long with a retractable roof; the bottom and sides were lined with iridescent glass tiles, and when the sun shone overhead, it was like moving through a shimmering rainbow of light. His mother had taught him to swim when he was four years old. She’d been fearful of the water as a child, and she made certain her own children were skilled swimmers from an early age. Dante did twenty-five laps a day, starting at 5:30 in the morning, counting backward from twenty-five to zero. He kept the water temperature seventy degrees, the surrounding air at eighty-four. He loved the way sound was muffled by the water, loved the simplicity of the crawl stroke, loved how clean and empty he felt when he was done.
He and Lola, his girlfriend of eight years, had returned the night before from a ski trip to Lake Louise, where a fluke in temperatures made the runs almost too sloppy to ski. He hated cold weather anyway, and if it had been up to him, he’d have cut the trip short, but Lola was adamant and wouldn’t even entertain the idea. He found vacations stressful. He didn’t like to be idle and he didn’t like being separated from his business dealings. He was looking forward to getting back in the swing of things.
At 7:00 that Monday morning, he showered and dressed. He could smell coffee, bacon, and something sugar-scented. He looked forward to eating in solitude, catching up on the news while he lingered over his meal. Before he went down to breakfast, he stopped by his father’s quarters on the second floor. The door was open and the nurse was in the process of changing his sheets. She told him his father had had a rough night and had finally abandoned any hope of sleep. He’d put on his suit and had Tomasso take him into the office in Santa Teresa. Most days, the old man sat at his desk for hours, drinking coffee, reading biographies of long-dead political greats, and working the
Dante went down to the basement level and took the tunnel from the main house to the Cottage. Coming up from below, he crossed a short stretch of lawn to the guesthouse to pay his morning visit to his Uncle Alfredo, who’d been living there since he was discharged from the hospital after cancer surgery the year before. Originally, the guesthouse had been set up to accommodate a series of nannies who worked for the previous owner. Now one of the two bedrooms was outfitted with a hospital bed and the second bedroom was available for the night nurses. A nurse’s aide came in days to help with his care.
Alfredo was his father’s sole surviving brother and virtually penniless. Two younger brothers, Donatello and Amo, at ages nineteen and twenty-two, had died the same day, February 7, 1943, two days before the Battle of Guadalcanal came to an end.
Dante couldn’t figure out what had happened to Pop and his Uncle Alfredo. How could you reach the end of your life and have nothing to show for it? Pop claimed it was bad financial advice from an accountant who was “no longer with the firm,” meaning six feet under. Dante suspected what his father referred to as bad financial advice was really the function of his living perpetually beyond his means.
Lorenzo Senior was a local boy who’d risen to prominence during Prohibition, smart enough to cash in on the boom. The market was wide open with a premium placed on rotgut liquor. Gambling and prostitution seemed to flourish in the same spirit of excess. He’d never regarded the major syndicate mobsters as his allies. New York, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, and Las Vegas seemed remote. He was distantly related to many of the players, but his ambitions were strictly provincial, and Santa Teresa was the perfect small community for promoting the sin trades. His organization became a feeder to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Beyond those two cities, he had little interest. He didn’t interfere with the big boys and they didn’t interfere with him. He had an open-door policy, offering safe haven for any made man who needed to lay low for a while. He also entertained his Midwest and East Coast cronies with a generous hand. The West Coast was already a magnet to rich and restless citizens who came from every part of the country, looking for sunshine, relaxation, and sheltered surroundings in which to indulge their low appetites.
For six decades, Lorenzo Senior had enjoyed his status. Now he was treated with all the deference due a man who’d once wielded power but wielded it no more. Times had changed. The same money could be made from the same sordid activities but with a firewall of paid protection. The legal profession and big business now provided all the cover that was needed, and life went on as before. Control had passed to his oldest son, Dante, who’d worked for years papering over the cracks with a veneer of respectability.
Lorenzo had taken for granted he’d die young and therefore had no need to provide for himself in his old age. Alfredo was the same way, so maybe it was something they’d learned in their youth. Whatever the source of their poor decisions, they now lived on Dante’s dime. He also supported his brother, Cappi, who was supposedly “getting on his feet” after an early release on a five-year bid at Soledad. Three of Dante’s four sisters were spread out across the country, married to men who did well (thank god) with twelve children among them, democratically distributed at three apiece. Elena lived in Sparta, New Jersey; Gina in Chicago; and Mia in Denver. His favorite sister, Talia, widowed two years before, had moved back to Santa Teresa. Her two sons, now twenty-two and twenty-five, were college graduates with good jobs. Her youngest, a daughter, was attending Santa Teresa City College and living at home. Talia was the only one of his sisters he talked to with any regularity. Her husband had left her megabucks and she didn’t look to Dante for financial support, which was a blessing. As it was, he had twelve full-time and five part-time employees at the house.
Dante tapped on Uncle Alfredo’s door and the nurse admitted him. Cara had worked the morning shift, making sure the old man was clean, freshly dressed, and had taken his daily regimen of medications. Alfredo was in pain much of the time, but there were moments when he was able to sit out on the patio surrounded by the roses Dante had planted for him when he first arrived. That’s where Dante found him now, his white hair still damp from his sponge bath. He had a shawl pulled over his shoulders and he had his eyes closed, enjoying the early morning sunshine.
Dante pulled up a chair and Alfredo acknowledged him without bothering to look.
“How was Canada?”
Dante said, “Boring. Too warm to ski and too cold to do anything else. Two days in, my knees were killing me. Lola claimed it was psychosomatic so I got no sympathy. She said I was just looking for an excuse to go home. How are you?”
His uncle managed a half smile. “Not wonderful.”
“Mornings are tough. It’ll get better as the day goes on.”
“With enough pills,” he said. “Yesterday, Father Ignatius came to the house and heard my confession. First time in forty-five years, so it took a while.”
“Must have been a relief.”
“Not as much as I’d hoped.”
“Any regrets?”
“Everybody has regrets. Things you did, you shouldn’t have. Things you didn’t do, you should have. Hard to know which is worse.”
Dante said, “Maybe in the end, it doesn’t matter.”
“Believe me, it matters. Tell yourself it doesn’t, but it does. I repented my sins, but that don’t repair the damage.”
“At least you had a chance to come clean.”
Alfredo shrugged. “I wasn’t entirely candid. Close as I am to leaving this earth, there are some secrets I’m reluctant to give up. It’s a burden on my soul.”
“You still have time.”
“Don’t I wish,” he said mildly. “How’s Cappi doing?”
“That fuck’s got more ambition than brains.”
Alfredo smiled and closed his eyes. “So use that to your advantage. You know Sun-Tzu,
“I do not. He says what?”
“‘To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.’ You understand what I’m saying?”
Dante studied his uncle’s face. “I’ll give it some thought.”
“You better do more than that.” Uncle Alfredo fell silent.
Dante watched the rise and fall of his chest, shoulders now spindly, arms as white as bone. His knuckles were red and swollen, and Dante imagined they’d be hot to the touch. A gentle snoring began, which at least signaled that the old man was alive if not attentive. He admired Alfredo’s stoicism. The fight was wearing him down, the
