La Famiglia Page 11

  “Giovanni has about four of his top men with him. We believe—”

  “The arrogant son-of-a-bitch is never unprepared. You don’t know what he has.” Armando spat the words with distaste. “Stay on top of the Battaglias’ movements.”

  Mario nodded. There was no time for Armando to unleash his frustration. In fact he really had little time for Giovanni. He was deeply troubled by the one request his father was adamant he fulfill. Armando left his office and bounded up the stairs to his father’s room. The Mancini estate had been in his family for nearly four hundred years. It had burned down in the 1920s and was rebuilt to a grand state. No matter how big and empty the villa was, Armando loved, protected, and lorded over it. Family and tradition were the bedrock of his devotion.

  The hall was empty, dark, silent. He walked toward the room with a photo envelope in his hand. At the door he paused. It took him four long months to dig up the information his father needed. And still he was no closer to understanding the reasons why. He wanted answers.

  Armando knocked.

  “Avanti. Come in,” rasped the elder Mancini.

  Armando entered to find his father sitting on the side of the bed. The old man stared out at the gardens beyond his room window. The dinner that was served in his room sat cooling on the tray. He’d heard from his aunts that his father wasn’t eating.

  “What do you have for me, boy?” Mancini asked, without looking over to acknowledge him.

  “Shouldn’t you be on your oxygen, Papa?” Armando replied.

  Mancini turned his cold glare toward him. Armando felt his courage shrivel under that withering stare. His father in his younger days could be cruel and punishing for the slightest infraction. Even now one look of disappointment from him and Armando felt like a six year old boy hiding in his room afraid of Mancini’s belt. Throughout Marsuvio Mancini’s illness he had moments of strength that reminded all of them that he was still Don of Palermo.

  “What do you have for me?” Mancini asked again.

  “I need answers, Papa. This has gone on far enough. I—” Armando cleared his throat. “Isabella is in Hong Kong. My sources say she’s been there for two months. She’s set to travel back to Sicily soon. I believe.”

  “Hong Kong.” His father repeated the word slow as if trying to process the meaning.

  “My question, Papa. You’ve asked me… You’ve put a hit on your own daughter. My sister.”

  Mancini gave a cruel, wicked smile. It was as if the accusation filled his father with pride instead of shame. “That puttana is not your sister or my daughter. And she will rot in a desecrated grave before I am dead.”

  “Why? You raised her, and she raised me when you went off to America and left me with Mama. She—”

  “To hell with the whore! She’s dead I say!” his father coughed, hacked, wheezed. He grabbed the oxygen mask and put it up to his mouth. Armando tossed the folder to the bed and hurried to turn up the dial on the tank that was out of his father’s reach. The release of more air to fill his father’s weak lungs stopped the coughing attack. Mancini nodded that he felt better. His father was the strongest man Armando had ever known. Even in his weakened state he believed in his father’s strength.

  Mancini reached for the folder. Armando watched him curiously and then spoke. “You wanted photos of the black woman Lorenzo has been with. We found them. I had a man take pictures of them in St. Tropez and it was expensive, Papa. Lorenzo Battaglia has been very hard to keep up with.”

  “Did he suspect?” Mancini shot his son a glare. “I told you to be discreet.”

  “He didn’t suspect.”

  His father inhaled the oxygen with one hand to the mask pressed over his mouth and nose. He used the other shaky hand to remove the images from the folder. Armando studied his father’s reaction. Mancini’s eyes narrowed, the blood drained from his already pasty pale face. Armando lowered his gaze down to Lorenzo’s woman. She was a black woman, with wild curly hair, probably American. Very pretty, if you were into that kind, and Armando wasn’t. She wore a bikini on a boat. It looked like she danced with a glass of wine in her hand.

  Mancini lowered the mask. “Marietta? Bella mia,” Mancini whispered to the image with affection.

  “You know her?” Armando asked.

  His father traced his finger over the woman’s image. Armando thought he saw the makings of a smile on his face. “It’s her. I see it. Mama mia, I see it.” Mancini said. “I’ve found her. She’s alive.”

  “Who is she?” Armando asked.

  Mancini took his time. He shuffled through one image to the next. The last picture showed an excited Lorenzo Battaglia lifting the woman in his arms. She held to his neck and kissed him. That image alone dissolved the smile on his father’s face. He actually glared with what Armando thought to be rage. It was only then the dots slowly connected. The day everything changed for his father. It was the day Giovanni visited and Isabella soon after. First Giovanni marries a black woman and now Lorenzo has a black one as a plaything. It was all connected to Isabella and his father somehow.

  “Giovanni Battaglia is here. In Mondello?” Mancini asked.

  “He and his wife have returned to Villa Mare Blu,” Armando answered.

  “He brought Mirabella here?” Mancini asked.

  “Who? Is that her name? Mirabella?”

  Mancini took a deep breath of oxygen before he answered. “Where is Lorenzo? Is he still in France?”

  “Those pictures are a few days old. Now that we found him we are tracking him. He’s still near France. Papa? You know both of their names. Who are these women to you and Isabella? You have to tell me what’s going on.”

  “These women are the daughters of a friend of mine, from my time in America. And they are in danger with the Battaglias.”

  Armando listened.

  “You find Isabella. And put a bullet in her after you bleed her out, cut her throat first.” His father’s gaze was leveled and unwavering with murderous intent. “I want Isabella to beg for her life before you end it. I want you to tell her it is on my order that she dies. Do you understand me? Make it your number one priority in life.” Mancini looked to the image on the bed. “And then you will bring me Marietta and Mirabella,” he smiled. “If Giovanni gets in the way you deal with him too.”

  “If that’s what you want, Papa.” Armando started for the door. He fumed silently. The time his father spent in America wasn’t a total mystery to him. Isabella had shared things when he was young. She spoke of a black mistress his father had taken up with. Disrespected his mother and the family by making his whore his priority. She even showed him a picture she found in his father’s office. He glanced back at Mancini who was again staring at the photos of Lorenzo and the one he called Marietta. If these women were the daughters of that American cunt who made his mother weep for years then he’d gladly kill them too. Armando smiled and left his father’s room.

  Mancini turned to his drawer. He pulled it open. Inside he found a leather binder, worn, tied together by a leather string. He’d had his sister Maria locate it with his things in the attic after he learned that Marietta was alive.

  Carefully he untied the leather string and opened the binder. Inside he had a copy of the girls’ original birth certificates. He even had their little feet stamped on the back as identification. Twin girls. His little brown baby girls. He also located the old and fading Polaroid of their mother.

  “Lisa,” he sighed.

  November 1964 Philadelphia

  “Awww! See that was painless! Now I have a picture of us to keep until you come back.” Lisa smiled up at him. Manny Cigars wiped the loose tears that glistened on her cheeks. He kissed her nose, her lips, and her brow. He captured her face in both hands and pressed his brow to hers, closing his eyes for strength. She dropped the Polaroid camera and photo. Her slender short arms wrapped around his neck. Her lips upon his restored his faith. It wasn’t the end. He’d find a way to have her and honor his father’s wishes. She
tried to pull him down on her but he refused.

  “I can’t,” Manny said.

  The look of hurt over his rejection cut him to the core. What could he say to convince her that it also hurt him to leave? His pride wouldn’t allow him to summon the words.

  “Manny, why are you doing this?” He tried to turn away. She grabbed his sleeve and forced him to remain at her side. “Take me with you. I won’t be any trouble, I promise. I’m clean. I don’t use that poison anymore. You said you forgave me. If you go again I’ll die.”

  “You won’t. I’ve already gutted the fucker who put you on that shit.”

  “Manny—”

  “Shhh…” he kissed her. “Stop pleading. The answer is no. I can’t take you to Sicily and you know why.”

  He let her go. She moved off his lap and sat upright, fixed the front of her dress. She cried silently. He hated to see her cry. He pushed up from the sofa and stepped away. He couldn’t be next to her. If he was next to her he was weak. And Manny Cigars was anything but weak. Not even for a woman.

  Lisa stood. She wore a paisley dress and her round tummy was barely defined. Her hair was brushed smooth into a large dark afro puff situated behind her head. “Will you come back this time? Or is this it?” she asked. “For once can you please be honest?”

  He wanted to hit something, gut something, crush bone and marrow. Release his frustration anywhere but here. She was backing him into an emotional corner and he hated it. Hated himself for failing her. Hated her for loving him. The situation was killing him. He had no control. “My father has summoned me. I’ll go and see to his wishes. And then I will return. We will have twins. Baby girls. Do you think I will abandon my children? Abandon you?”

  “I trust you,” Lisa said in a sad hollow voice that drew his gaze her way. She stared down at her tummy, ran her hands over the swell. “You’re all I have left, Manny. You and my babies. If you say I should stay then I understand. Gemma is going to move in with me. Capriccio will help us.” Her gaze lifted to his and he was snared in the pools of love stirring like amber waves in her irises. “But you have to hurry, Manny. Promise me you will be back before our babies are born. Promise me and I will believe you. I’ll stay clean. I’ll wait for you. And we’ll be a family.”

  He nodded his head. “I promise. With all my heart.”

  He didn’t speak English with anyone but her. Never felt the need to. But with her he practiced and perfected a small vocabulary. He also taught her words of his own. Lisa walked over to him and he opened his arms. He held her and they stared out at the city. He kissed her again only to say goodbye. But with Lisa one kiss could never be enough. His love for her overwhelmed him and before long he was stripping her of her clothes and making love to her. She was so young when he corrupted her, forced his way into her life and made her his. By isolating her and filling her head with lies, something remarkable happened. She gave him her heart, and he discovered he gave her his.

  Mancini made the young girl a woman, his woman and no other woman, not even his wife drove passion through him like Lisa. He needed to make love to her once more so he could remember the feeling of this moment. He would be gone for a couple of months. He swore it to himself as he pushed away all doubts.

  Melissa woke. She felt her babies kick for the first time. When she turned over to tell Manny he was sleep. She stared at him for a long moment. The man who once scared her, who had caused her so much pain and shame in the past was now her deepest love. She had no future without him. The thought of him not returning was too much for her to bear. She feared her addiction. She feared for her children without his protection.

  Melissa drew back the covers and kept her hand protectively over her stomach as she pushed up from the bed. Manny didn’t wake. Naked, aching from the sexual healing he put on her heart she tip-toed out of the room.

  She found the Polaroid. The one she convinced him to take. Manny didn’t like having his picture taken. Most of the men like him didn’t. She smiled at the image of them both. Lisa kissed it. She found his suit jacket and stuck it in the pocket. When he got to Sicily this time he wouldn’t stay long. This time he’d come back to her and they’d have a normal life. She was clean, drug free, she was even thinking of doing some sewing again. Capriccio told her she could sew and design the costumes the girls who worked the clubs wore. Her dream was to some day open her own dress shop and design clothes. Everyone told her she was good at it. Gemma especially.

  The future had promise.

  “What are you doing?” he said behind her.

  Lisa looked back at him. “I’m getting your things ready for you. The sooner you leave, the sooner you will come back. Right?”

  He stared at her. He didn’t answer. She tried to act like it didn’t matter. And then a smile broke on his face.

  “Ti adoro, sì, nothing and no one will keep me from returning.”

  Mancini set the Polaroid of Lisa next to the picture of Marietta. He saw his beloved in his daughter clearly. All of these years he believed Marietta was dead. He suffered such guilt and shame for his actions. He abused everyone and everything he loved because of his loss of Lisa and their babies. The past was the past. There was little he could do about it. But he had every intention of changing the future.

  He smiled.

  “Marietta, I will meet you soon.”

  4.

  Catalina pulled a fresh cotton white shirt down over her head and eased her arms into the sleeves. She then reached for her grey leggings to slip on. The private train car was unusually cold. She wished she had a pair of socks for her feet. The journey was half over. For Catalina there was only a small part of travelling by train that she enjoyed. When the train was disassembled and then rolled on a ferry to cross the Straits of Messina, and then put back together on the other side. It was how one travelled from Italy to Sicily.

  When she was a little girl Dominic would be in charge of bringing her to Mondello after she was released for school break. Patri wanted her well learned at an all girls Catholic institution and her mother agreed. She suffered the strict discipline of the church while praying for the day Dominic would come and rescue her.

  And he was so handsome too. Barely eighteen, Dominic’s long lashes, piercing brown eyes, and boyish charm made Sister Clara smile when he arrived.

  Sister Clara never smiled.

  At twelve things changed. Catalina began to notice how his handsomeness affected others, especially girls her age. All her friends would gather by the window with her to wait for him to walk up the cobblestone streets and pass through the tall iron gates. It was innocent then. He was her brother. She liked the attention of being la piccoletta of the Battaglia family. She bragged to friends that her brothers, Giovanni, Lorenzo, Dominic, and Carlo, would bury anyone who defied her. And that Dominic was her guardian who treated her like a princess. She loved him as a brother, then. But soon it changed in her heart. She loved him as much more.

  Often when vacation time came she and Dominic traveled separate from their parents to Mondello, Sicily. Always on a train. Dominic would wake her early in the morning once the train brought them out of Naples through the city of Rome. They would leave the train car and go up on deck while the ferry crossed the straits. It was a unique experience to watch the sunrise. And it might explain why he chose this method of travelling. The train held such sweet memories for them both.

  Dominic sat near the window in nothing but his slacks. His jaw was tight and his lips pressed into a thin grim line.

  “Domi?”

  With no discernable emotion on his face he turned his gaze toward her. She smiled. A half smile crossed his lips to reassure her. Of course he said nothing. When Dominic was deep in thought he rarely shared those thoughts. Catalina put her hands to her hips and studied him further.

  Should she force the conversation or give him some space?

  Something was off with him. And it sure as hell wasn’t their sex life. He nearly broke her back earlier by fucking her on
that uncomfortable bunk. He was so full of lust and repressed passion thanks to their short separation. Catalina tolerated the demands he put on her body. The train car they traveled in was larger than most, but sex here felt awkward and impersonal. Dominic returned his gaze to the window. The tiny silver medallion of St. William gleamed from the stainless steel chain around his neck in the darkness, beneath his collarbone.

  “Dica? You worried about something?” Catalina asked.

  When he didn’t respond she threw up her hands in defeat. She wouldn’t press the issue further. In fact she had something of her own to discuss. The idea of pushing Giovanni for permission to marry had her on edge since they left Milano. It was too soon. She couldn’t focus on being a wife when she had so many exciting things happening for her. But how could she explain this to Dominic?

  “Come sit with me.” Dominic gestured to the bunk he sat on. Catalina walked over and he took her hand to pull her down. She snuggled up against him.

  “I’m worried about Gio and Mira,” Dominic confessed.

  Catalina sat upright. “You are? Why? Something wrong with the baby?”

  “No. And it’s babies remember?”

  Catalina laughed. “How could I forget? Gio brags to everyone about the sons he will have.”

  Dominic gave a weak smile, and then he chuckled. “Yes. He’s happy Catalina. But–”

  “But what? Finish.” Catalina insisted.

  He closed his eyes and dropped his head back with a deep sigh. “I can’t get into it. Never mind it. You know me, I worry about the family constantly. Gio is so stubborn. It’s hard to get him to see reason when it comes to his wife.”

  “But why worry now, Domi? We’ve been through so much. Now is the time to celebrate. Everyone is happy about the babies, and Mira has her company back. Why worry?”