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He loved New York. He found an agent – not the best, but Solly was the first agent in a list of twenty who would even meet him. He told him he was Rick Ducane’s son. He didn’t want to, but he knew that agents and PR firms always craved an angle and, if you had one, you’d be damned stupid not to use it.
Solly’s hawklike eyes sharpened to pinpricks over his squashed nose.
‘You’re Rick Ducane’s boy? Hey, that’s good.’ Solly wrote it down. Then he looked up with a frown at his new client’s face. ‘Wasn’t there a scandal with him? A dead woman, something like that?’
Frances nodded. ‘My mother.’
‘Oh – hey, sorry.’ Solly paused and delicately cleared his throat. ‘Would you mind if I mentioned it?’
‘What?’
‘After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Did you see anything . . .?’
‘No. I didn’t.’ Hey, why don’t you just cut a hunk of flesh out my arse, you fucking hyena?
‘I have to ask these things,’ said Solly.
‘Of course.’ Frances smiled.
Solly worked hard for him after that, pushing the name forward, Rick Ducane’s son, getting him bit parts. It was a start. It was the most fun he had ever had in his life, although it was – admittedly – tough. He worked the years away and tried to believe he’d make it big one day. And he had his admirers: the critics were kind and people loitered at the stage door sometimes, pretty young girls, hormonal matrons, stylish young men, to say how much they’d loved his performance, he had pitched it just right, and would he just sign this . . .?
When Frances signed his first batches of autographs at the age of twenty-four, he felt powerful, delighted. The two-week run was slow to start, but eventually packed out by people who’d read favourable reviews. He’d even got a mention from one of the critics best known for his harsh, unforgiving words. So what if all the posters proclaimed him to be the son of Rick Ducane, the once-great Hollywood star? He had got a good review.
Time went on. The admirers still came, and he was easy now about signing the autographs – he was casual, he smiled and was charming. He noticed the tall, thin, sallow-skinned and handsome young man waiting outside the theatre for three evenings on the trot, and when he moved forward to shake the man’s hand, he said: ‘Good grief, you must really like this play.’
The stranger went red in the face. ‘I do like the play,’ he said earnestly. ‘But your performance was the thing that drew me back. You were wonderful in it.’
‘Oh! Well . . . thanks. You’re very kind to say so.’
‘Just truthful,’ said the man. He looked down. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’
‘Oh, I don’t . . .’ said Frances nervously. He’d met his fair share of crazies since coming to the city; he didn’t know this man from Adam.
‘Just a drink,’ the stranger persisted, and he looked up and smiled straight into Frances’s eyes.
He was very handsome, almost Latin in appearance. Frances distinctly felt his stomach do a little back-flip of excitement.
‘Well . . . I don’t see why not.’
‘Excellent,’ said the man. He held out a hand. ‘I’m Rocco Mancini, by the way. Is it true you’re Rick Ducane’s son?’
Within days they were lovers, meeting up at every opportunity. Frances even found he could forgive Rocco for the Rick Ducane question. It seemed to Frances that Rocco avoided the more populated areas of the city whenever they were together. But he didn’t care. They were together, and delighted in the time spent strolling in quiet places, or eating bagels bought from a street-corner vendor. When they were in bed together, it was as if it was always meant to be.
It was bliss.
‘I love you,’ said Frances, as Rocco and he lay entwined in a hotel room one afternoon.
‘I love you too,’ said Rocco, although he didn’t.
He had a real weakness for beauty both in men and women. His own wife Cara was exquisitely lovely and he’d fallen in ‘love’ with her on sight. Only later had he discovered what a spoiled, controlling bitch she was.
If he saw another beautiful boy, another lissom woman, in the next week or so, then – Frances or no Frances – would he have the willpower to turn it down?
Rocco didn’t think so. He knew he was weak. He knew he was an emotional lightweight. He hoped Frances wasn’t expecting too much. Frances had told him about his uncaring father and his mother’s unfortunate death.
‘That’s so tragic,’ said Rocco, thinking of his own doting mother and how awful it would be to lose her.
‘If you love someone, you’re open to all sorts of hurt,’ said Frances. Dad had been wrong about nearly everything else – he was crazy, after all – but he’d been dead right about that. But Rocco had said he loved him.
And right now, right here, maybe he really did . . . although Rocco was growing tired of Frances and finding him clingy.
They took lunch together in the diner on Lexington and Third next day, and Rocco was, for once, a little careless. They sat in the window, smiled and laughed and joked a lot. They looked like what they were – lovers. Rocco knew he’d have to end it soon, but for now, what the hell? It was just fun.
Meanwhile, Saul Jury, the private detective hired by Cara, watched them, and took photographs, and sealed both their fates.
Chapter 15
1971
‘I’m not sure about this,’ said Fredo. There was sweat beading along his upper lip, although the air conditioning in the car was on full blast to counter the humid summer heat of New York.
Cara looked at him coldly. They were sitting in the front of the car watching customers going in and out of the diner. It was evening, and Rocco had told Cara that he was playing poker with friends, and she’d thought, Ha! You’re certainly poking something, my friend.
They had followed him twice before. Fuelled as she was by her need for revenge, still Cara was sick of this. She felt humiliated beyond belief that her husband should do such a thing. Oh, she knew their once passionate marriage had quickly dissolved into mere tolerance on both sides as she discovered that Rocco was pure Jello at the core: vain and stupid and with an almost girlish appreciation of all things beautiful. Maybe that was why he’d married her. Cara knew the value of her own looks; after all, hadn’t she used them to get her own way ever since she’d learned to bat her eyelashes? And she’d used her beauty to ensnare Fredo, because she wanted – needed – his help with this.
But shit, she hated it so much. Following Rocco and persuading Fredo to do what had to be done had stretched her almost to the limit. Fredo had quickly realized that she needed him for the first time ever, and he had sensed an opportunity.
‘I want more,’ he had said when they’d first followed Rocco and she’d explained to him what was to be done.
‘More?’ Cara had stared at him. What was the idiot talking about? Did he want money now?
But Fredo was nodding, smirking. ‘I want sex now. Full sex. Before I do it.’
‘That wasn’t the deal,’ said Cara.
But Fredo – and this was the Fredo she thought she knew; the one who had followed her around like a puppy-dog since childhood; the one whose chain she yanked on a regular basis – only shrugged and smiled.
‘Hey, it’s nothing to me if the bastard cheats on you. But it is to you, and I’m willing to help you, so what’s in it for me?’
‘I told you.
When it’s done . . .’ ‘When it’s done you’ll say thank you very much, Fredo, and get lost,’ he said.
Which was precisely what she had been intending to do. And if Fredo by some chance got named by anyone, and incurred any heat over this from her father, she was going to look all wide-eyed and innocent and say, No, Papa, what, me? No, Fredo must have realized how much Rocco had upset me, and decided to do this on his own. You know how he’s always adored me, the silly thing. I had nothing to do with it.
And who would Constantine believe? Her, or Fredo? She knew the answer to that one.
‘How can you think that?’ she demanded, feigning a hurt expression.
Fredo looked at her and he didn’t seem like an adoring boy any more.
‘I know you, Cara, remember? This is Fredo you’re talking to, not some stranger who’ll be taken in. So I want sex first, not after. When we get back tonight, I want it. Or the deal’s off.’
So what could she do? After the first time they’d followed Rocco, seen him there in the diner with what was obviously his male lover, discussed what they could do, Fredo drove them back to the Montauk estate in her father’s car, drove it into the garage, then got out and locked the garage doors.
‘In the back,’ he said to her, and Cara wondered how it had happened that Fredo, of all people, was ordering her about like this.
Still, she knew she had to comply if she was to get him to help. It was semi-dark in the back of the car, and quiet but for the ticking of the engine as it cooled down. Fredo got in the back too and closed the door. He was up close to her – Jesus, he was trying to kiss her. Cara turned her head away.
Fredo pulled back, uttered a low curse. Suddenly his hands were on her, pushing her skirt up and reaching under, scratching her, bruising her, grabbing her pants and pulling them down, and off. Quickly he got between her legs and then with a groan he unzipped himself. Cara looked away, trying not to feel even his breath on her, but she felt the big hot tip of his penis parting her flesh, felt the hard jolt as he drove it all the way into her cringing body, was pummelled by every manic thrust of it as he had her.
He was finished very quickly. He moaned as he came, and lay there for a moment against her. Then he withdrew, zipped up, flopped back onto the seat beside her. Cara sat there, feeling his disgusting wetness on her thighs. She was trembling, sore, aware that she’d just been raped and that she had brought it entirely on herself.
‘Now,’ said Fredo imperiously when he’d got his breath back. ‘Get your tits out. I want to touch them.’
Shivering and nearly crying, Cara unbuttoned her blouse, unfastened her bra. When she was naked to the waist, Fredo fell upon her, pinching and pulling at the tender flesh of her breasts until he was too aroused to stop. Then he raped her all over again.
The second time they trailed Rocco and finally agreed how the thing would be done, this pattern repeated itself. Fredo drove them home, locked them in the garage, and had Cara forcibly in the back of the car.
Now, it was time for him to keep his part of the bargain. And he was saying: I’m not sure about this.
After all that she had done, all that she had let him do, he wasn’t sure?
She had to breathe deeply to keep her voice from shaking, so ferocious was her hatred of him at that moment.
‘You’re not sure? What do you mean?’ she asked, and she was surprised to hear her own voice emerging from her body with that cool, calm sound to it. Inside, she was raging. She wanted to kill him, she was so angry.
Fredo was silent for a moment. He had the upper hand and he knew it. She would never want her father to know she planned anything like this. Rocco was a Mancini. The word had got around among the boys; they had overheard a shouting-match between Cara and her father, with Cara threatening all sorts. Constantine had said the Mancinis were not to be touched. And okay she wasn’t touching them, but it was a moot point. She would still be doing Rocco harm, if only indirectly.
‘I’m not sure you love me,’ said Fredo, and turned his head and grinned at her. ‘Joking,’ he said.
Cara had to look away or she was afraid she was going to throw up all over the bastard.
‘Look,’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘You know what you’ve got to do, yes?’
‘I know,’ said Fredo.
Cara glanced at her watch. ‘They should be out soon.’
And then it would be over, she thought.
But, she wondered, would it? She felt she had descended straight to hell to wreak her revenge on Rocco. Maybe the price had been too dear. Maybe not. Only time would tell. Now all she wanted, all she was here for, was to be absolutely sure that what she needed Fredo to do, was done.
‘There’s Rocco,’ said Fredo.
They watched silently as Rocco came out of the diner and walked quickly away down the block.
Minutes passed. Fredo casually laid a hand on Cara’s thigh. She let it stay there, but only by an extreme act of will. God, he disgusted her.
‘There he is,’ said Fredo, and left the car.
Frances Ducane was walking back to his car, thinking happily about the coming weekend. Under the pretext of a golfing break with the boys, Rocco and he were going to take off alone to a cabin in the Rockies. Frances loved Rocco and he wanted more time with him, but he understood that Rocco’s witch of a wife came with the money, and the money was what they enjoyed, so she had to be tolerated.
Cow, thought Frances in disgust. Swanky Upper East Side Princess with her nose in the air, busy spending Daddy’s money. And he knew from Rocco there was plenty of it. Why else had Rocco married her? For love? Frances didn’t think so.
‘Hey – faggot,’ said a voice behind him.
Frances felt a shudder of fear jolt up his spine to the top of his head. He half turned and then felt the first stinging lash of the blade as it struck the edge of his mouth. Blood splattered out and gushed down over his clothes. Frances screamed with pain. He staggered back, half running, desperate to get away, and Fredo came after him, shoving him back against a building wall, slashing in with the knife that glinted in his hand.
‘No!’ Frances wailed, hardly able to speak now, raising his hands to protect himself.
Fredo waded in, slicing fingers and palms indiscriminately. Two digits spun off into the gutter, blood spurting, and when Frances lowered his hands to stare at them in horror, Fredo came in close again and slashed the other side of Frances’s mouth wide open.
Frances fell to his knees, groaning. The crimson slashes on either side of his mouth looked like a clown’s painted-on smile: grotesque.
Fredo knelt down too, grabbed a handful of hair and yanked Frances’s head back.
‘That’s a present from Rocco and Cara Mancini, you little shit. Now back off,’ he hissed. Then he wiped the knife on the front of Frances’s once-pristine shirt and left the man there, blubbering and bleeding.
Fredo slipped the knife back in his pocket and made his way back to the car. He got in.
‘Well?’ said Cara. ‘Did you . . .?’
‘Yeah, I did.’
‘Show me the knife.’
‘Jesus,’ said Fredo. He’d already wiped it clean, what the hell, didn’t she trust him?
But there were traces of blood still on the blade. Cara sat back, satisfied. ‘And it went okay?’ she asked.
Fredo slipped the knife into his pocket and grinned at her. ‘It went fine,’ he said. ‘Let’s go home and fuck.’
Chapter 16
When Annie left the massive master suite with its sprawling ocean view, she walked straight into Cara.
Annie groaned inwardly. Her relationship with her step-daughter had never got off the ground. She had tried hard to befriend Cara, but she found her snobbish, vain and unlovable. She spoke to Annie hardly at all, and Annie thought that was just fine, if that was the way Cara wanted it.
But today, something about Cara seemed different. She looked . . . well, Annie wasn’t exactly sure how Cara looked. Usually, Constantine’s daughter exuded an icy poise that left no room for even an attempt at civility. But today, Cara looked shattered. She looked as though someone had just given her a scare that had rocked her world. She looked sick.
‘Cara?’ Annie caught her arm as Cara was about to pass right by her without a word. ‘Are you all right?’
Cara’s eyes met hers and in that instant before her guard went up, Annie saw something there; something bruised, something covert and uncertain. But then the shutters were in place again and Cara just stared at Annie coldly.
‘Like you care,’ she said, and looked pointedly at Annie’s hand resting on her arm.
Annie removed it. ‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.’
