The Devil You Know (4 page)

He scooped the three children up and carried them out to his Rolls-Royce, laying them in the back seat. ‘

Then he walked back to the start of the first trough he had laitt and filled with gasoline, struck a match, then tossed it in.

Within a few seconds the entire building was ablaze. Channels of fuel were laid all through the house, and it was a wooden structure. Within an hour, nothing would be left but that brand new pool.

Prince Roberto Parigi turned the key in his ignition and started to drive up the winding road that led into the hills, with the three little contessas screaming annoyingly in the back of his car.

Roberto thought he had arranged things perfectly. He had cultivated some connections in the Cosa Nostra, low-level men with no morals and a fierce love of money. He had also made sure he kept his own band of thugs on the Parigi payroll; ‘security’, of course, but not for the company, for himself.

His connections already had a racket going in the sale of children. Infants were .highly sought after in Europe and America, and parents were prepared to pay for them. Roberto was cautious; he instructed that each child should go to a different orphanage, and that no fee should be charged to adopt them. He didn’t want anything getting in the way, he wanted the gypsy brats dispersed around the globe, far from each other, and far from himselŁ

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It was done smoothly and with a minimum of fuss. A place was found in En.gland for one girl, and, in America, Brooklyn for a second and IrA for a third. Fly-by-night operations that charged heavy ‘expenses’ for the most part, washed a little money, and closed down when the Feds came looking.

The Prince expected reports on who chose the brats, and he got them. He was expecting there to be a delay; they were only females, after all, and who would want one of those, given a choice? But the girls went fast, and pleasingly so, to the kinds of families he had hand-selected; boring, ordinary people with enough to raise a child, who were neither especially poor nor exceptionally rich. An Italian worker from New York, a middle-class English couple, and a lawyer from Los Angeles.

After that, he forgot about his tiny cousins. They were gone from the picture, removed from being a threat, from taking the inheritance that was so rightfully his.

And he had done right by them, he thought self-righteously. They were alive, which was more than the children of a witch deserved to be.

Prince R.oberto Parigi busied himself with a very public funeral, mourning the tragic loss of the new family he had been so close to. He had a service in the Cathedral in San Stefano, and the Archbishop remarked in his sermon how he had been looking forward to performing a baptism, and instead here he was, presiding over a funeral …

Roberto, last of the Parigis, wept bitterly, and was inconsolable. He mourned all that year, never removing his black suit, and refusing to dine out. He even wept as his cousin Luigi’s will was read, making him the default heir of the entire Parigi fortune: the houses, the apartments, the villas, the cars, the private jet, and, of course, all the stock of Parigi Enterprises.

His first act as Chief Executive was to rename the company. It was now to be known as Venda Incorporated. He did not wish the ancient name of Parigi to be tainted with trade. Roberto was happy to take charge of all the money, but he regarded the means of obtaining it as beneath him. Murder was acceptable; working for a living was not.

People wondered about the name. ‘I just like the way it sounds,’ loberto told them.

In fact, it stood for vendetta. His private joke.

loberto moved back to the Palazzo after installing some very

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competent nen to run his business affairs. He poached the brightest talent from America, even some executives from Japan, where an incredible revolution was taking place in business. Venda was known for paying huge salaries and bonuses; 1Koberto knew that the Capos made the organisation.

His judgement was sound. He grew richer and more powerful as the years rolled by, and he did not have to lift a finger for it. As a prince, his job was to be social, to attend the masked balls of Venice, to play in the casinos of Monte Carlo, to restore the glamour and lustre of the House of Parigi that his uncle and cousin had tarnished.

The gypsy brats were no longer a danger, and they faded from his mind.

‘Are you hungry?’

Rose Fiorello smoothed down the pleats of her skirt and glanced over at her morn. Mrs Fiorello was standing there with that worried look on her face, the one that used only to be there when Rose left to walk to school, and now was there almost every night. ‘You have to be. Look at you, you’re so skinny, it’s dreadful.’

‘I’m not skinny, Mom.’ She really wasn’t hungry, but anything to make her mother feel better. ‘But I could eat, I guess.’

‘Good. We need to use up these cold cuts,’ Daniella Fiorello replied, turning back to their tiny kitchen countertop. Tll make You

a nice sandwich.’

‘Sounds great.’

“

Rose eased her heavy, threadbare knapsack off her back and perched her slender frame on one of the whitewashed chairs in the cramped room. There was never any space in their HeR’s Kitchen apartment, but as her father kept reminding her, it was Manhattan. Plus, it was rent-controlled. Even if the area wasn’t of the best, there were plenty of people who would kill for this space. You only got into trouble around here if you looked lost or frightened. And R.ose never did. Even when she was dressed in the cute little uniform of Our Lady of Angels - navy pleated skirt that hovered just above the knee, white socks and shirt, which most of the girls wore unbuttoned to try to look like Madonna - nobody wanted to mess with Rose. She was fifteen, tough, and pissed off. And she was beautiful.

The Fiorellos had always gotten by, up until now. But it had been at a cost. Surviving was expensive, and it meant somebody had to go without. That somebody was usually Rose, and she didn’t mind that, at least not much. Sometimes she wanted stuff.” new Nike sneakers, a VCl, Whitney Houston CDs, movie tickets; it was hard not to, right now, in the booming Eighties, when the Wall Street flyboys

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paid three hundred dollars a month just to park their Corvette convertibles, and it seemed that everybody else was getting rich. Rose told herself she was content to bide her time. She was doing great at school, even if she hated it. School was a necessary evil. She would ace her SATs, get a scholarship to Columbia or NYU, and get a high-paying job as a lawyer or an investment banker. Then she would be able to move her parents out of their shitty little apartment, and buy all the cool make-up and CDs she wanted.

Rose spent so much time being mad, she didn’t really understand just how gorgeous she was. She was coltish, with long legs, dark glossy hair which looked like it came out of a comic book - so black it was almost blue - an oval-shaped face, and full, sensual lips with a natural pout. She was five feet seven, she weighed one twenty, had a cinched-in waist, firm, full breasts, and had just bought her first Ccup bra. Her nose was aquiline and arrogant, her skin was a rich olive, and her eyes - her incredible eyes - were a startling ultra-pale blue, almost white, even wolfish.

Her parents didn’t have those eyes, but no wonder; Rose was adopted.

Men cat-called when she passed in the street, but usually didn’t accost her. They didn’t dare. That stride of hers was pure Bronx, pure menace. Rose Fiorello was permanently mad: at her mom’s disease, at her father’s long hours, at their filthy streets, at the Mayor, at her birth mom, at the world.

But today she had a focus. And the hatred she felt burned as strongly as the first love felt by most other girls her age.

Rose tossed her head, sending a waterfall of sleek, raven-black hair flying through the air.

‘Sounds good.’ She tried to temper her tone. ‘More cold cuts from the deli? Did they turn off the power again?’

Daniella nodded sadly. ‘Your dad’s called ConEd already. But it’s another day’s worth of stuff ruined.’

‘I could eat Dad’s stuff all day long,’ Rose said loyally. They both knew she already did. Today would just be one more day of it, before the choice Italian meats and cheeses and fish turned bad and had to be thrown out. Before her father lost even more money.

Paul Fiorello was fifty, and had run Paul’s Famous Deli for twenty-five years. Despite the optimistic name, the Deli wasn’t famous: it was in the wrong neighbourhood and too small ever to attract the new foodie crowd that would pay twenty dollars for a thin bottle of organic olive oil. But it was good, and the food was fresh

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and the tastiest for ten square blocks. Her father had a regular clientele, and he’d kept his head above water all these years. The Deli paid for the medications for Mom’s arthritis, and lose’s Catholic school. It was cheap, but it wasn’t flee. Plus, there were costs; the uniform, for one thing. The Deli took care of all that, plus their rent.

Up until last month.

Manhattan property prices were going through the roof. Even the worst areas which they said would never gentrify were already being bought up; the East Village and Hell’s Kitchen to name but two. Some people said Alphabet City and even Harlem would be next.

Whatever. Rose didn’t give a damn about the demographics. She cared about Paul’s Famous Dell.

They were located in a big building, a tall, decrepit old skyscraper on Ninth Avenue and Fiftieth. Next to them were a pizza]oint and a fabric merchant which sold buttons and sequins and lengths of dingy netting; above them were offices. But somebody had sold the entire building to Rothstein Realty.

Rothstein were a big, giant, mega-bucks real estate company. They bought and sold in the tens of millions of dollars. They plans for the building, and those plans did not include the loc.l salami merchant.

Already Paul’s neighbours had taken the handout offered b Rothstein and given up their rent-controlled leases. But Paul Fiorello had refused. What would he do with a lousy fifty thousand bucks? He knew nothing but the Deli, and where would he find another cheap lease? If the store moved more than five blocks away, it would lose all the regulars, and it would be competing with the smarter, bigger, cheaper dells, the ones with rows of shiny waxed fruit racked up on stands outside the store. Fifty Gs would only last

them for one year. And then it would be welfare time.

‘You don’t have to move, Dad.’

Rose recalled talking fiercely to her dad about it as he sat in the kitchen, reading the latest letter from Rothstein. It was full of veiled menace. Nothing they could sue over, but which could be read between the lines.

‘They can’t force you out. You got ten more years on. that lease.’ ‘They can do stuff, baby.’

‘What, send the heavies round?’ Rose glared fiercely at her father’s slumping shoulders and greying hair. ‘If they try any of that shit I’ll go to the police. And the press.’

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‘Don’t use language like that in this house,’ Paul Fiorello growled. ‘Sorry.’ She rubbed her father’s aching shoulders.

‘It’s not about leg-breakers. All they need to do is mess with the water, the electrics …’

‘You pay for that, how can they shut it off?’

‘Accidents. Interruptions. There are ways. Not to mention the construction noise next door. They’ve already started to gut the other two stores, and they start drilling the floors during lunchtime … crowd’s thinner already.’

‘They can’t do that to you.’

‘They can and they will, kid.’ Paul sighed. ‘Only question is, can I ride them out? If I could persuade Mr Rothstein that he could, you know, build around me. Maybe his fancy lawyers and architects would need a good sandwich at lunchtime? I could write him a letter.’

He looked hopefully at his daughter, the straight-A student, the one who wrote all the letters in this house.

‘Sure, Dad. I’ll give it a try,’ Rose had said.

They had crafted the letter together and sent it off. It was a masterpiece. Firm, but amiable, respectful, and accommodating.

Rose walked it down to the mail herself and sent it return-receipt. The receipt came back. Nothing else did. That had been two weeks ago.

Today she was going to eat more spoiled cold cuts. More stuffthat would have to be thrown out when they couldn’t get through it, which was exactly like tossing a handful of twenties into the fire. Rose was sick to death of cold cuts, but the whole family ate them like champs, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

‘When is Dad coming home?’ she asked, as Daniella sliced the foccacia and put ham and chicken and ricotta on it.

‘He’s gonna be late. He has to try and get access to the mains, get the police to make him turn the electric back on. Otherwise it’s two days’ worth of food chucked fight out.’ Daniella swallowed hard, and Rose saw the tears glittering in her mother’s eyes, tears she

would not let herself shed in front of her baby. God, how she hated lothstein Realty. How she hated them!

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Poppy Allen sat in her room and stared longingly at her posters.

Uhh. John Bon Jovi. Joe Elliott. Def Leppard were just so hot. And Metallica, too. Lars was a real cutie. She liked the hard stuff and the soft stuff` about the same; all her favourite bands featured gorgeous guys with long hair, black leather, studs, and plenty of rebel attitude.., in short, the kind of babes her morn and dad would never let her date.

But Poppy had ways around that.

There was a knock on her door.

‘Come in,’ Poppy said. , Her mom, Marcia Mien, appeared in the doorway, bedecked for another gala night on the town. Poppy’s parents, Jerry and MarcN, were social butterflies, which was good because so was PoppY/. Unbeknownst to them.

Marcia was a lawyer’s wife, a rich lawyer’s wife, and didn’t she look the part, in a shoulder-padded red suit from Karl Lagerfeld and a string of pearls as big as marbles.

‘You look great, Mom,’ Poppy lied dutifully. ‘What is it tonight?’ ‘Opera. Rigoletto.’ ‘You hate opera.’