10

Louis (“Louie”) and Joseph (“Big Joe”) Rizzato were born and raised in Chicago after their parents emigrated from Ischia, Italy, an island off the Gulf of Naples. The Brothers Rizzato, as they were sometimes called, became involved in criminal activity early in life, eventually became Mob enforcers and were known for their violent and often cruel tactics. Louie rose to the position of Mob boss, but roughly six months after that, both brothers disappeared on the same night.

I looked away from the computer for a moment.

I had gone home from my mother’s and called Aunt Elena. No answer. I hung up without leaving a message. I wanted to get her on the phone, rather than crisscrossing with messages for weeks.

I looked then at the stack of résumés by my keyboard, copies of ones I’d sent out and now just waiting for me to follow up on them. When I worked at the firm of Baltimore & Brown, I specialized in entertainment law, mostly because Forester Pickett, the media mogul, had taken a shine to me and given me a large chunk of his work-negotiating contracts for radio and TV personalities, defending the company or hiring local counsel, when cases of all kinds were filed against it. The phrase “trial by fire” had never been more apt. I hadn’t known what I was doing when I started, but I learned, and I learned fast, if only because there was no other way to stay afloat.

When Forester died and I lost all my work, I’d been set adrift, and unfortunately the city didn’t have much entertainment law work to go around. When actors, musicians and directors from Chicago hit it big, they usually headed for one of the coasts. And so, unless I wanted to move, I was going to have to start thinking creatively about my employment possibilities. I’d already contacted most of the big law firms months ago, and after that attempt rendered nothing I could get excited about, I tried a gig as an on-air legal analyst. I even initiated an investigative report on a very wealthy but very crooked attorney, and that investigation eventually uncovered a class-action lawsuit scam. But after my bizarre run-in with the law as a murder suspect, no station was jumping at the chance to put me back in front of the camera. Hence the pile of résumés I’d sent out for in-house positions at different corporations.

But I was too curious about that newspaper clipping about my grandfather, and what my mom had said about my dad, to make follow-up calls. I had pushed away the stack of résumés and done an Internet search for the Rizzato Brothers. And found that description of them-known for their violent and often cruel tactics.

I sat back, away from the computer, and tried to think.

My father had been working on a Mob case-that of the Rizzato Brothers-when he died. The Rizzato Brothers were Mob enforcers, one eventually a Mob boss, and they had disappeared. Meanwhile, I had been hanging out, rather innocently, with a Mob figure and was being chased by him when suddenly a vision appeared-an auditory one at least-of my dead father.

It sounded like a load of crazy.

Enough of this. I turned off the computer monitor and lined up my stack of résumés, then started making job-hunting calls.

I got a lot of Sorry, nothing right now kind of responses. I got a few vague We haven’t decided anything yet, but we’ll let you know kind of answers. I got a lot of anxiety as it seemed that nothing was opening up and nothing would anytime soon.

I looked at my watch. Six o’clock in the evening Rome time. I picked up the phone and dialed the number for my aunt Elena.

She answered this time. “Cara!” she said, hearing my voice.

It had been so long, and we chatted about everything-Charlie, my employment status, Chicago. We got into that seamless conversational space that weaves around in a pleasantly aimless way. I had always loved my aunt, and the older I got, the more I enjoyed her.

But as with my mom, I couldn’t just dive in and say, Is it possible your brother is alive, or do you think I’m losing it? And although I’d told Maggie I would contact Elena about visiting, I hadn’t spoken with her in over a year. It seemed awkward to suggest a houseguest too quickly.

Instead, it was less uncomfortable to say, “So, tell me about your mom and dad.” I had the book my father used to read on the edge of my desk. I pulled it forward, opened it and took out the yellowed clipping. Thieves Kill Man at Shell Station.

“What about them, cara? They were wonderful people. I guess you never got to meet my father.”

“No. And I’ve been thinking about family lately. Grandma O was Italian and Grandpa Kelvin was Scottish, right?”

“That’s right. Their love affair was something of a scandal. No one in my mother’s family had been involved with anyone who wasn’t Italian. Actually, no one had ever been involved with someone who wasn’t originally from Naples, if you can believe that. She met my father at a drugstore. It was in the winter, and they were both buying cough drops. My mother, Oriana, was a few years out of high school. My father was a few years older than her. It was one of those things you hear about-they saw each other, they both looked at shelves without talking, and when my father finally got up the courage to speak to her, they didn’t stop. They talked for hours in that aisle.”

“And that was that? They were just in love and they lived happily ever after?” When had I gotten so cynical?

“Well, no. There was resistance to them dating. Her family wasn’t happy at all, especially when they got engaged only six months later. But like I said, they were in love.”

I thought of Sam. We had been in love once. There had never been a doubt about that.

“Did they stay in love?”

“Yes, always.” She sighed a little. “I used to wonder if I was only seeing that love through the eyes of a child, if maybe it didn’t really exist, or maybe as an adult I would realize that it was very different than what I’d thought. But no, now that I am an adult…” She laughed. “Incredibilemente, I am much more than an adult. Well, I see how pure their love was. It wasn’t always easy for them, especially my dad, coming into this Italian family. His family was already scattered around the country and didn’t see each other often, but my parents had this powerful connection. Everyone could see it.”

I drew my finger over the news clipping. “And then Grandpa Kelvin was killed.”

Elena was quiet, then, “Yes, he was stabbed.”

“At a gas station.”

“How did you know that?”

“I found a news clipping.”

“Ah. Well, yes, you’re right. He was putting air in his tire one night at the side of a gas station, and he was killed.” A pause. “Did your father ever talk about that?”

I got a zing through me-your father. “No. He never mentioned it. I guess we were too young.”

“Yes, too young,” she repeated. “And you and I never spoke about this, either.”

“No. How old were you when your dad died?”

“Sixteen.”

I felt envious for a second, thinking that she had eight more years with her father than I did with mine. “And my dad was eighteen then.”

“That’s right.”

“I know he went to college.” I could remember my father telling me this. “And you moved to Italy to be with family, right? After Grandpa Kelvin died?”

“Yes. My mother was having a very hard time. She went to Phoenix to try and forget. Her family thought it would be best if I finished high school somewhere else instead of going with her. They thought it would be good for me to be away, too, somewhere new where everything wasn’t about my father.”

“So you went to Naples?”

“No, I lived with a cousin in a lovely area, in Frascati, in the hills, outside of Rome.”

“Was it hard for you to be away from the U.S.?”

“Yes and no. Italy is certainly different from the United States, different from every country, in fact. But throughout my whole life my mother had been telling us about Italy. The stories about Italy were our nighttime tales. I found much of that had sunk in and made a difference when I moved here.”