Mario Puzo - The Last Don

Cross said, «All your life you were a Santadio.»

Dante whirled sideways to give a smaller target and flung himself on Cross. His strategy worked; the bullet hit him in the shoulder. He had a fraction of a second of joy, that he would win, and then the bullet exploded, taking away half of his arm. And he realized there was no hope. Then he really surprised Cross. With his good arm, he began pulling up the plastic sheeting from the floor. Blood pouring from his body, his arms filled with plastic sheeting, he tried to stagger away from Cross, then held up the sheets of plastic as a silvery shield.

Cross stepped forward. Very deliberately he fired through the plastic, then fired again. The bullets exploded, and Dante's face was almost covered with tiny bits of plastic turned red. Dante's left thigh seemed to separate from his body as Cross fired again. Dante fell, the white rug now held concentric circles of scarlet. Cross knelt beside Dante and wrapped his head with plastic and fired again. The Renaissance cap still on his head exploded upward into the air but remained attached. Cross saw that the hat was secured to the head by some sort of clip but now it rested on an open skull. It seemed to float.

Cross stood up and put the gun in the holster in the small of his back. At that moment Lia came into the room. They looked at each other.

«It's done,» Lia said. «Wash off in the bathroom and go back to the Hotel. And get rid of your clothes. I'll take the gun and clean up.»

«And the rugs and the furniture?» Cross asked.

«I'll take care of everything,» Lia said. «Wash up and go to that party.»

When Cross left, Lia helped himself to a cigar that was on a marble-topped table and looked for bloodstains while he was at it. There were none. But the sofa and the floor were soaked. Well, that was it.

He wrapped Dante's body in the plastic sheeting and, with the help of two of his men, stuffed it into the empty canvas bag. Then he gathered all the plastic sheeting in the room and stuffed it into the same bag. When he had finished, he drew the strings tight. First, they carried the bag containing Losey into the Villa garage and threw it into the van. They made another trip with Dante's body bag.

The van had been modified by Lia Vazzi. It had double floors with a space between the two. Lia and his men squeezed the two bags into the hollow space and then rejoined the floor strips.

As a Qualified Man, Lia had prepared for everything. In the van were two cans of gasoline. He himself carried them back into the Villa and poured them over the floors and furniture. He set a fuse that would give him five minutes to get away. Then he got into the van and started the long drive to L.A.

Before him and after him were the members of his crew.

It was early morning before he pulled onto the pavement in front of the yacht that was waiting for him. He unloaded the two bags and brought them aboard. The yacht pulled away from shore.

It was nearly noon when, far out at sea, he watched the iron cage holding the two bodies slowly descend into the ocean. They had made their final Communion.

Molly Flanders disappeared with her stunt man, to his room in the Hotel rather than to the Villa, because Molly, despite her affection for the less worldly in power, had a tiny trace of the old Hollywood snobbism, she didn't want it known she was screwing below the line.

The wrap party began to filter out just as dawn appeared, the sun rising ominously clad in red, a thin trail of blue smoke rising to meet it.

Cross had changed his clothes and showered and then had gone to the party. He was seated with Claudia, Bobby Bantz, Skippy Deere, and Dita Tommey celebrating the sure success of Messalina. Suddenly there were shouts of alarm from outside. The Hollywood group ran out and Cross followed them.

A thin pillar of fire rose triumphantly over the neon lights of the Vegas Strip. It mushroomed into a great pillow of plum and rosy clouds against the sandy mountains.

«Oh my God,» Claudia said, holding Cross tightly by the arm. «It's one of your Villas.»

Cross was silent. He watched the green flag over the Villa being consumed by smoke and fire, heard the fire engines screaming down the Strip. Twelve million dollars going up in flames to hide the blood he'd shed. Lia Vazzi was a Qualified Man who spared no expense, courted no risks.

BECAUSE HE WAS on official leave, Detective Jim Losey's disappearance wasn't noted until five days after the fire at the Xanadu. The vanishing of Dante Clericuzio was, of course, never reported to any authorities.

The investigation led to the police finding Phil Sharkey's body. Suspicion focused on Losey, and it was assumed he had fled to escape interrogation.

L.A. detectives came to interview Cross because Losey was last seen at the Xanadu Hotel. But there was nothing to show any connection between the two men. Cross explained he had only seen him briefly on the night of the party.

But Cross was not worried about the law. He was waiting to hear from Don Clericuzio.

Surely the Clericuzio knew that Dante was missing, surely they knew he had been at the Xanadu when last seen. Why then had they not contacted him for information. Could the whole matter be passed over so easily? Cross did not believe that for a moment.

He continued to run the Hotel day by day, busy with plans to rebuild the burned-out Villa. Lia Vazzi had certainly taken care of the bloodstains.

Claudia came to visit him. She was brimming over with excitement. Cross arranged for dinner to be brought up to his suite so they could talk in private.

«You're not going to believe this,» she said to Cross. «Your sister is going to be head of LoddStone Studios.»

«Congratulations,» Cross said, giving her a brotherly hug. «I always said you were the toughest of the Clericuzio.»

«I went to our father's funeral for your sake. I made that clear to everyone,» Claudia said with a frown.

Cross laughed. «You certainly did, and you pissed everybody off except the Don himself who said, “Let her go make pictures and God bless her.” »

Claudia shrugged. «I don't care about them. But let me tell you what happened because it is so strange. When we all left Vegas in Bobby's jet, everything seemed perfect. But when we landed in L.A., all hell broke loose. Detectives arrested Bobby. For guess what?»

«Making lousy movies,» Cross teased.

«No, listen, this is weird,» Claudia said. «Remember that girl Johanna that Bantz had with him at the wrap party? Do you remember what she looked like? Well, it turns out she was only fifteen years old. They got Bobby on statutory rape and white slavery because he took her across the state border.» Claudia's eyes were wide with excitement. «But it was all a setup. Johanna's mother and father were there screaming bloody murder that their poor daughter had been raped by a man forty years older.»

«She sure didn't look fifteen,» Cross said. «Though she did look like a good hustler.»

«It would have made a terrible scandal,» Claudia said. «But good old Skippy Deere took charge. He got Bantz off the hook for that moment. He kept him from being arrested and the whole thing getting into the media. So everything seems squared away.»

Cross was smiling. Apparently good old David Redfellow had lost none of his skills.

«It's not funny,» Claudia said reproachfully. «Poor Bobby was framed. The girl swore that Bobby forced her to have sex in Vegas. The father and mother swore they cared nothing for money but wanted to stop all future rapists of young and innocent girls. The whole Studio was in an uproar. Dora and Kevin Marrion were so upset that they talked about selling the Studio. Then Skippy took charge again. He signed the girl to star in a low-budget film, the script to be written by her father. For very good money. Then he got Benny Sly to rewrite the script in one day for a lot of money. Not bad, by the way, Benny is some kind of genius. We're all set. And then the district attorney of Los Angeles insists he's going to prosecute. The DA that LoddStone got elected, the DA who was treated like a king by Eli Marrion. Skippy even offered him a job at the Studio in Business Affairs at a million a year for five years and he turned it down. He insisted Bobby Bantz be fired as head of the Studio. Then he would make a deal. Nobody knows why he was being so hard-nosed.»