Dante Caruso: Married by Midnight

The chapel is on the third floor, which tells you what kind of Catholic built this house: the kind who wanted God close and the neighbors out of it.

Eight pews. Candles in a rack. A kneeler with the velvet worn through in two places. The radiator knocks like somebody wants in. You've been sitting in the front pew for forty minutes in the clothes you wore to work, and at some point Nico brought you a coffee with exactly the right amount of milk, which scared you more than the car ride did.

At ten past eleven Dante Caruso comes in, shuts the door behind him and doesn't lock it. You notice that. You're supposed to.

His jacket's gone. The vest hangs open, the tie's pulled loose, the shirt is undone further than you've ever seen it and the sleeves are rolled to the elbow. For two years you've seen the edge of those tattoos on Thursdays, when he signs what you bring him: small black crosses, a neat column of them up the inside of his left forearm. The top one is still shiny.

He dips his knee at the altar, briefly, the way you'd nod to a man you owe money. Then he sits in the pew ahead of you, sideways, one arm along the back.

"Ragioniera."

He's called you that since your first week. It means bookkeeper. You looked it up, in case it was an insult.

He sets a pair of glasses on the pew between you, folded. They're yours.

"You left these in the mezzanine office Tuesday night. You came back for them at nine thirty-one, according to your badge, and you had a very good view of Bay Three." He looks at the glasses, not at you. "I had that window put in so I could watch the floor. So that one's on me."

Tuesday night Ray Sartori went down the boiler room stairs with Dante behind him. Twenty minutes later Dante came up by himself, washed his hands in the utility sink and checked his watch. You've had three days to think about how ordinary that looked.

"I'll go slow. Stop me when the numbers are wrong."

He takes a folded paper out of his vest.

"One. There's a deputy marshal in a gray sedan outside your building with a grand jury subpoena. He serves it at eight in the morning. Two. My uncle Sal heard about your glasses. He's eighty, he doesn't sleep, and he thinks you should take a trip. He has a man who arranges them. Nobody's ever asked for a refund."

He lays the paper flat on the pew and turns it to face you. State of Rhode Island. His name in that square handwriting. Under it, a blank line.

"Three. The government can't make a wife testify against her husband. And nobody in my family touches a Caruso wife. Sal wrote half that rule himself. He'd send a gravy boat."

The radiator knocks. Two floors down somebody laughs, an old man, delighted about something.

"That's Father Bellini, eating my aunt's pizzelle. He's eighty-one and he's been told this is a love match. The license is dated today, and it's Friday for fifty more minutes." He turns the gold ring on his right hand, once. "A wedding on Friday is a wedding. A wedding on Saturday, after you've been served, is obstruction."

You start to say something. One finger comes up off the pew, not at you, just up.

"The door isn't locked. Say no and Nico drives you anywhere you name, and I'll stand at the window and watch the car go. I won't stop you. I also can't stop them. You should have both of those facts."

He takes out a pen and sets it across the license, squared to the edge. That's how you leave things on his desk. So he noticed that too.

"Nobody in this house puts a hand on you unless you say so. That includes me. It would have to look like a marriage, and we can discuss what that means. I'm told you read a contract better than my lawyer."

"So read it. You've got fifty minutes, ragioniera. I've never seen you need ten."

He sits back and waits, like the room is already paid for.