“So,” she said, “you knew old Silky.”
“I did.” Tap, tap. “I did, and I don’t mind admitting that I liked the man. I felt as though he spoke my language.”
Jay had changed the sign: Stay cool, honey.
“But Mrs. Lulucita, do calm yourself You mustn’t go seeing wrack and ruin everywhere. That’s the reason we invited you here today, or one of them. We wanted to reassure you, we are your Consulate, your countrymen. We’re not the Camorra.”
Jay gave it moment. “And on our side, Roebuck, I mean. Let’s put it this way. Barb and me, we’re not about to join the Shell of the Hermit Crab.”
Roebuck dismissed the idea with an Italian gesture, waggling thumb and index finger. “We never had you two under surveillance, certainly.” She went on to promise that the murder would get a thorough investigation. “You have my word, you two. Full cooperation, absolutely, between this community and the local authorities.”
“Okay.” The husband gave a dismissive wave himself, letting go of Barbara. “One time or another, we all saw Silky with his gun out. A guy like that, we all saw it coming. Sooner or later, you’re talking the last scene in Scarface.”
The Attaché worked up a regretful smile. Barbara tried not to grind her back teeth.
“But that’s in the past,” Jay said. “That’s, we’re all to blame, there. Whatever. But the problem now isn’t that Silky was dirty. That’s not what Barb and I need to know now.” As if he did it all the time, he retook his wife’s hand. “What we need to know is, what was the man into?”
This, she’d been expecting. “That’s what we need to know,” Barbara said. “Why did someone have to shoot him?”
“Why, hey? What kind of mess was he into?”
The way the Attaché picked at the lip of her keyboard, with a sound like trying to strike a wet match, made it plain that the woman had some degree of discretion, in this office anyway. Here Roebuck had room to improvise.
“We don’t think you’re the Mafia,” her husband said.
“Certainly.”
“We don’t think it was Romy either,” Barb said. “Romy couldn’t kill anyone.”
“Well I wish I shared your confidence, Mrs. Lulucita.” Roebuck found it a relief to be talking about someone other than her former colleague in Public Relations. “You have to admit it doesn’t look good for the girl. She did flee the scene.”
“But, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you, with bullets flying?”
Jay let go of her again, instead signaling out of the corner of his eye. Go, Owl.
“Since when does that make her a criminal mastermind,” Barbara went on, “fleeing the scene?”
“Well, a criminal mastermind…”
“Roebuck, we don’t even know if she was on that loading dock.”
Jay nodded with his entire upper body. “Barb’s right. Hey, our Paul, he got that girl out of that wheelchair. The last thing she’d want is to put him in harm’s way.”
The way Roebuck shook her head was just the opposite, restrained, a ticking. “I can’t see why you two are so quick to defend the girl. You especially, Mrs. Lulucita. The way she feels about John Junior, I would think you’d find it a threat.”
“But that’s what I’m saying. That’s what Jay and I both are saying. With John Junior in her life, the last thing the girl would do is pick up a gun.”
“There’s an eyewitness who puts her at the scene.”
“Eyewitness.” Barbara gave her the same sour face she’d used on the liaison man. “That Umberto, or whatever his name is. Roebuck, you talk about the Camorra — even before I left the loading dock, the guy admitted he was a crook.”
“Well. I can’t say what was in his statement to the police, Mrs. Lulucita. But I believe all he told you was, he wasn’t on the staff of the Nazionale.”
“Hey. Okay. Say the girl was on the dock. Say we trust this guy, impersonating a security guard and carrying an unregistered handgun. Okay. But, I mean. Romy would’ve known what would happen next. The cops would come after the gypsy.”
“And they’d be doing their job. The girl has known criminal associates.”
“Mary, Mother of God! You people are just full of things we already know. You’re saying, Silky bent the rules and Romy used to turn a trick or two? Is that what you brought us down here to tell us?”
“What I’m trying to tell you,” Roebuck said, “is that at this point, your great friend Romy is as much of an unknown as the late Lieutenant Major.”
“Unknown?” Jay leaned the woman’s way again, a move that put the two of them practically nose to nose. “He’s an unknown, Silky? No way, Roebuck. No way, not to you people. You and this cigar-store Indian here. You know what old Silky was into.”
The Attaché didn’t shrink, squaresville. Barb recalled that Kahlberg, on the other hand, always had another move. He’d been all dart and flutter.
‘You know,” Jay went on, “the way we used to do it at Viccieco and Sons, we used to share what we had.” The man had resigned as Vice President of Sales, in charge of New York and New England. “The way it worked, in order to get something, we would give up something. Sound good to you?”
“In principle, Mr. Lulucita. Though I’d prefer to keep the tenor of this—”
“In principle, exactly. You’d prefer, you’d prefer to deal. Better that than a lawsuit.” Jay’s gestures kept everyone else back from the table. “I mean, that’s your worst case, right? You hauled us in here before they’ve even finished mopping up the bloodstains because, worst case, Barb and I would call a lawyer.”
The UN rep appeared to have lost his disdain, one eye narrowing.
“Hey. Barb and I and the kids, that’s an innocent family, there.”
The mother wanted to follow up, to agree, but she was too tight in the chest.
“Well,” Roebuck said. “No one in this office put your children in harm’s way.”
“Yeah. Okay. But it looks bad anyway, Roebuck. Looks like a mess.”
Five minutes after the Consulate had called, yesterday evening, the man had worked out a strategy. He’d asked Barbara out onto the balcony, and she’d asked Aurora to keep the kids inside — maybe the one time Barb had managed to look her mother-in-law in the eye. Out there above the cameras, husband and wife had shared a bottle of pale Italian beer. At a couple of the Jaybird’s suggestions, she’d actually broken into a grin and raised a toast.
Upstairs in the Consulate, today, he kept on. “But, I mean. You people wouldn’t bring us all the way down here just to beg. You know, to beg? ‘Please, you guys, please don’t make a bad thing worse.’”
“Mr. Lulucita, really. No one in this office has it in mind to beg.”
“Sure. Nobody wants that. Barb and me, coming down here, we didn’t want that. What we wanted to hear was, what’ve you got for us? I mean. There’s got to be something else on the table. Hey? Something in return for our cooperation.”
The Attaché showed the suit beside her an unsubtle look, something else you’d never see from Officer Kahlberg.
“Think about it. What we offer, Barb and me, our family.” Jay spoke more slowly. “It’s not just, you don’t want us to hurt you. It’s also how we can help you. Think about the way this family can represent.”
Roebuck turned back to her laptop, some sort of decision obvious in how she gathered her fingers over the keyboard. Barbara waited out the black thought of slamming the screen down on the woman’s knuckles.
“And all we ask, hey. It’s got to be on a different basis, this time.”
“Tell me something,” Roebuck said. “Have you two seen your web site?”