To his surprise, the crowd took a few steps back and Danny opened the door and pulled the shaking girl across the seat. Several people let out whoops and claps, and Danny hugged Arabella to his body and headed for the sidewalk. She clutched her hands to her chest and Danny could feel something hard and square under her arms. He looked in her eyes, but all he saw there was fear.

Danny held tight to Arabella and nodded his thanks to the people he passed. He gave Finch one last look and gestured up the street with his head. Another smattering of cheers broke out and the crowd began to thin around the car. Finch nudged the car forward a few feet and the mob backed up farther and the tires rolled. Then the first orange hit. The fruit was cold and sounded more like a rock. That was followed by an apple, then a potato, and then the car was pelted with fruit and vegetables. But it made steady progress up Salem Street. Some urchins ran alongside, shouting at it, but there were smiles on their faces and the jeers from the crowd had a festive air to them.

Danny reached the sidewalk and Mrs. DiMassi took her niece from him and led her toward the stairs. Danny watched the taillights of Finch’s Hudson reach the corner. Steve Coyle stood beside him, wiping his head with a handkerchief and looking out at the street littered with half-frozen fruit.

“Calls for a drink, uh?” He handed Danny his flask.

Danny took a drink but said nothing. He looked at Arabella Mosca huddled in her aunt’s arms. He wondered whose side he was on anymore.

“I’m going to need to talk to her, Mrs. DiMassi.”

Mrs. DiMassi looked up into his face.

“Now,” he said.

Arabella Mosca was a small woman with wide almond eyes and short blue-black hair. She didn’t speak a word of English outside of hello, good-bye, and thank you. She sat on the couch in her aunt’s sitting room, her hands still clenched within Mrs. DiMassi’s, and she had yet to remove her coat.

Danny said to Mrs. DiMassi, “Could you ask her what she’s hiding beneath her coat?”

Mrs. DiMassi glanced at her niece’s coat and frowned. She pointed and asked her to open her coat.

Arabella tilted her chin down toward her chest and shook her head vehemently.

“Please,” Danny said.

Mrs. DiMassi wasn’t the type to say “please” to a younger relative. Instead, she slapped her. Arabella barely reacted. She lowered her head farther and shook it again. Mrs. DiMassi reared back on the couch and cocked her arm.

Danny stuck his upper body between them. “Arabella,” he said in halting Italian, “they will deport your husband.”

Her chin came off her chest.

He nodded. “The men in straw hats. They will.”

A torrent of Italian flew from Arabella’s mouth and Mrs. DiMassi held up a hand, Arabella talking so fast even she seemed to be having trouble following. She turned to Danny.