Beauty (4 page)

Dina didn’t argue. She suspected Ellen was as embarrassed as she was – any strangers might see how much her mother disliked her.

As she grew and blossomed, her friends drifted away. There was jealousy, cattiness – rumours about her mother.

‘Did you see Ellen Kane in that short skirt yesterday?’

‘God, I know. It’s so ridiculous. She’s, like,
thirty
.’

‘Older than thirty.’

Priscilla Contratto turned on Dina as she walked past, carrying her books. ‘Your mom looks like a tramp. Can’t you do something about it?’

‘Shut up, Prissy. My mom looks great.’

Truth was, Ellen feared the loss of her looks and had decided to do something about it. The skirts got shorter. The hair got blonder. She started wearing a red slash of lipstick to go grocery shopping.

Dina tried to speak to her about it.

‘Mom, I think the grey skirt looks really chic on you.’

‘The grey?’ Ellen held it up. ‘No fun.’

She was moving into a black leather mini. Dina gulped.

‘You know, maybe that’s more . . .’

The green eyes, duller than Dina’s own, narrowed to chips of ice. ‘More what?’

‘More, like, for teenagers?’

Ellen flushed. ‘Don’t be stupid. And, anyway, my boyfriend likes it.’

Dina squirmed. ‘Who is your boyfriend?’

‘I keep my business private. I’ll let you know if I decide to get serious.’

It wasn’t long before Dina was doing her homework alone at night. Johnny would be at after-school programmes, or in his room, studying for SATs. Ellen would not be there.

A succession of black Lincoln town cars would pull up at the front of their place.

Different cars. Different licence plates.

Ellen avoided talking about it. She wore expensive jewellery and smiled a lot, except in the mornings when she was hung-over. Sometimes she talked about ‘the boys’ and snapped if Dina tried to ask her anything.

Her eyes got redder. Her skin developed a pallid tinge. Ellen was drinking and partying like she could make her tiny life go away.

‘We have to do something,’ Dina said to Johnny.

He was in his room, playing with his video games. ‘Like what? She doesn’t listen.’

‘Maybe she’ll listen to you. She likes you.’

Johnny shrugged. He was well-meaning, but saw no reason to get involved with lost causes – like his mother’s relationship with Dina, or his mother’s need for help. Johnny Kane wanted an easy life, and that mostly involved turning a blind eye. He gave little Dina affection and, in return, she didn’t push him. On anything. It was their unspoken bargain.

‘Hey, Mom’s not talking. Let’s leave her to her own life.’

‘Johnny—’

‘Drop it, Dina.’

But if Ellen wasn’t talking, everybody else was.

Tramp. Bike. Plaything
.

There was Sal Rispello – he was first, putting aside his earlier scruples. After all, she was offering it on a plate. Then there was Paolo Cottini, Giorgio Amalfi . . .

‘Why’s Dina’s mom like table salt?’ Lorna Fay shouted out in recess.

Dina scuffed her shoes in a corner of the playground, pretending to read her copy of
The Catcher in the Rye.

‘Because she gets passed around!’ Lorna shrieked.

Dina heard the cackles of laughter, the hoots. Tears stung her eyes, but she didn’t move. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

The next day, she skipped school for the first time in her life.

Angelo Tallarico sat by the pool, drinking coffee.

It was a serene scene. Angelo sat in his custom-designed chair, next to a side table made of marble. The lawns of the estate were so closely trimmed, the green grass looked like satin. Angelo wore a white summer suit, tailored in Savile Row, London. His Rolex was heavy, solid platinum, and his fingers were covered with enough diamond rings to make them look like a knuckleduster. They sparkled as he lifted his crystal glass of ice tea to his mouth.

The infinity pool was perfectly blue; it lapped gently with its artificial current. The house behind him was white, Edwardian and huge. Angelo liked the English look. He’d had the place fitted out with rose gardens and topiary hedges. They had colour all four seasons.

You could barely see the bodyguards stationed around the place. All of them wearing back. All of them strapped to the nines.

Angelo loved to hire ex-military. The boys of the family were great, but, in a crisis, you wanted an accurate shot. Just one more way he was modernising his role.

They used the old terms:
Don Angelo
. But not in public. That was catnip to the FBI. Angelo despised the old guard who liked to court publicity. All they did was bring trouble on everyone’s head.

He was training his new recruits in different techniques: arms trading, union corruption, public-sector payoffs.

Nobody does gangster like the politicians
.

But Angelo didn’t want to go too fast. He needed to carry the soldiers, the captains with him. The construction sites and gambling houses stayed open; the drug deals were still run on the corners – he was peeling back from them, but only slowly.

All in good time. Even if he hated that petty shit.

Angelo told himself he was patient. That was why he was now the Don. Two cousins shot, another doing twenty-five in maximum security. His uncle Claudio had been poisoned, so they thought. So Angelo avoided stupid mistakes, like trampling on the old ways, at least until he was ready.

He shifted in his chair, enjoying the sun. August was tremendous in New York. In retirement, he wanted to leave the bitter winters, head to Florida, maybe even further afield. Get a hacienda in Mexico, where they understood security.

There were two young girls waiting in the bedroom. A soldier had talent-spotted them at one of the family’s strip joints. Legal age – he’d checked. Big tits, curvy asses and mouths that knew how to do stuff other than talk.

The soldier got a tip. The girls got a new assignment.

Angelo would keep them for a month, then send them packing. He liked fresh meat, no involvement. There was no wife, nor did he want one. When he married, years from now, it would be a classy girl, not some painted screecher from round here.

‘Signore?’ This was a new take on
Don
. Angelo liked both. ‘There is a girl here to see you.’

Angelo stretched. ‘I didn’t order another one yet. I like how that redhead grinds.’

‘Yes, sir.’ A grin. Sometimes the boss would order his girls down to the security barracks, with instructions to please every man in the room. It kept the men loyal, taught the females their place. ‘It’s not a whore, this one. A schoolgirl.’

Angelo looked up. ‘What?’

‘The daughter of one of your workers.’ He shrugged. ‘He died a few years ago.’

‘Boohoo,’ Angelo said. ‘What the fuck does she want?’

‘To see you. She said she won’t leave till she does.’

‘Jesus! Get rid of her.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The man straightened up, putting his hand on his gun. ‘We’ll escort her to the road.’

Angelo sipped his tea. ‘Wait.’

His spider-sense was tingling, as if this could be a mistake, this could be trouble.

‘How old is she?’

‘Sixteen, seventeen . . . I think.’

‘And whose kid?’

‘His name was Paul Kane.’

A bell was ringing, but he couldn’t place it. ‘Pretty?’

The guy laughed and kissed his fingertips. ‘Ass like a peach. Better than those two you got upstairs, signore.’

‘I’ll see her.’ What the hell? He could give her five minutes, just to make sure this wasn’t some problem. But better, older men than him had been assassinated by kids. ‘Frisk her; frisk her thoroughly.’

‘And if she refuses?’ He licked his lips.

‘She’s somebody’s daughter. But, if she refuses, throw her out.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The bodyguard walked off.

‘Spread your legs, baby.’ The guard ran his hands down her ribcage, pausing to cup her breasts under the bra. She tensed, and he jiggled them, then laughed. ‘Full search. We don’t know what you’ve got under there.’

Dina bit her tongue. She was facing a brick wall. There were bloodstains on it. Reluctantly, she widened her legs.

‘Great ass,’ his colleague said. ‘Spread ’em a little wider.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I said so.’

He came behind her, ran his hands over her legs, starting at her ankles, squeezing tight. Then he felt her ass, briskly, and then, with more leisure, fondled it, cupped her pussy.

Dina gasped.

‘You a virgin?’ he said, idly.

‘Joe, cut it out. She’s not for us.’

The hands were removed and Dina was allowed to step back. She raised her head, scarlet with embarrassment.

Both guards laughed.

‘She’s clean.’

‘Not for long,’ his friend said. ‘I’d give a week’s pay to pop that cherry.’

The first guard smirked, then beckoned her. ‘Follow me. Don’t say shit. Understand?’

Angelo looked over the girl standing before him, with her curvy figure and come-hither eyes.

Marek was right. She was better than the hookers he had inside. Fresher. Prettier. Those cheap jeans and the white T-shirt did absolutely nothing to hide her assets. She was gorgeous looking, with a soft, aristocratic face.

‘What was your father’s name? Kane?’

‘Paul Kane, Don Angelo. He was killed in a construction accident out in the Bronx.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘You took care of our family, sent my mother money. My brother goes to Catholic school. We live in Eastchester.’

He nodded. ‘You are here to ask for more money?’

The girl shook her dark head. ‘No, sir. It’s . . . It’s my mother.’

Despite himself, Angelo Tallarico was starting to get interested. It was the courage of this little slip of a girl, standing before him. The guards would have had their fun, but she was still here.

‘What about her?’

‘She sees men.’

‘That happens when you’re a grown-up, kid.’

‘No. She sees
your
men. A few of them. At night, in fancy cars. They give her presents. People talk.’ A slow flush was making its way up Dina’s neck, but she ploughed on. ‘My mom is drinking more. These men don’t care for her.’

Angelo hesitated. Why was this his problem? He should tell the feisty little piece of cooze to get back to whichever small-town hell she came from.

‘Mr Rispello; Mr Cottini; Mr Amalfi.’ Recklessly Dina named them. ‘Mr Casini, I think.’

All captains. All married.

‘Then maybe have a talk with your mother.’

‘She doesn’t listen. But you could tell the men, Don Angelo. Warn them off.’

‘Honey –’ he sipped his tea – ‘interfering in people’s private lives . . . is not what I do. Bad for business.’

Dina shook her dark head. ‘See, Don Angelo, my daddy worked for you. And he died. You took care of us. All the other workers know it. But now people are talking bad. Like, your bosses will use a guy’s widow. All the kids in school –’ the blush got deeper – ‘they all know. And some of them have fathers who used to work alongside Dad. Still work for you now. They won’t like the thought of that happening to
their
wives.’

Angelo considered this. Then he turned away and rifled through the papers in front of him, on his white marble coffee table. He didn’t trust computers. They could be hacked, traced, run through by the FBI. Reports were typed out and sent to him; he read the papers and burned them each night.

Construction site delays in Brooklyn, Bronx.

Workers quitting. Sickness. Retired. Morale low.

Experienced hands replaced. Younger guys making mistakes. Costing money.

Project budget may need revision.

Angelo saw through the dry lines of old-fashioned ink. There were problems. The old guys were dropping out.

The girl is right
.

‘OK. I’ll speak to the boys.’
And your mother
, but he didn’t tell her that. It was time for Father Confessor Angelo Tallarico to pay a visit to Ellen Kane, and he would have a stern penance to deliver for her sins.

‘You were right to come to me,’ he said. She had stopped the rot. ‘What’s your name again, baby?’

‘Dina.’

‘You can leave school next year, right? Want to work for me? As a secretary?’

He could station her out of sight of her father’s old gang, working the head offices in Jersey City. She was smart, and she had that look about her – that she’d fuck like a freight train once the right guy had warmed her up.

Dina’s green eyes opened wide. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, like it was a stupid question.

Angelo was amused. Working right for the Don was an opportunity girls round here would kill to have. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m going to make something of myself,’ Dina said, artlessly.

Angelo Tallarico laughed aloud. ‘You know what, kid? I don’t doubt it.’

The next night, in her room, Dina was hunched over her desk, working, waiting for the limousines.

They didn’t come.

She heard her mom making calls. They were short; there was shouting. And after that, nothing.

Ellen sloped round the house, getting drunker, missing her days at work, lashing out. She stopped cooking, cleaning. Dina quietly did it all herself. She poured out the vodka bottles she found hidden under the sink, but her mother bought more.

Still, the kids at the school stopped talking. Dina went back to her schoolwork. Johnny looked a little less hunched, less defeated.

Ellen Kane was drunk.

She didn’t know why. Just a little hair of the dog from last night. That was bad; she had the shakes. She needed it.

And then she felt so much better. One more wouldn’t hurt. Anyway, she was quitting after this bottle. It cost money, it would be a waste to pour it away.

She deserved it. They were all bastards, all of them – using bastards. Something had happened, something bad. It worried her nights. She had anxiety – that was it, anxiety. And if a little martini made you feel better, so what? It was better than them shrink pills. They would kill you.