Red, White & Dead

by Laura Caldwell

  He nodded at Grandma O’s necklace around my neck. “You wear that well.”

  I couldn’t stop staring at him, this man with the copper glasses and the boat shoes. Christopher. I couldn’t call him my father. I’d been calling him that in my mind forever. But now, seeing this man standing in front of me, I realized I didn’t know him. My father was the man I knew twenty-two years ago, the man I knew in my memories.

  “But the body in your office…” I managed to say.

  The silence in the room crackled. My skin tingled. The thoughts in my brain careened.

  Christopher and Elena looked at each other. Elena started to weep. I glanced at Maggie, who was blinking madly, her mouth slightly open. Seeing Maggie, usually so bossy and full of advice, now silent made everything even more serious somehow.

  I turned to Christopher and Elena. “Who was that body in your office? Was that another faked death?” My voice was loud and surprisingly angry. I hadn’t seen that emotion bubbling up.

  Everyone stared at me; the air bristled around us.

  “Whose…body…was…in…the…office?” My voice was demanding now, the voice I used when a witness on the stand wasn’t cooperating.

  But Christopher was not your typical witness. He stared at me with his green eyes under those round copper glasses. His eyes were unblinking, almost in shock, and yet there was something else behind them. It looked like pride, directed at me.

  He glanced at Elena again, as if in a silent question. Like Charlie and me, they didn’t seem to need words.

  Elena threw her shoulders back and opened her mouth. “It was Maurizio.”

  “Your husband, Maurizio?”

  Her face sagged; she nodded.

  “Did you…?” I said, looking at Christopher.

  His eyes watched me. He nodded.

  “You killed him,” I said, to make sure I understood.

  Another nod.

  I glanced at Elena, whose chin was trembling, tears starting to stream.

  “What in the hell is going on here?” My voice was angry again. I had no idea how to interpret this situation. Was Christopher-my father-a ruthless killer? Was Elena scared of him. Should I be scared of him?

  Maggie spoke up. “Maurizio was in the Camorra, isn’t that right?”

  How great it felt to hear Maggie back in defense-lawyer mode.

  Elena and Christopher both nodded.

  “Did he threaten you, Mr. McNeil?”

  “Yes, he tried to kill me. So I killed him.”

  I felt my bottom lip move away from my top. I felt my head recoil at the stark simplicity of his words, as if they were easy to say-So I killed him.

  He saw my reaction. He nodded as if he understood, didn’t expect me to think any differently.

  I didn’t know what to think. My mind screamed and staggered.

  “How did Maurizio know about your office down there?” Maggie asked.

  “No one knew until today. We believe he followed Isabel and Elena from Ischia. He was there with her on the island. As best we can gather, he must have heard her and Izzy talking. When Elena told him she was going back to Rome, he didn’t give anything away.”

  Elena began to weep again.

  Christopher moved fast to her desk and stood beside her, a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  Elena looked up at Christopher, her chin still trembling.

  He crouched beside her chair, and, as if begging forgiveness, held out a hand. “I am sorry. Truly sorry.”

  Something in me said, Where’s my apology? but I knew Elena had suffered so much more than me.

  Elena took Christopher’s hand, grasped it with both of hers. They stayed like that for a long moment.

  Then Elena sat up and looked at us. “What have we done to Charlie?”

  Christopher shook his head back and forth, making his gray hair move slightly at the sides. “This is not your fault. This is not your fault. It is because of me that they have done this to my son. They are trying to get to me.”

  Something about the words my son rankled me. They were technically true, but what right did he have to use them?

  Elena shook her head. “Don’t give in to them, Christopher. Don’t give them what they want.”

  “Who are you talking about?” I said. “Who is them? The Camorra?”

  “Yes,” Christopher said. “They must know I’m alive, that I have spent the last twenty years fighting them.”

  He looked at Elena. She shook her head slowly. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t tell them this time. You must fight them.”

  “At the cost of my son? I have already given them my life. I gave up my children. I can’t now sacrifice my son’s life. And you know that they will kill him, Elena.”

  Elena stared into the eyes of her brother. “I’m surprised they have not already.”

  “What?” My insides felt as if they were ripping apart. “Do you think they would really kill Charlie?”

  “If they don’t get what they want,” Christopher said, “then yes.”

  “Then give them what they want! And what in the hell do they want?”

  Christopher took a step away from my aunt. “Me. They want me. And I’m guessing they want something else, too, but I’m not sure what. What I am sure about, though, is that I’m going to give them what they want if it will spare Charlie.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. “How?”

  “They kidnapped Charlie in the United States, in Chicago, and in a very public way. They clearly were sending us a message.”

  “Us?” I said with trepidation. I couldn’t stand the thought that I might have contributed to what was going on with Charlie, but I knew that he was right. “Dez Romano,” I said.

  Christopher nodded. “Between your involvement with him-”

  “I wasn’t involved with him.”

  Christopher held up a hand, as if to say, It’s not the time to discuss that, and I resented that hand, the way he seemed to be telling me what to do as if he were a father who knew me, a father who’d been around.

  He continued talking. “And the Camorra likely finding out about me, they turned to someone who would be a message to both of us-Charlie. I’ve gotten that message. I’m ready to respond.”

  “So, what? You’re going to go to Chicago and turn yourself into them?”

  “Not exactly like that, but yes.”

  I paused. Then, “I need to go home, too. I can’t stay here while this is happening to Charlie.”

  “Then you are responding to their message, too.”

  I looked at him defiantly. “I guess I am.”

  He opened his mouth, about to protest, but then he nodded. “I understand. But it might complicate things if we all travel on public airlines.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re clearly looking for me, for us, and by flying a public airline, we’ll be easier to find. The American passport system and airline system is impossible to infiltrate right now, but in Italy? The Camorra could easily find out passenger lists in and out of the cities.”

  “I know someone who has a private plane. Would it help if we flew private?”

  My father turned to me, his eyes locking back into mine, but this time it seemed as if he were seeing me, really me, for the first time since he’d appeared. His gaze gave me a strange, almost violent sensation. My head could not catch up.

  So I just repeated my question. “Would it help if we flew private?”

  My father nodded.

  I looked at Elena. “Is there a phone I can use that we know for sure is secure?”

  Christopher took a phone from his pocket. “They do not know this number. Who do you want to call?”

  I looked up Theo’s number on my own phone and dialed it. “Hi,” I said when he answered. “Any way I could borrow your plane?”

  56

  A private plane, I learned, is the way to travel. None of that racing to the airport, getting there hours ahead of time. Instead, you roll up by means of a taxi, right to
the airplane, and calmly hand your bag to the pilot. There’s none of that stripping down to your underwear in order to get through security, no shoving of products into two-ounce bottles and then shoving them farther into a freaking quart-size baggie so all the world can see your eye cream and deoderant.

  Theo had had to bargain with his partner and other shareholders to get the plane so last-minute, but he must have been persuasive, because there it was, just for us. Theo had offered to personally pick us up, but I’d told him to stay put. There was no reason for him to fly to Italy and back again. But as I stepped on the plane, I wished he were there with me.

  Eight single seats were on either side of the cabin. They were huge, made of ivory leather.

  Maggie sat in one, bounced up and down. “These are great!”

  My father and I got in next. We inadvertently sat in seats across from each other, right at the same time. It felt weird. Maggie seemed to sense the unease and said, “Izzy, come here so I can show you something.”

  She drew me up to the cockpit, introduced ourselves to the pilots, then pointed, rather randomly, at some of their instruments.

  She dropped her voice then. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell your mom about…” Maggie’s gaze drifted over my shoulder to my father. My father.

  “I can’t. I can’t just tell her on the phone. Hey, Mom. I know your son was kidnapped, and that’s because a Mob group wants revenge or leverage or something against me and your ex-husband-who…Oh, yeah, by the way…is alive.”

  Maggie grimaced. “Guess not.”

  She turned and led me back to the seats. Maggie took the one across from my father. I nodded my thanks and took the seat across from Elena.

  Maurizio’s body had been left in an area where they were sure to find him today. We had convinced Elena to come with us, despite the fact that she desperately wanted to be in Italy to plan funeral services for her husband. However, my father was certain that the Camorra would question Elena in detail about Maurizio’s killing, and because her niece had been asking around about her father, the Camorra would soon, if they hadn’t already, figure out that Christopher McNeil was not only alive but involved in Maurizio’s death. My father was also certain that although an extreme loyalty existed in the System, they wouldn’t be so kind to Elena as they had in the past, not when they realized that she had known the whole time that her brother was alive. And working against them.

  My poor aunt was understandably distraught. She sat on her ivory leather chair, fiddling her hands in her lap as if she could not decide what to do with them. She glanced up at me a few times, seemed to be on the verge of tears. I spoke to her softly, trying to comfort her, but all I could say was, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s my fault,” she said. “My fault.”

  But even as I failed in comforting her, I began to wonder if I should blame myself. It was my curiosity, my wanting to find my father that led me to Italy, that led Elena to take me to his office, that led Maurizio to follow us, that led my father to kill him.

  Determined to be of service and not the source of more agony, I tried a few more times to say something appropriately soothing to Elena, but when she shook her head, fast and for a long time, as if she could not stand any words, any thoughts, anything, I stopped.

  My father had killed someone. I returned to that thought as I looked out an oval window while we slowly began to taxi the runway. My father had killed someone. In his line of work, the possibility that he had killed more than one person was a distinct one. The recognition of this fact was as bizarre and surreal as the rest of the experience. I kept looking at him, one row up, thinking that I did not know this man. Not at all.

  Maggie tried to make small talk with my father. Actually, as the plane began to pick up speed, she was quite successful. Soon she had him interested in a story about a Mafia case she’d handled, where the sheriff in charge of taking the alleged mobsters to court had tracked down one of their key witnesses, and then let the mobsters know where that witness was.

  “Of course the whole thing was taped,” Maggie said. “So the sheriff was arrested. And when they questioned him, they asked him, why did you give them that information? He said it was because he had grown up in the same neighborhood as the mobsters and twenty years ago they had given his sister money for a dentist visit. Twenty years ago.”

  My father nodded. “There is a lot of loyalty in the Mafia.” His voice was clear and smooth but he always spoke in a low register, as if not wanting it to carry.

  There it was-that talk of loyalty again. Before I knew what I was saying, my voice rang out louder than anyone’s, clearly ringing out over the plane’s engines. “And you have that kind of loyalty, too, right? You really know about loyalty.” Oops. There was that anger bubbling up again, speaking for me. And it was laced with sarcasm, something I’m not usually prone to.

  Christopher turned and looked at me in the row behind him, no expression on his face. Maggie turned, too, eyebrows raised.

  I leaned forward and squinted at him, irritated beyond control. “What?” I said. “Why are you giving me that blank look like you don’t know what I’m talking about? It sounds to me like there’s loyalty to ‘the family’-this Mob family-and obviously you had a lot of loyalty to your father, because you did all this to avenge what happened to him, and I respect that, but where was your loyalty to your family? The one you created with my mother?”

  My father said nothing. We stared at each other for a long time. I had no idea how to read him. Was he angry at me? Wounded by what I said? I couldn’t tell.

  Finally, he broke the stalemate. “Are you ready to have this conversation, Isabel?”

  The plane launched itself into the air, and I nodded.

  57

  “We believe they are returning to America now,” La Duca said in Italian.

  Dez clenched the phone then tried to make himself unclench it. “Are they on a flight?”

  “Sí, we assume so. They did not take Alitalia or any commercial flights. My men followed them as far as a regional airport before they lost them. Christopher McNeil is good.” La Duca ’s voice wasn’t livid as he reported that. He was the kind of boss that respected proficiency in others. Not that he wouldn’t still kill the man when he got the chance. “We believe they are on a jet.”

  Dez fully released his grip on the phone.

  “Which means,” La Duca continued, “that you acted quickly, just as I asked you to do. You did something to get them to return immediately. Complementi.”

  Complementi was the Italian way of saying nice work, good job. And La Duca was not the type to toss praise easily.

  “Grazie,” Dez said simply.

  “This is your show now.”

  “I’ve got it,” Dez said with authority.

  “You are sure?”

  Dez knew La Duca was speaking as much about Dez proving himself as he was about taking out the McNeil family.

  “Certo,” Dez said. “All of them.”

  “I ask that you will be discreet.”

  Dez froze. “You are asking me to conduct this operation in quiet?”

  “Sí. You and I will know. But the news will not go up. At least not until it is all done.”

  They both knew what La Duca meant. The act that Dez had planned was splashy, one might say explosive, so the act wasn’t really going to be done in quiet. What La Duca was speaking of, though, was that the planning of the McNeils’ deaths would be kept between the two of them. It wouldn’t go up, which meant it wouldn’t reach the top-the top boss of the Camorra. The top boss was the one who, it was said, let the clans duke it out so that he was the only one who saw everything clearly.

  “There is something strange,” La Duca continued, “very strange about the McNeils. Christopher McNeil has been a thorn in our side for entirely too long. I want us to handle this quietly. Later, we can reveal how and when it was done.”

  Dez liked the words us and we coming from L
a Duca ’s mouth. He had hoped that by handling this situation well he would prove himself immediately to the top. He had also put a plan into action for learning the identity of the one at the top. Although La Duca didn’t know it, that second part of the plan was still in play.

  “You place your trust correctly,” Dez said finally.

  What was about to happen would be very Camorra, and yet it would also be very American Camorra, putting the U.S. and Chicago on the radar of the System in the same way Spain and Madrid had done in the past. His nerves tweaked a bit in anticipation. The game had already started. The McNeil brother, little Charlie, was already installed at the place where it would go down. As Dez had hoped, his abduction had drawn an immediate response from Isabel McNeil and her daddy. Isabel McNeil, who had seemed such a problem, was turning out to be his solution.

  “Christopher McNeil is good,” La Duca said again. “For him to evade the Camorra for years, to trick us like this, is incredible. And worthy of caution. We have been able to find out little about where he lived or what he did during these twenty years since we thought we killed him. But we are certain now that he has been working for the antimafia office, working against the System. You should be careful of him.”

  “Of course. And what is your opinion of the other family members?” Dez liked the way this conversation was proceeding, as if he and La Duca were equals, comparing professional notes.

  “They are amateurs.” La Duca made a dismissive noise. “Your testa rossa apparently has some skills, but purely amateur.”

  “I can handle amateurs.”

  Dez spoke a few more words, reassuring La Duca, then hung up the phone.

  He would eradicate Christopher McNeil and his family. Even if they kept it quiet for now, as La Duca had asked, word would seep out, so that eventually those in the System would know it was the Camorra who had taken care of the deed, and Dez in particular. But the authorities would not suspect that the hit was Camorra. The rampant desire for public glory that kept showing its ugly face in Napoli would be placed on the back burner.