Lucky (82 page)

Alice, when she received what she considered to be a garbled phone call about kidnapping and ransom, sat in shocked silence for a few moments, and then had hysterics.

Claudio sent for CeeCee. She immediately located Costa at the hospital, then collapsed in a chair shaking and muttering to herself. Shortly after, Costa arrived at the house and tried to take charge. ‘No police,’ he kept on saying. ‘No outside help until we hear from Gino.’

‘What about Lucky?’ wailed CeeCee. ‘She’ll go crazy. She’ll blame me, and it
is my
fault.’

‘It’s nobody’s fault,’ Costa said wearily. This was turning out to be the worst night of his life as well as the best. He attempted to reach Lucky at the Hotel Santangelo, and spoke to Matt, who told him she was flying into L.A. on the early morning flight. ‘You can reach her at The Pierre if it’s important’, Matt added.

Costa didn’t know what to do. If she was coming in anyway why worry her? He decided to meet her at the airport. In the meantime he tried to reach Olympia and Lennie.

A maid informed him that Miss Stanislopoulos was out, and that Mr Golden no longer lived there.

‘Where is he?’ Costa asked.

The maid, who had been awakened from her sleep, was uncooperative and professed not to know.

Costa spent a restless night. He ordered a still-hysterical Alice upstairs, with Claudio to comfort her. And he sent CeeCee back to the rented house to wait for Gino. Meanwhile, he sat up in Lennie’s study all night, counting the minutes, and trying to figure out who could possibly have snatched the kids. They wanted – whoever they were – a million dollars in cash. An impossible task to get together by four o’clock in the afternoon. Although if anyone was able to do it, Gino and Lucky could.

Costa just wished he could contact one or the other of them. He had made a bad decision by not trying to reach Lucky before she left New York, but when he did finally decide to call her she was already on her way to the airport.

He checked with the hospital. His wife and baby were doing fine.

He didn’t feel so fine himself. He felt like an old man.

*   *   *

‘Gotta tell you – you make me feel sixteen again!’ Gino beamed, in the morning. ‘Well . . . maybe twenty.’

Paige stretched luxuriously. ‘God, Gino. You
really
must have been something when you were young.’

‘Horny, hot-headed – they used t’call me Gino the Ram.’

Paige laughed aloud. ‘The Ram! I love it. Tell me more at once!’

‘Well, I kinda lived between foster homes, an’ there was this one woman – she had the biggest bazookas I’d ever seen – an’ she expected me t’call her mom.’

Paige sat up in bed. She looked good in the morning, not washed out like a lot of women her age. ‘What
did
you call her?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Anything except mom. I was thirteen – an’ she kinda showed me the way t’go.’

She nodded knowingly. ‘Ah . . . so you received your sexual education from an older woman.’

‘Yeh. An’ I learned how t’fuck, too.’

‘Gino!’

‘Don’t tell me I finally shocked you?’

‘Never.’

‘What are you? Unshockable?’

‘Yup.’

‘Tough broad.’

‘Tougher than you.’

‘Yeh?’

‘Yes.’

He reached for her, but she evaded his move. ‘It shocked you when you discovered me in bed with Susan, didn’t it?’ she asked quietly.

Silence hung heavy. He had been prepared to forget that little incident – now she was dragging it up.

‘As a matter of fact,’ she continued, determined to get it out in the open, ‘Susan and I were having an affair long before she met you. We were—’

‘I don’t want to know about it,’ he interrupted roughly.

‘I think you should. When you and I got together I realized that I wanted you a great deal more than I did her. Susan was reluctant to let go – the day you found us together was my goodbye.’

‘Some goodbye,’ he snorted.

‘Haven’t
you
ever taken a lover to bed to let them down easily when it’s over?’

‘I’d sooner see you in the sack with a young stud than with my wife,’ he said tightly.

‘Next time I’ll try and oblige.’

‘Hey—’ He pulled her down close to him. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you got a big smart mouth?’

‘Not lately.’

He rolled on top of her, groaned and rolled off.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, concerned.

‘Why should I do all the work? I’m an over-the-hill stud – you’re the sex maniac. Go to it, Mrs Wheeler.’

She sighed. ‘My oh my,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘Whoever your teacher was, she certainly did a thorough job!’

*   *   *

Lennie slept, cocooned in good feelings. He was working again – the creative juices flowing. He was back among his friends – an evening with Jess and Foxie and Rainbow was pure enjoyment. And he was free.

He got up in the morning and went straight back to work with a stack of yellow legal pads, a ballpoint pent, and just his mind for company.

Later he would call Alice and give her the news of the impending divorce. She would probably have a nervous breakdown when she realized he would no longer be married to one of the richest women in the world. She had liked having a Stanislopoulos for a daughter-in-law.

Oh well . . .

Too bad.

Poor old Alice.

Tim whistled as he headed back to his apartment carrying a paper sack containing milk, orange juice, bread, jam, and ice cream to keep the kid quiet. The hustle was going to work like a dream. He had been thinking that perhaps after Mexico he and Eden might head down to Brazil.

Ah . . . Rio. Ipanema Beach. Copacabana. With a million bucks to keep them company they could do anything they wanted. Maybe he’d give up his acting career that wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry and become a songwriter or a beach bum. He would soon be able to afford to do whatever he wanted. Anything at all.

He balanced the paper sack and groped for his keys as he walked up the outside stairs to his apartment, calling out, ‘It’s me,’ as he turned the key in the lock.

And then he didn’t know what hit him. Someone came up behind him and hurled him to the ground, shoving him inside the apartment with brutal force.

The paper sack of groceries went flying – milk spilt, ice cream splattered the walls, orange juice dribbled on to the floor.

‘What the fu—’ he began to say. But a sharp kick in the guts shut him up.

Both Brigette and Roberto started to scream in alarm.

‘What we got
here?’
said Santino Bonnatti, stepping over Tim, nodding to the two hoods who had gained entry for him, and staring at Brigette and Roberto. ‘Family fuckin’ circle?’

‘Who are you? What do you want?’ Brigette gasped. And then she sprang at one of the hoods who was casually and methodically kicking Tim as he tried to curl up in a ball to protect himself. ‘Leave him alone!’ she yelled.

‘Leave him alone,’ copied Roberto, running to her side and clinging to her leg.

Santino’s lip curled in disgust. Where did Tim Wealth inherit kids for crissake?

A very friendly Chinese man received no conversation at all from Steven on the five-hour flight to L.A. Up in first class Lucky gave the same treatment to an elderly businessman with bad breath.

Neither of them ate. Neither of them watched the movie. Upon landing at LAX they hurried from the plane and managed to disembark at the same time, coming face to face at the point where first class meets tourist.

‘Lucky Santangelo,’ Steven said.

She hesitated for only a moment, and then remembered. ‘Mister D.A.’, she said with a wry grin.

He grimaced. ‘No more.’

‘You gave it up? I felt for sure you’d end up Mayor of New York City.’

They walked together down the corridor linking the plane to the airport. He felt so strange seeing her again now that he knew there was a wild possibility they shared the same father.

‘Last time we met I was just about to be arrested.’ She turned to look at him. ‘Remember?’

‘Oh, I could never forget that,’ he said. ‘You shot the guy I’d been working two years to indict.’

‘Self-defence.’

‘Sure.’

‘Really.’

She recalled their meeting six years ago. The long sticky New York blackout of 1977. And she had been trapped in an elevator with Mister Steven Berkeley for a whole night – nine long hours. They had become friends – of sorts. They had almost become lovers.

A day later she had discovered he was the D.A. working on a case against Enzio Bonnatti. She hadn’t seen him since.

‘Do you live here?’ he inquired politely.

She shook her head. ‘Do you?’

‘Just visiting.’

‘What do you do now you’re not a D.A. any more?’ she asked curiously.

‘I sold out. I’m a lawyer.’

They stepped aboard the moving runway. She remembered going to his apartment that hot and humid morning because she had lost the keys to hers. He let her take a bath and borrow some of his clothes. God, he was so straight! But he had been tempted until his girlfriend invaded the mood that was starting to take place.

‘Did you ever marry that girl – Eileen, wasn’t that her name?’

‘Aileen. No I never married her.’

Lucky grinned. ‘Good. She ruined the start of what could have been a beautiful relationship.’

He forgot his anger for a moment and took her by the arm. ‘Many years ago your father, Gino, knew my mother.’

She stared at him. He was startlingly handsome with his tight black curls, chocolate cream skin, and deep green eyes. ‘Really?’

‘He owned a nightclub, “Clemmie’s”, in the thirties, I think.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well—’

‘Lucky!’ Costa was at the end of the runway waving frantically.

She waved back, wondering how he knew of her arrival.

‘My uncle,’ she explained to Steven. ‘It was . . . nice seeing you again. Take care.’

Was it his imagination or did he see a flash of himself in her goodbye smile?

He watched her out of sight and knew, once and for all, he had to find out who his father was.

*   *   *

There were drugs everywhere in Flash’s hotel room, and Olympia was floating in heaven. She and Flash had soared through the night on a trail of good times, and she never wanted to leave his side again. He was no longer a reformed heroin addict – he had been back on the stuff for a while – and seeing Olympia in Studio 54 had sent dollar signs doing neon dances in front of his eyes.

The truth was that Flash was broke, busted, and a bum. His former group refused to have anything to do with him; and his teenage wife had thrown him out.

Olympia appeared at the right moment.

Olympia was cool to get high with.

Olympia could buy him anything he damn well wanted.

They started off on coke, switched to freebasing, and ended up doing speedballs – a mixture of cocaine and heroin.

It was a long night – only interrupted by a series of drug dealers who came and went with their variety of wares whenever Flash summoned them.

Levine, a former groupie, turned addict and pusher, had serviced the happy couple at six in the morning.

‘Come back in a few hours,’ Flash instructed her. ‘Bring me everything you got – grade A.’

Levine promised she would.

Flash promised that if she delivered what he wanted he might strum her a few notes on his guitar.

Levine said, ‘Yeah!’

Olympia just smiled.

Levine returned at ten-fifteen in the morning with a whole bunch of goodies. She had stopped off at her apartment and collected a small Sony tape recorder. If Flash was going to play, she was going to get it down. Yeah!

The hotel was a dump, but it was a comfortable dump, and Flash liked the bohemian atmosphere of the place.

Levine knocked, and then opened the door with the room key Flash had given her.

She took one horrified look, turned around and ran.

Santino Bonnatti strutted around Tim Wealth’s one-room apartment. ‘Ya got a dump here,’ he remarked, picking up a framed picture of Tim and smashing it viciously to the floor.

‘Wanta go home,’ screamed Roberto, clinging tightly to Brigette.

Tim attempted to get up, but Santino’s hood kept a heavy foot on his stomach.

‘WANTA GO HOME!’ yelled Roberto.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Santino glared.

Brigette shivered. She wanted to go home too. She had no idea what was going on, but whatever it was she was scared.