Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  "Daughter," Nagoya finished for him.

  Susi leaned over to Miles and whispered, "I hope he's not going to call her Masako." She giggled.

  "Not if he knows what's good for him." He took her arm. "I'd better get you back to your husband," he said. "It looks like Big John needs his woman."

  Susi halted abruptly. "Miles, look." She pointed toward the wall of white chrysanthemums. "It must be the light, or something."

  "What are you pointing at?"

  "The arrangement. Look there, in the center. The flowers are making a picture, Miles. It's a . . ."

  Then Miles saw it, and his breath caught.

  The top flowers had been arranged into a circle, and within the circle was a cascade of petals resembling a wave.

  A wave. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

  "It's your imagination," he said, leading her away before she could notice the sweat that suddenly beaded on his face.

  Nick DeSanto nearly drove off the road while tooting a line of cocaine.

  "Righteous!" he shouted, the rolled-up dollar bill still hanging from his nose.

  The girls in the car were screaming. "Jesus, Nicky, take it easy, will you?" his younger brother Joey pleaded, shoving his blonde girlfriend off his lap.

  "What, you suddenly Mr. Safety? Who's in charge here, anyway?"

  "You are, Nicky," the girl in the front seat said placatingly. She reached for a cigarette with one hand and placed the other on Nick's crotch. He slapped it away.

  "Hey, what's with you?" she shrilled. "All day you been like this."

  "Shut up, will you?" Nick roared. He took the bill out of his nose and threw it out the window.

  With a shrug Joey took another dollar from his wallet and gallantly passed it and a silver coke box to his girl.

  It had been a rotten day, Joey thought philosophically, and it had started the night before. The two brothers had lost nearly three thousand dollars between them at Mongo Lewis's poker game, not to mention the five grand down the drain at Belmont because Jimmy Belcastro's hot tip turned out to be a washout.

  Joey decided that Jimmy Belcastro had better start saying his Hail Marys now, because Nicky was going to put a big hole in his plumbing just as soon as the opportunity arose. He had planned to find Belcastro that afternoon and do the job right there in Jimmy's apartment, except that the girls started complaining about how they'd bought new dresses and wanted to go somewhere legit for a change instead of the Peyton Place, where all the guys hung out.

  Nicky was as pissed off as he could be, and was going to belt his girl, Gloria, when she started in whining like that, but Joey said that a fancy dinner in a nice place like the Inn on the Park would make them all feel better.

  Even though he was only nineteen years old—a dozen years younger than Nick—Joey was a voice of reason in the DeSanto family, the diplomat of the two brothers. Besides, he'd copped a new stolen credit card he wanted to use before the numbers showed up on the hot list.

  Nicky skidded the royal blue Corvette to a halt in front of the restaurant, forcing the valet to leap out of the way.

  "See that you keep an eye on it," Nick said, tossing the keys to the young man.

  The valet caught the keys. "Are you with the party, sir?"

  "What are you talking about?" Nick growled. "Open the door for the lady."

  "I'm afraid the restaurant is closed today, sir. The restaurant has been booked for a private party. A wedding reception."

  "Get out of here."

  "Sir . . ."

  Nick muscled his way past the young man to the front door.

  "May I see your invitation, sir?" the doorman asked.

  "Get out of my face." He tried to shove the doorman aside, but the doorman grabbed his arm. Nick made a fist and leaned backward, aiming for the man's face, when the valet ran up to restrain him.

  It was at this point that Joey DeSanto hurled himself from the Corvette to take down the valet. Nick's right hook landed square on the doorman's chin. All four of them crashed to the ground, grunting and cursing as the restaurant manager came out, followed by a small group of onlookers.

  "I'm calling the police," the manager shouted.

  "The fuck you are," said Nick DeSanto, rolling out of the grip of the doorman flat onto his stomach, where he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a .22 Beretta.

  A woman in the crowd screamed. The manager dropped to the ground, hands in the air, and the few guests clustered around the doorway darted back inside. The doorman and the valet froze in their positions, eyeing Nick wildly.

  "Nicky, Nicky," Joey said, smiling, using his most conciliatory voice. "It's a dumbshit restaurant, no big deal." He stood up slowly, brushing his silk suit with his manicured hands. "Come on. We'll go to '21. The girls'll love it. Whaddya say, Nicky?"

  Nick DeSanto didn't move a muscle. For an interminable moment he stayed on his stomach, eyes fixed on the restaurant manager's bald head, finger poised on the trigger of the small automatic. Then, with infinite slowness, he rose and walked over to the manager. The gun was still in his hands; his pace was that of an executioner.

  "So you gonna call the police, huh, Pops?"

  "No. No," the manager said softly, emphasizing the point with quivering tosses of his sweating head.

  "Do you know who my father is?" Nick touched the barrel of the gun to the manager's scalp. "Look at me, you stupid fuck."

  The manager looked, jowls trembling.

  "I asked you if you knew who my daddy was."

  The manager squinted, then opened his eyes wide. "Oh, God. God."

  Joey DeSanto laughed. "That's close, eh, Nicky? 'God.' That's good."

  "Shut up." He pressed the gun deeper against the manager's head. "We want a table."

  "Y—yes, sir," the bald man whispered, nodding frantically.

  "Hey, Nicky, we don't need this shit," Joey said. "The girls—"

  "Shut up! He kicked the manager on the side of his ample stomach. "Get up."

  The manager complied.

  "And you're going to clear out a room for us. The best room, got it?"

  The manager nodded and began stumbling toward the crowd packed inside. Nick and Joey swaggered along behind him.

  But just as they reached the doorway, six Japanese men in blue suits spilled out of the reception room like two streams of running water.

  Before the two brothers could do anything, they were carried bodily down the front steps of the restaurant building. The gun was out of Nick's hand, skittering along the driveway. Then both brothers were thrown roughly on top of the blue Corvette.

  "I'll kill you!" Nick rasped as the car door opened and he was thrust inside, with Joey following. The girls in the car screamed as the two men landed on top of them, sending the silver cocaine box flying in a blizzard of white dust.

  "Stupid bitch!" Nick shouted, grabbing at the swirling powder with two hands. He looked back at the restaurant, but the six men had already vanished back inside and the heavy front door was closing behind them.

  "Oh, God, Nicky, I thought you were both dead," Gloria said. "When they stuffed you in here like that—"

  "Just shut your fat flap, okay?"

  "Hey, you don't have to get shitty about it—"

  Nick punched her in the mouth, then gunned the accelerator and tore out of the parking area with a squeal of burning rubber.

  About a half mile away, where Central Park gave way to city blocks, Nick slammed on the brakes. He looked at Gloria, who was weeping loudly. Her hair was disheveled, coated by a veil of cocaine. Her makeup ran down her cheeks in black streams. Blood and mucus poured from her nose.

  "Get the fuck out of here," he said, showing her the back of his hand.

  Cowering and emitting little squeals of grief, she got out.

  "Her too," Nick said, jerking his thumb toward Joey's girl in the back seat. Joey shrugged at his date in explanation. She huffed out, slamming the door.

  "Fatassed bimbo," Nick said.

&nb
sp; Joey came around to the front seat. "Relax, Nicky, okay? She's just a little teed off. You want me to drive?"

  "Get in," Nick said stonily.

  Joey got in with a sigh.

  "Where's the rest of the blow?"

  "I got it right here, Nicky." Joey pulled a glassine envelope from beneath the passenger seat and sifted it expertly into the small silver box. "I even got a nice new bill for you, see that?" He snapped a crisp dollar bill near the windshield. "Hey, you want to go to the Hilton, maybe pick up some fancy gash?"

  "We're going back."

  Joey smiled nervously as his brother took the car up to eighty. "What, that dump again? Why don't we just forget it, Nicky. Pop'll send Frankie Lupone to talk to the guy. Fat Frank'll see to it that he's real sorry, believe me—"

  "Damn gooks."

  They rode in silence for a moment. Joey had hoped his brother had been too angry to notice the race of the six men. Nick had hated gooks, ever since his best friend, Hands Aleutta, had died in Vietnam. Hands had taught Nick everything he knew about the business. It was Nick's father's business, the counterfeiting and numbers and dope, but Anthony DeSanto had raised his children strictly, never bringing a trace of the rackets home with him. It was only through Hands Aleutta that Nick even got a glimpse into the powerful fiefdom that his father controlled, and it was through Hands that Nick was arrested for the first time.

  Hands had allowed Nick, who was fifteen, to ride along while he drove to Florida with some stolen automobile parts. But they had been caught, and Hands had pulled six months at Lewisburg.

  Tony DeSanto got his son off without probation, but he was furious. Nick was restricted to the house for the next year, although during that time he devised a hundred ways to escape and return undetected. What worried him more was Hands's safety. On one of his outings he visited Lewisburg, where he found Hands pale and nervous.

  "It's your old man," he said. "He's pissed off. He can have me killed."

  Nick laughed. "What? My pop? He wouldn't kill anybody."

  "Shit, kid, your pop's so big he don't even have to wipe his own ass, you understand? He wants somebody done, poof, they are gone. Case closed. And I got you arrested, Nicky. I got Tony DeSanto's boy his first mugshot. Christ," he said, running the big strangler's hands that had earned him his name through his hair. "I'm dead."

  Three days before Hands was due for release, Nick visited him again and was greeted with new cheer. "I got an idea, kid," Hands said brightly. "Your old man ain't going to get to me, because I got a plan." The man's lips spread in a big, silly grin. A cigarette dangled out of the space left by a missing tooth. "I'm going to join the frigging Army," he said.

  "Nobody joins the Army," was all Nick could finally think of to say.

  It was true. No one in Nick DeSanto's family, none of his family's friends, none of his own friends that he met through Hands or their fathers, had ever been in military service. It was just not done. The affairs of government were the affairs of law, and the further one stayed away from the law, the better off he was.

  But Hands was insistent. He was released, enlisted, and was killed in combat the fourth day after he arrived in Vietnam.

  "Hands got shot down by gooks," Nick said, snorting some coke as he steered the Corvette back into the park.

  "I know, Nicky."

  "Probably some of the same gooks in there."

  The car slowed to a halt some hundred yards from the restaurant, obscured from view by some tall bushes.

  "What are we doing here?" Joey asked.

  Nick didn't answer. He took a pair of gloves from his visor, then reached over Joey's lap to the special shelf he'd had cut behind the glove compartment and pulled out a .38 Browning.

  "Hey, Nicky—"

  "It's clean."

  "What are you—"

  "Change places with me."

  Susi Haverford Belmont and her new husband stood on the long, curving stairway to wave good-bye to the wedding guests. As she tossed the bouquet, she saw her brother standing behind the women, his arms folded across his chest, grinning.

  "It's for you," she mouthed. "You're next."

  Miles shook his head, then blew her a kiss.

  It was the last time he saw her alive.

  The bridegroom's car, festooned with tin cans and tissue-paper flowers, pulled out slowly from the lot in front of the Inn on the Park. Because it was considered bad luck to watch the newlyweds drive away, no one had escorted them from the restaurant building.

  John and Susi Belmont were holding hands and laughing as their auto moved slowly down the driveway. The spring day had ended and the mercury vapor lamps were easing on to mark the evening.

  Up ahead, they saw a blue car parked between trees alongside the driveway, its nose pointing out to the road. Suddenly they saw a man jump from behind the blue car into the driveway. He raised an automatic with two hands and fired. A bullet struck John Belmont in the eye before he could even slam on his brakes. The car careened off the roadway, jumped a small curb, and hit a tree with a crash that shattered its front windshield.

  Susi, covered with her husband's blood, screamed once before the second bullet whizzed through the open window on the driver's side and pierced her brain. She fell forward across her husband's dead body. The impact jammed his foot down onto the gas pedal and the car's motor began to race wildly, its rear wheels biting deeply into the freshly planted damp spring sod.

  "Jesus Christ, Nicky!" Joey DeSanto croaked hoarsely behind the wheel of the blue Corvette.

  For a wild moment Nick spun on his brother, aiming the .38 double-handed at him through the windshield of the blue Corvette.

  "Nicky—Nicky, no," Joey whimpered, slowly raising his arms in the air. "I'm your brother, Nicky."

  With a slump of his body, Nick broke his trancelike concentration.

  A few shouts came now from the entryway to the Inn on the Park. Nicky DeSanto ran off the roadway, slid into the Corvette beside Joey, and tossed the gun out the window.

  "Hurry up," he growled. "Get out of here."

  The Corvette squealed backward in a cloud, then maneuvered behind some bushes. It had disappeared the way it had come before the first frantic wedding guests arrived at the scene.

  Joey gripped the steering wheel with two white-knuckled hands. "What's going to happen now, Nicky?" he asked. He sounded even younger than he was.

  His big brother laughed. "Grow up, Joey. Nothing's going to happen. There ain't nobody in this town big enough to touch us."

  When their bodies were found, John and Susi Belmont's hands were still entwined.

  Excerpt for Grandmaster

  Chapter One

  The dock on Pihlaja Island was deserted, as it always was in Helsinki's black early mornings. The patrolman yawned and checked the luminous face of his wristwatch. It was an hour before dawn. Just another ninety minutes and he would drag his chilled body home and bury it in the warmth of his wife.

  He heard a faint scratching sound behind him and he wheeled, his right hand slapping down toward his heavy leather police holster, but then he relaxed as he saw a solitary wharf rat running down the middle of the wooden dock.

  He smiled grimly, faintly embarrassed at his display of nerves. The punkkarit, the local hoodlums, frightened everybody. Each day the newspapers carried stories of their plundering raids, and all the members of the police's tiny dock squad had been warned to be extra watchful while on duty. Moored ships could be a paradise for vandals and burglars.

  The patrolman's footfalls echoed heavily along the bleak wharf. His breath blew out in clouds. Soon all the harbors in the Gulf of Finland would be closed with the first ice. In the distance a sleeping tanker sent tubes of yellow light over the black gulf. Nearer, tied up to the condemned section of wharf where the policeman walked, another vessel rocked silently on the water. It was a fishing boat, sizable but ancient, a black, empty hulk without even an identifying name on its transom. He walked toward it. The boat was obviously abandoned, al
though he had never seen it before.

  Suddenly, behind him, the numberless rats housed in the decayed pier house set up an indignant chatter and scattered in all directions. The policeman turned toward the source of the noise, a thin line of sweat rising across his forehead. Punkkarit? Here? He pulled his night stick out of his belt as he approached the low stone building.

  But it wasn't the kids with their Mohawk haircuts and snapping switchblades. He cursed softly and smiled with relief at the dim figure crouched against the crumbling facade of the pier house. The man was asleep. He was dressed in a ragged sailor’s jacket and a pair of filthy trousers. Under his head was a tattered old duffel, which the man used as a pillow.

  "Hey, what's this?" the officer said in Finnish, prodding the man with his toe. The vagabond snorted awake and strained to focus his eyes on the policeman. "Get moving. You can't sleep here."

  He repeated the command in Swedish. The man stirred slowly. "And take your things. You won't be coming back." He pointed at the duffel with his night stick.

  The derelict obeyed. He brought himself to his feet shakily. Then, shivering, he dragged the ragged canvas bag away from the wall. He looked up at the officer with watery eyes.

  "Well, go on," the policeman said, gesturing with his head toward the end of the dock. The man padded away softly, his back bent. The officer watched him go, then walked back to the black boat.

  He stepped carefully over its mooring lines and scanned the vessel with his flashlight. Over the place where the ship's name normally would have been, a black-painted board hung suspended from two hooks.

  That was odd, he thought. It was as if someone had purposely concealed the identity of the old hulk. He leaned over the pier, reached out with his stick, and lifted the board. For a moment the name Kronen gleamed in white letters against the black crupper. The policeman straightened and let the board fall back against the vessel with a slap. He moved farther along the pier, the beam from the flashlight moving in a straight line along the length of the craft. He stopped, looked at the boat again, and shook his head in puzzlement. Why would anyone try to conceal the name of a boat? Unless the boat had been stolen.