32

Charley was bugged into electric insomnia by Mary Barton’s disloyalty to her deepest obligation, respect for the family. He pitched and tossed around the bed, not even helped by the memory of the sly way Claire Coolidge had smiled at him, the way she had withdrawn her hand from his, so softly, so slowly, the flesh so warm and suggestive that she might just as well have laid down on her back on the marble floor in front of the elevator, made pyramids with her legs, and with a slack, panting mouth, pleaded with him to mount her.

He got out of bed, went into the gymnasium off the bathroom, and did four and a half miles on the exercise bike. Something wasn’t kosher about the Enrichetta thing, he kept thinking. She was a stolid farm girl. She understood the Catholic sacraments and the benevolence of the Honored Society, how to sew and how to wait on table, and not much else, including how to speak English, so it wasn’t possible that she had fallen in with some bad neighborhood crowd. How could she have a nervous breakdown? She was like a farm animal, a favorite ox or a faithful donkey. Things like that didn’t have nervous breakdowns.

At eight o’clock in the morning, he got dressed. Danvers made him a light English breakfast of porridge, kippers, scrambled eggs and bacon, toast and tea, then drove him to Lenox Hill Hospital. Charley was on the board of the hospital. He told the desk who he was and asked to see the head nurse on duty.

The head nurse was a motherly, sweet-faced woman named Rose Hunt who knew instantly about Enrichetta’s case.

“Miss Criscione needs a long rest and a complete change, Mr. Barton,” she said.

“Have you talked to her?” Charley asked. “Did you find out what made her explode like that?”

“That is a difficulty, Mr. Barton. Miss Criscione doesn’t speak English, and although we have people here who are fluent in Italian, Miss Criscione seems to be able to speak only some dialect so—so far—the psychiatrists haven’t been really able to work with her.”

“Do you think she’s insane?”

“Definitely not. But she is very, very depressed.”

“I have a man who may be able to translate for you.”

“How did your wife cope with that?”

“She viewed Miss Criscione as a mute. She employed her because she wanted to help her—and of course Miss Criscione is highly skilled at her work. Ah—tell me, Nurse Hunt—is Miss Criscione pregnant? That might have driven her to despair. If she had been deserted, and so forth.”

The nurse shook her head. “No. And she is—aside from this storm of violence she underwent—in very good health. Do you want to see her, Mr. Barton?”

“No. It might agitate her. And it wouldn’t be of much use because I cannot speak to her. Let me send the man from my office. His name is Angelo Partanna. I’ll see that he’s here this afternoon.”

Charley called Angelo from a candy store on Lexington Avenue as soon as he left the hospital.

“Pop, Charley. Listen, can you come into New York for lunch?”

“Why not?”

“Early, okay? Viandino on East Forty-sixth between Second and Third. Twelve-fifteen. You want me to send a car?”

“That car is too gaudy. People look and they remember.”

“I’ll send the Chevy van. I still got the van in my garage.”

Pop was eating breadsticks when Charley got to the restaurant. “You know this place?” he said. “They got some nice old-fashioned things on the menu.”

“The owner comes from Canicatti.”

“Aaaaah.”

They ordered lunch. Pop said, “What’s on your mind?”

“Something fishy happened, Pop. You remember Enrichetta, Mae’s maid?”

Pop nodded.

“She had a nervous breakdown yesterday.”

“A nervous breakdown? Enrichetta?”

“She tried to brain Mae with a chair, then it took three of them to hold her down until they could get a doctor to hit her with a shot.”

“Maybe she just went nuts.”

“No. I went to the hospital this morning. I checked her out.”

“What hospital?”

“Lenox Hill.”

“It’s very fishy, Charley.” He stared off at a mote in the middle distance. “I went to see her when Maerose brought her over here. She’s a good strong country girl. A nice, good-tempered woman. I knew some people from her town—where she grew up before her family moved to Agrigento. She grew up with the fratellanza all around her. Mae told me Enrichetta went to work for her because Mae is a Prizzi. Corrado Prizzi was Enrichetta’s hero. She couldn’t believe I knew him. When I told her I was Corrado’s consigliere, she knelt down and kissed my hand. Jesus, it was like being back in the old country.”

“She can’t speak English. That makes a problem for the hospital.”

“I know. But she speaks a very nice Enna dialect.”

“So I told the hospital I’d have a man from my office who can talk to her go up there this afternoon. That’s you.”

“I’ll go see her.” He passed his hand heavily across his forehead.

“What’s the matter, Pop?”

“Ah, nothing. Just that Corrado going like that hit me hard. I seen him like every day for over fifty years. We cut up a lotta touches.”

Charley reached over and held his father’s hand. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Pop,” he said. “Shoot the bell ringer.”