“Okay, okay. Atsa no problem.” Mrs. DiNunzio patted Anne’s cheek, her anger vanishing as suddenly as a summer thunderstorm. “Is ready, the bed. Clean towels, clean sheets, all clean onna bed, everything ready for you. First we eat, then go to bed. Welcome, Anna!”
“Thank you.” Time number four? What else was there to say when people were so nice? “Did Mary tell you? I have a cat, too.”
“Okay, a cat! I like, a cat!” Mrs. DiNunzio peered behind Anne, and Mr. DiNunzio was already shuffling over to the box and opening the top flaps. Mel popped his head out with an unhappy meow, and everybody laughed. Mrs. DiNunzio clapped her hands, then clasped them together in delight. “Madonna mia! How pretty, the cat!”
“What a nice kittycat!” Mr. DiNunzio lifted Mel from the box, letting the cat’s back legs hang awkwardly until he finally gathered them up and cuddled Mel against his chest. “Vita, look, he’s a such nice cat.” Mel meowed, working the crowd with Love Cat, and Mr. DiNunzio beamed, his teeth denture-even. “See, Vita? He likes us.”
“He’s a nice cat, he likes it here!” Mrs. DiNunzio smiled, her head wobbling only slightly. “Welcome, Anna’s cat!”
Mr. DiNunzio kissed the top of Mel’s sleek head and looked over at Anne. “What’s his name?” Anne told him, but he frowned, wrinkling well past his forehead. For a minute, she thought he hadn’t heard her, but Mary had told her he was wearing his hearing aids nowadays. They sat snugly in his somewhat furry ears. “Mel?” he asked. “Is that a good name for a kittycat, Anna? I never heard of naming a kittycat a people name, like Joe. Or Dom.” His tone wasn’t critical, just honestly confused, and now, so was Anne.
“I didn’t name him. I got him with that name from the shelter.” Anne smiled. “It’s kind of a stupid name, now that I think about it.”
“How ’bout we call him ‘Anna’s cat,’ then?”
Anne laughed. She and Mel had evidently been rechristened. “You got it.”
“Come on, Vita. Let’s get Anna’s cat some milk,” Mr. DiNunzio shuffled out of the living room, holding Mel. “Come, girls. Anna. Come and get something to eat. Did you eat, Mare?”
“No, not yet. Feed us, Pop. We’ve been here five minutes already.” Mary hugged her mother out of the room. “Whatsa matter, Ma? You stop loving me?”
“Don’ be fresh!” her mother said, with a soft chuckle. She turned and grabbed Anne’s hand, and they passed through a darkened dining room and entered a small, bright kitchen, hot with brewing coffee and steaming tomato sauce. Mrs. DiNunzio made a beeline for the stove and began stirring the sauce with a split, wooden spoon, and Anne came up behind her.
“You need some help, Mrs. DiNunzio?” she asked, catching a whiff of the pot. The richness of cooked tomatoes and garlic made her realize how hungry she was. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten and she’d never had home-cooking like this. The tomato sauce was thickly red, with bumpy meatballs bobbing below the surface and hot sausage curling at the ends, churned up by the gentle stirring of the wooden spoon. Anne tried to guess the recipe but it had to be genetic.
“Sit, sit, Anna!” Mrs. DiNunzio waved her off with a spoon covered with steaming sauce, and Mary grabbed Anne by the arm.
“Don’t even think about helping, Anne. She’ll hit you with the nearest utensil. She’s very territorial, my mother. It’s her kitchen, right, Pop?”
“Right, baby doll. Soon as I do this, I sit down too.” Mr. DiNunzio had gone to a photo-covered refrigerator for a waxed carton of milk, which he poured into a saucer and set down on an ancient linoleum floor in front of Mel. The cat started lapping away. “Cats, my wife trusts me with. Everything else, she feeds. Go, sit, Anna.”
Anne was about to say thank you for the fifty-fifth time, but settled for “I give up,” as Mary sat both of them down at the table, of Formica with gold flecks. A heavy amber-glass fixture was suspended on a gold-electroplated chain over the table, white refaced cabinets ringed the small room, and faded photos of several popes, Frank Sinatra, and a colorized John F. Kennedy, hung on a wall. On a thumbtack was a church calendar with a huge picture of Jesus Christ, his hair brown ringlets against a cerulean-blue background, and his eyes heavenward. Mental note: Start worshiping something other than shoes.
“Anna, Maria. Is ready, the coffee.” Mrs. DiNunzio set the sauce-covered spoon on a saucer, then lowered the gas underneath the pot. She took a dented, stainless-steel coffeepot from the other burner and brought it to the table, where she poured it steaming into Anne’s cup, then Mary’s and her father’s, who was sitting catty-corner.
“Thanks, Mrs. DiNunzio. This looks awesome.” Anne sniffed the aroma curling from her chipped cup and tried to remember if she had ever seen coffee perked on a stove. It seemed like making fire with twigs. Everyone else took his coffee black, but Anne mixed in cream and sugar from the table, then sipped the mixture. It was hot as hell and even better than Starbucks. “Wow! This tastes great!” she said, in amazement.
“Grazie! Drink!” Mrs. DiNunzio went back to the stove, set the coffeepot, and returned to the table, easing into her seat. She didn’t touch her coffee, and her brown eyes had clouded with concern. “So, Anna, the police, they look for this man? He wants to hurt you?”
Mary shot Anne a let-me-handle-this glance. “Yes, Ma, but soon it will be all right. Don’t get all worried,” she said, but Mrs. DiNunzio ignored her, gazing at Anne with an intensity that couldn’t be chalked up to country of origin.
“I see trouble. You have trouble, Anna. Big trouble.” Mrs. DiNunzio leaned over in her chair and reached for Anne’s hand. “Your trouble, you tell me. I help you.”
“Tell you what?” Anne asked, uncertain but touched nevertheless. She’d never felt so cared for, so quickly. It was as if Mrs. DiNunzio had been waiting for her, to help her. But her trouble wasn’t anything that Mrs. DiNunzio could help with, unless she owned a bazooka. “My trouble is this man, Kevin Satorno. The police will get him. They’ll call as soon as they’ve arrested him tonight.”
“No, no, no.” Mrs. DiNunzio clucked, as if Anne had misunderstood. “Not him, he’s a no trouble.”
“Ma,” Mary broke in. “You don’t have to know everything. It’ll just upset you. We’re handling—”
“Shhh, Maria!” Mrs. DiNunzio hushed her daughter with a raised index finger, and even the last trace of a smile vanished. “Cara, you have trouble. Yes, Anna. It hurts your head. It hurts your heart. Yes. This I see. This I know.”
Anne didn’t know what to say, except that, truth to tell, she did have a bad headache. And lately she had begun to think her heart would never be right.
“Argh!” Mary’s forehead dropped theatrically into her hands. “Ma, don’t embarrass me in front of the other kids. I’m trying to make a nice impression here.”
“Mare, this is something you don’t interfere.” Mr. DiNunzio rose suddenly and picked up his coffee cup. “If your mother says Anna’s got ’em, then she’s got ’em. Now let’s get outta here. This is between Anna and your mother. Your mother, she knows. She’ll help Anna.”
I need help? Anne felt vaguely alarmed. The mood changed quickly in the kitchen. Mrs. DiNunzio turned suddenly grave. Mr. DiNunzio was escaping with his coffee, and Mary was on her feet, too. Even Mel stopped drinking milk and dropped to his Alarmo Cat crouch over the saucer.
Anne turned to Mary. “What’s happening, Mary?”
“My mother has superpowers. She’s her own action hero, with X-ray vision. She thinks you need her help and she can help you, so, just go along with it. Let her do what she wants to do.”
“What does she want to do?”
“You’ll see. This is an Italian thing, grasshopper. You must never reveal it to the outside world.” Mary patted her shoulder. “We all took a vow of silence, the entire race, except for Maria Bartiromo, who I still don’t believe is Italian. No Italian girl can understand the stock market. It’s against nature. We’re not built that way.”
What? Anne laughed, mystified. She looked over
at Mrs. DiNunzio, who squeezed her hand like a doctor bracing her for bad news. “Mrs. DiNunzio, what—”
“Anna, you got the overlooks. Somebody hate you. He wish evil on you. You have malocchio!”
“Malwhateo?” Anne asked.
“Malocchio! Evil eye!”
Mary was following her father out of the kitchen. “Yes, she’s serious, Anne, and this is South Philly, the land of spells and curses. But don’t worry. My mother knows how to take off the evil eye. The prayer was passed to her on Christmas Eve by her mother, who was also a superhero. Just go with it, and please don’t tell her there’s no such thing as ghosts. She owns a wooden spoon and she will use it.”
“I have the evil eye?” Anne asked, incredulous. I don’t have the evil eye, I have a stalker. “Mrs. DiNunzio—”
“No worry, I take away,” Mrs. DiNunzio said, with another hand squeeze, which was surprisingly firmer, more oncologist than GP. “I make better for you, Anna. This I do for you. Now.”
Were these people nuts? “Mrs. DiNunzio, it’s very nice of you, but there is nothing you can do about this man.” Mental note: Maybe I’ll stay Irish.
But Mrs. DiNunzio had gotten up from the table and was already at the sink, running water from the tap into a clear Pyrex bowl. She turned off the faucet, took a gold tin of Bertoli olive oil from a shelf over the stove, and brought both back to the table, where she set the bowl and olive oil down between them. Then she took her seat, her eyes faraway behind her thick trifocals.
“Mrs. DiNunzio—”
“Shhh!” Mrs. DiNunzio held up a hand, then looked at Anne, her gaze softening. “You have malocchio. This, I know. Vide! Watch!” Mrs. DiNunzio picked up the tin of olive oil and poured three gimlet-hued drops in the bowl of water, one on top of the next. A large drop floated for a moment on the water’s surface, and Mrs. DiNunzio watched it intently. The warm kitchen fell quiet except for the occasional popping of the tomato sauce on the stove. “Wait, Anna.”
“For what? The oil?”
“Si, if you have malocchio, the oil, it goes apart.” Mrs. DiNunzio pointed at the bowl, and the oil split into two drops, edging away from each other. “See? Malocchio!”
What is this, Italian Chemistry? “Mrs. DiNunzio, water and oil will always separate—”
“Anna, you have malocchio very bad. You have trouble, inside, yes?” Her eyes were so kind, and her soft voice so concerned that Anne couldn’t help but feel the truth behind her words, despite the silly bowl of spreading Bertoli.
“Okay, I admit it, I have trouble,” she found herself answering, low so Mary couldn’t hear, if she was lingering in the dining room.
Mrs. DiNunzio was pointing at Anne’s lip, directly at her scar. “I see you have, come se dice?” Her forehead wrinkled with concentration.
“A cleft lip.”
“Madonna mia! A gift from God!”
“A gift?” Anne blurted out. “It’s a curse!”
“No, no.” Mrs. DiNunzio waved her finger between them, slowly. “God, a gift, he give you. You are so beautiful, Anna, that people, they will be jealous. They will hate you. God knows this. This is a gift from God, and you must thank him.”
I’ll get right on that, Anne thought. She couldn’t imagine a God who would give a cleft lip to any kid, much less one with bright-red hair. Why? To make sure nobody would miss it?
“Shhhh.” Mrs. DiNunzio squeezed her hand. “Close your eyes, Anna. I’m gonna help you. Let me help you. Nobody gonna hurt you no more.”
Anne couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes. It was absurd, wasn’t it? There was no such things as ghosts, or the evil eye.
“Close your eyes, Anna!” Mrs. DiNunzio ordered, and Anne found herself doing as she was told. She closed her eyes and in a minute focused on the warmth of Mrs. DiNunzio’s hand on hers. Breathed in the wonderful smells of the garlic and onions. Eased into the softness of the plastic pad on her chair. Listened to the percolating of the tomato sauce. In the next minute, Mrs. DiNunzio was mumbling softly in Italian, in a cadence regular and calming. Anne couldn’t understand the words and she didn’t try. In the next minute she felt a warm fingerpad, slick with oil, on her forehead.
“What are you doing?” Anne whispered.
“Shhh! I make sign of cross. Three times. Shhhh!” Mrs. DiNunzio resumed her chanting, presumably lifting the spell of the evil eye, and Anne would have laughed at the absurdity of it, except that she couldn’t help but listen to the motherly tones of Mrs. DiNunzio’s voice and loved the warmth of the oil spreading across her aching forehead. She felt somehow blessed to be in this kitchen, which was a remarkable conclusion for someone who didn’t believe in God, the evil eye, or even mothers.
“Open your eyes, Anna,” Mrs. DiNunzio whispered, with a final squeeze of her hand.
Anne did as she was told and looked at Mrs. DiNunzio, whose dark eyes drew her in like a loving embrace. She held Anne’s gaze like that for a minute, and squeezed her hand across the table without speaking.
“All better now, Anna,” Mrs. DiNunzio announced, after a moment. But it didn’t sound like a question and didn’t seek confirmation. In the next instant, Mrs. DiNunzio was reaching around her own neck for a long gold chain Anne hadn’t seen before, tugging it from behind her apron and lifting it over her head and pink hairnet. It was a gold necklace, and Mrs. DiNunzio handed it across the table to Anne. “Anna, you take. For you. Take.”
“No, Mrs. DiNunzio!” Anne didn’t get it. The woman was giving her jewelry now? It was a longish gold chain with a fourteen-carat gold charm swinging at the end. “I can’t possibly take it. I can’t take your necklace from you.”
“Take! Take! See!” Mrs. DiNunzio caught the charm and showed it between gnarled fingers, fingerpads still glistening with olive oil. The charm gleamed in the light and was shaped like a wiggly pepper. “Is for you! A cornu, a horn. You take! For protect you, from the malocchio!” She handed it to Anne, who pressed it back.
“No, I couldn’t, really.”
“Take! Is gift, from me. From me to you, Anna!” Mrs. DiNunzio’s tone grew almost agitated. She dropped the necklace on the table in front of Anne, where it landed with the tiniest jingling sound. “You need, Anna! You must have!”
“Mrs. DiNunzio, I can’t—”
“TAKE IT!” Mary shouted from somewhere in the dining room, and Mrs. DiNunzio smiled.
“I can’t, Mary!” Anne called out.
“TAKE IT OR SHE WON’T LET US BACK IN!”
“Please, take!” Mrs. DiNunzio reached across the table, picked up the necklace, and slipped it over Anne’s head with finality. “Perfetto, Anna. Now you stay safe.”
“Thank you so much,” Anne said, overwhelmed. She looked down at the gold chain, glinting in the kitchen light, and held the oily horn in her palm. She didn’t really understand how a charm could keep away the evil eye, but she felt so touched that Mrs. DiNunzio had given it to her that she couldn’t keep the wetness from her eyes.
“MY COFFEE’S GETTING COLD!” Mary shouted, and they all laughed.
“Okay, Maria!” Mrs. DiNunzio called back, smiling with obvious relief. “All better now. No worry now.”
Mary came in, clapping. “So you kept it! Good for you. Now you have Italian insurance. The Prudential has nothing on us, do they?”
Anne blinked the tears away, and when she found her voice, could say only one thing: “You’re lucky, Mary. You know that?”
“I certainly do.” Mary came over and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, and behind her, her father shuffled into the kitchen, bearing his coffee cup.
“How’s your headache, Anna?” he asked, and Anne had to think a minute. Actually, she didn’t feel anything. Her head was amazingly clear.
“It’s gone!” she answered. It was the truth, and no one was surprised but her.
“Anne, wake up,” Mary was saying, her voice loud in Anne’s ear. “It’s morning. You have to wake up. Anne?”
Anne didn’t open her eyes. She w
as so sleepy. The pillow was so soft. Her tummy was awash with spaghetti, sweet sausage, and chianti. She wasn’t getting up.
“Anne, Anne!” Mary was shaking her gently, insistent. “Wake up, it’s important.”
Anne opened an eye and took in her surroundings. The bedroom was small, clean, and spare, the walls creamy white. High school Latin trophies and religious statues cluttered a white shelf. A square of sunlight struggled through a lace curtain. It must be morning. A night table sat six inches from her nose, and on it glowed the red numbers of a digital clock. 6:05. Anne moaned. “It’s so early.”
“Wake up! You have to see this!” Mary’s tone was urgent, and she held up a copy of the Daily News. “Look!”
“What?” Anne started to ask, but the question lodged in her throat when she saw the headline. Her eyes flew open. She took the newspaper and sat bolt upright. “This can’t be true!”
“It is. I called Bennie and it’s all over the web. She’ll be here in five minutes.”
“Maybe it’s just more lousy reporting? Gonzos at work?” Anne blinked at the front page in disbelief. Her headache roared back. Then, with a bolt of fear, she remembered. They’d fallen asleep around two o’clock, after calling Bennie for the tenth time, to see if Kevin had been taken into custody. “Didn’t Bennie call last night, about Kevin? Didn’t they arrest him?”
“No. The cops never got him. He never came back to the motel. He’s still out there. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, you’re in danger now, Anne. We have to get you out of here.”
Anne couldn’t take her eyes from the newspaper. She flashed back to the tabloid from the first morning, when this had all started. But today’s headline was even worse. She read it over and over:
MURPHY’S MOM: “NOT MY DAUGHTER!”
Underneath the headline was a photo of Anne’s mother. And she was standing in front of the city morgue.
25
The commissioner’s private conference room at the Roundhouse was large and rectangular, and contained a long walnut table with a single piece of polished glass protecting its costly surface. An American flag stood furled in one corner behind the head of the table, and in another corner Anne recognized the blue polyester flag of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania she’d seen in state courtrooms. Air-conditioning chilled the room, but it could easily have been her emotions.