The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  Lucy smiled. “That’s great for his morale. But how does he look, how’s his color?”

  “I don’t know,” Frankie said wearily. “I can’t tell anymore. Amie is convinced he’s going to drop dead any day now. But that’s because the first doctor—the one here in town—spooked her, right from the beginning.” Frankie sighed heavily. “Maybe you should come with Amie and me on one of these trips, to look Johnny over yourself.”

  “I will. But for now, I don’t want to scare him,” Lucy said softly. “Bringing in the family nurse is like bringing in a priest.”

  Filomena finally nerved herself to go into Tessa’s closet. She took the key from the pocket of the apron that still hung on a peg, as if it were awaiting Tessa’s return. She felt like a thief, and half expected Tessa’s ghost to rise up in outrage. But the house was silent as Filomena went to the desk and unlocked the drawer that held the red-and-black ledger.

  Petrina arrived a few minutes later, looking glamorous in a cream-colored linen suit. “Ready for business?” she said briskly.

  “Yes. Now we will see what’s on those left-side pages of this book,” Filomena confided. Sitting in Tessa’s chair at the desk, she opened it up. Petrina peered over her shoulder.

  “Whoa!” Petrina said. “Names. Lots of people’s names.”

  They both gasped as Filomena turned the pages. It really did seem as if the whole town owed Tessa money. It began with local shopkeepers and neighbors, as Filomena had guessed from the royal treatment that Tessa got when those merchants gave her the best fish or loaf of bread or cut of beef. But this list of debtors also included teachers and plumbers, bartenders and carpenters, housewives and elderly widows, taxi drivers and small-time gamblers, even clergymen.

  Petrina, stunned, said, “It’s like seeing the whole neighborhood in their underwear. It’s awful! Like being a doctor with a stethoscope, or a priest in a confessional.”

  As Filomena turned more pages, they saw bigger debtors, from farther afield now: Merchants in the garment district who had to cover bills for fabrics, truckers, and staff. Nightclub owners and restauranteurs who had high rent. Big card players from uptown who came to Johnny’s back room at the bar and sometimes needed help covering their losses. Judges and lawyers, doctors, politicians, cops. There were also bookies who couldn’t always pay out to their bettors when a boxing match or horse race took an unexpected turn. Even other loan sharks who’d gotten stiffed and couldn’t turn to the police to force restitution for illegal lending; they all came to Tessa to cover them with loans. Big fish, little fish. All in debt.

  The whole thing horrified Filomena so much that her breath was coming out in gasps now, because it reminded her of what her parents, and Rosamaria’s parents, had been forced to do when they could no longer repay their debts.

  Petrina had grown very quiet. She’d had no idea of the scope of this operation and it scared her a little. How naive she’d been, whiling away her hours studying and playing tennis, in a life of comparative ease. Imagine if her school chums knew! She felt simultaneous pride in her parents’ power and shame at how they’d gotten it. Then she recalled Pippa’s birthday party, when her father had pointed out all the “respectable” guests who’d secretly come to him—or to the Big Bosses—for help, and she thought wryly, Pop’s loan and investment operations might have been perfectly respectable if his name was So-and-So National Bank.

  Petrina said hesitantly, “I guess these folks have to have someone like Ma to turn to, because the banks won’t lend them money to finance a small business or cover a gambling debt. Look—even my brothers are borrowers, sometimes!” She ran her finger down the page.

  Filomena followed her and saw that Frankie’s real estate ventures, Johnny’s partnerships with nightclubs, and even Mario’s jewelry shop occasionally forced them to borrow from Tessa to pay their suppliers on time. The ledger indicated that they usually repaid the loans within a month or so. But it made Tessa’s sons three of her most consistent debtors.

  Tessa had painstakingly kept track of it all. Her clients not only had to repay what they’d borrowed; they also paid something called “interest” for the privilege of being a debtor. And that, Filomena saw, was how lenders made their big profits. “Ah,” she said when, at last, they came to pages of red ink instead of black, indicating hefty expenses paid out by Tessa.

  “That’s the tribute she pays for the Bosses, isn’t it?” Petrina said in a low voice. “It goes to Strollo, but it really goes to Mr. Costello—the Prime Minister of the underworld, the one we met at the Copacabana, remember?”

  “Yes.” Filomena pointed to figures in blue ink. “These are Johnny and Frankie and Mario’s contributions, to cover our tributes for the Bosses, and the policemen’s ‘benefit fund.’”

  Petrina nodded, with a new respect for her brothers. “They’ve managed it well, because they understand each other’s strengths, and accept their own role,” she confided. “See, Johnny was always closer to my father, more like him—clearheaded, a good decision-maker, sees the big picture. Frankie goes by his guts; he’s instinctive and quick to action, and people are attracted to that, so he’s a great dealmaker, gets others on board. And Mario—well, you know, he’s smart and creative, he’s a good strategist, knows how to quietly maneuver into a position of strength without causing a ruckus.”

  Listening to Petrina’s assessment of the men, Filomena stared at the pages full of figures. She’d always found solace in numbers; they were her friends with distinct personalities. Now they even seemed to embody the members of this family: Johnny and his father, she felt, both had the personality of a 7, wise and thoughtful; Frankie’s charisma was captured in the dramatic swoop of a 6; Mario had the artistry of a 5.

  It was not the first time that her mind had worked in this way. Even as a girl, she’d seen Rosamaria as an inspiring number 1; later, when Filomena arrived in New York and was faced with a household of lively women, she’d figured Tessa to be a powerful 8, Lucy a hardworking 4, Petrina an adventurous 3, and Amie a sensitive 2. Oddly, Filomena couldn’t see a number for herself, but since she was supposed to be Rosa, it was a number 1 to which she must aspire.

  Somehow these images steadied her emotions. For she deeply loved not only Mario but every single troublesome and vulnerable member of his family, so she had an urge to protect them, even from themselves. This surprising tide of maternal love sometimes threatened to overwhelm her. But these numbers could help to keep it under control. By guarding the family’s ledger, she could help her loved ones avoid the shoals, and reach safe harbors. Whoever controls the debt controls the fate, she thought.

  As they worked together Petrina observed, “Our men are like ducks—gliding along serenely, on the surface making it look easy to do business; but underneath, they’re all paddling like hell to stay afloat.” She even understood the socialites at the country club; they, too, didn’t want to know what their husbands had to do to stay in the swim. Suddenly she felt much more compassion for everyone. She sighed. “I’ll make us lunch. It’s Cook’s day off.”

  “Yes, I can finish up here,” Filomena said. She remained absorbed in the book all morning until she heard the postman drop mail through the slot. She locked the book away and hurried to pick up the mail. And there it was, the letter they’d both been waiting for.

  A message from Mario. “Everything all right with him?” Petrina asked, trying not to be overbearing. But all she could think of was Mario as a little boy, ducking bullets with her at Coney Island. Only this time, that sweet creature was out there all on his own.

  “This letter must have crossed with the one I sent him,” Filomena said, misty eyed, as she scanned it. “He doesn’t seem to know about the baby yet.” She was frowning because at first, what Mario had written made no sense. I am going to Amie’s home to say hello to the folks. Then she realized he’d made a kind of code, because of military censorship. He was saying that he was shipping out to France, the land where Amie came from. An ocean away—wher
e so much of the fighting and killing was going on.

  “He’s all right. But they’re sending him to France,” she said. “I’ll write him the news again, in case my earlier letter doesn’t reach him.” Her hand shook as she picked up her pen and wrote back, Keep your head low. You are going to be a father in September.

  * * *

  On the last day of school in June, Amie’s boys came home with strange news. They had walked home alone, for the first time since Tessa’s death.

  “Where’s Christopher?” Amie demanded. “Why didn’t he walk with you?”

  Two sets of shoulders went up and down as the twins shrugged. “Dunno. He just didn’t come for us,” Vinnie said, sitting down to devour his milk and cookies.

  “But where is he?” Amie demanded. “He knows it’s his job to look after you.”

  “His friends said he got in a swanky car with a redheaded man who had big rings on all of his fingers, and shiny shoes,” Paulie reported.

  Amie, who was godmother to Chris and Gemma and felt responsible, telephoned Lucy at the hospital immediately. “Have you seen Christopher?” she asked.

  Lucy felt the question land like a rock in her chest. And when Amie described the man who’d enticed Chris into his car, Lucy left the hospital at such a hard run that the heel of her shoe broke off. On the subway she thought of every horrible thing that could happen to boys who got abducted—they could end up in the hospital, or the morgue.

  Walking home, she stopped at the school and found one of the administrators, who was locking up the building. “We thought the man was an uncle, come to take him home for the summer,” the woman explained. “He looked so much like Chris, who seemed to know him.”

  Lucy began to shake. When she got home, Amie told her that she’d asked Frankie and Sal to go out looking. “They said if we didn’t hear from them by now, you should talk to the cop who walks the beat around that apartment building Frankie owns—that place where you used to live when you weren’t married,” Amie said worriedly. Lucy knew who Frankie meant.

  So she ran out to find Pete, the stocky policeman with the round, cheerful face and alert green eyes. He was making his usual rounds. She told him about the strange man in the car.

  “What did he look like?” Pete asked. Lucy repeated the description she’d heard. “Sounds like Eddie Rings,” he said instantly. “From Hell’s Kitchen. Uses those rings like brass knuckles. Shakes down unions, sells ‘discount’ cigarettes, dabbles in the black market, and murders for hire, on the side. Covers his tracks pretty well, so nobody can pin it on him.”

  Lucy knew this officer well enough to plead, “Please find my son. You know what can happen to boys in this city.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he promised. “Never heard of Rings in the kidnapping business, so maybe he just wanted the boy to do some errand for him, you know, like pass some phony money. Some of these gangsters groom kids, a little at a time, to be their front line, so if they get caught, they keep quiet, and it’s not the big shots who get arrested.”

  Lucy gulped at those words, remembering the incident with the candy-store owner. Hurrying home, she chided herself for not telling Frankie about it. “It might have been better if Frankie had thrashed Chris back then,” she muttered worriedly.

  When Frankie came home, Lucy didn’t know how to tell him her worst fears. They were all having dinner together at Filomena’s house, where Petrina and Pippa were now staying for part of the summer. “Don’t worry, Lucy, we’ll find him,” Petrina said, but she looked helplessly at Frankie, as if signaling him to assuage their fears.

  “I don’t think it’s kidnapping. Nobody called for a ransom, did they?” Frankie said. Lucy shook her head mutely. Apart from her “adoption” of Chris, she had never shirked from telling the truth, gently delivering bad news to patients at the hospital or telling off doctors, if necessary. But today she was absolutely terrified to speak.

  Finally, Filomena asked the right question. “Do you know why this man would pick Christopher, instead of any of the other children in the playground?” She gazed clear-eyed at Lucy, not without sympathy, but sensing that she was holding something back.

  Lucy blurted out the whole story of the man who’d asked Chris to go into the candy store with phony money. Frankie was, predictably, furious, but Petrina said, “You see? Lucy knew you’d lose your temper. Calm down, Frankie. This is good information, and it will help Sal find Chris. Let’s stay focused on that!”

  Later that evening, Sal showed up at Lucy’s town house, having made the kinds of phone calls and inquiries on the street that Johnny normally would have, to their contacts in the underworld of bar gossip and racketeer talk. Sal reported to her and Frankie.

  “It was Eddie Rings. He operates in Hell’s Kitchen, and it was his gang that the Pericolo brothers ran into trouble with, when they tried to fence the stolen jewelry there,” Sal explained. “Turns out, those Pericolos had bragged that they had an ‘in’ with Tessa, said they had her financial backing. So back then, Eddie decided to check out this family and send one of his crew around here to find out about our operations.”

  Frankie said impatiently, “What does this guy want with us now, then? Is he holding Chris for ransom or something? Like, a kidnapping? Or does he think we’ve got some of the jewels that those stupid Pericolo brothers showed to his fence?”

  “No. Eddie knows that the cops found the swag in the Pericolos’ car and impounded it all. But ever since Eddie’s crew got into that big bar fight with the Pericolos, the cops have been giving them hell. It’s hard to do business when you’re under surveillance! Eddie blames us for his troubles—he still believes we sent the Pericolos into his territory; maybe he thinks we’re making a move to take over his operations. You might have been spotted that night of the bar fight, cruising his area, Frankie, when you, Johnny, and Mario went after the Pericolos.”

  “Those Pericolos!” Lucy exclaimed. “For every stunt they pull, we pay the price.”

  Sal said, “Anyway, Eddie’s got bigger troubles now. See, a few weeks ago, Eddie killed a guy in the unions who stiffed him, and now a witness has turned up. So the cops are ready to arrest Eddie. But someone must have tipped him off, because word on the street is that Eddie’s gone on the lam. Maybe forever.”

  “Find out where he’s hiding and what he wants from us,” Frankie said tersely.

  “Working on it.”

  It was a terrible night. Gemma had heard from Amie’s twins that her brother, Chris, had gone “truant,” but Lucy could only tell her that Frankie would straighten everything out.

  The next day was ominously quiet until the late afternoon, when Sal finally returned. Amie had taken Gemma along with her boys to Filomena’s house, so that the young ones could play together before dinner and not overhear anything terrible when the men returned to Lucy. Frankie was out collecting rent from the bars and nightclubs, and using the opportunity to see if anybody knew anything. Sal and his men had fanned out farther afield. So when Sal showed up at Lucy’s house to report what he’d learned, he found her alone there, just returning from work.

  Looking a bit uncomfortable, Sal asked, “Where’s Frankie?”

  “He’ll be home any minute. Sal, tell me, what is it?” she asked urgently.

  Sal said carefully, “Lucy, I don’t know what to make of this. Back when Eddie sent those guys from his crew to check out this family, apparently they spotted you walking around with a little boy who looked a lot like Eddie. They recognized you as the nurse they’d brought to Harlem to . . . deal with . . . a girl that Eddie got pregnant.”

  Lucy, already a bit dizzy from a fairly sleepless night, clutched the back of a chair to steady herself. Sal was watching her searchingly, and evidently the look on her face confirmed that he was on the right track. She said slowly, “How do you know this?”

  “One of the cops on our payroll made some inquiries. There’s a priest in Hell’s Kitchen who’s actually Eddie’s cousin. He said that after Eddie’s men s
potted you and Chris, they got worried that they screwed up, so they asked this priest to talk to the nuns in the orphanage where you said you’d bring the baby. The priest asked the mother superior if a baby boy was brought there back in March of ’34. She checked her records and said that no baby was left there at that time. So, the priest got the job of telling Eddie that he might have a son walking around Greenwich Village; the priest even tried to convince Eddie that it was a sign from God, to repent and change his ways. Fat chance of that!”

  Lucy flinched, just remembering the thugs she’d had to deal with that night in Harlem; her own role sounded so terribly sordid, too. Sal said, “So Eddie went to the schoolyard to check it out for himself. He told his priest cousin that seeing Chris was like looking in a mirror. Eddie’s got a big ego. But Chris really does look like the guy, Lucy. Our cop friend filched a photo from Eddie’s arrest file, to give us a face we can search for. I have to give this photo back today, but I thought you’d want to see it. This was taken nearly ten years ago, but—you get the picture.”

  Lucy peered at it, and her heart sank. Eddie was a dead ringer for Christopher, all the more so because the photo had been taken when the gangster was a very young man.

  “I guess Eddie enjoyed getting back at us,” Sal said. “I don’t think we’ve heard the last of him, because just before he blew town, he said, A man in my position can’t let strangers—especially a woman—get the better of him.”

  “Meaning, me?” Lucy gasped. If this man wanted revenge on her and the family, he could have it easily, by harming—or killing—poor Chris.

  Frankie was at the front door now, letting himself in. Sal said, “Want me to tell him?”

  “No,” Lucy said in a whisper, “I’ll do it. I need to talk to him alone.”

  “Sure. I’ll step out for a smoke.” After a pause Sal said, “Holler if you need me.”