Criminal Conversation

by Ed McBain

  “How stupid of me,” Sarah said, and signaled to the waiter. “I meant what I said, you know. You’re our guest tonight.”

  “No way,” he said.

  “Please let us, Andrew.”

  This was the first time she’d used his name. She would remember later that the first time she used his name was when they were discussing who would pay the check.

  “Well … okay,” he said.

  “Good,” Sarah said, and signaled to the waiter.

  “A Chardonnay might be nice,” Mollie suggested, and grinned at Andrew and batted her lashes again.

  The scrapbooks went back some fifteen years.

  It was then that Anthony Faviola emerged as a powerful figure in the hierarchy of organized crime, and it was then that Georgie Giardino passed his bar exams and entered the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as a rookie in one of the five trial bureaus.

  Michael sat in bed now with a ham sandwich and a bottle of beer, Georgia’s scrapbooks spread on the covers around him, the wind howling outside, the television going in the background for company.

  The first item in the scrapbooks was an article that had been printed in the Daily News when Faviola’s only son was born. There had been two daughters before then, and now a male child, which was apparent reason for rejoicing in Staten Island. The News headlined the piece A FAMILY MAN.

  The pun was not lost on Michael. He remembered a front-page headline in the News, announcing the fact that NASA had lost radio contact with a space rocket containing experimental white mice. The headline had read:

  MISSILE MUM

  MICE MISSING

  So it was no surprise to him that an article purporting to be about the wife, daughters, and newborn son of a man who was a multimillionaire building contractor in New York City hinted in its headline and in the following heavily slanted story that Mr. Anthony Faviola was “a family man” of quite another sort, the family being a Mafia family in Manhattan, the head of which was none other than the proud papa himself. The article was liberally illustrated with photographs of Faviola and his wife, Faviola and his two daughters, aged respectively four and two, and Faviola and the newborn son, three months old at the time of publication. All of the pictures had been taken in front of a modest development house on Staten Island; apparently, Faviola had not yet moved his family to the mansion in Stonington.

  There were later articles that showed the palatial estate Faviola built in Connecticut, articles in newspapers and magazines charting the rise, one might have thought, of a respectable businessman instead of a cutthroat racketeer who had bludgeoned his way to the number-one position in the mob. And because Americans were endlessly fascinated by stories about gangsters, the comings and goings of the Faviola family—but especially those of the don himself, in and out of court—were recorded with all the solemnity accorded to royalty of a sort.

  Here was the older daughter at a lavish sixteenth birthday party her father threw for her, and here was the boychild on his first pair of skis at Stowe, and here was the younger daughter graduating from Choate-Rosemary Hall, and here was the elder daughter again, this time getting married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to a man named Samuel Caglieri, and here was the son at seventeen, wearing a Kent football uniform. Even though the infrequent pictures of Faviola’s wife, Tessie, showed a good-looking blond woman with pale eyes and an attractive smile, she was obviously somewhat camera shy—perhaps because her husband’s appearances in court were making bigger and bigger headlines each time he was charged with a crime and exonerated by yet another jury. The boy and the elder daughter obviously favored the wife, with the same light eyes and fair hair. The second daughter had Faviola’s dark hair and brown eyes.

  The most recent mention of Faviola’s son was in an article in People magazine, no less, some nine or ten years back. The article was headlined in typical People style:

  Playboy Son of Mafia Don Says ‘Live and Let Die!’

  The subtitle beneath this read:

  Andy Boy won’t eat his broccoli, but his Crime Boss Papa doesn’t seem to mind footing the bills in Las Vegas.

  Beneath this was an almost-full-page black-and-white photograph of a rather good-looking young man in swimming trunks, standing at the edge of a Vegas swimming pool with his legs apart, his arms above his head like spread wings, and a huge grin on his tanned face. The article, like the magazine itself, was long on style and heavy on folksy content.

  When the piece was published, the only son of Anthony Faviola was in attendance at UCLA, but it seemed his studies didn’t deter him from popping up to Vegas every other weekend or so, where he was a favorite of the town’s chorus girls and a high roller at all of the casinos. The article implied, in fact, that his frequent visits to Vegas had more to do with his father’s business interests than with sheer pleasure. Described as “quick-witted and quick-fisted,” young Andrew, though ostensibly a student, was—according to the magazine’s innuendo—actually supervising his father’s vast Las Vegas gambling operation.

  A montage of photos on the second page of the piece showed the son in a variety of poses at various ages, each with an appropriate caption. The little blond boy playing with a pail and shovel on a beach someplace was captioned TWO-YEAR-OLD FUTURE CONTRACTOR. There was a picture of him at Disneyland, wearing Mickey Mouse ears and looking up gravely at his father. This was captioned ALL EARS FOR PAPA’S ADVICE. Another picture showed him as a darker-haired gangly twelve-year-old in a tuxedo, dancing with his blond sister in a ball gown. This one was captioned AT THE COPA WITH SWEET-SIXTEEN ANGELA. There was yet another picture, a recent one and obviously posed, of him sitting alone on a bench in Central Park, his nose buried in a book. This one was captioned STUDYING FOR FINALS.

  The picture with the Mickey Mouse ears caught Michael’s attention. The kid did look a bit jug-eared in some of his earlier photos, and Michael wondered whether People was calling attention to his aural appurtenances while supposedly commenting on the Mickey Mouse getup. Nor had Michael forgotten the tape’s several references to Michelino, which was why he was here in the first place. The typist had transcribed the taped word as “Mick-a-lino,” which he’d assumed was a WASP error in a wop environment. But was it possible that the typist had been correct, after all? Had Faviola said Mick-a-lino? Little Mickey? Was he making reference to a photograph taken at Disneyland when his son was … what? Michael could only guess because neither the caption nor the article itself gave a date. The kid, ears and all, looked to be about three or four.

  The paper trail seemed suddenly overwhelming.

  He went out into the kitchen for a glass of milk and a Famous Amos cookie, and then went back to the bedroom to stack the scrapbooks and call it a night.

  It was close to eleven when they got back to her mother’s house on the beach. Andrew parked the VW in the oval on the side of the house away from the ocean and then walked them to the front door. In the tall grass under the palms, there was the incessant sound of busy insects. It was a balmy night. Only the faintest breeze stirred in the palm fronds, rippling them with silver from the full moon above.

  “Thank you for a wonderful night,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Mollie said. “For saving my entire life.”

  Sarah extended her hand to him. “Thank you again,” she said.

  “For everything,” Mollie said.

  “I enjoyed every minute,” he said.

  “Good night,” Sarah said, and released his hand.

  “Have a good flight home,” Mollie said, and reached up to kiss him on the cheek and then went hastily into the house. Sarah watched Andrew walk to his car. He started it, waved farewell, and backed out of the driveway.

  Yolande was sitting in the kitchen, reading the newspaper and simultaneously listening to the news on the radio. Mollie had already gone upstairs.

  “Any calls?” Sarah asked.

 
“No calls, madame,” Yolande said. “Shall I leave this on?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Yolande rose, snapped off the radio, said, “Alors, à demain. Bonne nuit, madame.”

  “Good night, Yolande.”

  Yolande picked up her newspaper from the table and went into her room just off the kitchen, closing the door behind her. Sarah went upstairs to where Mollie was already in bed, waiting for her goodnight kiss.

  “He’s cool,” she said.

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “Good night, honey.”

  “Good night, Mom.”

  Sarah kissed her on the cheek, tucked the sheet up under her chin, and turned off the light. As she was starting out of the room, Mollie asked, “Do you think he liked me?”

  “I think you were adorable,” Sarah said.

  “Yeah, but did he think so?”

  “How could he not?” she said, and smiled. “Good night,” she said again.

  “He really is cool,” Mollie murmured, beginning to drift off.

  Downstairs, Yolande was already snoring gently. Sarah turned off the kitchen lights, opened the French doors in the living room, and stood looking silently at the ocean for several moments.

  The scent of angel’s-trumpet was overpowering.

  She poured herself a somewhat hefty cognac, stepped out onto the deck, and wondered if she should call Michael. Her watch read eleven-fifteen, he was probably asleep by now. She took off her sandals and went down the steps onto the beach.

  The waves whispered in against the sand.

  The water was warm where it touched her naked feet.

  This was a scene from a movie, she forgot which one, the woman in white standing at the water’s edge with a brandy snifter in her right hand, the mild breeze riffling her blond hair, what was the name of that movie?

  Out on the water, a cruise ship ablaze with light moved slowly through the darkness. She heard the distant sound of the ship’s orchestra, visualized beautiful women in gossamer gowns drifting over a polished parquet floor. She wondered where the ship was headed, wondered why they always moved at night. A woman’s lilting laughter rose to the stars, faded, vanished. The beach was utterly still. She watched the ship a moment longer, and then she finished the cognac, and looked up at the moon one last time, and went back into the house.

  She was on the beach again at seven the next morning, eager for a long fast walk, wearing a brief lime-green bikini, her hair held with a matching band. She walked with her head bent, skirting the edge of the water like a sandpiper, the wavelets nudging the shore, the soft wind gently touching her hair. Last night had been a revelation in many respects, and she wanted nothing more than to be alone with her thoughts this morning.

  She hadn’t believed, before last night, that she could ever possibly be attracted to any man but her husband. Then again, before last night she’d never met a man like Andrew Farrell, whom she’d found altogether charming and delightful, and who’d been wonderful with Mollie, besides. There were times, in fact, when Sarah felt she was serving primarily as interlocutor-chaperone for Hero and Smitten Daughter. But whenever the spotlight veered to her, she’d … well … she’d actually basked in it, feeling, well, flattered by his attention and, well, complimented and … interested, actually.

  She still didn’t know whether he’d been deliberately reluctant to reveal anything about himself, or whether he was simply inordinately shy. She’d detected that whenever the conversation drifted toward the personal, he diverted it either to Mollie or to herself, seemingly fascinated by her daughter’s prepubescent chatter or the everyday details of her own life. She guessed his age had contributed somewhat to these several awkward moments. He was, after all, only twenty-eight—one of the few facts he’d readily revealed about himself—but he seemed younger still, truly closer in spirit to Mollie than to a woman just this side of forty. Well, only thirty-four, sister, let’s not exaggerate. Well, going on thirty-five, sister.

  Twenty-eight was so very young.

  In fact …

  In fact, somewhere along around ten, ten-thirty last night, she’d begun wondering what possibly could have possessed her, asking a boy . . . well, actually an attractive young man … but nonetheless someone she didn’t know at all, a man she didn’t know at all, asking him to have dinner with her and her daughter, when a cocktail might have suff—

  “Sarah?”

  She turned sharply, startled by the voice behind her.

  Andrew.

  Here.

  As if materializing, from her thoughts.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to …”

  “That’s all right,” she said. But her heart was pounding, startling her that way. “You surprised me is all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no.”

  “I should’ve coughed or something, let you know I was coming up behind …”

  “That’s okay, really.”

  He fell into step beside her. Barefooted, his trouser cuffs rolled up, he matched his strides to her smaller ones and began walking silently along with her. His hulking silence beside her magnified the sense of intrusion she felt, even though—and she realized this with an odd sense of surprise—she’d been thinking exclusively about him when he’d come up so suddenly behind her.

  “I’m sorry I was so tongue-tied at dinner,” he said.

  She turned to look at him.

  “Last night,” he said.

  “But you weren’t,” she said.

  His eyes would not meet hers. His head was lowered, his gaze directed at the sand ahead of them. Up the beach, the wreck of a small dinghy on the sand gleamed blue in the sunshine.

  “It’s just …” he said, and hesitated, and then said, “Well, it doesn’t matter. I just hope I didn’t spoil your evening. Or Mollie’s.”

  “Nothing could have spoiled Mollie’s evening,” she said.

  “And yours?”

  “I had a lovely time,” she said.

  “Well, I hope so,” he said dubiously.

  They were almost to the dinghy now. It lay skeletal and bleached, the sunlight tinting tattered gunwales and thwarts, the ocean gently lapping the damaged prow. The boat was just a mile from the house. She always clocked her morning walks on it. She turned back now, as she did every morning.

  “It’s exactly a mile,” she said. “The boat.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  “From the house,” she said.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Do you like champagne?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Oh.”

  End of conversation.

  “I left some on your doorstep,” he said. “To make up for last night.”

  “You didn’t have to …”

  “I didn’t know you hated champagne.”

  “Well, I don’t hate it, I’m just not particularly fond of it.”

  “I’m on my way to the airport,” he said, “I thought I’d just drop it off, I didn’t expect to see you, it’s so early. Then I spotted you walking, so I thought I’d … just say goodbye.”

  She said nothing. She could see the house up ahead, Yolande setting breakfast on the terrace.

  “The reason I was so quiet last night …” he said.

  “You weren’t quiet at all,” she said, and turned to look at him. His eyes were very blue in the sun.

  “It’s just … I’ve never met anyone as beautiful as you in my life.”

  “Well … thank you,” she said. “That’s very ki—” and suddenly he pulled her into his arms.

  She thought Hey, stop it, and said out loud, “What the hell do you … ?” but never got the rest of the sentence past her lips because all at once his mouth was on hers. She pushed out against him, struggling in his embrace, his arms tight around her, his mouth on hers, tryin
g to twist away from him, wondering if they could be seen from the house, the beach empty in the early morning sunlight. His tongue was in her mouth now, insinuating its presence, tangling her silenced words, Please don’t do this, his cock hard against her, please, she could feel him through the flimsy bikini, his arms binding her to him, his mouth relentless, please, please …

  And suddenly he released her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Forgive me.”

  And turned and ran up the beach.

  She saw him stopping at the end of the path beside the house, saw him picking up his shoes. He looked back toward her once more and then vanished around the side of the house.

  Her lips burning, her thighs quivering, she heard his car starting and listened to the sound of its small engine fading in the distance.

  The card on the bottle of Moët Chandon read:

  Till next time,

  Andrew

  Michael found what he was looking for that morning, in an Italian-language newspaper called Il Corriere della Sera. The paper on his desk was yellowed and fraying; the date on it indicated that it was almost twenty-nine years old. Accompanying the article, in a plastic pocket fastened to the scrapbook page, was a typewritten English translation attributed to someone named Jenny Weinstein, more than likely a Bureau secretary.

  Oddly, the article wasn’t about Anthony Faviola—who was mentioned in it only once, and then as a rising young building contractor—but was instead about his father Andrew, the American-born son of Andreo Antonio Faviola and Marcella Donofrio Faviola, both immigrants from the town of Ruvo del Monte, Provincia di Potenza, Italy. Michael had no idea where this town might be. He continued reading.

  The article celebrated two concurrent and virtually simultaneous events. The first of these was the fiftieth anniversary of the bakery Andrew Faviola had owned and operated on the same street in Coney Island ever since the death of his father some twelve years earlier. The second event, occurring three days after the bakery’s anniversary, was the birth of Andrew’s third grandchild, the first grandson presented to him by his son Anthony, “a rising young building contractor.” The child had been named Andrew, after the subject of the article, his proud grandfather.