Page 20 of The Killer Cupcake
“Is he okay? I mean, it’s been eight months for you and his family and all…”
Kathy shook her head. “He’s a little different. He’s been through a lot so that will change ya. He’ll be okay though. Never mind it. Don’t mention anything I’ve told you about his family. I’m helping him. He’s with me now, so he’s gone be okay. So change quickly, and you can meet him.”
Willa grinned excitedly. “I can’t wait.”
CHAPTER 9
HARLEM NEW YORK 1978
Present.The heavythunkof Debbie’s purse hitting the formica countertop echoed louder than she intended in the deserted salon,Debbie’s Place.
Janey moved past her, the scent of her perfume trailing in her wake. With deliberate calm, she walked through the shadowed rows, her heels tapping on the black-and-white checkerboard linoleum. One by one, banks of fluorescent lights flickered and hummed to life overhead. The glare reflected harshly on the chrome-plated styling chairs, the glass shelves of rattail combs and perm rods, the posters of black women with impossibly tall Afros frozen in time—the lingering smells of peroxide, setting lotion, and hairspray mixed uneasily with the tension.
“Where’s Willa?” Debbie asked, her voice tight. She watched Janey move like a panther surveying its territory.
“Home,” Janey replied, her tone clipped. She stopped before a plush, avocado-green styling chair and sank into it, a queen claiming her throne. She carefully removed her small, black velvet pillbox hat and the delicate net veil that had obscured the upper half of her face. Her eyes, dark and unnervingly sharp, locked onto Debbie’s. “I brought Coffey with me instead.Told her to stay parked out front in the Cadillac. Figured this…reunion… was best kept between you and me. Woman to woman.” A ghost of a cold smile touched her ruby red lips. “Cousin to cousin.”
Debbie flinched at the word ‘cousin’. She glanced nervously towards the street visible through the salon’s large plate-glass window, then back at Janey’s unnervingly composed figure. She walked stiffly down the aisle and took the chair directly opposite, its vinyl squeaking under her weight. She sat ramrod straight, hands clasped in her lap like a shield. War had been declared.
“Kathy’s gone, Janey,” Debbie stated, the rehearsed words tasting like ash. “And Cassandra’s home. It happened… fast. Too fast. They found her car off Route 17 in Jersey. Burnt down to the frame. There was… a body inside. A woman.” Debbie swallowed hard, the image seared into her own nightmares. “They couldn’t… We had a closed-casket service. We buried her last Tuesday. The hurt… it’s raw for everyone.”
Janey’s crimson lips parted. A slash of defiance against her composed, mocha-brown face–slowly curled into a contemptuous smirk. “My Kathy,” she stated, each word dropping like ice, “isnotdead. Try again, Debbie. And this time, try the truth.”
Debbie drew a shaky breath. “Matteo’s out of prison, Janey.”
A soft, utterly humorless laugh escaped Janey. “For how long this time? A weekend pass?”
“He’sout. Pardoned,” Debbie pressed on, her voice gaining a desperate edge. “And Carmelo… Carmelo’sdead.”
The smirk vanished from Janey’s face like a snuffed candle. Her eyes narrowed to slits, pinning Debbie in place. The temperature in the salon seemed to drop ten degrees. Debbie started talking fast, the words tumbling out under the pressure of that murderous gaze.
“It started with the big arrests. You must have heard, even, hell, I don’t know where you live now, but the news went everywhere. The Feds swept through Harlem like locusts. Took down Nikki Barnes and his whole damn ‘Black Council’. Left a power vacuum big enough to drive a truck through.” Debbie stumbled through the rest. “The mob smelled blood. They’re moving in. Starting fires and shaking down businesses, Kathy worked hard to keep things clean… It’s a different kind of war with the Wolf gone. And Matteo is finally Don. But he has enemies everywhere, even in his own family.”
“I don’t care about Mafia wars. What happened to Carmelo?” Janey demanded.
“Upstate.” Debbie closed her eyes briefly. “Carmelo was there visiting Nino. Someone planted a bomb in Melo’s Lincoln. Tore it apart. They said… they said there wasn’t enough left of the men to fill a shoebox.”
Debbie opened her eyes, meeting Janey’s frozen stare. “Kathy… she went wild when she heard. I mean, it really broke her. Screamed it wasn’t true and fought Brother when he tried to keep her from going out to Staten Island to confront Matteo and the Riccis. Came to me several nights later, eyes like a madwoman’s. Said Carmelocouldn’tbe dead. She could feel him. Told me to watch the store, the books, everything. Said she was going to ‘see someone’ who could tell her the truth. To find out the truth. Then… she vanished. Just gone. A week later… Jersey. The car. The fire.” Debbie spread her hands helplessly. “The cops, the papers… they’re saying it’s not connected, that it was just an accident, case closed.”
She took another breath, plunging into the deepest betrayal. “Matteo… he doesn’t believe it either. Not about Carmelo. Or Kathy. He thinks… he thinks they’realive. That they staged it, and he thinks… he thinks the answer is in Kathy’s diaries. Don’t ask me why, or what is in those diaries that could fix any of this,but Matteo is stuck on it. Sandy’s been holed up in Kathy’s house for days now, reading through them all. Matteo thinks if she reads enough,remembersenough… it’ll lead him to the truth.”
Silence descended, thick and suffocating. Janey sat perfectly still, only the icy fury in her eyes betraying the storm within. Debbie remembered the whispers about Janey – poison was her art, but the Senator she’d shot point-blank in California was proof she wasn’t afraid to get her hands bloody. And she’d walked away clean. Another woman was burned in the electric chair for her crimes. Even now, Kathy and Debbie could never figure out how Willa survived Janey’s wrath, how Coffey came to be.
“Kathy,” Janey’s voice was a low, dangerous rasp, cutting the silence, “wouldneverfake her death and leave Sandy behind.Never. Not for Carmelo, not for the Pope, not for God Almighty. That means this…” Janey pointed a long, manicured finger at Debbie, “…ishisdoing. The Wolf, she spent half her life trying to tame, finally bit the hand that loves him. The fucking bastard! I should have killed him when I had the chance!”
“What do youwantfrom me, Janey? I’m telling you the truth,” she insisted. “You and your sisters! You vanished! Paris, Ireland, Kathy said you and Willa dragged poor little Coffey everywhere after your husband died. You were ghosts in Hawaii the last time she spoke to you! Kathy stopped talking about you years ago.How was I supposed to find you?I tried! I called down to Butt’s, asked the Browns about Izzy. They said they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her or you in two years! HowwasI supposed to tell you?”
Janey dismissed the plea with a flick of her wrist. “Spare me the theatrics.Wherewould they run? If theydidrun? Where would the Wolf take my girl to ground?”
“Are you even listening?” Debbie snapped, desperation turning to anger. “Itoldyou, Matteo doesn’t know! He thinks Kathy’s diaries hold the key! That’s why Sandy’s reading them!”
“That child’s head is empty,” Janey hissed, standing, “full of as many holes as this cockamamie story you’re spinning! Fake deaths? Mafia and FBI takedowns? Matteopardoned? Burnt cars in Jersey?” She took a step towards Debbie, the soft life Carmine and the Marcellos’ money provided, and the strange, ageless aura that always clung to her, making her seem impervious to time.
“It’sbullshit. But I’m here now. I’m going to peel back every layer of this lie until I find the truth. Coffey and I will stay with Sandy.”
“Wait,no!” Debbie surged to her feet, panic flaring. “You can’t! Leave Cassandra out of this! She doesn’t know about the Poison Cherry.”
“Liar! She’s reading her mother’s diaries. What the hell do you think is in them?” Janey spat.
