Kiss of the Wolf (3 page)

Eleven years old: wasn't that too young for lacrosse? Where'd he hear about lacrosse? Who played it?

Things were awkward for a while. No one knew how enthusiastic to be. Nina refilled coffees.

It took Todd some time to get to the next present. Nancy finally said, “You gonna open mine, or what?” and he set the helmet in his lap and looked over what was left. Nancy pointed hers out.

A line had formed for the bathroom. Sandro picked up the lacrosse helmet and squeezed it onto his head.

“Don't play around, you're gonna stretch it,” Nina said. She was broiling sausage and peppers. She had to check on them nineteen times, and Sandro had to move his chair every time she did.

“What ‘stretch it'?” Sandro said. “It's plastic.”

Nina asked him if he was through with the mouse. Was she going to have to hire someone, thirty-fi' dollars an hour? Sandro ignored her.

Joanie took time out to track her feelings, like a little weather map. At this point she was hoping her husband wouldn't call. She wanted it unanimous, what everyone thought of him. She wanted it consistent the way he treated everyone. She looked at Todd and his bad haircut and the little Band-Aid that wouldn't stick on his hand and was surprised, the way she was always surprised, not by her own meanness but by its persistence.

Sandro got back on his hands and knees with a Mother of God sigh and clacked around under the sink again with the broom handle. It was like he was trying to warn the mouse, not catch it. Nancy poured Joanie more wine, then sat back and made fun of her vacant expression.

Joanie woke up and nodded. Nancy pointed to her gift, finally about to be unwrapped. Todd was working on it like it was a bomb.

“You don't have to save the paper,” Nancy said. “Really.”

She was Joanie's best friend. Joanie hadn't talked to her at all about Gary's leaving, and it had been two months. Nancy would come over and they'd go to a movie, split a Greek salad. Once, early on, Joanie had been crying upstairs, and Nancy sat in the kitchen and waited a half hour and then finally went home.

Todd was holding up her gift: a book called
Italian Folktales.

“Oh, a book,” Nina said flatly. No one seemed to know what to make of her tone. Nancy taught at Stratford High with Joanie—English and history—and liked to give Todd books.

“See if there are any stories about Mucherinos in there,” Sandro said.

“That's in the famous-crime-stories book,” Nancy said.

“Take that off,” Nina said. “You're sweating in it.”

“I need this for the mouse,” Sandro said.

The phone rang again. Sandro got it, in the lacrosse helmet. He clacked the plastic receiver against his earhole and kept going, “
Hel
lo? Hel
lo?
” like it was a vaudeville routine. It got a laugh.

He said, “Joanie, it's Bruno,” and handed her the phone. Joanie gave Nancy her “I'm not encouraging this” look.

Nancy had gone out with Bruno for a little while, high school and afterward. She still had a thing for him. She was sitting here hoping
he
wouldn't call. We're all sitting around hoping guys won't call, Joanie thought.

“What's up?” she said into the phone. “You hit another snag?”

“I'm on my way over,” Bruno said. Something was being whacked behind him.

“What is that?” Joanie said.

“I don't know,” Bruno said. “They're screwing around. I'm over here by the deli. You want me to bring anything?”

“We got everything,” Joanie said. “You're missing all the presents being opened.”

“I was over here, you know, I thought I'd call, see if you needed something,” Bruno said. “I'm five minutes away.”

“What's that noise behind you?” Joanie said.

“I don't know, these fucking guys,” Bruno said. The line went muffled, as if he'd covered the mouthpiece with his hand, and when he uncovered it, the sound was gone.

Joanie shifted her weight. Todd was opening more presents. Somebody'd given him some kind of board game he wouldn't play in a thousand years. “So you coming?” Joanie said in her “I'm getting off” voice.

“Tell 'im we got the Great Mouse Hunt goin' over here,” Sandro said. He was whisking around under the stove now.

“Listen. Nancy there?” Bruno said.

“Yes, she is,” Joanie said. Nancy looked up at her. “Wanna talk to her?”

“Don't bust 'em off,” Bruno said. “Her mother there?”

“Yes, she is,” Joanie said. Elena was over by the door, hadn't said two words all night. “You wanna talk to her?”

“Yeah, give her a message for me,” Bruno said. “Tell her,
‘Mangia il gatz.'
”

“You tell her,” Joanie said.

“I'm on my way,” Bruno said. He hung up.

She came back to the table and sat down. Nancy was looking at her. Joanie shrugged.

“Where's the dog?” Nina said, like she'd just noticed the dog wasn't around. “Why didn't you bring the dog?” She was probably thinking of the mouse.

“She ran away again,” Joanie said.

Audrey'd had a tough last few months and had taken to running away after dinner for a few hours. Todd would go look for her, stand in the yard and wait for her to come back.

Nina turned the peppers, which had to be done by now. “That dog's gonna be out in the woods, she's gonna be running around, she's gonna get bit, she's gonna get rabbis,” she said.

“That's
rabies,
” Sandro said. “Jesus God.
Ra
bies.”

Nancy laughed. Nina was used to it. Her husband said she butchered the language like Leo Gorcey. Bruno said she had her own way of communicating, and it didn't work.

“You are something,” Sandro said. “The other day she goes to me, talking about that poor
chiboni
who hit the kid, ‘Oh, baby. Nothing goes right for him. He's got an albacore around his neck.'

More people laughed, even Elena. “Nice image,” Nancy said.

“You believe how fast they go on that curve?” Nina said. “Three times the car flipped. These people and that curve, it's a sin.”

“I think the parents are now ascared the guy's gonna get sued,” Sandro said.

“I'd sue 'im,” Nina said. “Three times the car flipped. They had to get that thing and tear the roof off to get him out.”

“The kid was just walking there, too,” Elena said from over by the door. “Going to get ice cream. You believe that? It's a shame.”

“Her eyes're open now,” Sandro said. “Her mother's there every day, soon as the hospital opens.” He had his helmeted head on the floor next to the stove, and he seemed to think he saw something.

“
Three times
that car flipped,” Nina said.

“I went there and visited,” Elena said. “You go?”

“I went there the second day, with the mother,” Nina said. “You believe the perfume she wears? I think she marinates in it.”

“Ma,” Joanie said. “How about giving her a break? Her daughter's a vegetable.”

“Don't talk that way,” Nina said.

Joanie felt bad she'd put it like that. She'd been around Bruno too much. “They hope to God she'll come out of it,” her mother said.

“They don't know,” Elena said bitterly. “
Doc
tors.

“I don't believe that perfume, though,” Nina said. “And expensive. How could you spend so much on perfume?”

“Ma,” Joanie said.

“Hey, you ever see her?” Sandro said. He gave up and got back in his chair. He was trying to get the lacrosse helmet off. “The least she could do is smell good.”

Nina took the pan with the sausage and peppers out of the broiler and dropped it on the floor. Everybody jumped. The peppers spattered over a big area and just missed Sandro's leg.

“Ho.
Ho,
” Sandro said. Everyone else made exclamations.

Someone banged on the screen door. Elena always locked it when she visited: her cousin's sister on Stratford Avenue, one day they walked right in.

“What's the deal with the security?” Bruno said from outside. “The Mucherinos sense trouble? Gangland
hit?
”

“You're not gettin' in without a present,” Sandro said. He was lifting his feet so Nina could clean under the table. Joanie got a sponge and some paper towels and helped out.

“Open the goddamn
door
I'm not gettin' in without a present,” Bruno said.

Elena got up from her chair and fumbled with the lock. Neither she nor Bruno said anything while she worked on it. At one point something clicked and she thought she had it. Bruno rattled the handle.

Elena opened the door and stood back.

“Mrs. DeFeo,” he said, exasperated. He was still standing outside, and she was still holding the door. “Good to
see
you.”

“Bruno,” Elena said. She thought Bruno was hardworking but a pig. He shit on my Nancy, she had told Nina and Joanie.

“Look at
this,
look at this,” Bruno said, coming in. “Howdy howdy howdy howdy howdy. Todd's party. The party for Todd.”

“J'ou bring a gift?” Sandro said. He still had his feet up in the air while Nina cleaned, and he looked like he was on a ride. Joanie told him to put his feet down.

Nina finished. Joanie could see how upset she was: mice in the kitchen, no food, the kid's father not even here, nothing going right. At the sink, rinsing out the sponge, Joanie said, “Ma, don't worry,” meaning the spill.

“Did I bring a
gift?
” Bruno said. “Is it out there on the step right now?”

He looked at Todd. Todd shrugged, as if to say, I don't know.

“Did I bring a gift?” Bruno said, opening the screen door again. Elena was still standing beside him, waiting for him to settle somewhere before she sat down. “In terms of gifts, I think it's time to visit Mr. Excess,” he said. He bent down for something right outside the door.

He brought in a square box. It was wrapped in newspaper. Joanie had a frightened flash that it was another lacrosse helmet, that everybody knew about Todd and lacrosse but her.

Bruno caught her looking at him. She thought,
This
guy. Why's he so interested? Why's he so hot for
me?

She inventoried him. He was no kid. He was no Mr.
GQ
, though he usually dressed better than the other guys at Goewey Buick, that was for sure. He had baby skin, but the kind of show-through beard where you had to shave five times a day. No gray. Nice mouth, but his face was jowly. Nice shoes always, Italian, very thin leather. When he stood around like now, he kept raising and lowering his toes, a little gesture of impatience you could watch for.

She looked away and there was Nancy, taking in everything, as usual.

“The kid is a football fan, the kid is a Viking fan,” Bruno said while Todd unwrapped the thing. “Did I buy him a shirt? Did I buy him a
pennant?
”

Todd pulled the box free of the paper. It was a football helmet, a Minnesota Vikings football helmet.

“God,” he said. “It's great.”

“Real thing,” Bruno said. “The one they wear.”

“Where'd you get that?” Sandro said.

“Where'd I get it? I stole it from the locker room. I own the team,” Bruno said. “Where'd I get it.”

“This must be helmet night,” Elena said.

Bruno turned around and gave her a look. “They sell 'em in sporting goods stores,” he said. “You should see. It's a sight to behold.”

“Bruno, that's too much,” Joanie said. “That musta cost a lot.”

“You're
welcome,
” Bruno said. Joanie's great-aunt Clorinda was peering at him. He waved at her. “Bruno, have a seat,” he said. “Bruno, have some wine.”

“Bruno, have a seat,” Sandro said. “Have some wine.”

Elena's chair was next to Nancy's. Bruno sat in it like he'd paid for it. “How are
you,
Nancy?” he said.

“Bruno, I'm fine,” Nancy said.

“That's good,” Bruno said.

Sandro got up to get another chair. He told Elena to sit in his.

He flipped the record while he was up. Because of the awkwardness of Bruno and Nancy together, everyone listened. Lou Monte again: “Please, Mr. Columbus, Turn-a the Ship Around.”

“Lou Monte,” Bruno said when Sandro came back into the kitchen toting a chair. “Very, very classy. I myself prefer Topo Gigio.”

“Mr. Sophisticated,” Sandro said. He got Bruno a glass.

“I still need to have Wayne Newton explained to me, too,” Bruno said. He turned the glass upside down and cleaned it with his napkin. “Anybody have any ideas, please get right on it. I'm listening.”

“Oh, I like him,” Elena said, from over by the door.

Nancy sang the chorus of “Danke Schoen.”

“We got a mouse over here,” Sandro said. “You missed the big hunt.”

“A mouse,” Bruno said. “You oughta get Sewer Mouth over here.” Because Audrey slobbered on him, he called her Sewer Mouth.

“Bruno, that was too much,” Joanie said. She pointed at the helmet. Todd now had both helmets bumping and clacking together on his lap.

“It cost a bundle,” Bruno said. “You guys are forever in my
debt.
”

He turned to the great-aunt. “How we doin', Clorinda?” he said in his louder-for-the-folks-in-the-Home voice. “You gettin' out?”

“Hah?” Clorinda said.

“Leave her alone,” Nancy said, but she seemed to be enjoying it.

“I said, You gettin' out? Dance?” He danced a little figure across the table with his first two fingers.

“Ha,” Clorinda said.

“Nina, siddown,” Sandro said. “The antipasto's enough.”

Everyone agreed. She brought over the remaining sausage and peppers, with some garlic bread in a smaller dish. She seemed to feel better once she had them on the table.