Whacking Jimmy: A Novel
Page 1
Whacking Jimmy: A Novel
Wil iam Wolf
Random House Digital, Inc. (1998)
Rating: ****
General, Mystery & Detective,
Tags: Fiction
Amazon.com Review
The Mafia is not an equal-opportunity employer, a fact made emphatical y clear to Annette Tucci, daughter of one mobster, daughter-in-law of another, and the worst mother since Medea. When Don Vittorio, head of the Detroit mob, anoints Annette's son Bobby as his reluctant heir, Annette hatches a plot to take the reins of the Family. It al hinges on the $40 mil ion the old man has promised Bobby once he's made his bones by whacking Jimmy--Jimmy Hoffa, that is.
Annette knows her soft-hearted kid is much more interested in his col ege classes, his girlfriend Til ie, and his burgeoning career as a rock musician than running the mob, so she stages a power play that pits the Don's first lieutenant and her own father (chief of the Chicago Family) against Bobby.
Wil iam Wolf's debut mystery is a romp that wil delight fans of Donald Westlake and Elmore Leonard, with plenty of local color and a cast of lively, picaresque minor characters (including Mendy Pearlstein, a Runyonesque mentor who steers Bobby through the shark-infested waters of organized crime; Til ie's mother, Ann, who's seduced by Mendy's charm and prefers him to her banker husband; and Rudy and Delbert, a couple of black street kids who take over the former clubhouse of the Purple Gang and turn it into a neighborhood youth club funded by grants from a Grosse Pointe foundation). Whacking Jimmy is a fast, funny novel that offers an intriguing, if implausible, solution to one of the biggest mysteries since Judge Crater disappeared. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
Whoever the pseudonymous Wolf may be, he knows how to add a fresh twist to familiar material. Although Jimmy Hoffa's 1975 disappearance has already been put through the fictional grinder by several authors, most recently Jon R.
Jackson in his excel ent Man with an Ax, Wolf gives his version of the story depth and originality by energizing characters who easily could have become cliches. Don Vittorio Tucci, the Detroit mob leader whose death kickstarts the plot, is an eminently nasty but utterly believable pragmatist. When his daughter-in-law suggests that his 21-year-old grandson Bobby should be his heir, Don Vittorio says, "Bobby's a sissy. He's got hair like a girl. He plays the guitar. Last Christmas he told me he wants to write novels, for Christ's sake. He wouldn't last ten minutes." But Bobby's mother, Annette (the daughter of a Chicago capo, and an astonishingly evil piece of work), persuades the dying man that under her tutelage the boy wil do just fine. The fact that Bobby hates his mother and has no desire to enter the family business is also refreshing: there's no instant Michael Corleone-type transformation from upstanding citizen to hoodlum. Wolf has created a gal ery of supporting players?a loyal, smart old Jewish sidekick; a pair of inspired black gangsters who keep a boxing kangaroo to soften up the opposition?who are original and often hilarious. As for Hoffa, his death happens far offstage and doesn't have much to do with the rest of the story. But Wolf does have a plausible theory about where his body is buried. 35,000 first printing.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. THE CHARACTERS AND DIALOGUE ARE
PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION AND DO NOT PORTRAY
ACTUAL PERSONS OR EVENTS.
COPYRIGHT © 1998 BY WILLIAM WOLF
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED UNDER INTERNATIONAL AND PAN AMERICAN
COPYRIGHT CONVENTIONS. PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES BY
VILLARD BOOKS, A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC., NEW YORK, AND
SIMULTANEOUSLY IN CANADA BY RANDOM HOUSE OF CANADA LIMITED, TORONTO.
VILLARD BOOKS IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK
OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA WOLF, WILLIAM L.
WHACKING JIMMY / WILLIAM L. WOLF.
P. CM.
1. HOFFA, JAMES R. (JAMES RIDDLE), 1913- —FICTION
I. TITLE.
PS3573.04897W48 1998
813′.54-DC21 98-7708
eISBN: 978-0-307-76723-3
RANDOM HOUSE WEBSITE ADDRESS: WWW.RANDOMHOUSE.COM
v3.1
Dedicated to Annie,
the final edition
Contents
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
About the Author
Chapter
Chapter
One
Detroit, 1975
IT WAS FOUR in the afternoon. A mild June rain cleansed the already immaculate Grosse Pointe sidewalks and nourished the fat green grass on the grounds of the three brick mansions at the end of a narrow cul-de-sac. These had been built in the twenties by men who founded automobile companies. Today they were al owned by Vit orio Tucci, although only one, the four story Federal-style mansion in the center, was occupied. The others stood empty but guarded, mute brick testimony to Vit orio Tucci’s wish to be alone.
In the very center of the mansion, in a dimly lit, mahogany-paneled, windowless room, Vit orio Tucci sat sipping grappa and listening to Frank Sinatra’s Songs for Young Lovers. He was seventy-four years old and dying.
Despite Tucci’s love of privacy, there were seven people i n the house at that moment, each there to assure his physical safety and personal comfort. Such was the orderly nature of the household that he knew where every one of them was likely to be.
them was likely to be.
Johnny Baldini, once a sous-chef at “21” in New York, would be in the large kitchen in the rear of the house, along with his assistants, two Sicilian sisters of a certain age, distantly related to Don Vit orio. They were preparing the Tuesday meal: pasta primavera, chicken diavlo, and, lately, tiramisu. Over the years Don Vit orio had rarely indulged in dessert, just as he had seldom sipped grappa during working hours, but he was con dent that alcohol and sweet, rich cream could do him no harm now that cancer was feasting on his blood. Don Vit orio was not indi erent to his imminent demise, but a lifetime of observation had taught him that every adversity had its benefits. Even death.
Stil , he had no intention of dying in pain, which is why Joey Florio and a young nurse named Felice were on duty in the third- oor dispensary. Florio, whose father had been a member of the Tucci Family, had been put through medical school by the don. After his residency he became the Family doctor, dealing competently and discreetly with the Tuccis’ various medical problems. There was a bed in the dispensary, and Vit orio imagined that Joey and Felice were in it now, making love, as they did every afternoon.
His information on Florio, like most of the information he received these day
s, was provided by his consigliere, Luigi Catel o. Catel o’s domain was the basement, from which he had removed the bowling al ey, the indoor pool, which he had removed the bowling al ey, the indoor pool, and the other entertainments of the mansion’s former owner. He had replaced them with a secured electronic command-and-control center t for a smal NATO nation.
From this listening post Catel o maintained contact with the other Families and the politicians, judges, union bosses, journalists, stockbrokers, law-enforcement o cers, and divines of various faiths with whom the Family did its business.
There was a guard on duty inside the house and three more outside, al supervised by Carlo Seluchi, commander of the afternoon shift, who sat in the security o ce on the second oor monitoring the closed-circuit TV screens that covered the grounds. It was on one of these screens that Seluchi saw Annet e Tucci’s black Lincoln Continental arrive at the gate, stop brie y, and then head down the private road in the direction of the house. He buzzed the don, two short rings to let him know that his daughter-in-law had arrived.
Don Vit orio heard the signal without enthusiasm.
Twenty- ve years earlier, when his son Roberto had married, he had been pleased. Annet e was the daughter of Tommy “the Neck” Niccola, then a rising hood, now boss of Chicago. At the time, Don Vit orio was stil ghting to consolidate his grip on Detroit and the al iance with such a feared man had been helpful. But now Detroit was at peace, Roberto was dead, and Don Vit orio had no further use for his shrewish, demanding daughter-in-law or further use for his shrewish, demanding daughter-in-law or her vulgar father.
Don Vit orio took a hard black Di Nobli from his humidor, lit it, and expel ed a mouthful of acrid smoke.
Annet e hated the smel of cigars—she said it gave her cat, Scratch, a headache. Since this meeting was not one he was looking forward to, he hoped the air pol ution would keep it short.
There was a soft knock, and Seluchi ushered Annet e and her arrogant tan Abyssinian cat into the room. Annet e wore black, as usual, but she didn’t look like a grieving widow. Her dress was low-cut, exposing cleavage, tight across the hips, and short enough to show o her long, slender legs. Annet e Tucci wasn’t a beautiful woman—her skin was acne-scarred under her makeup, her nostrils were too large, and her jaw protruded slightly—but she was provocative and, now that her husband was dead, predatory.
The don knew this from personal experience. Several weeks after Roberto’s funeral, Annet e had propositioned him with an unemotional directness that shocked and impressed the old man. He had been tempted, too, although he turned her down. He let her think that he had refused out of a sense of propriety. In truth he was simply fol owing his lifelong practice of not get ing into bed with a woman he feared.
Now Annet e took a seat across the desk from the don, closed her brown eyes brie y, and said, “Songs for Young closed her brown eyes brie y, and said, “Songs for Young Lovers. Roberto’s favorite. I had to play it for him in the hospital, over and over.”
“I remember,” said Don Vit orio. He remembered, too, that Annet e hated Sinatra, which is why he had chosen him for today’s soundtrack.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
The don recognized this as a real question, not a pleasantry. He shrugged and raised his hands, palms up.
There was no reason to pretend; Annet e knew he was dying.
“You’re going to have to choose someone to take your place,” she said evenly. “It’s time.”
“Maybe I won’t choose,” said Don Vit orio. His voice was heavy, accented with just a touch of Sicily. “Maybe I’l just go to heaven and let Catel o and Rel i fight it out.”
“That wil never happen.”
The don smiled, revealing a set of strong yel ow teeth.
“You don’t think I’l go to heaven?”
Annet e ignored the question. “This is a family business,” she said. “It belonged to Roberto.”
“Roberto is dead,” said the don. “He died listening to Frank Sinatra.”
“Roberto’s heir is alive.”
“Roberto’s heir? A woman can’t head a Family. That’s the rule.”
“It’s a stupid rule,” said Annet e. “Women run corporations these days. You think I couldn’t run the Tucci corporations these days. You think I couldn’t run the Tucci Family? I’m not as smart as Rel i? Or as tough as Catel o?
Get out a here, I’ve lived my whole life with men like them.”
Vit orio nodded at the justice of her remark; Annet e Tucci was certainly capable of running the Family. She had a shrewd understanding of the realpolitik of their world—too shrewd, Vit orio knew, to imagine that she could actual y become a don. And so he merely smiled and held up his manicured hands. “I don’t make these rules,” he said mildly.
“Fine, we go by the rules. According to the rules, the control belonged to Roberto,” she said, xing her father-in-law with a fierce glare. “Now it belongs to Bobby.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, brown on brown. It was Vit orio who lowered his gaze rst and chuckled. “How old is he?”
“Twenty-one. What were you doing when you were twenty-one?”
“Bobby’s a sissy. He’s got hair like a girl. He plays the guitar. Last Christmas he told me he wants to write novels, for Christ’s sake. He wouldn’t last ten minutes.”
“He’s got Tucci blood and Niccola blood. And he’s got me. He’l do what I tel him.”
The don had no doubt that his daughter-in-law was right; it would take a far stronger character than Bobby Tucci’s to resist such a determined woman. “Even so, the men would never fol ow a boy,” he said.
men would never fol ow a boy,” he said.
“They wil if you say so.”
“While I’m alive, yes. But afterward?” The don shook his head.
“If there’s trouble, I can lean on my father.”
“I see,” said Tucci. Annet e was tel ing him that if he refused to anoint Bobby, she’d use it as an excuse to start a war and bring her father in to take over Detroit.
In the old days Don Vit orio might have murdered his daughter-in-law, but now, in the face of his own mortality, he had no heart for commit ing mortal sins. He cleared his throat and said, “You would be put ing your son at risk.”
“That’s what life’s about, risk,” said Annet e. “Bobby could crack up that Porsche you gave him. Or get himself shot in one of those nightclubs he plays in. Believe me, he’l be a lot safer where I can keep my eye on him. And once he makes his bones, the men wil look after him.”
“Jesus,” mut ered Don Vit orio, his voice a mixture of admiration and contempt. He had been right to fear this woman, a mother cold enough to make her son a murderer in the service of her own ambition.
“You know a man who doesn’t make his bones wil never get the respect,” she said.
Don Vit orio acknowledged to himself that she was right. That was the rule. He leaned back in his padded chair and drew thoughtful y on his cigar. Suddenly he felt exhausted. “I’l consider it,” he said.
Annet e rose and gave her father-in-law a gaze of frank Annet e rose and gave her father-in-law a gaze of frank appraisal. “You bet er decide quick,” she said. “No o ense, Vit orio, but you’re starting to smel like a bad oyster.”
Chapter
Chapter
Two
BOBBY TUCCI LET himself in with his key. Til ie was in the living room of their smal , o -campus apartment, curled up on the couch reading Tender Is the Night and eating ham-and-pineapple pizza. Bobby helped himself to a slice and plopped down next to her.
She put down her book and watched him take a huge bite of the pizza. “Debacle?” she asked.
“Fiasco,” said Bobby. His voice was clear, a lit le ironic, his articulation the product of twelve years of prep school tinged by a stint as the lead singer in an R&B band.
“How was dinner?”
Bobby took another bite and said, “I couldn’t get anything down.”
“She must have loved that.”
“Didn’t even notice. I just pushed the food around on my plate. Meantime, she’s tearing into her T-bone, socking down double martinis, and feeding Scratch Iranian caviar.”
“My mother would freak if she took me out to dinner and I didn’t eat.”
“Mine doesn’t freak, she freaks other people. You’re not going to believe what she wants.”
“I never believe anything you tel me about your
“I never believe anything you tel me about your mother,” said Til ie. “The Madame Defarge of Grosse Pointe.”
“More like Lady Macbeth,” said Bobby. “She says it’s time for me to learn about the family business. It’s my, quote, goddamn birthright, unquote.”
“She said that? ‘Goddamn birthright’? You’ve got to let me meet her.”
“It wil never be,” said Bobby with mock solemnity.
“I let you meet Big Sandy.”
“Not the same,” Bobby said. “Big Sandy’s a gent.”
“He’s scared shit of you, that’s al ,” said Til ie. This was true; Til ie’s father was terrified of Bobby.
Bobby and Til ie had met junior year, in an American-lit seminar. She had been at racted by his lean body and long, sculpted ngers, his quirky curiosity, and the fact that he was the lead singer of Cold Duck, one of Ann Arbor’s hot est bar bands. Bobby had been at racted to her for the same reason that every other guy on campus was, because she looked like Ali MacGraw in Love Story. “Only I’ve got bet er tits than Ali,” she told him on their rst date.
“How do you know that?”
“I get Breast magazine,” she said. “It features descriptions of famous jugs.”
A few weeks later Til ie took Bobby to Bloom eld Hil s to meet her parents. Ann Til man, a big blonde with a face ful of blue veins and good intentions, had been face ful of blue veins and good intentions, had been welcoming, but Sanford Til man I I had greeted him with snide remarks about musicians and Italians—until Bobby casual y dropped his last name and Big Sandy practical y choked on his eggs Benedict. Almost two years later it was a memory that made Til ie giggle.