“Mornings are tough. It’ll get better as the day goes on.”
“With enough pills,” he said. “Yesterday, Father Ignatius came to the house and heard my confession. First time in forty-five years, so it took a while.”
“Must have been a relief.”
“Not as much as I’d hoped.”
“Any regrets?”
“Everybody has regrets. Things you did, you shouldn’t have. Things you didn’t do, you should have. Hard to know which is worse.”
Dante said, “Maybe in the end, it doesn’t matter.”
“Believe me, it matters. Tell yourself it doesn’t, but it does. I repented my sins, but that don’t repair the damage.”
“At least you had a chance to come clean.”
Alfredo shrugged. “I wasn’t entirely candid. Close as I am to leaving this earth, there are some secrets I’m reluctant to give up. It’s a burden on my soul.”
“You still have time.”
“Don’t I wish,” he said mildly. “How’s Cappi doing?”
“That fuck’s got more ambition than brains.”
Alfredo smiled and closed his eyes. “So use that to your advantage. You know Sun-Tzu, The Art of War?”
“I do not. He says what?”
“‘To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.’ You understand what I’m saying?”
Dante studied his uncle’s face. “I’ll give it some thought.”
“You better do more than that.” Uncle Alfredo fell silent.
Dante watched the rise and fall of his chest, shoulders now spindly, arms as white as bone. His knuckles were red and swollen, and Dante imagined they’d be hot to the touch. A gentle snoring began, which at least signaled that the old man was alive if not attentive. He admired Alfredo’s stoicism. The fight was wearing him down, the pain grinding away at him, but he didn’t complain. Dante had no use for people who whined and bellyached, an attitude he’d learned from Pop, who wouldn’t tolerate complaints from him or from anyone else. Dante had lived his life listening to his father’s admonitions about people whom he considered weak and stupid and conniving.
Dante was the eldest of six. Cappi was the youngest with the four girls between them. After his mother had walked out, Lorenzo had taken to beating Dante with a savagery that was unrelenting. Dante took the punches, thinking to protect his little brother. He knew Lorenzo would never lay a hand on the girls. Between the ages of twelve and fourteen, Cappi was subject to the same abuse, but then something changed. Cappi began to fight back, refusing to take the old man’s crap. For a brief period, the violence escalated and then, suddenly, Lorenzo backed off. Whatever the strange dynamic between them, Cappi had ended up just like Pop, careless, mean, and impulsive.
The dining room was empty when Dante sat down. Sophie had laid out the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the local paper that Dante occasionally scanned for gossip. Lola wouldn’t be joining him. She’d use jet lag as today’s excuse for sleeping in. Lola was a night owl, staying up until all hours watching TV, old black-and-white movies shown nightly on an off channel. Most days she wouldn’t emerge from the master suite until early afternoon. One day a week she went into the office and made a show of being useful. He’d put her on the payroll and he insisted she do something to earn her keep.
She was the first woman who’d been in his life longer than a year. He’d always been wary of women. He made a point of keeping his distance, which most women found intriguing at first, then infuriating, and finally intolerable. Women wanted a relationship that was concrete and clearly defined. The commitment talk would begin after the first few months and accelerate until he shut it down and the women moved on. He never had to break up with them. They broke up with him, which suited him just fine. It had been pointed out to him more than once that he was attracted to the same type over and over: young, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and thin; in effect, his mother at thirty-three when she’d left without a word.
Lola was different, or so it seemed. They’d met in a bar on her twenty-eighth birthday. He’d stopped in for a drink, bringing his usual contingent: chauffeur, bodyguard, and a couple of pals. He’d noticed her the minute he walked in. She was there celebrating with friends, in the midst of a Champagne toast when he sat down at the next table. Dark mane of hair, dark eyes, a voluptuous mouth. She was long-limbed and rail thin in tight jeans and a T-shirt through which he could see the shape of her small breasts. She’d spotted him about the same time, and the two had played eye-tag for an hour before she walked over and introduced herself. He’d taken her back to his place, thinking to impress her. Instead, she’d been amused. He learned later that her tablemates had warned her about him . . . for all the good it did. Lola was attracted to bad boys. Until she met Dante, she’d spent years bailing guys out of jail, believing their promises, waiting for them to change. Lola stuck with them through their prison sentences and stints in rehab. Her faith in them rendered her only more gullible in the face of the next unlucky loser.
Dante was “clean” by comparison. He made big money and he was generous. He offered her the same whiff of danger, but he was smarter and better insulated. Lola teased him about his armor-plated limousine and his bodyguards. He liked her sassiness, the fact that she’d sooner flip him off than do his bidding.
After the first six years, talk of marriage began to filter into her conversation. She was impatient with the status quo. Dante had sidestepped the issue, holding her off for another two years, but he could feel himself weakening. What difference would it make? They’d been living as husband and wife since the beginning of their relationship. To date, his argument had been that a marriage license was superfluous. Why insist on a piece of paper when she already enjoyed all the perks and benefits? Lately, she’d been turning it around on him, pointing out that if marriage meant so little, why was he making such a big deal of it?
At 9:00 he pushed the newspapers aside and finished his coffee. Before walking out of the kitchen, he buzzed Tomasso on the intercom. “Would you bring the car around?”
“I’m waiting at the side door. Hubert’s riding shotgun.”
“Just what I like to hear.”
As Dante passed through the sheltered portico off the library, Tomasso opened the back door of the stretch limousine and watched him slide into the backseat. Drive time to the office would be fifteen minutes even as Tomasso varied the routes. Hubert, Dante’s hulking bodyguard, shifted in the front seat and nodded a greeting. Hubert was Czechoslovakian and spoke very little English. He was good at what he did and his minimal comprehension meant he couldn’t eavesdrop when Dante and Tomasso discussed business. At six foot five, weighing the better part of three hundred pounds, Hubert had a presence that was reassuring to his employers, like owning a Rottweiler with a placid disposition and vicious territorial instincts.
Dante noticed Tomasso eyeing him in the rearview mirror. “What’s up?” he asked.
Tomasso said, “I thought you’d be windburned.”
“Hardly left the hotel. Next time I talk vacations, remind me how much I hate being away.”
“Resort was okay?”
“For two grand a night, it was so-so.”
“How about the guys we hired to look after you?”
“Not as competent as you two, but I’m alive and well.”
Tomasso was quiet for the duration of the drive. He pulled into the underground parking garage that ran beneath the Passages Shopping Plaza on the Macy’s end of the mall. Hubert emerged from the car and did a quick scan, searching the nearly empty space for potential danger before he opened the back door and Dante got out.
Tomasso lowered the window. “Hey, Boss? You might want to check with Mr. Abramson before you do anything else.”
Dante paused, leaning down to peer into the driver’s-side window. “And why is that?”
“All I know is he said you should talk
to him soon as you got in. He’s not one to run off at the mouth, but his body language was on the urgent side of tense.”
“You know what it’s about?”
“Better you should hear it from him . . . killing the messenger being what it is. What time you want to be picked up?”
“I’ll call. You can take Pop back to the house whenever he’s ready to go. Might be a long day for me depending on what went down while I was gone.”
Tomasso seemed on the verge of saying more, but Dante didn’t like to linger in the open, so with Hubert close on his heels he crossed to the elevators and pushed the up button. The two of them took the elevator to the top floor. Once Dante left the elevator, Hubert returned to the car. Passing through the reception area, Dante noticed a slim brunette ensconced in one of the big leather chairs, leafing through a magazine.
He paused at the receptionist’s desk. “Morning, Abbie. Is Saul in?”
“No, sir. Mr. Abramson had a dental appointment. He should be back by ten.”
“Tell him I want him in my office,” he said, and then flicked a look at the visitor. “Who’s she?”
“Mrs. Vogelsang. Mr. Berman referred her.”
“Give me five minutes and then you can show her in.”
On his way down the corridor, he tapped on his father’s office door and stuck his head in. Lorenzo, fully dressed in a three-piece suit and black wingtips, was stretched out on the couch asleep, a biography of Winston Churchill open facedown across his chest. Dante eased the door shut and left him to his rest.
He sat down at his desk and put in a call to Maurice Berman, who owned a small chain of high-end jewelry stores. When Berman picked up, Dante said, “Hey, Maurice. Dante. I got a gorgeous woman waiting in reception. What’s the story?”
“Channing Vogelsang’s wife. You know the name?”
“I don’t.”
“Hotshot Hollywood attorney. They have a house in Malibu and a second home in Montebello. They split time between the two. I bought a couple of pieces from her—nice, high quality, and the price was fair. Then she shows me a ring I have problems with. I’m thinking who am I to bring bad tidings to a beautiful woman? Money she’s asking, it was out of my league anyway. I told her you were the only guy in town with the resources to take it off her hands.”
“What’s she need the money for?”
“Beats me. She’s a cool customer. Not a lot of small talk and no explanation.”
“Drugs?”
“I doubt it. Could be gambling, but she doesn’t look like the type. I handed her a check for seven on jewelry appraised at forty-two.”
“Nobody ever said you weren’t generous,” Dante said. “Tell me about the pieces you bought.”
“A pair of cabochon sapphire-and-diamond earrings, probably worth seventeen grand, and an Art Deco sapphire-and-diamond line bracelet worth twenty-five easy. The ring, I don’t like.”
“I’m willing to take a look.”
“I thought you’d see it that way. Let me know what comes of it.”
Dante hung up and buzzed Abbie, asking her to bring in Mrs. Vogelsang. He crossed to the door and watched the two approach. When Abbie showed her into the office, he held out his hand. “Mrs. Vogelsang. A pleasure. I’m Lorenzo Dante. My father’s Lorenzo Senior, so I’m Dante to most. Come in and have a seat.”
“It’s Nora,” she replied, and the two shook hands. Her fingers were cool and slim, her grip strong. Her smile was tentative, and he realized she was ill at ease.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Yes, please. I’d like milk if you have it. No sugar.”
“Make that two,” he said to Abbie.
While she went off to the break room, Dante gestured toward a leather-upholstered chair that was part of a seating arrangement in front of the three big circular windows that looked out onto State. She sat down, placing a large, expensive-looking black leather handbag on the floor next to her. She was trim, petite, in a well-cut black suit that suggested more than it revealed. A delicate scent trailed into the room after her. He settled on the couch, trying not to stare. She was so beautiful he could hardly take his eyes off her. There was an elegance about her, a reserve, he found unsettling. He manufactured small talk while they waited for the coffee, happy to have an excuse to study her at close range. Solemn, dark eyes; sweet mouth. Her gaze traveled across the room, which was awash in tones of gray. The upholstered pieces were covered in Ultrasuede in a deep charcoal shade; the rug a softer gray; the walls paneled in whitewashed walnut.
She turned a curious gaze on him. “May I ask what you do? I assumed you dealt in estate jewelry. This looks like an attorney’s office.”
“I’m a private banker of sorts. I lend money to clients who don’t qualify for loans from traditional institutions. Most prefer to keep their finances out of the public eye. I also own a number of commercial businesses. What about you?”
“My husband’s a lawyer in the industry.”
“The ‘industry’ meaning the film business. So I’ve heard. Channing Vogelsang. You live in Los Angeles?”
“Malibu. We have a second home in Montebello.”
“Nice. You belong to the Montebello Country Club?”
“Nine Palms,” she said, correcting him.
“Maybe you know the Hellers, Robert and his wife?”
“Gretchen. Yes. They’re good friends. As a matter of fact, we’re meeting for dinner at the club next Saturday. How do you know them?”
“Robert and I had business dealings in times past,” Dante said.
“It’s possible I’ll see you there.”
“At the club?”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised. You’re not the only one with friends,” he said. “At any rate, I talked to Maurice Berman this morning. He says you have a ring you’d like to sell. May I see it?”
“Certainly.” She reached into her bag and took out a ring box, which she handed him.
He opened the box and found himself looking at a radiant-cut pink diamond, flanked by two white diamonds. “Five carats?”
“Five point four six. The setting is platinum and eighteen-carat gold. The smaller stones total one point seven carats. My husband bought it from a New York dealer several months ago.”
“You know what he paid?”
“A hundred and twenty-five thousand.”
“You have the bill of sale?”
“I don’t have access to it. My husband keeps financial records at the office.”
Dante let that pass, wondering if Channing Vogelsang knew what she was up to. “You mind if I get an outside opinion? I’ve got a gal in the office who’s a trained gemologist.”
“If you like.”
Abbie returned with a tray that held a coffee carafe, two cups and saucers, spoons, and a creamer and a sugar bowl. She placed the tray on the glass-topped coffee table and passed Nora a saucer and cup. Abbie filled hers, being careful not to get the steaming liquid too close to the rim. Nora helped herself to milk from the pitcher while Abbie poured coffee for Dante. Before she left, Dante held out the ring box. “Give this to Lou Elle and have her take a look.”
“Yes, sir.” Abbie left the office with the ring box and closed the door behind her.
“This shouldn’t take long,” he said. There was silence while she sipped her coffee. He set his cup aside untouched. “You mind if I ask a few questions?”
She tilted her head in a move that he took as assent.
“The ring was a gift from your husband?”
“Yes.”
“I’m guessing an anniversary. Tenth?”
“Fourteenth. Why do you ask?”
“I’m trying to understand what’s happening here.”
“Nothing complicated,” she said. “I’d prefer the cash.”
“And for this, you’d go behind his back?”
“I’m not going behind his back.”
He lifted one brow. “So he knows you’re doing this?”
“I
don’t see that it’s any of your business.”
“I’m not trying to be fresh. I’m confused. I thought marriage was about having someone you rely on. Someone you can say anything you want to. No secrets and no holding back. Otherwise what’s the point?”
“This has nothing to do with him. The ring is mine.”
“He won’t notice you’re not wearing it?”
“He knows I don’t care for it. It’s not my style.”
“How much are you asking?”
“Seventy-five.”
Dante watched her face, which was more expressive than she knew. In her life, for some reason, the stakes had gone up. He waited but she didn’t expand. “I’m surprised you’re willing to part with it. No sentiment attached?”
“I’m not comfortable discussing it.”
He smiled. “You want seventy-five grand and it’s not worth a conversation?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. It’s personal.”
He watched her with interest, amused at her refusing to meet his eyes. “Must be very personal to have you salting money away.”
Startled, her gaze came up to his. “What makes you think I’m doing that?”
“Because you sold two other pieces of jewelry. Nothing as pricey as this from what Maurice says.”
“I had no idea he’d discuss it with you. I consider that indiscreet.”
“What, you think there’s a confidentiality clause in a deal like this? Business is business. I figure you’re stockpiling cash and I’m curious.”
She hesitated, not meeting his eyes. “Call it insurance.”
“Mad money.”
“If you like.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
Dante’s phone rang. He reached over to the end table and picked up the handset, saying, “Yes, ma’am.”
Lou Elle said, “Can I see you in my office?”
“Sure thing,” he said and hung up. To Nora, he said, “Would you excuse me? This should only take a minute.”
“Of course.”
He closed the door behind him and proceeded to Lou Elle’s office in the same corridor. She’d been the company comptroller for the past fifteen years. He found her sitting at her desk, the ring box open in one hand. She held it up. “What’s the story?”