Blood Covenant

by Michael Franzese

  Her father, Seferino Garcia, was a radical Chicano rights activist who had been arrested eight times during the turbulent 1970s, mostly during protests of one kind or another. Some of these arrests included violent confrontations with the Norwalk, California police. He had been roughed up pretty badly a few times.

  In a strange way, her upbringing seemed similar to mine. Cammy, too, had her doubts about law enforcement.

  Cammy was the oldest of seven children and had seen pretty tough days most of her life. Despite that fact, she was determined to make something of herself, and this desire had often only increased her problems. For instance, when she tried out to be a cheerleader in the seventh grade and made the squad, her friends from the barrio taunted her and called her a "Coconut"-someone brown on the outside and white on the inside. It was the Latino equivalent of a black being called an Uncle Tom, although not quite as severe.

  Apparently, Cammy's more radical Chicano friends felt that, by becoming a cheerleader, she was succumbing to the conventions of the biased white society that had banished them and their parents to the barrios and treated them so harshly. These taunts led to a bloody fight with a gang of girls in front of her house one day.

  What Cammy's friends didn't understand was that her father had filled her with a fierce pride. He made her feel that despite being poor and of Mexican descent, she had no reason to hang her head, ride in the back of the bus, or defer to anyone. He made her believe she could be anything she wanted to be-and that included becoming a cheerleader.

  On one occasion, someone firebombed the small Garcia home and nearly killed the entire family. The culprits were never caught. They were rumored to be either local drug dealers her father had tried to chase from the neighborhood or off duty police officers who hated her father because of his politics.

  Cammy also told me that she was a Christian, a religious belief that I knew virtually nothing about. She said that her mother was a believer and that she herself had become a believer when she was in junior high. Since then, she told me, she had relied heavily upon her faith to get her through hard times. Rather than being turned off by all this talk of faith in God, I found myself wanting to hear more, maybe because it was Cammy talking. Or maybe something else was at work inside of me. I wasn't sure.

  What I did know was that I was fascinated by Cammy's story, and after learning about who she was and what she had experienced, I liked her even more. Would she be shocked when she found out who and what I was? Of course I had no intention of telling her-at least not just yet.

  We left Shooters and hit another place, a glitzy Fort Lauderdale disco called Faces. When Cammy excused herself to go to the ladies' room, a man started hassling her on the way. One of my men, a muscular, two-hundred-seventy-pound brute named William Ferrante, saw what was going on and came over.

  "You want me to take care of him, chief?" he asked.

  I shook my head no. Cammy had already begun to notice the unusual allegiance I commanded. She had figured it was just because I was the producer of the movie, and I wanted to keep her thinking that way.

  The dance music at Faces was so loud that it made conversation impossible. I reacted by merely staring at Cammy, taking in her innocent beauty. This time, she stared back. We looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she took a half-step closer, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed me on the cheek. This sent a charge through my body.

  Watch It, Franzese! I thought. You're not only falling in love, you're falling hard.

  87

  The sun was already breaking in the eastern sky when we got back to the hotel. We walked to Cammy's door, and I gently kissed her.

  "Good night," she said.

  I didn't move, and she squirmed.

  "Good night," she repeated.

  I stood firm, but I could sense how uncomfortable this made her. Her father had been right: she wasn't used to this kind of thing. She was so innocent that it strained belief.

  I smiled and mussed her hair as if she were a puppy.

  "Good night, Camille," I said and walked away.

  But Cammy's innocence did not discourage me. To the contrary, we were inseparable after that, having lunch and dinner together every day. I enjoyed taking her to expensive restaurants and showering her with gifts. This was all so new to her that the smallest thing excited her. I had grown accustomed to having so much money that for me it had lost its thrill, but a $100 lunch made Cammy rush to a telephone to call and tell her mother. Through Cammy Garcia, the thrill of having so much money now returned to me.

  Our relationship progressed rapidly in every area but the bedroom. I didn't understand this at the time, but it didn't bother me in the least. I sensed that there was already no turning back. I would be with Cammy Garcia forever, and she would change my life. Just how much she would change me, I could not yet imagine.

  "I want you to know that you're very special to me," I told her at dinner one evening. "We don't have to rush anything. If it takes a week, a month, a year, it doesn't matter to me. Whenever you're ready, that's fine."

  There was another reason I was not rushing things. I felt that before we consummated our relationship, I would have to tell Cammy the truth-at least some of the truth-about my life. I imagined that she might be more concerned about my marital status than about my occupation, so I decided to start there.

  The truth was that my marriage to Maria had faded in everything but name. She had told me six months before that it was over, bringing up the subject herself and coming to this conclusion based on my long absences. She had come to realize and accept that we were more like close friends than anything else. We agreed that we would remain friends and do what was right for the children.

  But how could I explain all of this to Cammy? And would she believe me?

  88

  I chose the perfect backdrop for my heart-to-heart talk, driving Cammy to a beautiful spot overlooking the ocean in Fort Lauderdale. The top was down on the Eldorado, and the sun was just beginning to set. A light summer breeze was blowing in from the sea. It seemed like the perfect moment had arrived.

  I took a deep breath and began by telling Cammy that I loved her. It was the kind of opening that screams a stunning "but" will follow, yet she, in her innocence, missed all of the subtle clues about what was to come. By the time I got to the heart of the confession, I had softened the blow the best I knew how, and so I waded right into the matter at hand. I told Cammy that I was married and had three children. I explained to her that the marriage was now in name only and had essentially ended years earlier, mainly because I was hardly ever home anymore. When I was home, I told her, I stayed in my son's room (and that was the truth). I had never had a reason before to legally end the marriage, but now I did, I told her, and I would.

  To my surprise, Cammy accepted everything I told her, believing me without question. My revelations didn't seem to dampen her spirits in the least. I later learned that accepting my past life had not been as easy for Cammy as it initially appeared to me. She had strong and long-held views about marriage and had vowed never to date a married man and never to marry someone with children by another marriage. At the moment of my confession, however, Cammy Garcia had made a determination that would affect us both for the rest of our lives. She believed that God had sent her to me for my salvation, and she was not about to let anything stand in the way of our future. So, from that moment on, my former life, for her, simply would not exist. Everything that came before was of no consequence because everything was new. This was a totally new concept for me, and it certainly proved to be revolutionary.

  Although I had no way of understanding at the moment all that Cammy was feeling, I was extremely relieved to see that her feelings for me had not changed. Should I now go further and tell her more? Although my confession to this point had gone far easier than I expected, I decided against proceeding. Cammy would have to know eventually who I was and what I did, but why rush things?

  She had hints. For ins
tance, a new movie had just been released that I wanted to see, and I took her. The move was Once Upon a Time in America, a mob film starring Robert De Niro. In her room later that evening, her friend Katie asked her how the date had gone. Cammy mentioned that we had seen a movie.

  "What film was it?" Katie asked.

  "Once Upon a Time in America," Cammy answered.

  "It figures," Katie had said.

  But despite the hint, nothing seemed to register for the innocent Cammy.

  Another time, she was talking with Knights of the City director Dominic Orlando by the Marina Bay swimming pool. He was telling her about his future projects.

  "I'd like to do a Mafia movie," he said. "There's a lot of good material available."

  "I like movies like that," she told him. "I find the men so attractive. They're really men. They have this powerful aura about them."

  Orlando looked at her, startled for a moment, then laughed a big, hearty laugh and said, "You just might be closer to that than you think!"

  Cammy later told me that she thought he had been referring to himself.

  At that point, many of the cast and crew knew, or at least had heard rumors, about their producer's sinister background. Cammy was probably the last to hear these rumors. When she did, she simply pushed them out of her mind. After all, the rumors about her sleeping with me had been wrong. She decided that these new rumors were nonsense as well. In her eyes, it was unthinkable that I could be a criminal.

  89

  Although Cammy knew next to nothing about me, she was placing a lot of faith in a month-old relationship. A telephone call late one afternoon forced her to examine that relationship and make a major decision.

  "Cammy!" an excited voice said to her that day. "You've got a shot at something big here! Can you catch the next flight out?"

  She had been taking an afternoon nap when the phone awakened her. She tried to clear her head and sort out what she was hearing. The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Cooly Jackson, a dancer on the syndicated television program Solid Gold. He was calling from Los Angeles. Cammy had auditioned for a position with the program's dance troupe a few months before. There had been more than a hundred hopefuls vying for a few open positions, and she'd made it until the final cut. Now, apparently, one of the dancers had been injured or quit or gotten married-or something-and one of the to-kill-for positions was again available.

  But what should she do?

  "Do I have to come now?" she asked.

  "We need someone right away," Cooly explained. "There's a private audition. It's between you and two other dancers. It's now or never, Cammy. This is the chance of a lifetime!"

  She begged him for time to decide, but Cooly insisted that she must call him within the hour with her answer.

  After hanging up, Cammy paced the hotel room as she agonized over what to do. She carefully weighed her options. Solid Gold was indeed the chance of a lifetime. What more could a dancer want? The Solid Gold dancers were probably the highestprofile dancers around at the time. The international television exposure involved in such a role would lead to a succession of jobs-a career's worth. The experience would light up her resume like...well, like solid gold.

  But what about us? She felt that our embryonic love was too fragile to disturb. If she abruptly left Florida to begin a demanding, time-consuming career, it could kill our rapidly blossoming relationship. She was sure of it.

  Then again, the Solid Gold audition was a reality while I was definitely a gamble (in more ways than she could ever have imagined). Something compelled me to call her in that moment.

  "Hi, Cam," I said. "I just wanted to tell you again how much I enjoyed our date last night. I'll see you at eight for dinner."

  She gently put the receiver down, paused for a moment, then quickly lifted it again. Her decision was made. She dialed Cooly Jackson in Los Angeles, thanked him for considering her, and told him that she couldn't make it for the audition.

  90

  The filming on the set continued to go well. Aside from Leon Isaac Kennedy, the movie starred Stoney Jackson, Diamonds star Nicholas Campbell, soap opera actress and future star of television's Northern Exposure Janine Turner, and veteran actor Michael Ansara. I even signed Sammy Davis Jr. and Smokey Robinson to play cameos, though Davis' part was later edited out of the final version of the film, much to my dismay.

  Cammy was penciled in as one of "Jasmine's Bad Girls" and had to prepare for a climactic dance scene near the end of the movie. Jasmine was played by Wendy Barry, and both Cammy and I appeared in the dance-contest segment hosted by Smokey Robinson near the end of the film. I was standing with Robinson when he was introduced, and Cammy was one of Jasmine's backup singers.

  Despite the excitement of filming a movie, most of my attention was focused on Cammy. It seemed as though we had burrowed ourselves inside of some novel. Every date was magic, every day a thrill. Cammy was so enthralled that she saved the napkins and matches from every restaurant where we dined and every nightclub where we danced. A thousand little moments were etched into our memories forever, and a thousand hints of a troubled future were banished from our minds during these moments.

  "I love you, Michael," she said to me, snuggling close as we drove from Delray Beach one evening.

  "I love you, too," I responded. "That sounds really crazy, Camille, because I've only known you a few weeks, but I'm really in love with you."

  "Michael, someday you're going to marry me," she said. "Someday soon."

  I was sure that she must be right.

  For the last few weeks of shooting, I moved the cast and crew to the Konover Hotel, an oceanfront concrete tower on Miami Beach. A Konover showroom had been rented for the talent contest sequence, and it was more economical to move the entire production there. As the move was accomplished, I took the liberty of moving Cammy's growing bounty of personal belongings into my master suite. When she discovered what I had done, she was very angry. Although we had shared many evenings together and had vowed our undying love in an array of tropical settings, we had yet to consummate the relationship.

  "I can't move in with you!" she exclaimed.

  "You can stay in the other room," I countered, motioning to the second bedroom in the suite.

  "What happens if my mother or father call? And the operator says, `Oh, that must be the young lady staying in Mr. Franzese's suite'? They would kill me!" she protested.

  I understood her point. After all, I had promised her father I would look out for her. I had fulfilled that promise, but in ways I was sure Mr. Garcia had never intended. I picked up the phone and reserved another room for Camille. This was getting interesting.

  91

  As our relationship began sweeping beyond rumor into reality, Cammy felt the heat of the other dancers' jealousies.

  "He's just using you," one sour-faced woman said.

  Another added, "He'll dump you when this is all over."

  "You're going to get your little heart broken," chided a third.

  "This happens on every movie, and it never lasts," jabbed the first dancer again. "What are you going to do-be his mistress? The guy's married."

  These taunts stung, and Cammy ran to her room in tears. Joanna Tea, the brown-haired woman Cammy had originally thought was my girlfriend, witnessed what had happened and followed Cammy. They sat together on the bed and talked.

  "Don't listen to them, Cammy," Joanna said. "The girls are just jealous because it's very obvious to everyone that he really loves you. Don't worry about what anybody says. Gossip is part of this business, and you're going to have to get used to it. Just be happy and enjoy yourself. If they bother you, just tell them to get lost!"

  Intermingled with the continued sniping, Cammy received encouraging reports from some of my associates.

  "You know something, I think my friend's in love with you," Frankie Cestaro told her one evening. "I've known Michael a long time, and I've never seen him like this."

  "I sat with Michael
during your rehearsal today," reported Emily La Rosa, the makeup woman. "All he did was talk about you. He's like a schoolboy in love. `Look at her hair!' he said. `Look at her beautiful eyes! Look at the way she moves!' If you handle this right," she assured Cammy, "I think you'll really have a good thing going."

  As the weeks progressed, my love for Cammy continued to build. We sat together in Miami's Little Havana and watched Orlando and Kutash direct the big Busby Berkeley-style dance number. When it began to rain, Cammy made a move to leave. I pulled her back.

  "You look so beautiful in the rain," I said. "The way your hair is curling, I've never seen you more beautiful."

  "Would you please just get in the car? It's pouring!" she laughed.

  Despite the gossip on the set, we headed into our second month in love still not having consummated our relationship. To me, Cammy seemed to be moving at a snail's pace in this regard, and I wasn't at all sure why. Fortunately, I was amused by it all, not angered. I adored Cammy, and I was sure she had a reason for moving so slowly. Someday, I would know it.

  92

  Eventually, Cammy and I did become physically intimate, and after that night, I loved her with an obsession that was limitless. Nothing could be more important to me than her or than my being with her, and she felt the same about me. Her devotion was soon to be tested.

  Michael at age two, on a pony ride in Brooklyn, N.Y.

  Michael at age twelve, a seventh grader at St. Ann's Catholic School in Garden City, N.Y.

  An army of heavily armed police officers and detectives nervously shadowed my father's every move during a string of arrests in 1966. He was charged with everything from bank robbery to murder. (Newsday)