The Scarlet Thread (21 page)

He signaled to Piero, who refilled their glasses. The lawyer accepted a cigar. Nobody lit it for him.

Piero said in dialect, “With my father's permission, I'd like to ask something.”

“Ask,” Lucca commanded.

Piero bunched his fists and squared his shoulders. He summoned hatred. He thought of Clara and the Fabrizzis, who were forcing him to denounce and revile his brother.

“I want to be the one who puts out the contract. I want to do it and come to you, Don Aldo, and my father, and say, ‘It's done. I've wiped out the dishonor to my family.'”

Lucca didn't hesitate. “I give permission, my son. I give the responsibility to you.”

“I said we should do it together,” Aldo Fabrizzi interposed. “It must be a joint contract.”

Lucca paused. It was going as he had expected. He was proud of Piero. Piero was doing very well.

“Give Piero three months,” he said slowly.

“A month,” Aldo amended, knowing it would be nearly impossible to track down the miscreant in so short a time.

“A month,” Falconi father and son agreed together. “We guarantee it.”

They had caught him, and he accepted it. “One month, thirty days. After that we join you in the contract.”

“Agreed,” Lucca Falconi said.

“Maybe,” Aldo suggested, as if it were of little consequence to the main issue, “you and me and Joe here should talk about some money for Clara?”

“The fucking house and half a million dollars!”

“We couldn't offer less.” Lucca calmed his son. “You know that. You don't think I want to give them anything. You think I like giving money to that barren bitch?”

“It won't buy them off,” Piero responded. “No matter what you give them, they'll want Steven's head on a fucking plate!” He got up and banged his hand flat on the table; the empty glasses jumped. “How're we going to do it, Papa? How're we going to fool them?”

The old man looked up at him. He looked sad and tired, and it grieved Piero to see his grief.

“I should be strong,” Lucca muttered. “He's betrayed us all. I shouldn't protect him. I should be strong.”

“You love him,” Piero said. “I love him too. This isn't Sicily, Papa. I've got Lucia and the kids to go home to; he had nothing. You're being a strong man. I believe that.”

“I can't forgive him,” Lucca said. “I can't forgive what he's done.”

“You don't have to,” his son said. “But that's between us. Our family. We're not making a blood sacrifice for the Fabrizzis. So I ask you again. How do we fool them?”

“We give them someone else,” Lucca Falconi said. “Before the month is up. You said you would fix it.”

Piero nodded. “I'll fix it. Now, Papa, I'm going to call Mama. You look tired, you know that? And I'm going to tell her not to worry. She's been out there crying since those bastards came in here. And I'll call Lucia. You and Mama come over to our house for dinner tonight. See the kids before they go to bed. It'll cheer Mama up. And you too, maybe.”

“You're a good son,” was what Lucca said as Piero went out.
A good son with a brave heart, but it's going to take all we've got to keep Aldo Fabrizzi from cutting our throats now that your brother's gone
.

Clara rounded on her father. “I don't want him dead! I don't want that, you hear me? I want him back!”

Aldo pitied her. He hated to see her crying and tearing herself to pieces, but she couldn't move him. He said, as his people had done for centuries before him, “It's a matter of honor, Clara.” There was no appeal from that sentence. She should know this; for all the education and the fancy ways she'd adopted, she was a Sicilian, and she knew as well as he did what had to be done. She couldn't move him. He said, “I'm sorry, my little girl, but that's the way it is. If the Falconis don't find him in thirty days, then we find him. Now dry your eyes; go help your mother.”

Clara glared at him. As if she were a child: Stop weeping over the broken toy,
carissima
, and go help your mother in the kitchen.

“No!” she shouted at him. “I'm going home. I'm getting out of here.” She brushed her mother aside when she tried to reason with her. Aldo stayed silent, reading a newspaper, while the women argued. She'd go, but she'd be back. Luisa didn't know how to handle her; she'd never been any good with Clara. He heard the front door slam. His wife came back into the sitting room. She sat down.

“She's crazy,” she said. “I don't understand her. I don't understand how she could want a man who's done this to her.”

“It doesn't matter what she wants,” her husband said. He lowered the newspaper for a moment. “I've spoiled her, that's the truth of it. Whatever she wanted, I said yes. But not now. She'll learn to live with it.”

Clara let herself into the house. The box with her new hats was still on the table in the sitting room, the ribbons untied. His empty glass was by the sofa. The emptiness, the silence, made her want to turn and run out into the street again. She walked into the bedroom. How long since he had come there to make love to her? Too long to bear remembering. Her frantic pleading mocked her. “Take me with you.… They can throw me out too.” But he had rejected her. Not cruelly, but with kindness. The kindness of finality. She couldn't cry anymore.

Maybe her father was right. Maybe the old solution to misery and betrayal was the only way. In the old days, the women kissed the wounds of their dead and cried out for vendetta. That cry was answered until the last member of the offending family had been killed.

Perhaps when Steven was dead, she might begin to live her life, to be free of the jealousy that tortured her, free of the desire that had brought her groveling to him in the past. She kicked off her shoes and lay on the bed. How many nights she had lain there, waiting for him to come in, imagining the woman he was with.

Her eyes closed; she was near falling asleep from exhaustion. Then they opened suddenly, and she sat up. There had been a woman. The agency hadn't found her because someone had murdered the investigator and trashed the business. Steven had done it. Someone had alerted him that he was being watched. So the order was given, and that was the end of the agency. And then he walks out. He walks out on his whole life, just like that.

She reached for the telephone. “Papa?”

“I'm eating, Clara.” He was angry with her.

She said, “Papa, forgive me. I was wrong. I'm sorry.”

“It's forgotten,” he said. “You want to come home?”

“No. I'll stay here overnight. But I want to tell you something. When they find Steven, I don't think he'll be alone. I just want you to know that.”

She rang off before he could ask for explanations.

“Are you happy?” Angela asked him.

“You know I am.” He looked down at her. “I miss the boy. He didn't want to go.”

“I know he didn't, but you mustn't spoil him, darling. He adores you, that's the trouble. But he had to go home and get ready for school. I'll have to go too.”

In London, Steven had gone ahead of them; he didn't want them to check in together. He explained to Charlie that he had business to attend to and he'd meet them at the Savoy Hotel that afternoon. Angela filled in the time for the boy with lunch and a movie.

Steven went directly to the hotel, where he registered under the name of Franks and booked Angela and their son into a separate suite. He wasn't known at the Savoy, and once installed in his own suite, he knew he must stay out of sight. He examined himself in the bathroom mirror and rubbed his fingers across the dark stubble that was already growing after the flight and no morning shave.

He had always been clean-shaven, dark and smooth-skinned. A beard would alter his appearance. A beard, a false passport, a driver's license under a new name, and a few touches of gray in his hair. Nature provided the best camouflage. It wouldn't take long.

He checked the time; it was morning in New York. Asking for an outside line, he dialed his brother's number.

“It's me,” he said. “Just to say I've booked in at this number.… Yeah, everything's okay. Send the documents here, addressed to Franks.”

Piero protested. “Why pick a kike name, for Christ's sake?” He was pathological about Jews.

Steven ignored it. “How's Mama?”

“Okay. She's upset; you know how she is. I'll tell her that we talked. You keep out of sight, you hear me? No risks. It's red hot here. The whole fucking neighborhood is talking about you walking out on Clara and the family.”

Steven could imagine. “Don't worry,” he reassured his brother. “I'm lying low. I need those documents. Hurry them up, can't you?”

“They'll be there,” Piero promised.

Steven hung up. Then he called Angela and Charlie to ask them to his suite.

They were so happy, the three of them. Charlie thought his idea of growing a beard was a fun thing to do. He accepted that Steven couldn't go out until the scruffy growth had thickened and he looked respectable. The boy had only one week left before he had to go back to school, and Angela kept him busy with shopping and expeditions.

But she insisted on taking him back to school alone, leaving Steven behind.

“What am I going to do without you?” he persisted. “Why can't we go to your father's and then take Charlie back to school together? You can't hide me, Angelina.”

“I don't want to hide you,” she protested. “Darling, try to be patient. Give me a little time to think of something. I can't just turn up with you and say to my father, ‘This is my husband. He wasn't killed after all. I told you a pack of lies.' And what's Charlie going to say?”

“All right.” He turned away from her. “I won't argue. But I'm not staying here for long. I want my son, and I want you. That's why I'm here.”

“I know,” she pleaded. “I know, darling, but it's not so simple.”

“It wasn't simple for me either,” he said. “I've gotten so close to my boy, I feel I've known him all his life. We've done everything together, just like a family. Charlie accepted that. He's accepted me like a father. So you're going to have to square it, Angela. Because I won't wait around. Now I'm going out for a while.”

She called out, “Steven darling, please. You can't!”

“I can,” he said. “I don't look like myself anymore. To tell you the truth, I don't know who the hell I am.”

He left the suite without saying when he would be back.

She cried a little, because she couldn't bear to be at odds with him. He'd been so generous, so loving. She sat by the window and looked out across the Embankment to the Thames. It was dusk, and the lights were springing up along the opposite bank, with a thin mist rising from the river. He'd given up everything to be with her and with his son. He'd left his family, friends, job. Of course he was feeling disoriented. And she was hesitating, thinking of petty things like local gossip and facing her father with an old lie that didn't matter anymore. Charlie would accept whatever they told him. She had seen him and his father grow so close in such a short time. The bond between them was instinctive.

When he came back hours later, she was waiting for him. He looked at her. He didn't smile.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “I was worried.”

“I took a walk.”

“Steven …” She came and put her arms around him. “You're right. I've been selfish and stupid. I'm so very sorry, darling. I telephoned my father while you were out. I said we'd be home tomorrow and I was bringing someone with me. Someone very special.”

“You mean it?” He raised her face and looked into her eyes. “You really want it like that? I didn't mean to pressure you.”

She managed to laugh at him. “Oh, yes you did,” she said. “I've been sitting here feeling perfectly bloody for the past three hours. Are you happy now?”

“I'm happy,” he said, and began to kiss her.

“Well,” Dr. Drummond said. He'd said it three times. “Well, I don't know what to say.”

He looked at his daughter and back to the man who sat beside her, holding her hand protectively. It was so confusing, such a shock, he couldn't quite take it in. My husband, she'd said. Charlie's real father. No, he wasn't killed. I told you a lie. And then the American interrupted, defending her.

“It wasn't her fault. She was right to do what she did. I wanted her to live in the States, bring up the child with my family. I scared her off. I asked too much of her. Now I want to make it up to her.”

“I still don't understand it,” the old man said. “It's all so very extraordinary. Of course, as soon as Angela said she was bringing someone home, I thought there was something in the wind, but I never expected this.”

“Not even when you saw him and Charlie together?” Angela asked.

Her father looked surprised. “No. Why should I?” The beard had certainly disguised him.…

“They're very alike,” his daughter pointed out.

He considered for a moment. “I suppose so. They're dark, you could say that. But I still don't see why you said he was dead.” He returned to the lie that seemed so unnecessary and so vexing. “What a silly, irresponsible thing to do!”

Angela answered, “I
was
silly and irresponsible, Daddy.”

“Didn't you mind?” he demanded of Steven.

“I don't mind now,” he said. “It was like a miracle when we found each other in New York.”

“Must have been,” Hugh Drummond agreed. He cleared his throat and groped for his pipe, not knowing what to say next. They seemed happy enough. He was a fine-looking man; no wonder she hadn't wanted poor old Jim. He must have seemed like a stick-in-the-mud after this fellow.

“Does Charlie know?” he said suddenly. “It's going to be quite a shock for him, you must realize that. What's he going to think of you, Angela?”