Playing Dead

by Jessie Keane

  Clearly, she had somehow discovered his secret. He felt consumed with horror at that thought, at the dangers inherent in this situation for him. Again his eyes strayed to the damage she’d wreaked on his once-exquisite lover, and again he had to look away, frightened that he might actually be sick. He was no good in hospitals. His grandmother had been an invalid for much of her life, languishing in bed; he had a horror of sickness. And as for any sort of disfigurement . . . well, he knew it was shallow. He knew it was bad. But he couldn’t help it. Just to look at Frances, the repulsive state of him, was making his stomach heave.

  And he could see – oh, and wasn’t this the worst bit? – he could see that Frances’s beauty was comprehensively wrecked. These wounds were too severe to be anything other than permanent. Frances was ugly now. And if there was one thing Rocco couldn’t stand, it was ugliness. He only liked beautiful people around him. Men or women, he didn’t much care which, but they had to be flawless.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ he told Frances.

  ‘But look at me,’ wailed Frances. ‘You vicious fucking bitch! How am I going to find acting work now? I’m a freak. And this is all down to you.’

  Frances stared with hate-filled eyes at his lover. Self-pity flooded through him and he flopped back against the pillows in despair. In his heart he knew that this was the end of it. Tears splashed down his cheeks, soaked his bloodstained bandages.

  ‘I didn’t do this,’ insisted Rocco, patting Frances’s unbandaged hand and wondering when he could decently leave. He wouldn’t be coming here again. It was over.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Frances, snatching his hand away. ‘Right.’

  Chapter 18

  Rocco said nothing to Cara, except that his friend was recovering and would be fine. He wanted to grab her, to break her stupid head against a wall for damaging something so exquisitely beautiful. All right, he had been tired of Frances. But what she had done was like smashing a Ming vase or defacing a Renoir: a crime against a work of art.

  But he bit his lip and said nothing, although he felt sick with a mingling of loss and terror. If she had told her father about this, then he believed he was a dead man. Only last week that sadistic bastard Lucco had been laughing about Roy Giancana, who the Barolli mob had sent out to Vegas to handle business and who had tried to cheat them on the skim. He’d ended up in an oil drum at the bottom of the sea, just off the coast of sunny Florida.

  And there had been others, many others Rocco knew of; men who had once been called friends and had been dispatched to meet their maker for stepping out of line in one way or another.

  Now he had stepped out of line and he knew it.

  Cara, the daddy’s girl, would run weeping to Constantine with any trouble, he knew that, and what would the Don do? Let it rest? No way. Rocco knew that once the word was given by the Don, his life was over. He was wracked with terror. Frightened of Lucco, who could in an instant switch from charming to deadly; and equally frightened of Alberto, whose urbane politeness concealed a businesslike efficiency when it came to conducting his father’s business.

  Brother-in-law or not, he knew that neither of them would baulk at giving the word for an enforcer to take him out. He had to make moves of his own, to preserve his own safety.

  He drove up to New Jersey to pay a visit to his father, Enrico Mancini.

  His mother greeted him with all the usual hugs and cries and kisses.

  ‘You’ve lost weight!’ she tutted, fluttering around him, pinching his sallow cheeks.

  It was true, he had lost weight, such had been his anxiety over the mess he had gotten himself into. He’d been under so much stress: keeping out of Constantine’s way, tiptoeing around Cara, and worse, much worse, fielding the unwanted and increasingly desperate calls from Frances, yelling accusations and wild declarations of love down the phone at him. He felt as though he was under seige. Food had been the last thing on his mind.

  ‘Son.’ His father greeted him without enthusiasm. He was watching the Boston Red Sox play the Yankees on TV. He glanced up, waved Rocco into an armchair and looked back at the screen.

  Rocco glanced at it too. He had no interest in sports. His older brothers, Jonathan and Silvio, did, they were always in their father’s favour, but Rocco was the youngest and had clung to his mother’s apron-strings as a boy and even – yes, he admitted it – as a young man. He didn’t doubt his father loved him, but it was in a remote and dispassionate way.

  Enrico Mancini shot a sideways look at his son. ‘Is your mother fetching us something? You look thin.’

  ‘Had a virus,’ lied Rocco.

  ‘Bad things,’ said Enrico, shaking his head, and returned his attention to the game.

  Rocco looked at his father. He was balding and relaxing into old age in a beige cardigan and carpet slippers. His heart was bad, too; he couldn’t do too much these days. His father had no style, but Rocco understood that even so he was a great man. Rocco had a lot of style, but he knew in his heart that he had no real substance at all.

  His mother came in, carrying a tray of verdure fritte, arancini, olives and cheese. She set the appetizers down on a low table in front of them, along with strong coffee laced with anisette, tweaked Rocco’s pallid cheek once more and left the room.

  ‘So, what’s the news?’ asked Enrico. ‘You don’t phone home much. It upsets your mother. Now suddenly you do, so what’s the beef?’

  Rocco swallowed. This was very delicate, very embarrassing; he wasn’t quite sure how to start.

  ‘I’ve . . . been having an affair,’ he said.

  Enrico looked at him. ‘And this is news?’

  Rocco paused. Both his elder brothers were married, and both had their fair share of little popsies on the side: it was expected. What the hell, they were men, weren’t they?

  ‘Cara found out about it,’ said Rocco.

  ‘And? You telling me you can’t keep control in your own household, Rocco? Give her a sweetener or two and lay it on the line; you do what you do. Who’s the man of the house, you or her?’

  Rocco was sweating; this was even more difficult than he had imagined it would be.

  ‘She found out and she had this person worked over – really badly – as a warning to me.’

  Now he had Enrico’s full attention. ‘She did?’

  ‘Her name was mentioned when it happened.’ And so was mine, he thought, but didn’t say it.

  Enrico paused for a beat. Then he picked up an olive and popped it in his mouth. Chewing, he looked at Rocco and said: ‘Don’t sound like any woman I know, to do that. And for sure this ain’t Constantine.’ Then he spat out the stone.

  ‘We can’t know that.’

  Enrico gave a laugh. ‘You kiddin’? I’ve known that man thirty years. He’s a good friend to this family. A thing like this, over his son-in-law having a little fun outside wedlock? He wouldn’t stoop so low.’

  ‘Cara wouldn’t act without his approval.’

  ‘You think so?’ Enrico’s old eyes stared at his son in disbelief. ‘I think you’re wrong. She’s been overindulged since her mother died – she’s become too headstrong. I told you so when you married her, but would you listen? You would not. Now you see the sort of woman you married. She thinks she’s too special to have her husband playing around. I did warn you. I told you you’d be pussy-whipped for the rest of your life if you married her.’

  Rocco thought about that. His father was right; but it was Cara’s looks that he had fallen for. He had been stricken by her blonde beauty and, before they married, she had curbed and concealed the worst excesses of her spoiled and dominating nature. Once they were wed, she had dropped her guard, let it show who was the boss; and that was her.

  ‘Men have women on the side,’ Enrico shrugged. ‘We all do it. Why should the girl take offence at an affair? It don’t affect her standing as your wife and that’s what matters. You got to keep the wives sweet, Rocco, that’s what I’m telling you.’

  Rocco’s heart was t
humping in his chest. His mouth was dry. He knew Cara had taken the whole thing badly because it was a man he’d slept with; had it been a woman, she would probably have ignored the situation, even accepted and eventually maybe welcomed the focus of his sexual attentions being elsewhere.

  ‘It . . . Papa, it wasn’t a woman,’ he managed to say.

  Enrico was silent. The teams were rampaging around the pitch to the cheers and shouts of the crowd. Slowly, Enrico levered himself out of his armchair with an elderly grunt of effort. Then he leaned down and struck Rocco, very hard, across the face.

  Rocco recoiled in pain and surprise. His cheek stung. He sprang up, furious.

  Enrico looked him dead in the eye.

  ‘Oh, you think you want to hit me back, uh?’ he scoffed, his eyes running over his son with contempt. ‘You ain’t hard enough to even try it. Now I understand. You deserved that. And Rocco, you deserved to have your fag boyfriend worked over. I always knew there was something off about you, you little . . .’ Enrico looked disgusted. He flicked his ear in the Italian sign for homosexuality. ‘How’s any woman going to take that, her husband playing away with another man? You know Cara’s nature. And you’re surprised she did this?’

  Rocco was almost crying with humiliation. ‘I think the Don himself ordered it,’ he panted. ‘If he knows, I’m as good as dead.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe he did. For this? Maybe he’d feel his daughter had been insulted; maybe you’re right.’

  ‘Well, what are you going to do?’ demanded Rocco.

  ‘Me?’ yelled back his father. ‘I’ll tell you what I am going to do: precisely nothing. You think I’d raise a hand against one of my oldest friends over a little fucker like you?’

  Rocco’s mother came into the room and stood just inside the door, looking anxiously from one to the other. ‘What’s going on here?’ she asked.

  ‘What’s going on is that your milksop little baby has had his nose smacked and he don’t like it. Well, he had it coming,’ Enrico told her sharply. He turned to Rocco. ‘Now get outta here. I got a game to watch.’

  And he sat back down in his armchair and gazed once more at the screen.

  Rocco’s mother stood there, staring at her son. After a second, Rocco managed to get his legs working, and he pushed past her, out of the door, out of the house. He heard her concerned cry drift after him but he ignored it. He got in his car and drove back to the city.

  His father was going to do nothing to help him – so what else was new? His father never had. Cara must have told the Don about this. After all, who among Constantine’s soldiers would dare do her dirty work for her without first securing her father’s permission? No one would do that, would they? No one would risk incurring Constantine’s wrath by acting without his say-so. The Don must know. And if he knew . . . then he was just waiting to pick Rocco off at his leisure.

  Chapter 19

  Cara was shopping, as she often was, when the man with the scarf hiding the lower part of his face came up to her.

  ‘Cara Mancini?’ he asked, his voice muffled.

  Cara was both startled and puzzled. How did he know her? He sounded English. And why the hell was he wearing a thick knitted scarf on a summer’s day? He looked cloak-and-dagger, like a spy in one of the old movies. Now she wished she’d had Fredo come in with her today, but she hated his guts, hated him anywhere near her; she hadn’t wanted him trailing after her.

  ‘You’re married to Rocco Mancini, that’s right?’ he said, and she was struck now by how attractive his clear grey eyes were, how thick and glossy his chestnut-coloured hair. But the scarf . . .?

  He saw her looking at it.

  ‘Neuralgia,’ he said, patting it. ‘I’m a martyr to it, sadly. I’m an old friend of Rocco’s. Can we go somewhere and talk for a moment?’

  Cara suppressed an impatient sigh. She didn’t want to sit somewhere with this weirdo and talk about the cheating yellow-bellied shit she was married to.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I really have to go.’ She was moving past him, moving away.

  He stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  ‘Please,’ he said desperately. With fumbling fingers – two of them were no more than stumps, she noticed in horror – he pushed the scarf aside.

  ‘Oh my God,’ whispered Cara as she saw the puckered purple slits on either side of his mouth.

  She pulled back, revolted. And then she thought, oh shit, it’s him. It’s Frances Ducane, that actor Fredo cut up, Rocco’s lover.

  All the blood left her face and she felt as if she was going to faint. He’d found out she’d instigated that. He knew she’d set Fredo on him. She started to pull away, to flee. He was going to hurt her, scar her too. She’d been through so much, had to tolerate Fredo pawing at her, sliming over her, and for what? Now it was all backfiring on her, it was all going bad. She opened her mouth to scream, but she was so terrified that she couldn’t even draw breath.

  ‘Please don’t go,’ said Frances, and something in his voice arrested her, made her freeze to the spot. She looked into his eyes, which were brimming over with tears.

  ‘You see what he did to me?’ he sobbed. ‘You see what that son of a bitch Rocco had someone do, just because he’d had enough of me?’

  Cara took a breath as his words sank in. He didn’t think she was responsible; he was blaming Rocco.

  Cara gulped in air, composed herself, tried to get her racketing heartbeat back under control.

  ‘How could he have done anything so awful?’ she demanded. ‘Look, there’s a café over there. Let’s go get a drink, and you can tell me all about it . . .’

  Chapter 20

  Annie Carter-Barolli was slipping on a pale blue silk shift in front of her dressing-table mirror. She turned sideways, slid a hand over her full belly.

  ‘Shit,’ she said as she glanced at her reflection.

  ‘What’s that for?’ asked Constantine, coming through from the dressing room shrugging on his jacket, shooting his cuffs. His tie was hanging loose around his neck.

  ‘I won’t be able to wear even these slightly fitted things soon,’ she sighed.

  The day of Lucco Barolli and Daniella Carlucci’s wedding had dawned bright and clear, as if the gods were smiling upon Long Island. The bride, with her mother, her sisters and her cousins, was up in the guest wing, putting the finishing touches to her ensemble. The house was in happy chaos, with the garden being set out for the ceremony with elaborate rose arches all the way up the pathway leading to the altar, where the priest would perform the ceremony. Small gold chairs had been set out in neat rows; florists were hurrying around. The caterers had arrived and taken over the kitchen. At the side of the house, long trestle tables were being covered in pink damask. Elaborate floral arrangements were placed down the centre to form a cascade of white, cream and lemon. The best silverware was being laid out with military precision; glasses were being polished by uniformed waiting staff until they sparkled in the sunlight.

  By early afternoon the guests were taking their seats for the ceremony. As Annie checked her appearance, Constantine came and stood behind her, his eyes meeting hers in the reflection.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he said. ‘You’ll look beautiful when you’re as big as the side of a house, too.’

  Layla came running in. She was wearing a long pink taffeta dress with a matching headdress of pink and white roses. She was going to be flower girl today, scattering rose petals beneath the feet of Daniella the bride. Her dark green eyes, an exact match for Annie’s, shone with excitement. ‘Mummy, I’ve lost my flower basket!’

  The nanny, Gerda, a thin, solemn-faced Nordic blonde, came dashing in after Layla, looking embarrassed. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Barolli. Come on, Layla, I know where it is.’

  ‘You like my dress?’ asked Layla, twirling around.

  ‘Spectacular,’ said Annie, and Layla sped off with her nanny. The door closed behind them. Annie turned to Constantine with a slow smile. ‘Do you think they’ll be happ
y?’ she asked, knotting his tie for him.

  ‘Who? The bride, Layla . . .?’

  ‘The couple.’ Annie completed the knot and smoothed her hands down over his chest.

  Constantine’s mind was suddenly full of an image of Cara, in tears over the state of her marriage. He sighed. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘But you don’t think so?’ she asked.

  He linked his arms around her waist, nuzzled her neck. ‘I know you haven’t found Lucco the easiest person to get on with.’

  There was an unspoken world in that simple sentence. Lucco hated her: always had, always would. She tolerated him, no more than that. Constantine was no fool; he had seen the friction between them – he could scarcely fail to.

  ‘I hope they’ll be happy,’ said Annie. For Daniella’s sake.

  ‘Have you considered the diplomatic corps as a career?’

  ‘Since marrying you? About once a day.’

  ‘We met on Cara’s wedding day,’ he said. ‘You remember? In London.’

  Annie thought of the grey rainy streets, the old Palermo club that was now called Annie’s. She thought of Dolly running it, with Tony ferrying her around town, and Ellie in charge of the Limehouse knocking-shop where once she herself had reigned as queen. A hard pang of homesickness hit her. She was having a baby in a foreign country with a Mafia boss. Her friends were far away and her new husband’s family had not welcomed her – well, Alberto had, but that was all.

  Oh, she kept busy here. She was going to launch the club in Times Square next year, and meanwhile she saw to the running of this household, and to the elegant, sprawling New York penthouse by Central Park where she spent a greater part of her time when Constantine was busy. She’d made many acquaintances but no real friends. In fact, she felt she was viewed more as a temporary curiosity than a permanent fixture, accorded politeness and respect because she was Constantine’s wife, certainly; but the warmth was only a veneer, not truly felt.