The Misfortune Cookie

3 The Eight Immortals

These legendary figures embody the various conditions of human life—poverty and wealth, youth and age, male and female. Born human, they achieved immortality through their deeds.

It turned out that being arrested for assaulting a police officer put me at the pinnacle of the criminal pantheon inside the women’s holding cells. Even Stella ranked below me. I would have thought that laundering money for the mob was a more impressive deed than slapping your former almost-boyfriend. But slugging a cop evidently imbued me with legendary status among the hookers, crack addicts, and shoplifters sharing this illustrious space with me in the wee hours of New Year’s morning.

Also, I don’t think any of them had the faintest idea what money laundering was, and Stella and I were both too agitated to explain it well.

I settled into my demoralizing situation—starting off the New Year in jail—by trying to distract myself and use the time productively. In pursuit of my craft, I attempted to study my fellow prisoners, who represented diverse conditions of human existence.

I was initially interested in the prostitutes, since I had played one recently—a guest role on the cable TV cult hit, The Dirty Thirty—and might play one again someday. But apart from their enthusiasm over my having hit a cop, they just seemed sleepy and bored, providing me with very little material.

Still trying to be conscientious—and still trying not to think about my immediate future, which I wasn’t ready to face—I focused next on three Ivy League coeds who were also locked up in here tonight. I didn’t know what they were charged with, but the extent of their inebriation suggested several possibilities. They were obviously from wealthy backgrounds, and just as obviously not used to surroundings like this. I decided to observe how these three young women reacted to the gravity of their situation and to being in close quarters with streetwalkers, thieves, addicts, and a furious restaurateur.

But this was pretty dull, too. One of the girls promptly fell asleep and was snoring away peacefully. Another had vomited twice and was rocking back and forth now with her arms folded over her stomach. And the third one kept hitting on me. As a waitress who’d clobbered a cop in a mob joint, I evidently represented exciting erotic possibilities for a bisexual society girl who was briefly enthralled with the idea of rough trade. After I got tired of telling her to leave me alone, which didn’t work, I yanked so hard on her hair that she retreated sulkily to a corner, glaring at me in resentful silence thereafter.

Stella was pacing back and forth, muttering to herself, still dressed in her sequined, leopard-print outfit. I thought any random stranger who passed this area would assume she was the hookers’ boss, rather than mine. Compared to all my companions here, I almost looked like a nun in my server’s outfit of white blouse, knee-length black skirt, support hose, and sensible shoes.

By now, I was sitting hunched over on a wooden bench, my chin in my hands. It had been a couple of hours since I’d been locked up in here with the scum of the earth (I refer, of course, to the privileged young drunks who’d never had to look for work or worry about rent money), and I stared at the floor as I morosely forced myself to confront my situation.

On the plus side, I would have legal representation. True, my attorney would be a notorious mouthpiece for the mob, but he was very experienced and I wouldn’t have to pay for him. Since I was a friend of the family and had been scooped up in a sweep of the Gambellos, Stella assured me that “the boss” was going to take care of me—which included securing and paying for my counsel. Although I realized that requesting a public defender might better demonstrate law-abiding propriety on my part, I decided I’d prefer to stick with the Shy Don’s lawyer. He routinely kept killers and extortionists out of prison, after all, so I hoped my case would be a cakewalk for him.

But even with my legal fees covered by Victor Gambello, I was really worried about money. The cops had raided Stella’s at the height of the evening, before the customers, many of whom had been camped at their tables all night, had paid their checks and left. So I had only collected tips from the early crowd, the people who ate dinner and then left Bella Stella to attend festivities elsewhere. Which meant that when Lopez—that bastard!—arrested me and put me in the back of the police van with all the Gambello prisoners, I only had about one-third of the earnings I was counting on for the night. The rest would have rolled in later, around two o’clock in the morning, if the place hadn’t been busted.

I wondered how long I could last on the quantity of cash that I estimated had been in my server’s pouch at midnight. And when would Bella Stella reopen for business? Not soon, I suspected—not with its owner facing indictment. OCCB wouldn’t have staged such a big bust tonight if they didn’t have a strong case.

With Bella Stella off the menu, so to speak, I wondered how soon I could get another job—and collect my first earnings from it. In fact, could I get another job, now that I had a recent arrest on my record? What if, despite the Shy Don’s lawyer defending me, this arrest turned into a conviction?

Damn Lopez.

If I got out of jail for assaulting him, the first thing I was going to do was kill him. He deserved it.

“Hey, handsome,” one of the hookers suddenly said in a sultry voice. “You lookin’ for a party?”

“No, I’m looking for my assailant.”

My head jerked up the second I recognized Lopez’s voice. I saw him standing outside our cage, looking even more exhausted than he had during the bust, as if he was by now running only on the memory of fumes.

Serves him right.

He had replaced his bulletproof vest with a navy blue pullover sweater. I resented this, since that was a good color for him. It brought out the blue of his eyes, flattered his olive complexion, and made his coal-black hair look even darker. The fact that it was a ratty-looking old wool sweater with unraveling cuffs didn’t seem to mute its effect on me.

I had a sudden, unbidden memory of clumsily helping him pull a different sweater over his head exactly a week ago. It fell to the floor of my apartment, quickly followed by the rest of his clothes—which he was frantically shedding as we clung and kissed and embraced, feverish and uninhibited with each other, his ravenous mouth on mine, his hands all over my naked body . . .

I sat bolt upright and started choking on a sort of shocked hiccup, appalled by where my thoughts had just wandered based on one quick look at the tired, shabbily-dressed cop who had arrested me tonight.

“Are you all right, Esther?” he asked.

Our gazes locked. I swallowed, cleared my throat, and composed myself.

“What do you want, detective?” I asked coldly.

“Oh, I get it,” said the hooker who had greeted him. “You’re the cop she decked?”

“I’m the one,” Lopez said wearily.

Most of my fellow prisoners perked up, looking at him with interest now.

“Oooh, honey,” the same woman said to Lopez. “What ever did you do to make her wanna wallop such a pretty face?”

“He slept with me and then never called,” I said tersely, rising from my bench.

“Seriously?” She looked at Lopez with a much less flattering expression now. “That is so tacky!”

“I think there are still some people in the tri-state area who haven’t heard,” Lopez said to me. “Do you want to alert the media? It would save time.”

“God, men are all the same,” said another of the prostitutes. “Don’t you just hate them?”

“You’re a bum!” Stella told Lopez.

“I’m going to be sick!” said the drunk coed with the weak stomach.

“Again?”

We all took a few steps back.

She burped, then said, “Never mind. False alarm.”

The society girl who’d been hitting on me earlier stood up, pointed at me, and said to Lopez, “She assaulted me, too! I want to press charges. Against her and against the department—for putting this animal in here with me!”

“What did you do now?” Lopez asked me.

“I defended my virtue,” I said crankily.

He lifted a brow. “Surely it’s a little late for that?”

“Oh, don’t you dare—”

“Kidding,” he said. “Kidding.”

“You are in no position to kid me,” I reminded him.

“I guess not,” he admitted.

“Where’s my lawyer?” Stella asked, seething with impatience. “Isn’t he here yet?”

“Yeah, he got here about twenty minutes ago. He’s meeting first with Ronnie and Jimmy and Tommy and . . . oh, all the rest of them,” Lopez replied. “He’ll see you after he’s done with them.”

“How long will that take?” she demanded.

“I’m guessing you could make a dent in War and Peace while you’re waiting.”

“I ain’t got all night!”

“Actually, you do,” Lopez pointed out.

“Why, you rotten, lousy, stinking—”

“Hey, I’m not the guy who sent only one lawyer here to represent all of you,” he said. “Take it up with Victor Gambello if you’re not happy.”

“Hmph.”

Turning away from Stella, Lopez nodded to the uniformed policewoman who stood nearby. She unlocked our cell as he said, “Come on, Esther. Let’s go.”

“Huh?”

As the cell door opened, Stella stepped protectively in front of me and eyed Lopez. “Where are you taking her?”

“Relax, Stella. We’re letting her go.”

“You are?” I said in surprise.

“Yeah.” He gestured for me to exit the cell. “Come on.”

I looked doubtfully at Stella, not wanting to leave her here. When she realized why I was hesitating, she shook her head and patted my arm. “Don’t worry about me, kid. I’ll be outta here pronto. I just gotta wait for my lawyer.”

“And for a judge,” Lopez said.

“Oh, shit,” she said in disgust. “I forgot. It’s New Year’s Day.”

Stella sighed, rolled her eyes, and sat down on a bench, settling in for a long wait. I asked if she wanted me to bring anything here for her, now that I was evidently being set free; but she said her assistant was taking care of that. So I gave her a quick hug, wished the other inmates the best of luck with the legal system, and exited my cell.

I felt a rush of relief as I followed Lopez down the hall and left the holding area. I was out of there! And apparently not going to appear before a judge, after all, let alone face being convicted of assaulting a police officer.

Lopez didn’t stop walking until we reached the window where I could reclaim my possessions from the NYPD. He gave them my name and verified my release.

A moment later, a man appeared at the end of the hall. “Has anybody seen—Oh, there he is. Lopez!”

As my companion turned to look at him, I recognized the redheaded cop who’d participated in the bust at Bella Stella.

He recognized me, too. His face split in a grin. “Miss Diamond! Delighted see you again.”

I shrewdly sensed that the wiseguys weren’t the only people who’d found certain events at the restaurant vastly amusing.

Lopez asked him, “What do you want?”

“We need to finish the—”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Lopez replied. “I just need to wrap this up.”

“Do you need any . . . Oh, right. Never mind.” The cop grinned again. “I just love a happy ending.” He was chuckling as he turned and went back the way he had come.

“God, will this shift never end?” Lopez muttered in despair.

I searched my soul for some compassion but didn’t find any. Go figure.

While we waited for someone to retrieve my stuff, I asked him, “What’s going to happen to Stella?”

“In the long run, we’ll see,” he said. “Meanwhile, she’s right—she’ll be released on bail after she’s arraigned.”

“What about the restaurant?”

“It won’t be reopening for a while, Esther.” It was clear from his tone that he knew this was bad news for me. “Maybe not ever—not as Stella’s place, anyhow.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t surprised, but my heart sank, even so.

He was avoiding my eyes as he said, “You’ll have to find another job.”

“Uh-huh.” After a moment I asked, “Am I all done here? I mean, what happened to my arrest for . . . ? You know.” I made an awkward gesture indicating the cheek I had slapped.

“We’re dropping the charges.”

“Good!” I said with relief. Then: “Um, why? Napoli seemed to think that hanging would be too good for me.”

“I screwed up the arrest,” said Lopez, looking through the clerk’s window to check on progress. “This could take a few minutes. They’re understaffed tonight.”

I frowned. “What do you mean, you screwed it up?”

“Oh, I charged you with the wrong thing.” He sounded as tired as he looked. “I didn’t read you your rights. I filled out the report wrong. And so on.”

I hadn’t even noticed any of this. I’d been too upset to be aware of the whole ordeal as anything other than a surreal nightmare.

Lopez added, “I thought about sexually harassing you in front of witnesses, but that seemed like overkill. And I’ll have enough explaining to do, as it is.”

I stared at him as I realized what he was saying. “You mean you screwed up on purpose?”

“Of course it was on purpose,” he said a little testily. “Although you might not believe it, based on tonight, I’m not actually a raging incompetent.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you screw up?”

Now he was annoyed. “Because seeing you at the restaurant—where you weren’t supposed to be, Esther—right in the middle of my bust . . . Well, it threw me off my game. I got rattled. And then you and I devolved into some kind of insane tabloid brawl. Which I still don’t really know how . . . Wait. No. I swore I wouldn’t go there again. Not here and now.” Lopez took a deep breath and regrouped. “I’m just saying, I’m normally a lot better at my job than that.”

“Um, no, I meant, why did you screw up my arrest?”

“Oh.” He blinked. “That?”

“Yes,” I said, clinging to my patience. “That.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face before answering, as if trying to wake himself up. “Well, I saw there was no way Napoli would let you go. Not in those circumstances. He was going to bring you in tonight, no matter what.” Lopez shrugged. “So I made sure that we can’t keep you.”

Now I thought I understood. “By handling this so sloppily that you have to drop the charges?”

He nodded. “You’d have to be a much more important collar for the prosecutor to stick with this and try to press charges after the mess I’ve made of your arrest. So we’re cutting you loose.”

I remembered Napoli’s comments in the restaurant when Lopez decided to take over arresting me. “Detective Charm knew you were going to do this, didn’t he?”

“Yeah.” He looked through the window again. “Oh, good, they’ve got your stuff.”

“I don’t get it. Napoli is such a jerk. Why—”

“He’s not the easiest guy in the world to get along with,” Lopez admitted, “but he’s a good cop, and he’s fair. We’ve learned how to work with each other. Though you probably couldn’t tell, based on tonight’s performance.”

“But he can’t stand me,” I said. “So why did he let you go ahead and do this?”

“Because it’s a fair compromise all around,” Lopez said dryly. “You got to slap me, which Napoli thought I deserved. He got to make his point in front of the Gambellos about hitting a cop. And me . . . well, I guess I won’t have to explain to anyone why you’ve got a criminal record.” As he handed my stuff to me, he concluded, “See? Everyone walks away a winner.”

“Some victory,” I muttered. “No money, no job . . .” No boyfriend.

“You’ll find another job,” he said firmly. “You can do better than a mob joint that’s full of wiseguys hitting on you.”

“I liked it there,” I said grumpily.

His shoulders slumped. “I know.” His voice was soft, and he was avoiding my eyes again.

“So I guess this thing happened because of the way OCCB has been putting the Gambellos under a microscope ever since the Fenster heists first hit the news?” I said.

Lopez nodded, then said, “Now check to make sure this is everything that you had with you when you were brought in, then sign for it.”

“Miss Diamond,” said the clerk. “Here’s the rest of your belongings.”

“The rest?” I said with a puzzled frown. My server’s pouch was the only possession I’d been arrested with (and as far as I could tell, all the cash was still inside it). Then I saw what he was handing over to Lopez. “Oh! Well, that’s good, at least.”

It turned out that shortly after I was arrested, it had occurred to Ned to get my daypack and my coat from the staff room and give them to the cops, so I could be reunited with these things upon eventually being released. Lopez set my daypack on the floor and held my coat slung over one arm while telling me this. I was relieved, since this meant I wouldn’t have to go back to Little Italy and try to convince the cops to let me into the restaurant so I could remove my stuff.

It also meant I had the keys to my apartment now, so I could go straight home and collapse. I suddenly realized how exhausted I was. Without thinking, I grabbed Lopez’s wrist and looked at his watch. It was nearly five o’clock in the morning.

“Oh. No wonder I feel like a pumpkin,” I said, still holding his wrist.

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s almost morning,” I said.

But suddenly I wasn’t thinking about the time.

“I know,” he murmured.

My thoughts had shifted to how sturdy his arm felt. I hadn’t touched him in a week—except to slap him tonight.

“I wanted to release you sooner, but um . . .” His voice was a little breathless now. “But it takes some time to . . . uh . . .” He trailed off.

I looked up into his face and our eyes met. I had stepped closer to him to look at his watch. Now I realized how close. I could feel his body heat. With our gazes locked, I saw the fatigue in his dark-lashed eyes replaced by a spark of something else. Something I’d seen there before. His gaze drifted down to my lips and his breathing changed.

Everything inside me quickened and my hand tightened on his wrist. Touching him for a moment, even with his wooly sweater between my fingers and his flesh, reminded me of what it was like to touch him elsewhere . . . Everywhere . . . Really touch him. Anywhere I wanted, as much as I wanted . . .

NO. Stop right there.

I dropped his wrist like a hot rock and stepped away so quickly I stumbled.

“Careful.” He reached for me.

“Don’t,” I snapped, staggering away from his outstretched hand.

“Huh?”

I balanced myself against the nearby wall, aware that I was breathing too hard for someone who’d simply been standing around for the past few minutes.

“Esther?” he prodded.

“Don’t do that,” I said. “You are not allowed to do that.”

“Okay,” he said quickly.

“Just don’t.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

“Good.”

After a pause, he said, “Just so I know . . . What are we talking about?”

I stared at him incredulously. “I never cease to be amazed,” I said in disgust, “at what a guy you can be.”

“And here we go,” he muttered.

“No, here we don’t,” I said. “I’m leaving. Right now.”

He nodded, apparently perceiving the unwisdom of saying anything more just now. My coat was still slung over his arm. He shook it out now and held it open for me.

That date-like gesture upset me, all things considered, so I snatched the garment away from him and slipped into it by myself. It was a heavy, knee-length wool coat with a hood. I’d found it at a thrift shop two years ago. It had a ragged hem and a dark stain on one side, and its profusion of buttons and zippers always took a while to fasten and unfasten. But it was really warm and very good at keeping out the icy winter winds that hurtled down the urban canyons created by the city’s tall buildings.

While I zipped and buttoned, feeling self-conscious as Lopez watched me, I said, “I need to go home and get some sleep. Because then I have to go look for a new job now that you’ve closed down my place of employment.”

“I was doing my job,” he shot back. “And if Stella didn’t want her restaurant to be shut down, then she shouldn’t have . . . Um . . . never mind.”

Apparently my expression had made him recognize the folly of justifying tonight’s events to me at this particular moment.

Lopez sighed and, in an apparent attempt to placate me, said, “Look, maybe some acting work will turn up soon. You’ll get some auditions and . . . and . . .” After taking a good long look at my face, he said in defeat, “I probably just shouldn’t speak, huh?”

“No. And that shouldn’t be a problem for you.” I picked up my daypack. “As I’ve learned this past week, you’re really good at not speaking to me.”

I turned away and stalked toward the exit, eager to get out of here—and away from him, before I either hit him again or else burst into tears.

“Esther! Wait!”

I heard his footsteps behind me, but I didn’t slow down, let alone turn around. I had a dark feeling that tears might triumph in a few more seconds, and I didn’t want him to see that. Being around him kept reminding me of the night we’d spent together, which made it that much harder for me to bear everything that had happened since then.

“Esther, stop,” he said, right behind me now.

When I felt his hand on my arm, trying to halt me, I tried to jerk away from him. “Leave me alone!”

He tightened his grip, pulled me to a sudden stop, and turned me around to face him.

“Don’t!” I yanked myself out of his grasp.

“Sorry, sorry.” He raised his hands, palms out, and took a step back. “Sorry, but this is important. There’s something . . .” He looked uncomfortable. “Something I . . .”

Against my will, I felt a little flutter of hope unfurl inside me. “Something you want to say?” I prodded.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Something I want to say.”

I hesitated only a moment. “Okay. I’ll listen.”

“Good.” He took a breath . . . but seemed to have trouble getting started. “Um . . .”

I waited, running his lines for him in my head: I’m sorry. I should have called. I’m a toad, a worm, a dung beetle. But I’ll do anything in the world to make it up to you. Can you ever forgive me?

That would be a good beginning. I waited for him to start there.

“There’s something I keep thinking about . . .” he said tentatively.

I can never apologize enough for the way I’ve treated you. I don’t deserve it, but even so, I’m begging you for another chance.

I liked that. He could riff on that for a while. And then he’d need to explain what the hell had happened. Since it was obvious his tongue hadn’t been cut out by marauding bandits, I tried to think of some other acceptable excuse for his failure to call me. Maybe . . .

As soon as I left your apartment, I was abducted by aliens and taken to the mother ship. They didn’t release me until tonight. Nothing less than that would have made me go a whole week without calling you after what happened between us.

Hmm. Maybe not.

I frowned as I tried to think of a more plausible reason that would be equally acceptable.

Nothing came to me. I started feeling vexed with him again.

A week! A whole week.

“Well?” I prodded, thinking this had better be good. Really good. “What are you trying to say?”

“Are you still taking the pill?” he asked in a rush.

I blinked. “What?”

“We didn’t use anything that night. You know—protection. And, uh, I didn’t ask at the time . . .” When I didn’t respond, he added, “It’s something we should talk about.”

“Oh, now you want to talk,” I said, feeling fresh outrage rush through me. “All week, you couldn’t be bothered to speak to me! But now that you’ve arrested me, you’re feeling chatty.”

“Could we please stick to the subject?” he said irritably. “Just for a minute?”

“I am on the subject!”

“Are you still taking the pill?” His voice was getting louder. “That’s all I want to know!”

A man being led past us in handcuffs looked at us with interest. So did the cop who was escorting him.

Lopez noticed and made an exasperated sound. “Great. We’re the floor show again.”

I waited until those two men were out of earshot, then I demanded, “How did you even know I was taking birth control pills?” We had never discussed it.

“I saw them in your bathroom a few months ago.”

“You’ve got no right to search my bathroom!”

“I didn’t. You left them lying out,” he said. “I noticed them when I was, you know, using the bathroom.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have noticed,” I sputtered, too angry to care how lame that sounded. “It’s none of your business.”

“It is now,” he pointed out.

“So this is what you’ve been thinking about?” I demanded.

“Yes.”

“This is what you wanted to say to me?”

“Yes.”

I thought about hitting him again.

When I didn’t answer him, he said in exasperation, “Fine. Let me put this another way. Could you be pregnant now?”

There was a roaring in my ears for a moment, and then everything went silent. I stared blankly at Lopez, suddenly feeling drained and empty. The combination of anger, humiliation, and hurt that I’d been juggling for days caught up with me, as did my fatigue, my financial stress, and my anxiety about finding another job soon enough to keep myself going. I felt ready to collapse, and I could hardly form a coherent thought. I swayed a little, feeling a bit dizzy.

“Are you okay?” He reached out to steady me, then evidently remembered my reactions tonight to his attempts to touch me, and stopped himself. “Esther? You look a little . . . Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I’m just really tired.” My voice sounded dull and distant to me. I felt dull and distant now.

Lopez rested his hands on his hips, looked at the floor, and let out his breath slowly. “All right, look. Maybe this isn’t the time—”

“I’m still taking my pills.” I’d been on that prescription for several years. It helped stabilize my erratic cycle and control my symptoms. “And I’m definitely not pregnant.” Nature had made that quite clear in recent days.

He nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly.

I knew I was really mad at him, but I just couldn’t feel it now. Everything had shut down. I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. Nothing else mattered.

“Are we done?” I asked wearily. “Can I go?”

“Yeah. But I want you to wait here a minute, okay? I’m going to get a squad car to take you home.”

Since I couldn’t afford to waste money on a cab, and the logistics of getting home by foot and subway at five o’clock on a frigid winter morning seemed overwhelming just now, I nodded my agreement.

A few minutes later, Lopez escorted me outside, where it was dark and bitterly cold, and put me in the backseat of a squad car. A uniformed policewoman was behind the wheel. Her male partner sat in the passenger seat. I nodded in response to their brief greeting.

Lopez said to me, “They’ll wait in the street until they’re sure you’re inside your apartment. Turn on a light so they’ll know, okay?”

I nodded again, too tired to speak.

He said to the cops in the front seat, “Miss Diamond lives on the second floor, and her living room faces the street. Don’t leave until you see the light go on.”

“Understood, detective.”

And then, despite how apathetically exhausted I was now, Lopez managed to enrage me one last time.

“I’ll call you,” he promised me.

It was like being poked with a cattle prod. My temper ignited immediately, my energy suddenly renewed. “I can’t believe you! The nerve. The gall! The—”

“I just said the wrong thing, didn’t I?” he guessed.

“It’s exactly what you said when you left my bed a week ago,” I fumed. “And then you never called!”

“He slept with you and then didn’t call?” said the policewoman at the wheel of the squad car. “For a week?”

“That’s right!” I said.

“God,” said Lopez, “I just hate my whole life right now.”

“Men,” said the policewoman.

“Oh, come on,” said her partner. “That’s not fair. We’re not all like him.”

“Take Miss Diamond home now,” Lopez instructed them. “Right now.”

“Men,” I agreed, as Lopez slammed the car door shut and walked away.

I fumed in stony silence all the way home, huddled in the backseat of the police car while the two cops in the front seat bickered about . . . I don’t know. Mars, Venus, men, women, Lopez, and me. Something like that.

After I let myself into my shabby but welcoming apartment in Manhattan’s West Thirties, I turned on the light, then went to the window and waved at the bickering cops in the car on the street below, so they’d go away.

My daypack by now felt like it was stuffed with bricks. I slid it off my shoulder and dropped it on the floor. Then I headed toward my bedroom, unzipping and unbuttoning my coat. As soon as I slid it off my shoulders, I shivered. My apartment was freezing. I quickly stripped off my clothes, leaving them lying in a heap on the floor, and donned heavy flannel pajamas, followed by a thick, fuzzy bathrobe. After a quick trip down the hall to the bathroom, I crawled into bed, still wearing my bathrobe, and collapsed facedown on my pillow, so relieved to be there.

I was just drifting off to sleep, trying to banish the random thoughts and images that were floating through my head, when I realized who hadn’t witnessed my embarrassingly public fight at Bella Stella with Lopez about extremely private things. Who hadn’t been in the police van, either, along with me and the other prisoners.

Once again living up to his nickname, Alberto “Lucky Bastard” Battistuzzi had escaped OCCB’s sweep of the Gambello crew.

When the cops barreled into the restaurant, shouting “NYPD!” and everyone else started screaming in response (in particular, I remembered Ronnie shouting, “It’s a raid!”), Lucky had been in the men’s room, trying to clean splattered lasagna off his clothes. Alerted to what was happening, he must have made his getaway.

I assumed the cops had all the exits covered, but it didn’t surprise me that Lucky had managed to slip away undetected. He was wily, experienced, and quick-thinking, and he knew that building well. He was also, well, lucky.

I wondered where he was now. He presumably couldn’t go home, and I doubted he’d gone to Victor Gambello’s house—that would be too obvious to be safe. Besides, for all we knew, the cops were executing a search warrant there, too.

Well, wherever Lucky was tonight, I thought drowsily as I drifted off to sleep, I hoped he was all right.