Naked Came the Stranger

by Penelope Ashe

  As they rocked back and forth—Gillian with dazzling expertise, Arthur with mounting ecstasy—back and forth, back and forth to the heights of burning, genuine joy, they failed to notice Raina as she came into the room, carrying a water balloon, standing then at the foot of the bed. Back and forth, back and forth, the sensations were all-encompassing, sweet and natural, and it was not until the moment of explosion that Gillian looked up and saw the audience. Raina’s face was twisted in anger, contorted in indignation and her voice rasped when she finally managed to mouth her hatred.

  “Arthur, you are square!” she screamed. “You are an incredible, incurable square!”

  EXCERPT FROM “THE BILLY & GILLY SHOW,” DECEMBER 7TH

  Billy: It’s hard to believe that Pearl Harbor was that long ago, Gilly.

  Gilly: I was a child then, but I’ll never forget it.

  Billy: Neither will I.

  Gilly: And what you wonder about is whether we learned anything from it. When I say “we,” of course, I mean mankind in general.

  Billy: You certainly do wonder. The world seems to be in as much of a mess as ever.

  Gilly: Yes, and not just nations, but people. We just don’t seem to care about one another.

  Billy: The whole bit is going on, all right. War, killing, violence, man’s inhumanity to man.

  Gilly: Yes.

  Billy: Take organized crime. It’s become an accepted part of everyday life.

  Gilly: That’s so true. The crime seems to be in getting caught, rather than in doing wrong.

  Billy: Take the Cosa Nostra. It’s everywhere.

  Gilly: I wonder about that, though. You know, whether it’s all true. All that melodramatic stuff about families.

  Billy: I believe it. Today’s gangsters are organization men hiding behind business façades.

  Gilly: Team men.

  Billy: Definitely.

  Gilly: It’s too bad we don’t know one we could have on the show. Wouldn’t that be fun?

  Billy: If you’ll pardon the pun, it might be a blast.

  Gilly: Oh, Billy.

  Billy: No, you might get a real bang out of it.

  Gilly: You’re just too much today. Actually, Billy, a genuine gangster would probably be a very exciting person.

  Billy: No doubt, but I think we should leave the gangsters to the crime committees. Let the government interview them.

  Gilly: I suppose so. Anyway, we don’t know any gangsters.

  Billy: Don’t be too sure. Like I said, they all have respectable fronts nowadays. For all we know, there might be one living in our own neighborhood.

  Gilly: Mmmmm. Isn’t that a marvelous thought?

  Billy: I thought it would get you.

  Gilly: Mmmmm.

  MARIO VELLA

  MARIO VELLA eased the black Bonneville down the feeder road, mashed down on the accelerator, and spurted onto the Long Island Expressway. He liked the quick surge of power under his foot. That’s where power should always be, he mused, under your foot, ready to be squeezed on or off with the slightest pressure.

  He lifted his foot and the car slowed down to the legal limit. He would keep it that way for the next fifty-eight minutes, to the King’s Neck turnoff. From there it was just twenty minutes on 25-A to the Dunes Motel and Gilly. He hoped she’d be on time. She always had some kind of excuse. Since that first time two weeks ago, she’d been arriving progressively later each time. He’d have to clamp down.

  It was only 3:30 p.m. and he was out in front of the rush-hour traffic. His eyes flicked from the speedometer to the speed-limit sign at the Queens Boulevard exit. He had been commuting to King’s Neck for two years now and he knew the speed limits as well as he knew the names of his children. But he was a careful man. That was his value to the Organization; he not only knew the system, he lived it. And one of the cardinal rules was: Don’t break the little laws. That was for kids, not for professionals.

  Mario Vella had succeeded where some of the best men in the Organization had failed. He had blended into his environment. To most of his neighbors he was Mario Vella, thirty-six, the darkly handsome owner of the highly successful Bella Mia Olive Oil Company and the equally affluent Fort Sorrento Construction Corporation in nearby Port Jefferson. He was also known to dabble in the entertainment field, most recently in the career of a fast-rising ballad singer, Johnny Alonga.

  The young singer had waxed only one solid hit, “A Dying Love,” but it had remained either on or reasonably near the top ten for eighteen months. Careers had been made on less. And Vella had produced the boy as a free entertainer at several local charity affairs and political dinners; he had even appeared twice for Vella at the King’s Neck Country Club. Vella now was being flooded with invitations to become a board member of every worthwhile organization in sight. He could never be sure whether his popularity was attributable to Alonga or to his own ready checkbook. The Organization had helped. Whenever Vella lent his name to a fund-raising concern, journal ads poured in from construction and garment firms throughout the state.

  There had been, of course, rumors of gangster associations, but they were hardly ever more than rumors. The newspaper that made the mistake of referring to him as a “friend of the underworld”—and that was eight years ago in another town—paid $45,000 for its error.

  Next spring he was slated to be honored as Man of the Year by the Society for the Prevention of Rickets in Children. And in January he would assume office as president of the League to Preserve Italian-American Dignity (LPIAD). He had helped to found that one, and the Organization credited him with a master stroke. Two city newspapers had attempted to build circulation with investigations of the Organization, but a few LPIAD picket lines had discouraged the publishers. Television, always gutless, canceled a scheduled documentary. And now politicians came to Vella seeking advice.

  Mario Vella jabbed at the button with his manicured finger and opened the driver’s window. It was a warm day for November and his eyes had been smarting from the cigarette smoke in the sealed car. He pushed the buttons on the car radio, pushed them until the car was filled with the syrupy sounds of Johnny Alonga singing “A Dying Love.” He listened for a few seconds, then changed stations again. The song still made him want to puke. It reminded him of Donna Marie. They had been married for ten years. Ten years of rotting waste, studding Man O’ War to a milk cow.

  He’d had that same thought earlier in the day. He had awakened at six thinking about Gilly. He reached over to the night table, lit the cigarette, lay on his back, motionless, staring up at the absurd sky-blue canopy that Donna Marie had insisted on having custom made. He tried to keep his thoughts on Gilly, but Donna Marie was stirring at his side. He imagined Gilly kneeling in front of him, her honey blonde hair bobbing at her shoulders. He could visualize the severely tailored white blouse unbuttoned to the bottom button and half-draped over her firm upper arms. He could see her cupping her erect, compact breasts in her hands, gently massaging the pink nipples with her index fingers. Her breasts seemed a creamy contrast to the fading tan. Her brief pale green skirt was pulled upward against the strain of her body, exposing an eyeful of nylon-sheathed thigh.

  He saw himself standing, his clothes thrown to the side. He saw her wriggling closer and playfully massaging the inner part of his legs with her breasts, up and down and up then down again. Gently. She never came all the way up, always stopping just a little short. The suspense surging within him always turned to agonized impatience. She would look up at him with that smile. “Are you still afraid of me, Mario? Do you still want me to go away?” He leaned over and pinched her ear lobes, delicately, lovingly, and then carefully guided her unresisting head up, up—

  “Mario!”

  Donna Marie’s voice had slashed through his dream. He jackknifed into a sitting position and turned to face his wife.

  “Your cigarette,” she said. “You dropped your cigarette on the bed. Do you want us to burn to death in our own house? Look, you’ve burned a hole in the
comforter. My father gave that to us. A hundred and fifty dollars it cost, all the way from Italy. It’s ruined. What will we tell him?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, a half-hearted gesture of apology. He poured a glass of water from the night table onto the smoldering satin comforter. Secretly he was pleased. He had always hated the comforter, an unreasonably faithful embroidery reproduction of sunset over the Bay of Naples. It was just like his father-in-law Septimo. Vintage wop.

  He reached over and pulled Donna Marie to him, the hunger for Gilly still racing in his blood, hoping that this time it might be different. As always, Donna Marie was submissive. She had been raised to submit to her husband, whoever he might be, unquestioningly, sick or well, night or day. Men are that way, her mother had explained. It was a wife’s duty to give, not to expect, at least in the bedroom. Her long black hair, lustrous from a lifetime routine of one hundred brush strokes a night, streamed across the pillow behind her head.

  Mario snaked his hand under the hem of her short flannel nightie and flattened it palm down on the broad expanse of her belly. There was not the slightest quiver of movement in return. He moved his hand upward, over a soft bulge of fat, to her great flaccid breasts. God, he wondered, do all Italian girls get this swollen after three children? He pulled his hand away and Donna Marie automatically rolled over on her back, hiked her nightie up and spread her legs. She waited patiently. He did it, hating both her and himself.

  As he rolled away, she sat up and asked: “Are you going to be home for dinner tonight? I’m making lasagna and broccoli with garlic. You know you like that, Mario. But you have to tell me now—the broccoli is no good heated over.”

  Just like Donna. All the while he was doing it, she was planning out her goddam lasagna and broccoli with garlic.

  “Maybe you could bring Louie and Danny home with you,” she went on. “It’s been a long time since you brought anyone home with you and you know how they like lasagna. And the kids love to see them. You know that.”

  Fat chance, he had thought, as he glanced at his wafer-thin platinum watch. It was 7:00 a.m. That meant it was 6:00 a.m. in Chicago and if Louie and Danny were doing their job they were in Chicago right then. If they were on schedule, in a half hour Louie would be slowly strangling the life from some fink stoolie with a piece of piano wire and Danny would be flicking him with a knife for kicks. It was a funny thing about Danny and that knife.

  “Are Danny and Louie still in the undertaking business?” Donna Marie asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “But they can’t come tonight. A very very rich man died in Chicago and they had to fly there to make arrangements for the body. I won’t be home myself, not until late. I have to take Johnny over to the studio to make a record.” Then, an afterthought. “I may even stay over in town if it gets too late.”

  Donna shrugged, moved to her bottle-littered vanity table and began to pin her hair into a bun. She looked over her shoulder, her face impassive.

  “By the way, Gillian Blake called last night. She said she wanted to speak to you, that it was very personal. What in the world could she want to talk to you personal about?”

  Mario didn’t like that. Gilly should have the brains not to call him at home. She had never done it before. Why now?

  “She probably wants to get Johnny on that show of hers,” he said. “They all do.”

  “And something else,” Donna Marie said. “My father called you last night. Twice. The second time he sounded mad. You haven’t been doing anything to upset him?”

  “No.” Mario answered carefully. “He’s impatient because the new oil shipments haven’t come through. I’ll call him today if I get the time.”

  Now, heading east on the Expressway, Mario Vella wondered about Septimo. He had called all over for him that morning and hadn’t been able to reach him. But that wasn’t what worried him. It was something he sensed, a difference in the voices. Mario had used all the proper codes, but everyone had answered in a strangely short way. He’d called all the New York operations—Galaxy Liquors, Deuce Lathing, Tornedo Linen Supply, Septimo Construction over in Whitestone, even the four restaurants. At every outlet, the same answer. No one knew where he was. Even Seraphina, his mother-in-law, she didn’t know. And all of them seemed distant on the phone. Yes and no, that was all.

  Septimo Caggiano was very important in Mario Vella’s life. It might have been different if Mario’s own father had lived. His father, Onofrio Vellaturce, wanted for two murders in Naples, had jumped ship in Hoboken and settled down to life in America. The Organization welcomed him like a long-lost brother, and inside of twenty years he’d headed the largest Organization family in the New York area. From a castlelike home on the Palisades, Onofrio ruled everything in sight—docks, produce, trucking, terminals, narcotics, gambling, labor unions and politicians. And in Brooklyn, Sicilian-born Septimo Caggiano began to worry that Onofrio might begin to lust after his organization. They set up a union, a union sealed by the marriage of Donna Marie and Mario.

  Mario, the son of an Organization leader, understood what was expected of him. Two kingdoms were to be joined. Donna Marie—doe-eyed, dark-haired, plump—had a peasant’s taste in clothing, running to sequins and ornate embroidery. She would cook, bear children and keep a house as well as its secrets. Onofrio had told him to overlook the girl’s bad points. There were always girl friends, he had said with a wink; and, as long as they were kept at a distance, they would bring no shame to the family name. One must never overlook, his father had said, the peculiar Sicilian ideas about honor.

  The two young people had had a total of three dates, all of them well chaperoned. They were married at Salve Regina Church in Brooklyn. The reception in the grand ballroom at the Hotel Commodore was a convention of politicians, monsignors and Organization luminaries from both coasts and most of the states in between. And that night Mario dimmed the light in the bridal suite and learned that he had married a sexual zombie.

  One week after this depressing discovery, while honeymooning in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal, Mario received a phone call telling of his father’s sudden death. His father had apparently dozed off behind the wheel of his Fleetwood in Jersey City. And for some reason he had selected that night to give Louie, his bodyguard-chauffeur, some time off. The car had plunged through the guard rail just south of the Park Street viaduct and spilled down the cliff onto Hoboken, exploding in a ball of flames.

  A meeting of the board was held. Septimo took over the joint Organization with his father’s old friend, Gino Viccardi, as underboss. It was agreed that Mario should start at the bottom. He would have to be blooded. If all went well, Gino would retire in eight years and Mario would take his place as underboss. And some day, when old Septimo decided to step aside, Mario would be expected to fill his shoes. He had done as he was told. He had been blooded in Cicero, Illinois, and he would never forget that first kill. He had met the rebellious union reformer behind the Giaconda and blown off the back of his skull with two .45-caliber slugs.

  Though Mario had always used a gun, he got no pleasure out of killing. It was a job that had to be done. And a gun was the quickest way to do the job. Men like Louie and Danny liked to make death last. They used piano wire and knives. Louie was an expert at loosening the wire just before his victim passed out, then tightening it again, then repeating the cycle. Danny could probe his knife in just short of a vital spot and then twist it out for still another jab. They liked what they did; maybe that’s why they were still doing it. But ten years had passed and Mario no longer had to do the dirty work. He had no criminal record, and now he was the underboss of the combined Organization.

  Gillian Blake. He savored the name as he repeated it. Class, just like Gilly herself. She was a thoroughbred. Class. The way she floated into a room. The way she dressed. The way she talked. The way she ate.

  Why hadn’t he plowed her when they first met for lunch? He could have, he was sure. There had been women in Cicero, in Jacksonville, in a dozen
other towns where he had paused to kill on contract. He knew he appealed to women. His black hair was frosted at the temples but he kept himself in shape. His taste in clothing was expensive but not flashy—Sulka shirts, Brooks Brothers suits, rep ties. They had met at the studio to discuss the possibility of having Johnny on the Billy & Gilly Show. Her husband, Bill was his name, had left them—had said there was a squash match at the Racquet Club. It wasn’t until that moment that he had figured Gilly for a score.

  “Why don’t we have lunch, Mr. Vella?” she had said. She had been wearing a sack dress, and only two parts of her touched the material. Sure, he had answered.

  She had suggested Michael’s Pub. She had ordered a martini, specifying the gin, telling the waiter “just a breath of vermouth.” Class. He stuck with a tall Scotch and water and she stuck with martinis, three of them. She knew exactly what she wanted and she made certain that she got it. After lunch he suggested that he drive her home. She had said that would certainly be preferable to the Long Island Rail Road.

  It had been Gilly who suggested the detour on the way home—she had asked him to drive north to Oldfield so she could see the winter sun set on the Sound. “If we watched from our own cliffs,” she had said, “people would think we were lovers.” They parked at the road’s end. She sat staring down at the water and his body ached to possess her, to tear off her clothes and crush her to him, to explore the smoothness of her body with his hands and mouth, to hear her.…

  But it was she who made the first move. Her arms were about his neck and her face was against his. “Poor Mario,” she had said, “you want me so much.” Her lips brushed his and her warm tongue darted into his mouth.

  He stared at her, fighting it. And then he had said, “It’s late. We better get home.”

  She had laughed at that. “I like you, Mario. There’s something about you, something menacing, and that’s intriguing. And you’re afraid of me and I think I like that too. But chase away your ghosts, Mario, I may not like you forever.”