Criminal Conversation

by Ed McBain

  “You think they’re twins?” Willie asked.

  “No, the one in white looks older,” Andrew said.

  “What do you think? Thirty, thirty-five?”

  “In there.”

  “Good-looking women, though. Both of them.”

  “Mm,” Andrew said, and looked over at them again.

  The one in white was definitely the older sister. Flaring white pleated skirt, white scoop-neck top, gold chain and pendant, white high-heeled sandals, all tan and white and golden. The sister was younger and fresher looking, but there was something more sophisticated about the one in white, the way she lifted her wine glass, the way she tilted her head at just the right angle. Sexier somehow. Given his choice, he’d take the one in white, too.

  The waiter came with their drinks just then. Canadian on the rocks for Andrew, a planter’s punch for Willie. Willie raised his glass in a toast to the two women sitting across the room. The one in the pink dress looked at him and then turned away in seeming disdain.

  “Bingo,” Willie said.

  “So what do you think, sis?” Heather asked. “Can you find your way back alone tonight?”

  “You’re not serious,” Sarah said.

  “I seem to have caught Whitey’s eye.”

  “You may catch more than that …”

  “Who cares?”

  “. . . picking up strangers in a bar.”

  “A restaurant, please. And only one stranger. Unless the one with the big ears wants to join us.”

  “I think you are serious.”

  “You just watch me, kid.”

  “Your plane leaves at nine.”

  “Plenty of time.”

  “The man’s in his sixties!”

  “Good, I’ll give him a heart attack.”

  “Whatever you do, leave me out of it,” Sarah said.

  “Who invited you?”

  “I mean it.”

  “Watch him melt,” Heather said, and turned toward where the two men were sitting, and leveled a long, lingering, blue-eyed gaze at the white-haired one.

  “What time is the boat meeting me?” Andrew asked.

  “Did you see that?”

  “No. What?”

  “The one in pink. She just invited me to her room.”

  “They’re not staying here,” Andrew said. “They live in that house on the beach.”

  “Better yet.”

  “The boat,” Andrew reminded him.

  “They’ll send a dinghy to the dock at ten tomorrow morning. They’re very prompt, so be on time. I told them you’d be alone, the way you wanted it. I prefer the one in white, but I’m willing to settle,” Willie said. “You want the one in white?”

  “No,” Andrew said. “I want a good night’s sleep. This meeting tomorrow is important.”

  “Always mix business with pleasure,” Willie said. “That’s a rule here in the islands.”

  “Whose rule?”

  “Mine. You sure you don’t want the one in white?”

  “Positive.”

  “Then I’ll take both of them.”

  “Do you plan to eat first, or are you going to jump them right here in the dining room?” Andrew asked.

  “Maybe both,” Willie said, and grinned like a shark.

  The one with the white hair approached their table while they were having coffee and dessert.

  “Good evening, ladies,” he said.

  Heather looked up at him.

  Nothing in her eyes. No hint that she had noticed him earlier, had in fact blatantly flirted with him across the room. Sarah had to admire her sister’s cool.

  “My name is Willie Isetti,” he said. “I was wondering if you’d like to join my friend and I for an after-dinner drink. There are some quiet tables in the bar area …”

  “Thank you, no,” Heather said, her voice only a few degrees icier than the glare in her pale blue eyes.

  “Sorry to have bothered you,” he said, and smiled weakly, and walked back across the room to where the young one was sitting alone at the table.

  Sarah looked at her sister.

  “He doesn’t know grammar,” Heather said, and shrugged.

  “I thought I was the English teacher.”

  “Besides, my plane is at nine.”

  “Um-huh.”

  “And he is in his sixties.”

  “Um-huh.”

  “And he’s not as good-looking now that I’m sober.”

  “Then let’s go home,” Sarah said.

  She left Heather touching up her lipstick at the mirror in the ladies’ room while she went outside to get the car from the valet. She was waiting under the hibiscus-covered trellis at the front of the hotel, the side away from the harbor and the spectacular view, when the young one with the ears came outside.

  He said nothing to her.

  They stood at opposite ends of the small curved entryway to the hotel, the strong heavy aroma of angel’s-trumpet suffusing the night air. The silence lengthened until it became too obviously awkward.

  “Nice night,” she said.

  “Lovely,” he said.

  The valet arrived just then, pulling the car up to a squealing stop, leaping out, leaving the driver-side door open for her, and then running around to open the passenger-side door. Thinking they were together, he looked surprised when Sarah and not the man tipped him four francs.

  “Did you have a car too, sir?” he asked.

  “Red VW,” he said, and handed him the keys.

  “The license plate?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know.”

  The valet shook his head.

  “They like you to remember the license plate number,” Sarah told him. “These rental cars from the airport all look alike.”

  “I should have realized that,” he said, and turned to the valet. “I parked it under the big tree there,” he told him, and pointed it out.

  “You should have let me park it, sir,” the valet said, looking offended.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, and smiled.

  “I’ll get it for you, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Heather came out of the hotel just then.

  “Well, good night,” Sarah said.

  “Good night,” he said.

  Heather looked at him briefly and then got into the car. As they pulled away from the hotel, she arched a brow and said, “Fast work, sis.”

  Sarah was thinking she’d be talking to Michael in less than twenty minutes.

  The phone rang some ten times before he picked up.

  “Hullo?”

  His voice sounded sleep-sodden, almost drugged.

  “Michael?”

  “Mm.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Wake up, darling.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  “Wake up, it’s me.”

  “Mm.”

  “Wake up, Michael.”

  “Mm.”

  “Michael?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s me,” she said. “Sarah.”

  “Okay, g’night,” he said.

  There was a click on the line.

  “Michael?” she said.

  Silence.

  “Michael?”

  She looked at the phone receiver, so startled that she burst out laughing. Shaking her head, the laughter subsiding, she put the receiver back on its cradle, lay back against the pillows again, and visualized Michael at home all tangled in the bedclothes, dead asleep, not knowing whether she was lying there beside him or calling from the moon, having forgotten completely the promises of long-­distance sex they’d made earlier tonight.

  It was too bad, actually.

  She
’d really been ready for him.

  Looking out at the star-drenched night, she lay silent and still for a long, long while before finally she fell asleep.

  The computerized tapes had brought Michael current to April of 1992. From there on, it was either listening to the tapes themselves or reading the typed transcripts of them. It was simpler to read transcripts than to listen to tapes, which were often hard to understand. He decided to read.

  This was now nine thirty on Tuesday morning, the twenty-ninth. He had phoned Sarah before leaving for work, vaguely remembering a call from her in the middle of the night, and apologizing for having drunk a bit too much at Spark’s, which restaurant always made him feel like a gangster himself; maybe that’s why he went there. Sarah had graciously allowed that perhaps she and her sister—who’d be leaving for the airport in about twenty minutes, she informed him—had also drunk a bit too much, so maybe they should try it another time, like how about right now, she’d suggested. He’d told her he was on his way to the office, but he’d call her later.

  The people who’d typed the transcripts had worked very closely with the actual investigative team. Through long association, the detectives who’d done the wiretap surveillance knew each of the voices on the tape intimately and could instantly clear up any confusion the typists may have had when a voice sounded too similar to another one. Anthony Faviola had a deep, sonorous voice, cultivated over the years to disguise a faintly lingering Brooklyn accent; someone named Tony might have used “deses” or “doses,” but not someone named Anthony, if you please. Anthony had once been quoted as saying that he thought the nickname Tony sounded like “some kind of ignorant wop.” Anthony, on the other hand (although he’d never said anything to that effect), must have sounded to him like a British prime minister. Michael couldn’t blame him. He himself hated anyone calling him Mike, which sounded to him like a bartender. Office rumor had it that Faviola had once taken speech lessons from a teacher on Park Avenue, but this was unsubstantiated. Whatever the case, he didn’t sound quite like a mobster, but neither did he sound like Professor Higgins.

  His brother was something else again. There was no mistaking Rudy whenever he opened his mouth. His voice was rumbling and gravelly, and he mangled the English language as brutally as he’d once mangled recalcitrant debtors. Even when he was in a room with other gangsters whose disrespect for English rivaled his own, he was completely identifiable, preferring to shout every word he uttered, a habit that had caused the investigating detectives innumerable problems with their gain controls. On the typed transcripts, there was no problem with voices. Anthony was identified by the initials AF. Rudy was RF. PB was Peter Bardo. These were the three key players. At the time of the surveillance AF was still boss. RF was underboss. PB was consigliere, third in command.

  Presumably, when AF went out to Kansas, RF became boss, PB became underboss, and the man presumed to have organized the mob’s entire narcotics operation back when they were just beginning to dabble in dope—an elderly thug named Louis “Fat Nickie” Nicoletta—had taken over as consigliere. But back in the spring of 1992, they might have been talking about someone like Dominick Di Nobili, small world.

  AF: The way I see this, Rude, it’s not going to be fruitful to lean on this man. We’re discussing a large sum of money, which it’s clear he doesn’t have.

  RF: Smack him real good, he’ll find the fuckin’ money in a hurry, take it from me.

  AF: And if he doesn’t? How does that make us look?

  RF: It makes us look like a guy doesn’t pay one way he pays another fuckin’ way.

  AF: But we still won’t have the money, will we? What if we give him a grace period, say a week, to come up with what he owe? No interest for a week. We …

  RF: That sets an example for every fuckin’ deadbeat in town.

  AF: This is fifty grand we’re talking, Rude, a man can’t just …

  RF: This is also a matter of principle we’re talkin’.

  AF: Agreed. But if a man is broke, he can’t come up with …

  RF: He’s broke ’cause he bets the fuckin’ ponies with money we lent him.

  AF: Even so …

  RF: Besides, it was only twenty when he borrowed it. It’s ’cause he ain’t payin’ it back, it goes through the fuckin’ roof.

  AF: Go talk to him, okay? Tell him your brother’s giving him a week free, out of the goodness of his heart. Tell him once the week’s up, I won’t be able to control the animals who work for me.

  RF: (Laughing) Fuckin’ animals, yeah.

  On and on. The daily routine of running a vast business empire, coupled with the more mundane matters confronting a busy chief executive officer …

  AF: Petey, what do you think?

  PB: I think a gift is appropriate. But a modest one.

  AF: How modest?

  PB: Three bills. No more than that.

  AF: Isn’t that kind of cheap for a christening? What’d we spend on Giannino when his kid was christened?

  PB: I can check.

  AF: Check, would you? And send Danielli the same. He hears we sent Giannino’s kid something more expensive, he’ll take offense.

  RF: Fuckin’ hardheaded wop.

  AF: What is it, anyway? A boy or a girl?

  PB: A girl.

  GL: Grows up lookin’ like Terry, she’ll be a winner.

  GL. Identified in the transcript’s index as the capo in charge of the Gerald Lacizzare Crew, which at the time of the surveillance operated a loan-sharking business that took in thousands of dollars a week in interest, charging rates of between 156 and 312 percent a year.

  Danielli was Felix Danielli, who at the time of the surveillance was running an illegal horse betting parlor that did business in excess of twenty thousand dollars a week. His wife, Teresa, was purported to be an extravagantly beautiful woman.

  RF: Love to boff that broad.

  Rudy Faviola again, the underboss, undoubtedly licking his lips while professing his desire, this despite strict mob rules against hitting on any family member’s wife or daughter.

  On and on. From the mundane to the ridiculous …

  RF: I’m dancing, right, when all of the sudden I hear this broad cut a giant fart, it’s the first time I ever heard a broad I wasn’t fucking fart.

  AF: (Laughing) This is the girl you’re dancing with?

  RF: Yea, right on the dance floor. A fart like an explosion. And, oh Jesus, what a stink!

  LN: People probably thought it was you made the fart.

  LN. Louis “Fat Nickie” Nicoletta. Presumably the new consigliere, but at the time of the surveillance, the man directing much of the family’s narcotics activities.

  RF: That’s what I was afraid of, Nick! They’d think I’m the one stinkin’ up Vinny’s fuckin’ wedding. Big fat cunt stinkin’ like a New Jersey sewer.

  LN: I never had a woman fart while I was fuckin’ her.

  RF: Maybe you ain’t fuckin’ them right.

  LN: Kick her right out of bed, she farts on me.

  Conversation upon conversation, from the ridiculous to the sublime …

  BT: This is supposed to be a realistic movie, you understand?

  Bobby Triani, identified in the index as Rudy Faviola’s son-in-law, and a capo overseeing the family’s vast stolen property operation, including a “theft to order” scheme that utilized the services of corrupt United Parcel Service employees.

  LN: I don’t go to the movies no more. I always get in trouble I got to the movies.

  AF: What kind of trouble? You want some more of this, Nick?

  LN: No, thanks. I’m always tellin’ people shut up. The ones behind me talkin’.

  RF: I almost did shoot some cocksucker talkin’ behind me, he was givin’ away the whole fuckin’ movie.

  BT: You shoulda shot him.

  RF: I mean it,
the whole fuckin’ movie. Here’s where he jumps out the window, here’s where she catches him with the blonde, here’s where the fuckin’ tiger gets loose, here’s …

  LN: The whole fuckin’ movie.

  RF: I turned around and shoved the piece in his fuckin’ face, I told him shut up or I’ll blow off your nose. He tells me he’s gonna go get the usher. I tell him go ahead go get the fuckin’ usher, I’ll blow off his nose, too.

  BT: You should shot the cocksucker.

  LN: Did he shut up? I’ll be he didn’t.

  RF: No, he didn’t, they got not fuckin’ manners. This is good sauce, Anth.

  AF: Thank you.

  RF: I mean it. This is superb sauce.

  BT: You shoulda shot the cocksucker.

  And then back to business again.

  AF: We can’t relate this to what they do in Harlem. That’s a whole different family there in Harlem, and they’ve got their own way of dealing with the spics.

  PB: I’m only suggesting we discuss it with them …

  RF: They’re fuckin’ hardheads in Harlem. We go in there to talk there’s gonna be war.

  AF: Discuss what with them, Petey?

  PB: A proper piece of action.

  RF: You’re not talkin’ nigger Harlem, are you?

  PB: No, no.

  RF: ’Cause that’s entirely out of the question. Fuckin’ niggers won’t listen to shit.

  PB: I’m talkin about East Harlem.

  AF: East Harlem, Rudy.

  RF: ’Cause the niggers are out of the question.

  AF: I still don’t know what you have in mind, Petey.

  PB: The Colombians run the coffee up through Mexico …

  A transparent code word for cocaine. Never knew who might be listening. In this case, an absolutely correct assumption, but little did they really know …

  PB: … and a lot of it ends up in East Harlem. So we’re supposed to have an agreement with them, am I right? But we’re not getting a piece on the coffee goes in there.