It was over.
Lara walked the cold, rainy streets. She was completely unaware of the icy wind and her surroundings. Her mind was filled with the terrible disaster that had befallen her. Howard Keller’s warning was ringing in her ears: You put up buildings and borrow on them. It’s like a pyramid, only if you’re not careful, that pyramid can fall down. And it had. The banks in Chicago would foreclose on her properties there, and she would lose all the money she had invested in the new building. She would have to start all over, from the beginning. Poor Howard, she thought. He believed in my dreams, and I’ve let him down.
The rain had stopped, and the sky was beginning to clear. A pale sun was fighting its way through the clouds. She suddenly realized it was dawn. She had walked all night. Lara looked around and saw where she was for the first time. She was only two blocks from the doomed property. I’ll take a last look at it, Lara thought, resignedly.
She was a full block away when she first heard it. It was the sound of pneumatic drills and hammers and the roar of cement mixers filling the air. Lara stood there, listening for an instant, then started running toward the building site. When she reached it, she stood there, staring, unbelievingly.
The full crew was there, hard at work.
The foreman came up to her, smiling. “Morning, Miss Cameron.”
Lara finally found her voice. “What…what’s happening? I…I thought you were pulling your men off the job.’
He said sheepishly, “That was a little misunderstanding, Miss Cameron. Bruno could have killed you when he dropped that wrench.”
Lara swallowed. “But he…”
“Don’t worry. He’s gone. Nothing like that will happen again. You don’t have a thing to worry about. We’re right back on schedule.”
Lara felt as though she were in a dream. She stood there watching the men swarming over the skeleton of the building and she thought, I got it all back again. Everything. Paul Martin.
Lara telephoned him as soon as she returned to her office. His secretary said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Martin is not available.”
“Would you ask him to call me, please?” Lara left her number.
At three o’clock in the afternoon she still had not heard from him. She called him again.
“I’m sorry. Mr. Martin is not available.”
He did not return her call.
At five o’clock Lara went to Paul Martin’s office.
She said to the blond secretary, “Would you please tell Mr. Martin that Lara Cameron is here to see him?”
The secretary looked uncertain. “Well, I’ll…Just a moment.” She disappeared into the inner office and returned a minute later. “Go right in, please.”
Paul Martin looked up as Lara walked in.
“Yes, Miss Cameron?” His voice was cool, neither friendly nor unfriendly. “What can I do for you?”
“I came to thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“For…for straightening things out with the union.”
He frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“All the workmen came back this morning, and everything’s wonderful. The building is back on schedule.”
“Well, congratulations.”
“If you’ll send me a bill for your fee…”
“Miss Cameron, I think you’re a little confused. If your problem is solved, I’m glad. But I had nothing to do with it.”
Lara looked at him for a long time. “All right. I’m…I’m sorry I bothered you.”
“No problem.” He watched her leave the office.
A moment later his secretary came in. “Miss Cameron left a package for you, Mr. Martin.”
It was a small package, tied with bright ribbon. Curious, he opened it. Inside was a silver knight in full armor, ready to do battle. An apology. What did she call me? A dinosaur. He could still hear his grandfather’s voice. Those were dangerous times, Paul. The young men decided to take control of the Mafia, to get rid of the old-timers, the mustache Petes, the dinosaurs. It was bloody, but they did it.
But all that was a long, long time ago, in the old country. Sicily.
Chapter Thirteen
Gibellina, Sicily—1879
The Martinis were stranieri—outsiders, in the little Sicilian village of Gibellina. The countryside was desolate, a barren land of death, bathed in blazing pitiless sunlight, a landscape painted by a sadistic artist. In a land where the large estates belonged to the gabelloti, the wealthy landowners, the Martinis had bought a small farm and tried to run it themselves.