Gigi, Angie’s buff-colored toy poodle, greeted Louie before the humans, her rhinestone collar jangling as she brushed against his shin. As soon as he acknowledged her, she scampered back to the stove where Maria was grilling a meatball and provolone sandwich. The old lady raised a spatula in acknowledgement, her brown eyes lively. Maria had a condo in Bradenton, but she spent enough time in Louie’s house that most visitors assumed she lived with them.
In broken English, Maria asked Louie if he was hungry. He assured her he was not, although it smelled delicious. He helped himself to the biscotti she set on a plate, conducting a brief conversation with his son and mother-in-law, and then Angie entered the family room through the French doors that gave out onto the terrace. Angie’s short, auburn-tinted hair was wind-ruffled, her oblong face registering surprise at seeing him. He’d told her he would be gone for a few days; she had not questioned him and would not question his homecoming.
Angie had the sort of permanent tan olive-skinned people acquire in tropical climates. She was five-three and boasted of being a size six, which Louie knew for a fact was an eight. But he’d be the last person to tell her that her once girlish figure had turned matronly. A recent tummy tuck had made vast improvements, and Angie was contemplating a face-lift which Louie objected to because he hated the sculpted Palm Beach look of the elderly, telling her, “I’d rather you aged gracefully than look like some of these old bats.”
Sighting him, Angie’s brown eyes turned luminous. She wore denim capris with a yellow T-shirt. She smiled, and Louie walked into the family room where Stella, a fledgling designer, had been given carte-blanche, choosing warm woods and satiny fabrics. Octagonal pillars framed a limestone fireplace, a big flat-screen hanging above it, the evening news showing the backup on I-95 that Louie had so recently been a part of.
Angie had been promised to Louie when she was sixteen. Theirs was an arranged marriage, the joining of fortune and blood between two Gulf coast dynasties, the ruling families of Tampa and New Orleans. Three and a half decades later Angie’s people were all dead or imprisoned, their fortunes scattered. But Angie was rich and pampered, cosseted in a world that demanded little of her, a world of Louie’s making. Somewhere along the way she had resigned herself to his imperfections, accepting his odd hours and frequent absences and turning a blind eye to his infidelities.
There were many things Louie expected of his wife; blowjobs were not one of them. His marriage was secure and his behavior unchallenged; he’d never felt guilt for cheating on his wife. Still, he was acutely aware of his recent impropriety, with the smell of Tara’s perfume clinging to him, and he refrained from kissing Angie. Instead, he crumbled the last bite of Maria’s biscotti and said, “Hi, Baby.”
Her smile deepened. “I didn’t expect you tonight. Are you hungry?”
“No.” He loosened his tie, listening to Maria chattering with Michael, slipping in and out of Italian, as she set the sandwich in front of him.
Angie stepped into the kitchen and reached for the plate of biscotti. She took one, biting into it. Maria was rinsing the skillet, and she said, “Mama, don’t bother. I’ll clean up.” She looked at Louie. “Stella came by with the baby. She was disappointed you weren’t here.”
Louie softened at the image of his baby. “I’ll call her.” Then, an ugly scowl creeping over his face, he said, “Was that punk with her?” He meant his son-in-law, Johnny.
“Dad, Johnny’s not that bad,” said Michael.
Angie sighed. “He’s your daughter’s husband. You should be more respectful. Johnny was very nice. He asked after you.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Louie suspected his dislike of his son-in-law was returned in equal measure. Michael bit into his meatball sandwich, groaning appreciatively. Maria beamed. She came from an era when a woman’s worth was measured by her culinary skills, and she was outspoken in her disapproval of Angie’s laziness, shocked that Victor knew his way around her kitchen better than Angie did. Louie said, “Angie, I’m going up. I’m beat.”
He said good-night to Maria and Michael, heading upstairs to the master suite he shared with Angie. He stepped into an octagonal sitting room dividing two bedrooms, both accessing a splendid gallery. The sitting space was cozy, Stella’s Florentine décor elegant but understated. French doors, like the ones downstairs, led onto the veranda.
Louie removed his jacket, tossing it carelessly over the back of the loveseat. He grabbed a bottle of San Pellegrino from the small fridge below the wet-bar and then entered his bedroom. An iron-framed bed dressed in green silk dominated the space, the floor a darkly-stained hardwood, gleaming from a recent polish. Above his dresser, where Stella had wanted to hang an expensive oil-painting, was a sleek flat-screen. With the remote he brought it flickering to life and caught the final play of Monday Night Football. His room was quiet, the tempered hurricane-proof glass on his French doors blocking the distant crashing of waves on the beach.
Louie stripped, heading into his bathroom. It was black marble with chrome fixtures, more aptly suited to a high-roller’s suite in Vegas. Louie took a quick shower. While brushing his teeth, he thought about Tara. “A nice girl,” Victor had cautioned.
Victor had a point about Tara being a nice girl. She had a quality that was almost virginal, an intriguing shyness. Tonight, Louie had seen her green eyes darken to emerald, her face flush with pleasure. She gazed at him with a sense of wonderment, hitting all his soft targets even as she reached for the one part of him that wasn’t so soft. She wore a startled expression, like she had never touched dick before.
Louie was used to single girls like Tara, bored and lonely, treated badly by their boyfriends. Sometimes the young women acted, playing up their desires to impress him, but Tara was not acting. Her beautiful body was speaking for her, a body that was starved for love, yielding to his lightest touch.
Louie had almost sent Victor and Sam away. But it was late, they were tired. He preferred to delay gratification for twenty-four hours. Besides, Tara voiced concern about Victor’s impression of her. “What will he think?” she asked.
Louie could have told her Victor liked loose women and virtuous women equally; he was in no position to judge her. Instead, he took her flushed face between his hands and kissed her. She was trembling when Louie left her. He nearly turned back at the door, wished now that he had.
In Louie’s bedroom Gigi was perched like a queen on his pillows. Having changed into a pink cotton nightgown, Angie was standing at the French doors, one hand on the knob. The doors were ajar, the night breeze gusting in, swirling the hem of Angie’s gown and exposing her shapely calves. Angie wore satin, open-toed slippers, her toenails polished coral.
The brisk air smelled damp, tinged with the scent of the sea, something faint and floral, lingering after the day’s heat. Angie watched him put on his robe, belting it loosely. She said, “Louie, come and see the moon.”
He had to smile at this. Tara had said the exact same thing in the parking lot outside her apartment, stopping to gaze upwards. Now, slipping an arm about Angie’s waist, he stepped onto the terrace. A breeze was blowing off the ocean, the surf roaring. The big yellow moon was not quite full, a little lopsided as it neared its apex. Beyond the walls of his property moonlight sliced the dark waters of the Atlantic, leant a phosphorescent glow to the waves rolling in with the tide.
Louie’s property actually extended fifteen feet beyond the perimeters of his walls. Here the beach was left to its natural vegetative state, thick with dune grass and wild plants, cut by a footpath to the tan ribbon of sand where Angie’s beach canopy flapped forlornly in the wind. Closer to home the saltwater in his long, rectangular pool turned from aquamarine to emerald with the play of underwater lights. The moon was reflected on the surface of the water, the tall stone columns defining the spa gleaming milky-white.
Louie leaned on the balustrade and gazed at his property.
He loved this view, loved this private strip of land, the sea beyond his gate. With a gentle smile, he turned to his wife. “It’s a beautiful night, Angie.”
“I thought you’d enjoy it.”
He had more recently seen the moon from the deck of the Stella di Mare while gliding down the Intracoastal. Still, this was a worthy sight, and Louie didn’t want to diminish its importance. He turned away from the balustrade, touched Angie’s cheek with affection. She pressed her face into his hand. The breeze was playing havoc with her hair, her gown billowing. Louie said, “Why don’t you get us a nightcap, dear?”
Chapter Twelve
Angie took two snifters from the rack above the wet-bar. There were only a few bottles on the counter, her Baileys and Frangelico and Louie’s Famous Grouse. The blended Scotch whisky was Louie’s preferred drink, but at bedtime he relished the mild flavor of Presidente Brandy, a Mexican variety even she found pleasant. Tonight, Angie chose the Presidente, pouring an amber inch in each snifter.
Angie sipped from one snifter, savoring the smooth taste. Louie had told her the brandy was blended from aged wines. Glancing about the room, her eyes fell on their wedding picture. It was an 8x10, displayed on their sofa table—one of those familiar framed photos one saw everyday but seldom looked at. Feeling sentimental, Angie picked it up, marveling at how young they were. Louie was a skinny kid and she, just six months past her eighteenth birthday, was still a teenager.
Secretly in love with another boy, Angie had approached her wedding day like a martyr. She knew she would marry Louie, if only to escape her father’s house. She had visions of refusing Louie at the altar, but when the priest asked if she would take him for her husband, she said, “I do.”
After two weeks in Hawaii with her charming groom, Angie scarcely recalled her former beau’s face. She fell madly in love with Louie; he was her knight in shining armor. True, he sometimes came home late or not at all; it was a different lifestyle. Angie had expected this. She had not expected his infidelity because in spite of all the crappy things Angie’s father had done to her mother, he had never been unfaithful. Angie had two toddlers before she realized that the man she married was not the man she lived with.
Louie’s kindness toward Angie and their children had dulled her to his ambitions. He never exhibited the petty cruelties of her father, which she mistakenly believed made him a better man. When Angie began to see the names of his enemies in the obituaries, though, she grew to understand that Louie’s cruelty far exceeded her father’s.
In the beginning his infidelities were devastating. By the time Louie hooked up with Mercedes, Angie was resigned. They never spoke of his mistress, but the papers sure did, Mercedes being somewhat locally famous. It was the humiliation of whispered gossip and tabloid exaggerations that wounded Angie more than Louie’s betrayal.
He apologized once, hinting of rumors and innuendo. But Mercedes was stunningly beautiful, and it seemed inevitable that New Orleans’ famous bad girl would hook up with its infamous bad boy. Together, Louie and Mercedes formed a quasi-business partnership, legal on paper, and made a bundle. These were the years Louie’s wealth expanded, but Angie never questioned his lack of scruples or sudden windfalls.
After three decades of marriage, three children, and two grandchildren, Angie still loved Louie. Her heart invariably lifted when he came home. But she had no illusions whatsoever about her husband. Once, fifteen years ago, she had nearly divorced him. Ironically, it had nothing to do with a woman. Angie met a man in an art class who flirted with her. It was a harmless thing until he invited her to have lunch with him.
Angie met her admirer at a cozy restaurant in the Quarter. She was raising a glass of wine to her lips when Louie and his henchman came through the door. Louie said calmly, “I’m going to take you home.” Her friend fled in fear for his life.
She wept in the car. Louie said, “You get this out of your head, Angie.”
Angie never returned to her art class, never saw the man again. A few weeks later she was sitting at the breakfast table with the Times-Picayune when a sidebar caught her attention. Her friend’s body had been discovered in Lake Pontchartrain. To all appearances it was an accident; a high amount of alcohol had been found in his system, his sailboat was tipped over.
Filled with foreboding, Angie looked up from her coffee and caught Louie watching her. There was a spark in his eye, a tiny, malevolent gleam, and just like that, Angie knew. She felt suddenly nauseous, and shoving the paper across to him, she said, “Louie, please tell me you had nothing to do with this.”
He took the paper from her hand and pretended to read it. “I don’t know what you mean, dear. The police claim it was an accident.”
Angie hadn’t thought of the dead man in a long time, but tonight, sipping her husband’s brandy and contemplating the years she’d had with him, he swirled up in her memory. With the memory came guilt because she knew she had condemned him by agreeing to share a glass of wine. Angie reflected on the hypocrisy that forbade her a friend while Louie took a lover.
In the next room Louie’s cell started ringing. She heard him come in from the terrace and close the door to the wind. Then he said, “Hi Princess,” thus confirming the identity of his caller. Angie smiled at the endearment. He might kill a man for flirting with his wife, but his love for Stella was greater than his love for all of them. There was a time she’d been jealous of that too.
Taking another sip of brandy, Angie turned dismissively from the wedding picture. As she moved, Louie’s Pal Zileri suit-coat, draped carelessly over the back of the loveseat, slid to the floor in a crumbled heap. Angie sighed. Louie was careless with his finery, frequently leaving his jackets hanging on the backs of chairs or couches; never in his closet. Lifting the coat, she smoothed the finely woven cloth, her head cocked toward his room, listening to him talking on the phone with Stella.
Folding Louie’s coat over her arm, Angie started toward his bedroom when a fragrance seeped from the cloth and filtered up to her nose. Immediately, Angie recognized the scent of Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue, a citrusy summer scent Angie happened to own and wear often, though she hadn’t in some time.
Abruptly, Angie returned Louie’s coat to its former resting place and stepped into her own room, closing the door after her. Angie felt slighted, not angry. She certainly did not feel threatened and had no reason to suspect this particular liaison would soon make her weep.
Chapter Thirteen
Manny’s dead grandpa was standing by his bed, saying something about the diamond, warning him. Then Bo reached out a hand and touched Manny, and he woke with a start, heart-pounding, his body damp with sweat. Jesus. What a mind fuck. Manny reached over and flicked on the lamp, saw it wasn’t even five o’clock, too early to get up.
He kept the light on, resettling himself in his bed. He hadn’t gotten home from Franco’s till after midnight, hadn’t hit the sack till one, and he could have used this last hour of sleep. But the dream had disturbed Manny; he felt Bo was trying to get a message to him. His story had been hard to believe, and Manny couldn’t really blame Franco for his skepticism. At first, hearing Bo tell it, Manny was dumbfounded. Sure, his grandpa had gone to Cuba and fallen in love. He’d also found God, eschewing his former ways for the straight and narrow. But nobody leaves a precious diamond buried beneath the floorboards in a hotel room. Nobody, not even a holy man.
“I never intended to leave it,” Bo had said, rasping, the death-rattle getting stronger. “For awhile I laid low, getting married, having kids. But after a few years I chanced coming back to get it. But when I got to the Walker that girl—Francine, was standing on the front steps of the hotel, dead as a doornail, and I got such a chill in my spine I couldn’t ever set foot near the place again. So I just let it be. But now I’m thinking maybe I should have called up the authorities, turned it over to the insurance company. That’s what you’ll have to do.”
Manny was thinking, No way, but he patted his grandpa’s frail hand and said, “Sure, Pops. I know the owner of the Walker, a guy named—”
“Promise me …”
“What?”
“The diamond … it’s cursed. It killed Francine—”
The dream was fading, its power dissipating. Manny got up, sitting on the edge of his bed. He certainly wasn’t going to let some ancient superstition prevent him from making the biggest score of his life. Thanks to Franco, he now knew the diamond was in Room 312, although he’d had to threaten violence to get the creep to fess up.
Whining like a pussy, Franco admitted to everything, telling Manny he was fucked. He cautioned against messing with Morelli. “I’m scared of him, Manny. He’s mobbed up—”
“What, a hotel guy? He isn’t shit.”
“You don’t know him. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I’m banned from my own hotel. There’s no way I can get up there now.”
“You damned well better find a way or I’ll kill you, Franco. I swear I will.”
“Killing me isn’t going to get you the diamond.”
“Fuck you, asshole. I want that diamond, Franco. It’s mine, it belongs to me. You damned well better get it to me or else.”
“I’ll get it,” said Franco, suddenly calmer. “I’ll have Tara go up there.”
Manny’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t so sure Franco hadn’t already involved the bitch. “I don’t want you telling her anything,” he said sullenly. “Then you’ll have to cut her in.”
Stella di Mare (Louie Morelli) Page 8
