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“You didn’t get along?”
Although we were meant to be staying relatively sober, Nico drained his glass of champagne. A long moment of silence followed, then he leaned in and whispered so close that his lips brushed my ear.
“When I saw the woman who killed him leave via the balcony, I could have alerted the guards. I could have checked on his health. Instead, I poured myself a drink and managed to watch nearly two episodes of Detektivy before the shouting started.”
So Nico had sat back and let his father die? That was…interesting. And good news for Dasha, although she’d be annoyed that her escape hadn’t been quite as clean as she thought.
“Didn’t you vow retribution?”
“Yes, but I lied, so I guess there’s a touch of Machiavelli in me, after all. My father would be proud.”
“Did you ever find out his killer’s identity?”
“I only knew her as Viktoria. Could I pick her out of a line-up? Maybe, if it was a rear view.”
“Didn’t spend much time looking at her face, huh?”
“I was twenty years old, Mrs. Black, and I’d been raised to appreciate the finer things in life. But it was more than that. It was the way she moved. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she crossed the grounds—walking, not running, pausing on the edge of the motion arc as the security cameras scanned. She was poetry in motion. My dream, and my father’s nightmare. A succubus.”
“If she paid you a nocturnal visit, you’d probably wake up screaming.”
Nico cracked a smile. “Yes, I probably would. Mrs. Black, you’re the only person besides me who knows the truth about that night, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“I know how to keep my mouth shut.”
“I didn’t mean any offence.”
“None taken. We both lead lives where trust doesn’t come easily.”
The first course arrived—steak tartare with truffles and a quail’s egg—and we watched the opening act. Bradley wanted us to try burlesque? Good luck… I’d be out of the country that year. I’d rather take my chances in a war zone than shimmy around the stage wearing frilly knickers and tassels on my tits. Okay, fine, I’d been a stripper once, but if my old boss had mentioned tassels, I’d have stuffed them up his pasty white arse.
“Shut your mouth, dear,” I said to Nico.
“I’m just getting into character.”
Yeah, right. Nico might be in his mid-thirties now, but he still appreciated a good backside. As did I. Some of those women must spend hours in the gym. Emily whooped and giggled, and by the time Coco Delite had danced off the stage hidden behind a giant fan that looked like a slice of watermelon, everyone in the Starlight Lounge knew it was Rico’s birthday, and I was on first-name terms with the guests at the surrounding tables. No doubt because I’d bought them all drinks. People would put up with a lot of crap for a free glass of bubbly.
At a quarter to nine, the Cavallaros’ table was still unoccupied as it had been last week, but there was a “Reserved” sign in the centre. Was that permanent? They’d leave the table empty rather than sell it to anyone else? Or did they always show up at the last minute? Nico kept checking his watch until I touched his wrist, and then he started tapping his foot instead. For the love of fuck. I gave him a kick, and he stopped.
“Just relax.”
When he reached for his champagne glass, I switched it for water. Funny how a bunch of folks in Baldwin’s Shore thought he could be the Bad Samaritan when he had zero chill and barely any tradecraft. Now I understood why he wanted to hire Blackwood instead of attempting the job himself. At least he knew his limitations, and I had to respect him for that.
Finally, Vito Cavallaro strode in at five to nine, along with a bunch of other wise guys, none of whom were Cesare. I recognised Alonzo—he was the gym rat with the goatee—and Otello and a dude who could have been Fausto if Fausto had put on forty pounds since his last mugshot. Maybe-Fausto had a blonde on his arm, the kind of woman who looked as if she’d get along well with Emily. Loud and a little bit trashy.
The lights dimmed. The band struck up.
Show time.
Kaylin La Rocca was a decent singer, I’d give her that, assuming she wasn’t lip-syncing, and I didn’t think she was. No…she definitely wasn’t, because when she looked down and saw Nico staring up at her, her eyes saucered and she fumbled a line of “Candyman,” although she covered it well. I saw her glance at him half a dozen times during that song alone, as if she couldn’t quite believe he was real and sitting right there. I also saw her gaze dart over to the Cavallaros, checking they hadn’t caught on.
They hadn’t. Vito was already on his second glass of Scotch, and the blonde had been slurring her words from the moment she walked in the door.
C’mon, Kaylin, give us a sign…
She made it through another two energetic numbers with barely a stumble, then settled under the spotlight to sing “At Last.” It took me a few moments, but then I realised she was doing something weird with her left hand, the one the Cavallaros couldn’t see. It was upside down, but was that…American Sign Language? She was fingerspelling?
It was slow and clunky, and Kaylin definitely wasn’t proficient, but I sounded out the letters in my head.
