Playing Dead

by Jessie Keane

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Josh and held out a hand in greeting.

  Lucco looked at it as if it might be contaminated. He didn’t shake it.

  ‘You do know this is a private box? That admittance is by invitation only?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Josh replied with his usual charm and good manners, but Annie could see that he was startled to be talked to like this, and to have his greeting ignored. ‘I just wanted to have a quick word with Mrs Barolli and to offer her my condolences.’

  Lucco nodded. ‘Well now you have. Do run along.’

  With only a slight tightening of the lips, Josh nodded to Lucco, tipped his hat to Annie, and hurried off.

  Chapter 60

  Annie went to move away too, disgusted at Lucco’s crass behaviour. She didn’t want to be out here, alone, with him. Not standing beside a balcony rail with a thirty-foot drop to the ground below. She went to pass him, but he caught her arm and held her there, trapping her between the rail and his body.

  ‘I asked you a polite question,’ he said under his breath. He was very close. She felt the pressure of his fingers bruising the flesh of her arm. ‘Are you enjoying the races?’

  Annie looked at him like he’d just crawled out from a sewer. Lucco gave her his most pleasant, most snakelike smile. ‘You will answer me,’ he told her firmly. ‘You forget yourself. I am the one you must answer to now.’

  ‘Yeah, you got some big shoes to fill,’ said Annie, unable to resist goading him, even though she knew it was crazy.

  ‘And you’ve got a big mouth,’ Lucco retorted, his black eyes gleaming with spite as he increased the pressure on her arm. ‘You know what? Sometimes I think I might kiss it. I could, if I wanted. I could have you brought to me gagged and bound, but then you know that, don’t you? Everything my father owned, I now own. So sometimes . . . yes, I do think I might rather enjoy kissing your mouth. And then at other times I think I might prefer to have your lips sliced from your beautiful face as a punishment, as the Chinese emperors used to do with concubines who displeased them. I could have it done, you know. Easily.’

  ‘I’m not your concubine, Lucco,’ Annie pointed out frostily.

  ‘Ah, but you could be,’ he said.

  ‘You like frightening women, don’t you?’ asked Annie conversationally, although the pain in her arm was excruciating now. She wasn’t going to give the bumptious little arsehole the satisfaction of hearing her cry out, no way. ‘Is that how you get your kicks with Daniella? I saw the bruises when we were out by the pool.’

  He looked at her blankly. But he was forcing her back against the rail, inch by inch.

  ‘How I conduct my private affairs has nothing to do with you,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Affairs is the right word,’ said Annie, her eyes moving past him to settle pointedly on the glamorous Sophie, her fabulous tan and skilfully highlighted blonde mane of hair shown off to full effect by a shimmering veil of cream chiffon over a micro-mini silk ivory shift that left almost nothing to the imagination – she was bra-less, her nipples completely visible through the sheer fabric. Earlier in the afternoon, she had vanished for half an hour, and Lucco with her. When they had returned to the box, Sophie had that rumpled, flushed look that told everyone they’d just had hasty, hot and heavy sex.

  ‘Couldn’t you at least keep your playmates at a discreet distance when your wife’s around? Daniella’s trying to be a good wife to you, why not cut her some slack?’

  He shrugged. Now she was pressed right up against the rail, it was digging into her back. ‘Maybe I enjoy teasing her.’

  ‘Yeah, because you’re a cruel son of a bitch.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what my father did? Kept his playmates at a discreet distance from you?’ he taunted.

  ‘He didn’t have any playmates,’ said Annie. ‘All he wanted was me. And all I wanted was him.’

  ‘Ah, but are you sure about that?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Such a pity you made a fuss last night,’ said Lucco, smirking at her as he pushed in closer. ‘I like you fighting me, Stepmama, I find it very . . . stimulating.’ He pressed nearer and now she could feel to her disgust that he had an erection.

  So it had been him. The creep.

  ‘So are you still playing the grieving widow? Or ready to move on yet?’ he remarked, pushing so hard against her that she knew there were going to be bruises.

  Christ, was he intending to shove her over the rail?

  She remembered another time when he’d had her over a drop like this – and perhaps this time he wouldn’t shrink from taking full advantage.

  Her heart was in her mouth because Lucco really did scare her. Sometimes he acted as though the normal rules didn’t apply to him at all. And she guessed they didn’t. He had all of his father’s power now, and none of his discretion or sound judgement. If Constantine had been a wise Caesar, Lucco was surely a deranged Caligula.

  ‘You seem very familiar with your bodyguard,’ he went on. ‘It’s like you know each other really well.’

  Ha! Well, he got that wrong. She didn’t know Max Carter at all now. He was like an alien species to her.

  ‘Shall we slip away together?’ he was murmuring now.

  ‘What, like you did earlier, with Sophie?’

  ‘Ah, you noticed? Were you jealous?’

  Annie tried to pull away. She couldn’t. ‘In your dreams,’ she spat.

  ‘But I was quick with her,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’ll be better with you, trust me. I’ll be slower. I’ll drive you wild. Now come on – you know you want to. You must be missing it now Papa’s gone . . .’

  ‘You little shit.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked a male voice from behind them. Lucco turned, instantly releasing Annie. Max was standing there, watching him.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Lucco. ‘We’re talking. Private family business. Not for the ears of staff.’

  Max gave a taut smile.

  ‘Excuse me . . .’ said Lucco, and pushed past him back into the box.

  Annie sagged back against the railing, rubbing gingerly at her arm.

  Max looked at her. ‘What was that about?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ She couldn’t tell Max that Lucco had all but confessed it had been him last night creeping about in her room. Max would want to kick his arse for it, and right now Annie couldn’t take any more aggro.

  Still, she couldn’t shake the creepy feeling that if Lucco couldn’t get her into bed, then he’d get her into a box – either one would do. But at least she knew now that Layla was safe. Josh and Jenny were looking after her. The relief was enormous. She hugged the knowledge to herself, held it like a warm blanket on a cold night; no way was she telling Max.

  Max handed her the betting slip. Then the race was announced and everyone else crowded out onto the balcony to see it.

  Surefire won by a clear head, streaking past the winning post like a chestnut thunderbolt, all the other mounts, including Lucco’s prized black filly Annabella, thundering along in his slipstream. The vibrant hues of the jockeys’ silks and the luxuriantly glossy coats of the horses were a kaleidoscopic blur as they shot past.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Annie, tearing up her slip and letting the pieces flutter down to the ground far below. Win or lose, she didn’t much care any more.

  More champagne was opened. Aunt Gina stood up with tears in her eyes and made a toast.

  ‘To the best man in all the world – to my brother, Constantine.’

  They all echoed ‘to Constantine’ and drank to his memory. Annie was watching Lucco. He’d been slow to lift his glass, slow to say his father’s name. She could see the self-doubt in his face, and thought that maybe he was wondering if he would ever be toasted and called the best man in the world. When he glanced towards her, she gave him a knowing little smile.

  Then tea was served, and the afternoon drifted on and finally dissolved into misty rain. Finally, it was time for the party to disperse and go home.
It was when the cars were just turning into the drive at Holland Park, the wipers swooshing back the now heavy rain and the headlights slicing into the darkening night, that a woman flung herself sobbing and screaming onto the bonnet of Max’s Jag. It was Rosa.

  ‘Shut up,’ was the first thing Lucco said when he emerged from his own car to stare at the hysterical woman. He grabbed her arm and shook her roughly. Rosa fell to her knees, gabbling a mixture of Spanish and English. ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’

  The poor woman was incoherent.

  ‘Fuck it, don’t do that, you’ll only frighten her more,’ snapped Annie, moving in to push him aside. ‘Rosa? What’s happened? Come on, tell me.’

  Finally, somehow, the woman managed to get the words out. When she did, they all stared at her in disbelief. And after a few moments, Alberto, Max and Lucco ran off inside, through the house and out to the pool. The women followed behind, more slowly, Annie and Daniella supporting Rosa in a state of near-collapse between them.

  The security lights were on at the back of the house, starkly illuminating the sheeting tumble of the rain as it shattered the surface of the pool with a million hard droplets. There was a man’s nude body floating face-up in the centre of the pool.

  ‘What the f . . .?’ shouted Lucco to the thundering heavens, and Alberto and Max dived in fully clothed and swam out to the body.

  They towed Rocco to the side of the pool. Everyone was there in the pouring rain, their fine clothes being drenched; but none of them cared about that. Rosa, Annie, Daniella and Cara stood aside, and so did Lucco. Fredo emerged from the house and helped Alberto and Max to get Rocco out onto the terrace.

  He was dead.

  Rosa set up a fresh bout of shrieking when she saw what had been done to Rocco, and Annie put an arm around her, told her shush, everyone will hear.

  ‘Fuck me,’ muttered Max as he leaned over the body.

  Lightning flashed, searing through the black sky and highlighting in its flickering glare the hideousness of Rocco’s injuries.

  Fredo was looking as though he was about to throw up.

  Rocco’s eyes were wide open, staring in sightless surprise up at the tumult of the night sky. Where his genitals should have been was a neat, blood-dark hole. Someone had cut off Rocco’s cock and stuffed it into his mouth.

  Chapter 61

  ‘Is she all right?’ asked Alberto as he entered the drawing room with Lucco and Max trailing behind him.

  Daniella had been violently sick when she’d seen the state of Rocco’s body. Now she was sitting, shivering in her sopping-wet clothes, in the drawing room. Rosa had managed to calm down enough to make up the fire. It was starting to generate a little warmth. Annie was kneeling beside the chair she had pulled up to the fire for Daniella, smoothing back the girl’s drenched hair.

  Alberto crossed the room to Daniella.

  ‘Honey? You okay?’ he asked her, placing a gentle hand on her neck.

  She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. ‘It was horrible,’ she said.

  ‘I know, I know.’

  He was smoothing her skin comfortingly, and again Annie was reminded, forcibly, of Constantine and his unexpected tenderness towards her when she had come to him in the depths of despair, pleading for his help.

  She stood up. It was painful to think of that. She went and sat beside Cara, Rocco’s widow, who was sitting on one of the big couches looking as if someone had knocked all the stuffing out of her. Tentatively, Annie placed a hand on hers; it was icy cold.

  The men had moved quickly to deal with this. Alberto had phoned through to one of the clubs the Barollis owned in the West End. Within half an hour there was a van outside. The police weren’t called and no one even suggested it. This was family business, to be kept inside the family; the power of the Mafia was at work. Everyone understood that.

  The women were herded like sheep into the drawing room, which didn’t sit well with Annie. When the van arrived, she was crossing the hall, helping Rosa fetch hot drinks and towels from the kitchen, and she glimpsed Steve Taylor among the big bruisers who had come to deal with the corpse. He walked straight past her and past Max as if he didn’t even recognize either of them. Of course – Max would have told him what was going on with him and Annie; he would have had his orders.

  She knew that the Carter firm was on a long-standing contract to provide security for most of the Mafia-owned clubs in the West End, and Steve had performed many cleanup operations in his years as a Carter foot soldier, so she really wasn’t surprised to see him here tonight.

  ‘Is there anything I can do? Anything I can get you?’ Annie asked Cara now.

  Cara just shook her head. She hadn’t cried since they’d hauled Rocco out of the pool. But then, grief took different people different ways.

  Annie had a brief mental image of Cara and Fredo in the bedroom and pushed it swiftly from her mind.

  ‘Who would do a thing like that?’ she wondered aloud, looking at Lucco. Max was leaning against the door, towelling his hair dry. There was still movement out in the hall. Annie shuddered to think of Rocco, who had seemed a kind and pleasant young man, being bundled out of here like so much dead meat.

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’ snapped Lucco. He ran his hands through his hair and glared at her.

  Alberto looked round at him. ‘Hey – steady,’ he said.

  Annie stared at Lucco. Now was the moment for the Don to take the lead, calm everyone down. They were all shocked and alarmed by what they had witnessed tonight. What it looked like . . . Annie didn’t like to think about it, but what it looked like was a hit from one of the other Mafia families. Had Rocco been screwing around with the wife of another firm’s capo, something like that? This looked like a revenge killing.

  ‘The Mancini family aren’t going to like this,’ said Aunt Gina suddenly from the depths of one of the couches nearest the fire. ‘Rocco was with the Barollis, under Barolli protection. And this happens.’

  ‘Aunt, I know what’s happened,’ shouted Lucco, flinging his arms wide. ‘I know. You think I need you to tell me that this is a fucking disaster? Don’t bother.’

  He’s losing it, thought Annie.

  She remembered her conversation with Alberto out by the pool. How he had said that there had been trouble on the streets, other families trying to muscle in after Constantine’s death, but that Lucco could handle it.

  Actually, she didn’t think Lucco could. She didn’t think Lucco knew what to do. And she could see the uncertainty in him now, that cool smarminess of his slipping to reveal a chink of fear.

  Aunt Gina was right. There was no way the Barollis could simply dispose of Rocco’s body like the Carter mob had disposed of Nico’s. The Mancinis were a family of power. There would be repercussions over this. They would want the body of their youngest son shipped back to the States; they would want an explanation, and they would want some-one’s blood.

  ‘Annie!’

  It was an hour later and she was crossing the hall to go upstairs and get changed out of her wet things, grab a hot shower. The boys were gone now, the clean-up was done. Tomorrow morning, when she looked out on the terrace, she knew it would be as if Rocco’s mutilated body had never been floating in the pool, his blood seeping out to tint the turquoise water around him to a muddy purple. The pool would have been drained and refilled. All would be pristine. She knew this. She’d seen it happen before. And still it made her shudder, how easily the detritus of sudden, violent death could be disposed of by men experienced in the art of mayhem.

  She turned. Daniella was coming out of the drawing room, hurrying after her.

  ‘I’ll come up with you,’ she said through chattering teeth.

  They were all shocked. But Daniella, young and tender as she was, seemed to have taken it hardest of all.

  Much harder than Rocco’s wife did, thought Annie, but that was unkind. Just because Cara wasn’t wailing or screeching over her loss, that didn’t mean she didn’t feel it
– even if she had been busy screwing the staff.

  The two women climbed the stairs together, each feeling weary and wrung out.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ said Daniella shakily.

  ‘Oh? What about?’ Please make this quick, she thought. I just want a shower and then bed, that’s all. I don’t want to think any more.

  ‘Rocco. I overheard him talking on the phone before we left this morning. He said he was going to meet someone here today.’

  ‘What?’ They’d reached the landing. Annie stopped in her tracks. ‘Well . . . that’s odd. Here? I thought he told Lucco he had a business meeting at the bank.’

  ‘That is what he was saying,’ said Daniella earnestly. ‘He was . . . upset. Unhappy. You know? You understand me? He said it was a nuisance and he seemed angry. But this person was saying yes, they were coming here, I think, and he put the phone down, like that.’ Daniella made a quick movement, mimicking Rocco slamming the phone down.

  But did you get that right? wondered Annie. Daniella’s understanding of English wasn’t perfect by a long shot. Had she misunderstood, or misread the signals?

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  But if Daniella was right and Rocco was meeting someone here, someone he was unhappy about, then who was that person? And could he or she be the one who had killed him?

  ‘Maybe I should not have said . . .’ said Daniella, seeing Annie’s expression change.

  Annie looked at the girl, standing there with her rain-soaked hair and clothes, and her tear-streaked face. What a day the poor little bitch had had. She’d gone to the races for a happy day out, wearing a new necklace and a brand-new dress to impress her husband, and he had repaid her by flaunting his mistress under her nose. And then they had found this new horror waiting for them.

  ‘No, it’s okay, you’ve done the right thing,’ Annie assured her.

  Daniella saw Annie’s eyes on the coral necklace.

  ‘This thing,’ she said, her lips clenching in sudden anger. She reached up and ripped it from her neck, breaking the clasp. Then she flung it to the floor. Chips of coral scattered, bouncing down the stairs. ‘I hate it. I hate him.’