From where Sarah sat at the wheel of the speedboat, her head craned over her shoulder, she knew only that Mollie had suddenly gone under. Spills were common, though, and Mollie had been water-skiing ever since she was seven, when her grandfather added a speedboat to his other Caribbean possessions. She was skilled and daring, and until this moment, Sarah had never felt the slightest qualms about allowing her daughter to rip up the ocean behind a boat doing twenty miles an hour over open water. In fact, for the past year now, Mollie had been skiing without a life vest, pleading greater freedom of movement and a thorough knowledge of what she was doing, and Sarah hadn’t seen any danger to it.
She swung the boat around in a tight turn now, opened the throttle full, and headed back toward where she’d last seen Mollie. There was a moderate chop today, the boat skidded and thudded over the waves as she closed the distance, waiting for her daughter to surface, avoiding the tow-rope, the last thing she wanted now was to get the rope tangled in the boat’s... there! Mollie’s blond head popping to the surface. Mouth opening wide to suck in air, waves breaking under her chin. Some twenty yards beyond her, a man was standing at the railing of a big Grand Banks, yelling in Spanish. And then another man climbed onto the rail, hung there against the sky for just a moment, dove overboard, and began swimming toward Mollie just as she went under again.
Sarah silently willed the speedboat forward, urging it to go faster than it possibly could, pushing it against wind and chop, the towline safely behind her, aware now of the swimmer in the water, plowing against the waves in a fast crawl to where Mollie’s head broke the surface again. Another mouthful of air, Sarah was close enough to see her face now, panic in those blue eyes. She clawed at the sky, and went under for the third time, and the swimmer dove down after her.
Sarah pulled back on the throttle, began circling the area where her daughter and the swimmer had gone under. There was only the sound of the idling engine now, the boat lazily circling the spot where they’d disappeared, the sky so blue overhead, the seconds lengthening, and lengthening and lengthening, and...
She was on the edge of screaming when first Mollie’s head broke the surface of the water, and then her narrow shoulders, and then the swimmer’s hands clutching her waist. His own head broke the surface at last, brown hair flattened against his skull. He sucked in a deep breath of air, pushed aside Mollie’s flailing hands, and rolled her onto her back. Cupping her chin with one hand, he swam her over to where Sarah leaned over the gunwales and lifted her daughter into the boat.
Two weeks before he was arrested and charged with four counts of second-degree murder, Anthony Faviola’s thoughts — and his conversation — turned to matters merely mortal. It was almost as if he knew what was coming. Knew that he’d soon be looking not only at the four counts, each of which carried lifetime sentences under the federal guidelines, but also at another possible lifetime sentence on a RICO charge.
The conversation had taken place at the bugged corner table in Club Sorrento. The boss’s table. Reserved for Faviola and his closest cronies whenever they dropped in, which was often. In the transcript, Anthony and his brother, Rudy, were identified by the now-familiar initials AF and RF. Apparently the men were drinking; perhaps Anthony might not have been so candid were he not somewhat in his cups. And whereas Michael had never held a soft spot in his heart for anyone who broke the law, he felt something like sympathy as he read the words of this man who did not know he was being taped and could not have known what the future held in store for him, and yet who was predicting it quite sadly and accurately:
AF: I keep thinking they’re closing in on me.
RF: Come on, come on.
AF: I mean it, Rude. Everywhere I go, everything I do, they’re on top of me. It’s like they won’t let me breathe.
RF: Fuck ’em, that’s just the way they are. They got nothin’ better to do than break people’s balls.
AF: Have some more of this.
RF: Just a little.
AF: Say when.
RF: That’s enough, ay, hold it.
AF: I don’t care for myself, you understand. I’ve had a good life.
RF: Don’t let them fucks bother you, Anth. They’re nothin’.
AF: It’s not me I care about. It’s Tessie, the kids. What kind of life can it be for them, these bums coming around all the time?
RF: They’re nothin’, don’t let them get to you.
AF: Angela and Carol, I don’t think it bothers them as much as...
RF: They’re beautiful girls, Anth. You got beautiful daughters.
AF: They love their Uncle Rudy, I can tell you that.
RF: I’d breath their heads, they didn’t.
(Laughter)
AF: But a son. It’s different for a son. How many kids like him get to go to college? But he fucked up, right? I think because he liked Vegas too much.
RF: Well, yeah, Vegas.
AF: Tessie was so proud of him. So he gets himself kicked out for drinkin’ an’ fightin’. Have some more of this.
RF: Thanks. Watch how you’re pouring, you son of a bitch, you’ll get me drunk.
AF: You know how much I paid for this?
RF: How much?
AF: Six ninety-five a bottle.
RF: Come on.
AF: I’m serious. I bought six cases.
RF: Where’d you get this, six ninety-five a bottle?
AF: The guy around the corner.
RF: What is it, Spanish? They make cheap wine, the Spanish.
AF: No, no, it’s Italian.
RF: Six fuckin’ ninety-five? I can’t believe it.
AF: It’s delicious, I think.
RF: It’s fuckin’ superb.
AF: Six ninety-five.
RF: But, you know, Anth, when it comes to kids...
AF: It should all be as simple as wine.
RF: Nothin’s simple, Anth. Forget anything bein’ simple, there’s nothin’ simple.
AF: Girls are different.
RF: Also, they’re both married. You got to remember that. It makes a difference.
AF: Oh, sure. Nice boys, too, they married. You like them?
RF: Oh, sure. Well, not Sam so much. He’s a fuckin’ know-it-all. But the other one...
AF: Larry.
RF: Yeah, Larry.
AF: Larry, yeah. He’s okay.
RF: He’s very nice. A good kid. He likes me, too, I can tell. His fuckin’ Uncle Rudy. He calls me Uncle Rudy.
AF: You know what I wish. This is if God forbid they ever send me away, what I wish...
RF: Come on, stop it. Have some more wine. Come on. I don’t like to hear this shit.
Back to the good cheap wine again, Michael thought. Six ninety-five a bottle from the guy around the corner. Italian wine. It should all be as simple as wine. He wished they’d mentioned the label. At six ninety-five a bottle, he’d buy six cases himself.
AF: But if they do put me away Rude...
RF: That’s never gonna happen, so don’t even think it.
AF: But if they do, you know who I want to take over for me?
RF: I hope you’re not gonna say me, ’cause I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t want the fuckin’ job.
AF: Listen, you’d be terrific, Rudy, but...
RF: Thanks, I don’t want it. Anyway, you’re not going no place, so forget it. Have some more wine, you jackass, stop talkin’ stupid.