You Get What You Pay For (The Tony Cassella Mysteries)

by Beinhart, Larry

  “So you’re not doing business no more,” I said, looking around.

  “And you, what’re you doing?”

  “Still a P.I.,” I said.

  “Man, I love the disguise. You here on a case? My ex looking for me, or something? Or something?”

  “What I’m hoping, I’m hoping you know somebody who can help me get a passport. Not the State Department, but one of the private issuers.”

  “Piece of cake, paisan, piece of cake,” Pete said. He picked up the cordless and punched in some numbers.

  “Two,” I said. “I gotta take the father with me.”

  “Pablo,” Pete said, “I got a little thing maybe you could do for me. … ” He looked up at me. “Rush?”

  I nodded yes. It was hot. I reached behind me, unsnapped the collar, and shrugged out of the shirt.

  “Whyn’t you come over? … Whaddaya need? A Polaroid, I got a Polaroid. … Whyn’t you come over?”

  “Yeah, you’re outa the business,” I said.

  He winked at me. “You wanna toot?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Me neither. I just keep it around for the girls. But just snortin’. I don’t want no crack, basin’, bazouko, any o’that crap around. Tootin’s nice, you wanna party, but that other shit, you got zombies, might as well get one of them three-hole blow-up dolls. Take a bimbo, plug her any way you want, it don’t matter; all she wants to do is suck pipe. Disgusting … Sure you don’t wan’ a real drink?”

  “No, that’s OK.”

  “Damn, it’s good to see you, paisan. The streets, the streets, the streets of Brooklyn. Shit. We’ve come a long way, baby.”

  “This guy you got comin’. He good?”

  “The best. I don’ know what he’s got on hand, but he can give you, usually, U.S., Venezuelan, Canadian. That’s real popular, Canadian. It’s just like U.S. for getting into the U.S. but like cleaner with everyone else.”

  “Yeah, you’re in the pizza business,” I said.

  “For real. I am,” he said. “Every now and again, for a select few, just for cash flow, you know.”

  “You amaze me,” I said.

  “Howzat?”

  “You been doing that thing for ten years. You’re alive, well, and not in the slam.”

  He tapped his forehead. “It’s ’cause I got it up here. Numbers. I’m an accountant at heart, you know, not a fuckin’ cowboy. I don’ make a move unless I analyze profit against downside risk. Most fuckin’ people do this, fuckin’ cowboys. Or junkies. You know, wired-out weird on the white lady. I get over two grams a week, personal use, I put myself out to the farm, take the cure. Get clean. No point doin’ business when you’re movin’ faster than you’re movin’.”

  “So that’s the secret?”

  “That’s ninety percent of it. You ever make the scene down here?”

  “No,” I said.

  Guido came out of the house, glass in hand. He looked over at us. Then at the girls. Wistfully, he turned toward the gardens and went that way. Pete watched him go and took his bottle out from a drawer in the table that held the phone.

  “You sure?” he asked. “This is Peruvian flake. Alpaca pura.”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  He tooted rapidly. The Mouseketeers, with their radar ears, looked up. He waved a hand at them, saying, Forget it.

  “Awww,” Rita said.

  “Later,” Pete told her. He sniffed it back. “Oh, yeah. We’re talking Rolls-Royce. Cruising speed. … ”

  “Hey, Pete,” the girl with the blond bush and freshly painted toenails whined.

  “All right, all right,” he said. He took a couple of good-size hits, screwed the cap back on tight, and tossed the bottle across the pool. Six tits bobbled frantically as the girls jumped up to catch it.

  Pete laughed again. “I got another bottle here,” he said with a wink. Guido had returned, a little peaked from the sun and the booze. He looked over at us, then at the girls. He opted for them.

  “So you got no problems,” I said, just making conversation.

  “You really wanna know, paisan, what the secret of success is?”

  There was laughter from the other end of the pool. Guido wiped sweat from his brow. Apparently, the heat was too much for the father. He got up and went toward the house, Rita and Annette, the one almost dressed, going with him.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Federal informant,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m a federal informant. They think they’re playing me, I know I’m playing them. I give them this guy, that guy, a little something from time to time, and I do whatever the fuck I want. It’s a license to steal, a license to deal.”

  “This passport thing you’re doing for me,” I said. “Is that a little something you would give the Feds?”

  “Hey, paisan,” Pete said, sounding hurt. “What’re you talking about? You’re my people. I only give ’em spies.”

  “Oh, that’s all right then,” I said.

  A set of chimes played “I can’t get no sat-is-fac-tion.” Pete flipped on the TV. The front door showed up on the screen. “That’s Pablo,” he said to me. He picked up an electronic control box and unlocked the front door by remote. We could see Pablo enter on the TV.

  “Come on,” Pete said, getting up. I followed him into the house. Pablo was coming in the front door. Guido was off to the side, on the couch. His third drink was in front of him. Rita was on his right, Annette was on his left. His eyes swept back and forth as he tried to decide whether to fall into the tits to his left or to his right.

  Rita was laying out lines on the coffee table, snorting them through a rolled bill. A flashback to my own bad old days. The other girl was patting Guido’s thin white hair.

  “I’m a little sleepy,” Guido said.

  “Here, honey, this’ll help,” Rita said, handing him the tooter.

  “Guido,” I said, sternly, “give that back.”

  The girls laughed. Pete cracked up.

  “I’ve never done this,” Guido said.

  “I’m not having you doing coke,” I said. Sternly.

  “What are you,” Annette said, “his father?”

  Everyone thought that was hilarious.

  “Guido,” I said, making my way to the couch, “it’s time to cool it. Let’s not get carried away.”

  “A man should try everything once, before he has to say goodbye to this world,” Guido said. “I’m going to try it.”

  “Damn it,” I said. “If you so much as touch that shit, I’m gonna have to tell my mother on you.”

  26.

  Reggae

  PABLO DIDN’T HAVE ANY Canadian passports. Pablo suggested birth certificates since that’s all an American needs for the Bahamas. Pete thought passports were better, on principle. I agreed since I wasn’t worried about getting in as much as coming back. We got Irish passports. Pete thought it would be amusing if we were Irish priests, Father Gregory O’Malley and Father Anthony O’Hara.

  “The best way,” Pete said, “to get to Freeport is on a gambling junket. Friend of mine sets ’em up. I’ll tell him I got a couple of high-rolling priests from the auld sod. I’ll get you comped and everything.” He even drove us out to the flight.

  The charter flew out of Opa-locka Airport. The plane had propellers, and I think it was the same one on which Ingrid Bergman flew away from Humphrey Bogart at the end of Casablanca.

  “I got to thank you. For everything,” I said when I got out of the car.

  “It was worth it to see you in a collar. Man, Tony Cassella, cocksman and cokehead, in a collar. You shoulda put it back on and done the girls. That’s the kinda thing they think is kinky.”

  “No, I mean it,” I said. “All of this was above and beyond. I owe. Anytime you need a favor, you got it.”

  “I’m glad you said that,” Pete said. He went around to the trunk and opened it up. He took out a small suitcase. “You ain’t got a lotta luggage, so I was thinkin
g maybe you could take this with you. Take it as carry-on.”

  “And then?”

  “You got reservations at the Royal Princess. A guy, he’ll come by, for Father O’Hara, he’ll pick it from you. It’s locked and all. Not that I don’t trust you, ’cause you’re from the neighborhood and all that, and you’re a wop. But this way, nobody got to even think about it.”

  “And what if they want to open it at customs?”

  “They won’t. I been on these. They just walk you on through. But if they do, you just play the forgetful padre, you know, absentminded, start looking through your pockets for the key. And ‘Oh, dear, I must ’ave lost it while I wuz on me knees prayin’ at the sacred statue of our holy sainted mother of somethin’ or other.’ Then you can ask for a locksmith to help you get it open.”

  “And then?” I asked.

  “And then, if you convince them you’re sincere, they’ll get irritated and tell you to find your own fucking locksmith at the hotel. Or they’ll get one for you and open it.”

  “Do I worry about them opening it?”

  “No,” Pete said. “It’s only money. They want you to bring money into Freeport. That’s what it exists for.”

  “How much money?”

  “You don’t wanna know, Tony, you don’t wanna know.”

  He was right. I didn’t want to know. I decided not to worry about it. I let Guido take it through customs.

  The first night in Freeport, we did nothing. Except check into our two-bedroom, complimentary, three-hundred-dollar a night suite, hand over the suitcase, and sleep. The guy who came for the money was named Eddie. I asked him if he knew where I could pick up a piece. Just in case.

  In the morning I ordered a lovely room-service breakfast. OJ, eggs, Irish bacon, toast, fresh pineapple, a day-old New York Times for me; two aspirins for Guido. I signed for it. It was lovely, sitting on the balcony, feeling the morning breeze, looking out at the sea, seeing Guido in pain.

  When the busboy came to clear away, he brought up a package from the hotel desk. A SIG P210 automatic. Swiss made. Very expensive. Very classy. Thanks, Eddie.

  I went out dressed as a real person, not a priest, to the casino in the next hotel. They were delighted to give me a couple of thousand on my credit cards. In chips, of course. I played blackjack and roulette for two hours. Lost ten dollars. Then turned in the chips for cash.

  Then I went out and took a wind-surfing lesson. I was terrible. I got up on the board, lifted the sail, then fell over. Then I climbed back on the board, stood up, and fell over. Back up on the board, I stood, tugged on the sail, it spun around and knocked me over. This went on for about an hour. The water was gorgeous. It’s the blue that people rave about. We never had water that color at Coney Island. I suspect it’s because there’s less shit in the Caribbean.

  Then it happened.

  I got the sail in the right position, drew it in close with the correct hand. And sailed. At least fifteen yards before I fell over. Clearly, it was what life was really about. I was born to be a yachtsman.

  It was a wonderful, lazy couple of days. Making casual inquiries about Felacco and Ventana around the casinos and restaurants. Sunning, wind-surfing, snorkeling, eating expensive food, spending expense account dollars.

  We’d only been comped for two days. After that the Princess wanted money. When I went to prepay and settle up for the incidentals, I got to see our phone bill. There was a call to the 518 area code in the States. Upstate New York.

  “Who did you call in 518,” I asked Guido.

  “Santino,” he said, “to let him know we were on the case.”

  “Did you tell him where we are? Did you?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You know, you may not see anything morally wrong with what we’re doing here,” I said. “But I do. And I had a perfect Jesuitical solution to the dilemma. I mean a real fish-on-Friday answer. And that’s how we’re gonna play it. If we still can. There’s a warrant, an active warrant, out on Felacco and Ventana. Now the minute we know where they are, I call NYPD Organized Crime. My partner, Joey, he’s working with a guy there. And what I want to happen is for the NYPD to pick up Felacco and Ventana. Bring ’em back to New York, put ’em in the slam or whatever. Now if Scorcese wants to hit ’em in the slam, which is a pretty good place to do that sort of business, then he can.

  “But at least … at least I can say that we handed ’em over to the duly constituted, you know, and when they’re inside, which is where they’re supposed to be, it’s someone else’s job to protect them. And our hands are clean. Sort of. Mostly.”

  “But my agreement with Scorcese … ”

  “Well, what I was gonna do was let you call Scorcese just before the cops came in. Then we held up our end of the deal, just he was slow to pick up on it. He doesn’t have to know that the reason he was slow is we made sure the other guys were quicker. Which I hope they are. But if they’re not, I can still blame the murder on bureaucratic bungling. Instead of on myself.”

  “You’re right,” Guido said, with his mild smile. “You could have been a Jesuit.”

  “Do you know if Santino sent anyone down yet? What did you say to him?”

  “I am aware that the prison telephone is hardly a secure system,” Guido said. “I spoke as his priest. Our conversation, the gist of it, was that he was eager to see me to discuss spiritual matters and I would come to see him as soon as I returned from vacation, in Freeport. I think the authorities will find that very innocuous.”

  “Oh, man,” I sighed. “Well, maybe we’re only half fucked.”

  “How about some lunch?” he said.

  “Yeah, come on. We’ll eat at the pool.”

  The sea breeze was a slight saving grace in the June sun. The water was a set of blue color cards, light and luminous at the shore, neon past the chop, then IBM blue, and finally navy at the horizon, below the high stacked clouds. Back home they just had clouds. Here they had illustrations from my grade-school textbook. Cumulus, stratus, stratocumulus, cumulonimbus, nimbus. It was noon. The clouds would come in at two, rain at two-thirty, be gone at three. As the guidebook promised. Unless they decided to hang out and give us a full tropical storm.

  I ordered the tropical fruit salad and iced tea. Guido ordered pompano.

  “Have you been to South America?” Guido asked me. “Peru? Bolivia? Colombia?”

  “No,” I said, watching the wind-surfers catching rides on the rising wind, wishing that I could be as graceful. Given sufficient money and leisure, I would.

  “We, I mean the Church, had a problem,” he said. “This is back before my fall, when I was at the Vatican. The problem was liberation theology. Radical priests. I was sent on a theological fact-finding mission, of sorts. The doctrinal questions are quite complex.”

  Another junket jet must have just landed. A fresh group of tourists, with that just-landed look, came out to the pool. I noticed one of them simply because he was black. While there were plenty of blacks around, they were almost all staff. He was vaguely familiar. Like the man I’d been paranoid about at La Guardia. I wrote it off to they-all-look-alike racism.

  “In reality, my mission,” Guido said, “was to discover what dogma had developed in this peculiar hothouse of Latino barrios.”

  The fruit plate arrived, artfully arranged, arcs of pineapple around arcs of citrus around slices of mango around balls of melon, topped with half of a yellow star fruit, point pointing upward. Guido’s pompano was grilled light, crusty with butter, served on white china, with green slices of lime on the side.

  “The poverty, ignorance, disease, hopelessness, and sheer stupidity I saw down there was appalling. Truly appalling,” he said, flaking off a piece of fish with his fork. “This, by the way, is delicious. Would you like a taste? This is really quite perfect.”

  “Yes, thank you,” I said.

  He broke off a piece and put it on my bread dish. “I w
as in Colombia for three weeks. Now there’s a place where anticlericalism is a living political reality. As is clericalism. And the obsession we call Marianismo. The theologically inspired female prostration before machismo.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “This fish is incredible.”

  “Isn’t it?” he said. “I was depressed, seriously depressed. At last I escaped. High up in the Andes. Bolivia. And it was worse. The Latin American world is one that the Church had a leading hand in building. It is our creation. Our priests are either part of it—arrogant, ignorant, Chaucerian prelates—or arming themselves for revolution. Or falling off the edge with the mad sadness of it. That was my choice, sadness. I went to a monastery, some fifteen kilometers outside of La Paz, and asked for a cell in which I could meditate. I was checking myself into an asylum. I prayed. I cried. My God, what had we wrought?”

  “The fruit is really good too,” I said. “You want a taste?”

  “If you could put a few bites aside. I like it after the fish.”

  “Sure,” I said, picking out one bite of each for him. The clouds were marching forward over the water and the boats were starting to turn in, back to harbor. People were looking up, trying to judge how much tanning time was left.

  “Given the reality … given the reality,” he said, “all I could do was recommend some sort of marriage between the Church and liberation theology. Precisely the opposite of what I had been sent to do. There was no way I could watch that suffering and say it was God’s will, see that systematic diminishment of humanity and say we ought to be part of the system,” Guido said, while I watched a forty-two-foot sports-fishing cruiser slide between the wind-surfers and the catamarans.

  “I went back to Rome and made my report,” Guido said, and started on the fruit. The big cruiser pulled into the hotel pier. A couple of harbor boys rushed over to receive and secure the docking lines. “I was ordered to revise it. I refused. The report was ordered repressed. I was certain it was the Truth and must be published. I started sending out copies. Writing letters. Knowing that I was destroying my career.”

  “That’s them,” I said. Frank Felacco and Fat Freddy Ventana, spiffy in resort wear, looking frisky and ready for a little roulette, stepped off the cruiser and onto the dock. “I’m gonna follow them. You sign for the meal, then get the name of the boat. Who owns her. Where she’s kept. Got that?”