Beauty Read Online Free PDF

Angelo. Warn them off.’
    ‘Honey –’ he sipped his tea – ‘interfering in people’s private lives . . . is not what I do. Bad for business.’
    Dina shook her dark head. ‘See, Don Angelo, my daddy worked for you. And he died. You took care of us. All the other workers know it. But now people are talking bad. Like, your bosses will use a guy’s widow. All the kids in school –’ the blush got deeper – ‘they all know. And some of them have fathers who used to work alongside Dad. Still work for you now. They won’t like the thought of that happening to their wives.’
    Angelo considered this. Then he turned away and rifled through the papers in front of him, on his white marble coffee table. He didn’t trust computers. They could be hacked, traced, run through by the FBI. Reports were typed out and sent to him; he read the papers and burned them each night.
Construction site delays in Brooklyn, Bronx.
Workers quitting. Sickness. Retired. Morale low.
Experienced hands replaced. Younger guys making mistakes. Costing money.
Project budget may need revision.
    Angelo saw through the dry lines of old-fashioned ink. There were problems. The old guys were dropping out.
    The girl is right .
    ‘OK. I’ll speak to the boys.’ And your mother , but he didn’t tell her that. It was time for Father Confessor Angelo Tallarico to pay a visit to Ellen Kane, and he would have a stern penance to deliver for her sins.
    ‘You were right to come to me,’ he said. She had stopped the rot. ‘What’s your name again, baby?’
    ‘Dina.’
    ‘You can leave school next year, right? Want to work for me? As a secretary?’
    He could station her out of sight of her father’s old gang, working the head offices in Jersey City. She was smart, and she had that look about her – that she’d fuck like a freight train once the right guy had warmed her up.
    Dina’s green eyes opened wide. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, like it was a stupid question.
    Angelo was amused. Working right for the Don was an opportunity girls round here would kill to have. ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because I’m going to make something of myself,’ Dina said, artlessly.
    Angelo Tallarico laughed aloud. ‘You know what, kid? I don’t doubt it.’
    The next night, in her room, Dina was hunched over her desk, working, waiting for the limousines.
    They didn’t come.
    She heard her mom making calls. They were short; there was shouting. And after that, nothing.
    Ellen sloped round the house, getting drunker, missing her days at work, lashing out. She stopped cooking, cleaning. Dina quietly did it all herself. She poured out the vodka bottles she found hidden under the sink, but her mother bought more.
    Still, the kids at the school stopped talking. Dina went back to her schoolwork. Johnny looked a little less hunched, less defeated.
    Ellen Kane was drunk.
    She didn’t know why. Just a little hair of the dog from last night. That was bad; she had the shakes. She needed it.
    And then she felt so much better. One more wouldn’t hurt. Anyway, she was quitting after this bottle. It cost money, it would be a waste to pour it away.
    She deserved it. They were all bastards, all of them – using bastards. Something had happened, something bad. It worried her nights. She had anxiety – that was it, anxiety. And if a little martini made you feel better, so what? It was better than them shrink pills. They would kill you.
    The doorbell rang.
    ‘Comin’!’ she yelled. Her words were slurry. Shit! Maybe it was Paolo, come back. He was her favourite. The way he caressed her ass . . . made her feel good, sexy, young again.
    But she was already, well, a little bit nice.
    Ellen stumbled to her bathroom and swilled the Listerine around her mouth. Yeah – great. Now she was set.
    She opened the door, steadying herself on the handle.
    It wasn’t Paolo. It wasn’t any of them.
    But it was a younger man, handsome in a kind of fierce way, with a scar on his cheek. And a fancy