The Violet Hour Read Free Page A

Nicky replied. He always said ‘thanks’ when Joseph blessed him. And he always felt better for at least a day.
    ‘Hi, Nick,’ Gil said, getting on the phone. ‘How ya doin’?’
    ‘I’m just fine,’ Nicky replied. Gil Strauss was the jack-of-all-trades at St Francis; the kind of guy who probably wanted to be a priest at one time, but couldn’t hack the rigors of the seminary. Nicky wasn’t sure if he lived at the rectory or not, but he always seemed to be there, fixing something, painting something, bringing a long-dead appliance back to life. Nicky had noticed immediately that the sun was now missing from Gil Strauss’s voice.
    ‘What’s your schedule?’
    ‘Busy as heck,’ Gil said. ‘We’re looking to collect a lot more food than last year. When can I come by?’
    ‘Any day this week after six is okay with me.’
    Nicky heard some scribbling, the rustle of paper. ‘Looks like tomorrow or the day after is good for me.’
    ‘No problem,’ Nicky said. And at that moment, for no discernible reason – or none that he would be able to determine later – he decided to write the story. ‘Terrible thing about Father Angelino, eh?’
    There was a pause of a few seconds. Nicky had only met Gil Strauss a few times, but knew him to be an emotional man. Gil was the guy who had to make funeral arrangements for the elderly nuns and priests at St Francis. Joseph once told him that Gil took their passings rather hard. ‘Yes. Priests shouldn’t die like that,’ he replied.
    ‘Did you know him well, Gil?’
    ‘Not really. Met him years ago. But Father LaCazio was so fond of him. So proud of him. I just don’t understand . . .’
    Nicky decided not to press the issue for the time being. Gil Strauss was probably not going to be the gateway to the story anyway. He exchanged a few more pleasantries and signed off, then wrote ‘John Angelino’ at the top of a fresh page of his notebook.
    Hector’s was a fifty-year-old diner on Murray Hill, near Mayfield, in Little Italy; a small, brick building with parking for ten or twelve cars, depending on what the winters did to the asphalt. Inside were a dozen tables draped with red gingham oilcloth, a fifteen-stool counter. On the walls, the perennials: Caruso, DiMaggio, Sinatra, De Niro. It was a place where Nicky found it easy to relax, to slip into his Italian-American rhythms. Especially with Paulina Catalano: the fastest, tallest, sexiest, leggiest waitress to ever serve a meal where Lou Groza once split the Lord’s blue sky with a tumbling pigskin.
    ‘When you gonna marry me, Paulina?’ Nicky asked, loosening his tie. Whenever he was working, whether he had an appointment or not, he always wore a suit. His grandmother had taught him that.
    ‘Sheee-it,’ Paulina said, meaning the entire word. She was standing at the stainless steel pass-through to the kitchen, waiting for an order, stealing a few hits on a cigarette. She wore a very tight black rayon uniform, white ruffled blouse. ‘Maybe when you get a respectable job, Nicky. Like a normal Italian.’
    ‘A respectable job. Like what?’
    ‘Like something in the trades. Cement. Carpentry. Something like that.’
    ‘Look at my hands, Paulina.’
    Paulina leaned against the counter, obliging him, feigning boredom, snapping her gum.
    ‘Mozart had hands like these,’ Nicky said. ‘Michelangelo had hands like these. You can’t put hands like these at risk.’
    ‘Risk? What are you talking about? You write articles about Amish dairy farmers.’
    Nicky grabbed his chest. ‘My God, that’s what you think I do? No wonder you never go out with me. I craft stories with these hands, Paulina. Parables of life.’
    ‘I don’t go out with you for a number of reasons, Nicky,’ Paulina said, filling her tray with the order and swinging toward the dining room. ‘That’s just one of them.’
    Nicky knew that all of this was harmless sparring. If, somehow, Paulina did call his bluff and arrange to meet him at a