LOUISE STEPPED TO THE window, drew back the curtain a cautious two inches. But, in the gathering dusk, the car she’d heard in the street outside wasn’t slowing, wasn’t stopping. She stepped back from the window, released the curtain.
“About an hour,” he’d said—almost an hour and a half ago. Were mafiosi usually on time? Or, as she’d once heard, did they purposely keep to no schedule, should enemy gunmen be waiting?
Mafiosi … a band of ruthless Italian men who ruled the world from the shadows. Most mafiosi were Sicilian. Yet her father, the boss of bosses, had been born in Genoa. He’d first been arrested at age twelve, he’d once told her. So, when he’d come to America, two years later, he’d already been tested. Because being arrested, he said, was part of “the life.” It was one of the few times he’d ever told her about life inside the Mafia. To be arrested—to do good time—was often the first real test, sometimes the only test that mattered. Because when they arrested you, they always offered a deal. Turn state’s evidence—squeal—and you could go free. But the stand-up guy, her father had said, served his time, didn’t squeal. When he was in jail the stand-up guy had respect. While on the outside, if he was connected, his family was provided for.
Just as, all her life, her mother had been provided for.
Her mother, and now her.
Now her, waiting for a man named Tony. Just as, all her life, her mother had waited for the men with the envelopes. They’d never come inside the house, those mysterious men. They’d always stayed on the porch, their faces in shadow. A few words, a polite nod, and the man was gone.
She was standing close to the front door. There was a small table in the entryway with a gold-framed mirror above it. She went to the mirror, stood close, looked at herself. When Tony Bacardo had called, they’d been eating dinner, she and Angela. She’d finished the meal, asked Angela to clear the table while she did something with her hair, then changed from jeans and an old plaid shirt to slacks and a loose-fitting sweater. She’d intended to do something about her face. But her skin was coarse, and there hadn’t been time to do much with foundation. So she’d settled for eyebrow pencil and lipstick.
Her father’s skin had been fair, his hair light brown, not Sicilian black. Genoese, he’d once said, were often fair. Therefore, her complexion was fair. Once he’d told her that, of the three children he’d fathered, two of them recognized by the church, she was the child who had always looked the most like him. They’d been at Disneyland, eating banana splits, when he’d told her. At the next table, plainly uncomfortable in their three-piece suits, her father’s two bodyguards had been sipping ice cream sodas.
She’d been ten years old then. Her father had been forty.
Just as, now, she was forty. Louise Frazer Rabb Castle. And now, because it was easier for Angela, Rabb again, the name of Angela’s father.
Her first marriage had been a pointless mistake: two teenagers, Beverly Hills brats with too much money and too many cars. Except for Angela, the baby she’d almost given away, it had been a pointless mistake. Her father had warned her. Just as he’d warned her not to—
Suddenly the door buzzer sounded, the front door, only a few feet from where she stood. Her first reaction was to back away, as if danger threatened.
Danger?
Or a fortune?
When he’d called, almost an hour and a half ago, she’d gone to the front door, made sure it was locked and bolted. Even as she’d done it, she’d wondered why. Her father, one of the most powerful men in America, had only trusted one man completely. That man was Tony Bacardo, who looked like he should be riding a tractor, a dirt farmer.
Tony Bacardo, on the other side of her front door.
Once more, the buzzer sounded.
“Tony?”
“Yes, Louise.”
“Just a second.” She turned the lock, worked with the stubborn dead bolt. Finally the door came open. Revealing the tall, awkward figure of Bacardo. He was dressed as she’d always seen him, in an expensive suit that didn’t quite fit him. Like a servant presenting himself, he held his hat in his hands. It was a felt fedora, a hat that no one in San Francisco would wear, except to a funeral in the rain.
“I’m sorry to be late. My car—Avis—the damn thing wouldn’t start.”
“Ah.” She smiled, nodded, stepped back. “Come in.” Should she call him Tony, this man who’d come to help make her life whole? Mr. Bacardo?
With his hat in his hands, he followed her into the living room. It was an ordinary room in an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood. The living room was crowded with expensive furniture, the only relics she’d salvaged from the life she’d once lived in Los Angeles.
“Sit down—please.” She gestured to an elaborate copy of a Louis XVI sofa. He thanked her, put his hat carefully on a mirror-topped coffee table. As she sat to face him, she was aware of movement behind her, instantly tracked by Bacardo. Angela stood in the archway.
“This is my daughter, Angela. She’s—ah—been staying with me. This is Mr. Bacardo, Angela. He and your grandfather were—” She broke off. How could she finish it? What were the words? Business associates? Partners in crime? Successful gangsters?
Or should she say, “Mr. Bacardo probably gave the order to have Walter’s legs broken after Walter tried to rape you.”
On his feet, Bacardo was telling Angela how glad he was to meet her, after hearing about her for so long. As he said it, Bacardo’s eyes paid unspoken tribute. At age twenty, a natural tawny blonde with a slim, lithe body and exquisitely shaped breasts, her hair loose and long and free, Angela was a classic California beauty.
For a long, awkward moment they held their positions, Bacardo and Louise seated, Angela standing uncertainly in the archway. Bacardo’s face was implacable, impassive. He was waiting. Finally Louise rose, went to Angela, spoke over her shoulder to Bacardo: “Excuse us just a minute.” With Angela following, she went down the narrow central hallway that led to the single bathroom and the two back bedrooms. At the door of Angela’s room, she spoke to her daughter. “I told you what this is about. We’ll talk later.”
Angela shrugged. “Sure.” Then, irrepressibly smiling, a lilt in her eyes, she dropped her voice, whispering, “He’s a creepy-looking guy, isn’t he? I mean, he’s like that statue. The Man With the Hoe. Remember? Or maybe those old monster movies. You know—klomp, klomp, klomp.”
“Angela—” Gently, she pushed her daughter into the bedroom. “Close the door. And put some music on, or the TV.”
“Or else, huh?” Angela was still smiling.
Louise turned, walked back into the living room as the rock music began from Angela’s bedroom.
“Nice girl,” Bacardo said. “Pretty. Very pretty. And polite, too.”
“Thank you.”
“She’s your only child.”
“Yes …” As she said it, she looked at him, searching for the predictable male response to Angela: the lust that none of them could ever conceal. But in Bacardo’s eyes there was no lust. There was only concentration, fixed on her.
“That music,” Bacardo said, leaning toward her and lowering his voice. “She’s back there listening to the music. Right?”
Louise nodded. “She’s in her room. Yes.”
“You told her to stay there, stay in her room.”
She nodded again.
“You and me—this has got to be private, just between us. You understand.” He spoke slowly, distinctly, giving each word weight. His dark, watchful eyes never left her face.
Yes, she understood.
“Before we get into it,” Bacardo said, “there’s something I’ve got to ask you. It’s not like I’m trying to—you know—give you the third degree, nothing like that. But we’ve got a job to do, you and me. There could be risk. The don told you that, told you there could be risk.”
“He told me, yes. But he said you’d handle it.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m here, to handle it. First, though, we should talk. Doing business with someone, it’s good to know all you can about the other person. You see what I’m saying?” Earnestly, he searched her face.
“Yes, I—I see.”
“Okay. So—” He gestured. “So give me the high spots. You know.” He smiled: a slow, lumpy smile. “Your life story in a couple of sentences. Like that.”
“Well, my mother left New York when I was tiny. She came to Sacramento for a while. She had relatives near there. Then she went to Los Angeles. That’s where I grew up, down in Los Angeles. By the time—” She broke off. Then, drawing a deep, determined breath: “By the time I was fourteen, fifteen, my mother had started to drink. A lot. So I—” She shrugged. “I ran wild, let’s face it. And when I was nineteen, I married a guy named Rabb. Jeff Rabb. His father was a movie producer—among other things. A promoter. He—” She paused, looked directly at Bacardo, a question. “Is this what you mean? Is this what you want to know?”
Bacardo nodded, gestured with his plowman’s hand. “Go ahead.”
“Well, the reason we got married, I was pregnant. So when I was twenty, I had Angela. When I was twenty-five, I got divorced. A couple of years later I married Jack Castle. He was an actor.” She looked at Bacardo, hoping for a reaction to the name, for recognition. But, as always, there was nothing. No one remembered Jack Castle. “He was a supporting actor—if you saw him, you’d recognize the face. He did a lot of TV—soap operas, mostly. He was a lot older than I was, and he died when I was thirty-four. Angela was fourteen.” She sighed, shook her head. “That was a hard time. Jack made good money, but he always spent more than he made. He wanted to live like a big star, I think. And he gambled, too. He didn’t leave anything behind but a lot of unpaid bills and a lot of happy bartenders.”
“So you lived all your life in Los Angeles. Until now.” Reluctantly, regretfully, she nodded. “I was married to Jack for seven years. We had our problems, mostly because of the way he spent money. And he drank, too. He drank a lot. But we had a good life. Jack knew how to live, and he was always good to me. Always. But then, about a year after Jack died, I met a man named Walter Draper.” As she said it, her eyes fell, her voice dropped, her shoulders went slack. “He had a restaurant here, in San Francisco. Two restaurants, in fact. And he wanted me to move up here, move in with him. He’d just been divorced—for the third time. That should’ve warned me. He said he’d had it with marriage. No more. But—well—Walter was exciting. He made a lot of money, and he spent a lot. He even had his own airplane. And we—well—” She hesitated, then ventured, “We got along. Sexually, I mean. That part—the sex—was great. Except that when Walter drank—got drunk—the sex got rough. And the longer we were together, the rougher it got.”
“You moved in with him, then. Here. In San Francisco.”
“Right. My father warned me—begged me not to do it. He was worried what it’d do to Angela. And, God, he was right. She was only sixteen when we moved up here. At first, I thought it’d be all right for Angela. She liked San Francisco, still does. Walter used to take her flying, and she loved that. She even learned to fly. She got a license and everything. And she liked her high school, too. She made lots of friends. She’s—well, you saw her. She’s beautiful. So, of course, the boys started coming around. And girls, too. Angela has always been good at that—not making the other girls jealous, because of her looks.
“But then—” Louise waved a dispirited hand. “It all started to come apart, after a couple of years. Until finally, one night, Walter went wild. He—he went after both of us. Me, and Angela, too. Angela, you see, had moved out, once she graduated from high school. She couldn’t stand it, living in the same house with Walter. She moved in with her boyfriend. But then she had a fight with her boyfriend, and she moved back in. Just temporarily, just until I could help her find her own place. But then, the second night after she came back, Walter got drunk. He went after both of us. Me and Angela. He—” Suddenly her voice caught. Fighting tears, she began to shake her head. Would she cry? Bawl?
“That’s all right,” Bacardo said. “Never mind that.”
With great effort, she raised her head, looked at him directly. Yes, Bacardo had known. Of course Bacardo had known. She’d told her father what Draper had done. A week later Draper was in the hospital, both legs broken at the knees, plus internal injuries.
“So you and Angela moved in together. Here.”
She nodded. “Yes. For now, anyhow.” As she said it, she guessed at the reason for his questions. He wanted to know whether there was a man in her life—or in Angela’s life. She saw him look at his watch, then shift on the sofa to square his body with hers. The time had come to transact business.
“Your father—” Bacardo paused, searching for the words. “He told me to get in touch with you as soon as I could after he died. He told you about it—told you what we have to do.”
“The—” She swallowed, dropped her voice. “The jewels, you mean.”
“That’s right.” Heavily, with a note of finality, he nodded. “The jewels. He told you what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to tell each other the words. That’ll tell us where the jewels are. Then we have to get them. And then you’ve got to figure out what to do with them.”
Hesitantly, she nodded. From the back bedroom, the sound of music had ceased. She saw Bacardo’s eyes shift as the silence lengthened. Until, yes, the music began again.
“Do you have a safe-deposit box?”
“Yes. But it’s Friday night. And the banks’re closed tomorrow.”
“Well, it might not matter.” Bacardo rose, went down the hallway until he could verify that Angela’s door was closed and the music was still loud. Now he returned to the sofa. Leaning toward her, he spoke quietly, carefully measuring the words: “What Don Carlo told me to tell you—the words—they’re—” A final pause. Then: “They’re ‘behind the stone.’”
Behind the stone …
“Ah—” Unaccountably stunned, momentarily numbed, she could only nod. For almost four years she’d known the words—her three words. And now those years had fallen away; a lifetime had been reduced to mere seconds—
—these seconds, when only she knew where a fortune in jewels was buried.
Not Bacardo and her. Just her.
Until she told Bacardo, gave him her three words, it was her fortune. In all the world, only she knew.
But once she told Bacardo, then he would know. How could she stop him if he wanted to dig up the jewels, keep them for himself? If she tried to stop him, he’d kill her. Killing was Bacardo’s business, his stock-in-trade.
But he’d gone first. If he meant to take the fortune for himself, would he have gone first?
Sitting across the coffee table from her, he waited. Calmly. Impassively.
“It’s—” She faltered. Her hands, she realized, were clamped so tightly on the arms of her chair that the muscles of her forearms ached. Her throat had gone dry. Suddenly she was perspiring heavily; her sweater was damp at the neck and armpits.
She cleared her throat. Once. Twice. Then, in a voice that was no more than a harsh whisper: “It’s—the words—they’re ‘my mother’s grave.’”
For long moments they sat motionless, simply staring at each other, as if they were alone in time and space, suspended. Then Bacardo spoke:
“Behind the headstone of your mother’s grave.”
Hardly aware of it, she was slowly nodding, her eyes still fixed on Bacardo.
“And where’s that?” Bacardo’s voice was low. He was frowning: two deep creases between his dark, spiky eyebrows. “Her grave, I mean.”
“It’s in Fowler’s Landing. That’s near Sacramento.”
“How far is it from here?”
“About seventy-five miles, I’d say.”
“This Fowler’s Landing. What’s it like? What kind of a place?”
“It’s a small town. It’s on the San Joaquin delta south of Sacramento. There’re maybe three thousand people in the town, something like that. It’s rice-growing country, some of it. My mother was born there. That’s where she wanted to be buried.”
“When did your mother die?”
“About six years ago.”
Bacardo nodded thoughtfully, let his eyes wander away. A six-year-old grave in a little town. Three thousand people. One graveyard, probably, and three or four cops.
It was here, then, to California, that Maranzano had come, four years ago, here that he’d buried the plastic pipe with the jewels—
—here that he’d killed someone. A policeman, Bacardo had always suspected.
First a policeman at Fowler’s Landing. Dead.
Then Maranzano, three days later. Dead.
Would Maranzano have had to die if he’d done the job clean?
Across the mirrored coffee table, Louise sat motionless, rigidly, as if her body was frozen in her chair. Was she afraid? Did she know that, four years ago, a young capo had died to protect the secret of her treasure?
He looked at his watch: eight-thirty.
Seventy-five miles …
In two hours he could be in Fowler’s Landing. But at ten-thirty, in a strange town, how could he hope to find the graveyard? In the dark, how could he find Janice Frazer’s grave? A stranger in a strange town, asking directions to the graveyard, then wandering among the headstones, flashlight and shovel in hand, looking for the grave with a fortune in jewels buried behind the headstone.
My mother’s grave …
For four years, Louise had known those three words. How often had she visited the grave in those four years?
Six words …
She’d already had three words, the most important words. What had she thought was the whole message? On top of the casket of my mother’s grave? At the foot of my mother’s grave? Ten feet north? Twenty feet south?
He must know. First, before he did anything, made any decision, he must know what she’d done—what she’d done, what she’d tried to do, therefore what she might do.
“It’s been four years,” he began. “You’ve been to visit her grave, in four years.”
Hesitantly, cautiously, she nodded—once, then twice. She knew he was probing, calculating, deciding.
“Did you see anything that made you think there was something buried behind her headstone? Fresh dirt, anything like that?”
She frowned, considered, finally shook her head. But she’d lowered her eyes. What was it that he saw in her face, turned away from him now? Was it fear? Was it greed—the treasure, the closeness of it? Sometimes the sight of great wealth—stacks of money, handfuls of jewels—could turn men to stone. Stone men, with bright, burning eyes. Greedy men.
Dead men.
“You knew the jewels were there, somewhere near your mother’s grave.”
“Yes,” she answered. But I couldn’t—” She faltered, began again: “There was no way I could try to get it. Even if I’d known where it was, I’d’ve been afraid.”
Bacardo considered the answer, finally nodded. “Afraid, yeah—you’re smart to be afraid. In our organization, you know, nobody feathers his own nest, even the dons. They take what they need—what they want—and pass the rest on. So your father, he took a chance collecting those things for you.”
She raised her eyes, looked at him fully. “Are we taking a chance, too?”
“That much money—more than a million dollars—you’re taking a chance.” His voice was dead level; his eyes were dead calm.
“Ah …” She nodded. Yes, there it was: the tremor of fear in the single word. And, yes, he could see fear shadowing her eyes now, working at her face.
“There’s a don named Benito Cella—that’s the Cella family. Cella’s about sixty now, the same age as me. And he’ll be the capo di tutti now. The boss of bosses. Like your father was.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, I see.”
“I was Don Carlo’s capo di capo—his chief of staff, you might say.” As he said it, he smiled to himself. Never before had he used those words: chief of staff.
“So now,” he went on, “Don Benito has got to think about me. I can’t stay in the Venezzio family. The new don, he’d want his own capo di capo. So Cella, he’s going to move his own capo di capo—a man named Salvatore Perrone—out of town, set him up someplace else. Atlantic City, maybe, something like that. Then Cella’ll move me into Perrone’s spot. See?”
Tentatively, she nodded.
“So while Cella’s supposed to be making the arrangements, I’m supposed to be taking a vacation, taking a break, giving Don Benito a little room to maneuver.”
“Yes …”
“Except that people like me, in my line of work, there’s no such thing as a vacation. I mean, you want to go out to Las Vegas for a weekend, do some gambling, even that’s not a vacation. Because, see, you’d always be met by someone at the airport, and you’d stay at the right hotel—free—and you’d call a couple of people, buy some drinks. And when you do that, buy drinks, whatever, you talk business.” He spread his hands, shrugging. “It’s just the way it happens.”
“Did—” She broke off, then ventured: “Did someone meet you when you came here? To San Francisco?”
Holding her gaze, he shook his head. He spoke slowly, deliberately: “No one met me. But they know I’m here.”
“Are they—do you think they’re following you?”
Still speaking slowly, gravely: “They could be.”
“Now? Right now?” Involuntarily, her eyes fled to the front entryway and the door.
“If I go out of town, even for a day, I always tell someone where I’m going, where I’m staying.”
“So …” Once more, her eyes moved, this time to the living room window that opened on the street. “So they could be following you.”
“I’ve got a rental car, and I was careful, coming here. That’s all I can tell you.”
“But if they do follow us, and they see us digging up the treasure, what’ll they do?”
Instead of answering he said, “This Fowler’s Landing. What kind of a place is it? Is it on a main highway?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s off by itself, one road into town, one road out. The delta, you know—it’s a strange place. No hills, not many trees. Just water everywhere you go, in channels, mostly. And fog. Almost every night, there’s fog. Thick, pea-soup fog.”
“The graveyard where your mother’s buried—is it in town?”
“On the outskirts, I’d say. North of town a mile or two.”
“Let’s say we went there tomorrow afternoon. You’re carrying flowers to put on your mother’s grave. While you’re doing that, I’m digging.”
As she heard him say it, an image of the graveyard materialized: overgrown and neglected, sad. Some of the gravestones were leaning, some had already toppled over. Her mother’s gravestone was one of the most ornate, a granite obelisk, paid for in cash from one of her father’s envelopes. There was an old-fashioned wrought-iron fence, and a gate to match. The road out from town bordered the graveyard on the west side. Beyond the graveyard the road continued on to a small settlement on Richardson’s Slough where sportfishermen could dock their small boats and buy bait or beer or sandwiches. On a Saturday afternoon in April, most of the traffic in Fowler’s Landing would be going on to Richardson’s Slough.
“Well,” Bacardo was saying. “What d’you think?”
She shook her head. “Someone would see us. The road out of town runs right along the fence.”
“Then we’ll have to do it at night. Tomorrow night, or Sunday night.”
“I—” Suddenly her throat closed. We, he’d said. We! “Will I go with you? Is that what you mean?”
“You don’t want to go?” His dark, deep-set eyes watched her steadily.
“I—” She couldn’t finish it. Did she want to go?
“You’ll trust me with it? You’ll trust me to bring it back to you?” His face was unreadable. He was testing her. But why? Even if she went with him, she couldn’t keep him from taking the treasure. She had no gun—no man—only a daughter that she must protect from harm.
Angela. Until that moment, she hadn’t thought of Angela. What if Bacardo got the jewels, and brought them here? What if the Mafia were watching? They would kill all three of them. She, Bacardo, and Angela, all dead, their blood everywhere, pooled on the floor, splashed on the walls, soaking the carpets.
“I have to know, Louise. I’ve got to have someone with me. I can’t do it by myself. I’ve got to have a lookout, backup. You drive, don’t you?”
“Y-yes. Sure. But—”
“Well?” he demanded.
“Y-you say they know you’re here. In San Francisco. So they could be following you.”
“You’re Don Carlo’s daughter. You couldn’t go to the funeral. So here I am, to pay my respects.” He shrugged, spread his hands. “That’s what they’ll think. Period.”
“But—” Helplessly, she began to shake her head. “But I—I wouldn’t be able to help you if anything went wrong. I can drive, sure. But—” She broke off. Then, a whispered confession: “But I’d be scared, Tony. I am scared. Right now. Right this minute, I’m scared. Angela—what if—?”
He raised a hand to silence her. “It makes sense that you’re scared. It’s okay. I wanted to make the offer, ask you to come, so you wouldn’t think I’d hijack the stuff. But the truth is, I need someone who can use a gun. If you or Angela was married, had a man …” He let it go unfinished, an unspoken question.
Deeply regretful, she shook her head. “There’s no one. I haven’t got anyone. And Angela moved out on her boyfriend. He hates her now. Really hates her.” Now it was her turn to question him with a look. “Don’t you have anyone?”
His face hardened; his eyes had turned to stone. “I had two sons. One of them—” He broke off, set his jaw, dropped his voice. “One of them is dead. And the other one is a doctor. A pediatric doctor.”
They looked at each other silently, one final wordless exchange. Then, without ceremony, Bacardo rose. Just as, from the back room, the rock music wound down.
“Tomorrow morning,” Bacardo said, “I’m going to drive up to Fowler’s Landing, see what it looks like. You think about this. We’ll both think about this. When I get back, I’ll come here. Have you got a shovel? A good flashlight?”
“I’ve got a flashlight. No shovel. I haven’t been here long enough to—”
“Well, in the morning, buy a shovel. And some flashlight batteries. Maybe another flashlight, too—a good one.” As if he were anxious to leave, he turned toward the front door. From Angela’s bedroom, the music began again. As Bacardo’s hand touched the doorknob, Louise spoke: “Tony?”
He turned, looked down at her. Said nothing. In his face, there was nothing but calm calculation: the professional, solving the kind of problem he was in the business of solving.
She spoke hesitantly. “Angela. I’ve got to tell Angela.”
For a moment he made no response. Plainly, he was calculating, considering the odds. Finally: “Whether you want to tell her everything—the words and everything—well, that’s up to you. Think about it, though, before you tell her, that’s all I’d say. You understand?”
“Yes. I understand.”