Touch Of The White Tiger

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Marco made good time over the bridge and parked in the floating commuter lot that sat a quarter of a mile offshore. From there he’d have to take a turbo-gondola to his mother’s apartment.

To keep her safe, Marco had moved Natasha Marco Black here to the old neighborhood nearly twenty years ago when he’d broken with the R.M.O. Though she’d raised Marco here until he was five, she’d moved back to her old Russian neighborhood after his father, Luigi Marco, had died. On the north side, she settled down with a nice postal worker named George Black, who passed away five years later. Natasha and George had one son, Danny, Marco’s beloved kid brother.

As the gondola sliced through Lake Michigan’s choppy, dark water, inching down the Grand Canal, Marco inhaled the cool lake air. He admired the small palazzi as he passed, and the crooked line of multicolored town houses that towered over either side of the waterway.

Little Venice had been built about seventy-five years ago when Chicago became totally landlocked. When the Italian Mafia had been put out of business by a string of federal lawsuits and competition from other ethnic syndicates, the former Mob bosses turned to legitimate real estate.

The idea was to build a replica of Venice in the American Midwest. But when the original Venice in Italy sank into the sea beyond repair, many of the sixteenth-century buildings, piazzas and basilicas had been shipped to Chicago. What resulted was a charming, historically significant piece of lake property that was partly residential and partly a tourist attraction. The tourist angle insured that it was safe.

Marco visited his mother whenever he could, which was not as often as he should, and he steeled himself against her usual admonishments.

“Marco, Marco, why didn’t you come see me sooner?” she cooed when he entered her small, second-story apartment.

It was filled with a garish mix of iconography from old Russia, Italy and Vatican City. She’d downloaded photos of the newly consecrated Pope John Paul VI, otherwise known as El Papa Mabuto Ganni, the first Swahili to hold the post. She’d positioned the photo next to a portrait of Rasputin, who’d finally achieved sainthood a decade ago.

“Marco,” Natasha said, stroking his cheeks with smooth, warm palms. “You don’t look good, my darling boy. What is the matter? You can tell your mama.”

He gently gripped her frail shoulders and kissed her forehead. She possessed the best—and most trying—qualities of motherhood shared by her inherited Russian culture and her adopted Italian. She was overprotective, doting and superstitious. Her long dark, silver-streaked hair fell out of a bun, occasionally tumbling in front of dark, lined eyes that ominously studied his face as if his worry lines could portend the future.

“What has happened, Marco?”

He smiled. “Nothing that I need worry you about. I had some time to kill. It’s too early to make business calls. Do you have a shot of whiskey?”

Her quarter-moon mouth widened in triumph. “Is the pope Swahili?”

He took two shots of whiskey in the kitchen. The American-made liquor was her second husband’s only cultural holdover.

Marco managed to keep the conversation on a light note while he and his mother ate breakfast. When it was time to say farewell, Natasha grabbed his arm just before he could get out the door.

“Did you get him yet, Marco? Is that why you look so worried today?”

Marco set his mouth in a grim, tired line. “No.”

“Tell me you did, son.” Then she added in a whisper, her nails digging into his arm, “Tell me you’ve killed Vladimir Gorky. That bastard killed my Danny.”

“Yes, Ma,” he said patiently, “I know. I was the one who told you about Gorky setting Danny up on that drug raid.”

“Then get him! What are you waiting for?” When she started to cry, as she inevitably did at every goodbye, he crushed her petite body in a warm, silencing embrace.

“Don’t worry, Ma.” He kissed the top of her head. “Justice is always done in the end.”

When he stepped out onto the street below, he exhaled loudly, then took in a musing breath when he spotted a familiar figure strolling his way.

“Glad that’s over with, eh, Ricco?” called Sasha, his 25-year-old cousin, who stopped when he was close enough to clap Marco warmly on the back. His gruff smile notwithstanding, Sasha looked like an R.M.O. operative, with bluntly cut black hair, pale skin and dark circles under his eyes. His knee-length black shirt hanging over black jeans added to his mobster mystique.

“Sash, what are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. Did the old lady beg you to kill Gorky again?”

Marco nodded and heaved a sigh as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

Sasha shook his head. “You have my sympathies. Aunt Natasha is one determined lady. Too bad she had to find out what really happened to Danny.”

“Yeah.” Marco nodded toward the canal. He had only recently found out himself for sure—Danny had been gunned down in an R.M.O.-related drug deal because he wouldn’t let Gorky buy him off. Danny had tried to make an arrest, but his crooked partner had provided no backup. Danny had been honest. Innocent. Now he was dead. “I’m going back.”

Sasha’s impassive face relinquished a concerned frown. “Uh, not yet, Ricco. I need to tell you something.” He glanced cautiously over both his bony shoulders, then leaned in close. “I followed you out here from the city so I could deliver a message. You have an appointment tonight at Falling Water on the Lake.”