Rage of Angels

Rage of Angels Page 39

It happened so gradually that it did not seem to be happening at all. It had begun with Vasco Gambutti, and shortly afterward Michael asked Jennifer to handle another case, then another, until soon it became a steady flow of cases.

Michael would call Jennifer and say, "I need your help, baby. One of my boys is having a problem."

And Jennifer was reminded of Father Ryan's words, A friend of mine has a bit of a problem. Was there really any difference? America had come to accept the Godfather syndrome. Jennifer told herself that what she was doing now was the same as what she had been doing all along. The truth was that there was a difference - a big difference.

She was at the center of one of the most powerful organizations in the world.

Michael invited Jennifer to the farmhouse in New Jersey, where she met Antonio Granelli for the first time, and some of the other men in the Organization.

At a large table in the old-fashioned kitchen were Nick Vito, Arthur "Fat Artie" Scotto, Salvatore Fiore and Joseph Colella.

As Jennifer and Michael came in and stood in the doorway, listening, Nick Vito was saying, "...like the time I did a pound in Atlanta. I had a heavy H book goin'. This popcorn pimp comes up and tries to fuck me over 'cause he wants a piece of the action."

"Did you know the guy?" Fat Artie Scotto asked.

"What's to know? He wants to get his lights turned on. He tried to put the arm on me."

"On you?"

"Yeah. His head wasn't wrapped too tight."

"What'd you do?"

"Eddie Fratelli and me got him over in the ghinny corner of the yard and burned him. What the hell, he was doin' bad time, anyway."

"Hey, whatever happened to Little Eddie?"

"He's doin' a dime at Lewisburg."

"What about his bandit? She was some class act."

"Oh, yeah. I'd love to make her drawers."

"She's still got the hots for Eddie. Only the Pope knows why."

"I liked Eddie. He used to be an up-front guy."

"He went ape-shit. Speakin' of that, do you know who turned into a candy man...?"

Shop talk.

Michael grinned at Jennifer's puzzled reaction to the conversation and said, "Come on - I'll introduce you to Papa."

Antonio Granelli was a shock to Jennifer. He was in a wheelchair, a feeble skeleton of a man, and it was hard to imagine him as he once must have been.

An attractive brunette with a full figure walked into the room, and Michael said to Jennifer, "This is Rosa, my wife."

Jennifer had dreaded this moment. Some nights after Michael had left her - fulfilled in every way a woman could be - she had fought with a guilt that almost overpowered her. I don't want to hurt another woman. I'm stealing. I've got to stop this! I must! And, always, she lost the battle.

Rosa looked at Jennifer with eyes that were wise. She knows, Jennifer thought.

There was a small awkwardness, and then Rosa said softly, "I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Parker. Michael tells me you're very intelligent."

Antonio Granelli grunted. "It's not good for a woman to be too smart. It's better to leave the brains to the men."

Michael said with a straight face, "I think of Mrs. Parker as a man, Papa."

They had dinner in the large, old-fashioned dining room.

"You sit next to me," Antonio Granelli commanded Jennifer.

Michael sat next to Rosa. Thomas Colfax, the consigliere, sat opposite Jennifer and she could feel his animosity.

The dinner was superb. An enormous antipasto was served, and then pasta fagioli. There was a salad with garbanzo beans, stuffed mushrooms, veal piccata, linguini and baked chicken. It seemed that the dishes never stopped coming.

There were no visible servants in the house, and Rosa was constantly jumping up and clearing the table to bring in new dishes from the kitchen.

"My Rosa's a great cook," Antonio Granelli told Jennifer. "She's almost as good as her mother was. Hey, Mike?"

"Yes," Michael said politely.

"His Rosa's a wonderful wife," Antonio Granelli went on, and Jennifer wondered whether it was a casual remark or a warning.

Michael said, "You're not finishing your veal."

"I've never eaten so much in my life," Jennifer protested.

And it was not over yet.

There was a bowl of fresh fruit and a platter of cheese, and ice cream with a hot fudge sauce, and candy and mints.

Jennifer marveled at how Michael managed to keep his figure.

The conversation was easy and pleasant and could have been taking place in any one of a thousand Italian homes, and it was hard for Jennifer to believe that this family was different from any other family.

Until Antonio Granelli said, "You know anythin' about the Unione Siciliana?"

"No," Jennifer said.

"Let me tell you about it, lady."

"Pop - her name is Jennifer."

"That's not no Italian name, Mike. It's too hard for me to remember. I'll call you lady, lady. Okay?"

"Okay," Jennifer replied.

"The Unione Siciliana started in Sicily to protect the poor against injustices. See, the people in power, they robbed the poor. The poor had nothin' - no money, no jobs, no justice. So the Unione was formed. When there was injustice, people came to the members of the secret brotherhood and they got vengeance. Pretty soon the Unione became stronger than the law, because it was the people's law We believe in what the Bible says, lady." He looked Jennifer in the eye. "If anyone betrays us, we get vengeance."

The message was unmistakable.

Jennifer had always known instinctively that if she ever worked for the Organization she would be taking a giant step, but like most outsiders, she had a misconception of what the Organization was like. The Mafia was generally depicted as a bunch of mobsters sitting around ordering people murdered and counting the money from loan-sharking and whorehouses. That was only a part of the picture. The meetings Jennifer attended taught her the rest of it: These were businessmen operating on a scale that was staggering. They owned hotels and banks, restaurants and casinos, insurance companies and factories, building companies and chains of hospitals. They controlled unions and shipping. They were in the record business and sold vending machines. They owned funeral parlors, bakeries and construction companies. Their yearly income was in the billions. How they had acquired those interests was none of Jennifer's concern. It was her job to defend those of them who got into trouble with the law.

Robert Di Silva had three of Michael Moretti's men indicted for shaking down a group of lunch wagons. They were charged with conspiracy to interfere with commerce by extortion and seven counts of interference with commerce. The only witness willing to testify against the men was a woman who owned one of the stands.

"She's going to blow us away," Michael told Jennifer. "She's got to be handled."

"You own a piece of a magazine publishing company, don't you?" Jennifer asked.

"Yes. What does that have to do with lunch wagons?"

"You'll see."

Jennifer quietly arranged for the magazine to offer a large sum of money for the witness's story. The woman accepted. In court, Jennifer used that to discredit the woman's motives, and the charges were dismissed.

Jennifer's relationship with her associates had changed. When the office had begun to take a succession of Mafia cases, Ken Bailey had come into Jennifer's office and said, "What's going on? You can't keep representing these hoodlums. They'll ruin us."

"Don't worry about it, Ken. They'll pay."

"You can't be that naive, Jennifer. You're the one who's going to pay. They'll have you hooked."

Because she had known he was right, Jennifer said angrily, "Drop it, Ken."

He had looked at her for a long moment, then said, "Right. You're the boss."

The Criminal Courts was a small world, and news traveled swiftly. When word got out that Jennifer Parker was defending members of the Organization, well-meaning friends went to her and reiterated the same things that Judge Lawrence Waldman and Ken Bailey had told her.

"If you get involved with these hoodlums, you'll be tarred with the same brush."

Jennifer told them all: "Everyone is entitled to be defended."

She appreciated their warnings, but she felt that they did not apply to her. She was not a part of the Organization; she merely represented some of its members. She was a lawyer, like her father, and she would never do anything that would have made him ashamed of her. The jungle was there, but she was still outside it.

Father Ryan had come to see her. This time it was not to ask her to help out a friend.

"I'm concerned about you, Jennifer. I hear reports that you're handling - well - the wrong people."

"Who are the wrong people? Do you judge the people who come to you for help? Do you turn people away from God because they've sinned?"

Father Ryan shook his head. "Of course not. But it's one thing when an individual makes a mistake. It's something else when corruption is organized. If you help those people, you're condoning what they do. You become a part of it."

"No. I'm a lawyer, Father. I help people in trouble."

Jennifer came to know Michael Moretti better than anyone had ever known him. He exposed feelings to her that he had never revealed to anyone else. He was basically a lonely, solitary man, and Jennifer was the first person who had ever been able to penetrate his shell.

Jennifer felt that Michael needed her. She had never felt that with Adam. And Michael had forced her to admit how much she needed him. He had brought out feelings in her that she had kept suppressed - wild, atavistic passions that she had been afraid to let loose. There were no inhibitions with Michael. When they were in bed together, there were no limits, no barriers. Only pleasure, a pleasure Jennifer had never dreamed possible.

Michael confided to Jennifer that he did not love Rosa, but it was obvious that Rosa worshiped Michael. She was always at his service, waiting to take care of his needs.

Jennifer met other Mafia wives, and she found their lives fascinating. Their husbands went out to restaurants and bars and racetracks with their mistresses while their wives stayed home and waited for them.

A Mafia wife always had a generous allowance, but she had to be careful how she spent it, lest she attract the attention of the Internal Revenue Service.

There was a pecking order ranging from the lowly soldato to the capo di tutti capi, and the wife never owned a more expensive coat or car than the wife of her husband's immediate superior.

The wives gave dinner parties for their husbands' associates, but they were careful not to be more lavish than their position permitted in relation to the others.

At ceremonies such as weddings or baptisms, where gifts were called for, a wife was never allowed to spend more than the wife above her station in the hierarchy.

The protocol was as stringent as that at U.S. Steel, or any other large business corporation.

The Mafia was an incredible moneymaking machine, but Jennifer became aware that there was another element in it that was equally important: power.

"The Organization is bigger than the government of most of the countries of the world," Michael told Jennifer. "We gross more than a half a dozen of the largest companies in America, put together."

"There's a difference," Jennifer pointed out. "They're legitimate and - "

Michael laughed. "You mean the ones that haven't been caught. Dozens of the country's biggest companies have been indicted for violating one law or another. Don't kid yourself about heroes, Jennifer. The average American today can't name two astronauts who have been up in space, but they know the names of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano."

Jennifer realized that in his own way, Michael was equally as dedicated as Adam was. The difference was that their lives had gone in opposite directions.

When it came to business, Michael had a total lack of empathy. It was his strong point. He made decisions based solely on what was expedient for the Organization.

In the past, Michael had been completely dedicated to fulfilling his ambitions. There had been no emotional room for a woman in his life. Neither Rosa nor Michael's girl friends had ever been a part of his real needs.

Jennifer was different. He needed her as he had needed no other woman. He had never known anyone like her. She excited him physically, but so had dozens of others. What made Jennifer special was her intelligence, her independence. Rosa obeyed him; other women feared him; Jennifer challenged him. She was his equal. He could talk to her, discuss things with her. She was more than intelligent. She was smart.

He knew that he was never going to let her go.

Occasionally Jennifer took business trips with Michael, but she tried to avoid traveling whenever she could because she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Joshua. He was six years old now and growing unbelievably fast. Jennifer had enrolled him in a private school nearby, and Joshua loved it.

He rode a two-wheel bicycle and had a fleet of toy racing cars and carried on long and earnest conversations with Jennifer and Mrs. Mackey.

Because Jennifer wanted Joshua to grow up to be strong and independent, she tried to walk a carefully balanced line, letting Joshua know how much she loved him, making him aware that she was always there when he needed her and yet giving him a sense of his own independence.

She taught him to love good books and to enjoy music. She took him to the theater, avoiding opening nights because there would be too many people there who might know her and ask questions. On weekends she and Joshua would have a movie binge. On Saturday they would see a movie in the afternoon, have dinner at a restaurant and then see a second movie. On Sunday they would go sailing or bicycling together. Jennifer gave her son all the love that was stored in her, but she was careful to try not to spoil him. She planned her strategy with Joshua more carefully than she had planned any court case, determined not to fall into the traps of a one-parent home.

Jennifer felt no sacrifice in spending so much time with Joshua; he was great fun. They played word games and Impressions and Twenty Questions, and Jennifer was delighted by the quickness of her son's mind. He was at the head of his class and an outstanding athlete, but he did not take himself seriously. He had a marvelous sense of humor.

When it did not interfere with his schoolwork, Jennifer would take Joshua on trips. During Joshua's winter vacation, Jennifer took time off to go skiing with him in the Poconos. In the summer she took him to London on a business trip with her, and they spent two weeks exploring the countryside. Joshua adored England.

"Could I go to school here?" he asked.

Jennifer felt a pang. It would not be long before he left her to go away to school, to seek his fortune, to get married and have his own home and family. Was that not what she wanted for him? Of course it was. When Joshua was ready, she would let him go with open arms, and yet she knew how difficult it was going to be.

Joshua was looking at her, waiting for an answer. "Can I, Mom?" he asked. "Maybe Oxford?"

Jennifer held him close. "Of course. They'll be lucky to get you."

On a Sunday morning when Mrs. Mackey was off, Jennifer had to go into Manhattan to pick up a transcript of a deposition. Joshua was visiting some friends. When Jennifer returned home, she started to prepare dinner for the two of them. She opened the refrigerator - and stopped dead in her tracks. There was a note inside, propped up between two bottles of milk. Adam had left her notes like that. Jennifer stared at it, mesmerized, afraid to touch it. Slowly, she reached for the note and unfolded it. It said, Surprise! Is it okay if Alan has dinner with us?

It took half an hour for Jennifer's pulse to return to normal.

From time to time, Joshua asked Jennifer about his father.

"He was killed in Viet Nam, Joshua. He was a very brave man."

"Don't we have a picture of him anywhere?"

"No, I'm sorry, darling. We - we weren't married very long before he died."

She hated the lie, but she had no choice.

Michael Moretti had only asked once about Joshua's father.

"I don't care what happened before you belonged to me - I'm just curious."

Jennifer thought about the power that Michael would have over Senator Adam Warner if Michael ever learned the truth.

"He was killed in Viet Nam. His name's not important."