Death Will Help You Leave Him by Elizabeth Zelvin Page B

getting the message across.”
    “Too true,” Mars said. “Frankie kind of boasted once or twice that he’d always been able to handle the Mr. Bigs. But before, he’d always done what they wanted. Cut the stuff, get it on the street, get the money back to Mr. Big, make sure you can account for every nickel. And keep your mouth shut.”
    “Amen to that,” I said.
    “Frankie did keep his mouth shut pretty good,” Mars said.
    “Yeah,” Kevin agreed, “no names, no hints. You know how some people hint around when they know they should shut up but they can’t stand to keep a secret? Frankie didn’t do that.”
    “No trail of bread crumbs,” I said.
    “Exactly.”
    The trouble was, to find out who killed Frankie, we needed bread crumbs.
    “He said he always paid his debts,” Mars said.
    “What did he mean?” I asked. “He didn’t owe any money to the bigger fish? Kept out of trouble? Or he didn’t let anyone get over on him, like he always got even? Say, if someone cheated him.”
    Or cheated on him,
I thought. Frankie had been jealous, even paranoid. Snooped in Luz’s email. Made wild accusations, then walked out. The asshole. Luz, poor fool, was devoted to Frankie. She couldn’t have faked how devastated she was by his death. If she’d stabbed Frankie in her own apartment, she would have confessed. She had apologized for calling Barbara in the middle of the night and asking her to come. That was a pretty small misdemeanor compared to murder. Then again, the police might not see it the way Jimmy and Barbara and I did.
    “How is that little girl?” Kevin asked. Great. Now a runty Irish gay guy was going telepathic on me. “I felt sorry for her.”
    “Yeah, so did we,” I said. “That’s how come we went to the funeral with her.”
Don’t overexplain
, I told myself.
Stay cool.
“She’ll be okay.”
    She’d be better off without him. He’d told these guys about his ugly side. But I bet he’d still thought of it as making sure his women knew the score. I could imagine him tallying up imaginary slights and errors. I wouldn’t put it past Frankie to call abusing them a way of paying his debts.
    “She’ll be better off without him,” Kevin said. Telepathic.

Chapter Ten
    Barbara and I took the Toyota to Bensonhurst.
    “I’m glad we didn’t take the subway,” she said as we sped across the Brooklyn Bridge. The East River sparkled below us, and we could see the bright colors of fall foliage on the Brooklyn side. “You know what my maternal introject always says.”
    “It’s a gorgeous day, you should be outside,” I recited. I knew all about Barbara’s mother in her head.
    The scenic route to the neighborhood where Frankie’s father had his bakery swung around the tip of Manhattan. We could see the Staten Island and Statue of Liberty ferries plowing a creamy wake through New York Harbor. And the bridge was always worth a visit. Jimmy and I had walked across it once after dropping acid. But that’s another story.
    Once we found the neighborhood, locating the bakery wasn’t hard. The sign said
Iacone & Sons, Since 1922
. Massimo’s father or maybe even his grandfather must have been the original baker.
    “I guess Frankie was the only son,” I said as we hesitated on the sidewalk. “No wonder Massimo was shattered.”
    “This sign is old,” Barbara said. “On the website, it was Iacone’s Bakery. No sons to carry on. I bet Frankie broke his father’s heart a long time ago. If Massimo wanted him to go into the family business, oy, had he got the wrong number.” She did the punch line in a Yiddish accent. When Barbara likes a joke, you get to hear it a lot. “Do you think he’ll be here?”
    “Massimo? One way to find out.” I started toward the door.
    “Wait a minute.” Barbara pulled at my hand. “We need a strategy. What are we going to say?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “A dozen cannoli, please?”
    “Stop it!” Barbara wrenched my arm hard enough to make me