by Justin Scott
“If it were true,” Tony answered, “I couldn’t comment.”
All three stations went to commercials and Taggart turned them off. “That’s news to me.”
“Ultimately,” Reggie said, “the Cirillos have to be his target. Who’s left?”
“I want the Cirillos myself.” He walked around the room, made a drink and a new one for Reggie, and stared out at Park Avenue. The broad median was ablaze in Christmas trees. Reggie was right; of course, the government was after the Cirillos. But they were his, first.
“I had lunch with Helen today. She says you’re bugging her,” he said.
Reggie looked appalled. “How did she happen to get through to you without me knowing?”
“She didn’t. I called her.” He had, in fact, called every day for a week before she agreed to lunch. “Relax. We met alone at a pizza joint on Ocean Boulevard. Just the two of us. She didn’t want her brothers to know.”
“Alone?”
“She slipped her bodyguards.”
“Did you notice anyone following her?”
“I didn’t see anybody.”
She had waited in her little red car when he got the slices. While they ate, she revved the engine like Mario Andretti. Taggart had made small talk and had gotten her to smile by mimicking contractors complaining about his brother’s office investigating bid-rigging on a Navy job. Then she had fixed him in her serious gaze and asked, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you choose me? Forget all that bull you said in Ireland.”
“Why not choose you? I’ve always worked with women in my business. Why shouldn’t I work with one in this business?”
“That’s not a reason.”
“Okay, I’m enchanted.”
“That’s not a good reason.”
“Oh, it’s a good reason,” he replied. “Maybe not a smart reason.” And to his surprise she had smiled again and even touched his arm with her long nails....
He could still feel them, electric on his skin. “It wasn’t a major date, Reg. But a beginning.”
“You are foolhardy.”
Taggart grinned. “I’m indulging a normal human desire to —
On occasion Reggie had scared Taggart, and this was suddenly one of those occasions when he skewered him with eyes that had seen it all and hated much of it. “Human? You can’t be human when you take revenge. You can’t risk indulging yourself in a lover or—now that we’re on it—your temper, as you did with Mikey, or your arrogance, which you’re indulging daily.”
“I remember. Be evil to beat evil?”
“The Devil is organized and disciplined, or he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he has.... Chris, haven’t you any concept of the danger?”
“My brother already found out about Helen. What’s he gonna do? Indict me for falling for a moll?”
“It’s not funny. Being near her doubles your risk. You’re forgetting why you recruited the Rizzolos.”
“Reg, you’re looking wired. You could do with a rest.”
“I’m quite all right.”
“Take a vacation.”
“Vacations are for amateurs.”
Taggart shrugged and closed the subject. “I’m taking her to the Governor’s Ball. It’s a fundraiser. Taggart Construction’s buying a table.”
“May I ask why—without your telling me to go on holiday?”
“Because I want to.... Hey, it’s better being in open contact.
Things are breaking faster and faster. Nobody has to know I’m giving her orders while we’re dancing.”
Still, he had to consider Tony. If Governor Costanza did go for the Presidency and Arthur Finch managed to beat the mayor out for the governorship, Tony, the leader of the Strikeforce and the man who had the Mafia on the run, had a shot at replacing Arthur as U.S. Attorney. There was no pressure Taggart could exert on Tony’s behalf—the office had been fiercely nonpolitical for eighty years—but having a brother publicly dating a mafioso’s daughter wouldn’t help his appointment. So he telephoned Alphonse and asked the old man, “Will you lease me a grandson?”
“I’ve done girls plenty times,” the Vegas hit man assured Sal Ponte at their first meeting. “But never for you guys.”
Don Richard’s handsome consigliere was too sharp to go by appearances, but he worried nonetheless that the hit man did not appear formidable. Indeed, nothing about Eddie Berger was threatening except his reputation. Hand to hand, anyone over five six and one hundred and forty pounds could have knocked him down easily. And were he knocked down, nothing in his demeanor would reveal that Eddie Berger would be back shortly to kill by whatever means available.
Reggie Rand would have spotted him instantly for that peculiar brand of crazy who had mastered the details of day-to-day life—a lunatic who knew that cops never noticed a little guy pushing a broom—and therefore roamed at will. Abandoned at age three in an Arizona diner, raised as a ward of the state, Eddie Berger had learned early that a child who appeared to obey rules was rewarded. Neatly lettered book reports handed in on time returned praise and affection from teachers, guards, and foster parents; his schoolmates were less delighted; unlike the adults, the children sensed that Eddie Berger was dangerous.
By nineteen, the ordinary-looking little man was an accomplished serial killer, well on his way to his third dozen random murders. Still a rule follower, neat, clean, well-mannered, he wandered the country, working hard at whatever menial job he drifted into. He had a car, kept up the payments, and neither drank nor smoked. Nothing stood between him and killing people for the rest of a long life. When he learned he could get paid for it, he had turned pro and had, Ponte knew, zapped some very tough people.
“They made me,” he admitted to Consigliere Ponte at their second meeting.
“Who made you?”
“Some guy she met by the water. Maybe they heard I’m around, but they don’t know why.”
Ponte passed a direct order from Don Richard. “Do it tomorrow night.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I want my fee doubled.”
Ponte’s dark face closed up, and his eyes went blank. To those who knew him the look meant danger.
Berger didn’t know him and didn’t care. “The reason is,” he explained, “I’m going to have to drop out after. The word’ll get back to her brothers.”
“Don’t worry about her brothers.”
“Nobody fools the street. Double or nothing.”
Ponte gave in. It was smarter to pay than to explain that for Helen Rizzolo’s brothers to avenge her death they would have to do it from their own graves.
20
CHAPTER
“Nice table,” said Helen.
“At two grand a plate it ought to be,” Uncle Vinnie agreed proudly. “Chris’s father was the same way. Nothing was ever too much for Costanza, even when he was just starting in Congress.”
Taggart’s party was sitting at a table next to the dance floor, directly across from Peter Duchin’s orchestra. On their right was the mayor’s entourage, to the left Governor Costanza, whose popularity with New York’s Italian-Americans had filled the Waldorf’s Grand Ballroom to capacity. Television cameras, quiescent while the faithful ate, were stationed against the back wall. Strategically sprinkled among the heavy contributors were former New York mayors and a governor, to whom the passage of time had affixed, like moss, the affection reserved for bold men unlikely to cause any more trouble.
The present mayor was working the room in the hope Costanza’s Presidential ambitions would open up the governor’s mansion. He deadpanned that Taggart’s Spire was four stories higher than zoning allowed. And when the governor stepped by for a word about Taggart’s stadium proposal, and for a look at the women, the mayor bounded back.
“I could build a high school with the taxes he’s saving on the Spire.”
Governor Costanza, who maintained privately that privilege was Manhattan’s hottest industry, looked like he wished a Ne
w Yorker friend wasn’t hovering.
“Schools?” Taggart threw his long arms around the politicians. “I’m already providing jobs, business opportunities, and space for tax-paying tenants. Can’t you guys do anything?”
He grinned at Helen, who smiled back, and winked at his beaming publicist, who was already rising for a private chat with the lady from The New Yorker. He was having a ball. The wine was Italian, and Peter Duchin was seducing hundreds into dancing between courses. But the best part was Helen Rizzolo, whose solemn eyes had widened appreciably when he had introduced her to the governor and the mayor. She sat at Taggart’s left in diamonds and a red dress that bared her shoulders, and had made, even in the incandescent presence of Victoria and Chryl, an impression. Alphonse’s accommodating grandson— Taggart’s beard—had apparently fallen in love during the limousine trip. Strait-laced Henry Bunker looked so intrigued that his wife started holding his hand.
Uncle Vinnie loved her, but what man wouldn’t? Interestingly, so did Aunt Marie, who wasn’t fooled by the beard. That Taggart and Tony weren’t married was not her fault. For ten years, since Mike Taglione had been killed, she had herded toward them legions of every conceivable variety of Italian girl that Queens and Brooklyn had to offer: old-fashioned family-bred Italian girls; rich Italian girls; eighties-slick Italian girls; glossy, college-educated Italian girls with their provocative blend of femininity and iron will. As she had no idea that Helen’s family was “connected,” to her eye Helen was all the wonderful sorts of Italian girls rolled up in one classy little package that might persuade her bachelor nephew to finally make a family.
Chryl and Victoria were rampantly curious; they were thus far behaving themselves, Taggart noted, though repeatedly rapping shoulders and bobbing heads for swift and secret thoughts. Finally, Victoria, who was sitting on his right, beckoned him closer and anounced quietly, “Maybe this isn’t one of your bimbos.”
“Do you approve?”
She leaned across her escort—a bearded critic from an architectural magazine who routinely savaged Taggart’s buildings and seemed disappointed that the brash builder hadn’t broken a champagne bottle over his head—and said to Chryl, “He’s serious.”
Chryl asked him to dance. In his arms she said, “In our opinion, you have fallen in love, you bastard.”
“You think so?” he asked earnestly. If they thought so, it was true. They were in every way his best friends. Only Reggie knew him better. “She makes me a little crazy.”
“That’s a good sign.... We’ll miss you. We’ll miss you a lot.”
“I’ll be around.”
“Not like that, you won’t. A woman like her would cut your heart out for messing around.”
Taggart kissed her. “Who’s telling who to be careful?”
“Not us, kiddo. She’ll know who to blame.” She kissed his cheek, clung to him a moment, and led him off the dance floor. “Come on, back to your party.”
When Helen excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, Chryl and Victoria arose smiling to join her and Henry Bunker remarked, “Nothing they talk about can possibly be to your advantage.”
Taggart excused himself. In the lobby he found a telephone booth, closed the door, and dialed a number Reggie had obtained from a NYNEX supervisor.
“Let me speak to Crazy Mikey.”
“Who is this? How the fuck did you get this number?”
“I bought it. A thousand bucks a digit. I already knew your area code. Put Mikey on.”
A hand covered the receiver. Then Mikey came on.
“It’s your man from the boat, Mikey.”
There was silence.
“I want to remind you we’ve got a payment coming due.”
“Hey, man, you’re pushing the wrong guy. When I got it, you’ll get paid.”
“That’s not good enough. I’m not selling you another ounce until you pay up.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to earn the money with nothing to sell?”
“That’s your problem.”
“Oh, yeah? What are you going to do about it?”
“Mikey, you’ve been a collector. Like the song says, ‘You can run, but you can’t hide.’ Do I have to send somebody to break your legs?”
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”
Taggart hung up, combed his hair in the men’s room, and strolled back to his table. Helen, Victoria, and Chryl returned, too. Helen, who had directed most of her attention toward Alphonse’s nephew and Aunt Marie, put her hand on Chris’s arm, jolting him as she had a week ago in the car, and said with a private smile only he could fully appreciate, “Your friends made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re going to design me a club.”
“You’re kidding!”
“You told them I have clubs. They said they’ve always wanted to do one. We made a deal.”
Victoria, Taggart realized belatedly, had assumed the business look she wore when the design house of Matthews and Chamberlain negotiated a contract.
“Where?” he asked her.
“The lobby of the Taggart Spire.”
“My lobby? But it’s an office-building lobby.”
“Can you imagine a ten-story-high dance club? Can you imagine the sound—the lights in that incredible space? Ten stories of music? It’s going to be drop-dead fantastic. Hey, Helen, you want to call it that? Drop Dead Fantastic? Maybe just Drop Dead.”
“No.”
“How about Death,” said Victoria. “That would be nice. Death. I like that.”
Helen said no again, and Victoria said, “You’re right, it’s a downer.”
Taggart repeated, “It’s an office building.”
“Not at night. Chryl’s got this great idea. Fly the lights and mirrors like stage sets. At night, lower them for the club. In the morning, winch them up out of sight.” Her shapely hand rose airily to the upper tiers.
“Do you know what that will cost, even if you can get it past the city?”
“You can afford it.”
“Me?”
“It’s your building.”
“What if I don’t want a disco in my lobby?”
Victoria reached over and patted Helen’s hand. “Don’t worry, dear. We’ll go to Donald Trump.”
“Okay, okay,” Taggart said. “I’ll look into it.”
Victoria showed her teeth. “Go bounce it off the mayor. Now.”
On his return he saw the party was about to go to hell as the TV crews turned on their lights and eight hundred people who had been having a good time dancing started waving to neighbors stuck home in their rec rooms. Taggart plowed through the madness, demanded Helen’s coat check from Alphonse’s vastly disappointed grandson, and grabbed her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What about my date?”
“He’s got classes in the morning. Come on, I want to show you something.”
Taggart helped her into her black mink, and through the lobby. A nod to one of the many bodyguards Reggie had insisted on secreting about the hotel had produced his white Rolls at the canopy. The clock on the Helmsley Building read one o’clock. Park Avenue was nearly empty, as were the side streets, but for a sprinkling of taxis and limousines that converged on the Waldorf.
The Spire’s Park Avenue and downtown faces were decorated with five-story trees of hanging work lights, topped by Stars of David to honor Chanukah. “Next year, when we’re occupied, we’ll control the lights on a computer to make patterns with the windows—trees at Christmas; hearts on Valentine’s Day; rabbits at Easter.”
“What if someone wants to work late in a blacked-out office?”
“He’d better bring a flashlight. It’s in his lease.”
The car stopped in front of the construction gate. “Would you like to see my apartment?”
“The building isn’t done.”
Taggart pointed up, out the back window. A solitary gold light shone at the top of the dar
k tower. “I finished my place first.”
Helen took his hand in both of hers. He felt her warmth through her kid gloves. “Could we do something first?”
“Sure. What?”
“Could we look at the Christmas windows?”
“Now? I don’t know if they’re going; it’s after midnight.”
“They are,” she said eagerly. “My father used to take me late at night—just the two of us. Every Christmas we saw Saks, Lord and Taylor, and Altman’s. Sometimes, if it was late enough, we’d be the only people there. Could we?”
“Sure.”
The big car headed west, tailed by an old cab, which Taggart didn’t notice. When the Rolls pulled to the curb in front of Saks, the cab stopped two blocks back. Station wagons were parked in front of the department store; couples were leading small children along the windows. “Just like we used to,” said Helen. They got out of the car to look.
Saks had done a thirties New York Christmas scene. The first window showed a sleek man and woman going off to a party, bidding good night to nanny-tended children in pajamas; outside the elaborate model house a miniature Duesenberg waited at the curb.
“The thirties.” Helen smiled. “My grandfather was starving. Repeal played hell with the liquor business.”
“Mine was a bricklayer. He got laid off when they finished the Empire State Building.”
She glanced up at him. “Why do you keep asking me out?”
“Honestly?”
“If you can.”
“I kind of flipped for you.”
“Mr. Taggart, I have microphones in my bars to keep my employees from dealing dope. The mikes pick up the customers’ conversations, too. I hear that line thirty times a night.”
“It’s guys hoping you’re listening.”
She laughed, thinking that his compliments always sounded like he meant them. They moved to the next window, where the sleek couple were now dancing at the grand ball. “Seriously, why? What’s going on with you?”
“Just like I told you.”
“We are in different worlds, man. I met people tonight who if they knew who I was would spit on me.”
“Not in front of me they wouldn’t,” Taggart promised in a hard, low voice and Helen saw for a second that capacity for hatred again. It was never far from the surface; yet neither, she had to admit, were his exuberant warmth and the tenderness he radiated toward her. Both made her wary. She doubted he would ever hurt her, but he might someday make her hurt herself.
