America's King of Poetry

Chapter 54 Dorothy

Gina entered the room first, and the scene just now made her extremely shy.

Arthur made Dorothy a cup of coffee, and he remembered that this apartment had belonged to Tony's family long ago, and Dorothy had always had the key to it.After she left New York, the door lock of the apartment has not been changed. Anyway, there is nothing valuable in the apartment, which is not worthy of other people's patronage.

Dorothy took the coffee from Arthur, and stared at her brother for a long time with her dark brown eyes, as if she wanted to see some flaws in it.After finding that there were no flaws, she smiled and said, "Arthur, you have really grown up."

Arthur smiled slightly, he had indeed grown up, not only did he grow up, even his soul changed.

In Arthur's mind, memories of Dorothy emerged bit by bit, and those images flashed before his eyes like a slideshow.Dorothy is 5 years older than Arthur and is Tony's only daughter. Her mother died very early, and Tony has never been married, and lives with her daughter.Dorothy lived with her father until she was 18 years old, that is, in 1985, she was admitted to college and returned to her mother's hometown of San Francisco, and never came back.

Arthur's memories of Dorothy stay in 1985, the summer when she boarded the plane out of New York to San Francisco.Wearing a red floral dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat, she took a taxi to Manhattan and met Arthur downstairs in the apartment building.The siblings hugged and said a few words, and she took a taxi to the airport without Tony even showing up to see her off.Since then, Dorothy has disappeared from Arthur's life, and there is no news at all.

After Tony "disappeared", the family kept contacting Dorothy, hoping that she would return to New York to deal with the funeral, but they never got a reply.Before Arthur ordered Montolo to sell the villa, Dorothy's signature was required, and her name was on the property registration file.So she made a few more calls to San Francisco, and she suddenly appeared at Arthur's house tonight.

"Is Dad completely missing? No news at all?" Dorothy mentioned Tony. She looked indifferent, as if she didn't care about her father's life or death at all.

"Yes, I heard that he went to Argentina, and he might want to avoid being prosecuted by the prosecutor's office." Arthur made up a reason, saying that Tony ran to Argentina for asylum.Tony had indeed taken vacations to Argentina a few times in the past, and there was his property there, just to run away one day.

The topic didn't stay on Tony for too long. The siblings drank coffee and chatted about past and present events.The two haven't seen each other for almost 10 years, but the kind of intimacy between relatives still rushes to the face. Arthur can't control himself to soften himself, just talking and laughing with his sister.Dorothy glanced in the direction of the bedroom, and Arthur understood what she meant, and said, "My girlfriend, Gina, is still in school, and she's a little shy."

"You two weren't very shy just now."

Arthur was a little embarrassed by Dorothy's words. He took a sip of his coffee and calmed down and said, "Dorothy, Tony may not be able to come back, so the family decided to sell the house. Now a buyer has been found, and one-third or two-thirds of the money from the sale will belong to the family. Now the family's business is somewhat difficult."

According to Arthur's idea, the money from the sale of the villa will be used to compete with the Gandolfer family for drug sales channels, subsidize their downstream buyers, and lower prices to squeeze the Gandolfer family's sales space.The development of the Luciano family has not been very good in the past few years. They have been suppressed by the anti-mafia group and also squeezed out by the competition of the Gandolfiel family, so they can only use real estate sales to obtain liquidity.

"Arthur, are you involved in the family business?" asked Dorothy.

Dorothy is still very clear about what her father does for a living. Because she is a girl, she never has the idea or possibility to intervene in family affairs.According to the traditional way, when she becomes an adult, at the age of 20, she will marry the son of a certain corner of the family, or a man of the same age in another family, complete the political marriage in the Italian gang, and start a life of a housewife who is a husband and a child.

Times were different though, and she chose higher education, went to college, and left New York with the intention of never returning for the rest of her life.It wasn't until an accident happened in the family that she hesitated for a long time and repeatedly confirmed that her father Tony might not be able to come back. Then she returned to New York and came to the home of her younger brother Arthur.

"Well... I participated a little bit, but I still work at Luciano's restaurant. I want to open my own restaurant in the future." Arthur continued to disguise himself as a chef.

Dorothy took the last sip of coffee, took out a cigarette from her pocket and lit it, took a puff, exhaled a string of smoke rings, flicked the ashes into the finished coffee cup, and said, "Arthur, I'm not going to sell the house. I'm going to move back to New York and live in the original home."

Arthur was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect that his sister came back not to sell the house, but to inherit the house.She already had a share of the house. In addition, Tony also had a large deposit in the bank, gold and a small amount of equity.As long as there is no trace of Tony in a few years, he will be declared legally dead.Dorothy can inherit her father's estate by paying an inheritance tax.

"Then your job in San Francisco..."

"Resigned. Also, I just got divorced yesterday, and I can't go back to San Francisco anymore." Dorothy flicked the cigarette ash again and said plainly.

Dorothy stayed in San Francisco after college, changed jobs three times, married her college boyfriend, and bought a house with a loan.After marriage, she had two miscarriages and has never had children.Her husband cheated twice, and she forgave her twice. The third time, she was not ready to forgive and chose to end the marriage.Just when the news of her father's disappearance came, she could finally go back.

Arthur also finished his cup of coffee, and things seemed to get a little complicated.He got up and went to the kitchen to make himself another cup, thinking about what to do next?I thought that Dorothy would come over, sell the house and get the money back to San Francisco, and since then she would have nothing to do with the Luciano family.In a few years, she wanted to inherit Tony's property, just give her the money, and Arthur didn't covet that money.

But she didn't want to sell the house and had to live in New York, so the situation was different.Judging from her tone, she made up her mind and didn't leave a way out for herself.I quit my job, divorced my marriage, left New York 10 years ago, and came back 10 years later. The members of the Luciano family are indeed lunatics, not normal people at all.

The family now needs a cash flow to support the war with the Gandolfield family on the drug line. If there is no income from selling the house, they have to find a way from other places, but time waits for no one.The idea of ​​killing Dorothy flashed through Arthur's mind. In that case, he would become the first heir to the property. As long as some legal issues were resolved, the house would belong to him.And Tony's other property will be his in the future.

Arthur added a cube of sugar to the coffee and stirred it with a tiny tin spoon, his thoughts spinning like the coffee in the cup.He still had feelings for Dorothy in his mind and body, a family affection thicker than water, and it was not easy for him to make up his mind to kill Dorothy.

He turned his head and looked at the back of Dorothy sitting in the living room. Her long chestnut hair was not as thick, fluffy and shiny as when she was a girl.The originally tall and thin back became slightly rickety, fine lines appeared on her neck, and time left many marks on her body.In the past, she was like a princess in the family. What made her willing to leave her palace and go to the west coast to live an ordinary life for 10 years?

Arthur thought of the cellar in the villa.

"Dorothy, did you know that old Larry is dead too." Arthur returned to the living room with coffee and mentioned old Larry.

"Really, no one told me." Dorothy's tone was still calm, as if she didn't care about the old Larry who had watched her grow up since she was a child, and she just died.It was a strange attitude on her part, but not surprising to Arthur when he thought of what old Larry and Tony had done.

"Speaking of old Larry, do you remember Christmas in 1983? You and Dior's son fought over a toy. You couldn't beat him, so you ran out alone, trying to walk back to Manhattan by yourself. I was the only one who chased him out. Do you remember?"

Dorothy mentioned the past, and Arthur searched his memory, but had no memory of it.Most of the memories of this body are neatly arranged in my mind, but they are mainly concentrated after 1983. Memories before 1983, like ordinary people, are chaotic. Some things are clearly remembered, and some things are only vaguely remembered. The specific time, place, and details of the event are not clear.Arthur was not at all impressed by what Dorothy said.

Seeing Arthur shaking his head, Dorothy continued: "It was cold and dark that night. I followed you and told you to go back, but you refused. Then something strange happened. There were candles floating on the road. I told you to lie down, and you lay down, and the flames walked past us. Later, old Larry came out to look for us and found us both under a big tree by the side of the road. To their paradise, on this land, there are too many dead souls of Indians, they lined up to this day, and they haven't finished walking..."

The siblings fell into silence, and Dorothy just thought of it suddenly. She always felt that many things had changed since that night.She was 16 years old that year, just about to become an adult, and she began to transform from a girl to a young man.Arthur could not think of it at all, but Dorothy's words reminded him of something else.

That card, that six of hearts, he still remembers the poem behind it:

I was chased by you in the dark, you let me lie down, someone held a candle beside me.I, too, accept the blessing of saving the dead.

Yes, our future is different. Your hut faces the sun, and my surroundings must be the sea and the north.

Yes, your garden flowers are the first to bloom, and mine are sown in the bitter cold.

Yet one summer we were queens, but you, crowned in June.

(End of this chapter)