The Misfortune Cookie

2 Yin-yang

Complementary yet contradictory forces, often represented as female and male.

More than a dozen cops barreled into the restaurant right behind Lopez, all of them wearing NYPD vests or jackets, all of them armed and shouting.

One of them was saying into a megaphone, “NYPD! Stay seated! This is the police! Do not move! Stay where you are!”

Holy shit.

“It’s a raid!” Ronnie screamed as he leapt to his feet. “Police raid! Run! Run!”

“Are you nuts?” Jimmy stayed seated and tried to tug Ronnie back down into his chair.

Frightened diners were already screaming. Some jumped out of their seats and were strongly (and loudly) encouraged to sit right back down. Other people were sliding out of their chairs to hide under their tables. The accordion squealed atonally as the staggering musician got squeezed between the panicking people and the cops who were ordering them to stay calm.

A confused customer bumped hard against the table Ned was still standing on. The actor lost his balance as the table rocked; he flailed briefly, then flew headfirst into a pair of cops. The impact carried all three of them to the floor, shouting and groaning, while startled diners around them shrieked in alarm.

“What the hell . . . ?” I glanced around frantically, unable to form a coherent thought. My heart was pounding, my breath coming in little pants. I looked at Lopez, who was standing in front of my table, staring up at me in apparent shock, his jaw hanging open, his eyes wide with horror.

Not exactly the expression a woman hopes to see on a man’s face the first time they meet again after spending a passionate night together.

“It’s a raid!” Ronnie screamed while being strong-armed by the police and Jimmy Legs. “Save yourself!”

“Will you calm down?” Jimmy shouted at his colleague. “They’ll put a bullet in you if you keep this up!”

“He’s right!” confirmed a grimacing, redheaded cop who was trying to subdue the panicking mobster. “You’re tempting me, Ronnie!”

“You can’t shoot him!” Jimmy turned on the cop in outrage. “I want my lawyer!”

“Viva la revolución!” someone in the kitchen screamed. “Viva la libertad!”

Everyone paused for a moment to look in that direction.

Then Ralph dropped a whole tub of dishes. It fell to the floor with an earsplitting crash of shattering ceramic and glassware, and everyone started screaming again.

“Sorry!” Ralph wailed. “Sorry about that!”

Still on top of my table, I gaped down at Lopez. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

He blinked, as if surprised to hear me speak. Then he frowned thunderously. “What are you doing?”

“Working!”

“No, what are you doing here?” He was scowling up at me as if my very existence offended him.

“Working!” I repeated, staring down at him while people all around us continued screeching, shouting, and bounding around the restaurant in agitation.

Stella was bellowing, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I got rights! I’ll sue! Get out of my restaurant!”

I looked away from Lopez long enough to see a couple of cops shove Stella up against the wall next to Ronnie, Jimmy, Tommy Two Toes, and Freddie the Hermit. They were all being frisked, along with four or five other Gambello wiseguys. A policewoman started searching Stella, who continued shouting threats and questions despite being ordered to pipe down.

Lopez said something to me.

“What?” I looked down at him again, unable to hear him above the roar of the crowd.

“You’re not supposed to be here!” he shouted, as if accusing me of breaking a promise.

And then it hit me.

You bastard! You slept with me and then didn’t call!

“You weren’t supposed to start working until next week!” he shouted up at me.

“Hey, Lopez, some help over here?” hollered the redheaded cop who was handling Ronnie and Jimmy.

He ignored that and continued shouting at me, “You told me you weren’t getting any shifts here until after the holidays!”

Lopez’s rich blue eyes, fringed with thick dark lashes, were bloodshot and shadowed by dark circles. His straight, shiny black hair was rumpled. His strong face, exotically good-looking, appeared drawn and tired, and his golden-dark skin looked a little sallow tonight—at least in this light. The vest he was wearing added some bulk (I vaguely realized it was one of those bulletproof things), but under it, he had a slim, lithe, athletic build. And now that he was here in the flesh, the last person I had expected to see tonight, looking almost edibly gorgeous despite his apparent fatigue and furious scowl . . .

I wanted to kill him.

I wanted it so much, my hands bunched into tight fists, clutching the fabric of my skirt, and my shoulders started creeping upward in vengeful wrath as my chest swelled with righteous indignation.

“You can lower your skirt any time now, Esther,” he added irritably. “I think the wiseguys are getting enough excitement for one night.”

“What?” I looked down and realized that I was still holding my skirt hiked up to display a flash of thigh. In fact, in my agitation, I had tugged my hem up almost to my panty line and was displaying a lot more than I’d realized. “Oh!”

I dropped my skirt and smoothed it over my legs.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Lopez demanded. “Lifting your skirt for these guys!”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” I snapped.

Jimmy Legs roared, “I want my phone call! I want my lawyer!”

“I will sue you bums into the next century!” Stella bellowed.

“Everyone calm down!” the megaphone cop ordered the agitated diners. “You’ll all be able to leave as soon as an officer collects your information.”

“But I don’t have information!” a sweating man wailed. “I don’t have any information!”

“As soon as an offer gets your personal details,” the cop amended.

“You’re not getting my details!” Freddie the Hermit’s date insisted, now clustered with the regular diners.

The cop said doggedly, “Please wait quietly in your seats until—”

“This is still a free country, buddy!” someone cried. “You can’t hold us prisoner here!”

“No one here is a prisoner,” said the cop, clearly growing exasperated.

“Does that mean I can go now?” Tommy Two Toes called across the restaurant. “I know you already got my details.”

“No, you’re a prisoner,” the cop said to Tommy while fiddling with the volume on his megaphone.

An outraged diner rose from his seat. “So we are prisoners! By what right—”

“EVERYONE CALM DOWN AND STAY SEATED!” The officer had turned up the volume so loud, the walls reverberated. Seeing the way everyone flinched, he added, “Sorry.”

“So are we prisoners or not?”

“Yeah!” said Tommy. “Inquiring minds want to know!”

The cop said, “Most of you will be able to leave as soon as an officer collects your information. Some of you . . .” He looked across the restaurant at Stella and the Gambello crew. “. . . will be taken into custody, read your rights, and allowed to make your phone call, see your attorney, and use the toilet. This is New York City, not Soviet Russia.”

From the kitchen, we heard, “Viva la revolución! Vivan los trabajadores!”

“WILL SOMEONE SHUT THAT GUY UP?” After a moment, the cop added to everyone else, “Sorry.”

The restaurant remained noisy and the crowd was still anxious, but the panic died down as some semblance of order took shape. Gambello wiseguys were separated from everyone else and obviously being prepared for a mass arrest. More cops entered the restaurant, and four of them headed straight for the stairs that led up to Stella’s office on the second floor. Another detective presented her with a search warrant. Stella tore it up and stuffed some of the pieces into her mouth before Jimmy Legs advised her not to bother trying that.

Money laundering, I thought suddenly.

Ever since I had started working here, I’d heard the rumors that Bella Stella washed dirty money for the Gambellos. But I’d always vaguely supposed that if it were true, then Stella would be arrested and the restaurant would be shut down.

As the policewoman placed Stella under arrest and recited her rights to her, I realized that OCCB’s intense investigation of the Gambello family in recent weeks must have uncovered evidence confirming the rumors.

My startled gaze flashed back to Lopez, who was glaring up at me again.

Before I could blurt out the questions forming in my mind, he demanded, “What are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to be here tonight. What the hell happened?”

My lips moved in speechless outrage. I hardly knew where to start. If he had bothered to speak to me since leaving my bed a week ago, I’d probably have told him that I was working tonight. I tried to think of words scathing enough for the stinging response he deserved.

Still glaring at me, Lopez added, “And get off the damn table, would you?”

He reached up a hand to help me down.

I slapped it away. “Don’t touch me!”

He looked surprised. “What?”

“Miss, do not behave violently toward a police officer!” a male voice said sharply on my left.

I looked in that direction and flinched when I recognized Detective Peter Napoli. “You!” I said in horror.

Napoli froze when he recognized me. “Oh, God help us, it’s you again.”

Detective Napoli, who had seniority over Lopez, had questioned me in connection with Chubby Charlie’s death here in the spring. That interview had not gone well. In fact, it had gone so badly that Napoli had wanted to take me into custody, and he suspected me of being involved with Gambello business. So he was someone I’d really hoped never to meet again. Judging by the expression on his face now, the feeling was mutual.

Napoli said accusingly to Lopez, “Did you know about this?”

“That she’d be here?” Lopez reacted with apparent revulsion. “No!”

Infuriated, I said, “How could he possibly know I’d be here? He’d have to talk to me for that!”

Napoli said to Lopez, “I don’t want her causing any trouble.”

“Trouble?” I said in outrage.

“She won’t,” Lopez assured him.

“Trouble?” I repeated.

Lopez said darkly, “Not now, Esther.”

“Who steamrolled in here without warning in the middle of the party, scaring everyone half to death and nearly starting a riot?”

“You tell ’em, Esther!” shouted Freddie the Hermit.

“Thatta girl!”

I continued, “That’s trouble, and it sure wasn’t me who caused it, you sorry bast—”

“Please come down from there now,” Lopez interrupted, reaching up to grab my hand.

I slapped him away again. “Don’t you dare—”

“Miss Diamond,” Napoli said sharply, “this is your last warning about striking a police officer.”

“What? Are you kidding me, you moronic jack—”

“I’ll deal with this,” Lopez said loudly to Napoli. “Leave her to me.”

“‘Leave her to me?’” I repeated, appalled.

“Sort out your problems with your girlfriend on your own time,” Napoli said tersely. “We’re working.”

“She ain’t his girlfriend!” Jimmy Legs said.

The redheaded cop smacked him on the back of the head. “Shut up, Jimmy.”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” I insisted from my tabletop, looking down at Napoli.

“All right, everyone take a deep breath,” said Lopez. “Let’s calm down and—”

“Shut up,” Napoli and I said to him in unison, which made him blink.

Napoli looked up at me. “Whatever you call your thing with Detective Lopez, I won’t have it interfering with this bust. Is that clear?”

“I don’t have a ‘thing’ with him,” I said, swamped with anger and humiliation. “There is nothing between us. Nothing.”

Lopez looked sharply up at me. “What?”

I glanced down at him and saw his startled expression. “What do you mean, ‘What?’”

Napoli said to Lopez, “Get her over there with the rest of the staff and get her details.”

Lopez said to me, “What do you mean?”

Napoli said, “Or have you already got her details?”

He got a lot more than my details.

“Did I miss something?” Lopez asked me.

“Oh, my God.” Realization dawned as I stared down at my ex-almost-boyfriend.

Since I still didn’t want Lopez touching me, I leaned down to put my hand on Napoli’s shoulder—ignoring the way the detective flinched and tried to move away from me—and used him for balance as I hopped off the table.

I stood in front of Lopez, eye to eye. (Well, nearly. He’s almost six inches taller than I am.) I gaped at him for a long moment before I spoke. “You thought I’d sleep with you again?”

“Well . . .” He looked bemused. “Yeah.”

Ronnie Romano started chuckling. “Oh, this is gonna be good.”

The redheaded cop said, “Shut up, Ronnie.”

I was incredulous. “You thought I’d sleep with you again?”

Now Lopez was annoyed. “Yes.”

“As in, maybe some day in the distant future, if we’re the last two people left on the whole planet after a global disaster?”

“No, I was thinking it would be sooner than that,” he said in exasperation.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Napoli.

“How could you possibly think I’d ever let you near me again?” I shouted.

“I really did miss something, didn’t I?” said Lopez.

“Oh, my God! I can’t believe what a jerk you are!”

“Er, detectives?” called another cop. “I hate to interrupt, but we’re sort of in the middle of a big bust over here and could use some help.”

“No, no, take your time,” said Tommy Two Toes. “No rush.”

“Shut up, Tommy,” said Napoli.

“What are they doing?” Stella shrieked as cops started coming down the steps from her office with boxes full of her business files. “That’s my stuff! Put that back!”

The policewoman said, “It’s all covered by the search warrant you tried to eat a few minutes ago, Miss Butera.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

“Why won’t you sleep with me again?” Lopez asked, looking bewildered. “What happened?”

“What happened?” I repeated. “Why?”

“Oh, this is almost worth getting arrested for,” said Ronnie.

“Lopez,” said Napoli, “we actually are in the middle of a big bust, so—”

“Yeah, why?” he said to me.

“Because you slept with me and then didn’t call!” I raged.

“Whoa! Really?” said Jimmy.

“The bum!” said Stella.

Ronnie burst out laughing.

Napoli looked at Lopez. “Is that true?”

“It’s been a week!” I added.

“Yikes,” said the redheaded cop.

Tommy added, “What a jerk!”

“A week?” said Napoli.

“Yes!” I said.

“No, of course it hasn’t been a week,” Lopez said dismissively.

“Christmas Eve!” I shrieked, enraged beyond all measure. “We had sex on Christmas Eve! Twice!”

“Stamina,” Tommy said judiciously.

“Young guys,” Freddie said with envy.

“Oh, that explains why you were late for work Christmas morning,” said Napoli.

“And I haven’t heard from you since then!” I shouted. “A week!”

“What a mook,” Freddie said in disgust.

Lopez shook his head. “No, Esther, it was only . . . only . . .” He paused. “Oh.”

“The penny drops,” said Ronnie.

Lopez squinted at me. “It’s been a week?”

“Yes.”

“Christmas Eve . . . New Year’s Eve . . .” We all waited in taut silence while he thought it over. “You’re right. I guess it’s been a week.”

“You guess?” A moment ago, I hadn’t thought it was possible to get any angrier. Now I realized how wrong I’d been.

“God, even for a cop, this is pathetic,” said Ronnie.

“Put a sock in it, Ronnie,” said Napoli.

“That ain’t no way to treat a lady,” said Jimmy Legs, shaking his head as the redheaded cop handcuffed him.

Apparently thinking he had a good argument at hand, Lopez said to me, “You could have called me if you wanted to talk t—”

“I did call you! I left you a message!”

“Oh . . .” He looked dazed. “That’s right. I forgot . . .”

“You didn’t call her back?” blurted the policewoman who was cuffing Stella. She met my eyes. “Men.”

“Hey, we ain’t all like that,” protested Freddie—who was here tonight with his mistress while Mrs. Freddie was probably at home alone.

“Men,” I repeated.

“Jesus, Lopez,” Napoli said in exasperation. “After Chubby Charlie got whacked, why did I have to go around and around and around with you about this woman, if you were just going to wind up dumping her? You could’ve saved me a lot of antacids if you’d just—”

“Don’t you have a big bust to supervise?” Lopez said to him.

“You’re the one who insisted on doing this tonight,” Napoli shot back. “I wanted to wait a couple of days, when we’d have more staff available for this and it would be easier to find a sober judge. But noooo, you pushed and pushed until—”

“Fine, this is all my fault,” Lopez snapped. “Everything is my fault. Okay?”

“Well, there’s something we can agree on,” I said.

“But as long as we’re here now,” Lopez prodded Napoli, “maybe you’d like to go arrest someone.” He nodded toward the wiseguys who were lined up next to Stella.

“No, that’s all right, we can wait,” said Tommy. “Don’t put yourself out.”

“Shut up,” Lopez and Napoli said in unison.

Then Napoli glared at Lopez, gave a disgusted shake of his head, and turned to the arresting officers, whom he urged to stop gaping at us and get this bust back on track. He crossed the floor and started assisting them.

Lopez looked around uncomfortably at the crowd for whom we had been providing a free floor show. “Look, can we talk about this later?” he said to me.

“No, there’s nothing left to talk about!” Immediately contradicting myself, I said, “How could you do that? What kind of a person are you?”

“He’s a loser, that’s what kind!” said Freddie as he was being escorted out of the restaurant by two cops, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Napoli told Freddie to mind his own business.

“What were you thinking?” I raged at Lopez, getting it all off my chest now. “You insensitive, self-centered, callous—”

“I was busy!”

I was so furious I could barely speak, but I forced the words out. “You were . . . busy?”

Lopez lost the last shreds of self-control. “Yes, goddamn it!”

So did I. “BUSY?”

“Lame,” said Jimmy.

“Priceless.” Ronnie was laughing again.

“And so were you, it turns out,” Lopez shouted.

“What does that mean?” I demanded.

“It means I got here, at the end of a week made in hell—”

“Oh, now you remember it’s been a week!”

“—to find you dancing on tabletops! Having the time of your life—and giving a bunch of wiseguys a good long look under your skirt!” He was beside himself now. “So don’t pretend you’ve been sitting around waiting for me to call!”

Since that was exactly what I had been doing, this was too much. Just too much. Before I knew it, my hand was whipping across his cheek in a loud, stinging slap. Lopez fell back a step, startled. So did I. I’d hit him so hard my hand burned, and a white palm print stood out sharply against his dark skin for a moment.

Stella and the Gambello crew were cheering.

“Way to go, Esther!”

“Good for you!”

“That’ll teach the bum!”

Lopez and I stared at each other, both caught off guard by what I’d just done. I heard harsh, rasping breaths—and realized they were my own.

“That does it,” said Napoli. “Put your hands behind your back, Miss Diamond.”

“What?” I said distractedly. It seemed a peculiar request.

“Pete, no,” Lopez said suddenly. “Don’t.”

“I warned her,” Napoli said. “Hands behind your back now, Miss Diamond.”

“Huh?” I said in confusion.

Lopez stepped close to us and said to his colleague in a low voice, “Come on, don’t do this.”

“You know I can’t let it go,” Napoli replied, also in a low voice, as he pulled out his handcuffs. “Slugging a cop during a bust?”

“Wait a minute,” I said, realizing what was happening as Napoli snapped a cuff around my right wrist. “No!”

“Hitting an officer in front of witnesses,” Napoli continued to Lopez. “And in front of these witnesses. I can’t give her a pass on this one.”

“Oh, come on, Pete, you know why she hit me.”

“Ow! That’s pinching!” I tried to wriggle out of Napoli’s grasp.

“Hold still,” he said tersely to me. “Don’t make things worse for yourself.”

Lopez persisted, “It had nothing to do the bust. Or with me being a cop.”

“Believe me,” said Napoli, “I sympathize with Miss Diamond’s motives and understand her actions.”

“Then let me go,” I urged as he pulled my arms behind my back and snapped the other cuff on my left wrist.

“But she picked the wrong time and place. I gave her two warnings in a row about violent behavior to a police officer—”

“You can’t be serious!” I said.

“—and she did it, anyhow.” Napoli added, “In the middle of a high-profile bust, while arguing with the cop in question. You know I can’t let it go.”

Lopez rubbed his forehead and said, “I’d really like to wake up now. Please, God, let me wake up.”

“You’re going to let him arrest me?” I demanded of Lopez. “You’re really letting this happen?”

“Shut up,” he said without looking at me. “I’m trying to think.”

“This is no time for thinking,” I insisted, feeling the cold weight of police metal encircling my wrists. “Do something.”

“Esther Diamond,” said Napoli, “I’m arresting you for—”

“Wait!” Lopez was apparently done thinking. “I’ve got it. I’ll do it.”

Napoli and I both stared at him.

“I’ll book her,” he clarified.

“What?” I blurted.

“No, I’ve got this,” said Napoli. “You don’t . . . Oh. I see.”

“You’re going to arrest me?” I said incredulously.

“Yeah, I’m going to arrest you,” Lopez said with resignation.

“That’s your bright idea?” I said. “Swapping places with Detective Charm?”

Napoli asked him, “Are you sure you want to do this? It won’t look good.”

“It already doesn’t look good,” I said. “How dare you two arrest me, when he had the nerve, the gall—”

“You’ll catch some shit for this,” Napoli warned him.

“You bet he will,” I confirmed.

“I’ll deal with it,” Lopez said.

“Stop!” I said as Lopez took a step toward me. “I don’t want to be arrested by you. I want someone else! Haven’t you done enough to me already?”

Ronnie, who was being led to the door in cuffs, burst out laughing again. “Oh, buddy,” he said to Lopez, “your love life is deader than a thirty-year-old corpse in a Jersey landfill.”

“Yeah, I’m sensing that,” Lopez said tersely as he brushed Napoli aside and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” I jerked reflexively away from him—and, in doing so, accidentally banged the back of my head into Napoli’s nose.

“Agh!” the detective staggered backward, clutching his face.

The Gambellos who were still inside the restaurant cheered again. So did some of the diners who were still waiting to be allowed to leave.

“Whoa! Esther clips two of New York’s finest inside of five minutes!”

“Go, Esther!” said Stella. “Do them all! The bums!”

Napoli’s eyes were tearing as he snatched up a dirty napkin from a nearby table to dab at his nose, which was bright red now. “Arrest her, goddamn it!” he said to Lopez. “And get her the hell out of my sight!”

“Honor is due, Esther,” Jimmy Legs said as the redheaded cop led him past me and out the door. “You are one fine dame.”

“She’s about to become a dame with an assault record,” muttered Napoli.

Looking very sad that he had ever met any of us, Lopez gave a heavy sigh and said, “Esther Diamond, I am placing you under arrest.”