‘Sistine’s beautiful mother …’ Diego Domingo finished his brandy and poured another. ‘But you ask me to believe someone like her would support you in murder?’
‘Course not.’ Carmelo shook his head. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
Diego frowned. He held the glass in his hand and saw his friend a different person.
‘Steal his money and put Old Terry out of business?’
Though Carmelo nodded, Diego still had his doubts.
‘Who would have thought this of you, Carmelino? Everyone’s friend, yet so … so Machiavellian. What a bad, bad man.’
‘That’s enough.’
‘It’s not enough, Carmelino. We both know the next part. This little do-gooder story of yours, when we all know Old Terry was strangled.’
‘No,’ Carmelo Fumo said, meaning it.
‘No? But you’re trusting me with a very dangerous secret. The old world isn’t as dead as any of us might want. People have long memories.’
‘Stop it.’
‘You know, a word in the wrong ear …’
‘Are you going to be the one to give that word?’
‘Not if I can understand the whole story.’
Diego watched a flash of pain cross Carmelo’s face. The man reached to his left shoulder and rubbed it, held it. Then the moment passed. Diego was no stranger to aches and pains, but what bothered Carmelo’s old body so?
‘Who’s here?’
‘Only the kitchen staff.’ Diego indicated with his chin. ‘All that noise, they can’t hear us.’
He liked the way Carmelo kept his voice low anyway. This was unbelievable, and unbelievably tantalising. One gorgeous Sunday morning was delivering Diego the most unexpected gift of all.
‘You know as well as me Old Terry never should have been in his office. He was supposed to be with you and everyone else hanging off you in those days. But there he was, right at his desk. I didn’t even need to go near the safe. He was counting the bout’s proceeds, plus a pile this big that must have been his accumulated savings. Some people are just in love with their money, huh? In case anyone saw me, I was wearing a ski mask and gloves and an overcoat. Terry would never have known who it was. And even with him right there, I had no intention of hurting the guy except by taking that precious money. This was even better—him seeing it all go into a bag and out the door. I never felt so victorious in any fight I won. Terry sat where he was, looking at me with his mouth open. No struggle, no talk either. I tied him up, made a blindfold and a gag too. That gag turned out to be my mistake. But we didn’t speak a word. I didn’t want him recognising my voice. Maybe that scared him more, the fact everything was quiet and now he was blind. He couldn’t know if I was going to shoot him or beat his head in with one of the pretty figurines he always kept on his desk. And so he went from being limp to getting agitated and panicking. I let him. What did I care? I was working out how to pack all that extra money away. When he stopped being so overexcited I didn’t think twice about it. I just thought he’d managed to calm himself down. No. Old Terry swallowed his tongue and choked. He was dead before I even took any notice.’
‘Amigo mío … there aren’t many people who would believe that story. I’m not so sure I do, either.’
‘The police are snakes and you know it. Them and Terry’s friends put the word out about him being strangled. That’s the honest truth. They were thinking a story that bad would make someone want to come forward, someone who was too scared now to want to be an accessory to murder.’
‘Is that why you married Tracy? To keep her quiet?’
‘Diego. You have to believe me. Getting married was Tracy’s idea. She was as full of guilt as I was, if not worse. Tracy said this thing tied us together forever.’
‘It wasn’t forever.’
‘A baby changes how people think. Tracy lasted as long as she could. Every time she looked at me she remembered what happened.’ Carmelo Fumo raised his hands. ‘And in the end she couldn’t stand these hands holding our little girl.’
Diego kept staring at him, kept observing him, and when he spoke again it was with the sort of precision that had eluded him for months now.
‘Carmelo, you’ve thought this over for so long, and even if some of what you say is true, you can’t pretend that you didn’t kill Terry Darcy.’
‘I know what I did.’
‘There’s another thing, old friend. When you tell a tale like this you have to think about its inconsistencies.’ He kept watching for Carmelo’s reaction. ‘You went to Terry’s office expecting to find it empty. This makes sense. But to take Terry’s money from his safe? You’d like me to believe you had the combination?’
Carmelo closed his eyes a moment. When he opened them he said, ‘I didn’t have the combination.’
‘Then you went there because you knew Old Terry would be in his office, and you meant to kill him.’
Again the other man shook his head.
‘I—I had fire starters and matches. Afternoon of the fight I hid them down the bottom of his building. I thought I didn’t care about Terry’s money.’
‘Ah, now we come to it.’
‘The plan me and Tracy worked out was to start a fire in Old Terry’s office and let the entire building burn to the ground. Any money inside would go up as well.’
‘Such fury in that boy you used to be.’
Carmelo didn’t reply, eyes downcast.
‘And then as you went about your plan you saw what Old Terry had, in piles and piles of it, and you understood the allure. But you didn’t need to take it. You could have continued with your plan. All you needed to do was drag Terry out of the building, throw him into a corner, and with even greater pleasure make him watch his life burn to the ground.’
Silence.
‘In the old days …’ Diego spoke a little more slowly, and not without sympathy. ‘In the old days people liked to think of us as two adversaries, different sides of the same coin. You’ve just told me there was only one face to that coin, Carmelo.’
‘You never killed anyone.’
‘In the right circumstances?’ Diego studied his drink. ‘And what of the money?’
‘Tracy made it clear we’d never use that money. We’d never profit from evil. And marrying me kept the both of us to it.’
Diego saw it now, how after so many decades of mystery a story could reveal itself. ‘This evil you talk about, it extended to everyone in our old circle, anyone with anything to do with Terry Darcy. The police went through us like a purgative. Even the snakes have to investigate a murder. Businesses were closed never to recover and heads were broken. It took months, then one then two years. In the end they had to believe it was true that no one knew what happened. They spoke to you?’
‘A couple of times.’
‘And me. As a close associate I had my ribs kicked in. No boxing ring ever delivered me the sort of punishment the CIB had up their sleeves. If I’d known who it was, even that it was you, I would have told them everything.’
Carmelo nodded.
‘And yet you’ve been sitting on a fortune all this time. So how much is it, really?’
‘I never saw the point of counting it all the way.’
‘But it’s all in pounds. An interesting problem now, how to turn this old money into useful dollars.’
Carmelo shook his head. ‘I looked after that a long time ago.’
‘You have dollars?’
‘Plenty.’
Diego considered him, even more surprised than before, and maybe even more impressed.
‘Well, bring your little stockpile here, I’ll give it a good home.’
‘I’m guessing I know who your boy owes the money to.’
‘Do you think God ever laughs at us, Carmelino?’
‘So it really is Old Terry’s son,’ Carmelo spoke. ‘Well, someone’
s laughing somewhere.’
‘Have you met him? He’s not very much like his father. Junior is heartless. And if he ever came to know what you did—’
‘Why should he?’
‘Yes, why should he? You’re safe. Yet after all these years Old Terry’s money finds its way into his own son’s hands.’ Diego paused. He sipped. He thought this brandy had never been quite so delicious. ‘Do you know what my father used to tell me, Carmelino? “If you’re born to be hanged you’ll never drown.”’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Fate can’t be turned around and will always have its way.’
‘I believe that.’
‘Let me promise you, my friend. Neither I nor my family will profit from your generosity. I’ll sell everything as soon as possible and pay you back every cent.’
‘No, Tracy had it right. This is blood money and I don’t want it back. Let it do one good thing.’
‘But you must want something in return?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I want Sistine happy and away from criminals.’
‘And you a murderer.’
‘You want the money or not?’
‘We all believe Robertino will be the perfect husband.’
‘She’s too young and so’s your boy. He’s also stupid. I never would have picked him for a gambler. Get him back on the right track if this hasn’t scared him straight. You know better than me where that road leads.’
‘For me it’s a road that ended a long time ago.’
‘Good. I’ll help you and Bobby out of this problem then none of us has anything to do with each other ever again. I know what I did but you and Old Terry were behind most of the crooked fights in this city. Too bad I had to learn that. Too bad I never ended up stopping it for anyone else. Thing is, you never would have climbed into that ring with me unless I’d accepted Terry’s terms.’
‘I beat you, Carmelino.’
‘You said it yourself, we were all actors. Except for the ones who didn’t take the easy way. That’s not you and it’s not me but it doesn’t make us brothers. God knows what you’re still up to, Diego, and I don’t want my daughter near any of it. So that’s my offer. I’ll give you the money you need and you get Sistine away from Bobby and anyone else named Domingo.’
‘How do I break up a love story?’
‘Don’t give your blessing. Have a heart to heart with your boy. Pack him up and send him back to La Mancha or wherever you Domingos come from. Just keep your side of the bargain.’
Diego looked down at the shine of his shoes as if this agreement would take a pound of flesh from his hide.
‘And the last thing. This stays between you and me. No one hears about it, ever. Especially I’m talking about my daughter. If you understand all that, then I’ll be waiting to hear you’ve got things set up.’
Before he raised his eyes Diego gave a short, reluctant nod, then he watched Carmelo Fumo in his poor man’s clothes walk away.
…
He was at Holly’s place first thing in the morning, far earlier than usual.
A man like me, do I even deserve the love of a good woman like her?
In the grey dawn first thing he saw was that four-door sedan in the driveway. Holly was probably still asleep, her boy too. A dim light shone from what might have been a bedroom upstairs. When Charlie had woken into the four a.m. darkness of his own bedroom it had been with one crystal thought in his mind: Old Terry’s dead forever, you’re the bastard who did it, and when you bring that money out of hiding you’ll be facing the type of men who can make you pay for it.
No chance for more sleep after that. No chance to even himself out. All he could think was to see Holly, to be near her and hold her, but he’d arrived too early. It wasn’t a time to be bothering anyone, to make any noise. So he tried to clear his thoughts and work quietly. Charlie protected his left arm as he managed the simple tasks of moving bricks and setting up loam and bags of concrete in readiness for the hour he could fire up the mixer.
Then that hour came, and with it the quick rise in temperature, morning sunlight beating down now, and he mixed a fresh batch of concrete and rolled the overflowing barrow to his new excavations and nicely set foundations. He started the painstaking task of laying blocks and bricks, one by one. Always he expected to hear footsteps behind him: Ricky going off to school, or Holly coming down with a drink or snack, maybe just to say hello.
Past eight he took a breather, moving into the shade with his water. His clothes were wet through. He noticed more lights from inside. Well, why did he need to wait, really? How easy had it been for Holly to turn up at his door? Yet he did feel shy, and out of place.
Charlie used a towel to wipe himself down. He put his straw hat next to his cooler and dried his hair and raked it back with his fingers. He gathered his courage and went to the front door, where he knocked quietly and politely, not even wanting to create the disturbance of the doorbell.
Peter Banks opened the door. He wore a suit and tie, hair neat and face shaved, and the way he carried his briefcase said he’d been about to open that door anyway. He looked serious and slightly harried, as if a morning was slipping away.
‘Yes?’ Peter Banks asked, his voice curt. He immediately turned and called down a hallway, ‘Ricky.’
Ricky came into view, backpack over his shoulder and wearing his school clothes. He glanced at Charlie but didn’t say anything, then hurried to the Toyota. No sign of Holly.
‘Smoke? We’re late.’ Peter Banks pulled the front door closed behind him. ‘What can I do for you?’
Ears ringing to the sound of breaking surf, Charlie heard himself say, ‘The foundations are dug … I’ve started laying bricks.’
Peter Banks nodded without interest. He strode to the car. He unlocked it, then he and Ricky climbed in. Charlie watched the Toyota drive away. His left shoulder burned. In the automatic way he often mopped and cleaned his gym, he returned to his bricklaying, the sun hotter than he thought he’d ever felt it before and his shoulder not so much burning as screaming.
For one hour then two then three Charlie continued, the type of close labour so much like second nature, when in reality a voice in his head told him to abandon everything and go lock himself inside his own walls. Then again, Holly might come out at any moment, and with a half-smile tell him what was going on, explain an unexpected visit from her husband simply to collect Ricky—and those words would reassure Charlie.
Midday and no change. The house remained in its perfect semblance of a perfect but empty home.
Then, finally beaten by the combination of the sun and his own thoughts, he saw a figure, a silhouette behind sheer curtains. Still she didn’t appear at the door, as if she’d made herself a daytime ghost. Parched, head cooking, Charlie stumbled into the shade. He tried to eat something but couldn’t taste what he put in his mouth, as if for his lunch he’d packed cardboard.
No, no, to hide like this is for children.
Charlie forced himself to Holly’s door. He knocked. There was no answer, no footfall. Perspiring into a shirt and shorts that even to him were already rank, he tried the doorknob. It gave, to the hallway. Beyond that he didn’t know.
On a seagrass welcome mat he wiped his dusty boots. He entered, passing a living room full of furniture, a radiogram and a large television. He found Holly in the kitchen, a place as bright and clean as he was dusty and dirty, and through the windows he saw his work site, the fence he’d started to build. She stood in a corner by a pantry door with a drink in her hand. On the kitchen table was a bottle of Stolichnaya, something even he recognised.
‘Holly.’
‘Second time I’m drunk in front of you. I don’t know. Stupid.’
He wanted to go to her but couldn’t move, she was so much in her own world. ‘What happened?’
> ‘Peter … he wants to come back. God. When we came home from your gym yesterday, here he was, and talking, talking so much I wanted to explode. Dreams—he talked about dreams—what men want, or do, or something …’
She shook her head, hair lank, eyes sunken, face wan. She drank as if her glass contained all the solace of the world.
‘So apparently I need to understand. Just a man’s mistake. To get all hot and bothered about some young girl, and run off, then realise—you know. Everyone knows this story. It’s like a song that gets written over and over. Goddammit fuck him. Goddamn him to want to come back. Like he can turn a tap on and off …’
‘Holly, no. Don’t think like this. You can’t be this unhappy. Come with me. I’ll take you to my place and you’ll never have to be here again, I swear it.’
‘No swearing. No promising. Do you hear? Because—who are you, really? We’re strangers … just strangers.’
She drank again, fumbled her glass then fumbled the bottle, but managed to pour herself another deep shot. Before she could get that glass to her mouth Charlie did move, and he took the glass out of her hand.
‘Holly, what you’re saying. You need to keep your head straight. It’s important.’
She stopped and focused on him as much as she could. ‘I’m married, Charlie. I’m married and I have a son.’
‘You said you were free now and you wanted to keep being free.’
‘I’m not free.’
‘You said it was the best feeling in the world.’
‘That feeling, it’s not even mine. I don’t even recognise it.’
‘And me, Holly?’
‘And you. And you, Charlie.’
Her face crumpled, the muscles of her jaw clenching and unclenching and her eyes definitely that colour, what he’d thought, violet.
He tried to touch her. Holly flinched.
‘Go away. I’m not what you think. Don’t ever come back.’
Charlie hurled the glass into the wall. It exploded. Vodka and shards of glass covered the floor. Holly cringed away from him again, this time with fear, and closed in on herself all the more.
He couldn’t look at her. Didn’t even have a right to look at her. He left her crying, and once outside kept going, leaving his tools where they lay. First time in thirty years to walk away from a job. He drove off with a screech of already bald tyres, then kept on to Kulari without stopping. He fumbled his keys to get him through his front door, to hide inside those walls where he’d had peace and solitude and now didn’t.
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