Sweetheart Read Online Free PDF Page A

about the Gardellas. I heard you were there.”
    “No.” His voice rose in pitch, and his confusion was intense, almost violent. “I was only driving by.”
    “That’s what I mean.”
    “I didn’t see anything.”
    “No?”
    “My eyes can see, but not far.”
    Leroy Bass smiled and spoke with chilling certainty. “I thought your eyes were good.”
    “They’re bad,” he insisted.
    “My grandmother had cataracts. You got those?”
    “Yes.”
    “Maybe that’s good. Good they’re bad, I mean.”
    The younger brother came out of the superette with a small bag, which he tossed into the back of the pickup, a light thump, scarcely enough for one dog. Silas Rogers started to close the door, but Leroy Bass stopped him. Their eyes locked. Leroy Bass’s broad face was all meat.
    “You oughta give Wally somethin’ for goin’, Mr. Rogers.”
    • • •
    Later, ensconced in the idling Thunderbird, the heater going, the younger brother counted money and surrendered half to the older one. In an uneasy and tenuous voice he said, “You think he’s lying?”
    “Don’t matter,” Leroy Bass said.
    “Matters if he saw us, matters a whole hell of a lot.”
    “No, it don’t,” Leroy Bass said with supreme confidence. “Like it was back in school, he’s still scared of us — now even more.” There was a smile. “We got nothin’ to worry about.”
    Wally Bass loosened his coat, producing an odor exactly like unaired bedding. Now he smiled. “Remember the time down in the basement I told him I was goin’ to shove his head in the furnace?”
    “No,
I
told him. All you did was hold his arms.”
    “But I’d’ve done it,” Wally Bass said.

3
    T HE DAY after the autopsies were completed, the medical examiner released the bodies of Santo and Rosalie Gardella, which were then delivered in a hearse across state to Boston, to Ferlito’s Funeral Home in the North End. Sammy Ferlito and his nephew worked diligently in an attempt to ready the charred remains for viewing, but the task was staggering, the results dismal. “Tony, I don’t advise it,” Ferlito said apologetically and miserably to Anthony Gardella. They stood in Ferlito’s dark-paneled office, where ficus trees sprang out of ornate pots and were kept healthy by a special blue light. Gardella nodded with understanding.
    “It’s Rita who wants the caskets open.”
    “Do you want me to explain to her?”
    “I’ll do it.”
    “Tony, I’m sorry.”
    “It’s not your fault.”
    “Augie feels bad too,” Ferlito said, referring to his nephew.
    “Tell him not to worry.”
    “Maybe sometime you can use him. He’s a good boy.”
    “You say he’s a good boy, I believe it,” Gardella said and reached for his overcoat, which was dark and glossy, with a midnight-blue lining. Ferlito, who was short, went up on tiptoes to help him on with it.
    “Cashmere, huh? Feels like a million bucks.”
    “A thousand is all.”
    “Could’ve fooled me.”
    “I hope not,” Gardella said. “I hope you don’t fool easy.”
    Later in the day Gardella walked up the plowed drive of his sister’s house. It was next door to his, nearly its twin, built by the same contractor. Hers was smaller, with less security, no alarm system, no peephole in the front door, no metal mesh shielding the windows that faced the street. Gardella entered without ringing and came face to face with the slender, bearded Cuban his sister had brought up from Florida. Galled at the sight of him, Gardella at first ignored him, then said, “Where’s Rita?”
    The Cuban pointed upward. “Taking a nap. She couldn’t sleep last night.”
    Gardella regarded him aloofly. They faced each other in the small foyer, where the floor was stone. Twin mirrors captured their images. “Making yourself at home, Juan?”
    “The name’s Alvaro.”
    “What are you sucking around my sister for? You like fat women or something?”
    Alvaro’s brown eyes flared. He had on a crinkly saffron shirt and