“Alright,” the younger detective said, blushing, “give me a ham on white.”
“Knock yourself out, kid!” The older detective said, laughing.
Lenny forced a smile.
The older detective eyed Doug. “You live around here?”
“Not too far. I work in the auto-repair shop across the street.”
“No shit.” The detective nodded. “You don’t see too many coloreds, I mean African Americans, in this neighborhood.”
Doug’s jaw tightened, but Lenny hoped he’d let that comment go. The less said the better. While making the sandwiches Lenny thought of the money Big Vinny had asked him to store away last Christmas. Lenny had put it in his safe and forgotten about it. I guess this is one of those rainy days that Big Vinny had worried about, Lenny thought as he wrapped the sandwiches in wax paper, slipped them into a paper bag, and placed the bag on the counter.
“DiCico a friend of yours?” the older detective said.
“I know him,” Lenny answered.
“Yeah, well be careful who you make friends with. By the way, seems that there was a block party here back in July, and there was a fight between some thugs and a cabdriver. Either one of you guys know anything about it?”
Lenny’s stomach tightened. “I was working in the store all day,” he said.
“How about you?” The detective turned to Doug.
“Sorry, I was working at the garage, and then I left work early and went right home.”
“Hmm ... such hard working guys,” the detective said, and took the bag of sandwiches and left the store without paying. His sidekick followed close behind the way Scungilli followed Big Vinny.
“Nice guy. Free lunch. Maybe I should have made a citizen’s arrest for petty larceny,” Doug said.
“It takes all kinds,” Lenny said.
Doug stood and tossed a crumbled ball of wax paper into the trashcan. “I get there are certain things that ain’t discussed around here, and it’s none of my business, but I know you’re probably worried. Just saying, that’s all.” Doug stretched his arm across the counter and gave Lenny one pat on his shoulder.
“Thanks,” Lenny said, but broke eye contact with Doug. He didn’t want their conversation to continue.
Once Doug left the store, Lenny clicked the remote for the small portable television that sat on the counter next to the cash register.
Officers wearing blue jackets with patches reading FBI Police or Police Department City of New York flanked a line of at least a dozen men shackled with handcuffs. Tomorrow’s newspaper would show a photo of this scene above the caption, Reputed Mob Figures Escorted Out of Manhattan FBI Office To Waiting Police Vans.
Lenny spotted Scungilli and a glimpse of Big Vinny’s sons, Michael and Jimmy. Finally there was a close up of Big Vinny with an agent on either side of him and one behind him. The corners of his mouth were turned down and his nostrils flared like a trapped bull about to attack.
The scene cut to the U.S. Attorney and the Queens County District Attorney standing behind a podium. They took turns listing the federal and state indictments, including racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, theft of union benefits, mail fraud, false statements, loan sharking, embezzlement of union funds, securities fraud, money laundering, illegal gambling, and conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana.
Next, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stepped up to the podium and said: “We will not rest until organized crime is a distant memory in New York, and we will not rest until every member of organized crime is caught and convicted. Period.”
The news location shifted from New York to Sicily, where a similar sweep had taken place.
Across the street several police officers wore plastic slickers, and one agent held a large black umbrella while his partner made checks on a note pad. The drizzle had turned to a steady rain. Until watching the news on television, all Lenny knew since earlier this morning, when he found Frankie sitting with Gennaro at the kitchen table, was that Big Vinny had been arrested. Gennaro was in tears. “Those fucking pigs arrested my old man,” he cried.
After the last police officer snapped shut a newly installed padlock on the front door of Big Vinny’s club and got in his car and drove away, neighbors appeared in Lenny’s store like meerkats sensing that the jackals had left. They shook wet umbrellas and patted their faces dry with handkerchiefs. They had always assumed that Lenny knew more than them about Big Vinny’s schemes, but Big Vinny was as tightlipped with Lenny as he was with anyone on the block. All he ever said about his source of income was that he was a silent partner in several diners and bars. No names. No locations. No one believed him.
Even with Big Vinny in custody, the folks in the store were careful not to speak of more than what had been reported on television for fear that boasting about some privileged information, no matter how insignificant, might get back to the police, or worse, to Big Vinny. Remarks were more sympathetic than critical. Had Filomena been alive there would have been at least one renegade voice: It’s not enough that he brought disgrace on his parents. Now he has to shame his wife and children.
Sharp Nick, once the neighborhood arrontino (knife grinder), stood across the counter from Lenny. He was a shrunken man with hearing aids in each ear and lips so sunken that his mouth appeared to be a small round hole under his beak of a nose. His toothless hole expanded and he yelled that he had seen Frankie with Gennaro this morning. Implying what? Lenny thought. The neighbors looked from Sharp Nick to Lenny.
Worry gripped Lenny’s chest. He recalled Frankie’s comment about the cabdriver on the day of the block party and the detective’s question, and his forehead and armpits grew damp, his thinking became clouded, and everything went flat as if the neighbors became cardboard cutouts against the backdrop of a grocery store. Panic attacks were his doctor’s diagnosis. They started soon after his father died, then disappeared for years, but occasionally surfaced as if to remind Lenny that tragedy was a sly and untiring predator.
He heard his voice, but had no sense of speaking. “If you’re buying something please pay now. Otherwise please leave.”
A few neighbors set their items back on shelves, most paid and left, and an old woman as shrunken as Sharp Nick and dressed all in black — her stockings rolled down to her ankles and a plastic rain cap atop her sparse, white hair — told Lenny not to listen to the old fool. “His brain is smaller than his hearing aids.” She looked familiar, but Lenny couldn’t place her.
After the last customer left, Lenny checked to make sure that all was quiet in front of Big Vinny’s club, and then he locked the front door and flipped over the sign to read CLOSED. If someone asked why the store was closed in the middle of the day, he could say that he had to use the bathroom and no one was around to keep an eye on things. A few minutes, that’s all he needed.
He walked up the three rickety steps, through the dark breezeway that connected the store to the house, stumbled around crates of returned soda bottles, and up three more steps to the windowless office where a battered oak desk, swivel chair, safe, and wooden file cabinets lined the walls, leaving only enough wall space for the three doors — one connecting the breezeway to the cluttered office, one from the office to the house, and one from the office to a tiny bathroom — and barely enough floor space to walk from one door to the other. On walls that Lenny had no memory of ever having a fresh coat of paint were sepia portraits and daguerreotypes of Leonardo and Lucia with Vincenzo and Lenny’s aunts as children, Vincenzo and Filomena’s wedding portrait, and professional photographs of relatives who remained in Sicily — probably long dead. The pictures were framed in heavy carved wood and plaster. Lenny sat at the desk, glanced at the safe, then pulled a wad of tissues from a box on the desk, wiped the perspiration from his brow and neck, glanced back at the safe, but this time his gaze lingered, and he recalled what had happened last Christmas Eve.
It was very late, and Lenny had just locked the door when he heard rapping at the storefro
nt window and assumed it was a customer wanting baccalá or anchovies or sardines to complete the spread of seven fishes for Christmas Eve dinner. It was Big Vinny, but Marie had already shopped several times. By now her baccalá salad would have been chilled with steamed cauliflower, olives, sweet vinegar peppers, and a touch of lemon. She would fry the remaining codfish after the DiCico family finished their linguini smothered with calamari sauce that had simmered over a low flame, the way her mother-in-law and Filomena had taught her years earlier, making the calamari tender enough to cut with the edge of a fork. Big Vinny wasn’t there to shop. A line of snow traced the black of his broad square shoulders and the brim of his fedora. Lenny unlocked the door.
“Buon Natale.” Big Vinny shook the snow from his hat.
“Merry Christmas,” Lenny said.
“I saw you locking the door when I was leaving the club so I thought I’d stop by. I can only stay a few minutes.”
Without Scungilli or some other sidekick in tow, Big Vinny was like a comic without his straight man. An awkward silence hung over them until Lenny asked him if he was okay.
“Minchia, of course I’m okay,” he said. “Am I keeping you from dinner or something?”
“No. Mama, Frankie, and Angie are at midnight mass.”
Big Vinny removed his black kid gloves, folded them into his hat which he had already removed and loosened his cashmere scarf. He had a taste for nice things.
“It’s warmer in the house. How about we go in and have a cup of coffee or a drink?” Lenny said.
“No, I can’t stay long. Marie’s waiting for me to get home so she can throw the macaroni in. The boys are here for Christmas Eve dinner with their wives. Did you hear that Michael’s wife is gonna have a baby?”
“No. Congratulations,” Lenny said. “Here sit down.” He moved a stool closer to Big Vinny.
“But just for a minute,” Big Vinny said. “Marie is waiting. The boys are here. Lena’s got her boyfriend coming over too. Boyfriend, my ass. She’s a junior in high school. I met him once. He looks Irish, but she said he’s a WASP. Whatever the hell that means. She said I better be nice or she’ll poison my vino. My daughter’s got some temper and mouth on her.”
“I wonder who she takes after?” Lenny smiled.
“Yeah, you’re right, but you’re always right.”
Big Vinny shifted his weight on the stool, reminiscent of elementary school days, when the nuns made him sit on a stool in the corner of the classroom, under a statue of the Blessed Mother crushing the serpent’s head with her tiny bare feet. Even back then, Big Vinny was too big for the stool and had a hard time sitting still.
“Imagine, I’m gonna be a grandpa,” Big Vinny said. “It feels like yesterday that I knocked up Marie. Now my oldest is gonna be a father. Marie’s knitting all this blue baby stuff.”
“A boy?”
“Yeah, I guess they did one of those sonograms. Ya know where they can see if the baby’s got a prick. Imagine?”
“Yes, pretty amazing.”
Big Vinny cleared his throat. “Lenny, I need a favor from you. You never know when something might happen. Something crazy. Who knows? You know maybe something happens to me, and for some reason Marie can’t draw money out of our bank accounts. You know how crazy things happen. I mean like what happened to your old man. My mother had just left your store, and ten minutes later your father is dead. She hadn’t even put the groceries away. My old man yells in the door, ‘There’s an ambulance in front of Lasante’s.’ My mother dropped the capicola your father had just sliced all over the kitchen floor and ran out of the house. Minchia, what a terrible day that was. A hundred years ago, but it feels like yesterday. You never know what’s coming next, Lenny. And it’s not only dying you gotta worry about. Who knows all the crazy things that can happen? If something happens to me, I need to know that my family isn’t going to wind up in the street. You know, until I can get things settled. Some things take time.”
Big Vinny removed a bulky brown envelope from the inside breast pocket of his coat and Lenny heard Vincenzo’s gasps, the blare of sirens, and a jumble of discordant voices: He’s not to be trusted ... But he’s like family ... He’s always up to no good ... He’d risk his life for you and Frankie ... He’ll pull his family and yours down with him. The last voice sounded like Big Vinny’s father.
Big Vinny’s eyes were small and dark and hard to read. “I just thought of your father,” Lenny said.
“My father? Why the hell are you bringing him up?”
“I don’t know. The holidays? And you mentioned my father so it got me thinking.”
“You think too much. That’s always been your problem.” Big Vinny began rambling again, but this time about his father, which gave Lenny time to think up excuses for not accepting the envelope.
“That’s one of the things I hate about Christmas. It makes people think too much. After my brother got himself killed in Nam, my old man was no good. If it wasn’t for my mother — may they all rest in peace — I think he would have gone back to Sicily. You know what he said to me once? This was after I dropped out of high school and started paying my own way. I even offered him money. Ya know, to pay for my room and board — tried to make his life a little easier. He said to me: ‘Keep your blood money. I left Sicily to get away from scum like you’.”
Lenny knew this story. Filomena had told him years ago. Big Vinny’s mother had told her.
“Blood money?” Big Vinny was on a roll. “My old man didn’t know shit about me, and it was his own fucking fault that he barely had a pot to piss in. He had passed up every chance his bosses gave him for advancement. Why? So he could be a big fucking union hero while my mother pinched pennies, and then after all his being pro-union he even got on the outs with the them. Said they had become more corrupt than management. Remember, he got on that soapbox about the union not helping coloreds. What the hell did that have to do with him? He lost a lot of overtime over that fight. All my old man knew how to do was make enemies. By the end I was sneaking my mother money, or they wouldn’t have had nothin. And he knew it, but he would have choked before he’d admit it was my blood money that ... For Christ’s sake, what the hell are we talking about this crap for? It was a hundred years ago.”
Big Vinny fidgeted as if he were still sitting under the statue of the Blessed Mother. “Sit still, Vincent,” the nuns would scold. But expecting him to be still was as useless as expecting the plaster statue of Mary to dance.
“I know, I know. You were always on his side.” Big Vinny laughed. “You ate up his goddamn stories about the oppressed. When I was a kid, I even found old copies of that Commie paper, the Daily Worker, on his bookshelves. I was looking for girlie magazines like my brother Sal used to hide under his mattress. My mother caught me reading my father’s Daily Worker newspapers, and she threw them out. I remember they had a big fight over that. Remember how the nuns used to make us read that Catholic kids’ magazine with all the stuff about the evil Communists? One time in confession I told the priest that my old man was a Communist. The priest said that Communists would burn in hell. I told my father and he said that there wasn’t enough room in hell with all the priests down there.”
“Sounds like my grandfather.” Lenny laughed.
“Yeah, well after that, I had nightmares that these giant priests and cops would break into my house and arrest my old man.”
They both laughed.
“Forget all that shit,” Big Vinny said. “I know one thing. If you ain’t there for your own family, then you’re no good for no one.”
“You’re right,” Lenny said.
“What do you mean I’m right?” Big Vinny looked stunned.
“Your father was rarely there for you, or your brother, and after Sal was killed in Vietnam, you’re father wasn’t there for you at all. You know I admired your father. He was a good man ... but maybe not such a good father.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t such an easy son either.”
“Y
ou’re right again.” Finally, Lenny pointed to the envelope. Big Vinny had a circuitous way of persuading. “I think you wanted me to keep that in the safe for you,” Lenny said.
Big Vinny wrinkled his brow, as if he had forgotten about the envelope, but then he handed it to Lenny. “You don’t have to worry about it being traced. It’s clean money.”
And how you made this money? Was that clean? Lenny wanted to ask, but instead he just nodded.
“We don’t always agree, Lenny. Maybe we hardly ever agree, but I know that you think taking care of family is important, and I can trust you. The money is for an emergency. Maybe Marie needs it to pay bills, or somebody gets sick. Whatever. Hopefully you’ll never have to use it. Who knows? Crazy things happen. Without warning it can be a rainy day.”
Sitting at his desk and staring at the safe where last Christmas Eve he stashed Big Vinny’s brown envelope, Lenny thought: This must be that rainy day. As if the safe were sitting on his chest, Lenny struggled through several deep breaths before he returned to the store, popped a valium, swallowed it with spit, unlocked the front door, and turned the sign to read OPEN.
Later that evening, in the DiCicos’ kitchen, Lenny learned that Big Vinny had been charged with racketeering, conspiracy, and theft of union benefits. He finally took his revenge on the unions for taking his father away from him, Lenny thought.
“And my boys were charged with murder,” Marie cried.
This shocked Lenny. There had been no mention of murder charges on the news.
“Remember that cabbie that drove through my father’s block party,” Lena explained, “the one who was stupid enough to flip us the finger. Who the hell cared about him? We had other things to worry about that night after Gennaro got burned. Anyway, the police found his body in a bay near Howard Beach. At least what was left of it. How are the cops gonna link him being dead to my brothers? No one knew who the hell he was. Just another cabbie. Nobody laid a fucking finger on him. The pussy drove away.”
Most Precious Blood Page 7
