by Chris Laing
Her black eyes gripped mine as she watched me squirm, her audacious proposition worming its way into my brain.
“But if the police are determined to interfere in family business, then responsibility for any civilian casualties will be on their heads.”
I slumped back in my chair, not believing my ears. Damn it to hell, she’d just offered to bribe my best friend and now she wants to enlist me as her Judas messenger boy. “What are you talking about? What kind of Christmas bonus? And what kind of casualties?”
A tiny smile tickled the corners of her lips and she might have figured she’d gotten me on board now, or at least thinking about it. “$5,000,” she said in a back-alley whisper then she eased back in her chair, watching me stew.
I was struggling to keep calm, aghast that she would attempt to bribe the police. And almost worse, try to use me as her go-between. If she knew anything about me at all, she’d know that I’d never go along with such a scheme. Likewise with Frank – he was more honest than Abe Lincoln. It was true that he could use the money – five grand was about two years’ pay for him. But I’d bet my life that he’d tell her to stuff her offer in her ear. Or someplace more awkward.
“Mrs. Black,” I snapped out my words, unable to hold back the venom in my voice. “I was raised by the Russo family when my mother abandoned me.” I had the odd feeling that I’d just mounted a soap-box in Gore Park but I couldn’t stop myself. “Frank Russo is my best friend and I know I speak for him when I tell you – NO. We refuse to be bribed by criminals like you and your henchmen who threaten, rob and even kill those of us who respect the laws of society.”
She hadn’t budged while I spoke; not a glimmer of reaction appeared on her Hollywood features and I had to marvel at her self-control. And now she seemed to be moving in slow motion as she picked up her purse from beside her chair. “As stubborn as your father,” she said in a near-whisper, as though she were talking to herself. “And just as self-righteous.”
Then she withdrew a folded piece of paper from her purse and slid it toward me. “My phone number.” As I reached for it, she clamped my wrist in her right hand. “If you don’t change your mind I may not be able to protect you. Is your precious law worth your life? Think it over. The clock is ticking.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was much colder when Isabel and I left the restaurant and we hurried along in silence to the parking lot. No thugs lurked in the shadows and the Caddy had departed. I wondered if the cops who were assigned to “loose surveillance” of Diane Black had even noticed our being frisked.
Driving west on King Street, Iz said, “There’s more to your mother than meets the eye.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
“She referred to that woman, Bessie Starkman, as a role model. Do you know about her, Max?”
“I do. She was also known as Bessie Perri but she and Rocco were never married. She was such a powerful force in his outfit that with her help he was able to control the rackets in most of Ontario – booze, gambling, drugs, all that stuff. Then, in 1930, she was murdered; gunned down in the driveway of their big home on Bay Street South, not twenty minutes from here. Some say she’d become too powerful, that Rocco and some of his gang members came to resent her. Others claim that Rocco’s business partners were actually gunning for him but murdered Bessie by mistake.”
Iz pulled over and stopped at the curb, across the street from St. Patrick’s Church, and I noticed that, though she was gripping the steering wheel hard, her hands still trembled. She kept the engine running. “What a grisly story, Max. But surely your mother doesn’t have anything to do with that rough stuff, does she? Murder and all those things you said in the speech you gave back there?”
I gave her a sidelong glance, but I guess it was a speech. “Yes, I believe she does. After my father was killed, she was involved with one of Perri’s men and they fled the country together, apparently one step ahead of the cops. Frank heard through his police contacts that they’d settled in Florida where she became a member of the Mob. Later, the man she left with was shot to death during a bank robbery. And now, well, you heard what she said.”
A light snow shower had begun, the tiny flakes melting on contact with the warm windshield, changing from one state to another – as Diane Black had apparently done.
Isabel shifted in her seat to face me. “This is so bizarre, Max. I’m having trouble believing it. At dinner she spoke about financial matters and real estate investments. At first, it didn’t occur to me that she might be directly involved in those … other things as well.” She pressed her lips together and shivered. “But after she talked about paying off Frank to delay his investigation, well, it’s obvious that Diane Black is just like those other criminals I’ve only read about or seen in the movies.”
“You’re right.”
“And she might meet the same fate as Bessie Starkman.”
“She might.”
We remained silent, our thoughts overtaken by Diane Black’s ominous presence in our lives. By her offer to bribe Frank. By her warning that she couldn’t protect us from Tedesco if we didn’t cooperate with her.
“You never speak about your childhood, Max. You must have some happier memories about your family.”
I hated to even think about that wretched time, but Isabel had every right to know. “I really don’t remember a lot – I was just a kid when she left. And the memories I do have are a confusing jumble of screaming arguments, doors banging and parents cursing at each other. When my father was drunk, which was often, there’d be slapping and punching too. I would hide under the bed in my room or run upstairs to Frank’s apartment to get away from them. His parents would insist that I sleep at their place until the latest storm blew over.”
Her lower lip trembled and her eyes became misty.
I touched her cheek with my fingertips.
“That’s so sad, Max. I hadn’t realized.”
“It happens more often than you’d think. But most families don’t talk about it. They’re embarrassed or ashamed – especially the kids.” I didn’t speak for a moment as I faced up to it. “Like me.”
She leaned across the seat and smothered me in a hug that left my nerve endings tingling.
Then she whispered in my ear, “Let’s go home, Max.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Frank picked me up at my apartment in the morning in an unmarked car and we drove out York Street toward Holy Sepulchre Cemetery where Bernie Fiore would be interred. Billowy clouds gathered in the western sky; the CKOC weather guy said flurries were likely.
When I glanced across the front seat at Frank I noticed a tiny blood-stained corner of toilet paper stuck to his chin where he’d cut himself shaving. The heater fan was working overtime so I had to raise my voice, “Sleep in this morning, Frank?”
“No. Why?”
“Your chin – check the mirror.”
He examined his mug in the rear-view. “Shit.” Then he licked a finger and removed it. “Snoopy bugger,” he said. “But, thanks.”
Now he looked properly funereal in his dark suit and black tie; his overcoat and hat were flung across the back seat.
“You go to the Mass at All Souls?” I said.
He shook his head. “And I didn’t say the rosary at the funeral home either.”
As we crossed the High Level Bridge I gazed out across Hamilton Harbour toward the canal and Lake Ontario beyond; the bay, dark as India ink, hadn’t begun to freeze over yet, and wavelets lapped at the shoreline. Frank turned right off Plains Road, then left onto the cemetery grounds. Through the leafless trees you could see Hamilton’s north end across the bay, the steel companies’ stacks belching smoke and flames. Maybe not a good omen for Bernie Fiore’s eternal destination, if you believed in that kind of thing.
Frank slowed the car, then glided to a stop
beside an area of large headstones and mausoleums, far enough away from Dermody’s hearse that we wouldn’t be easily noticed by the 25 or 30 people gathered at the open gravesite. He pointed to the glove box. “Binoculars. I brought two pair.”
From this distance, we had a clear view of the small gathering. A short priest wearing a purple stole over his winter coat and a black biretta on his head was reading prayers from a missal. An older couple dressed in black huddled beside him, probably Bernie’s parents. You could count the number of women on one hand, black veils covering their faces; the men were expressionless, most of them shuffling their feet, looking anxious to leave.
“Two cars behind the hearse,” Frank said, lowering his binoculars. “That’s Tedesco in the back seat. And is that your mother beside him?”
I focused on a long black Buick Roadmaster. The woman in back wore a black pillbox hat, a dark veil extending over her eyes. “I think so, but it’s hard to tell because of that veil.”
“We’ll know for sure when we see the close-up photos.”
We were startled by someone tapping on the driver’s window. I recognized Wayne Morgan, one of the cops in Frank’s squad; he was hunched down at the window, a black toque pulled down over his ears; his red nose began to drip and he wiped it on his coat-sleeve. Frank opened the window a few inches. “What’s up, Morgan?”
“Jeez, I’m freezin’ my ass off out here. Photographer says he’s finished and wants to leave now.”
“To hell with that. Tell him he’s not done until we get a shot of every one of these buggers.”
“Yeah, well, he says it ain’t easy. Couple of these big limos have those dark windows in back.”
Frank shook his head. “When the prayers are finished and the casket’s been lowered, they’ll all be out of their cars to file past and sprinkle some earth on it. Just make sure he gets those pictures or I’ll have his balls for bookends.”
Morgan grinned at him. “I’d like to see that.” He looked over at me. “Hey, there, Max. How goes it?”
“Fine …” I was about to ask after his glamourous wife but he’d already slipped away. Frank wound up his window and reached for his binoculars.
A sombre line of men had formed at the graveside, moving slowly forward to scatter a token amount of earth on Bernie’s casket. The women stayed back; most were fingering their rosary beads, their lips moving.
Another wasted life, I thought; Bernie had probably believed a job in the Mob would be a stroll on Easy Street. And a lot more exciting than sweating it out on the assembly line at National Steel Car or some other big factory, then punching out at the end of his shift, tired and bored like most of the working stiffs in the straight world.
I lowered my binoculars and turned to Frank. “Too damn bad Nick couldn’t attend the funeral. He was always so protective of his kid brother.”
He shook his head. “Too damn bad they both joined the Mob. Like they say: ‘You play with the bull, you get the horns’.”
I scanned the line of mourners again, searching for Diane Black. “There’s my mother near the hearse, Frank, huddled with a couple of guys I’ve never seen before. But I don’t see Tedesco. Maybe he stayed in his car.”
Frank took his time to look them over. “Well, she hasn’t changed very much; she’s still a looker,” and he continued to watch. “Huh, that’s interesting,” he lowered his glasses and turned toward me. “One of the guys with her is Vincenzo Belcastro, the head of the Mob in Niagara Falls. The Mounties say he’s got a finger in the pie on both sides of the border.”
Then he continued to keep an eye the trio. “The other guy is facing away from me … c’mon, turn my way, you bugger. There … well, I’ll be damned.”
I focused my binoculars on the guy who now faced in this direction. He was a much slimmer version of that movie gangster, Edward G. Robinson, but with the same sneery expression.
“That’s Freddy Randaccio from Buffalo,” Frank said. “He’s one of Magaddino’s chief lieutenants – and according to the FBI he’s been made responsible for all Mob operations in Ontario, including Hamilton. He usually keeps a low profile so something big must be happening to require the personal attention of ‘Freddy the Wolf’.”
I dropped the binoculars on my lap and leaned back in my seat, wondering how to tell Frank about Diane Black’s startling revelation that Tedesco was about to “retire” and that a replacement was waiting in the wings. That might explain why this “Wolf” guy was on hand – to witness the passage of power from one local Mob boss to another.
“Ask me about our dinner with my mother last night.”
He gave me a sharp look. “Yeah, I was waiting for you to tell me about it – in your own sweet time. What did she have to say for herself?”
I mulled over several variations of the truth before answering. “She talked about Tedesco – said that he was out of control and that his retirement was imminent.”
“Imminent?”
“Yeah, it means soon.”
“I know what the hell it means, you dope. How imminent? Did she say?”
“No, but maybe that’s why this so-called Wolf character is standing right there talking to her, not a hundred yards away from us.”
Then, another rap on the window – much sharper this time, someone using his car keys as a door knocker. Frank wound his window part way down. A young guy was bending over to poke his nose in.
Frank growled at him, “What the hell do you want, Johnny?”
“It’s disrespectful of you cops to attend our funerals. This is family, nothing to do with business. You should know that, Russo.”
Frank shifted in his seat and leaned closer to him, his words coming out coated with ice. “Thanks for the advice, kid. Now bugger off.”
The guy switched to Italian and they barked at each other like a couple of angry terriers. Then Frank grabbed the door handle, lurching in his seat like he intended to jump from the car. The young hoodlum straightened up and left in a hurry before Frank rolled up the window.
“Who was that character?”
Frank was still steamed, red-faced and scowling. He dug a pack of Buckinghams from his jacket pocket and fired one up, which seemed to settle him. “That little turd was Johnny Papalia; his old man’s Tony, a long-time member of Rocco Perri’s old gang who’s now with Tedesco. Young Johnny’s just getting into the family business. I hear he’s peddling drugs in Toronto now.”
“What did he say to you in Italian?”
“You don’t want to know. It had to do with the rearrangement of some parts of my anatomy.”
He started the car and shifted into first gear with a grunt, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Frank was leaning back in his seat and puffing on his cigarette when he turned left onto Plains Road and headed back to town. “Tell me more about Tedesco’s so-called retirement.”
“She didn’t give me any details, just said he was out of favour with Magaddino and was being replaced because of ‘certain excesses’. My guess is the big bosses weren’t too thrilled by the news coverage of that gory murder of the City Controller. And now the disposal of Bernie’s body at my place. But who knows? Maybe he’s been holding back on payments to the grand poobah in Buffalo.”
“You’re right about that publicity; it sure wouldn’t help his cause. Having one of his thugs butcher a public official is just plain nuts. Is that all she talked about?”
“Not quite. She and Isabel spoke about her position as the financial brains of the Florida Mob, much as Bessie Starkman was in the Perri gang. She told us they’re laundering their money through the real estate market down there –”
“Yeah, yeah. But what the hell is she doing up here?”
“Well, she sort of glossed over that part. Didn’t want to get into details. But it so
unded to me like she’s here to get a handle on Tedesco’s finances and maybe take the lead in his removal too. You said you remembered her, huh?”
“Of course I do. I was about twelve or so when she left. No offence, but I can still picture her as a real hubba-hubba babe. The teen-age guys would whistle at her when they saw her on the street. And she used to flirt with them when she strolled by – give them a real show.”
I pictured my mother swiveling her Dorothy Lamour hips past a gang of juveniles with a toss of her long black hair and a come-along look in her eyes. It wasn’t a picture I wanted to see and I shivered it away.
Frank cut his speed as we curved past Dundurn Castle, and along York Street where the traffic slowed to a crawl toward downtown.
“Another thing, Frank. She advised Isabel and me to be careful because Tedesco was still holding a grudge against us. And he might try to retaliate before he retires.”
He shot me a sideways glance. “Sounds like pretty good advice but I don’t suppose you’ll follow it.”
I ignored his remark and changed the subject. “I’m wondering about Magaddino. When did he take control of the Ontario gangs?”
“It was while you were still overseas. Remember when you were on the job with the RCMP before the war and how frustrating it was to get a conviction against the Mob bosses? Well, when the war broke out, the Mounties devised a plan to round up all the main Mafia guys when Italy entered the fray. They drew up a list of suspected enemy aliens and subversives, so when Mussolini declared war in May of 1940 –”
“Wait a minute – what do you mean by ‘subversives’?”
“It’s one of those catch-all terms. After Mussolini teamed up with Hitler, the Mounties’ list included all the left-wing agitators they knew about, as well as fascists and their sympathizers. But they also included known members of the Mafia in that list, most of them of Italian background, and the government in Ottawa approved it. As a result, Rocco Perri and his main henchmen, Frank Sylvestro, Tony Papalia, Charlie Bordonaro – that whole shiteree, was interned in Camp Petawawa.”
