The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (71 page)

“Yes, Mr. De Cicco?”

With an effort, Antonio stood and became aware of the trepidation in the young woman’s eyes.
 
“I hear a woman shouting about my son,” he said calmly.
 
“What’s the problem?”

The nurse seemed perplexed.
 
“It’s Leana Redman, sir.
 
She wants to see him.”

“And you won’t let her.
 
That why she’s shouting?”

The woman nodded.
 
“Only the immediate family is allowed to visit.”

“Then throw her the fuck out.”

The woman moved to speak, but then hesitated.
 
“It’s her father,” she said.
 
“He’s done so much for the hospital.
 
We’re afraid that if we do—”

“She’s disturbing the patients,” De Cicco said evenly.
 
“Don’t tell me you’re gonna allow that?”
 
He saw that’s exactly what they planned to do and felt a sharp pulse at his temples.

“Maybe I should speak to her myself,” he said, coming around the bed and moving to the door.
 
“Stay with my son.
 
I’ll be back.”

*
  
*
  
*

She was not the same person he remembered from two years ago.

As he stepped out of the room and moved into the corridor, Leana turned to him and he was struck at once by the change in her.
 
Her skin was pale beneath the fluorescent lights, her features were sharpened by age, and there was a wise determination in her eyes that made him pause.
 
She hadn’t possessed that before.
 

As he neared her, Leana faced him with a defiance that was almost surprising in its strength.
 
Resolve burned in her eyes.
 
Her voice was firm when she spoke.
 
“I’m not leaving until I see him, Antonio.”

She was in love with his son.
 
The woman had just gotten married and yet she was in love with his son.
 
He could see it on her face, hear it in her voice and he was appalled at her nerve.
 
Did she really believe she could tell him what to do?
 
Order him around like he was one of her servants?
 
He felt sick with his loathing of her—and yet his features remained impassive.

“Here’s the deal, cunt.
 
You’re gonna be waiting awhile—like fuckin’ forever.
 
You’re not seeing my son.”
 
He looked at the doctor, an older man standing beside Leana.
 
“She has no right to be here,” he said.
 
“If she enters that room, I’ll sue you and this hospital.
 
Is that understood?”

The doctor had no choice but to agree.

Antonio looked at Leana, saw the pain on her face, the hatred in her eyes and wondered if Lucia was right.
 
He wondered if this Redman bitch was sleeping with Mario.

“You’re not wanted here,” he said to her.
 
“Go home to your husband.”

As he walked away, her death came to him.

He had an image of her standing in the center of a crowd, shining, immaculate, her eyes brilliant and glinting in the torrent of cameras flashing in her face, her voice clear and confident as she gave the speech he had been told about that morning.

And then he saw her lifting into the air, toward the chandeliers, her face crumpling as it rose into the halo of her own blood, the hail of bullets ripping from the rear of the room and mangling what had once been her head.

Behind him, her voice was high and thin: “Antonio—”

But De Cicco already was in his son’s room.
 
The door swung shut behind him.
 
For now, he was through with her.

*
  
*
  
*

Michael stared at the man standing in his entryway, stunned by the drastic change in his appearance, certain he couldn’t have heard him right.
 
“What did you just say?”

The man, who had flown from L.A. to see Michael, put a finger to his lips and motioned for Michael to follow him out of the apartment and into the hallway.
 
“Hurry,” he whispered.
 
“My plane leaves in an hour and I’m not missing it for you.
 
I’m tired of this bullshit.
 
Your father’s fucking crazy.
 
I’m out of here.”

Suddenly wary, Michael followed the man to the end of the hall, where there was an illumined wall of elevators, a window that overlooked Manhattan and a tall, potted plant that gleamed as though it had just been waxed.

The man went to the window, leaned against it and lit a cigarette.
 
He drew deeply on it, the smoke lifting like a veil in front of his face.
 
His name was Bill Jennings and he was Michael’s business manager—a man Michael hadn’t seen or heard from him since the banks foreclosed on him.

“What’s going on, Bill?” he asked.
 
“You’re not exactly putting me at ease.”

The man exhaled a cloud of smoke.
 
“We can’t talk in your apartment,” he said.
 
“The fucker probably has it bugged.
 
If I hadn’t shaved off my beard and dyed my hair blond, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

Michael was losing his patience. “What are you talking about?
 
And what’s this about Santiago?”

The man couldn’t look Michael in the eyes.
 
“He doesn’t exist” he said simply.
 
“There is no Stephano Santiago.
 
Your father made him up to scare you.
 
For the past year, Louis has been making me skim money from your accounts so it would look as if you’d gone broke.
 
He made me suggest that you try gambling at one of his casinos when the banks finally foreclosed.
 
He knew you’d lose and he knew that you’d eventually go running to him once he made you believe the casino was Mafia-controlled.”

There was a tension in the air, a disturbance in the silence. The man glanced at Michael, saw the disbelief on his face and screwed up his own.
 
“Ah, shit, Michael. Santiago doesn’t own Aura—your father does, at least part of it.
 
He arranged for you to be offered that loan, knowing you’d be scared shitless when you lost it all and had to pay back a man by the name of Stephano Santiago.
 
He’s been planning this from the start.”

It wasn’t possible.

Michael thought of the call he received only that morning, the call warning him to do as his father asked and kill George Redman.
 
And then he thought of his dog.
 
“But my dog,” he said to Bill.
 
“Santiago killed him.
 
He left a note saying he’d do the same to me if I didn’t come up with the money.”

“Your father killed your dog, Michael.
 
I’m telling you, Santiago doesn’t exist.”

Pieces of a puzzle he never knew existed began falling into place.
 
Michael thought back to the men who chased him out of his apartment—men Santiago supposedly hired—and realized once again what a coincidence it was that Spocatti had been there to help him.
  
But of course there were no coincidences.
 
His father was behind it all.

“I hate myself for this, Michael,” Jennings said.
 
“More than you know.
 
But your father said he’d kill me if I didn’t go along with it.
 
He promised he’d make me pay if I didn’t make you believe.
 
Now he’s got people watching this building—that’s why I changed my appearance.
 
If they knew I was here, they’d kill us both.”

Michael shot him a look.
 
“Am I broke?”

Jennings removed an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to Michael. “There’s a check in there and instructions.
 
Everything I skimmed was put into another account, under a different name.
 
You have about three million dollars your father said you wouldn’t be needing again.”
 
His last words lingered in the air.
 
Their eyes met and he nodded toward the envelope, now clutched in Michael’s hand.
 
“Everything you need to know is in there.”

He looked at his watch, saw that he had only an hour to get to La Guardia and swore beneath his breath.
 
He dropped his cigarette into the silver ashtray beside him, pressed the elevator’s down button and said, “I’m not going to the police.
 
I’m leaving that to you.
 
But if you need my help, you can count on it.
 
After what your father’s done, I want that son of a bitch behind bars.”

The elevator doors slid open and he stepped inside.
 
Michael was about to speak when he heard the faint ringing of a telephone coming from his apartment.
 
The sound echoed hollowly in the empty hallway.

“Where are you going?” he said.

Jennings shrugged.
 
In his eyes was a look of fear.
 
“As far away from your father as a plane will take me,” he said.
 
The doors started to close.
 
“I suggest you do the same.
 
Leave New York.
 
Take Leana with you.
 
I don’t know what your father is up to, I don’t know why he’s done this, but I do know he’s dangerous.
 
And I know you’re at risk.”

*
  
*
  
*

As Michael stood looking at himself in the division of the elevator’s brushed steel doors, he thought he looked like an apparition, a ghost hovering between two separate realities, two worlds of lightness and darkness.

His father had been manipulating him from the start, playing on his fears and his love for his mother.
 
Although Michael never fully trusted Louis in the weeks that had passed since their reunion, he was starting to do so and it was this that sparked his rage now.

How could he have allowed himself to be drawn in by the very man who once said he wished it was his son who died all those years ago, and not his wife, Anne?

Why had he believed in him?
 
Had he been so hungry for the man’s acceptance that he would believe and do anything?
 
Marry a woman he barely knew?
 
Agree to kill a man responsible for his mother’s death?
 
And what if that, too, was a lie?

The telephone rang again.

Michael considered ignoring it, but realized it might be his father and so he left for his apartment to answer it.

“Yes?” he said sharply.

“Mr. Archer?”

It was the front desk.
 
Michael closed his eyes, willed himself to relax.
 
“What is it, Jonathan?”

“You have a visitor, sir.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s George Redman.
 
Shall I show him up?”