Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,33

no shame to the family name. One must never overlook, his father had said, the peculiar Sicilian ideas about honor.

The two young people had had a total of three dates, all of them well chaperoned. They were married at Salve Regina Church in Brooklyn. The reception in the grand ballroom at the Hotel Commodore was a convention of politicians, monsignors and Organization luminaries from both coasts and most of the states in between. And that night Mario dimmed the light in the bridal suite and learned that he had married a sexual zombie. One week after this depressing discovery, while honeymooning in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal, Mario received a phone call telling of his father's sudden death. His father had apparently dozed off behind the wheel of his Fleetwood in Jersey City. And for some reason he had selected that night to give Louie, his bodyguard-chauffeur, some time off. The car had plunged through the guard rail just south of the Park Street viaduct and spilled down the cliff onto Hoboken, exploding in a ball of flames.

A meeting of the board was held. Septimo took over the joint Organization with his father's old friend, Gino Viccardi, as underboss. It was agreed that Mario should start at the bottom. He would have to be blooded. If all went well, Gino would retire in eight years and Mario would take his place as underboss. And some day, when old Septimo decided to step aside, Mario would be expected to fill his shoes. He had done as he was told. He had been blooded in Cicero, Illinois, and he would never forget that first kill. He had met the rebellious union reformer behind the Giaconda and blown off the back of his skull with two .45-caliber slugs.

Though Mario had always used a gun, he got no pleasure out of killing. It was a job that had to be done. And a gun was the quickest way to do the job. Men like Louie and Danny liked to make death last. They used piano wire and knives. Louie was an expert at loosening the wire just before his victim passed out, then tightening it again, then repeating the cycle. Danny could probe his knife in just short of a vital spot and then twist it out for still another jab. They liked what they did; maybe that's why they were still doing it. But ten years had passed and Mario no longer had to do the dirty work. He had no criminal record, and now he was the underboss of the combined Organization. Gillian Blake. He savored the name as he repeated it. Class, just like Gilly herself. She was a thoroughbred. Class. The way she floated into a room. The way she dressed. The way she talked. The way she ate.

Why hadn't he plowed her when they first met for lunch? He could have, he was sure. There had been women in Cicero, in Jacksonville, in a dozen other towns where he had paused to kill on contract. He knew he appealed to women. His black hair was frosted at the temples but he kept himself in shape. His taste in clothing was expensive but not flashy – Sulka shirts, Brooks Brothers suits, rep ties. They had met at the studio to discuss the possibility of having Johnny on the Billy & Gilly Show. Her husband, Bill was his name, had left them – had said there was a squash match at the Racquet Club. It wasn't until that moment that he had figured Gilly for a score.

"Why don't we have lunch, Mr. Vella?" she had said. She had been wearing a sack dress, and only two parts of her touched the material. Sure, he had answered.

She had suggested Michael's Pub. She had ordered a martini, specifying the gin, telling the waiter "just a breath of vermouth." Class. He stuck with a tall Scotch and water and she stuck with martinis, three of them. She knew exactly what she wanted and she made certain that she got it. After lunch he suggested that he drive her home. She had said that would certainly be preferable to the Long Island Rail Road.

It had been Gilly who suggested the tour on the way home – she had asked him to drive north to Oldfield so she could see the winter sun set on the Sound. "If we watched from our own cliffs," she had said, "people would think we were lovers." They parked