Chances

  They faced each other across the principal’s office: the daughter on one side of the room, darkly defiant; the father on the other, darkly furious.

  The principal was speaking, her clear concise English accent cutting across the vibrations. “… So you see, Mr. Saint, it is not for us at L’Evier to punish such behavior. It is up to you as a parent to guide your daughter along the acceptable path of life. I do think….”

  He tuned out and studied Lucky, seeing her properly for the first time in years.

  She was tall, like her brother. When had she grown?

  She was slim, long-legged, and had the figure of a young woman. Her looks were striking. The deep olive skin, jet hair, huge broody eyes.

  She was him. Christ! There had always been a resemblance—Maria had called them the terrible twins—but now it was more than a resemblance. She was him. A female him.

  She was also a stranger. A young woman he didn’t know at all.

  And it was his fault. He had been so concerned with keeping Dario and her protected and away from him. He loved them both so much…. And yet he was frightened of the fact that this was so. He had purposefully withdrawn. Taken his love and run. Because he knew he could not handle a repeat of what had happened. He was strong but not that strong.

  Maria… Maria… Maria…. Jesus! How long did it take for the pain to leave? The gut-racking ache that greeted him every morning on waking. The nightmares. The futile hope that somehow someday she would come back. He had cast a bitter bloodbath of revenge. But revenge meant nothing, really.

  Across the room, Lucky studied her father equally intently. Why had he come? Why hadn’t he sent one of his lackeys? Quite frankly, she was amazed.

  Olympia and she had observed his arrival from their window.

  “Hey!” Olympia exclaimed. “It is your old man. I thought you said he wouldn’t come.”

  “I d-didn’t think he would,” Lucky stammered, completely thrown.

  “Well, he did…. Hmmm… he’s veree attractive, isn’t he?”

  Looking at her father across the room, Lucky tried to decide whether he was attractive or not. He didn’t look his age, that was for sure. He dressed impeccably. The three-piece dark suit, gleaming white shirt, silk tie. His black hair was thick and fashionably long around the collar of his shirt. The gray flecks suited him.

  As he stared she remembered the way he smelled, daddy smells. Oh, God! Why wasn’t she five again? Why couldn’t she throw herself into his arms and allow him to hug and squeeze her until she screamed for mercy?

  Her eyes filled with tears. Furiously she willed them to go away. How weak to cry. Who cared about getting slung out of school? She certainly didn’t.

  They were leaving the school, sitting side by side in the back of a chauffeured limousine, and not a word had been exchanged. As the car sped toward the airport, Lucky wished that Gino would say something. Was he very mad? She cleared her throat, thought she might say something herself, then changed her mind.

  The silence persisted all the way to the airport, all the way to the plane, all the way to New York.

  Once in New York they got off the plane, cleared customs, and walked out to the usual black limousine. She was surprised. She had expected to be loaded onto another plane and shipped straight off to Los Angeles and the privacy of Bel Air. Instead it was obvious she was to stay in New York—at least overnight—and that was exciting.

  The limousine took them to an exclusive apartment house on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park. Gino strode into the lobby, and she followed. Into the elevator, up twenty-six floors. Then they entered a duplex apartment that looked like something out of a Frank Sinatra movie. All chrome furniture, fur rugs, and mirrors. So this is where Gino lived in New York. Quite a place.

  “Hello, dear.”

  Someone was speaking to her at last! Aunt Jennifer, looking plump and motherly in a pink two-piece suit with pearls at her ears, around her neck, and on her wrists.

  Lucky felt her eyes filling with tears again. Shit! What kind of a stupid little crybaby was she turning into?

  Aunt Jennifer held out her arms, and she ran right into them. She was immediately enveloped in a cloud of perfume and comforting warmth.

  “Come on, dear. Let’s go in the bedroom and talk,” Aunt Jennifer said in a kindly tone. “There’s nothing better than a good talk to clear the air.”

  Covertly Gino watched Jennifer take Lucky off, and heaved a sigh of relief. Women. He had been dealing with them all his life. But Lucky wasn’t a woman. She was his daughter, for crissake. And by God if they had known who she truly was at that rat-assed fancy school he would have had to have found the horny little foreign creep who had forced his way into her room and strung him up by his dirty foreign balls.

  Lucky was a very striking girl—a fact he had only just realized. He had still thought of her as a kid, but no, she was of an age where horny little creeps—foreign or otherwise—would be after her body. She was fifteen, only a few months off sixteen. And who did she have to counsel and advise her? Certainly not him. Jennifer was the logical person to talk to her—and explain that if he, Gino, ever heard of a boy trying to take advantage of her again he would break his fucking head in—and hers.

  She was Gino Santangelo’s daughter, and by God she’d better learn what that meant.

  How easy it was to fool the grown-ups. Aunt Jennifer was a dear sweet woman, but she also had one foot in the Stone Age! Her dialogue was unbelievable. Words like modesty and self-respect and honor came pouring out of her gentle unrouged mouth like so much garbage. It soon became clear to Lucky what she wished to hear. What Big Daddy wished to hear. Yes, the boy had forced his way into her bed. But she had fought him off, protected her honor, and prayed for help, which had come in the shape of the gym teacher who had burst in and saved her… from a fate worse than death. Was she going too far? Aunt Jennifer didn’t seem to think so.

  Conveniently, the fact that she had been naked never came up. Nor the fact that Olympia had also had a boy in her bed.

  Whitewash was easy. Aunt Jennifer’s concerned and worried frown vanished in no time. “Your father will be so relieved,” she murmured. “Not that he ever doubted your… virginity.”

  Virginity! Aunt Jennifer! Really!

  “Where’s Marco?” Lucky inquired artlessly.

  “Marco?” Aunt Jennifer looked vague.

  “Daddy’s Marco,” Lucky replied impatiently. “ You know.”

  “No, I don’t.” Jennifer blinked very quickly several times. “Marco… Marco…. Ah, yes, Bee’s son.”

  Bee’s son? Who in hell was Bee? Lucky remained casual. “Yeh. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know, dear. In Los Angeles, I expect.” Funny how the girl sounded just like Gino on occasion—as well as looking exactly like him.

  End of conversation. Aunt Jennifer was ready to report to Big Daddy.

  “Hey,” Lucky asked anxiously, “am I going to be staying here?”

  Jennifer looked surprised. “Hasn’t your father told you? You’ve been enrolled in a private boarding school in Connecticut. You’ll be going there tomorrow.”

  “Oh!” She was deflated. No. Gino hadn’t told her. But that was just like her father, wasn’t it. Making his plans. Doing what he wanted. And forget about what she might want.

  A private boarding school in Connecticut. Shit! Double shit! Treble shit! The last thing she needed in her life was more school.

  “You’ll like it there, kid. They got swimmin’ an’ ridin’—y’like horses, don’t you?”Gino felt more easy in his daughter’s company now that Jen had assured him she was still his little girl.

  “Horses!” Lucky made a face. “I hate horses!”

  “Hey,” He picked up an embroidered linen table napkin and dabbed at his mouth. Goddamn asparagus. How many times had he told his fucking dumb cook he did not want asparagus served at his table? “Hate is a kinda strong way t’feel about horses. Y’know, man’s best friend an’ all that crap.
”

  “Dog is man’s best friend, father,” she said, putting on her grandest tone to try and make him feel small.

  “Money is man’s best friend, kid,” he corrected, having the last word as usual. “An’ don’t you forget it.”

  How she hated him. He was short, brash, badly spoken, coarse.

  How she loved him. He was handsome, macho, beautifully dressed, sexy.

  She picked disconsolately at an asparagus tip, licking the dripping butter with her tongue. “I was thinking,” she began tentatively.

  “Yeh?” He had half an eye on the television set, which he insisted was kept on at all times. A hangover from Marabelle Blue, perhaps?

  “Well, I mean… in a couple of months I’ll be sixteen. Why do I have to go back to school at all?”

  “Education can teach y’ a lot.” A horseracing result on the news grabbed his full attention.

  “Obviously,” she muttered.

  “Huh?”

  “I’d sooner not go back to school,” she said stubbornly.

  “Yeh?” He smiled lazily. “An’ what would you do all day?”

  “I could do all sorts of things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like be with you, go around with you, learn about all your businesses—things like that.”

  That jolted him. His eyes swiveled right off the television set full power onto her. A fifteen-year-old kid. A girl. Was she kidding? “I’m not joking,” she said sharply. “Isn’t that what kids are supposed to do, take an interest in the family business?”

  She had to be putting him on, making some sort of obscure teenage joke. He wished Jen and Costa had been able to stay for dinner, it would have made things much easier. “Listen, you’ll finish school, go on to college, meet some guy an’ get married. Sounds good to me.”

  She narrowed her deadly black Santangelo eyes and spat boldly, “Sounds lousy to me.”

  He fixed her with a killer. “Don’t develop a smart mouth, kid. You’ll do as I say, an’ one of these days you’ll thank me.”

  She glared at him.

  “I never had no fancy education,” he lectured. “Foreign schools an’ the whole bit. I was out bustin’ my ass to earn a buck long before I was your age—so just you remember how fortunate you are.” As he said the words he remembered Maria lying in the hospital after their daughter’s birth. So pale and soft and beautiful.

  He remembered the day they had named the child: Lucky. Christ! If only he could bring Maria back. If only…

  “New girl…. New girl…. New girl.” The words were hissed wherever she went. A fine private boarding school in Connecticut—more like a fine private jail—with uniforms, and guards masquerading under the title of teachers, and uptight snotty schoolgirls whom Lucky hated on sight.

  After two days she knew she had to get out.

  After a week she knew it was a necessity.

  She had a list of telephone numbers for Olympia, and on the pretext of phoning Gino she cut math and tracked her friend down.

  Olympia was in Paris, staying at her father’s house on the Avenue Foch taking a Russian language course. “I’m so bored!” she screamed down the phone. “Can you imagine the kind of people studying Russian! Yuck!”

  “I would say it’s certainly better than being stuck in this dump,” Lucky groaned. “I’ve got to get out. Any ideas?”

  “Yes,” Olympia replied crisply. “Hop a plane and come join me. We’ll pinch one of daddy’s cars and zip on down to the south of France. It’ll be ab…so… lutely marvie! Are you game?”

  “Oh, sure. And just suppose I could get out of here, what would I use for money? I have exactly twenty-three dollars and fifteen cents.”

  “No problem,” said Olympia gaily. “This place is crawling with telex machines. All I have to do is put an order through for a ticket to be left for you at Kennedy. We’ll use my name. You get out of there, I’ll do the rest. You got your passport?”

  “Sure.”

  They talked for a few more minutes, making plans, and by the time Lucky replaced the receiver she was as convinced as Olympia that it would be easy. And it was.

  She slipped out of the school at dawn the next day, hitched a series of rides to the airport, picked up a ticket at the Pan American desk for Miss Olympia Stanislopoulos, and by noon she was on her way.

  Upon arrival at Orly airport she telephoned Olympia as agreed, who squealed with delight and told her to just hang on until she was able to get there.

  Three hours later they were on their way to the Côte d’Azur, Olympia driving a snappy white Mercedes convertible.

  “Je… sus!” she exclaimed happily. “This is the most fun I’ve had all year! One thing about you, Santangelo—chicken shit you ain’t!”

  Lucky grinned. “It was easy!”

  “Told you it would be.” Olympia swerved to avoid a scraggly cat as the powerful car zoomed through the outskirts of Paris. “Did you leave the notes I mentioned?”

  “One to Gino, one to the school. Very sincere garbage all about how I needed time to think things out, not to worry, and that I was on my way to L.A.”

  “Beautiful!! By the time they figure things out we’ll be long gone and having a wonderful time.” She reached into her purse and popped a strong Gitane cigarette into her mouth. “I told the housekeeper here that I had to go see my mother. The old crow hardly speaks a word of English—besides which, she can’t stand the sight of me and was de-light-ed to observe my departure. We’re on our own, babe! Let’s have incredible fun!”

  Gino

  1966

  Power. It was important. Very. When you had it, it was never enough. There was always something missing. Another pinnacle to climb…. The perfect deal….

  Often Gino wondered why he worked so hard. Running here, there, and everywhere, putting people in his pocket, storing favors….

  “You got legitimate power and clout,” his dear friend Costa had told him on countless occasions. “Why not stay on the legit end of things?” Costa held the license for the Mirage, which was making a bundle. But he was a lawyer, with a lawyer’s mind. He always wanted to take the easy way. Pay the fifty-dollar fine and keep your hands clean. Poor old Costa. Always fighting. Always warning. But happy enough to become a millionaire many times over.

  The casino/hotel in the Bahamas, opened two years previously and called the Princess Saint, was doing pretty good too. Then there were the gambling interests in Europe. And the rest.

  Yes. Business was booming. Bank accounts all over the world. Money sent out of the country, laundered, sent back clean. Invested. Put into trust funds. New businesses.

  Gino enjoyed his life. It was a good life. A little aggravation here and there. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

  He had ridden through the bad times virtually unscathed. First the Dewey Commission in the thirties. Then the Kefauver Committee, set up to investigate organized crime in 1950. More recently Bobby Kennedy in the early sixties as Attorney General determined to investigate every aspect of criminal activities, and then Valachi—a small-time hood, singing his guts out about who did what to whom, with times and places and dates.

  Gino honored the silence of being connected and never opened his mouth. The authorities were unable to ever pin anything on him. He walked free. He had the luck, as Aldo put it. Aldo, not in good health now, virtually retired, helping his wife at Riccaddi’s.

  Gino had an idea. A plan. A dream, really.

  He wanted to build the biggest, most luxurious, most beautiful hotel that Las Vegas had ever seen.

  Since the birth of The Boy’s dream child, the Mirage, Las Vegas had grown beyond recognition. Compared to some of the newer establishments, such as Caesar’s Palace, the Mirage was a toilet. Oh, a fancy toilet—with its own faithful following—but still a toilet. Gino wanted bigger and better. He wanted to put up a hotel that would leave his mark on the city. Something special that would get talked about worldwide.

  He had found a site and was now i
n the process of discussing ideas with various architects. “It’ll cost a fortune,” Costa had groaned, when Gino first mentioned it. “And the headaches! My God! Building costs are going up every day, and we’ll have to put a syndicate together, and who’s going to want to put in money and wait years to get anything back? And the tax people are breathing down your neck as it is.”

  Sometimes Costa was an old woman. Gino would build the finest hotel in the world. It would be called the Magiriano. A combination of Maria and Gino. A fitting tribute to their love.

  With Lucky packed off to school once more, Gino did not linger in New York.

  Connecticut. Good choice. Lucky would soon settle down. Recommended by Peter Richmond’s wife, Betty, a horsy woman with an abundance of good breeding and charm. “We sent Loretta there before college, she praised it to the skies,” Betty assured him, talking of her eldest daughter.

  Idly, Gino wondered what it would be like to sleep with a woman like Betty Richmond. He couldn’t imagine it. Naked she must be bonier than a leg of lamb. He could understand why Peter Richmond had enjoyed the soft womanly curves of Marabelle Blue.

  The two men had become friends of sorts. A discreet friendship, of course. Nothing public. But there were so many favors Gino was able to put the Senator’s way. Little favors. Big favors. Always discreet favors.

  Gino enjoyed doing them. It always pleased him to cultivate friends from a different social level. Besides which, he knew quite certainly that one day Senator Peter Richmond was going to be a very important man indeed.

  From New York he flew directly to Washington. He was a weekend houseguest on the Richmonds’ Georgetown estate, the first time he had been accorded that privilege. Of course he knew why they had asked him. Betty Richmond was planning a gala evening for one of her many charities, and she wanted him to offer her the use of the Mirage for the night.

  He knew, but he wasn’t letting on. If Betty Richmond wanted she was going to have to ask. “Yes,” he would say. “Of course, my dear, of course. How could I ever turn you down?”