She smiled a little, too; but it didn’t last long — rage returned: “It’s not fair. The war is over — it’s fucking over!”
He shook his head. “It’s never going to be over for us. Especially your mother. So stay close to her. Next year... when you’re off at college? You’ll need to come home more often than you’d probably like.”
“If Mike is... if he’s not ever coming home, if he’s... if he got killed — will we know?”
“Maybe.”
“But... maybe not? Maybe we just have to hang in limbo, forever?”
“I wish I knew the answer, Annie... sorry. Anna.”
She threw herself at him and hugged him. Tight. “You call me that all you want, Daddy. You call me that all you want.”
When he left her room, she was studying her Sound of Music script, and Carole King was softly singing “You Need a Friend.” All was right with their father-daughter world again... or as right as a world could be without her brother in it.
This was Monday, his first day back at Cal-Neva — he had virtually not set foot out of his house since that staff sergeant arrived with the news — and now Michael sat at his desk staring out the picture window at the green pines and sparkling lake and brilliant blue sky, which hadn’t changed at all, despite the Satarianos having their universe upended.
Tomorrow was May first, and the casino resort would be open for business, so many of his staff were here, not just maintenance but kitchen and bartending and... well, everybody. Word had gotten around about Mike, and one by one they’d stopped to speak respectfully to their boss. Many of them knew Mike, and these comments were particularly appreciated if painful.
One disappointment was the last-minute cancellation of Bobby Darin, who was having health problems, it seemed; but Keely Smith had been available to take the singer’s place in the Sinatra Celebrity Showroom, and she had a long history with Cal-Neva.
The beautiful Smith had even dated Sam Giancana, after her divorce from Louis Prima, though she’d never been an item like Phyllis McGuire. This reminder of Giancana was an unsettling one, however: Michael’s confrontation with Momo had taken place just minutes before he’d been called home to deal with the crisis of the notification about Mike being MIA.
He had not forgotten or ignored the Giancana situation — he had even taken certain precautions here and at home, including picking up two handguns belonging to his son and daughter at the gun club shooting range, and bringing the weapons to the house.
Not that he really expected any retaliation from Giancana: Sam was out of power, if possibly contemplating a return to it, and any overt attempt to muscle Michael — who was responsible only to Tony Accardo himself, now that Paul Ricca was gone — could have severe ramifications for the man they called Mooney.
But here, in the context of work, away from the tragedy of recent days, Michael wondered if he’d been negligent about contacting Accardo. He had once worked for the so-called Big Tuna, and although direct meetings between them over the past several decades had been infrequent, Michael felt certain a mutual respect remained.
If Giancana was contemplating the killing of Mad Sam, Accardo should probably be told. But Michael was so far out of the Outfit loop these days, he didn’t really know where to turn — all his contacts were with the late Ricca’s people. Accardo was mostly living at his ritzy Palm Springs — area estate, these days...
And Michael barely knew the current Chicago boss, Aiuppa. But was there any reason to think Giancana was up to anything more than just trying to silence that crazy fuck DeStefano, before the madman spilled to the feds?
This Michael was pondering when he heard the sound of stone grating on stone.
He glanced to his right, toward the fireplace, and saw the left stony pillar moving — just a little, as if being tested...
Quickly he was out from behind the desk and, moving silently on crepe soles, went to the fireplace and reached up and plucked the Garand rifle from its perch over the mantel, above the citation from General Wainwright.
His back to the stone of the other fireplace pillar, Michael stood poised like a soldier on a patriotic postage stamp...
Then the pillar swung out, the grinding of stone on stone making a soft unearthly scream, and a heavyset gray-haired black-mustached man in a black raincoat sprang out like a guest at a surprise party, and aimed a .22 automatic with a silver cylindrical silencer at the empty desk.
As his visitor burst in, Michael lunged and, as if wielding a bayonet, thrust the Garand rifle’s nose deep into the man’s stomach, burying it there.
The would-be assassin, surprised, did manage to swing the .22 toward Michael, who squeezed the trigger on the rifle; loading it had been one of those precautions he had taken after Giancana came calling.
Fabric and fat served as Michael’s own homemade silencer as the bullet bore into the belly, and the sound of the shot was no louder than the .22 clunking onto the floor, unfired.
Then Michael swung the rifle stock up and, with a swift short hammering with the butt of the weapon, smashed the man’s nose, jamming bone into brain, killing him quickly, so that no cry would emanate from his guest to bring others in from beyond the office — whether Cal-Neva staff, or an accomplice through the secret passage.
Michael grabbed the man by the arm and — before the literal deadweight could fall to the floor and mess up the carpet with blood and shit (the smell told Michael evacuation had occurred) — dragged him into the passageway, and let him lie there, his stomach leeching blood onto cement to pool.
Then Michael returned to his office just long enough to pick the silenced .22 automatic up off the floor, and paused to see if anyone had heard anything and come checking — it was midafternoon, and some of the staff was already gone.
Nothing.
He stepped back into the passageway. His guest had moved through darkness, but Michael found the wall switch just beyond the fireplace, turning on the sporadic caged yellow ceiling lights, and pulled the rope handle on the pillar, shutting himself within the hidden corridor with his dead visitor.
Rifle in his left and .22 in his right, Michael made his way through the hidden hallway. At first the walls were pine and the floor cement, as he traveled through the recesses of the Cal-Neva Lodge itself; shortly the route became a kind of tunnel with cement-brick walls, indoor-outdoor carpeting, the yellowish overhead bulbs providing what struck Michael as a coal-mine effect. A fairly steep descent followed the slope of the hill.
Sinatra had put this underground tunnel in connecting the office with Mooney Giancana’s favorite cabin (number 50) as well as various other passageways, including one that led from the star dressing room of the Celebrity Showroom to Sinatra’s favorite cabin (number 52).
As for Michael’s late guest, the Cal-Neva manager had at once recognized the guy as a longtime lieutenant of Mad Sam DeStefano’s, Tommy Aiello, who’d had a spot in the Outfit since the ’40s, despite being the cousin of an old Capone enemy. The fifty-something hood had probably iced a dozen victims for Mad Sam, sitting in on countless torture sessions under the ice-pick maestro.
Michael knew how these hit teams (whether Outfit or freelance) operated — almost always in twos, the designated hitter and a backup who also served as driver. He fully expected the second man to be waiting either inside cabin 50 — which was now the resort’s on-site beauty shop, no staff present, day before the lodge opened — or parked somewhere nearby.
At the end of the tunnel, the passageway straightened out, walls becoming pine again, and led to a nondescript white door, the kind that waits atop many a front stoop.
Padding up quietly, Michael propped his rifle soundlessly against the wall, and — the silenced .22 automatic in hand — leaned against the door as he carefully, slowly turned the knob, opening it just a crack, the weapon poised to fire.