by Thomas Perry
The wrestler stopped and his big frog mouth opened. He spoke politely to the older men. He said, “Chi-chi, Al, John, Joe, Phil.” To the others he said, “Hi, guys.” He stepped aside. “These are my cousins, Mitch and Steve Molinari.”
The big man had to be Salvatore Molinari from New York. Di Titulo noted that the two young men were given the same unenthusiastic stare that he had received, but not Molinari. The bus was beginning to fill up with extremely important people. The gathering of these men was like the building up of an enormous electrical charge, and Di Titulo felt uneasy as the bus stopped again and again. It began to seem to him that the bus would burn up, or the universe would seek to equalize this intense concentration of power in a bolt of lightning that would incinerate him.
As the bus moved from stop to stop, the talk among the notables was idle banter with obscure references to subjects Di Titulo knew nothing about. He noticed that the younger men seldom spoke, but smiled or chuckled politely when the bosses did. Finally the bus began to build up speed in increments that could only indicate a sustained stretch of open road.
John Augustino stood up in the aisle at the end of the table and said, “I’d like to thank you all for coming. The bus is going to keep moving while we talk. That way nobody can do much overhearing with a directional mike. It’s been swept for bugs, and we’ve got cars ahead and behind to watch for cops. If we can ever talk, now is the time.” He paused and looked somber. “I know we all share regret at the death of Bernie the Elephant. I think now is the time to express regrets of my own. It was my father who brought Bernie into our thing fifty years ago, and I apologize to each of you for what happened.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The bored, ironic tone shocked Di Titulo. He turned and saw that it was Victor Catania, from New York. “Bernie’s dead, and you’re sorry.” Two or three of the younger men stiffened, their shoulders flexed down from their necks, and their hands suddenly looked very empty. But Catania paid no attention. He adopted a parody of Augustino’s master-of-ceremonies tone. “And let me take this heartfelt opportunity to say I told you so. And I told Bernie so, too. I had computer experts, I had everything set. Everything he knew could have been on disks by now, but the old bastard thought he was immortal. First, he had to take time to get everybody’s permission, he had to have time to collect his thoughts, he had to be sure everybody was happy.”
“It wasn’t his fault that he got shot, Victor,” said DeLuca.
Catania rolled his eyes. “So he got shot. The man was seventy-two years old. If it wasn’t that, it would have been a coronary.” Di Titulo noticed that the slim, erect Catania had not taken wine like the others. He was drinking bottled water.
Molinari said, “He’s dead, and when we’re through talking, he’ll still be dead. I could have gone across town to hear Catania say he told me so. I thought I got invited here because somebody had a plan.”
It was Phil Langusto who spoke. “Let’s get to that. From the beginning, we all assumed that nobody dropped the hammer on Bernie without thinking he had a way to get to that money.”
The others considered the statement self-evident, so only a few nodded or mumbled affirmative words.
“And everybody was watching to see the minute when any big money got moved. We’ve had a lot of cooperation, a lot of tips. And today seems to be the day. Big money is moving.” Langusto paused. “Only it ain’t all moving in one direction.”
“What the hell does that mean?” asked Catania.
“It’s complicated,” said Langusto. “My brother can probably explain it better.”
Joe Langusto cleared his throat. “Here’s what we’ve seen so far. Somebody, somehow, got a list of the accounts where our money was stashed. The accounts are being closed.”
Catania interrupted. “If you know it’s our accounts, why couldn’t you take it first?”
“We didn’t know,” said Joe Langusto. “You got a guy inside a brokerage. He notices a sell order on a big account. It’s been there since the fifties, and it’s got nine million in it. Because he belongs to us, he runs a credit check on the account owner. Besides this nine million, this man has got nothing. He’s got no record of charging anything, because he’s never had any credit cards. He has no driver’s license, no car registered to him. Pretty soon you realize you’re looking at a man who never existed. But the money is already gone.”
DeLuca said, “Nine million? That’s not necessarily ours. It could be some civilian.”
“We’ve found a lot of these guys over the past few days. The money goes to a bank, then to some strange place—a corporation, some nonprofit organization. We’ve been trying to hunt down the accounts, find out where the money is going from there. So far we’re not up with it. My guys tell me it’s the kind of thing where it takes months to follow the trail, and when you lose it at any point, you’re done. We don’t need anybody’s help to do the tracing, but we’re picking up odd things. Al, I think you found one.”
“Yeah,” said Castananza. “My guy Di Titulo found something.” He looked at Di Titulo. “Tell them.”
Di Titulo had been rankling at the little lecture. Listening to Joe Langusto was like listening to all the New Yorkers he had ever met. Everything there was bigger, better, and closer to the action. Everybody else was a yokel. And these bosses were worse. Catania, the Langustos, Molinari all spoke with the assurance that each of their families was big—four or five hundred instead of sixty or eighty—and there were five of them in one city. But when he heard his name, his resentment turned to fright.
He straightened. “I’m on the board of a charity in Cleveland. Today they got a donation of four million, which is about a year’s goal. The money came from a man named Ronald Wilmont. I tried all afternoon to get information about him, but couldn’t find any. I called a few other charities, and every one I called had gotten a big donation today from some person or group they never heard of.”
“My dog had fifty fleas today,” Catania announced. “So did all the other dogs in the neighborhood.”
“I don’t get it,” said Molinari. “What the hell is going on?”
Catania smirked. “Nothing. Forget it. You got a year with big ups and downs in the stock and bond markets. The big ups, people make money. The big downs come because they sell. When they do, they got to pay taxes on the profits. So they take a charitable deduction.”
DeLuca had been lost in thought. “I’m not so sure. Four million to some charity in Cleveland is nothing. You’re right. But I got a little story too. I’ve got a construction company. My Chicago office got a call today from a guy who ferrets out jobs for me. The Red Cross has been talking about a new building for ten years. Today, they say they have the money in hand, and they’re preparing specs. An hour later, I get a call about renovating an old building for a Boys and Girls Club.”
“More fleas in Chicago,” said Catania. “Look, I’m as sure as anybody that our money is going to start moving eventually. But when it does, it’s not going to a charity in Cleveland.”
Di Titulo took a chance and spoke. “May I say one more thing?”
Nobody responded, but Catania watched him with suppressed amusement.
“There are a lot of reasons why they might do something like this.”
“Such as?” Catania looked eager. Di Titulo decided he was waiting to prove Di Titulo was an idiot—a small-town idiot.
“One is just what you said—the IRS. I don’t know how much money Bernie the Elephant was holding, but this might be a way to launder it. You have fake people donate it to a fake foundation. The fake foundation hands five percent of it to a real charity. Maybe it pays ten percent to a phony management company that owns the building it doesn’t occupy, ten to an advertising company that’s supposed to bring in new donations, twenty-five percent to imaginary employees, fifty percent to fake charities. You end up with ninety-five percent of the money, because it never left your hands. The imaginary donor owes no taxes: he gave it all to charity. The foundation h
as met federal standards by a mile. They only have to give away five percent a year. The best part is, it’s July. Nobody has to file any papers until next April.”
The men in the bus were suddenly animated. Advisers and counselors whispered to bosses in muffled tones. Finally, Molinari began to scowl. “You know a hell of a lot about this stuff, don’t you?”
Di Titulo’s heart stopped for a moment, then began again at a quicker tempo. He could think of nothing to say.
Al Castananza shrugged his big shoulders to settle into his seat more comfortably. “That’s one of the things I have on my mind. Somebody blew up Di Titulo’s new Caddy today. I would like to say two things. The first is that nobody in my organization killed Bernie or moved any of the money. Killing my people doesn’t help anybody.” The men in the bus watched him in silence, as though stricken by a common paralysis. “The second is that if anybody wants to play with bombs, I got guys who can do that kind of work too.” His eyes flicked to Catania and bored into him. “I got one who could drop the Empire State Building so the top hit Thirty-ninth Street.”
Catania held up both hands and shook his head. “Hey! Al! I didn’t do that.”
“I did,” muttered DeLuca. He focused his eyes on Castananza. “I apologize. I had a tip.” The apology had nothing to do with Di Titulo.
The air in the bus seemed to retain a steamy quality, but some of the men squirmed and shuffled their feet, as though the tension was dispersing. There was a sudden, deep growl, and Di Titulo involuntarily followed it with his eyes. It had come from the big chest of Chi-chi Tasso. He was the oldest man in the bus, a massive lump of fat settled in the wide rear seat, and it had not been clear that he had been listening. He said, “That’s why I’m here too. I lost a guy a week ago. It made me sick. This isn’t the first time we started killing each other for nothing.”
Augustino spoke. “You’re right, Chi-chi. Let’s not turn on each other. The one behind it is obvious. Bernie gets shot in Detroit, and this bagman, Danny Spoleto, who used to be his bodyguard, disappears. So does the maid at his house in Florida. I had two guys there the day after they left.”
Tasso gave a deep laugh. “What good are they? You could have read it in the papers like I did.”
Molinari said, “I had some guys waiting in Spoleto’s old neighborhood. He never showed up.”
Tasso muttered, “You two should get together and look for some new guys.” There was a nervous chuckle in the bus.
Phil Langusto said, “Has somebody eliminated Vincent Ogliaro? I mean, this happened in Detroit, right?”
Catania smirked. “He’s in jail.”
Langusto snorted. “I know. And when you were in jail, you never ordered a hit, did you?”
Catania said, “His mother got killed in this thing. You think he set it up to kill his own mother?”
Langusto said, “I don’t know. What the hell was she doing at the airport?”
Tasso cleared his throat. “Let me tell you something about Vincent Ogliaro.” He looked at the men around him. “He does things himself—like his father. You’re lucky his father isn’t alive to hear this. Mickey Ogliaro would have taken your arm off and beat you to death with it.”
“I don’t think Ogliaro did it either,” said Catania. “It has to be Danny Spoleto.”
Tasso looked at Catania with pity, then spoke to the others. “Of all the dumb talk I’ve heard since I moved to New Orleans, this is right up there with ‘The South will rise again.’ Listen to what these guys are saying. All this money is moving here and there: you can barely follow it yourself. This kid was a bodyguard, a pair of eyes with a gun attached. If Bernie got his throat cut and he had a million in cash lying around the house that ain’t there anymore, you look for a bodyguard.”
Catania was offended. “You say Phil’s stupid to go after Ogliaro. I’m stupid to go after the bodyguard. Who do you think is moving all this money around?”
Tasso said, “I think Bernie found Jesus.”
“I think Jesus found Bernie,” snapped Catania.
“It’s not a joke.” Tasso’s angry stare silenced the laughter. “You said before that Bernie was old enough to know that he was going to die even without a bullet. He sure as hell was. I think it’s just possible that Bernie gave all our money away.”
“He’s dead, Chi-chi.”
“He was perfectly capable of setting all this up in advance.”
“And then what? Did he fly to Detroit and shoot himself six times?”
“I’m saying that you look around for who has our money and you come up with a bodyguard. You come up with Vincent Ogliaro, who is a tough son of a bitch, but no mastermind. You come up with Al’s bookkeeper in Cleveland. You think a guy who just stole billions of dollars is going to buy himself a Cadillac?”
Di Titulo was stung, but this was not a good time to claim that he was more than a bookkeeper.
Tasso looked around him at the men on the bus. “The only one we know with absolute certainty could move this money around is the only one you don’t think of: Bernie Lupus. He moved it around in the first place. He knew where all of it was, he knew what names he used when he put it there.”
Phil Langusto’s expression was so respectful that Di Titulo could see that the only thing behind it could be sarcasm. “Chi-chi,” he said quietly. “I’m just not sure how Jesus is implicated.”
Tasso shrugged his shoulders so his pendulous belly bounced. “You think I’m old and crazy. Maybe I am. I can tell you, after my triple bypass, I had a bout of that myself. They gave me the last rites a couple of times. I had a lot of strange thoughts in that intensive care unit. And Bernie—who knows what might have been going through his head? Some weird holy-roller religion, maybe. What do we know? He was some kind of Polack.”
“They’re Catholics,” said Molinari.
“The Pope is a Polack,” DeLuca added helpfully.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Tasso. “I think that the only possibility I’ve heard that makes sense is that Bernie set this up before he died. Everybody’s saying he must have written it down somewhere, or it couldn’t be moving now. So am I. I don’t know why he would. Maybe it was just that somebody pissed him off with some scheme like replacing him with a computer.” His eyes passed across Catania and then to the others. “If we don’t know where he put our own money, how does anybody else know?”
Phil Langusto shrugged. “That’s what we’ve got to find out.”
Suddenly, Molinari spoke. “Where’s Frank Delfina?” Di Titulo saw several heads turn to face Molinari, but others were looking around the bus, as though they were searching for Delfina in vain. Molinari raised his eyebrows. “Well, shouldn’t he be here?”
DeLuca drew himself up straight. “I’m here,” he said. “I didn’t think there was any reason to invite more of my guys than necessary.”
Molinari’s eyes shot to Tasso—not in puzzlement, Di Titulo saw, but in silent communication.
Tasso said, “That wasn’t the deal the Commission set up, Tommy. He’s not part of your family anymore. He should be here. Everybody should be here who laid off money with Bernie.”
DeLuca could see that his response had put him in danger. He shrugged. “I didn’t mean I told him not to come. Like you said, he’s got his own family now. I just meant, I didn’t invite him myself. This isn’t my meeting.”
Tasso turned to Langusto. “Did anybody invite him?”
Phil Langusto looked at his brother, then at John Augustino, then back at the rest of the men. “We’ll check on it.” He took a deep breath, to signal that he wanted to change the subject. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’re trying to reach a conclusion, and we don’t have to. All we’ve got to do is stop this before it goes any farther.”
Joe Langusto said, “Nobody seems to know how much money it is. I remember our father telling us it was at least a billion dollars when we were kids. To be conservative, let’s say it’s five by now. If there’s anything any of you can
do in the next week or two that will bring in that much extra money, go ahead. What we’d like to do is get it back.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked DeLuca.
“We turn up the heat. Do everything at once. We look for any sign that more money is on the move. If there’s five billion, the really big stuff hasn’t budged yet. We put people on tracing all of these charity donations that already showed up back to their source.”
Al Castananza said, “This isn’t any different from what we’ve been doing.”
Joe Langusto answered, “We’ve got more to work with now. We don’t ignore any theory, any possibility. Some people think Ogliaro is involved. So let’s watch his guys. See who visits him, have people on his cell block keep an eye on him. He might be able to order a hit without anybody noticing, but he can’t run money all over the place without attracting some attention.”
Catania sighed in weary resignation.
Di Titulo kept him in the corner of his eye, but didn’t let it be known that he was watching him.
Phil Langusto said, “Some people think that Danny Spoleto was involved. So let’s look harder for him, too.” Di Titulo watched him hold up a photograph that had been blown up from a snapshot. Di Titulo could see a clean-cut, athletic-looking man in his late twenties or early thirties. He was positive that he would not have recognized him again in five minutes.
Langusto continued, “There’s the maid.” He held up another photograph. “This is the shot we had taken of her when she came to work for Bernie.” Di Titulo could see an enlarged shot of a girl with shoulder-length, stringy blond hair. She looked younger than his own daughter. She was just a child. He waited for somebody to say something—someone strong and powerful—but nobody interrupted Phil Langusto’s monologue.
