Dust Devil (21 page)

“
What
are you saying to me? Why would you have done all those things for
me?”

“
I
got my reasons. You t’ink I just happened along this here road,
out for a Saturday-afternoon drive or somet’ing? Well, I
didn’t. After he hauled you outta the quarry and realized Sonny
Holbrooke was dead, Dante Pasquale hotfooted it uppa to my house, as
well he shoulda, to tell me the bad news. I figured you’dda
come this way, so I rode outta here to getta you.”

“
You
still haven’t told me why.”

“
That’s
because I t’ink maybe you ain’t gonna like whadda I havva
to say.”

“
Try
me.”

“
All
right.” Papa Nick paused for a moment, as though gathering his
thoughts. Then he asked quietly, “Do you remember your papa at
all?”

“
Only
vaguely. Why?”

“
He
was my son. That makes you my grandson—just in case you’re
a little slow figuring outta the connection, due to that blow you got
to your head.”

“
No!
That’s—that’s just not possible!”

“
No?
Why not? You trying tell me your papa wasn’t Luciano Genovese?
Luke, he called himself.”

“
Yes.
No. I mean... I remember his first name was Luke. I’ve—I’ve
forgotten his last name. When he died, Sofie said we mustn’t
use it anymore, that it might cause trouble for us. I was barely five
at the time, and I didn’t talk much. I guess I must have just
blocked it totally out of my mind. I’ve always thought of
myself as Renzo Cassavettes.”

“
That’sa
the only favor that trash ever did you— changing your last
name, so you donna got no connection to me and Luciano. She didn’t
have no loyalty whaddaso-ever, no understanding about family,
although in the end, that proved a blessing. I never wanted him to
take uppa with her, or to go into the business, either. But Luciano
wouldn’t listen. He ran off to the big city, got mixed uppa
with Sofie, and with the Spinozas and the rest of that lot uppa
there, and got dragged into their territorial wars. Broke his mama’s
heart and damned near killed her, him getting gunned down the way he
did. He was our only child. But then we found outta about you, and it
seemed we’dda been given a second chance. We were starting to
getta on a little in years by then, but there were Joe and Madonna,
with no children of their own. The rest you know. Now, maybe you
donna wanna know me, Renzo. Donna wanna my help or not’ing else
from me, either. Fine. Havva t’ings your own way. But this
mucha you owe me—donna cut yourself off from Joe and Madonna.
And send a postcard to Mama Rosa, your grandmama, now and then.
That’sa all I ask.”

Leaning
back and closing his eyes, Renzo said nothing for a long while,
reflecting on all these revelations, but too tired and hurting,
really, to absorb them properly. Far worse was the ache in his heart
whenever he thought of Sarah. But then, finally, he spoke.

“
I
wrecked the Harley. It’s lying in the ditch by the railroad
tracks.”

“
I
saw it. It’sa been taken care of. Anyt’ing else?”

“
I
had a girl...Sarah...Sarah Kincaid. Her daddy works for you, at the
coal mines. Tell her...” What? That he loved her? That he
hadn’t been thinking straight when he had driven off without
her? That she should wait for him—when he didn’t know
what his future held at this point, had nothing now to offer her?
That it wasn’t just his father who was a mobster, but his
grandfather, too, and probably his great-grandfather, as well? That
he came from a long line of mafiosi, so she should consider herself
well rid of him? “Tell her... I’m sorry.”

*
* *

Guido
drove Renzo to the big city, leaving him standing on one comer of its
old, elegant plaza, to make his own way, as he had insisted,
determined not to take any more from Papa Nick than he already had.
But in the end, after knocking on the office doors of countless
newspapers, magazines and even advertising agencies, and being
rejected, Renzo at last broke down and telephoned Hal Younger,
managing editor of the Herald, who actually proved to be
legitimate—an old school chum of Joe Martinelli’s—and
who did, in fact, wind up giving Renzo a job.

Ignorant
of what had happened back home after he had fled, whether or not he
had been charged with murdering Sonny Holbrooke, Renzo didn’t
try to contact either Sarah or his parents for six months. When,
finally, assuring himself that no one but his folks and Papa Nick
knew about him and Sarah, he attempted to call her, he got a
recording that announced that her number had been disconnected. So he
was compelled to write her a letter. He also wrote to his parents,
giving as his return address the post-office box he had acquired and
signing only the initial of his first name to the missives, in case
Sheriff Laidlaw should intercept them.

When
Renzo’s letter was delivered to Sarah’s house, it was
Iris Kincaid who opened it. Seeing the bold black scrawl, she sensed
instinctively that it was from the faceless, nameless boy who had
sweet-talked Sarah into lying to her and Dell, into sneaking around
and deceiving them behind their backs. Sarah had foolishly
surrendered her virginity to the boy, who had repaid her by leaving
her pregnant and alone—and still, she continued to protect him,
refused to reveal his name so he could be made to do the right thing
by her! Worse, she was fiercely insisting on keeping her baby.

The
entire affair had broken Iris’s heart—and literally
killed Dell. They had had such hopes, such dreams for Sarah! She had
been a straight-A student, college bound— and she had thrown it
all away for a roll in the hay with some irresponsible, disreputable
boy! Dell had never got over the shock of her betrayal. Only last
week, he had keeled over dead from an unexpected heart attack. Iris
read Renzo’s letter twice—and then she tore it into
little pieces and flushed it down the toilet, from where it traveled
through the plumbing pipes to the quarries, to rot with the rest of
the waste.

When
Renzo’s letter was delivered to his parents’ house, it
was Madonna who opened and read it. Afterward, she sat for a very
long time at her desk, staring out the front window and thinking hard
about what she should do, what was best for her son. Then, finally,
she picked up her pen, writing to Renzo that while Sonny Holbrooke’s
death had ultimately been ruled an accident, there was no reason for
him to leave a promising job in the big city to return
home—especially since three months after he had fled from town,
his friend Sarah Kincaid had got married and moved away to parts
unknown.

When
the blood bums, how prodigal the soul

Lends
the tongue vows.

Hamlet

—
William
Shakespeare

White
clouds on the wing;

What
a little thing

To
remember for years

To
remember with tears!

Four
Ducks on a Pond

—
William
Allingham

A
Small Town, The Midwest, The Present

By
the time Sarah finally managed to get her Jeep unlocked, she was
shaking so badly that she dropped her keys on the street, not once,
but twice. As she knelt the second time to retrieve them, she
accidentally knocked her sunglasses from her face and was forced to
fumble around for those, too. Her heart was racing as though,
unbeknown to her, some mad scientist had inserted a motor into it,
and her mouth was so dry that she could hardly swallow. She
slid
into the Jeep, accidentally shutting the door on her seat belt, and
spent nearly a minute jerking frantically on the strap, too numb to
grasp why it wouldn’t pull across her body. The whole time, she
prayed—the same litany over and over:
Please,
God, don’t let him see me!

She
finally figured out the problem with the seat belt, cracked open the
vehicle’s door, snatched the strap free and fastened it around
herself, watching Renzo all the while in her rearview mirror. He
glanced her way. Panicked, she flung herself down on the front
passenger seat so he wouldn’t see her. Despite her
apprehension, she felt like a fool, crouched in her Jeep. What if
somebody on the sidewalk strolled by and observed her through the
vehicle’s windows? She was a grown woman, behaving
ridiculously, as though twelve years had not passed and she were
still just seventeen. Even so, it wasn’t until Renzo
disappeared into the newspaper office that she at last rose up and
started the Jeep. Her hands still trembled as she turned the key in
the ignition and slid the automatic gearshift into Drive. Pulling
out, Sarah nearly backed into Jimmie Dean Thurley in his brand-new
pickup truck. She flinched, startled, when he laid on his horn and
shouted crossly out his open window at her. Shooting him a faltering
smile of apology, she drove on blindly down the street, her nerves
jumping.

Despite
her instructions to him earlier, Alex wasn’t waiting for her on
the sidewalk in front of the Penny Arcade, so she was forced to park
and go inside to search for him. The place was jam-packed with
shouting and laughing youngsters. Rock-and-roll music blared; the
engines of electronic cars and motorcycles revved, and
the
rat-a-tat-tat
of
electronic guns sounded from arcade machines; the bells of pinball
machines dinged loudly. She would never find Alex in all the
cacophony and confusion, Sarah thought with despair. And she
simply
must
find
him. She must get him out of town before Renzo saw him—because
if there were one person alive who would see Alex and know
immediately who his father was, it was Renzo Cassavettes.

What
he would do if he ever found out about Alex, Sarah shuddered to
think. Her deep fear was that, enraged because she had never told him
about their child, Renzo would try to take Alex away from her. She
wouldn’t have worried, except that Renzo was no longer a poor
Italian boy from the wrong side of the tracks, wanted for murder.
Although many townspeople still insisted Renzo had deliberately
pushed Sonny Holbrooke to his death, Sonny’s killing had
eventually been ruled an accident. And in the past twelve years,
Renzo had, as Lucille had earlier this day observed in her salon,
made something of himself to be proud of. He was now a renowned,
admired and respected investigative reporter who had, just last year,
won a Pulitzer Prize for his exposure and coverage of widespread
political corruption that had involved participants ranging from
mafiosi and drug lords to Capitol Hill congressmen and White House
aides. The affair had quickly been dubbed the “Racket Club”
by the media—a double entendre referring not only to the actual
political corruption itself, but also to the exclusive, tony sports
club where clandestine meetings had taken place in the steaming
saunas. Both the Racket Club and Renzo’s source, known only as
Whistle-blower, had soon become as
notorious
as Watergate and Deep Throat, as the Pentagon Papers and Daniel
Eilsberg.