"V" is for Vengeance (26 page)

“She
had
an eating disorder, but that's done. She saw Dr. Friedken for a year and she's fine.”

“He's not ‘doctor' anything. He's not even a licensed clinical psychologist. He's a psychic nutritionist. A quack.”

“He helped her. She's better. She eats like a normal person.”

“And then goes in the bathroom and sticks a finger down her throat. Pregnant women get fat. It's a fact of life. She'll go off the deep end.”

“Not all pregnant women get fat. You didn't.”

“I gained forty pounds!” Talia reached out and gripped his hand. “Dante, you know I love you more than life itself, so please let me speak from the heart. Lola's a narcissist. She's moody and insecure. All she thinks about is herself. How could she possibly make room for a child?”

They changed the subject at that point since neither of them trusted themselves to go on. The question she'd posed was a bothersome one that he was still pondering.

He caught his father after dinner when he was sitting out on the verandah, smoking a cigar. Dante had always associated the smell of cigar smoke with Pop. There was a time when Lorenzo Senior had smoked in the house. He considered this his due. The living room drapes and the upholstered furniture had been saturated with smoke, the ceiling pale gold with nicotine, windows clouded with the residue. When Dante moved his father into the big house, he insisted Pop confine his smoking to one of the outdoor patios.

The old man was eighty-three and far less imposing than he'd been in the days when Dante was routinely pounded to a pulp. The punches and kicks were meant to keep him in line, or so his father said. Now he couldn't get over how small his father was, like a miniature adult, his cheeks lined and sunken, his nose and ears out of proportion to the size of his face. His hairline had receded in the shape of a heart, a V of gray in the middle of his forehead with a balding arc on either side.

Dante sat down facing him. “You heard about Audrey?”

“I hope you're not here to complain.”

“Matter of fact, I am. I can't have Cappi pulling shit like that.”

“Hey, bub. You were gone. He came to me with a problem. His solution made sense. He knew you'd never go for it. You're too busy playing boss man and pissing on his shoes. Besides which you're off on some mountain and no one could get hold of you.”

“They have phone service in Canada. You could have called anytime.”

“Says you. Someone had to step up to the plate.”

“Pop, I've known Audrey years. She wouldn't have turned on us. I can guarantee.”

“That's not what Cappi heard. Word on the grapevine, she was rolling over on us. I told him to take care of it.”

Pop and Cappi had used the same phrase, “rolling over on us.” Dante wasn't sure who'd come up with it first. “I don't get where you're coming from. You tell him to take care of it and he goes out and whacks a valuable employee. That doesn't seem right. Does it seem right to you?”

“That might have been a bad call. I won't argue the point. You delegate responsibility, you can't come along after and second-guess what went down.”

“I didn't delegate anything. You did that. I can't have you undermining my authority.”

“What authority? Anything you have, I gave you.”

“That's right. I run the operation. He doesn't know the first thing about business.”

“So you teach him.”

“I've tried! He has the attention span of a gnat.”

“He says you're condescending. He says you belittle him.”

“That's bullshit.”

“Don't argue the point with me. I'm just telling you what he says.”

“And I'm telling you, he's not cut out for this. I promote from within the company based on merit and seniority. He's sitting on a felony conviction. How does
that
look?”

“You've been accused of a thing or two yourself.”

“All the more reason to keep the lid on.”

“You're the strong one. You've had all the advantages. Your brother wasn't as lucky.”

Dante tried to bite back his response. Anytime his father was losing an argument, he shifted to this old saw. Dante couldn't help himself this time. He said, “He wasn't as lucky about what?”

“Your mother ran off and left him.”

“Jesus. You know what? She ran off and left me too. I don't see you cutting me any slack. Just the opposite. I gotta carry Cappi on my back whether I like it or not.”

“Now that's the kind of selfish attitude I'm talking about. He can't help what happened to him. He was a little kid. What she did crushed his spirit. He's never gotten over it. So he's touchy, you know, because she ripped his heart out. He's had a tough row to hoe, which you were spared.”

“
I
was spared? News to me. How so?”

“You never said a word about her. Name one question you ever came to me with after she walked out. Every day Cappi asked for her and every day he bawled his eyes out. You never shed a tear.”

“Because you told me to buck up.”

“That's right. Twelve years old, it's time to get a grip. You knew when she left, it had nothing to do with you. Cappi was four and what's he supposed to think? One minute she's there, the next minute she's gone. He's never been the same.”

“I have four sisters who turned out all right. How come they're okay but not him? And what about me?”

“Even then, you knew better. Women are like that. About the time you think you can count on 'em, they take off without a word. She didn't even leave a note.”

“So Cappi's a loser and everything goes back to that? He gets a free ride off that one event? I should be so lucky.”

“You watch your mouth. You be careful what you wish for.”

“Forget it.” Dante got up. He had to get away from the old man before he blew his stack.

His father stirred with agitation, his tone peevish. “Where's Amo?” Dante stared down at him, caught off-guard. “Amo?”

“I haven't seen him since breakfast. He wants me to take him shooting. I said we'd go up to the firing range and get in some target practice.”

“Amo's been dead forty years.”

“He's upstairs. I told him to find Donatello and come down here, the both of them.”

Dante hesitated. “I thought you said Donatello didn't like to shoot.”

“He'll get used to it. Make a man out of him. You know him. Wherever his brother goes, he's right behind.”

Dante said, “Sure, Pop. If I see either one of them, I'll let 'em know you're waiting.”

“And tell 'em I don't have all day. Damn inconsiderate if you ask me . . .”

Dante went into the library and poured himself a bourbon. Maybe the slip was momentary. His father was sometimes confused, especially late in the day. He'd forget a conversation they'd had fifteen minutes before. Dante had written it off, thinking the mental stumbling was a side effect of his being tired or out of sorts. It was possible he'd suffered a small stroke. Dante would have to find a pretext for bringing a doctor in to check him out. His father had no tolerance for sickness or infirmity. He'd never admit he might be subject to weakness of any kind.

Dante carried his drink into the kitchen, where Sophie was cleaning up the dinner dishes, loading plates into the machine.

“You seen Lola?”

“An hour ago. She was in workout clothes, heading for the gym.”

“Great.”

Dante went down to the basement level. One of the appeals of the house had been the elaborate underground rooms. Not many California homes had basements. Digging twenty-five feet down was a nightmare of rocks large and small, sandstone boulders sunk in heavy clay soil that cost a fortune to remove. This house had been built in 1927 by a guy who made his money in the stock market and held on to it through the Crash. The house was solid and gave Dante a sense of safety and permanence.

He came up the stairs into the pool house. He knew Lola was on the treadmill because the sound on the TV had been jacked up to account for the grinding noise of the moving platform and the thumping of athletic shoes. He paused in the corridor, watching her through the half-open door. It had been a mistake confiding in Talia. He might have gone his whole life without opening himself up to her candor and her acid tongue. He'd done it because he knew she'd play straight and shoot from the hip. He thought he'd blocked Talia's comments, but she'd changed his perception in twenty-five words or less. He could already feel the difference, how Lola had looked this morning, sprawled across the bed in sleep, and how she looked now. She wore makeup when she worked out even knowing she was alone. She still had the same dark eyes, lined with charcoal and looking enormous in her narrow face. She still had the mane of dark hair. It was straggly at the moment because she was sweating heavily, but he didn't mind that. What he saw, thanks to Talia's remarks, was how tiny she'd become. Her shoulders were narrow, her head incongruously balanced on a neck as thin as a pipe. She looked like one of those elongated creatures who steps out of a spacecraft, moving languidly through mist and smoke, oddly familiar and at the same time not of this world.

When she caught sight of him, she muted the sound but continued to run. She was wearing sweatpants and an oversize long-sleeve T-shirt with the cuffs turned back to expose wrists that were all bone, fingers strung together with tendons that lay along the tops of her hands like piano wire.

He said, “Hey. Come on. Pack it in for tonight. You look pooped.”

She checked the readout on the machine. “Five more minutes and then I'll quit.”

She popped the mute button again and the sound blared as she ran on. While he waited he puttered around the place. The room was twenty feet by twenty, lined with mirrors and fitted out with weight-lifting equipment, two treadmills, a recumbent bike, and an upright stationary bike. How many hours a day did she spend in here?

When her time was up, the machine put her through a five-minute cooldown and then she finally shut it off. He handed her a towel, which she pressed against her face. When she blotted the sweat that trickled down her neck a peachy beige foundation came off on the towel. He put an arm across her shoulders and walked her to the door, shutting off light switches as they passed.

Lola put an arm around his waist. “So what'd Talia say?”

“About what?”

“Come on, Dante. You know what.”

“She wasn't thrilled.”

“Of course not. She thinks I'm neurotic, temperamental, and self-centered. I'm sure she thinks I'd suck as a wife and suck even worse as a mom.”

“She didn't say that.”

“Would you stop trying to protect me? I'm a big girl so spell it out. I want to know what she said.”

Dante sorted through Talia's objections and picked one. “She wondered about the weight gain. She thought a pregnancy would be hard on you.”

“And?”

“She might have a point. I worry about you.”

“I know you do and you're a sweet guy. You can tell her the baby's a nonissue. I haven't had a period for a year. She'll be tickled to death.”

“Let's not talk about that now. We have time once you get healthy again.”

“Ha.”

“You know there's help out there if you're interested.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder, matching her step to his. “That's what I love about you. You never give up hope. You think if you keep at it long enough, everything will turn out all right.”

“You don't see it that way?”

“Here's my view: I think this relationship has run its course. I'm releasing you from any sense of obligation because that's the only thing keeping you here. The rest has been gone for a long time.”

Dante squeezed her shoulder, but he had no reply. There was a time when the remark would have cut him to the core. Now his thoughts reverted to Nora with a flicker of joy.

He drove Cappi to the Allied Distributors warehouse in Colgate to the shipping and receiving department. Pop had acquired the brick-and-frame complex in the days when he was running booze. Dante had adapted the structure for his purposes, expanding the square footage by incorporating a prefab steel addition across the front. The mechanicals were below ground, a largely unfinished area that Pop had always referred to as the catacombs. Dante suspected there were actually more than a few bodies buried there. He'd take a flashlight down and explore the space from time to time, occasionally coming across dusty cases of whiskey and gin tucked away in the odd corner.