"My mother was abused," Max says, and I just stare at him.
"Your mother?"
"She nearly died before anyone did anything. It was almost too late to save her."
A million thoughts are running through my mind. Why is Max loyal to his father - carrying on his business - if his father was an abuser who almost killed his mother? It doesn't make sense.
Max must see the confusion on my face.
"My father never hurt her."
"Then who?"
Max leans back in his chair, starts to lift his glass of champagne, then sets it down and waives the server over and orders a bourbon, and asks for menus.
"It's a long story," Max tells me as the server walks away. "I was planning to head back to the hotel and order room service then finesse you into bed, but if I'm going to tell you this we might as well have dinner here."
"Okay." I'm still reeling from the shock of what he's telling me. Max never shares anything about his past, and I'm wondering why he's suddenly decided to open up to me.
The server hands us the menus.
"You order for us," Max says, and I scan the prix fixe menu and make selections, mostly seafood and he nods in approval but seems distracted. Then I wait for Max to speak again.
"How much do you know about the Irish mafia?" he asks me.
"Pretty much nothing. I mean, I've heard stories about South Boston and Whitey Bulger. There was that movie with Johnnie Depp awhile ago."
Max nods. "That's the Irish mob in the U.S. It's a whole different thing in Ireland."
"I don't really know anything about that."
"Back in the 1970's and 80's the Irish mafia in Dublin was heavily into the drug trade. There were multiple factions, though, and constant wars between them, jockeying for control."
I listen to Max, but I'm wondering what any of this has to do with his mother being abused. He seems to want to tell the story in his own time, and I don't want to interrupt him with questions. He pauses as our server comes back with a tray and sets the plates on the table.
I ordered the yellowfin tuna and the scallops as appetizers, and we're sharing both of them. But at the moment I'm not sure I have much of an appetite. I'm not expecting this to be a pretty story.
As soon as the server leaves, Max continues.
"My grandfather left Italy and came to Miami in the 1950's, with little more than the shirt on his back. It didn't take him long, apparently, to realize that illegal gambling was where the real money could be made. He soon expanded from that to hotels - where much of the gambling took place - and the construction industry as the population in Miami grew and the need for development increased.
"By the time my father was born in the 1960's the name Bennett was well known and respected in organized crime."
"You grandfather was part of the Mafia?"
"Not exactly. He was only half Italian - his mother was English - and he compounded that by marrying a Cuban American woman. You couldn't be a "made man" in the Mafia unless you were fully of Italian descent, but he associated with Mafia bosses and controlled some key economic resources that meant he was the man to deal with. He'd also made significant inroads in putting local politicians on his payroll."
I'm wondering now if that's why Max isn't actually in the Mafia but instead has business dealings with actual mob bosses like Gino and Joey D, but I don't want to interrupt him to ask. His father wasn't pure Italian, and Max already told me before that his mother was Irish. I finger my Claddaugh bracelet and watch Max's gaze settle on it for a moment, then flick away.
"By the time my father graduated high school in the early 1980's, the family had accumulated considerable wealth and expanded into all kinds of both illegal and legal enterprises. My grandfather had an Italian villa constructed in Miami with marble and terra-cotta tile imported from Italy. It's still our family home."
One that I've yet to visit, I think, and again wonder why. But I have the feeling that now is not the time for questions like that. I want to hear the story Max is telling me, and I'm afraid any interruption might make him reconsider sharing this part of his family history will me. So I stay silent and listen.
"When my father was 19," Max continues, "he did a tour of Europe for what was commonly referred to by wealthy young men like himself as a 'gap year' before attending college. The plan was him to learn about the world - pick up some European sophistication - and then return to get a business degree at the University of Miami, where my grandfather was a respected benefactor, all in preparation for the role he would assume in the family business."
"The business of crime," I observe.
"Yes, as well as the legitimate businesses, which were so intertwined as to be indistinguishable."
I look down at the table and realize I've eaten more than half the scallops while listening to Max, without even really tasting them. I nibble a bite of the tuna and try to give it the appreciation it deserves, but my mind is focused on the story of Max's father. When I think of him, I see the photos I found in my research of a 60-year-old man staring stonily back as he is sentenced to life in prison. It's odd to imagine him as a young man traveling through Europe before starting college.
"My father spent some time that summer in Ireland, and enjoyed the hospitality of a man in Dublin whom my grandfather had done business with. That man was the head of one of the factions of the Irish mafia that was vying for control. That man," Max continues, "had a daughter."
I have an idea where this story is going, and who that daughter was. I lean forward, watching Max intently, forgetting all about the half-finished appetizers.
"She was sixteen. He was nineteen. They fell in love. My father's visit stretched from weeks into several months, traveling though other areas in Ireland but always returning to Dublin."
Max picks up his bourbon, swirls it a bit in the glass, and then takes a drink. His eyes have taken on a faraway look.
"They had the kind of romance only young lovers can have. The girl - because that was what she was - was idealistic. She had led a sheltered life, was educated at a private Catholic boarding school, and only recently begun to understand where the wealth and power her father wielded came from, and what he'd done to achieve it. She wanted nothing of that world."
Max sets his glass down, and looks into my eyes. "My father was nearly as naive as Nora - that was her name, Nora – nearly as naive as she was. On her sixteenth birthday, her father had announced her engagement to the son of a rival crime boss in the Irish mafia. It was a plan that would unite the two families, who together would control the lucrative drug trafficking and eliminate losses through infighting and sabotage that had plagued both families.
"Nora had never met the man she was intended to marry as soon as she finished school and turned eighteen. And she was in love with my father."
As the server clears our plates for the next course, I imagine the young girl. Since I don't know what Max's father looked like at that age, I picture him as a younger version of Max. Devastatingly handsome and still, in Max's words, naive.
"She convinced him that the lives their fathers led held nothing but violence, and that the two of them were different. That they didn't need money or power to be happy. My father was so in love with her that he was willing to throw everything away so that they could be together. They made plans to run off, to elope, to lie about her age, and make a life away from both their families, away from both their destinies."
Our entree and sides arrive and Max pauses again. The food is mouthwatering, the aroma wafting up from the table tantalizing. But I'm far more interested in the story Max is telling.
"So what happened?" I prompt him as soon as the server refills our water glasses and walks away.
"They were discovered, of course. A servant betrayed their plans to run away together on the day they'd planned to leave. Nora was sent immediately back to her boarding school, and Maxwell sent home in disgrace, after being told by his host that it was only out of respect for Maxwell's father that he hadn't been killed. Shortly thereafter he received a letter from Nora telling him that it was over and that her duty was to follow her father's wishes, and that she never wanted to hear from him again. Enclosed in the packet was a . . .piece of jewelry my father had given her."
Max shakes his head. "He should have realized, of course, that she was forced to write that letter. But they were both so young. His pride was wounded and his heart was broken. His father - my grandfather - was furious that this youthful indiscretion, as he termed it, had compromised his profitable business association with a prominent faction of the Irish mob and ordered him to have no contact with Nora ever again. My father agreed, believing that Nora had betrayed their love by agreeing to the arranged marriage."
"But she had no choice," I say softly, my heart aching for the young girl.
"She had no choice," Max agrees.
I cut off a small bite of the halibut with my fork and let the flavors melt in my mouth. "But that can't be the end of the story."
"My father tried to put her out of his mind. He spent the next four years in college learning everything he could about business, then stepped into the role he had been born and groomed for. It was like he was on a mission to prove himself to his father, and he took the criminal enterprise to even higher levels, compounding the wealth and power my grandfather had accumulated.
"And Nora?"
"She finished school and, at eighteen, married Patrick O'Cleary at fancy wedding attended by the who's who list of Irish mobsters, who used the reception as a cover to plan the division of drug territories in Dublin and surrounding areas."
Max turns, stares for a moment toward the window that showcase the stunning view of Manhattan and beyond, but I don't think he actually sees it since his mind is somewhere else.
"The first time he beat her," Max says without emotion, "was their wedding night, when as a good Catholic girl she confessed that she was not a virgin."
I stare at him. "This was the 1980's, not the 1950's," I say, shocked that this man would have demanded a virgin bride.
Max shrugs. "She was educated in a school that was practically a convent. The man she was promised to had certain . . . expectations. He was also a good decade older than her."
"And he beat her? Why didn't she go to her father?"
"Shame. She felt she had already betrayed her family by her relationship with Maxwell and her foiled plans to elope. You can be certain her father had made it clear what a disappointment she was. And since she had loved another when she was already promised to O'Cleary, I suppose she felt guilty." Max gives a short and humorless laugh. "Remember, she was educated by nuns. Guilt was programmed into her."
"You said the first time. There were more?"
"Patrick made it a habit to take out any frustrations on his wife. But he was careful not to bruise her where it showed. And when it was bad enough to need medical attention, she lied and said she fell down, tripped into a door, burned herself on the stove."
"Burned herself?"
Max's eyes are dark with anger even after all these years. "He was quite inventive in the ways he hurt her."
"So what finally happened?" I ask. "This is your mother so obviously she left him at some point."
"She endured this life for seven years. Finally, the last time he put her in the hospital, with broken ribs and a concussion and a battered face that no amount of makeup would be able to hide, she called my father. It was a Hail Mary pass, as they say, from a desperate woman who had no place else to turn and no idea if he would even take her call, if he would even care about her after all those years."
"But he did," I say softly.
"He had never gotten over her, you see. He was the kind of man who loves fully. And only once."
And the way he looks at me makes me wonder if there is a message about himself under those words. Is Max telling me that he also is the kind of man who loves only once?
I can't think about that now.
"What happened?"
"By this time my father was powerful in his own right. My grandfather had already turned over most of the control of the family business to him, even though he was not yet thirty. Since returning from Ireland my father had been on a mission to prove himself, and he'd done an excellent job of it.
"Two days later, Patrick O'Cleary was dead, along with key members of his organization who had the misfortune of being with him when my father arrived. And Nora was on a private plane to Miami, accompanied by a nurse who would stay with her in the hospital. They were married in a private ceremony before she had recovered enough to be discharged."
"Why so quickly?"
"As Maxwell Bennett's wife, no one - not even the Irish mafia - would dare to harm her. He swore an oath to her that he would always protect her above anything else."
I'm trying to take all this in, when something occurs to me.
"But you told me she died when you were young. Max, did the Irish mob kill your mother?"
I'm immediately sorry I asked, because the pain in his eyes at the memory of his mother's death is so real it's a tangible thing between us.
"Max," I say, reaching out with the arm that wears the bracelet to touch his hand. "Let's go back to the hotel now."
In this moment I can't think about the things Max has done. The things I know he will continue to do that go against everything I believe in.
All I can think about is that I'd do anything right now to make his pain go away.