V is for Vengeance (Kinsey Millhone 22)

He and Lola, his girlfriend of eight years, had returned the night before from a ski trip to Lake Louise, where a fluke in temperatures made the runs almost too sloppy to ski. He hated cold weather anyway, and if it had been up to him, he’d have cut the trip short, but Lola was adamant and wouldn’t even entertain the idea. He found vacations stressful. He didn’t like to be idle and he didn’t like being separated from his business dealings. He was looking forward to getting back in the swing of things.

At 7:00 that Monday morning, he showered and dressed. He could smell coffee, bacon, and something sugar-scented. He looked forward to eating in solitude, catching up on the news while he lingered over his meal. Before he went down to breakfast, he stopped by his father’s quarters on the second floor. The door was open and the nurse was in the process of changing his sheets. She told him his father had had a rough night and had finally abandoned any hope of sleep. He’d put on his suit and had Tomasso take him into the office in Santa Teresa. Most days, the old man sat at his desk for hours, drinking coffee, reading biographies of long-dead political greats, and working the New York Times crossword puzzle until it was time to go home.

Dante went down to the basement level and took the tunnel from the main house to the Cottage. Coming up from below, he crossed a short stretch of lawn to the guesthouse to pay his morning visit to his Uncle Alfredo, who’d been living there since he was discharged from the hospital after cancer surgery the year before. Originally, the guesthouse had been set up to accommodate a series of nannies who worked for the previous owner. Now one of the two bedrooms was outfitted with a hospital bed and the second bedroom was available for the night nurses. A nurse’s aide came in days to help with his care.

Alfredo was his father’s sole surviving brother and virtually penniless. Two younger brothers, Donatello and Amo, at ages nineteen and twenty-two, had died the same day, February 7, 1943, two days before the Battle of Guadalcanal came to an end.

Dante couldn’t figure out what had happened to Pop and his Uncle Alfredo. How could you reach the end of your life and have nothing to show for it? Pop claimed it was bad financial advice from an accountant who was “no longer with the firm,” meaning six feet under. Dante suspected what his father referred to as bad financial advice was really the function of his living perpetually beyond his means.

Lorenzo Senior was a local boy who’d risen to prominence during Prohibition, smart enough to cash in on the boom. The market was wide open with a premium placed on rotgut liquor. Gambling and prostitution seemed to flourish in the same spirit of excess. He’d never regarded the major syndicate mobsters as his allies. New York, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, and Las Vegas seemed remote. He was distantly related to many of the players, but his ambitions were strictly provincial, and Santa Teresa was the perfect small community for promoting the sin trades. His organization became a feeder to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Beyond those two cities, he had little interest. He didn’t interfere with the big boys and they didn’t interfere with him. He had an open-door policy, offering safe haven for any made man who needed to lay low for a while. He also entertained his Midwest and East Coast cronies with a generous hand. The West Coast was already a magnet to rich and restless citizens who came from every part of the country, looking for sunshine, relaxation, and sheltered surroundings in which to indulge their low appetites.

For six decades, Lorenzo Senior had enjoyed his status. Now he was treated with all the deference due a man who’d once wielded power but wielded it no more. Times had changed. The same money could be made from the same sordid activities but with a firewall of paid protection. The legal profession and big business now provided all the cover that was needed, and life went on as before. Control had passed to his oldest son, Dante, who’d worked for years papering over the cracks with a veneer of respectability.

Lorenzo had taken for granted he’d die young and therefore had no need to provide for himself in his old age. Alfredo was the same way, so maybe it was something they’d learned in their youth. Whatever the source of their poor decisions, they now lived on Dante’s dime. He also supported his brother, Cappi, who was supposedly “getting on his feet” after an early release on a five-year bid at Soledad. Three of Dante’s four sisters were spread out across the country, married to men who did well (thank god) with twelve children among them, democratically distributed at three apiece. Elena lived in Sparta, New Jersey; Gina in Chicago; and Mia in Denver. His favorite sister, Talia, widowed two years before, had moved back to Santa Teresa. Her two sons, now twenty-two and twenty-five, were college graduates with good jobs. Her youngest, a daughter, was attending Santa Teresa City College and living at home. Talia was the only one of his sisters he talked to with any regularity. Her husband had left her megabucks and she didn’t look to Dante for financial support, which was a blessing. As it was, he had twelve full-time and five part-time employees at the house.