people? He looked like one of the Cosa Nostra, the brotherhood; but she didn’t know him. Two more men followed – bigger, bulkier men than the first one. She didn’t recognize them, either.
Or… she didn’t think so.
Of course, sometimes nowadays she didn’t know anybody, and that irritated her; so perhaps he was one of hers after all. Who knew?
God, old age was a curse; things slipped away from you – your strength, your health, even your mind, until finally what was left? Nothing except a pile of bones in a casket. But – and now Gina smiled to herself, a secret, triumphant smile – sometimes you could cheat old age. Sometimes you could even cheat death.
Then the smile faded as she remembered. The mistakes. Oh yes. Lots of them. Her big, dreadful mistakes. Suddenly she grew agitated, trembling, trying to hoist herself from the chair. No, perhaps the man wasn’t one of her own. Now she remembered what had been happening but it was all a jumble, none of it clear. She’d been phoning someone in London. She knew she had. But who? She couldn’t remember. And then this man had started calling the number she’d left – this number, and she had said she would meet, talk. She’d been putting him off because she had no idea what this was all about, but she knew it couldn’t be good.
The only thing she remembered clearly was the furious reaction when they found out what she’d done. She’d heard shouting outside her room and women sobbing – someone calling the nurses silly bitches, demanding to know why they hadn’t done as they’d been told and kept her away from the house phones, telling them they were fired. But when they came in to see her, their voices were calm, telling her what to do. Stall him some more, this Max Carter person.
That was his name. Max Carter. She’d remembered!
So she’d stalled him. Told him she would meet him to discuss it here, then here, then here. And she hadn’t shown up, and then Antonio…
She’d remembered that too! Antonio!
Antonio had said, We will sort this, once and for all. We will go out, Bruto and me, and Bruto will pretend to be poor old Gina in her wheelchair, and all will be well. Tell him the old amphitheatre, and we will finish him there, Antonio told her, his voice as patient and soothing as if he was talking to a naughty child. Yes, she had made some silly mistakes, maybe a lot of them, but there was nothing too impossible to sort out. He was going to sort it.
