The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volume 1-4 (101 page)

I let him watch as I reloaded and replaced the .45 in the pancake holster at my back. “No, thanks.”

He smiled and bobbed his head. “I guess you’re pretty good, too, huh?”

Good enough to know I was cocked and locked with a full clip and one in the pipe; good enough to know he was empty.

“Alphonse, if you don’t turn the tourist music down, we’re going somewhere else.”

The restaurant had been closed, but Lena had unlocked and marched through the back door as if she owned the place. She deposited me in a small booth by the kitchen and called up the steps to Alphonse, threatening him with brimstone if he didn’t come down and fix us dinner.

Alphonse, the uncle, was Victor Moretti’s brother, and his restaurant was quintessential Italian Market, from the red-and-white-checkered tablecloths to the battered, raffia-covered Chianti bottle with a tapered candle flickering in its throat. The booths were high-backed and worn, with the many layers of varnish making their surfaces glisten, but it was Alphonse who made Alphonse’s. Alphonse Moretti must have weighed as much as I did, no mean feat since he only stood about five foot six.

“You want me to create, I have to have music.” He blew through the kitchen door with a fresh bottle of wine and an assortment of water glasses, pulled the cork with his hands, and slid onto the bench with me, singing along with Frank Sinatra in a soulful duet of “The Lady Is a Tramp.” He wore glasses but, like everything else on his face, they looked as if they were being swallowed by flesh. The only part that seemed up to the fight was his mustache, a salt and pepper affair that drooped past the corners of his mouth. It would have looked dour on any other man, but it gave Alphonse the look of a painter who had stuffed a brush in his mouth and had forgotten about it. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

Lena rested her chin in the palm of her hand and looked at him. “Alphonse…”

He poured the wine into the water glasses and slid one toward me. “A race of
principessas
, not like us peasants.” Lena slouched against the wooden back of the booth and looked at me; I was sure this was a repeat performance. “You know the island of Capri?” He extended a chubby finger toward Lena and spilled a little wine on the table. “This one, she will tell you she is from Positano, but this is not true.”

She picked up her glass and retreated from the candlelight. “Al, you don’t have any wine glasses?”

He gestured toward her again. “You see—
principessa
.”

“Al…”

“
Un pezzo di cielo caduto in terra
they call it; a piece of heaven fallen to earth. They say Lucifer stole the place and brought it to Italy, and if you want to know about beautiful women, you ask the devil.” Lena blew air from her lips in dismissal. He continued. “You know Tiberius, the emperor that threw people off cliffs?” I nodded. “He had palaces built across the entire island, even moving the imperial capital to Capri.”

Her voice was soft. “Jesus, Al…”

He crossed himself. “She is a bad woman, but so delicious.” I felt Lena kick at him under the table. “Tiberius has all these palaces scattered across Capri, now he needs women with whom to debauch. The word goes out across the empire that all the most voluptuous and desirable women should be brought from all Italy. Villa Jovis is the palace of palaces, so it must have the woman of all women. Tiberius has all the
principessas
brought to the palace and disrobed, one by one.” He gestured toward Lena. “This one’s ancestor, Dona Allora, is last, and when she drops her robe, the court is silent. They have never seen a woman until they have seen this woman. The emperor must have her at once, so he takes her on the floor of the palace with the entire court in attendance.”

In the silence, I thought I should say something. “Romantic devil.”

Lena shook her head. “Bullshit.”

“Allora had her revenge.” Alphonse took a drink of his wine. “They say Tiberius was suffocated by a rival, but…” He pointed the sausage-like finger at Lena. “You cannot love a women as beautiful as this; she will twist your heart.”

“I wish I could twist hearts the way you twist the truth.”

He was looking at me. “I chased after this woman for three months before she took my ugly brother who is not as smart as me.” He touched my arm to make sure he had my full attention. “This one’s daughter, the Terror, works for you?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“When she was a teenager, she used to lifeguard at the pool on Christian Street…”

“Alphonse…” Lena’s voice carried more than a little warning.

He ignored her and continued. “The Terror, she used to wear this black, one-piece bathing suit, a white blouse tied at the waist and little sandals with flowers between the toes…”

“Al…”

“In the summer, the men of Christian Street always found a reason to be out on the stoop at ten in the morning to watch her go by.”

“Al…”

“Fourteen years old, and she is cussing them like a sailor.”

I took a sip of my own wine as Lena spoke. “If you’re through with your stories, we’re starving.”

He looked at me. “You see…Principessa.”

She leaned forward. “What are we having?”

He raised his hands with a flourish. “Pizza Rustica Alphonse.”

Lena clapped her hands. “My favorite!”

He downed the rest of his wine, set the glass back on the table with more flourish, and stood. “I stole the recipe from Termini, but he is not here…” He disappeared through the kitchen doors, singing “One for My Baby” just under Frank.

I raised my glass, and she touched the rim with hers. “Here’s to the lady’s revenge and sandals with little flowers between the toes.” She smiled and drank. I motioned toward the kitchen where Alphonse was overpowering Sinatra. “He’s quite a character.”

“My ally.”

“He seems to enjoy life.”

Her head tilted slightly. “And he makes excuses for people who also make that mistake.” The glass lingered there at her lower lip, a movement that echoed Vic’s. “When I had the affair, Alphonse let me stay above the restaurant.”

“You make it sound like an historic event.”

She took a sip. “In our family, it was.” She studied me. “I’d imagine you were true.”

“True?”

“You know what I mean.”

I thought about it, trying to come up with some way of not sounding like a self-righteous prig. “We were always saving for something. I mean I don’t think it was that we got along all that great. There were plenty of times we would have called it quits, but it seemed we were always needing something, a new television, a washer and dryer, a car, or for Cady…It’s amazing what civil service wages can do for fidelity.” She laughed, and I studied the pattern of the tablecloth. “I’m not sure how to go about this, but I think we’re close enough friends that I have to tell you something.” She looked back up at me. “I think I’ve stumbled onto who it might’ve been that you had the relationship with.”

Her expression changed very slightly, and then she looked at the tablecloth. It was a very long pause, and I was about to say something when she started talking. “I understand Michael threw you out of the hospital?”

“Yep.”

“He is healing fast.” She held the glass at her lip. “He got a three-day suspension, and it seems to me I should be mad at you about that.”

I waited and then spoke very carefully, “As long as that’s all you’re mad at me about.” She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow as I continued. “It was my plan, but it wasn’t my idea.” I didn’t care for this line of conversation either, so I changed the subject again. “I went to Delaware today. First to sign the Constitution; they have a plaque.”

“How was the opera?”

“I think your husband would just as soon I go back to Wyoming.”

“I’m sure he would.”

I smiled and took another sip of the wine. “Opening night tomorrow?”

“Yes, why?”

I shrugged. “I was looking for a date to take to Henry’s opening, but I guess you’re otherwise engaged.”

She took a long moment to respond, looking at her glass. “Yes.”

It was quiet, and I watched her clench her jaw muscles; again she looked like Vic. We listened as Alphonse finished up on a note. “Victor really can sing, but I think I prefer Alphonse; more heartfelt.”

“And flat.” She laughed a slow laugh that pulled at the top of my chest. “So, if we can’t seem to talk about anything else, what’s happening with the case?”

“I’m having a beer tonight at O’Neil’s with an assistant district attorney. He was a friend of Devon’s and was a player in the Roosevelt Boulevard thing.”

“Vince Osgood?”

“Yep, I guess it was in all the papers…”

“No, just recently there was something.”

I let her think while I continued. “Suspended…”

She held her hand out to stop me from speaking. “No, this was something that connected with something you said. I’ve heard those two names mentioned together. Osgood and Conliffe.”

“Roosevelt Boulevard…”

“No, no, no. It was something else.” She continued to think. “I knew I’d heard that young man’s name before, but now I can’t think where.” Alphonse returned with two plates and wrapped flatware, carefully placing them on the table, and poured himself another glass of Chianti. “Alphonse, what do you know about Vince Osgood?”

“The assistant DA on suspension?” He tightened his lips under his mustache. “He would burn his mother to stay warm.”

“What about him and Devon Conliffe, the judge’s son?”

“What about him?” He took a sip of his wine. “He fell off the bridge; end of story.”

“Al…”

He looked at me. “You know, I leave you here with this beautiful woman, wine, candlelight…And you talk like cops.”

Lena set her glass down. “You were a cop.”

“Not anymore. You want to talk cop stuff, you talk to your husband; you want to talk women, wine, or song, you talk to me.”

She held the glass with both hands and didn’t look at him. “Do you still have those friends of yours in the DA’s office?”

“No.”

Now she looked at him. “Are you going to make me ask Victor?”

He sipped and thought about it, finally sighing. “What do you want to know?”

“There’s some kind of connection between Osgood and the Conliffe boy, something I overheard or read somewhere, something recent.”

“I’ll make a phone call…tomorrow, but only on one condition.” We waited. “No more cop talk.”

I called Henry from O’Neil’s. He had a number of ceremonies he wanted to perform in Cady’s hospital room and told me he would relieve Michael, and to take the rest of the night off. I told him I wasn’t sure I could do that. “Then you have to help.”

“I’ll help.” I could hear him talking to the nurses and wondered about the other patients and the upcoming rituals. “How did the installation at the Academy go?”

“Wonderfully well. They are very accommodating.” I thought about the woman with the keys and the security pass. “You are coming to the reception.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I can, but somebody’s got to stay with Cady.”

There was silence on the phone. “She will be better by then.” The heat in my face hit like exhaust, and the stinging in my eyes wouldn’t go away. Even across the telephone lines, he felt it. “Do me a favor?”

“Yep?”

“Wait until very late. I am not sure that they like pagan ceremonies…and bring some eagle feathers.” The line went dead.

Ian looked at me as I hung up the phone. “Trouble?”

“Just a little. I have to find some eagle feathers.”

He crossed his muscled arms on the bar, the intertwined Celtic snakes writhing up his forearms. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He probably got stranger requests. I looked around the room and spotted an empty table near the window. The place was crowded, but not as bad as I might have suspected. “Not too busy?”

The Irishman shrugged. “The band cancelled.”

“What happened?”

He slid an unasked for Yuengling longneck across the bar to me. “Started drinking too early.”

“Irish?”

He smirked. “French, I think.”

“Damn French.”

“Yah, they’ll fuck up the EU, wait and see.”

I glanced back at the still-empty table. “I think I’m going to go sit over by the window.”

He swallowed a fearful dollop of what the Scots call the creature. “Yer too good to drink at the bar, Sheriff?”

“I have to meet with a lawyer.”

“Cady’s comin’?”

I took a breath as I stood. “No, and that’s something I probably need to…” It was then that I noticed Osgood standing at the front door. I raised a hand and got his attention, motioning toward the table in the corner. Ian’s looks had sharpened, either at my statement or Osgood’s appearance. “I’ll have to tell you about it later.”

“I’ll keep me eyes out fer eagle feathers.”

I took my beer and napkin to the table and eased my back against the wall, a good frontier sheriff. “Howdy.”

“How are you?”

“I’m good. Can I buy you a drink?”

He took off his suit jacket and hung it carefully on the back of his chair, loosened his tie, and rested his arms on the small table. He nodded before looking around the place. “Why’d you want to meet here? The place is a dump.”