Daughters of Castle Deverill

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘You called and I’m here,’ said Jack, sounding a great deal more confident than he felt. He had wanted a job like this, a big job, but a cold sensation began to creep over his skin, starting at the base of his spine and crawling slowly up, and he wondered whether it was too big. It was one thing bootlegging, quite another working for the Mafia. But he knew that no one walked away from Little Caesar and lived.

  ‘You know your Roman history, boy?’ Maranzano asked, puffing again on his fat cigar. Jaysus! Here we go, thought Jack. ‘Let me tell you about my favourite, Julius Caesar. He taught me how to organize my army, my centurions, my legions.’ Maranzano’s chair scraped across the floor as he got to his feet. Then he held up his forefinger in full lecture mode. ‘Then there was Marcus Aurelius. He taught me the philosophy of ruling an empire. He said, “Don’t get over-Caesarified, that’s dangerous, keep sharp!” You know what I’m saying? And Augustus, he knew an empire needed peace after war – and that’s what I gotta do right now. But he ruled with Mark Antony and in the end he knew that Mark Antony had to go. Capisci?’

  Jack did not understand but he didn’t want to guess either, because if he guessed wrong, it could cost him his neck. So he played dumb. Maranzano waved his finger again. ‘I’ll tell you about another Caesar: Caligula. He said, “Let them hate me as long as they fear me.” He was crazy but he was no fool either, capisci? So, that’s why I got you here.’ He sat down again and put the cigar between his lips.

  ‘Why have you got me here, Boss?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I’ve got a job for you. It’s the biggest job of your life.’ He jabbed his finger at Jack. ‘If you fuck up, you’re finished in this city, but if you do it right, you’ll be my guy, my Irish centurion, capisci? I asked you here for a reason. You saw the guy who just came out of lunch with me?’ Jack nodded. ‘You know who he is?’ Jack nodded again. ‘Luciano, that’s who. But that fuck is trying to kill me after I made him my deputy and gave him so much.’ His voice grew louder and his eyes narrowed with hatred. ‘He’s trying to kill me with his Jewboy friends, Bugsy and Meyer. You know Bugsy with his blue eyes and his movie star looks? Well, I ain’t scared of no Jewboys. I got a guy in their house, and he told me, they’re already planning to get me! Well, I’m going to kill Luciano first and you’re going to do it for me.’

  ‘That’s quite a job,’ said Jack, but he kept his eyes steady. He didn’t want the Boss to see any doubt there.

  ‘Fifty thousand dollars. Twenty-five now. Twenty-five after. That’s quite a lot of money for a Mick village boy who’s new in the city. Is it enough?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s enough. I’ll take the job, Don Salvatore, though I got to tell you, I don’t like to be called a Mick.’

  Maranzano came round the table and took Jack into his arms. He smelt of garlic, chives, cigars and lemon cologne. ‘You’re a proud man, O’Leary, and I like that. I take it back. I respect your people and I like your songs. I apologize. Are we straight?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, no problem,’ said Jack.

  ‘Good.’ The Boss kissed him on both cheeks and sandwiched his hand between his. ‘Luciano’s coming to my office in a couple of days. It’s nine floors up but he always takes the stairs coz he don’t like being trapped in an elevator. Sensible, right? And when he comes out of the meeting, he’s alone and you’re going to whack him between my office and the stairs. Capisci?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Jack, although not a very solid one.

  ‘Here’s the first twenty-five,’ said Maranzano, pulling out an envelope from his pocket and thumping it down on the tablecloth in front of Jack, who had never seen so much money before. Jack folded the envelope and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. He could do a lot with fifty grand. He could buy a house for him and Emer. He could give his children a better life than he ever had.

  ‘No one knows about this,’ Maranzano continued. ‘None of my guys outside, you understand? No one. Just you and me. That’s why I’m making you a rich man. You know I own every soldier, every block, every racket in this city, O’Leary. If you let me down, if you talk, if you miss, I will crush you, and if you run, I’ll chase you back to your Irish village and I will kill everyone you love in the world, you know what I’m saying? If you succeed, I will give you the world. You know, Jack, I’ve killed many men and one thing I know for sure is that you touch the end of the gun to the guy’s forehead so you can feel him, right there, and that way you know it’s done. Man is the hardest animal to kill. If he gets away he will come back and kill you.’

  Chapter 33

  Jack perched on the edge of a desk in a little side office near the reception of Salvatore Maranzano’s office. He sipped his coffee and read the newspaper, the New York World-Telegram, and checked the racing scores. His thoughts drifted to the showgirl from the Cotton Club he had had the night before. He could still smell her perfume and feel the dancer’s muscles beneath her skin. There were benefits to being an Irish hood in New York City. He would see her that night and have fifty thousand bucks to celebrate.

  He smiled to himself and turned the page. The office buzzed around him. Pretty girls in elegant dresses passed his door without casting him so much as a glance, too busy with telegrams and letters and documents to file. Others sat at desks, heads bent, typing. The offices were elegant and sumptuous, with wood panelling, high ceilings, ornately moulded cornicing and shiny marble floors adorned with crimson carpets. The walls were cluttered with paintings of Rome, and Jack read the inscriptions beneath: the Forum, the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, the Pantheon, St Peter’s Basilica and every couple of yards was a Roman statue of some emperor or other in his toga. Jack had heard that not everyone was so impressed with the Boss’s claptrap about Caesar but no one would dare let their lack of enthusiasm show.

  This building on 45th Street was like a palace, all shiny and new, built by the same men who had built the Grand Central. Inside, the hall was marble, the elevators gleamed, and Jack had checked himself in the doors as they closed, and rearranged his tie on the way up. He looked good: dark suit, slim figure, his lucky trilby, seersucker shoes in black-and-white, not bad for a country boy from Ballinakelly. He still had the gap in his teeth from where he’d been punched in prison, but his blue eyes and raffish smile were hard for women to resist. He knew why he had got the job. He had no nerves. He was preternaturally calm, ice-cool, and he knew exactly what to do and when to do it. He carried a Colt Super .38 in a holster under his arm. Not many people had one yet but his was already like an extension of his hand. He had the cash for the hit in his suit pocket. He gave it a pat and took pleasure from the thick wad of it.

  Everything was in place. He’d wait here in this room until Lucky was in the Boss’s office, then he’d take up his position at the back by the stairs. When Lucky came out he’d pop him in the forehead, like the Boss had said, with the barrel right against his head, and then walk calmly along the corridor and take the elevator down before Luciano’s bodyguards, waiting at the door to the stairs, would even have registered the two pops. All he had to do now was sit here and wait.

  He had arrived on time at 2.15 and Luciano had been due to arrive fifteen minutes later, but he had sent word that he was running late. Jack lit a cigarette and waited some more. He kept his eye on the long corridor, where the girls in silk stockings and tight skirts stalked back and forth from Salvatore Maranzano’s office, and the antechamber, where dozens of ordinary men and women, city officials, workmen, politicians, and the odd gangster, waited to be received by Little Caesar. Time was passing and Luciano was late. Very late. Jack looked at his watch. It was now 2.45. He turned his attention back to the newspaper. In this line of work patience was the greatest asset.

  Just then four men came out of the elevator. They strode up to the reception desk where the secretary greeted them with a smile. However, her smile swiftly disappeared, replaced by an anxious frown, and she shook her head. Jack’s interest was aroused. The men were not with Luciano because he and his guards would
have used the stairs. Then Jack noticed their uniforms. He lowered the newspaper and shifted so he could feel the snug weight of the Colt in his shoulder holster: if this was a police raid, he did not want to be caught with the gun or the cash. However, it was unlikely to be a police raid because the Boss was friends with the police, so who were they and why were they here? An unexpected courtesy call? He thought not. He began to feel an uneasiness crawling over him and his hackles rose like those of a dog sensing danger, but not quite knowing where it came from. He studied the men more closely. Two were in uniform, two in dark suits. The first in uniform showed his badge to the secretary, who looked at it, then nodded and shrugged. Jack watched and waited. A calmness settled upon him as his senses sharpened. If these were tax investigators and they were here when Luciano arrived, he’d have to do the hit another day. Everything had been planned but this.

  Jack observed the tall man in the suit. It was a well-cut suit, he thought, for a government employee. He dropped his eyes to the patent-leather shoes and his stomach gave a sudden lurch. His gaze sprang up to the face and he recognized the dazzling blue eyes of Bugsy Siegel.

  Then it all happened so quickly.

  Bugsy’s gun was drawn and the Boss’s bodyguards were already on the floor, disarmed by the two men in uniform. Bugsy and his gang moved over them like cats. The secretaries froze where they were and no one screamed. Then Jack heard Maranzano’s voice: ‘What the hell are you guys doing here?’ followed by the instantly recognizable wet sounds of plunging knives and then the pops of gunfire. Jack was on his feet and running into the mail room further down the corridor, near the stairs. He hid under the desk just as the assassins walked briskly out, passing the very place where only moments before he had been sitting. The men stopped and Bugsy spoke. ‘There was a guy sitting in there, a Mick – where is he? This broad will tell me. Hey, you, where is he? He can’t have gone far!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied the terrified secretary. ‘I don’t know . . . please don’t hurt me. I think he ran.’

  Bugsy slapped her hard. ‘Ran where?’ The girl was now sobbing.

  ‘Come on, let’s get outta here,’ said one of the men in uniform.

  ‘No, that was the Mick waiting for Lucky,’ said Bugsy. ‘I want to clip him right here. Right now.’

  ‘We gotta get outta here.’

  ‘Fine,’ Bugsy snapped. ‘But I offer fifty grand and a house in Westchester to anyone who kills that Mick, d’you hear me? Fifty grand and a house in Westchester.’ Then they were gone, their footsteps receding down the stairwell.

  Jack had been holding the Colt in his hands and this time they were shaking. Slowly he climbed out from beneath the desk, keeping his pistol in front of him. People were emerging warily into the corridor, blinking in bewilderment. The place was eerily silent. He hurried into the reception area and found the secretary who had saved his life. He touched her tear-stained cheek. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You’d better get out of here,’ she replied. ‘And make it snappy.’ Jack jumped over a shattered Roman bust and made for the elevator, but virtually everyone on the floor had abandoned their offices and taken the elevator. He ran into Maranzano’s office to find the Caesar of New York, the capo di tutti capi, lying dead in the middle of the floor. His legs were spread wide, his white shirt stained with blood and pulled out of his trousers to reveal his large belly still oozing crimson from the knife wound. His fingers were twitching and blood was streaming over his face from the shot to the head – the coup de grâce, which he himself had always recommended, just to be sure.

  Jack’s mind stilled and shifted into sharp focus. He could not stay here a moment longer. He had to get Emer and Rosaleen as quickly as possible and leave New York without a moment to waste. Luciano was now the Boss and Bugsy was Luciano’s right hand, and somehow they knew that Jack had been here to kill Luciano. There was a bounty on his head and there was not a gangster in the city, Irish, Italian or Jew, who would see ‘Mad Dog’ O’Leary without killing him on sight. He had to get out of New York and disappear forever. He would go down south, he decided, and start a new life. He’d done it before, he could do it again. Ireland flashed into his mind and his heart lurched with longing as those green hills and stony cliffs rose out of the mist like an emerald oasis in a vast barren desert. But he couldn’t go home for Ballinakelly was the first place they would look for him, and besides, there was nothing left but the ashes of his old life. No, he’d start again, far away, where no one from New York would find him.

  As he was about to leave, he saw, on the desk beside a statue of Caesar, a large pile of crisp banknotes.

  Jack made his way out of the building by way of the stairs, pulled his hat low over his head, and called Emer from a public telephone. ‘Don’t ask questions and tell no one,’ he told her firmly and she knew from the tone of his voice what he was going to say. ‘Get Rosaleen, pack a small case and meet me at Penn Station. I’ll find you under the clock. Come as quickly as you can. We’re leaving New York forever, Emer, and we won’t be coming back.’

  Chapter 34

  As much as Bridie was thrilled about her pregnancy, she couldn’t help but remember the last time and the brutality that she had endured on account of it. Back then Mr Deverill had had the insensitivity to question whether the child was indeed his, before grudgingly accepting that it was and sending her off to Dublin to get rid of it as quickly and discreetly as possible. Lady Rowan-Hampton had treated her with equal callousness. She had made it perfectly clear that Bridie couldn’t possibly keep her baby and gave her no choice in the decision to send her to the other side of the world. The nuns in the Convent of Our Lady Queen of Heaven must surely have had hearts of stone for they had made her feel deeply ashamed and utterly worthless. They had regarded her as wanton and sinful, and her extended belly an affront to Mary, the Holy Mother of Jesus. Bridie had been robbed of her children without a word of sympathy or understanding, as if she were no better than a farm animal of little value. In spite of the years that had passed and the emotional distance Bridie had placed between that dark time and now, she still carried the guilt inside her like an indelible stain on her soul. However much her new situation glossed over the disgrace of her previous one, she still felt rotten in her core.

  This time she was a married woman and her pregnancy was something to be celebrated and enjoyed. No one knew of the secrets she guarded or of the pain that came with the joy of this new life growing inside her, intertwined like threads, inseparable one from the other. Everyone bought her presents and congratulated her and Bridie thought how wrong it was that a life should be worth less simply because of the lack of a wedding ring.

  While Cesare was in Ireland she had a lot of time to think. She looked forward to having a child to love with a yearning born out of loss. She remembered Little Jack with a bitter sorrow and hoped that her new baby would fill the void in her heart, for not even Cesare, with all his love and devotion, had been able to. She lay on her bed, a hand on her stomach, and remembered her tiny daughter whom the nuns had spirited away before she had even held her. There was no grave, no headstone, nothing with which to remember her, only the memory of glimpsing her tiny face before the nuns had wrapped her in a towel and taken her away – and even that was faded like a photograph left too long in the sun. No one had considered Bridie and the irreparable tear in her heart. No one had felt any compassion for her as a human being or as a mother. Those babies had been stolen and yet there was no law to condemn the guilty and no aid to help her get back her son. She had been cast aside like a piece of refuse, sent off to America so she couldn’t cause any trouble and, only now, as she prepared to become a mother again, did she realize the extent of the injustice.

  At the beginning of summer, Cesare returned from Ireland. Bridie was overjoyed to see him for she had missed him dreadfully and needed distraction from the turmoil in her spirit. She wrapped her arms around him and was sure that she could smell the salty wind and heather of home in
his hair. Her heart lurched and a sudden jealousy arose in her for he had touched the green hills of Ballinakelly which had once belonged to her and she resented him for having breathed the air that she had been so cruelly denied. But it dropped as quickly as it had risen as Cesare reassured her that everything was ready for her just as soon as she was prepared to leave. Ireland was within her grasp, she only had to say the word and he would take her there.

  But was she ready to go back? Was she ready to face Kitty, Celia, Lord Deverill and her son? Had she simply bought the castle so that they couldn’t have it? Had she been motivated purely by spite? The moment Beaumont Williams had told her that his contacts in London had informed him that Castle Deverill was once again available to buy, Bridie had seized her chance and this time she had been firm. She wanted it whatever the cost, because she knew its value; she knew its value to the Deverills.

  Bridie listened with growing rapture as Cesare described the lavishness of the refurbishment and the comfort of the new plumbing and electricity. She clapped her hands with glee and pressed him for more details, hanging on to his every word like a pirate queen being told of the latest stolen treasure. She wanted to know what all the rooms looked like and how lovely the gardens were and as he told her she envisaged it as it had been in her childhood days when she, Celia and Kitty had all been friends, playing in the castle grounds, before it had all unravelled – before she and Kitty had become enemies; before Kitty had stolen her son.

  Bridie had told Cesare of her childhood in Ballinakelly and that her mother had cooked for Lady Deverill in the castle, but she hadn’t told him about her son. She couldn’t. She simply wasn’t able to speak about Little Jack, not even to Cesare. Especially not to Cesare. He was so traditional, this Italian count, and so proud, too proud even to take money without embarrassment. What if he disapproved of her having a child out of wedlock? What if he loved her less because she had given him away? There were so many reasons not to tell him. So, she kept the secret wrapped tightly round her heart and let him revel in the imminent birth of their first child together.