Queen of Secrets, page 30
“Violetta, I told you a long time ago, you gotta make your man happy in bed.” She puckered her mouth with her signature red lips and kissed the air between us, while she straddled the remnants of my obligation. That was all I needed to unleash my fury.
Life would end here. Now.
Hers.
His.
Mine.
Ours.
I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
I leapt toward the bed and slapped Rose’s ruby red lipstick right off her face.
She dropped to the floor.
I grabbed the lamp from the bedside table and hit her, again and again, with thrashing blows to her head.
Unconscious, she lay naked and bleeding, with streaks of red smeared across her face.
Frank pulled me off of her. “You fuckin’ worthless bitch. This is for not giving me a healthy child!” He punched me in the gut.
“Do it, you coward. I’m begging you. Put me outta my misery, you soulless bastard!” I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my jaw tight until I heard my teeth crack.
“And this is for the baby you killed,” Frank screamed, then punched me again.
Gasping for breath and still sore from the fresh wounds of my daughter being ripped from my womb, I reached for Frank’s head and scratched his face, carving a deep gash under his eye. While he tried to pin me down, I bit him, hard and violent, through his cheek. With a mouthful of his flesh between my teeth, I felt a popping sensation. I wasn’t letting go. His blood trickled onto my tongue and over my chin. A metallic taste flooded my mouth. He jerked away from me and rubbed blood from the bite-sized teeth marks on his face.
“Now . . . I’m gonna kill you,” he seethed.
He backhanded me with a blow so fierce it made one of my back teeth come loose. My eyes went unfocused. My jaw felt like it had unhinged from my skull. Pain surged through my head, leaving me stunned and gasping. I spat out my tooth on the hard floor of our bedroom.
I lay on the floor with the shattered lamp around me. He followed my eyes. I knew what he planned to do—strangle me with the cord. Survival mode kicked in. I kicked him in the balls so hard he lost his air, dropped to the floor, and curled up into a fetal position. He moaned and writhed in pain.
“You worthless, sad little man. You didn’t even have the balls to bury your daughter. I never loved you.”
Frank stood and kicked me in the stomach.
The blow knocked the wind out of me. He yanked me up by my hair and punched my face.
Immediately, my eyes watered. Blood gushed over my mouth and dripped off my chin. I’d tended to enough wise guys to know he’d broken my nose. The pain was excruciating. He finished me off with a final kick to the ribs. I heard a snap and curled into a ball, motionless.
He tried to help Rose to her feet. Blood poured from her head wound.
“Rose, get up, baby. She’s barely breathing.” His voice rumbled.
I ignored his words. It could have been any goomah I found in my bed. I knew why Rose did what she did. She was a social climber. She always wanted to be a player in the game. What better way than to fuck a guy who was high in the ranks? I didn’t want her dead, but injuries happen in battle.
After a few moments, I regained my breath, but it was the worst pain I’d ever felt. Wheezing and coughing, every part of my body hurt. Frank and I stared at each other for a long moment, a neutrality moment, a white flag moment. We panted, exhausted. I waited to regain my strength to stand and leave this hell, once and for all, when the doorbell rang downstairs.
“Brooklyn Police. Open up,” the voice yelled through the door.
“Fuck!” Frank dropped Rose’s head onto the floor and ran over to the closet to put on some pants. Was he dumb enough to think he could escape? There was no way he’d get away from this. He grabbed and loaded his rifle, then stood over me, pointing the barrel in my face. “What did you do? Did you fuckin’ rat to the cops? You stupid bitch!”
“No . . . no,” I choked out.
Frank ambushed the front window and slowly pulled the corner curtains back to look outside.
“God damn it! There must be fifty cops outside! What the fuck? You stupid broads. If this is you, Rose, I’ll fuckin’ kill you. Who’d you run your mouth to, huh? You flip in jail? You lousy whores.”
Rose lay with her eyes shut, lifeless.
The cops yelled back, “We got a warrant for your arrest, Di Natale. If you don’t come out, we’ll come in after you. The house is surrounded.”
The next thing I heard was the sound of the front door shaking. Hinges rattled. Something big hit our door.
Frank ran down the hall and looked out the nursery window, which looked out onto the backyard.
“Fuck. They’re everywhere,” he screamed, as veins popped out of his neck.
Boots echoed across the hardwood floor and stairs. The noise kicked my heart back into high gear. Cops scattered throughout the house, opening doors, searching for Frank. My hands shook for what was about to happen. Frank climbed into the closet and shut the door.
I crawled under the bed and pulled Rose’s lifeless body under with me. She lay naked and bloodied, after just fucking my husband. She smelled of sex, sweat, and blood mixed with the same perfume I’d smelled so many times before. Somehow, I’d shifted from primal survival mode to some form of empathy.
From my limited view, the cops’ boots moved around the room quickly. There must have been at least ten men in my bedroom. That’s when I heard a familiar voice coming up the stairs. It was Officer Tewey, the same cop who’d questioned me in the parking lot. A noise emerged from the closet.
“Frank, come out with your hands up, or we’ll shoot.”
All hell broke loose. The closet door ripped off its hinges and landed across the room.
“DROP THE FUCKIN GUN AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, NOW,” Tewey roared.
Frank’s gun landed on the floor. Three cops threw Frank to the ground and pinned him.
“Fuck you, you fuckin’ pigs. I ain’t saying nothin’,” Frank spat.
His face was inches from mine as they put their full weight on his bare back. He shot me a bone-chilling stare while they cuffed him. “Puttana . . . I’ll get you for this, Vi.”
The cops yanked Frank to his feet.
I tried to move my body to see what happened, but with every move, I was in agony. Afraid that if I winced in pain from my movement, the police would shoot me right through the mattress, I lay there, silent, with Rose’s naked body next to mine.
“Well, well, well . . . I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Frankie,” Tewey said. “And with the little stunt you pulled, I owed you one.”
Tewey lunged at Frank. Frank’s legs collapsed under him.
“Keep it up, and you’ll get more,” Tewey said.
Frank gasped for air.
“I don’t want to rough you up too much yet. No, we have big plans for you. We want the big fish, and you’re gonna help us, aren’t you, Frank?” Tewey said. “Get him outta here.”
The cops ushered Frank down the hall. For a split second, I was happy to see Frank receive what he’d given me all these years. A voice pulled me away from my temporary feelings of retribution.
“Search the whole house. I want everything for evidence—everything, fellas,” Tewey commanded his troops.
One blink later, I saw the ceiling instead of the box spring. It must have been Frank’s last threat to me that tipped off Tewey to my hiding place. The cops threw the mattress to the side of the room.
“Please, please, help us,” I cried out between the popping sounds in my lungs.
Another officer bent down next to me and Rose. She was still unconscious and naked with a nasty gash on her head, and I wheezed through a blood-covered face and swollen eyes.
“Get ’em up,” the officer said and helped me to my feet.
The pain of shifting my ribs was excruciating. I screamed out in agony. My screams got their attention, and they helped me to sit on my hope chest.
“Please, please. He broke my ribs. I can’t breathe,” I tried to gurgle out.
Thankfully, the cop called for an ambulance.
Sirens approaching brought me a sense of relief. A medical person came into my room. They placed an oxygen mask over my face. My eyes watered. Tears streamed while they took my vitals and tended to Rose. They gave her some smelling salts, and she slowly came to. They put her on a gurney, and she left in an ambulance.
The paramedic deemed that my cracked rib may have punctured a lung. They hauled me out to an ambulance. Neighbors stood outside, laughing at me. Jimmy watched from his car across the street. What was he doing here? Had he caught Rose with Frank or was it a coincidence? As questions filled my mind, we drove away from all the chaos and destruction. I’d broken through the doors of my bondage and faced my fears. From freefall to rock bottom, I was trapped no more.
Homing Pigeons
East San Jose Foothills, Giordano Estate
March 2003
Barbara
Ms. G. stood from her recliner, went to her room, and returned with an envelope. She reached inside and took out two newspaper clippings. The first was the write-up of Gaetano in his winery. I held it in my hands and noticed the faintest red kiss mark still stained at the bottom from Rose’s red lips so many years ago.
“I figured, by now, you should know what Gaetano looked like,” she said and smiled over his picture.
He was exactly as she’d described: dreamy eyes, a slightly crooked smile, and brilliantly handsome. The second article was about the bust at her Brooklyn home with a mugshot of Frank and Rose.
“See, kid, what I didn’t know was that after the miscarriage, Frank started an affair with Rose once she was released from jail. During their relationship, he learned of Rose’s drug connection and wanted in. Frank wanted to impress Don Molanano with another way to score and make money, and she wanted to climb the ladder. Jimmy must have caught onto them and placed an anonymous call, or he flipped. From what little I heard, no one has spoken to him or seen him in years. Either way, he was a dead man. The things we do for love, I guess.”
“So, what happened? How long did you stay in the hospital?”
“One X-ray and a week’s stay in the hospital is what I got out of the whole thing. Luckily, they didn’t have to set my nose. I had double black eyes, and I coughed small amounts of blood for weeks after. They said that was part of the healing process.”
“Oh my God.” I reached for my side, thinking of the times that Marcus had bruised my ribs. “Did you have to go to jail? How did you get out of it?”
Ms. G. sat with the envelope still in her hands. She shot me a coy smile. “I lay in that Brooklyn hospital bed and the feds came in daily. Once I was healthy enough to answer their questions, I played dumb. I said I didn’t know what my husband was involved with and that he never discussed those things with me, which, for the most part, was true. They asked so many questions. Apparently, Frank was involved, not only with Rose, but with other stuff I had no idea about.”
As she spoke, I peered down at the article.
“I told them I came home to find my husband in bed with someone else and that things got heated. I didn’t admit to hitting Rose in the head with the lamp. I told them that during our tussle, she hit her head on the nightstand.
“I can’t believe you still saved her after she betrayed you. I don’t know if I would have done the same,” I said.
“Many days, I wondered the same thing. As much as I didn’t like Rose, she befriended me when I got to Brooklyn. Maybe it was because we’d both lost children. Hers had been given away; mine had died. Or maybe because she wasn’t operating with a full deck. I don’t know. Woman to woman, I couldn’t let her die. It wasn’t jealousy. If anything, their affair gave me a way out. But the betrayal I felt is why I have a hard time trusting women. It’s why I had a hard time trusting you,” she said, then cupped my cheek. “Please forgive me, Barbara, for being a pain in the ass. At least now you know why.”
“I understand. But you still haven’t told me how you got out of it. That one cop seemed to have it in for you.”
“I told Officer Tewey that it was Frank who’d beaten me up. I didn’t mention the hiding places in the house. They tried to press for those, but to my core, I’m no rat about business. It was the same business that had provided for me. It’s the one rule you don’t break. Apparently, Rose felt the same. Once the cops told her I’d saved her life, she didn’t tell them anything about me. That was the second time I saved her life, so maybe she felt she owed me one. I don’t know, but I went with it.”
“Rose went along with it?”
“She did. She was wanted in two other states for drugs and money laundering. They planned to send her to prison, but she failed some kind of mental intake test and was put in an institution in upstate New York. Later, I heard she was sedated on some pretty strong drugs. Word got around that she was almost catatonic for a while. But that wasn’t the strangest part of the whole thing. I still couldn’t figure out why that cop didn’t shoot Frank. Maybe they thought he’d be more useful if they could make Frank flip. Frank was sentenced to seven years in prison for a load of offenses.”
“So, what happened to Frank? I read he went missing?”
Ms. G.’s eyes shifted back to her hands and avoided my stare. “I don’t really know. He probably pissed off the wrong person or something. Who knows? A day before they released me from the hospital, Officer Tewey asked me about Frank’s cheek. I told him that it was self-defense because Frank tried to kill me. He listened, and I batted my eyes a few times. A few conversations later, over drinks and well . . . let’s just say I did the most mob moll thing I’d ever done. To ensure my freedom, I slept with him.”
“What? Ms. G., are you serious?”
“Yes. I’m not proud of it, but I did. I needed insurance in case he ever wanted to threaten me again. If I’m honest, I needed a release. There wouldn’t be feelings between us. It was just business.”
“I can’t believe you,” I said, laughing.
“He wanted to punish me for what my husband had gotten away with all those years, and I wanted to punish him because he was a dirty cop. So, a few hours of hard sex later, I had my insurance. And I’m pretty sure that was the first night he used his handcuffs in bed.” She laughed. “If he ever came after me again, I’d tell his wife everything, about his strawberry birthmark on his right ass cheek and how he made me call him daddy when he came. I was pretty sure he’d leave me alone if I threatened to tell the mother of his kids that.”
“You’re nothing short of ruthless.”
“No, just a survivor. As you’ll be one day.”
Her words brought me right back to my reality. I took a deep breath.
“The girls taught me that women can be just as cunning as men. More so, because men don’t expect women to behave in such a way, much less have a plan to destroy them. So, I used the one tool I had in my toolbox that they desired. Not only was it my pleasure zone, it was a weapon, and a powerful one. And in that particular time in my life, I used it to my advantage.”
“When did you return to San Jose?”
“After a few weeks, I realized there was nothing left for me in Brooklyn. My mind and heart had made their natural transition. I belonged in the country, where I could roam free. I gave all the baby stuff to the church, and the rest I sold piece by piece—even the mink stole. With Frank in jail, I needed the money. I moved back to San Jose to be with my family. Frank might have been pissed that I’d left him, but what was he gonna do from prison?”
“Were you scared he would come after you when he got out?”
“A little.” She swallowed deeply.
“You’re so brave. I wonder when I’ll be able to leave. My kids don’t respect me anymore, and I don’t respect myself.”
“When you’ve had enough, you’ll do the right thing. That’s how it was for me. Hey, I wanna show you something. Let’s go outside. It’s not raining. Come on, don’t deprive an old lady,” she said, still holding the envelope.
“Okay. Let’s go.” I helped her outside to a wooden enclosure behind the barn.
“Hey, did I ever tell you the time that my father had homing pigeons?”
“No.”
“Years ago, when this place ran like a ranch, my father had pigeons. Some were gray, and some were black, and some were even white. Have you ever looked at a pigeon’s neck and seen the color of their feathers?”
“Maybe. I don’t think I’ve paid that much attention.”
“Pigeons have beautiful colors on their necks. In the sunlight, the gray ones have an iridescent color, almost like an opal. It’s beautiful. Just another one of God’s creatures at work, ya know?”
“Ya, okay.”
“Anyway, my father took care of all these pigeons, made cages for them, and hand-fed them. Because they were homing pigeons. He’d tag their legs with a number.”
“Those are the kind of pigeons that return home, right?”
She nodded. “When my father told me, I didn’t believe him. I remember it like it was yesterday. He took me out here, placed a pigeon in my hands, and showed me the little tag on the bird’s foot. It said Giordano number twenty-six. Pop prayed over it and told me to open my hands, so it could fly away. Then, before I could count to three, the pigeon was gone. It soared over the ranch and through the trees. Sure enough, a few weeks later, there it was. The pigeon had landed on top of its cage. Twenty-six had returned home. I didn’t know where it’d been or what it’d seen, but I was so happy that the bird came back. I remember my father saying to me, ‘See, Violetta, da pigeon came home. It like it here, with us.’ No matter where I’d been or what I’d seen, I always came back home—just like the pigeons.”
Ms. G. handed me the envelope.
“I want you to have this,” she said.
“What’s this?” I asked. Inside the envelope was a key. I laughed. “A key to the front door. You finally trust me, huh?”
“That’s not a key to the front door. That’s the key to the big house. I know things are hard at your home, and I can’t stand seeing you with bruises, scratch marks, and broken nails. I want to give you a safe place to live. I’ve already called my cousin who’s in construction. He’s going to convert it for you. It won’t be ready for a few months, but you and the kids can stay in my house until it’s ready. You’ve cared for me. Let me care for you.”
