A Quiet Vendetta (44 page)

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘There’s a show at the Metropolitan Opera,’ I said. ‘A music show.’ I handed her the flowers. She looked at them like I was handing her a bag with a dead rat inside. ‘Anyway, there’s a music show at the Metropolitan Opera—’

‘You said that already . . . you better hurry now or you’re gonna miss the start.’

I looked at her. ‘I worked hard to look this good, and you look good even in your housecoat and your slippers. You get happy just being mean to people, or is it because you’re sick in the mind or something?’

She laughed then, and the sound was like something better than anyone might ever hear at the Metro.

‘No, I’m sick in the mind, and I can’t help but be mean to people,’ she said. ‘Now go away with your stupid flowers and whatever. Go find some pretty blonde with legs to her neck and take her to the opera house.’

‘I came to take you.’

Angelina Maria Tiacoli looked aghast. ‘I seem to remember seeing you in the street. That was you, wasn’t it?’

‘On Hester Street when you came from the hairstyling salon.’

Angelina frowned, was momentarily taken aback. ‘What, you take notes or something?’

I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t take notes . . . I just have a knack for remembering important stuff.’

‘And where I get my hair done is important?’

‘No, not where you get your hair done . . . the fact that it was you was what was important.’

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Serious enough to ask for Don Giacalone’s blessing, and for the blessing of the family.’

‘Blessing for what?’

‘To marry you, Angelina Maria Tiacoli . . . to marry you and make you my wife.’

‘To marry me
and
to make me your wife, is that so?’

‘Yes, that’s so.’

‘I see,’ she said. ‘And you know who I am?’

‘I know enough about you to want to take you out, and I don’t know enough about you to find you very interesting indeed.’

‘So I’m interesting, eh?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Interesting and beautiful, and when you speak I can hear everything in your voice that makes me think I could love you for the rest of your life.’

‘Did you practise this before you came over, or did you get a Hollywood screenwriter to make this stuff up?’

I nodded my head. ‘You got me there. I got a Hollywood writer to put it all down on paper for me, and I told him if it didn’t work then I was gonna go over to his house and shoot him in the knee.’

She laughed again. I was getting through.

‘So you went and dressed up all smart and you bought some flowers and you came over here with no invitation to ask me if I would go to the Metropolitan Opera with you?’

‘I did.’

‘I can’t come.’

I frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because I can’t go out with you, or anyone like you, so you’re gonna have to get over it real quick and find someone else to harass.’

Angelina Tiacoli smiled once more, but it wasn’t a warm or well-meaning smile, and then she closed the door hard and fast and left me standing on the stoop.

I waited for thirty seconds or so until I heard her footsteps disappear inside, and then I stepped back, laid the bouquet against the door and drove home.

I went back the following afternoon after lunch.

‘
You’re back again
?’

‘
Yes
.’

‘You’re not gonna give up, are you?’

I shook my head.

‘How was the music show?’

‘
I didn’t go
.’

‘
You want me to pay for the tickets, is that it
?’

‘
No, I don’t want you to pay for the tickets
.’

‘
So what do you want
?’

‘
I want to take you out someplace nice, maybe see a movie
—’

‘Or a show at the Metro.’

‘Right,’ I said, ‘a show at the Metro, or maybe just have a cup of coffee someplace and talk for a while.’

‘Just a cup of coffee.’

‘Sure, if that’s what you want.’

‘No, it’s not what I want, but I’m thinking if I go for a cup of coffee with you then you might leave me alone. Is that hoping too much?’

‘Yes, that’s hoping too much. If you come for a cup of coffee with me then I’m gonna want to come back and go someplace else next time.’

Angelina said nothing for a moment, and then she nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Come back at four.’

She closed the door.

I went back at four. I beat on the door until someone in the adjacent house leaned out of the window and told me to
shut the fuck up, asshole
.

Angelina was either out, or she was hiding inside.

I wasn’t mad, not then, not ever; I was just determined.

I left it ’til Tuesday evening, a little after seven and I called at her house again.

She came to the door. She was dressed smart, a skirt, a woollen jacket, a pretty pink blouse that made her complexion warm and inviting.

‘I was ready last night and you didn’t come,’ she said.

‘I didn’t say I would come last night.’

‘You’re right, you didn’t, but seeing as how you came the day before and the day before that I figured you were gonna come every day until I gave in.’

‘If you’d said you were gonna be ready last night I would have come last night. You just shut the door on me and then when I came back on Sunday you weren’t here.’

‘I was here, I just didn’t come to the door.’

‘How come?’

‘I wanted to see how persistent you were.’

‘And?’

‘And you’re very persistent, though I’m still surprised you didn’t come yesterday.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Apology accepted,’ she said. ‘So where you gonna take me?’

‘Where d’you wanna go?’

‘Up to Avenue of the Americas on the subway, and find the most expensive restaurant and eat stuff I’ve never eaten before.’

‘We can do that.’

She paused for a moment as if contemplating something, and then she nodded. ‘Okay, give me five minutes and I’ll be down.’

‘You’re not gonna shut the door and then go hide inside the house?’

She laughed. ‘No . . . give me five minutes.’

I gave her five minutes. She didn’t come down. She left me standing there a further two minutes and then I heard her footsteps behind the door.

She opened up and came out. She looked great; she smelled great, something like violets or honeysuckles or something, and when I gave her my arm she took it and I walked her to the car. I opened the door for her and drove her to the subway station. I didn’t ask her why she didn’t want to drive. She wanted the subway, she got the subway. Had she asked me to
buy
the subway for her I would have found a way.

I took her to the Avenue of the Americas. We found a restaurant, and whether it was the most expensive one on the Avenue I don’t know, didn’t care, but I spent two hundred and eleven dollars on dinner and left a fifty-dollar tip.

I didn’t drive her back from the subway station to the house when we returned. I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. I walked with her, it took a good twenty minutes, and when I stood on the stoop and told her I’d had the greatest night of my life she reached out and touched my face.

She did not kiss me, but that was okay. She did say I could call on her again, and I said I would.

I saw her most every day, except for those few days I was out of town on business, for the better part of eight months. In July of 1976 I asked her to marry me.

‘You want me to marry you?’ she asked.

I nodded. My throat was tight. I found it hard to breathe. The girl did the same thing to me as Ten Cent would do to someone who welched on a payback.

‘And why d’you wanna marry me?’

‘Because I love you,’ I said, and I meant it.

‘You love me?’

I nodded. ‘I do.’

‘And you understand that if I say no then you can’t ever come round here again. That’s the way it goes in this business . . . you ask a girl to marry you and she says no, then that’s the end of the matter. You know that right then it’s dead and gone to Hell. You understand that, Ernesto Perez?’

‘I understand that.’

‘So ask me properly.’

I frowned. ‘Whaddya mean, ask you properly? I just did ask you properly. I gotta ring here in my jacket pocket and everything.’

Angelina turned her mouth down at the edges and nodded her head approvingly. ‘You gotta ring?’

‘Sure. You didn’t think I’d come down here and ask you to marry me if I didn’t have a ring?’

‘Let me see it.’

‘Eh?’

‘Let me see the ring you brought.’

‘You’re serious?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘Sure I’m serious.’

I shook my head. This wasn’t going according to plan; this was getting an awful lot more awkward and complicated than I’d imagined. I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the ring. It was in a small black velvet box.

I handed it to Angelina.

She took it, opened it, removed the ring and held it up to the light. ‘Real diamonds?’ she asked.

I scowled. Now I was beginning to get pissed. ‘Sure it’s real diamonds. You think I’d bring something to get engaged that was some cheap piece of shit—’

‘Language, Ernesto.’

I nodded. ‘Sorry.’

‘And it’s legit?’

‘Angelina, for Christ’s sake—’

‘I gotta ask, right? I gotta ask. I’ve been living around people like you all my life. Don’t think there can be more than three or four things given to me in my life that weren’t stolen. Getting engaged is important, getting married even more so, and I wouldn’t wanna be making any vows to God and the Virgin Mary on something that was stolen from some poor widow down on 9th Street—’

‘Angelina, for fuck’s sake—’

‘Language—’

‘Screw the fucking language. Give me the fucking ring back. I’m going home. I’m gonna come back tomorrow when you’re a little less crazy.’

Angelina held the ring in her hand. She closed her fist around it. ‘But I thought you came down here to ask me to marry you?’

‘I did. I came down here to ask you to marry me, but you’re just standing there busting my goddamned balls for no reason.’

‘So do it properly,’ she said.

‘I just did for Christ’s sake!’

‘Down on one knee, Ernesto Perez . . . down on one knee and ask me properly with no cursing or taking the Lord’s name in vain.’

I sighed. I shook my head. I kneeled down on the stoop and looked up at her. I opened my mouth to speak.

‘Yes,’ she said, before I had a chance to say a word.

‘Yes what?’

‘Yes, Ernesto Perez . . . I will marry you.’

‘But I haven’t even asked you yet!’ I said.

‘But I
knew
you were gonna ask me and I didn’t want to waste any more time.’

‘Aah Jesus, Angelina—’

‘Enough cursing Ernesto, enough cursing.’

‘Okay, okay . . . enough already.’

In November I suggested we get married in January of the following year. She put it off until May as she wanted to be married outside.

Three hundred people came to the party. It went on for two days. We took a honeymoon in California. We went to Disneyland. I did not have to learn to love her. I had loved her from a distance for a very long time. She was everything to me, and she knew it. Apart from the children she was the most important thing in my life. She made me important, that was how I felt, and that was a feeling I never believed possible.

In July of ’76 I had heard of Castro, how he had declared himself Head of State, President of the Council of State, also of the Council of Ministers. Word of him came from TV reports regarding the Senate Select Committee in Intelligence under Senator Frank Church and their investigations and inquiries regarding the alleged CIA involvement in the attempted assassination of Castro. It made me think of Cuba, of Havana, of my mother and father and all that had gone before. Of these things I said nothing to Angel, for that was what I called her, and that’s what she was.

In a way she was my salvation, and in some way my undoing, and but for the children there would have been nothing to show for any of it. But those things were later, so much later, and now is not the time to talk about such things.

By the time we talked about leaving New York I was forty-three years old. A second-rate B-movie actor had become president of the United States, and Angel Perez was pregnant. She did not want our children to grow up in New York, and with the family’s blessing we thought of moving to California, where the sun shone twenty-three hours of the day, three hundred and sixty-three days of the year. I cannot say that we existed together in a halcyon haze of contentment; I do not believe such a thing would be possible for a man with work such as mine, but the images and memories of my parents’ relationship were so far removed from what Angel and I had created that I was happy.

I did not believe, not for a heartbeat, that anything would go wrong, but then – in hindsight – I can honestly say that I was not a man who lived my life on the basis of belief.

New York became a closed chapter. We flew out in March of 1982, Angel was six months pregnant, and though it would be another fifteen years before I returned to New York I would never again look at that city with the same eyes.

The world changed, I changed with it, and if there was one thing I had learned it was that you could never go back.

The storm had not abated. Rain hammered down relentlessly, and when Hartmann was escorted from the FBI Field Office across town to the Royal Sonesta – a convoy of three cars, himself in the central vehicle with Woodroffe, Schaeffer and Sheldon Ross – he imagined himself more the guilty party than the confessor. For that’s what he was being, was he not? Confessor to Ernesto Perez, a man who had filled his life with as many nightmares as was perhaps possible for one human being.

‘I cannot believe this,’ Woodroffe had kept repeating, and was even now saying it again as they drove. ‘Jimmy Hoffa’s murder must be one of the most significant unsolved murders of all time—’

‘Apart from Kennedy,’ Ross had interjected, a comment that provoked scowls of disapproval from both Woodroffe and Schaeffer. Hartmann imagined that the party line in and amongst the Bureau was that J. Edgar Hoover and the Warren Commission had been right all along. It was, he could only suppose, one of those topics of conversation that did not occur among these people. They believed what they believed, but what they believed stayed inside their heads and did not venture from their lips.