Макс Коллинз - Road to Paradise

So she’d had all of that erased, and a little breast lift, too, two years ago (she had met forty-five with the terror some women experience at fifty), and Pat Satariano remained a reasonable, very recognizable adult version of the astonishingly beautiful Patsy Ann O’Hara, who had been a high school homecoming queen in DeKalb, Illinois, back in 1938.

Right now, mowing their lawn on this crisp spring day in her white tube top and blue short-shorts and white sneakers, she was still wolf-whistle-worthy, a slender, long-legged, shapely blue-eyed blonde with shagged hair brushing her shoulders, Carly Simon — style. She’d always kept trim, exercising decades before fitness was “in”; her grooming remained impeccable, and she stayed as fashionable as possible, considering the nearest “big” city was Reno, an hour away. (If it weren’t for the I. Magnin shop at Cal-Neva, she would have gone mad in Crystal Bay.)

She and Michael had been high school sweethearts, and she’d gone to college right there in DeKalb, at Northern, while initially Michael worked for his folks, Mama and Papa Satariano, at their spaghetti house. Then her beau had been among the first to enlist — even before Pearl Harbor — and was likewise among the first to return.

He’d come back from Bataan with a glass left eye and the war’s first Congressional Medal of Honor.

She knew of the torturous history behind Michael using that heroic distinction to go to work for Frank Nitti; she was aware of his misguided and dangerous attempt to take revenge for the murders of his mother, brother, and father. She knew, too, the convoluted circumstances that had led to his remaining among those people.

All these years.

And yet, despite the underlying tensions of who her husband’s employers were, their life had been almost placid. Michael’s job paid very well, they had a lovely home (a rambling ranch-style in the Country Club subdivision), and their children had grown up here in the small affluent community of Crystal Bay (California), under the bluest sky God had ever whipped up in His celestial kitchen.

For the first ten years or so, the couple had stayed in the Chicago area, Patsy Ann teaching (high school literature) and Michael working for... those people. The Satarianos had settled in Oak Park, and she taught at nearby working-class Berwyn; and the first few years — when Michael was assisting Mr. Accardo, mostly out of the Morrison Hotel in the Loop — had been tense. Pat wasn’t sure what Michael had done for Mr. Accardo in those days, and never asked.

But after that, Michael strictly worked in legitimate areas for his employers, usually a restaurant or nightclub. Occasionally the Satarianos spent time in Vegas, sometimes as long as several months — vacations, really — and almost always over Christmas, when he’d be filling in at the Sands.

The plan had been for Pat to work for a while, and then they’d start their family. They began seriously trying in the late forties, and for a while it looked like she might be teaching school forever; but Mike, Jr., came along in 1951, and Anna in 1956. Good Catholics though they were, the Satarianos nonetheless decided to hold it at two.

Somehow they’d managed to create little replicas of themselves — young Mike was a quiet, serious boy who loved to read, not an A student but a good one, who excelled at sports, football and baseball, as had his dad. Anna was dark-haired and dark-eyed but otherwise the image of her mom; and like her mom, Anna was popular and a cheerleader and an honor student, obsessed with movies, theater, and pop music.

No one ever had better kids.

And moving to Crystal Bay had only been beneficial — even in the suburbs, Chicago had a dark side. Mike — their son was always “Mike,” and his father “Michael,” to differentiate them around the house — had been old enough, at twelve, to find the uprooting traumatic; but the boy got over it, particularly when the girls ooohed and aaahed over his dark hair and dark eyes. Anna was only in the first grade, so that had been less of a problem.

With no Catholic church in either Crystal Bay or its Nevada neighbor Incline Village, the Satarianos joined St. Theresa’s in South Lake Tahoe — though only thirty miles, the journey in this mountainous, twisty territory took easily forty-five minutes. Both kids had complained, every single Sunday, from grade school through high school, about this imposition on their time; but the parents insisted, and Pat had been fairly active in the church, now that she was no longer teaching.

Pat couldn’t really say Michael had been a warm father, not in the effusive sense — he showered both kids with gifts, and always had time for them, but he was quiet and sparing with praise. Somehow their daughter had always been closer to her father, and their son to his mother.

A funny split between father and son occurred during grade school, when Mike — ever the sports nut — started obsessively following college and national teams, his room a collage of posters and pennants. Though he’d been a high school star athlete himself, the boy’s father had no interest in either collegiate or professional sports — to him, they were only games that fueled gambling, and represented a sort of busman’s holiday.

Michael would say to Pat, “That shit’s just the point spread.”

So it had been Pat who sat and watched TV with her son, and followed the teams, football and baseball, while Michael accompanied Anna to the movies they both loved, and theater, and he always made sure the whole family got ringside seats in Vegas and at the Cal-Neva for Sinatra and Darin and Judy Garland and Elvis... plus backstage handshakes and autographs.

Because of his line of work, Michael was in a position to put Anna in contact with her dreams, and just last year he had ushered her around Hollywood, introducing her to top actors and actresses and directors and producers, getting the full tour of various Hollywood studios, going on set during the making of (wouldn’t you know it) The Godfather . Acting and singing were Anna’s big ambitions, and her father clearly intended to pave the way.

Pat appreciated both her daughter’s talent, and her husband’s interest in helping their gifted girl, but Mom was afraid their little A student might skip college and go right into show business, which was — let’s face it — just a bunch of low-life carnival people (however talented) doing the bidding of garment merchants and gangsters. This particular argument was one of the few recurring ones in a predominantly happy, mutually supportive marriage.

“You’re a closet bigot,” Michael would say.

“I am not!” These were always fighting words to liberal Pat.

“You say ‘carny people,’ but you mean ‘wops’ and ‘kikes.’”

“I do not!”

“Never forget the world thinks I’m one of those wops... who happens to have provided a pretty goddamn good life for us, I might add.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“And what makes you think ‘micks’ are any better than the other European riffraff! We all washed up on the Ellis Island shore, didn’t we?”

This was an argument that always ended with Pat retreating to a brooding silence, which was unusual, because the pattern on just about every other topic was the reverse. Michael seldom got as verbal as he did when this particular button got pushed.

And she understood: deep down, he felt guilty about the life he led; but, as he’d pointed out, the result for his family had been overwhelmingly positive. And he was, after all, a legitimate businessman, despite certain ties...

Now, it should never be said that Michael treated Anna as his “favorite.” He backed his son’s interests, too — however disinterested Michael might be in professional sports, the father had always been a keen follower of his son’s local endeavors in the athletic arena. Even with his demanding, often punishing schedule, Michael had rarely missed a Little League, junior high, or high school game — even the intramurals at St. Theresa’s.