Deceptions (52 page)

Gianni eased himself between some shrubs and looked into the lower room. It was a library, with a desk, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves,
an oversize couch, and some comfortable-looking chairs. And sitting and reading in one of the chairs was Mary Chan Yung.

She was alone in the room, with the same stillness of a photograph that Gianni remembered from his first sight of her through
another window, in Connecticut.

I’m sleepwalking,
he thought.

Yet she was there, right enough. No mistake in that. Where else should she be? The devil’s own whore was simply where she
belonged. With the devil. And as if the sight
of her alone wasn’t enough, he began breathing her perfume through the open window.

Then the attorney general came into the room. Obviously on his way somewhere, he was in dinner clothes.
An imposing man,
thought Gianni coldly. He exuded confidence and control.

He bent and kissed Mary Yung where she sat reading, an easy comfortable kiss that pretty much showed where they were.

“Sorry, love,” he said, “but it shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours at most. At least I got out of the dinner part.”

Mary Yung rose and walked him to the door. “I’ll watch you on television.”

“Christ, you don’t have to.”

“I want to. You do it so well.”

Then they were out of Gianni’s sight and hearing.

Moments later he realized that the limousine had returned and then sped away with Durning in the backseat.

Gianni quickly cut a slit in the screening, reached in and opened two latches, and was waiting in the room when Mary returned.

Her eyes went wide.

“Gianni!”

Only the single word escaped.

“That’s still my name,” he said quietly. “What about you? What’s
your
name these days?”

Mary was silent. All she seemed able to do was stare at him.
As though at a ghost,
Gianni thought.
As though I look as dead to her as Vittorio looked to me.

“I’m surprised to find you here,” he said. “I guess the one million wasn’t enough, was it? Who are you selling him now? Or
is it just your usual whore self?”

Gianni’s hands were shaking so badly it made him ashamed. What kind of man was he? She’d betrayed him and everyone else. She’d
caused God only knew how many deaths, and how many more to come? And
he
was the one standing here with trembling hands.

“Gianni.”

She said his name again, this time so softly he could barely hear it. Was it finally the only word she was able to
say? Was this her penance? Doomed to repeat the name of her fool through all the circles of hell?

To quiet his hands and make him feel less ashamed, he took out his piece, screwed on the silencer, and aimed it between her
eyes.

“Where do you want it
love?”
he said softly and mockingly, using the endearment because this was how he had heard Henry Durning address her, thereby soiling
the word for all time. “Between your lying eyes or your whore’s thighs?”

He watched as her eyes flooded.

Then he watched her grip his gun hand in both of hers to steady it, and lean her forehead against the silencer.

“Go ahead,” she whispered. “Do it. If it will make you feel any better, just do it.”

They stood that way. The only sound was their breathing. Until something broke inside him and he brought the gun down.

I’m ludicrous,
he thought. ]
can’t even do this right.

“Why?” he said. “Of all the men in the world, why did you have to come
here,
to
him
?”

Her eyes still flooding, she stared blindly at Gianni. “For the same reason you came,” she said. “To get him to save the boy,
or to kill him.”

Gianni considered her. Was it possible? Not likely. Yes, but was it
possible?

“Durning would do that for you?”

Mary Yung shrugged. “He wants me. He seems to see something in me.”

“And what do
you
see in
him ?”

“Maybe some small hope of redemption.”

“In that animal?”

“He’s not an animal, Gianni.”

“What then?”

“A man in trouble. Who’ll do anything, even kill, to get out of it.”

“Is that what you tell yourself while you’re fucking him?”

Mary took the question seriously. “I’ll say this. I’ve felt dirty with any number of men, but I’ve never felt dirty with Henry.
He says he loves me and I’m not sure exactly what
that means to him. But I know he finds things of value in me that no one has ever found before.”

“Congratulations.”

“I didn’t expect you to understand. But you asked me a question and I tried to answer.”

Feeling a bit wobbly, Gianni sat down on the couch. “What about Peggy and the boy? Are they alive or dead?”

“No one seems to know about the boy. The two men guarding him were found shot to death a few days ago, and no one has seen
Paul since. But Peggy is definitely alive.”

“Where?”

“Someplace in Italy. Henry just found that out. After Carlo Donatti had told him she was dead. It seems he and Donatti have
been playing their own little power games with her. With the don now apparently using her as a bargaining chip.”

“For what?”

“I have no idea. Henry never goes into details. But I do know he and Donatti have worked something out.”

“Durning told you that?”

“He implied it. Which is the best I can hope for with him. But he also asked how I’d like to meet him in Capri for an idyllic
week of sun, sea, and love.

“When?”

“He’ll be flying to Naples late tomorrow evening for some sort of conference. But he doesn’t expect to be hanging around there
long and said he hasn’t had a real vacation in years.”

“Then you won’t be going together?”

“No. I’ll be flying Alitalia, and he’ll be on a government plane with the delegation.”

Gianni sat staring at the gun in his hand. It was no longer shaking. “And you think this is all tied in with Peggy?”

“It has to be.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Henry never mentioned a word about Capri or g6ing to that Naples conference until after his last meeting with Carlo
Donatti. Which was right after he found out Peggy was actually alive. Then he suddenly turned all sweetness, light, and hope
and love. Remember, Peggy is the heart of this whole nightmare for him. Only when she is dead is he finally in the clear.”

“Do you really believe Durning has plans to kill her himself?” Gianni asked, stunned.

“Of course. That’s why he’s going to Italy tomorrow. Who else but himself can he finally trust to do it? He’s learned the
hard way. Ten years ago he trusted the job to Donatti, who trusted it to Vittorio, who went and married Peggy instead of killing
her. Then a few days ago he again trusted Donatti to get the job done. But all the don did was tell Henry she was dead, and
hold her for whatever kind of deal he was trying to work out.”

Mary slowly sat down, as if the weight of all this deception was simply too much to handle on her feet.

“Which leaves only Henry himself to do it,” she said. “Not someone else to squeeze the trigger and possibly talk about it
later. And certainly no witnesses to be there and see
him
do it. Just Henry and Peggy. As alone together as when they started out ten years ago.”

Mary Yung sat mutely, eyes stricken as though witnessing the actual scene as described. “And afterward,” she said tonelessly,
“if Henry’s really learned from past experience, he’ll make sure her body is never found.”

Gianni watched her sitting motionless, fingers clasped like spikes in her lap. “You’ve done a lot of thinking about it.”

“What else do I have to think about,” she said dully. “How I made it all happen? How I destroyed a whole family for my million?
You said it all when you walked in here. Except you were too kind. At least a whore gives an honest trade. Herself for the
money. I didn’t even sell myself. I sold others.”

He felt, as he listened to her, the weight of her heart.

“How you must hate me,” she said.

Gianni was silent. He had lost even that. If he despised anyone, it was himself. For being such a damn fool.

“Since Vittorio’s not with you,” she said, “I guess they killed him.”

“Not quite. He’s in a hospital with two holes and a bunch of tubes in him. But he thinks his wife and son are dead. So the
best of him is dead, too.”

Mary Yung’s eyes, brimming all this time, suddenly spilled over and ran down her cheeks. It made Gianni feel no
better, and he looked at his gun and silencer and the back of his hands.

“What are your plans?” he asked.

“I’ll meet Henry in Capri and see what I can do.”

“You mean besides fuck him?”

Mary nodded, her expression unchanged. “He wants very much for me to love him. Maybe that can at least help save the boy.
If not Peggy.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I have to.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. A little girl’s gesture.

“And you?” she asked. “What are you going to do?”

Gianni just looked at her.

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “I wouldn’t trust me, either.”

Gianni holstered his piece and rose to go. “Will your Henry notice the slit in the window screen tonight?”

“He won’t even be in here.”

“You’d better have it fixed while he’s gone tomorrow. No point in making him wonder.”

Mary Yung nodded.

She walked to the back door with Gianni.

“Please,” she said. “Just try to believe this. Every word I said to you tonight was true.”

Gianni quickly turned away. He didn’t want to have to see what was taking place on her face as he left.

He checked into a Holiday Inn not far from the airport. Then he got out of his clothes and showered for the first time in
two days.

Gianni stayed under the hot water for about half an hour. When he finally came out, he toweled himself dry with almost brutal
roughness. In the mirror over the sink, his face stared back at him through a film of steam. He smiled as though testing the
muscles, then shrugged and turned away.

The soap he had used was scented and there seemed to be a clinging, distinctly feminine fragrance in the air that had nothing
to do with Mary Yung, yet filled the room with her presence. Insanely, he felt himself begin to melt down under the bright
lights, finished up quickly, and left the bathroom.

Gianni put on fresh underwear and lay down stiffly on the bed. He didn’t own pajamas or slippers or a robe. These were for
sickness or lounging, and he was never sick and never lounged. The moment he was up he put on his pants and shoes, put on
his man’s responsibilities and dignity His wife had teased him about not knowing how to relax, but had understood his needs
better than he.

Teresa.
He suddenly seemed to have lived two lifetimes since she was gone. How simple things had been with her. There was love, you
knew what you had, and that was that. And now? Pain and deception.

Watching the time, he waited until midnight. Then he put through a call to Dr. Helene Curci’s home number in Mon-reale, Sicily,
where it was just 6:00
A.M.
But it was Lucia’s voice that he heard answer.

“This is Gianni,” he said in Italian. “I’m sorry if I woke you. How’s Vittorio?”

“Weak, but getting better. He keeps asking if you’ve. called. Do you have news for him?”

“Yes. And it’s good. His wife and son are alive.”

“Oh, Gianni!” Lucia’s voice went thick with emotion. “He’s been so sad, so sure they were gone. Where are they?”

“Somewhere in Italy. I don’t know any more than that. But tell him I’ve got some leads.”

“Wonderful. You take care.”

“You, too. We owe you and your cousin everything.”

It was later that Gianni felt the depression setting in. How much false hope had he conveyed, and how much damage would it
do if and when it came to nothing?

Still, even false hope was better than none, he thought, and he was almost able to believe it for a while.

Then he turned out the light, lay back once more on the bed, and pictured Henry Durning coming home to his Georgetown house,
walking into his bedroom, taking off his custom-tailored dinner clothes, and placing his naked body between the smooth, welcoming
thighs of Mary Yung.

Gianni’s motel bed felt damp and haunted with lumps, and his body lay rigid. He forced a yawn to fool himself into believing
he was ready for sleep. But it failed to work.

Slowly, Gianni began to swear. He swore carefully, almost
fastidiously, in a low, even voice. When he had exhausted every vile word he knew in English and Italian, he dug back for
a few Yiddish words and added these, reciting his bitter, trilingual litany with as much sincerity as he could muster in the
solitary dark of the quiet room.

A
BOUT TWO HOURS
before Gianni Garetsky’s call to Lucia, Vittorio Battaglia had felt himself trapped in a nightmare.

On his first night out of the intensive care unit and in his own room, he was suddenly dry mouthed, sweating, and unable to
breathe, with some animal claw making marks on his chest, and the devil himself choking him on his own air of foul intent.

But it was no nightmare, no animal, no devil. It was just an iron hand gripping at his throat, and a pillow jammed over his
face.

There was a sound of heavy breathing, nothing more, a quiet pressing and straining, pulse packed against pulse in suffocating
blackness.

They’ve found me,
he thought, and for an instant he actually was grateful.
Let it be over,
he told himself. Then a view of what was on the other side of darkness came to him: a lovely vision of his wife and son laughing
in the glow of a summer evening, waiting, unhurt, whatever damage they might have suffered in their passage having been magically
healed. He was weary with a most honorable fatigue. He’d had enough. What was there without them anyway? Only being alone,
and more degraded clowning, and all the best of it was behind you and gone.