Angel

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  ‘Who is that painting by?’ Rosie asked, looking up at the landscape hanging over the fireplace. It depicted two farm workers in a field of wheat rippling under the wind; Rosie thought it was lovely, and she felt suddenly homesick for Montfleurie.

  Johnny sat up straighter, following her glance. ‘It’s by Pascal. She’s a local artist, and a favourite of mine. I have more of her paintings upstairs.’

  ‘I love modern impressionists… that field looks as if it might be in France,’ Rosie murmured, still eyeing the painting, thinking of the land surrounding the château.

  ‘That’s exactly where it is. Pascal paints there a lot,’ Johnny explained, his interest in her increasing. He stared at her.

  Rosie stared back, frowning slightly, her expression questioning.

  It was Johnny who broke off the prolonged stare. Putting down his coffee cup, he got up, walked over and sat next to Rosie on the sofa.

  On principle, Johnny Fortune never apologized to anyone for anything. But now he found himself apologizing to Rosalind Madigan. He said hurriedly, in a slightly embarrassed voice, ‘Listen, I’m sorry, I guess I was rude before, I didn’t mean to be.’ He paused, shook his head. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’ There was a tiny pause. ‘I’ve had a bad day, a lotta business problems to deal with,’ he improvised adroitly, trying to excuse his inexcusable behaviour, to show himself in a better light.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Rosie answered, ‘I have days like that too sometimes.’

  ‘Am I forgiven?’

  ‘Of course.’ Rosie smiled at him. It was a smile that filled her face with radiance, touched her mouth with sudden sweetness and brought a glow to her eyes. She smiled again, and he felt as if something had reached inside to touch him. This puzzled him, and he simply sat there, still staring at her.

  Rosie gazed back, looking into the brightest, bluest eyes she had ever seen. She shifted her position on the sofa, tilted her head to one side, gave him a much more quizzical look than before, deciding that without doubt he was the strangest man she had met in her entire life.

  As Rosie moved the light fell across her face.

  Instantly aware of the compelling greenness of her eyes, the burnished copper tone of her hair, Johnny was struck by the beauty of this woman. And she was beautiful. He asked himself how he ever could have thought of her as plain and drab. If the truth be known, Rosalind Madigan was stunning.

  Still baffled by this man, and confused by the peculiar expression crossing his face, Rosie reached out and touched his hand. ‘It’s really all right, you know. I do understand, and you are forgiven.’ A smile touched Rosie’s mouth again. She was liking him, and already forgetting his rudeness of earlier, seeing the best in him, which was always her way with everyone.

  Johnny nodded, and although he did not know it yet, he was undone.

  TWELVE

  Long after the two women had left, Johnny was still staggered by his extraordinary reaction to Rosie. There was no question that she had unnerved him.

  Having hated her on sight, he was nothing if not amazed at his one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. He did not understand himself, and he lay on top of the bed in his pyjamas, worriedly attempting to analyse exactly what was going on inside him.

  The shrill ringing of his private line interrupted this process, and as he reached for the receiver he glanced at the clock on the bedside table, wondering who it could be at this hour. It was well after eleven. It had to be one of his entourage, or someone close to him, since only a few special people in his life had this particular number.

  Nevertheless, there was a certain wariness in his tone as he said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Johnny, how are ya?’ a gravelly voice asked in a gruff manner.

  ‘Uncle Vito! For God’s sake, what’re you doing up so late? It’s after two in New York.’

  ‘Yeah. Is this a bad time, kid? I ain’t interrupting nothing?’

  Johnny chuckled. ‘No, I’m alone.’

  ‘Pity,’ the old man sighed. ‘What do I keep telling ya? Find a nice girl, a nice Italian girl, marry her, have plenty nice bambinos, settle down to a happy life. Why doan ya do what I say, Johnny?’

  ‘One day, Uncle Vito, one day.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘I been on the island. For the family dinner. Always on Thursdays, ya know that. Anyways, the big man, he’s sending his love, you’re his favourite, and doan forget that. He’s expecting us Thanksgiving. It’s still on, ain’t it, Johnny?’

  ‘Sure it is. Don’t I always come in for that little family reunion? I’d never disappoint you. Or the big man. Listen, where’re you calling from?’

  ‘Doan worry… a pay phone.’

  ‘Please, go home to bed. You don’t need anything? You’re okay?’

  ‘I’m great, kid. Never better.’ Far away in New York, standing on the sidewalk, shivering slightly in the cold night air, Vito Carmello began to laugh. ‘Others ’round here not doin’ so good, Johnny. Too many loud mouths… talkin’ too much. A bad thing. Bad for business, capisci?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johnny answered and laughed with his uncle. ‘Now, do me a favour, go home to bed. I’ll see you next week. I’m coming in late Wednesday night.’

  ‘Where’re ya gonna be staying?’

  ‘The Waldorf.’

  Once again, from far away, Vito’s laughter echoed down the long-distance wire. ‘Good night, Johnny.’

  ‘Good night, Uncle Vito.’

  ***

  Johnny’s thoughts stayed with his uncle, and for a while he reflected on him. Vito was in his late seventies, seventy-nine to be exact, and getting too old to be doing what he was doing. It was time he retired. But the old man was stubborn, and wouldn’t listen to him; nor would he take any money from him. ‘I doan need it, kid. I got plenty. More’n I can spend. Keep it for when the pipes dry up,’ he would mutter whenever Johnny offered it.

  His uncle was a proud Sicilian, and also deeply loyal to his old goombah, Salvatore Rudolfo, the big man, as he was called by many, and that was why he would not retire. ‘Not until the Don hands over his power,’ Vito was forever saying to Johnny. ‘When he retires, I retire. We start out together, we end together.’

  And so it was that Vito Carmello was still a caporegime, a captain, in the Rudolfo organization, as he had been all of his adult life.

  Vito and Salvatore had been friends since childhood. They were from Palermo, and their families had come over from the Old Country on the boat together, when the boys were eight years old. That had been in 1920, and the two families had settled in the same neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan, living as close to each other as possible, which they had done all of their lives in Sicily.

  Johnny had heard many stories from his uncle about those early days, when the Carmellos and the Rudolfos had first arrived in the great metropolis that was New York.

  Times had been hard for the new immigrants, and the parents of the boys soon discovered they were no richer, no more successful and certainly no happier than they had been in Palermo, and very frequently they wished themselves back in their homeland.

  There were occasions, especially family get-togethers, when Guido Carmello and Angelo Rudolfo would commiserate with each other and wonder out loud why they had ever been foolish enough to come to America, the land of plenty, where the streets were paved with gold. Except that they weren’t, and the ‘plenty’ they had heard so much about was for others, not for them. The two men, who had grown up together and were best friends, worked hard at their trade as furniture-makers, but life was not easy; for the most part, it was a struggle for Guido and Angelo to pay the rent and put food on the table for their families.

  But the boys loved the city, and once they had mastered English they made the streets of Manhattan their own, became addicted to the excitement, the noise, the bustle, all of it so different from sleepy Palermo. School bored them; the streets brought innumerable thrills, adventure�
�and eventually money.

  By the time they were thirteen the boys had formed their own street gang, or borgata as it was called in Italian. To start a gang was Salvatore’s idea; he was the stronger, the tougher and shrewder of the two, and a born leader. Inevitably, petty crime became their business, their way of life, and they flourished, robbing street merchants with stalls, and factory lofts, stealing in a variety of different ways, including rolling drunks, and also running errands for the local Mafiosi, often bringing home more money than their honest, hardworking fathers.

  With his quick wits and drive, Salvatore eventually moved on from gang leader to become a low-level Mafia hood, having attached himself to a capo who had taken a shine to the young Sicilian, recognizing his natural talents—astuteness, nerves of steel and brute force. Salvatore dragged Vito along with him, singing his praises to the capo, and so creating a niche for his goombah in the family. Within no time at all, Salvatore rose in the ranks of the organization, despite his youth, and became a formally inducted member of the Mafia, as did Vito.

  Along the way, Salvatore Rudolfo had developed a reputation as a hard-headed young mobster to be reckoned with, and one who was heading nowhere if not to the very top. Apart from being street-smart, Salvatore had a brilliant business sense, a chilling ruthlessness, instinctive treachery, plus a unique ability to inspire unswerving loyalty in others. Aside from Vito, he gathered around him a staunchly loyal cadre of goombata, who would literally do anything for him, including go out and kill for him, if he asked. Which he did quite frequently.

  The time came when Salvatore, propelled by greed, ambition and the lust for power, tried to break away from the crime family who had employed him, and, with Vito in tow, he attempted to start his own organization.

  That these two succeeded was due more to their timing, and luck, than anything else. The breakaway took place in 1930, when they were eighteen, and when a particular, and for them fortuitous, situation was developing in the New York Mafia.

  A group of young Turks, feeling their oats and frustrated with the ruling dons—known derisively as ‘Moustache Petes’—revolted against their old-time, old-style leaders.

  Once the revolution was over in 1931, most of the elderly dons had been pushed to one side, or murdered. The Old World style of management they had favoured was abandoned; the modern American Mafia as it is today came into being. And so did the Rudolfo crime family. Because Salvatore and Vito had helped to bring about the coup, the young Turks who were now in positions of power gave them the nod to go ahead with their own plans, or, more correctly, Salvatore’s plans.

  The Rudolfo family quickly grew in size and stature, and over the years became a dominant player in the ‘honoured society,’ the brotherhood of the Mafia, also known as La Cosa Nostra, which translated means this thing of ours. Salvatore was the boss, his brother Charlie the underboss, his cousin Anthony the consigliere, or councillor, and Vito a captain, as well as being Salvatore’s closest confidant.

  As a child, Johnny Fortune had not known exactly what his Uncle Vito did, except that he worked in the family business with his uncles—Salvatore, Charlie and Tony. When he was older, he came to understand that all of his uncles were hoods, and part of the Mob. But this did not worry him unduly since he had grown up in a strictly Italian neighbourhood, in which the Mafiosi were commonplace. He knew very little about what went on beyond this insular world where the amici, the men of the ‘honoured society,’ were spoken of in awed tones of respect. Or fear.

  In accordance with traditional Mafia rules, business was never discussed at home, and so he knew nothing of Uncle Vito’s daily routine, or what his job was. Nor did he really care. The only thing that mattered to the young Gianni was that the four men loved him, protected him, and made sure he never wanted for the basic essentials of life.

  Whenever Vito needed extra money for him, for new clothes and shoes, the doctor, the dentist, music lessons or a special treat, it was always forthcoming from Uncle Salvatore. And although the apartment on Mulberry Street was cramped and dreary, Johnny was well taken care of, was always well fed and clothed.

  It was Uncle Salvatore who first recognized Johnny’s talent, and who one day pronounced that he sang like an angel, then gave him a five-dollar bill as a gift. Once he started out on his singing career professionally, Salvatore bought him his first tuxedo, and saw that he got regular bookings in the nightclubs around the country, which were owned by his friends.

  Ever since then, in a somewhat loose, undefined way, Johnny had been watched over by Salvatore Rudolfo, who considered Vito’s talented, good-looking nephew to be his protégé.

  Although he had grown up in the shadow of the Sicilian Mafia in New York, Johnny had never been a part of it, nor had he ever wanted to be. His music was his life. Uncle Vito and Uncle Salvatore had been pleased about this, and they had encouraged him, and helped him to build his career—and had kept him at arm’s length, not wanting him to be tainted in any way because of them.

  As far as they were aware, no one knew of Johnny’s close, familial connection to them, and that was exactly how they wanted it to be. Nothing must tarnish his image. And so far nothing had.

  For his patronage over the years, Salvatore had asked nothing of Johnny in return. Except an appearance at the annual Thanksgiving dinner. It was then that he was expected to come to Uncle Salvatore’s house on Staten Island, and in the middle of the evening’s celebrations he was requested to sing some of the Don’s favourite songs. It was all very casual, easy-going, and they usually had a great time.

  Johnny thought of the dinner now, wondering what Uncle Salvatore would like to hear. The old favourites, of course, such as Sorrento, and O Sole Mio. But Johnny knew he must also select a few current, popular songs, favourites of the younger members of the family. He had to please the crowd as well as the big man himself, hold their interest for the half hour or so that he sang.

  Johnny smiled inwardly, thinking of Salvatore with affection. There was a very special bond between them. It was unspoken but it was there, had always been there, in fact, ever since he had been a little boy in short trousers. He felt closer to him than he did to his Uncle Vito in certain ways, and he loved and revered him. Though the term godfather was rarely, if ever, used in the Mafia, that was how Johnny thought of Salvatore. He was his godfather, in the best sense. And he considered Salvatore to be a great man in his own way. That he was the tsar of a vast criminal empire, not to mention capo di tutti capi of all the Eastern Seaboard Mafia families, never occurred to Johnny. Salvatore Rudolfo was, very simply, his uncle to whom he owed so much.

  ***

  Glancing at the clock a little while later, and sighing under his breath when he saw the time, Johnny reached for the remote control. He flicked off the television set, which had been on without sound for the past half hour or so, then slipped between the sheets and attempted to go to sleep.

  But sleep turned out to be a fugitive tonight.

  Johnny Fortune lay in the darkness for a long time, his thoughts moving away from Salvatore and Vito, focusing instead on Rosalind Madigan. He was discovering he could not get her out of his head.

  Now, visualizing her face in his mind’s eye, he felt a sudden lightness of being, a lifting of his perpetual worries. Then an unexpected feeling of warmth spread through him, and he experienced such a profound sense of happiness it almost took his breath away. He was amazed. He, who had hardly ever experienced that emotion in his entire life, was actually happy, and it was because of her. It seemed to Johnny that this was something akin to a miracle.

  He didn’t know anything about her… if she was single, married, divorced, or what. And he didn’t really care. Rosalind Madigan was the first woman, the only woman, who had ever made him feel like this, and it was a feeling he never wanted to go away. This thought dominated his mind for the longest time until he finally began to doze off.

  I hope I see her again.

  I want to see her again.

 
I must see her again.

  I will see her again.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘So, come on, ’fess up, Rosie mine. What exactly did you do to him to turn him into the docile little lamb?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rosie cried, her voice rising slightly as she turned to stare at Nell in the dim light of the foyer.

  Nell laughed, tucked her arm through Rosie’s, and led her through into the sitting room of the suite they were sharing at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

  ‘You know very well what I mean, my darling, so don’t pretend otherwise. When I first went out to make my phone call, Johnny was acting as if you weren’t there, or even worse, as if you were his greatest enemy… whichever, take your pick. Then when I come back I see he’s a bit friendlier. At least, his sour expression had disappeared. The second time around, I come across the two of you in the library, all cosied up together on the sofa. What’s more, he’s eating out of your hand. If not indeed slobbering all over you. Now come on, Rosie, something must have happened. The change in our bel canto balladeer was so radical it was positively mind-blowing.’

  Rosie had to smile, and then she extracted her arm and swung to Nell, shot back swiftly, ‘Nothing happened. The only thing I did was talk to him about his antique silver. You’re just challenging me because you’re embarrassed. About your relationship with Kevin and the fact that you haven’t told me. Now it’s your turn, Nellie. You ’fess up. When did all of this start with my brother?’

  Throwing her wool cape on a chair, Nell crossed the room without answering. Lifting the phone, she dialled room service, looked over at Rosie, and asked, ‘How about a nice cuppa, before we go to bed?’

  Rosie nodded. ‘Good idea, I’d love it.’

  After Nell had ordered the tea, she slopped down on the sofa, and sighed heavily. ‘We didn’t mean to keep it a secret from you, honestly we didn’t. In fact, Kevin and I were just discussing this the other night.’ She shrugged, shook her head. ‘We haven’t told anybody, actually, and I’m not sure why. That’s not true… that cop friend of Kevin’s, Neil O’Connor, knows about us, but he’s the only one.’