MURDER TAKES TIME

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Coppers

Wilmington—26 Years Ago 

I woke up happy on my sixth birthday. August first was the day I was born, but Mamma Rosa made me celebrate two birthdays—the day I was born, and the day Pops named me, just in case the saints mixed them up. 

School was more than a month away so we had plenty of time to do things. Plenty of time to get into trouble, my father said. He was mostly right. Tony, Frankie, and I ran that neighborhood, at least in our minds. We were six, going on eight, and wishing we were ten. 

Smoking cigarettes was old hat by now. It was one of the things we lived for. Anytime we were far enough away from home or the prying eyes of a neighbor, there were smokes dangling from the left side of our mouths. Had to be the left side too. I don’t know where that came from, but somebody we saw and admired must have done it that way.  

I was still lying lazily in bed when the front door opened. I heard feet pounding up the stairs.

“Get your butt up, Nicky.” Tony came in, followed by Frankie.

Frankie’s real name was Mario, named after his mother’s father, but he didn’t like the way Mario sounded with Donovan so he went by his middle name. If we wanted to piss him off, we called him Francis. Worked every time.

“Christ’s sake, half the day’s gone,” Tony said. “Let’s go.” 

I jumped out of bed, started dressing. “What’s the rush?”

“You guys are gonna help with cleaning.”

“You prick.” Frankie said, and wrestled him to the bed. 

We all laughed, then ran up the hill toward Tony’s house. The hill we lived on was steep, not San Francisco steep, but the kind of hill that was great for stick-boat races in the gutters after a summer rain, or for catching rides on the bumpers of cars when it snowed. Anyway, we were kids and running up hills was fun. 

“This better not take too long,” Frankie said. 

“We’ll be done in no time.” When Tony opened the front door, the sweet smell of garlic hit me. I was hungry before the storm door banged shut.

“Good morning, Mamma Rosa.” 

“What are you boys up to?” She shut off the upright vacuum and pulled a dust cloth from a pocket on her old plaid dress to wipe the end table. 

“We’re helping Tony clean,” I said. A few steps later we were across the living room and into the dining room. 

“Coffee is in the pot, Nicky. And taste my sauce. Tell me what you think.”

Mamma Rosa called it “sauce” like the Americans did. Many of the immigrants called it “gravy” or “ragu” and got insulted if you said sauce. It was one of the few American customs Mamma Rosa adopted early on, and nothing was more important to her than her sauce. 

“I’ll taste it in a minute, Mamma.” Coffee was always brewing at Mamma Rosa’s house, and something was usually cooking. I thought it was the way all houses smelled—that wonderful aroma of coffee, and garlic, and red sauce. I poured a half cup of coffee and dipped my finger in the sauce. “Perfetto, Mamma.”

Mamma Rosa stopped cleaning to tend her spaghetti sauce. Every now and then, she wandered over to taste it, frowned, then added a pinch of garlic or a sprinkle of cheese. No matter how many times the recipe was tweaked, it seemed to need a pinch of something to make it perfetto.