Pippi and Cross were waiting for Gronevelt
back in his penthouse office suite.
He led them into his living quarters so that
they could be more comfortable, then told
them what had been said.
“The governor is okay?”
Pippi asked.
“The governor was not as drunk as he pretended,”
Grone-velt said.
“He gave me the message without really implicating
himself.”
“I’ll fly East tonight,” Pippi said.
“This must get the Cleri-cuzio OK.”
“Tell them I think the governor is a man
who can go all the way,” Gronevelt said.
“To the very top.
He would be an invaluable friend.”
“Giorgio and the Don will understand that,”
Pippi said.
“I just have to lay everything out and get
the OK.”
Gronevelt looked at Cross and smiled, then
he turned to Pippi.
He said gently, “Pippi, I think it’s time
Cross joined the Family.
I think he should fly East with you.”
But Giorgio Clericuzio decided to come West
to Vegas for the meeting.
He wanted to be briefed by Gronevelt himself,
and Gronevelt had not traveled for the last
ten years.
Giorgio and his bodyguards were established
in one of the Villas, though he was not a
high roller.
Gronevelt was a man who knew how to make exceptions.
He had refused the Villas to powerful politicians,
financial giants, to some of the most famous
movie stars in Hollywood, to beautiful women
who had slept with him, to close personal
friends.
Even Pippi De Lena.
But he gave a Villa to Giorgio Clericuzio,
though he knew Giorgio had spartan tastes
and did not really appreciate extraordinary
luxuries.
Every mark of respect counted, mounted up,
and one breach, no matter how tiny, could
be remembered someday.
They met in Giorgio’s Villa.
Gronevelt, Pippi, and Giorgio . . .
Gronevelt explained the situation.
“The governor can be an enormous asset to
the Family,” Gronevelt said.
“If he pulls himself together, he may go
all the way.
First, senator, then the presidency.
That happens and you have a good shot at getting
sports gambling legalized all over the country.
That will be worth billions to the Family
and those billions will not be black money.
It will be white money.
I say it’s something we have to do.”
White money was far more valuable than black
money.
But Giorgio’s great asset was that he was
never stampeded into rash decisions.
“Does the governor know you are with us?”
“Not for sure,” Gronevelt said.
“But he must have heard rumors.
And he’s not a dummy.
I’ve done some things for him that he knows
I couldn’t do if I were alone.
And he’s clever.
All he said was that he would run for office
if the kid were dead.
He didn’t ask me to do anything.
He’s a great con, he wasn’t that drunk
when he broke down.
I think he figured the whole thing out.
He was sincere, but he was faking it too.
He couldn’t figure out his revenge but he
had the idea I could do something.
He is suffering, but he’s also scheming.”
He paused for a moment.
“If we come through, he’ll run for sena-tor
and he will be our senator.”
Giorgio prowled uneasily in the room, avoiding
the statues on their pedestals, the curtained
Jacuzzi whose marble seemed to shine through
the fabric.
He said to Gronevelt, “You promised him
without our OK?”
“Yes,” Gronevelt said.
“It was a matter of persuasion.
I had to be positive to give him a sense that
he still has power.
That he could, still, cause things to happen,
and so make power appeal to him again.”
Giorgio sighed.
“I hate this part of the business,” he
said.
Pippi smiled.
Giorgio was so full of shit.
He had helped wipe out the Santadio Family
with a savageness that made the old Don proud.
“I think we need Pippi’s expertise on
this,” Gronevelt said.
“And I think it’s time for his son, Cross,
to join the Family.”
Giorgio looked at Pippi.
“Do you think Cross is ready?” he asked.
Pippi said, “He’s had all the gravy, it’s
time for him to earn his living.”
“But will he do it?”
Giorgio asked.
“It’s a big step.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Pippi said.
“He’ll do it.”
Giorgio turned toward Gronevelt.
“We do it for the governor, then what if
he forgets about us?
We take the risk and it’s all for nothing.
Here’s a man who is governor of Nevada,
his daughter gets killed and he lies down.
He has no balls.”
“He did do something, he came to me,”
Gronevelt said.
“You have to understand people like the
governor.
That took a lot of balls for him.”
“So he’ll come through?”
Giorgio said.
“We’ll save him for the few big things,”
Gronevelt said.
“I’ve done business with him for twenty
years.
I guarantee he comes through if he’s handled
right.
He knows the score, he’s very smart.”
Giorgio said, “Pippi, it has to look like
an accident.
This will get a lot of heat.
We want the governor to escape any innuendos
from his enemies or the papers and that fucking
TV.”
Gronevelt said, “Yes, it’s important that
nothing can be implied about the governor.”
Giorgio said, “Maybe this is too tricky
for Cross to make his bones on.”
“No, this is perfect for him,” Pippi said.
And they could not object.
Pippi was the commander in the field.
He had proved himself in many operations of
this kind, especially in the great war against
the Santadio.
He had often told the Clericuzio Family, “It’s
my ass on the line, if I get stuck, I want
it to be my fault, not somebody else’s.”
Giorgio clapped his hands.
“Okay, let’s get it done.
Alfred, how about a round of golf in the morning?
Tomorrow night I go on business to L.A. and
the day after I go back East.
Pippi, let me know who you want from the Enclave
to help, and tell me if Cross is in or out.”
And with that Pippi knew that Cross would
never be admitted to the inside of the Clericuzio
Family if he refused this operation.
Golf had become a passion for Pippi’s generation
of the Cleri-cuzio Family; the old Don made
malicious jokes that it was a game for Brugliones.
Pippi and Cross were on the Xanadu course
that afternoon.
They didn’t use driving carts; Pippi wanted
the exercise of walking and the solitude of
the greens.
Just off the ninth hole there was an orchard
of trees with a bench beneath.
They sat there.
“I won’t live forever,” Pippi said.
“And you have to make a living.
The Collection Agency is a big moneymaker
but tough to keep.
You have to be in solid with the Clericuzio
Family.”
Pippi had prepared Cross, had sent him on
some tough collecting missions where he had
to use force and abuse, had exposed him to
Family gossip; he knew the score.
Pippi had waited patiently for the right situation,
for a target that would not arouse sympathy.
Cross said quietly, “I understand.”
Pippi said, “That guy that killed the governor’s
daughter.
A punk prick and he gets away with it.
That’s not right.”
Cross was amused by his father’s psychology.
“And the governor is our friend,” he said.
“That’s right,” Pippi said.
“Cross, you can say no, remem-ber that.
But I want you to help me on a job I have
to do.”
Cross looked down the rolling greens, the
flags above the holes dead still in the desert
air, the silvery mountain ranges beyond, the
sky reflecting the neon signs of the Strip
he could not see.
He knew his life was about to change and he
felt a moment of dread.
“If I don’t like it I can always go to
work for Gronevelt,” he said.
But he let his hand rest on his father’s
shoulder for a moment to let him know it was
a joke.
Pippi grinned at him.
“This job is for Gronevelt.
You saw him with the governor.
Well, we’re going to give him his wish.
Gronevelt had to get the OK from Giorgio.
And I said you would help me out.”
Far away on one of the greens, Cross could
see a foursome of two women and two men shimmering
cartoonlike in the desert sun.
“I have to make my bones,” he said to
his father.
He knew he had to agree or live a completely
different life.
And he loved the life he led, working for
his father, hanging out at the Xanadu, the
direction of Gronevelt, the beautiful showgirls,
the easy money, the sense of power.
And once he did so he should never be subject
to the fates of ordinary men.
“I’ll do all the planning,” Pippi said.
“I’ll be with you all the way.
There’s no danger.
But you have to be the shooter.”
Cross rose from the bench.
He could see the flags on the seven Villas
flapping, though there was no breeze on the
golf course.
For the first time in his young life he felt
the ache of a world that was to be lost.
“I’m with you,” he said.
In the three weeks that followed, Pippi gave
Cross an indoctrination.
He explained that they were waiting for a
surveillance team report on Theo, his movements,
his habits, recent photos.
Also, an operations team of six men from the
Enclave in New York were moving into place
in Los Angeles where Theo was still living.
The whole operation plan would be based on
the report of the surveillance team.
Then Pippi lectured Cross on the philosophy.
“This is a business,” he said.
“You take all the precautions to prevent
the downside.
Anybody can knock somebody off.
The trick is never to get caught.
That is the sin.
And never think of the personalities involved.
When the head of General Motors throws fifty
thousand people out of work, that’s business.
He can’t help wrecking their lives, he has
to do it.
Cigarettes kill thousands of people, but what
can you do?
People want to smoke and you can’t ban a
business that generates billions of dollars.
Same with guns, everybody has a gun, everybody
kills everybody, but it’s a billion-dollar
industry, you can’t get rid of it.
What can you do?
People must earn a living, that comes first.
All the time.
You don’t believe that, go live in the shit.”
The Clericuzio Family was very strict, Pippi
told Cross.
“You have to get their OK.
You can’t go around killing people because
they spit on your shoe.
The Family has to be with you because they
can make you jailproof.”
Cross listened.
He only asked one question.
“Giorgio wants it to look like an accident?
How do we do that?”
Pippi laughed.
“Never let anybody tell you how to run your
operation.
They can go fuck themselves.
They tell me their maximum expectations.
I do what is best for me.
And the best is to be simple.
Very, very simple.
And when you have to get fancy, get very,
very fancy.”
When the surveillance reports came, Pippi
made Cross study all the data.
There were some photos of Theo, photos of
his car showing its license plates.
A map of the road he traveled from Brentwood
up to Oxnard to visit a girlfriend.
Cross said to his father, “He can still
get a girlfriend?”
“You don’t know women,” Pippi said.
“If they like you, you can piss in the sink.
If they don’t like you, you can make them
the Queen of England and they’ll shit on
you.”
Pippi flew into L.A. to set up his operations
team.
He came back two days later and told Cross,
“Tomorrow night.”
The next day, before dawn, to escape the heat
of the desert, they drove from Las Vegas to
Los Angeles.
Driving across the desert, Pippi told Cross
to relax.
Cross was mesmerized by the glorious sunrise
that seemed to melt the desert sand into a
deep river of gold lapping at the foot of
the distant Sierra Nevadas.
He felt anxious.
He wanted to get the job done.
They arrived in a Family house in the Pacific
Palisades where the six-man crew from the
Bronx Enclave was awaiting them.
In the driveway was a stolen car that had
been repainted and had false license plates.
Also at the house were the untraceable guns
that were to be used.
Cross was surprised at the luxuriousness of
the house.
It had a beautiful view of the ocean across
the highway, a swimming pool, and a huge sundeck.
It also had six bedrooms.
The men seemed to know Pippi well.
But they were not introduced to Cross nor
he to them.
They had eleven hours to kill before the operation
started at midnight.
The other men, ignoring a huge TV set, started
a card game on the sundeck; they were all
in bathing suits.
Pippi smiled at Cross and said, “Shit, I
forgot about the swimming pool.”
“That’s OK,” Cross said.
“We can go swimming in our shorts.”
The house was secluded, shielded by enormous
trees and an encircling hedge.
“We can go bare-assed,” Pippi said.
“Nobody can see except the helicopters and
they’ll be looking at all the broads sunbathing
outside their Malibu houses.”
Both of them swam and sunbathed for a few
hours and then ate a meal prepared by one
of the six-man crew.
The meal was steak, cooked on the sundeck
grill, and a salad of arugula and lettuce.
The other men drank red wine with their food,
but Cross had a club soda.
He noticed that all the men ate and drank
sparingly.
After the meal, Pippi took Cross on a reconnaissance
in the stolen car.
They drove to the western-style restaurant
and coffee shop farther down the Pacific Coast
Highway where they would find Theo.
The surveillance reports showed that on Wednesday
nights Theo, on his way to Oxnard, had made
a habit of stopping at the Pacific Coast Highway
Restaurant at around midnight for coffee and
ham and eggs.
That he would leave about one in the morning.
That night a surveillance team of two men
would be tailing him and would report by telephone
when he was on the way.
Back at the house Pippi rebriefed the men
on the operation.
The six men would have three cars.
One car would precede them, another would
bring up the rear, the third car would park
in the restaurant lot and be prepared for
any emergency.
Cross and Pippi sat on the sundeck waiting
for the phone call.
There were five cars in the driveway, all
black, shining in the moonlight like bugs.
The six men from the Enclave continued their
card game, playing with silver coins: nickels,
dimes, and quarters.
Finally at eleven-thirty the phone call came:
Theo was on his way from Brentwood to the
restaurant.
The six men got in three cars and drove away
to take up their appointed posts.
Pippi and Cross got into the stolen car and
waited another fifteen minutes before they
left.
Cross had in the pocket of his jacket a small
.22 pistol, which, though it had no silencer,
only gave off a sharp little pop; Pippi carried
a Glock that would make a loud report.
Ever since his only arrest for murder, Pippi
always refused to carry a silencer.
Pippi drove.
The operation had been planned in the most
specific detail.
No member of the operations team was to go
into the restaurant.
Detectives would question the help about all
the customers.
The surveillance team had reported what Theo
was wearing, the car he was driving, the license
plates.
They were lucky that Theo’s car was a flaming
red and that it was a cheap Ford, easily identifiable
in an area where Mercedeses and Porsches were
commonplace.
When Pippi and Cross arrived in the parking
lot of the restaurant, they could see Theo’s
car was already there.
Pippi parked next to it.
Then he turned off the car lights and ignition
and sat in the darkness.
Across the Pacific Coast Highway they saw
the ocean shimmering, parted with streaks
of gold that were the moonlight.
They saw one of their team cars parked on
the far side of the lot.
They knew their other two teams were at their
stations on the highway waiting to shepherd
them back to the house, ready to cut off any
pursuers and intercept any problems before
them.
Cross looked at his watch.
It was twelve-thirty.
They had to wait another fifteen minutes.
Suddenly Pippi hit his shoulder.
“He’s early,” Pippi said.
“Go!”
Cross saw the figure emerging from the restaurant,
caught in the glow of the door lights.
He was struck by the boyishness of the figure,
slight and short, a shock of curly hair above
the pale, thin face.
Theo looked too frail to be a murderer.
Then they were surprised.
Theo, instead of going to his car, walked
across the Pacific Coast Highway, dodging
traffic.
On the other side, he strolled out onto the
open beach to the very edge, daring the waves.
He stood there gazing at the ocean, the yellow
moon setting on the horizon so far away.
Then he turned and came back across the highway
and into the parking lot.
He had let the waves reach him, and there
was the squish of water in his fashionable
boots.
Cross slowly got out of the car.
Theo was almost on him.
Cross waited for Theo to go past, then smiled
politely to let Theo get into his car.
When Theo was inside, Cross drew the gun.
Theo, about to put his key into the ignition,
his car window down, raised his eyes, aware
of the shadow.
At the moment Cross fired, they looked into
each other’s eyes.
Theo was frozen as the bullet smashed into
his face, which instantly became a mask of
blood, the eyes staring out.
Cross yanked open the door and fired two more
bullets into the top of Theo’s head.
Blood sprayed into his face.
Then he threw a pouch of drugs on the floor
of Theo’s car.
He slammed the door shut.
Pippi had started up the motor of his car
just as Cross fired.
Now he opened the car door, and Cross hopped
in.
According to plan he had not dropped the pistol.
That would have made it look like a planned
hit instead of a drug deal gone sour.
Pippi drove out of the lot, and their cover
car pulled out behind them.
The two lead cars swung into position, and
five minutes later they were back at the Family
house.
Ten minutes after that, Pippi and Cross were
in Pippi’s car heading toward Vegas.
The operations team would get rid of the stolen
car and the gun.
When they drove past the restaurant there
were no signs of police activity.
Obviously Theo was still undiscovered.
Pippi turned the car radio on and listened
to the news broadcasts.
There was nothing.
“Perfect,” Pippi said.
“When you plan right, it always goes perfect.”
They arrived in Las Vegas as the sun was coming
up, the desert a sullen red sea.
Cross never forgot that ride through the desert,
through the darkness, through the moonlight
that never seemed to end.
And then the sun coming up and then, a little
later, the neon lights of the Vegas strip
shining like a beacon heralding safety, the
awakening from a nightmare.
Vegas was never dark.
At almost that exact moment, Theo was discovered,
his face ghostly in a paler dawn.
Publicity centered on the fact that Theo was
in possession of half a million dollars worth
of cocaine.
It was obviously a drug deal gone sour.
The governor was in the clear.
Cross observed many things from this event.
That the drugs he had planted on Theo cost
no more than ten thousand dollars, although
the authorities had placed the value at half
a million; that the governor was praised for
the fact that he sent condolences to Theo’s
family; that in a week the media never referred
to the matter again.
Pippi and Cross were summoned East for an
audience with Giorgio.
Giorgio commended them both for an intelligent
and well-executed operation, making no mention
of the fact that it was supposed to look like
an accident.
And Cross was aware on this visit that the
Clericuzio Family treated him with the respect
due the Family Hammer.
The primary evidence of this was that Cross
was given a percentage of the income of the
gambling books, legal and illegal, in Las
Vegas.
It was understood that he was now an official
member of the Clericuzio Family, to be called
to duty on special occasions with bonuses
calculated on the risk of the project.
Gronevelt, too, had his reward.
After Walter Wavven was elected senator, he
took a weekend retreat at the Xanadu.
Gronevelt gave him a Villa and went to congratulate
him on his victory.
Senator Wavven was back in his old form.
He was gambling and winning, he had little
dinners with the showgirls of the Xanadu.
He seemed completely recovered.
He made only one reference to his earlier
crisis.
He said to Gronevelt, “Alfred, you have
a blank check with me.”
Gronevelt said, smiling, “No man can afford
to carry blank checks in his wallet, but thank
you.”
He didn’t want checks that paid off all
the senator’s debt.
He wanted a long, continuing friendship, one
that would never end.
In the next five years, Cross became an expert
on gambling and running a casino hotel.
He served as an assistant to Gronevelt, though
his primary job was still working with his
father, Pippi, not only in running the Collection
Agency, which he was now certified to inherit,
but also as the number two Hammer for the
Clericuzio Family.
By the age of twenty-five, Cross was known
in the Clericuzio Family as the Little Hammer.
He himself found it curious that he was so
cold about his work.
His targets were never people he knew.
They were lumps of flesh enclosed in defenseless
skin; the skeleton beneath gave them the outline
of wild animals he had hunted with his father
when he was a boy.
He did fear the risk but only cerebrally;
there was no physical anxiety.
There were moments in his life’s repose,
sometimes when he awoke in the morning with
a vague terror as if he had some terrible
nightmare.
Then there were times when he was depressed,
when he called up the memory of his sister
and his mother, little scenes from childhood
and some visits after the breakup of the family.
He remembered his mother’s cheek, her flesh
so warm, her satin skin so porous that he
imagined he could hear the blood flow underneath,
contained, safe.
But in his dreams the skin crumbled like ash,
blood washing over the obscene breaks into
scarlet waterfalls.
Which triggered other memories.
When his mother kissed him with cold lips,
her arms embracing him for tiny moments of
politeness.
She never held his hand as she did Claudia’s.
The times he visited and left her house short
of breath, his chest burning as if bruised.
He never felt her loss in the pres-ent, he
only felt her lost in his past.
When he thought of his sister, Claudia, he
did not feel this loss.
Their past together existed and she was still
part of his life, though not enough.
He remembered how they used to fight in the
winter.
They kept their fists in their overcoat pockets
and swung at each other.
A harmless duel.
All was as it should be, Cross thought, except
that sometimes he missed his mother and his
sister.
Still, he was happy with his father and the
Clericuzio Family.
So in his twenty-fifth year Cross became involved
in his final operation as a Hammer of the
Family.
The target was someone he had known all his
life.
. . .
A vast FBI probe destroyed many of the titular
Barons, some true Brugliones, across the country,
and among them was Virginio Ballazzo, now
the ruler of the largest Family on the Eastern
Seaboard.
Virginio Ballazzo was a Baron of the Clericuzio
Family for over twenty years and had been
dutiful in wetting the Cleri-cuzio beak.
In return the Clericuzio made him rich; at
the time of his fall, Ballazzo was worth over
$50 million.
He and his family lived in very good style
indeed.
And yet the unforeseen happened.
Virginio Ballazzo, despite his debt, betrayed
those who had raised him so high.
He broke the law of omertà, the code that
forbade giving any information to the authorities.
One of the charges against him was murder,
but it was not so much fear of imprisonment
that made him turn traitor; after all, New
York had no death penalty.
And no matter how long his penalty, if indeed
he was convicted, the Clericuzio would get
him out in ten years, would ensure that even
those ten years would be easy time.
He knew the repertoire.
At his trial, witnesses would perjure themselves
in his behalf, jurors could be approached
with bribes.
Even after he had served a few years, a new
case would be prepared, presenting new evidence,
showing that he was innocent.
There was one famous case in which the Clericuzio
had done such a thing after one of their clients
had served five years.
The man had gotten out and the state had presented
him with over a million dollars as reparation
for his “false” imprisonment.
No, Ballazzo had no fear of prison.
What made him turn traitor was that the Federal
Government threatened to seize all his worldly
goods under the RICO laws passed by Congress
to crush crime.
Ballazzo could not bear that he and his children
would lose their palatial home in New Jersey,
the luxurious condo in Florida, the horse
farm in Kentucky that had produced three also-rans
in the Kentucky Derby.
For the infamous RICO laws permitted the government
to seize all worldly goods of those arrested
for criminal conspiracy.
The stocks and bonds, the antique cars might
be taken.
Don Cleri-cuzio himself had been angered by
the RICO laws, but his only comment was “the
rich will rue this thing, the day will come
when they will arrest the whole of Wall Street
under this RICO law.”
It was not luck but foresight that the Clericuzio
had removed their old friend Ballazzo from
its confidence in the last few years.
He had become too flashy for their tastes.
The New York Times had run a story on his
collection of antique cars, Virginio Ballazzo
at the wheel of a 1935 Rolls-Royce, a debonair
visored cap on his head.
Virginio Ballazzo, on the TV at the running
of the Kentucky Derby, riding crop in hand,
talked about the beauty of the sport of kings.
There he was identified as a wealthy importer
of rugs.
All this was too much for the Clericuzio Family,
they became wary of him.
When Virginio Ballazzo opened discussions
with the United States District Attorney,
it was Ballazzo’s lawyer who informed the
Clericuzio family.
The Don, who was semi-retired, immediately
took charge from his son Giorgio.
This was a situation that required a Sicilian
hand.
A Family conference was held: Don Clericuzio;
his three sons, Giorgio, Vincent, and Petie;
and Pippi De Lena.
It was true that Ballazzo could damage the
Family structure, but only the lower levels
would suffer greatly.
The traitor could give valuable information
but no legal proof.
Giorgio suggested that if worse came to worst,
they could always set up headquarters in a
foreign country, but the Don dismissed this
angrily.
Where else could they live but in America?
America had made them rich, America was the
most powerful country in the world and protected
its rich.
The Don often quoted the saying, “Rather
a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent
man be punished,” then added, “What a
beautiful country.”
The trouble was that everyone got soft because
of such good living.
In Sicily Ballazzo would never have dared
become a traitor, would never even have dreamed
of breaking the law of omertà.
His own sons would have killed him.
“I’m too old to live in a foreign country,”
the Don said.
“I will not be driven from my home by a
traitor.”
A small problem in and of himself, Virginio
Ballazzo was a symptom, an infection.
There were many more like him, who did not
abide by the old laws that had made them all
strong.
There was a Family Bruglione in Louisiana,
another in Chicago, and another in Tampa,
who flaunted their wealth, who showed off
their power for all the world to see.
And then these cafoni when they were caught
sought to escape the punishment they had earned
by their own carelessness.
By breaking the law of omertà.
By betraying their fellows.
This rot must be eradicated.
That was the Don’s position.
But now he would listen to the others; after
all, he was old, perhaps there were other
solutions.
Giorgio outlined what was happening.
Ballazzo was bargaining with the government
attorneys.
He would willingly go to jail if the government
promised not to invoke the RICO laws, if his
wife and children could keep his fortune.
And of course he was bargaining not to go
to jail, for that he would have to testify
in court against the people he betrayed.
He and his wife would be placed in a Witness
Protection Program and would live the rest
of their lives under false identities.
Some plastic surgery would be performed.
And his children would live the rest of their
lives in respectable comfort.
That was the deal.
Ballazzo, whatever his faults, was a doting
father, they all agreed.
He had three well-brought-up children.
One son was graduating from the Harvard School
of Business, the daughter, Ceil, had a fancy
cosmetics store on Fifth Avenue, another son
did computer work in the space program.
They were all deserving of their good fortunes.
They were true Americans and lived the American
dream.
“So,” the old Don said, “we will send
a message to Virginio that will make sense
to him.
He can inform on everyone else.
He can send them all to jail or to the bottom
of the ocean.
But if he speaks one word about the Clericuzio,
his children are forfeit.”
Pippi De Lena said, “Threats don’t seem
to scare anybody anymore.”
“The threat will be from me personally,”
Don Domenico said.
“He will believe me.
Promise him nothing for himself.
He understands.”
It was Vincent who spoke up then.
“We’ll never be able to get near him once
he’s in the Protection Program.”
The Don spoke to Pippi De Lena.
“And you, Martèllo of mine, what do you
say to that?”
Pippi De Lena shrugged.
“After he testifies, after they hide him
away in the Protection Program, sure we can.
But there will be a lot of heat, a lot of
publicity.
Is it worth it?
Does it change anything?”
The Don said, “The publicity, the heat,
is what makes it worth doing.
We will send the world our message.
In fact when it is done it should be done
a bella figura.”
Giorgio said, “We could just let events
take their course.
No matter what Ballazzo says, it can’t bury
us.
Pop, your answer is a short-term answer.”
The Don pondered that.
“What you say is true.
But is there a long-term answer to anything?
Life is full of doubts, of short-term answers.
And you doubt that punishment will stop those
others who will be trapped?
It may or may not.
It will certainly stop some.
God himself could not create a world without
punishment.
I will talk personally to Ballazzo’s lawyer.
He will understand me.
He will give the message.
And Ballazzo will believe it.”
He paused for a moment and then sighed.
“After the trials, we will do the job.”
“And his wife?”
Giorgio asked.
“A good woman,” the Don said.
“But she has become too American.
We cannot leave a bereaved widow to shout
her grief and secrets.”
Petie spoke for the first time.
“And Virginio’s children?”
Petie was the true assassin.
“Not if it’s not necessary.
We are not monsters,” Don Domenico said.
“And Ballazzo never told the children his
business.
He wanted the world to believe that he was
a horse rider.
So let him ride his horses at the bottom of
the ocean.”
They were all silent.
Then the Don said sadly, “Let the little
ones go.
After all, we live in a country where children
do not avenge their parents.”
The following day the message was transmitted
to Virginio Ballazzo by his lawyer.
In all these messages, the language was flowery.
When the Don spoke to the lawyer he expressed
his hope that his old friend Virginio Ballazzo
had only the fondest memories of the Clericuzio,
who would always look out for their unfortunate
friend’s interests.
The Don told the lawyer that Ballazzo should
never fear for his children where danger lurked,
even on Fifth Avenue, but that the Don himself
would guarantee their safety.
He, the Don, knew how highly Ballazzo prized
his children; that jail, the electric chair,
the devils in hell, could not frighten his
brave friend, only the specter of harm to
his children.
“Tell him,” the Don said to the lawyer,
“that I, personally, I, Don Domenico Clericuzio,
guarantee that no misfortune will befall them.”
The lawyer delivered this message word for
word to his client, who responded as follows.
“Tell my friend, my dearest friend, who
grew up with my father in Sicily, that I rely
on his guarantees with utmost gratitude.
Tell him I have only the fondest memories
of all the Clericuzio, so profound that I
cannot even speak of them.
I kiss his hand.”
Then Ballazzo sang, “Tra la la . . .” at
his lawyer.
“I think we better go over our testimony
very carefully,” he said.
“We do not want to involve my good friend.
. . .”
“Yes,” the lawyer said, as he reported
later to the Don.
Everything proceeded according to plan.
Virginio Ballazzo broke omertà and testified,
sending numerous underlings to jail and even
implicating a deputy mayor of New York.
But not a word of the Clericuzio.
Then the Ballazzos, man and wife, disappeared
into the Witness Protection Program.
The newspapers and TV were jubilant, the mighty
Mafia had been broken.
There were hundreds of photos, live TV action
shots of these villains being hauled off to
prison.
Ballazzo took up the whole centerfold of the
Daily News, TOP MAFIA DON FALLS.
It showed him with his antique cars, his Kentucky
Derby horses, his impressive London wardrobe.
It was an orgy.
When the Don gave Pippi the assignment of
tracking down the Ballazzo couple and punishing
them, he said, “Do it in such a way that
it will get the same publicity as they are
getting now.
We don’t want them to forget our Virginio.”
But it was to take the Hammer more than a
year to complete this assignment.
Cross remembered Ballazzo and had fond memories
of him as a jovial, generous man.
He and Pippi had had dinner at the Ballazzo
house, for Mrs. Ballazzo had a reputation
as a fine Italian cook, particularly for her
macaroni and cauliflower with garlic and herbs,
a dish Cross still remembered.
He had played with the Ballazzo children as
a child and had even fallen in love with Ballazzo’s
daughter, Ceil, when they were teenagers.
She had written him from college after that
magical Sunday, but he had never answered.
Alone with Pippi now, he said, “I don’t
want to do this operation.”
His father looked at him and then smiled sadly.
He said, “Cross, it happens sometimes, you
have to get used to it.
You won’t survive otherwise.”
Cross shook his head.
“I can’t do it,” he said.
Pippi sighed.
“OK,” he said.
“I’ll tell them I’m going to use you
for planning.
I’ll make them give me Dante for the actual
operation.”
Pippi set up the probe.
The Clericuzio Family, with huge bribes, penetrated
the screen of the Witness Protection Program.
The Ballazzos felt secure in their new identities,
false birth certificates, new social security
numbers, marriage papers, and the plastic
surgery that had altered their faces so that
they looked ten years younger.
However, their body builds, their gestures,
their voices, made them more easily identifiable
than they realized.
Old habits die hard.
On a Saturday night Virginio Ballazzo and
his wife drove to the small South Dakota town
near their new home to gamble in the small-time
joint operating under the local option.
On their way home, Pippi De Lena and Dante
Clericuzio, with a crew of six other men,
intercepted them.
Dante, violating the plan, could not resist
making himself known to the couple before
he pulled the trigger of his shotgun.
No attempt was made to conceal the bodies.
No valuables were taken.
It was perceived as an act of retaliation,
and it sent a message to the world.
There was a torrent of rage from the press
and television, the authorities promised justice
would be done.
Indeed, there was enough of a furor to make
the whole Clericuzio Empire seem to be in
jeopardy.
Pippi was forced to hide in Sicily for two
years.
Dante became the number one Hammer of the
Family.
Cross was made the Bruglione of the Western
Empire of the Clericuzio.
His refusal to take part in the Ballazzo execution
had been noted.
He did not have the temperament to be a true
Hammer.
Before Pippi disappeared into Sicily for two
years, he had a final meeting and bon voyage
dinner with Don Clericuzio and his son Giorgio.
“I must apologize for my son,” Pippi said.
“Cross is young and the young are sentimental.
He was very fond of the Ballazzos.”
“We were fond of Virginio,” the Don said.
“I never liked a man better.”
“Then why did we kill him?”
Giorgio asked.
“It’s caused more trouble than it’s
worth.”
Don Clericuzio gave him a stern look.
“You cannot live a life without order.
If you have power, you must use it for strict
justice.
Ballazzo committed a great offense.
Pippi understands that, no, Pippi?”
“Of course, Don Domenico,” Pippi said.
“But you and I are of the old school.
Our sons don’t understand.”
He paused for a moment.
“I wanted to thank you also for making Cross
your Bruglione in the West while I’m gone.
He will not disappoint you.”
“I know that,” the Don said.
“I have as much trust in him as I have in
you.
He is intelligent and his squeamishness is
that of youth.
Time will harden his heart.”
They were having a dinner cooked and served
by a woman whose husband worked in the Enclave.
She had forgotten the Don’s bowl of grated
Parmesan cheese, and Pippi went into the kitchen
for the grater and brought the bowl to the
Don.
He carefully grated the cheese into the bowl
and watched the Don dip his huge silver spoon
into the yellowish mound, put it in his mouth,
and then sip from his glass of powerful homemade
wine.
This was a man with a belly, Pippi thought.
Over eighty years old and he could still order
the death of a sinner, and also eat this strong
cheese and harsh wine.
He said casually, “Is Rose Marie in the
house?
I’d like to say good-bye to her.”
“She’s having one of her fucking spells,”
Giorgio said.
“She’s locked herself in her room, thank
God, or else we wouldn’t be able to enjoy
our dinner.”
“Ah,” Pippi said.
“I always thought she’d get better with
time.”
“She thinks too much,” the Don said.
“She loves her son Dante too much.
She refuses to understand.
The world is what it is, and you are what
you are.”
Giorgio said smoothly, “Pippi, how do you
rate Dante after this Ballazzo operation?
Did he show any nerves?”
Pippi shrugged and remained silent.
The Don gave a little grunt and looked at
him sharply.
“You can be frank,” the Don said.
“Giorgio is his uncle and I am his grandfather.
We are all of one blood and are permitted
to judge each other.”
Pippi stopped eating and looked directly at
the Don and Giorgio.
He said almost regretfully, “Dante has a
bloody mouth.”
In their world this was an idiom for a man
who went beyond savageness, an intimation
of bestiality while doing a necessary piece
of work.
It was strictly forbidden in the Cleri-cuzio
Family.
Giorgio leaned back in his chair and said,
“Jesus Christ.”
The Don gave Giorgio a disapproving look for
his blasphemy and then waved a hand at Pippi
to continue.
He did not seem surprised.
“He was a good pupil,” Pippi said.
“He has the temperament and the physical
strength.
He’s very quick and he is intelligent.
But he takes too much pleasure in his work.
He took too much time with the Ballazzos.
He talked to them for ten minutes before he
shot the woman.
Then he waited another five minutes before
shooting Ballazzo.
That’s not to my taste but more important
you never can tell when it might lead to danger,
every minute might count.
On other jobs he was unnecessarily cruel,
a throwback to the old days when they thought
it clever to hang a man on a meathook.
I don’t want to go into details.”
Giorgio said angrily, “It’s because that
prick of a nephew is short.
He’s a fucking midget.
And then he wears those fucking hats.
Where the hell does he get them?”
The Don said good-humoredly, “The same place
the blacks get their hats.
In Sicily when I was growing up everybody
wore a funny hat.
Who knows why?
Who cares?
Now, stop talking nonsense.
I wore funny hats, too.
Maybe it runs in the family.
It’s his mother who put all kinds of nonsense
in his head ever since he was little.
She should have married again.
Widows are like spiders.
They spin too much.”
Giorgio said with intensity, “But he’s
good at his job.”
“Better than Cross could ever be,” Pippi
said diplomatically.
“But sometimes I think he’s crazy like
his mother.”
He paused.
“He even scares me sometimes.”
The Don took a mouthful of cheese and wine.
“Giorgio,” he said, “instruct your nephew,
repair his fault.
It could be dangerous to all of us in the
Family someday.
But don’t let him know it comes from me.
He is too young and I am too old, I would
not influence him.”
Pippi and Giorgio knew this was a lie but
also knew that if the old man wanted to hide
his hand, he had a good reason.
At that moment they heard steps overhead and
then someone coming down the stairs.
Rose Marie came into the dining room.
The three men saw with dismay that she was
having one of her fits.
Her hair was wild, her makeup was bizarre,
and her clothing was twisted.
Most serious, her mouth was open but no words
were coming out.
She used her body and hand flailing to take
the place of speech.
Her gestures were startlingly vivid, better
than words.
She hated them, she wanted them dead, she
wanted their souls to burn in hell for eternity.
They should choke on their food, go blind
from the wine, their cocks should fall off
when they slept with their wives.
Then she took Giorgio’s plate and Pippi’s
plate and smashed them on the floor.
This was all permitted, but the first time,
years ago, when she had her first fit, she
treated the Don’s plate in the same fashion
and he had ordered her seized and locked in
her room and then had her dispatched for three
months to a special nursing home.
Even now the Don quickly put the lid on his
cheese bowl; she did a lot of spitting.
Then suddenly it was over, she became very
still.
She spoke to Pippi.
“I wanted to say good-bye.
I hope you die in Sicily.”
Pippi felt an overwhelming pity for her.
He rose and took her in his arms.
She did not resist.
He kissed her on the cheek and said, “I
wish to die in Sicily rather than come home
and find you like this.”
She broke out of his arms and ran back up
the stairs.
“Very touching,” Giorgio said, almost
sneering.
“But you don’t have to put up with her
every month.”
He gave a slight leer with this, but they
all knew that Rose Marie was far past menopause
and she had the fits more than once a month.
The Don seemed the least upset by his daughter’s
fit.
“She will get better or she will die,”
he said.
“If not I will send her away.”
Then he addressed Pippi.
“I’ll let you know when you can come back
from Sicily.
Enjoy the rest, we’re all getting older.
But keep your eyes open for new men to recruit
for the Enclave.
That is important.
We must have men we can count on not to betray
us, who have omertà in their bones, not like
the rascals born in this country who want
to lead a good life but not pay for it.”
The next day, with Pippi on his way to Sicily,
Dante was summoned to the Quogue mansion to
spend the weekend.
The first day Giorgio let Dante spend all
his time with Rose Marie.
It was touching to see their devotion to each
other, Dante was a totally different person
with his mother.
He never wore one of his peculiar hats, he
took her on walks around the estate, took
her out for dinner.
He waited on her like some eighteenth-century
French gallant.
When she broke into hysterical tears, he cradled
her in his arms, and she never went into one
of her fits.
They spoke to each other constantly in low,
confidential tones.
At supper time, Dante helped Rose Marie set
the table, grate the Don’s cheese, kept
her company in the kitchen.
She cooked his favorite meal of penne with
broccoli and then roast lamb studded with
bacon and garlic.
Giorgio was always struck by the rapport between
the Don and Dante.
Dante was solicitous, he spooned the penne
and broccoli into the Don’s plate and ostentatiously
wiped and polished the great silver spoon
he used to dip into the grated parmesan.
Dante teased the old man.
“Grandfather,” he said, “if you got
new teeth, we wouldn’t have to grate this
cheese.
The dentists do great work now, they can plant
steel in your jaw.
A miracle.”
The Don was playful in kind.
“I want my teeth to die with me,” he said.
“And I’m too old for miracles.
Why should God waste a miracle on an ancient
like me?”
Rose Marie had prettied herself for her son,
and traces of her young beauty could be seen.
She seemed happy to see her father and her
son on such familiar terms.
It banished her constant air of anxiety.
Giorgio, too, was content.
He was pleased that his sister seemed happy.
She was not so nerve-racking and she was a
better cook.
She didn’t stare at him with accusing eyes
and she would not be subject to one of her
fits.
When the Don and Rose Marie had both gone
to bed, Giorgio took Dante into the den.
It was the room that had neither phones nor
TV and no communication lines to any part
of the house.
And it had a very thick door.
Now it was furnished with two black leather
couches and black studded leather chairs.
It still contained a whiskey cabinet and a
small wet bar equipped with a small refrigerator
and a shelf of glasses.
On the table rested a box of Havana cigars.
Still, it was a room with no windows, like
a small cave.
Dante’s face, too sly and interesting for
so young a man, always made Giorgio uneasy.
His eyes were too cunningly bright and Giorgio
didn’t like it that he was short.
Giorgio made them both a drink and lit up
one of the Havana cigars.
“Thank God you don’t wear those weird
hats around your mother,” he said.
“Why do you wear them anyway?”
“I like them,” Dante said.
“And to make you and Uncle Petie and Uncle
Vincent notice me.”
He paused for a moment and then said with
a mischievous grin, “They make me look taller.”
It was true, Giorgio thought, that hats made
him look handsomer.
They framed his ferretlike face in a flattering
way, his features were strangely uncoordinated
when seen without his hat.
“You shouldn’t wear them on a job,”
Giorgio said.
“It makes an identification too easy.”
“Dead men don’t talk,” Dante said.
“I kill everybody who sees me on a job.”
“Nephew, stop fucking me around,” Giorgio
said.
“It’s not smart.
It’s a risk.
The Family doesn’t take risks.
Now one other thing.
The word is getting around that you have a
bloody mouth.”
Dante for the first time reacted with anger.
Suddenly he looked deadly.
He put down his drink and said, “Does Grandfather
know that?
Does this come from him?”
“The Don knows nothing about it,” Giorgio
lied.
He was a very expert liar.
“And I won’t tell him.
You’re his favorite, it would distress him.
But I’m telling you, no more hats on the
job and keep your mouth clean.
You’re the Family number one Hammer now
and you take too much pleasure in the business.
That’s dangerous and against Family rules.”
Dante seemed not to hear.
He was thoughtful now and his smile reappeared.
“Pippi must have told you,” he said amiably.
“Yes,” Giorgio said.
He was curt.
“And Pippi is the best.
We put you with Pippi so you could learn the
right way to do things.
And do you know why he’s the best?
Because he has a good heart.
It’s never for pleasure.”
Dante let himself go.
He had a laughing fit.
He rolled onto the sofa and then onto the
floor.
Giorgio watched him sourly, thinking he was
as crazy as his mother.
Finally Dante got to his feet, took a long
swig from his drink, and said with great good
humor, “Now you’re saying I don’t have
a good heart.”
“That’s right,” Giorgio said.
“You’re my nephew but I know what you
are.
You killed two men in some sort of personal
quarrel without the Family OK.
The Don wouldn’t take action against you,
he wouldn’t even reprimand you.
Then you killed some chorus girl you were
banging for a year.
Out of temper.
You gave her a Communion so she wouldn’t
be found by the police.
And she wasn’t.
You think you’re a clever little prick,
but the Family put the evidence together and
found you guilty though you could never be
convicted in a court of law.”
Dante was quiet now.
Not from fear but from calculation.
“Does the Don know all this crap?”
“Yes,” Giorgio said.
“But you’re still his favorite.
He said to let it pass, that you’re still
young.
That you will learn.
I don’t want to bring this bloody mouth
business to him, he’s too old.
You’re his grandson, your mother is his
daughter.
It would just break his heart.”
Dante laughed again.
“The Don has a heart.
Pippi De Lena has a heart, Cross has a chickenshit
heart, my mother has a broken heart.
But I don’t have a heart?
How about you, Uncle Giorgio, do you have
a heart?”
“Sure,” Giorgio said.
“I still put up with you.”
“So, I’m the only one who doesn’t have
a fucking heart?”
Dante said.
“I love my mother and my grandfather and
they both hate each other.
My grandfather loves me less as I grow older.
You and Vinnie and Petie don’t even like
me though we share family blood.
You think I don’t know these things?
But I still love all of you though you put
me down lower than that fucking Pippi De Lena.
You think I don’t have any fucking brains
either?”
Giorgio was astonished by this outburst.
He was also made wary by its truth.
“You’re wrong about the Don, he cares
about you just as much.
The same with Petie, Vincent, and me.
Have we ever not treated you with the respect
of family?
Sure, the Don is a little remote but the man
is very old.
As for me, I’m just giving you a caution
for your own safety.
You’re in a very dangerous business, you
have to be careful.
You cannot let personal emotions in.
That’s disaster.”
“Do Vinnie and Pete know all this stuff?”
Dante asked.
“No,” Giorgio said.
Which was another lie.
Vincent had also spoken to Giorgio about Dante.
Petie had not, but Petie was a born assassin.
Yet he, too, had shown a distaste for Dante’s
company.
“Any other complaints about how I do my
job?”
Dante asked.
“No,” Giorgio said, “and don’t be
so tough about this.
I’m advising you as your uncle.
But I’m telling you from my place in the
Family.
You do not anymore make anybody do their Communion
or Confirmation without the Family OK.
Got it?”
“OK,” Dante said, “but I’m still the
number one Hammer, right?”
“Until Pippi comes back from his little
vacation,” Giorgio said.
“Depends on your work.”
“I’ll enjoy my work less if that’s what
you want,” Dante said.
“OK?”
He tapped Giorgio on the shoulder affectionately.
“Good,” Giorgio said.
“Tomorrow night take your mother out to
eat.
Keep her company.
Your grandfather will like that.”
“Sure,” Dante said.
“Vincent has one of his restaurants out
by East Hampton,” Giorgio said.
“You could take your mother there.”
Dante said suddenly, “Is she getting worse?”
Giorgio shrugged.
“She can’t forget the past.
She holds on to old stories that she should
forget.
The Don always tells, ‘The world is what
it is and we are what we are,’ his old line.
But she cannot accept it.”
He gave Dante an affectionate hug.
“Now let’s just forget this little talk.
I hate doing this stuff.”
As if he had not been specifically instructed
by the Don.
After Dante left on Monday morning, Giorgio
reported the whole conversation to the Don.
The Don sighed.
“What a lovely little boy he was.
What could have happened?”
Giorgio had one great virtue.
He spoke his mind when he really wanted to,
even to his father, the great Don himself.
“He talked too much to his mother.
And he has bad blood.”
They were both silent for a time after this.
“And when Pippi comes back, what do we do
with your grandson?”
Giorgio asked.
“Despite everything, I think Pippi should
retire,” the Don said.
“Dante must have his chance to be foremost,
after all he is a Clericuzio.
Pippi will be an advisor to his son’s Bruglione
in the West.
If necessary he can always advise Dante.
There is no one better versed in those matters.
As he proved with the Santadio.
But he should end his years in peace.”
Giorgio muttered sarcastically, “The Hammer
Emeritus.”
But the Don pretended not to understand the
joke.
He frowned and said to Giorgio, “Soon you
will have my responsibilities.
Remember always that the task is that the
Clericuzio must one day stand with society,
that the Family must never die.
No matter how hard the choice.”
And so they left.
But it was to be two years before Pippi returned
from Sicily, the killing of Ballazzo receding
into the bureaucratic mist.
A mist manufactured by the Clericuzio.
BOOK V
.
Las Vegas
Hollywood
Quogue
CHAPTER 7
.
CROSS DE LENA received his sister, Claudia,
and Skippy Deere in the executive penthouse
suite of the Xanadu Hotel.
Deere was always impressed by the difference
between the two siblings.
Claudia, not quite pretty and yet so likable,
and Cross, so conventionally handsome with
a slim but athletic body.
Claudia, so naturally amiable, and Cross,
so rigidly affable and distant.
There was a difference between amiable and
affable, Deere thought.
One was in the genes, the other, learned.
Claudia and Skippy Deere sat on the couch,
Cross sat opposite them.
Claudia explained about Boz Skannet and then
leaned forward and said, “Cross, please
listen to me.
This isn’t only business.
Athena is my dearest friend.
And she is truly one of the best people I
have ever known.
She helped me when I needed help.
And this is the most important favor I’ve
ever asked you to do.
Help Athena out of this fix and I’ll never
ask you for anything again.”
Then she turned to Skippy Deere.
“You tell Cross the money part.”
Deere always took the offensive before he
asked a favor.
He said to Cross, “I’ve been coming to
your hotel over ten years, how come you never
give me one of the Villas?”
Cross laughed, “They’ve always been full.”
Deere said, “Throw somebody out.”
“Sure,” Cross said.
“When I get a profit statement from one
of your pictures and when I see you lay down
a ten-grand bet at baccarat.”
Claudia said, “I’m his sister and I never
got one of the Villas.
Stop fucking around, Skippy, and lay out the
money problem.”
When Deere finished, Cross, reading off a
pad on which he had made notes, said, “Let
me get this straight.
You and the Studio lose fifty million in cash,
plus the two hundred million in projected
profit, if this Athena doesn’t go back to
work.
She won’t go back to work because she’s
so afraid of an ex-husband called Boz Skannet.
You can buy him off but she still won’t
go back to work because she doesn’t believe
he can be stopped.
Is that the whole thing?”
“Yeah,” Deere said.
“We promised her she’d be protected better
than the president of the United States while
she’s making this picture.
We have surveillance on this guy Skannet even
now.
We have her guarded twenty-four hours.
She still won’t come back to work.”
“I don’t really see the problem,” Cross
said.
“This guy comes from a powerful political
family in Texas,” Deere said.
“And he’s a really tough guy, I tried
to get our security people to lean on him
. . .”
“Who’s your security agency?”
Cross asked.
“Pacific Ocean Security,” Deere said.
“Why are you talking to me?”
Cross asked.
“Because your sister said you could help,”
Deere said.
“It wasn’t my idea.”
Cross said to his sister, “Claudia, what
made you think I could help?”
Claudia’s face twisted up in discomfort.
“I’ve seen you solve problems in the past,
Cross.
You’re very persuasive, and you always seem
to come up with a solution.”
She smiled her innocent grin.
“Besides you’re my older brother, I have
faith in you.”
Cross sighed and said, “Same old bullshit,”
but Deere noticed the easy affection between
the two.
The three of them sat silently for a while,
then Deere said, “Cross, we came here as
a long shot.
But if you’re looking for another investment,
I have a project coming up that’s very,
very good.”
Cross looked at Claudia, then at Deere, and
said thoughtfully, “Skippy, I want to meet
this Athena and after that maybe I can solve
all your problems.”
“Great,” Claudia said, relieved.
“We can all fly out tomorrow.”
She hugged him.
“OK,” Deere said.
He was already trying to figure out how he
could get Cross to take some of his loss on
the Messalina film.
The next day they flew into Los Angeles.
Claudia had talked Athena into seeing them,
then Deere had taken the phone.
That conversation had convinced him that Athena
would never return to the picture.
He was infuriated by this, but he diverted
himself on the plane by scheming how he would
get Cross to give him one of his fucking Villas
when he visited Vegas again.
The Malibu Colony, where Athena Aquitane lived,
was a section of beach that was located about
forty minutes north of Beverly Hills and Hollywood.
The Colony held a little over a hundred dwellings,
each one of which was worth from three to
six million dollars but looked very ordinary
and ramshackle from the outside.
Each house was enclosed by fencing and sometimes
ornate entry gates.
The Colony itself could only be entered through
a private road guarded by security men in
a large hut who controlled the swinging barriers.
The security personnel screened all visitors
by phone or checklist.
Residents had special car stickers that were
changed every week.
Cross recognized this as a “nuisance”
security barrier, not a serious one.
But the Pacific Ocean Security men around
Athena’s house were another matter.
They were uniformed, armed, and looked to
be in very tough physical condition.
They entered Athena’s house from the sidewalk
parallel to the beach.
It had its own additional security controlled
by Athena’s secretary, who buzzed them in
from a small guest house nearby.
There were two more men with Pacific Ocean
uniforms, and another at the door of the house.
Passing the guest house, they walked through
a long garden filled with flowers and lemon
trees, which scented the salty air.
They finally arrived at the main house which
looked out over the Pacific Ocean itself.
A tiny South American maid let them in and
led them through a huge kitchen into a living
room that seemed to be filled with the ocean
filtered through the huge windows.
A room with bamboo furniture, glass tables,
and deep-sea-green sofas.
The maid led them through this room to a glass
door that opened onto a terrace overlooking
the ocean, a wide, long terrace that had chairs
and tables and an exercise bike that glittered
like silver.
Beyond all of this was the ocean itself, blue-green,
slanting to the sky.
Cross De Lena, when he saw Athena on that
terrace, felt a shock of fear.
She was far more exquisite than on film, which
was very rare.
Film could not capture her coloring, the depth
of her eyes or their shade of green.
Her body moved as a great athlete’s moved,
with a physical grace that seemed effortless.
Her hair, cut into a rough, golden crop that
would have been ugly on any other woman, crowned
her beauty.
She was wearing a powder-blue sweat suit that
should have concealed the shape of her body
but did not.
Her legs were long in proportion to her torso,
her feet were bare, there was no polish on
her toenails.
But it was the look of intelligence on her
face, the focusing of attention, that impressed
him most.
She greeted Skippy Deere with the customary
kiss on the cheek, embraced Claudia with a
warm hug, and shook hands with Cross.
Her eyes reflected the ocean waters behind
her.
“Claudia always talks about you,” she
said to Cross.
“Her handsome, mysterious brother who can
make the earth stop when he wants to.”
She laughed, a completely natural laugh, not
the laugh of a woman frightened.
Cross felt a wonderful delight, there was
no other word.
Her voice was throaty, pitched low, a bewitching
musical instrument.
The ocean framed her, the fine-planed cheekbones,
the lips unadorned, generous and the color
of red wine, the radiating intelligence.
Flashing through Cross’s mind was one of
Gronevelt’s short lectures.
Money can make you safe in this world, from
everything except a beautiful woman.
Cross had known many beautiful women in Vegas,
as many as in Los Angeles and Hollywood.
But in Vegas the beauty was beauty as of itself
with only a slight degree of talent; many
of those beauties had failed in Hollywood.
In Hollywood, beauty was married to talent
and, less often, artistic greatness.
Both cities attracted beauty from all over
the world.
Then there were the actresses who became Bankable
Stars.
These were the women who in addition to their
charm and beauty had a certain childlike innocence
and courage.
A curiosity in their craft that could be raised
to an art form, which gave them a certain
dignity.
Though beauty was commonplace in both cities,
in Hollywood Goddesses arose and received
the adoration of the world.
Athena Aquitane was one of those rare Goddesses.
Cross said coolly to Athena, “Claudia told
me you are the most beautiful woman in the
world.”
Athena said, “What did she say about my
brain?”
She leaned over the balcony of the deck and
stuck one leg in back of her in some sort
of exercise.
What would be an affectation in another woman
seemed perfectly natural with her.
And indeed throughout the meeting she continued
doing exercises, bending her body forward
and backward, stretching a leg over the railing,
her arms pantomiming some of her words.
Claudia said, “Thena, you’d never think
we were related, right?”
Skippy Deere said, “Never.”
But Athena looked at them and said, “You
both look very much alike,” and Cross could
see she was serious.
Claudia said, “Now you know why I love her.”
Athena stopped her motions for a moment and
said to Cross, “They tell me you can help.
I don’t see how.”
Cross tried not to stare at her, tried not
to look at the flaming-sun gold of her hair
set against the green behind her.
He said, “I’m good at persuading people.
If it’s true that the only thing keeping
you from going back to work is your husband,
maybe I can talk him into a deal.”
“I don’t believe in Boz keeping his deals,”
Athena said.
“The Studio has already talked a deal.”
Deere said in what was for him a subdued voice,
“Athena you really have nothing to worry
about.
I promise you.”
But for some reason he was unconvincing even
to himself.
He watched them all carefully.
He knew how Athena overwhelmed men, actresses
were the most charming people in the world
when they wanted to be.
But Deere detected no change in Cross.
“Skippy just won’t accept that I can leave
movies,” Athena said.
“It’s so important to him.”
“And not to you?”
Deere said angrily.
Athena gave a long, cool look.
“It was once.
But I know Boz.
I have to disappear, I have to start a new
life.”
She gave them a mischievous smile.
“I can get along anywhere.”
“I can make an agreement with your husband,”
Cross said.
“And I can guarantee that he’ll abide
by it.”
Deere said confidently, “Athena, in the
movie business, there are hundreds of cases
like this, harassment of stars by crazies.
We have foolproof procedures.
There really is no danger.”
Athena continued her exercises.
One leg flew improbably above her head.
“You don’t know Boz,” she said.
“I do.”
“Is Boz the only reason you won’t go back
to work?”
Cross asked.
“Yes,” Athena said.
“He’ll track me forever.
You can protect me until I finish the picture
but then what?”
Cross said.
“I’ve never failed to make a deal.
I’ll give him whatever he wants.”
Athena stopped her exercises.
For the first time, she looked Cross directly
in the eye.
“I’ll never believe in any deal Boz makes,”
she said.
She turned away in dismissal.
Cross said, “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
“I didn’t waste my time,” Athena said
cheerfully.
“I did my exercises.”
Then she looked directly into his eyes.
“I do appreciate your trying.
It’s just that I’m trying to look fearless
like in one of my movies.
Really, I’m scared to death.”
Then she quickly regained her composure and
said, “Claudia and Skippy are always talking
about your famous Villas.
If I come to Vegas, would you give me one
to hide out in?”
Her face was grave, but her eyes were dancing.
She was showing off her power to Claudia and
Skippy.
She obviously expected Cross to say yes, if
merely out of gallantry.
Cross smiled at her.
“The Villas are usually taken,” he said.
He paused for a moment then said, with an
utmost seriousness that startled the others,
“But if you come to Vegas, I can guarantee
no one will harm you.”
Athena spoke to him directly.
“Nobody can stop Boz.
He doesn’t care if he gets caught.
Whatever he does he’ll do in public so everybody
can see.”
Claudia spoke out impatiently, “But why?”
Athena said laughingly, “Because he loved
me once.
And because my life turned out better than
his.”
She looked at them all a moment.
“Isn’t it a shame,” she said, “that
two people in love can grow to hate each other?”
At this moment the meeting was interrupted
by the South American maid, who was leading
a man onto the terrace.
The man was tall, handsome, and formally dressed
with a touch-all-bases style: an Armani suit,
Turnbull & Asser shirt, Gucci tie, and Bally
shoes.
He immediately murmured his apologies.
“She didn’t tell me you were busy, Miss
Aquitane,” he said.
“I guess she got scared by my shield.”
He showed her the badge.
“I just came to get some information on
that incident the other night.
I can wait.
Or come back.”
His words were polite but his look was bold.
He glanced at the other two men and said,
“Hello, Skippy.”
Skippy Deere looked angry.
“You can’t talk to her without a PR and
legal person around,” he said.
“You know better than that, Jim.”
The detective offered his hand to Claudia
and Cross and said, “Jim Losey.”
They knew who he was.
The most famous detective in Los Angeles,
whose exploits had even been the basis of
a mini-series.
He also had appeared in very minor roles in
films, and he was on Deere’s Christmas gift
and card lists.
So Deere was emboldened to say, “Jim, give
me a call later and I’ll arrange a meeting
with Miss Aquitane properly.”
Losey smiled at him amiably and said, “Sure,
Skippy.”
But Athena said, “I may not be here much
longer.
Why not ask me now?
I don’t mind.”
Losey would have been suave except for that
constant wariness in his eyes, an alertness
of his body that many years of crime work
had planted in him.
He said, “In front of them?”
Athena’s body was no longer in motion, and
she had erased all her charm when she said
quietly, “I trust them far more than I do
the police.”
Losey took that in stride.
It was familiar.
“I just wanted to ask you why you dropped
the charges against your husband.
Did he threaten you in any way?”
“Oh, no,” Athena said scornfully.
“He just threw water in my face in front
of a billion people and yelled ‘acid.’
The next day he was out on bail.”
“OK, OK,” Losey said, and held up his
arms in a placating gesture.
“I just thought I could help.”
Deere said, “Jim, give me a call later.”
This raised an alarm bell in Cross.
He looked thoughtfully at Deere, avoided looking
at Losey.
And Losey avoided looking at him.
Losey said, “I will.”
He saw Athena’s handbag on one of the chairs
and picked it up.
“I saw this on Rodeo Drive,” he said.
“Two thousand dollars.”
He looked directly at Athena and said with
a contemptuous politeness, “Maybe you can
explain it to me, why anyone would pay that
kind of money for something like this?”
Athena’s face was like stone, she moved
out of the frame of the ocean.
She said, “That’s an insulting question.
Get out of here.”
Losey bowed to her and left.
He was grinning.
He had made the impression he wanted.
“So you’re human after all,” Claudia
said.
She put her arm around Athena’s shoulders.
“Why did you get so mad?”
“I wasn’t mad,” Athena said.
“I was sending him a message.”
After the three visitors left, they drove
from Malibu to Nate and Al’s in Beverly
Hills.
Deere insisted to Cross that it was the only
place west of the Rockies where you could
get edible pastrami, corned beef, and Coney
Island–style hot dogs.
As they ate Deere said reflectively, “Athena
won’t get back to work.”
“I always knew that,” Claudia said.
“What I don’t get is why she got so mad
at that detective.”
Deere laughed and said to Cross, “Did you
get it?”
“No,” Cross said.
Deere said, “One of the great legends of
Hollywood is how anybody can get to fuck the
stars.
Now, male stars it’s true, that’s why
you see the girls hanging around locations
and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
Female stars, not so much . . . a guy works
on their house, a carpenter, a gardener, can
get lucky, maybe she gets horny, it happened
to me.
Stunt men score good and other guys on the
crew can get lucky.
But that’s fucking below the line and hurts
female stars in their careers.
Unless, of course, they are Superstars.
Us old guys who run the show don’t like
that.
Hell, doesn’t money and power mean anything?”
He grinned at them.
“Now, you take Jim Losey.
He’s a big, handsome guy.
He really kills tough guys, he’s glamorous
to people who live in a make-believe world.
He knows that.
He uses it.
So he doesn’t beg a star, he intimidates
her.
That’s why he made that crack.
In fact that’s why he came out.
It was his excuse to meet Athena and he figured
he could take a shot.
That insulting question was a declaration
he wanted to fuck her.
And Athena froze him out.”
“So she’s the Virgin Mary?”
Cross said.
“For a movie star,” Deere said.
Cross said abruptly, “You think she’s
scamming the Studio, trying to get more money?”
“She would never do anything like that,”
Claudia said.
“She’s absolutely straight.”
“She got any grudges she’s paying off?”
Cross asked.
“You don’t understand the business,”
Deere said.
“First thing, the Studio would let her scam
them.
Stars always do that.
Second, if she has a grudge, it’s right
out in the open.
She’s just weird.”
He paused for a moment.
“She hates Bobby Bantz and she’s not crazy
about me.
We’ve both been after her ass for years
but never a tumble.”
“Too bad you couldn’t help,” Claudia
said to Cross.
But he didn’t answer her.
All during the trip from Malibu, Cross had
been thinking hard.
That this was the opportunity he was looking
for.
It would be dangerous, but if it worked he
could finally make a break from the Clericuzio.
“Skippy,” Cross said, “I have a proposition
I want to make to you and the Studio.
I’ll buy your picture right now.
I’ll give the fifty million you’ve invested,
put up the money to complete it, and let the
Studio distribute it.”
“You’ve got a hundred million?”
Skippy Deere and Claudia both asked in astonishment.
“I know people who have it,” Cross said.
“You can’t get Athena back.
And without Athena, there’s no picture,”
Deere said.
“I said I’m a great persuader,” Cross
said.
“Can you get me a meeting with Eli Marrion?”
“Sure,” Deere said, “but only if I stay
on as producer of the picture.”
The meeting was not so easy to arrange.
LoddStone Studios, that is to say, Eli Marrion
and Bobby Bantz, had to be convinced that
Cross De Lena was not just another big-mouth
hustler, that he had the money and the credentials.
Certainly he owned part of the Xanadu Hotel
in Vegas, but he had no personal recorded
financial worth that indicated he could swing
the deal he proposed.
Deere would vouch for him, but the clincher
was when Cross showed a fifty-million-dollar
letter of credit.
On the advice of his sister, Cross De Lena
hired Molly Flanders as his lawyer for the
deal.
Molly Flanders received Cross in her cave
of an office.
Cross was very alert, he knew certain things
about her.
In the world he had lived all his life, he
had never met a woman who wielded power in
any way, and Claudia had told him that Molly
Flanders was one of the most powerful people
in Hollywood.
Studio chiefs took her calls, monster agents
like Melo Stuart sought her help on the biggest
deals.
Stars like Athena Aquitane used her in their
quarrels with studios.
Flanders had once stopped production of the
top miniseries on TV when her star client’s
check had been delayed in the mail.
She was much better looking than Cross had
expected.
She was large but well-proportioned and dressed
beautifully.
But on that body was the face of an elfin
blond witch, the aquiline nose, the generous
mouth and fierce brown eyes that seemed to
squint with intense, intelligent combativeness.
Her hair was braided into snakes around her
head.
She was forbidding until she smiled.
Molly Flanders, for all her toughness, was
susceptible to handsome men and liked Cross
as soon as she saw him.
She was surprised because she had expected
Claudia’s brother to be homely.
More than the handsomeness, she saw a force
that Claudia did not have.
He had a look of awareness that the world
held no surprises.
All this, however, did not convince her that
she wanted to take Cross on as a client.
She had heard rumors about certain connections,
she didn’t like the world of Vegas, and
she was dubious as to the extent of his determination
to take such a horrendous gamble.
“Mr. De Lena,” she said, “let me make
one thing clear.
I represent Athena Aquitane as a lawyer not
an agent.
I’ve explained the consequences she must
bear if she persists in her course of action.
I’m convinced she will persist in it.
Now, if you make your deal with the Studio
and Athena still doesn’t go back to work,
I will represent her if you pursue legal action
against her.”
Cross looked at her intently.
He had no way he could read a woman like this.
He had to put most of his cards on the table.
“I’ll sign a waiver that I won’t sue
Miss Aquitane if I do buy the picture,”
he said.
“And I have a check for two hundred thousand
dollars here if you take me on.
That’s just for openers.
You can bill me for more.”
“Let’s see if I understand this,” Molly
said.
“You pay the Studio the fifty million they
invested.
Right now.
You put up the money to complete the picture,
minimum another fifty million.
So you’re going to gamble a hundred million
that Athena goes back to work.
Plus you’re gambling that the picture will
be a hit.
It could be a flop.
That’s an awful risk.”
Cross could be charming when he wanted to
be.
But he sensed that charm would not help with
this woman.
“I understand that with the foreign money,
video, and TV sales, the picture can’t lose
money even if it’s a flop,” he said.
“The only real problem is getting Miss Aquitane
back to work.
And maybe you can help on that.”
“No, I can’t,” Molly said.
“I don’t want to mislead you.
I’ve tried and failed.
Everybody tried and failed.
And Eli Marrion doesn’t ever bullshit.
He’ll close down the picture and take the
loss, then he’ll try to ruin Athena.
But I won’t let him.”
Cross was intrigued.
“How will you do that?”
“Marrion has to get along with me,” she
said.
“He’s a smart man.
I’ll fight him in the courts, I’ll make
his Studio miserable on every deal.
Athena won’t be able to work again but I
won’t let them take her to the cleaners.”
“If you represent me, you can save your
client’s career,” Cross said.
From the inside of his jacket he took an envelope
and handed it to her.
She opened it, studied it, then picked up
the phone and made some calls that established
the check was good.
She smiled at Cross and said, “I’m not
insulting you, I do this with the biggest
movie producers in town.”
“Like Skippy Deere?”
Cross said, laughing.
“I invested in six of his pictures, four
of them were hits and still I haven’t made
money.”
“Because you didn’t have me representing
you,” Molly said.
“Now before I agree, you have to tell me
how you can get Athena back to work.”
She paused.
“I’ve heard some rumors about you.”
Cross said, “And I’ve heard about you.
I remember years ago when you were a criminal
defense lawyer, you got some kid off a murder
rap.
He killed his girlfriend and you got an insanity
plea.
He was walking the streets less than a year
later.”
He paused for a moment, deliberately letting
his irritation show.
“You didn’t worry about his reputation.”
Molly looked at him coldly.
“You have not answered my question.”
Cross decided that a lie should carry a little
charm.
“Molly,” he said.
“May I call you Molly?”
She nodded her head.
Cross went on.
“You know I run a hotel in Vegas.
I’ve learned this.
Money is magic, you can overcome any kind
of fear with money, so I’m going to offer
Athena fifty percent of any money I make from
the movie.
If you structure the deal right and we’re
lucky, that means thirty million for her.”
He paused for a minute and said earnestly,
“Come on, Molly, would you take a chance
for thirty million?”
Molly shook her head.
“Athena doesn’t really care about money.”
“The only thing that puzzles me is why the
Studio doesn’t give her the same deal,”
Cross said.
For the first time in their meeting, Molly
smiled at him.
“You don’t know movie studios,” she
said.
“They worry that all the stars will pull
the same stunt if they set such a precedent.
But let’s go on.
The Studio will take your deal, I think, because
they will make a great deal of money just
distributing the film.
They will insist on that.
Also, they will want a percentage of the profits.
But I’m telling you again, Athena will not
take your offer.”
She paused, then said with a teasing smile,
“I thought you Vegas owners never gambled.”
Cross smiled back at her.
“Everybody gambles.
I do when the percentages are right.
And besides I plan to sell the Hotel and make
a living in the movie business.”
He paused for a minute, letting her look into
him to see the desire to be part of that world.
“I think it’s more interesting.”
“I see,” Molly said.
“So this is not just a passing fancy.”
“A foot in the door,” Cross said.
“Once I do that, I’ll need your help further
on.”
Molly was amused by this.
“I’ll represent you,” she said.
“But as for us doing business further on,
let’s see first if you lose that hundred
million.”
She picked up the phone.
She spoke into it.
Then she hung up and said to Cross, “We
have our meeting with their Business Affairs
people to set out the rules before then.
And you have three days to reconsider.”
Cross was impressed.
“That was fast,” he said.
“Them, not me,” Molly said.
“It’s costing them a fortune to tread
water on this picture.”
“I don’t have to say this, I know,”
Cross said.
“But the offer I plan to make Miss Aquitane
is confidential, between you and me.”
“No, you didn’t have to say it,” Molly
said.
They shook hands, and after Cross left, Molly
remembered something.
Why had Cross De Lena mentioned that long-ago
case when she had gotten that kid off, that
famous victory of hers.
Why that particular case?
She had gotten plenty of murderers off.
Three days later Cross De Lena and Molly Flanders
met in her office before going to LoddStone
Studios so that she could check over the financial
papers that Cross was bringing to the meeting.
Then Molly drove both of them to the Studio
in her Mercedes SL 300.
When they had been cleared through the gate,
Molly said to Cross, “Check the lot.
I’ll give you a dollar for any American
car you see.”
They passed a sea of sleek cars of all colors,
Mercedeses, Aston Martins, BMWs, Rolls-Royces.
Cross saw one Cadillac and pointed it out.
Molly said cheerily, “Some poor slob of
a writer from New York.”
LoddStone Studios was a huge area on which
were scattered small buildings housing independent
production companies.
The main building was only ten floors and
looked like a movie set piece.
The Studio had kept the flavor of the 1920s
when it had started up, with only the necessary
repairs being done.
Cross was reminded of the Enclave in the Bronx.
The offices in the Studio Administration Building
were small and crowded except for the tenth
floor, where Eli Marrion and Bobby Bantz had
their executive suites.
Between the two suites was a huge conference
room with a bar and bartender far off to one
side and a small kitchen adjoining the bar.
The seats around the conference table were
plush armchairs of dark red.
Framed posters of LoddStone movies hung on
the wall.
Waiting for them were Eli Marrion, Bobby Bantz,
Skippy Deere, the chief counsel of the Studio,
and two other lawyers.
Molly handed the chief counsel the financial
papers, and the three opposing lawyers sat
down to read them through.
The bartender brought them drinks of their
choice, then disappeared.
Skippy Deere made the introductions.
Eli Marrion, as always, insisted that Cross
call him by his first name.
Then told them one of his favorite stories,
which he often used to disarm opponents in
a negotiation.
His grandfather, Eli Marrion said, had started
the company in the early 1920s.
He had wanted to call the firm Lode Stone
Studios, but he still had a severe German
accent that confused the lawyers.
It was only a ten-thousand-dollar company
then and when the mistake was discovered,
it didn’t seem worth the trouble to change
it.
And here now it was a seven-billion-dollar
company with a name that didn’t make sense.
But, as Marrion pointed out—he never told
a joke that didn’t make a serious point—the
printed word was not important.
It was the visual image with the lodestone
attracting light from every corner of the
universe that made the company logo so powerful.
Then Molly presented the offer.
Cross would pay the Studio the fifty million
it had spent, would give the Studio distribution
rights, keep Skippy Deere as producer.
Cross would put up the money to finish the
picture.
LoddStone Studios would also get 5 percent
of the profits.
They all listened intently.
Bobby Bantz said, “The percentage is ridiculous,
we would have to have more.
And how do we know that you people and Athena
are not in a conspiracy?
That this isn’t a stickup?”
Cross was astonished by Molly’s reply.
For some reason he had assumed that negotiations
would be much more civil than he had been
used to in his Vegas world.
But Molly was almost screaming, her witchlike
face blazing with fury.
“Fuck you, Bobby,” she said to Bantz.
“You have the fucking balls to accuse us
of a conspiracy.
Your insurance doesn’t cover you on this,
you take this meeting to get off the hook
and then insult us.
If you don’t apologize, I’ll take Mr.
De Lena right out of here and you can eat
shit.”
Skippy Deere broke in, “Molly, Bobby, come
on.
We’re trying to save a picture here.
Let’s talk this through at least.
. . .”
Marrion had observed all this with a quiet
smile but did not say anything.
He would speak only to give a yes or no.
“I think it’s a reasonable question,”
Bobby Bantz said.
“What can this guy offer Athena to make
her come back that we can’t?”
Cross sat there smiling.
Molly had told him to let her answer whenever
possible.
She said, “Mr. De Lena obviously has something
special to offer.
Why should he tell you?
If you offer him ten million to give you that
information I’ll confer with him.
Ten million would be cheap.”
Even Bobby Bantz laughed at this.
Skippy Deere said, “They think Cross wouldn’t
be risking all that money unless he had a
sure thing.
That makes them a little suspicious.”
“Skippy,” Molly said, “I’ve seen you
lay out a million for a novel that you never
made into a picture.
How is this different?”
Bobby Bantz broke in.
“Because Skippy gets our studio to put up
the million.”
They all laughed.
Cross wondered about this meeting.
He was losing patience.
Also, he knew he must not look too eager,
so it wouldn’t hurt if he showed his irritation.
He said in a low voice, “I’m going on
a hunch.
If it’s too complicated, we can just forget
the whole thing.”
Bantz said angrily, “We are talking about
a lot of money here.
This picture could gross a half billion worldwide.”
“If you could get Athena back,” Molly
shot in quickly.
“I can tell you I talked with her this morning.
She already cut off all her hair to show she’s
serious.”
“We can wig her.
Fucking actresses,” Bantz said.
Now he was glowering at Cross, trying to read
him.
He was pondering something.
He said, “If Athena does not come back and
you lose your fifty million and can’t go
on to finish the picture, who gets the footage
already done?”
“I do,” Cross said.
“Aha,” Bantz said.
“Then you just release it the way it is.
Maybe as soft porn.”
“That’s a possibility,” Cross said.
Molly shook her head at Cross, warning him
to keep quiet.
“If you agree to this deal,” she said
to Bantz, “everything can be negotiated
on foreign, video, TV, and profit participation.
There’s only one deal-breaker.
The agreement must be secret.
Mr. De Lena only wants credit as a coproducer.”
“That’s OK with me,” Skippy Deere said.
“But my money deal with the Studio still
stands.”
For the first time Marrion spoke.
“That’s separate,” he said, meaning
no.
“Cross, do you give your lawyer full discretion
on negotiations?”
“Yes,” Cross said.
“I want to go on record on this,” Marrion
said.
“You must know we planned to scrap the picture
and take the loss.
We are convinced Athena will not come back.
We do not represent to you that she may come
back.
If you make this deal and pay us fifty million,
we are not liable.
You would have to sue Athena and she doesn’t
have that kind of money.”
“I would never sue her,” Cross said.
“I’d forgive and forget.”
Bantz said, “You don’t have to answer
to your money people?”
Cross shrugged.
Marrion said, “That is a corruption.
You can’t let your personal attitude betray
the money people who trust you.
Just because they’re rich.”
Cross said, straight-faced, “I never think
it’s a good idea to get on the wrong side
of rich people.”
Bantz said in exasperation, “This is some
kind of trick.”
Masking his face with benign confidence, Cross
said, “I’ve spent my whole life convincing
people.
In my Vegas hotel I have to convince very
smart men to gamble their money against the
odds.
And I do that by making them happy.
That means I give them what they really want.
I’ll do that with Miss Aquitane.”
Bantz disliked the whole idea.
He was sure his studio was being screwed.
He said bluntly, “If we find out Athena
has already agreed to work with you, we will
sue.
We will not honor this agreement.”
“I want to be in the movie business for
the long haul,” Cross said.
“I want to work with LoddStone Studios.
There’s money enough for everyone.”
Eli Marrion had been studying Cross all during
the meeting, trying to come to an assessment.
The man was very low key, not a bluffer or
a bullshit artist.
Pacific Ocean Security could not establish
any real link with Athena, there was no likely
conspiracy.
A decision had to be made, but it was not
really as difficult a decision as the people
in this room were pretending.
Marrion was so weary now he could feel the
weight of his clothing on his skeletal frame.
He wanted this to be over.
Skippy Deere said, “Maybe Athena is just
nuts, maybe she’s gone over the edge.
Then we can bail out with the insurance.”
Molly Flanders said, “She’s saner than
anyone in this room.
I can have all of you certified before you
get her.”
Bobby Bantz looked Cross directly in the face.
“Will you sign papers that you have no agreement
with Athena Aquitane at this point in time?”
“Yes,” Cross said.
He let his dislike for Bantz show.
Marrion, observing this, felt satisfaction.
At least this part of the meeting was going
according to plan.
Bantz was now established as the bad guy.
It was amazing how people almost instinctively
disliked him, and it really wasn’t his fault.
It was the role chosen for him to play, though
admittedly it suited his personality.
“We want twenty percent of the profits of
the picture,” Bantz said.
“We distribute it domestic and foreign.
And we will be partners in any sequel.”
Skippy Deere said in exasperation, “Bobby,
they are all dead at the end of the picture,
there can be no sequel.”
“OK,” Bantz said, “rights in any prequel.”
“Prequel, sequel, bullshit,” Molly said.
“You can have them.
But you get no more than ten percent of the
profits.
You’ll make a fortune on distribution.
And you have no risk.
Take it or leave it.”
Eli Marrion could endure no more.
He rose, standing very straight, and spoke
in a measured, serene voice.
“Twelve percent,” he said, “We have
a deal.”
He paused and then looking directly at Cross,
he said, “It’s not so much the money.
But this could be a great picture and I don’t
want to scrap it.
Also, I’m very curious to see what will
happen.”
He turned to Molly.
“Now, yes or no?”
Molly Flanders, without even looking at Cross
for a sign, said, “Yes.”
Later, Eli Marrion and Bobby Bantz sat alone
in the conference room.
They were both silent.
They had learned over the years that there
were things that must not be said aloud.
Finally Marrion said, “There’s a moral
question here.”
Bantz said, “We’ve signed to keep the
agreement secret, Eli, but if you feel we
must, I could make a call.”
Marrion sighed.
“Then we lose the film.
This man Cross is our only hope.
Plus if he found out the leak came from you
there might be some danger.”
“Whatever he is, he doesn’t dare touch
LoddStone,” Bantz said.
“What I worry about is letting him get a
foot in the door.”
Marrion sipped his drink, puffed his cigar.
The thin, woody-smelling smoke made his body
tingle.
Eli Marrion was really tired now.
He was getting too old to worry about long-term
future disasters.
The great universal disaster was closer.
“Don’t make the call,” he said.
“We have to keep the agreement.
And besides, maybe I’m getting into my second
childhood, but I’d love to see what the
magician pulls out of his hat.”
Skippy Deere, after the meeting, went back
to his house and made a call summoning Jim
Losey to meet with him.
At their meeting he swore Losey to secrecy
and told him what had happened.
“I think you should put a surveillance on
Cross,” he said.
“You might find out something interesting.”
But he said this only after he had agreed
to sign Jim Losey to play a small part in
a new movie he was making about serial murders
in Santa Monica.
As for Cross De Lena, he returned to Las Vegas
and in his penthouse suite pondered the new
course of his life.
Why had he taken the risk?
Most important, the winnings could be huge:
not only the money but a new way of life.
But what he questioned was an underlying motive,
the vision of Athena Aquitane framed by the
sea-green water, her constantly moving body,
the notion that one day she might come to
know him and love him, not forever, but just
for a moment of time.
What had Gronevelt said?
“Women are never more dangerous to men than
when they have to be saved.
Beware, beware,” Gronevelt said, “of Beauty
in Distress.”
But he dismissed all this from his mind.
Looking down on the Vegas Strip, the wall
of colored light, the throngs moving through
that light, ants carrying bales of money to
bury in some great nest, he analyzed the whole
problem for the first time in a coldly neutral
way.
If Athena Aquitane was such an angel, why
then was she demanding, in effect if not in
words, that the price for her returning to
the picture was that someone kill her husband?
Surely that had to be clear to anyone.
The Studio’s offer to protect her while
she completed the picture was worth less because
she would be working toward her own death.
After the picture was done and she was alone,
Skannet would come after her.
Eli Marrion, Bobby Bantz, Skippy Deere, they
knew the problem and knew the answer.
But no one would dare speak it aloud.
For people like them, the risk was too great.
They had risen so high, lived so well, that
they had too much to lose.
For them the gain did not equal the risk.
They could accommodate the loss of the picture,
for them it was only a minor defeat.
They could not afford the great tumble from
the highest level of society to the lowest.
That risk was mortal.
Also, to give them their due, they had made
an intelligent decision.
They were not expert in this field of endeavor;
they could make mistakes.
Better to treat the fifty million dollars
like a loss of points in their stock on Wall
Street.
So now there were two main problems.
The execution of Boz Skannet in a manner that
would not injure the picture or Athena in
any way.
Problem number two, and far more important,
was winning the approval of his father, Pippi
De Lena, and the Clericuzio Family.
For Cross knew the whole arrangement would
not remain secret to them very long.
CHAPTER 8
.
CROSS DE LENA pleaded for Big Tim’s life
for many different reasons.
One, he contributed between five hundred grand
and one million to the Xanadu cage every year.
Second, he had a sneaking affection for the
man, for his lust for life, his outrageous
buffooneries.
Tim Snedden, known as the Rustler, was the
owner of a string of shopping malls that stretched
over the northern part of the state of California.
He was also a Las Vegas high roller who usually
stayed at the Xanadu.
He was particularly fond of and extraordinarily
lucky at sports betting.
The Rustler made big bets, fifty grand on
football and sometimes ten grand on basketball.
Thinking he was being clever, he lost small
bets but almost invariably won his big bets.
Cross was on to that immediately.
The Rustler was very big, nearly six and a
half feet and over three hundred fifty pounds.
His appetite matched his physique, he ate
everything in sight.
He boasted he had had a partial stomach bypass
so that food passed directly through his system
and he never gained weight.
He was gleeful about this as an ultimate scam
on nature itself.
For the Rustler was a natural-born scam artist,
which was how he earned his nickname.
At the Xanadu he fed his friends free under
his comp, he absolutely destroyed room service.
He tried to pay his call girls and the purchases
at the gift shop under his comp.
And then when he lost and had a cage full
of markers, he stalled payment until his next
visit to the Xanadu, instead of paying them
within a month as a gentleman gambler would
do.
Though he was very lucky with his sports gambling,
the Rustler was less fortunate with casino
games.
He was skillful, he knew the odds and bet
correctly, but his natural exuberance carried
him away, and his winnings on sports would
be wiped out and more.
So it wasn’t because of the money but because
of long-range strategic reasons that the Clericuzio
took an interest.
Since the Family’s ultimate goal was the
legalization of sports gambling all over the
United States, any gambling scandal involving
sports would hurt that aim.
So an inquiry into the life of Big Tim Snedden
the Rustler was launched.
The results were so alarming that Pippi and
Cross were summoned East to the mansion in
Quogue for a conference.
It was Pippi’s first operation after his
return from Sicily.
Pippi and Cross took the flight back East
together.
Cross worried that the Clericuzio had already
found out about his movie deal on Messalina
and that his father would be angry he had
not been consulted.
For Pippi, at fifty-seven, though retired,
still was consigliere to his son the Bruglione.
So on the plane Cross told his father about
the movie and reassured him that he still
valued his counsel but had not wanted to put
him in a bad light with the Clericuzio.
He also voiced his anxiety about being summoned
back East because the Don had learned about
his Hollywood plans.
Pippi listened without saying a word, then
sighed with disgust.
“You’re still too young,” he said.
“It won’t be about the movie deal.
The Don would never show his hand this quick.
He’d wait to see what happened.
It looks like Giorgio runs things, that’s
what Vincent and Petie and Dante think.
But they’re wrong.
The old man is smarter than all of us.
And don’t worry about him, he’s always
fair in these things.
It’s Giorgio and Dante you have to worry
about.”
He paused for a moment as if reluctant to
talk about the Family even with Cross.
“You notice that Giorgio and Vincent and
Petie’s kids know nothing about Family business?
The Don and Giorgio have all planned that
the children will be strictly legit.
The Don planned that for Dante too, but Dante
was too smart, figured everything out, and
he wanted in.
The Don couldn’t stop him.
Think of all of us—Giorgio, Vincent, and
Petie, you and me and Dante—as the rear
guard, fighting so that the Cleri-cuzio clan
can escape to safety.
That’s the Don’s planning.
It’s his strength, what makes him great.
So he may even be glad you’re making your
escape, it’s what he hoped Dante would do.
That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” Cross said.
Not even to his father would he confess his
terrible weakness.
That he was doing it for the love of a woman.
“Always play it long, like Gronevelt,”
Pippi said.
“When the time comes, tell the Don directly
and make sure the Family wets its beak on
the deal.
But watch out for Giorgio and Dante.
Vincent and Petie won’t give a shit.”
“Why Giorgio and Dante?”
Cross asked.
“Because Giorgio is a greedy prick,” Pippi
said.
“And Dante, because he’s always jealous
of you and because you’re my son.
Besides, he’s a fucking lunatic.”
Cross was surprised.
It was the first time he had heard his father
criticize any of the Clericuzio.
“And why won’t Vincent and Petie care?”
he asked.
“Because Vincent has his restaurants and
Petie has his construction business and the
Bronx Enclave.
Vincent wants to enjoy his old age and Petie
likes the action.
And both of them like you and respect me.
We did jobs together when we were young.”
Cross said, “Pop, you’re not mad I didn’t
clear it with you?”
Pippi gave him a sardonic look.
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said.
“You knew I would disapprove and the Don
would disapprove.
Now when are you going to kill this Skannet
guy?”
“I don’t know yet,” Cross said.
“It’s very tricky, has to be a Confirmation
so that Athena will know she doesn’t have
to worry about him anymore.
Then she can come back to the picture.”
“Let me plan it for you,” Pippi said.
“And what if this broad, Athena, doesn’t
come back to work?
Then you lose fifty mil.”
“She’ll come back to work,” Cross said.
“She and Claudia are close friends and Claudia
says she will.”
“My darling daughter,” Pippi said.
“She still doesn’t want to see me?”
“I don’t think so,” Cross said.
“But you can always drop around when she’s
staying at the Hotel.”
“No,” Pippi said.
“If this Athena doesn’t come to work after
you do the job, I’ll plan her Communion
for her, no matter how big a movie star she
is.”
“No, no,” Cross said.
“You should see Claudia.
She’s much prettier now.”
“That’s good,” Pippi said.
“She had such an ugly mug when she was a
kid.
Like me.”
“Why don’t you make up with her?”
Cross asked.
“She wouldn’t let me go to my ex-wife’s
funeral, and she doesn’t like me.
So what’s the point?
In fact, when I die I want you to bar her
from my funeral.
Fuck her.”
He paused for a moment.
“She was a ballsy little kid.”
“You should see her now,” Cross said.
“Remember,” Pippi said.
“Don’t volunteer anything to the Don.
This meeting is about something else.”
“How can you be sure?”
Cross asked.
“Because he would have met with me first
to see if I would give you away,” Pippi
said.
As it turned out, Pippi was right.
At the mansion, Giorgio, Don Domenico, Vincent,
Petie, and Dante waited to greet them in the
garden by the fig trees.
As was the custom they all had lunch together
before they got down to business.
Giorgio laid it out.
An investigation had shown that Rustler Snedden
was fixing certain college games in the Midwest.
That he possibly shaved points in the pro
football and pro basketball games.
He did this by bribing the officials and certain
players, a very tricky and dangerous business.
If this came out, it would cause a tremendous
scandal and uproar that would give a near
fatal blow to the Clericuzio Family’s effort
to have sports gambling legalized in the United
States.
And it would eventually be found out.
“The cops throw more manpower into a sports
fix than into a serial murder,” Giorgio
said.
“Why, I don’t know.
What the hell difference does it make who
wins or loses?
It’s a crime that hurts nobody except the
bookmakers and the cops hate them anyway.
If the Rustler fixed all the Notre Dame games
so that they always won, the whole country
would be happy.”
Pippi said impatiently, “Why are we even
talking about this?
Just have somebody warn him off.”
Vincent said, “We already tried that.
This guy is a special piece of work.
He doesn’t know what fear is.
He’s been warned, he still keeps doing it.”
Petie said, “They call him Big Tim, and
they call him the Rustler, and he loves all
that shit.
He never pays his bills, he even stiffs the
IRS, he fights with the California state authorities
because he won’t pay the sales tax of the
stores he owns in his malls.
Hell, he even stiffs his ex-wife and his kids
on support payments.
He’s a thief in his heart.
You cannot talk sense to him.”
Giorgio said, “Cross, you know him personally
from his gambling in Vegas.
What do you say?”
Cross considered.
“He’s very late paying his markers.
But he finally pays.
He’s smart gambling, not degenerate.
He’s one of those guys who is hard to like,
but he’s very rich so he has lots of friends
that he brings to Vegas.
Actually even fixing the games and winning
some of our money, he is a big plus for us.
Just let it go.”
As he said this he noticed Dante smiling,
knowing something he didn’t know.
“We can’t let it go,” Giorgio said.
“Because this Big Tim, this Rustler, is
fucking nuts.
He’s laying down some crazy scheme to fix
the Super Bowl game.”
Don Domenico spoke for the first time and
directly to Cross, “Nephew, is that possible?”
The question was a compliment.
It was the Don acknowledging that Cross was
the expert in the field.
“No,” Cross said to the Don.
“You can’t fix the Super Bowl officials
because no one knows who they will be.
You can’t fix the players because the important
ones make too much money.
Also, you can never fix one game in any sport
a one hundred percent sure thing.
If you are a fixer you have to be able to
fix fifty or a hundred games.
That way if you lose three or four, you don’t
get hurt.
And so unless you can do a lot of them it’s
not worth the risk.”
“Bravo,” the Don said.
“Then why does this man, who is rich, want
to do something so foolhardy?”
“He wants to be famous,” Cross said.
“To fix the Super Bowl he would have to
do something so risky he is sure to be found
out.
Something so crazy I can’t even think what
it will be.
The Rustler will think it clever.
And he is a man who believes he can get out
of every jam he gets in.”
“I have never met a man like that,” the
Don said.
Giorgio said, “They grow them only in America.”
“But then he is very dangerous to what we
want to do,” the Don said.
“From what you tell me, he is a man who
will not listen to reason.
So there is no choice.”
Cross said, “Wait.
He means at least a half million dollars’
profit every year to the casino.”
Vincent said, “It’s a matter of principle.
The Books pay us money to protect them.”
Cross said, “Let me talk to him.
Maybe he’ll listen to me.
The whole thing is small potatoes.
He can’t fix the Super Bowl.
It’s not worth our taking action.”
But then he got a look from his father and
he realized that in some way it was not proper
for him to make such arguments.
The Don said with a terminal determination,
“The man is dangerous.
Don’t talk to him, nephew.
He doesn’t know who you really are.
Why give him the advantage?
The man is dangerous because he is stupid,
he is stupid as an animal is stupid, he wants
to feed on everything.
And then when he is caught he wants to wreak
as much havoc as he can.
He will implicate everyone whether true or
not.”
He paused for a moment and then looked at
Dante.
“Grandson,” he said, “I think you should
do the job.
But let Pippi do the planning on this one,
he knows the territory.”
Dante nodded.
Pippi knew he was on dangerous ground.
If anything happened to Dante, he would be
held responsible.
And another thing was clear to him.
The Don and Giorgio were determined some day
Dante would head the Clericuzio Family.
But at present they did not trust his judgment.
In Vegas Dante registered in a suite at the
Xanadu.
The Rustler, Snedden, was not due in Vegas
for a week, and during that time Cross and
Pippi indoctrinated Dante.
“Rustler is a high roller,” Cross said.
“But not high enough to rate a Villa.
Not in the class of Arabs and Asians.
His RFB is enormous, he wants everything free
he can get.
He puts friends on restaurant tabs, orders
the best wines, he even tries to put the gift
shop on his tab.
We don’t give that even to the Villa guys.
He’s a claim artist, so the dealers have
to watch him.
He’ll claim he made a bet just before the
number hit on the crap table.
He’ll try to make a bet in baccarat after
the first card shows.
At blackjack he’ll claim he wanted to hit
an eighteen when the next card is three.
He’s very late paying his markers.
But he gives us a half million a year, even
after we take off what he beats the sports
book for.
He’s cute.
He even draws chips for his friends and puts
them on his marker so we’ll think he gambles
bigger than he actually does.
All that chickenshit stuff like the garment
center guys used to pull in the old days.
But then he goes berserk when his luck goes
bad.
Last year he dropped two million and we made
him a party and gave him a Cadillac.
He bitched that it wasn’t a Mercedes.”
Dante was outraged.
“He draws chips and money from the cage
and doesn’t gamble it?”
“Sure,” Cross said.
“A lot of guys do it.
We don’t mind.
We like to look stupid.
It gives them more confidence at the tables.
They outsmart us again.”
“Why do they call him the Rustler?”
Dante asked.
“Because he takes things without paying
for them,” Cross said.
“When he has girls he bites them as if he
wants to take a chunk of their flesh.
And he gets away with it.
He’s a great, great bullshit artist.”
Dante said dreamily, “I can’t wait to
hear him.”
“He could never talk Gronevelt into giving
him a Villa,” Cross said.
“So I don’t.”
Dante looked at him sharply.
“How come I didn’t get a Villa?”
“Because it could cost the Hotel a hundred
grand to a million bucks a night,” Cross
said.
Dante said, “But Giorgio gets a Villa.”
“OK,” Cross said, “I’ll clear it with
Giorgio.”
They both knew Giorgio would be outraged by
Dante’s request.
“Fat chance,” Dante said.
“When you get married,” Cross said, “you’ll
get a Villa for your honeymoon.”
Pippi said, “My operational plan depends
on Big Tim’s character.
Cross you have to cooperate just here in Vegas
to set the guy up.
You have to let Dante draw unlimited credit
in the cage and then make his markers disappear.
Timewise, the arrangements in L.A. are set.
You have to make sure the guy gets here and
doesn’t cancel his reservation.
So you give him a party to present him with
a Rolls-Royce.
Then when he’s here you have to introduce
him to Dante and me.
After that you’re through.”
It took Pippi more than an hour to tell the
plan in detail.
Dante said admiringly, “Giorgio always said
you were the best.
I was pissed off when the Don put you over
me on this.
But I can see he was right.”
Pippi took this flattery stone-faced.
He said to Dante, “Remember this is a Communion
not a Confirmation.
It has to look as if he took it on the lam.
With his record and all the lawsuits against
him, that will be plausible.
Dante, don’t wear one of your fucking hats
on this operation.
People have funny memories.
And remember that the Don said he would like
the guy to give information about the fix,
but it’s not really necessary.
He’s the ringleader, when he’s gone the
whole fix will disappear.
So don’t do anything crazy.”
Dante said coolly, “I feel unlucky without
my hat.”
Pippi shrugged.
“Another thing, don’t try to cheat on
your unlimited credit.
That comes from the Don himself, he doesn’t
want the Hotel to lose a fortune on this operation.
They already have to put up the Rolls.”
“Don’t worry,” Dante said.
“My work is my pleasure.”
He paused for a moment and then said with
a sly grin, “I hope you give me a good report
on this one.”
This surprised Cross.
It was plain that there was some hostility
between them.
And he was also surprised that Dante would
try to intimidate his father.
That could be disastrous, grandson of the
Don or not.
But Pippi seemed not to have noticed.
“You’re a Cleri-cuzio,” he said.
“Who am I to report on you?”
He clapped Dante on the shoulder.
“We have a job to do together.
Let’s make it fun.”
When Rustler Snedden arrived, Dante studied
him.
He was big and fat but the fat was hard, it
stuck to his bones and didn’t roll.
His shirt was blue denim with large pockets
on each breast, a white button in the middle.
In one pocket he stuffed the black hundred-dollar
chips, and in the other, the white-and-gold
five hundreds.
The red fives and green twenty-fives he stuffed
into the pocket of his wide-trousered white
canvas pants.
On his feet were floppy brown sandals.
The Rustler played mostly craps, the best
percentage game.
Cross and Dante knew that he had already bet
ten grand on two college basketball games
and placed a five-thousand-dollar bet with
the illegal books in town on a horse race
in Santa Anita.
The Rustler was not going to pay the taxes.
And he seemed not to be worrying about his
bets.
He was having a grand time shooting craps.
He was the mayor of the crap table, telling
other gamblers to ride with his dice, shouting
good-humoredly at them not to be chicken.
He was betting the blacks, stacks of them
covering all the numbers, betting right all
the way.
When the dice came to him he hurled them vigorously
so that they bounced off the opposite wall
of the table and came back to his easy reach.
He would then try to grab them, but the stickman
was always alert to catch them in the claw
of his stick and hold them so that other players
could make their bets.
Dante took his place at the crap table and
bet with Big Tim to win.
Then he made all the ruinous side bets that
would, unless he was very lucky, make him
a sure loser.
He bet the hard four and the hard ten.
He bet the boxcars in one roll and the aces
and eleven in one roll at odds of thirty and
fifteen to one.
He called for a twenty-thousand-dollar marker
and, after signing for the black chips, spread
them all over the table.
He called for another marker.
By this time, he had caught Big Tim’s attention.
“Hey, you with the hat.
Learn to play this game,” Big Tim said.
Dante waved to him cheerily and continued
his wild betting.
When Big Tim sevened out, Dante took the dice
and called for a fifty-thousand-dollar marker.
He spread black chips all over the table hoping
he wouldn’t get lucky.
He didn’t.
Now Big Tim was watching him with more than
ordinary interest.
Big Tim the Rustler ate in the coffee shop,
which was also the restaurant that served
plain American fare.
Big Tim rarely ate in the Xanadu’s fancy
French restaurant or its Northern Italian
restaurant or its authentic English Royal
Pub restaurant.
Five friends joined him for dinner, and Big
Tim the Rustler made out Keno tickets for
everybody so they could watch the numbers
board while eating.
Cross and Dante sat in a corner booth.
His short-cut blond hair made the Rustler
resemble a Brueghel painting of a jolly German
burgher.
He ordered a great variety of dishes, the
equivalent of three dinners, but to his credit
he ate most of them while also dipping into
his companions’ plates.
“It’s really too bad,” Dante said.
“I never saw a guy who enjoyed life so much.”
“That’s one way to make enemies,” Cross
said.
“Especially when you enjoy it at other people’s
expense.”
They watched Big Tim sign the check, which
he did not have to pay, and order one of his
companions to tip in cash.
After they left, Cross and Dante relaxed over
their coffee.
Cross loved this huge room with glass walls
showing the night lit outside by pink lamps,
green from the grass and trees outside reflecting
into the room, softening the chandeliers.
“I remember one night about three years
ago,” Cross said to Dante.
“The Rustler had a great streak at the crap
table.
I think he won over a hundred grand.
It was about three in the morning.
And when the pit boss took his chips to the
cage, the Rustler jumped up on the crap table
and pissed all over it.”
“What did you do?”
Dante asked.
“I had the security guards take him to his
room and charged him five grand for the piss
on the table.
Which he never paid.”
“I would have ripped his fucking heart out,”
Dante said.
“If a man gives you a half million a year,
wouldn’t you let him piss on a table?”
Cross said.
“But to tell the truth, I always held it
against him.
In fact, if he had done that in the Villas’
casino, who knows?”
The next day Cross had lunch with Big Tim
to brief him on his party and the presentation
of the Rolls-Royce.
Pippi joined them and was introduced.
Big Tim always pushed for more.
“I appreciate the Rolls but when do I get
one of your Villas?”
“Yeah, you deserve it,” Cross said.
“The next time you come to Vegas, you get
a Villa.
That’s a promise, even if I have to kick
somebody out.”
Big Tim the Rustler said to Pippi, “Your
son is a much nicer man than that old prick,
Gronevelt.”
“He was a little funny in his last years,”
Pippi said.
“I was maybe his best friend and he would
never give me a Villa.”
“Well, fuck him,” Big Tim said.
“Now that your son is running the Hotel,
you can get a Villa whenever you want.”
“Never,” Cross said, “he’s not a gambler.”
They all laughed.
But now Big Tim was on another tack.
“There’s a weird little guy who wears
a funny hat and is the worst crapshooter I
ever saw,” he said.
“This guy signed nearly two hundred grand
in markers in less than an hour.
What can you tell me about him?
You know I’m always looking for investors.”
“I can’t tell you anything about my players,”
Cross said.
“How would you like it if I gave out information
about you?
I can tell you he can get a Villa anytime,
but he never asks.
He likes to keep a low profile.”
“Just give me an intro,” Big Tim said.
“If I make a deal, you’ll get a piece.”
“No,” Cross said.
“But my father knows him.”
“I could use some dough,” Pippi said.
Big Tim said, “Good.
Give me a big buildup.”
Pippi turned on his charm.
“You two guys would make a great team.
This guy has a lot of money but he doesn’t
have your flair for big business.
I know you’re a fair guy, Tim, so just give
me what you think I deserve.”
Big Tim beamed at this.
Pippi would be another of his suckers.
“Great,” he said.
“I’ll be at the crap table tonight, so
bring him around.”
When the introductions were made at the crap
table, Big Tim the Rustler startled both Dante
and Pippi by snatching Dante’s Renaissance
cap off his head and replacing it with a Dodger
baseball cap he was wearing.
The result was hilarious.
The Renaissance cap on Big Tim’s head made
him look like one of Snow White’s dwarfs.
“To change our luck,” Big Tim said.
They all laughed but Pippi didn’t like the
malevolent gleam in Dante’s eyes.
Also, he was angry that Dante had ignored
his instructions and was wearing the hat.
He had introduced Dante as Steve Sharpe and
had pumped Big Tim up with stories that Steve
was the overlord of a drug empire on the Eastern
Seaboard and had to “wash” many millions.
Also that Steve was a degenerate gambler who
had bet a million on the Super Bowl and had
lost without batting an eye.
And his markers in the casino cage were pure
gold.
Paid them right up.
So now Big Tim threw his massive arm over
Dante’s shoulders and said, “Stevie, we
have to talk.
Let’s have a little bite in the coffee shop.”
There, Big Tim took a secluded booth.
Dante ordered coffee but Big Tim ordered a
whole array of desserts: strawberry ice cream,
napoleons, and banana cream pie plus a dish
of assorted cookies.
Then he launched into an hour-long selling
speech.
He owned a small mall he wanted to get rid
of, a long-term moneymaker, and he could arrange
that the payment would be mostly under-the-table
cash.
There was a meat-packing plant and carloads
of fresh produce that could be sold for undercover
cash, then resold for a profit for white money.
He had an “in” with the movie business
so that he could help finance pictures that
went direct to video or to porno theaters.
“Great business,” Big Tim said.
“You get to meet the stars and fuck the
starlets and turn your money white.”
Dante enjoyed the performance.
Everything Big Tim said was with such confidence
and brio that the victim could only believe
in future riches.
He asked questions that betrayed his eagerness
but made a show of coyness.
“Give me your card,” he said.
“I’ll give you a call or have Pippi call
you and then we can set up a dinner meeting
and have a full discussion so I can make a
commitment.”
Big Tim gave him his card.
“Let’s do it real quick,” he said.
“I have one particular ‘no lose’ deal
I’ll cut you in on.
But we would have to move fast.”
He paused for a moment.
“It’s a sports thing.”
Now Dante showed an enthusiasm he had not
shown before.
“Jesus, that has always been my dream.
I love sports.
You mean maybe buy a major league baseball
team?”
“Not that big,” Big Tim said hastily.
“But big enough.”
“So when do we meet?”
Dante asked.
Big Tim said proudly, “Tomorrow the Hotel
is giving me a party and a Rolls.
For being one of their best suckers.
I go back to L.A. the day after.
How about that night?”
Dante pretended to give the question some
thought.
“Okay,” he said.
“Pippi’s coming to L.A. with me and I’ll
have him give you a call to set it up.”
“Great,” Big Tim said.
He wondered a bit about the man’s cautiousness
but knew better than to queer a deal with
unnecessary questions.
“And tonight I’m going to show you how
to shoot craps so that you have some chance
of winning.”
Dante made himself look sheepish.
“I know the odds, I just like to fuck around.
And then the word gets out and I can get a
whack at the chorus girls.”
“Then there’s no hope for you,” Big
Tim said.
“But you and me, we’ll make some money
together anyway.”
The next day the party for Big Tim the Rustler
was held in the great ballroom of the Xanadu
Hotel, which was often used for special events:
the New Year’s Eve party, Christmas buffets,
weddings for high rollers, presentations of
special awards and gifts, Super Bowl parties,
the World Series, and even political conventions.
It was a huge, high-ceilinged room, with balloons
floating everywhere and two enormous buffet
tables, splitting the room in half.
The buffets were shaped like huge ice glaciers,
and encrushed in the ice were exotic fruits
of all colors.
Crenshaw melons, split open to show their
yellow-gold flesh, great purple grapes with
their juice bursting against the skin, porcupine
pineapples, kiwi and kumquat, nectarines and
lichee nuts, and a huge log of watermelon.
Buckets of twelve different kinds of ice cream
were buried like submarines.
Then there was a passageway of hot dishes:
a baron of beef as big as a buffalo, a huge
turkey, a white, fat-ringed ham.
Then there was a tray of different pastas,
sprinkled green with pesto and red with tomato
sauce.
And then a great red pot, as big as a garbage
can, with silver handles and steaming with
a “wild boar” stew that was really a pork,
beef, and veal mixture.
Then came bread of all kinds and rolls heavy
with flour.
Another bank of ice held desserts, cream puffs,
whipped-cream-filled doughnuts, an assortment
of tiered cakes decorated with replicas of
the Hotel Xanadu.
Coffee and hard liquor would be served to
the guests by the best-looking waitresses
at the Hotel.
Big Tim the Rustler was already wreaking havoc
on these tables before the first guest arrived.
In the full center of the room, mounted on
a ramp separated by ropes from the crowd,
was the Rolls-Royce.
Creamy, white, luxurious, with true elegance
and a certain genius in design, it stood in
sharp contrast to the pretensions of this
Vegas world.
A wall of the room had been replaced by heavy
golden draperies to allow its entrance and
departure.
Then off in a corner of the room was a purple
Cadillac that was to be awarded as a door
prize to those with numbered invitations:
high rollers invited to the party and casino
managers of the biggest hotels.
This had been one of Gronevelt’s best ideas.
These parties increased the Drop at the Hotel
significantly.
The party was a huge success because Big Tim
was so flamboyant.
Attended by his two waitresses, he almost
single-handedly destroyed the buffet table.
He loaded up three plates and gave an exhibition
of eating that nearly made Dante’s mission
unnecessary.
Cross made the presentation speech for the
Hotel.
Then Big Tim made his acceptance speech.
“I want to thank the Xanadu Hotel for this
wonderful gift,” he said.
“That two-hundred-thousand-dollar car is
now mine for nothing.
It’s my reward for coming to the Xanadu
the last ten years, during which they treated
me like a prince and emptied my wallet.
I figure if they give me fifty Rolls we would
be about even but what the hell, I can only
drive one car at a time.”
Here he was interrupted by applause and cheers.
Cross grimaced.
He was always embarrassed by these rituals
that exposed the falseness of the Hotel’s
goodwill.
Big Tim threw his arms around the two waitresses
flanking him.
He squeezed their breasts in a friendly way.
He waited like an experienced comic for the
applause to die down.
“No kidding, I’m truly grateful,” he
said.
“This is one of the happiest days of my
life.
Right up there with my divorce.
One little thing.
Who’s going to give me gas money to drive
this car back to L.A.?
The Xanadu cleaned me out again.”
Big Tim knew when to stop.
As the applause and cheers broke out again,
he climbed the ramp and got into the car.
The golden draperies that had replaced the
wall now parted, and Big Tim drove out.
The party speedily broke up after the Cadillac
was won by a high roller.
The festivities had lasted for four hours
and everybody wanted to get back to the gambling
tables.
That night Gronevelt’s ghost would have
been overjoyed with the results of the party.
The Drop was nearly double the average.
Sexual coupling could not be confirmed but
the smell of semen seemed to seep out into
the hallways.
The great-looking call girls that had been
invited to Big Tim’s party had quickly snuggled
into relationships with less dedicated high
rollers, who gave them black chips to gamble.
Gronevelt had often remarked to Cross that
male and female gamblers had different sex
patterns.
And that it was important for casino owners
to know them.
First Gronevelt proclaimed the primacy of
pussy, as he called it.
Pussy could overcome anything.
It could even make a degenerate gambler go
straight.
There had been many important men of the world
who had been guests at the Hotel.
Nobel Prize–winning scientists, billionaires,
great religious revivalists, eminent literary
icons.
A Nobel Prize–winner in physics, the best
brain maybe in the world, had frolicked with
a whole line of chorus girls during his six-day
stay.
He didn’t gamble much but it was an honor
for the Hotel.
Gronevelt himself had to give gifts to each
of the girls, it had never occurred to the
Nobel Prize–winner to do so.
The girls had reported he was the best screw
in the world, eager, ardent, and skillful,
no tricks, with one of the most beautiful
cocks they had ever seen.
And best of all, amusing, never boring them
with serious talk.
As gossipy and bitchy as any of the girls.
For some reason this cheered Gronevelt up.
That such a brain could please the opposite
sex.
Not like Ernest Vail, such a great writer
but a middle-aged kid with a perpetual hard-on
and no small talk to go with it.
Then there was Senator Wavven, a possible
future president of the United States, who
treated sex like a game of golf.
To say nothing of the dean of Yale, the cardinal
of Chicago, the leader of the Civil Rights
National Committee, and the crusty Republican
bigwigs.
All of them reduced to children by pussy.
The only possible exceptions were the gays
or druggies, but after all they were not typically
gamblers.
Gronevelt noted that male gamblers called
for hookers before they set out to gamble.
Women, however, preferred sex after they gambled.
Since the Hotel had to cater to the sexual
needs of everyone and there were no male hookers,
just gigolos, the Hotel used barmen croupiers
and junior pit boys for the women, and that
was their report.
So Gronevelt made a jump.
Males need sex to prepare them to go into
battle with confidence.
Women need sex to assuage the sorrow of losing
or as part of the reward for their victory.
It was true that Big Tim called for a hooker
an hour before his party and then went to
bed with his two waitresses in the early morning
after losing a big sum of money.
They were reluctant, they were straight girls.
Big Tim solved the problem in his own particular
way.
He put up ten thousand dollars worth of black
chips and told them it was theirs if they
spent the night with him.
Accompanied with his usual vague promise of
more if they had a really good night.
He loved the way they studied the chips thoughtfully
before agreeing.
The joke was they got him so drunk that he
fell asleep, gorged with food and drink, before
he got past the fondling stage.
He fell asleep between the two of them, his
huge frame pushing them to the edges, both
girls clinging to him until finally they fell
on the floor to sleep.
Late that night Cross received a call from
Claudia.
“Athena disappeared,” she said.
“The Studio is frantic and I’m worried.
Except ever since I’ve known her Athena
has disappeared at least one weekend a month.
But this time I thought you should know.
You better do something before she runs away
forever.”
“It’s OK,” Cross said.
He didn’t tell her he had his own men covering
Skannet.
But that call focused his mind on Athena.
That magical face, which seemed to show her
every emotion; the long, beautiful stretch
of her legs.
And the intelligence of her eyes, the vibration
from some invisible instrument of inner being.
He picked up the phone and called a chorus
girl he sometimes dated called Tiffany.
Tiffany was the captain of the chorus line
of the Xanadu’s big cabaret show.
This entitled her to extra pay and perks for
keeping discipline and preventing the usual
quarrels and outright fights the girls fell
into.
She was a statuesque beauty who had failed
screen tests because she simply was too big
for celluloid.
Where on the stage her beauty was commanding,
on film she looked huge.
When she arrived, she was surprised at the
quickness of Cross’s lovemaking.
He simply grabbed her and stripped her of
her clothes and then seemed to devour her
body with kisses.
He entered her quickly and came to a climax
quickly.
This was so different from his usual style
that she said, almost ruefully, “This time
it must be true love.”
“It sure is,” Cross said, and began to
make love to her again.
“Not me, you dope,” Tiffany said.
“Who’s the lucky girl?”
Cross was annoyed that he was so easy to read.
And yet he could not stop his devotion to
the flesh beside him.
He could not have enough of her succulent
breasts, her silky tongue, the velvet mound
between her thighs, all radiating an irresistible
heat.
When finally, hours later, the lustful fever
was gone, he could not stop thinking about
Athena.
Tiffany picked up the phone and ordered room
service for them both.
“I pity that poor girl when you finally
get her,” Tiffany said.
After she left, Cross felt free.
It was a weakness to be so much in love, but
satisfied lust gave him confidence.
At three in the morning he made his last tour
of the casino.
In the coffee shop he saw Dante with three
good-looking, vivacious women.
Though one of them was Loretta Lang, the singer
he had helped to break her contract, he did
not recognize her.
Dante waved him over, but he declined with
a shake of his head.
Up in his penthouse suite he took two sleeping
pills before going to bed, but he still dreamed
of Athena.
The three women at Dante’s table were famous
ladies of Hollywood, wives of Bankable Stars
and minor stars in their own right.
They had been guests at Big Tim’s party,
not by invitation but by having wangled their
way in on their charms.
The oldest was Julia Deleree, who was married
to one of the most famous Bankable Stars in
the movies.
She had two children, and the family often
appeared in magazines as the exceptional couple
that had no problems, were ecstatic with their
marriage.
The second was Joan Ward.
She was still very attractive, nearly fifty.
She played second leads now, usually as the
intelligent woman, the suffering mother of
a doomed child, or in the role of a deserted
woman whose tragedy leads to a second happy
marriage.
Or as a fiery fighter for the feminist viewpoint.
She was married to the head of a studio who
paid her charge cards without complaint, no
matter how huge, and whose only demand on
her was to be the hostess for the many social-business
parties he gave.
She had no children.
The third star was Loretta, who by now was
first choice as the comedy lead in kooky comedies.
She, too, had married well, to a Bankable
Star of empty-headed action films that took
him on location in other countries for the
best part of the year.
These three had become friends by being cast
in the same movies and by shopping on Rodeo
Drive and having lunches at the Beverly Hills
Hotel’s Polo Lounge, where they compared
notes on their husbands and their charge cards.
About the cards, they had no complaints.
It was like having a shovel to dig in a gold
mine, and their husbands never questioned
their bills.
Julia complained that her husband didn’t
spend enough time with her kids.
Joan, whose husband was acclaimed as a discoverer
of new stars, complained she was childless.
Loretta complained that her husband should
branch out into more serious roles.
But there came a day when Loretta, with her
usual vivaciousness, said, “Let’s stop
bullshitting ourselves.
We’re all happily and very suitably married
to very important guys.
What we really hate is that our husbands send
us out on Rodeo Drive so they feel less guilty
about fucking other women.”
The three of them laughed.
It was so true.
Julia said, “I love my husband but he’s
been in Tahiti for a month shooting a picture.
And I know he’s not sitting on the beach
masturbating.
But I don’t want to spend a month in Tahiti,
so he’s either screwing his leading lady
or the local talent.”
“Which he would be doing even if you were
there,” Lor-etta said.
Joan said wistfully, “And even though my
husband hasn’t the sperm of a fucking ant,
his cock is like a water wand.
How come most of the stars he discovers are
females?
He screen-tests them by finding out how much
of his cock they can swallow.”
They were all half tipsy by now.
They believed that wine had no calories.
Loretta said crisply, “We can’t blame
our husbands.
The most beautiful women in the world show
it to them.
They really have no choice.
But why should we suffer?
Fuck the charge cards, let’s have some fun.”
And so had followed their sacred once-a-month
girl’s night out.
When their husbands were gone, which was often,
they would go on overnight adventures.
Since they were recognizable to most Americans,
they had to disguise themselves.
This proved to be extraordinarily easy to
do.
They used wigs to change the style and color
of their hair.
They used makeup, thickened their lips or
thinned them.
They dressed in the style of middle-class
women.
They downgraded their beauty, which didn’t
matter because, like most actresses, they
could be enormously charming.
And they delighted in the role playing.
They loved to listen to different kinds of
men bare their hearts to them in hope of getting
into bed with them, often successfully.
It was a breath of real life, the characters
still mysterious, not doomed to a written
script.
And there were delightful surprises.
Sincere offers of marriage and true love;
men sharing their pain because they thought
they would never see them again.
The admiration they received not because of
their hidden status, but because of their
innate charms.
And they loved creating new personas for themselves.
Sometimes they would be computer operators
on vacation, sometimes off-duty nurses or
dental technicians or social workers.
They would bone up for their parts by reading
about their new professions.
Sometimes they would pretend to be legal secretaries
in the office of a big showbiz lawyer in L.A.
and spread scandal about their own husbands
and other of their actor friends.
They had great times but always went out of
town; Los Angeles was too dangerous, they
might run into friends who would easily recognize
them despite their disguise.
They discovered that San Francisco was also
risky.
Some gay men seemed to know their true identity
at a glance.
Their favorite place was Las Vegas.
Dante had picked them up at the Xanadu Club
Lounge, where tired gamblers took a break
and listened to a band, a comic, and a girl
singer.
Loretta had once performed there at the beginning
of her career.
There was no dancing.
The Hotel wanted their customers to get back
to the tables as soon as they were rested.
Dante was attracted to them by their vivaciousness,
their natural charm.
They were attracted to him because they had
watched him gamble and lose enormous amounts
of money with his unlimited credit.
After the drinks, he took them to the roulette
wheel and staked them each to a thousand dollars’
worth of chips.
They were charmed by his hat and the extravagant
courtesy showed to him by the croupiers and
the pit boss.
And his sly charm, which was touched by a
vicious humor.
Dante was witty in a vulgar and sometimes
chilling way.
And the extravagance of his gambling excited
them.
Of course they themselves were rich, they
earned enormous amounts of money, but his
was hard cash and that had its own magic.
Certainly they had spent tens of thousands
on Rodeo Drive in one day, but they had received
luxurious goods in return.
When Dante signed a hundred-thousand-dollar
marker, they were awed, though their husbands
had bought them cars that cost more.
But Dante was throwing away money.
They didn’t always sleep with men they picked
up, but when they went to the ladies room
they conferred on which one would get Dante.
Julia begged and she said she had a real yen
to pee in Dante’s funny hat.
The others gave in.
Joan had hoped to score five or ten grand.
Not that she really needed it, but it was
cash, real money.
Loretta was not as charmed as the others by
Dante.
Her life in Las Vegas cabaret had partly inured
her to such men.
They were too full of surprises, most of them
not pleasant.
The women had a three-bedroom suite in the
Xanadu.
They always stuck close together on these
outings, for reasons of safety and so they
could gossip together about their adventures.
They made it a rule not to spend the entire
night with the men they picked up.
So Julia wound up with Dante, who had no say
in the matter, though he preferred Loretta.
But he insisted Julia go to his suite, which
was just below hers.
“I’ll walk you up to your suite,” he
said coolly.
“We’ll just be an hour.
I have to get up early in the morning.”
It was then Julia realized he thought they
were soft hookers.
“Come up to my suite,” Julia said.
“I’ll walk you down.”
Dante said, “You got your two horny buddies
up there.
How do I know you won’t all jump me and
sodomize me?
I’m just a little guy.”
That amused Julia enough to go to his suite.
She had missed the slyness of his smile.
On their way to his room, she said jokingly,
“I want to pee in your hat.”
Dante said to her, stone-faced, “If it’s
fun for you, it’s fun for me.”
Once in his suite there was very little chitchat.
Julia threw her purse on the sofa and then
pulled down the top of her dress so that her
breasts showed, they were her best feature.
But Dante seemed to be the exception, a male
who was not interested in breasts.
He led her into the bedroom and then pulled
off her dress and underclothes.
When she was naked, he shed his own clothes.
She could see his penis was short, stubby,
and uncircumcised.
“You have to use a condom,” she said.
Dante threw her on the bed.
Julia was a robust woman, but he picked her
up and threw her without seeming to make an
effort.
Then he straddled her.
“I insist you use a condom,” she said.
“I mean it.”
In the next moment there was an explosion
of light in her head.
She realized he had slapped her so hard that
she had almost lost consciousness.
She tried to wriggle away but for so small
a man he was incredibly strong.
She felt two more slaps that suffused her
face with a hot glow and made her teeth ache.
Then she felt him enter her.
His driving thrusts lasted for only a few
seconds and then he slumped over her.
They lay entwined and then he began to turn
her over.
She could see that he still had an erection
and she knew he wanted to penetrate her anally.
She whispered to him, “I love that but I
have to get some Vaseline from my purse.”
He let her slide out from under him and she
went into the living room.
Dante came to the door of the bedchamber.
They were both still naked and he still had
an erection.
Julia fumbled in her purse and then, with
a dramatic flourish, took out a tiny silver
handgun.
It was a prop from a movie she had worked
in and she had always fantasized about using
it in a real-life situation.
She pointed it at Dante, took the crouch stance
she had been taught in the movie, and said,
“I’m going to dress and leave.
If you try to stop me, I’ll shoot.”
To her surprise, the naked Dante burst out
in a good-humored laugh.
But Julia noted with satisfaction that he
immediately lost his erection.
She was enjoying the situation.
She was imagining that she was back upstairs
with Joan and Loretta and how they would laugh
about this.
She tried to get up the courage to ask for
his hat so she could pee in it.
But now Dante surprised her.
He started walking toward her slowly.
He was smiling, he said gently, “That’s
such a small caliber, it won’t even stop
me unless you get a lucky shot to the head.
Never use a small gun.
You can put three bullets to my body and then
I’ll strangle you.
Also, you’re holding that gun wrong, you
don’t need that stance, there’s no kick
in it.
Plus the chances are you won’t even hit
me, those little bitty things are inaccurate.
So throw it away and we’ll talk this over.
Then you can leave.”
He continued walking toward her so she threw
the gun on the sofa.
Dante picked it up and looked at it, shook
his head.
“A fake gun?” he said.
“That’s the sure way to get killed.”
He shook his head in an almost affectionate
disapproval.
“Well, if you were a real hooker, this would
be a real gun.
So who are you?”
He pushed Julia down on the sofa and imprisoned
her there with his leg, his toes pushed against
her pubic hair.
Then he opened her purse and spilled the contents
onto the coffee table.
He fished into the purse pockets and took
out her wallet of credit cards and her driver’s
license.
He studied them carefully and then grinned
in pure delight.
He said to her, “Take off that wig.”
Then he reached over with a doily from the
sofa and wiped her face clean of makeup.
“Jesus Christ, you are Julia Deleree,”
Dante said.
“I’m fucking a movie star.”
He gave another delighted laugh.
“You can pee in my hat anytime.”
His toes were searching her crotch.
Then he pulled her to her feet.
“Don’t be scared,” he said.
He kissed her and then turned her around and
pushed her so that she was bent over the back
of the sofa, breasts hanging down, her buttocks
presented, tilted up to him.
Julia said to him tearfully, “You promised
to let me leave.”
Dante was kissing her buttocks, his fingers
probing.
Then he entered her savagely and she gave
a yell of pain.
When he finished, he patted her buttocks tenderly.
“You can get dressed now,” he said.
“I’m sorry I broke my word.
I just couldn’t miss the chance of telling
my friends that I fucked Julia Deleree up
her great ass.”
The next morning Cross had a wakeup call push
him out of bed early.
It would be a busy day.
He had to pull all of Dante’s markers out
of the casino cage and do the necessary paperwork
to make them disappear.
He had to get the pit bosses’ marker books
out of their hands and have them redone.
Then he had to make arrangements so that the
papers on the Rolls for Big Tim would be revoked.
Giorgio had had the legal papers prepared
so that the official change of ownership would
not be valid until a month in the future.
That was vintage Giorgio.
In the middle of all this he was interrupted
with a call from Loretta Lang.
She was in the Hotel and urgently wanted to
see him.
Because he thought it might be something about
Claudia, he had Security bring her up to the
penthouse.
Loretta kissed him on both cheeks and then
told him the whole story about Julia and Dante.
She said the man had introduced himself as
Steve Sharpe and had lost a hundred grand
at the crap table.
They were impressed, and Julia decided to
sleep with him.
The three of them had only come to relax and
have a night of gambling.
Now they were terrified that Steve might cause
a scandal.
Cross nodded sympathetically.
He was thinking, What a stupid thing for Dante
to do before a big operation, and the son
of a bitch was giving away black chips for
his pickups to gamble with.
He said to Loretta calmly, “I know the man,
of course.
Who are the two women with you?”
Loretta knew better than to dally with Cross.
She told him the two names.
Cross smiled.
“Do you three do this often?”
“We have to have a little fun,” Loretta
said.
Cross gave her a sympathetic smile.
“OK,” he said.
“Your friend went to his room.
She undressed.
She wants to scream rape?
What?”
Loretta said hastily, “No, no.
We just want him to keep quiet.
If he talks it could be absolute disasters
for our careers.”
“He won’t talk,” Cross said.
“He’s a funny kind of guy.
Keeps a low profile.
But take my advice, don’t get mixed up with
him again.
You girls should be more careful.”
Loretta was annoyed by this last remark.
The three women had decided to continue their
outings.
They were not going to be frightened by one
mishap.
Nothing really terrible had happened.
She said, “How do you know he won’t talk?”
Cross looked at her gravely.
“I’ll ask him the favor,” he said.
When Loretta left, Cross called for the secret
camera file that showed all the guests at
the registration desk.
He studied them.
Now that he had the information, it was easy
to penetrate the disguises of the two women
with Loretta Lang.
It was dumb for Dante not to have gotten that
info.
Pippi came by the penthouse office to have
lunch before he left for Los Angeles to check
off the logistics of the Big Tim operation.
Cross told him the story Loretta had told.
Pippi shook his head.
“The little bastard could have ruined the
whole operation by throwing the timing off.
And he keeps wearing that fucking hat after
I told him not to.”
Cross said, “Be careful on this operation.
Keep your eye on Dante.”
“I planned it, he can’t fuck it up,”
Pippi said.
“And when I see him in L.A. tonight, I’ll
give him another briefing.”
Cross told him about how Giorgio had prepared
the papers on the Rolls so that Big Tim would
not acquire legal ownership for a month and
so that after his death, the Hotel could regain
the car.
“Typical Giorgio,” Pippi said.
“The Don would have let the estate keep
his car for his kids.”
Big Tim the Rustler Snedden left Vegas two
days later, owing sixty grand in markers to
the Xanadu Hotel.
He took the late-afternoon plane to Los Angeles,
went to his office and worked for a few hours,
and then drove to Santa Monica to have dinner
with his ex-wife and his two children.
His pockets had wads of five-dollar bills,
which he gave to his kids along with a cardboard
container, a quart of silver dollars.
To his wife he gave the support and alimony
check due, without which he would not be allowed
to visit.
He conned his wife with sweet talk after the
children went to bed but she wouldn’t give
him a screw, which he didn’t really want
after Vegas.
But he had to try, it was something for nothing.
The next day Big Tim the Rustler had a very
busy day indeed.
Two Internal Revenue Agents tried to frighten
him into paying some disputed taxes.
He told them he would go to tax court and
threw them out.
Then he had to visit a warehouse of canned
foods and another warehouse of over-the-counter
drugs, all acquired at rock-bottom prices
because their expiration dates were coming
up.
Those expiration dates would have to be changed.
At lunch he met with a supermarket-chain vice
president who would accept the shipment of
these goods.
During lunch he slipped the executive an envelope
that held ten thousand dollars.
After lunch he received a surprise call from
two FBI agents who wanted to ask him about
his relationship with a congress-man who was
under indictment.
Big Tim told them to go fuck themselves.
Big Tim the Rustler had never known fear.
Perhaps because of his bulk, or maybe there
was a piece of his brain missing.
For he not only lacked physical fear, he lacked
mental fear.
He had not only taken the offensive against
man but against nature itself.
When the doctors told him he was eating himself
to death and he should seriously diet, he
had opted instead for the stomach bypass operation,
which was more hazardous.
And it had turned out perfectly.
He ate as he wished without apparent harmful
effect.
He had built his financial empire the same
way.
He made contracts that he refused to honor
when they became unprofitable, he betrayed
partners and friends.
Everybody sued him, but they always had to
settle for less than they would have received
on the original terms.
It was a life of success for one who took
no precautions for the future.
He always thought he would win in the end.
He could always collapse corporate entities,
shmooze over personal animosities.
With women he was even more merciless.
He promised them whole malls, apartments,
boutiques.
Then they settled for a small piece of jewelry
at Christmas, a small check on their birthdays.
Significant sums but not up to the original
promises.
Big Tim did not want a relationship.
He just wanted to make sure he could have
a friendly screw when he needed it.
Big Tim loved all this rustling, it made life
interesting.
There had been an independent bookmaker in
L.A. that he had stiffed for a seventy-grand
bet on football games.
The bookmaker held a gun to his head and Big
Tim said, “Go fuck yourself,” then offered
ten grand to settle the debt.
The bookmaker took it.
His fortune, his ruddy health, his imposing
bulk, his lack of guilt made Big Tim successful
in everything he touched.
His belief that all humanity was corruptible
gave him a certain air of innocence that was
useful not only in a woman’s bed but also
in the courts of law.
And his gusto for life gave him a certain
charm.
He was a con man who let you peek at his cards.
So Big Tim did not wonder at the mystery of
the arrangement Pippi De Lena had made with
him for that night.
The man was a hustler like himself and could
be dealt with appropriately.
Big promises and small rewards.
As for Steve Sharpe, Big Tim smelled a great
opportunity, a multiyear scam.
The little guy had dropped at least a half
million in one day at the tables that he observed.
Which meant he had an enormous credit line
at the casino and must be in a position to
earn a great deal of black money.
He would be perfect in the Super Bowl fix.
Not only could he supply the betting money,
but he had the confidence of bookmakers.
After all, those guys didn’t take mammoth
bets from just anybody.
Then Big Tim daydreamed about his next visit
to Vegas.
Finally he would get a Villa.
He pondered on who to bring with him as guests.
Business or pleasure?
Future scam victims or maybe all women?
Finally it was time to go to dinner with Pippi
and Steve Sharpe.
He called his ex-wife and his two kids for
a chat and then was on his way.
The dinner was at a small fish restaurant
down in the L.A. dock area.
There was no valet service, so Big Tim put
his car in a parking lot.
In the restaurant he was greeted by a tiny
maître d’ who took one look at him and
ushered him to a table where Pippi De Lena
was waiting.
Big Tim was an expert of the abraccio and
he took Pippi into his arms.
“Where’s Steve?
Is he jerking me around?
I haven’t the time for that kind of bullshit.”
Pippi turned on all his charm.
He clapped Big Tim on the shoulder.
“What am I, chopped liver?” he said.
“Sit down and have the best fish dinner
you ever ate.
We’ll be seeing Steve after.”
When the maître d’ came to take their order,
Pippi told him, “We want the best of everything
and the most of everything.
My friend here is a champion eater and if
he gets up from this table hungry, I’ll
talk to Vincent.”
The maître d’ smiled confidently; he knew
the quality of his kitchen.
His restaurant was part of Vincent Clericuzio’s
empire.
When the police backtracked Big Tim’s trail,
they would meet a blank wall here.
They ate a progression of clams, mussels,
shrimps, and then lobsters: three for Big
Tim and one for Pippi.
Pippi was finished long before Big Tim.
He said to him, “This guy is a friend of
mine and I can tell you now he is tops in
drugs.
If that scares you off, tell me now.”
“That scares me as much as this lobster,”
Big Tim said, waving its huge, nibbled claws
in Pippi’s face.
“What else?”
“He always has to launder black money,”
Pippi said.
“Your deal will have to include that.”
Big Tim was enjoying the food; all the briney
spices of the ocean filled his nostrils.
“Great, I know all that,” he said.
“But where the fuck is he?”
“He’s on his yacht,” Pippi said.
“He doesn’t want anybody to see you with
him.
That’s to your interest.
He’s a very cautious guy.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck who sees me
with him,” Big Tim said.
“I want to see me with him.”
Finally Big Tim was finished.
His dessert was fruit, with a cup of espresso.
Pippi skillfully skinned a pear for him.
Tim ordered another espresso.
“To keep me awake,” he said.
“That third lobster nearly put me away.”
No check was presented.
Pippi left a twenty-dollar bill on the table
and the two left the restaurant, the maître
d’ silently applauding Tim’s performance
at the table.
Pippi guided Big Tim to a small rental car
that Tim squeezed into with difficulty.
“Christ, can’t you afford a bigger car?”
Big Tim said.
“It’s only a short distance,” Pippi
said soothingly.
And indeed it was a five-minute ride.
By that time it was really dark except for
the lights of a small yacht moored to the
pier.
The gangplank was down, guarded by a man almost
as big as Tim.
There was another man on the far deck.
Pippi and Big Tim went up the gangplank and
onto the deck of the yacht.
Then Dante appeared on the deck and came forward
to shake their hands.
He was wearing his Renaissance hat, which
he guarded good-naturedly from Big Tim’s
swipe.
Dante led them below deck to a cabin decorated
as a dining room.
They sat around a table in comfortable chairs
screwed into the floor.
On the table was an array of liquor bottles,
a bucket of ice, and a tray with drinking
glasses.
Pippi poured them all a brandy.
At that moment the engines started and the
yacht began to move.
Big Tim said, “Where the hell are we going?”
Dante said smoothly, “Just a little spin
for some fresh air.
Once we’re out on the open sea, we can go
up on the deck and enjoy it.”
Big Tim was not that unsuspicious, but he
had faith in himself, that he could handle
anything that happened in the future.
He accepted the explanation.
Dante said, “Tim, my understanding is that
you want to go into business with me.”
“No, I want you to go into business with
me,” Big Tim said with boastful good humor.
“I run the show.
You get your money washed without paying a
premium.
And make a good bit extra.
I have a mall I’m building outside Fresno
and you can get a piece for five million or
ten.
I have a lot of other deals all the time.”
“That sounds very good,” Pippi De Lena
said.
Big Tim gave him a cold stare.
“Where do you shine in?
I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“He’s my junior partner,” Dante said.
“My advisor.
I have the money but he has the brains.”
He paused and then said sincerely, “He’s
told me a lot of good things about you, Tim,
that’s why we’re talking.”
The yacht was moving very swiftly now, the
glasses trembled on the tray.
Big Tim debated whether he should cut this
guy in on the Super Bowl fix.
Then he had one of his hunches, and they were
never wrong.
He leaned back in his chair, sipped his brandy,
and gave both men a serious questioning look,
which he often gave and had in fact rehearsed.
The look of a man about to bestow his trust.
In a best friend.
“I’m going to let you guys in on a secret,”
he said.
“But first, are we going to do business?
You want a piece of the mall?”
“I’m in,” Dante said.
“Our lawyers will get together tomor-row
and I’ll put up some good faith money.”
Big Tim emptied his brandy glass and then
leaned forward.
“I can fix the Super Bowl,” he said.
With a dramatic flourish he signaled to Pippi
to fill his glass.
He was gratified to see the look of astonishment
on their faces.
“You think I’m full of shit, right?”
he said.
Dante took off his Renaissance hat and looked
at it thoughtfully.
“I think you’re peeing in my hat,” he
said with a reminiscing smile.
“A lot of people try.
But Pippi is the expert on this stuff.
Pippi?”
“Can’t be done,” Pippi said.
“The Super Bowl is eight months away and
you don’t even know who’ll be in it.”
“Then fuck you,” Big Tim said.
“You don’t want part of a sure thing,
that’s okay with me.
But I’m telling you I can fix it.
If you don’t want it okay, let’s do the
mall.
Turn this boat around and stop wasting my
fucking time.”
“Don’t be so touchy,” Pippi said.
“Just tell us how the fix works.”
Big Tim gulped his brandy and said in a regretful
voice, “I can’t tell you that.
But I’ll give you a guarantee.
You bet ten million and we split the winnings.
If anything goes wrong, I’ll give you ten
million back.
Now is that fair?”
Dante and Pippi looked at each other with
amused grins.
Dante ducked his head, and his Renaissance
hat made him look like a cunning squirrel.
“You give me the money back in cash?”
he asked.
“Not exactly,” Big Tim said.
“I’ll make it up on another deal.
Take ten million off the price.”
“Do you fix the players?”
Dante asked.
“He can’t,” Pippi said.
“They make too much money.
It must be the officials.”
Big Tim was enthusiastic now.
“I can’t tell you but it’s foolproof.
And never mind the money.
Think of the glory.
It will be the biggest fix in sports history.”
“Sure, they’ll toast us in jail,” Dante
said.
“That’s the beauty of me not telling you
anything,” Big Tim said.
“I go to jail, you guys don’t.
And my lawyers are too good and I have too
many connections.”
For the first time, Dante varied Pippi’s
script.
He said, “Are we far enough out?”
Pippi said, “Yeah, but I think if we talk
a little more, Tim will tell us.”
“Fuck Tim,” Dante said pleasantly.
“You hear that, Big Tim?
Now I want to hear how the fix works and no
bullshit.”
His tone was so contemptuous that Big Tim’s
face flushed red.
“You little prick,” he said, “you think
you can scare me?
You think you’re tougher than the FBI, and
the IRS, and the toughest shylock on the West
Coast?
I’ll shit in your hat.”
Dante leaned back in his chair and banged
on the wall of the cabin.
A few seconds later two large, tough-looking
men opened the door, then stood guard.
In answer, Big Tim stood up and swept the
table clean with one huge arm.
Liquor bottles, the bucket of ice, and the
tray of glasses crashed to the cabin floor.
“No Tim, listen to me,” Pippi shouted.
He wanted to spare the man unnecessary suffering.
Also, he did not want to be the shooter, that
was not part of the plan.
But Big Tim was rushing toward the door, ready
to do battle.
Then suddenly Dante was slipping inside Big
Tim’s arms, nestled against his huge body.
They broke apart and Big Tim sagged to his
knees.
It was a frightening sight.
Half his shirt had been sliced away and where
once his hairy right breast had been there
was just a huge red patch from which an enormous
gush of blood poured, staining half the table.
In Dante’s hand was the knife he had used,
the blood crimson on its broad blade up to
the hilt.
“Put him in a chair,” Dante said to the
guards, and then he took the cloth off the
table to staunch Big Tim’s bleeding.
Big Tim was nearly unconscious with shock.
Pippi said, “You could have waited.”
“No,” Dante said.
“He’s a tough guy.
Let’s see how tough.”
“I’ll get things ready on the deck,”
Pippi said.
He didn’t want to watch.
He had never done torture.
There were really no secrets so important
that justified that kind of work.
When you killed a man, you merely separated
him from this world so that he could do you
no harm.
Up on the deck he saw that two of his men
had already prepared.
The steel cage was ready on its hook, the
slatted bars closed.
The deck was covered with a plastic sheet.
He felt the balmy air fragrant with salt,
the night ocean purple and still.
The yacht was slowing down and then it stopped.
Pippi gazed down at the ocean for a full fifteen
minutes before the two men who had stood guard
at the door appeared, carrying Big Tim’s
body.
It was so terrible a sight that Pippi averted
his eyes.
The four men put Big Tim’s body into the
cage and then lowered it over the water.
One of the men adjusted the slats so that
the cage was open for the denizens of the
ocean deep to slide between the bars and feast
on the body.
Then the hook was released and the cage plunged
to the bottom of the sea.
Before the sun rose, there would be only the
skeleton of Big Tim’s body swimming eternally
in its cage on the ocean floor.
Dante came up on deck.
He had obviously taken a shower and changed
his clothes.
Underneath the Renaissance hat his hair was
slick and wet.
There was no trace of blood.
“So he already made his Communion,” Dante
said.
“You could have waited for me.”
Pippi said, “Did he talk?”
“Oh yeah,” Dante said.
“The fix was really simple.
Except maybe he was full of shit right up
to the end.”
The next day Pippi flew East to give the Don
and Giorgio a full report.
“Big Tim was crazy,” he said.
“He bribed the caterer who supplies the
food and drink to the teams in the Super Bowl.
They were going to use drugs to make the team
they bet against weaker as the game went on.
The coaches and players would notice even
if the fans didn’t, and the FBI, too.
You were right, Uncle, the scandal would have
set back our program maybe forever.”
“Was he an idiot?”
Giorgio asked.
“I think he wanted to be famous,” Pippi
said.
“Rich wasn’t enough.”
“What about the others involved in the scheme?”
the Don asked.
“When they don’t hear from the Rustler,
they’ll be scared off,” Pippi said.
Giorgio said, “I agree.”
“Very good,” the Don said.
“And my grandson, did he perform well?”
It seemed an offhand remark, but Pippi knew
the Don well enough to understand that this
was a very serious question.
He answered as carefully as he could but with
a certain purpose.
“I told him not to wear his hat on this
operation in Vegas and L.A. He did anyway.
Then he didn’t follow the script of the
operation.
We could have got the information with more
talk but he wanted blood.
He cut the guy to pieces.
He cut off his cock and nuts and breasts.
That wasn’t necessary.
He enjoys doing it and that is very dangerous
for the Family.
Somebody really has got to talk to him.”
“It will have to be you,” Giorgio said
to the Don.
“He doesn’t listen to me.”
Don Domenico pondered this a long time.
“He’s young, he’ll grow out of it.”
Pippi saw that the Don would not do anything.
So he told them about Dante’s indiscretion
with the movie star the night before the operation.
He saw the Don flinch and Giorgio grimace
with distaste.
There was a long silence.
Pippi wondered if he had gone too far.
Finally, the Don shook his head and said,
“Pippi, you have planned well, as always,
but you can set your mind at rest.
You will never have to work with Dante again.
But you must understand, Dante is my daughter’s
only child.
Giorgio and I must do our best with him.
He will grow wiser.”
Cross De Lena sat on the balcony of his executive
penthouse suite in the Xanadu Hotel and examined
the dangers of the course of action he was
taking.
From his vantage point he could see the full
length of the Strip, the line of luxury casino
hotels on either side, the crowds of people
in the street.
He could see the gamblers on the Xanadu golf
course, superstitiously trying for a hole
in one to ensure the victory at the gaming
tables later.
First danger: In this Boz operation he was
making a crucial move without consulting the
Clericuzio Family.
It was true that he was the administrative
Baron of the Western District, which comprised
Nevada and the southern part of California.
It was true that the Barons operated independently
in many areas and were not strictly under
the Clericuzio Family as long as they wet
the Clericuzio beak with a percentage of earnings.
But there were very strict rules.
No Baron, or Bruglione, could embark on an
operation of such magnitude without the approval
of the Clericuzio.
For one simple reason.
If a Baron did so and got into trouble, he
would receive no prosecutorial indulgence,
no judicial intervention.
In addition, he would receive no support against
any rising chief in his own territories, and
his money would not be laundered and tucked
away for his old age.
Cross knew he should see Giorgio and the Don
for an OK.
This operation could be enormously sensitive.
And he was putting up part of his 51 percent
equity in the Xanadu, left to him by Gronevelt,
to finance the movie deal.
It was true it was his own money, but it was
money allied to the hidden interest that the
Clericuzio shared in the Hotel.
And it was money that the Clericuzio had helped
him earn.
It was a peculiar and yet somehow very human
quirk of the Clericuzio that they felt a proprietary
interest in the fortunes of their subordinates.
They would resent his investing this money
without their advice.
Their quirk, though it had no legal foundation,
resembled a medieval courtesy: no baron could
sell his castle without royal consent.
And the magnitude of the money involved was
a factor.
Cross had inherited Gronevelt’s fifty-one
points, the Xanadu was worth a billion dollars.
But he was gambling fifty million, investing
another fifty million for a total of a C million.
The economic risk was enormous.
And the Clericuzio were notoriously prudent
and conservative, as indeed they had to be
to survive the world they moved in.
Cross remembered another thing.
Long ago, when the Santadio and Clericuzio
Families were on good terms, they had gained
a foothold in the movie business.
But it had not turned out well.
When the Santadio Empire was crushed, Don
Cleri-cuzio had ordered that all attempts
to infiltrate the movie business be halted.
“Those people are too clever,” the Don
said.
“And they have no fear because the rewards
are so high.
We should have to kill them all and then we
would not know how to run the business.
It is more complicated than drugs.”
No, Cross decided.
If he asked permission it would be denied.
And then it would be impossible to proceed.
When it was done he could do penance, he could
let the Clericuzio beak drown itself in his
profits, success often excused the most impudent
of sins.
And if he failed, then most likely he would
be finished anyway, approval or not.
Which brought up a final doubt.
Why was he doing this?
He thought of Gronevelt’s “Beware of damsels
in distress.”
Well, he had met damsels in distress before
and had left them to their dragons.
Vegas was full of damsels in distress.
But he knew.
He yearned for the beauty of Athena Aquitane.
It wasn’t just for the loveliness of her
face, her eyes, her hair, her legs, her breasts.
He yearned to see the look of intelligence
and warmth in her eyes, in the very bones
of her face, in the delicate curve of her
lips.
He felt that if he could know her, be in her
presence, the whole world would take on a
different light, the sun a different heat.
He saw the ocean behind her, rolling green
and capped with white flume, like a halo around
her head.
And the thought strayed into his mind: Athena
was the woman his mother had dreamed of becoming.
Astonished, he felt a well of longing to see
her, to be with her, to listen to her voice,
to watch her move.
And then he thought, Oh shit, is this why
I’m doing this?
He accepted it and was pleased that finally
he knew the real reason for his actions.
It made him resolute and it made him focus.
At the present time the main problem was operational.
Forget Athena.
Forget the Clericuzio.
There was the difficult problem of Boz Skannet,
a problem that had to be solved quickly.
Cross knew he had put himself in too naked
a position, another complication.
To publicly profit if anything happened to
Skannet was dangerous.
Cross resolved on the three people he needed
for the planned operation.
The first was Andrew Pollard, who owned Pacific
Ocean Security and was already involved in
the whole mess.
The second was Lia Vazzi, the caretaker of
the Cleri-cuzio hunting lodge in the Nevada
mountains.
Lia headed a crew of men who also served as
caretakers but were on call for special duties.
The third man was Leonard Sossa, a retired
counterfeiter on Family retainer to do odd
jobs.
All three came under Cross De Lena’s control
as the Western Bruglione.
It was two days later that Andrew Pollard
got the phone call from Cross De Lena.
“I hear you’re working too hard,” Cross
said.
“How about coming to Vegas for a little
vacation?
I’ll comp you RFB—room, food, beverage.
Bring the wife.
And if you get bored pop up to my office for
a chat.”
“Thanks,” Pollard said, “I’m pretty
busy right now, but how about next week?”
“Sure,” Cross said.
“But then I’ll be out of town, so I’ll
miss you.”
“I’ll come tomorrow then,” Pollard said.
“Great,” Cross said and hung up.
Pollard leaned back in his chair, pondering.
The invitation had been a command.
He would have to walk a very thin line.
Leonard Sossa enjoyed life as only a man reprieved
from a terrible death sentence can enjoy life.
He enjoyed the sunrise, he enjoyed the sunset.
He enjoyed the grass growing and the cows
who ate the grass.
He enjoyed the sight of beautiful women and
confident young men and clever children.
He enjoyed a crust of bread, a glass of wine,
a knob of cheese.
Twenty years before, the FBI had arrested
him for making hundred-dollar bills for the
now-extinct Santadio Family.
His confederates had copped a plea, sold him
out, and he had believed the flower of his
manhood would wither in prison.
Counterfeiting money was a far more dangerous
crime than rape, murder, arson.
When you counterfeited money, you attacked
the machinery of government itself.
When you committed the other crimes you were
only some scavenger taking a bite out of the
carcass of the huge beast that composed the
expendable human chain.
He expected no mercy and was given none.
Leonard Sossa was sentenced to twenty years.
Sossa did only a year.
A fellow inmate, overcome with admiration
for Sossa’s skills, his genius with ink
and pencil and pen, recruited him for the
Clericuzio Family.
Suddenly he had a new lawyer.
Suddenly he had an outside doctor he had never
met.
Suddenly there was a hearing for clemency
on the ground that his mental capacity had
deteriorated to that of a child and he was
no longer a menace to society.
Suddenly Leonard Sossa was a free man and
an employee of the Clericuzio Family.
The Family had a need for a first-rate forger.
Not for currency, they knew that to the authorities
counterfeiting was an unforgivable crime.
They needed a forger for far more important
tasks.
In the mountains of paperwork Giorgio had
to handle, juggling different national and
international corporations, signing legal
documents by nonexistent corporate officers,
making deposits and withdrawals of vast sums
of money, a variety of signatures and imitations
of signatures were needed.
Then, as time went on, other uses were found
for Leonard.
The Xanadu Hotel used his skills very profitably.
When a very rich high roller died and had
markers in the cage, Sossa was brought in
to sign another million dollars.
Of course the dead man’s estate would not
pay the markers.
But then the whole amount could be charged
as loss on the Xanadu’s taxes.
This happened far more often than was natural.
There seemed to be a high mortality rate in
pleasure.
The same was done to high rollers who reneged
on their debts or settled dimes on the dollar.
For all this Leonard Sossa was paid a hundred
thousand dollars a year and barred from doing
any other kind of work, especially counterfeiting
currency.
This fit in with Family policy in general.
The Clericuzio had an edict that prohibited
all crime-family members from engaging in
counterfeiting and kidnapping.
These were the crimes that made all the Federal
enforcement agencies come down with crushing
force.
The rewards were simply not worth the risk.
So for twenty years Sossa enjoyed life as
an artist in his little house that nestled
in Topanga Canyon, not far from Malibu.
He had a small garden, a goat, a cat, and
a dog.
He painted during the day and drank at night.
There was an endless supply of young girls
who lived in the Canyon and were free spirits
and fellow painters.
Sossa never left the Canyon except to shop
in Santa Monica or when he was called to duty
by the Clericuzio Family, which was usually
twice a month for a period of no more than
a few days.
He did the work they wanted him to do and
never asked questions.
He was a valued soldier in the Clericuzio
Family.
So when a car came to pick him up and the
driver told him to bring his tools and clothes
for a few days, Sossa turned his goat, dog,
and cat loose into the Canyon and locked his
house.
The animals could take care of themselves;
after all, they were not children.
It was not that he was not fond of them, but
animals had a short life span, especially
in the Canyon, and he had gotten used to losing
them.
His year in prison had made Leonard Sossa
a realist, and his unexpected release had
made him an optimist.
Lia Vazzi, the caretaker of the Clericuzio
Family’s hunting lodge in the Sierra Nevada,
had arrived in the United States when he was
only thirty years old and the most wanted
man in Italy.
In the ten years since then he had learned
to speak English with only a very slight accent
and could read and write it to a fair degree.
In Sicily he had been born to one of the most
learned and powerful Families on the island.
Fifteen years before, Lia Vazzi had been the
leader of the Mafia in Palermo, a Qualified
Man of the first rank.
But he had reached too far.
In Rome, the government had appointed an examining
magistrate and given him extraordinary powers
to wipe out the Mafia in Sicily.
The examining magistrate had arrived in Palermo
with his wife and children, protected by army
troops and a horde of police.
He gave a fiery speech, promising to show
no mercy to those criminals who had ruled
the beautiful island of Sicily for centuries.
The time had come for the law to rule, for
the elected representatives of the people
of Italy to decide the fate of Sicily, not
the ignorant thugs with their shameful secret
societies.
Vazzi took his speech as a personal insult.
The examining magistrate was heavily guarded
day and night, as he heard the testimony of
witnesses and issued arrest orders.
His court was a fortress, his living quarters
rimmed by a perimeter of army troops.
He was seemingly impregnable.
But after three months Vazzi learned the magistrate’s
itinerary, which had been kept secret to prevent
surprise attacks.
The magistrate traveled to the big towns in
Sicily to gather evidence and issue arrest
warrants.
He was scheduled to return to Palermo to be
given a medal for his heroic attempt to rid
the island of its Mafia scourge.
Lia Vazzi and his men mined a small bridge
that the magistrate had to pass over.
The magistrate and his guards were blown into
such tiny bits that the bodies had to be brought
out of the water with sieves.
The government in Rome, infuriated, replied
with a massive search for the culprits responsible,
and Vazzi had to go underground.
Though the government had no proof, he knew
that if he fell into their hands he would
be better off dead.
Now the Clericuzio sent Pippi De Lena to Sicily
every year to recruit men to live in the Bronx
Enclave and soldier for the Clericuzio Family.
The bedrock of the Don’s faith was that
only Sicilians with their centuries-long tradition
of omertà could be trusted not to turn traitor.
The young men in America were too soft, too
lightheaded with vanity, could be too easily
turned into informants by the more ferocious
of the district attorneys who were sending
so many of the Brugliones to prison.
As a philosophy, omertà was quite simple.
It was a mortal sin to talk to the police
about anything that would harm the Mafia.
If a rival Mafia clan murdered your father
before your eyes, you were forbidden to inform
the police.
If you yourself were shot and lay dying, you
were forbidden to inform the police.
If they stole your mule, your goat, your jewelry,
you were forbidden to go to the police.
The authorities were the Great Satan a true
Sicilian could never turn to.
Family and the Mafia were the avengers.
Ten years before, Pippi De Lena had taken
his son, Cross, on his trip to Sicily as part
of his training.
The task was not so much recruiting as screening,
there were hundreds of willing men whose greatest
dream was to be picked to go to America.
They went to a little town fifty miles from
Palermo, into the countryside of villages
built of stone, decorated with the bright
flowers of Sicily.
There they were welcomed into the home of
the mayor himself.
The mayor was a short man with a rounded belly,
the belly figurative as well as literal, for
“a man with a belly” was the Sicilian
idiom for a Mafia chief.
The house had a pleasant garden with fig and
olive and lemon trees, and it was here that
Pippi did his interviews.
The garden strangely resembled the Clericuzio
garden in Quogue, except for the brilliantly
colored flowers and the lemon trees.
The mayor was obviously a man who loved beauty,
for in addition he had a comely wife and three
lusciously pretty daughters who, though in
their early teens, were fully developed women.
But Cross saw that his father, Pippi, was
a different man in Sicily.
There was none of his carefree gallantry here,
he was soberly respectful to the women, his
charm erased.
Late that night, in the room they shared,
he lectured Cross.
“You have to be careful with Sicilians.
They distrust men who are interested in women.
You screw one of their daughters, we’ll
never get out of here alive.”
Over the next few days men came to be interviewed
and screened by Pippi.
He had criteria.
The men could not be older than thirty-five
or younger than twenty.
If they were married, they could not have
more than one child.
Finally, they had to be vouched for by the
mayor.
He explained this.
If the men were too young, they might be too
influenced by the American culture.
If they were too old, they could not make
the adjustment to America.
If they had more than one child, they would
be of too cautious a temperament to take the
risks their duties would demand.
Some of the men who came were so seriously
compromised in the eyes of the law that they
had to leave Sicily.
Some were simply seeking a better life in
America no matter the cost.
Some were too clever to rely on fate and desperately
wanted to soldier for the Clericuzio, and
these were the best.
At the end of the week Pippi had his quota
of twenty men, and he gave his list to the
mayor, who would approve them and then arrange
for their emigration.
The mayor crossed out one name on the list.
Pippi said, “I thought he would be perfect
for us.
Have I made a mistake?”
“No, no,” the mayor said.
“You have done cleverly as always.”
Pippi was puzzled.
All of the recruits would be treated very
well.
The single men would be given apartments,
the married men with a child a small house.
They would all have steady jobs.
They would all live in the Bronx Enclave.
And then some would be chosen as soldiers
in the Clericuzio Family and make a handsome
living with a bright future.
The man whose name had been crossed out by
the mayor had to be in very bad odor.
But then why had he been cleared for an interview?
Pippi sensed a Sicilian rat.
The mayor was observing him shrewdly, seeming
to read his mind and pleased by what he read.
“You are too much of a Sicilian for me to
deceive you,” the mayor said.
“The name I crossed out is a man my daughter
intends to marry.
I want to keep him here a year longer for
my daughter’s happiness, then you can have
him.
I could not refuse his interview.
The other reason is that I have a man who
I think you should take in his place.
Will you do me the favor of seeing him?”
“Of course,” Pippi said.
The mayor said, “I don’t want to mislead
you, but this is a special case and he must
leave immediately.”
“You know I have to be very careful,”
Pippi said.
“The Clericuzio are particular.”
“It will be to your interest,” the mayor
said.
“But it is a little dangerous.”
He then explained about Lia Vazzi.
The assassination of the magistrate had made
world headlines, so Pippi and Cross were familiar
with the case.
“If they have no proof, why is this situation
so desperate for Vazzi?”
Cross said.
The mayor said, “Young man, this is Sicily.
The police are also Sicilians.
The magistrate was a Sicilian.
Everybody knows it was Lia.
Never mind your legal proof.
If he falls into their hands, he will be dead.”
Pippi said, “Can you get him out of the
country and into America?”
“Yes,” said the mayor.
“The difficulty is keeping him hidden in
America.”
Pippi said, “He sounds like he’s more
trouble than he’s worth.”
The mayor shrugged.
“He’s a friend of mine, I confess.
But put that aside.”
He paused and smiled benignly to make sure
that it was not put aside.
“He is also an ultimate Qualified Man.
He is expert in explosives and that is always
a very tricky business.
He knows the rope, an old and very useful
skill.
The knife and gun of course.
Most important of all he is intelligent, a
man of all parts.
And steadfast.
Like a rock.
He never talks.
He listens and has the gift of loosening tongues.
Now tell me, can you not use a man like that?”
“An answer to my prayers,” Pippi said
smoothly.
“But still why does such a man run away?”
“Because in addition to all his other virtues,”
the mayor said, “he is prudent.
He does not challenge fate.
His days are numbered here.”
“And a man who’s qualified,” Pippi said,
“can he be happy as a mere soldier in America?”
The mayor bowed his head in a sorrowful commiseration.
“He is a true Christian,” he said.
“He has the humility that Christ has always
taught us.”
“I must meet such a man,” Pippi said,
“if only for the pleasure of the experience.
But I can guarantee nothing.”
The mayor made a wide, expansive gesture.
“Of course he must suit you,” he said.
“But there is another thing I must tell
you.
He forbade me to deceive you about this.”
For the first time the mayor was not so confident.
“He has a wife and three children and they
must go with him.”
At that moment Pippi knew his answer would
be no.
“Ah,” he said, “that makes it very difficult.
When do we see him?”
“He will be in the garden after dark,”
the mayor said.
“There is no danger, I have seen to that.”
Lia Vazzi was a small man but with that wiry
toughness that many Sicilians inherited from
long-ago Arab ancestors.
He had a handsome, hawklike face, a dark brown,
dignified mask, and he spoke English to a
degree.
They sat around the mayor’s garden table
with a bottle of homemade red wine, a dish
of olives from the nearby trees, and bread,
crusty and freshly baked that evening, round,
still warm, and beside it a whole leg of prosciutto,
studded with grains of whole pepper, like
black diamonds.
Lia Vazzi ate and drank and said nothing.
“I have received the highest recommendations,”
Pippi said respectfully.
“But I worry.
Can a man of your education and qualification
be happy in America in the service of another
man?”
Lia looked at Cross and then said to Pippi,
“You have a son.
What would you do to save him?
I want to have my wife and children safe and
for that I will do my duty.”
“There will be some danger for us,” Pippi
said.
“You understand that I have to think of
the benefits that justify the risk.”
Lia shrugged.
“I can’t be the judge of that.”
He seemed resigned to being refused.
Pippi said, “If you come by yourself, it
will be easier.”
“No,” Vazzi said.
“My family will live together or die together.”
He paused for a moment.
“If I leave them here, Rome will make it
very difficult for them.
I would rather give myself up.”
Pippi said, “The problem is how to hide
you and your family.”
Vazzi shrugged.
“America is vast,” he said.
He offered the plate of olives to Cross and
said almost mockingly, “Would your father
ever desert you?”
“No,” Cross said.
“He is old-fashioned, like yourself.”
He said it gravely but with a tiny trace of
a smile.
Then he said, “I hear you’re a farmer
also.”
“Olives,” Vazzi said.
“I have my own press.”
Cross said to Pippi, “How about the Family
hunting lodge in the Sierras?
He could take care of it with his family and
earn his keep.
It’s isolated.
His family can help.”
He turned to Lia.
“Would you live in the woods?”
Woods as the idiom for anything not urban.
Lia shrugged.
It was the personal force of Lia Vazzi that
persuaded Pippi De Lena.
Vazzi was not a big man, but his body put
out an electric dignity.
He had a chilling effect, a man who was not
daunted by death, feared neither Hell nor
Heaven.
Pippi said, “It’s a good idea.
Perfect camouflage.
And we can call on you for special jobs and
let you earn extra money.
Those jobs will be your risk.”
They could see the muscles on Lia’s face
loosen when he realized that he had been chosen.
His voice trembled slightly when he spoke.
“I want to thank you for saving my wife
and children,” he said, and looked directly
at Cross De Lena.
Since then Lia Vazzi had more than earned
the mercy that had been shown to him.
He had risen from soldier to leader of all
of Cross’s operational crews.
He supervised the six men who helped him care
for the Hunting Lodge estate, on whose grounds
he owned his own house.
He had prospered, he had become a citizen,
his children went away to the university.
All this earned by his courage and good sense,
and most of all, his loyalty.
So when he received the message to meet Cross
De Lena in Las Vegas, it was with a goodwill
that he packed his suitcase in his new Buick
and made the long drive to Vegas and the Xanadu
Hotel.
Andrew Pollard was the first to arrive in
Las Vegas.
He flew from L.A. on the noon flight, relaxed
by one of the Hotel Xanadu’s huge pools,
gambled small-time craps for a few hours,
then was secretly whisked into Cross De Lena’s
penthouse office suite.
They shook hands and Cross said, “I won’t
keep you long.
You can fly back tonight.
What I need is all the information you have
on the Skannet guy.”
Pollard briefed him on everything that had
happened and informed him that Skannet was
now staying in the Beverly Hills Hotel.
He told of his conversation with Bantz.
“So they don’t really give a shit about
her, they just want to get the picture done,”
he told Cross.
“Also, the Studio doesn’t take characters
like that seriously.
I have a twenty-man section in my company
that just handles harassers.
Movie stars really have to worry about people
like him.”
“What about the cops?”
Cross asked.
“Can’t they do something?”
“No,” Pollard said.
“Not until after the damage.”
“What about you?”
Cross asked.
“You have some good personnel working for
you.”
“I have to be careful,” Pollard said.
“I could lose my business if I get tough.
You know how the courts are.
Why should I stick my neck out?”
“This Boz Skannet, what kind of guy is he?”
Cross said.
“He won’t scare,” Pollard said.
“In fact he scares me.
He’s one of those genuinely tough guys who
doesn’t care about consequences.
His family has money and political power so
he figures he can get away with anything.
And he really enjoys trouble, you know, how
some guys do.
If you’re going to get into this you have
to be serious.”
“I’m always serious,” Cross said.
“You have Skannet under surveillance now?”
“I sure have,” Pollard said.
“He is definitely capable of pulling bad
shit.”
Cross said, “Pull off your surveillance.
I don’t want anyone watching him.
Understand?”
“OK, if you say so,” Pollard said.
He paused for a moment, then said, “Watch
out for Jim Losey, he’s keeping an eye out
on Skannet.
Do you know Losey?”
“I’ve met him,” Cross said.
“I want you to do one other thing.
Lend me your Pacific Ocean Security ID for
a couple of hours.
You’ll have it back in time to catch the
midnight flight to L.A.”
Pollard was worried.
“You know I’ll do anything for you Cross,
but be careful; this is a very touchy case.
I’ve built up a very good life out here
and I don’t want it to go down the drain.
I know I owe it all to the Clericuzio Family,
I’m always grateful, I’m always paid back.
But this is a very complicated business.”
Cross smiled at him reassuringly.
“You’re too valuable to us.
One other thing, if Skannet calls up to check
on men from your office talking to him, you
just verify it.”
At this, Pollard’s heart sank.
This was going to be real trouble.
Cross said, “Now tell me anything else you
can about him.”
When Pollard hesitated, Cross added, “I’ll
do something for you.
Later on.”
Pollard thought for a moment.
“Skannet claims he knows a big secret that
Athena would do anything not to have anyone
find out.
That’s why she dropped the charges against
him.
A terrific secret, Skannet loves that secret.
Cross, I don’t know how or why you’re
involved, but maybe knowing that secret can
solve your problem.”
For the first time Cross looked at him without
affability and suddenly he knew why Cross
had acquired his reputation.
The look was cold, judging, a judging that
could result in death.
Cross said, “You know why I’m interested.
Bantz must have told you the story.
He hired you to do a background on me.
Now do you have any of this big secret or
does the Studio?”
“No,” Pollard said.
“Nobody knows.
Cross, I’m doing my best for you, you know
that.”
“I do know that,” Cross said, suddenly
gentle.
“Let me make it easier for you.
The Studio is hot to know how I’m going
to get Athena Aquitane back to work.
I’ll tell you.
I’m going to give her half the profits of
the movie.
And it’s okay by me for you to tell them.
You can make points, they may even give you
a bonus.”
He reached into his desk and took out a round
leather bag and put it in Pollard’s hand.
“Five grand of black chips,” he said.
“I always worry when I ask you up here on
business that you’ll lose money in the casino.”
He need not have worried.
Andrew Pollard always turned the chips into
the casino cage for cash.
Leonard Sossa was just getting settled into
a secured business suite at the Xanadu when
Pollard’s ID was brought to him.
With his own equipment he carefully forged
four sets of Pacific Ocean Security IDs, complete
with special flap-open billfolds.
They would not have passed an inspection by
Pollard, but that was not necessary, Pollard
would never see these IDs.
When Sossa finished the job several hours
later, two men drove him to the Sierra Nevada
Hunting Lodge, where he was installed in a
bungalow deep in the woods.
On the porch of the bungalow that afternoon,
he watched a deer and bear that wandered by.
At night he cleaned his tools and waited.
He didn’t know where he was or what he was
going to do and he didn’t want to know.
He got his hundred grand a year and lived
the life of a free man in the open air.
He killed time by sketching the bear and the
deer he had seen on a hundred sheets of paper
and then riffling them together to give the
impression of the deer chasing the bear.
Lia Vazzi was greeted in an altogether different
fashion.
Cross embraced him, gave him dinner in his
suite.
During Vazzi’s years in America, Cross had
been his operational chief many times.
Vazzi, despite his own force of character,
had never tried to usurp authority, and Cross
in turn had treated him with the respect that
a man gave his equal.
Over the years Cross had gone to the Hunting
Lodge for weekend vacations and the two of
them had gone hunting together.
Vazzi told stories of the troubles in Sicily
and the difference in living in America.
Cross had reciprocated by inviting Vazzi and
his family to Vegas, comped RFB at the Xanadu
plus a credit rating of five thousand in the
casino, which Lia was never asked to pay.
Over dinner they talked generally.
Vazzi marveled still at his life in America.
His oldest son was taking a degree at the
University of California and had no knowledge
of his father’s secret life.
Vazzi was uneasy with this.
“Sometimes I think he has none of my blood,”
he said.
“He believes everything his professors tell
him.
He believes women are equal to men, he believes
peasants should be given free land.
He belongs to the swimming team at college.
In all my life in Sicily, and Sicily is an
island, I have never seen a Sicilian swimming.”
“Except a fisherman thrown off his boat,”
Cross said laughing.
“Not even then,” Vazzi said.
“They all drowned.”
When they had finished eating, they talked
business.
Vazzi never really enjoyed the food in Vegas,
but he loved the brandy and Havana cigars.
Cross always sent him a case of good brandy
and a box of thin Havana cigars once a year
at Christmas.
“I have something very difficult for you
to do,” Cross said.
“Something that must be done very intelligently.”
“That is always difficult,” Vazzi said.
“It must be at the Hunting Lodge,” Cross
said.
“We will bring a certain person there.
I want him to write some letters, I want him
to give a piece of information.”
He paused to smile at Vazzi’s dismissive
gesture.
Vazzi had often commented on American movies
where the hero or villain refused to give
information.
“I could make them speak Chinese,” Vazzi
would say.
“The difficulty,” Cross said, “is that
there must be no mark on his body, no drugs
inside his body.
Also this certain person is very strong-willed.”
“Only women can make a man talk with kisses,”
Vazzi said amiably, savoring his cigar.
“It sounds to me that you are going to be
personally involved in this story.”
Cross said, “There is no other way.
The men working will be your crew but first
the Lodge must be cleared of the women and
children.”
Vazzi waved his cigar.
“They will go to Disneyland, that blessing
in happiness and trouble.
We always send them there.”
“Disneyland?”
Cross asked, and laughed.
“I have never been,” Vazzi said.
“I hope to go there when I die.
Will this be a Communion or a Confirmation?”
“Confirmation,” Cross said.
Then they got down to business.
Cross explained the operation to Vazzi and
why and how it should be done.
“How does it sound to you?”
he asked.
“You are far more Sicilian than my son and
you were born in America,” Vazzi said.
“But what happens if he remains stubborn
and won’t give you what you want.”
“Then the fault will be mine,” Cross said.
“And his.
And then we must pay.
In that, America and Sicily are the same.”
“True,” Vazzi said.
“As in China and Russia and Africa.
As the Don often says, Then we can all go
swim in the bottom of the ocean.”
CHAPTER 9
.
ELI MARRION, BOBBY BANTZ, Skippy Deere, and
Melo Stuart assembled in emergency session
in Marrion’s home.
Andrew Pollard had reported to Bantz Cross
De Lena’s secret scheme to get Athena back
to work.
This information had been corroborated by
the detective Jim Losey, who refused to divulge
his source.
“This is a stickup,” Bantz said.
“Melo, you’re her agent, you’re responsible
for her and all your clients.
Does this mean when we are in the middle of
a big picture your star refuses to go to work
until they get half the profits?”
“Only if you’re crazy enough to pay it,”
Stuart said.
“Let this De Lena guy do it.
He won’t stay in the business long.”
Marrion said, “Melo, you’re talking strategy,
we’re talking right this minute.
If Athena goes back to work, then you and
your client are sticking us up like bank robbers.
Will you permit that?”
They were all astonished.
It was rare that Marrion cut so quickly to
the bone, at least since his younger days.
Stuart was alarmed.
“Athena knows nothing about this,” he
said.
“She would have told me.”
Deere said, “Would she take the deal if
she knew?”
Stuart said, “I would advise her to take
it and then in a side letter split her half
with the Studio.”
Bantz said crisply, “Then all her protestations
of fear would be a mockery.
Bullshit, in short.
And Melo, you’re full of shit.
You think this studio would settle for half
of what Athena gets from De Lena?
All that money rightfully belongs to us.
And she may get away rich with De Lena but
it means the end of her career in the movies.
No studio will ever hire her again.”
“Foreign,” Skippy said.
“Foreign would take a chance.”
Marrion picked up the phone and handed it
to Stuart.
“This is all to no purpose.
Call Athena.
Tell her what Cross De Lena is going to offer
and ask if she is going to accept.”
Deere said, “She disappeared over the weekend.”
“She’s back,” Stuart said.
“She often disappears on weekends.”
He pushed the buttons on the phone.
The conversation was very brief.
Stuart hung up and smiled.
“She said she has received no such offer.
And no such offer would make her come back
to work.
She doesn’t give a shit about her career.”
He paused for a moment and then said admiringly,
“I’d like to meet this guy Skannet.
Any man who can scare an actress out of her
career has some good in him.”
Marrion said, “It’s settled then.
We’ve recouped our loss out of a hopeless
situation.
But it’s a pity.
Athena was such a great star.”
Andrew Pollard had his instructions.
The first had been to inform Bantz of Cross
De Lena’s intention regarding Athena.
The second was to pull the surveillance team
off Skannet.
The third was to visit Boz Skannet and offer
a proposition.
Skannet was in his undershirt when he let
Pollard into his Beverly Hills Hotel suite,
and he smelled of cologne.
“Just finished shaving,” he said.
“This hotel has more bathroom perfumes than
a whorehouse.”
“You are not supposed to be in this town,”
Pollard said reproachfully.
Skannet slapped him on the back.
“I know, but I’ll leave tomorrow.
I just have a few loose ends to tie up.”
His malicious glee while saying this, his
massive torso, would have frightened Pollard
before, but now that Cross was involved it
only evoked pity.
But he would have to be careful.
“Athena is not surprised that you haven’t
left,” he said.
“She feels the Studio doesn’t understand
you but she does.
So she would like to meet with you personally.
She thinks that just the two of you alone
can strike a deal.”
When he saw the momentary rush of joy on Skannet’s
face, he knew that Cross had been right.
This guy was still in love, he would buy the
story.
Boz Skannet was suddenly wary.
“That doesn’t sound like Athena.
She can’t stand the sight of me, not that
I blame her.”
He laughed.
“She needs that pretty mug of hers.”
Pollard said, “She wants to make a serious
offer.
A lifetime annuity.
A percentage of her earnings for the rest
of her life if you want.
But she wants to talk to you personally and
secretly.
There’s something else she wants.”
“I know what she wants,” Skannet said.
Skannet had a curious look on his face.
Pollard had seen that look on the faces of
wistfully repentant rapists.
“Seven o’clock,” Pollard said.
“Two of my men will come to pick you up
and bring you to the meeting place.
They will stay with her to be her bodyguards.
Two of my best men, armed.
Just so you won’t get any funny ideas.”
Skannet smiled.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“Right,” Pollard said and left.
When the door closed, Skannet shot his right
hand up in the air.
He would see Athena again with only two half-assed
private detectives to protect her.
And he would have proof that she initiated
the meeting, he would not be violating the
judge’s restraining order.
For the rest of the day he dreamed of their
reunion.
It was really a surprise to him, and thinking
about it he knew that Athena would use her
body to persuade him into the bargain.
He lay on his bed imagining how it would be
to be with her again.
The image of her body was clear.
Her white skin, the gentle curve of her belly,
her breasts with their pink nipples, her eyes
so green they were another kind of light,
her warm delicate mouth, her breath, her flaming
hair like the sun turning into smoky brass
under a night sky.
For a moment his old love swept over him,
his love of her intelligence and her brave
character that he had broken down into fear.
Then for the first time since he was sixteen,
he was fondling himself.
His mind formed clear figures of Athena urging
him on, until he climaxed.
For that one moment he was happy and he loved
her.
And then everything turned around.
He felt a sense of shame, of humiliation.
He hated her again.
Suddenly he was convinced it was some sort
of trap.
What did he really know about this guy Pollard,
anyway.
Skannet dressed hurriedly and studied the
card Pollard had given him.
The office was only a twenty-minute drive
from the hotel.
He rushed down to the hotel entrance and a
valet brought his car.
When he entered the Pacific Ocean Security
Building, he was surprised at the size and
opulence of the operation.
He made his way to the reception desk and
stated his business.
An armed security guard escorted him to Pollard’s
office.
Skannet noticed that the walls were decorated
with awards from the L.A. Police Department,
the Association to Help the Homeless, and
other organizations, including the Boy Scouts
of America.
There was even some sort of a movie award.
Andrew Pollard was regarding him with surprise,
and a little concern.
Skannet reassured him.
“I just wanted to tell you,” he said,
“I’ll drive to the meet-ing in my car.
Your men can ride with me and give me directions.”
Pollard shrugged.
This would be none of his business.
He had done what he had been instructed to
do.
“Fine,” he said.
“But you could have called me.”
Skannet grinned at him.
“Sure, but I just wanted to check on your
offices.
Also, I want to call Athena to make sure this
is on the up-and-up.
I figured you can get her on the phone for
me.
She might not take my call.”
“Sure,” Pollard said agreeably.
He picked up the phone.
He didn’t know what was going on and in
his heart he hoped that Skannet would abort
the meeting and he would no longer be involved
in whatever Cross was planning to do.
He also knew Athena would not speak to him
directly.
He dialed the number and asked for Athena.
He put the loudspeaker on so that Skannet
could hear the call.
Athena’s secretary told him that Miss Aquitane
was out and was not expected back until the
next day.
He put down the phone and raised an eyebrow
to Skannet.
Skannet looked happy.
And Skannet was.
He had been right.
Athena was planning to use her body to make
the deal.
She was planning to spend the night with him.
The red skin of his face took on an almost
bronze sheen with the rush of blood to his
brain, remembering when she was young, when
she had loved him, when he had loved her.
At seven that evening, when Lia Vazzi arrived
at the hotel with one of his soldiers, Skannet
was waiting for him and ready to go immediately.
Skannet was dressed very neatly in a boyish
way.
He wore heavy blue jeans, a faded blue denim
shirt, and a white sports jacket.
He had shaved carefully, and his blond hair
was combed straight back.
His red skin seemed paler, his face softened
by the paleness.
Lia Vazzi and his soldier showed Skannet their
forged Pacific Ocean Security IDs.
Skannet was not impressed by the men.
Two runts, one with a slight accent he thought
might be Mexican.
They would give him no trouble.
These private dick agencies were so full of
shit, what kind of protection was this for
Athena?
Vazzi said to Skannet, “I understand you
want to drive your own car.
I will go with you and my friend will follow
in our car.
Is that agreeable to you?”
“OK,” Skannet said.
When they got out of the elevator and entered
the lobby, they were stopped by Jim Losey.
The detective had been waiting on a sofa by
the fireplace and intercepted them on just
a hunch.
He had staked out there to keep an eye on
Skannet just in case.
Now he held his ID out to the three men.
Skannet looked at the ID and said, “What
the fuck do you want?”
Jim Losey said, “Who are these two men with
you?”
“None of your fucking business,” Skannet
said.
Vazzi and his companion remained silent as
Losey studied their faces.
“I’d like to have a few words with you
in private,” Losey said.
Skannet brushed him aside and Losey grabbed
his arm.
They were both big men.
Skannet was frantic to be away.
He said to Losey, his voice furious and loud,
“The charges were dropped, I don’t have
to talk to you.
And if you don’t get your hands away, I’m
going to kick the shit out of you.”
Losey dropped his hand.
He was in no way intimidated, but his mind
was working.
The two men with Skannet seemed strange to
him, there was something going on.
He stepped aside but followed them to the
archway where cars were brought to hotel guests.
He watched Skannet get into his car with Lia
Vazzi.
Somehow the other man had vanished.
Losey noted this and waited to see if another
car pulled out of the parking lot, but there
was none.
There was no use trying to follow and there
was equally no purpose to be served in putting
out an alert for Skannet’s car.
He debated on whether to report this incident
to Skippy Deere and decided against it.
One thing was for certain, if Skannet got
out of line again, he would regret his insults
today.
It was a long drive, Skannet kept complaining
and asking questions and even threatening
to turn back.
But Lia Vazzi was reassuring.
Skannet had been told that the meeting place
was a hunting lodge Athena owned in the Sierra
Nevada, and the instructions were that they
were to spend the night.
Athena had insisted she wanted the meeting
a secret from everyone, that she would settle
the whole problem to everyone’s satisfaction.
Skannet didn’t know what that meant.
What could she do to dissolve the hatred that
had grown over the last ten years?
Was she stupid enough to think that a night
of lovemaking and a bundle of cash would soften
him?
Did she think he was that simple?
He had always admired her intelligence but
maybe now she was just one of those arrogant
Hollywood actresses who thought she could
buy anything with her body and her money?
And yet the thought of her beauty haunted
him.
Finally after all these years, she would smile
at him, charm him, submit to him.
No matter what happened he would have this
coming night.
Lia Vazzi was not worried about Skannet’s
threats to turn back.
He knew there were three cars on the road
behind him as escort and he had his instructions.
As a last resort he could simply have Skannet
killed.
But his instructions were also clear that
Skannet should not suffer any injury short
of death.
They drove through the open gate, and Skannet
was surprised at the size of the Hunting Lodge.
It looked like a small hotel.
He got out and stretched his arms and legs.
There were five or six cars parked alongside
the lodge, which made him wonder for a moment.
Vazzi led him to the door and opened it.
At that moment Skannet heard more cars pulling
into the driveway.
He turned thinking that Athena had arrived.
What he saw were three cars parking and two
men getting out of each one.
Then Lia led him through the main entry of
the lodge and into the living room with its
huge fireplace.
There, sitting on the sofa waiting for him,
was a man he had never seen.
The man was Cross De Lena.
What happened next was very quick.
Skannet asked angrily, “Where’s Athena?”
then two men grabbed his arms, another two
men put guns to his head, and the seemingly
harmless Lia Vazzi pulled his legs out from
under him so that he toppled to the floor.
Vazzi said, “You can die now if you don’t
do exactly as you are told.
Don’t struggle.
Lie still.”
Still another man shackled Skannet’s legs
together and then they pulled him to his feet
so that he was facing Cross.
Skannet was surprised how helpless he felt
even when the men released his arms.
His imprisoned feet seemed to neutralize all
his physical powers.
He reached out to at least punch the little
bastard, but Vazzi stepped back, and though
Skannet gave a little hop he could not get
leverage with his arms.
Vazzi regarded him with quiet contempt.
“We know you are a violent man,” he said,
“but now is the time to use your brain.
Strength is of no use here.
. . .”
Skannet seemed to take his advice.
He was thinking hard.
If they had wanted to kill him they would
have done so.
This was some process of intimidation to make
him agree to something.
Well and good, he would agree.
And then he would take precautions in the
future.
One thing he was sure of.
Athena was not involved in such an operation.
He disregarded Vazzi and turned to the man
sitting on the sofa.
“Who the hell are you?”
he said.
Cross said, “I have a few things I want
you to do and then you will be allowed to
drive home.”
“And if I don’t, you’ll torture me,
right?”
Skannet laughed.
He was beginning to think this was some jerk-off
Hollywood scene, some bad movie the Studio
was using.
“No,” Cross said simply.
“No torture.
No one will touch you.
I want you to sit down at that table and write
four letters for me.
One to LoddStone Studios promising never to
go near their lot.
One to Athena Aquitane apologizing for your
previous conduct and swearing never to go
near her again.
Another to the police authorities admitting
you purchased acid to be used in another attack
on your wife, and another letter to me stating
what secret you hold over your wife.
Simple.”
Skannet took a hobbling leap toward Cross
and was pushed by one of the men so that he
went sprawling onto the opposite sofa.
“Don’t touch him,” Cross said sharply.
Skannet used his arms to push himself to his
feet.
Cross pointed to the desk where there was
a stack of paper.
“Where’s Athena?”
Skannet said.
“She’s not here,” Cross said.
“Everybody out of the room, except Lia,”
he said.
The other men went out the door.
“Go sit at the desk,” Cross said to Skannet.
Skannet did so.
Cross said to him, “I want to talk to you
very seriously.
Stop trying to show how tough you are.
I want you to listen.
Don’t do anything foolish.
You have your hands free and that may give
you illusions of grandeur.
All I want you to do is write those letters
and you’ll be free.”
Skannet said contemptuously, “You can go
fuck yourself.”
Cross turned to Vazzi and said, “No use
wasting time.
Kill him.”
Cross had kept his voice even and yet there
was something terrible in his casualness.
In that moment Skannet felt a fear he had
not known since he was a child.
He realized for the first time the significance
of all the men in the lodge, all the forces
that were arrayed against him.
Lia Vazzi had not yet made a move.
Skannet said, “OK.
I’ll do it.”
He picked up a sheet of paper and began to
write.
Cunningly, he wrote the letters with his left
hand; like some good athletes, he could perform
almost equally well with either hand.
Cross came up behind him and watched.
Skannet, ashamed of his sudden cowardice,
braced his feet against the floor.
Confident of his physical coordination, he
switched the pen to his right hand and sprang
up to stab Cross in the face, hoping to get
the bastard in the eye.
He exploded into action, his arm coming around,
the whole torso of his body propelled, and
was surprised that Cross had easily moved
out of range.
Still Skannet tried to move with his leg shackles.
Cross regarded him quietly and said, “Everybody
is entitled to his once.
You’ve had that.
Now put down the pen and give me those sheets.”
Skannet did so.
Cross studied the sheets of paper and said,
“You haven’t told me the secret.”
“I won’t put it on paper.
Get rid of that guy,” he motioned to Vazzi,
“and I’ll tell you.”
Cross handed the sheets of paper to Lia and
said, “Take care of these.”
Vazzi went out of the room.
“OK,” Cross said to Skannet, “let’s
hear this big secret.”
When Vazzi left the Hunting Lodge he ran the
hundred yards to the bungalow that housed
Leonard Sossa.
Sossa was waiting.
He looked at the two sheets of paper and said
disgustedly, “This is left-handed.
I can’t do left-handed script.
Cross knows that.”
“Look at it again,” Vazzi said.
“He tried to stab Cross with his right hand.”
Sossa studied the pages again.
“Yeah,” he said.
“This guy is not a real lefty.
He’s just dicking you around.”
Vazzi took the sheets and went back to the
Hunting Lodge and entered the library.
By Cross’s face he knew something had gone
wrong.
Cross had a look of bewilderment, and Skannet
was lying down on the sofa, his shackled legs
extended over the arm, smiling happily up
at the ceiling.
“These letters are no good,” Vazzi said.
“He wrote them left-handed and the analyst
says he’s a rightie.”
Cross said to Skannet, “I think you’re
too tough for me to handle.
I can’t scare you, I can’t make you do
what I want.
I give up.”
Skannet rose from the sofa and said malevolently
to Cross, “But what I told you is true.
Everybody falls in love with Athena, but nobody
knows her the way I do.”
Cross said quietly, “You don’t know her.
And you don’t know me.”
He went to the door and motioned.
Four men came into the room.
Then Cross turned to Lia.
“You know what I want.
If he doesn’t give it to me, then just get
rid of him.”
He walked out of the room.
Lia Vazzi gave a visible sigh of relief.
He admired Cross, had been a willing subordinate
all these years, but Cross was too patient.
It was true that all the great Dons in Sicily
excelled in patience, but they knew when to
stop.
Vazzi suspected that there was an American
softness in Cross De Lena that would prevent
his rise to greatness.
Vazzi turned to Skannet and said silkily,
“You and I, we begin.”
He turned to the four men.
“Secure his arms, but gently.
Don’t hurt him.”
The four men pounced on Skannet.
One of the men produced handcuffs, and in
a moment Skannet was completely helpless.
Vazzi pushed him to the floor on his knees,
the other men forced Skannet to stay in place.
“The comedy is finished,” Vazzi said to
Skannet.
His wiry body seemed relaxed, his voice was
conversational.
“You will scribble those letters with your
right hand.
Or you can refuse.”
One of the men produced a huge revolver and
a box of bullets and handed them to Lia.
He loaded the revolver, showing each of the
bullets to Skannet.
He went to the window and fired into the forest
until the gun was empty.
Then he went back to Skannet and put one bullet
in.
Spinning the cylinder, he put the gun under
Skannet’s nose.
“I don’t know where the bullet is,”
Lia said.
“You don’t know where it is.
If you still refuse to write the letters,
I pull the trigger.
Now is it yes or no?”
Skannet looked into Lia’s eyes and did not
answer.
Lia pulled the trigger.
There was just the click of an empty chamber.
Lia nodded approvingly.
“I was rooting for you,” he said to Skannet.
He looked into the cylinder and put the bullet
in the first chamber.
He went to the window and fired.
The explosion seemed to rock the room.
Lia went back to the table, took another bullet
from the box, loaded the gun with it, spinning
the cylinder.
“We will try again,” Lia said.
He put the revolver beneath Skannet’s chin.
But this time Skannet flinched.
“Call back your boss,” Skannet said.
“I have a few more things I can tell him.”
“No,” Lia said, “that foolishness is
over.
Now answer yes or no.”
Skannet looked into Lia’s eyes and saw not
a threat but a mournful regret.
“OK,” Skannet said.
“I’ll write.”
He was immediately hauled to his feet and
seated at the writing desk.
Vazzi sat on the sofa while Skannet busied
himself writing.
He took the papers from Skannet and went to
Sossa’s bungalow.
“Is that OK?” he asked.
“This will do fine,” Sossa said.
Vazzi went back to the Hunting Lodge and reported
to Cross.
Then he went to the library and said to Skannet,
“It’s all over.
I’ll drive you back to L.A. as soon as I’m
ready.”
Then Lia walked Cross out to his car.
Cross said, “You know everything you have
to do.
Wait until morning, I should be back in Vegas
by then.”
“Don’t worry,” Vazzi said.
“I thought he would never write.
What an animal.”
He could see that Cross was preoccupied.
“What did he tell you when I was away?”
Vazzi asked.
“Something I should know?”
Cross said, with savage bitterness Vazzi had
never seen before, “I should have killed
him straight out.
I should have taken my chances.
I hate being so fucking clever.”
“Ah well,” Vazzi said, “it’s done
now.”
He watched Cross drive through the gates.
For one of the few times in ten years, he
was homesick for Sicily.
In Sicily men never became so distraught about
a woman’s secret.
And in Sicily there would never have been
all this fuss.
Skannet would have been swimming at the bottom
of the ocean a long time ago.
As dawn broke, a closed van pulled up to the
Hunting Lodge.
Lia Vazzi collected the forged suicide notes
from Leonard Sossa and put him into the car
that would take him back to Topanga Canyon.
Vazzi cleaned up the bungalow, burned the
letters Skannet had written, removing all
traces of occupancy.
Leonard Sossa had never seen either Skannet
or Cross during his stay.
Then Lia Vazzi prepared for the execution
of Boz Skannet.
Six men were involved in this operation.
They had blindfolded and gagged Skannet and
put him in the van.
Two of the men got into the van with him.
Skannet was completely helpless, shackled
hand and foot.
Another man drove the van, and another man
rode shotgun for the driver.
The fifth man drove Skannet’s car.
Lia Vazzi and the sixth man drove another
car that went in front.
Lia Vazzi watched the sun slowly rise from
the shadows of the mountains.
The caravan drove nearly sixty miles and then
turned into a road deep in the woods.
Finally the caravan halted.
Vazzi directed exactly how Skannet’s car
should be parked.
Then he had Skannet taken out of the van.
Skannet made no resistance, he seemed to have
accepted his fate.
Well, he’s finally figured it all out, Vazzi
thought.
Vazzi took the rope out of the car.
He measured the length carefully and hung
one end to the thick limb of a nearby tree.
Two men were holding Skannet up straight so
that he could slip the noose around the man’s
neck.
Vazzi took out the two suicide notes that
Leonard Sossa had forged and slipped them
into Skannet’s jacket pocket.
It took four of the men to lift Skannet to
the roof of the van and then Lia Vazzi threw
his fist out in the direction of the driver.
The van shot ahead and Skannet flew off the
roof and dangled in the air.
The sound of his neck cracking resounded through
the forest.
Vazzi checked the corpse and removed the shackles
from the body.
The other men removed the blindfold and the
gag.
There were little scrapes around the mouth,
but a couple of days hanging in the forest
and they would not be significant.
He checked the arms and legs for signs of
restraint.
Again, there were slight marks, but they would
not be conclusive.
He was satisfied.
He did not know if it would work, but everything
Cross ordered had been done.
Two days later, alerted by an anonymous tip,
the county sheriff found Skannet’s body.
He had to scare off an inquisitive brown bear
who was hitting the rope to make the body
sway back and forth, and when the coroner
and his assistants arrived, they found the
body’s rotting skin eaten by insects.
BOOK VI
.
A Hollywood Death
CHAPTER 10
.
TEN BARE FEMALE asses rose in harmony to greet
the camera’s blinking eye.
Despite the picture still being in limbo,
Dita Tommey was auditioning actresses on the
Messalina soundstage for an ass to double
for Athena Aquitane’s.
Athena had refused to do nudes, that is, she
would not show full tits and ass, an astonishing
modesty in a star but not a fatal one.
Dita would simply substitute tits and ass
from some of the different actresses she was
now auditioning.
Of course she had given the actresses full
scenes with dialogue, she wouldn’t demean
them by posing them as if they were pornography.
But the determining factor would be in the
culminating sex scene, when rolling around
in bed they would thrust their bare buttocks
up to the camera eye.
Her sex-scene choreographer was sketching
out the rolls and twists with the male actor,
Steve Stallings.
Watching the tests with Dita Tommey were Bobby
Bantz and Skippy Deere.
The only other people on the set were the
necessary crew members.
Tommey didn’t mind Deere watching, but what
the hell was Bobby Bantz doing here.
She had considered briefly barring him from
the set, but if Messalina was abandoned she
would be in a very weak power position.
She could use his goodwill.
Bantz asked fretfully, “What exactly are
we looking for here?”
The sex-scene choreographer, a young man named
Willis, who was also the head of the Los Angeles
Ballet Company, said cheerfully, “The most
beautiful ass in the world.
But also with great muscles.
We don’t want sleaze, we don’t want the
crack open.”
“Right,” Bantz said, “Nothing sleazy.”
“How about the tits?”
Deere asked.
“They cannot be allowed to bounce,” the
choreographer said.
“We audition tits tomorrow,” Tommey said.
“No woman has perfect tits and a perfect
ass, except maybe Athena, and she won’t
show them.”
Bantz said slyly, “You should know, Dita.”
Tommey forgot her weak power position.
“Bobby, you’re the perfect asshole, if
that’s what we’re looking for.
She won’t fuck you so you assume she’s
a dyke.”
“OK, OK,” Bantz said.
“I’ve got a hundred phone calls I have
to return.”
“Me too,” Deere said.
“I don’t believe you guys,” Tommey said.
Deere said, “Dit, have a little sympathy.
Bobby and I, what recreation do we get?
We’re too busy to play golf.
Watching movies is work.
We don’t have the time to go to the theater
or opera.
We can squeeze maybe an hour a day for fun
after we spend time with our families.
What can you do with just one hour a day?
Screw.
It’s the least labor-intensive recreation.”
“Wow, Skippy, look at that,” Bantz said.
“That’s the most beautiful ass I have
ever seen.”
Deere shook his head in wonder.
“Bobby’s right.
Dita, that’s the one.
Sign her up.”
Tommey shook her head in disbelief.
“Jesus, you guys are morons,” she said.
“That’s a black ass.”
“Sign her up anyway,” Deere said with
exuberant joy.
“Yeah,” Bantz said.
“An Ethiopian slave girl for Messalina.
But why the hell is she auditioning?”
Dita Tommey observed both men with curiosity.
Here were two of the toughest men in the movie
business, with over a hundred phone calls
to return, and they were like two teenagers
looking for their first orgasm.
She said patiently, “When we send out casting
calls we’re not allowed to say we just want
white asses.”
Bantz said, “I want to meet that girl.”
“Me too,” Deere said.
But all this was interrupted by Melo Stuart
coming on the set.
He was smiling triumphantly.
“We can all go back to work,” he said.
“Athena is going back on the picture.
Her husband, Boz Skannet, hung himself.
Boz Skannet, off the picture.”
As he said this he clapped his hands as the
crew always clapped when an actor finished
work on a movie, his part finished.
Skippy and Bobby clapped with him.
Dita Tommey stared at the three of them with
disgust.
“Eli wants the two of you right away,”
Melo said.
“Not you, Dita,” he smiled apologetically.
“This will just be a business discussion,
no creative decisions.”
The men left the soundstage.
When they were gone, Dita Tommey summoned
the girl with the beautiful ass to her trailer.
She was very pretty, truly black rather than
tan, and she had an impudent vivacity that
Dita identified as natural and not an actor’s
put-on.
“I’m giving you the part of an Ethiopian
slave girl to the Empress Messalina,” Dita
said.
“You’ll have one line of dialogue but
mainly we’ll be showing your ass.
Unfortunately we need a white ass to double
for Miss Aquitane and yours is too black,
otherwise you might steal the picture.”
She gave the girl a friendly smile.
“Falene Fant, that’s a movie name.”
“Whatever,” the girl said.
“Thank you.
For both the compliments and the job.”
“One more thing,” Dita said.
“Our producer, Skippy Deere, thinks you
have the most beautiful ass in the world.
So does Mr. Bantz, the president and head
of production for the Studio.
You’ll be hearing from them.”
Falene Fant gave her a wicked grin.
“And what do you think?” she said.
Dita Tommey shrugged.
“I’m not into asses as much as men are.
But I think you’re charming and a very good
actress.
Good enough so that I think you can carry
more than one line in this picture.
And if you come to my house tonight, we can
talk about your career.
I’ll give you dinner.”
That night, after Dita Tommey and Falene Fant
spent two hours in bed, Dita cooked dinner
and they discussed Falene’s career.
“It was fun,” Dita said, “but I think
from now on we should just be friends and
keep this night a secret.”
“Sure,” Falene said.
“But everyone knows you’re dykey.
Is it my black ass?”
She was grinning.
Dita ignored the word dykey.
That was a deliberate impudence to pay back
for the seeming rejection.
“It’s a great ass, black, white, green,
or yellow,” Dita said.
“But you have real talent.
If I keep casting you in my pictures, you
won’t get credit for your talent.
And I only make a picture every two years.
You have to work more than that.
Most directors are male and when they cast
somebody like you they’re always hoping
for a little screw.
If they think you’re dykey, they may pass.”
“Who needs directors if I have a producer
and the head of a studio,” Falene said cheerfully.
“You do,” Dita said.
“The other guys can get you a foot in the
door, but the director can leave you on the
cutting-room floor.
Or he can shoot you so that you look and sound
like shit.”
Falene shook her head woefully.
“I have to fuck Bobby Bantz, Skippy Deere,
and I’ve already fucked you.
Is this absolutely necessary?”
She opened her eyes wide, innocently.
Dita really felt fond of her at the moment.
Here was a girl who didn’t try to be indignant.
“I had a very good time tonight,” she
said.
“You hit exactly the right note.”
“Well, I never understood the fuss people
make about sex,” Falene said.
“It’s no hardship for me.
I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink a lot.
I have to have a little fun.”
“Fine,” Dita said.
“Now, about Deere and Bantz.
Deere is the better bet and I’ll tell you
why.
Deere is in love with himself and he loves
women.
He will really do something for you.
He’ll find you a good part, he’s smart
enough to see your talent.
Now Bantz doesn’t like anybody except Eli
Marrion.
Also he has no taste, no eye for talent.
Bantz will sign you to a studio contract and
then let you rot.
He does that with his wife to keep her quiet.
She gets a lot of work for top dollar but
never a decent part.
Skippy Deere, if he likes you, will do something
for your career.”
“This sounds a little cold-blooded,” Falene
said.
Dita tapped her on the arm.
“Don’t bullshit me.
I’m a dyke but I’m a woman too.
And I know actors.
They will do anything, male or female, to
go up the ladder.
We all play for big stakes.
Do you want to go to a nine-to-five job in
Oklahoma or do you want to become a movie
star and live in Malibu?
I see by your sheet that you’re twenty-three
years old.
How many have you fucked already?”
“Counting you?”
Falene said.
“Maybe fifty.
But all for fun,” she said in mock apology.
“So a few more won’t traumatize you,”
Dita said.
“And who knows, it may be fun again.”
“You know,” Falene said, “I wouldn’t
do it if I wasn’t so sure I’d be a star.”
“Of course,” Dita said.
“None of us would.”
Falene laughed.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I didn’t have the option,” Dita said.
“I made it on sheer overwhelming talent.”
“Poor you,” Falene said.
At LoddStone Studios, Bobby Bantz, Skippy
Deere, and Melo Stuart were meeting with Eli
Marrion in his office.
Bantz was enraged.
“That silly prick, he scares everybody to
death and then commits suicide.”
Marrion said to Stuart, “Melo, your client
is coming back to work I assume.”
“Of course,” Melo said.
“She has no further requests, she doesn’t
need any extra inducements?”
Marrion asked in a quiet, deadly voice.
For the first time, Melo Stuart became aware
that Marrion was in a rage.
“No,” Melo said.
“She can start work tomorrow.”
“Great,” Deere said.
“We may still come in under budget.”
“I want you all to shut up and listen to
me,” Marrion said.
And this rudeness, so unprecedented in him,
made them silent.
Marrion spoke in his usual low, pleasant voice,
but there was now no mistaking his anger.
“Skippy, what do we give a fuck if the picture
comes in on budget?
We don’t own the picture anymore.
We panicked, we made a stupid mistake.
All of us are at fault.
We do not own this film, an outsider does.”
Skippy Deere tried to interrupt him.
“LoddStone will make a fortune on distribution.
And you get a percentage on profits.
It’s still a very good deal.”
“But De Lena makes more money than we do,”
Bantz said.
“That’s not right.”
“The point is that De Lena did nothing to
solve the problem,” Marrion said.
“Surely our studio has some sort of legal
basis to regain the picture.”
“That’s right,” Bantz said.
“Fuck him.
Let’s go to court.”
Marrion said, “We threaten him with court
and then we cut a deal.
We give him his money back and ten percent
of the adjusted gross.”
Deere laughed.
“Eli, Molly Flanders won’t let him take
your deal.”
“We’ll negotiate directly with De Lena,”
Marrion said.
“I think I can persuade him.”
He paused for a moment.
“I called him as soon as I got the news.
He will be joining us very shortly.
And you know he has a certain background,
this suicide is too fortunate for him, I don’t
think he will care for the publicity of a
court case.”
Cross De Lena, in his penthouse suite at the
Xanadu Hotel, read the newspaper reports of
Skannet’s death.
Everything had gone perfectly.
It was a clear case of suicide, the two farewell
notes on the body clinched it.
There was no possibility the handwriting experts
could detect the forgery, Boz Skannet had
not left any great body of correspondence
and Leonard Sossa was too good.
The shackles on Skannet’s legs and arms
had been purposely loose and had left no marks.
Lia Vazzi was an expert.
The first call Cross received was expected.
Giorgio Cleri-cuzio summoning him to the Family
mansion in Quogue.
Cross had never deceived himself that the
Clericuzio would not find out what he was
doing.
The second call Cross received was from Eli
Marrion asking him to come to Los Angeles
and without his lawyer.
Cross said he would.
But before he left Las Vegas he called Molly
Flanders and told her about the phone call
from Marrion.
She was enraged.
“Those slimy bastards,” she said.
“I’ll pick you up at the airport and we’ll
go in together.
Never even say good morning to a studio head
unless you’ve got a lawyer with you.”
When the two of them walked into LoddStone
Studios and Marrion’s office they knew there
was trouble.
The four men waiting there had the seriously
truculent look of men about to commit strong-arm.
“I decided to bring my lawyer,” Cross
said to Marrion.
“I hope you don’t mind.”
“As you wish,” Marrion said.
“I merely wanted to save you a possible
embarrassment.”
Molly Flanders, stern-faced and angry, said,
“This is going to be really good.
You want the picture back but our contract
is iron.”
“You’re correct,” Marrion said.
“But we are going to appeal to Cross’s
sense of fair play.
He did nothing to solve the problem, whereas
LoddStone Studios has invested considerable
time and money and creative talent without
which this movie would not have been possible.
Cross will get his money back.
He gets ten percent of the adjusted gross
and we will be generous in determining the
adjustments.
He will not be at risk.”
“He has already survived the risk,” Molly
said.
“Your offer is insulting.”
“Then we will have to go to court,” Marrion
said.
“Cross, I’m sure you will find that as
distasteful as I do.”
He smiled at Cross.
It was a kindly smile that made his gorilla-like
face angelic.
Molly was furious.
“Eli, you go to court twenty times a year
and give depositions because you’re always
pulling crap like this.”
She turned to Cross and said, “We’re leaving.”
But Cross knew that a long court case was
something he could not afford.
His buying the film followed by Skannet’s
opportune death would be held up to scrutiny.
They would dig up everything about his background,
they would paint him in such a way that he
would become too much of a public figure,
and that was something the old Don had never
tolerated.
There was no mistaking that Marrion knew all
this.
“Let’s stick around,” Cross said to
Molly.
Then he turned to Marrion, Bantz, Skippy Deere,
and Melo Stuart.
“If a gambler comes into my hotel and plays
a long shot and wins, I pay him the full odds.
I don’t say I’ll pay him even money.
That’s what you gentlemen are doing here.
So why don’t you reconsider this?”
Bantz said with contempt, “This is business
not gambling.”
Melo Stuart said soothingly to Cross, “You
will make conservatively ten million dollars
on your investment.
Surely that’s fair.”
“And you didn’t even do anything,” Bantz
said.
Only Skippy Deere seemed to be on his side.
“Cross, you deserve more.
But what they offer is better than a court
fight, the risk of losing.
Let this one go and you and I will do business
again without the Studio.
And I promise you’ll get a fair shake.”
Cross knew it was important to seem nonthreatening.
He smiled in resignation.
“Maybe you’re all right,” he said.
“I want to stay in the movie business on
good terms with everybody and ten million
profit is not a bad start.
Molly, take care of the papers.
Now I have to catch a plane so please excuse
me.”
He left the room and Molly followed him.
“We can win in court,” Molly told him.
“I don’t want to go to court,” Cross
said.
“Make the deal.”
Molly studied him carefully, then she said,
“OK, but I’ll get more than ten percent.”
When Cross arrived at the mansion in Quogue
the next day, Don Domenico Clericuzio, his
sons Giorgio, Vincent, and Petie, and the
grandson, Dante, were waiting for him.
They had lunch in the garden, a lunch of cold
Italian hams and cheeses and an enormous wooden
bowl of salad, long loaves of crispy Italian
bread.
There was the bowl of grated cheese for the
Don’s spoon.
As they ate, the Don said conversationally,
“Croccifixio, we hear you have become involved
in the moving picture business.”
He paused to sip his red wine.
He then took a spoonful of the grated Italian
Parmesan cheese.
“Yes,” Cross answered.
Giorgio said, “Is it true that you pledged
some of your shares in the Xanadu to finance
a movie?”
“That is within my right,” Cross said.
“I am, after all, your Bruglione in the
West.”
He laughed.
“ ’Bruglione’ is right,” Dante said.
The Don shot a disapproving look at his grandson.
He said to Cross, “You got involved in a
very serious affair without Family consultation.
You did not seek our wisdom.
Most important of all, you carried out a violent
action that might have severe official repercussions.
On that, custom is clear, you must have our
consent or go your own way and suffer consequences.”
“And you used resources of the Family,”
Giorgio said harshly.
“The Hunting Lodge in the Sierra.
You used Lia Vazzi, Leonard Sossa, and Pollard
with his Security Agency.
Of course, they are your people in the West
but they are also Family resources.
Luckily everything went perfectly but what
if it had not?
We would all have been at risk.”
Don Clericuzio said impatiently, “He knows
all that.
The question is why.
Nephew, years ago you asked not to take part
in that necessary work some men must do.
I granted your request despite the fact that
you were so valuable.
Now you do it for your own profit.
That is not like the beloved nephew I have
always known.”
Cross knew then that the Don was sympathetic
to him.
He knew he could not tell the truth, that
he had been seduced by Athena’s beauty;
that would not be a reasonable explanation,
indeed it would be insulting.
And possibly fatal.
What could be more inexcusable than that the
attraction to a strange woman outweighed his
loyalty to the Clericuzio Family.
He spoke carefully.
“I saw an opportunity to make a great deal
of money,” he said.
“I saw a chance to get a foothold in a new
business.
For me and the Family.
A business to be used to turn black money
white.
But I had to move quickly.
Certainly I did not wish to keep it a secret
and the proof is that I used Family resources
which you must come to know.
I wanted to come to you with the deed done.”
The Don was smiling at him when he asked gently,
“And is the deed done?”
Cross immediately sensed that the Don knew
everything.
“There is another problem,” Cross said,
and explained the new deal he had made with
Marrion.
He was surprised when the Don laughed aloud.
“You did exactly right,” the Don said.
“A court case might be a disaster.
Let them have their victory.
But what rascals they are.
It’s a good thing we always stayed out of
that business.”
He paused for a moment.
“At least you’ve made your ten million.
That’s a tidy sum.”
“No,” Cross said.
“Five for me and five for the Family, that
is understood.
I don’t think we should be discouraged so
easily.
I have some plans but I must have Family help.”
“Then we must discuss better shares,”
Giorgio said.
He was like Bantz, Cross thought, always pressing
for more.
The Don interrupted impatiently.
“First catch the rabbit then we will share
it.
You have the Family blessing.
But one thing.
Full discussion on everything drastic that
is done.
You understand me, nephew?”
“Yes,” Cross said.
He left Quogue with a feeling of relief.
The Don had shown his affection.
Don Domenico Clericuzio, in his eighties,
still commanded his Empire.
A world he had created with great endeavor
and at great cost and so therefore felt he
had earned.
At a venerable age, when most men are obsessed
with sins inevitably committed, the regrets
of lost dreams, and even doubts of their own
righteousness, the Don was still as unshakable
in his virtue as when he was fourteen.
Don Clericuzio was strict in his beliefs and
strict in his judgments.
God had created a perilous world, and mankind
had made it even more dangerous.
God’s world was a prison in which man had
to earn his daily bread, and his fellow man
was a fellow beast, carnivorous and without
mercy.
Don Clericuzio was proud that he had guarded
his loved ones safely in their journey through
life.
He was content that, at his advanced age,
he had the will to pass the sentence of death
on his enemies.
Certainly he forgave them, was he not a Christian
who maintained a holy chapel in his own home?
But he forgave his enemies as God forgives
all men while condemning them to inevitable
extinction.
In the world Don Clericuzio had created, he
was revered.
His family, the thousands who lived in the
Bronx Enclave, the Brugliones who ruled territories
and entrusted their money to him and came
for his intercession when they got into trouble
with the formal society.
They knew that the Don was just.
That in time of need, sickness, or any trouble,
they could go to him and he would address
their misfortunes.
And so they loved him.
The Don knew that love is not a reliable emotion
no matter how deep.
Love does not ensure gratitude, does not ensure
obedience, does not provide harmony in so
difficult a world.
No one understood this better than Don Clericuzio.
To inspire true love, one also had to be feared.
Love alone was contemptible, it was nothing
if it did not also include trust and obedience.
What good was love to him if it did not acknowledge
his rule?
For he was responsible for their lives, he
was the root of their good fortune, and so
he could not falter in his duty.
He must be strict in his judgment.
If a man betrayed him, if a man damaged the
integrity of his world, that man must be punished
and restrained even if it meant a sentence
of death.
There could be no excuse, no mitigating circumstance,
no appeal to pity.
What must be done must be done.
His son Giorgio had once called him archaic.
He accepted that this could not be otherwise.
Now he had many things to ponder.
He had planned well over the last twenty-five
years since the Santadio war.
He had been farsighted, cunning, brutal when
necessary, and merciful when it was safe to
be so.
And now the Clericuzio Family was at the height
of its power, seemingly safe from any attack.
Soon it would disappear into the legal fabric
of society and become invulnerable.
But Don Domenico had not survived so long
by being optimistically shortsighted.
He could spot a malignant weed before it popped
its head above the ground.
The great danger now was internal, the rise
of Dante, his growing into manhood in a manner
not entirely satisfactory to the Don.
Then there was Cross, enriched by the Gronevelt
legacy, actually making a major move without
Family supervision.
The young man had started so brilliantly,
nearly becoming a Qualified Man, like his
father, Pippi.
Then the Virginio Ballazzo job had turned
him finicky.
And after being excused from operational duties
by the Family because of his tender heart,
he had gone back into the field for his own
personal gain and executed that man Skannet.
Without the permission of the Don himself.
But Don Clericuzio excused himself for condoning
these actions, for his rare sentimentalities.
Cross was trying to escape his world and enter
another.
Though these actions were or could be the
seeds of treason, Don Clericuzio understood.
Still, Pippi and Cross combined would be a
threat to the Family.
Also, the Don was not unaware of Dante’s
hatred for the De Lenas.
Pippi was too clever not to know this also,
and Pippi was a dangerous man.
An eye must be kept on him despite his proven
loyalty.
The Don’s forbearance sprang from a fondness
for Cross and a love for Pippi, his old and
faithful soldier, his sister’s son.
After all, they had Clericuzio blood.
He was truly more worried about the danger
to the Family presented by Dante.
Don Clericuzio had always been a fond and
loving grand-father to Dante.
The two had been very close until the boy
was about ten years old and a certain disenchantment
had settled in.
The Don detected traits in the boy’s character
that troubled him.
Dante at the age of ten was an exuberant,
slyly humorous child.
He was a good athlete with great physical
coordination.
He loved to talk, especially with his grandfather,
and he had long secret conversations with
his mother, Rose Marie.
But then, after the age of ten, he became
malicious and crude.
He fought with boys his own age with inappropriate
intensity.
He teased girls mercilessly and with an innocent
lewdness that was shocking though funny.
He tortured small animals—not necessarily
significant with small boys, as the Don knew—but
he tried once to drown a smaller boy in the
school swimming pool.
Not that the Don was particularly judgmental
of these things.
After all, children were animals, civilization
had to be drummed into their brains and backsides.
There had been children like Dante who had
grown up to be saints.
What disturbed the Don was his loquacity,
his long conversations with his mother, and
most of all, his small disobediences to the
Don himself.
Perhaps what disturbed the Don as well, who
was in awe of the vagaries of nature, was
that at the age of fifteen, Dante stopped
growing.
He remained at the height of five feet three
inches.
Doctors were consulted and agreed that at
the most he would grow three more inches,
and not to the usual Clericuzio family height
of six feet.
The Don considered Dante’s short stature
to be a danger signal, as he also considered
twins.
He claimed that while birth was a blessed
miracle, twins were going too far.
There had been a soldier in the Bronx Enclave
who had fathered triplets, and the Don, horrified,
bought them a grocery store in Portland, Oregon,
a good living but a lonely one.
The Don also had superstitions about left-handed
people, and those who stuttered.
Whatever anyone said, these could not be good
signs.
Dante was naturally left-handed.
But even all this would not have been enough
to make the Don wary of his grandchild or
lessen his affection; anyone of his blood
was naturally exempt.
But as Dante grew older he grew more contrary
to the Don’s dreams of his future.
Dante quit school in his sixteenth year and
immediately pushed his nose into Family affairs.
He worked for Vincent in his restaurant.
He was a popular waiter and earned huge tips
because of his quickness and his wit.
Tiring of that, he worked for two months in
Giorgio’s Wall Street office but hated it
and showed no aptitude, despite Giorgio’s
earnest attempts to teach him the intricacies
of paper wealth.
Finally he settled in with Petie’s construction
company and loved working with the Enclave
soldiers.
He was proud of his body, which grew more
and more muscular.
But in all this he acquired to some degree
certain characteristics of his three uncles,
which the Don noted with pride.
He had Vincent’s directness, Giorgio’s
coolness, and Petie’s ferocity.
Somewhere along the way, he established his
own personality, what he truly was: sly, cunning,
devious, but with a sense of fun that could
be charming.
And it was then he began wearing his Renaissance
hats.
The hats—nobody knew where he got them—were
made of colorful iridescent thread; some were
round, some were rectangular, and they rode
on his head as if they were on water.
They seemed to make him taller, handsomer,
and more likable.
Partly because they were clownlike and disarming,
partly because they balanced his two profiles.
The hats suited him.
They disguised his hair, jet black and ropey
as with all the Clericuzio.
One day in the den, where Silvio’s photo
still occupied the place of honor, Dante asked
his grandfather, “How did he die?”
The Don said shortly, “An accident.”
“He was your favorite son, right?”
Dante asked.
The Don was startled by all this.
Dante was still only fifteen.
“Why would this be true?” the Don asked.
“Because he’s dead,” Dante said with
a sly grin, and it took the Don a few moments
to realize that this raw youth had dared to
make such a joke.
The Don also knew that Dante roamed and searched
his office suite in the house when the Don
was down at dinner.
This did not disturb him, children were always
curious about the old and the Don never had
anything on paper that would divulge information
of any kind.
Don Clericuzio had a huge blackboard in a
corner of his brain that was chalked with
all necessary information, including the totals
of all the sins and virtues of those dearest
to him.
But as Don Clericuzio became more wary of
Dante, he showed him even more affection,
assuring the boy he was to be one of the heirs
to his Family Empire.
And rebukes and admonitions were given the
boy by his uncles, primarily Giorgio.
Finally, the Don despaired of Dante joining
the retreat into a legal society and gave
his permission for Dante to train to be a
Hammer.
The Don heard his daughter, Rose Marie, calling
him to dinner in the kitchen where they ate
when it was just the two of them.
He went in, sat in the chair in front of the
large, colorful bowl of angel hair pasta covered
with tomatoes and fresh basil from his garden.
She put the silver bowl of grated cheese before
him, the cheese was very yellow, which proved
its nutty sweetness.
Rose Marie came to sit opposite him.
She was gay and cheerful, and he was delighted
by her good humor.
Tonight there would be none of her terrible
fits.
She was as she had been before the Santadio
War.
What a tragedy that had been, one of the few
mistakes he had made, one that proved a victory
was not always a victory.
But who would have thought that Rose Marie
would remain forever a widow?
Lovers always loved again, he’d always believed
that.
At that moment the Don felt an overpowering
affection for his daughter.
She would excuse Dante’s small sins.
Rose Marie leaned over and gave the Don’s
grizzled head an affectionate caress.
He took a huge spoonful of the grated cheese
and felt its nutty heat against his gums.
He sipped his wine and watched Rose Marie
carve the leg of lamb.
She served him three crusty brown potatoes,
glossy with fat.
His troubled mind cleared.
Who was better than him?
He was in such a good mood that he let Rose
Marie persuade him to watch television with
her in the sitting room for the second time
that week.
After watching four hours filled with horror,
he said to Rose Marie, “Is it possible to
live in such a world where everyone does what
he pleases?
No one is punished by God or man and no one
has to earn a living?
Are there such women who follow every whim?
Men such foolish weaklings, who succumb to
every little desire, every little dream of
happiness?
Where are the honest husbands who work to
earn their bread, who think of the best ways
to protect their children from fate and the
cruel world?
Where are the people who understand a piece
of cheese, a glass of wine, a warm house at
the end of the day is reward enough?
Who are these people who yearn for some mysterious
happiness?
What an uproar they make of life, what tragedies
they brew up out of nothing.”
The Don patted his daughter on the head and
waved at the television screen with a dismissive
hand.
He said, “Let them all swim at the bottom
of the ocean.”
Then he gave her a final piece of wisdom.
“Everyone is responsible for everything
he does.”
That night, alone in his bedroom, the Don
stepped out on his balcony.
The houses in the compound were all brightly
illuminated; he could hear the thwack of tennis
balls on the tennis court and see the players
underneath its bank of lights.
There were no children playing outdoors so
late.
He could see the guards on the gate and around
the house.
He pondered what steps he could take to prevent
future tragedy.
His love for his daughter and grandson washed
over him, that was what made old age worthwhile.
He would simply have to protect them as best
he could.
Then he was angry with himself.
Why was he always foreseeing tragedy?
He had solved all the problems in his life
and he would solve this one.
Still, his mind whirled with plans.
He thought of Senator Wavven.
For years he had given the man millions of
dollars to get legislation passed to ensure
legalized gambling.
But the senator was slippery.
It was too bad that Gronevelt was not still
alive; Cross and Giorgio did not have the
necessary skill to prod him.
Perhaps the gambling empire would never come
to pass.
Then he thought of his old friend David Redfellow,
now living so comfortably in Rome.
Perhaps it was time to bring him back into
the Family.
It was all very well for Cross to be so forgiving
of his Hollywood partners.
After all, he was young.
He could not know that one sign of weakness
might be fatal.
The Don decided he would summon David Redfellow
from Rome to do something about the movie
business.
CHAPTER 11
.
A WEEK AFTER the death of Boz Skannet, Cross
received, through Claudia, a dinner invitation
to Athena Aquitane’s house in Malibu.
Cross flew from Vegas to L.A., rented a car,
and arrived at the Malibu Colony guarded gatehouse
as the sun began to fall into the ocean.
There was no longer any special security,
though there was still the secretary in the
guest house who checked and buzzed him in.
He walked through the longitudinal garden
to the house on the beach.
There was still the little South American
maid, who led him to the sea-green living
room that seemed just out of reach of the
Pacific Ocean waves.
Athena was waiting for him, and she was even
more beautiful than he remembered.
She was dressed in a green blouse and slacks,
and she seemed to melt and become part of
the mist over the ocean behind her.
He could not take his eyes off her.
She shook his hand in greeting, not the usual
Hollywood kiss on both cheeks.
She had drinks ready and she handed him one.
It was Evian water with lime.
They sat in the large, mint green upholstered
chairs that faced the ocean.
The descending sun scattered gold coins of
light in the room.
Cross was so aware of her beauty that he had
to bow his head to avoid looking at her.
The golden helmet of hair, the creamy skin,
the way her long body sprawled in her chair.
Some of the gold coins fell into her green
eyes, fleeting shadows.
He felt an urgent desire to touch her, to
be closer to her, to own her.
Athena seemed unaware of the emotions she
was causing.
She sipped her drink and said quietly, “I
wanted to thank you for keeping me in the
movie business.”
The sound of her voice further entranced Cross.
It was not sultry or inviting.
But it had such a velvet tone, it had such
regal confidence and yet was so warm, that
he just wanted her to keep talking.
Jesus Christ, he thought, what the hell is
this?
He was ashamed of her power over him.
His head still down, he murmured, “I thought
I could get you back to work by appealing
to your greed.”
“That is not one of my many weaknesses,”
Athena said.
Now she turned her head from the ocean so
that she could look directly into his eyes.
“Claudia told me the Studio reneged on their
deal once my husband killed himself.
You had to give them back the picture and
take a percentage.”
Cross kept his face impassive.
He hoped to banish everything he was feeling
about her.
“I guess I’m not a very good businessman,”
he said.
He wanted to give her the impression that
he was ineffective.
“Molly Flanders wrote your contract,”
Athena said.
“She’s the best.
You could have held on.”
Cross shrugged.
“A matter of politics.
I want to get into the movie business permanently
and didn’t want enemies as powerful as Loddstone
Studios.”
“I could help you,” Athena said.
“I could refuse to return to the picture.”
Cross felt a thrill that she would do that
for him.
He considered the offer.
The Studio might still take him to court.
Also, he could not bear to make Athena put
him in her debt.
And then it occurred to him that though Athena
was beautiful that didn’t mean she was not
clever.
“Why would you do that?” he asked.
Athena got up from her chair and moved to
stand close to the picture window.
The beaches were gray shadows, the sun had
disappeared, and the ocean seemed to reflect
the mountain ranges behind her house and the
Pacific Coast Highway.
She gazed out toward the now blue-black water,
the small waves rippling in slyly.
She did not turn her head to him when she
said, “Why would I do that?
Simply because I knew Boz Skannet better than
anybody.
And I don’t care if he left a hundred suicide
notes, he would never kill himself.”
Cross shrugged.
“Dead is dead,” he said.
“That’s true,” Athena said.
She turned to face him, looked directly at
him.
“You buy the picture and suddenly Boz conveniently
commits suicide.
You’re my candidate as the killer.”
Even stern, her face was so beautiful to Cross
that his voice was not as steady as he would
have wished.
“How about the Studio?”
Cross said.
“Marrion is one of the most powerful men
in the country.
What about Bantz and Skippy Deere?”
Athena shook her head.
“They understood what I was asking them.
Just as you did.
They didn’t do it, they sold the picture
to you.
They didn’t care if I was killed after the
picture was finished, but you did.
And I knew you would help me even when you
said you couldn’t.
When I heard about you buying the picture,
I knew exactly what you would do, but I must
say I didn’t think you could be so clever.”
Suddenly she came toward him and he rose from
his chair.
She took his hands in hers.
He could smell her body, her breath.
Athena said, “That was the only evil thing
I have ever done in my life.
Making somebody commit murder.
It was terrible.
I would have been a much better person if
I had done it myself.
But I couldn’t.”
Cross said, “Why were you so sure I would
do something?”
Athena said, “Claudia told me so much about
you.
I understood who you were but she’s so naÏve,
she still hasn’t caught on.
She thinks you’re just a tough guy with
a lot of clout.”
Cross became very alert.
She was trying to get him to admit his guilt.
Something he would never do even to a priest,
not even to God himself.
Athena said, “And the way you looked at
me.
A lot of men have looked at me that way.
I’m not being immodest, I know I’m beautiful,
people have been telling me that since I was
a child.
I always knew I had power, but I could never
really understand that power.
I’m not really happy with it but I use it.
What they call ‘love.’
”
Cross let go of her hands.
“Why were you so afraid of your husband?
Because he could ruin your career?”
For one moment there was a flash of anger
in her eyes.
“It wasn’t my career,” she said, “and
it wasn’t out of fear, though I knew he
would kill me.
I had a better reason.”
She paused, then said, “I can make them
give you the picture back.
I can refuse to keep working.”
“No,” Cross said.
Athena smiled and said with a brilliant, gay
cheerfulness, “Then we can just go to bed
together.
I find you very attractive and I’m sure
we’ll have a good time.”
His first reaction was one of anger, that
she could think she could just buy him off.
That she was acting a part, using her skill
as a woman the same way a man would use physical
force.
But what really bothered him was that he could
hear a faint bit of mockery in her voice.
Mockery of his gallantry, and turning his
true love into a simple screw.
As if she was telling him that his love for
her was as fake as her love for him.
He said to her coolly, “I had a long talk
with Boz, trying to make a deal.
He said he used to fuck you five times a day
when you were married.”
He was pleased that she seemed startled.
She said, “I wasn’t counting, but it was
a lot.
I was eighteen and I really loved him.
Isn’t it funny that now I wanted him dead?”
She frowned a moment and said, casually, “What
else did you talk about?”
Cross looked at her grimly.
“Boz told me the terrible secret you had
between you.
He claims you confessed that when you ran
away, you buried your baby in the desert.”
Athena’s face became a mask, her green eyes
went dull.
For the first time that night, Cross felt
she could not possibly be acting.
Her face had a pallor no actress could achieve.
She whispered to him, “Do you really believe
I murdered my baby?”
“Boz said that’s what you told him,”
Cross said.
“I did tell him that,” Athena said.
“Now, I’m asking you again.
Do you believe I murdered my baby?”
There is nothing so terrible as to condemn
a beautiful woman.
Cross knew that if he answered truthfully,
he would lose her forever.
Suddenly he put his arms around her very gently.
“You’re too beautiful.
Nobody as beautiful as you could do that.”
The eternal worship of men for beauty against
all evidence.
“No,” he said.
“I don’t believe you did.”
She stepped away from him.
“Even though I’m responsible for Boz?”
“You’re not responsible,” Cross said.
“He killed himself.”
Athena was gazing at him intently.
He took her hands.
“Do you believe I killed Boz?” he asked.
And then Athena smiled, an actress who finally
realized how to play a scene.
“No more than you believe I killed my baby.”
They smiled, they had declared each other
innocent.
She took his hand and said, “Now, I’m
cooking dinner for you and then we’re going
to bed.”
She led him into the kitchen.
How many times had she played this scene,
Cross thought jealously.
The beautiful Queen performing housewifely
duties like an ordinary woman.
He watched her cook.
She wore no protective clothing and she was
extraordinarily professional.
She spoke to him as she chopped vegetables,
prepared a skillet, and set the table.
She gave him a bottle of wine to open, holding
his hand and brushing against his body.
She saw him looking with admiration when the
table was laden after just a half hour.
She said, “I played a woman chef in one
of my first roles, so I went to school to
get everything right.
And one critic wrote, ‘When Athena Aquitane
acts as well as she cooks, she will be a star.’
”
They ate in the alcove of the kitchen so they
could look at the rolling ocean.
The food was delicious, little squares of
beef covered with vegetables and then a salad
of bitter greens.
There was a platter of cheeses and warm short
loaves of bread, plump as pigeons.
Then there was espresso with a small, light
lemon tart.
“You should have been a cook,” Cross said,
“My cousin Vincent would hire you for his
restaurants any day.”
“Oh, I could have been anything,” Athena
said with mock boastfulness.
All through dinner she had touched him casually
in a way that was sexual, as if she were searching
for some spirit in his flesh.
Cross with every touch yearned to feel her
body on his.
By the end of the meal, he no longer could
taste what he was eating.
Finally they were done and Athena took him
by the hand and led him out of the kitchen
and up the two flights of stairs to her bedroom.
She did it gracefully, almost shyly, almost
blushing, as if she were an eager virginal
bride.
Cross marveled at her acting ability.
The large bedroom was at the very top of the
house and had a small balcony that looked
out over the ocean.
The walls were covered with a weird, garish
painting that seemed to light up the room.
They stood on the balcony and watched the
room illuminate the beach sand with a spooky
yellow glow, the other Malibu houses squatted
along the water showing little boxes of light.
Tiny birds, as if playing a game, ran in and
out of the incoming waves to escape getting
wet.
Athena put her hand on Cross’s shoulder,
around his body, the other hand reaching out
to pull his mouth down to hers.
They kissed for a long time as the warm ocean
air washed over them.
Then Athena led him inside the bedroom.
She undressed quickly, slipping out of her
green blouse and slacks.
Her white body flashed in the moon-ridden
darkness.
She was as beautiful as he had imagined.
The rising breasts with their raspberry nipples
seemed spun of sugar.
Her long legs, the curve of her hips, the
blond hair at her crotch, her absolute stillness,
limned by misty ocean air.
Cross reached out for her body and her flesh
was velvet, her lips filled with the scent
of flowers.
The sheer joy of touching her was so sweet
he could not do anything else.
Athena began to undress him.
She did so gently, running her hands over
his body as he had over hers.
Then, kissing him, she gently pulled him onto
the bed.
Cross made love with a passion he had never
known or even dreamed existed.
He was so urgent that Athena had to stroke
his face to gentle him.
He could not let loose of her body, even after
they climaxed.
They lay intertwined until they began again.
She was even more ardent than before, as if
it was some sort of contest, some sort of
avowal.
Finally they both drifted off into slumber.
Cross awoke just as the sun showed above the
horizon.
For the first time in his life, he had a headache.
Naked, he moved onto the balcony and sat on
one of the straw chairs.
He watched the sun shine over the ocean.
She was a dangerous woman.
The murderer of her own child, whose bones
were now filled with desert sand.
And she was too skillful in bed.
She could be the end of him.
At that moment he decided he would never see
her again.
Then he felt her arms around his neck and
his face twisted around to kiss her.
She was in a white fluffy bathrobe, and her
hair was held in place by pins that glittered
like jewels in a crown.
“Take a shower and I’ll make you breakfast
before you go,” she said.
She led him into the double bathroom, two
sinks, two marble counters, two bathtubs,
and two showers.
It was stocked with men’s toilet articles,
razors, shaving cream, skin toners, brushes,
and combs.
When he had finished and was out on the balcony
again, Athena brought a tray with croissants,
coffee, and orange juice to the table.
“I can make you bacon and eggs,” she said.
“This is fine,” Cross said.
“When will I see you again?”
Athena asked.
“I have lots of things to do in Las Vegas,”
Cross said.
“I’ll call you next week.”
Athena gave him an appraising look.
“That means good-bye, doesn’t it?” she
asked.
“And I really enjoyed last night.”
Cross shrugged.
“You paid off your obligation,” he said.
She gave him a good-humored grin and said,
“And with amazing goodwill, don’t you
think?
It wasn’t begrudging.”
Cross laughed.
“No,” he said.
She seemed to read his mind.
Last night they had lied to each other, this
morning the lies had no power.
She seemed to know that her beauty was too
much for him to trust.
That he felt in danger with her, and with
her confessed sins.
She seemed deep in thought and ate silently.
Then she said to him, “I know you’re busy
but I have something to show you.
Can you spare this morning and catch an afternoon
plane?
It’s important.
I want to take you someplace.”
Cross could not resist spending one last time
with her and so he said yes.
Athena drove them in her car, a Mercedes SL
300, and took the highway south to San Diego.
But just before they reached the city, she
turned off into a thin road that led inland
through the mountains.
In fifteen minutes they came to a compound
enclosed by barbed wire.
Inside the compound were six redbrick buildings
separated by green lawns and connected by
sky blue painted walkways.
In one of the green squares, a group of about
twenty children were playing with a soccer
ball.
On another green about ten children were flying
kites.
There was a group of three or four adults
standing around watching them, but something
seemed odd about the scene.
When the soccer ball flew through the air,
it seemed most of the children ran away from
it, while on the other square the kites flew
up, up, into the sky and never returned.
“What is this place?”
Cross asked.
Athena looked pleadingly at him.
“Just come with me please for now.
Later, you can ask your questions.”
Athena drove to the entry gate and showed
a gold ID badge to the security guard.
Passing through, she drove to the largest
building and parked.
Once inside at the reception desk, Athena
asked the attendant something in a low voice.
Cross stood back, but still he heard the answer.
“She was in a mood so we gave her a hug
in her room.”
“What the hell was that?”
Cross asked.
But Athena didn’t answer.
She took his hand and led him through a long,
shiny tile hallway to an adjoining building
and into some sort of dormitory.
A nurse sitting at the entrance asked their
names.
When she nodded, Athena led Cross down another
long hallway of doors.
Finally, she opened one.
They were standing in a pretty bedroom, large
and full of light.
There were the same strange, dark paintings
as on the wall in Athena’s house, but here
they were strewn on the floor.
On the wall a small shelf held a row of pretty
dolls dressed in starched Amish costumes.
Also on the floor were several other scraps
of drawings and paintings.
There was a small bed covered with a pink
fuzzy blanket, the pillows white with red
roses stitched all over them.
But there was no child in the bed.
Athena walked toward a large box that was
open at the top, its walls and base covered
with a thick, soft pad colored light blue,
and when Cross looked inside he saw the child
lying there.
She didn’t notice them.
She was fiddling with a knob at the head of
the box, and Cross watched as she forced the
pads together, almost crushing herself.
She was a small girl of ten, a tiny copy of
Athena, but without emotion, devoid of all
expression, and her green eyes were as unseeing
as those of a porcelain doll.
Yet each time she turned the controls to make
the panels squeeze her tight, her face shone
with complete serenity.
She did not acknowledge them in any way.
Athena moved to the top of the wooden box.
She switched the controls so that she could
lift the child out of the box.
The child seemed to weigh almost nothing.
Athena held her like an infant and bent her
head to kiss the child’s cheek, but the
child flinched and pulled away.
“It’s your mommy,” Athena said.
“Won’t you give me a kiss?”
The tone of her voice broke Cross’s heart.
It was an abject pleading, but now the child
was churning wildly within her arms.
Finally Athena gently put her down on the
floor.
The child scrambled to her knees and immediately
picked up a box of paints and a huge cardboard
sheet.
Completely absorbed, she began to paint.
Cross stood back and watched as Athena tried
all her acting skill to establish a rapport
with the child.
First she kneeled down next to the little
girl and was the loving playmate helping her
daughter paint, but the child took no notice.
Athena then sat up, tried to be a confiding
parent telling the child what was happening
in the world.
Then Athena became a fawning adult praising
the child’s paintings.
To all this the child merely kept moving away.
Athena picked up one of the brushes and tried
to help, but when the child did see, she grabbed
the brush away.
She never said a word.
Finally Athena gave up.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, darling,”
she said.
“I’ll take you for a ride and I’ll bring
a new paint box.
See,” she said, tears welling in her eyes,
“you’re running out of reds.”
She tried to give the child a farewell kiss
but was held away by two small, beautiful
hands.
Finally Athena rose and led Cross out of the
room.
Athena gave him the keys to the car so he
could drive back to Malibu, and during the
ride, she held her head in her hands and wept.
Cross was so stunned he could not say a word.
When they got out of the car, Athena seemed
to have control of herself.
She pulled Cross into the house and then turned
and faced him.
“That was the baby I told Boz I buried in
the desert.
Now do you believe me?”
And for the first time Cross really believed
she might love him.
Athena led him into the kitchen and made coffee.
They sat in the alcove to watch the ocean.
As they drank their coffee, Athena started
speaking.
She talked casually, no emotion in her voice
or on her face.
“When I ran away from Boz, I left my baby
with some distant cousins, a married couple
in San Diego.
She seemed a normal baby.
I didn’t know she was autistic then, maybe
she wasn’t.
I left her there because I was determined
to be a successful actress.
I had to make money for both of us.
I was sure I was talented and God knows everybody
told me how beautiful I was.
I always thought that when I was successful,
I could take my baby back.”
“So I worked in Los Angeles and visited
her in San Diego whenever I could.
Then I began to break through and I didn’t
see her that often, maybe once a month.
Finally when I was ready to bring her home
I went to her third birthday party with all
kinds of presents, but Bethany seemed to have
slipped into another world.
She was a blank.
I couldn’t reach her at all.
I was frantic.
I thought maybe she had a brain tumor, I remembered
when Boz had let her fall on the floor, that
maybe her brain had been injured and it was
now beginning to show.
For months after that I brought her to doctors,
she underwent a battery of tests of all kinds,
I took her to specialists and they checked
everything.
Then someone, and I don’t remember whether
it was the doctor in Boston or the psychiatrist
in Texas Children’s Hospital, told me she
was autistic.
I didn’t even know what that meant except
that I thought it was some kind of retardation.
‘No,’ the doctor said.
It meant she lived in her own world, was unaware
of other people’s existence, had no interest
in them, could feel nothing for anything or
anyone.
It was when I brought her to the clinic here
to be close to me that we found she could
respond to that hugging machine you saw.
That seemed to help, so I had to leave her
there.”
Cross sat without a word, while Athena continued.
“Being autistic meant she could never love
me.
But the doctors told me some autistic people
are talented, even geniuslike.
And I think Bethany is a genius.
Not only with her painting.
Something else.
The doctors tell me that after many years
of hard training some autistic people can
be taught to care for some things, then some
people.
A few can even live a near-to-normal life.
Right now, Bethany can’t stand listening
to music or any noise.
But at first she couldn’t bear to have me
touch her, and now she’s learned to tolerate
me, so she’s better than she used to be.
“She still rejects me but not as violently.
We’ve made some progress.
I used to think it was punishment for my neglect
of her because I wanted to be a success.
But the specialists say that sometimes though
it seems hereditary, it can be acquired, but
they don’t know what really makes it happen.
The doctors told me it had nothing to do with
Boz dropping her on her head or me deserting
her, but I don’t know if I believe that.
They kept trying to reassure me that we were
not responsible, that it was one of the mysteries
of life, maybe it was preordained.
They insisted nothing could have prevented
it from happening and nothing can ever change
it.
But again something inside me refuses to believe
any of that.
“Even when I first found out, I thought
about it constantly.
I had to make some hard decisions.
I knew I would be helpless to rescue her until
I made a lot of money.
So I put her in the clinic and visited her
at least one weekend a month and some weekdays.
Finally, I got rich, I was famous and nothing
that mattered before mattered any longer.
All I wanted was to be with Bethany.
Even if this hadn’t happened, I was going
to quit after Messalina anyway.”
“Why?”
Cross asked.
“What were you going to do?”
“There’s a special clinic in France with
this great doctor,” Athena explained.
“And I was going to go there after the picture.
Then Boz showed up and I knew he would kill
me and Bethany would be all alone.
That’s why I sort of put a contract out
on him.
She has nobody but me.
And well, I’ll bear that sin.”
Athena paused now and smiled at Cross.
“It’s worse than the soaps, isn’t it?”
she said with a small smile.
Cross looked out over the ocean.
It was a very bright oily blue in the sunlight.
He remembered the little girl and her blank,
masklike face that would never open up to
this world.
“What was that box she was lying in?”
he asked.
Athena laughed.
“That’s what gives me hope,” she said.
“Sad, isn’t it?
It’s a hug box.
A lot of autistic children use it when they
get depressed.
It’s just like a hug from a person but they
don’t have to connect or relate to another
human being.”
Athena took a deep breath and said, “Cross,
someday I’m going to take the place of that
box.
That’s the whole purpose of my life now.
My life has no meaning except for that.
Isn’t that funny?
The Studio tells me that I get thousands of
letters from people who love me.
In public people want to touch me.
Men keep telling me they love me.
Everybody but Bethany, and she’s the only
one I want.”
Cross said, “I’ll help you in any way
I can.”
“Then call me next week,” Athena said.
“Let’s be together as much as we can until
Messalina is finished.”
“I’ll call,” Cross said.
“I can’t prove my innocence, but I love
you more than anything in my life.”
“And are you truly innocent?”
Athena asked.
“Yes,” Cross said.
Now that she had been proven innocent, he
could not bear for her to know.
Cross thought about Bethany, her blank face
so artistically beautiful with its sharp planes,
its mirror eyes; the rare human being totally
free of sin.
As for Athena, she had been judging Cross.
Of all the people she knew, he was the only
one who had ever seen her daughter since the
child had been diagnosed as autistic.
It had been a test.
One of the greatest shocks of her life came
when she found out that though she was so
beautiful, though she was so talented (and,
she thought with self-mockery, so kind, so
gentle, so generous), her closest friends,
men who loved her, relatives who adored her,
sometimes seemed to relish her misfortunes.
It was when Boz had given her a black eye,
and though everyone called Boz a “no-good
bastard,” she caught in all of them a fleeting
look of satisfaction.
At first she thought she had imagined it,
was too sensitive.
But when Boz had given her the second black
eye, she caught those looks again.
And she had been terribly hurt.
For this time she had understood completely.
Of course they all loved her, she did not
doubt that.
But it seemed no one could resist a little
touch of malice.
Greatness in any form arouses envy.
One of the reasons she loved Claudia was because
Claudia had never betrayed her with that look.
It was why she kept Bethany so secret from
her day-to-day life.
She hated the idea that people she loved would
have that fleeting look of satisfaction, that
she had been punished for her own beauty.
So though she knew the power of her beauty
and used that power, she despised it.
She longed for the day when lines would cut
deep into her perfect face, each showing a
path she had taken, a journey survived, when
her body would fill out, soften and enlarge
her to provide comfort for those she’d hold
and care for, and her eyes would grow more
liquid with mercy from all the suffering she’d
witnessed and all the tears she’d never
shed.
She’d grow smile lines around her mouth
from laughing at herself, and at life itself.
How free she would be when she no longer feared
the consequences of her physical beauty and
instead delighted in its loss as it was replaced
by a more enduring serenity.
And so she had kept careful watch on Cross
De Lena when he met Bethany, saw his slight
recoil at first but then afterward nothing.
She knew he was helplessly in love with her
and she saw he did not have that certain look
of satisfaction when he knew of her misfortune
with Bethany.
CHAPTER 12
.
CLAUDIA WAS DETERMINED to cash in on her sexual
marker with Eli Marrion; she would shame him
into giving Ernest Vail the points he wanted
on his novel.
It was a long shot, but she was willing to
compromise her principles.
Bobby Bantz was implacable on gross points,
but Eli Marrion was unpredictable and had
a soft spot for her.
Besides, it was an honorable custom in the
movie business that sexual congress, no matter
how brief, demanded a certain material courtesy.
Vail’s threat of suicide had been the trigger
for this meeting.
If carried out, the rights to his novel would
revert to his former wife and her children,
and Molly Flanders would drive a hard bargain.
Nobody believed in the threat, not even Claudia,
but Bobby Bantz and Eli Marrion, operating
from their knowledge of what they would do
for money, always had to worry.
When Claudia, Ernest, and Molly arrived at
LoddStone, they found only Bobby Bantz in
the executive suite.
He looked uncomfortable, though he tried to
disguise it with effusive greetings, especially
to Vail.
“Our National Treasure,” he said and hugged
Ernest with respectful affection.
Molly was immediately alert, wary.
“Where’s Eli?” she said.
“He’s the only one who can make the final
decision on this.”
Bantz’s voice was reassuring.
“Eli’s in the hospital, Cedar Sinai, nothing
serious, just a checkup.
That’s confidential.
The LoddStone stock goes up and down on his
health.”
Claudia said dryly, “He’s over eighty,
everything is serious.”
“No, no,” Bantz said.
“We do business every day in the hospital.
He’s even sharper.
So present your case to me and I’ll tell
him your story when I visit.”
“No,” Molly said curtly.
But Ernest Vail said, “Let’s talk to Bobby.”
They presented their case.
Bantz was amused but did not laugh outright.
He said, “I’ve heard everything in this
town but this is a beauty.
I ran it by my lawyers and they say that Vail’s
demise does not affect our rights.
It’s a complicated legal point.”
“Run it by your PR people,” Claudia said.
“If Ernest does it and the whole story comes
out LoddStone will look like shit.
Eli won’t like that.
He has more moral sense.”
“Than me?”
Bobby Bantz said politely.
But he was furious.
Why didn’t people understand that Marrion
approved everything he did.
He turned to Ernest and said, “How would
you knock yourself off?
Gun, knife, out the window?”
Vail grinned at him.
“Hara-kiri on your desk, Bobby.”
They all laughed.
“We’re getting nowhere,” Molly said.
“Why can’t we all go to the hospital and
see Eli?”
Vail said, “I’m not going to a sick man’s
hospital bed and argue about money.”
They all looked at him sympathetically.
Of course in conventional terms it seemed
insensitive.
But men in sickbeds planned murders, revolution,
frauds, studio betrayals.
A hospital bed was not a true sanctuary.
And they knew that Vail’s protest was basically
a romantic convention.
Molly said coldly, “Keep your mouth shut,
Ernest, if you want to remain my client.
Eli has screwed a hundred people from his
hospital bed.
Bobby, let’s make a sensible deal.
LoddStone has a gold mine in the sequels.
You can afford to give Ernest a couple of
gross points, for insurance.”
Bantz was horrified, a hot stab went through
his bowels.
“Gross points?” he shouted incredulously.
“Never.”
“OK,” Molly said.
“How about a structured five percent of
the net?
No advertising charges, no interest deductions
or gross points to the stars.”
Bantz said contemptuously, “That’s almost
gross.
And we all know that Ernest won’t kill himself.
That’s too stupid and he is too intelligent.”
What he really wanted to say was that the
guy didn’t have the balls.
“Why gamble?”
Molly said.
“I’ve gone over the figures.
You plan at least three sequels.
That’s at least a half billion in rentals
including foreign but not the videos and TV.
And God knows how much money you fucking thieves
make in video.
So why not give Ernest points, a measly twenty
million.
You would give that to any half-assed star.”
Bantz thought it over.
Then he turned on the charm.
“Ernest,” he said, “as a novelist you
are a National Treasure.
No one respects you more than me.
And Eli has read every one of your books.
He absolutely adores you.
So we want to come to an accommodation.”
Claudia was embarrassed at how Ernest obviously
swallowed this bullshit, though to his credit,
he shuddered a bit at the “National Treasure.”
“Be specific,” he said.
Now Claudia was proud of him.
Bantz spoke to Molly.
“How about a five-year contract at ten grand
a week to write original scripts and do some
rewrites and of course on the originals we
only get first look.
And for every rewrite he gets an additional
fifty grand a week.
In five years he could make as much as ten
million.”
“Double the money,” Molly said.
“Then we can talk.”
At this point Vail seemed to lose his almost
angelic patience.
“None of you are taking me seriously,”
he said.
“I can do simple arithmetic.
Bobby, your deal is only worth two and a half.
You’ll never buy an original script from
me and I’ll never do one.
You’ll never give me rewrites.
And what if you make six sequels?
Then you make a billion.”
Vail began to laugh with genuine enjoyment.
“Two and a half million dollars doesn’t
help me.”
“What the fuck are you laughing about?”
Bobby said.
Vail was almost hysterical.
“I never dreamed in my life of even one
million and now it doesn’t help me.”
Claudia knew Vail’s sense of humor.
She said, “Why doesn’t it help you?”
“Because I’ll still be alive,” Vail
said.
“My family needs the points.
They trusted me and I betrayed them.”
They would have been touched, even Bantz,
except that Vail sounded so false, so self-satisfied.
Molly Flanders said, “Let’s go talk to
Eli.”
Vail lost his temper completely and stormed
out of the door shouting, “I can’t deal
with you people.
I won’t beg a man on a hospital bed.”
When he was gone, Bobby Bantz said, “And
you two want to stick up for that guy?”
“Why not?”
Molly said.
“I represented a guy who stabbed his mother
and his own three kids.
Ernest is no worse than him.”
“And what’s your excuse?”
Bantz asked Claudia.
“We writers have to stick together,” she
said wryly.
They all laughed.
“I guess that’s about it,” Bobby said.
“I did the best I could, right?”
Claudia said, “Bobby, why can’t you give
him a point or two, it’s only fair.”
“Because over the years he’s screwed a
thousand writers and stars and directors.
It’s a matter of principle,” Molly said.
“That’s right,” Bantz said.
“And when they have the muscle they screw
us.
That’s business.”
Molly said to Bantz with fake concern, “Eli
is okay?
Nothing serious?”
“He’s fine,” Bantz said.
“Don’t sell your stock.”
Molly pounced.
“Then he can see us.”
Claudia said, “I want to see him anyway.
I really care about Eli.
He gave me my first break.”
Bantz shrugged them off.
Molly said, “You will really kick yourself
if Ernest knocks himself off.
Those sequels are worth more than I said.
I softened him up for you.”
Bantz said scornfully, “That schmuck won’t
kill himself.
He doesn’t have the balls.”
“From ‘National Treasure’ to ‘schmuck,’
” Claudia said musingly.
Molly said, “The guy is definitely a little
crazy.
He’ll croak out of sheer carelessness.”
“Does he do drugs?”
Bantz asked, a little worried.
“No,” Claudia said, “but Ernest is full
of surprises.
He’s a true eccentric who doesn’t even
know he’s eccentric.”
Bantz pondered this for a moment.
There was some merit in their argument.
And besides he never believed in making unnecessary
enemies.
He didn’t want Molly Flanders to carry a
grudge against him.
The woman was a terror.
“Let me call Eli,” he said.
“If he gives the okay, I’ll take you to
the hospital.”
He was sure that Marrion would refuse.
But to his surprise, Marrion said, “By all
means, they can all come to see me.”
They drove to the hospital in Bantz’s limo,
which was a big stretch job but by no means
luxurious.
It was fitted with a fax, a computer, and
a cellular phone.
A bodyguard supplied by Pacific Ocean Security
sat next to the driver.
Another security car with two men followed
behind.
The brown-tinted windows of the limo presented
the city in the beige monochrome of old-time
cowboy movies.
As they progressed inward, the buildings became
taller, as if they were penetrating a deep
stone forest.
Claudia was always amazed how in the short
space of ten minutes she could go from a mildly
bucolic small-town green to a metropolis of
concrete and glass.
In Cedars Sinai, the hospital corridors seemed
as vast as the halls of an airport, but the
ceiling compressed like a bizarre camera shot
in a German impressionist movie.
They were met by a hospital coordinator, a
handsome woman dressed in a severe but high-couture
suit who reminded Claudia of the “Hosts”
in Vegas hotels.
She led them to a special elevator that took
them nonstop to the top penthouse suites.
These suites had huge carved black oak doors
that reached from floor to ceiling, with shiny
brass knobs.
The doors opened like gates, to a suite of
a hospital bedroom, a larger, open-walled
room with dining table and chairs, a sofa
and lounge chairs, and a secretarial niche
that held a computer and fax.
There was also a small kitchen space and guest
bathroom in addition to the bathroom for the
patient.
The ceiling was very high and the absence
of walls between the kitchen niche, the living
room area, and the business nook gave the
whole room the look of a movie set.
Lying on a crisp, white hospital bed, propped
up by huge pillows, was Eli Marrion.
He was reading an orange-covered script.
On the table beside him were business folders
with budgets of movies in production.
A pretty young secretary seated on the other
side of the bed was taking notes.
Marrion always liked pretty women around him.
Bobby Bantz kissed Marrion on the cheek and
said, “Eli, you look great, just great.”
Molly and Claudia also kissed him on the cheek.
Claudia had insisted on bringing flowers,
and put them on the bed.
Such familiarities were excused because the
great Eli Marrion was ill.
Claudia was noting all the details as if researching
a script.
Medical dramas were almost financially foolproof.
In fact, Eli Marrion was not looking “great
just great.”
His lips were ridged with blue lines that
seemed drawn with ink, he gasped for air when
he spoke.
Two green prongs grew from his nostrils, the
prongs attached to a thin plastic tube that
ran to a bubbling bottle of water that was
plugged into the wall, all connected to some
oxygen tank hidden there.
Marrion noted her gaze.
“Oxygen,” he said.
“Only temporary,” Bobby Bantz said hurriedly.
“Makes it easier for him to breathe.”
Molly Flanders ignored them.
“Eli,” she said, “I’ve explained the
situation to Bobby and he needs your OK.”
Marrion seemed to be in good humor.
“Molly,” he said, “you were always the
toughest lawyer in this town.
Are you going to harass me on my deathbed?”
Claudia was distressed.
“Eli, Bobby told us you were okay.
And we really wanted to see you.”
She was so obviously ashamed that Marrion
raised his hand with acceptance and benediction.
“I understand all the arguments,” Marrion
said.
He made a motion of dismissal to the secretary
and she left the room.
The private duty nurse, a handsome, tough-looking
woman, was reading a book at the dining room
table.
Marrion gestured to her to leave.
She looked at him and shook her head.
She resumed reading.
Marrion laughed, a low wheezing laugh.
He said to the others, “That is Priscilla,
the best nurse in California.
She’s an intensive care nurse, that’s
why she’s so tough.
My doctor recruited her especially for this
case.
She’s the boss.”
Priscilla acknowledged them with a nod of
her head and resumed reading.
Molly said, “I’ll be willing to limit
his points to a maximum of twenty million.
It will be insurance.
Why take the risk?
And why be so unfair?”
Bantz said angrily, “It’s not unfair.
He signed a contract.”
“Fuck you, Bobby,” Molly said.
Marrion ignored them.
“Claudia, what do you think?”
Claudia was thinking many things.
Obviously Marrion was sicker than anyone was
admitting.
And it was terribly cruel to put pressure
on this old man who had to make such an effort
to even speak.
She was tempted to say that she was leaving,
then she remembered that Eli would never have
let them come except for some purpose of his
own.
“Ernest is a man who does surprising things,”
Claudia said.
“He is determined to provide for his family.
But Eli, he’s a writer and you always loved
writers.
Think of it as a contribution to art.
Hell, you gave twenty million to the Metropolitan
Museum.
Why not do it for Ernest?”
“And have all the agents on our ass?”
Bantz said.
Eli Marrion took a deep breath, the green
prongs seemed to go deeper into his face.
“Molly, Claudia, we will have to keep this
our little secret.
I’ll give Vail two gross points to a max
of twenty million.
I’ll give him a million up front.
Will that satisfy you?”
Molly thought it over.
Two gross points on all the pictures should
yield a minimum of fifteen million but maybe
more.
It was the best she could do, and she was
surprised that Marrion had gone so far.
If she haggled he was quite capable of withdrawing
the offer.
“That’s wonderful, Eli, thank you.”
She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.
“I’ll send your office a memo tomorrow.
And Eli, I do hope you get well soon.”
Claudia could not restrain her emotion.
She clasped Eli’s hand in hers.
She noticed the brown specks that mottled
the skin, the hand chilly with approaching
death.
“You saved Ernest’s life.”
At that moment Eli Marrion’s daughter came
into the room with her two small children.
The nurse, Priscilla, rose from her chair
like a cat scenting mice and moved toward
the children, interposing herself between
them and the bed.
The daughter had been twice divorced and did
not get on with her father, but she had a
production company on the LoddStone lot because
Eli was so fond of his grandchildren.
Claudia and Molly took their leave.
They drove to Molly’s office and called
Ernest to tell him the good news.
He insisted on taking them out to dinner to
celebrate.
Marrion’s daughter and two grandchildren
stayed only a short time.
But long enough for the daughter to get her
father to promise to buy her a very expensive
novel for her next movie.
Bobby Bantz and Eli Marrion were alone.
“You’re a soft touch today,” Bantz said.
Marrion felt the weariness in his body, the
air being sucked into it.
He could relax with Bobby, he never had to
act with him.
They had been through so much together, used
power together, won wars, traveled and schemed
through the wide world.
They could read each other’s minds.
“That novel I’m buying for my daughter,
will it make a movie?”
Marrion asked.
“Low-budget,” Bantz said.
“Your daughter makes quote-unquote ‘serious’
movies.”
Marrion made a weary gesture.
“Why do we always have to pay for other
people’s good intentions?
Give her a decent writer but no stars.
She’ll be happy and we won’t lose too
much money.”
“Are you really going to give Vail gross?”
Bantz asked.
“Our lawyer says we can win in court if
he dies.”
Marrion said smilingly, “If I get well.
If not, it will be up to you.
You’ll be running the show.”
Bantz was astonished at this sentimentality.
“Eli, you’ll get well, of course you will.”
And he was absolutely sincere.
He had no desire to succeed Eli Marrion, indeed
he dreaded the day that inevitably had to
come.
He could do anything as long as Marrion approved
it.
“It’s going to be up to you, Bobby,”
Marrion said.
“The truth is that I’m not going to make
it.
The doctors tell me I need a heart transplant
and I’ve decided not to get one.
I can live maybe six months, maybe a year,
maybe much less with this lousy heart I have.
And besides, I’m too old to qualify for
a transplant.”
Bantz was stunned.
“They can’t do a bypass?” he asked.
When Marrion shook his head, Bantz went on.
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course you’ll
get a transplant.
You built half the hospital, they have to
give you a heart.
You have another good ten years.”
He paused for a moment.
“You’re tired, Eli, we’ll talk about
this tomorrow.”
But Marrion had dozed off.
Bantz left to check with the doctors and then
to tell them to start all procedures to harvest
a new heart for Eli Marrion.
Ernest Vail, Molly Flanders, and Claudia De
Lena celebrated by having dinner at La Dolce
Vita on Santa Monica.
It was Claudia’s favorite restaurant.
She had memories of herself as a little girl
being brought there by her father and being
treated like royalty.
She had memories of the bottles of red and
white wine being stacked in all the window
alcoves, on the back rails of banquettes,
and in every vacant space.
The customers could reach out and pluck a
bottle as if they were grapes.
Ernest Vail was in good spirits, and Claudia
wondered again how anybody could believe he
would commit suicide.
He was bubbling over with glee that his threat
had worked.
And the very good red wine put them all into
a merry mood that was slightly boastful.
They were very pleased with themselves.
The food itself, robustly Italian, fueled
their energy.
“Now what we have to think about,” Vail
said, “is two points good enough or should
we push for three?”
“Don’t get greedy,” Molly said.
“The deal is made.”
Vail kissed her hand movie-star style and
said, “Molly you’re a genius.
A ruthless genius, true.
How could you two browbeat a guy sick on his
hospital bed?”
Molly dipped bread into tomato sauce.
“Ernest,” she said, “you will never
understand this town.
There is no mercy.
Not when you’re drunk, or on coke, or in
love, or broke.
Why make an exception for sick?”
Claudia said, “Skippy Deere once told me
that when you’re buying, take people to
a Chinese restaurant, but when you’re selling,
take them to an Italian restaurant.
Does that make any sense?”
“He’s a producer,” Molly said.
“He read it someplace.
It doesn’t mean anything without a context.”
Vail was eating with the gusto of a reprieved
criminal.
He had ordered three different kinds of pasta
just for himself but gave small portions to
Claudia and Molly and demanded their opinions.
“The best Italian food in the world outside
Rome,” he said.
“About Skippy, it makes a certain kind of
movie sense.
Chinese food is cheap, it brings the price
down.
Italian food can put you to sleep and make
you less sharp.
I like both.
Isn’t it nice to know that Skippy is always
scheming?”
Vail always ordered three desserts.
Not that he ate all of them, but he wanted
to taste many different things at one dinner.
In him it did not seem eccentric.
Not even the way he dressed, as if clothes
were to shield skin from wind or sun, or the
way he carelessly shaved, one sideburn cut
lower than the other.
Not even his threat to kill himself seemed
illogical or strange.
Nor his complete and childish frankness, which
often hurt people’s feelings.
Claudia was not unused to eccentricity.
Hollywood abounded with eccentrics.
“You know, Ernest, you belong to Hollywood.
You’re eccentric enough,” she said.
“I am not an eccentric,” Vail said.
“I’m not that sophisticated.”
“You don’t call wanting to kill yourself
over a dispute about money eccentric?”
Claudia said.
“That was an extremely cool-headed response
to our culture,” Vail said.
“I was tired of being a nobody.”
Claudia said impatiently, “How can you think
that?
You’ve written ten books, you’ve won the
Pulitzer.
You’re internationally famous.”
Vail had polished off his three pastas and
was looking at his entrée, three pearly slices
of veal covered with lemon.
He picked up a fork and knife.
“All that means shit,” he said.
“I have no money.
It took me fifty-five years to learn that
if you have no money, you’re shit.”
Molly said, “You’re not eccentric, you’re
crazy.
And stop whining because you’re not rich.
You’re not poor either.
Or we wouldn’t be here.
You’re not suffering too much for your art.”
Vail put down his knife and fork.
He patted Molly’s arm.
“You’re right,” he said.
“Everything you say is true.
I enjoy life from moment to moment.
It’s the arc of life that gets me down.”
He drank his glass of wine and then went on
matter-of-factly.
“I’m never going to write again,” he
said.
“Writing novels is a dead end, like being
a blacksmith.
It’s all movies and TV now.”
“That’s nonsense,” Claudia said.
“People will always read.”
“You’re just lazy,” Molly said.
“Any excuse not to write.
That’s the real reason why you wanted to
kill yourself.”
They all laughed.
Ernest helped them to the veal on his dish
and then to the extra desserts.
The only time he was courtly was over dinner,
he seemed to take pleasure in feeding people.
“That’s all true,” he said.
“But a novelist can’t make a good living
unless he writes simple novels.
And even that is a dead end.
A novel can never be as simple as a movie.”
Claudia said angrily, “Why do you put movies
down?
I’ve seen you cry at good movies.
And they are art.”
Vail was enjoying himself.
After all, he had won his fight against the
Studio, he had his points.
“Claudia, I really agree,” he said.
“Movies are art.
I complain out of envy.
Movies are making novels irrelevant.
What’s the point of writing a lyrical passage
about nature, painting the world in red heat,
a beautiful sunset, a mountain range coated
with snow, the awe-inspiring waves of great
oceans.”
He was declaiming, waving his arms.
“What can you write about passion and the
beauty of women?
What’s the use of all that when you can
see it on the movie screen in Technicolor?
Oh, those mysterious women with full red lips,
their magical eyes, when you can see them
bare-assed, tits as delicious-looking as beef
Wellington.
All much better than real life even, never
mind prose.
And how can we write about the amazing deeds
of heroes who slay their enemies by the hundred,
who conquer great odds and great temptation,
when you can get it all in gouts of blood
before your eyes, tortured, agonized faces
on the screen.
Actors and cameras doing all the work without
processing through the brain.
Sly Stallone as Achilles in the Iliad.
Now the one thing the screen can’t do is
get into the minds of their characters, it
cannot duplicate the thinking process, the
complexity of life.”
He paused for a moment, then said wistfully,
“But you know what’s worst of all?
I’m an elitist.
I wanted to be an artist to be something special.
So what I hate is that movies are such a democratic
art.
Anybody can make a movie.
You’re right, Claudia, I’ve seen movies
that moved me to tears and I know for a fact
that the people who made them are moronic,
insensitive, uneducated, and with not an iota
of morality.
The screenwriter is illiterate, the director
an egomaniac, the producer a butcher of morality
and the actors smash their fists into the
wall or a mirror to show the audience they
are upset.
But then the movie works.
How can that be?
Because a movie uses sculpture, painting,
music, human bodies, and technology to form
itself, while a novelist only has a string
of words, black print on white paper.
And to tell the truth that’s not so terrible.
That’s progress.
And the new great art.
A democratic art.
And art without suffering.
Just buy the right camera and meet with your
friends.”
Vail beamed at the two women.
“Isn’t it wonderful, an art that requires
no real talent?
What democracy, what therapy, to make your
own movie.
It will replace sex.
I go to see your movie and you come to see
mine.
It’s an art that will transform the world
and for the better.
Claudia, be happy that you are in an art form
that is the future.”
“You are a condescending prick,” Molly
said.
“Claudia fought for you, defended you.
And I’ve been more patient with you than
any murderer I’ve defended.
And you buy us dinner to insult us.”
Vail seemed genuinely astonished.
“I’m not insulting, I’m just defining.
I am grateful and I love you both.”
He paused for a moment and then said humbly,
“I’m not saying I’m better than you.”
Claudia burst out laughing.
“Ernest, you’re so full of shit,” she
said.
“Just in real life,” Vail said amiably.
“Can we talk business a little bit?
Molly, if I were dead and my family regained
all the rights, would LoddStone pay five points?”
“At least five,” Molly said.
“Now you’re going to kill yourself over
extra points?
You lose me entirely.”
Claudia was looking at him, troubled.
She distrusted his high spirits.
“Ernest, are you still unhappy?
We got you a wonderful deal.
I was so thrilled.”
Vail said fondly, “Claudia, you have no
idea what the real world is all about.
Which makes you perfect to do screenplays.
What the hell difference does it make if I’m
happy?
The happiest man who ever lived is going to
have terrible times in his life.
Terrible tragedies.
Look at me now.
I’ve just won a great victory, I don’t
have to kill myself.
I’m enjoying this meal, I’m enjoying the
company of you two beautiful, intelligent,
compassionate women.
And I love it that my wife and children will
have economic security.”
“Then why the fuck are you whining?”
Molly asked him.
“Why are you spoiling a good time?”
“Because I can’t write,” Vail said.
“Which is no great tragedy.
It’s not really important anymore but it’s
the only thing I know how to do.”
As he was saying this, he was finishing the
three desserts with such evident enjoyment
that the two women burst out laughing.
Vail grinned back at them.
“We sure bluffed out old Eli,” he said.
“You take writer’s block too seriously,”
Claudia said.
“Just take some speed.”
“Screenwriters don’t have writer’s block
because they don’t write,” Vail said.
“I cannot write because I have nothing to
say.
Now let’s talk about something more interesting.
Molly, I’ve never understood how I can have
ten percent of the profit of a picture that
grosses one hundred million dollars and costs
only fifteen million to make, and then never
see a penny.
That’s one mystery I’d like to solve before
I die.”
This put Molly in good spirits again; she
loved to teach the law.
She took a notebook out of her purse and scribbled
down some figures.
“It’s absolutely legal,” she said.
“They are abiding by the contract, one you
should not have signed in the first place.
Look, take the one-hundred-million gross.
The theaters, the exhibitors, take half, so
now the studio only gets fifty million, which
is called rentals.
“OK.
The studio takes out the fifteen million dollars
the picture costs.
Now there’s thirty-five million left.
But by the terms of your contract and most
studio contracts, the studio takes thirty
percent of the rentals for distribution costs
on the film.
That’s another fifteen mil in their pockets.
So you’re down to twenty mil.
Then they deduct the cost of making prints,
the cost for advertising the picture, which
could easily be another five.
You’re down to fifteen.
Now here’s the beauty.
By contract, the studio gets twenty-five percent
of the budget for studio overhead, telephone
bills, electricity, use of soundstages etc.
Now you’re down to eleven.
Good, you say.
You’ll take your piece of eleven million.
But the Bankable Star gets at least five percent
of the rentals, the director and producer
another five percent.
So that comes to another five million.
You’re down to six million.
At last you’ll get something.
But not so fast.
They then charge you all the costs of distribution,
they charge fifty grand for delivering the
prints to the English market, another fifty
to France or Germany.
And then finally they charge the interest
on the fifteen million they borrowed to make
the picture.
And there they lose me.
But that last six million disappears.
That’s what happens when you don’t have
me for a lawyer.
I write a contract that really gets you a
piece of the gold mine.
Not gross for a writer but a very good definition
of net.
Do you understand it now?”
Vail was laughing.
“Not really,” he said.
“How about TV and video money?”
“TV you’ll see a little,” Molly said.
“Nobody knows how much money they make in
video.”
“And my deal with Marrion now is straight
gross?”
Vail asked.
“They can’t screw me again?”
“Not the way I’ll write the contract,”
Molly said.
“It will be straight gross all the way.”
Vail said mournfully, “Then I won’t have
a grievance anymore.
I won’t have an excuse for not writing.”
“You really are so eccentric,” Claudia
said.
“No, no,” Vail said.
“I’m just a fuckup.
Eccentrics do odd things to distract people
from what they do or are.
They are ashamed.
That’s why movie people are so eccentric.”
Who would have dreamed that dying could be
so pleasant, that you could be so at peace,
that you could be so without fear?
That best of all you had solved the one great
common myth?
Eli Marrion, in the long hours of the sick
at night, sucked oxygen from the tube in the
wall and reflected on his life.
His private duty nurse, Priscilla, working
a double shift, was reading a book by the
dim lamp on the other side of the room.
He could see her eyes dart quickly up and
then down, as if checking him after every
line she read.
Marrion thought how different this scene was
from how it would be in a movie.
In a movie there would be a great deal of
tension because he was hovering between life
and death.
The nurse would be crouched over his bed,
doctors would be coming in and out.
There should sure as hell be a lot of noise,
a lot of tension.
And here he was in a room absolutely quiet,
the nurse reading, Marrion easily breathing
through his plastic tube.
He knew this penthouse floor held only these
huge suites for very important people.
Powerful politicians, real estate billionaires,
stars who were the fading myths of the entertainment
world.
All kings in their own right and now, here
in the night in this hospital, vassals to
death.
They lay helpless and alone, comforted by
mercenaries, their power scattered.
Tubes in bodies, prongs in nostrils, waiting
for surgeon’s knives to scour the debris
from their failing hearts or, like himself,
for a completely edited heart to be inserted.
He wondered if they were as resigned as he.
And why that resignation?
Why had he told the doctors he would not have
a transplant, that he preferred to live only
the short time his failing heart would give
him.
He thought that, thank God, he could still
make intelligent decisions devoid of sentiment.
Everything was clear to him, like making a
deal on a film: figuring the cost, the percentage
of return, the value of subsidiary rights,
the possible traps with stars, directors,
and cost overages.
Number one: He was eighty years old and not
a robust eighty.
A heart transplant would disable him for a
year, at the very best.
Certainly he would never run LoddStone Studies
again.
Certainly most of his power over his world
would vanish.
Number two: Life without power was intolerable.
After all, what could an old man like himself
do even with a fresh new heart?
He could not play sports, run after women,
take pleasure from food or drink.
No, power was an old man’s only pleasure,
and why was that so bad?
Power could be used for the good.
Had he not granted mercy to Ernest Vail, against
all prudent principles, against all his lifelong
prejudices?
Had he not told his doctors that he did not
want to deprive a child or some young man
the chance to have a new life by taking a
heart?
Was that not a use of power for the higher
good?
But he had had a long life of dealing with
hypocrisy and recognized it now in himself.
He had declined a new heart because it was
not a good deal; a bottom-line decision.
He had granted Ernest Vail his points because
he desired the affection of Claudia and the
respect of Molly Flanders, a sentimentality.
Was it so terrible that he wanted to leave
an image of goodness?
He was satisfied in the life he had lived.
He had fought his way from poverty to riches,
he had conquered his fellow man.
He had enjoyed all the pleasure of human life,
loved beautiful women, lived in luxurious
homes, worn the finest silks.
And he had helped in the creation of art.
He had earned enormous power and a great fortune.
And he had tried to do good for his fellow
man.
He had contributed tens of millions to this
very hospital.
But most of all he had enjoyed struggling
against his fellow man.
And what was so terrible about that?
How else could you acquire the power to do
good?
Even now he regretted the last act of mercy
to Ernest Vail.
You could not simply give the spoils of your
struggle to your fellow man, especially under
threat.
But Bobby would take care of that.
Bobby would take care of everything.
Bobby would plant the necessary publicity
stories featuring his refusal of a heart transplant
so that someone younger could have it.
Bobby would recover all the gross points that
existed.
Bobby would get rid of his daughter’s production
company, which was a losing proposition for
LoddStone.
Bobby would take the rap.
Far off he could hear a tiny bell, then the
snakelike rattling of the fax machine transmitting
the box office receipts compiled in New York.
The stuttering making a refrain for his failing
heart.
The truth now.
He had enough of life at its best.
It was not his body that had ultimately betrayed
him but his mind.
The truth now.
He was disappointed in human beings.
He had seen too many betrayals, too many pitiful
weaknesses, too much greed for money and fame.
The falseness between lovers, husbands, and
wives, fathers, sons, mothers, daughters.
Thank God for the films he had made that gave
people hope and thank God for his grandchildren
and thank God he would not see them grow up
into the human condition.
The fax machine stilled its stutter, and Marrion
could feel the fluttering of his failing heart.
Early morning light filled his room.
He saw the nurse flick off her lamp and close
her book.
It was so lonely to die with only this stranger
in this room when he was loved by so many
powerful people.
Then the nurse was prying open his eyelids,
putting her stethoscope to his chest.
The huge doors to his hospital suite opened
like the great door of some ancient temple
and he could hear the rattling of dishes on
the breakfast trays.
. . .
Then the room filled with bright lights.
He could feel fists thumping his chest and
wondered why they were doing this to him.
A cloud was forming in his brain, filling
it with mist.
Through that mist voices were screaming.
A line from a movie penetrated his oxygen-starved
brain.
“Is this how the Gods die?”
He felt the electric shocks, the pummeling,
the incision made to massage his heart with
bare hands.
All of Hollywood would mourn but none more
than the night duty nurse, Priscilla.
She had done a double shift because she supported
two small children, and it displeased her
that Marrion had died on her shift.
She prided herself on her reputation as one
of the finest nurses in California.
She hated death.
But the book she had been reading had excited
her and she had been planning how to talk
with Marrion about making it into a movie.
She would not be a nurse forever, she was
a screenwriter on the side.
Now she did not give up hope.
This top floor of the hospital with its huge
suites received the greatest men of Hollywood
and she would stand guard for them against
death forever.
But all this had happened in Marrion’s mind
before he died, a mind saturated with thousands
of movies he had watched.
In reality, the nurse had gone to his bed
some fifteen minutes after he was dead, so
quietly had he died.
She debated for maybe thirty seconds about
calling an alert to try to bring him back
to life.
She was an old hand with death and more merciful.
Why try to revive him to all the torture of
reclaiming life?
She went to the window and watched the sun
rise and the pigeons strutting lustfully on
the stone ledges.
Priscilla was the final power deciding Marrion’s
fate . . . and his most merciful judge.
