“It was something that just happened so fast, so quick. It wasn’t something deliberate or cruel. I loved them, both of them. I never deserved any medals as the best mother of the year, but when it gets down to it, who the hell does? I did love them.”
She spoke with a quiet passion, as though it was her love of her sons that she had to convince me of, nothing else.
“It happened, Joe. It was an accident. And from then on, things got out of my control. It was all out of my hands. I went to pieces completely. Nothing like that had ever happened to me, Joe. I couldn’t get George. Vincent talked and talked and tried to calm me down, but then I went back into their bedroom ... I started to fall apart all over again. I ... called Alfredo.” She shrugged. “And then it was all out of my hands. One thing happened after another ... Joe? What would be the point, at this stage?” For the first time, her voice broke. She brought her hand up quickly, pressed it against her mouth, to steady herself. “I have a lot of living left to do, Joe. I have a lot of life left to be lived.”
She moved against me; her cold hands sought warmth. Her body shuddered with a terrible, suppressed fear. Her heavy clean hair gave off the fragrance of flowers and fresh air and innocence. Her voice was warm and husky, her words inaudible as her tongue flicked my ear, lips brushed my cheek, slid to my mouth. Her lips tasted of some pink sweetness. I locked my teeth and stiffened.
Kitty pulled back abruptly, her hands on my arms, her face puzzled, her voice shaking. “Joe? Joe, please.”
For the first time since I’d met her, there was the sound and look of terror about her. “Joe, I haven’t told you this before, but I have some money. I have a great deal of money. I own property in the Bahamas, Joe, free and clear, and a percentage of a development company down there. We could wait, Joe, until all of this blows over. We could go down there together, Joe, you could take over my share of the company.... We could—”
I shook my head. “Not this time, Kitty.”
“What do you mean, Joe? What do you mean, ‘not this time’?”
“I’m not George-to-the-rescue, Kitty. And I’m not Papa Veronne.”
The words had a strong physical effect on her. She pulled back from me and studied me closely, her eyes narrowed and dry and hardening. Everything about her changed: the growing panic was gone, submerged beneath a cold, controlled anger. “You goddamn hypocrite,” she said slowly. “It isn’t what happened to the kids that night, is it, Joe?” She whirled around, found the New York Times which had been left at her door this morning. It was folded back to the obituary page, a continuation of the front-page story of Veronne’s death. Kitty jabbed at the article.
“You see all this, Joe? All this crap they’ve had waiting to print about him for such a long time? None of it, none of it even begins to tell about him.” She jabbed at the paper. “Here they tell all the ‘bad’ things: connections with this crime family, with that crime family. Now, here, Joe, here they tell about all the charities he supported, all the people he helped. Words, words, that’s all. Nothing here about the man, Joe. Nothing here about the man.”
“My beautiful Kitty,” Veronne had said: “my beautiful Kitty.”
It was almost as though she could read my mind. She said, “Ask me about him, Joe. God, go ahead and ask me. You want to know, don’t you? It’s killing you, isn’t it, Joe?”
“You don’t have to tell me anything, Kitty.”
“And if I don’t tell you, you won’t have to think about it, later on, when you’re alone with your thoughts, right, Joe? It won’t get inside your head for you to live with and think about. Well, I’m going to tell you—”
“Kitty, it isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to change anything.”
She stiffened. “Don’t you think I know that, Joe? That’s why I’m going to tell you, because it doesn’t make any difference. So you’re going to hear about it, damn you.” She dropped onto the couch, leaned back, crossed her arms, her hands massaging gently. “There was only Papa. Only Papa. No one else. No one. After him, there could be no one.” She stopped speaking, closed her eyes, then abruptly shook her head and reached for a cigarette. She leaned forward, her hand on mine as I held my lighter to her.
“Thank you, Joe. Nothing you want to ask me, Joe? Good, then I’ll just tell you everything I want you to know. You know why no one ever linked his name with mine, Joe? Ever, not ever? Because he wanted it that way; no one ever knew. I was of value to him, Joe. Not just my body. God, he was the only one who loved me for my brain. Yes, loved me. And trusted me, Joe. You know what it’s like for a man like Alfredo to trust, completely, totally?”
“He knew you’d sleep with whoever he told you to, right?”
“Be very careful, Joe,” Kitty said softly. “Be very careful or I might go further than you really want to hear.”
“I know all I want to hear, Kitty. How Veronne worked out a story for you, based on George’s suicide; how he got you witnesses; and how he finally had Martucci hit, just as insurance.”
“You’re skipping important parts, Joe.”
“Kitty, let’s cut this short. Call Williams and—”
“You’re really not going to change your mind, are you?” She was reconciled; there was nothing pleading about her. “All right, then, Joe. There’s no point in my not telling you. Just between the two of us, Joe. Just to satisfy your curiosity about me. And Papa Veronne.”
“I don’t want to—”
“I know you don’t, but I’m going to tell you. You only saw him now, when he was dying, Joe. You never saw him when he was really alive. Five years ago, after Terry was born, I went to work out in Mogliano’s place and I met Alfredo. He treated me ... the way no man ever treated me.”
“Not even George?”
Kitty smiled and shook her head. “You don’t know anything about George. Or me. George ... treated me like I was made out of ... spun sugar. Like I would melt, disappear. Like I was a dream, not a woman. Alfredo Veronne was the only man I ever knew who treated me like a woman: a real woman. A whole woman. I could have had anything I wanted, but he knew I didn’t want to be set up in an East Side apartment somewhere, waiting for when he had some free time. I wanted ... I wanted to be independent, Joe. To be involved. I wanted to run my own business. He let me learn, he taught me so that one day I could open my own place: a health spa, maybe, a restaurant, a club, whatever I wanted.”
“And part of the on-the-job training was sleeping with his son-in-law, Ray Mogliano.”
Kitty leaned back, drew a last lungful on her cigarette, then crushed it out in the large blue ashtray she held. Slowly, she shook her head. “No, Joe. I never slept with Ray Mogliano. Alfredo asked me to try to keep him straight. For his daughter’s sake.”
I remembered that John Mogliano had said Kitty was special; a friend; the only woman he’d ever known who could be considered a friend.
“He was very concerned about his daughter, wasn’t he, Kitty? A really good father; made sure he kept her home. In her wheelchair.”
Kitty’s eyes flashed with cold anger. “You don’t know anything about that. He adored that girl. He protected her.”
“Kept her crippled for her own good?”
“I know about that. I know what Ray tried to say, that Cindy could have had an operation years ago, when she was a kid. But there was more to it than that, Joe. Cindy ... is retarded, Joe. She never got past about eight or nine years old. She trusted everyone. Alfredo was afraid for her. He made it up to her, Joe. In so many ways. Except for Ray, Cindy never had an unhappy day in her life.”
“A devoted and loving father. Very touching.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think, Joe. It doesn’t matter. But it matters to me, that a man like Alfredo loved me; respected me; trusted me ...”
“Set you up with Vince Martucci, right? Trusted you enough to set you up with Vince.”
“Vincent Martucci was Alfredo’s cousin’s son. You didn’t know that, did you? Alfredo ... had h
eard things about Vince. That he was bisexual. He asked me to ... watch out for Vince. Keep him straight—or discreet.”
“Didn’t even ask you to sleep with Vincent? To keep him ‘straight’?”
“God damn you, Joe. Alfredo asked me to sleep with two men, in all these years.” She held up two fingers and leaned forward. “One was George. And the other was ...”
She shrugged and put her hand down.
“George? Alfredo asked you to sleep with your husband? George?”
“Alfredo said that George deserved to have a son of his own; God knows, he was good to Terry, but Terry wasn’t really his.”
“You gave George a son? Like a present? For being a good man?”
“George never complained about our life together. He had his pub. Alfredo put up the money for the pub.”
“And poor old George killed himself to save you?” I shook my head.
Very coldly, Kitty said, “George did exactly what he wanted to do. Exactly.”
“And in the end it was unnecessary. Because Alfredo had Vincent hit after all.”
“Joe. Things are where they are. Nothing can be changed. Nothing can be undone.” She went soft again, her voice became warm and tempting. “Joe. Why can’t you just let things be at this point?”
I didn’t answer. She studied me carefully, then smiled and said, “Okay Joe. The second man Alfredo told me to sleep with was you, baby. We both sized you up pretty good, Joe. You played good guy pretty good. You were easy, Joe. You were a pushover. You went for everything, Joe. Everything I told you; every little trick, every little story. Exactly, exactly the way Papa said you would.”
Which by now I realized all by myself.
“But why, Kitty? Why all the stories, all the bits and pieces, when it was all so simple: just hit Martucci?”
“Because Papa felt responsible for me; for the situation I was in. He wanted it proved that I was innocent.”
“And I was the likely one for the job?”
She shrugged. “You were good, Joe. We both agreed that you were good.” She shook her head. “Better than I needed you to be.”
“What about the sheep dog, Kitty? What the hell was that all about?”
She clenched her teeth and shook her head. “That stupid son-of-a-bitch, Benjamin. He ad-libbed. He just stuck that in, for authenticity, I guess.”
“How come Veronne didn’t set up someone with a Bedlington terrier? How come he slipped up there?”
Kitty shrugged. “He said let it go; if Benjamin’s extra witness turned up, it might be too perfect. You might become suspicious. And that’s why you kept going, Joe, wasn’t it? To find that one last witness.”
“There was more to it than that, Kitty. There were ... other reasons why I wanted to finish the investigation.”
“Oh, Joe. It wasn’t the way I thought it would be. With you. Going away with you; spending time with you. That was something I hadn’t anticipated. How I would feel with you.”
I believed her; only because I wanted to believe her.
“Joe, you’ve a right to feel angry with me. To feel used. Sure, I used you. People use each other every day of their lives. But there was still more to it than that. You know it and I know it. Oh, Joe, can’t we let it be the way we said, out at Montauk? Get it all over with, and then just forget the past and live day to day. One day at a time, Joe, no plans, no long-range anything.” She stopped abruptly, studied me and shook her head. “My God, Joe, what the hell in your life makes it so hard for you right now, at this minute? What the hell have you got here that you can’t just walk away from, turn your back on?”
I wasn’t able to answer her or to answer myself.
“Kitty, call Williams.”
She stood very still, not breathing, searched my face, puzzled, unable to understand.
“Kitty,” I said once more, softly, before I left, “call him and take the deal.”
CHAPTER 16
BACK AT MY APARTMENT, I called Jen. I told her I was coming down later in the day. She sounded surprised, disinterested: if-you-feel-you-want-to-Joe. That kind of thing. But then, just before I hung up, she said, “Joe, I think it’s a good idea. We have to talk.”
Then I called the airline and made a reservation; tourist class; round trip; return flight open. I threw a few more things into my suitcase and turned and stared at the telephone as it rang and rang. I counted the number of rings: fifteen. Then the phone stopped ringing and I called the office.
I told Gelber that I had just gotten an emergency call from Florida; tell Tim Neary when he returned from Boston that I had to take a few days off and fly south. He knew where to reach me.
Tim would want to reach me on Monday morning, when Jay T. Williams entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter on behalf of his client, Kitty Keeler. And then I’d tell Tim to call Harry Sullivan. I would give him the code number to ask for; then Tim would have the Keeler murder gun.
The really ironic part I don’t think I’ll ever tell him: that we were right all along. Right from the very first day, when we all sat around in the office and discussed the way it must have happened. That the story we fed to Vincent Martucci, line by line, was correct. That our educated guesses were pretty damn accurate educated guesses.
The phone began to ring again. As I closed the suitcase and checked my wallet, I began to count the rings, automatically.
All the way out to the airport in the taxi, I could hear that phone ringing inside my head: I could see Kitty’s stricken, beautiful face.
When Tim calls on Monday, I’ll tell him what I guess both of us have known all along. There’s no way that I can retire to Florida. What I’ll do is what I’ve always done: hang in there and follow where Tim leads me. I don’t know about Jen. That’s going to be strictly up to Jen. I do know that I want her to be happy and that I’m going to try and help her be happy with whatever decision she makes for herself.
Even on the plane, settled back, waiting for takeoff, I could hear that phone ringing: I could see Kitty. In an hour or two, she’ll come to the conclusion that she’d be better off with a guaranteed deal than to take her chances on calling my bluff.
The funny thing is, right now, at this exact moment, I really don’t know what I’d do if she decided to tough it out.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1977 by Dorothy Uhnak
cover design by Kelly Parr
978-1-4532-8356-1
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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Investigation Page 36