The Rich Shall Inherit (65 page)
Read The Rich Shall Inherit Online
Authors: Elizabeth Adler
The plump green artichokes spilled to the ground as Franco snatched away the newspaper. He folded it carefully, and then without another word he strode from the kitchen.
Sensing trouble, Madame Joliot busied herself in the pantry as Poppy stared worriedly after him. “Franco,” she called. “Franco, what is it?” Her bare feet made no sound on the cool gray
flagstones as she followed him through the hall and up the stairs. They had spent the afternoon making love and her body still sang from his touch; everything had been wonderful, until just a few minutes ago. Suddenly Franco had changed.
He was standing by the window in their room, reading the torn newspaper. Crushing it into a ball, he stuffed in into his pocket and faced her. “I have to go, Poppy,” he said. “Immediately. There is no time to be lost.”
“But
why?”
she cried, anguished.
“You can’t leave me now.”
Franco’s face was as cold and shuttered as a stranger’s, and there was an expression in his eyes Poppy had never seen there before. He looked a different person from her laughing, youthful lover of the past two weeks. “I said I must go. Men’s lives depend on it,” he told her abruptly.
“It’s your business, isn’t it?” she cried. “I know it is, because your frown is back, and all the worried furrows. Don’t go, Franco. Whatever it is, it’s no good for you … it makes you hard, desperate … We don’t need anything or anyone now.
Please
, stay here with me.”
Franco had already put on a fresh shirt and was fastening his tie. He took his city jacket from the bridal armoire and his black overcoat. “I’ll take your car to the railway station in Montespansur-Cher,” he told her. “I’ll arrange for one of the cabdrivers to get it back to you. I don’t want you to come with me to see me off.”
She watched silently as he picked up the leather document case he’d brought with him but never opened, and then he turned to face her.
“I’m going to ask you to make me a promise,” he said quietly. “Over the next few weeks you may read certain reports in the newspapers.
You
may hear certain things discussed at the dinner tables at Numéro Seize; there’ll be gossip in the streets and among the servants as well as the customers. I’m asking you not to read those reports, Poppy; not to listen to the gossip and the stories.
Not to believe any of it!
I’m asking for your trust. Can you promise me now, that you will give it to me?”
“I’ll always trust you, Franco,” she promised, frightened.
He gripped her shoulders, looking at her intently, as though making sure he would remember her. “That’s all any man can ask,” he murmured. And with a light kiss on her mouth, he was gone.
* * *
Poppy returned alone to Numéro Seize and a week went by, but she still hadn’t heard from Franco. She was sitting at her desk with the day’s selection of newspapers spread out in front of her. Every one carried a banner headline about the
GANGLAND WAR
raging in Italy and France.
The current spate of violence has spread from Naples to Calabria and Sicily, up through Italy, through all the gangs—and the major cities
, the report said.
And not just cities; small villages have become involved, taking sides in the underworld’s greatest territorial dispute since it became known to “innocent” man. And this “war”—no other word will suffice—has been triggered by one man’s greed. One man gave the command to his “soldiers” to take over another’s territory and sparked off a chain of devastation whose casualties have decimated entire families, and whose repercussions will reflect on us all, forever.
Up until now, the so-called Mafia have kept to their own particular code of honor; that there would be no killings outside the Families. This man has decided otherwise. Innocent women and children have been killed, alongside their men. Passersby in the streets have been mown down in their crossfire. Innocent workingmen have been crushed beneath the tires of speeding getaway cars. And in some villages, as well as in the great cities, there are people even now who are in fear for their lives.
The photograph you see displayed below shows that man. His is the face of evil that has caused deaths and destruction. His is the greed that counts lives as nothing in its need to be sated. This photograph, readers, introduces you to the devil incarnate: Franco Malvasi.
Poppy knew she shouldn’t to on reading it; she’d promised Franco … but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the cruel printed words. The reports seemed to know it all …
Enzo Malvasi, born in Sicily … created his own small empire … Stefano gunned down at his father’s funeral alongside his pregnant wife and three other prominent members of Mafia Families …. The revenge killings—six men lined up and shot in a garage in Naples … though it was rumored Franco himself had arranged the death of his brother so that he might inherit the Malvasi empire. Within two years he had doubled his father’s inheritance, within four, he’d tripled it. Franco Malvasi had created himself king of the Italian underworld and it was said he would stop at nothing, not even the murder of his own brother, to keep that position. It is his greed and his attempt to take over the territory of a small-time crook, Mario Palozzi, that has
triggered off a chain reaction of territorial violence on a scale unseen in this century. The man in this photograph is a cold-blooded killer.
Poppy slumped forward across the desk, her head resting on the newspaper with Franco’s picture. She remembered his boyish smile as they raced hand in hand across the meadow, his tender look as he’d helped a child across the stepping stones at Montes-pan brook, and the sleeping, innocent face of the man she loved, his brow eased of its tired frowns as they lay together in their big bed, at their “home.” She wanted with all her heart to believe that those reports weren’t true. Franco had warned her not to read them. He’d known what they would say.
But how could he have known unless what they said was the truth?
“Well,” cried Simone, sweeping through the door unheralded, “you’ve seen the papers, I suppose?” Lifting her head, Poppy stared at her, white-faced. “Of course, the newspapers are making a feast of it,” Simone went on scathingly, “but I have no doubt that most of it is true. Not about Franco, of course. He’s not a violent man. I suspect some double-dealing within his ranks. But I thought I’d better come over right away and make sure you are all right.” Her sharp eyes took in Poppy’s pallor and her trembling hand holding the newspaper.
“Don’t take it too hard, Poppy,” she said kindly. “All men have feet of clay—especially the ones we think are gods. You’ve been too naive for too long; I’m afraid this is a rude awakening to the realities of the world. Oh, I know you’ve had rough times, you’ve always found out about life the hard way. But you’d better believe this, Poppy.
Franco is the same man you loved yesterday. He hasn’t changed one bit. It’s only your perception of him that’s changed.”
She planted an affectionate kiss on Poppy’s cheek. “There’s nothing else I can say,” she added, “except keep your faith in him.”
Poppy stared down at Franco’s familiar face, at the ugly black headlines, at the cruel, damning words. Then she looked back at Simone.
“Simone,” she whispered. “I’m pregnant.”
1907, ITALY
The villa looked like a fortress. Thirty men with shotguns patrolled its perimeters and a further two dozen covered every entrance. A man was posted at each window inside the house and half a dozen more lingered by the door of Franco’s second-floor study.
He turned away from the window, grim-faced. It was a month since the headlines had hit the papers, a month since he’d seen Poppy. A month that had changed the entire course of his life, and that had almost destroyed him.
He leaned back in the green leather chair, his hands clasped in front of him. His head was sunk onto his chest and his brow furrowed in thought. He couldn’t deny that what happened was his fault, but it wasn’t the way the newspapers had it. It was because as godfather of the Malvasi Family he had not been here, where he should have been. He had let other priorities come first, and in his world there were no other priorities. The Family was everything. He had allowed his mind to be distracted, playing house with Poppy as though he were an ordinary man. And because of that he had foolishly, and for the first time in his life, put his trust in another man. That man had betrayed him. Now he had lost face among his own Family and he was reviled as a savage by the rest of the world.
Franco walked back to the window and stared out again. This was his world—just as far as the end of his land. He was a marked man. From now on when he went outside it, he would ride in an armor-plated car with darkened windows, accompanied by bodyguards. There was no choice left for him now, he could not
abandon his world because it would never abandon him. It would seek him out and extract revenge wherever he went. His only answer was to take absolute control, to dominate that world and punish all challengers. It was not what he would have chosen, but it was his only course.
He sighed wearily. The battles were over and won, Palozzi’s miserable territories were his, along with two other larger areas whose godfathers had challenged him. Many were dead, wives had been left widows and children orphans. And now it was time for his revenge.
The meeting had been called for three o’clock. A glance at his watch showed that it was one minute before the hour. Taking a deep breath, he walked downstairs to the boardroom.
They were all there, waiting. Caetano, the old lawyer, grim-faced. Gaspari, the banker, apprehensive. The business affairs man, Salvatore Melandri, looked coldly pleased. And there was his right-hand man, Giorgio Verone, whose warm eyes smiled as he stood up and shook his hand enthusiastically. “We did it, Franco,” he said triumphantly. “We won. Now you own it all.”
“Yes
, Giorgio, I do.” He took his seat at the head of the table, motioning Giorgio to sit next to him.
“At our last meeting a month ago, gentlemen,” he said softly, “we discussed ways and means of dealing with Mario Palozzi. I thought I had made my feelings clear. Apparently that wasn’t so. Someone took it upon himself to use my name to start this war. Someone with sufficient power to claim that the orders came from me. One of
you
, gentlemen.”
He leaned back and, folding his hands, stared at them. They shifted uneasily under his gaze. “Aw, come on now, Franco,” protested Giorgio, “you knew it was the best way to go. It was the only way to keep your credibility within the Families.”
“My
credibility?
And what credibility do I have
now
, among the Family? It would seem I have broken all the rules. Very well, gentlemen, if that is the case, I accept it. The Malvasi Family is now richer and more important. We must think of the Family. I plan to push ahead our interests in the United States within the next year, and to expand even further.”
“The United States?” Giorgio said eagerly. He’d known he would get the position as head of the Palozzi territory here in Italy, but America was a golden career opportunity.
“You are an ambitious young man, Giorgio,” Franco said, standing up. “And a reckless one. It was
your
actions that caused
this war.
I accuse you, Giorgio Verone, of the deaths of innocent people.
It is
you
who deserve the name they have given to me in the newspapers:
A savage, a ruthless killer, the devil incarnate
…” He placed the hand casually on Giorgio’s shoulder, and Giorgio glanced up at him apprehensively.
“I did it for you, Franco,” he said, smiling ingratiatingly. “I thought you needed help. You were disturbed by this woman; everybody agreed you were losing your grip; even the other Families were talking about it. There was even a rumor that they planned to take over the Malvasi Family … it was the right decision … everybody backed me; you saw that.”
“A godfather never needs help,”
Franco said quietly, sliding a small, blunt-nosed revolver from his pocket. Snapping a silencer onto the barrel, he pressed it to the back of Giorgio’s neck, and Giorgio glanced around him wildly. “Gentlemen, you are all witnesses that this important member of our Family disobeyed his orders and his code. It is my decision that he shall be dealt with in the proper way.” They met his eyes, nodding in agreement. “A godfather himself deals with his own personal enemies,” Franco said; “that is only right.”
“No,” screamed Giorgio, clutching the arms of his chair, his eyes rolling wildly. “No … no …”
Franco was an expert. There was no mess, no blood. You might not even have known Giorgio was dead if it weren’t for the small neat black hole in the back of his neck. And the expression of terror still in his eyes.
A few nights later a black Mercedes armored limousine drew up outside a seedy warehouse in the dockland area of Naples. Four bodyguards jumped out, standing with machine guns at the ready as Franco walked quickly inside. The twelve men sitting around the table at the far end rose to greet him.
“Franco,” said one, “my Family sends greetings. We are honored to have this meeting with you. We feel sure we shall be able to come to some satisfactory agreement over the new territories.”
Franco sat down at the head of the table. “I won’t waste your time, gentlemen,” he said coldly. “I am here to see the faces of my enemies. I accuse you of treachery to your own Families and of murder. You are dead men … gentlemen.”
He walked quickly away as his soldiers moved in rapidly from behind, and as the big black limousine sped around the corner the sound of machine-gun fire echoed through the night.
Gaspari, the banker, was lost in a boating accident at sea a
week later. Salvatore Melandri, the bright young business school graduate, shot himself, accidentally, ten days later. And two months after that Caetano, the old lawyer, died at home, in bed. The doctor’s certificate said it was a heart attack. Franco had decided, for the Family’s sake, to be discreet.
The new chief executives he chose were middle-aged, tight-mouthed, and single-minded. And their loyalty was beyond question. And if it were not, they had the example of their predecessors as a warning.
