Page 101 of The Killer Cupcake
“Well, I don’t wanna,” Kathy mumbled. “Your place is fine.”
Debbie nodded. She took a deep breath and tried a different approach at conversation: “I heard Brother last night. He was talking to his crew and José at my house. They had come by.” Debbie’s gaze lifted. She waited for Kathy to look up, but Kathy ate her sandwich, keeping her eyes down. “They are planning to do something in Queens on the day of the funeral. I don’t know what, but… I’m worried.”
Kathy ate in silence, just chewing.
“I ah, Kat, my son. I…” Deb’s voice faltered. “I have to think of him, his father.” There was a pause. “I think I should tell Matteo that Harlem is retaliating if we are going to war. If my brother goes after the Italians, he could be the next target. Right?”
Kathy set down what was left of her sandwich. “Are you loyal to anyone other than Matteo, Debs?”
“How could you say that to me? My Daddy just died!” Debbie frowned.
“How could you think about going to the Ricci’s when they killed him?” Kathy asked.
Debbie stared at her for a moment, then dropped her head in sadness. “Not the Riccis. Don Cosimo killed him. Matteo tried to stop it. Uncle Henry said he found out that Daddy…” Debbie paused on the emotion clogging her throat. “He said that Cosimo Ricci paid the cops to kill Daddy. He knows it for a fact.”
Kathy looked away. When Kathy turned her gaze back to Debbie, she was on the verge of tears. “How could you keep it from me, Debs?”
Debbie bit down on her bottom lip. “It didn’t happen the way you think.”
“Then how! HOW DID IT HAPPEN!” Kathy shouted.
“God, Kat, you have no idea how bad it was after their mother’s suicide, do you? I called you. I was going insane. Everyone across the city said Matteo was hurting people. And Carmelo—Jesus, he didn't just break down. Something in him died, like his soul got ripped out. He was begging me and José for help like some lost little boy. I told him… I told him?—.”
“What? What did you tell him?” Kathy asked.
Debbie sobbed.
“WHAT!” Kathy demanded.
“God help me, but I told him to be a man for once. To be the man. To do something! Then it all exploded. Carmelo went home, got the gun, and shot his father, and suddenly the mob went insane. I saw them bring Don Ricci in off the streets, bleeding. They took him into Mama Stewart’s.”
Kathy’s eyes stretched, though pooling with tears. “Why Mama Stewart?”
Debbie wiped her tears away. “Turns out she’s some nurse for the Mafia. She used to work to heal folks. It’s where all this stuff with him and her begins, I guess.”
“Oh?” Kathy said, hiding her discomfort. She didn’t want to open a door to her heart again; she closed it the night she made her vow to Ely to be his.
“Carmelo, after the shooting, was beaten up by Ricci’s men for shooting his father. They brought him and Nino into Mama Stewarts. I don’t know what happened in that meeting, but he was different the next time I saw him, Kat. Very different. He came over to my place one night early in the morning. He came with Nino, begging me to hide Nino and watch over him while he went in search of Matteo before… the other families found him. For two weeks, Matteo was out there turning Queens into a slaughterhouse. He went after everyone—soldiers, associates, anyone who'd ever worked with the families or for his father. The killing, Kat... knives, throats slit, butchery, I still don’t believe the stories they tell about him. The papers called him New York's Jack the Ripper, the Butcher, hunting mobsters instead of women. The families wanted his head, the cops looked the other way. All I wanted was to find him and save him.
Kathy frowned. “You sure it was Matteo?”
“That’s just it. If you saw him today with Junior, you wouldn’t believe a word of what I’m saying. If you saw how sweet and protective he is with me and Junior. He’s not some madman with a knife, hurting people. He’s not a butcher.”
Kathy shook her head in disbelief. “You can never know who someone truly is, Debs. Look at what you did, after everything you saw me go through to love Carmelo. You kept Carmelo’s marriage and kids a secret from me for two years. You’re my sister. My blood. And all you are doing is sitting here trying to get me to feel sorry for them? Who are you?” Kathy’s voice broke, and tears welled in her eyes.
“Please let me finish explaining,” Debbie pleaded.
Kathy rolled her eyes. “No, this is stupid! I’m a married woman now, and I have a—I have more important things to focus on.”
“Please!” Debbie grabbed her arm and made her sit. “Please.”
Kathy sat back down.
“Cosimo had been shot, and mob was divided,” Debbie hurried to explain. “Mama Stewart stepped in to help. She sat me and Carmelo down and told us what would happen if we didn’t find Matteo soon. The other families would take him out for attacking “made men,” and then finish off Carmelo. Last would be Nino. In a year or two, Don Cosimo, with no family, would be exiled. The Ricci empire divided and given to the other four families. Carmelo had a chance to fix things because Don Ricci didn’t die. He told the families that his son was sick with grief, and the other one is going insane. He saved his sons by telling them this, and from every corner of the Ricci family, we looked for Matteo. If we didn’t find him, it would all end. This is their way. Their tradition. Their rules, Kathy.”
“How did you find him?” Kathy asked.
“Mama Stewart said that she felt we would find him at his mother’s grave. So for days, she had men watching it all through the night. And one night he appeared. But when they tried to approach him, he ran away.” Kathy wiped her tears. “That made Carmelo remember a place their mother took them as kids. A place in Queens. He said that when Cosimo was mad at her or beat her, she would take them to a shelter with a church from her country. And there was a house there that was abandoned that they played at as kids. So he and I went. And that is where he was—drunk, dirty, unconscious in rats and filth. José picked him up and put him in the car. José and I took care of him while Carmelo worked on his father.”
