The Scarlet Thread (42 page)

Clara made her wedding vows. She heard Bruno saying his and felt him slip the ring on her finger. She did everything she had done when she married Steven, but it was as if she moved in a dream. She had been cool, pitiless, in anticipation of the bloody revenge to be exacted by her father. Now, as she stood at the altar with Bruno beside her, she began to tremble. She had never seen death at close quarters. It had been so easy to contemplate because it wasn't real to her. Superstition flickered like a warning light inside her as she faced the altar. She had been brought up by Luisa to say her prayers, been educated by nuns, gone through the whole Catholic ritual of the Sacraments. To her, as to Aldo, it had been a matter of form once she grew up. Now, in the presence of God himself, she panicked. It shouldn't be done here. It belonged in the dark, down some alleyway, not in the shadow of the church. Fear rushed over her, and she turned, searching for her father. He was back in his pew, his part in the ritual completed. She heard Bruno whisper, “What's the matter?” Then her eyes met Aldo's gaze. He stared at her, and the look was fierce and without mercy. She turned back to her bridegroom. It was too late.

Too late to have scruples. She conquered the fear, the impulse to turn and run all the way down the aisle and out into the street so she wouldn't see it happen. She had been abandoned, betrayed. The man she had loved had left her for his first love. For a woman who had given him a child … And the Falconis had known it, connived at his desertion, put his ring on a dead man's finger and then cut it off to prove their good faith. When the recessional pealed from the organ, Clara took her new husband's arm, and with a nod to her father, she walked firmly past the congregation to the open doorway.

Photographers were waiting. Bruno held her there, posing for them, resisting her efforts to hurry him to the waiting car. He was smiling, enjoying it. He kissed her for the cameras. She saw Aldo come out onto the steps behind them. “Bruno,” she insisted, “Bruno, that's enough. Let's go!”

“What's the hurry?” he demanded. He was smiling, looking ahead of him. She didn't hear the shots. The cameras were snapping, and suddenly there was a great splash of blood all over her jacket, and he was falling backward, dragging her down with him. She heard screams, and more screams. She was on the ground, entangled with him. Blood was pouring through the back of his head. Someone was trying to help her up. Then she screamed and screamed and fought them off because she had seen her father lying sprawled halfway down the steps with a small round hole in the middle of his forehad and a long scarlet trickle creeping toward her. In the confusion, two of the photographers disappeared. They weren't taking pictures anymore.

EIGHT

Ralph Maxton liked reading the newspapers in bed. Madeleine was lying beside him, running her fingers down his thigh to attract his attention. Newspapers bored her, except for the gossip columns.

“Stop it, darling,” he said absently. “You can't bring the pitcher to the well again.”

“Oh, yes I can.” She giggled.
She's got a point
, he thought, and smiled at his pun. Then he saw the news item.
MAFIA MURDERS AT WEDDING
, shouted the headline in bold black letters. He looked closer, skimming through the story, studying the photographs of the carnage on the church steps. A clear, full-face portrait of the bride widowed on her wedding day—Clara Falconi Salviatti, widowed for the second time. Her first husband, Mafia boss Steven Falconi, killed in a burned-out car, and the new bridegroom gunned down at her side. “Bride of Death,” the caption screeched. Maxton was staring at the picture. His memory had never failed him. It was his trademark: faces, names, instant recall. The dark, obsessive girl on her honeymoon with her husband, touring the casino, watching the now dead German princess gamble a fortune and win. He had been told to watch them, to shadow the man and see where he went and whom he talked to.

Steven Falconi and his bride, Clara.

They had talked and had a drink together.… He threw Madeleine off him.

She protested angrily, and then, seeing his face, she said, “Ralphie—what's wrong? What's the matter?”

“Shut up, shut up, for Christ's sake!”

Pulling on a flimsy negligee, she pouted sulkily. “You don't have to shout at me. I'll take a shower then.” He didn't even hear her.

Old Dr. Drummond, confiding over a last pipe of tobacco while they sat together at the villa one evening, had said, “I wasn't too struck by him at first.… Too foreign … Italian. I suppose it was because of the name … Fal-something-or-other.”

Maxton held the newspaper clenched in both hands.

Falconi. Steven Falconi, who'd changed his name to Lawrence and sought him out years afterward. No wonder he'd felt they'd met before.…

He'd been fooled by the beard and the now mature face of a man in his early forties.… Steven Lawrence was the Mafia gangster Steven Falconi. A new name, a new identity, a faked death.

He smoothed out the crumpled newspaper. He read and read again the account of the shooting of gang boss Aldo Fabrizzi and the man just married to his daughter, Clara, widow of top mafioso Steven Falconi. The police investigation talked of a gangland vendetta by the Fabrizzi succession.

Maxton got out of bed. He phoned down and ordered all the American papers. He looked again at the photographs taken outside the church. Mercifully they weren't very clear. Someone had thrown a coat over the corpse in the foreground; only a pair of feet protruded. Blood stained the area black. A second body was lying halfway down the church steps, partly obscured by people crouching over it.

Maxton sat down, the newspaper on his knee. The shower was switched off in the background and Madeleine appeared, partly wrapped in a towel.

She said, “Chéri, what's wrong? You look dreadful.”

Maxton looked up at her. “The bastard,” he said slowly.

“Who? What?” She came and sat with him. She looked at the headlines. “It's this murder in America? Why do you care about it? Who are you calling a bastard?”

He said half to himself, “She's not even married to him—it's bigamy.”

“I'm getting dressed,” Madeleine announced. “We'll be late.”

He didn't say anything more. He bathed and changed into ski clothes, and they weren't late after all. But she knew the holiday would be cut short. Women who made their living off men had an instinct for shifts in mood. And Maxton didn't even try to hide his.

He was very nice about it; he softened the blow by taking her on a shopping trip. They went their ways, and at the airport she kissed him.

“I'm fond of you,” she said. “And we've had fun, haven't we?”

“A lot of fun,” Maxton assured her, waving her off to her Paris-bound plane. He could have put his fist in the emptiness where her heart should be.

That evening, on his flight to Nice, he read the full story in the American papers, and if he needed confirmation, there was another picture of Clara Falconi in the
New York Times
.

Steven had lied to Angela; Maxton didn't doubt that. The sudden trip to Morocco had been opportunistic, just when this bloodstained bombshell was about to burst over the media. He must have known; his father was mentioned among the guests who had seen nothing and recognized no assassin.

Omertà
. The silence enjoined upon them to deny justice under the law. One report said briefly that the bride had collapsed by her dead husband and been taken to the hospital.

Maxton went to the casino, where he supervised the construction of a grander suite of cloakrooms. Nothing suggested the turmoil inside him.

Now he could admit the truth to himself. For a long time he had hated Steven Falconi, because he possessed the only woman Maxton had ever loved.

But Steven had married her under false pretenses. Angela didn't belong to him. She was his innocent victim. He had cheated her as he had cheated and abandoned the woman of ill omen in the photographs.

Maxton knew he couldn't do anything or plan anything until her child was born. Now he had hope, though, and hope bred a fierce determination. He would play along with Steven Falconi. He would earn his big salary and justify Steven's reliance upon him. And he would wait. He knew all about patience and nerve. It had made him one of the best poker players of his generation.

It was afternoon in Aldo Fabrizzi's house in New York.

“You're looking better, Clara,” Joe Nimmi said. “We were sorry to hear about your mama. But maybe it was better for her that way.” They were gathered in Aldo's front room. They had come to pay their respects to his daughter. Only out of the hospital a month herself, she had been doubly bereaved by her mother's recent death.

She didn't look well, but what else could Joe Nimmi say? She was white as a sheet, and so thin you could see through her. She was back in her parents' house, sitting in her father's chair. Everything about her was black, except for that white face and a garish slash of scarlet lipstick. It looked as if she'd been sucking blood. Nimmi didn't think she should have worn makeup on such an occasion. He'd led the deputation to see her and offer help if she needed it. And to give advice. Sound, sensible advice to a woman without a man to guide her. Advice she had to take, because they didn't want trouble. The goddamned newspapers had become sick of writing about the gang war about to break out on the streets. There hadn't been a war. It was all settled peacefully. Fabrizzi territories had been parceled out while Clara was in the hospital. Everything was running smoothly. Her mother had had a stroke; she was paralyzed and unable to speak. They were all sorry about that. They'd all visited her in the hospital, sent flowers. Then she'd died.

They had given Aldo a proper funeral, and the relatives of Bruno Salviatti had buried their son along with him. A few Fabrizzi cousins had been found in the old country to sit in the chief mourners' car, since the wife and the daughter were too ill to attend. The flowers had been magnificent. They had all gathered in the church and at the graveside, the heads of the families, representatives from Florida, Chicago, Detroit, and all the New York bosses. They had wiped the tears from their eyes as the coffins were lowered, and had scattered holy water into the graves. It had been done well, with the respect and solemnity a man of Aldo's standing deserved. It was a pity he had to be gotten rid of, but he'd had only himself to blame. It was a business necessity, nothing personal, no one felt any sense of satisfaction. But it had to be done; they all knew that.

Clara sat with her hands folded. She looked at them, one by one: Joe Nimmi, her father's old friend from the early street days; his niece had been given refuge in Aldo Fabrizzi's house. The Guglielmos, Bruno's bosses; the heads of the smaller families. Lucca Falconi hadn't come. He was sick, they told her. The brother hadn't come; he was out of town on business. Only the cousin, Spoletto.

She said, “It's good of you all to come. My mother's better off; she didn't suffer. For myself, I've come to terms. I've lost a father and a husband. Two husbands. I've had my share of grief.”

There was a genuine note of sympathy. “You have, Clara,” Joe Nimmi said. “God knows, you've had it hard. We all feel that. And that,” he said, raising his voice a little, “is why we're here. We're all your friends. We want to help.”

She waited; she looked expectant. They'd all been party to it. They knew that she was lying, that the bullets had originally been meant for Lucca and his absent son, and for Spoletto. They knew, and so did she, that this was a charade, but it had a purpose. The purpose was the reality. She was now going to be told what it was.

She said, “I'll be glad of help, Joe. I'll be grateful for it.”

“That's what we all hoped,” he said. He smiled warmly at her. “We want you to be happy, Clara. To make a new life for yourself. Without your mama to take care of, you have that opportunity. Your papa's business is in safe hands. There's been no trouble; and we've allocated a portion to you. You'll see it's very generous.”

“Thank you,” Clara said. They'd split up Aldo's interests like carrion crows picking over a corpse. “I know you've all done your best for me, and I know you won't rest till you find out who killed my father and my husband.”

They were expecting her to say that. Guglielmo said, “We'll get them. We'll get them for Bruno too; he was a good guy. We knew him since he was a kid.” There was another mutter of agreement.

Joe Nimmi leaned toward her, hands clasped in front of him. He spoke gently, like an uncle. “For now, you'd best leave everything to us. It's our business, Clara. Don't you think about it anymore. If my old friend was here this day, I know what he would want you to do. I knew him like my brother.”

“You tell me,” Clara asked him. “What would my father want me to do?”

The scarlet mouth disturbed him; he kept looking at it. In the old country, when a man was killed his women kissed the wounds, before they cried out for vendetta. “He'd want you to go away,” he said. “Leave the house; forget the grief. You've been a sick girl. You need a nice long vacation. Six months; a year maybe.” He smiled persuasively at her, his head a little on one side. “Believe me, Clara. It'll be best for you.”

She smiled back at him. The red lips parted slightly and then closed. She said very quietly, “You give good advice, Joe. My papa always said so. You're right; he knew you like a brother too.”

Someone offered his place in the Bahamas. “One helluva nice villa, Clara. All the help you want, for as long as you want. It's yours.”

She thanked him for the offer. “You're good to me,” she said. “I appreciate everything my papa's old friends have done for him and for me.”

Victor nudged his brother in the ribs. He whispered, “She getting at something, or what?”