Wiseguys In Love (25 page)

An altar of lilac-colored marble had been erected at the head of the aisle. This, too, was covered with lilac-shaded flowers, sitting in silver pots.

Women in couture gowns of silk and linen, protected from the rays of the afternoon sun by elaborately designed hats, stood poised, talking to men in hand-tailored tuxedos and sipping Dom Pérignon from crystal champagne flutes. Others daintily bit at small toasts of beluga caviar or morsels of Maine lobster covered with dollops of dilled hollandaise. The music of Vivaldi, from a pared-down Boston Symphony, played out of sight behind the tent.

The guests were a match for the exquisite decor, not a hair out of place, not a paunch of a belly, nor a thigh spreading from having to sit at a desk day in and day out. These were the tight-muscled, perfectly sculpted bodies of the idle rich.

And then there was Henry.

Ashen and rumpled in his gray tux, Henry sat slumped over in a chair, guzzling from a champagne flute. He finished off the glass and dropped it under the chair, at the same time picking up the other glass he'd deposited there. He knew these events. If you didn't follow one of the waiters around, you never got a drink. His eyes didn't meet any of the people. He was going to be bored to death until the reception.

Ushers began walking people over to their designated seats as the orchestra finished “Spring” and began tuning up for Pachelbel, which was going to be the wedding march.

Around the other side of the building, in the pool cabana, Morris sat, doling out packets of coke to most of the groom's ushers.

He hadn't even seen the garden. He'd made two thousand dollars in thirty minutes. The ushers shuffled impatiently around him as the lookout announced that the wedding-march music was beginning, and Morris began to work double time.

The room soon cleared out quickly and Morris, wobbly from lack of sleep, walked out and around to the wedding area.

Henry's mother and sister were led over to their seats, next to Henry. His mother had red hair these days, he noted, and she was wearing a deep green sequined sheath over her skeletal body. Her eyes had that startled look to them, and Henry knew she'd had another face-lift. In fact, since the new face-lift, Tiffany looked more like her sister than her daughter.

Tiffany, Henry's sister, was now a blonde. Her nose was short and sharp, the result of an early nose job, and her body seemed to have changed drastically from the last time he'd seen her. She was now as skeletal as her mother. He'd heard a rumor that she'd had all kinds of tucks and pulls and nips right after her thirtieth birthday, and now that seemed to be confirmed. She was wearing a very short skirt, gathered at the bottom and pouffed out almost like a tutu. She looked like a floral bonbon.

He glared at them, but they did their best to ignore him. He finished the second glass of champagne and dropped the glass.

“For God's sake, can't you just once not get loaded at one of these things?” his sister whispered, and pulled her pouffed gown as far away from him as possible.

“Give me a fucking break,” Henry said aloud, which made an old woman in front of him turn around and glare.

“Lower your voice,” Tiffany snapped.

“Why? You weren't barred from Mother's house; you didn't have to pay for a cab to bring you out here—”

“That's right. I came in my Ferrari and Mother would have taken you in the Rolls, if you'd just shown up at the funeral.”

“Well, tough shit!” he bellowed, and the woman in front put out a
really
under her breath and fanned her face with her clutch bag.

The chords of Pachelbel rose out as a ring bearer and flower girl walked down the aisle, followed by ten ushers and the groom. After a moment, ten lilac-gowned bridesmaids appeared, then the bride, wearing white lace from head to foot, with a ten-foot train embroidered with gold strands and decorated with lilac-tinted pearls. Next to her, her father walked stiffly, his arm wrapped around hers.

As soon as she appeared, helicopters hovered close, drowning out the ceremony, the music, and creating such a wind that it was like trying to sit out a tornado. At last, there was a flap of wings and a flock of lilac-dyed doves was released into the air—only to be blown back over the house by the force of wind created by the copters. The front row stood, clapping, and everyone followed, ducking the poor birds as they were knocked back.

As Henry rose unevenly and gave one clap, his eyes glanced over to the right, then back, then immediately returned to the right. His hands began to shake and he froze in the middle of a clap as the equally ashen, sunglassed face of Morris stared at him from across the aisle.

In a moment, Morris's clenched face was hidden behind the wedding procession.

“Henry, I'm cutting—” his mother began as Henry slammed into the person next to him.

“Get out of my way!” Henry yelled, knocking over the woman on the end.

He made it to the tent on the right side, slamming into a waiter with a tray of champagne flutes. As they smashed to the ground, Henry turned around and caught sight of Morris, entangled with the same woman he'd just knocked over. He saw Morris look up, saw his lips move, and turned and ran.

The parking lot was filled with chauffeurs leaning against cars or playing cards on the hoods of their limos. Henry ran down to the end of the first row, when he caught sight of his sister's vintage 1965 red Ferrari.

He dodged over to the car and pulled on the passenger-side door. It was locked.

He could faintly hear Morris yelling after him as he ran around to the other side and tried the driver's door.

It pulled open, and Henry threw himself inside.

Morris grabbed onto the trunk handle as Henry backed it out of the spot.

“I'm going to kill you, Henry, you son of a bitch!” Henry heard as he shifted into forward and floored it.

He got to the gate and stopped short, throwing his chest into the steering wheel. He glanced in the mirror and saw Morris picking himself off the ground. He slammed on the horn and leaned out the window.

A man in his sixties sat in the small guard box, reading the paper.

“Open the gate, you moron,” he screamed, and the man slowly looked up and frowned at him. Henry leaned back on the horn as the man lethargically turned the key to the gate. He sped out, only to be blinded by the combined flashes of waiting press cameras. He slammed on the brakes again, gave out a yelp, and began rubbing his eyes.

When enough of the spots had faded away, he started up again, turned right, and sped off down the road. Henry's eyes were still tearing from the lights.

After a couple of miles, he began to slow down, and glanced in the rearview mirror.

Morris's black Jag was a mile back and coming right at him.

“Shit,” he cursed, looking ahead on the road.

Signs for a restaurant on the beach side met his eyes.

*   *   *

Lisa came walking out of the restaurant. She stared at Michael as he frowned back at her. She'd stayed inside a couple of minutes extra, hoping Michael would talk to Tony.

She could see by his expression that it hadn't helped.

She was right near the front bumper when the searing red sports car tore into the lot, swerved, and came to a stop, facing the highway.

In the dust stirred up by the maneuver, she saw the foggy outline of a face popping out of the window.

“What are you, fucking crazy? You could kill somebody doing that!” Michael yelled toward the red car.

A black car roared past on the highway, and Lisa looked back to the sports car as the dust cleared enough for her to get a good look at the man's face.

“Oh my God, it's him,” she said as Tony walked up next to her.

Henry stared up at her in the puzzled way you do when you see someone you associate with a specific setting and who is entirely out of place for where you are currently. Tony took a step toward the car and began reaching inside his jacket to his shoulder holster when the black Jaguar, which had blown its horn for a half hour on the road, came roaring into the parking lot.

Henry's head disappeared back inside the car and the car pulled out, kicking up a cloud of dust in their faces.

“I'm gonna kill you, Henry Foster Morgan!” a man yelled from the black Jag, as it, too, took off.

Tony grabbed Lisa by the arm and literally threw her into the backseat. Michael barely made it into the car as Tony pulled out of the lot in pursuit of the two cars.

“Look, you can't do it, Tony. You can't. I don't care what he did to Rosa, you can't kill him,” Lisa was pleading.

Tony kept speeding and they began to gain on the Jaguar.

“I'll fix it. I'll give her my whole salary. I'll work for the rest of my life—”

“Shut her up, Mikey,” Tony growled.

“No. You've got to stop it,” he began, and Tony shot him a glare.

Michael sat, staring dumbly into the dashboard as Tony floored the car, and was hit in the face with the awful truth.

He was going to have to kill Tony.

His eyes looked out dazedly onto the road as the car sped to catch up with the red Ferrari. Tony was leaning on the horn now as he tried to pass the black Jaguar. The Jag kept cutting him off again and again as they swerved across the road, until Tony whipped the wheel around, slamming the Caddy's front fender into the side of the Jag.

It knocked Morris across the lane, and he swerved back into the Cadillac, pushing the car off the road, into the center divider, and they both came to a stop.

Before Michael could say anything, Tony jumped out as the Jag pulled out and up on the divider. Morris rolled down his window and looked up as Tony approached.

“What the fuck's wrong—” he began in his clenched voice.

Tony shot him in the forehead and watched Morris slump sideways across the seat. Keeping the gun low and blocking the view of it with his body, Tony leaned in as if he was having a conversation and shot Morris again in the ear for good measure. He tucked the gun quickly back into his holster, pulled himself back up, and walked steadily back to the car.

He slammed the door as he got in, shaking the whole car. He started the motor quickly and pulled off the center divider and back onto the road.

“What happened?” Lisa asked as they went by the car.

“He said he'd be more careful on the road,” Tony answered, pressing his foot back down.

Michael glanced in the sideview mirror at the driverless windshield of the black car, then looked back to Tony.

“Anybody hungry?” Tony asked.

A chill passed through Michael as he put together what had happened during the conversation.

SEVEN

The water lapped against Solly's private docks off the garden of his house in Mill Basin and gently rocked his boat back and forth. He sat, taking in the late-afternoon sun, sipping on a Campari and soda, and staring out over the water. His grandchildren were making a racket in the pool, so he'd moved down, closer to the canal off the back lawn.

He was sweating from the heat and grabbed a towel and rubbed his stocky middle above his bathing suit, then dropped the towel beside him and leaned back, closed his eyes, and breathed in. The air smelled of the sea, gasoline from his boat, and newly mown grass.

The silence was broken by the sound of Ralphie coming up next to him. Solly picked his head up, opened one eye, and stared up at him. Ralphie's tubby Bermuda-shorted middle stuck out from under a North Shore Bowling League shirt. His hairy naked legs sank into a pair of black shoes. Black socks rose up from the shoes to midcalf, held there by garters.

Made Solly's skin crawl, the way Ralphie dressed. He closed his eyes to cover up the sight.

“Solly,” Ralphie said quietly, crossing his hands in front of him in a show of respect.

“The days go so fast now, you know, Ralphie? Summer's gone,” he said, leaning back into the chair.

“Solly,” Ralphie repeated, and waited for him to open his eyes and sit up.

“What?”

“Someone's here to see you.”

He looked straight up at him and exhaled for a moment.

“Yeah? I ain't expecting nobody.”

“It's Sophia Bonello.”

*   *   *

The exits from the Jones Beach parking lot were backed up right and left, with families finished with their day at the beach.

“I can't fuckin' believe it! What kinda person would take little kids out in this heat.” Tony was cursing and shaking his head back and forth. “I mean, they could get burnt all over, those little kids, you know what I mean, Michigan?” he added, and looked back at her, smiling.

She nodded and stared out the window. They had moved about seven feet in thirty minutes.

She couldn't imagine why anyone would go near Long Island. From what she'd seen, the beaches were crowded, with no room to walk, there was garbage all over, and getting out here was a nightmare.

Michael stared out his window silently.

He glanced over at Tony.

Tony was like a shark. He killed and ate, and swam on to his next victim and his next meal. Michael was going to have to shoot him. That was the only way to stop Tony.

Kill him.

Michael stared out the front window.

This got him back to the big problem, though. If he couldn't shoot some little accountant, how the hell was he going to shoot his own cousin? Yes, Tony was a killer, but he was also his cousin—someone he owed his life to. His own blood—family.

He watched Tony flex his legs.

No, he wasn't like a shark, either, Michael thought. He was more like—a Neapolitan mastiff. They were dogs some of the old-time wiseguys had. Dark as night, and big—some weighing more than a hundred pounds—with wide viselike jaws. They were large and stupid, fiercely loyal and incredibly effective at violence.

But Tony wasn't a dog or a fish. He was a member of his family. Michael clenched his teeth and felt himself frowning.