THE CITY OF RADIANT BRIDES

by Janice Law

Recently retired after nearly twenty years teaching literature at the University of Connecticut, Janice Law will be returning full-time to her fiction writing. She’s a past Edgar Allan Poe Award nominee and versatile enough to write both genre and mainstream books and short stories, with historical or contemporary settings. Her story for us this month is contemporary, but that didn’t stop her from weaving in a bit of Old World passion, jealousy, intrigue, and vengeance.

* * * *

When Louise met Florin, she believed that she had entered the City of Radiant Brides. She had longed for this metropolis from afar, via the weddings, parties, infidelities, quarrels, and breakups of a host of celebrities. There was Kendra Wilkinson, married “looking radiant,” naturally, at the Playboy Mansion. She was marrying a big- time athlete set to keep her in platinum jewelry, and Louise figured pretty much anyone would look radiant under those circumstances.

And there was J. Lo, starring in an island wedding with fabulous dresses and helicopters and every detail of Technicolor romance so different from the workaday world of the restaurant, even the very nice, very profitable restaurant such as Louise’s husband ran.

Angelo easily made enough to enjoy some of life’s nicer things, and Louise had been dismayed to find him stingy except with clothes. That’s what had led her astray. When they were first dating, Angelo would spring for nice shoes and good cocktail dresses and squire her to the restaurant. He’d said that he wanted to keep an eye on the operation even on his nights off; Louise respected that. What she hadn’t realized was that he was measuring her for the hostess job.

“Family run, we all pitch in,” he said, citing his saintly mother, who sat behind the till every day until she keeled over at seventy-eight. Angelo saw her as a model; Louise, as a warning, though the old lady had been smart to work the register instead of standing around all night in insane heels with a pile of menus in her hand and a phony smile on her face.

The register would have offered opportunities of other sorts, too, but Angelo had placed his cousin in charge of that. Cousin Joe had permanent damage from shrapnel caught in the first Gulf War. He needed a soft job, and he was, as Angelo phrased it, “reliable.”

This meant, Louise discovered, that Joe could count the takings to the penny but turn a blind eye when Angelo’s cronies from the old neighborhood turned up with mysterious envelopes full of dirty cash that slid into the till and flowed out again into nice, clean circulation.

Louise learned to ask for the special things she wanted after these visits, aware that there was always a bit of extra money spread around to keep things quiet. Considering everything, hostess at La Primavera was not the worst job she’d had by a long shot, but it wasn’t exactly the City of Radiant Brides, and the position was open-ended. Without some luck, Louise figured she’d be carried out feet first in her black cocktail dress.

That was the situation when Florin blew in on the day of the tornado. Rain like you couldn’t believe, waist-deep water running in the streets, brooks rampaging over the roads, trees down everywhere, their limbs shattered as if a bomb had gone off. The restaurant remained open, naturally. Saintly Mother had never, ever closed.

With stranded motorists and business people and shoppers trapped in the storm, the kitchen was surprisingly busy. Louise was out front, holding the fort, as Angelo put it, literally hanging onto the door when Florin shouldered his way in, bringing rain that swept after him to stream onto her face and dress.

“Princesa! A thousand apologies.”

“Not the first time today,” she said, but she noticed his big, chocolate-colored eyes, thick black-and-silver hair, gleaming white teeth, and beautiful fawn-colored suit, and was less annoyed than she might have been. This feeling was cemented a few minutes later when the barman brought her over a glass of their best red wine and she saw Florin raise his glass to her across the room.

A good beginning. Soon Florin, big spender and generous tipper, was one of their regulars. He brought his friends in for boisterous dinner parties and always sent over a glass of good wine “for the hostess.” It wasn’t long before Louise found his big black Cadillac parked next to her Toyota when she got off work and, very soon, waiting a block from the house on her days off.

Welcome to the City of Radiant Brides—or, at least, of Radiant Girlfriends who visited expensive spas, got gifted with elegant jewelry, and spent afternoons, when they were supposedly visiting elderly aunts, with their lovers. Louise felt that she could adapt to this life very easily.

Of course, there was Angelo to consider, but he seemed even more involved with the restaurant and catering and visits from old neighbors than usual. He accepted Aunt Maria’s angina episodes, even the late-night ones that let Louise spend evenings at the casino with Florin or at shoreline restaurants or in fancy hotel rooms with marble showers and exquisite bedding.

All this beat her hostess job hands down, and Louise was willing to squash guilt and continue indefinitely. Then, one evening, while she was sitting in a heart-shaped Jacuzzi with champagne bubbles fluttering up her nose, Florin said, “You need to leave him.”

“Who?” asked Louise, who had been thinking of calling room service and ordering one of their nice petit four plates.

“Who? Who? Your husband. Angelo.” He spoke with an irritation that Louise recognized.

Florin was terrific—glamorous, romantic, generous—so long as he was getting his own way. He adored her, treated her, indeed, like the princesa he always called her, and nearly overwhelmed her with presents. Because requests were always presented as “you will like,” “just a try,” or “just for me,” Louise found it easy to overlook a bossy, even bullying, streak. Besides, any time she was put out with him, she could always say that she had to work unexpectedly. The much-disliked hostess job turned out to be her way of controlling the situation, and she discovered a reluctance to give it up.

“How can I leave Angelo?”

“Americans divorce all the time,” he said, and she caught a whiff of Old World disapproval. Florin’s surname was Italian but his passport was Rumanian, and Louise suspected that his home country was the nineteenth century.

“Then I’d be a divorced American,” she said and got Florin laughing.

She thought that was the end of it, but he kept returning to the topic. At first it was flattering, heavily romantic, tabloid stuff: “I can’t bear to think of you with Angelo, Princesa.” Then his feelings took on another coloration. Florin would sulk and stamp around their hotel room and sometimes throw things. He broke a mirror once, which even Louise, who was not superstitious, saw as bad luck.

Other times he would turn his chocolate eyes on her and sigh and say that he was crazy about her and maybe buy her something especially nice. Louise liked that. She liked to be in control of the situation, but she also liked to reside in the City of Radiant Brides.

Sometimes when she stepped out of the big black Cadillac and said good night, Louise was tempted to hop right back in and tell Florin to drive to Florida or Vegas or to JFK for a plane to Paris. Those were the nights when she thought that maybe she had a future with Florin, though there would be trouble with the relatives, who’d support Angelo one hundred percent, and probably with old friends, too.

Other times, she would remember those impulses and feel a little shiver as if she’d had a close escape. This was usually after Florin had disappeared for a week or two without so much as a call on her cell phone.

“Business,” he’d say, or “I had to visit the Old Country.” That was it, no information, no calls, no postcards, no little presents. Business trips were quite unlike his pleasure trips to Florida or the Islands, when he’d tease her to accompany him.

There were other moments, too. Eating dinner one night, his cell phone rang and as soon as he answered, she saw his face get dark. “Take care of it,” he said, and when the phone rang again a half-hour later, he got up and said he had to leave. Just like that.

“Something wrong?” she asked. But she got no answer.

Louise had been around the old neighborhood often enough to figure that Florin, despite his dreamy accent and fancy manners, was a crook of a serious sort; next to him, the guys who visited the restaurant and helped out their cash flow were small-timers. She opened her eyes a little more and saw that Angelo was afraid of Florin, and that made her think that maybe she should be, too, before she dismissed this notion as unworthy of the City of Radiant Brides.

In this way, Louise dithered between fear and carelessness until the Christmas season, when decisions could be postponed in the holiday rush. Then came the New Year. She and Angelo went out for the evening and had a pleasant time. He wasn’t exciting like Florin, but Louise recognized that she was more relaxed with him. There wasn’t the edge of possible confrontation or sudden storm. He was a decent man, if a little boring, and Louise resolved to break off with Florin as New Year’s resolution number one.

She was unprepared for his reaction. They were at a very nice oyster bar, and he tipped a full plate of Blue Points over the table and onto the floor. They’d have been asked to leave if the maitre d’ hadn’t also been afraid of Florin, who swore and carried on in a very dramatic and operatic way until she agreed to “think things over.”

When she did, Louise found she couldn’t yet keep her good resolution. Florin was unreasonable but exciting, and though Louise did not want to face it, there was something dangerous about him that she was unwilling to provoke. They went on for a while, but less agreeably. Florin kept pressing her to leave Angelo—but not, Louise noticed, offering to marry her himself.

Indeed, when, deciding to up the ante, she mentioned the prospect of marriage, Florin changed the subject, leading her to wonder if he already had a wife. That was quite possible, since she had never met any of his family and had only been introduced briefly and in passing to a couple of his friends.

In April, Angelo had what his doctor called a “cardiac episode.” Louise didn’t see Florin for three weeks, what with doctors’ visits with Angelo and running the restaurant in his absence. At the end of that time, when Angelo was out of danger and back to work, she called Florin and told him it was all over.

A silence on the line and then his voice, low and with a note she had never heard before, “You’ll regret this, Princesa,” before the line went dead. Louise was shaking when she put down the phone, but Florin did not call again.

No flowers, either, no little gifts, none of his usual ploys. He stopped coming around the restaurant, which was both a relief and a disappointment, depending on how she felt on the day. Someone heard that he’d gone back to Rumania—or maybe to Italy. His whereabouts remained vague, and Louise felt relieved. Really. It was only when the evening rush subsided at the restaurant and her feet started to ache that she missed Florin and wondered if she had made a big mistake.

But otherwise, she was content. She and Angelo had gotten on better since his illness. She turned out to have a head for business, and she was not so bored and restless when she was involved in the orders, planning, and administration of La Primavera. Louise persuaded Angelo to look for a new hostess, and Florin and the City of Radiant Brides receded in her consciousness until the morning when she was late getting to the restaurant.

She had been at a big wine-tasting event with their distributor the night before, and it was almost ten-thirty before she pulled into the parking lot, unlocked the back door, and stopped. Something was wrong. A smell of something at once oily and burning and another smell, like the inside of the meat locker.

“Angelo?” Louise’s voice was unrecognizable to her. “Joe? Freddy?” She took another step forward and saw the bodies lying on the kitchen floor, the blood on the walls, bowls of sauce and salad overturned, something smoking on the stove.

“Angelo! Angelo!” She ran toward the office, slipped on the blood, saw it on her hand and screamed. No answer. Still no answer. She caught herself against the doorframe and saw him lying in the corridor, facedown with blood on his back.

A moment of blankness. A black wall. A roaring in her head. That’s what she told the first officer, the one who found her sitting frozen at the desk, still holding her phone. There was so much blood on her that they thought at first she had been shot, too, but when they found she was not wounded, they took her to the hospital anyway, and for two days she had no thoughts at all, just deep and terrible fears and angers as if she had stepped into pure emotion, like being sucked into a tornado.

Louise didn’t emerge until the funerals, when she was loaded up on Valium and wearing enough black for a Sicilian village, complete with a ridiculous veil. Under the watchful eyes of the homicide detectives assigned to the case, friends, relatives, neighbors, local businessmen, and Angelo’s dubious buddies appeared beyond her black scrim to whisper condolences.

“I swear to God,” said one. “Nobody knew. Nobody. Out of town, got to be.”

She believed that. What she couldn’t believe was the other possibility, the one that reverberated from Florin’s whispered threat. But it couldn’t be. She couldn’t face the idea that three men were dead for what? For a visit to the City of Radiant Brides? She could not, she would not accept that. Not now. Not ever, she thought.

Besides, Florin was overseas, long gone, with his phone out of service. Louise knew; she had tried his number weeks before in a moment of weakness. She didn’t dare try again, nor his e-mail, either—just in case the cops wanted to look into the computer.

And they might, because the homicide detectives said that robbery did not appear to be the motive for the “execution style” murders. They mentioned “gangland elements,” and though they waited a decent interval, they wanted to know what Louise knew about that.

“Look, I’m the hostess. I hand out menus and take you to your table. Angelo was an honest man. Some of his old friends were, well, you know them. But he was an honest guy, loyal but honest.” It seemed to Louise important to stick with that line. She cried a lot, too. Never more than when they finally mentioned Florin.

“I was stupid,” she said. “But it was nothing. I wasn’t ever going to leave Angelo. Florin’s gone, anyway. I’m glad he’s gone.”

The detectives talked to her often. At first she thought they were suspicious of her and then she thought they were sympathetic, but they never had any real information. Three people had been gunned down and no one knew the reason and no one knew who’d done it.

“A contract killing, we think,” they finally told her. And looked at her with their cool and interested eyes and waited for her to give them some clue.

She shook her head in despair. She had asked everyone, all the guys from the old neighborhood, all the relatives, all their friends. There was nothing. Angelo had offended no one. She knew herself that the restaurant was clear of debt. It had to be Florin, and yet it couldn’t be. She couldn’t let it be, though she could hear him in her ear whispering, You’ll regret this, Princesa.

She should tell the detectives; it was the very thing they were waiting for, but Florin was out of their reach and to tell them would be to accept that this monstrous crime was in some way her fault. Louise shook her head. She knew nothing, guessed nothing, speculated about nothing, tried, as much as she could, to think about nothing.

And then, over a year later, Florin reappeared. Just as he had the first time, out of the blue, so to speak, but a real blue sky this time, a hot summer day. Louise was at the restaurant, not La Primavera, which had been closed and leveled, but at the new restaurant, Memoria, half a block away.

“Princesa,” he said when he saw her. “As lovely as ever.” He kissed her hand.

Louise wondered whether to believe him, then decided she did. Black had definitely turned out to be her color. She handed him a menu and took him to a single table near the back.

“I heard of your tragedy,” he said. “So sad. I am so sad for you.”

“You’re back,” was all she could say.

“For you, Princesa.”

There was something in his eyes, something Louise could not decipher.

“My life is very different now,” she said and moved away.

He returned anyway. Memoria’s food was excellent, the restaurant was “bellisimo,” she herself remained la Princesa, and the City of Radiant Brides was still accessible. “You work too hard,” he said. “You need a vacation.”

“I can’t leave the restaurant,” she said, though she was tempted, though she had worked without stop since Angelo’s death, though some days she expected to find her feet had dropped off with weariness.

“A weekend,” he said. “You could do a weekend in Florida.” He had a condo in Miami, on the water, a very nice place, fit for the Princesa.

Louise felt her head start to ache as it always did when she really had to think about Florin. There was the handsome, silver-haired bon vivant, brimming with operatic charm, with his sighs and compliments and continental phrases, her key to the Radiant City, and yet after he had threatened her, Angelo and his cousin and Freddy, the kitchen helper, had died.

No proof, of course, no proof at all. After she made a discreet call to the homicide detectives, they questioned Florin—he told her about that himself, full of regret and indignation. “Of course, they soon understood that there was nothing. It was bizarre. I was in the Old Country at the time. My heart broke for you, you know that, Princesa?”

He turned his chocolate eyes on her, soulful and melting, but watchful, too. She thought watchful and warned herself to be careful. “I did not hear from you,” she said.

“I did not know, Princesa. I was away, traveling here and there on business. How would I know about so terrible a thing?”

How indeed? she thought. He took her hand again and said that she had to believe him. She had to.

“I should hate to think otherwise,” said Louise. She told herself that the police had found nothing; that there was no evidence; that Florin with his uncertain temper and potent charm had been across the Atlantic and at the back end of the Mediterranean. Just the same, seeing Florin again made her feel subtly queasy, for if he was guilty, she would have to act, but if he really was innocent, couldn’t she make a new start? Was life to be without glamour and pleasure forever?

“I’m not the same person,” she added, for it was fair to tell him that, to warn him, in a sense.

“Lovelier than ever,” Florin said, in his most gallant mood, and eventually, Louise agreed to a trip to Florida, which, she thought, might settle her mind one way or the other.

They flew out on a Saturday night, first-class seats, and he gave her a pretty necklace in a Tiffany box on the way. Louise caught a glimpse of her reflection and saw a dark, handsome woman in a black suit, a woman who looked glamorous, who looked set to be radiant, who was about to put various doubts and suspicions behind her.

Florin was perfect, charming and passionate and sympathetic. He bought her a white sundress, because “black is so hot in Florida,” and a black-and-white hat and a white cover-up for the beach. The apartment was luxurious, with the canal below, aqua, and the strip of the bay beyond, brilliantly blue. Perfect.

“We could stay here, Princesa. We could stay here and be happy.” This was on Monday night, when Memoria was closed. Louise had to return in time for the dinner crush on Tuesday.

She pointed this out.

“I’ll take care of you,” Florin said. “You don’t need the restaurant. You know I’d do anything for you. Anything.”

That one word carried a chill. Louise had no intention of giving up the restaurant and trusting herself entirely to Florin. Not now. At the same time, sitting with him on the balcony high above the canal and the palms, high above the pale and distant line of the surf, she felt it unwise to say this outright. “I’ve worked hard on Memoria,” she said.

He shrugged.

She talked about her struggles with financing—”If I had only known, Princesa”—and the many difficulties with the insurance company and builders. “A lot of work,” she concluded.

“Hard work will age you,” he said slyly. “And you know,” he added after a moment, “restaurants are delicate things.”

Louise looked at him. His face was shadowed, only his silver hair caught the lights reflected from the canal and the neighboring apartments. She sensed a dangerous moment.

“They have a lifespan. Tastes change, Princesa. And even before that—a drunken chef, a grease fire, one bad fish—it doesn’t take much.”

“Or murder,” Louise wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. She understood that she was being subtly threatened. “Whereas without the restaurant . . . “

“Without the restaurant, Princesa, we enjoy this splendid view, South Beach, Coconut Grove. We travel, we see the world.”

“Maybe visit the Old Country?”

“Maybe that is not so much fun,” Florin said. “The Old Country has many troubles.”

“Do you escape troubles here?”

“What do you think?”

“I think we should have some wine,” Louise said. “I think we should toast our escape from troubles.”

He laughed and started to get up.

“No, no, let me. You’ll see what a fine sommelier I make.” She had learned a lot about wine since opening Memoria.

Florin lit one of his long, thin cigars while Louise opened the wine and poured two glasses. She glanced out at the terrace, then slipped her hand inside her purse and took out a very small bottle, courtesy of one of Angelo’s old friends. She added a couple of drops to one glass, slipped the bottle back into her purse, and carried out the tray.

“To you,” she said, when they were both seated.

“Princesa.”

“Do you like the wine?”

“A bit sweet but very smooth.”

“An after-dinner wine. A moscato.”

“Very nice,” he said. They watched the night bring up the lights of the city like endless trays of fine jewelry. “It will be best to put Memoria up for sale. I can find someone for you to take over the management this week.”

“I doubt we’ll find anyone capable that fast. I will have to go back for the transition in any case.”

Florin didn’t like that, but Louise pointed out the importance of reputation and good will. “I’m not just selling the building in this case.”

“Very true,” he said.

Louise got up and poured him some more wine, and they discussed getting rid of Memoria, into which she had poured her heart’s blood. It took a long time and Louise kept his glass topped up until the bottle was empty.

“Now that everything is settled, I feel we should celebrate,” she said. “I feel like dancing.” She tried a few steps on the balcony. “We could go to that Club Nikki. I’ve heard it’s very nice.”

Florin stood up, quick and smooth as always, and Louise felt her heart sink. She had been deceived twice and now . . .

He suddenly put his hand on the balcony “Maybe an early night, instead,” he said. “It is my heart, Princesa. Too much happiness.” He touched his heart and Louise noticed that he swayed just a trifle.

She moved their chairs to the back of the balcony and flicked on the stereo with the remote. Speakers hidden behind the two big potted palms brought up a soft but insistent beat and a wailing, insinuating guitar riff. She held out her arms and swung her hips and Florin followed. He was a good dancer but tonight he was just a half-beat out of sync. Louise began to feel more confident.

“Sometimes I think about La Primavera,” she said.

“Naturally,” Florin said.

“I got there before anyone else.”

“A tragedy, Princesa.” His eyes were half closed. “But in today’s world . . . “

“It was not a robbery. The police are very certain it was not a robbery.”

“Your husband had certain friends,” Florin began delicately. His voice was curiously without any emotional tone and his eyes were half closed.

“Small-time crooks,” Louise said. “They were small-time and fond of Angelo. Honorable men.”

“Yet I had the sense he was afraid.”

They had circled the large balcony and over Florin’s shoulder Louise could see the shiny blackness of the canal far below. Her heart was in her ears and her surging blood whispered, decide, decide, until she thought that her head would burst. “He was afraid of you,” she said.

“Of me, Princesa? A good customer?”

“A man with contacts. In the Old Country—and elsewhere.”

He shrugged. “People talk nonsense.”

“Do they?”

They were at the corner of the balcony and Florin was swaying slightly. Were he to hit the floor, Louise knew she could not lift him over the rail. Decide, decide, ran between her ears so insistently she was surprised that he couldn’t hear her thought.

“Of course.”

“And yet you threatened me, you told me I’d be sorry. And I was, Florin. I was, I am sorry yet. I am.”

“What is a restaurant? What is a man like Angelo? Princesa,” he said, and he swung his arm to indicate the apartment, the sea, the glitter and darkness that was the very image of the seductive Radiant City. Louise took one step back and pushed him.

For a horrible instant Florin seemed balanced against the rail, and then slowly, so slowly it seemed to Louise, he tumbled over with a scream.

“Ricorda!” she shouted after him in her bad Italian, “Ricorda i morti.” He might be Old Country with contacts, but her people had been Sicilian for generations, and she could wear black with the best of them.

A thud below, then silence. Louise caught her breath and stepped inside. She collected the little bottle, which she would drop down the trash chute, and her cell phone, with which she would call the police. Louise put her black scarf around her head, straightened her back, and said goodbye to the City of Radiant Brides forever.