Playing Dead

Chapter 16

When Annie left the massive master suite with its sprawling ocean view, she walked straight into Cara.

Annie groaned inwardly. Her relationship with her step-daughter had never got off the ground. She had tried hard to befriend Cara, but she found her snobbish, vain and unlovable. She spoke to Annie hardly at all, and Annie thought that was just fine, if that was the way Cara wanted it.

But today, something about Cara seemed different. She looked . . . well, Annie wasn’t exactly sure how Cara looked. Usually, Constantine’s daughter exuded an icy poise that left no room for even an attempt at civility. But today, Cara looked shattered. She looked as though someone had just given her a scare that had rocked her world. She looked sick.

‘Cara?’ Annie caught her arm as Cara was about to pass right by her without a word. ‘Are you all right?’

Cara’s eyes met hers and in that instant before her guard went up, Annie saw something there; something bruised, something covert and uncertain. But then the shutters were in place again and Cara just stared at Annie coldly.

‘Like you care,’ she said, and looked pointedly at Annie’s hand resting on her arm.

Annie removed it. ‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.’

But Cara was right: Annie’s words were a lie. There was just something about Cara’s own personal fuck-you demeanour and the swanky pea-brained friends she hung around with that put Annie’s back up.

‘I told you. I’m fine.’

Yeah, and I’m the Queen of Sheba, thought Annie. But fuck it. Did she really want to know what petty concerns went on in the life of someone so vacuous, spiteful and vain?

Answer: no.

Cara hurried on by. Annie heard her go into the bathroom at the head of the stairs, slamming the door behind her – and then she heard retching.

Annie paused there on the stairs, frowning. Maybe Cara was pregnant? But Annie sort of doubted that. So maybe Rocco had upset her . . . but then, Rocco was so mild, so practically invisible as a personality, that Annie couldn’t imagine him upsetting anyone, far less his notoriously difficult wife.

In the downstairs hall, Annie found Nico sitting patiently on guard outside Constantine’s study.

‘Is he free?’ Annie asked him.

Nico rose to his feet and gave her a smiling half-bow. ‘For you, yeah – he’s free.’ He turned and tapped at the door.

‘Come!’ came from inside the study.

He looked up as she came in. She stood there leaning against the door. He pushed himself back from the desk and stared at her.

‘Mrs Barolli,’ he said, his eyes playing with hers.

‘Mr Barolli,’ Annie greeted him.

‘And to what do I owe this unexpected honour?’ Constantine made a ‘so come here’ gesture with his hand.

Annie went over to the desk.

‘Closer,’ said Constantine.

Annie stepped nearer.

‘Not close enough,’ said Constantine.

Annie went around the desk, sat in his lap and put her arms around his neck. ‘Close enough now?’ she asked.

‘Barely,’ he complained, nuzzling her neck with his lips. ‘Something bothering you?’

‘Not really.’ Annie thought briefly of Cara’s face, but then it was gone, forgotten.

‘The baby?’ said Constantine, anxiously. He glanced down, concerned, at the small neat bump beneath her light lilac shift dress.

‘I just wanted to see you.’

‘Mrs Barolli, I love you very much,’ he said, and kissed her, and Annie found herself remembering her first pregnancy, when she had been expecting Layla; and Max had been so delighted, just as Constantine was now.

A sharp pang of sadness and regret struck her heart as she hugged her second husband and whispered her love for him, because once there had been Max, owner of the East End streets around Bow in London; Max Carter, gang lord, lover – and her first husband, her first true romance. And she had loved him too. Oh, so much.

She shivered, and clung to Constantine.

Chapter 17

Rocco got called to the hospital at two in the morning. Cara was asleep beside him when the phone rang. He flicked on the bedside light. She stirred sleepily and looked at him as he spoke into the phone. When he put it down, his face was ashen.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Cara.

‘It’s . . .’ Rocco paused, shook himself. His eyes were distant. He looked like a man who had seen a brief glimpse into hell. ‘It’s one of my friends. He left the poker game and he’s been attacked in the street.’

Now Rocco was throwing back the sheets, getting out of bed, hurrying to pick up his trousers and put them on.

‘Is . . . is it bad?’ asked Cara innocently. She knew exactly how bad it was. Here was the reward for all her suffering; here was her revenge. Fredo had slashed up Rocco’s little fag friend . . . before driving her home and then forcing himself on her once again in the garage. She shuddered to think of it.

She had told Fredo that this would be the last time. And, chillingly, he had laughed and said fuck that, not unless she wanted her father to hear all about what she had made him do to her husband’s fag boyfriend.

Now she was in a mess and she knew it. She despised Fredo for all that he’d done to her, but worse than that was the fact that she despised her father too, for making her sink to such levels of depravity with his refusal to help.

Would Fredo really dare tell her father? She didn’t know. And if she told Constantine first, blaming Fredo rather than carrying the blame herself for the attack, would her father believe her? She couldn’t take the risk, because Constantine would be so angry if he discovered she’d wormed her way around his warnings and found another way to get to Rocco.

‘This don’t stop until I’m ready,’ Fredo had told her, crudely slapping her on the arse as she emerged once again, shaking and abused, from the back of the car.

The bastard!

But the deed was done. And here was the result. Wasn’t it worth it? Yes, she knew it was.

Now Rocco was fastening his shirt and almost running for the door.

‘I hope your friend’s all right . . .’ Cara called after him, but he was gone, slamming the door closed behind him.

Cara lay down, a catlike smile playing over her pretty features.

So Rocco Mancini thought he could make a fool of his wife, did he? He was about to discover how horribly he had miscalculated her capabilities.

Rocco got to the hospital at nearly three a.m. They let him in and Rocco had to hide his shock at the state Frances was in. His face – oh, his beautiful face! – was a mess of stitches and bloody smears and bandages. His mouth had been slashed almost neatly on both sides, widening his lips so that they were hideously elongated. Two of the fingers on his right hand were missing.

Rocco tried to cover his disgust at the sheer ugliness of Frances’s appearance, but he couldn’t quite conceal it from his wounded lover. He sat down beside Frances and, while Frances sobbed, each sob muffled beneath the wadding and stitches around his mouth, Rocco asked him who had done this to him, who could have done such a thing?

‘You’re saying you don’t know?’ said Frances indistinctly. His eyes were red and accusing. ‘It was you, you fucker.’

Rocco looked aghast. His eyes went to Frances’s face, and he had to look quickly away.

‘What? No, I swear—’

‘It was a man,’ said Frances. ‘You must have paid him. He said it was from Rocco and Cara Mancini. For the love of God, you only had to say if you wanted to end it. You didn’t have to do this.’

Rocco sat back in his chair, feeling dizzy from the shock.

Cara must have instigated this. Cara must have known about their affair. He felt his insides clench with fear. If Cara knew, had she told her father? My God, if the Don knew . . .

Clearly, she had somehow discovered his secret. He felt consumed with horror at that thought, at the dangers inherent in this situation for him. Again his eyes strayed to the damage she’d wreaked on his once-exquisite lover, and again he had to look away, frightened that he might actually be sick. He was no good in hospitals. His grandmother had been an invalid for much of her life, languishing in bed; he had a horror of sickness. And as for any sort of disfigurement . . . well, he knew it was shallow. He knew it was bad. But he couldn’t help it. Just to look at Frances, the repulsive state of him, was making his stomach heave.

And he could see – oh, and wasn’t this the worst bit? – he could see that Frances’s beauty was comprehensively wrecked. These wounds were too severe to be anything other than permanent. Frances was ugly now. And if there was one thing Rocco couldn’t stand, it was ugliness. He only liked beautiful people around him. Men or women, he didn’t much care which, but they had to be flawless.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ he told Frances.

‘But look at me,’ wailed Frances. ‘You vicious fucking bitch! How am I going to find acting work now? I’m a freak. And this is all down to you.’

Frances stared with hate-filled eyes at his lover. Self-pity flooded through him and he flopped back against the pillows in despair. In his heart he knew that this was the end of it. Tears splashed down his cheeks, soaked his bloodstained bandages.

‘I didn’t do this,’ insisted Rocco, patting Frances’s unbandaged hand and wondering when he could decently leave. He wouldn’t be coming here again. It was over.

‘Yeah,’ said Frances, snatching his hand away. ‘Right.’

Chapter 18

Rocco said nothing to Cara, except that his friend was recovering and would be fine. He wanted to grab her, to break her stupid head against a wall for damaging something so exquisitely beautiful. All right, he had been tired of Frances. But what she had done was like smashing a Ming vase or defacing a Renoir: a crime against a work of art.

But he bit his lip and said nothing, although he felt sick with a mingling of loss and terror. If she had told her father about this, then he believed he was a dead man. Only last week that sadistic bastard Lucco had been laughing about Roy Giancana, who the Barolli mob had sent out to Vegas to handle business and who had tried to cheat them on the skim. He’d ended up in an oil drum at the bottom of the sea, just off the coast of sunny Florida.

And there had been others, many others Rocco knew of; men who had once been called friends and had been dispatched to meet their maker for stepping out of line in one way or another.

Now he had stepped out of line and he knew it.

Cara, the daddy’s girl, would run weeping to Constantine with any trouble, he knew that, and what would the Don do? Let it rest? No way. Rocco knew that once the word was given by the Don, his life was over. He was wracked with terror. Frightened of Lucco, who could in an instant switch from charming to deadly; and equally frightened of Alberto, whose urbane politeness concealed a businesslike efficiency when it came to conducting his father’s business.

Brother-in-law or not, he knew that neither of them would baulk at giving the word for an enforcer to take him out. He had to make moves of his own, to preserve his own safety.

He drove up to New Jersey to pay a visit to his father, Enrico Mancini.

His mother greeted him with all the usual hugs and cries and kisses.

‘You’ve lost weight!’ she tutted, fluttering around him, pinching his sallow cheeks.

It was true, he had lost weight, such had been his anxiety over the mess he had gotten himself into. He’d been under so much stress: keeping out of Constantine’s way, tiptoeing around Cara, and worse, much worse, fielding the unwanted and increasingly desperate calls from Frances, yelling accusations and wild declarations of love down the phone at him. He felt as though he was under seige. Food had been the last thing on his mind.

‘Son.’ His father greeted him without enthusiasm. He was watching the Boston Red Sox play the Yankees on TV. He glanced up, waved Rocco into an armchair and looked back at the screen.

Rocco glanced at it too. He had no interest in sports. His older brothers, Jonathan and Silvio, did, they were always in their father’s favour, but Rocco was the youngest and had clung to his mother’s apron-strings as a boy and even – yes, he admitted it – as a young man. He didn’t doubt his father loved him, but it was in a remote and dispassionate way.

Enrico Mancini shot a sideways look at his son. ‘Is your mother fetching us something? You look thin.’

‘Had a virus,’ lied Rocco.

‘Bad things,’ said Enrico, shaking his head, and returned his attention to the game.

Rocco looked at his father. He was balding and relaxing into old age in a beige cardigan and carpet slippers. His heart was bad, too; he couldn’t do too much these days. His father had no style, but Rocco understood that even so he was a great man. Rocco had a lot of style, but he knew in his heart that he had no real substance at all.

His mother came in, carrying a tray of verdure fritte, arancini, olives and cheese. She set the appetizers down on a low table in front of them, along with strong coffee laced with anisette, tweaked Rocco’s pallid cheek once more and left the room.

‘So, what’s the news?’ asked Enrico. ‘You don’t phone home much. It upsets your mother. Now suddenly you do, so what’s the beef?’

Rocco swallowed. This was very delicate, very embarrassing; he wasn’t quite sure how to start.

‘I’ve . . . been having an affair,’ he said.

Enrico looked at him. ‘And this is news?’

Rocco paused. Both his elder brothers were married, and both had their fair share of little popsies on the side: it was expected. What the hell, they were men, weren’t they?

‘Cara found out about it,’ said Rocco.

‘And? You telling me you can’t keep control in your own household, Rocco? Give her a sweetener or two and lay it on the line; you do what you do. Who’s the man of the house, you or her?’

Rocco was sweating; this was even more difficult than he had imagined it would be.

‘She found out and she had this person worked over – really badly – as a warning to me.’

Now he had Enrico’s full attention. ‘She did?’

‘Her name was mentioned when it happened.’ And so was mine, he thought, but didn’t say it.

Enrico paused for a beat. Then he picked up an olive and popped it in his mouth. Chewing, he looked at Rocco and said: ‘Don’t sound like any woman I know, to do that. And for sure this ain’t Constantine.’ Then he spat out the stone.

‘We can’t know that.’

Enrico gave a laugh. ‘You kiddin’? I’ve known that man thirty years. He’s a good friend to this family. A thing like this, over his son-in-law having a little fun outside wedlock? He wouldn’t stoop so low.’

‘Cara wouldn’t act without his approval.’

‘You think so?’ Enrico’s old eyes stared at his son in disbelief. ‘I think you’re wrong. She’s been overindulged since her mother died – she’s become too headstrong. I told you so when you married her, but would you listen? You would not. Now you see the sort of woman you married. She thinks she’s too special to have her husband playing around. I did warn you. I told you you’d be pussy-whipped for the rest of your life if you married her.’

Rocco thought about that. His father was right; but it was Cara’s looks that he had fallen for. He had been stricken by her blonde beauty and, before they married, she had curbed and concealed the worst excesses of her spoiled and dominating nature. Once they were wed, she had dropped her guard, let it show who was the boss; and that was her.

‘Men have women on the side,’ Enrico shrugged. ‘We all do it. Why should the girl take offence at an affair? It don’t affect her standing as your wife and that’s what matters. You got to keep the wives sweet, Rocco, that’s what I’m telling you.’

Rocco’s heart was thumping in his chest. His mouth was dry. He knew Cara had taken the whole thing badly because it was a man he’d slept with; had it been a woman, she would probably have ignored the situation, even accepted and eventually maybe welcomed the focus of his sexual attentions being elsewhere.

‘It . . . Papa, it wasn’t a woman,’ he managed to say.

Enrico was silent. The teams were rampaging around the pitch to the cheers and shouts of the crowd. Slowly, Enrico levered himself out of his armchair with an elderly grunt of effort. Then he leaned down and struck Rocco, very hard, across the face.

Rocco recoiled in pain and surprise. His cheek stung. He sprang up, furious.

Enrico looked him dead in the eye.

‘Oh, you think you want to hit me back, uh?’ he scoffed, his eyes running over his son with contempt. ‘You ain’t hard enough to even try it. Now I understand. You deserved that. And Rocco, you deserved to have your fag boyfriend worked over. I always knew there was something off about you, you little . . .’ Enrico looked disgusted. He flicked his ear in the Italian sign for homosexuality. ‘How’s any woman going to take that, her husband playing away with another man? You know Cara’s nature. And you’re surprised she did this?’

Rocco was almost crying with humiliation. ‘I think the Don himself ordered it,’ he panted. ‘If he knows, I’m as good as dead.’

‘Yeah, maybe he did. For this? Maybe he’d feel his daughter had been insulted; maybe you’re right.’

‘Well, what are you going to do?’ demanded Rocco.

‘Me?’ yelled back his father. ‘I’ll tell you what I am going to do: precisely nothing. You think I’d raise a hand against one of my oldest friends over a little fucker like you?’

Rocco’s mother came into the room and stood just inside the door, looking anxiously from one to the other. ‘What’s going on here?’ she asked.

‘What’s going on is that your milksop little baby has had his nose smacked and he don’t like it. Well, he had it coming,’ Enrico told her sharply. He turned to Rocco. ‘Now get outta here. I got a game to watch.’

And he sat back down in his armchair and gazed once more at the screen.

Rocco’s mother stood there, staring at her son. After a second, Rocco managed to get his legs working, and he pushed past her, out of the door, out of the house. He heard her concerned cry drift after him but he ignored it. He got in his car and drove back to the city.