Blue Smoke

playing it out. He’ll call again. He’ll light something up again.”
    She looked back at the mug shot. “This time he means to finish it.”
    A t the end of shift, Reena gathered up files and notes. She’d work, she decided, but she wanted to work at home, without the background noise. And she wanted to be home the next time he called.
    She balanced folders as she grabbed the phone. “Arson Unit, Hale. Yeah, thanks for getting back to me. NYPD,” she told O’Donnell, and set down the files to take notes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting it. You’ve got the name of the fire and arson inspectors? The detective on the burglary case? I’d appreciate that. I’ll be in touch.”
    She hung up, looked at O’Donnell. “The watch, the earrings, a lot of other goodies, stolen from an apartment on the Upper East Side, December fifteenth of last year. The building was evacuated due to a fire in aneighboring apartment—empty apartment as the owners were on vacation. When the fire department suppressed, let people back into the building, these people found they’d been hit. Cash, jewelry, coin collection.”
    “Small, portable.”
    “There’s a doorman on the building, but one of the other tenants had a party that night. Catered. People in and out—guests, wait people, so on. Wouldn’t be hard to slip through that, get into an empty apartment, set a fire.”
    “Cause of fire determined?”
    “They’re sending copies of the files overnight, but the gist was multiple points of origin. Utility closet full of cleaning supplies, sofa, bed. That place was also burgled. Small objets d’art, some jewelry that wasn’t in the home safe.”
    “Somebody inside had a piece of it.”
    “No arrests, as yet, no recovery of stolen goods. NYPD’s grateful for the possible lead.”
    “Tit for tat,” O’Donnell said.

27
    Before she went home, Reena decided she’d swing by and have an overdue sit-down with her mother.
    She spotted the shiny new blue truck outside Sirico’s, and put two and two together. She pulled in behind it, did a quick walk-around, and concluded Bo had gotten himself a solid piece of equipment.
    Business was light—too early for dinner, too late for lunch—and she found Pete running the show, with his daughter, Rosa—home from college for the summer—waiting tables.
    “Out in back,” Pete called to her. “A whole gang.”
    “Need help in here?”
    “Got it for now.” He poured sauce generously over a meatball sub. “But you can tell my boy we’ve got a delivery, so to get his butt back in here. It’s nearly ready to go.”
    “You got it.” She moved into the prep area and out the employees’ exit. Her family, including a couple of cousins, her uncle Larry, along with Gina, her mother and her two kids, were all scattered around the narrow backyard.
    The fact that everyone was talking at once didn’t surprise her.
    There were some x’s marked on the scrubby grass with orange spray paint.

    Even now her father was pointing in one direction, her mother in the opposite. Bo appeared to be caught between them.
    Reena stepped out, and up to the little table where Bella sat sipping fizzy water.
    “What’s going on?”
    “Oh.” Bella waved a hand. “They’re measuring, marking, arguing about this summer kitchen, terrace dining deal Mama’s got a wild hair over.”
    “Why a wild hair?”
    “Don’t they have enough work to do as it is? They’ve been shackled to this place for thirty years. More.”
    Reena sat, looked into Bella’s eyes. Something’s up, she thought. Something. “They love this place.”
    “I know that, Reena. But they’re not getting any younger.”
    “For God’s sake.”
    “They’re not. They should be off enjoying this time of their lives, seizing the damn day or whatever, instead of making more work for themselves.”
    “They are enjoying this time of their lives. Not only here, working here, seeing their work rewarded every day, being with family, friends. But they travel, too.”
    “What if there’d never been a Sirico’s?” Bella turned in her seat, lowering her voice as if she were blaspheming. “If there hadn’t been, if Mama and Dad hadn’t met each other so young, had this place to lock themselves to, she might have gone on to art school. She might have become a real artist. Experienced things, seen things. Done things before she jumped into marriage and baby making.”
    “Let me first state the obvious and say if she had, you wouldn’t be