Chapter 9 - The Witness Statement
The library in the Palm Beach house was dark, despite the southern sun outside. The walls were lined with panels of green marble and dark mahogany that had been brought from a palace in Havana before the revolution, and the air smelled of rum, lime oil, and the cold ink of corporate stamps.
Three men in dark gray suits were sitting around the long marble table, their leather briefcases open before them like the jaws of deep-sea fish. They didn't look up when I came in; they were busy checking a series of long, white maps that showed the outer berths of the Newark container terminal.
Anthony sat at the head of the table. He had a glass of amber liquid with a single square of ice in his hand, his black watch strap showing against the white linen of his sleeve like a burn mark.
"This is the witness," Anthony said to the oldest of the lawyers—a man with silver hair and a long, thin nose that looked like it had been broken by an encyclopedia. "Her name is Elena Vane. She will sign the secondary verification for the Maritimo lease."
The silver-haired lawyer looked up over his glasses, his eyes scanning my white linen dress, my bare arms, and the red line that was still faintly visible on my left wrist.
"Don Anthony," the lawyer said, his voice dry, rattling like dry leaves in a gutter. "The federal prosecutor is checking the signatures on the third-tier transfers. If the witness isn't an officer of the corporation, the variance can be challenged under the anti-racketeering statutes. She needs to have a title."
Anthony took a slow sip of his liquid, the ice giving a short, sharp clink against the crystal.
"She has a title," he said.
"What is it?"
Anthony stood up, his massive frame cutting off the light from the green shaded lamp in the center of the table. He walked around the marble board, his boots silent against the thick silk rug, until he was standing directly behind my chair.
He didn't touch my shoulders. He reached down and laid a heavy, black leather folder in front of my hands—the title deed for the shipping terminal, with the red seal of the New Jersey Port Authority already stamped into the vellum.
"She’s the primary trustee for the Luca Pellagrini Legacy Fund," Anthony said, his voice dropping into that quiet, absolute cadence that made the three lawyers close their briefcases with a simultaneous, mechanical click. "She owns forty-nine percent of the terminal voting stock, effective as of eight o'clock this morning."
I snapped my head around, my eyes wide as I looked up at him through the dark green light of the room. "I don't want your stock, Anthony!"
The three lawyers didn't move. They stood by the table, their hats in their hands, their faces completely flat. They had spent thirty years learning that when Anthony Pellagrini spoke to a woman in that tone, the conversation was already registered in the ledger under EXPENSES MATURED.
"Sign the paper, Elena," Anthony whispered, his face coming close to my ear, his cedarwood and tobacco scent filling my head until the room felt like it was spinning. "If you don't sign it, the federal prosecutor will have an investigator at Clara’s guest house by Monday morning. They’ll ask her where the eighty thousand dollars came from. They’ll ask her why her sister has a room in the family wing of a house that doesn't have an agency contract."
He pressed a silver fountain pen into my fingers, his hand locking over my knuckles with a warmth that felt like a trap closing around a bone.
"You took my son out of the water, Elena," he murmured against my skin. "That means you're in the ledger now. You can be an owner. Or you can be a defendant. But you're never going back to Elm Street."
I looked down at the vellum paper, at the neat, black line where my name was already typed under the word TRUSTEE. My hand was shaking, the silver pen tracing the letters E-l-e-n-a with an uneven, jagged motion that looked like the line of the surf against the Long Branch cliffs.
May you like
When I finished, Anthony took the pen from my fingers, his thumb moving over the fresh ink to smear it into the seal before it could dry.
"Get the cars ready," he said to Marco, who was standing by the door. "We're going to the beach. Luca wants to see the fish before the sun goes down."
