Chapter 8 - The Palm Beach Sieve
The Florida house did not have walls. It had screens—huge, white panels of copper mesh that let in the scent of orange blossoms, salt, and the continuous, low-frequency hum of the lawnmowers working the golf course across the road.
Clara sat in a wicker wheelchair on the porch of the guest house, her legs covered in a bright yellow blanket that looked like a patch of dandelion against the green lawn. Her hair was coming back—short, soft brown curls that looked like a baby’s head, her pale skin showing a slight, healthy tan from the three weeks she had spent under the southern sun.
"Elena," she said, her voice thin but clear, free of the wet rattling that had stayed in her lungs all through the New Jersey winter. "The man with the silver teeth brought me some grapefruit this morning. He said he was the driver."
"Marco," I said, sitting on the step of the porch with a bowl of fresh cherries in my lap. I was wearing a simple white linen dress that didn't have pockets—the housekeeper had informed me that Don Anthony preferred his staff to carry nothing that couldn't be seen from twenty feet away.
"He's very quiet," Clara said, her fingers twisting a loose thread on the yellow blanket. "But he told the nurse that if any cars stop on the road near the orchard, she has to hit the red button under the sink. Why does the sink have a button, Elena?"
"It's for the water filter, Clara," I lied, looking past the orange trees toward the main house—a massive, white stucco palace with a red-tile roof that looked like a Spanish monastery dropped onto the sand.
A black golf cart was coming down the gravel path from the main terrace.
Anthony was driving it himself. He wore a white linen shirt with the collar open three buttons, his dark skin showing the sharp contrast of the gold chain he wore behind his shirt—a heavy, flat link that held a small silver medal of St. Jude, the patron of lost causes.
He stopped the cart near the porch, his boots crunching against the white gravel as he walked up the steps toward Clara’s chair.
He didn't look at me. He stopped in front of my sister, his large hand reaching down to take her small, thin fingers between his own with a gentleness that looked completely wrong on a man who had cleared the Newark docks with an iron pipe.
"Miss Clara," he said, his baritone voice dropping into a soft, formal register I had never heard him use with anyone—not even Luca. "The doctor tells me you walked ten steps yesterday without the rail."
"Twelve steps, Mr. Pellagrini," Clara smiled, her pale cheeks flushing with a genuine liking that made my stomach turn over. She didn't know about Vince. She didn't know about the black canvas bag in the service elevator. To her, Anthony Pellagrini was the man from the insurance company who had fixed the signature on the form. "The nurse said I can go to the beach next week if the wind stays down."
"The wind will stay down," Anthony said, his gray eyes fixing on her face with a quiet, absolute certainty that looked like a command to the weather itself. "I've already told the coast guard to keep the motorboats two miles out from the point. You’ll have the sand to yourself."
He turned his head slowly, his gaze landing on my face as I sat on the step with the cherry bowl. The soft, formal gentleman vanished from his eyes in an instant, replaced by that chiseled, winter-slate intensity that always made me feel like I was back in the deep end of the pool.
"Elena," he said.
"Yes, Mr. Pellagrini?"
"Your sister needs her rest," he commanded, his hand moving to touch the gold medal under his shirt. "Come to the main house. The lawyers from New York have the new titles for the shipping terminal. They need a witness who doesn't have a corporate seal."
I stood up, setting the cherry bowl on the wicker table next to Clara’s chair.
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"Don't go too far, Elena," Clara called out as I walked down the gravel path toward the cart. "The nurse said the fish come close to the shore when the sun goes down."
Anthony didn't wait for me to get into the seat. He walked ahead of me down the path, his long stride leaving deep, sharp prints in the white gravel that looked like holes dug into snow.
