The Betsy (1971) (36 page)

I didn’t say anything.

“How much time do we have?” he asked.

“Until Monday night,” I answered. “I need the information for the stockholders’ meeting on Tuesday morning. That’s our last chance.”

“You know you’re asking me to participate in an illegal act with full, prior knowledge,” he said. “That’s something I’ve never done. I’ve been a lawyer all my life and the only thing I’ve ever done was defend my clients to the best of my ability after they committed the act.”

“I know that,” I said.

“And you still ask me to do what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You’re a lawyer, you shouldn’t have to ask that question,” I said, looking steadily at him. “You made a lifetime contract with my grandfather to handle my business affairs. And this is my business.”

He thought for a moment, then he nodded. “You’re right. I’ll see what can be done. But I’m not promising anything. My contacts in Detroit may not be as good as they used to be.”

“That’s good enough for me, Uncle Jake,” I said. “Thank you.”

He looked at his watch. “Time I got you back on the plane. It’s after seven and I promised your father you would be on your way by then.”

“I’ll be all right,” I said. But I wasn’t. The pain was beginning to dance around inside me.

“Where will you be nine o’clock, Monday night?” Uncle Jake asked.

“Either the hospital or home,” I answered. “Depends on what Papa will let me do.”

“Okay,” he said. “At nine o’clock, Monday night, wherever you are, someone will contact you. They will either have what you want or tell you they haven’t.”

“Good enough.”

He walked to the door and opened it. Gianno was standing just outside. “Okay, Gianno,” he said. “Take him back.”

“Si, Eccellenza.”
Gianno took a small metal box from his breast pocket. He tore the wrapper from the disposable syringe and began filling it from a small vial.

“I can understand why your father let you come to see me while you’re like this,” Uncle Jake said. “But I don’t see why you’re doing it, what you’re getting out of it.”

“Money for one thing. That stock could be worth ten million dollars someday.”

“That’s not it,” he said. “You have five times that by now and you never paid attention to it. There has to be another reason.”

“Maybe it’s because I gave my word to the old man that we would build a new car. And I don’t consider the job done until that car comes off the assembly line.”

He looked at me. There was approval in his voice. “That’s more like it.”

Then I had a question to ask him. Something that had been puzzling me. “You said you knew why Papa let me come down here. Why did he?”

“I thought you knew,” he said. “It was old Mr. Hardeman who got your father into the hospital as a resident after every one of them had turned him down because he was your grandfather’s son.”

“Turn on your side a little bit,” Gianno said.

Automatically I did as he asked, still looking up at Uncle Jake. I felt the faint jab in my buttock.

Uncle Jake began to smile. “The wheel never stops turning, does it?” Then right in front of my eyes he began to disappear.

That had to be one of the world’s greatest shots. I slept all the way from Uncle Jake’s office in Phoenix until nine o’clock the next morning when I awoke in my hospital bed in Detroit.

 Chapter Ten

By Saturday afternoon in the hospital, I was going cuckoo. The aches and pains had subsided enough so that I could handle them with an abundance of aspirin, and I paced up and down my room like a caged animal. I flipped channels on television and spun the radio dial until it came off in my hand. Finally the nurse fled the room and came back ten minutes later with my father.

He looked at me calmly. “What’s the matter?”

“I want out!”

“Okay,” he said.

“You can’t keep me in here any more,” I said, not listening to him. “I’ve had it!”

“If you’d pay attention instead of running off at the mouth,” my father said, “you’d know I said ‘Okay.’”

I stared at him. “You mean it?”

“Get dressed,” he said. “I’ll be back to pick you up in about fifteen minutes. As soon as I finish my rounds.”

“What about my bandages?”

“You’ll have to keep your ribs taped for a few more weeks, but I’ll be able to replace your head and face bandages with a couple of Band-Aids.” He smiled. “I’m really very pleased. I just saw your X-rays and lab reports of this morning. You’re fine. Now we’ll give Mamma’s miracle drug, pasta, a chance to do a little work on you.”

Of course Mamma cried when I came home. And so did Gianno and my father. I looked over my mother’s head at Cindy. Even she stood there, tears welling in her eyes.

I grinned at her. “I see Mamma’s been giving you instructions on how to become Italian.”

She made a face and turned away. When she turned back, she was fine. “Also spaghetti sauce,” she said. “We’ve been in the kitchen ever since this morning when your father told us he was bringing you home.”

I looked at him. “At least you could have told me, Papa.”

He smiled. “I wanted to check the reports first just to be sure.”

“Gianno, you help him upstairs,” my mother said.

“Si, Signora.”

“Undress him and get him right into bed,” she continued. “I want him to rest until it’s time for dinner.”

“Mamma, I’m not a baby,” I protested. “I can manage myself.”

My mother ignored me. “Gianno, don’t pay any attention to him,” she said firmly. “Go with him.”

I started up the steps, Gianno following me.

“And don’t let him smoke in bed,” my mother added. “He’ll set himself on fire.”

By the time I got to bed, I knew I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. I was grateful for Gianno’s help. I fell right asleep.

Cindy came by before dinner just in time to catch Mother forcing a shot glass full of Fernet Branca down my throat.

I swallowed about half of it, almost gagging at the lousy taste it left in my mouth. I made a face. “That’s enough!”

“You’ll drink it all,” she insisted. “It will do you more good than all those little pills.”

I stood there stubbornly, the shot glass in my hand. My mother turned to Cindy.

“You make him finish it,” she said. “I have to go down to the kitchen and start the water for the pasta.” She went to the door and stopped there. “You make sure that he finishes it before he comes down for dinner.”

“Yes, Mrs. Perino,” Cindy said obediently. My mother went down the hall and Cindy turned back to me. “You heard your mother,” she said with a smile. “Finish it.”

“She’s something, isn’t she? Her trouble is that she really believes it when I tell her that a boy’s best friend is his mother.”

“I’ve never met anyone like her,” Cindy said with a sound of envy in her voice. “Or like your father either. The money they have doesn’t affect them at all. All they care about is each other. And you. They’re real people.”

“I still won’t drink this shit.”

“You’ll drink it,” she said, looking into my eyes. “Just to make her happy.”

I swallowed the rest of the Fernet Branca in one gulp. I grimaced, giving her the glass. “Oh, God. It’s really awful.”

She didn’t say anything, still looking into my eyes.

I shook my head in wonder. “My mother’s really done a number on you, hasn’t she?”

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” she said seriously. “My family’s got more money than yours. Much more. And my mother and father never even seemed to know I was alive.”

I looked, surprised. She had never talked about her family before.

“Did you ever hear of Morris Mining?” she asked suddenly.

I nodded. Of course I had. Now I knew why money never seemed to matter to her. It was one of the blue chips. Right up there with Kennecott Copper, Anaconda and the Three M Company. I even owned a thousand shares.

“My father’s chairman of the board. My brother’s president. He’s fifteen years older than me. I was a change-of-life baby and I always had the feeling that they were embarrassed by my arrival. Anyway, they shipped me off to all the best schools as soon as they could. Once I was five years old I wasn’t around the house very much.”

I thought of my own childhood and how different it had been from hers. She was right. I was lucky. I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay, baby, I’ll confess. I love them very much.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I know you do. You came right home when you were hurt. All my life I kept running away when I was hurt.”

There was a knock on the open door. Gianno came into the room.
“La Signora
sent me to help you dress and bring you downstairs.”

I straightened up in bed, smoothing the covers over my legs and smiling up at Cindy.

She knew what I was thinking. Mother had really done her number.

Dinner was more than an hour away. There was no rush to dress. But good girls don’t spend too much time in Italian boys’ bedrooms. It’s not proper.

At dinner, I found out much to my surprise I was ravenous. Mother had really turned it on for me. The pasta was just the way I like it.
Al dente
. Cooked firm and not soft and mushy. And the sauce had everything in it. Hot sausage, sweet sausage, green peppers browned slightly first in oil, tiny meatballs blended delicately with finely chopped pork, quartered Italian tomatoes cooked into a rich red sauce with just the right touch of oregano and garlic. There was only one fault. As usual it was too sweet. It is very Sicilian to add a lot of sugar.

But I put it away like food was going out of style. I was too hungry to get finicky.

Mother looked at me proudly. “You like the sauce?”

I nodded, my mouth full. “Great!”

“She made it,” my mother said. “All by herself.”

I looked at Cindy wondering if I could tell her that if Mother gave her another shot at it to go easy on the sugar. Cindy’s own words blew that thought to hell.

“Your mother is just being kind,” she said. “All I did was to put what she handed me into the pot and stir once in a while.”

I should have guessed that. “It’s very good anyway,” I said.

“A few weeks with me,” Mother said, “and I’ll make a real Sicilian cook out of her.”

The pasta was better than sleeping pills. I found my eyes closing a half hour after dinner, right in the middle of my mother’s favorite television show. I went up to sleep.

The next morning was Sunday and the usual routine was that the whole family, including Gianno, went to ten o’clock mass. This Sunday the routine was changed because my mother didn’t want to leave me alone in the house.

Gianno went to nine o’clock mass and when he returned, my parents went to the ten o’clock. Much to my surprise when I went looking for Cindy, Gianno told me with a secret, knowing smile lurking in his eyes that she had gone to mass with them.

I went back to my room, mumbling to myself. It was then I knew I was really getting better. I was horny as hell. But Mother was operating in really top form.

I must have dozed off again, for when I opened my eyes, my father was standing over the bed, looking down at me.

He bent and kissed my forehead. “I thought if you were feeling up to it, we’d go down to my office and I’d take the bandages off.”

“I’m ready,” I said.

I sat, my legs dangling from the examination table, while he snipped carefully at the bandage around my head. Then, as gently as he could, he peeled the adhesive that held my nose bandage and lifted it off. He was just as cautious with the adhesive and bandage on my cheekbone, the side of my chin, and over my left ear.

He picked up a bottle and poured some of the liquid over a wad of cotton. “This is going to sting a bit,” he said, “but I want to clean you up.”

It was the usual professional understatement. It stung like hell. But he was quick about it. When he finished he peered at me critically.

“It’s not too bad,” he said judiciously. “When you have some time, you can jump over to Switzerland. Dr. Hans can make it right again without too much trouble.”

I got off the table and looked at myself in the mirror over the sink on the wall. A very familiar face looked back at me.

Suddenly I felt good. I was myself again. All the time I had the other face I had been someone else. Now my eyes didn’t look old any more. They belonged to the rest of my face.

“Hello, Angelo,” I whispered.

My face whispered back at me. “Hello, Angelo.”

“What did you say?” my father asked.

I turned to look at him. “I’m not going back to Dr. Hans,” I said. “I think I’ll keep this face. It’s mine.”

I woke up jumpy as a cat Monday morning. And it didn’t get any better. Especially after I read the morning newspapers.

It was a page-one story and picture. The photo showed a gutted mass of what used to be a building. The headline above it was simple.

MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSION AND FIRE DESTROYS

MICHIGAN AVENUE PRINT SHOP AND BUILDING

I almost didn’t have to read the rest of the story to know what had happened. Shortly after midnight, last night, two violent explosions that shattered windows as far as three blocks away, followed by a flash fire of intense heat, took the Mark S. Printing Company, the IASO, and forty late-model used cars on Simp’s used-car lot next door out of circulation permanently. When attempts were made to reach Mr. Mark Simpson, the proprietor of all three businesses, at home, they were informed that Mr. Simpson was away and could not be reached. Police and the fire department arson squads were conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the occurrence. Fortunately there was no one on the premises and no injuries were reported.

That news didn’t exactly add to my comfort. I wondered whether Uncle Jake’s contacts hadn’t gone a little overboard in their enthusiasm. Then I pushed the thought from my mind. If Uncle Jake didn’t know what he was doing, then nobody did.

Still the jumpiness didn’t leave me. It got worse and worse as the day seemed to drag on. I went upstairs and tried to sleep but my eyes wouldn’t stay shut. So I went downstairs again.

I turned to a pro football game on the tube. But my head wasn’t into it. I sat there staring at it blindly, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Finally I turned it off in disgust and went back upstairs and stretched out on my bed, my arms on the pillow behind my head, and stared up at the ceiling.

I heard my door open. I didn’t look around. My father stood over me. I didn’t speak.

“You’re in no condition to get yourself all worked up like that,” he said.

“I can’t help it.”

“Let me give you a shot so you can get some sleep,” he suggested.

“No.”

“Then let me give you a couple of tranquilizers. They’ll calm you down.”

“Let me alone, Papa.”

Silently he turned and started from the room. I sat up in the bed, swinging my feet to the floor. “Papa!”

He turned, his hand on the door.

“I’m sorry, Papa.”

He nodded. “That’s all right, Angelo,” he said and left the room.

I had no appetite for dinner and picked my way through the meal where no one talked. After dinner I went back to my room.

At eight thirty I went downstairs and sat alone in the living room. From the den I could hear the sounds coming from the television set. At eight forty-five, the telephone rang. I dove for it.

It was Donald, Number One’s man. “Mr. Perino?”

“Yes,” I answered, disappointed that it was not the call I expected.

“Mr. Hardeman asked me to find out if you’ll be able to attend the stockholders’ and board meetings tomorrow,” he said.

“I’ll be there,” I answered.

“Thank you, I’ll inform him,” he said. “Good night.”

“Wait a minute!” I said quickly. “Can I speak to Mr. Hardeman?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but Mr. Hardeman is already asleep. We had to make a special stop in Pensacola and have just arrived. Mr. Hardeman was very tired and went right to bed.”

“All right, Donald. Thank you,” I said, putting down the telephone. I didn’t know how the old man did it. He had to be made of ice to be able to sleep at a time like this.