Chances

  “Christ almighty! This city!” he exploded. “Now they arrest the victims while the criminals roam the streets.” He started the car and patted his wife comfortingly on the knee. “What you must have gone through! Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “It’s just my ears….”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll go straight to Dr. Mitchell’s house. He’ll take care of you. My God, I was so worried, I…”

  She tuned out as he carried on, and wondered what the blackmailer’s next move would be. Elliott had bought her story. After all, it was partly true. Her car had been stolen. She had been assaulted and robbed. The only make-believe was that two youths had climbed into her car on Sixty-fourth Street while she waited at a stoplight. They had forced her at gunpoint to drive to Harlem, where they had thrown her out of the car. She had been caught up in a rioting mob and arrested. Perfectly believable.

  Elliott drove his Lincoln Continental slowly through the unlit streets where looters were still on the rampage and intermittent fires burned. “What a hellhole!” he muttered. “Look at them—they’re like animals. Thank God you were arrested. It was probably safer than being out on these streets. Vermin!” he said emphatically. “They deserve everything they get.”

  Elliott had never been a liberal.

  A cold shiver ran through Carrie’s body when she considered the consequences of his ever finding out about her past.

  “What the fuck…?” exploded Gino, attempting to close the door.

  “An interview, Mr. Santangelo,” insisted a hoarse male voice, his foot blocking the door. “Please. Just a few questions.”

  Gino could make out the stewardess, Jill, and next to her some creep with a camera strung around his neck. They were both drunk, any idiot could see that.

  “You’d better both fuck on out of here,” Gino bellowed, “and get your fucking foot out of my door before I blow it off.”

  The jerk with the camera backed off. “I thought you said he’d cooperate,” he hissed angrily at Jill.

  She shrugged drunkenly. “I told you I’d bring you to him—didn’t say he’d give you a kiss an’ a cuddle.”

  The photographer tried once more. “Mr. Santangelo, talk to me now and you won’t have to talk to dozens of us tomorrow.”

  Gino slammed the door of his room. He was too old for this shit.

  Gino

  1937

  Initial thought. Kill.

  Blackness sweeping over him in uncontrollable waves.

  Pain, of course. But pain could be ignored.

  Slam bewigged maniac in balls with knee.

  Watch in slow motion as wig falls off and giant crumples.

  Respite temporary.

  Flowered housecoat leaping on his back.

  Black rage.

  Can feel blood oozing from wound.

  Sound comes from throat. Animal sound.

  Smash flowered housecoat against wall. Wild snarling teeth beneath lipstick.

  Kick.

  Smash.

  Both of them now.

  Reach for gun.

  Crushed beneath two of them.

  Pull trigger. Once. Twice.

  Dead weight slumped across him.

  Someone tearing at his face.

  Slashes down his cheeks. Nails gouging for his eyes.

  Pull trigger again.

  Just once.

  Bee slept soundly on one side of the large comfortable bed, her seven-year-old son, Marco, on the other.

  The knocking on her front door became part of her dream. She was in a boat, the sun was shining, then the shark—swimming right up toward the boat and knocking… knocking… knocking….

  She sat up in bed with a start. The knocking was for real. Quickly she glanced at her alarm clock. It was 2:30 A.M. She looked at Marco.

  He slept peacefully, thumb firmly in his mouth. Hurriedly she climbed out of bed, put on her housecoat, and padded barefoot to the door. “Who’s there?” she demanded in a furious whisper.

  “Let me in,” came the reply.

  A man’s voice which she almost recognized, but not quite. “Who is this?” she insisted.

  “Gino Santangelo.”

  Her stomach flipped. Hadn’t she scared him off the first time?

  “Open up… this fucking door,” he growled urgently.

  She was in two minds about what to do. Let him in and fight him off? Or not let him in and lose her job?

  She needed the job. Reluctantly she slipped the catch, but before she could pull the door open he fell into the apartment.

  “Oh, my God!” She stifled a scream. “What happened to you?”

  He was a mess of blood. It was everywhere. His face was a red mask, his jacket soaked through.

  For a moment she nearly panicked. But then good sense took over, and she half dragged him inside so that she could close the door properly.

  “Get me…a drink,” he groaned.

  “I—I don’t have anything,” she stammered.

  “Oh, yeh… I remember now.” He laughed feebly. “You’re… the… one with no booze….”

  “You need a doctor,” she said firmly. “Who shall I call?”

  He groaned. “Don’t… need… no doctors…. You can… take care of… me….”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes… you can…. It… ain’t… as bad… as it looks.”

  She pulled her housecoat tightly around her. What if he died? Here on her floor? “Have you been shot?” she asked timorously.

  “Stabbed,” he managed to say. “No… big deal. Help me get… clothes… off.”

  She thought about Marco asleep in the bedroom. “Mr. Santangelo,” she begged, “let me call someone. Mr. Dinunzio or your wife. They’ll know what to do. I—”

  “No phone calls,” he interrupted. “Five thousand bucks… says take care of me… an’ keep your mouth shut.”

  Five thousand dollars! She was already spending it! Marco’s education. New clothes for both of them. A small car. A vacation.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked quickly.

  Cindy woke early and was annoyed to see that Gino hadn’t even bothered to come home. “So what?” she muttered darkly to herself. It pleased her to know that regularly, every Friday, she would be getting a written report of her husband’s activities. When and if she decided to divorce him, she would be holding all the cards in the pack. Every little tramp he had ever shacked up with would be accounted for. She couldn’t help giggling aloud. Gino thought he was so smart. But she was smarter! It was a fact!

  She dressed carefully, curious about her lunch with Henry Moufflin Jr. Up to now she had faithfully adhered to Gino’s rule: No fuckin’ around while you’re married to me.

  Some rule. He did nothing but.

  Well, she had had enough. She had taken steps to protect herself and was all set to have herself one heck of a good time.

  If Gino didn’t like it, too bad.

  He came awake slowly, only too aware of the throbbing pain in his shoulder. His face felt like sandpaper as he reached up to touch it with his left hand. The fuckers had split open his old scar. The sheet around his shoulder was soaked in blood. In the clear light of day he realized that he was going to have to see a doctor and get himself stitched up.

  Wearily he tried to sit up, but black waves of pain hit him, and he lay back down. It was really a miracle that he had ever gotten out of Zefra Kincaid’s seedy little room alive. He had killed to do so. They would have killed him if he hadn’t.

  Goddamn it. Oswald Duke’s grisly task had been done. There was even an extra body thrown in for good luck.

  And the letters had been there, a bundle of ten or twelve hidden behind a pillow. Senator Duke’s distinctive handwriting on each and every one. Gino had stuffed them in his pocket and staggered from the apartment. A jazz session was still blasting forth from behind closed doors. Nobody had heard a thing. He had made it to his car; then, slumped behind the wheel, he had realized that driving all the way bac
k uptown was impossible. Fortunately he remembered the hostess with the clap, Bee. She lived nearby. Only a couple of streets away. He had managed to drive there.

  “Good morning,” Bee said gravely, entering the bedroom and hovering beside the bed. “How do you feel?”

  He remembered her kindness. Kindness that came with the promise of five thousand bucks. “Like I got ran over by a train.”

  “Hmmm.” She regarded him solemnly. If he could see himself he would realize just how true that statement was. Both his eyes were blackened and swollen. His face was gouged with scratches, the old scar split obscenely open, a lump of congealed blood holding it together. His lips were thick and puffy.

  She didn’t want to think about his shoulder wound. When she had cut off his jacket and shirt the previous night, blood had come pumping out in torrents, causing her to scream aloud in shock.

  Marco had run into the room. “Mommy! Mommy! Wassamatta? Who is this man?”

  Gino had looked at the boy, then back at her. He hadn’t said a word.

  “Just a friend of mommy’s, darling,” she soothed. “Go back to sleep.”

  The small boy had retreated uneasily. Later she had carried him to the couch and helped Gino into the bed. She had slept fitfully on a chair.

  In the morning she had hurried Marco off to school before he could ask any more questions. By the time he returned home in the afternoon, she hoped that Gino would be gone.

  “I want you t’make a coupla calls for me,” he mumbled.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Don’t say nuthin’ on the phone.”

  “I understand.”

  “Call Aldo. Tell him I need t’see him urgent, then give him your address.”

  “Right.”

  “Tell him to bring Doc Harrison.”

  She produced a slip of paper and wrote down the number he gave her. “You can depend on me.”

  And so he did. For the next ten days he depended on her entirely. She bathed him, fed him, waited on him day and night, and watched him recover.

  He had the strength of a horse. In ten days he was ready to go home. The doctor said it would have taken any other man weeks to get on his feet again. “You lost a massive amount of blood. Quite frankly you were lucky to survive.”

  Yeh. He was lucky, all right. Nobody knew the story of what had really happened that night. Not even Aldo. “I was visiting Bee,” Gino had told him, “an’ a coupla punks jumped me in the street. Didn’t even know who I was. Took my money an’ ran.”

  To Bee he gave no explanation at all, and she did not ask any questions. He liked that. They became friends in the ten days he was there. She was a great cook and played a mean game of cards. The kid was all right too, a tough little boy who entertained him with schoolboy jokes.

  “Where’s his old man?” Gino questioned one day.

  She blushed. “There never was one.”

  “Aw, c’mon. So you weren’t married. So what? There hadda be a guy.”

  “Yes. There was a guy. He was fifty-two, I was fifteen. Same old story. He raped me. He was a friend of my father so nobody believed me. I was thrown out of the house. I came to New York, and I’ve been here ever since.”

  “And y’made out O.K.”

  “I made out, let’s put it that way. And I kept my son. Corny, isn’t it?”

  “Sure. Truth always is.”

  He never touched her sexually, although when his strength came roaring back he was tempted.

  “You really had a dose?” he asked her one day.

  She smiled. “Nope. But I wanted to keep you off.”

  “Oh, yeh? Why?”

  “Because who needs to be another one of the girls?”

  He thought about grabbing her and tumbling her into bed with him. Then he thought again. They were friends, why spoil everything?

  The day after he left he sent her over an envelope. It contained fifteen thousand dollars and a scrawled note. The note said, You’ll make some poor sap one hell of a nurse! The five as promised—the ten to bank for Marco.

  She was overwhelmed. Gino Santangelo could do no wrong in her book. And she put to the back of her mind the double killing in her neighborhood that had taken place the very same morning that he had come staggering to her apartment covered in blood.

  First lunch with Henry Moufflin Jr. Fun.

  Second. Exciting.

  Third. Devastating.

  Fourth. A sexual coupling of intense proportions.

  Wow! Ecstasy! Henry Moufflin Jr. was in love, and Cindy was enjoying every minute of it.

  He was a rich society puppet who jumped whichever way she pulled the strings.

  He wanted to shower her with jewels and furs and gifts.

  He wanted to drown her with champagne and smother her with caviar.

  He wanted her to divorce Gino and marry him.

  She weighed up the pros and cons.

  Gino ignored her.

  Henry adored her.

  Gino screwed around.

  Henry would be forever faithful.

  Gino talked down to her.

  Henry put her on a pedestal.

  Gino had no class.

  Henry was loaded with it.

  Of course—

  Gino was rough and tough and good-looking.

  Henry was a bit of a wimp.

  Gino was powerful and had money.

  Henry just had the money.

  Gino—when he wanted to be—was a magnificent lover.

  Henry had a lot to learn.

  She could teach him. Why not? What fun to teach him what to do with his fingers and tongue and somewhat shaky erection.

  She made a decision—very much influenced by the fact that, according to Aldo, Gino had had to leave unexpectedly on a secret trip. And yet according to her detective’s report, Gino was holed up in some whore’s apartment down in the Village.

  She scanned the report one more time. It stated that Gino had visited two whores in the Village that night. One apparently was not enough for him any more. He had staggered out of the first building, drunk, and then gone on to another apartment, where he had liked the taste of pussy so much he had gone to ground. Bastard.

  Well, he wasn’t making a fool of her any more. She would divorce him and marry Henry.

  And the sooner the better.

  There were countless messages to contact Senator Duke waiting for Gino when he got home.

  Aldo drove him. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, but the maid was the only person waiting in the apartment.

  “Where’s Cindy?”

  Aldo shrugged and averted his eyes. He wasn’t going to be the one to tell Gino that his wife was running all over town with another guy. He would find out soon enough.

  “Hey,” Gino said to the maid, “where’s Mrs. Santangelo?”

  She jumped nervously. The sight of her master’s face was making her sick to her stomach. “I… I don’t know, sir. She left no message.”

  He scowled. “You tell her I was comin’ back today?” he asked Aldo.

  “Yes, I told her. Perhaps if you had telephoned yourself… she wasn’t too happy about you just takin’ off….”

  “The hell with what she wasn’t too happy about. She’s my wife, for crissakes, she should be here.”

  Aldo shuffled his feet uneasily. Maybe he’d better warn Gino about what was going on. “Listen—” he began.

  “I don’t feel so hot,” Gino interrupted. “I guess I’ll go to bed. You got all the figures for me?”

  Aldo nodded, dug into his inside pocket, and handed over a sheaf of papers.

  “Any news on The Boy?”

  “Nothing. He’s gone to the mattress. He’ll have to surface eventually. Don’t worry, we’ll get him.”

  “Who’s fucking worried?”

  Luncheon was delicious. Room service provided cold lobster, chilled champagne, and strawberries with cream.

  Henry Moufflin Jr. provided a suite full of red roses, some romantic music o
n the gramophone, and a small exciting black velvet box, which he would not let Cindy open until after lunch.

  “Oh, Henry!” she squealed, “you’re so mean to me!”

  He chortled happily. “And you are s-s-so very good to me, my darling.”

  She wolfed down the lobster, gulped the champagne, stuffed the strawberries one by one into her pert open mouth. “Now, honeybunch?” she asked excitedly. “Can cutsie pie open it now?”

  “Y-y-yes. Now.”

  Her big blue eyes sparkled as she grabbed for the small box like a hungry puppy getting hold of its first bone. She had lots of jewelry. But a girl could never have enough.

  She opened up the box and gasped. The sumptuous ring that rested proudly on a bed of black velvet knocked her eyes out. It was a huge ruby in an antique setting of diamonds and emeralds. Incredibly beautiful and lavish, it surpassed anything she owned.

  “Oh, my God, Henry!” she breathed softly. “Oh, my God!”

  “Do y-y-you like it?” he asked anxiously.

  “Like it? Like it? I’m nuts about it!” She leaped up and threw her arms around him, kissing him generously.

  He blushed with pleasure. It had not been easy extracting the family heirloom from the grasp of his patrician mother.

  Cindy slipped the ring on her finger and waved her hand in the air, admiring it.

  This action so excited Henry that he began to drag the clothes off his hairless body at full speed. Soon he stood before Cindy, naked, with a limp hard-on.

  She was still admiring the ring and trying to figure out how much it was worth.

  “Cindy,” Henry begged plaintively.

  She had forgotten he was even there. “Oops!” she exclaimed. “Is my baby Henry all ready for a little fun and games?”

  “Yes,” he said eagerly.

  “Well, my ickle bickle Henry is going to have to sit back an’ enjoy the show.” She pushed him down into a chair, adjusted the record until it was at the start, and to the strains of I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm began provocatively to remove her clothes.