Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,32

hiked her nightie up and spread her legs. She waited patiently. He did it, hating both her and himself.

As he rolled away, she sat up and asked: "Are you going to be home for dinner tonight? I'm making lasagna and broccoli with garlic. You know you like that, Mario. But you have to tell me now – the broccoli is no good heated over."

Just like Donna. All the while he was doing it, she was planning out her goddam lasagna and broccoli with garlic.

"Maybe you could bring Louie and Danny home with you," she went on. "It's been a long time since you brought anyone home with you and you know how they like lasagna. And the kids love to see them. You know that."

Fat chance, he had thought, as he glanced at his wafer-thin platinum watch. It was 7:00 a.m. That meant it was 6:00 a.m. in Chicago and if Louie and Danny were doing their job they were in Chicago right then. If they were on schedule, in a half hour Louie would be slowly strangling the life from some fink stoolie with a piece of piano wire and Danny would be flicking him with a knife for kicks. It was a funny thing about Danny and that knife.

"Are Danny and Louie still in the undertaking business?" Donna Marie asked.

"Yes," he said. "But they can't come tonight. A very very rich man died in Chicago and they had to fly there to make arrangements for the body. I won't be home myself, not until late. I have to take Johnny over to the studio to make a record." Then, an afterthought. "I may even stay over in town if it gets too late."

Donna shrugged, moved to her bottle-littered vanity table and began to pin her hair into a bun. She looked over her shoulder, her face impassive.

"By the way, Gillian Blake called last night. She said she wanted to speak to you, that it was very personal. What in the world could she want to talk to you personal about?"

Mario didn't like that. Gilly should have the brains not to call him at home. She had never done it before. Why now?

"She probably wants to get Johnny on that show of hers," he said. "They all do."

"And something else," Donna Marie said. "My father called you last night. Twice. The second time he sounded mad. You haven't been doing anything to upset him?"

"No." Mario answered carefully. "He's impatient because the new oil shipments haven't come through. I'll call him today if I get the time."

Now, heading east on the Expressway, Mario Vella wondered about Septimo. He had called all over for him that morning and hadn't been able to reach him. But that wasn't what worried him. It was something he sensed, a difference in the voices. Mario had used all the proper codes, but everyone had answered in a strangely short way. He'd called all the New York operations – Galaxy Liquors, Deuce Lathing, Tornedo Linen Supply, Septimo Construction over in Whitestone, even the four restaurants. At every outlet, the same answer. No one knew where he was. Even Seraphina, his mother-in-law, she didn't know. And all of them seemed distant on the phone. Yes and no, that was all.

Septimo Caggiano was very important in Mario Vella's life. It might have been different if Mario's own father had lived. His father, Onofrio Vellaturce, wanted for two murders in Naples, had jumped ship in Hoboken and settled down to life in America. The Organization welcomed him like a long-lost brother, and inside of twenty years he'd headed the largest Organization family in the New York area. From a castlelike home on the Palisades, Onofrio ruled everything in sight – docks, produce, trucking, terminals, narcotics, gambling, labor unions and politicians. And in Brooklyn, Sicilian-born Septimo Caggiano began to worry that Onofrio might begin to lust after his organization. They set up a union, a union scaled by the marriage of Donna Marie and Mario.

Mario, the son of an Organization leader, understood what was expected of him. Two kingdoms were to be joined. Donna Marie – doe-eyed, dark-haired, plump – had a peasant's taste in clothing, running to sequins and ornate embroidery. She would cook, bear children and keep a house as well as its secrets. Onofrio had told him to overlook the girl's bad points. There were always girl friends, he had said with a wink; and, as long as they were kept at a distance, they would bring