Palisades Park by Alan Brennert

Author:Alan Brennert [Brennert, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary, Sagas, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780312643720
Google: 8iFftEONYO8C
Amazon: 0312643721
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2013-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

14

AS EDDIE DROVE HOMEWARD DOWN Palisade Avenue, he couldn’t help but notice the long line of cars—black sedans and flashy limousines—parked on the street opposite the park entrance, in front of Johnny Duke’s restaurant. During Eddie’s time overseas, mobster Joseph Doto, aka Joe Adonis, had moved his gambling operations from Brooklyn—increasingly in danger from the New York District Attorney’s office—to the more hospitable business environment of Bergen County, where Adonis took control of the rackets and purchased a fortress-like home near the Palisades. Duke’s became his base of operations, and according to Eddie’s friends from work, the “store” next door with its soaped-up display windows was a front for one of Adonis’s casinos and bookmaking operations. It purported to be a record shop dispensing 78 RPM records from vending machines, but at least one curiosity-seeker found that the records it dispensed were worn smooth, worthless, as phony as the storefront itself.

More disturbingly, Eddie had been told by Bunty that Dick Bennett was now serving as one of Adonis’s top lieutenants, and that Chief Borrell continued to lunch regularly there, as did mob chieftains like Willie Moretti and his brother Solly, Thomas Lucchese, and Cliffside Park–based Frank Erickson, the biggest bookmaker on the East Coast.

Not my business, Eddie told himself, and turned right onto Route 5 and down the winding hill to Edgewater.

When he got home, he sat the kids down and soberly told them that their mother wasn’t coming home, but assured them that she did want to see them again—someday. Jack seemed shaken but Toni immediately snapped, “Fine. Who needs her, anyway? We’ll do fine without her, won’t we, Jack?” To which Jack replied, “When will we be able to see her?”

“She doesn’t know,” Eddie said with a sigh. “She figures you’re angry at her and wants to give you time to get over it.”

“I don’t care if I ever see her face again,” Toni insisted.

“You may feel different about that someday, honey.” He went on to explain about Adele’s childhood and their grandfather’s failed dreams for his daughter. But while Jack seemed interested, Toni just got up from the sofa, said, “I’ve got to do my homework,” and huffed out of the room.

The holidays were soon upon them like an onrushing car, and when he received the annual invitation to Ralph and Daisy’s house for Thanksgiving, Eddie was forced to level with them. Marie was shocked that her daughter had abandoned her family, and though she understood better than anyone the dreams and demons that had driven Adele to do it, she became consumed with the idea that she might have somehow prevented it—should have left Franklin when he started drinking and taken Adele with her.

As a result her guilt and grief led to an excruciatingly uncomfortable Thanksgiving, as Marie, trying too hard to be solicitous and sympathetic, smothered her grandchildren with attention and a cloying pity that made Toni, Jack, and Eddie cringe. “My poor babies,” she cooed to them as if they were just that—words no

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.