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STARR FOLLOWED ME to a haunting two-story gray-stone mansion nestled against the lake. A winding driveway led beyond the wrought-iron gate and around to the back of the house. A slatted ten-foot privacy fence separated guests from two guard dogs patrolling the inside perimeter. Below the veranda stretched a wide beach and the licking waters of Lake Michigan. The lake breeze was as fragrant as a field of lavender.
The German shepherds barked in response to our arrival. “Sturm and Drang,” I said to Starr, referring to the dogs. “They understand the mother tongue as well as any Nazi storm trooper.”
Memories of long, lazy summers on the beach with friends and relaxing picnics beneath spreading oak trees with my father and sisters were sweet. We moved to the house long after Mommy left, so there are no memory pictures of her during those halcyon days of opulence and privilege. My teenage years were charmed with many friends who came to the house all the time. Life was one party after another. A string of boyfriends paraded past like confetti, none sticking around for long. I constantly questioned why I was the bell of the ball and the envy of all my friends but didn’t quite fit in. My insecurities brought up a thousand unanswered questions and a string of hints put down like rat poison along a dark trail having to do with family, upbringing, and inheritance.
The summer of my seventeenth year was the loneliest. High school was in the past, college was on the horizon, and my sisters had married and moved out. The guard dogs came to stay. The house grew as quiet as a morgue, and the barbed wire went up, not around the house but around me. Things became cheerier when my mother came home for good and set up her psychic shop. Even though my parents were still man and wife, they never saw each other. Every Sunday I took the el train to her house, and we spent the day together. More girlfriends than mother and daughter, we shopped, toured museums, polished our toenails, and danced to 45s on her RCA record player. She had several men friends, most of whom I detested.
Starr walked with me toward the door of my father’s house. A barrel-chested, broad-shouldered six-foot-three Goliath wearing black trousers and a black broadcloth shirt buttoned to the neck answered the bell. Ernest Becker aka Erhard Bernstein was wanted in two states for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Fiercely protective of John Grenadine and every one of his possessions, including his daughters, Becker saw and heard everything there was to see and hear, even if I’d never known him to step outside in daylight except to call off the dogs. In an indistinguishable accent that could have been Alsatian, German, or French, he said, “Miss Grenadine. Your father is on the phone, but I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Five minutes later, we were still waiting in Daddy’s study, roosted on adjacent armchairs. The grandmother clock on the mantelpiece chimed a quarter past six. I cleared my throat. “Some of the photos in your file, the ones marked JG, they were taken from a distance. With a zoom lens. In public places. Night shots mostly.”
He twirled the fedora between agile fingers. “So?”
“My father was with ...” Should I say it or forever hold my tongue? I said it. “Women. Attractive women. Young women. Well-dressed women.”
He tugged his tie straight and grunted in the affirmative. “The point being?”
“Nothing,” I said.
Here in my father’s study, or sometimes in the sumptuous drawing room across the hall, or more rarely out on the patio where the roar of a storm or the squall of a windy day would obliterate words uttered by men of little conscience, I’d seen them all, those notorious men of which mob legends are made. Italians, Irishmen, Jews, or South Americans wearing three-piece suits, metal-tipped shoes, and stylish hats.
Hy Larner, who ran Chicago’s vending machine business.
Frank Nitti, who took over the Outfit from Capone in ’31 and committed suicide in ’43.
Tony ‘Joe Batters’ Accardo aka ‘Big Tuna’, former enforcer for Capone and suspected of being a lookout during the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Tommy ‘Big Catfish’ Esposito, known for gutting his enemies with a Bowie knife instead of a zip gun.
Felice De Lucia, better known as Paul ‘the Waiter’ Ricca, who assumed control of the Chicago Outfit in ’43 while still serving time in Leavenworth.
Phil D’Andrea, Capone’s former bodyguard.
Johnny Roselli and Willie Bioff who—together with Ricca and D’Andrea—were convicted for extorting a million dollars from motion picture studios.
John ‘Big Nose’ Bogart, who had a fetish for taxidermy.
Jake ‘Greasy Thumb’ Guzik, one-time rackets boss. After that, Capone’s financial and legal advisor. And finally, the Outfit’s official greaser, put in charge of paying off politicians and policemen.
Albert ‘The Priest’ Serrano, who left seminary school to take over his father’s prostitution business.
Meyer Lansky, who flew in from New York one day in 1950 and after a short visit with Daddy, was conveniently overlooked during the Kefauver hearings investigating organized crime.
Joey ‘The Zipper’ Arezzo, who recently took titular control of the mob when immigration problems forced Ricca to retire as elder statesman.
So while Starr drummed the arms of his chair with riveted boredom, I saw the ghosts of ham-handed men wearing double-breasted suits that conveniently concealed weapons of various sizes, scope, power, and deadliness. Each of those men conducted fireside chats with John Grenadine over brandy and cigars, and each went away, legal advice tucked under his hat.
Daddy rarely represented any of them in open court. Instead, he employed a team of handpicked attorneys, bondsmen, and investigators to handle the details for him, but everyone knew John Grenadine was the legal mind behind everything. Hefty consultation fees were passed under the table, and when his name was mentioned in inner circles, it was whispered. Sometimes he made a phone call or visited one of the hoodlums in jail, but otherwise he removed himself from the day-to-day operations of the Chicago Outfit. Blood never spattered John Grenadine’s unsoiled hands. He had an aversion to violence and never picked up a gun. He was as clean as a winter snow in April, and yet everyone knew him to be dirty as a mud hole.
“There she is!” Daddy roared. It was an old family tradition that outlasted childhood, thermonuclear war, and occasional estrangement. Entering in a rush of urgency, he opened his arms wide.
John Grenadine wasn’t a terribly tall man or a man who struck you as incredibly good-looking. To be fair, he boasted even features, a full head of reddish-brown hair increasingly streaked with silver, and striking blue eyes that arrested you with their direct glare. He dressed well, usually in a sports coat, a knit shirt, and casual slacks. He had his nails manicured every other week and his hair trimmed by the same barber for twenty years. He bought his suits at Richman Brothers and his shoes from an Italian importer on Wabash Avenue. He liked his steaks lean, his wines German, and his birthdays forgotten. To me he was Hollywood handsome, charming as the day was long, and charismatic. As a child, I worshipped him. As an adult, I still did.
In contrast to his bubbly enthusiasm, I groaned to my feet and acted standoffish, shifting my weight from foot to foot.
Daddy glanced over at Starr. “Oh. I get it. You don’t want to be embarrassed in front of your friend.”
“It’s not that, Daddy. I ...” Giving in, I opened my arms wide. “Okay, okay. There he is!”
He wrested me to his chest. When we parted, I cleared my throat and looked back at Starr. Before I could introduce him, Daddy reached out. “Richard Starr, isn’t it? Nasty business about the Lincoln Bank heist.” Starr accused me with a pained expression, but Daddy came to my defense. “I make it a point to know every man my daughter associates with. Nothing sinister. Merely a father’s prerogative. I hope you’re not too cynical after what happened to you, the way you were railroaded. Have you been able to shed any light on that business?”
“Working on it, sir,” Starr said.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do. It’s not hot air. I mean it.” Daddy motioned for us to sit. Perching his buttocks onto a corner of the desk, he lit up his pipe. “I know why you’re here. It’s about Byrnes.” Daddy never beat around the bush and never minced words. “I’ll give you the short answer: I don’t know who killed him, I don’t know why, and frankly, I don’t care.”
“He was set up,” I said. “Executed at pointblank range.”
“If I knew more, I’d tell you.”
I shifted uncomfortably, fearful to broach the next topic and the real reason why I came. He cued into my discomfort. Sometimes I could feel him reading my mind from Chapter One all the way to The End. “I met an interesting man today.”
“Mildly interesting? Or incredibly interesting?”
“He’s missing his little finger.”
“Nick Testa.” In quick succession, he took several puffs of his pipe. The fragrance carried pleasant memories of childhood, those innocent days when I adored my father unreservedly. “You want to find out if his story is fact or fiction.”
“Honestly? I don’t want to know either way.”
He pointed the pipe stem at me. “Because if you don’t ask and I don’t tell, maybe I’m not such a bad guy after all.”
“I didn’t come to argue with you, Daddy.”
“Iris,” he scolded in that daddy-voice of his. “Arguing is our leitmotif.”
I freed myself from the chair and paced. “I really don’t want to deal with any of this. Not now, not today, not ever.” Waving everything away, I turned my back on him. But I couldn’t just walk out.
“One day, sweetheart, you’re going to have to come to grips with who I am. And who you are.”
I wheeled around and tapped my chest. “I know who I am.”
“If you did, we wouldn’t be having this argument. Again. Sweetheart, I’m not a bad guy. I’m an attorney like any other attorney, protecting the interests of my clients.”
“Oh, Daddy, how can you be so naïve? Your ‘clients’ as you call them are―”
“Businessmen. Just like the CEOs of Standard Oil and General Electric.”
“Except the CEOs of Standard Oil and General Electric don’t get people killed.”
“Now who’s being naïve?”
His words stopped me and made me think. I saw my father through his eyes and still didn’t like the view. There was nothing I could say and nothing I could do to make it right. I grabbed my pocketbook, slung it over my shoulder, and headed for the door.
Daddy stopped me with his voice. “Nick Testa lost that finger when he was twelve. A fluke accident with a car door. I admit to persuading him to sign over those deeds, but no blood had to be shed. He could be bought cheap in those days. Still can. All it takes is some cash and the promise of eighty-proof booze.”
I hadn’t entirely believed Nick Testa. And I didn’t entirely believe my father. The truth lay somewhere in the middle. I swung around. He couldn’t miss the insolence on my face and I couldn’t miss the admiration on his. It floored me.
“I just realized,” he said. “How alike you and I are.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You want to know who killed Byrnes and why? Look for a more basic motive. Primitive, if you will.”
I crossed my arms and tapped a toe, impatient to get away from my father, the man I loved more than anyone in this world. “Greed? Power? Sex?”
“Self-respect. The only reason anyone kills is because they’re afraid of losing a part of themselves, the best part, the part that makes them who they are. Nothing to do with God or country. Or even money or love. Can you stay for dinner?”
I shook my head, swallowed my pride, and approached my father. He took me into his arms the way he always did. Lost in the odors of wool, pipe smoke, and the autumnal fragrance that only my father carried, I closed my eyes and remembered times when I wasn’t as conflicted, and when anger and resentment wasn’t always ready to explode like a bomb and splatter everyone with vitriol and vinegar. I looked up into his face. “If I were you, I’d lavish attention on Mom.”
He lifted his eyebrows, mildly amused. “I always do,” he said, and appended, “in my own way.”
“Extra attention.” I glanced in Starr’s direction. “Unless you want a judge to order a divorce decree that’ll ruin you.”
“Really?” He wasn’t troubled, merely interested in yet another wrinkle in the odd relationship between Grace ‘Lilith’ Kimball Grenadine and her estranged husband John Grenadine.
“She knows you’re ...” I didn’t know how to put it. “... having a good time.”
“She’s been spying on me, has she?” His eyes went toward Starr. “Having me followed?”
Hands plunged into his pockets, Starr was using the toe of his shoe to draw an invisible, never-ending loop on the floor.
“I hope the photos are flattering.” He laughed heartily, and I could see now what everybody saw in John Grenadine. The boyish charm. The easy smile. The way he made every female from three to eighty-three believe she was the most alluring, most interesting, and most intelligent woman God ever created. Like he must have done to my mother when they met as kids. And the way he charmed me, even now, when I wanted to be absurdly, madly, and poignantly enraged at him. He said simply, “Say no more.”
Putting an arm around my shoulders, he walked me into the foyer. I couldn’t bear to part from him with even the smallest disagreement dividing us. In a whirlwind, I spun into my father’s arms once more, this man I worshipped above all others, and closed my eyes inside his loving embrace.
Afterwards, Daddy shook Starr’s hand and saw us out.
On the way to our cars, Starr reached out and fingered away a stray tendril of hair. He used the excuse to reach in for a kiss, his hand cupping the back of my head and lifting it at just the right angle. Sometimes kisses can be awkward, like now, when I remembered last night and the clutch of his heartstrings as he explored my body with need and uttered my first name like a bouquet of flowers. I can’t say that his lovemaking launched fireworks, but I can say that he needed me in equal measure of my needing him. The shared comfort was transitory. We entered the bed as strangers and fell apart as strangers. Even after being together in the most intimate way possible, I still felt uncomfortable in his presence. It didn’t have anything to do with what either of us had done or said, but what hadn’t been done and what was still left unsaid.
“Hungry?” Starr threaded the stray tendril of hair away yet again. It fell forward just as it had before.
I nodded.
“Follow me.”
“Where to?”
“Trust me.”
“Famous last words.”
We separated and climbed into our cars. Daddy was looking down on us from an upstairs window. He waved. I waved back.
