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  But Joe just shook his head again. “Ricky, I’ve seen your baby pictures at your mama’s house. You’ve always been on the heavy side yourself. You should have a little understanding.”

  Ricky’s eyes narrowed. “Shut up, Joe!”

  “Well, Miss Loretta, I didn’t realize what you were all about until just now. So even though you work with this ass-pain Marvelli over here, you’re basically a very good person. You take Martha Lee back to New Jersey. The woman’s just a two-timing ’ho’ anyway.”

  Loretta kept the gun on Ricky. She didn’t know whether he was being sincere or not. Maybe he was trying to trick her.

  “Joe!” Ricky whined. “Martha Lee screwed me and my brother. You gave me your promise that you’d take care of her.”

  Loretta spoke up before Ricky could dissuade him. “There are a bunch of IRS agents here, Joe. They want Martha Lee, too. If I say where she is, chances are they’ll get to her before you do. And do you know what that means? They’ll try to put her away on white-collar charges, which you know is nothing. Six months to a year at some federal facility that looks like Rancho Bonita—”

  “I resent that,” Roger Laplante yelled from under his chair.

  “Anyway,” Loretta continued, “if I take Martha Lee back to Jersey, she’ll have to serve out the rest of her original sentence. Five and a half years in. Hard time. No chance for parole. Which would you rather see Martha Lee have? Hard time or the country club?”

  Lawrence Temple spoke up. “Loretta, you’re misrepresenting the case—”

  “Shut up!” Joe snarled. “I’ve already made up my mind. She’s yours, Loretta. I’ll hold these sons of bitches here until you get where you’re going.”

  A tear spurted from Loretta’s eye. “Thank you, Joe. You’re a good person. Basically.” She looked over at Marvelli, keeping the gun buried in Ricky’s baby fat. “Come on. Let’s go—”

  “Oh, no. Not him,” Joe objected. “Marvelli and I have a bone to pick.”

  Loretta shook her head. “No good, Joe. He’s my partner. We go together or not at all.”

  “Jo-oe!” Ricky wailed.

  “I’ll give you Ricky for Marvelli,” Loretta said. “That’s a fair deal.”

  Joe made a face as he thought about it. “Well. . . I suppose,” he finally said.

  Loretta took a step back from Ricky, keeping the gun trained on her.

  “Thanks for nothing,” Ricky grumbled, glaring at Joe.

  “Don’t give me any grief, woman,” Joe barked.

  Ricky turned her back on him in a huff. Loretta wasn’t sure, but she could’ve sworn hard-ass Ricky was sobbing.

  “Okay,” Loretta called out to the crowd, “everybody with tickets for Newark, get on the plane now.” She and Joe kept their weapons out while scared passengers rushed to the door where two flight attendants quickly took their tickets and sent them down the chute.

  “The passengers are boarded,” one of the frightened flight attendants reported in a quavery voice after a few minutes.

  “Did you get us tickets?” Loretta asked Marvelli.

  “Yeah, I got ’em.”

  “Okay, let’s go. Joe, you take care of yourself.”

  “You, too, Miss Loretta.”

  “Why’re you being so nice to her?” Ricky complained with a sniff.

  Joe grumbled under his breath, “We’ll talk about it later.”

  Loretta and Marvelli backstepped toward the door.

  Joe turned the shotgun on Lawrence Temple and his men.

  “You two aren’t going to get away with this,” Temple called out. “This is just a waste of everybody’s time. We’ll get Martha Lee back in the end, Loretta.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Loretta said, backing through the doorway that led to the plane. “After she serves her time in Jersey, she’s all yours.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Loretta. You’ll see that I’m right.”

  “Quiet down!” Joe shouted at Temple.

  Loretta and Marvelli started running down the chute toward the plane. The two nervous flight attendants—a blonde and a brunette—were waiting for them, ready to close the hatch.

  “Here,” Loretta said to the brunette, flipping the gun’s safety and handing it to her. “Have the pilot hold onto this for us.”

  The brunette held the gun as if it were a dead fish. “Your seats are right there,” she said, nodding to two empty seats near the cabin. “Two C and D.”

  “First-class?” Loretta asked Marvelli as they took their seats and buckled up.

  He shrugged. “That’s all they had left.”

  “Julius won’t approve this.”

  “Yes, he will. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

  The jet’s engines revved to a high whine as the plane started to back away from the terminal. Loretta grabbed Marvelli’s hand and started praying that they’d get off the ground without another glitch.

  Please, God, please, she thought. Please!

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the captain’s voice came over the intercom, “we have received special clearance to take off immediately. Please have your seat belts buckled and your tray tables in the upright position for takeoff. And on behalf of the crew, we hope you enjoy the remainder of this flight and come fly with us again.”

  “Fat chance,” someone behind Loretta muttered.

  The engines whined higher as the plane picked up speed, rumbling down the runway.

  Loretta linked her fingers through Marvelli’s and squeezed. Please, God, please! No surprises.

  The nose of the plane tipped up, and the rumbling tapered off. Loretta could feel the swoop in her stomach as the plane left the ground and started its ascent. She held her breath, holding Marvelli’s hand in a death grip until the plane finally reached its cruising altitude and leveled off.

  When the seat belt sign chimed off, she started breathing again. “Thank you, God,” she whispered. Then she turned sideways and threw her arms around Marvelli. “We made it. I can’t believe it. We made it!”

  The brunette flight attendant appeared in the aisle, carrying a small bottle of champagne and two plastic tulip glasses. “Compliments of the captain,” she said. “You really showed some guts back there, ma’am.”

  Loretta smiled. “Thanks.”

  The brunette poured the champagne, then left them alone.

  “I assume they don’t know about Martha Lee in the pet carrier,” she said out the side of her mouth.

  Marvelli reached for a glass. “I don’t think so. While you were making a fuss about getting water for the dog, I loaded Martha Lee on myself.”

  Loretta picked up her glass and grinned. “To us,” she said. “We deserve it.”

  Marvelli nodded. “To us,” he repeated.

  Marvelli took a sip, glancing sideways at Loretta. He’d never been jammed in so close to her before, touching elbows and drinking champagne. He was all hyped up, and hot and bothered.

  This is bad, he thought. This isn’t right. He shouldn’t be feeling this way about Loretta. For a lot of reasons. Most of all because he was married.

  “You think Martha Lee is all right in that pet carrier?” he asked, trying to start an innocuous conversation.

  “Yeah. It was pretty big,” Loretta said. “She had room to move.”

  “So I guess she’ll be all right.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure she’ll be okay. It’s not a long flight.” “Right.”

  But Marvelli’s stomach was jittery. It was going to be a long flight for him. Maybe he could go to the bathroom for a while, hide out in there. He couldn’t just sit here. He was afraid of what might happen.

  Then he noticed the in-flight phone in the seat back. “I think I’ll call home,” he announced, reaching into his jacket for his wallet. “See if they’re all right.”

  He could feel Loretta’s green eyes looking at him as he slid his credit card through the slot on the phone, carefully following the directions printed on the seat back. She shook out he
r hair and threw it over her shoulder, and he could feel the breeze it made and smell her smell.

  Oh, Jesus, he thought as he dialed his home number. Maybe I could get headphones or something after this, pretend to fall asleep.

  The phone rang four times before anyone picked up.

  “Hello, Nina? It’s Daddy.”

  Loretta stared at his hand holding the empty champagne glass.

  “What? No. . . . When did it happen?”

  The pain in Marvelli’s voice instantly alarmed her. It was like an arrow going right through her.

  “Where’s Grandma? Are you alone?”

  Loretta’s heart beat faster. She didn’t have to ask. She knew.

  “I’m on the plane right now. I’ll be home in a couple of hours. Okay? Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”

  Marvelli was pale. He suddenly looked feverish. Loretta wanted to put her hand to his forehead. She wanted to help him. She wanted to do something.

  His voice cracked as he spoke. “I’ll be home as soon as I can, Nina. I’m sorry. I should have been there. I’m sorry.”

  Loretta felt awful. She felt helpless and out of place.

  “I’m coming home. Just hang on, Nina. I’ll be there soon. I love you. It’s gonna be all right.”

  He hung up the phone and stared out the window, rubbing his forehead with his fingers.

  Loretta didn’t know what to say, but she had to say something. “Renée?” she finally asked.

  He nodded, his face still turned away.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I have to think,” he whispered. She could tell from quaver in his voice that he was crying.

  26

  Three days later the weather was gorgeous-—perfect Indian-summer temperatures with horse-tail clouds painted over a light blue sky. The sun peeked through the leaves that were just starting to turn, reflecting off the shiny hood of the black hearse but considerate enough not to bear down on the mourners in their dark clothes. It was an absolutely perfect day, Loretta thought. But not for a funeral.

  “Black crows in a stone field,” Julius Monroe murmured under his breath as he stared at Marvelli and his extended family sitting on folding chairs in front of the open grave, an army of gray headstones covering the background. Renée’s coffin was suspended over the open hole, supported by nylon straps.

  Loretta was standing next to Julius, feeling very out of place. Julius was the only person she knew here other than Marvelli’s mother-in-law and his daughter, Nina, and she’d only met them once. Julius was like a solemn penguin in his black suit and white skullcap, hands clasped behind his back. Annette was wearing a black dress and a matching hat with a wide ribbon around the brim. Nina’s dress was a navy pinpoint polka-dot pattern with a pleated skirt and a rounded white collar. They were both sobbing, Nina more quietly than her grandmother, sitting on either side of Marvelli, who hugged them both, whispering to them, consoling them.

  But who was consoling him? Loretta wondered. She knew he had to be hurting, but he’d been knocking himself out to keep everyone else together, shaking hands, holding hands, patting shoulders, hugging everyone. He was more like a master of ceremonies than a new widower. He’d probably fall apart later when it was all over and he was alone with his memories. Loretta wished she could do something for him, though. Like dress him up. That suit he was wearing was a nightmare—gray sharkskin, the kind of fabric that shines. Who wears sharkskin anymore? she thought. And to your wife’s funeral? Maybe it was the only suit he owned.

  At the foot of the grave, a balding priest in a long white tunic and tinted glasses stood holding an open Bible in one hand, a holy water sprinkler in the other. The instrument looked like a medieval potato masher with a perforated silver ball on one end and a black wooden handle on the other. The priest murmured prayers as he flicked holy water over the coffin in the sign of a cross. When he finished blessing the grave, he closed the Bible and turned to the family.

  “I’m told that all throughout her illness, Renée often advised her loved ones that when she died, they should think of her passing as a beginning, not an ending; that her absence would open up a space that would allow for realignment in the family, like the kind of plastic puzzle that requires the removal of one tile, so that all the others can be slid into place to create a picture. . . .”

  Loretta fuzzed out, staring at Marvelli. She wondered if he thought of Renée’s death as a beginning. A beginning of what? Loneliness?

  Julius leaned over and spoke in her ear. “So, have you come to your senses?”

  She frowned at him. “About what?”

  “Working for the Jump Squad. You still want the job?”

  “Of course I still want it,” she whispered. “I went crazy to bring back Martha Lee Spooner. She’s back in prison now, and that was the deal. You said I could have the job if I brought her in on time.”

  “Chill, my dear, chill. I know what I said. I’m just wondering if you still want it, having seen what there is to see of it.” The skullcapped penguin rocked on his heels, waiting for the right answer.

  She glanced at Marvelli in his sharkskin suit, his fingers linked with his daughter’s on one side, his mother-in-law’s on the other. Beginnings and endings, she thought. Her hopeful beginnings always somehow turned into bad endings for her. Would the Jump Squad be the same thing all over again?

  “Are you still here among us, Loretta?” Julius said. “Or are you conversing with the angels over this matter?”

  She didn’t answer him. Maybe she should ask Renée, she thought.

  “Loretta?” Julius whispered.

  “Ssshhh,” she said.

  The priest had stopped speaking, and a cemetery worker in dark green work clothes was turning the crank that let out the nylon straps, lowering the coffin into the grave. One of the undertakers held a big bouquet of red and white carnations, handing them out to the mourners as they lined up and came forward—some singly, some in pairs—to toss a flower onto the coffin. Julius went over and merged into the line, but Loretta didn’t move. She felt funny doing something this intimate for someone she hardly knew.

  Julius made his way to the head of the line, bowed his head, and tossed a white carnation on top of the gathering pile on the coffin’s lid. The crowd soon dwindled down to the closest relatives—the cousins, the aunts and uncles, the nieces and nephews, the brothers and sisters, then finally Nina, Annette, and Marvelli. They stood together, the priest and the undertaker hovering nearby. Marvelli was practically holding his mother-in-law up, she was so distraught, and Nina was hanging onto his sleeve, silent tears streaming down her face. Marvelli was doing his best to be strong for them, but his chin was crumpling, too. They threw their flowers in but didn’t leave like the others. After a few moments the priest stepped in and took Annette by the arm while the undertaker ushered Nina and Marvelli away from the grave and back toward the waiting limousine.

  Loretta stared at Marvelli in his greaser suit with his junior Mafioso haircut and remembered him eating all those cinnamon buns the first day she’d met him. He’s a real piece of work, she thought. A wonderful person. A brick. But he was no beginning—at least not for her. He was a solid middle in the middle of a family who needed him. Not a beginning.

  Loretta started back toward the road where the other mourners were getting into their cars, getting ready to go. She walked slowly, not wanting to pass Marvelli and his daughter.

  “No, Dad. Don’t,” she overheard Nina saying to her father.

  “You sure?” Marvelli said.

  “Don’t. Grandma will get mad.”

  “But I brought the tape and the boombox and everything. It’s in the limo.”

  Nina shook her head. “Don’t. It would be . . . weird.”

  “But your mother and I loved old rock ’n’ roll. We used to dance to “The Peppermint Twist” when we were in high school. Come on, Nina,” Marvelli persisted. “Mommy would want us to do it. She was crazy
like that. She didn’t care what other people thought.”

  “I know, Dad, but just don’t. Please.”

  Marvelli sighed. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Nina said.

  “All right. Maybe you’re right.” He didn’t sound convinced, though.

  Shuffling behind them, Loretta was relieved for Nina. A boombox at a funeral? Please. She stared at the back of Marvelli’s head as they walked, a sad smile on her face. It would never work out, she thought. Never in a million years. Marvelli was definitely not a beginning.

  As they came up to the limousine, Loretta veered off toward the line of parked cars, intending to find hers and go home, but suddenly Marvelli glanced back and noticed her.

  “Loretta,” he said. “Hang on.” He turned to Nina. “Get in the car. I’ll be right there.”

  Loretta’s stomach clenched. She had wanted to sneak away.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said, giving her a hug. “I appreciate it.”

  Loretta hugged him back, and the warmth of his body against hers suddenly made her a little light-headed. But at the same time she felt very guilty feeling what she was feeling, holding Marvelli when Renée literally wasn’t even in the ground yet. “I’m sorry,” she said into his ear, then pulled away.

  “People are coming over to the house for coffee and sandwiches,” he said. “Why don’t you come?”

  “No, I . . . I’d feel funny. I really didn’t know Renée. . . .”

  “No, don’t be silly. Come.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. Maybe.” She had no intention of going.

  “Okay, I understand,” he said. He seemed disappointed. “Look, I’m taking the rest of the week off, but I will see you back at the office next week, right?”

  The blood rushed to Loretta’s face. She didn’t know what to say. She was having second thoughts.

  “You did a good job down in Florida. You’re tough stuff. I like working with you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I think we worked pretty well together. Maybe Julius will put us together again sometime. If you don’t mind putting up with me, that is.”

  “No, no, I wouldn’t mind.”