The staked Goat

you want.”
    I frowned and spread out my hands. ”Look, Mr. D’Amico, like I said downstairs, I’m here about Marco, not Joey, but in order for me to do any good here, you have to accept something about Joey. You have to—”
    ”I don’t need to accept no thing,” D’Amico cut in tremulously.
    ”Yes, sir, yes, you do. You have to accept that you’ve lost Joey. You have to accept that if you want to save Marco.”
    ”Save Marco?” said a little, tired voice from a corridor we’d passed. ”What save Marco?”
    D’Amico got up with a pained look on his face and walked toward his wife, who stood small and trembling with her hand clutching a black bathrobe at her breast. Her hair, more gray than black, was askew, and the hem of a white nightgown or slip hung out under the robe. Her face looked sunburned. In February.
    D’Amico spoke soothingly in Italian but his wife was having none of it, wagging her head and stomping into the room and toward me.
    ”What save Marco?” she demanded. ”What—” Then a flash of recognition. ”You. You the one. Joey! Oh, Madre di Dio!” She clenched the fist that wasn’t holding the robe together and struck herself hard on the chest repeatedly until her husband restrained her. ”Mrs. D’Amico...”
    She shrieked and shook her head violently. She began to wail. ”Why you here? Why you don’t leave us alone? Why, why?”
    ”To try to save Marco for you, Mrs. D’Amico,” I said softly. ”To try to save your other son.”
    She was trembling but stopped crying. She glared at me, her nostrils flaring. She gave her husband a short command in Italian. He protested, and she switched to English. ”Sit, sit!”
    He gave me a murderous look and released her arm. They took the sofa.
    ”What you mean, save Marco?”
    I decided not to repeat my Joey preamble. ”Mrs. D’Amico, have you seen Marco since yesterday afternoon?”
    She bit her Up. ”What you mean, save Marco?”
    I thought of the Little Prince, who once he asked a question, would keep asking it until it was answered. I decided to play too.
    ”Mrs. D’Amico, have you seen him?”
    She bit her lip again and moved her head no. I looked up at her husband, who glared, but showed no as well.
    ”I have reason to believe Marco is bothering the older couple whose house I used to watch the warehouse.”
    ”The colored and the white woman?” she asked.
    ”Yes.”
    ”What you mean, bother?” she said.
    ”Phone calls.”
    ”Look,” said Mr. D’Amico, ”Marco, he don’t live here no more. He don’t make no phone calls from here.”
    ”It doesn’t matter where he’s calling from,” I explained. ”If he threatens them, he gets in trouble with the police.”
    ”Marco don’t make those calls,” said Mrs. D’Amico.
    ”I think he did. He called me, too. It was his voice, Mrs. D’Amico.”
    ”No,” she said, then louder, ”no!”
    ”Why you telling us this things,” said Mr. D’Amico warily.
    ”I was hoping you could talk to him, persuade him to stop before he gets in trouble for it.”
    D’Amico looked helpless. His wife sunk her face into her free hand, and then went to her pocket, tugging out some crumpled Kleenex to stem the next wave of tears.
    ”He don’t listen no more,” said the husband. ”He almost as old as you. He don’t listen.”
    Mrs. D’Amico was crying again, choking off sobs in her throat.
    ”The Coopers, the other couple, are a lot like you. Only they don’t have neighbors to look after them, like you do. You can guess why that is. Cooper, the husband, was a marine. He can take care of Marco if he has to. So can I.”
    ”Marco got friends,” he said aggressively. ”Lotsa friends.”
    ”I know,” I said. ”I met one downstairs, remember? But his friends won’t back him on this sort of thing. This isn’t vendetta, Mr. D’Amico. We both know that. Joey set fire to that warehouse and left the watchman to die. I shot Joey because he shot at me. If Marco hurts someone because of that, nobody will stand with him. Nobody will avenge him, and you’ll have lost both of your sons.”
    Mrs. D’Amico let out a confirming wail.
    ”Out!” snapped D’Amico. ”You outta my house!” I got up and left the apartment. I closed the door gently behind me and descended the staircase. As I stepped out into the sunlight, I looked over at my emissary. He and the group stared back at me. I nodded without smiling and walked back toward my car. I was glad the D’Amicos’ closed