The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  But now that Petrina had found Doug, she believed in married love again and didn’t want her daughter to be deprived of it. Pippa’s experience of men hardly inspired faith in marriage: the father who’d given her up, the gangsters who ruled the city, and the jaded theater and nightclub set. Love could only be found when two honest, open hearts met. If Pippa got too sophisticated, she might miss it, like a last train home.

  “Hey, Pippa, here comes that cop who’s in love with you,” Nicole announced, gazing out the front window. An athletically built man was strolling slowly by, and he tipped his hat as he passed. Pippa glanced up, then waved genially back at the police detective.

  “You can set your clock by George; he always stops for coffee across the street,” Petrina observed, peering out. “Hmm. He’s here on his day off—just to see if you’re here today, Pippa.”

  “George and I are just friends,” Pippa assured her. George had been her first admirer here in the suburbs but certainly not her first love. Pippa’s very first crush had been a fellow dancer; then she’d fallen for a charming older diplomat who sent flowers to her dressing room. Now she was more seriously involved with a violinist, although she hadn’t told her family yet.

  So she’d had to let the policeman down gently. “I told George I’d introduce him to my gorgeous cousin Gemma when she’s in town this fall for your wedding, Mom,” Pippa said. “I even taught George how to ballroom dance. He’s good!”

  Petrina sighed and hurriedly gathered up her things. “I am late. Sure you don’t mind finishing up here for me? Business is slow today. The street’s been empty nearly all afternoon. Everybody’s out soaking up the last rays of summer.”

  “Fine. Go on, get some nice flowers for your wedding,” Pippa said encouragingly.

  “Godmother, can I go with you to the florist?” Teresa asked eagerly.

  Petrina said, “Sure. What about you, Nicole? Want to come with us?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll stay here. All the bugs in those greenhouses bite only me. They never touch Teresa,” Nicole complained. “I like jewelry better. It doesn’t bite.”

  Just before closing time, a deliveryman came with some insured packages for the jewelry store, and Pippa, who was expecting him, told Nicole, “Wait for me in the back room, and you can help me record these new arrivals. Then we’ll pack up all the jewelry and put everything back in the safe.”

  Nicole had been gazing at herself in the mirror, admiring a pretty necklace that Pippa had draped around her. “Okay,” said Nicole, hopping down from her chair and going.

  Pippa signed for the packages, and the deliveryman went off. She locked the front door and turned the sign to closed. Then she opened an empty strongbox and methodically removed the jewelry from the display cases. Her mother had taught her an efficient way to do this, making a U-shaped route around the store. When Pippa was done, she carried the strongbox and the new parcels into the back room.

  “Nicole, you’ve been quiet as a mouse. What have you been up to?” she called out suspiciously. She hoped that Nicole hadn’t started reading Petrina’s order books. That girl read everything in sight, even the backs of cereal boxes.

  “Nicole, let’s—” Pippa began, then stopped short, aghast.

  A man with a black hat pulled low over his face had grabbed Nicole and was holding her. His left hand was clamped over the girl’s mouth; his right hand held a gleaming knife to her throat. Nicole’s eyes were big and terrified. Pippa gasped, then tried to speak calmly.

  “Let her go,” Pippa said, putting down the things she’d been carrying. “The cash register is in the front of the store and it’s still full. Help yourself, but leave her alone.”

  “Thanks, don’t mind if I do,” the man said, as if she’d offered him chocolates. He kicked over a nearby waste-paper basket. “Empty it,” he ordered her, “and put all the jewelry in it. Then go get the money from the cash register, and bring everything back here. The kid stays with me, so don’t try anything cute with the neighbors, or she gets it,” he warned as he put the knife tip closer to Nicole’s soft neck. Nicole let out a stifled moan of terror.

  The man growled at Pippa, “And make it snappy!”

  “Okay, okay,” Pippa said, turning swiftly to do what he’d ordered.

  She felt herself shaking but fought for self-control. This man sounded as if he’d done time. She knew his type. After all these years, she’d learned to identify exactly what kind of man was trying to pick her up, in bars and supper clubs, even backstage after a performance. Once in a while, some well-suited thug would betray his criminal character with the resentful, chip-on-the-shoulder way he spoke, especially to women.

  Her heart was pounding as she went to the front room. She gave a quick glance out the windows, hoping to spot someone to whom she might signal for help. But at this time of year people around here spent the entire day at the beach clubs, or out on their boats, from sunrise straight through to the dinner hour, when they partied under the stars. If only her police friend George had shown up just a little bit later, he could have helped. But he was long gone now.

  Pippa hurried to the cash register to pull the money out. Normally she’d have to arrange all the bills in their stacks of fifties and twenties and tens, and she’d put the checks into a red wallet with a deposit slip for the bank. But now she just threw it all into a large felt jewelry sack. Her fingers were shaking so much that she dropped some bills. She stooped to pick them up. She hadn’t been this terrified since something very bad had happened to someone she loved, a long time ago.

  And then, as Pippa straightened up, that awful memory emerged again, a thing that had taken her years of dance—and psychiatrists and booze and men—to overcome. She took a deep breath, then reached into the drawer beneath the cash register where the checks and extra rolls of coins were stored, and she took what she needed. Then she returned to the back of the shop. The man was waiting, still holding that knife to poor Nicole’s throat.

  “Put that cash in the waste basket,” he snapped at Pippa. He watched her do it, then suddenly demanded, “Where’s Mario? Why is his shop in the Village closed today?”

  Pippa, surprised, stammered, “I—I don’t know.” It was a lie. She knew that Mario’s leg, which he’d wounded in the war, was still bothering him, and he was going to have another surgery on it again soon, so today he’d gone to see the doctor for some tests ahead of the operation. After that, he and Filomena planned to come up here for the weekend; Filomena had insisted that he get off his feet and spend some time in the country resting before the surgery. But Pippa would never tell this man that Mario was expected up here tonight.

  The man eyed her mistrustfully. “I want to have a little talk with Mario. The shopkeepers in the Village said he and his sister have another store here.” The man nodded toward the waste basket full of jewelry with a look of scorn. “This is all his loot, isn’t it?” he snarled. “Now, speak up. Where is he?”

  Pippa’s heart was pounding and she felt paralyzed with terror, so lightheaded that she thought she might just faint or die on the spot and get it over with, right now. But poor Nicole was looking at her older cousin as if praying for deliverance.

  And then Pippa seemed to hear her grandmother’s voice inside her, instructing her with the very words that Gemma had once claimed she heard Tessa say in a dream, long ago, that day they were on roller skates: Tell Pippa to take care of you all, now that I’m in heaven.

  “Where’s Mario?” the man repeated angrily.

  Pippa exhaled her fear and straightened her spine. She was, after all, a born performer who’d vanquished an equally paralyzing stage fright. So, feigning a careless shrug, she gave him a brilliant smile. “Oh, he’ll be along. C’mon, mister,” she purred coaxingly. “Let go of the kid. If you really want to point that silly knife at somebody, aim for a grown-up. Like me.”

  She wasn’t entirely sure that it was sex alone that caused a sadistic glitter in this man’s eyes. He said dismissively to the terrified
Nicole, “Go into that bathroom, kid, and stay there.” He gave the girl a rude shove that sent her sprawling and made her cry out briefly. Then he took off his black scarf and tossed it at Pippa.

  “Shut her up,” he commanded. Pippa reluctantly tied the gag around Nicole’s trembling mouth and murmured, “Just stay quiet, baby. Lie on the floor.” Nicole scurried into the tiny washroom and shut the door.

  Pippa, still shaking, sat atop the desk to show off her dancer’s legs to full perfection, and forced herself to say conversationally, “You look familiar. Ever been to the Copacabana?”

  The man gave a snort of derision. “That stuffy old place?” he said defensively.

  Pippa was still sizing him up to make sure she was right in thinking she recognized him. He’d lost some weight—in jail, no doubt. But it was the way he’d talked about Mario that alerted her. “You’re one of the Pericolo brothers, aren’t you?” Pippa said quietly.

  It was her worst nightmare come true—as if she’d been expecting a violent end to her own life at the hands of this frightful specter who’d haunted her entire existence.

  At the mention of his name, the man jerked his head up alertly. She quickly resumed her flirtatious tone and said, “Which one are you, anyway, Sergio or Ruffio?”

  “Ruffio died,” the man said shortly. “In jail, like a pig in a sty, thanks to Mario and his family. How the hell do you know me? Who are you?” He advanced toward her.

  “I wouldn’t forget a man like you,” Pippa said alluringly. When he gave her the once-over, she knew he was hooked. “I have a little message for you,” Pippa murmured, so softly that he had to cock his head closer to hear her. She reached into the pocket of her skirt. With icy calm she said, “My grandma Tessa says hello—and goodbye.”

  He was so close now that she really couldn’t miss. Pippa aimed her pistol—the one she’d stolen from Aunt Amie years ago to wave at that priest, which Petrina had taken away from her and now kept in the drawer beneath the cash register for moments like this, which never happened, but had just happened—and fired it straight at the man’s head. She’d always been a good shot, after years of target practice and shooting skeet with her father. But now it took the last drop of her courage to keep her hand steady, her fingers cool and certain.

  The shot rang out, and Sergio fell backward with a look of utter surprise. Pippa took aim and shot twice more, to make sure he couldn’t get up again. He didn’t.

  She paused, peering cautiously at him until she was sure that he was dead. Then she let out a gasp and grabbed on to the sides of the desk to steady herself, because her legs suddenly felt like wet noodles. She stumbled to the back door to lock it, just in case this guy had a friend. Then she picked up the telephone, to call George the cop—but something made her telephone her cousin Chris instead. He was just arriving at Aunt Amie’s restaurant, not far from here, to prep for the dinner shift, and when she blurted it out quickly, he said he’d come right over.

  Pippa opened the bathroom door. Poor Nicole was obediently lying on the floor, the gag tied around her mouth, tears streaming down her face. “It’s okay, sweetie,” Pippa whispered, removing the gag and tossing it aside. “That bad man is dead. But he doesn’t look so good. So, why don’t you wait in here until they take him away?”

  “No,” Nicole said unexpectedly. “I want to see him.”

  “Trust me, you don’t,” Pippa said. “It’ll haunt you forever.”

  Nicole looked her straight in the eye. “I have to see for myself that he’s really dead.”

  Petrina had just arrived home when she heard the telephone ringing. It was Chris, calling from the jewelry store. He told her about the break-in.

  “Listen, Pippa shot and killed the man,” Chris said without ceremony. “It was Sergio Pericolo. It was self-defense. He was looking for Mario and he threatened Nicole with a knife. Pippa wants to call her police friend George. But I know some garbage contractors from Brooklyn. For a fee—no questions asked—they’ll dispose of the body and nobody will ever know. The gun is untraceable, so it could have belonged to anybody, and I can ditch that, too. Pippa said to ask you. What do you want to do, Aunt Petrina?”

  Petrina was momentarily tempted. Then she said, “Let Pippa call George. He’ll know what to do to protect her. Just make sure you tell her to keep saying that word over and over: self-defense. Oh, and tell her not to mention that she knows it’s Pericolo. It was just a guy who broke into the store. Got that? I’ll be right over.” She rushed out the door.

  When she reached town, Petrina discovered that the street was now closed off by a police cordon, so she had to park the car a block away, then run the rest of the way. Just as she got to the shop, she heard one of the policemen on duty on the sidewalk, talking to another cop about how George had saved the day.

  “Damned good timing—the detective says he was just passing by on his day off for a cup of coffee, and he saw the thief break in,” the cop was saying. “So he jumped the guy and ended up shooting him with the thief’s own gun.”

  “Lucky for the lady who works in that store!” the other officer said.

  Petrina looked up and caught George’s glance. They exchanged a brief nod of understanding, with Petrina’s eyes full of thanks.

  Then she hurried inside to embrace her daughter.

  33

  New York City, October 1957

  Late one afternoon, near the end of October, Mario went into the hospital to have his surgery. He groused about having to check in on the day before the operation for some prep work, but Filomena soothed him, then left him sleeping there that night.

  Lucy and Frankie were away on their first vacation, in California, so that Frankie could inspect some vineyards that he was thinking of buying and the couple could have a little time to themselves. Their daughter, Gemma, who was still living in her parents’ town house and taking her meals with Filomena, was not home from work yet, and the rest of the family, even the maid and the cook, were in Mamaroneck preparing for Petrina’s wedding this weekend.

  And so, for the very first time since she’d arrived here, Filomena found herself completely alone in Greenwich Village. She didn’t mind; there was still much to do. Now that their daughter, Teresa, was enrolled in the school in Westchester, Filomena and Mario had decided to move some of their things into the suburban house that they owned, in that private enclave, right next door to Petrina’s and Amie’s. Filomena had been renting out hers to a film producer, whose lease was up. So she and Mario would now be living there on weekdays during the school year. Amie was very helpful and had promised to drive down here tomorrow with Chris to help Filomena make the move.

  So today, Filomena went from room to room, listening to her footsteps echoing as she moved about, checking her list, organizing the items that the moving men would be coming to pick up on Monday. Much of the furniture was covered, and everything else was stored in large, numbered boxes. Tessa’s china and silver were carefully wrapped into a locked trunk.

  As she entered the dining room, Filomena found herself remembering how she’d felt when she first came into this household; and tonight, she sensed Tessa and Gianni’s presence in these silent rooms, as the fiery autumn sunset came slanting in long, burnished rays across the polished floors. She wondered if Tessa knew, somehow, that the threat of those men who had killed her was finally vanquished, thanks to Pippa. She could almost hear Tessa say, Yes, but at what cost? When will my grandchildren be truly free of the terrors of their elders?

  Filomena had discussed this with the Godmothers. Petrina had said thoughtfully, “But Pippa’s not afraid of anything now. She told me she slept through the night, for the first time since Tessa’s death. She says she doesn’t have to worry about ‘men with guns’ anymore.”

  “But how is Nicole handling all this?” Filomena had asked, worried about her sensitive, gifted goddaughter. The incident had made Amie and Nicole become closer, yet secretive.

  “She was pale as a ghost when she came home fr
om the jewelry shop,” Amie had admitted. “At first she hardly ate or slept at all! But we’ve spent a lot of time together. She’s fine now; she won’t talk about it anymore; she says, It’s over. She’s so glad to be back in school with Teresa.”

  Filomena, not entirely trusting this sunny tale, had looked at Amie keenly and said, “Someday, we should tell Nicole all about this family and how the Pericolos came into our lives, so that she understands what happened in the jewelry store and why she was attacked.”

  Amie said quickly and protectively, “Someday. If she asks us. But not now. Nicole has put it out of her mind, and that’s healthy. She just wants everything to be normal again.”

  And so, on the surface, at least, life had settled down into something resembling its usual routine. Surely the danger to this family is finally gone, Filomena thought fervently, as if in prayer to the ancestral spirits whose presence she sensed.

  But now, when she reached the kitchen, something moving in the backyard made her look up sharply. It was not one of her ghosts. It was a real-life man, standing right there in Tessa’s garden, with his arms folded across his chest, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he stared aggressively into the window at her. His hair was touched with silver now—he must have been in his mid-fifties—but she recognized those coal-black eyes, with their bushy eyebrows, and the nose that curved down a bit at the end, like the beak of a bird of prey.

  “God, it’s him!” Filomena murmured. The Lord High Executioner, who’d once run “Murder Inc.” out of a candy store in Brooklyn, had recently come up in the world of gangsters. He was now a Boss of one of the Five Families—after the ominous, and convenient, disappearance of the man who’d held that job before him. No body had been found.

  Albert Anastasia was not a man to be kept waiting. He unfolded his arms and crooked one finger to beckon her to come. Reluctantly she opened the door and stepped out into Tessa’s garden. She felt that this man would always convey the heart of a brute, just by standing there. “How’s the family?” he asked brusquely, as if this social nicety were a weapon.