He nodded. “So. You are upset. Is it about the boy? Or about Chen?”
She shook her head quickly. “Oh, no, no. Anthony’s fine. He’s spectacular. And Dennis, we have our understandings. You know. It’s probably stupid that I came to see you. And so late at night. I apologize.”
“Old people don’t need much sleep. Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s just a stupid, simple thing.”
“Nothing about you could ever be stupid or simple, Laura. Is it about Nicholas, my grandson?”
She was silent for a moment, carefully weighing her words. Making some decision. Aware that he realized, at this moment, how her mind was working.
“We had a stupid argument. Last week. When I came home. I haven’t answered his calls. Because he expects an explanation from me.”
“And you give explanations to no one.” He paused. “Even when you might be in the wrong.”
She stood, picked up the wineglass and drained it. She told him how they had come upon Richie Ventura in her apartment. How Richie tried to make Nick believe that they once had been lovers. She told him about the key.
“Did he have a key? To your place?” He caught the angry expression and smiled. “No. Of course not.”
“He and his Playboy ape man strong-armed poor Luis to open the apartment door. Richie pulled a key of his own from his pocket, so that Nick would think—whatever he wanted Nick to think.”
“Why didn’t you tell Nick?” When she didn’t reply, he said, “Because Nick should know better. He should trust you. Because he knows Richie and his mean games.”
She came beside him on the couch, snuggled against him, played with his long fingers as he squeezed her arm reassuringly.
“Maybe I expect too much.”
“Well, from Nick’s point of view …”
“I know, I know.” She turned away from him, walked about the room, hugging her elbows. She moved with an animal grace, a determined step, wary, yet at the same time certain of who she was. Taking her time. As she had when she was just nineteen and had completed her second year in the design school in Milan.
When Nicholas Ventura, after tending to some business in Rome, had traveled north to Milan to visit Laura, he stayed four days. He was her lover, her first, and thus her teacher. He had known many women, and had become a good, considerate, knowledgeable lover. There was an unexpected rapport between them over the dinner table at his hotel. It was immediate, electric. It was mutual. He was cautious; she was a virgin. He did not want her to romanticize anything that would happen between them. He wanted her to realize this had no place in their future: just now, just for this moment in time. And, he saw, she seemed able to isolate events in her life. It was the way she too wanted things between them.
Those four days in Milan were the only time they had been together, but neither of them ever forgot one single moment. Between them were nearly forty years, yet together they were ageless. Two entities, dissolving and uniting; giving and taking; serious and frivolous. Lovers of the moment, without age, without definition beyond each other. For that time.
He taught her physically, but he also taught her from his own best instincts. “Never tell anyone where you learned what you know. That knowledge is yours. Throughout your life, you will learn—and teach—many things. They are yours, exclusively.” He told her he would forever be a telephone call away, wherever in the world, or in whatever situation, she might find herself.
When she was ready, she told him, “I was going over tonight, to surprise Nick. I drove toward his apartment. I was planning to tell him about Richie and his stupid key and—”
“And?”
“And instead drove out to see you.”
For the merest second, he caught her hesitation, but she regarded him steadily, leaned forward, and kissed him gently on the lips.
“I guess I can be stupid about things, like anyone else. I always feel better when I talk with you. I’m just … I’ve been so tired lately, Papa.”
Abruptly, he asked her, “Tired of what, Laura?”
It was not a casual question. She could not just brush it off. There were too many years of knowledge between them.
“Is there something
else
you wanted to tell me, Laura?”
She sat tensely at the edge of the chair, leaned forward toward him. Her eyes were bright, a darkening thunderstorm gray. “Maybe I’m just tired of my life. Maybe I want to settle down. Maybe I did a terrible thing, allowing my son to stay with his father. I think I might have wronged Su-Su, in a way. You know, Dennis found her for me. As a substitute for my own child.”
“Have you been a good mother to her?”
“I think so. I love her very much. But how would she feel to know that she was
shopped
for? Like getting a puppy to replace the one that died.”
“That might have been the motive in the beginning. But the girl is a beautiful, successful, self-assured young woman. Last year, I saw her at Christmas time. She and my great-grandson Peter, they were talking so seriously. I think maybe you need a vacation. Some rest; not to have to work so hard for a while. You have no problem with the girl?”
Laura shook her head. “God, no. She was accepted at Harvard, Yale—everywhere she applied. That’s very unusual, you know. She was very concerned. She asked them, each one, flat out, at her interview, ‘If I were accepted, would it be because I am a double minority? A woman and Chinese?’”
Papa Ventura laughed. “Sounds like she’s got a streak in her just like you, Laura. How did they respond?”
“The man at Yale said, ‘With a four point zero average for all four years of high school, with all your outside activities, political involvement, I wouldn’t turn you down if you were a white, pale-faced young man from a family who came over on the
Mayflower
.’”
Papa Ventura didn’t understand any of this. “Life is so funny,” he said. “Times change; standards change; values change. That’s why trust and honor are so important.”
“I always feel better when I come to see you, Papa. I was wrong about Nick. I will get together with him. Again, I’m sorry I came here so late.”
He rose and they embraced; kissed gently, as a grandfather would a beloved granddaughter. She stepped back from him and they regarded each other for a moment. He was not going to get anything more from her.
She walked from the room in her gliding pace, and in a tough, tomboy way, she waved good-bye over her head without turning to face him.
She might have been surprised, or concerned, or puzzled, by the expression on his face.
T
HOMAS CARUSO HAD SERVED
two years in Vietnam as a member of a military intelligence unit. It was supposed that his law degree with specialization in constitutional law would serve his country well. When he returned to America, he studied for vows in a strict, contemplative Catholic society. Before taking final vows, Tom Caruso realized that withdrawing from the world was not right for him. His Father Superior suggested he study for the active priesthood. But he soon realized that he did not want to be in the position of listening to the sins of others, relieving them of their individual guilts, freeing them from a sense of responsibility after being assured of their repentance. In effect, telling them that he had intervened, explained all to God, and had received an assurance that a few prayers and rosaries would secure their purification.
He had known for a long time that no one else could secure your purity, your peace of mind. Some men could forget; justify; excuse the most disturbingly inhumane deeds. Others could not. For a while, Tom Caruso put his life on hold.
While teaching some courses in criminal justice, he was approached by a recruiter for the DEA. He was offered a position as a deep, undercover supervising agent, who would work from time to time as the only contact with a vulnerable informant who must trust him implicitly. At the same time, he could teach whatever courses he wanted at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Through the years Caruso had felt satisfaction in teaching, but he was always uneasy running agents. He felt a heavy responsibility for each individual he took under his care. Nick O’Hara was functioning as a triple agent. He had seen in Nick the building tension, the growing confusion, the constant worry. He could imagine Nick asking himself, late at night, Did I do the right thing? Did I give the right information to the wrong person? Am I blown? Am I about to sink?
He shot a few baskets in the gym at John Jay. Nick had sounded quietly tense but insistent. He knew now that the murder of this guy, Salvy Grosso, and of his nephew, had shaken Nick. He had described the Polaroids vividly, repeating, “I should have known how scared he was, Tom. I should have known what it meant.”
He hadn’t tried to tell Nick that the death of these two men wasn’t his fault. Nick would have to sort that out for himself. He hadn’t commented on the lack of value in those two lives. Tom had seen too much casual death and killing; he had no words to offer. Nick would have to live with whatever degree of responsibility he felt.
He had known Nick was holding something back. He was glad it hadn’t taken him long to make this appointment. Nick was dressed in black sweats, too. They passed the ball back and forth, shot baskets, ran up and down the court. Finally, Nick wiped his face with his sleeve and signaled a time-out. As they sat on the bench on the isolated far side of the court, looking straight ahead, Nick said, “I have the informant at the DEA office. Felix Rodriguiz.”
Tom Caruso didn’t react. He had known it could be anyone. The fact that it was Rodney Coleman’s number one didn’t surprise him or distress him. It made sense. He nodded and Nick turned to face him.
“I gotta ask you this. Coleman—you trust him? Because he’s gonna be running me for the rest of this operation.”
Caruso thought for a moment, then nodded. “I know Coleman is a pretty cold fish. We served together in ’Nam. He saved my life once. Literally. Then, again, I saved his life the next day. We were the sole survivors of a mission that went very wrong. Yes. I trust him. I don’t particularly
like
him, but I trust him.”
“Get Rodriguiz out right away. I have a meeting with Coleman tomorrow afternoon. In some office in midtown. Some advertising agency. Rodriguiz should get picked up right away.”
“As soon as you leave, I’ll pass the word. I assume you have some proof?”
“You guys get the proof. Salvy Grosso, that dirtbag—all thanks to him for all the good it’ll do him now. He gave Rodriguiz up. I imagine the DEA can prove it out … but nail him right away!”
“As soon as you leave, Nick. I swear. Do you know why Coleman wants to meet with you?”
“It’s gonna happen. Very soon. In a matter of days. I don’t know where. No one does—except my grandfather and whoever else has a right to know. At the last minute, people will be directed by phone—public phones—to … somewhere.”
“So no bugs can be in place.”
Nick nodded.
“So it’ll be up to you, more or less, You okay with that, Nick?”
“I’m not okay with that. But I’m not okay with a lot of things.” He studied the bland expression on Caruso’s face. “But I’ll do what I gotta do. I’ll tell you this, Tom. I came close to bailing out. After Salvy and the kid. Jesus, I thought we were the good guys.”
“We are. Relatively speaking.” He snapped his fingers, just remembering. “Here’s something that might cheer you up. You’re getting an A for the term.” He reached out and thumped Nick’s shoulder.
“Oh, yeah. That cheers the living hell outta me, Teach.”
He had dinner with his grandfather after a quick shower and change of clothes. It was a relaxing evening; the old man showed him some new plants and arrangements he was cultivating in his greenhouse, to be added to his medieval garden in the spring.
It wasn’t until he was leaving that the old man embraced him, hard, and whispered in his ear. “Nicholas. Tomorrow night. You come here by six o’clock.” Then he pulled back, looked steadily at the blue eyes reflecting his own. “This shows my trust in you, grandson. You will be part of it.”
D
ENNIS CHEN CARRIED HIS
briefcase under his arm. The younger of his two assistants, Dong Zhue Wang, carrying a laptop computer, was noticeably excited. He had never been to New York; he had never before flown on the Concorde. Yang Bun Lau, in his forties, was a more experienced traveler. He carried the tickets and documents for all of them, had supervised the handling of the luggage; he would deal with all the necessary bothersome details that would get them from one place to another as simply as possible.
Heathrow was well policed; luggage was carefully screened, passengers searched when it was appropriate. Signs prohibiting unattended luggage were familiar by now, impossible to overlook.
Both men stayed close to Dennis Chen as he headed toward the Executive Lounge, where a quieter, more peaceful atmosphere prevailed. Then there was a sudden commotion: a woman’s voice calling loudly, shocking well-dressed travelers nearby. She was apparently screaming at her husband to hurry from the newsstand as their flight was now boarding—
they’d miss the plane.
The man, tucking magazines under his arm, candy in pockets, clutching tickets in his mouth, ran haphazardly through the crowd, leaving behind him a trail of angry people. He had knocked into a baby stroller and the young parents, furious but grateful their child hadn’t been harmed, waved fists after him.
The faster he ran, the louder his wife’s high-strung voice. He turned to look behind him—could he actually have hurt anyone?—when he crashed into Dennis Chen, who had no chance to brace himself before the impact. The briefcase flew from under his arm; he twisted, and a pain shot through his right leg. He landed on his right shoulder, his right wrist crunching beneath him. His face slammed into the floor, blood clouding his vision.
His companions stood immobilized for no more than a second. Their decision not to pursue the vulgar runner was predetermined: their responsibility was to Dennis Chen. Out of a crowd of concerned but helpful people, two more men came to his aid—his chauffeur, who always stayed at any airport until Mr. Chen’s scheduled plane departed, with the boss on board; and another aide, not scheduled for this particular trip, who carefully glanced around and retrieved Mr. Chen’s briefcase and handed it to Yang Bun Lau, senior to himself.