“Yeah, you do,” he said with disgust. “You just won’t be happy until you’re all the way out there on the edge, until you put it all on the line.”
“You know what’s funny? This still doesn’t tell us who did it. We have to find out who put this thing out, then who they did it for.”
I thought we could cover more ground moving separately. Joey thought we would survive better moving together. I yielded graciously.
We headed out to Brooklyn, looking for Johnny “Jeans” Licavollo, a small-time bookie connected to what’s known as the Colombo family. Johnny used to run a scam in the garment center. It still gives me great pleasure to know that half the people strolling around in designer jeans, on which they spent anything from forty dollars to eighty dollars, are wearing five-dollar rags from Hong Kong with a forged label sewn on. Of course the other half are wearing exactly the same thing, from the same oriental sweat shops, identical except for the authentic label. We busted the operation, but we didn’t bust Johnny Jeans, so he owed us one.
He was home with his family. His wife set out fresh espresso and anisette cookies, then left the men alone to do their business, in the fine old-fashioned style. He had not heard anything, but he promised to ask around. We moved on.
“Scooter” Siegal, the fence, “Butch” Dominici, who made hot cars into cool ones, and Murray Lipshitz, who converted stolen securities, hadn’t heard anything. Oddly enough, our attorney, Gerald Yaskowitz, had.
We didn’t get Gerry’s message until late in the day, and then couldn’t reach him until after nine.
Late on Friday, Gerry had talked a judge into reducing the bail on Francisco “Frankie” Montoya, dealer in heroin and cocaine, from a quarter-million down to a mere one hundred thousand dollars. Gerry and Frankie had lunch on Saturday to discuss the case. They agreed that it was open and shut, a second felony conviction that would result in a significant length of time spent at Attica. Frankie asked Gerry if, given sufficient time, the D.A.’s case might fall apart. Gerry’s opinion was that that might indeed happen, given four or five years. Frankie decided, on the spot, to spend the necessary time in Mexico.
Having made that decision, Frankie felt deeply grateful to Gerry for getting the bail down to a level that he could comfortably afford to lose. As a token of his gratitude he passed along the tip that there was a contract on Gerry’s favorite PI. The price was a “crummy five grand,” and it came from one of the old-line Italian groups. Gerry asked Frankie if he could be more specific. All Frankie could add was that it was one of “them Godfather-type organizations, one of the families, like, you know, the Mob.”
That was all Gerry knew, and by the time he reached us, Montoya was way up high, in a 747, waving good-bye.
Joey insisted on escorting me back to the apartment. There, like everywhere else we had been, he insisted on going in first with his gun in his hand. In his grim and grumbling way, he was enjoying himself. There was something in all of us, just like old Franco, that had the hots for handling a piece.
It took me an hour to get him out of there. I promised I would keep me door triple-locked, that I would not go out, that I would sleep with my gun in my hand. When he left, I gave it ten minutes, went downstairs and jumped in a cab to Christina’s.
When I told her, through me intercom, who it was, she told me to go away. I leaned on the buzzer. I had been pushing all day and I was not about to stop. When she finally answered again, I said I had to talk to her.
When I got upstairs she was waiting in the hall, her door closed behind her. I could hear music from inside. I sensed that there was someone else there. “My heart lurched” is a statement with no physiological validity, but that is exactly what it felt like.
Our eyes met and they said what our eyes always said to each other, no matter where we were, no matter who else was present. Want, hunger, a rage of lust, a melting tenderness.
“Why are you here?” she asked, hurting.
“Because I can’t get you out of my head. Even when there are people gunning for me or I’m falling off a cliff, I can’t get you out of my head.”
“Are you thinking about me when you’re in bed with her?”
“I’m trying to keep my life sane. But I’m not sure I can. I did not want this to happen, but I can’t stop feeling like I’m in love with you.”
I took her in my arms. She turned her head from my mouth. My hand reached into the fine soft hair of her head and turned her mouth back toward me. “No. No,” she said as her mouth opened to mine. The tension left her body, her body said only “Yes.”
“Go home, go home,” she said sorrowfully, “go home to her.”
“She’s away.”
“For how long?” was her immediate response. Telling me again exactly what she did not want to be saying.
“At least a couple of days, maybe longer.”
She stood up straight. “Not tonight. Call me tomorrow, and … we’ll see. But … but I don’t think so.”
“Why not tonight? Is there someone here with you? Another boyfriend?”
“Yes. … And that’s probably for the best, isn’t it … and why not? You’re not alone when you’re not with me. Go home.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said, as if it were all right.
She followed me to the stairs. “You know what,” she said, “it’s no damn good. Stefan is a very good lover. I used to enjoy him. But now I don’t feel a damn thing, not with him or anybody else. Since I met you. I don’t like that.”
I turned away from the things she was saying. Then I wanted to reach out, to hold, hug, kiss her. But by the time I turned back, she had already fled toward Stefan. Who was no damn good.
Friday’s storm had not cleared anything up. The air was thick and moist. I just wandered for a while until I found myself in Sheridan Square. “Hiya, Phil,” I said to the statue there, “how do you like it, surrounded by all these gay blades?” He kept morosely silent. The bookstore on the corner was open so I went in to look for Kenneth Patchen, to ask about this thing with Christina. He was there on the shelf, and I found the poem I thought about the first time:
They were wise that this man-business was just a matter
Of putting it in and taking it out, and that went all the way
From throwing up cathedrals to getting hot pants over Kathy.
Maybe there was something to get steamed about, maybe it was
Baseball to grow a beard and end up on a cross so that a lot
Of hysteria cases could have something to slap around;
Maybe the old Greek boy knew what he was doing when he hemlocked
It out, loving the heels who hobbled him; maybe little French Joan
Got a kick out of the English hot-foot; the boys at the corner bar
Were willing to believe it. No skin off their noses. …
And all things considered, it sounded about right.
When I called from the pay phone I found Laurie the stewardess at home. She was glad to hear from me, she said, but she had just flown in from the coast and her arms were tired. My old connection was just a few blocks from where I was standing, over at Perry and Fourth, so I told her I had just the thing to take care of tired. She was very interested. Excited even.
It had been a long time since I had even spoken to the man on Perry Street, but it turned out that he was still alive, still at the same address, still doing the same trade, and he was currently holding. My bank’s cash machine was in equally good order, so the man was happy to see me. I got an eighth. The price was fair and the quality at least adequate.
It felt greedy and stupid, soulless and harsh. Laurie and I went at it eagerly. We did it every which way. Putting everything anyplace it would go, pushing for more than more. Long before we stopped at 4 A.M., everything was sore.
When I left, I figured it was an experience that she would cherish forever in her diary, or wherever she kept score, and—be pleased if she never saw me again. It was also possible that she took it t
hat way as a regular thing and would be ready anytime I was able.
As my cab cruised up my block, I noticed a couple of guys slouched down in the front seat of a car. I told the driver not to stop at the address I’d given him and to take it around the corner. He didn’t care.
I have some neighbors, in 16B, that I don’t particularly like. So when I called 911 to report a domestic disturbance and a possible gunshot, I said it came from 16B.
The response was relatively prompt. I didn’t have to wait more than seven or eight minutes, hugging the shadows so I could watch around the corner for the cruiser without being seen myself. As the squad car pulled up, I made my move, timing it so that I went in the front door at the same time as the two men in uniform.
Whether or not the men slouching in their car were there for me, I will never know. If they were, I foxed them; if they weren’t, at least I annoyed the folks in 16B.
I only got two or three hours sleep. Glenda called at eight, Joey a few minutes later. He asked where I had been. I claimed that I had just turned the phone off. He invited himself over for breakfast. A couple of lines and an icy shower more or less got me moving.
I asked him if he had heard anything further. Johnny Jeans had called him and confirmed what we knew, with more detail than Whelan, but less than Montoya.
“What do you wanna do?” he asked.
“I could leave town,” I shrugged, “but I won’t.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna find out who, what and where too quick.”
“Even if I knew who was handling the contract,” I said, “what could I do about it? Go into some Don’s fortress in Englewood, both guns blazing, and explain that I’m too tough to kill, too mean to die, so he better call it off?”
“Maybe,” he said, “we could get Charles Bronson to do it.”
“Then there’s Glenda’s mother. Nobody can last more than two or three days with her. There are some sacrifices I just can’t ask Glenda to make. But I don’t want to bring her and Wayne back if it’s not safe.”
“That’s true.”
“This is the time when a guy needs a godfather.”
“Oh yeah?” he said.
“There is really only one place to go. That I can think of.”
“Oh yeah?” he said.
“Yeah. You know what I’m talking about.”
“No. What?” he asked, flat.
“I’m gonna call Uncle Vincent.”
“It took you a long time to talk yourself into that,” he said.
“Oh yeah? When did you decide I should do it?”
“The same time you did,” he replied. “As soon as Whelan opened his big fucking mouth.”
“Then why didn’t you say something?”
“Because that’s the kind of thing you have to decide for yourself.”
I still wasn’t ready to call him. I still wanted to stall. I sat and sipped more coffee.
“What do you know about Vincent?” I asked Joey. “I mean, I’ve heard rumors, but I don’t know much for a fact. Maybe I’ve avoided knowing.”
“I know what you know. He’s been named in some hearings. His name has come up on some wiretaps. He’s worth a lot of money, very heavy bread. Construction mostly. If he’s not a made guy, he does a lot of business with them.”
“When he and my father quarreled,” I said, “my father ended up in the hospital with high blood pressure. Eventually, it was a stroke that killed him.”
“I didn’t know that, about the hospital.”
“You know what, Joey, even if the guy is a fucking capo, he may not be able to do anything. The old Mob isn’t what it used to be. Nowadays, it’s like the Communist Party; half the dues-paying members are undercover cops and the other half are FBI informants.”
“You got someone else who can deal with this?”
“If it weren’t for Glenda and Wayne …”
“Sure, Tony.”
“I’m responsible for them. I mean we’re not married, but … but it’s like family. I just don’t like the guy and what he stands for, Joey.”
“Tony, neither do I. But right now, you’re lucky he’s family.”
29
ROCKEFELLER LOOKOUT
LIKE A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK, I rode out to the Englewood home of my Uncle Vincent in the back of his limo. It had the bar, the television, the telephone, the everything. Like Hencio deVega’s Coupe de Ville, it had real leather upholstery.
Uncle Vincent greeted me effusively at the door.
“You have never been to my home before, let me show it to you,” he said.
“Uncle Vincent, I don’t mean to be rude, but we need to talk.”
“I understand,” he replied, but sounded disappointed.
“I can see, just from the outside, just from the door, that it’s a beautiful house.” I tried to be gracious.
He led me, walking painfully, toward the back of the house, to a lovely, light, airy room done in yellow and whites, with high arched windows. It was a room that Glenda would love, or Christina. The windows looked out on a long sloping lawn that ended under the glow of three giant copper beeches. The fences on the sides were covered with roses, white and yellow. The sun shone bright though the windows.
When we sat down a middle-aged maid came out to the sun room with a steaming fresh pot of espresso, a small decanter of anisette, glass demitasse cups and a plate with garden-fresh tomatoes and cucumbers in thin delicate slices.
“Telephones, nobody can use the telephone anymore. Here I have a member of my own family, my brother’s only son, visiting me for the first time in twenty-five years. Twenty-five years. The first visit, and for all I know there are federal agencies making notes about it.”
It was a left-handed reprimand. A way of telling me that I should not have told him my problems on the phone.
“Well, I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all, I would’ve let ’em come at me and taken my chances, if it weren’t for Glenda and Wayne,” I told him, wondering if I were bragging. I probably was, I decided. When I took the time to think about it, I was scared shitless, for myself.
“Family feeling. That’s good. Do you know, the thing in my life for which I have the most regret is the quarrel with my brother. He was my little brother, I never dreamed he would be the first to go. Never. And now look at us, this stupid argument that should never have happened, it follows us beyond the grave.”
“I have a problem. Can you help me or not?”
“It is almost a good thing that this has happened. Maybe it was meant to be. I do not believe that God has a hand that reaches down and guides things, no, no, I don’t believe that. But sometimes … This has brought us together and given us the opportunity to lay to rest the problems of the past.”
“Vincent, you promised to help me, no strings attached.”
“Tony, Antonio, he was my baby brother,” he said and it looked like there were tears in his eyes.
“Have some espresso, a sip of anisette,” I said, pouring for both of us.
We each had some, while he went through the motions of recovering his self-possession.
“Look, Uncle Vincent, let’s not play games. If you can help me, great. If there’s something you want in return, let’s get it out on the table and make whatever deal we gotta make up front. Can we do that?”
“Am I a monster? You think I am a gangster, a professional criminal. So you come to me and say, fix this thing. Then you ask me what the price is, let’s make a deal, as if you were not my family.”
“I did not mean to insult you,” I lied. “But if you can’t help me with this, then you can’t. I’ll take care of it somehow.”
“In the course of doing business, I have dealt with people like that. It is necessary. They control the unions, they have influence with the government. I do not know what it is that your father told you, but I am a businessman and nothing more. I am not a criminal.”
“He didn’t tell me anything.”
“Your father was an ideali
st. He wanted to fight the world. To clean it up and make everyone a saint. He didn’t know what he was, a priest or a communist. I loved him for that, I did. But a business cannot be run that way.”
“So you do business with some people who might be able to help me,” I prompted.
“Yes, yes, I do. We will have to go see somebody. If that is all right with you, if it will not stain your soul.”
“It won’t be the first stain.”
“Good, you understand that when you live in the real world you must come to terms with the people in it. You understand that, you are more of a realist than he was.”
“When do we go see this guy?” I asked.
“Soon. We only have to wait a little longer, but that gives us some time to talk.”
“Yes, I guess it does.”
“Do you ever think about settling down, Antonio?”
“I sort of think I have.”
“This so-called business of yours … what is it? You live from hand to mouth. When something happens, you are hurt, you die, who will care for the woman and the child? You are not even married to her and the child is not yours. What is that about?”
What it was about was none of his business, most emphatically because he was right and because I didn’t know the answers and didn’t like to think about the questions.
“Do you know what I am worth? Do you?”
“No, Uncle Vincent, I don’t.”
“More than you have ever dreamed of. My cash worth is five million dollars, without this house. All of it legitimate. All of it clean.”
“That’s wonderful, very impressive.”
“And what is it worth? My brother died before me. My baby brother. He would have been my partner, except for that stupid quarrel. Then you would have already inherited half of it. But no. Now it is worth nothing to me. Who should I give it to? You?”
Normally I keep the wounds and resentments of not having money buried deep. The wait for the subway after an eighteen-hour day, too stinking and bone-weary to resent the people pushing me around. The apartment that was too small for three people. The one vacation in four years. The clothes I pretend to like. Telling myself that there are other measures of a man’s worth in a world that doles out respect in direct ratio to cash and property.
No One Rides for Free Page 21
