‘Honey—you look so funny in that apron,’ Mary Ann trilled. She was allowed in the kitchen only as long as she promised not to interfere. ‘Don’t you want Little Mama to help you?’
Little Mama was the nickname Enzio used for her. She was unaware of the fact it had also been the pet name of every girl before her.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘What you can do, Little Mama, is you can bring me some more vino. Pronto!’
Mary Ann obliged and then perched on the edge of the kitchen table, swinging her long legs back and forth. She was wearing an extremely tight dress cut very low in front. Enzio chose her clothes, and they were always of the same style. She was not allowed to wear pants, shirts, or anything casual. Enzio liked her to look sexy.
Mary Ann didn’t mind. Life was certainly a lot better with Enzio than it had been before, and she catered to his every need. After all, Enzio Bassalino was a very important man, and she was thrilled and honored to be with him.
‘Taste this.’ Proudly he offered her a spoonful of the steaming, rich meat sauce.
Dutifully she opened her mouth. ‘Ouch, Noonzi, it’s hot!’ She pouted. ‘You’ve burned your Little Mama.’
Enzio roared with laughter. He was celebrating. Tonight he would laugh at anything.
‘Sometimes you’re really nasty.’ Mary Ann lapsed into baby talk. ‘Why you so mean to your rickle lickle girlie?’
‘Ha!’ he said with a snort. ‘You don’t even know what mean is.’ He dipped his finger in the bubbling sauce, licked it approvingly, and added more wine. ‘You’re a cute girl,’ he said condescendingly. ‘Stay that way and you’ll be all right. Okay, Little Mama?’
She giggled happily. ‘Okay, Big Daddy.’
In his own peculiar way he was quite fond of Mary Ann. She was dumber than most broads and never asked any questions. She was also stacked just the way he liked, and obliging. Nothing was ever too much trouble.
Enzio hated the usual routine. They moved in, and within weeks they thought they owned you. Broads! They asked questions, got nosy, and sometimes had the nerve to plead a headache when he wanted to make love. Enzio was very proud of the fact that even now, aged sixty-nine, he could still get it up once or twice a week. Often he thought about the times when it was once, twice, or even three or four times a night. What a stud he had been! What a magnificent stallion!
Now it was up to his sons to carry on the Bassalino tradition with women. And he had three of them, three fine young men of whom he was more than proud. They were his life. Through them the name of Bassalino would remain a force to be reckoned with. And when he became old, really old, they would be there to protect him as he had protected them.
It was a good job they had not taken after their mother. Rose was crazy, as far as Enzio was concerned, locked up in her room, spying, only speaking to her sons when they visited. She had been there for seventeen years. Ah… seventeen years of trying to break his balls, trying to make him feel the guilt.
But her little game hadn’t worked with him. He refused to feel guilty about anything. Let her be the one to suffer. It was all her fault anyway. What he did was his business, and she had no right to interfere.
In his heyday Enzio Bassalino had acquired the nickname of The Bull. This was on account of his habit of mounting every agreeable female who crossed his path. One day, while dallying with the wife of a friend of his known as Vincent the Hog, he’d received his one and only bullet wound. ‘Right up the ass,’ the story went. ‘Vincent the Hog caught them at it and shot him right up the ass.’
Fortunately for Enzio that story wasn’t strictly true. Vincent the Hog had shot him, all right, but the bullet had landed in a fleshy part of his posterior and not caused any real damage. All the same, Enzio was hardly pleased. After the incident Vincent the Hog had suffered a series of mishaps beginning with his house burning down and ending with his being fished out of the river on the other end of a concrete block.
Enzio did not take kindly to ridicule, and the story of his being shot had caused many an unwelcome snigger.
Shortly after that he met and married Rose Vacco Morano, the daughter of a friend. She was slim and proud-faced, with the fragile Madonna quality of a young Italian virgin. Enzio was smitten the first time he saw her and wasted no time in asking her to marry him. It didn’t take him long to plan an elaborate wedding. Rose wore white lace, and Enzio a shiny black morning suit, white shoes, gloves, and a red carnation. He figured he looked pretty dapper.
On their wedding day Rose was just eighteen and Enzio thirty-three.
They became a popular couple, Rose soon shrugging off her quiet upbringing and joining in the more flamboyant life-style of her husband. She had no desire to become a housewife, stay at home, and involve herself in cooking, children, and church activities. When she dutifully gave birth to their first son, Frank, the baby was left at home with a nanny while Rose continued to spend all her time out and about with Enzio. Rose Bassalino was a woman born before her time.
Enzio didn’t mind; in fact, he was delighted. His wife was turning into a beautiful, smart woman, and Enzio knew he was much envied. While other men left their wives at home and took their girlfriends to the racetracks, bars, and clubs, Enzio brought Rose. She became one of the boys, their friend and confidante, and everyone loved her.
Enzio often marveled at his luck in finding such a gem. Rose satisfied him in every way and even found time to present him with a second son, Nick, three years after the birth of Frank.
What a woman! Enzio kept no secrets from her. She knew all about his business activities, and as he grew more successful, took over more territory, knocked out more rivals, she was right there helping him. On more than one occasion she was at his side when he dealt out his particular form of justice to people who had double-crossed him. ‘My Rose has more balls than most men,’ he proudly boasted. ‘She’s one fine woman.’
Nobody argued.
Rose had many admirers, and Enzio knew it. It puffed him up with pride. She was his wife, and nothing could change that.
When Angelo, their third son, was born, Rose finally decided she should spend more time at home. Frank was twelve and Nick nine, and they needed attention. Enzio agreed. There was no point in her accompanying him on the short trips to Chicago and the Coast. Now they had a beautiful mansion on Long Island, and it was only right that Rose should spend more time with the children and enjoy it.
She persuaded him that maybe they should enlarge their circle of friends, as, after all, most of the people they saw were involved in the rackets, and Rose thought it might be a good idea to have a different group around for a change. There was an actor and his wife who owned an estate close by, and soon Rose started inviting them over. A banking family came next, and then Charles Cardwell, a cash-poor snob who lingered at the bottom of high society. Gradually Rose surrounded them with new people, until eventually all the old faces were squeezed out.
By the time Enzio decided he didn’t like it, it was too late. His business trips became longer; he acquired a small apartment in New York, plus a stream of whorish girlfriends. ‘Dumbheads,’ he called them. He still adored Rose, but she had changed, and he couldn’t understand why.
One night he returned home hours before she expected him. He wanted to surprise her; it was the week of their twenty-first wedding anniversary, and he thought they might talk, try to work things out. He wanted to explain how he wasn’t happy. Maybe make an attempt to recapture the closeness they’d once shared.
At thirty-nine Rose was still a fiercely attractive woman. Her hair was a thick swirl of bluish-black, her dark complexion unlined, and her figure the same girlish shape he had married.
She greeted him coldly. ‘I want a divorce,’ she said. ‘I’m going to marry Charles Cardwell. I know about your apartment, your street whores, and I want to be free of you.’
Enzio listened in amazement. Charles Cardwell was twenty-six years old, his parents had money, but he had a long wait before he inher
ited a dime.
Enzio was calm. ‘Have you slept with him?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ Rose replied defiantly. She never lied. The woman didn’t know what fear was.
Enzio nodded thoughtfully and agreed to her requests. Satisfied, she went to bed.
For a while he sat in his favorite armchair and gazed into space. Eventually he made some phone calls, and later that night Charles Cardwell was brought to the house.
He was a pale young man, obviously shaken and frightened of his escort—four of Enzio’s most trusted lieutenants. He smiled weakly at Enzio. ‘Now listen,’ he began. ‘Let me explain—’
Enzio ordered his mouth taped, his arms and legs tied.
They carried him up to Rose’s bedroom like a side of beef.
She awoke with a start and stared at the helpless figure of her lover. Then her eyes shifted to Enzio. Despairingly she shook her head, well aware of her husband’s brand of justice.
He took her from the bed and held her so she couldn’t move, only watch. And then the knives came out.
Charles Cardwell was sliced to death in front of her.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was not easy for Lara to extract herself from the prince. They had been together constantly for six months, and he was possessive, suspicious—and most of all, hotly jealous.
When she told him she had to leave immediately for New York, he jumped to the only conclusion possible for his mind to reach. ‘Who is he? What has he got to offer you that I cannot give you? I demand you tell me his name.’
‘It’s not a man,’ Lara explained patiently. ‘It’s a family situation.’
‘But you have no family, Lara, you always told me that,’ he stated petulantly.
She nodded. ‘I know, but I do have these distant relatives in America.’ A pause. ‘I have a half sister named Beth, and she needs me.’
‘A half sister!’ Prince Alfredo shouted. ‘You can’t just acquire a stepsister.’ He stamped around angrily. ‘I know it’s a man, Lara. I know. You cannot lie to me.’
Her mind was on more important things.
‘Oh, please!’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘Think what you like. I have to leave, and that’s that.’
‘Then I will come with you.’
‘I don’t want you to.’
‘I must insist.’
‘No, Alfredo.’
‘Yes, Lara.’
They argued some more until at last he left and she was able to finish packing. It was a relief to be rid of him; the man was impossible. Why was she wasting her time?
Lara Crichton always got first-class service wherever she went. Young, gorgeous, the ex-wife of one of the richest men in London, she was truly one of what the press referred to as ‘the beautiful people.’ Constantly featured in the glossy fashion magazines as a shining example of jet-set glamour, she epitomized all that Margaret Lawrence Brown was against.
It would have been a journalistic scoop for someone to discover that they were in fact half sisters, sharing the same father with different mothers.
For individual reasons, as each reached personal fame, they felt no need to reveal the fact to anyone. They had been raised in different countries; their whole lives were completely alien to each other. Occasionally they met, and there was a true warmth between them, a love that crossed their very obvious differences. They understood each other and never criticized the other’s way of life.
Their father, Jim Lawrence Brown, had never married either of their mothers. Margaret was five when her mother died, and Jim had moved on, taking the child with him to California. There he met a married woman separated from her husband. Jim and Margaret moved in with her, and eventually the woman gave birth to Lara. A year later, when she and her husband decided to get back together, they gave Jim the child and six thousand dollars to move on again. The money tempted him. He didn’t argue.
With the cash he bought an old car and trailer, which served as a sort of home. At seven years of age Margaret was completely in charge of one-year-old Lara.
Jim was a natural drifter; he was always in a dream, playing his guitar, chasing pretty women, or sleeping. He drove them to Arizona, where they stayed on a farm owned by a widow named Mary Chaucer. She took care of Lara and insisted Margaret start school. ‘The girl is very bright,’ she told Jim. ‘Advanced for her years. She must have an education.’
After a while Jim began to get restless. He had been far too long in the same place, only now he was tied by two children, and it was a responsibility he wasn’t up to. Lara often thought that was why he must have decided to marry Mary Chaucer. She was older than he, a plump, smiling lady who never complained.
Exactly one month after their marriage, Jim took off, leaving nothing more than a scrawled note instructing Mary to look after his kids.
Margaret was nine. She was the one who found his note. It was a coward’s note, full of apologies and five hundred dollars.
Eight months after his departure Mary gave birth to Jim’s third daughter, Beth, a child he never even knew existed.
After that things were different. With no man around, work at the farm became slapdash and unorganized. Mary was always tired and sick. The baby wore her out. Money started to run short, as did the once-smiling Mary’s temper. Margaret was packed off to boarding school, while Lara was sent to relatives of Mary’s in England. They did not see each other again for ten years, by which time Margaret was attending college on a scholarship and Lara was doing well as a teen model in London.
Beth, now ten, lived with Mary in a small apartment. She went to school while Mary worked.
Margaret wanted to help them, but it was hard enough managing to pay for her own education—an education she was determined to have.
At sixteen Lara was quite beautiful, natural, with none of the polish she later acquired. She was happy living in England; in fact, to Margaret she seemed almost completely English—accent and all. They spent a weekend together in New York and the closeness of their early years was still there.
Time went by and they went their separate, highly individual ways. Occasionally they wrote or phoned. But the need for contact was not there; there was a deeper bond of love and security.
Mary Chaucer died of cancer when Beth was fifteen, and although both her sisters invited her to come and live with them, she preferred a more independent life and went off to a hippie commune with her boyfriend, Max.
Margaret didn’t object. She was already launched on an equality-for-women project. Her first book, Women—The Unequal Sex, was about to be published. Her star was beginning to shine.
In London Lara met and married Jamie P. Crichton, whose father happened to be one of the richest men in England—and Jamie was his only heir. Unfortunately, their marriage did not last longer than a year, however, it was long enough to establish Lara as a personality in her own right. The gossip columns hardly went to press without carrying her picture or some anecdote about what she was wearing or doing, or with whom she had been seen. Lara became the darling of life in the fast lane.
* * *
The shooting of Margaret Lawrence Brown made headlines, but the photographers still turned out at Kennedy Airport to welcome Lara Crichton.
She posed briefly in her Yves Saint Laurent suit and big hat, her cool green eyes hidden behind fashionably large sunglasses, Gucci bracelets jangling alongside her black-faced Cartier watch.
‘What are you here for, Miss Crichton?’asked an inquisitive reporter.
‘Business,’ she replied, unsmiling. ‘Personal business.’
There was a limousine waiting for her. With a deep sigh she sat back and tried to relax.
Margaret was dead.
Margaret had been murdered.
Oh, God! Why?
In excruciating detail she remembered her last meeting with her sister. Visiting New York for two days of concentrated shopping, she’d almost skipped phoning her. But then she’d called, and as usual Margaret invited her over. She’d fitted the visit in between lunch
at ‘21’ and a hair-streaking session at Vidal’s.
Margaret had greeted her in her usual outfit of faded jeans and worn shirt. The perennial blue-tinted shades she wore to help her eyesight covered her eyes, and her long hair was unkempt. Naturally she had no makeup on her striking face.
Lara tut-tutted. ‘If you bothered,’ she said, ‘you could look really ravishing.’
Margaret laughed. ‘Do you realize how much time you waste plastering yourself with stupid crap?’ she asked good-naturedly.
‘Don’t knock it. I’m getting a directorship of a big makeup company,’ Lara said firmly. I’ll send you a crate of perfumes, lipsticks, glosses, all sorts of things. You’ll love it.’
‘No way, kid!’ Margaret replied. ‘You might think you need it. But honey-pie—I don’t give a damn.’
‘Well, you should,’ Lara said primly.
‘Says who?’
‘Says me.’
Margaret smiled. She had a wonderful smile; it lit up a room. ‘What’s happening in your life, baby sister?’ she asked, full of warm concern.
Without further prompting Lara launched into a full discussion of what was going on. Margaret fixed her a drink, and they sat down in the cluttered apartment, and she let it all come out. She always did with her sister; it was better than going to an analyst.
Without pause she’d talked about her problems for over an hour. Was Prince Alfredo the one? Should she sell some of her blue-chips? What did Margaret think of her new emerald ring?
Boring small chat. Looking back, Lara shuddered. She’d never asked Margaret about herself. She’d never bothered to discuss any of her sister’s burning causes, even though she knew how important they were to her.
How narrow she must have seemed. How selfish and completely involved with herself. And yet Margaret listened patiently, as if she had all the time in the world. She always did.
Why was it you always found out how much you needed someone just when it was too late?