The Last Don - Mario Puzo [188]
The big question was this: Had Dante acted on his own or had the Don commanded the killing? But the Clericuzio had no reason; his father had been loyal for over forty years and an important factor in the Family ascension. He had been the great general in the war against the Santadio. And Cross wondered, not for the first time, why no one had ever told him the details of that war, not his father, not Gronevelt, not Giorgio or Petie or Vincent.
The more he thought about it, the more Cross was sure of one thing: The Don had no hand in the killing of his father. Don Domenico was a very conservative man of business. He rewarded loyal service, he did not punish it. He was extremely fair-minded, to the point of cruelty. But the clinching argument was this: He would never have let Cross live if he had killed Pippi. That was the proof of the Don’s innocence.
Don Domenico believed in God, he sometimes believed in Fate, but he did not believe in coincidence. The coincidence of Jim Losey being the cop who shot the mugger who shot Pippi would be absolutely rejected by the Don. He had surely made his own investigation and discovered Dante’s connection with Losey. And he would not only know Dante’s guilt but his motive.
And what about Rose Marie, Dante’s mother? What did she know? When she had heard of Pippi’s death, she had had her most serious fit, screaming unintelligibly, weeping incessantly, so that the Don had sent her to the East Hampton psychiatric clinic he had funded many years ago. She would be there for at least a month.
Visitors to Rose Marie in the clinic had always been forbidden by the Don, except for Dante, Giorgio, Vincent, and Petie. But Cross often sent flowers and baskets of fruit. So what the hell was Rose Marie so upset about? Did she know about Dante’s guilt, understand his motive? At that moment Cross thought about the Don saying that Dante would be his heir. That was ominous. Cross decided he would visit Rose Marie at the clinic, despite the Don’s interdiction. He would go with flowers, and fruit, and chocolates and cheeses, with true affection, but with the purpose of tricking her into betraying her son.
Two days later, Cross entered the lobby of the psychiatric clinic in East Hampton. There were two guards at the door, and one escorted him to the reception desk.
The woman at the reception desk was middle-aged and well dressed. When he stated his business, she gave him a charming smile and said he would have to wait a half hour because Rose Marie was undergoing a minor medical procedure. She would notify him when it was done.
Cross sat down in the waiting room of the reception area, just off the lobby, where there were tables and soft armchairs. He picked up a copy of a Hollywood magazine. Reading it, he came across an article on Jim Losey, the detective hero of Los Angeles. The article detailed his heroic achievements, capped by his killing the mugger-murderer Marlowe. Cross was amused by two things. That his father was referred to as the owner of a financial service agency and a typical helpless victim of a brutal criminal. And by the tag line of the article, which asserted that if there were more cops like Jim Losey, street crime would be under control.
A nurse tapped him on the shoulder. She was an impressively strong-looking woman, but she said with a pleasant smile, “I’ll bring you up.”
Cross picked up the box of chocolates and the flowers he had brought and followed