Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Frankie called back in two hours. Nans and the ladies were sitting in her dining room discussing the case.
“Ruthie. You need to come see me.”
“Can’t you just tell me over the phone?”
“Some things are better in person. Bring your friends. I’ll make lunch.” A pause, and then the warmth in his voice shifted to something more careful. “And Ruthie? Don’t talk about this on the phone again.”
Ruth hung up and looked at the others with the expression of someone who’d just agreed to attend her own execution. “He wants us to come to the restaurant.”
“La Stella?” Ida’s eyes lit up. “I’ve heard the lasagna is incredible.”
“We’re not going for the lasagna,” Ruth said.
“We can do both,” Ida said reasonably.
“Let’s go fill Lexy in.”
Lexy was waiting for them at the bakery.
She was sitting on a stool behind the counter, a bag of frozen peas pressed to her temple. Jack had taken her to the urgent care, confirmed no concussion, and told her to rest. She had nodded and driven straight back to the bakery.
“I’m coming with you,” Lexy said. It wasn’t a question.
“You have a head injury,” Helen said gently.
“I have a headache. There’s a difference.
” Lexy set down the frozen peas. The bruise on her temple had deepened to a dark purple, but her eyes were clear and sharp.
“I’m closing the bakery today anyway because of the back door and that’s my great-grandmother’s recipe in that bag.
I’m not sitting here while someone else looks for it. ”
Nans studied her for a moment, then nodded. “Bring the peas.”
They took Ruth’s car — the blue Oldsmobile that Ruth kept immaculate in a way that bordered on religious devotion. Helen sat in front. Nans, Ida, and Lexy sat in back, Ida’s purse occupying the space of a fourth passenger between them.
The drive to the restaurant took twenty minutes. Ruth drove precisely at the speed limit, hands at ten and two, and refused to acknowledge Ida’s suggestion that they could “save time” by taking the shoulder around a slow-moving truck.
La Stella sat on a side street that couldn’t decide if it was gentrifying or giving up.
The building was old brick, the sign hand-painted in gold script, and the windows were tinted just enough that you couldn’t quite see inside from the street.
A black Cadillac was parked out front — polished, gleaming, the kind of car that made a statement about its owner without needing a bumper sticker.
Ruth parked across the street. It wasn’t a smooth parking, the wheels on left side were up on the sidewalk. She sat for a moment with her hands on the wheel.
“You all right?” Helen asked.
“Fine.” Ruth straightened her pearl earrings, checked her hair in the rearview mirror, and smoothed the front of her blouse. It was the same preparation ritual she performed before church, and it served the same purpose — armor.
They walked in.
La Stella was exactly what Nans had expected — checkered tablecloths, candles in wine bottles, Frank Sinatra drifting from hidden speakers, and framed photographs covering every inch of wall space.
Ruth’s cousin Frankie with the mayor. Frankie with a local news anchor.
Frankie with a man in a very expensive suit whose face Nans recognized from somewhere she couldn’t quite place.
The air smelled like garlic, tomatoes, and fresh bread, and despite everything, Nans’ stomach rumbled.
The restaurant was practically empty. A young man in a white shirt nodded and gestured toward the back.
Frankie Malone sat in the last booth, which was larger than the others and positioned so that its occupant could see both the front door and the kitchen entrance.
He was a big man — not fat, just large, the kind of build that filled a room even when he was sitting down.
He wore a silk shirt the color of dark wine, open at the collar, and a gold watch that caught the light every time he moved his hands, which was constantly.
His hair was silver, thick, swept back from a face that was all warmth and appetite and sharp, quick eyes that missed nothing.
In front of him was an enormous plate of pasta — rigatoni in a red sauce that looked like it had been simmering since dawn — and a basket of bread that had clearly been torn into with enthusiasm.
“Ruthie!” He stood, arms wide, and enveloped Ruth in a hug that lifted her slightly off the ground. Ruth endured it with the rigid posture of someone being embraced by a bear. “You look beautiful. You always look beautiful. Sit, sit. All of you.”
He turned to the others, and his smile widened. He shook Helen’s hand gently, complimented Nans’ brooch with the practiced eye of a man who noticed details, and then his gaze landed on Ida’s purse.
He stared at it for a long moment, the way a professional might regard a colleague’s equipment. “What are you carrying in there, a hardware store?”
“Supplies,” Ida said proudly.
“I respect that.” Frankie gestured to the booth. “Please. Sit. Eat. I had them make extra.”
Within minutes, plates appeared — pasta, bread, a caprese salad with tomatoes that were somehow perfect in the middle of winter.
Ida ate with undisguised delight. Helen took small, polite bites.
Ruth didn’t touch her plate. Lexy held the frozen peas to her temple and watched Frankie with the careful attention of someone sizing up a source.
Frankie noticed the bruise. His expression shifted — the warmth stayed, but something harder moved in beneath it. “That happen this morning?”
“Yes,” Lexy said.
Frankie’s jaw tightened. He looked at Ruth. “Tell me.”
Ruth told him. The flour. The diamonds. The two men. The duffel bag. The recipe. She was concise and precise and left nothing out, including the alley, Bella Notte, and the Starlight Dining Group. Frankie listened without interrupting, which Nans suspected was unusual for him.
When Ruth finished, Frankie leaned back in the booth and was quiet for a moment. He picked up a piece of bread, tore it in half, and didn’t eat it.
“Victor Crane,” he said.
The name landed on the table like something heavy.
“You know him,” Nans said. It wasn’t a question.
“I know of him. Everybody in this business knows of him.” Frankie set the bread down.
“Crane runs a diamond operation out of Franklin — office above a jewelry store on Elm Street, calls it Crane Luxury Imports. Very polished, very careful. The kind of guy who wears a three-thousand-dollar coat and never raises his voice.”
“How does the flour fit in?” Ruth asked.
“Smart system. Uncut diamonds come down from a contact in Montreal. Small stones, easy to miss. They get mixed loose into bags of specialty flour — the expensive kind, the stuff that only goes to restaurants and bakeries that order direct. The bags get delivered by hand to specific back doors before dawn. Looks like a normal food delivery if anyone sees it. The receiving end sifts the flour, pulls the stones, passes them to Crane.”
“So, how did Lexy end up with them at the Cup and Cake?” Nans asked.
Frankie thought about that. “Must have been a mistake. Probably meant for another restaurant.”
“There’s an empty store a few doors down. It’s being renovated as a new restaurant - Bella Notte,” Lexy said.
“So it was just a fluke that Lexy ordered real flour and the delivery man left the bag at the wrong door,” Helen said softly.
“In the dark, before dawn, two doors look the same.” Frankie shrugged. “Stupid mistake. But Crane doesn’t tolerate stupid mistakes. Once he realized the bag didn’t show up at Bella Notte, he’d have sent people to find it fast.”
Frankie broke off a piece of bread from the basket, then asked. “These thugs that took the diamonds, who did they look like?”
“There was a big beefy one, he’s the one that shoved me and a skinny one that looked nervous.” Lexy adjusted the peas.
Frankie’s eyes darkened. “Sal Baretti. Low-level muscle. Not smart, but mean. The thin one is Derek Novak — they call him Needles.”
Helen’s eyebrows rose. “Needles?”
“His father was a tailor. Nothing sinister — just a name that stuck because people like to assume the worst.” Frankie almost smiled. “Sal and Needles do retrieval. Things Crane doesn’t want to touch himself.”
A man appeared from the direction of the bar — wiry, mid-forties, nursing an espresso in a cup that looked comically small in his hands. He had the quick, restless energy of someone who spent his life watching exits. He slid into a chair at the end of the booth without being invited.
“This is Tony Rizzo,” Frankie said. “Tony knows every piece of stolen merchandise that moves through a fifty-mile radius. Tony, tell them what you told me.”
Tony looked at the group of women, then at Frankie, then back at the women. He took a sip of espresso. “Sal and Needles were at Mahoney’s Bar last night. Drinking. Talking loud, which is what Sal does when he thinks he’s done something impressive.”
“What did they say?” Nans asked.
“Bragging about a pickup. Said they grabbed the flour, the rocks, the whole thing. Also said they got a bunch of—” Tony glanced at Lexy and seemed to choose his words more carefully than he normally would.
“A bunch of baking stuff. Bowls, ingredients, papers. They swept everything into a bag and took off. Said they were going to dump everything except the stones.”
Lexy leaned forward, the frozen peas forgotten. “Dump it? The recipe was in that bag. When are they dumping it?”
Tony shrugged. “They didn’t say exactly. But they’re not in a hurry. Sal’s got a storage unit where he sorts through jobs. Everything that’s not diamonds is still sitting there as far as I know.”
Lexy looked at Nans. Nans looked at Ruth. Ruth looked at her untouched pasta with the expression of a woman who was trying very hard not to think about what she was getting her family involved in. Ida was halfway into her dinner and barely paying attention.
Frankie leaned forward, and when he spoke again, the warmth was gone. “Ladies. I’m telling you this because Ruthie is family and someone put their hands on a woman over a bag of flour. But Victor Crane is not a man you poke at. He has people. He has reach. And he does not like loose ends.”
“We’re not loose ends,” Nans said. “We’re looking for a recipe card.”
Frankie studied her for a long moment — the kind of look that was measuring something behind the eyes. Then he shook his head slowly and almost smiled. “You remind me of my mother. She was terrifying too.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Nans said.
Frankie looked at Ruth. “Be careful, Ruthie. I mean it.”
Ruth finally picked up her fork and took a single, precise bite of rigatoni. “We’ll be careful,” she said.
Nobody at the table believed her.