to her feet and said, “You look like you could use a drink, Charlie. Come on, let’s go upstairs and show this little cutie the Top of the Mark.” And she turned and bustled from the suite.
We were quite the ragtag group, me in my t-shirt and jeans with a jacket draped over the cuffs on my wrist, Austin in his big inside-out sweatshirt, and Mrs. Dombruso in her huge velvet head wrap and crooked lipstick. But the maitre d’ greeted her warmly by name, and we were immediately ushered to a table at one of the windows. We arranged ourselves so Austin was beside the glass, and he stared out at the sprawling cityscape with childlike wonder.
Mrs. Dombruso insisted on treating, and soon the table was loaded up with every appetizer on the menu. I was too dazed to eat, and Austin claimed he wasn’t hungry. But Mrs. Dombruso tucked in eagerly. “That hospital food, ugh! I wouldn’t give it to a dog!” she exclaimed.
I took a sip of the beer she’d bought me, then asked, “Ma’am…could you please tell me what exactly Dante’s doing? I mean, I know that you said he’s going to kill someone. But why? And…and does he do that a lot?” The whole mafia thing had suddenly gone from abstract concept to all too real.
“What, kill people? Of course not,” she said. “Dante, he’s more of what you’d call an executive. He runs a business. Granted, it’s an illegal business. But a business nonetheless.”
“Then what’s he doing now?”
Mrs. Dombruso dabbed her mouth with a thick cloth napkin and said, “In order to answer that question, I gotta tell you a story, Charlie. And it’s a terrible story. You wanna hear it?”
“Yes please.”
She paused for a long moment, and turned her head to look out the window. And finally she said, “You know the business my family is in. Well, we’ve been in that business for eight generations. Every generation has had its natural leaders, like Dante, and like his father before him. And leaders always have the biggest target painted on their backs.
