Клео Коул - Roast Mortem

I stopped talking when I realized Michael’s attention had drifted.

“Noonan...” he whispered. “That lad’s my last...”

“What do you mean?”

“Forget it.” He shifted again. “Anyway, Clare, I want you to know... I’m not proud of the way I acted the other night. I owe you an apology.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. And you’re not the only one — ”

The sound of a throat clearing stopped Michael’s words. I turned to find a broad-shouldered detective leaning against the doorframe. It appeared he’d been listening a while.

Mike Quinn glanced briefly at his cousin. Then his arctic blue gaze locked onto me.

“Hi, Clare.”

I couldn’t find my voice.

“Sully gave me a ride over,” Mike said. “Filled me in pretty good. Sorry about your car.”

“I’m not.”

Mike opened his arms and I went into them. When we were through embracing, I noticed Michael on the bed. Despite his pain — and for the first time since I’d arrived — the man was smiling.

Mike released me and approached his cousin. I held my breath, watching the two stare at each other.

Finally, Michael lifted his hand and held it there.

With a silent nod, Mike shook it.

Six weeks later, Madame and I were heading back over the Queensboro Bridge. This time, I’m happy to say, her art-dealer boyfriend, Otto Visser, was driving.

We were attending the opening of Osso Buco Pronto! — a nouvelle Italian restaurant. The location was Long Island City, but the event looked more like a gallery show in SoHo than the launch of an outer-borough eatery (even one with a Manhattanesque ironic name). Oh, sure, there were trays of samples from the restaurant menu, and a brigade of food writers (online and print) were in attendance, but there were just as many members of the art world here, and for very good reason.

From our corner booth, Madame and I joined the applause when Lorenzo Testa appeared in a wheelchair pushed by his daughter. Grinning tearfully, he joined Dante Silva and the other young artists who had diligently worked to re-create his original mural. (For reference, they’d used blowups of the digital photos that Dante had shot just before Caffè Lucia burned.)

As Enzo rolled by to pose for the press, I caught sight of Lucia’s impressive engagement ring, courtesy of Oat Crowley.

According to Madame, Enzo couldn’t be happier that his daughter at last had chosen a man over a boy. (Of course, I didn’t see that she had much choice, given the third point of that particular fire triangle — Glenn Duffy — was now facing twenty-five years to life.)

“What happened to your man Otto?” I asked Madame, after the restaurant’s young chef-owner proposed a toast to Enzo. “I lost track of him...”

Madame pointed across the large, crowded space to a tall, dapper fellow, leanly built with thinning but still-golden hair. “He’s over there, dear, explaining to that New York Times reporter how it took Dante and six of his friends an entire month to recreate what my old friend envisioned and painted by himself.”

Madame drained her champagne flute and shot me a sly smile. “Of course, what Otto is really doing is laying the foundation for Enzo’s public show this summer at his Chelsea gallery.”

“Whatever works,” I said (my new go-to catch phrase).

The paintings to be shown at the Otto Visser Gallery weren’t new. Enzo was still weak and recovering from his stroke; it would take lots of time and therapy before he could paint again. What the world was going to see, for the first time, were the canvases Enzo had painted of his wife — a subject to which he’d lovingly devoted himself for decades. And though the artist himself remained reluctant to part with any of his creations, Enzo at least agreed to a public show, which wasn’t bad publicity for Otto, either.

After a few rounds of Prosecco and trays of delightfully seasoned morsels, Madame found me again.

“So where is your noble knight this evening?”

“Another undercover operation,” I said. “He phoned to tell me he’s running late.”

“The wheels of justice perpetually grind, don’t they, dear? Well, if he doesn’t make it, Otto and I will be happy to give you a lift home.”

“Thanks. Matt made the same offer a little while ago — in front of Breanne, unfortunately. I told them I’d take the subway.”

“Well, he knows you don’t have that little Honda anymore — ”

“Yes and that’s fine. I’ve decided to live without a car for a while. After crashing two of them in one day, I probably couldn’t get affordable auto insurance, anyway.”

As I sipped my sparkling wine, I noticed Tucker and Esther bantering (or bickering — who could tell?). They shared a booth with Kiki and Bahni, Dante’s fawning apartment mates. The girls looked thrilled that their boy was finally getting some critical attention from the press. I was happy for Dante, too, but worried I was about to lose one of my best baristas to the fickle arms of the art world.

“Did you notice that sign across the street when we came in?” Madame asked. “It says the Pink Mirage is coming to Long Island City.”

I nodded. “Dean Tassos isn’t stupid. He closed the Red Mirage to relocate in this hotter area. Did I tell you that Valerie Noonan is working for him now?”

“That lovely girl from the bake sale?”

“Yes, she’s overseeing the activities at all of Dean’s catering halls...” My eye wandered back to another section of the astounding mural, one of Enzo’s later editions to the sprawling piece. Madame noticed my interest.

“That particular image intrigues you, I see.”

“Self-portraits always intrigue me.” Enzo had painted himself into his mural, a stylized figure peering into a mirror. “But I suppose it’s really two self-portraits, if you consider the mirror...”

“That’s right...”

“And the face in the mirror has a different expression than the one looking in — impish, slightly mischievous. More like a dark doppelganger than a reflection.”

“Yes, I see that... now that you mention it,” Madame said, slipping on a delicate pair of glasses. She glanced at me. “So how is that fire captain?”

“The former captain, you mean. I hear he’s very happy as a civilian now, up in Boston...”

At the urging of his little brother, Michael Quinn resigned from the FDNY and took a job consulting for the company where Kevin Quinn worked. (Now I knew what Michael meant when he’d told me James Noonan was his last. James was the last man he intended to lose under his command.)

Madame nodded. “Best for everyone, I think, that the man’s not going to be tempted to drop by the Blend for your espressos...”

“I agree,” I said. “And I’m sure Mike would, too.”

A short time later, the party wound down and the dining room emptied. I was still alone. No call from Mike, no sign of him, either.

As the lights dimmed, Madame and Otto moved to the back of the restaurant to give their final farewells — and I spotted a familiar trench coat coming through the front.

“Hi, Clare.”

“Hi, Mike.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I wanted to get here sooner, but...”

“That’s all right,” I said. “You’re here now.”

Mike sniffed the air, still aromatic with butter and lemon, rosemary and thyme, sizzling seafood and caramelized garlic.

“The party’s over, right?” he said.

“Why?” I asked. “You hungry?”

“Starving.” He held my eyes. “Feels like I haven’t eaten all day.”

“I can fix that.”

He smiled. “I know you can.”

Then Mike reached out his hand, fingers open. I placed mine in his and we found our way home.