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  Strenburg, like an old friend, poked his head through the courtroom doors. "Ah," he said when he spotted her. "You weren't up in the balcony."

  "That's because I was down here." She slipped into her coat and wrapped her scarf around her neck. "Say," she added, sorry about snapping at him, "I appreciate your looking out for me. Thanks."

  "Vince's instructions," Strenburg answered. "I'm not supposed to let you out of my sight."

  "Well, anyway," she said, "Merry Christmas to you."

  "And you, too."

  When Strenburg started for the doors, Lottie stopped him. "So this is over now, right? No way the jury can convict Vince after this."

  "I'd think not," Strenburg said. "But you can never tell what a jury will do."

  "You're saying they could still convict him even though the only witness is a liar and a lunatic."

  "Listen." Strenburg folded his hands at his waist. "Vince is in a very good position. Things look excellent for him. But it's not over yet. We don't know what Neary might try next. What we got going against us is that Judge Corrigan hates Vince. He considers him a blight on the Irish race. And the jury knows all about Vince's reputation. So," he said, "those are problems. The jury could convict him just because he's Mad Dog Coll, and the judge could stand back and watch it happen. Having said that, though, I tell you it's unlikely. I tell you things now look very good for your boyfriend."

  Lottie pulled on her gloves. "So how come I don't feel better?"

  Strenburg surprised her with a quick kiss on her cheek. "Merry Christmas," he said. "Try not to worry."

  When Strenburg left, Lottie was alone in the courtroom. In the quiet, she put her hands to her eyes and silently cried. The news was good, she told herself—and still the tears wouldn't quit. She took a seat in one of the pewlike benches, buried her face in her arms, and waited for the crying to stop. When she was ready, she'd brave the cold and the subway and make her way back to Flo's empty apartment, where there was a bottle of bourbon and a hot bath waiting.

  Friday - December 25, 1931

  1:25 a.m.

  Christmas Eve the Barontis attended midnight mass and then went home to exchange gifts, as was their tradition. Augie took a seat close to the Christmas tree and handed out brightly wrapped boxes one at time. Each opened his or her present, the others oohed and aahed, and then Augie handed out the next one. After the gift-giving was done, Mama pulled out a tray of manicotti from the refrigerator, and Gina distributed dishes and forks, and at 1:30 in the morning they took their places at the kitchen table—Loretto beside Gina, Augie and Mama at opposite ends, Mike and Freddie side by side opposite Loretto and Gina—for a final meal and a last round of talk before bed or, in Mike's and Gina's cases, before leaving for their own apartments. In the midst of their eating and conversation, there was a knock at the door. When Gina and Augie both got up, Mama raised her hand and they retook their seats without question.

  Mama opened the door, saw who it was, and bowed her head. Mrs. Tintello embraced her, whispered in her ear, kissed her on the cheek, and then stepped back into the hall and said, "I'll leave you now to be with your family."

  Mama thanked her politely and closed the door. She didn't cry until she looked at Gina. She said, as if imploring Gina to believe, "He was a good man. Not strong––" She stopped and corrected herself. "No," she said, "strong, not strong enough." The boys seemed grateful when Gina got up from the table, embraced her mother, and patted her on the back as she cried softly into her shoulder. Augie went to the stove, found the coffee pot, and went about filling everyone's cup as though the hot, dark liquid were the only sacrament appropriate to the moment.

  10:00 a.m.

  Lottie pressed her cheek to Vince's neck and watched snow falling through a barred window. Strenburg had spent a fortune bribing half the officials in the Tombs to get Vince this hour alone with Lottie on Christmas morning in a bare room with a few surplus office chairs and a half-dozen beaten-up wooden desks. Before he'd closed the door behind them, one of the guards had made a smart remark about the surface of the desks being a little hard and rough but serviceable. He'd said it to Vince with a grin, like a joke between guys, but the grin disappeared with the look Vince gave him in return. Lottie kissed Vince's neck, a little peck, when he stroked her hair, and then she went back to watching the snow flakes flutter down against the background of a gray sky. She was seated on Vince's lap in an office chair, her legs wrapped around his back, Vince still inside her where she could feel him throbbing and shrugging, little by little pulling away. They had just finished and she didn't want to let him go. She watched the snow with her head pressed to his neck, her arms wrapped around his chest, fused to the warmth of his body while he stroked her hair. After a minute he said, "Merry Christmas," which made her smile, though she knew he couldn't see it.

  Their hour was almost up and they had spent most of it talking before getting around to making love in an office chair. Vince was full of confidence and wanted to talk business. He had messages for Lottie to deliver to Mike and Patsy. He wanted them to start recruiting more men for the gang. "Hard guys," he told Lottie, "the toughest," and he mentioned names. He wanted the Evangelista brothers and Paul Martone and a bunch of guys from Little Augie's old gang who were working as independents, and an Irish guy Lottie'd never heard of, Jimmy Brennan. Brennan was one of the older boys at Mount Loretto back in the days when Vince was locked up there. Vince had heard from another mug in the Tombs that Brennan's family—wife and six children—had died in a fire in Brooklyn and that he'd been pulling stickups since then and getting a reputation as a man with a mean streak. "You tell Mike and Patsy," he'd said to Lottie, "when I get out I want them to be ready. We're going after all the big shots," he'd said. "Dutch, Big Owney, Luciano, Cabo, all the sons of bitches think they're bulletproof. They're gonna see about that," he'd said, and he'd leaned forward and kissed Lottie so gently she might have been a child. Lottie had mostly listened and let him talk and promised to deliver his messages.

  Outside, the snowfall was steady, big flakes floating down past the barred windows, their easy drift interrupted now and then by a gust of wind. "Merry Christmas," she said in reply to Vince and kissed him again, another quick peck of a kiss, before pressing tighter against him, holding him locked up in her arms, keeping him still and quiet and close to her as long as she could.

  Monday - December 28, 1931

  9:00 a.m.

  When the trial resumed, Lottie was back up in the balcony, dressed in a black skirt and sweater over a pale yellow blouse. She could tell that the people seated around her knew she was Vince's woman by the way they leaned away and whispered now and then, but no one was giving her any trouble by asking questions or sharing their opinions, which had happened a few times over the seven days of the trial, forcing her to move to another location or leave for the day. This morning everyone was intent on watching the proceedings as the judge entered and all rose and everyone's attention focused on Neary. Lottie had been unable to eat breakfast that morning. The thought of anything other than a cup of coffee brought on nausea. Now her hunger added to the jitters of the moment and she feared she'd have to leave again and make another trip to the bathroom, with Jennifer, the lady cop who was never far from her sight, once again accompanying her.

  Lottie had come to fear Mr. James T. Neary. At first she'd hated him in his crisp three-piece suits with his cocky manner, acting as if he had all the answers and knew all the questions and there was only one way to judge the case that was obvious as the nose on his face and he was going to explain it all to the jury and that would be that, nothing to argue or discuss, and the jury would have no choice but to find Vince guilty. He was so confident, it was hard to believe that even given what had happened to his star witness he wouldn't just pick up and move on and continue explaining it all to the judge and jury, how Vince was the mad dog who'd killed that kid, how it was all perfectly obvious, forget about that nut George Brecht. Lottie had hated him at first, but now
she feared him, and her heartbeat slowed to a whisper when he finally stood to address the judge, the courtroom quiet as the grave, everyone's attention fixed on him.

  Neary straightened out his tie. He looked like a man about to do something difficult, taking a second to brace himself. "Your Honor," he said, far too loud, the words blasting out of him like a pair of gunshots. "Your Honor," he repeated, lowering his voice. He coughed into his fist. "In view of the fact," he went on, "that George Brecht has lied to the court—as has at this point been proven to our satisfaction—has lied about his former convictions and arrest record," he added, "has lied repeatedly and willfully on the stand, under oath. In view of all this—" Neary paused for the briefest of seconds, as if a word had gotten momentarily lodged in his throat. "In view of all this," he repeated, "I now appear before you, sir, and in the interests of justice I move the discharge of these defendants."

  Before he had completed his sentence, newspapermen went scurrying out of the courtroom, hurrying out into the halls to file their reports, the courtroom suddenly loud with open conversation, exchanges of surprise and muttered curses and here and there laughter. At the defendant's table, Liebowitz put his arm around Vince's shoulder and gave him a little shake. Frank Guarracie, whose death sentence still hung over him, reached across Strenburg with a big smile and shook Vince's hand before Corrigan slammed his gavel down and quieted the room.

  Corrigan looked like a man inches away from an act of violence: his face was dark red, the veins on his neck pulsed, and his teeth were clamped tight under lips drained of color. When the courtroom was once again quiet he glared at everyone, an animal looking out through the bars of his cage at spectators he'd like nothing more than to rip apart and devour. He turned to the jury, said quickly, "In view of the facts of this case I have no choice but to dismiss the charges," and then slammed his gavel a final time before standing and glaring down from his high perch as if daring anyone not to stand in his honor. When all stood, he swept out of the courtroom, his judge's robes billowing behind him.

  "What's this?" Vince turned to Leibowitz as Giovanetti and Dwyer approached him out of the crowd with handcuffs ready.

  "We still got you on gun charges," Dwyer said as he grabbed Vince's arm roughly and clamped the handcuffs on.

  "And the Sheffeld Farm charges," Giovanetti added. "Did you forget?"

  Leibowitz laughed and slapped Vince on the shoulder. "It'll take me a few days, at the most, to get all the charges dropped."

  Vince, who had thought he'd be free immediately, seemed rattled.

  "Listen, Vince," Leibowitz leaned close to him, "a matter of days, I promise, and you'll be out of here and this will be behind you."

  Vince looked around the courtroom at the spectators who were watching him with no plans of leaving while the main attraction was still on display. He gave the crowd a nod and a smile and some mug he didn't know shouted, "You showed 'em, Mad Dog!" And then there it was again, that name, Mad Dog, shouted like it meant King of the World. When Dwyer yanked Vince away from the table, he looked up to the balcony, where he saw Lottie leaning over the railing, looking down at him with her hands over her mouth and her face wet with tears. He winked at her, offered her his brightest smile, and followed Dwyer and the others through the sidedoor exit.

  Lottie watched Vince till he was out of sight. Behind her, Strenburg was waiting with hands clasped at his belt and a big grin on his face as if to say I told you so. He opened his arms and Lottie happily gave him a hug.

  11:00 a.m.

  Between the snow and the cold, the ground was unyielding. Ercole's casket, rather than being lowered into the earth where the family might cast roses upon it and say a final good-bye, was carried off into a stone building, where it would wait with others till the weather allowed for interment in the ground. To Mama and the boys, this seemed like a minor issue. The viewing in Balzarini's plushly carpeted funeral parlor had gone well: family members from all over the city had joined neighborhood friends and acquaintances to pay their last respects, to kiss Mama and Gina on the cheek and shake the boys' hands. They'd said their few words and shared their memories of Ercole when he was a young man, healthy and hardworking and funny once you got to know him. Mama cried, but quietly, a tissue in her right hand to blot away the tears. A very few of the visitors believed what they'd been told, that Ercole had been ill with heart problems and away in a sanatorium out west. The rest knew the true story. Augie grew tired of being told how much he looked like Ercole, but other than that there were no complaints. It was only Gina who was distressed by having the casket carried off into a stone building and locked away.

  "It's too much like . . ." Gina struggled for the words. She was walking hand in hand with Loretto—Mama and Augie in front of her, Freddie and Mike behind her—along a concrete path out of the cemetery toward a line of waiting cars, the stone building where they had just left Ercole receding behind them. "I don't know," she said, and she squeezed Loretto's hand as if to say she was sorry for not being able to express herself. "When they locked him in that building . . ."

  "It was like when they locked him up because of what happened." Loretto tried to finish Gina's thought for her.

  "I guess it reminds me of that," she said. "It bothers me."

  Loretto put his arm around Gina's shoulders and pulled her close.

  When he saw that the snow was sticking to her hair, he brushed it away and then balanced his fedora on the back of her head, where it acted as an umbrella.

  Gina pushed the fedora forward and tilted it down so that it dropped over her forehead and covered her eyes. She let Loretto guide her to the car, where they got into the back seat and waited for Mike and Freddie to join them. Once in the car, she took off the fedora and held it in her lap. Outside, the snow was piling up on the lawns and over the graves while a crew of workmen in orange vests scraped wide, flat shovels over the concrete paths in an effort to keep ahead of the accumulation. Freddie and Mike were talking animatedly with Patsy while Maria stood off from their little circle and watched Mama and Augie getting into the lead car. Gina tapped the snow off the brim of Loretto's hat. "What's going on?" She gestured toward Freddie and the boys. Earlier, just before Ercole had been locked away once again, Mike had put his arm around Loretto's shoulders, some piece of news had passed between them, and they had talked about it for a while. She had meant to ask what that was about and forgotten.

  "It's Vince," Loretto said. "He got off. Somebody heard it on the radio."

  "What do you mean he got off? He got off on the murder charge?"

  "He got off on everything," Loretto said, a touch of excitement in his voice. "Mike says he'll be out in a couple of days."

  "That's it?" Gina tossed Loretto's fedora down on the seat between them. "He doesn't have to serve any time at all for nothing, for no charges, not even for the guns and the shooting?"

  Loretto picked up his hat and put it on his knee. "Jeez, Gina. You know how these things work. Vince bought himself the best lawyer in the country." Loretto shrugged as if to say, Why are you surprised that he got off?

  "For Christ's sake . . ." Gina looked away from Loretto, out the opposite window. "So he'll go right back to what he was doing before, only now he won't have every cop in the country looking for him." With her forearm, she wiped condensation from her window. "What will this mean for us?" She shifted in her seat so that she was facing Loretto. "Do we have to worry about Vince again?"

  Outside, the sky darkened suddenly, went from slate gray to a darker shade, and Loretto saw himself reflected in the side window, with Gina watching him. He said, "Everything will be okay, Gina," and he felt suddenly as though he were in a movie. He wasn't looking at Gina. She was twisted around in her seat to face him and he was looking away from her. The figure in the window was a good-looking boy with smooth skin and blue eyes. To Loretto he looked childish, almost innocent, in such contrast with his own image of himself as a tough guy hardened by growing up abandoned and in an orphanage, by s
tealing and scraping all his life and holding his own—in such contrast with his own picture of himself that it angered him.

  Gina said, "Vince knows you've got a job now, right?"

  Loretto nodded but still didn't turn to look at Gina—and then Freddie and Mike were getting into the car and the conversation turned back to the funeral and Ercole. Freddie recounted a story he'd been told about Ercole once carrying a neighbor, a man who weighed fifty pounds more than he should have, up six flights of stairs when he'd sprained his ankle walking back from the grocery store—and then carrying the man's groceries up after him. Loretto smiled and pretended to share the others' pleasure in this story, though what he was really wondering was how this could be the same man, this generous strong figure in the story, as the man who'd nearly murdered his twelve-year-old daughter.

  "Hey, Loretto," Freddie said. "What are you looking at?"