31

When Charley got back to the house on Sixty-fourth Street, a severe case of havoc had set in; the house was all shook up. Mary Barton’s maid, Enrichetta Criscione, crashing into a nervous breakdown, had tried to sneak up behind her mistress and brain her with a large chair. She had had to be packed in wet sheets by Yew Lee and Maud Tinsley, Mary Barton’s social secretary, until a doctor could be called in to sedate her with a huge hypodermic needle filled to the top of its tube.

When Charley came home, Mary Barton, faint with shock, was stretched out on a chaise longue in her boudoir with a wet cloth over her eyes. One arm was trembling like a crapshooter’s warming up dice.

“Gracious evers, Mary!” Charley said. “What happened? The whole place is reeling.”

“Enrichetta tried to kill me.”

“Enrichetta?”

“She had a complete nervous breakdown, Charley.”

“A Sicilian woman? A nervous breakdown? That’s impossible.”

“She had it, Charley,” Mary Barton said. “And if I hadn’t seen her in the mirror, coming at me with the chair raised over her head, she would have killed me. My God! You should see the room. She tore up the place, fighting three of us off. And I fought her for five or six minutes before Yew Lee heard the crashes and came in. He had to call in Maud to help us and finally Danvers had to whack her over the head with a lamp to quiet her down.”

“But why? What set her off?”

“Nobody knows. She was incoherent.”

“Where is she now?”

“At Lenox Hill. We had to get an ambulance. Oh, Charley, it was awful. What did Pop want?”

As Charley told her, Mary Barton only heard the part about there being mention of staging a fake funeral for the don. “Is Angelo out of his mind, Charley? If there is a funeral—any kind of a public funeral for grandfather—everybody in all the families would expect us to attend. How can we attend the funeral of a Mafia capo di famiglia? Your whole career would be ruined. We would be finished socially.”

“Crickets, Mary, I don’t know about that. Some of the biggest people in this country would attend Corrado Prizzi’s funeral—senators, the mayor, the governor, the Papal Nuncio, the White House, South American and Asian dignitaries, the police commissioner, most of Hollywood—I mean we could even put a little pressure on the arbiter to get her to come.”

Mary Barton was almost desperately emphatic. She said, “The public understands that sort of thing. It’s the way the political system works. But not private people. Not you or me.”

“Eduardo went to your father’s funeral, Mary. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but he might even have gone to my funeral.”

“Charley, lissena me. Forget it. I know about these things and you don’t. We go to any funeral of the don’s, fake or otherwise, and we will be ostracized.”

“By whom?”

“By everybody! Think! Think of how hard everybody worked to keep Eduardo’s connection with the family quiet because hundreds of millions of dollars are involved. This could even involve us with the IRS, God forbid!” Her voice was hysterical. “They’ll have the FBI checking out everybody who shows up. Put it out of your mind, Charley. Not only is there not going to be any fake funeral because of a few crappy K’s of shit for those losers in the Riker’s Island can, but if and when my grandfather’s body shows up there isn’t going to be any public funeral then either.”

“What’s the matter with you? Are you sick or something? If it weren’t for the don, we wouldn’t have anything. I could still be in the old country, fahcrissake—the don brought my father over here. If there is a funeral, we’re going to it.”

Mary Barton began to weep, her head in her arms on a table. Charley knew something was wrong. He pulled up a chair beside her and put his arm around her. “What the hell, Mae,” he said, “who is gonna knock anybody for paying his last respects to an old man at his funeral? And even if they did, we’d have to do it anyway. We owe everything we have to the don.”

Mary Barton wept inconsolably.

At 4:00 P.M. the next afternoon, after he had settled the problem of Enrichetta, Charles Barton attended the semiannual meeting of the Ballet Council and met Claire Coolidge as she was getting into the elevator and he was coming out with Mrs. Colin Baker, the arbiter and a fellow council member.

“Claire, darling!” Mrs. Baker exclaimed. “How marvelous to see you again.” The two women embraced briefly. “You must know Claire Coolidge, Charles?” Mrs. Baker said. “One of the most exciting ballerinas in our company?”

“I have admired Miss Coolidge for some time,” Charles Barton said, “but we have not met.” Looking at her, he began to get that old feeling. She was even more gorgeous than when he had given her to Eduardo almost six years ago. She had matured like Parmiguma stravecchio, ripened, full, redolent of pleasure, lovely. He felt the old-time stirring in his trousers.

“Mr. Barton is Edward Price’s successor on the council,” Mrs. Baker explained to Claire.

“Ah,” Claire said. “How nice.”

Charles Barton smiled at her. For a flicker, she thought she had known him once, long before. It was in his eyes.