The Last Don - Mario Puzo [197]
This was the most difficult moment for Pippi. If Rose Marie talked, the Clericuzio Family was doomed. His duty was to kill her. The Don had not specifically instructed him on this; how could he condone the killing of his daughter? Would her brothers obey him? And how did she know it was them? He made the decision. He closed the door behind him and was out in the corridor with Jimmy and Rose Marie’s three brothers.
Here the Don had been explicit. Jimmy Santadio was to be strangled. It was perhaps the mark of mercy that there should be no penetrations of his body for his loved ones to weep over. It was perhaps from some tradition of not shedding a loved one’s blood while consecrating him to death.
Suddenly Jimmy Santadio let the bedsheet drop, and his hands reached out and ripped Pippi’s mask from his face. Giorgio grabbed one of his arms, Pippi the other. Vincent dropped to the floor and grabbed Jimmy’s legs. Now Pippi had his rope around Jimmy’s neck and bent him to the floor. Jimmy had a twisted smile on his lips, curiously pitying as he stared into Pippi’s face: that this act would be avenged by Fate or some mysterious God.
Pippi pulled the cord tight, Petie reached to help with the pressure, and they all sank to the floor of the corridor, where the white bedsheet received Jimmy Santadio’s body like a shroud. Inside the bridal chamber, Rose Marie began to scream . . .
The Don had finished speaking. He lit up another cheroot and sipped his wine.
Giorgio said, “Pippi planned the whole thing. We got away clean and the Santadio were wiped out. It was brilliant.”
Vincent said, “It solved everything. We haven’t had any trouble since.”
Don Clericuzio sighed. “It was my decision and it was wrong. But how were we to know Rose Marie would go mad? We were in crisis and this was our only opportunity to strike a decisive blow. You must remember that at that time, I was not yet sixty, I thought too much of my power and intelligence. I thought then certainly it would be a tragedy for my daughter but widows do not grieve forever. And they had killed my son Silvio. How could I forgive that, daughter or no daughter? But I learned. You cannot come to a reasonable solution with stupid people. I should have wiped them out at the very beginning. Before the lovers met. I would have saved my son and daughter.” He paused for a moment.
“So, you see, Dante is Jimmy Santadio’s son. And you, Cross, shared a baby carriage with him when you were infants, your first summer in this house. All those years I have tried to make up to Dante for the loss of his father. I tried to help my daughter recover from her grief. Dante was brought up as a Clericuzio and he will, with my sons, be my heir.”
Cross tried to understand what was happening. His whole body quivered with revulsion toward the Clericuzio and the world they lived in. He thought of his father, Pippi, playing the role of Satan, seducing the Santadio to their death. How could such a man be his father? He thought then of his beloved aunt, Rose Marie, living all those years with her heart and her mind broken, knowing that her husband had been murdered by her father and her brothers. That her own family had betrayed her. He even thought of Dante with some pity, now Dante’s guilt was established. And then he wondered about the Don. Surely he did not believe the story of Pippi’s mugging. Why did he seem to accept it, a man who had never believed in coincidence. What was the message here?
Cross could never read Giorgio. Did he believe in the mugging killing? It was obvious that Vincent and Petie believed it. But now he understood the special bond between his father and the Don and his three sons. They had been soldiers together in the massacre of the Santadio. And his father had spared Rose Marie.
Cross said, “And Rose Marie never talked?”
“No,” the Don said, sardonically. “She did even better. She became crazy.” There was just a hint of pride in his voice. “I sent her to Sicily and brought her back