They worked about ten yards apart, their canvases shaded by a pair of carob trees. They painted steadily and in silence, though
one would sometimes turn to see what the other was doing. When their eyes met, they would smile. But Paul always waited for
his father to smile first. He was afraid that if he smiled too much, his father might think he didn’t take his painting seriously
enough.
Next to painting with his father, Paul loved just being with him. Even if it was only taking a walk through the village, and
maybe along the beach and finally stopping for a while where the rocks came down to the water.
They had been to the rocks just last Sunday. It was a clear morning, and his father sat smoking and looking out at the sea.
There was no sound but that of the wind in a few trees, and his father had looked up into the leaves and past the leaves into
the wide blue sky, not smiling, but with his face as pleased and young as Paul had ever seen it. Then Paul felt his father’s
hand on his head. It pushed the hair back from his forehead and smoothed it while Paul pressed his head backward against the
big hand until it slipped over the side of Paul’s face and drew his head down against his father’s chest. Paul could feel
the beating heart. He heard his father sigh once. Then the hand lifted from him and they both stood up. Walking home, Paul
held his father’s hand. He liked it that they could be together without anybody speaking.
This afternoon they painted until the sky clouded over and the light turned bad. Then they gathered their things and started
back toward the village. It was a long climb over steep, twisting paths, and they stopped at one point to rest.
“Papa,” said Paul.
He was speaking mostly in Italian today and that was how Peter answered. “Yes?”
“Can I ask you an important question?”
“Why not?”
“But will you tell me the truth?”
“Don’t I always?”
“No.”
“Hey! You calling your papa a liar?”
“You know what I mean,” said the boy. “It’s like when you don’t want me to know something, so you make a kind of joke out
of it.”
“All right. What’s the question?”
“Are you a mafioso?”
Peter Walters laughed. “That’s some question.”
“See? You’re laughing. You’re making it a joke.”
Peter looked at his son. Serious. Always so serious. He wished the boy would laugh more.
“I apologize,” he said. “It’s just that it’s a strange question for a boy to ask his father. So which of your friends said
I was a mafioso?”
“Pietro Dolti. He heard his father talking.”
“What did his father say?”
“That you weren’t somebody to fool with. That he thought you knew a lot of bigshots in Palermo. That you always had plenty
of money and nobody knew how you got it.”
“And what do
you
think, Paulie? You think I’m a bigshot gangster?”
The boy looked down at his hands. He wondered if his hands would be as big and strong as his father’s one day. He wondered
if all the things that were kept so secret inside his father were hidden somewhere inside him, too.
“I don’t know,” he said, and took a few extra moments to work up his courage. “You go on these trips. I keep wondering where
you go. I think about what you do.”
“I work for a big American company. Sometimes I have to meet with people. They’re in all different places. You know that.”
“I don’t care if you’re a mafioso, Papa. I don’t care
what
you are.” Paul felt his lip tremble and covered it with the back of his hand. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I’m no mafioso, Paulie. Forget about Pietro Dolti’s old man. He talks with his tongue dipped in shit.”
Paul gazed blindly at his father. He pictured him lying in a gutter with blood gushing from his mouth. He had seen
The Godfather
—parts I, II, and III. He knew all too well what fi
nally happened to even the best, the toughest of gangsters. He tried to speak, but something was stuck in his throat and no
words came.
“Listen to me, Paulie.” Peter gripped his son’s arms, feeling how slight they were, how delicate. “You know how I feel about
our Lord, Jesus Christ, don’t you?”
The boy nodded, although he had no idea how his father felt about Jesus Christ. In fact he could not remember his father ever
saying anything at all about Him.
“Well,” said his father, “I solemnly swear in the name of our sweet Lord, Jesus Christ, that I’m no mafioso.”
They stared at each other.
“Do you believe me now?” Peter asked.
Still not sure he had a voice, Paul nodded.
“Good. And what do you have to say about Pietro Dolti’s shit-eating old man?”
The boy finally found a kind of voice. “Fuck him.”
It was the first time he had ever said the word in front of his father. But it was the single word that seemed able to come
out of his throat.
“Exactly,” said Peter Walters.
G
IANNI ASSUMED THAT
by now there would probably be an all points bulletin out on his wagon, so his first move was to leave it at JFK’s long-term
parking area and to pick up an innocuous gray Ford Fairlane from Hertz. He used one of the credit cards the don had given
him. It was under the name of Jayson Fox of Richmond, Virginia, and went through the computer with no problem.
Gianni’s second move was to again try to reach Mary Chan Yung. This time a live voice answered and he felt instant relief.
They had not gotten to her yet.
“Harriet?” he said.
“There’s no Harriet here. What number did you want?”
Her voice was pleasant, light, and with no trace of an accent. But what had he expected? An updated dragon lady?
Gianni recited her correct number with one digit altered.
“You have the wrong number,” she told him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and hung up.
It took him close to forty minutes to reach Greenwich and another fifteen to find the house, a cedar ranch overlooking Long
Island Sound. There were no cars in the driveway and lights were on in several rooms.
Still, being cautious, he drove his rented Fairlane a good hundred yards past the driveway, pulled it off the road, and parked
behind some brush. Then he walked back to the house, bent low behind the shrubbery, and peered through the corner of a living-room
window.
Gianni had a moment then. For something in the sight of the woman he saw reading beside a lamp, some curiously tender sense
that this beautiful, alien stranger was under the same threat of pain and death as he, set a small forest of nerves going
inside him.
Sitting motionless, Mary Chan Yung had the stillness of a photograph. Then as if aware of Gianni’s presence, she looked up
toward the window where he crouched. She could not have seen him, yet her gaze gave him the feeling of being illuminated.
She returned to her reading, and Gianni left to check the other lighted rooms: a kitchen, a study, and a bedroom. All were
empty.
He went around to the front and rang the doorbell.
A floodlight went on and Mary Yung opened the door without first looking to see, or even asking, who was there. It seemed
more a matter of style than of carelessness or bravery.
What she saw was a badly battered stranger, and no sign of a car in the driveway.
Her hand went to her mouth. “Dear God. You’ve been in an accident.”
Gianni forced his lips into a kind of pained smile. “All this happened last night, Miss Yung. And it was no accident.”
In his mind he was still smiling, but it was actually more of a grimace.
“My name is Gianni Garetsky,” he said. “I’m an old friend of Vittorio Battaglia’s.”
Mary Yung stood looking at him.
“Of course. You’re the artist. I saw your picture in this morning’s
Times.
Vittorio used to talk about you a lot.” She paused to let things come together. “But what… ”
“I have to talk to you. It’s important. May I come in?”
She nodded. “Please.”
But once inside the brightly lighted living room, Gianni just felt exposed. Others could be arriving at any time, and he was
afraid of being blindsided. Outside, everything was black.
“I know this sounds crazy,” he said, “but you’re in serious danger here. I was beaten half to death last night because two
men with guns wanted to know where Vittorio was, and I couldn’t tell them. And I’m afraid you’re next on the list.”
Lips parted, she stared at him. The lamplight caught her forehead and threw a shadow across most of her face. What remained
visible might have belonged to some classic figurine.
“Who were the men?” she finally asked.
“They said FBI.”
“The FBI goes around beating famous artists half to death these days?”
Gianni shrugged. He had no idea what she was feeling, but he was impressed by her surface calm. “I don’t think they were real
FBI and I’m sure they weren’t about to leave me around to tell anyone.”
“I haven’t seen Vittorio in years. What makes you think I’m next?”
Gianni showed Mary Chan Yung the photograph of her and Vittorio, along with her biographical printout. She studied them both,
a striking woman of cool lavender shadows and hidden ghosts.
“They gave these to you?” she said.
“They didn’t
give
me anything, Miss Yung.”
Her eyes were flat. “Vittorio always said you were a hardhead. Even as a boy.”
He left that one alone.
“So what do we do, Mr. Garetsky?”
“First, we talk. But not in this room, and not with any lights on.”
They ended up in the adjoining study with a bottle of Napoleon brandy and the house silent and dark around them. Other than
for a patch of moon silvering the floor, everything was black.
“Do you know where Vittorio is?” said Gianni.
“No.”
“When did you last see him?”
“About nine years ago.”
“Is that when you broke up?”
“Pretty much.”
“What happened between you?”
She lifted her snifter and breathed the brandy. “The usual. First, the excitement fades and everything becomes habit. Then
one of you meets someone new.”
“Which of you met someone new?”
“Vittorio.”
Gianni found it hard to imagine. “Who was she?”
“I never knew.”
Mary Yung rose and settled against a wall. She seemed to be leaning on a shadow.
“You’re a celebrated artist,” she said. “You’re not just anybody. Why can’t you call the police?”
“And tell them what? That a couple of supposed federal agents beat me up and were going to torture and kill me, so I killed
them
instead?”
His actually putting it into words appeared to affect her, and she began pacing. In the reflected moonlight, he saw her in
parts… slender, graceful legs, a hip’s curve, high perfect breasts, a China-doll face under sleek blue-black bangs.
How could Vittorio have left her?
“Then we spend the rest of our lives hiding in dark rooms?” she said.
“Hardly.” He could make out her eyes, deeply set in the oval of her face. “But we can’t do much of anything until we find
out why Vittorio’s suddenly important enough for those two men to have come after me as they did.”
“How are we supposed to manage that?”
“By taking one step at a time. By grabbing whoever walks in here looking for you and asking questions. But that’s
my
job. What I’d like
you
to do right now is pack a bag, check into a local motel, and wait for me to call you.”
She considered him through the dark. “And if you’re dead and can’t call. Where do I go then?”
“I don’t expect to be dead.”
“No? You mean that’s not included in your one-step-at-a-time plan?”
Mary Yung came over and sat down facing him.
“Well, here’s what
I
don’t expect, Mr. Garetsky. I don’t expect to be anyplace but right here with you when some stranger comes into my house.
I’m not a delicate, eyelash-fluttering innocent. I own a licensed firearm, I know how to use it, and I’ve rubbed knees under
the table with some very bad boys. So since Vittorio seems to have dumped my life on the line right along with yours, it looks
like you’re stuck with a partner.”
Gianni saw no point in arguing. Besides, it would help to have her with him.
There were things to consider.
How many men would be coming?
Would they play it straight and come right up to the front door, or pick a lock and come in on their own?
If they did ring the bell, should Mary Yung open the door or let them break in and then surprise them?
They discussed everything as equals, their lives weighted the same on some invisible set of scales. Her calm, Gianni decided,
was more than just surface. She was cool straight through.
She showed Gianni her revolver, a snub-nosed, nickel-plated .38 that looked, in her hand, as though it had been specially
designed for her by Ralph Lauren. Gianni had never known a woman who actually owned a gun. His wife had hated and feared simply
the sight of one. She despised violence. All life was sacred to her, even a fly’s. He teased her about it at first but soon
stopped. She took it too seriously.
“Why do you have this?” he asked.
“Because I live and travel alone and there are a lot of crazies around.”
“Have you ever shot anyone?”
“So far, I haven’t had to.”
“But you’ve fired the piece on a range?”
“Yes.”
“Are you any good?”
“I can hit what I aim at.”
“It’s different when you aim at a person.”
“I’m sure it is,” she said. “But whatever I have to do, I’ll do.”
Gianni believed her.
By 2:00
A.M.
they were drinking coffee, crushing out cigarettes in ceramic ashtrays, and listening for sounds. Gianni felt tired yet strangely
easy. Now there was just the waiting. But that could be minutes, hours, or even days.
They took turns dozing.
Once, asleep in her chair, she showed a soft, child’s face. Until some passing dream made it change and her features became
harsh, sensual, those of a woman with product to sell. Then this mask, too, cracked and a smooth-faced girl of eighteen showed
herself to Gianni, skin almost luminous, a Chinese virgin with everything good still ahead.