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crooked twenty-seven years after his accident – full lips and square chin were his Tuscan mother’s contribution to a face that was as captivating as it was darkly handsome; captivating because in a way not quite definable, it seemed both to invite and bar entry to Chris’ inner being. After he recovered from his car accident, Chris’ mother – one foot still in the hilltop Tuscan village where she was born, fearful since his early boyhood that her first-born son’s charismatic beauty would lead inexorably to a tragic end – was secretly happy that his face had been permanently marred.
    Ten days after burying Rose, Chris traveled uptown to meet his brother Joseph at the penthouse bar of the Peninsula Hotel. Facing each other across a drinks table along a plate glass wall overlooking Fifth Avenue, the most casual observer would quickly see that Chris and Joseph were brothers. With the room’s muted light obscuring their age difference, they could easily be mistaken for twins. Closer scrutiny, however, would reveal subtle but distinct differences: his eyes as piercing, his features as classically handsome, his lustrous black hair falling carelessly across his brow, Joseph’s was a more refined, almost feminine beauty. It was as if portraits of the same striking model had been made by artists of markedly different sensibilities, Chris by Michelangelo, perhaps; Joseph by John Singer Sargent. These differences held true in gesture and body language as well: Joseph’s drink was an elegant prop, Chris’ a part of his arm.
    “Are you clean?” Chris asked, putting his drink – a single malt scotch over ice – down on the gleaming black table, next to a candle flickering under a filigreed cover, also black.
    “You know I am,” Joseph answered.
    “How do I know? I haven’t seen you since the funeral.”
    “I’m clean. What’s going on with the house?”
    “The closing is next week.”
    “When will we get our money?”
    “A few days later.”
    After Joe Black’s death, Rose had put their house on the market, and by March, a contract had been signed for its sale. Chris’ share of the proceeds could not come too soon. When his indictment was announced, almost two years ago, he had immediately been let go by his law firm. In eighteen months, he went through his savings of a hundred thousand dollars, and his 401K of two hundred thousand dollars to pay for his living expenses, child support and legal fees. Three months ago, broke, in the middle of a fierce and expensive disbarment battle, he rented his condominium in Tribeca and accepted Vinnie Rosamelia’s offer of the apartment above the African Queen.
    “Why don’t you take it all?” said Joseph. “Call it a loan.”
    “You’re not serious.”
    “Sure I am. I’m rolling in dough.”
    “That won’t last long.”
    “You could be in for a surprise this time.”
    Chris eyed Joseph across the small table, thinking it would be hard to find a spoiled five-year-old with more brazenness – and less moral compunction – than his thirty-two-year-old brother, whose current girlfriend was a forty-two-year-old artist with enough money to live on the Upper East Side and indulge Joseph’s wishes regarding clothes, cars and cash. The timeline for the relationship would depend upon how quickly Joseph returned to heroin, which is when the abuse and the money drain would really start. This is how it had been with all of his other women. Why would this one be any different?
    “Thanks,” he said, “but I’ll be okay”
    “I’ll spend it, Chris,” Joseph said. “You know me.”
    Yes, I do know you , Chris thought. A hundred grand will buy a lot of heroin . Out loud, he said, “It’s yours to do what you want with. Now what about Barsonetti? Did you come up with anything?”
    “A little. He lives in Forest Hills. He was married, but his wife died. No kids. He has about a dozen captains who are also his bodyguards. They rotate, two on, two off,