Pagodaville Read online

  Pagodaville

  A Novel

  (Book One)

  By

  Ellen Bennett

  Smiling Dog Publications, LLC

  Copyright © 2018 Ellen Bennett. All rights reserved.

  Published by Smiling Dog Publications, LLC

  Print Book ISBN 978-0-9980277-2-2

  Cover Design by Ann McMan

  www.smilingdogpublicationsllc.com

  First Edition, October 2018

  Second Edition, February, 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  Sandra Moran

  (November 7, 2015)

  We shall not meet in this world. Your stories, accomplishments, and dedication to good literature are formidable. You left us way too soon. Thank you, wherever you are, for your short but venerable existence.

  TABLE OF CONTENT

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  Postscript-Note to Readers

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  September 1, 1958

  Long Island, New York

  Vito Carnatelli entered the inner sanctum of the mob boss’ home office. He had to let his eyes adjust to the room’s darkness, lit only by a small banker’s lamp on the desk, before he could approach his boss with the final papers regarding the hit that was to take place in fifteen days.

  The boss’ face was obscured by a thick haze of cigar smoke from a fat stogie clenched between his teeth. He growled quietly, “You got the results?”

  “Yeah.” Vito set the papers down in the front of his boss. “Just like you thought, but the last four guys on the list may not have been involved.”

  The boss took the cigar from his mouth, saliva coating the bitten end. “Hit ‘em all. They gotta go. Nobody skims off the family. Nobody!”

  Vito nodded. He followed orders, was second in command. “Same place?”

  “Same place. September fifteenth. Make sure all the trucks are in order. We don’t have a lot of time. I’ll send the families away for the night. It’s the kid’s eighteenth birthday so I’ll throw him a big party. We gotta work fast on this one.

  Vito nodded then turned and exited the office. A whoosh of fresh air slipped in through the open door then settled once the door quietly closed.

  The boss lifted his hefty bulk up out of the desk chair and went to the wet bar. He poured himself two fingers of scotch then added ice from a bucket nearby.

  A light knock on the door told him it was his wife, Dolores, coming in to give him his evening snack. Every night, at least when he stayed at the mansion, Dolores made him a plate of toast points with caviar and capers, cream cheese, fresh tomatoes, and olives.

  He opened the door for her and followed her to the low table in between two large leather couches, where she set down the tray.

  He asked, “This looks delicious. You wanna join, have a drink?”

  “No thank you, dear. I’m going to check on Bobby and Georgie. Then I’ll call mother. She needs her evening phone call, you know.”

  He knew Dolores’ evening ritual so well. She tucked the boys in, called her mother, then relaxed in a bath of Epsom salts and lavender.

  She could feel him more than see him in the dark room. “Are you alright, dear? You seem troubled.”

  He wanted to tell her how he felt. How hurt and dismayed he was that his own family betrayed him by thinking they could skim off the business. How he was so angry and vengeful, to the point of hitting innocent men. But he diverted his face from hers.

  “Just business. You know how it is.”

  She nodded. She knew very well how it was. It was not her station to question him or inquire into the deeper matters of his business. She knew, because most mob wives knew, that his number, regardless of his position in the family, was going to come up eventually. Not to mention her boys. They too would most likely meet their destiny by design.

  But just when and where, she would never be able to calculate.

  ONE

  Saturday, August 18, 1979

  Cleveland, Ohio

  The air over Lake Erie was stagnant and heavy. It had been raining on and off for several days and everything from tree branches to ladies’ hair-dos drooped in the thick air. Steam rose off the pavement, sun-rays streamed down between broken, angry looking anvil clouds.

  Lorna Hughes, Esq., made her way from the taxi cab into the enormous, marble-laden lobby of the Stanhope Building in downtown Cleveland. Her pace had started off strong when she left the comfort of her air-conditioned condominium in Shaker Heights but withered quickly like the weather when she arrived on the seventeenth floor to meet her mother and brothers for the reading of her father’s will.

  Ever since she was a child, Lorna’s relationship with her father had been difficult to navigate. She struggled fiercely to achieve what her brothers were born with: Rights.

  Even into her teen years Lorna was still intimated by his very presence. His booming voice, his precise and authoritative actions, the way he moved in the world. She never felt up-to-par with her brothers even though she drove herself fiercely to compete. She strove to win her father’s approval, a hug, a nod, his full attention.

  All through her formidable years, through junior high school and high school, Lorna kept the fragile parts of herself safe from any scrutiny her father might pass down and focused instead on what she knew he would praise and show her some respect and compassion.

  When Lorna graduated with high honors from Case Western Reserve School of Law, her father pulled her aside at her graduation party, sat her down, and looked her square in the eye.

  “I always knew you were going to make something of yourself. I am very proud of you. You worked very hard for this. Your whole life, Lorna. I’ve been watching you your whole life.”

  Lorna tucked those words close to her heart and never forgot how she felt when he said them, it was more of an honor than her papered livelihood.

  It wasn’t until Lorna turned thirty that she and her father enjoyed frequent banter about politics, life, current events, and specifically, golf. They were truly father and daughter on the golf course, especially when he would brag to his friends at the Country Club that she was almost a better player than he was.

  They spoke on the phone or Lorna would go to the house after golf to enjoy a beer or glass of wine on one of the several verandas around the property. She might stay for supper, leaving shortly thereafter when Ellis would retreat to his home office.

  Lorna learned that the only way to love her father was to accept him as he was. Never expect more. If only she could be her true self with him, the self that fell in love with a girl from high school. The self that held her secrets close to the vest during college, graduate school, and employment years. She vowed she would tell him one day about Jeanie and be strong regardless of his reaction.

  But now he was gone.

  She would outlive him for many years and already she felt the dull throb
of what their relationship could have been had he lived longer.

  Her relationship with her mother, Esther, was comfortable. She did not not love her, but never really grew to love her as a mother.

  Lorna regarded Esther as strong willed, bossy. Someone who did not suffer fools lightly and lived unabashedly in a world of money and status.

  Lorna’s brothers, Gail and Norman, were older by seven and nine years. As kids they got along famously because they were able to stay under the radar and still have fun. As adults, they moved in different circles, spending the requisite time

  together to appear like a close family, but after the party or get-together, it was usually off to their separate lives. They could go for weeks without speaking to one another.

  Lorna never felt alone but at the same time, felt the disjointedness between them. It was just the way they were brought up.

  Stand on your own! Don’t let ‘em see you sweat! Get close, but not too close.

  When Lorna stepped off the elevator on the seventeenth floor, she kissed and hugged her mother and brothers then took off her raincoat and unclipped her hair from the back of her head.

  “Lorna, when are you going to style that mop of hair?” Esther fussed with her own coif now a tangle due to the humidity.

  Lorna shook out her dark unruly curls then re-clipped them behind her head. “My hair has been this way for years, mother, give it a rest.”

  Edgar Seaver, Esq., a gaunt man, emerged from his office to greet his clients. He whistled his ’s’ and wheezed between words. Lorna thought it ironic that Edgar, a heavy smoker and drinker who probably hadn’t brushed his teeth since 1965, outlived her father.

  “Esther.” He leaned in for a hug that her mother swiftly side-stepped.

  “Thank you, Edgar.” She nodded then frowned in keeping with the grieving-widow protocol.

  Edgar grasped her brothers’ hands. “Norman, Gail.” They nodded in kind.

  “Lorna.” He reached for her hand with his paper-thin ones. She squirmed with the feel of his arthritic papery hands.

  “So very sorry about all of this.” He wheezed. “Shall we go into the office and get started?”

  The meeting was long, the legalese wandering. The distribution of funds was to be swift and clean. Lorna had to stealthily pinch herself when Edgar disclosed the amounts in the distribution. She knew her father was worth several million in assets, but his cash stash was unreal. Between she and her brothers, more than a half a million per was revealed. Her mother would be set for life and continue to live in the big family home on Shaker Boulevard.

  Her head swam with the numbers.

  Instead of going home after the two and half-hour session, Lorna rode the elevator down to the fifteenth floor to her own office where it was bathed in peaceful, ambient light. She tossed her coat and purse on the couch and walked over to her desk chair, swiveled it around to face the windows and sat down.

  Her head throbbed.

  She reached around to her top drawer, pulled out the aspirin container and shook out two pills. A cup of day-old tea was in reach, so she washed down the pills with the cold, settled liquid.

  She grimaced and wiped her lips with a tissue from her pocket, settling her gaze out towards the horizon. Lake Erie tossed gentle waves towards a city beach strewn with rocks and washed up detritus.

  She felt hollow, her heartbeat seeming to echo off the large plate-glass windows of her well-deserved corner office. The shock of her father dying so suddenly, so young, caught in her chest. She allowed her tears to flow unabashedly. She cried for her loss, for the empty space that was her father. She cried for herself because despite her large and varied circle of friends, she had no intimate love of her own, someone to hold her during this time of grief.

  Her overly-protected, fragile heart never fully recovered from her high school love affair with Jeanie Doyle.

  No one had measured up since then.

  No one had a chance.

  1960’s CLEVELAND, OHIO

  Lorna met Jeanie in fifth period gym class during their junior year in high school. Lorna typically spent fifth period in study hall but the gym coach, Miss Daisy Horne, Ret. Drill Sergeant from the 31st Division of the Stateside Corp of Women during the second World War, asked her to be her ‘wing woman’ to “Teach these non-coms how to present on the golf course when they attend corporate functions with their husbands”.

  Miss Horne had taken a liking to Lorna from the first time Lorna proved her prowess in general gym during her sophomore year.

  The day of the class was a warm early spring one with the sun shining high in a cloudless azure-colored sky. Lorna set all the mats with the tees in a straight line on the goal line of the football field while Miss Horne explained the lesson. The girls were to practice their swing first before hitting the ball down towards the fifty-yard line.

  Miss Horne then asked Lorna to demonstrate. When Lorna completed her swing and smooth follow-through—the ball heading straight down the line with a beautifully arced intention—Miss Horne, along with the rest of the class, gave Lorna the delicate yet meaningful enthusiastic golf clap.

  Miss Horne bounced on the balls of her feet while leaning on her club and addressed the class. “Girls, that is how that is done.” She winked at Lorna and continued to admire her while calling out, “Okay, Lindstrom, you’re up.”

  The attention Miss Horne openly showed Lorna was not lost on the other girls.

  In the locker room, Lorna chuckled alongside her classmates.

  A sing-song tease: “The old battle-ax has a thing for youuuuu!”

  Or “You know she is a big lesbian!”

  Or “Lorna and Daisy…sitting in a tree…”

  And the most frequently asked. “When she gives out the towels why do we have to be naked?”

  Lorna took it all in stride, slightly flattered albeit the huge age difference and the fact that Miss Horne truly resembled a warship hit by a Kamikaze.

  When it came time for Jeanie Doyle to demonstrate her swing, she started by raising her club high over her head, bending her long legs at the knee while attempting to keep her eye on the ball. She brought the club down as if she were chopping wood and when the club-head hit the mat, the ball slipped lazily off the tee from the resultant thud of the slapping iron. The other girls giggled behind cupped hands. Lorna had to stifle a chuckle as well.

  Miss Horne barked out, “Hughes! Help Miss Doyle with her swing so she doesn’t shatter her elbows and give us all a big headache with the noise!”

  Lorna approached Jeanie and showed her quietly how to hold the club, raise it up and make a clean follow through while the other girls continued with their demonstrations. Lorna took Jeanie through the practice swing several times until she seemed to get it.

  When the rest of the girls were done, Miss Horne called out to Jeanie again. Everyone leaned in to watch. Jeanie looked unsure but carried on with dignity.

  Lorna held her breath while Jeanie completed the swing.

  Miss Horne bounced on the balls of her feet and nodded. “Nice job, Miss Doyle. Thank you, Hughes, for saving me the duty of paperwork from the nursing office.”

  Jeanie looked Lorna square in the eye and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  In that moment of eye-to-eye, Lorna felt a sudden seismic shift of the immediate space around them. A collision of color, sound, and air. A palpable spark between two electrical terminals. She had to shake her head slightly to avert her stare. She could feel the same response from Jeanie.

  In the locker room, Lorna quickly approached Jeanie before Jeanie had the chance to go to her next class.

  “Quite the golf swing there, Miss Doyle.” Lorna

  playfully bounced on the balls of her feet, imitating Miss Horne.

  Jeanie offered up a crooked smile and nodded, “Yeah, well. Golf is not one of my strong suits.” She added, “Nice interpretation of Miss Horne, by the way.”

  Lorna chuckled. “Well I think it would be cool to find out what y
our strong suits are.” She had already written her phone number down on a piece of paper. “Let’s get together soon?”

  Jeanie took the slip of paper. “I would like that. I’m kind of new to the neighborhood. I started school in Fairfax county but we moved last month.” She smiled and added, “A girl can’t have enough friends, right?”

  Lorna nodded.

  They began spending time together immediately.

  Their senses came alive: The smell right before a rainstorm in a cornfield, the colors of a sunset from the hood of Jeanie’s car at the lake, the beautiful architecture of a night sky blanketed in hundreds of tiny lights, the depth of an orchestra performing the work of the masters from Jeanie’s hefty classical music record collection.

  She and Jeanie found stolen moments at out-of-the-way bookstores where the creaky, slanted, aged wooden floors and shelves full of a variety of books invited them in. They would share their finds under weeping willows or big oak trees in the early summer at the museum arboretum, lazing with Sylvia Plath or Franz Kafka, underlining passages that spoke to them about life.

  Their appetite for the passion of discovery was hearty, insatiable. For each new writer or poet or composer or photographer they found, the connection between them deepened.

  The first time they kissed, Lorna knew her life would never be the same. Lorna immediately identified with the landscape of Jeanie’s lips, their shape, softness and heft. They both felt the deep, intense tug of emotions when kissing each other.

  They were sitting on the divan in Jeanie’s house in the den. The small television set was on with the volume turned down—a black and white movie that neither of them were really watching— and outside the window the tall trees surrounding the house swayed gently, a sultry windswept odor emanating into the house that can only come in the night.

  Lorna had her head on Jeanie’s lap. Jeanie traced the curves of Lorna’s face gently, her fingers trembling slightly as she passed over the temples, eyebrows, nose and then down to her lips. Then Jeanie leaned down and kissed the lips she had just touched. Lorna lifted her head slightly to meet Jeanie’s lips.