Page 100 of The Deadly Candies

“Then DeMarco or anyone will come for her and the medallion. She knows this, Carmelo. This is why she is teaching me. She wants to give it to me so she can live her days in peace. But she says I’m not ready. That we aren’t ready. We are just hungry for power like Pa. We have to go the distance.” Matteo looked to the sawed of shotgun between them in the car. “I’ll go the distance.”

“Matteo know! Street wars, and turf, knife fights are one thing. Killing a innocent man is something different.” Carmelo said.

“I’ve already killed a man, more than one.” Matteo reasoned.

“That was in defense of someone else, of yourself or Kathy. Not this. DeMarco is setting you up. You think he wants to help us? No. You won’t do it.” Carmelo sighed. “We have to take a different route.”

“What is that?” Matteo asked.

“Father. We want to be made men, then we go in and kneel before father. We don’t need DeMarco’s consent to do it our way.”

Matteo closed his eyes and remembered what Mama Stewart told him. He would have to be useful to the Mafia, to the Sicilians. Going through father would not pave the way. But he didn’t want to distress his brother with that dark truth.”

Yet, the truth was undeniable. DeMarco’s wealth, his influence, the way thesoldatimoved at his command—this wasn’t just aconsigliere. This was a man who had already begun to wear the Don’s crown.

And if he ever suspected their real plan?

They were corpses.

Carmelo opened the glove compartment and removed the cigarettes. He lit a one, for the first time, his hands steady now. "We play the game. We get close. And when the time comes?—"

Matteo finished the thought. "We cut the neck."

The engine roared to life.

The drove off into the night before the night swallowed them whole.

30

Harlem, New York — November 1949

The Illinois Central train shuddered to a halt at Penn Station, its brakes screaming like a thing alive. Kathy pressed her face to the grimy window, her breath fogging the glass. Outside, New York sprawled—a chaos of steam and stone, the air sharp with coal smoke and the weather that would soon usher in winter. Three days had stretched into five, the trip punctuated by the rasp of Big Momma’s labored breathing, the metallic clatter of wheels over tracks, and the silent, collective fear of crossing into towns where the station signs read“No Coloreds After Sundown.”

They’d stopped in Nashville first. Big Momma’s hands had swollen like overripe plums, her diabetes flaring under the stress. Kathy and Ely carried her off the train, her rocker strapped to a porter’s dolly, and followed theGreen Bookto a two-story clapboard house with a peeling blue door. A Mrs. Eudora Wells, widow of a Pullman porter, took them in. She fed Big Momma sassafras tea and rice pudding, massaged her knees with menthol balm, and whispered,“You rest now, sister. Ain’t no troubles up in here.”

By Memphis, Big Momma could walk again. By Pittsburgh, she was humming hymns.

Now, here they were.

* * *

“Lord have mercy,”Big Momma breathed, clutching her satchel like an anchor as they stepped onto the platform. “Ain’t nothin’ like Mississippi. This here is too much for me.”

Kathy scanned the crowd. She just wanted to get home, to put Big Mama to bed, and to see her own mama. That’s all she craved. The faces were all unfamiliar, and then there was one. There he was.

Daddy.

Her father stood apart from the throng, a broad-shouldered silhouette in a camel-hair coat, his fedora tilted low. Behind him loomed her uncle, Pete, a mountain of a man with knuckles like walnuts and a reputation that made Mississippi sheriffs tip their hats instead of questioning him.

Henry’s eyes locked onto Kathy. For a heartbeat, the station seemed to still. His face was unreadable, and his gaze piercing. She froze on the spot. Ely saw her, and looked in the direction she stared.

“It’s okay Kathy, it’ll be okay,” he said.

“What?” Big Mama asked.

Then she saw her sons. Immediately, Big Mama wept. “Lord, have mercy. At last! My boys!”

Henry and Pete walked fast to them. Kathy smiled at her father, and to her surprise, he smiled back, his gold tooth gleaming among perfect whites. He swept her up in his arms and hugged her tightly.

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