Chapter 5 - Shadows with Names
Amelia sat back down slowly, her fingers curling into the edge of the mattress.
“Who told you?” she whispered.
“Nobody told me,” Vincent replied. “I have operated businesses in this borough for forty years. When a woman arrives with a duffel bag, a new name, and a scar across her eyebrow that did not come from an accident, I do not ask questions. But I verify the paper. I need to know if the wolves following her are the kind that bite my customers.”
He reached into his inner pocket and produced a small, black-and-white photograph. He laid it on the small bedside table between them.
The photograph showed a man in his late thirties standing on the steps of a brick courthouse in Philadelphia. He was handsome in a heavy, aggressive way, with thick dark hair parted on the side and a broad jaw that looked as though it had been carved from lard.
Raymond Fletcher.
Amelia felt the air leave her chest in a sharp gasp.
“Raymond,” she breathed, the name tasting like poison.
“He is a union organizer for the freight handlers,” Vincent said. “He controls twenty blocks along the Delaware River. He thinks he is a very significant man because the dockworkers cross the street when he walks to his car.”
Vincent looked at the photograph with distaste, then flicked it with his fingernail, sending it spinning across the table.
“He has spent four thousand dollars over the last three months hiring private detectives to check the diners and laundromats in North Jersey and Brooklyn,” Vincent said. “One of those detectives came to my butcher shop on Tuesday. He showed this photograph to my cousin Sal.”
Amelia closed her eyes. A cold sweat broke out along the back of her neck. “He’s going to find me.”
“He was going to find you,” Vincent corrected her. “Until twenty minutes ago.”
Amelia opened her eyes. Vincent was watching her, his pale eyes steady, unblinking.
“Sal took the detective into the back room,” Vincent said. “We explained to him that New York is a very large city, and that looking for runaways in Brooklyn can be hazardous to a man’s health. We gave him his train fare back to Philadelphia, along with his camera, though the film was unfortunately ruined by the light.”
Amelia stared at the mafia boss. “Why? You don't know me. I’m just a waitress.”
Vincent leaned back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. The leather of his shoe was spotless.
“Thirty-five years ago, my sister Maria married a man from Newark,” Vincent said, looking toward the small window that showed the darkened alley. “He was like your Raymond. He had good manners when he visited my mother for Sunday sauce. He bought flowers. He smiled with all his teeth.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened, the only outward sign of the fury buried beneath decades of discipline.
“Three years later, Maria jumped from the third-story window of their apartment because she could not find the key to the front door, and he was coming up the stairs with a belt. She survived, but she spent the rest of her life in a chair, looking at the wall.”
He turned back to Amelia.
“My brothers and I handled the husband,” Vincent said quietly. “It was necessary work, but it did not give Maria back her legs. It did not take away the sound of the key in the lock.”
He pointed a finger at her.
May you like
“You ran before you jumped, Amelia. That takes a kind of courage most men in my organization will never understand. You came here, you took an honest wage, and you did not complain when the shift went twelve hours. Under my name, nobody reaches for you. Not Derek Lawson. Not Raymond Fletcher. Not the devil himself.”
***
