“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT,” Angela said. “It—it’s like a movie, for God’s sake.” She stood over her mother, who was sitting round-shouldered on the sofa, as if the story she’d just told had exhausted her.
“Are you sure about this?” Angela demanded. “Your father, did you believe him when he told you about the jewels?”
Except for a lifting of her shoulders, her mother made no response. There was nothing left to say—and no strength left to say it.
A fortune in jewels and gold …
If her mother had it right—if Tony Bacardo, mobster, was telling the truth—then there were still dreams that came true, fantasies that still came to life. But her mother sat as if she had been convicted of a crime and was waiting for her sentence.
Aware that she was standing too close, an intimidating posture, Angela stepped back, then sat facing her mother.
“What’ll we do, Angela?” Her mother’s voice was low, without expression, unaccountably without hope. Had life beaten her mother so far down that a fantasy—a fortune—only made the burden seem worse? Was her mother asking her for help? Role reversal, it was called. The daughter became the mother, ready or not.
“If he goes by himself,” Angela said, “and if the treasure’s really there, what’s to keep him from taking it to the airport and going back to New York? This man—God—he makes his living breaking laws. He’s a professional criminal. Do you really think he’ll hand over a fortune in jewels, then tip his hat and say good-bye?”
“I—” With great effort, Louise raised her head. “I think he will, Angela. Somehow I think he will.”
“But, Christ, he—”
“He won’t go alone, though. He’s already said that, said he wouldn’t go alone to get the jewels.”
“So who’s he going to take along? Another gangster?”
“No.” Louise shook her head. Then, as if to rouse herself, come back, she drew a deep breath. “No, he wouldn’t do that, I don’t think. He’s worried about the Mafia, you see. The jewels never really belonged to your grandfather. They belonged to the Mafia. Or, at least, the money that bought them belonged to the Mafia. So—”
“I’ll go with Bacardo.”
Instantly Louise’s head came up, her eyes came alive. For an instant Angela glimpsed the woman she’d once known: determined, willful. “No, you’re not going.”
“Well, you’re not going. So who else is there?”
“Angela—” Yes, there it was: that note of parental anger, their role reversal reversed.
“You’re not, Mom. You know you’re not going. So if I don’t go—drive his goddam car for him, act as lookout, whatever he wants, then who will go, for God’s sake? What’ll we do, hire a—a hit man? Christ, I’d trust Tony Bacardo before I’d trust someone I could hire for a couple of hundred dollars.”
“The Mafia knows he’s here,” Louise said. “And if they follow him …” Ominously, she let it go unfinished.
Unable to remain seated, Angela rose, went to the fireplace, stood looking down into the dead embers, both hands resting on the mantle. She was slim and tall; her unbelted jeans sculpted lean flanks and buttocks. Her dark blond hair fell loose to her shoulders. She wore a khaki safari shirt, her favorite. She was barefooted.
For more than a minute the tableau held: the mother sitting motionless, staring woodenly at her daughter, who said nothing.
Then, still staring down into the cold fireplace, Angela said, “I’ve got an idea.”
“An idea?” It was a hesitant question.
“I think I know someone.”