Criminal Conversation

by Ed McBain

  “You understand, don’t you,” Michael said, “that you belong to us?”

  “I understand that.”

  “We’ll relocate you and keep you safe from these people, but that means you’ll do exactly what we tell you to do. Otherwise, you can roll the dice and take your chances with us in court or them on the street.”

  “I want to cooperate here,” Di Nobili said.

  “Good. I want you to read this and sign it.”

  “What is it?”

  “A waiver of arraignment,” Michael said, and handed it to him. The paper read:

  WAIVER OF SPEEDY ARRAIGNMENT

  I, Dominick Di Nobili, understand that I have been arrested for violation of Section 220.43 of the New York Penal Law [criminal sale of a controlled substance in the first degree].

  I have been read my constitutional rights by Detective Second Grade Jacqueline Diaz of the New York City Police Department, and understand those rights.

  I have also been informed of my right to a speedy arraignment …

  “Nobody informed me of this,” Di Nobili said.

  “You’re being informed now,” Michael said.

  . . . my right to a speedy arraignment and understand this right.

  Fully aware of my rights, I am desirous of cooperating with the authorities. However, no promises whatsoever have been made to me regarding …

  “I thought you said you were gonna relocate me.”

  “If you’re not shitting us,” Jackie said. “If you are shitting us, we’ve still got the flash as evidence, and all bets …”

  “The what?”

  “The flash money. The twenty-three grand you accepted for the dope.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you’re shitting us, all bets are off.”

  “I’m not shitting you.”

  “Fine. Then sign the fuckin’ waiver,” Jackie said.

  “I want to read it all first.”

  . . . whatsoever have been made to me regarding my cooperation.

  In order to fully cooperate with the authorities, I consent to the delay of my arraignment. I do this knowing that I have the right to be speedily arraigned but desire not to be immediately arraigned because of the impact such arraignment might have on my ability to cooperate.

  “What does that mean?” Di Nobili asked.

  “It means if we arraign you, they’ll know you were busted.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you’ll be worthless to us.”

  “Oh.”

  “So?” Michael said. “You want to sign it?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Di Nobili said.

  He signed the waiver and dated it. Jackie witnessed it.

  “Okay,” Michael said, “where’d you pick up the dope?”

  “A butcher shop in Brooklyn.”

  “Who gave it to you there?”

  “Guy named Artie. I never saw him before in my life. I was supposed to go in and tell him I was Dominick here for the pork chops. He gave me a package wrapped like meat. In like that white paper, you know?”

  “Who told you what to say?”

  “Sal the Barber. He’s the only one I know in this whole thing.”

  “How about Jimmy Angels? You know him too, don’t you?”

  “I never met him. He’s my friend’s cousin.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “I want to leave her out of this.”

  “Listen,” Jackie said sharply. “Maybe you didn’t understand the man. You want to play golf here or you want to fuck around?”

  “Huh?” Di Nobili said.

  “Tell him your girlfriend’s name. The man’s deputy chief of the Organized Crime Unit, we’re wasting his fucking time here.”

  “Her name is Lucy.”

  “Lucy what?”

  “Angelli. She’s Jimmy’s cousin.”

  “Sal told you where to pick up the stuff, is that right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And where to deliver it.”

  “Yeah, he gave me the name Anna Garcia, I was supposed to meet her outside this take-out joint in Chinatown.”

  “That’s the name I was going by,” Jackie said, and smiled. “I went with another undercover, guy weighs two hundred pounds, case old Dom here decided to hit me on the head and steal the dope.”

  “Yeah,” Di Nobili said glumly.

  “What else?” Michael asked.

  “He said I should expect twenty-three grand in exchange for the coke.”

  “Sal did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who were you supposed to deliver the money to?”

  “Sal.”

  “Where?”

  “A restaurant named La Luna.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Fifty-Eighth Street.”

  “You’ve met him there before?”

  “Yeah. To make payments on the loan.”

  “What was he charging you?”

  “Five points a week.”

  “Not exactly Chase Manhattan,” Jackie said.

  “When were you supposed to meet him?”

  “You mean today?”

  “Today, yes.”

  “Right after it went down.”

  “That was six o’clock,” Jackie said. “That makes you a little late, Dom.”

  “Yeah, it makes me a little late,” Di Nobili said, and started looking very worried again.

  “I want you to call him,” Michael said. “Have you got a number for him?”

  “Yeah.”

  Michael went to a file cabinet across the room, opened a drawer, and took from it a wrapped telephone pickup the tech unit had bought at Radio Shack. Attaching the suction cup to the earpiece of his phone, he said, “This is what I want you to say to him. Tell him everything went down the way it was supposed to, but you had a flat tire, and you had to have it fixed, which the garage just finished doing. You got that so far?”

  “No, I’m a fucking moron,” Di Nobili said.

  Michael looked at him.

  “Mister,” he said, “you want me to go home, is that it?”

  “I’m sorry,” Di Nobili said.

  “Just keep on being an asshole,” Michael said, “and I’m out of here in a minute. Capeesh?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Good,” he said, and plugged the cable into his taping and monitoring deck. “If he asks you what took so long to get a flat fixed, you tell him it’s the holidays and the weather is bad.”

  “Will he buy that?” Jackie asked.

  “I think so,” Di Nobili said.

  “Make sure he does,” Michael said. “Tell him you’ll bring the money to him now, but it might take a while, the streets haven’t been plowed yet, traffic’s backed up, whatever you want to say. I want to buy a few hours,” Michael said, turning to Jackie, “give us time to wire him, set up the excuse for …”

  “What do you mean?” Di Nobili said. “You’re gonna wire me?”

  “He still doesn’t understand,” Jackie said, shaking her head.

  “You’ll be going in wired, yes,” Michael said. “Any problems with that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Call him.”

  Di Nobili fished a slip of paper from his wallet, consulted it, and then, holding it in his left hand, punched out the number with his right hand. The equipment was set up so that everything being taped could be monitored simultaneously; Michael and Jackie both put on earphones. The phone rang once, twice, three times …

  “La Luna,” a man’s voice said.

  “Let me talk to Sal,” Di Nobili said.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Dominick Di Nobili.”

  “He knows you?”

  “He knows m
e.”

  “Hold on.”

  Michael nodded approval. He noticed that Di Nobili had broken out in a cold sweat.

  “Hello?”

  A man’s voice. Gruff.

  “Sal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is Dom.”

  “Where the fuck are you, Dom?”

  “I’m in a garage on Canal Street. I just had a flat tire fixed.”

  “You know what time it is?”

  “Yeah, it’s late, I know.”

  “I been waitin’ for your call since six o’clock.”

  “I was lookin’ for a phone booth when I got the flat.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Fine.”

  “Any problems?”

  “No problems.”

  “And you’re where now?”

  “The garage that fixed the flat. I got to pay my bill, and then I’m out of here.”

  “What took you all this time to get a flat fixed?”

  “It’s the holidays. Also the traffic’s terrible. And I don’t know this fuckin’ part of the city,” he said, improvising. “Time I found an open garage …”

  “So is it fixed now?”

  “Yeah, I told you.”

  “So when can you get here? I been waitin’ here two fuckin’ hours for you.”

  “I can come there right now, you want me to.”

  “Yeah, do it.”

  “But I got to warn you, the roads are really terrible, Sal, it’s a fuckin’ blizzard out there. It might take me a while t’get uptown, I mean it.”

  “You’re on Canal, what the fuck’s gonna take you so long to get to Fifty-Eighth?”

  “You should see it out there, Sal. There’s cars stuck all over the place …”

  “I don’t give …”

  “. . . slippin’ and slidin’, I never seen anything like this in my life.”

  “So get a dogsled. I don’t give a shit it takes you till midnight, I’ll be here waitin’ for you.”

  “Okay, but it might be a long wait, is all I’m sayin’.”

  “I got nothin’ else planned,” Sal said, and hung up.

  Di Nobili looked at Michael.

  “Good,” Michael said.

  It was close to ten o’clock when Di Nobili walked into La Luna Restaurant on Fifty-Eighth Street and Eighth Avenue. Di Nobili was wearing under his clothing two pieces of equipment: a JBird digital disc recorder and a KEL transmitter. An empty car had been parked across the street from the restaurant. It was equipped with a repeater that would receive the signal from Di Nobili’s transmitter and send it out again, at a much higher frequency, to the unmarked sedan in which Jackie and Michael were parked three blocks away. There would be two recordings made, one on the JBird’s microchips, the other on the monitoring tape. They had warned Di Nobili not to sit too close to the clatter of silverware or china, or anywhere near a jukebox or a speaker. He had told them Sal usually conducted business in a quiet corner booth near the kitchen. Also, at this hour on a Monday night, there shouldn’t be too many customers in the restaurant. They were hoping there wouldn’t be.

  Jackie had previously signed out for the twenty-three thousand they’d used in the buy-bust, but this was a whole new operation, and if Di Nobili’s information proved useless, they would need the flash as evidence when they brought him to trial on the Section 220. Michael personally signed out for a fresh wad of cash—which happened to be five grand short. The shortage was what Dom would attempt to explain to Sal the Barber in the next ten minutes. This was why they’d needed to buy the extra time, so that Dom could reasonably account for how he’d happened to come up with eighteen thousand dollars instead of the twenty-three he’d got for the dope. They were hoping the cash discrepancy, and Dom’s explanation for it, would lead to the next step in the escalation.

  Neither of them was wearing earphones, which would have been noticeable from the sidewalk. Instead, the monitoring and recording equipment sat on the floor of the car, the volume control turned up. They waited expectantly now, a man and a woman who looked like a loving couple with eyes only for each other, but who were instead two law enforcement officers who were all ears. Softly, silently, the snow fell relentlessly on the car, covering it in white.

  “Took you long enough,” Sal said.

  Sal Bonifacio, he of the gruff voice, the short temper, and the quick fists. Sal the Barber.

  “Yeah, well, I told you,” Dom said.

  “Where’s the money?”

  “Right here.”

  Silence. Dom undoubtedly taking the envelope of cash out of his pocket, handing it over to Sal.

  “She test it?”

  “No.”

  “I’m surprised. Must be she trusts us, huh?”

  Sal laughing. Dom joining in. Honor among thieves. Good cause for laughter.

  “What’d she look like?”

  “Who?”

  “The cunt. Anna Garcia.”

  “Good-looking redhead.”

  In the car, Jackie whispered, “Thanks, Dom.”

  “What I hear, I wouldn’t mind boffin’ her.”

  “Me neither,” Dom said, and both men laughed again.

  “Regular fan club,” Jackie whispered.

  “But she didn’t test it, huh?” Sal said.

  “She didn’t say nothin’ about it, so I didn’t say nothin’, either.”

  “Good thinking. Did you count this money?”

  “I counted it.”

  “Then why’s there only eighteen here?”

  Michael held his breath.

  “Well … that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Dom said.

  “I’m listenin’.”

  “You see …”

  “This better be good, Dominick. ’Cause if you think what happened to you Friday was bad, then you don’t know what can really happen when I’m pissed off. Where’s the other fuckin’ five grand?”

  “You see, on the way here …”

  “Two fuckin’ hours to get here, Dominick. You call me eight o’clock, you get here ten o’clock. What are you, the Two-Hour Man, Dominick? You get the cash at six, you call me at eight, you get here at ten, and you’re five grand short? Where’s the rest of the fuckin’ money, Dominick?”

  “I lost it in a crap game.”

  “You what?”

  “I …”

  “You’re dead, Dominick.”

  “Listen, Sal, I …”

  “No, no, you’re dead.”

  “Please, Sal, I can ex—”

  “This is how you repay a favor? I’m supposed to go to Frankie, tell him you bet it?”

  “Frankie who?” Michael whispered.

  “You think you can just steal money from …”

  “I didn’t steal it, Sal. I borrowed it. To get in this …”

  “You borrowed it from who, Dominick?”

  “From you. Temporarily.”

  “Dominick, you already owe me fifteen grand plus interest. By Friday, when it comes due, that’ll be sixteen thousand five hundred fuckin’ dollars you owe me, Dominick. Are you saying you borrowed another five grand from me? Without first asking for it?”

  “I was gonna tell you when I saw you. Which is what I’m doing now.”

  “You’re telling me you borrowed another five grand from me, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You dumb fuckin’ shit, this ain’t me you’re jerkin around, this is Frankie Palumbo whose money you bet!”

  “O-kay!” Michael said.

  “Frankie does a favor for that shithead Angelli in Queens whose ugly cousin you’re fuckin’, you think the whole world don’t know it, a married man? Does Angelli know he asked Frankie a favor for a married man fuckin’ his cousin? And this is the way
you pay Frankie back? This is the respect you show for a man whose ass you should be kissing in Macy’s window? You know what’s going to happen to you now? First …”

  “Sal …”

  “First, I’m gonna personally beat the shit out of you for embarrassing me in front of Frankie, and then I’m gonna turn you over to him, and he’s gonna make sure you never steal money from nobody in the Faviola family ever again. You think you understand that, Dominick?”

  “Let me talk to Jimmy again, okay?” Dom said. “Let me explain to him what …”

  “You don’t have to talk to Jimmy no more, Jimmy done everything he could for you. This ain’t Colotti business no more, this is Faviola business. Where’s your fuckin’ respect?”

  “Jimmy can explain it to him.”

  “There’s nothin’ to explain. You stole five fuckin’ grand from Frankie Palumbo after he done a favor for you. What’s there to explain?”

  “I thought I was borrowin’ it from you, Sal.”

  “You mean you thought you were stealin’ it from me.”

  “No, no. I was gonna pay you interest, same as before.”

  “What? Pay me interest? You fuckin’ piece of shit, you can’t meet your payments now, how’d you expect to pay me on another five grand?”

  “I figured the same arrangement as before.”

  “Without askin’ me first?”

  “I figured I’d tell you later.”

  “You’re a dumb fuck, Dominick.”

  “I realize that now. I shoulda ast you first. But I really thought this was your money, Sal, I didn’t know …”

  “Yeah, well it ain’t.”

  “I’m really sorry I done this, Sal, embarrassin’ the two families this way, I’m really sorry, Sal.”

  “You shoulda thought about that before doin’ something so stupid.”

  “I thought I was borrowin’ it.”