The Black Stiletto (10 page)

As I drove, something else hit me.

Richard Talbot. My father. Had Richard Talbot even existed?

I signed in, walked down the long hall to the Alzheimer’s Unit, punched in the code for the door—it was no secret, it was posted in plain sight—and went inside. Strode through the common room and into another corridor toward the dining room. Mom’s room was on the right.

She was all alone, sitting in one of the chairs by her bed, just staring at the portable television. It wasn’t on. Her roommate wasn’t there.

“Hi, Mom!” I said as cheerfully as I could.

She looked up at me and wrinkled her brow. The raven-colored hair she once had was now grey and white, but it appeared as if it had recently been shampooed and styled. Her eyes were still a piercing brown with green specks, just as she’d described in the diary. Unfortunately, they looked at me blankly.

“It’s me, Martin. Your son.”

Her head moved back to the television. I’m not sure if she comprehended what I said or not.

“It’s not happy,” she said.

“What?”

She didn’t repeat it.

“What’s not happy, Mom?” I sat in the only other chair and faced her. “How are you today?”

The woman who was once Judy Cooper merely sighed loudly.

“Your hair looks nice. Did you go to the salon today?”

She nodded, but it could very well have been yesterday.

“How come you’re in here all alone?” I asked. “Don’t you want to go out to the common area where all your friends are? It’s almost time for dinner, I think.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. Are you hungry?”

“It’s not happy.”

“What’s not happy, Mom? Are you not happy? This is a real nice place. Everyone here is very sweet to you.”

She nodded and smiled at me. Maybe she did recognize me.

I decided to go for it. I pulled out the diary and held it in my hands. Her eyes went to it, but she didn’t react.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked her. I held up the diary and showed it to her.

Her face remained expressionless.

“Mom, what did you do in New York and Los Angeles before I was born?”

She sighed again and shifted her long body in the chair. My mother had remained tall, but now she was terribly thin.

They were risky questions. I’m not sure I even had the right to ask her. I didn’t want to upset her, but I had to know if any of it still meant something to her. “Do you remember?”

“New York?” she asked.

“Yeah. You lived in New York at one time. Remember?” Remarkably, she nodded. “Did you ever put on a costume?”

There was a flicker of
something
in her eyes. Her brow creased.

“Mom?”

“He was late.”

“What? What did you say? Who was late?”

“Fiorello was late.”

“Fiorello?”
Who the fuck was Fiorello?
“Who’s Fiorello, Mom?”

“I was worried. That’s why.”

“Why, what? Mom? Who’s Fiorello?”

Geez. Was he a boyfriend? A lover?
Oh my God,
could he have been my
father
? Was Fiorello “Richard Talbot”?

“Mom, tell me who Fiorello is. Was he someone you knew?”

She nodded and tears came to her eyes. “Can you tell me anything about him?”

Mom tried to say something but was unable to do so.

“Mom, Fiorello wasn’t my dad, was he?”

And then, with surprising coherence, she looked at me and answered, “No, Fiorello was murdered long before you were born. I loved him.” She then turned her head back to the blank television set and stopped speaking. The conversation, such as it was, was over.

I guess I needed to read more of the diary.

8
Judy’s Diary
1958

Dear diary, I fell in love for the first time shortly after my nineteenth birthday.

With a gangster.

Ever since the attack on the street, I’d been hounding Freddie to find me someone who could teach me how to wield a knife. I don’t know why, but I was fascinated by the weapon. Sleek, flat steel with a sharp edge, shiny, silent, beautiful. Maybe it was because I’d been cut by one. I have no idea. All I know is I started looking in shop windows at displays of knives. I’d go inside and ask to see them—combat knives, hunting knives, stilettos, folding knives, sliding blades, Bowie knives, switchblades, and even Swiss Army knives. I loved the feel of the handles in my hand. It just felt right. Mind you, my intention was not to kill anyone. I wanted to learn how to use a knife simply because I found it—sexy. There, I said it. There was something about the
concept
of a knife, that it could pierce flesh so easily and draw blood. That sounds icky, I know, and it wasn’t really anything I looked forward to actually doing. I honestly hoped I’d never have to use one in self-defense. I just wanted to know how.

It was around Thanksgiving when Freddie finally relented. We were sitting in the common living room upstairs above the gym. He had recently bought a television and we liked to watch
I Love Lucy
and
The Honeymooners
together. They made us laugh.
One of the first things we saw on the new set was the
Ed Sullivan Show
when Elvis Presley was on. I went crazy. I loved Elvis and still do. I can’t get enough of him. Freddie couldn’t stand him, but I bought a little portable record player and, when I could, I bought some of Elvis’s records and played them in my room. I guess I liked that new rock and roll music. I wore out my copy of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock.”

Anyway, I’d been bugging Freddie some more about knife fighting, and he said, “Back when I was boxing, I knew some of the mob. There was this young guy, an Italian, naturally, who was real good with a knife. I didn’t know him very well, but he was one of the few fellas in that bunch of weasels who was nice to me. He was friendly. I mean, he was probably a killer. He was in the Mafia and he was an expert with blades. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”

“When can I meet him?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Judy. He’s dangerous. That whole group is dangerous. It’s best to stay away from ‘em.”

“I’m not afraid. When can I meet him?”

Freddie agonized over this for days. I kept pestering him until he finally set it up. We’d meet his “friend” at a restaurant shortly before Christmas.

When the evening finally arrived, I did my best to look good. By then, I’d saved some money and started actually buying nice women’s clothing. Lucy and I had gone out a few times to some nightclubs like Jack Dempsey’s and the Copacabana. It was fun to see how men reacted when I dolled myself up. Lucy had given me some makeup tips, which was something I’d never learned prior to that. She told me to buy Maybelline mascara and taught me how to apply it, so I guess I looked pretty good.

Anyway, Freddie and I splurged and took a cab down to Fulton Street for the appointment. The restaurant was a really old fancy place called Gage & Tollner’s, an establishment that had
been around since before 1900. They still had gas lamps. It was dreamy.

When I first saw Fiorello, I swear my heart skipped a beat. That was his name—Fiorello Bonacini. He was in his twenties—later I’d find out he was twenty-seven. Fiorello had wavy black hair that reminded me of Elvis Presley, amazing blue eyes that penetrated my own—like
knives
—and the kindest smile. When Freddie introduced me to him, I immediately expected that crazy animal intuition of mine to kick in and send off alarms—but it didn’t. In fact, my instincts told me Fiorello was an honest, benevolent human being. Yes, I sensed there was danger behind those blue eyes, but I found it exciting. Absolutely, I understood the man was a killer—I could feel it. He had taken lives. There was no question about it. But he had such charisma, an indefinable magnetism that rendered me speechless.

He was already at a table; he stood when he saw us.

“
Buona sera,
Freddie,” he said. “It is good to see you again.”

“You, too, Fiorello. May I present Miss Cooper? Judy, this is Mister Bonacini.”

I offered my hand. He took it and actually leaned over to kiss it. “A pleasure. Please call me Fiorello.”

“Thank you. You can call me Judy.”

“Please sit.” He actually pulled my chair out for me. No man had ever done that before.

Well, for most of the dinner—which was exquisite—the men talked. I sat there like a dummy, smiling like a fool. Whenever Fiorello addressed me, I answered in monosyllabic sentences. But he continued to grin at me and there was a twinkle in his eye that made me melt.

It was over dessert when he finally got down to business. “So, Judy,” he said, leaning closer to keep his voice down, “Freddie tells me you are an excellent boxer and that you have been learning Japanese fighting techniques?”

“That’s right. It’s called
karate
.”

“I have heard of it.” He shook his head. “Very foreign. I prefer the ways of the old country. More traditional, I suppose. Old-fashioned. But it has always worked for me and my people. The boxing I understand. But why in the world would a beautiful girl like you want to learn how to fight? You should be learning how to cook instead.”

I was too enthralled to be insulted. “I do know how to cook.”

Freddie added, “She’s a pretty good one, too.”

“Then why aren’t you married and having babies?” Fiorello asked. “You would be a prize on the arm of a very lucky man.”

I felt my face flush. “Thank you, but no, that’s not what I want out of life right now.”

“What
do
you want?”

Put to me like that, I didn’t know how to answer. I shrugged. “All I know is I don’t want that. Not yet, anyway.”

“So you want to learn how to use a knife.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I thought before replying. “I feel it’s a calling. All of it. The boxing, the martial arts, and now knives. I was born to know this stuff.”

“But women do not fight.”

I held up a hand. “Ah, Mister Bonacini, there you’re wrong. I was attacked just two months ago, right on the streets of Manhattan, by three thugs who wanted to do bad things to me. One of them had a knife and he cut me badly. Freddie here had to sew a few dozen stitches into my skin. It’s healed, but I’ll have the ugly scar for the rest of my life.”

Freddie interrupted. “What Judy didn’t say was that she clobbered the three hoods anyway. Knocked ‘em flat.”

“Really?” Fiorello raised his eyebrows. “I’m impressed.”

He sat back in his chair but continued to gaze at me. I felt an
odd sensation I’d never experienced before. It was like electricity, and it went down my spine and straight to—well, between my legs. This man was the most handsome, sexiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on.

“All right,” he said. “We will have a trial session, for lack of a better word. If that works out, we will continue. We’ll discuss terms then.”

So he was actually going to charge me money. Stupid me. I thought perhaps he’d be so taken with me that he’d provide lessons for free, ha ha!

He wrote down his address and phone number on a card he pulled from his pocket. We agreed on a day the following week, between Christmas and New Year’s. I’d come to his place in Little Italy—he said it was big enough to “work” in—and we shook on it.

Fiorello picked up the tab.

In the taxi on the way back to the gym, Freddie said to me, “Be careful, Judy. I saw what happened back there. Watch your feelings. Don’t lose control.”

Too late for that. I already had.

It was snowing outside when I arrived at Fiorello’s apartment. I loved New York in the winter. In Texas it rarely snowed, certainly not like it did in Manhattan. I stopped at the Ferrara Bakery and picked up some pastries to bring as a gift. Fiorello expressed delight at the thought, but took the dainty box aside and told me the treats would have to wait until after the lesson. Once again, I almost swooned when I saw him. He was dressed casually in dark trousers and a pullover sweater—and he wore cologne that drove me wild. I had no idea what it was, so I asked him.

“Colonia,” he replied. “By Acqua di Parma. Fine Italian eau de cologne. You like?”

I exaggerated a sniff and went, “Mmm, I do.”

He took my coat and led me into his spacious living room. The place wasn’t huge, but it was certainly bigger than my bedroom. He had already pushed the furniture against the walls to make an open space on the floor.

We spent a few minutes with small talk. He asked me where I was from and I told him. He also wanted to know how old I was.

“Nineteen.”

“Ah, a grown woman, and yet still a young girl.” His eyes glistened.

He told me he was from Palermo, a city in Sicily. I didn’t know Sicily was part of Italy until I looked on a map later. Fiorello had been in America since he was a little boy. His parents lived in Brooklyn. He didn’t mention his
other
family.

Then we got down to business. Fiorello produced an array of blades. They were of varying sizes and weights. He started with what he called a “trench knife,” a weapon used for close-quarters combat.

“This is a U.S. Marine KA-BAR. The blade is seven inches long. Try it.”