The Last Don - Mario Puzo [177]
It was the moment they’d been waiting for all day, all week; they were stripping off their clothes before showering together but he couldn’t resist embracing her, their bodies still sweaty from the picnic. Then she took his hand and led him under the spraying water.
They dried each other with the large orange towels and, wrapped in them, stood on the balcony to watch the sun slide gradually behind the horizon. Then they went inside to lay on the bed.
When Cross made love to her, it seemed that all the cells of his brain and body flew out and he was left in some feverish dream; he was a ghost whose wisps were filled with ecstasy, a ghost who entered her flesh. He lost all his caution, all his reason, he didn’t even study her face to see if she was acting, if she truly loved him. It seemed to go on forever, until they fell asleep in each other’s arms. When they woke they were still entwined, lit by a moon whose light seemed brighter than the sun’s. Athena kissed him and said, “Did you really like Bethany?”
“Yes,” Cross said. “She’s part of you.”
“Do you think she can get better?” Athena asked. “Do you think I can help her get better?”
At that moment Cross felt as though he would give up his life to make the girl well. He felt the urge to sacrifice for the woman he loved, which many men feel but which until that time had been completely alien to him.
“We can both try to help,” Cross said.
“No,” Athena said, “I have to do it by myself.”
They fell asleep again, and when the phone rang the air was misty with the newly born dawn. Athena picked up the phone, listened, and then said to Cross, “It’s the guard at the gate. He says four men in a car want to come and see you.”
Cross felt a shock of fear. He took the phone and said to the guard, “Put one of them on the phone.”
The voice he heard was Vincent’s. “Cross, Petie is with me. We got some really bad news.”
“OK, put the guard on,” Cross said, and then, to the guard, “They can come in.”
He had completely forgotten about Giorgio’s call. That’s what love does, he thought contemptuously. I won’t live a year if I keep this up.
He slipped on his clothes quickly and ran downstairs. The car was just pulling up to the front of the house, the sun, still half hidden, threw its light from over the horizon.
Vincent and Petie were getting out of the back of a long limousine. Cross could see the driver and another man in front. Petie and Vincent walked the long garden path to the door and Cross opened it for them.
Suddenly Athena was standing beside him, clad in slacks and a pullover, nothing beneath. Petie and Vincent were staring at her. She had never looked more beautiful.
Athena led them all into the kitchen and started making coffee, and Cross introduced them as his cousins.
“How did you guys get here?” Cross asked. “Last night you were in New York.”
“Giorgio chartered us a plane,” Petie said.
Athena was studying them as she made the coffee. Neither of them showed any emotion. They looked like brothers, both were big men, but Vincent was pale as granite, while Petie’s leaner face was tanned red with weather or drink.
“So what’s the bad news?” Cross said. He expected to hear that the Don had died, that Rose Marie had really gone crazy, or that Dante had done something so terrible that the Family was in crisis.
Vincent said with his usual curtness, “We have to talk to you alone.”
Athena poured them coffee. “I tell you all my bad news,” she said to Cross. “I should hear yours.”
“I’ll just leave with them,” Cross said.
“Don’t you be so fucking condescending,” Athena said. “Don’t you dare leave.”
At this Vincent and Petie reacted. Vincent’s granite face flushed with embarrassment, Petie gave Athena a speculative grin, as if she was someone to be watched. Cross, seeing this, laughed and said, “OK, let’s hear it.”
Petie tried to soften the blow. “Something happened to your father,” he said.
Vincent broke in