Part 26 (1/2)
”I've never met any of those boys.”
Suddenly, I wanted to ask him, Who is your mom? Who is your dad? Where were you raised? What high school did you go to? Why did you leave college? Did you always know you would be a success? Who are your friends? I knew nothing about him. Nothing. And yet that realization didn't leave me empty. Rather, it made me feel kind of hopeful, kind of excited about something to learn in the future.
Meanwhile, the questions about my father? Those didn't excite me. They left me cold with fear.
”I know,” Theo said. ”You need to meet my boys. And hey, I liked meeting Maggie and Bernard.” He nodded across the station in Maggie's direction. She was standing on her tiptoes, clutching Bernard around the neck in a goodbye hug. ”So when you get back,” Theo said, ”we'll set up something with my buddies, okay?”
It sounded like such a normal request, one that I would have said ”yes, of course” to yesterday or earlier this morning or even two hours ago. Now, I had no idea how to answer that question. What would it feel like after I met my father, after I heard the explanation of why he had done what he did? I had so many questions. The situation had too many potentials, too many avenues to crawl down. It could go too many ways and none of those ways seemed good.
But I couldn't-wouldn't-live my life just for my father or whatever I would soon learn about him, so I looked at Theo and said, ”Yes. I want to meet them when I get home.”
He smiled. He bent down and with those perfect lips kissed mine. He was such a beautiful kisser. At that moment, it was hard to remember kissing anyone but him.
He tugged my bottom lip with both of his. And then he folded me into a hug.
”You are fine,” he said. And, as if he knew I didn't believe it, he said it again and again as he embraced me. ”You are fine. You're fine. You're fine.”
When he finally let me go, I had tears in my eyes.
”Don't,” he said, ”or you'll make me do that, too.”
That made me laugh, the thought of him crying-for some reason I couldn't envision it. He seemed like someone who always brought the sun with him, who brought the happy life.
”I'll see you when I get back,” I said.
”Let me watch you walk away.”
”You got it.” And with those words, for one moment, I felt some levity. I felt the way I always felt with him-s.e.xy, amusing.
I kept that feeling in my mind as I sashayed away from him, for a second almost believing I was one of those normal people walking through the Centrale station. I swung my hips a little in an exaggerated way, then I stopped and I tossed him what I hoped was a sensual look over my shoulder.
Theo was beaming.
He gave me a thumbs-up, and then he turned away.
39.
M y aunt and I sat on the train hurtling back to Rome. I was jumpy, moving around in my seat, almost rocking with antic.i.p.ation, but Elena was as still as night. She looked out the window, her eyes obscured by her sungla.s.ses, the silver braid on the arm of those gla.s.ses glinting occasionally with the disappearing sun outside. Once or twice, I attempted to make conversation, first a stab at small talk, then a direct question about my father.
She didn't respond.
I waited for ten more minutes, then said, ”Please, Elena, please just tell me.”
She didn't react to my plea. She continued to stare out the window. We fell into silence, the train making a soothing, rocking motion. A few times, Maggie walked halfway down the aisle from her seat and gave me a questioning look as if to say, Need any help? Need anything?
Each time, I only shook my head sadly. The sun slipped away, night fell. And yet Elena's sungla.s.ses remained on her face.
When we were about twenty minutes outside Rome, Elena spoke. ”I guess I cannot wait any longer.” She turned to me. ”I was the one who caused this.”
I sat and looked at her, wondering what she meant. I was about to ask, but she opened her mouth, and, finally, my aunt removed her sungla.s.ses. Only then did she tell her story.
She clasped her hands tight in her lap, gazing down at them. ”When we were in high school, they killed my father because of your dad, Christopher.”
”What do you mean?”
”The Camorra wanted Christopher.”
”In what way?”
”Here, in Italia, they call the Camorra the System.” She shrugged as if this didn't matter or she didn't care. ”The System wanted your father, because the Camorra was trying to establish a presence in the United States. The Rizzato Brothers were already in the States and they were doing well. But they needed more members. The right members. The System thought it would be perfect if someone like your father, who was Camorra but not Italian-looking at all, who had a name like Christopher McNeil, could be an active part of the Camorra. They wanted him to infiltrate businesses, to learn everything and then give everything back to the Rizzato Brothers and the Camorra. They had big plans for him. He would eventually help the Rizzato Brothers run the System's operations in the United States. Eventually, he would be a boss, one that no one would suspect of being in the Mob. They thought it was perfect. But my father wouldn't hear of it.”
The train raced around a corner and everything in the car lurched to one side. For a second, I fell against my aunt.
”Sorry,” I said.
She smiled a little. ”Do not be sorry, Isabel.”
”You were saying that your father wouldn't go along with the Camorra's plan?”
”No. Christopher heard a conversation about it one night when he came home earlier than expected. He was a senior in high school then. Our parents didn't know he was in the house, but he heard one of the Camorra bosses who'd come from Italy telling our parents of the plan to use Christopher. Our father told this man, in no uncertain terms, that his son would not be a p.a.w.n for the System.” She shook her head. ”This is not my part of the story to tell, but you already know the facts. My father, Kelvin, was killed.”
I felt a sick knowledge dawning. ”They killed him because he refused to let his son work for the Camorra.”
”Yes. It was a message. To my father certainly. The last message he would ever get. It was also a message to your father, Christopher. To our mother. The message was, We will ask and you will say yes, or there will be punishment.”
”But there was no further punis.h.i.+ng. My dad went off to college after your father died, right?”
She dipped her head slowly in acknowledgment and seemed to be drawing in breath for strength. ”Yes, Christopher went to college.” She looked at me, eyes unblinking. ”He also joined the System.”
I don't know why I suffered such shock, but I felt it like a long, steady electrical charge through my whole body. ”My father joined the Camorra?”
”Si. After what they had done to our father, he saw how strong they were, how unflinching. He knew they would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. And therefore he agreed to their wishes.”
”He said he would work for them.” I had to say it to believe it. The electrical charge fizzled, and all I felt was disappointment.
”But he also joined the FBI, Isabel.”
”I don't understand.”
”Christopher contacted the FBI as a freshman in college. He told them he wanted to work for them, but he said that he would be working for the Camorra, too.”
”He would be a double agent?”
”Yes. It was the FBI who put him through college and then paid for his master's degree in psychology. It was the FBI who moved him and your mother to Detroit and placed him in a government job with the Detroit police, although the Camorra took credit for it. They thought they had an inside man. But what your father was doing was reporting on them and consulting on any cases having to do with the Mob, particularly with the Camorra. As I said, the Camorra wanted desperately to establish a foothold in the United States in the seventies. Because of your father's work, because of what he knew, the FBI was always able to find the men who were in the U.S., and those who were coming to the U.S. They were able to shut them down. The Rizzato Brothers were killed, we believe, by some men whom they had stolen from. And many Camorra members eventually gave up and returned to Italia.”