Eamonn shot him in the back of his head five times, leaving blood and bone and brains all over the white damask covers. Afterwards Petey removed his balls with the box cutter then, whistling, they made their way back down to their car.
As they pulled away, Eamonn said: ‘You’re really delivering his balls?’
‘Too right I am,’ Petey sniggered. ‘These,’ he held up the bloody handkerchief with pride, ‘are worth over two hundred thousand dollars. We made a big fucking killing today, in more ways than one. We’ll deliver these, have a late lunch, and then get out to do anything else that’s on the agenda.’
Eamonn nodded his satisfaction with this suggestion. ‘All in a day’s work, eh?’
They were still laughing as they drove away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Deirdra Mahoney was seventeen, pleasantly plump, with slanting green eyes and deep red hair, this being her crowning glory. Long and thick with a natural curl, it shone with gold lights and hung like a curtain down her back.
Deirdra knew that if her legs were short and chubby, and her breasts just a little too small, her glorious hair compensated for these deficiencies.
Unlike her six siblings, she knew her failings and worked on her good points. She was polite and quiet before her mother, deferential to her father, Jack, biding her time until Eamonn Docherty asked for her hand. He had been with her father for a year now, and had worked his way up to a very good position. She was certain he would. She had made it quite plain that it was what she was expecting; made it quite plain too that if he didn’t toe the line in that respect, she would see her father and let him have the final word.
Once Deirdra had her man, she would finally have a life. A real life, one where she could be mistress of her own house, and have a car and some fun.
Jack Mahoney had his daughters watched like hawks, and this depressed her greatly. All the other girls at school had had some kind of sexual experience by now; all except her. She’d had to pretend - make something up. It didn’t occur to her that maybe a lot of her schoolfriends had made up their stories as well.
She ran her hands lightly over her soft breasts and felt a tingling there. She wanted, needed, a man’s hands on them. Sex was constantly on her mind; it was like a drug and she was obsessed by it.
‘Deirdra, what on earth are you doing?’
She was brought back to reality by her mother’s voice. Crossing her fingers, she answered lightly: ‘Just looking out of the window, Ma. Watching the world go by.’
Maire Mahoney came into her eldest daughter’s room. She straightened a pillow on the bed and smoothed the pink silk counterpane.
‘Sure I wish you wouldn’t sit on the bed, girl, you crease everything so.’ It was a reprimand given daily and ignored daily. ‘Would you not come down and play with the other girls?’ Maire’s voice was hesitant.
Deirdra laughed gently. ‘I’m seventeen, Ma, I don’t want to
play
any more. Did you ask Daddy about me going to the movies with Eamonn?’
Maire smiled then, making her prematurely aged face light up, showing an onlooker the beauty that had once been hers.
‘Sure, you know you can go, girl, your father’s over the moon about the two of yez. He’s a good Irish Catholic. Jasus, there’s enough of them in New York, I admit, but this one is more our kind.’ She hesitated a few seconds before saying: ‘Well, more your father’s kind. He dotes on him. Talks about him all the time. Jasus, you’d think Jack was in love with him instead of you.’
Deirdra laughed with her mother. It was her father’s liking for Eamonn that had made her determined to go for the handsome young man, rather than his obvious charms. She was in with a chance with Eamonn Docherty because her father knew and trusted him.
One thing she vowed: when she got him, there would not be one pink thing in her house. It would all be leather and glass, like the pictures in the magazines she studied.
‘I just wanted to make sure it was OK with Dada before I went out, that was all,’ she said humbly now.
Maire’s face softened as she looked at her daughter. ‘It’s a good girl you are. I’m a lucky woman, even if I haven’t a son to me name.’
Deirdra looked out of the window and Maire knew she was being in effect dismissed so left the room and her strange self-contained daughter. Only in her darker moments did she privately admit that getting the girl married and out of the house was in fact a pleasant prospect. Deirdra unnerved people, her sisters especially, and worst of all she unnerved her own mother.
Maria Castellano was listening to her husband’s remarks with only half an ear. He bored her when he insisted on giving her the lowdown on everything he did. As she made herself a Spritzer she nodded her head, making her waist-length hair ripple. Her husband watched her fondly. She was exquisite. Perfect.
He loved her so very much.
John Castellano was a minor Capo in the New York Italian community. His father-in-law was a ‘made man’, meaning he was sworn into Cosa Nostra. It grieved John that he had not been put forward to be made, but he accepted the fact as he knew he had to. Maria’s father was Paul Santorini. He ran a few teamsters, mainly in the construction business, made sure that the sites ran smoothly and that there was no need of a ‘foreman’ to oversee non-union workers. He took kickbacks and dealt in heroin. He loved only two things in his life: his wife and his daughter.
Maria knew her father had been amazed and a little upset over her choice of husband, but as she got everything she wanted, she got John. It had taken her just a week to tire of the muscle-bound mouse to whom she was shackled. But her father and mother would not hear of divorce, so she was stuck with him. For the time being at least. Her father had hinted that at a later date the marriage might be terminated, leaving her a grieving widow?
Maria had a natural Sicilian aptitude for the Mafia lifestyle. Death was nothing to her; she was a devout Catholic who believed that anything confessed was immediately forgiven and a place in Heaven assured. She used this as a sop to her conscience, and as a good way to do what she liked, when she liked.
She also used her father, her mother, and anyone else she happened to think could further her aims.
Maria’s problem was she liked men too much, something her father had worried about when she was younger. She was currently embroiled in an affair with an Irishman - a big handsome gangster type from the Lower East Side. She knew her father would go ape shit if he found out, and that her husband John would kill the man without a second thought if he learned the truth.
It was a very exciting situation, and Maria milked it for all it was worth.
She had even invited her lover to the Ravenite Club in Little Italy. This was a known haunt of the Mafia and she’d wanted to be seen in there. The man reluctantly accompanied her and then fucked her rigid, all the while telling her she was a spoilt bitch.
Nevertheless Maria was falling in love with him and she was frightened and exhilarated by that fact. He was the first person ever to affect her. The first person to touch a chord inside her, deep inside, where her heart lay. He was the first man ever to tell her to shut her mouth. The first man to take her without asking her whether it was OK. The first man who had no fear of her father.
As she looked at her husband and waited for him to go to the club where he worked, she felt like laughing. He was a fool, a stupid ignorant Sicilian peasant. Dio! What on earth had she ever seen in him?
As John walked from the apartment, she kissed him on the lips. It was a wifely, lingering kiss which she knew would arouse him. She knew how much he wanted, needed and loved her, and that was the problem. Once she had her man, Maria didn’t want him any more. It was the chase she craved, the need to conquer. But right now, she was expecting a visitor.
Eamonn Docherty found her naked and yielding as always. He let himself into the apartment with his own keys and went straight to the large bedroom where she lay sprawled awaiting him, sipping a glass of ice-cold champagne and stroking herself in anticipation.
Laughing, he took her there and then. Maria blew his mind. She also blew his cock - a pastime they both enjoyed.
Maria was snoring gently, her hair fanned out around her, making her look unusually vulnerable. Eamonn stared down at her in awe. She was gorgeous. He sighed and dressed quickly, his movements sure and deft after months of visiting this apartment. He could move around in the dark if he had to.
Maria opened one eye as he kissed her gently on the lips.
‘I have to get going.’
Hazy with champagne and sex, she squinted at the bedside clock and said petulantly: ‘It’s only eleven, John won’t be home for hours.’
‘I have a bit of business to attend to.’ His voice was firm, brooking no argument.
She knew by his tone of voice that it was useless to argue further with him. Instead she pouted sexily. ‘Tomorrow?’ Her voice was soft.
Eamonn knew how to play her games. He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
He strolled complacently from the apartment building, unaware of the two men watching from the car parked outside, too busy thinking about what he had to do. Maria was already forgotten.
The two men observed him hail a cab, and then followed him to Brannigan’s Bar in Brooklyn. Stationing themselves across the street, they continued their surveillance.
As he walked inside, Eamonn was greeted by one and all before disappearing up a small flight of stairs. The men settled down for a long wait.
Paul Santorini listened to the two men before him with a mixture of interest and boredom. A small man, he dressed well, looked older than his years and had a razor-sharp mind.
His right-hand man, Ralph Borgatto, listened with more apparent interest. Ralph knew he would be expected to comment and that would take his considerable skills as a diplomat. He would have to agree that Maria was a whore, though one who looked like a madonna. He would be asked for his advice, and had to try and gauge his boss’s own opinion from the few words he spoke now.
‘He definitely has keys to the apartment, Mr Santorini. The janitor saw him let himself in. If John ever finds out . . .’ the informant told him.
Paul Santorini held up his hand and said forcefully: ‘When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it, OK? Just tell me where the lowlife went afterwards.’
The bigger man paled at his boss’s words. ‘He went to Brannigan’s, up to the offices of the loan-sharking company he owns. From there he went to his fiancée’s house. She’s Deirdra Mahoney, one of Jack Mahoney’s daughters. He got there pretty late, but she was up and opened the door to him herself. There was some kind of party going on, I think.’
Paul dismissed the men and turned to his friend and confidant, Ralph.
‘What do you think, eh? I give her the best education that money can buy. I give her the husband she wants. I give the whore everything she wants. Now she’s stupping an Irishman. If she wasn’t my daughter, by the word of God Himself, I would break her face.’
Ralph sighed. His great head was covered in thick curly hair, and he had the olive skin and Roman nose of his forefathers. He looked as if he should be a shepherd on a mountainside, even in his thousand-dollar suit. His hands were huge, and he frequently joked he could strangle a man with just one of them. No one who knew him disputed this.
‘Paul, can I be frank here?’
The older man nodded almost imperceptibly, which meant Ralph could be as honest as he liked as long as he told his boss exactly what he wanted to hear.
Taking a deep breath, he plunged in. ‘I think we should let someone speak to her husband in private. That way, he’ll sort it out. It’s a matter of honour. You can bet your life that this Docherty knows who she is and exactly who he’s dealing with. Word on the street about him is good. If he was one of us, he’d be a made man by now.’
Paul nodded. ‘I know what you’re saying. If only she could have found herself the Italian equivalent, I’d be a happy man. I mean, if she had a child with this man it would be Irish, for Christ’s sakes! If her mother knew it would break her heart.’
‘Shall I get someone to speak to John or what?’ Ralph urged gently.
Santorini lit himself a Havana cigar. Coughing, he said, ‘Yeah, get the fucking ball rolling. It’s a crying shame, though. From what I’ve heard, Docherty’s a good guy.’ He puffed on a cigar for a few moments before adding: ‘For an Irish prick.’
Ralph agreed and poured them both a large Grappa. ‘We’ll get trouble from the Mahoneys over this, you realise that?’ he commented. ‘He’s marrying one of Jack’s daughters.’
Paul shrugged. ‘So be it. I’ll explain the circumstances if I have to. A man with as many daughters as Jack will be understanding, I know. If he isn’t, I’ll have his fucking brains blown out.’
‘Whatever you say, Paul.’
Santorini knocked back his drink and said reflectively, ‘You know the strange thing? I would have let her marry this Irishman if she had met him first. That’s how much I love her. After this, though, I’ll find her a husband who’ll keep her occupied. I’ll find her a man with the biggest
cajones
this side of the Hudson. I’ll have her serviced morning, noon and night until she’s pregnant and cowed. Look through the ranks and find me a real good-looking foot soldier. One who’s known for womanising and charm as well as everything else. I’ll give the bitch her match physically, then sit back and wait for grandchildren.’
The two men laughed at how easy everything was going to be, how clever they both were to have this thing sewn up.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eamonn’s eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. He glanced at himself in the mirror of the washroom and grimaced. His mouth tasted foul and he knew his breath was in danger of being condemned by the health officials. He pulled out some gum and chewed on it for a moment, relishing the taste of the spearmint and the feeling of having liquid in his mouth again. Sluicing his face under the cold water faucet, he tried to wake himself up, feeling a pounding headache begin.