Chapter 8 Giovanni
GIOVANNI
We eat on the veranda: pasta, a tossed green salad, tomatoes the size of my fist and olives grown on Emiliano’s land, crusty garlic bread dipped in olive oil. Simple food. Food that tastes like home.
While we eat, we talk about Elisabetta and my parents, an unofficial celebration of their lives. Happy memories.
“I remember when Elisabetta brought home a stray kitten.” Her mom smiles fondly.
“She said that the kitten had followed her home, that it had adopted her as its new mom. It was a straggly thing. Oh, and the fleas. But Elisabetta bathed it all by herself and spent hours picking the fleas off the poor creature’s belly. ”
I swallow a mouthful of wine. Even the wine tastes different here. I could buy the same bottle in New York, and it wouldn’t fill me with the sense of satisfaction that I get from drinking it here on a veranda with the sea in the distance and the warm breeze on my cheeks.
“Did the kitten grow up to be Preziosa?” I set the wine glass down on the table and sit back contentedly.
Caterina grins. “You remember.”
“She never let that cat out of her sight,” Emiliano says. “How could Giovanni possibly forget?”
He’s right. The cat slept on Elisabetta’s bed. She licked cream from Elisabetta’s plate. She would curl her tail around our school assignments when we were working together on this veranda, reminding us that she needed attention.
“I never knew that was how she found the cat.”
I’d believed that I knew everything there was to know about Elisabetta, but now I wonder what else I never got a chance to find out about her. Her life was cut too short. She deserved better. She deserved better than me, although she would’ve argued this point until she was hoarse.
I still remember the way her face would light up whenever she looked at me as though the sun was bursting at the seams to get out. That kind of adoration is precious and all too rare. When you know that you are the center of someone’s universe, it makes you feel like you are floating on air.
Like you are immortal.
I only hope that Elisabetta saw the same light in me whenever I looked at her.
I failed her by not traveling to Sicily to help with the wedding plans, I cannot bear the weight of knowing that I failed her in love also.
Had our wedding gone ahead as planned, I would’ve cherished her, protected her, given her all that her heart desired, but would she have claimed the whole of my heart?
I guess that is something that I will never know.
When we are finished eating, their housekeeper clears the dishes and Caterina leaves Emiliano and me to talk over a bottle of brandy and a pitcher of iced water.
I decline a cigar.
Emiliano lights up and puffs on the end of the cigar, the aroma reminding me of my father when he used to sit outside our family home at night and watch the sunset.
“It is good to see you, Giovanni.” He releases a stream of dirty-brown smoke into the sky and examines the cigar in his hand. “But you did not come all this way to reminisce with an old man.”
“You are not an old man.” He knows this, but the don still commands respect, and I will never stop paying it.
He smiles. “I am one of the lucky ones.”
He is still alive when many people he has known over the years are not. Including his own daughter.
“I have attended far too many funerals.”
I sip my brandy. It is a consequence of being in the mafia. It is something that we all learn to accept from a young age, but it doesn’t mean that it is easier for us to handle than it is for anyone else.
“Do you have news?” He cuts straight to the chase.
“Not exactly. I have a question if I may.”
He sucks on the end of his cigar and gestures for me to proceed.
“2009. You attended a charity event with my parents in London. Do you remember?”
He stares out across his olive grove, and I wonder what he is thinking.
When someone loses a child, how do they think about anything else?
How do they move on, walk through life as if the path behind them didn’t get carved up by grief?
Don Emiliano Calderone was a formidable man and a powerful ally to my family, but he retired younger than most with no heir to inherit the family business; that honor went to his brother Edoardo, a man about whom I know very little.
“Go on.”
“Someone recently came into my life. A woman.”
Guilt floods my chest; this is the father of the girl I was betrothed to when we were still at school.
The father of the woman I should’ve spent the rest of my life with.
It feels wrong to speak about Megan in front of him, but he needs to understand the full story if I’m to get the information that I need from him.
“Her mother was murdered five years ago. The body was never discovered, and there wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict the murderer despite witness claims that he abused the woman prior to her death. There was a baby girl involved. My … friend … is raising the child.”
The word ‘friend’ sticks in my mouth. Meggie is already way more than a friend, and I barely know her, but I force myself to continue.
“I have been trying to track him down with no success. His movements are erased, but I suspect that he still goes by the same name.”
Emiliano sits forward in his rocking chair, his feet hitting the wooden veranda with a dull thud. “Because men like the one you are searching for believe that they are untouchable when the law fails their victims.” There is an edge to his voice.
Mafia leaders might be killers, but we do not hurt innocent women and their children. We do not prey on the weak. In this we are on the same page: the world would be a better place without Steve Barone.
“He has been flying under the radar for five years, but now he has resurfaced. I need to find him before he commits another crime that he will almost certainly get away with.”
I produce my tablet, open the image of the charity event, and pass it to my companion. He studies it for a long time and, realizing how painful this must be for him, I wait patiently for him to retrace his steps to 2009. To a time when his daughter and my parents were still alive.
Finally, he hands the device back to me. “Perhaps we should go inside.”
I follow him through the house in which I made so many memories with Elisabetta. Pleasant happy memories that still live inside the walls of the house and in the hearts of the people left behind.
In his study, he sits behind the wide mahogany desk and gestures for me to sit opposite him. He opens another decanter of brandy and half-fills two heavy crystal tumblers. Then, he sits back and drains his glass in one mouthful.
This is the man I remember from my youth. The man who commanded respect without uttering a word, the man who, along with my father, was one of the role models who shaped my future.
“The man in the photograph is known as The Fish for reasons that I will let you figure out for yourself. He had connections here on the island. But everyone understood that he served only himself. Those who used him chose to keep it quiet because they understood that it reflected badly on them. He was a last resort, you understand.”
I understand.
Steve Barone was brought in when all else failed, and the reason his involvement was kept secret was because he gathered favors the way other people collected business cards. If he worked for a family, the family would end up working for him.
No wonder he avoided a prison sentence for the murder of Meggie’s mom.
A shiver crawls down my spine. Meggie has no idea of the kind of monster Amber’s father really is, and I aim to keep it that way. Nothing will be achieved by making her even more afraid than she already is.
“You say that he has resurfaced?” The older man studies me closely. “How did you find out?”
“He has made it known that he is looking for his daughter.” I clench my fists. The man has no right to call himself a father, when all he intends to do is hurt that little girl.
“I trust that you will keep her safe.”
“It goes without saying. The child has already lost her mother; I won’t sit back and watch her lose her sister too.”
“Be careful, Giovanni. Fish are slippery for a reason: they do not enjoy getting caught.” He pauses. “Does this have anything to do with my daughter’s death?”
I choose my words carefully. “I don’t know yet. But I promise that if I find even a tenuous connection between him and the accident, you will be the first to know.”
I have my own theory about what happened that day. I haven’t been able to prove it yet, but I am biding my time. I am a patient man. When I have the proof I need, the people involved won’t die, I will personally make sure that they suffer every day for the rest of their long, wretched lives.
Emiliano nods slowly. “It is admirable, Giovanni, that you wish to seek revenge for my daughter’s death, but I ask a favor of you. From one Don to another. Will you leave her killer to me?”
Her killer. I have offered him a fragile lifeline after fifteen years of grieving and accepting a future without Elisabetta’s beautiful smile, without grandchildren, without an heir.
Taking Steve Barone down, should I prove him guilty, would bring Emiliano Calderone closure, but I fear it won’t be that simple.
“It will be my pleasure.” I swallow my brandy and track the burn as it goes down.
My father’s old friend might not have given me any concrete leads, but I feel one step closer to hunting down Amber’s father and teaching him a lesson he will never forget.
It is difficult to believe that he produced such a beautiful child. Or perhaps her beauty lies in the love that she gets from her sister.
I miss Meggie. I left New York less than twenty-four hours ago, but I miss her easy smile, the way she pronounces my name ‘Gee-oh’ in her British accent, the feel of her naked body pressed up against mine.
It is as though our bodies were made for each other, and apart, it is like missing a limb or forgetting how to breathe.
“Now, Giovanni, perhaps it is time for you to move on, huh?” Emiliano refills our glasses. The business tone is gone. Now, we are friends.
I accept my glass as he slides it across the desk. “I still have unfinished business.”
“We always have unfinished business.” He waves his arm above his head in a regal flourish.
“But we should not let it get in the way of real life. I would not be the man I am without Caterina. She is the love of my life, Giovanni, and a man might be many things, but he is still nothing without love.”
I smile. I believe my father would agree with him if he was here.
“This friend of yours.” He narrows his eyes at me from across the desk. “How do you feel about her? She is worth saving, no?”
“She is worth saving.” I incline my head.
“Do you envisage a future with her in it?”
I haven’t thought that far ahead, but I understand what he is saying.
Can I see tomorrow with Meggie in it: yes.
And the day after tomorrow, and the day after that.
But I already know how easy it would be to slip into a routine of waking up to her each morning, of going home to her at the end of each day, and of spending our nights in each other’s arms.
“Let me put it another way.” He sits forward. “Do you envisage a future without her?”
I swallow, and my mouth is dry. My hands ball into fists. Without Meggie, the sun would not shine so brightly. Coffee would not give me the same buzz. And there would be no point working twenty-four-seven to make more money than I will ever be able to spend on myself.
“I think you already have your answer.” He raises his glass in a toast. “You have my blessing, Giovanni.”
My phone vibrates. I slide it from my pocket expecting to see Meggie’s name because it is right there on the tip of my tongue.
Instead, I have a message from my brother.
Just left the beautiful Meggie at Central Park Zoo. I’m surprised you didn’t tell her about Elisabetta, brother. But don’t worry. I filled her in on all the missing details.