Free Mafia Chic by Erica Orloff Page A

freshly rolled out of a woman’s bed. He had the energy of ten people.
    After Quinn and I finished our good-luck sambucas, I went home, dumped my chef’s coat in my laundry basket—my coat, embroidered in red script with “Teddi’s” on the left breast, was caked in red sauce—then showered and waited for Di to get ready. As usual, I told her we were supposedto leave a full hour before we actually were. I had tried, over the years, to analyze just what it was that made Di so late. I honed in on the fact that she changed a minimum of six times before any outing—even something as simple as going to the corner deli for a bagel.
    The bistro I picked was intimate, and the chef clearly knew his sauces. I was having a hard time choosing an entrée.
    “See that fellow over there?” Di asked me as she sipped a Campari and soda.
    “The drop-dead gorgeous one?”
    “That very one. I think he’s stalking us.”
    “Why do you think that?”
    “Well…this morning, when I went to get my usual bagel—and tell me, why can’t you get a good bagel in London? What is it about New York that positively breeds good bagels?”
    “They claim it’s the water.”
    “The water? What kind of rubbish is that?”
    “I’m serious. When bagel makers go to other parts of the country…same recipe. Same flour. Same ovens. Different water. The bagels aren’t as good.”
    “Fascinating. Well, I ordered a salt bagel. I know I shouldn’t have extra salt—bloating. You know…PMS. But—”
    “Lady Di…can you focus? Why do you think he’s stalking us?” I looked over the man in question. I took him for about six feet tall. Very well built and muscular, but not too much so. In fact, everything, from his haircut to his shoes, was screaming “ordinary.” The kind of ordinary that would make him hard to pick out in a lineup. He was very handsome, with chiseled features, but I could tell he was trying to blend in.
    “Well…I ordered my usual,” she continued. “Well, not my usual-usual, which is a plain bagel, fat-free cream cheese, black coffee. I splurged for the salt bagel. And he was there.”
    “Where?”
    “In Charlie’s Deli.”
    “So?”
    “And then, because I’d noticed him, I thought back to another day when I was at the grocery store, and I swear I saw him there. It jogged my memory. And now he’s here.”
    “I think I know what’s going on.”
    “What?”
    “Well, there’s one way to find out whether he’s simply from the neighborhood and coincidentally showing up at all our favorite haunts or if there’s something more sinister afoot.”
    “Sinister? So you do think he’s stalking us.”
    “How do you feel about getting our food to go?”
    “But we just got here.”
    “Do you want to know who he is or not?”
    “Not that badly.”
    “All right, then, I have a different plan.”
    We ordered, and when our food came, I told the waiter that we had tickets to a cabaret show and would have to leave at precisely nine-thirty. I discreetly handed him the cash, prepaying for our bill.
    Diana and I ate. The waiter brought over the bottle of white wine we ordered. The more French wine Diana drank, the giddier she got over Tony. I thought about Robert Wharton. He didn’t make me feel giddy. No one did, actually. Not that I could remember. Maybe that was what attracted me to cooking. It let me pour all my emotions into the pot and the saucepan. From the time I was a little girl,I swore to myself that when I got older, I would never sleep with one eye open, looking over to wonder whether my husband came home safe and sound. I would never marry a mobster. I would never marry a cop. Two sides of the same coin. I would never be giddy. Giddy was just another form of the thunderbolt.
    When we finished our dinners, the waiter brought back my change, along with two mints. I looked at Di over the flickering candlelight. “Here’s the plan. We bolt.”
    “Bolt?” Her eyes were glazed slightly from the wine, and she