Yawn.

Frank chuckled. Maybe it wasn’t quite so nonchalant, but that was the way he’d painted things with Gia. Better she not know anyway.

But she found out soon enough. Other people knew Frank well enough to whisper about him when he wasn’t around. The next time Frank saw Gia, she’d asked him point blank if he was a hired killer or not.

Frank found her gaze a bit unsettling. Almost like being under of those bright hot lamps the cops used to use for interrogations.

He’d begged off answering her, telling her his life was pretty mundane. She’d held on, stronger than he would have suspected her capable of.

“Take me to dinner,” she’d said.

So Frank took her down Hanover Street to a little joint that overlooked the crowds. While Franco parked his car down a side street in a chain-linked parking area reserved for his best guests, Frank ordered them the best veal in the city. They’d drunk a Merlot straight from a small vineyard in Tuscany. And Gia had sat there drinking in not only the ambience, but also Frank.

By the time dinner was over, Frank felt like she was the only woman in the world who’d ever mattered to him. The memories of all the other tarts he’d ever dated vanished.

If we sleep together, he thought, it’ll be like losing my virginity all over again.

That actually took longer.

Gia might have dressed like a 1950’s harlot, but she was anything but. She took her time with Frank. In a way, it built up the tension to an almost unbearable point. Frank obsessed about her. All he saw were images of her dancing in his mind. All the time. Unless he was on a job. Moe had taught him absolute focus on jobs and he was able to maintain that at least.

Gia finally seduced him – because she called the shots that night and Frank merely went along like a hapless fool – on the night of the Feast of Saint Anthony’s. While fireworks went off below on the streets, Gia and Frank made a few combustions of their own. Gia made love like a rollercoaster on acid and Frank felt only too blessed to be along for the ride.