The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel Read Free Page B

acting versus technical acting. Do you produce real tears onstage because you dredge up your inner emotions eight shows per week, or because you reproduce the facial expressions and respiratory patterns that physiologically precede crying? I’m not a passionate proponent of one school over the other, because I’ve always found that if I work from both outside and inside, the two processes meet somewhere in the middle and produce a result that’s convincing and sincere. And sometimes one side works faster than the other. When I played Miss Jane Aubrey in
The Vampyre
, for example, working on the accent, posture, and body language of a genteel Englishwoman in the early nineteenth century helped me understand some of Jane’s more obtuse choices in that play (such as her submissive thralldom to the notorious Lord Ruthven, the vampire who marries her and then eats her—and not in a nice way).
    So pretending to be in a good mood that night at Bella Stella helped me focus on thoughts and feelings that supported this pretense, and I started actually having a good time and enjoying myself.
    True, the façade was fragile enough that if anyone asked me to sing a ballad, let alone a torch song, there was a real risk I wouldn’t get through it without choking up. But since it was New Year’s Eve and everyone was in party mode, all the requests I got were for upbeat numbers:
Fly Me To the Moon
,
Mack the Knife
(boy, do gangsters love that song),
Beyond the Sea
,
That’s Amore,
and, of course,
New York, New York.
    Jimmy “Legs” Brabancaccio, a Gambello soldier who actually had quite a good voice, rose from his dinner table to wow the crowd with his rendition of
My Way.
Then, at the insistence of our customers, a waiter named Ned sang
Mack the Knife
(I mean, they
really
love that song). Then Ronnie Romano, also from the Gambello crew, sang a traditional Italian ditty that was unfamiliar to me, but that our accordionist knew. Ronnie had a reedy, off-key voice, but he sang with heart.
    Ronnie and Jimmy Legs were sitting at a table in my station, at their insistence. I was sort of a favorite with the Gambello crime family, since my friend Max and I had inadvertently wound up helping them out a couple of times. Victor Gambello, the Shy Don, had made it clear in public that he considered us friends of the family. He had also tried to help us when Max and I were recently held prisoner for about eighteen hours by Fenster & Co. (Call it a misunderstanding. We’d had a slight arson mishap while confronting Evil.)
    Despite Stella Butera’s connection to the family, I found it a little odd that wiseguys hung out regularly at the restaurant, since three Gambellos had been murdered here in recent years. First there was Handsome Joey Gambello, who was shot to death. Two or three years later, Frankie Mastiglione got fatally knifed here while he was only halfway through his dinner. Then just seven months ago, Chubby Charlie Chiccante was shot while I was waiting on his table. I was an eyewitness, which had led to my becoming more familiar with the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau (OCCB) than I’d ever expected to be.
    Of course, all the shooting and stabbing probably made it a little odd that
I
hung out here, too. But between Stella’s management style and the good tips I earned, it was the best non-acting job I’d ever had, despite the mortality rate.
    “Hey, Esther! Another round!” Jimmy Legs shouted at me, trying to be heard above the cheerful din of the crowd and the soaring tones of Ned giving his all to
Feeling Good.
    “Not for me,” said Lucky Battistuzzi.
    “Aw, come on, Lucky!” Ronnie urged.
    “Nah, you get to be my age,” said Lucky, “and you gotta pace yourself. Besides, the boss said he might want to see me later.”
    I knew that references to “the boss” meant Don Victor Gambello, who was in his eighties, chronically ill, and seldom left his Forest Hills house, out in Queens. He also seemed to be an