Seizure

ten

11:45 A.M., Sunday, February 24, 2002

As accustomed as Stephanie was to mercurial New England weather, she was still surprised at the balmy, beautiful day Sunday turned out to be. Although the winter sunlight was pale, the air was warm and the birds were loud and omnipresent as if spring were just around the corner. It was a far cry from her frigid Friday night walk home from Harvard Square with a dusting of snow on the ground.

Stephanie had parked Daniel’s car in the city garage at Government Center and walked east into the North End, one of Boston’s quaintest neighborhoods. It was a warren of narrow streets lined with three- or four-story brick row houses. Southern Italian immigrants had adopted the area in the nineteenth century and transformed it into an ersatz Little Italy, complete with the usual sights and smells. There were always people engaged in animated conversation on the street, and the aroma of simmering Bolognese sauce permeated the air. When school was out, there were children everywhere.

Everything seemed familiar to Stephanie as she descended Hanover Street, the commercial avenue that bisected the neighborhood. In general, the community had been a nice, social, and warmly nurturing environment for her to grow up. The only problems were the family issues she had recently admitted to Daniel. That conversation had reawakened feelings and thoughts she’d long since suppressed, the same way Anthony’s indictment did.

Stephanie paused outside the open door of the Café Cosenza. It was one of her family’s holdings and offered Italian pastries and gelato as well as the usual espresso and cappuccino. A babble of conversation mixed with laughter and accompanied by the hiss and clank of the espresso machine drifted out, as did the smell of freshly roasted coffee. She had spent many pleasant hours enjoying cannoli, ice cream, and the camaraderie of her friends in that room, with its kitschy wall painting of Mt. Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, yet from her current perspective, it seemed like a hundred years ago.

Standing outside and looking in, Stephanie realized how separated she felt from her childhood and her family except, perhaps, her mother, whom she frequently phoned. Excluding her younger brother Carlo, who had gone into the priesthood, a calling she could not fathom, she was the only person in her family to have gone to college, much less get a Ph.D. And most all of her elementary school and high school girlfriends, even those who had gone on to school, were presently either living in the North End or in the Boston suburbs along with houses, husbands, SUVs, and children. Instead, she was cohabiting with a man sixteen years her senior, with whom she was struggling to keep a biotech start-up company afloat by secretly treating a U.S. senator with an unapproved, experimental, but hopefully promising therapy.

Continuing down Hanover Street, Stephanie pondered her disconnect with her previous life. She found it interesting that it did not bother her. In retrospect, it had been a natural reaction to her discomfort about her father’s business deals and her family’s role in the community. What she found herself wondering was whether her life story would have taken a completely different track had her father been more emotionally available. As a young child, she had tried to break through the barrier of his self-centered male chauvinism and his preoccupation with whatever it was he was doing, but it had never worked. The vain effort had eventually nurtured a strong independent streak that had carried her to where she was today.

Stephanie stopped when a curious thought occurred to her. Her father and Daniel had some things in common, despite their enormous and obvious differences. Both were equally self-centered, both could be brash on occasion to the point of being considered asocial, and both were fiercely competitive within their own worlds. On top of that, Daniel was equivalently chauvinistic; it just involved intellect rather than gender. Stephanie laughed inwardly. She questioned why the thought had never crossed her mind, since Daniel in his preoccupations could also be emotionally unavailable, especially lately, with the advent of CURE’s financial difficulties. Although psychology was far from her forte, she vaguely wondered if the similarities between her father and Daniel could have had anything to do with the attraction she felt for Daniel in the first place.

Recommencing walking, Stephanie promised herself she’d revisit the issue when she had more time. Now she had too much to do with the Turin departure scheduled for that evening. She’d gotten up at the crack of dawn to finish packing. Then she had spent a good part of the morning at the lab with Peter, describing exactly what she wanted him to do with Butler’s culture. Luckily, the cells were progressing commendably. She’d given the culture the name of John Smith, taking the hint from Daniel’s conversation with Spencer Wingate. If Peter had any questions about what was going on regarding why they were going to Nassau, and why he was going to be sending down some of John Smith’s cryopreserved cells, he didn’t mention them.

Stephanie turned left on Prince Street and quickened her pace. This area was even more familiar, especially when she passed her old school. Her childhood house where her parents still lived was half a block beyond the school on the right.

The North End was a safe community, thanks to an unofficial “neighborhood watch.” There was always at least a half dozen people in sight who were socially addicted to knowing what everybody else was doing. The downside as a child was that you couldn’t get away with anything, but at the moment Stephanie savored the sense of security. Although Daniel had seemingly recovered from the intruder the previous afternoon and had dismissed the episode as unimportant in the grand scheme, Stephanie hadn’t gotten over it, at least not completely, and being back in her old surroundings was reassuring. What Stephanie continued to find unsettling was that without an explanation, the incident tended to exacerbate her unease about the Butler affair.

Stopping in front of her old house, Stephanie eyed the fake gray stone that covered the brick on the first floor, the red aluminum awning with white scalloped trim over the front door, and the gaudily painted, plaster statue of a saint that stood in its niche. She smiled at how long it had taken her to recognize how tacky these embellishments were. Prior to that revelation, she hadn’t even noticed them.

Although she had a key, Stephanie knocked and waited. She’d telephoned from the office to say she’d be stopping by, so there was to be no surprise. A moment later, the door was pulled open by her mother, Thea, who welcomed her with open arms. Thea’s grandfather had been Greek, and subsequently female given names had been favored on the family’s maternal side down through the years, Stephanie’s included.

“You must be hungry,” Thea said, pulling back to eye her daughter. With her mother, food was always an issue.

“I could use a sandwich,” Stephanie said, knowing that refusing would be impossible. She followed her mother’s slight frame into the kitchen that was redolent with the aroma of simmering food. “Something smells good.”

“I’m making osso buco, your father’s favorite. Why don’t you stay for dinner? We’ll be eating around two.”

“I can’t, Mom.”

“Say hello to your father.”

Dutifully, Stephanie poked her head into the living room immediately adjacent to the kitchen. Its décor hadn’t changed one iota from Stephanie’s earliest memories. As per usual, prior to a Sunday dinner, her father was hidden behind the Sunday paper clutched in his beefy hands. A brimming beanbag ashtray was perched on one of the La-Z-Boy’s arms.

“Hi, Dad,” Stephanie said cheerfully.

Anthony D’Agostino Sr. lowered the top edge of his paper. He peered at Stephanie over his reading glasses with his mildly rheumy eyes. A halo of cigarette smoke hung around him like thick smog. Despite being athletic in his youth, he was now the picture of corpulent immobility. He had gained considerable weight over the last decade, despite dire warnings from his physicians, even after his heart attack three years ago. As much as her mother lost weight, he gained in an unhealthy inverse proportionality.

“I don’t want you upsetting your mother, you hear me? She’s been feeling good the last few days.”

“I’ll try my best,” Stephanie said.

He raised the paper back into position. So much for conversation, Stephanie thought, as she shrugged and rolled her eyes. She retreated back to the kitchen. Thea had gotten out cheese, bread, Parma ham, and fruit, and was arranging it on the table. Stephanie watched as Thea worked. Her mother had lost more weight since Stephanie had last seen her, which wasn’t a good sign. The bones of her hands and face protruded, with minimal flesh. Two years before, Thea had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Following surgery and chemotherapy, she’d been fine until three months ago, when there had been a relapse. A tumor had been found in one of her lungs. The prognosis was not good.

Stephanie sat down and made herself a sandwich. Her mother got some tea and sat across from her.

“Why can’t you stay for dinner?” Thea asked. “Your older brother is coming.”

“With or without his wife and kids?”

“Without,” Thea said. “He and your father have some business.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“Why don’t you stay? We hardly ever get to see you.”

“I’d like to, but I can’t. I’m going away this evening for about a month, which is why I particularly wanted to come over today. I’ve got a lot to do to get ready.”

“Are you going with that man?”

“His name is Daniel, and yes, we are going together.”

“You shouldn’t be living with him. It’s not right. Besides, he’s too old. You should be married to a nice, young man. You’re not so young anymore.”

“Mother, we’ve been over this.”

“Listen to your mother,” Anthony Sr. bellowed from the living room. “She knows what she is talking about.”

Stephanie held her tongue.

“Where are you going?”

“Mostly to Nassau in the Bahamas. We’re going someplace first, but only for a day or so.”

“Is this a vacation?”

“No,” Stephanie said. She told her mother the trip was work-related. She didn’t give any specifics, nor did her mother ask, especially since Stephanie switched the conversation to her nieces and nephews. The grandchildren were Thea’s favorite subject. An hour later, when Stephanie was about to make her exit, the door opened and in walked Anthony Jr.

“Will wonders never cease?” Tony said in mock surprise when he caught sight of Stephanie. He had a strong, cultivated blue-collar accent. “The high-and-mighty Harvard doctor has decided to pay us poor, working slobs a visit.”

Stephanie looked up and smiled at her older brother. She held her tongue like she had earlier with her father. She had long ago learned not to be baited. Tony had always derided Stephanie’s schooling, as did her father, but not entirely for the same reason. With Tony, Stephanie suspected it was more jealousy, since he’d barely made it through high school. Tony’s problem wasn’t a lack of intelligence, but a lack of motivation as a teenager. As an adult, he liked to pretend he didn’t care that he hadn’t gone to college, but Stephanie knew better.

“Mom says your boy is turning out to be quite the hockey player,” Stephanie said, to turn the conversation away from the testy subject of schooling. Tony had a twelve-year-old son and a ten-year-old daughter.

“Yeah, a chip off the old block,” Tony said. He shared Stephanie’s coloring and approximate height, but he was built more squarely, with a thick neck and large hands like their father. And also like their father, Tony projected in Stephanie’s mind an unflattering, chauvinistic male animus, which made her feel sorry for her sister-in-law and worry about her niece.

Tony kissed his mother on both cheeks before stepping into the living room.

Stephanie heard the rustle of the newspaper as it was thrown aside, a slapping of hands that she could picture as a handshake, and an exchange of “How’s it going? Great! How’s it going for you? Great.” When the conversation switched to sports talk involving the various Boston professional teams, Stephanie tuned them out.

“I’ve got to be going, Mom,” Stephanie said.

“Why don’t you stay? I can have the dinner on the table in no time.”

“I can’t, Mom.”

“Dad and Tony will miss you!”

“Oh, yeah, sure!” Stephanie said.

“They love you in their own way.”

“I’m certain they do,” Stephanie said with a smile. The irony was, she believed it. Stephanie reached across and squeezed Thea’s wrist. It felt fragile, as though if she pressed too hard, the bones might break. Stephanie pushed back her chair and stood up. Thea did likewise, and they hugged.

“I’ll call from the Bahamas as soon as I get situated and give you the details about where we’re staying and the number,” Stephanie said. She gave her mother a peck on her cheek before sticking her head back into the living room. The cigarette haze was denser with both men smoking. “Goodbye, you two. I’m on my way.”

Tony looked up. “What’s this? You’re taking off already?”

“She’s going on a trip for a month,” Thea said over Stephanie’s shoulder. “She has to get ready.”

“No!” Tony said. “You can’t go. Not yet! I got to talk with you. I was going to call you, but since you’re here, face-to-face is better.”

“Then you’d better come in here on the double,” Stephanie said. “I really have to be on my way.”

“You’ll wait until we’re finished,” Anthony said. “Tony and I are talking business.”

“It’s okay, Pop,” Tony said. He gave his father’s knee a squeeze as he stood up. “What I have to say to Steph won’t take long.”

Anthony grumbled as he reached for his discarded newspaper.

Tony walked back into the kitchen. He sat down backward on one of the kitchen chairs and motioned for Stephanie to sit in one of the others. Stephanie hesitated for a moment. Tony had become increasingly peremptory since he’d assumed more of his father’s roles, and it was irksome. To avoid making it an issue, Stephanie sat, but as a compromise with herself, she told her brother he’d better be quick. She also told him to put out his cigarette, which he did grudgingly.

“The reason I was going to call you,” Tony began, “is because Mikey Gualario, my accountant, told me that CURE is about to tank. I said that’s impossible, because my kid sister would have told me. But he says he read it in the Globe. What’s the scoop?”

“We’re having financial difficulties,” Stephanie admitted. “It’s a political problem that is holding up our second round of financing.”

“So the Globe wasn’t making this all up?”

“I didn’t read the article, but as I said, we are in rather a bind.”

Tony screwed up his face as if in thought. He nodded a few times. “Well, that’s not such great news. I guess you can understand that I might be concerned about my two-hundred-thousand-dollar loan.”

“Correction! It wasn’t a loan. It was an investment.”

“Wait a minute! You came to me crying that you needed money.”

“Correction again! I said we needed to raise money, and I certainly wasn’t crying.”

“Yeah, well, you said it was a sure thing.”

“I said I thought it was a good investment, because it was based on a brilliant and fully patented, newly discovered procedure that promises to be a boon to medicine. But I said it wasn’t risk-free, and I gave you the prospectus. Did you read it?”

“No, I didn’t read it. I don’t understand that kind of crap. But if the investment was so good, what’s the problem?”

“What’s happened that no one anticipated is the possibility of a congressional ban being enacted on the procedure. But I can assure you we’re working on it, and we think we have it under control. The whole thing has been a bolt out of the blue for all of us, and proof of that is that both Daniel and I have invested every penny we have in the company, including mortgaging Daniel’s condo. I’m sorry that at the moment the investment looks less than rock-solid. I might add, I’m sorry we took your money.”

“You and me both!”

“What’s going to happen about this indictment of yours?”

Tony batted the air as if shooing a fly. “Nothing. It’s a bunch of nonsense. The DA is just trying to drum up publicity to get reelected. But let’s not change the subject. You said you think you have this political problem under control.”

“We believe so.”

“Does this have anything to do with this monthlong trip your going on?”

“It does,” Stephanie said. “But I can’t give you the details.”

“Oh, really?” Tony questioned sarcastically. “I got two hundred K involved here, and you can’t give me the details. There’s something wrong with this picture.”

“If I were to divulge what we’re doing, it would jeopardize its efficacy.”

“Divulge, jeopardize, efficacy!” Tony mimicked derogatorily. “Give me a break! I hope you don’t think I’m going to be satisfied with a handful of ten-dollar words. Not a chance! So where are you going, Washington?”

“She’s going to Nassau,” Thea said suddenly from where she was standing near the stove. “And don’t you be nasty to your own sister. You hear me?”

Tony sat bolt upright with his hands dangling lifelessly at his sides. His lower jaw slowly dropped open in utter amazement. “Nassau!” he yelled. “This is getting crazier and crazier. If CURE’s ready to tank because of a political bombshell, don’t you think you should hang around and do something?”

“That’s why we’re going to Nassau,” Stephanie said.

“Ha!” Tony shouted. “What it sounds like to me is this so-called boyfriend of yours has it in his mind to pull off a scam.”

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. Tony, I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t. Hopefully, in a month things will be back on track, and at that time we’ll be happy to consider your money a loan, and we will pay it back with interest.”

“I’ll try to remember not to hold my breath.” Tony sneered. “You say you can’t tell me more, but I can tell you something. That two hundred grand wasn’t all mine.”

“No?” Stephanie questioned. She sensed the unpleasant conversation was about to get worse.

“You painted it as such a sweet deal, I felt I had to share it. Half the money came from the Castigliano brothers.”

“You never told me that!”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Who are the Castigliano brothers?”

“Business partners. And I can tell you something else. They are not going to like hearing about their investment loan going south. They are not accustomed to that. As your brother, I think I should tell you it’s not a good idea to go to the Bahamas.”

“But we have to.”

“You said that, but you’re not telling me why. It forces me to repeat myself: You and your Harvard boyfriend better stay put and mind the store, because it looks like you’re planning on frolicking in the sun with our money while we stooges freeze our asses here in Boston.”

“Tony,” Stephanie said in the calmest, most reassuring tone she could muster. “We’re going to Nassau, and we are going to deal with this unfortunate problem.”

Tony threw his hands up into the air, palms up. “I tried! God knows I tried!”

Thanks to power steering, Tony only needed the index finger of his right hand to turn the steering wheel of his black Cadillac DeVille. With such a balmy evening, he had his window open with his left hand dangling outside, holding his cigarette. The distinctive crunching sound of the car tires on gravel drowned out his radio as he entered the parking area in front of the Castigliano Brothers Plumbing Supply building. It was a gray one-story, flat-roofed cinderblock structure that backed onto mudflats.

Tony came to a stop next to three vehicles similar to his own: All of them were Cadillacs, and all of them were black. He flicked his cigarette into a pile of rusting sinks and killed the engine. As he got out of the car, he was assaulted by the odor of the salt marsh. It wasn’t pleasant. With night rapidly approaching, the wind had shifted to the east.

The building’s façade was in need of paint. In addition to the firm’s name in block letters, there was a smattering of graffiti on the walls. The door was unlocked, and Tony walked in without knocking, as was his custom. A counter stood in the middle of the room. Behind the counter were rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with plumbing materials. No one was in sight. A radio on the counter was tuned to a station playing music from the fifties.

Tony skirted the counter and walked down the center aisle. At the rear, he opened a second door that led into an office. In contrast to the supply area, this area was relatively plush, with a leather sofa and two desks on a threadbare Oriental carpet. Small, paned windows looked out onto the mudflats that were ringed with cattails and dotted with discarded tires and other debris. There were three men sitting in the room, one at each desk and one on the sofa.

Along with terse greetings, Tony shook hands with the two men at the desks first and then with the man on the sofa before sitting down himself. The men at the desks were the Castigliano brothers. They were twins named Sal and Louie. Tony had known them from the third grade, but by name only and not as friends. In high school they’d been scrawny, pimply kids who’d been teased mercilessly, and as adults they were still gaunt, with cadaverous cheeks and deeply set eyes.

The man on the sofa next to Tony was Gaetano Baresse, who’d grown up in New York City. He was built like Tony, but larger and with heavier features. He normally manned the plumbing supply counter in the outer room. As a side job, he was the twin’s muscle. Most people thought he was around to make up for all the teasing the twins had weathered as schoolkids, but Tony knew better. Gaetano’s strong-arm contribution was an occasional requirement with the twins’ other business activities: some legal, some less so. It was in these business activities that Tony and the twins had become acquainted.

“First off,” Tony said, “I want to thank you all for coming out on a Sunday.”

“No problem,” Sal said. He was sitting to Tony’s left. “I hope you don’t mind that we invited Gaetano.”

“When you called and said there was trouble, we thought he should be included,” Louie added.

“No problem,” Tony said. “I just wish we could have had this get-together a little earlier, which I’ll explain.”

“We did the best we could,” Sal said.

“My cell phone battery was dead,” Gaetano said. “I was at my sister-in-law’s house, playing pool. I was hard to find.”

Tony lit up a cigarette and offered them all around. Everyone took one. Soon they were all smoking.

After taking a few deep drags, Tony put his cigarette down. He needed his hands to gesture while he talked. Thus prepared, he told the Castigliano brothers word for word as he remembered it the conversation he’d had earlier that afternoon with Stephanie. He left nothing out, nor did he mince words. He said it was his opinion and that of his accountant that Stephanie’s company was going belly-up.

While Tony spoke, the twins became progressively agitated. Sal, who had been fiddling with a paper clip by bending it back and forth, snapped it in two. Louie angrily stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette.

“I don’t believe this!” Sal said when Tony concluded.

“Is your sister married to this twerp?” Louie demanded.

“No, they just live together.”

“Well, I tell you, we’re not going to sit around while this bastard enjoys himself in the sun,” Sal said. “No way!”

“We have to let him know we’re not pleased,” Louie said. “He’s either got to get his ass back up here and straighten things out, or else. You got that, Gaetano?”

“Yeah, sure. When?”

Louie looked at Sal. Sal looked at Tony.

“It’s too late today,” Tony said. “Which is why I would have liked to have seen you guys earlier. They’re on their way someplace before they head to Nassau. But my sister will be calling my ma when she’s settled in the Bahamas.”

“You’ll let us know?” Sal questioned.

“Yeah, sure. But the deal is, you leave my sister out of it.”

“Our beef’s not with her,” Louie said. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“It’s not,” Tony said. “Trust me! I don’t want there to be bad blood between us.”

“Our beef’s with him,” Sal said.

Louie looked at Gaetano. “I guess you’ll be going to Nassau.”

Gaetano cracked the knuckles of his right hand with his left. “Sounds good to me!”