“We never discussed soup much, Mom and I.” I tried smiling and failed.
“What are you all torn up about anyway?” Empowered by the cigarette, she went searching for more bourbon. “I practically had to drag you into this mess kicking and screaming. Now that I’m giving you the out, you don’t want it. What’s the buzz? I think we both know your buddy MacClough didn’t whack the girl. And the stiff out back,” she threw a thumb in the general direction of the pinky-ringed sapling, “he probably did the job and then got fed some of his own medicine. Silence is golden.”
She was making sense, but it was sophistry. Her reasoning wasn’t logic at all. It mocked it. If her story appeared now, MacClough would come out basically unscathed. And that’s what I had gotten mixed up in this for. But if it came out now, no matter how much of a scoop it might be, the story’s impact would be negligible and certainly not enough to resurrect a ruined career. We’re talking about the murder of a forgotten witness from a forgotten trial. A murder committed by a forgotten man. No, she wasn’t serving the soup because it wasn’t done cooking.
“Nice try, Barnum,” I applauded as if she’d sunk a thirty-foot putt.
That raised an eyebrow, but it didn’t stop her from raising a new jigger of bourbon. “Cheers!”
“You’re waitin’ for Johnny’s revenge,” I slapped the bourbon out of her hand.
“Stop it,” she screamed and swung at me wildly. I grabbed her wrists.
“You’re biding your time for Johnny’s revenge,” I repeated.
“You’re hurting me,” Barnum twisted her arms like epileptic snakes.
“The story as it stands now won’t do a thing for your career.” I let go of the snakes. She stood back and rubbed their sore necks. “But let’s say there’s this Mafia kingpin; dapper, stunningly handsome, a hero to some and current darling of the media. And let’s say he gets whacked. While every other journalist this side of the Pacific rim is scratchin’ their balls tryin’ to come up with a ‘Mafia War’ angle, you serve them a love triangle and John Francis MacClough on a silver platter. Soup’s done! Come and get it.”
“You’re talking crazy,” she looked everywhere but into my eyes.
“Am I? Am I really?” I thought about making empty threats. I thought about throwing her husband’s suspicious suicide in her face. I thought a lot of things and did none of them. “Okay, Barnum. We’ve got a deal. You’re letting me out of it. I don’t want out. You’re gonna get your story and maybe we can pump it up enough to get you back to the top of the hill, but you’re not climbin’ up using Johnny’s bones. There isn’t gonna be any revenge killing. Got it?”
She did not reply. It really hadn’t been a question.
“There’s angles to this mess even you don’t know about.” I was thinking about O’Toole and Larry Feld.
“What angle? The dead cop?” she laughed at me, blowing smoke into my face. “I know about the dead cop. O’Toole, right? You’re like a magnet for dead bodies.” Barnum echoed Mickelson’s sentiments.
“Other angles,” I sounded unconvincing.
“Which angles might those be?”
“The bottom line is, without Gandolfo’s demise you’ve got a story that will get you as far as your piece on zoning laws.” The smile ran away from her face. “And like I said, there isn’t going to be any more killing. Fact is, I’ve got all the info from you I require and all you’ve done lately is lie. The way I see it, you need me more than I need you. Without a fresh angle, you’re dead in the water. You’ll be penning zoning law articles for the rest of your fucking life. But a deal’s a deal,” God, I could be such a prince, “so you’ll still get your story if there’s one to be had.”
“Oh, thank you,” she got down on her knees and gave a mocking bow. “Oh, thank you my saviour,” she stood. “Now get the fuck outta my house.”
I got out. I was wearing my high school football coat and would until the Suffolk cops finished with my leather jacket. I remembered ordering the coat and the coaches telling me to buy it two or three sizes bigger than I was. I’d grow into it. I never did. Grow into it, I mean. But that was all right. Life buys us lots of coats we never grow into.
Humpty Dylan
Now I was guilty, plenty guilty. But that was about right. Fifteen minutes of denial is all I’m good for. There was no sense to slapping Barnum. Even the flash of satisfaction I’d felt in doing it had deserted me. All I had left was forever to beat myself up over hitting her. Yet neither that giddy prospect nor the guilt brought any relief.
My bones were cold from the inside out and my head was fat with pain. At least my ribs weren’t barking. I took a handful of aspirins and jiggled them in my fist like craps table dice, then swallowed them with a gulp of bathtub water and submerged my head beneath the remainder. But even there, under the insulating water, something sang into my ears. In my tub the mermaids sang to me. Their lips moved, but I could not read them. The tune was familiar, but escaped me. I knew their song held all the answers, but I could not understand.
The phone snapped me out of my bathtub dreaming. I did not answer. I was in no mood to speak to another human and chose rather to listen for the siren’s sweetly singing. But Bell’s invention had broken the siren’s spell and the answers I could not comprehend now teased me, ate at me like an object just out of reach or a name you know but cannot recall. The mermaid’s song was becoming as annoying as an unscratchable itch.
The phone rang again. I was still in no mood for polite conversation, but I hoped answering the call might relieve my itch. So I dragged myself up from the depths and made my way to the phone, leaving sloppy wet footprints in my wake like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Nothing but a dial tone greeted me. Maybe the caller had simply tired of waiting for my gills and flippers to get to the phone. I’d like to think it was the mermaids trying to snap me out of my daze. In any case, going to the phone had helped. For now I recognized the specter that was taunting me. It was a question. If the Gandolfos had tracked and whacked Azrael and Johnny knew that, why hadn’t MacClough taken his revenge? It just didn’t jive. What was holding him back?
I returned to the bath; the pain in my head a little thinner, my bones slightly warmer and my guilt temporarily put on hold. But just knowing the question wasn’t good enough. It never is, really. The time for answers was coming. I resolved to make it so. Aren’t resolutions silly things? Sure, occasionally they’re kept, but usually they fade with a night’s good sleep.
My resolve, like the snow, had lasted the night. Unfortunately, so had my headache. I chugged down some more aspirin. I chose coffee to transport them. Coffee tasted better than bathtub water. At least mine did. You could not say the same for MacClough’s. MacClough’s coffee tended to taste like untreated sewage or the water at Coney Island beach. But that comparison is grossly unfair to untreated sewage.
I dialed Larry Feld’s office and got his secretary, Madame Sunshine on the phone. She seemed almost as happy to speak to me as having a lung removed. I was just as pleased to speak with her. She put me through to Larry without the standard ten-minute waiting period.
“Klein?”
“Yeah, Larry,” I confessed. “I got—”
“I got for you, too,” he cut me off. “Did you know that reporter you had me check up on was pretty close to getting indicted for—”
“—murder,” it was my turn to cut in. “Yeah, I heard something to that effect.”
“You did?” Lean Larry sounded disappointed. “And I suppose you know about the Pulizer thing.”
“None of the fine points, really. I stumbled onto this stuff after I asked you about it,” I sounded apologetic. “But I need the details the way you get details.”
“Details?”he sounded better. “I got details.”
“Good. We can go over ’em tomorrow when I come to your office for our meeting.”
“What meeting’s that, Dylan?” Feld was too smart to overreact.
“The meeting
between you and me and Dante Gandolfo,” I tried my hand at nonchalance.
“Oh, that meeting. Let me check my calendar.” Larry Feld was such a cool son of a bitch. I could almost hear his brain working out all the permutations. He refused to sound shocked or angry or surprised. “I don’t see that down here, Dylan. Refresh my memory.”
“Don’t sweat it, Larry. Let’s just say tomorrow about noon. Yeah, I like that. Noon.”
“And what makes you think my client would be inclined to attend such a gathering,” a faint edge finally appeared on the lawyer’s voice.
“Just give him this message,” drops of perspiration rolled along my sides and gathered on my brow. “Tell him, Azrael is in town and I know how to find her.” I could hardly hear my words for the pounding of my heart.
“Who is—”
“Don’t worry about who she is, Larry. Gandolfo will know.”
“Do you know who you’re fucking with, Dylan?” I could almost make out a bit of concern in his voice.
“I know, Larry. I know.”
“I hope so. If this blows up in your face, I won’t be able to put Humpty Dylan back together again.”
“Just give him the message. ’Bye.”
That really had been concern I heard in Larry’s voice, but I wasn’t fooled. Not after a lifetime of knowing Cassius. The concern was for himself, only himself and not for me. Larry didn’t like being in the dark and that’s squarely where I’d left him. That made him nervous. Little else did. Gandolfo would have lots of questions and Larry wouldn’t have the answers. If he wanted answers he’d have to come to me. That was the idea. Unfortunately, I was only a little less in the dark than Larry.
Skull and Bones
The city drive was a lonely drive in winter. Farm stands, so alive in summer with berries and corn and gingham girls, were just hollow shacks now; flimsy and bent under the snow. The LIE was strangely hushed. Taillights and fenders of storm-abandoned cars peeked out at me from plowed drifts and icy shoulders. Greedy tow trucks, fat with the bad-weather bounty, flashed yellow lights my way as if saying: “You’re next. You’re next.” Maybe they were right. Maybe I would be next. I don’t know. In any case, that decision would not be mine.
When I walked into Larry’s suite, ten minutes early, nearly drained of resolve and severely in need of a piss, he practically tackled me. Over his shoulder, I could see Feld’s usually sour secretary smiling broadly. Larry busily babbled something to me in a panicky whisper, but I did not hear. I was too transfixed by the woman’s smile. It said more things to me than Larry’s words. It said she was pleased to see her boss so unnerved. That figured. Her smile also seemed to say: “You’re next.”
“I hope you know what the fuck you’re doing,” he cupped my face in his palm and aimed my eyes at his.
“I’ve gotta piss, Larry.”
“Over there,” the lawyer pointed absentmindedly to his right and repeated, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing, Larry. Nothing.”
Larry retreated to his office, walking like a rattling bag of bones in a fancy suit.
I looked at sardonic Mary, the suddenly smiling secretary. She’d heard my whisper well enough.
“Do please hurry, Mr. Klein. We don’t want to keep the gentleman waiting.”
I ignored her and escaped into a world of azure tiles, porcelain fixtures sleeker than sports cars and framed prints of petunias in purple and black. I stood over the toilet, bladder exploding, unable to urinate. What was there to be nervous about? I’d done tougher things than confronting New York’s most powerful crime boss. Sure, I’d done tougher things. But oddly enough, I couldn’t recall any. Now I was sick to my stomach and unable to piss. Nice combination, huh?
Stepping out of the men’s room, I noticed Mary had gone from her desk. Too bad, for I’d decided to puke on her lap if she were still smiling when I came out. So much for my plans.
I pushed Feld’s door open without knocking. No one ran or jumped me or went for a gun. There were three of them, counting Larry. One, a man I took to be Gandolfo’s bodyguard, stood between me and the other two men. He bettered me by half a foot and his shoulders weren’t quite broad enough to land an F-14 on. He had a waist like Holly Golightly, legs like bridge supports and a neck with the diameter of a frisbee. He had a machine-made tan, jet black hair tied in a pony tail and wore an expensive suit purposefully loose. He was too pretty to be any good at bodyguarding. His type worries too much about his own goods getting damaged. Gandolfo probably kept him around for show or company or to drive his flashy cars.
Dante Gandolfo sat in Larry’s chair, black leather boots on Larry’s desk. Those boots cost more than what I was wearing from head to toe. Those boots cost more than my entire wardrobe. I wondered if he’d trade them for my football coat. I didn’t put my wonder into words. The “Don” was even more handsome in three dimensions than in his pictures or on TV. But his black eyes, drained of fire and youth, detracted from his full lips, rugged lines and considerable dimple. His suit was a shiny gray, double-breasted Italian affair with a baby red rose pinned to properly wide lapels. His tieless shirt was black silk and he believed in using all of its buttons. In other words, he looked every inch the part.
Larry stood erect against a bookcase, practicing invisibility.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Gandolfo waved me off, closed his eyes in disapproval and shook his head no. I followed his advice.
“Vinny,” he spoke at the pony-tailed muscle head, “why don’t you wait outside for a few minutes?” It wasn’t a question.
“But bosth,” Vinny spoke with a nasal lisp, never taking his eyes off me, “I don’t know about thith guy.”
I raised my arms, opening wide my unbuttoned coat. It was a sign of submission, a sign that indicated I was willing to be frisked.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Klein,” Gandolfo graced me with speech. “Larry vouched for you. Put your arms down.”
I put them down.
“Vinny,” Don Juan returned to his original target, “go outside and keep Mary occupied for awhile. Take her to lunch. Better yet, take her to a motel. Must be ten years since she’s had any.”
“That old bitch!” Frisbee neck turned to his master for the first time since I’d walked in the room. “Sorry bosth, I’m picky about my fish.”
“Then here!” Gandolfo exploded up from his seat and threw a fistful of pocket change at his boy. “Go to a fuckin’ payphone and dial 1-900-Suck My Dick. Just get the fuck outta here!”
Vinny left without the scattered change or a word of protest.
“You,” Dante Gandolfo, still risen and with a raised voice, turned to the invisible man, “wait for me outside.”
“As your lawyer,” Larry started to object, “I must respectfully advise that I remain—”
“You can respectfully kiss my ass. Now get the fuck outta here.”
Larry departed, but I could see revenge in his eyes as he brushed past me. I remembered that look from childhood. It was a dangerous look. People always paid dearly for that look. The trouble was in deciphering for whom that revenge was intended: Gandolfo, for treating Larry like slave meat in his own office in front of me or for me, because I was the catalyst for the meeting? Worrying about Larry’s vengeance was second on my list at the moment.
“Sit down, Mr. Klein,” Gandolfo ordered me, sans histrionics, into a huge, bright red leather chair across from Larry’s desk. “What do you know about me?” he questioned once I’d settled into the red beast.
“I read the papers. I watch TV. I hear things. So I guess I know as much or as little as any schmuck out on the street.”
“Not just any schmuck, Mr. Klein,” Don Juan bowed his head. “Not just any schmuck would know about Azrael or be ballsy enough to drag me down here like this.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I smiled, but nerves made it crumble.
&nbs
p; “You take it however you take it,” Gandolfo wasn’t going to make this easy. “You want some coffee? I want some.” He picked up the phone and pushed two numbers: “Hey Vinny, bring us some coffees.” He covered the mouthpiece with his palm. “How you like yours?”
“Milk, no sugar.”
Gandolfo frowned. “God, how do you drink it like that? But I suppose you take it however you take it,” his full lips broke into a broad smile over his repetition of those words. He removed his hand from the phone: “Listen Einstein, one coffee, milk, no sugar and one triple espresso, four sugars,” he paused. “That’s right, genius, the usual.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you know I was a Yale man?” He showed me his perfect teeth.
“No.” I figured one-word—one syllable, if possible—answers were best until I found out how he was playing this.
“Yeah, really. But Skull and Bones wouldn’t have me. I suppose they thought I was already a member of a more powerful club. You see a man in my position has it tough. People fear me, but I get no respect. People are always confusing those two things; fear and respect. It’s a chronic problem, but c’est la guerre!”
“That’s war!” I translated.
“Good, Mr. Klein. That’s very good,” the Don applauded. “I’m telling you these things to help you understand.”
“Understand?”
“Yes, to help you understand that I expect you to honor and respect what I’m about to say. I don’t need you to fear me. You already fear me, but fear has its limitations. Fear didn’t stop you from pulling this stunt. So I want you to pay close attention.”
“Say your piece.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about that Judas cunt, Azrael. Are you listening?”
“Very carefully.”
“I don’t care whether she’s dead or alive and living in your back pocket or in Paris with Jacques Brel,” he was shouting now, wiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his suit.
Little Easter Page 11
