“I detect an ominous tone in your voice,” and she was correct in her observation.
“I had to leave the man I’ve lived with for over thirteen years. He left the US to work for…” I paused long enough for Goldie to pick up on my fear. “He’s working for an Italian…” I faltered, searching for an alternative to Mafia… “Organization.” My vocal chords trembled, “I couldn’t stay and he chose them over me.”
“Did he really have a choice?” she said. Her face was deadly serious.
“Probably not,” I replied.
“How fortuitous for us,” she said. “So now you’re free to stay and work with me in Geneva.” She smiled and added, “Consider yourself a house guest until our book is finished.”
I was allocated a beautiful en suite room overlooking the lake. My view was idyllic and the calm of the water brought me peace. I felt safe here… at least for now. Tom and the family were content for me to be in LA for a couple of weeks. After that time lapse, I knew I’d have to call and pretend to extend my trip indefinitely, or explain and face the consequences. Another decision, but not tonight. Tonight I was dining with Goldie and shaping my future.
“I bought this house twenty years ago,” Goldie told me over dinner. “And it’s my favorite place in the world. I’ve lived in Italy and the States and traveled around Europe on business, but less now. I’m winding down and want to enjoy my life… write a book with you.” She lifted her glass in a toast to her comment and I did likewise.
“What is your business?” I asked.
“Gold,” she said boldly. “I deal in gold and dabble in jewelry.” She raised her hands, decked as usual with gold rings and bracelets. “I wear too much, I know, but when I was young I had nothing. I say, if you’ve got it… flaunt it! So I do,” and she threw me a wicked grin. My pet name of Goldie had been closer than I would ever have expected and I felt amused by the irony.
After dinner, Goldie took my arm and steered me into the drawing room for coffee. As she opened the door, I noticed a large framed photograph on the side table. It depicted Goldie standing with a man I recognized. He held a cigar in his left hand and a jeweled cigar cutter in his right. I felt panic rising through my body and my heart began to pound. “This was taken just before my husband died,” she indicated. I couldn’t believe my eyes or my ears. The man in the photo was Dino and he was very much alive. Was this a trick… some kind of joke? Was I being set up? What was happening? I turned away, took a deep breath and tried to compose myself.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, extending her charade. “How long have you been a widow?”
“Five years.” Her blunt comment lacked softness. “He had great charisma. I was so much in love with him… in the beginning. But the nature of his business changed him and our marriage existed purely as a business partnership for the last ten years of his life.” My mind was analyzing these remarks which seemed genuine, but were nonsensical, considering my knowledge.
“You look troubled, my dear?” she said, leaning forward, searching my eyes for a clue. This woman had perfected the art of perception. Was I now exposed and transparent? I rose, walked over to the window and looked around for an escape, but like a rat lost in a maze… I knew not which way to go.
“I want to voice an observation. May I?” she said. I nodded, unable to speak. “I think we’re similar, in that we both have a habit of marrying dangerous men.” I nodded again, urging her to continue this intriguing statement. “I told you that my first husband, Gary’s father, was a criminal, but I haven’t told you about my second marriage.”
“No,” I said, keeping my distance, still unable to converse.
“I married into the Italian Mafia. My husband became the godfather of a prodigious clan in southern Italy.” The reality of these words hit me like a lead weight and I only remember the room slipping away from me, somersaulting in an acrobatic flip through a mist of no return.
When I came back to life, I was stretched out on the couch. “My dear girl,” she sounded concerned. “I had no idea that you would react so badly to my words. I’m truly sorry.” I couldn’t speak. Another twist in my life had delivered me into the presence of a Mafia queen and my fear was escalating. I was once again held captive, in a house, an area I knew not where. The reality of my new situation becoming my last resting place, registered on my face with unmitigated fear. I had walked into the enemy’s arms, totally unaware of my entrance, and my exit depended on my quick thinking and the level of adrenaline in this fight-or-flight situation. But, unable to move, I just lay there, as a lamb to the slaughter.
The housekeeper hurried across the room with a cold compress for my forehead and water to revive me. She pressed a bottle of lavender oil to my nostrils and covered me with a blanket. When she left the room, Goldie spoke.
“You’re frightened,” she said. “I know this look. Who got you? Was it Rocco, Vinni or Dino?”
“Dino,” I replied. “But I don’t understand… I recognized him in the photograph and he was holding the jeweled cigar cutter that he used yesterday?”
“Ah! You poor girl. You wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake. No wonder you’re terrified. Dino is my late husband’s twin brother. As for the cigar cutter? Dino inherited it when my husband died.”
“Are you going to kill me or send me back?”
“Neither. You’re quite safe with me, now relax and I’ll sort this.” She picked up her cell phone. “I’ll speak in English, so you can understand every word.” She switched to speakerphone and I listened into the conversation which saved my life.
“Pronto,” Dino’s voice echoed around the room.
“Ciao, it’s Gilda, I’ll come straight to the point. I have Frances… and she’s staying with me, so you leave her alone, d’you hear?”
“Fast work Gilda, but then you always were the smart one. She has a fiancé working for me. Just make sure you return her in time for their wedding.”
“Well I have news for you… she’s not returning to marry that spineless creature of a man and cavort with those silly women! She has a brain. Find him a substitute, a fertile Italian girl who’ll give him lots of bambinos. It’ll be his induction into the family… then he’s yours for life.”
“He’s mine anyway, he can’t leave. But how d’you know her?”
“That’s my business.”
“She’s gone against the family. Broken a code of trust.”
“You broke the code of trust with me, when you killed my son.”
“You have a son?”
“I had a son… long before I met your brother. I put him up for adoption and we were reunited just before you ‘hit’ him.”
“Look, I don’t know who—”
“Gary Carter.”
“Ok, the soldati belonged to LA’s Mickey Mouse clan. He was a rookie, inexperienced. We didn’t mean to—”
“Yes you did! Don’t bullshit me. I know how operations work.”
“I’m sorry Gilda… it was an accident.”
“There are no accidents,” said Goldie, emphatically.
“Ok, so it’s a clean exchange. You can have Frances, but you can’t have her man.”
“We don’t want him.”
“I’m curious Gilda, why d’you want her?”
Goldie paused, looked in my direction and smiled before she answered, “She reminds me of myself, when I was young.”
“Yeah, I see that. Too clever for her own good, just like you.”
“You always respected a good mind, even if it was in the head of a woman. So we have a deal?”
“Yes, we have a deal. You’re a shrewd negotiator.”
“Swear on the life of your mother?”
“Ok! I swear. We’re done.” The phone clicked, the call ended and I had witnessed my salvation.
“Thank you Gilda. How did you know they killed Gary?”
“I know how they manipulate people. When they want something, they take it. They wanted your guy, they set him up,
framed him with murder and that’s why you’re here. Gary was just a tool.” Goldie had described my situation succinctly. She was a savvy woman, who’d guessed the first of my withheld secrets and at this time, I was too cautious to disclose the other.
“When I was living within the family’ I learned everything,” she continued. “I became like a maggot, boring my way into their minds, consuming every detail of their business, their money, their contacts, their methods. That’s how I stayed alive and won my independence. I outsmarted them before their neurotransmitters engaged their synapses! Not that they’d know,” and she laughed.
I looked around at my safe haven and offered thanks, to Goldie, Lauren, even Tom. All who were connected by The Journal. I marveled at how a story could elicit such excitement and then it dawned on me that the task of writing Goldie’s biography, may not be as straightforward as I had thought.
“You’re safe with me my dear,” Goldie said. “Well at least for now. When the family discover that I’ve disclosed their secrets to the world, life may not be so comfortable. Are you brave enough for that Frances?” She continued without interruption, “You may be wondering why I chose you? There were several reasons; you write with compassion, you have the courage of your convictions and the strength to prevail. My instincts are well developed and I intuitively feel that we are bound together by an indelible spine in the pages of our future book. It will be interesting to see if our genetic footprints have trodden the same road, somewhere in our past.”
She smiled warmly and so did I. Then followed one of those rare silences that captures a shared moment of complete understanding, and in that moment I knew that my decisions and actions had led me to this place at this time.
According to Einstein, time is indivisible; the past, present and future exist simultaneously. Earlier in my life, this notion would have seemed inconceivable, but that was before Lauren’s spirit sat beside me and together we wrote my book based on her journal. I know now why she left before the book was completed. It’s all so clear, she couldn’t lie about Gary being a murderer, so she disappeared into the ether and let me write the ending alone.
I was now forever bound and indebted to Gilda. If it’s true that our ancestry reveals a shared DNA, we would have inherited the same past family experiences that influence our decisions and actions today. Through our forefathers, the consequences of our present lives were already set in our genes several generations ago. In my moment of revelation, I asked Gilda the only plausible question.
“So you’re saying that destiny designed the accidents that forged our lives?”
“I’m saying that we both know that in life and death, there are no accidents.”
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There Are No Accidents Page 14