Christopher Smith - Fifth Avenue

To her surprise, Celina watched Diana Crane rush from the building.

There was a bandage on her forehead. One eye was slightly swollen. Celina heard Diana say, “I’m going with him.” She watched in disbelief as the woman climbed into the back of the ambulance. No one objected.

The paramedics were lifting the stretcher. Celina knew it was Eric lying there even before the sheet fell to one side and revealed his broken face.

For a moment, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move or react. Her mind began making connections. She remembered her father calling a week ago and saying, “Leana’s been beaten, Celina. Eric did it the night of the party-probably not long after you left the room. If I had known that earlier this morning, Eric would be in the hospital now, instead of just looking for a job.”

She knew her father was responsible for this. She was sure of it.

Why else would he have asked Elizabeth and her to leave the room before making that call?

The ambulance’s doors slammed shut. The sound broke Celina’s reverie and she saw that the vehicle was preparing to leave. She was about to run forward and ask what hospital they were taking him to when she caught sight of her sister in the crowd.

For a moment, Celina could only stare.

Arms crossed, face grim, Leana was standing across from her, sandwiched between two tall, muscular men. She was wearing dark glasses, a black pant suit, no jewelry. Her hair was pulled away from her face.

Celina called out her name.

Alarmed, Leana turned in her direction. Their eyes met. Leana took a step back.

Celina called out her name again.

Leana ignored her. She spoke to the men beside her, they looked at Celina and quickly led Leana away.

She was gone at the same moment the ambulance screamed to life.

The first thing Mario noticed when he arrived at the modest-looking brownstone on l2th Street was his father’s black Lincoln limousine shimmering in the light of a streetlamp. Instinctively, he looked across the street at his home and saw the three men standing guard at the brick entrance.

Something was wrong. His father only visited on Saturdays.

He parked the Taurus behind his father’s car, stepped out and slammed the door shut. He crossed the street and nodded at the men as he approached. “What’s up, Nicky?” he said. “Why’s my father here?”

The man shrugged, even though Mario sensed he knew exactly why Antonio De Cicco had taken the time and trouble to drive all the way into the city from his Todt Hill mansion on Staten Island. “Didn’t say. He don’t look too happy, though. Wants to see you inside.”

Mario entered the house. It was his wife who met him at the door. Tall and slender with fiery red hair, the years had almost been as kind to Lucia De Cicco as her plastic surgeon had.

She greeted him with a smile and a slap across the face. Mario’s head snapped to the side and his cheek burned. When he turned back to look at her, Lucia’s smile had dissolved into a look of hate.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he said.

She raised a hand to hit him again, but Mario grasped her arms and held them at her sides. She writhed beneath his touch. Her eyes blazed. “Let go of me!”

“Why did you hit me?”

She nodded toward the library, which was to her right. A lock of her carefully dyed hair fell into her face. “Your father’s in there. I’ll let him tell you.”

She wrenched her arms free and hurried up the staircase that led to their bedroom. Mario watched her go, realizing that this was the first time she had stood up to him.

He went to the library. The large mahogany door creaked when he entered the room. In the fluorescent glow of an enormous saltwater aquarium, he saw the faint but familiar images of paintings, furniture and urns. He looked for his father and found him sitting beside the aquarium in a leather chair.

Blue light rippled in waves across his tanned face, making him look oddly like a living corpse. A cloud of cigar smoke hung in the air above his bald head.

His voice came unexpectedly. “Close the door and sit down. This won’t take long.”

Mario did as he was told and shut the door, feeling contempt for this man he never loved-but also fear. He sat opposite his father and noticed that while Antonio was shorter, he seemed to be sitting slightly higher.

De Cicco leaned back in the leather wingback and began tapping his knuckles against the side of the aquarium. The fish jumped, skidded away. Mario looked at his father and knew now why he was here.

“You’ve disappointed me, Mario,” De Cicco said. “You’re not thinkin’ with your head, anymore.” His knuckles struck the aquarium harder. Water sloshed. “You’re thinkin’ with your cock.”

Mario glanced at the aquarium. Of the seventy-six fish filling the tank, one alone was worth twenty thousand dollars. It was so rare, it had taken him nearly eight months to obtain it. The others were almost as rare.

“It’s not what you think.”

“It’s exactly what I think. You’re bangin’ that Redman cunt again.”

“You’re wrong.”

“You call having lunch with that whore in your Family’s own restaurant not seeing her?”

“She’s not a whore. And that restaurant belongs to me.”

“Bought with Family money.”

“Bought with my money-for the Family.”

The shadow of what looked like a small grey shark crossed Antonio De Cicco’s face. He cracked a knuckle against the aquarium and the fish darted away.

“I told you two years ago what would happen if you started seeing her again," he said. "I warned you. You’ve disgraced Lucia for the last time. You know how I feel about that girl. She’s like a daughter to me-her father is my best friend-and I’ll be damned if you’re going to hurt her just because you like the way that Redman bitch sucks your cock.”

“You’ve got it wrong,” Mario said firmly. “I haven’t seen Leana since we broke it off two years ago. She came to me. She’s in trouble. She asked a favor of me. That’s the extent of our relationship.”

“Bullshit.”

“It isn’t bullshit. It’s the truth. Do you really believe I’d bring Leana to the restaurant if I was sleeping with her? Aunt Rosa waited on us, for God’s sake. Do you think I’m that stupid? Listen to yourself. You know me better than that. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.”

De Cicco was silent a moment. When he rose from his chair, he looked at the aquarium, considered it for a moment, then stepped away from it and Mario, his hands in his pockets.

“I’m gonna talk with Lucia,” he said after a moment. “Calm her down, tell her everything’s all right.”

He faced his son. “But if I find out that you’ve been lyin’ to me, that you been fucking that little shit slut behind your wife’s back, I’ll kill her myself. I promised you that years ago and I mean it as much now as I did then. You will not hurt Lucia. You will not embarrass your children-my grandchildren. Because if you do, you might as well have loaded the gun and murdered Leana Redman yourself.”

Swinging out through the big brass and glass doors of Harold’s townhouse on 81st Street, Leana looked up at the buttery morning sun, felt the warmth on her face and decided she would walk to most of her appointments instead of taking a cab. There were a few apartments in the Village she wanted to look at and she had to sell her jewelry to her mother’s jeweler on Park.

She was beginning to feel better about herself. Not only had the bruises on her face faded and the cut on her lip healed, but she was full of resolve and a measure of hope. For the first time in her life, she was doing something productive. Soon, she would have an apartment of her own and enough money to furnish it comfortably. At breakfast, Harold mentioned something about finding her a job.