The Last Don - Mario Puzo [41]
“You seem to live the perfect life,” Cross said.
“You think so?” Gronevelt said. “Well, I pay the price.”
At the mansion in Quogue, a great fuss was made over Cross by the females of the Clericuzio Family. At the age of twenty he was in the full flower of youthful maleness—handsome, graceful, strong, and for his age, surprisingly courtly. The Family made jokes, not entirely free from Sicilian peasant malice, that thank God he looked like his mother and not his father.
On Easter Sunday, while more than a hundred relatives were celebrating Christ’s resurrection, the final piece of the puzzle about his father was made clear to Cross by his cousin Dante.
In the vast walled garden of the Family mansion, Cross saw a beautiful young girl holding court with a group of young men. He watched his father go over to the buffet table for a platter of grilled sausage and make a friendly remark to the girl’s group. He saw the girl visibly shrinking away from Pippi. Women usually liked his father; his ugliness, his good humor and high spirits disarmed them.
Dante had also observed this. “Beautiful girl,” he said, smiling. “Let’s go over and say hello.”
He made the introductions. “Lila,” he said, “this is our cousin Cross.”
Lila was their age but not yet fully developed as a woman; she had the slightly imperfect beauty of adolescence. Her hair was the color of honey, her skin glowed as if refreshed from some inner stream, but her mouth was too vulnerable, as if not fully formed. She wore a white angora sweater that turned her skin to gold. Cross fell in love with her for that moment.
But when he tried to speak to her, Lila ignored him and walked to the sanctuary of matrons at another table.
Cross said a little sheepishly to Dante, “I guess she doesn’t like my looks.” Dante smiled at him wickedly.
Dante had turned into a curious young man with enormous vitality and a sharp, cunning face. He had the coarse black hair of the Clericuzio, which he kept confined underneath a curious Renaissance-style cap. He was very short, no more than five feet and a few inches, but he had an enormous confidence, perhaps because he was the favorite of the old Don. He carried with him always the air of malice. Now he said to Cross, “Her last name is Anacosta.”
Cross remembered the name. A year before, the Anacosta Family had suffered a tragedy. The head of the family and his oldest son had been shot to death in a Miami hotel room. But Dante was looking at Cross, waiting for some sort of answer. Cross made his face impassive. “So?” he said.
Dante said, “You work for your father, right?”
“Sure,” Cross said.
“And you try to date Lila?” Dante said. “You’re sick.” He laughed.
Cross knew this was danger of some kind. He remained silent. Dante went on, “Don’t you know what your father does?”
“He collects money,” Cross said.
Dante shook his head. “You have to know. Your Dad takes people out for the Family. He’s their number one Hammer.”
It seemed to Cross that all the mysteries of his life were blown away on a sorcerer’s wind. Everything was very clear. His mother’s disgust of his father, the respect shown Pippi by his friends and the Clericuzio Family, his father’s mysterious disappearances for weeks at a time, the weapon he always carried, sly little jokes he had not understood. He remembered his father’s trial for murder, dismissed from his childhood memories in some curious way the night his father had taken his hand. Then, a sudden warmth for his father, a feeling that he must protect him in some way now that he was so naked.
But over all this Cross felt a terrible anger that Dante had dared to tell him this truth.
He said to Dante, “No, I don’t know that. And you don’t know that. Nobody knows that.” He almost said, And you can go fuck yourself you little creep, but instead he smiled at Dante and said, “Where the hell