Chapter 2 - The Letter From a Dead Man
I waited until the footsteps disappeared.
Then I counted to sixty.
Twice.
My mother stayed on the phone.
“Don't touch it,” she said.
“It's paper, Mom.”
“You don't know that.”
I stared at the envelope on my floor.
“You know something.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me.”
“Not over the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because I spent seventeen years making sure this conversation never happened.”
That was the first honest thing she'd said.
I picked up the envelope.
“Elena.”
“I need to know.”
Inside was a brass key.
And a folded letter.
The handwriting made my knees weak.
My father had written grocery lists in blocky capital letters because his cursive was nearly impossible to read. He always signed birthday cards with an oversized M.
The same M was at the bottom of the page.
Ellie,
If you're reading this, somebody found the coin.
I sat down.
The room seemed to tilt.
My mother said my name through the phone.
I couldn't answer.
The letter continued.
My father told me not to trust anyone who claimed he had been a criminal.
He also told me not to trust anyone who claimed he had been innocent.
Truth, he wrote, was more complicated.
There was an address in the North End.
A locker number.
And one warning.
If a Bellandi asks your father's name, do not give it until you know which Bellandi is asking.
I read that sentence three times.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“There was more than one Bellandi?”
She began crying.
My mother never cried.
Not when Dad died.
Not in front of me, anyway.
“Come to my house,” she said.
“You told me not to.”
“I'm done hiding.”
Forty minutes later I sat at her kitchen table.
Teresa Marino looked smaller than she had that morning.
She placed coffee in front of me and didn't sit.
“My father wasn't Michael Marino, was he?”
“That was his name.”
“His real name?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was Luca Bellandi terrified by a coin?”
She closed her eyes.
“Because your father saved Luca's life.”
That wasn't what I expected.
“What?”
“Michael and Luca grew up around the same people. Different families. Different loyalties.”
“Mob families.”
She looked at me.
“Yes.”
I felt ridiculous for being surprised.
My father had repaired boats.
He wore Red Sox caps.
He burned pancakes every Sunday.
He sang terribly.
“Dad was Mafia?”
“No.”
Her answer was immediate.
“He was close enough to understand them and smart enough to fear them.”
She finally sat.
My grandfather, she explained, had emigrated from Sicily with connections he wanted to leave behind.
Michael inherited the language, the relationships, and the consequences.
As a young man, he worked as a bookkeeper for import businesses on Boston's waterfront.
Some were legitimate.
Some weren't.
He learned where money moved.
He learned which politicians took favors.
He learned which companies existed only on paper.
Then he met Teresa.
Then I was born.
He wanted out.
“People don't just quit organizations like that,” I said.
“He didn't belong to them the way you're imagining. But he knew things.”
“What things?”
“Enough.”
I hated that word.
Enough.
Adults had used it throughout my childhood whenever truth became inconvenient.
“How did he die?”
She looked away.
The official story had always been a highway accident.
Rain.
A truck.
Bad visibility.
Instant death.
“Mom.”
Her fingers tightened around her coffee cup.
“The accident happened.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“No.”
One word.
Seventeen years of my life rearranged themselves around it.
“No what?”
“It wasn't an accident.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“You lied to me.”
“I protected you.”
“You lied every year.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“From whom?”
“I didn't know.”
That stopped me.
She explained that Michael had discovered a network using legitimate Boston businesses to hide criminal money.
He copied records.
Names.
Accounts.
Dates.
He intended to turn them over to federal investigators.
Before he could, he died.
The records disappeared.
So did several people connected to them.
“But why the coin?”
“It identified people Michael trusted.”
“Luca?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“Luca's father.”
My mind returned to the restaurant.
Luca's face.
The sudden silence.
“What happened between them?”
“Michael once prevented Luca from being killed during a dispute. Luca was nineteen.”
“So he owes Dad?”
“Maybe.”
“That's good.”
“No, Elena. Debt is dangerous to people like them.”
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I ignored it.
It rang again.
“Answer,” Mom said.
“Seriously?”
“If they wanted to hurt you, they wouldn't need to call first.”
Comforting.
I answered.
“Elena Marino?”
Luca.
“Yes.”
“You received the letter.”
“How do you know?”
“I arranged delivery.”
“You have letters from my dead father?”
“One.”
“Why?”
“Because he told me to keep it until the coin returned.”
I looked at Mom.
She shook her head.
“You knew him?”
“I knew Michael.”
“Then why insult me?”
A pause.
“I didn't know who you were.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
His voice changed.
“I apologize.”
I nearly laughed.
“Is that supposed to impress me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Because you have bigger problems.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What problems?”
“The men who killed your father learned tonight that Michael Marino's daughter still has the coin.”
“How?”
“Someone at my table made a call.”
“Your associate?”
“No.”
“Your bodyguards?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“I don't know yet.”
That frightened me more.
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn't.”
At least he was consistent.
“But you should trust your father.”
I looked at the brass key.
“What does it open?”
Luca went silent.
“How do you know about the key?”
I didn't answer.
“Elena, listen to me. Do not go to the address tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever delivered that envelope wasn't one of my men.”
My blood turned cold.
“You said you arranged it.”
“I arranged for the letter to reach you tomorrow morning.”
I stared at the envelope.
“Then who brought it tonight?”
“That's what I'm trying to find out.”
A car stopped outside Mom's house.
Headlights moved across the curtains.
Mom stood.
I went to the window but stayed beside the wall.
A black sedan.
“Luca.”
“What?”
“There's a car outside.”
“Do you recognize it?”
“No.”
“Don't move.”
The driver's door opened.
A man stepped out.
Not one of Luca's bodyguards.
He walked toward the house carrying something rectangular beneath his arm.
Mom grabbed my wrist.
The man climbed the steps.
He didn't knock.
Instead, he placed the object against the door and walked away.
We waited.
The sedan disappeared.
I approached.
“Elena, don't,” Luca said.
I opened the door.
A framed photograph leaned against the threshold.
My father stood in the center.
Beside him was a much younger Luca.
And beside Luca was a third man whose face had been violently scratched away.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Tomorrow.
May you like
And beneath it:
MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE.
