Ch. 47
"Let me get a Scotch, neat. You know what? Make that a double." The bartender behind the bar at the Metro Court gave Val a fleeting look of surprise at the order. She raised her eyebrows at him in response and he moved to serve her the drink. "Hold on a minute, Derek," Carly said as she approached her cousin from behind. Giving his boss a nod, Derek walked down to the other end of the bar to give them some privacy. Val turned to face Carly, who noted her cousin's irritated expression. Smiling, Carly told her, "It's not that you're underage and it's not too early in the day for it—I'm just wondering what's going on that you need something so strong." "Hey, Carly. So you're back from the honeymoon, huh? How was it?" "Awesome. Wonderful. Everything I hoped it would be and more. And you're evading my question. What's up, little Cousin?"
"If I tell you, can I still get my drink?" "Of course." Carly gestured to Derek and he returned to complete Val's drink order. After pouring two fingers' worth into a glass, he put the glass on a napkin and placed it in front of her. Raising the glass slightly, Val tilted it in Derek's direction, saying, "Thank you, Derek." Mouthing, "You're welcome," Derek smiled and winked at her and then went to the other side of the bar to serve another patron.
Val felt her nerves settle as the drink slid down her throat once she had taken a sip. Blowing out a breath, she murmured, "I'm not sure I should tell you." "If it's a question of trust-" "No, that's not it. It's something work-related, kind of. If I tell you, I'll have to swear you to absolute secrecy." "That's not a problem. Let's move to someplace more private, though." Val carried her Scotch back to Carly's office and sat down across Carly's desk with a plop. Laughing at her actions, Carly observed, "By the way you're behaving, I'm thinking this is gonna be quite a story. Can't wait to hear it." "You don't know the half of it. I've been busy since you've been gone." Val took another hefty swallow and then set the glass down on the desk. Taking a deep breath, she began telling her cousin about the events of the previous few weeks. As she listened, Carly's expressions changed from interest to surprise, shock to mild horror. Val finally ended her tale with the witnessing of Joey Robbs' arrest and her encounter with Dizzy, finishing, "And I thought he recognized me for a minute but I guess my disguise was better than I thought. My nerves were shot, though, so I came here to get a drink and to calm down."
Leaning forward, Carly's gaze was flat when she responded, "I can't believe you did any of this—the 'undercover mission', using fake IDs and disguises, deliberately going into a room with a suspected attempted killer—none of it. You got lucky with Jordan, too. I'm really kind of surprised she DIDN'T fire you." "Thanks a lot! You think she should have fired me?" "Honestly speaking, the only reason I'm saying 'no' is because you're my cousin. If you were anyone else, though-" "FINE. I get it, I do. I messed up, badly. I've gotten an earful from my man and my boss suspended me for a week. Now my cousin is looking at me like I've lost my mind. What's next? At least you didn't yell at me, too."
"Not my place to yell at you. I told you, I'm no stranger to doing crazy things. We always have our reasons, though, don't we? You're all right and it sounds like you learned your lesson—that's enough for me. You've got guts, little Cousin, I'll say that for you. You handled yourself just like a Spencer." "Yeah, I guess I did. Thanks for the complement, Carly. Considering what everyone else has been saying to me, it means a lot." "So since you've got a week off work, it sounds like you have some time on your hands…" "A bit, yeah. Why?" "Sonny and I are thinking of having Thanksgiving dinner this year at the Metro. We have plenty of room here and it'll be mostly family. You and Dante ought to plan to come." "I'll check with him but I'm sure we'll be able to make it happen. Mostly family, though? Is that including Lulu?" With a rueful chuckle, Carly answered, "Nooo. She's planning to spend the holiday out at Spoon Island, especially since Laura's in town. From what she told me, she's keeping Rocco for this holiday, Dante will have him for New Year's, and they'll split his time for Christmas. Or something like that. So there shouldn't be any problems with you guys coming out."
"It sounds like fun."
"It will be. Mike and Sonny plan to take care of the meats but the rest of us will handle the side dishes. Add the 'homey' touch."
"Anything in particular I should bring?"
"Something that reminds you of Thanksgiving; something you want to share with the rest of your family." Mentally reviewing past holidays with her mother, Val smiled and said, "I do have something in mind, come to think of it. I'll have to see if I can find the recipe."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When Dante entered the master bedroom of the penthouse later on in the evening, he found Val surrounded by boxes with a frustrated look on her face. He made his way through the maze of boxes to her side, squatting down to give her a kiss. "What's all this?" he asked. "We've been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the Metro Court with the family. Carly wants everyone to bring a personal dish to give the holiday more meaning. This is my mom's stuff that I brought with me. Somewhere in all this should be a box of recipes but I can't seem to find it. It's gotta be here, though." "Two sets of eyes are better than one. Tell me what I'm looking for." "It's just a box with little yellow flowers all over it. It's her recipe box. I couldn't have left it behind!" "Hang on—if it's here, we'll find it." He sat down on the floor by a couple of boxes and began opening them to search the contents. While they were looking, Val asked, "So how did things go? Since you're home already, I'm assuming everything went off like clockwork?"
"It was a thing of beauty, for sure. You should have seen the look on Robbs' face when he came out into the alley behind the pool hall and saw all these cops standing there with guns. Priceless. I didn't get the chance to plant his fat face into the concrete the way I wanted to but seeing him drop to his knees knowing he was done was the next best thing."
"So what'd he have to say when you slapped the cuffs on him?"
"I didn't actually do it—I let Nathan have that honor. It was the usual bluster—'You'll never make it stick', 'I'll be out before you can blink,' etc. Once we got him and his lawyer in the interrogation room and Ric played the tapes, he shut up real quick. Idiot. I got this seriously perverse pleasure out of standing there staring him down. You could see his wheels turning while he tried to think his way out of everything he was facing. It was almost comical. I don't know what he hated most, my blank stare or Ric's smirk. Pretty sure he wished he could've killed us all. I felt bad for Nathan, though. It's kind of disturbing to hear someone ordering your death. Reminded me of when I was working for Sonny and got that last assignment, the one that let me know I was made and they knew I was a cop. You get this weird kind of tingle; every hair on your body is standing up. You know you're staring at someone who wants you to die and you still have to play it off like you're not affected. It does affect you, though. Nathan's probably gonna have a few bad nights ahead of him."
"You guys didn't debrief after everything was finalized?"
"We did but there's only so much you can say. He'll handle it. It's just gonna take a while to process." He fell silent and began to concentrate on the task of sifting through every piece of paper in the box. They worked in companionable silence for a while before Val eventually inquired, "So what kind of deal did he end up getting?"
"I have no idea. Once they got to that part, I left." "You left? Why? I'd have thought you'd have wanted to be in on that especially." With a reflective smile, Dante responded, "Not really. You might as well learn this lesson now, Angel. There are gonna be days when you find what we do extremely satisfying. We pound the pavement, question suspects and witnesses, put together a scenario of plausible explanations for the reason a crime was committed, and work the case. Sometimes we get lucky and our hard work results in catching the criminals responsible. And then we hand the case over to the DA and the court system. That's where, if you have any sense, you learn to step away. The lawyers get together and start haggling about justice and what's acceptable to the justice system to make that person pay for their crime. And more often than not, they end up getting less than they deserve. They make some kind of deal, give someone else up for a lighter sentence or even to escape sentencing altogether. Makes you sick after all that hard work you put in, but there's nothing you can do. So no, I didn't want to hear what deals were being offered to that scumbag. In a perfect world, he'd just cop to what he did and take what he's got coming. I don't see him doing that, though. If there's a trial, I'll show up. I'll testify on behalf of the state. I'll do whatever I can to see to it that he does hard time. At the end of the day, though, it's not up to me or anyone else in the department. Sometimes that's a bitter pill to swallow." Pausing in the middle of her search, Val replied, "You almost make it sound futile, Just Mine." "Don't get that impression—that's not what I'm saying at all. There are many days when you'll go home knowing you made a difference to the world around you and that's very gratifying. I'm just telling you there's a flipside, a frustrating flipside, to what we do. And I didn't want to deal with that today. We did good work on this case. For today, that's all I wanted to focus on."
With a heavy sigh of disgust, Val shoved the box she was searching away from her. Her annoyance was mounting along with a fear that she might have lost her mother's recipes or somehow misplaced them for good. Dante cast an indulgent gaze in her direction. "How long have you been looking, baby? Are you sure you remember packing them up?" "I feel like I've been looking all afternoon but I know I haven't been. Honestly, I can't remember whether I packed her recipes or not. It was such a chaotic time…" He nodded as they both thought back to the days following Patricia's death. "We'll keep hunting—if they're here, we'll find them. Be patient." Dante picked up a plastic Ziploc bag and the word "flour" caught his eye. He unzipped the bag and rifled through it before telling her, "I may have found something but it's not a yellow box. It does look like there are recipes in here, though." Val jumped up from the floor and dashed to his side to see for herself. She sighed in relief when she recognized her mother's handwriting and she gave him a tight hug, exclaiming, "I can't believe you found them! Thank you so much for your eagle eye. I don't really understand why they're in plastic and not the yellow box but I don't care. Help me look."
"What exactly am I looking for now?"
"It's a recipe for a cranberry-apple chicken salad. We had it every Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember. Carly said the dish we bring should be special to us. NOBODY made this salad the way my mom did! Even with the recipe I probably won't be able to duplicate the taste. It'll still be like she's with me, though."
"Angel, even without the salad she's with you, ok? She gave him a grateful smile as she answered, "I know. But this is my first Thanksgiving without her and my first with my family. And with you, I hope. Were you planning to stay in town with your mother or go back to Bensonhurst?" "Whoa. I didn't even realize how close we were to the holiday. I'm getting the feeling, after our last conversation that I'm on my Ma's 'list'. We haven't really talked much lately." "Oh, Dante-" "Hey, don't even go there, ok? You didn't do anything to cause this, before you start apologizing. My Ma's a grown woman. If she wants to be pissed off at me because she doesn't like my choices, that's her right. I'm still gonna do what I want to, whether she approves or not."
"I don't want you to miss Thanksgiving with your family, though."
"According to you, I'm not gonna. Didn't Carly invite me, too?"
"Yes, but—"
"All right, then. Looks like it's gonna be a Corinthos-Falconeri Thanksgiving. Plus Mike is still in town. Lulu has Rocco this time around. You and I are gonna spend time with OUR family. I do want you to be prepared, though…"
"For what?"
"I told you—you haven't experienced Christmas until you've been part of a Natale celebration. I'm hoping you'll go back with me in December; meet my Nonno, my Nonna and my eight billion cousins." Val's eyes widened and her lips pursed in surprise. "Are you telling me that you want me to meet your family? Seriously?"
"Yeah—why not?"
"Do they even know what happened-"
"They know. The town crier, otherwise known as Olivia Falconeri, made sure of it. Surprisingly, my Nonno is more upset with me than my Nonna is. I want them to see that I'm happy with my decision. I know they're concerned. They need to meet you and see that even though things went down the way they did, I didn't make a mistake when I chose to let Lulu go."
"You actually think it's a good idea for your family to meet the rebound girl?" For the first time since he brought up his family he gave her his full attention. "I'm not sure I appreciate you sayin' that." "I wasn't trying to be offensive, Dante. I only meant-" "I know what you meant but we're a world away from where we started, aren't we? At least I thought we were." "We are. Hmm. Ok, frankly speaking, the idea of a bunch of angry faces staring at me over the dinner table isn't my idea of the perfect Christmas celebration. I'm thinking I might want to avoid that."
"It's not gonna be like that. I won't let it be. I need to talk to my grandparents and help them understand my side of things. I need them to know I'm at peace with what I've done. If they see that, their hearts will be at peace, too. I want that for them. It's important to me, Angel." "Ok, let's do this. Christmas is a ways away. Give me time to settle the frogs and butterflies in my throat and stomach. I'm not saying 'no'. I'm saying let's change the subject for now."
"Fair enough." They continued searching through the bags and a few minutes later, Val let out a yelp of joy. "I found it! Oh, thank God! I really didn't think it was here!" She gave the index card a loud smacking kiss while grinning a grin of pure happiness. "This might be the best way for you to get to know my mom, Dante—through her recipes. Of course I'm biased but no one, in my opinion, could cook the way my mom could! My friends always wanted to eat at my house and my mom loved that. I'm so glad I found this!" Val paused when she realized he didn't seem to be paying attention to what she was saying. She cleared her throat loudly twice before he finally looked up at her, asking, "Did you say something?" "I was saying a lot. What are you looking at that's got you so fascinated?"
"I'm not sure. Letters. Personal letters. And then there's this-" he said and then handed her a picture, questioning, "This guy—you ever seen him before?" Val took a long look at the man in the picture. He was a good-looking African-American man with striking features, seemingly tall with long dreadlocked hair. She laughed and said, "You really found this in with the recipes? I don't recognize him but he's fine, that's for sure. Go ahead, Mom!" She turned the picture over and read the name "Virgil" on the other side. "I don't know who 'Virgil' is—I don't think he's a family friend. He looks kind of young here, though. I wonder who he is?" Dante hesitated before handing her the other picture in his hand. He told her, "This one might help more." She gazed at the picture of her mother laughing happily with Virgil standing next to her with his arm around her, mugging for the camera. She turned the picture over and murmured aloud, "'Prince Valiant and me at Pep's.' No, he's not familiar to me at all. I'm pretty sure I've met most, if not all, of my mom's friends." She continued frowning down at the picture in silence, prompting Dante to posit, "Ok, I'm just gonna throw this out there. These letters are VERY personal. That picture I just gave you called the guy 'Prince Valiant'. Valiant, Val. Any chance that he could be your father?"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX