Gangster Nation

by Tod Goldberg

  “‘The vineyards of Israel have ceased to exist,” Rabbi David Cohen said, “‘but eternal law enjoins the children of Israel to celebrate the vintage.’”

  “An empire of clean cars for the both of them,” Bennie said.

  David tried to laugh, just to make Bennie feel good, but he couldn’t get his mouth to quite work in that direction, so what came out sounded like someone getting stabbed in the throat.

  “Christ, Rabbi, maybe don’t try that again, at least not in public.”

  “Listen,” David said. “I need to see someone about my face.”

  “I’m working on that,” Bennie said.

  “Work faster,” David said. Bennie couldn’t respond, since Sophie was climbing from the pedal boat. She had on a bright yellow one-piece swimsuit and David could see she was burned on her shoulders and neck, too. She practically glowed. There’d be blisters by the morning.

  David watched Bennie and Sophie walk off, until they faded into the shadows the Red Rocks had cut across the expanse of the Savones’ lawn. David’s night vision was turning to shit. All this and he needed glasses, too? A few minutes later, Bennie and Sophie reappeared, as if by magic, walking up the red brick steps into the house. In the Talmud, they hung witches who practiced magic. Time came, Bennie Savone probably wouldn’t get off much easier than that.

  I just need to make it through September, David thought. He’d have enough money then to start working his plan, because when Bennie got off house arrest and could look closer at the books, David wasn’t sure how much he could pinch. David had maybe four months to get his face fixed, make his nut, get word to Jennifer, secure passports good enough to get him, his wife, and his kid into and out of some small airports, good enough to get them into Mexico, at least, where he could throw around some cash and it wouldn’t matter what their passports looked like, and then . . . Argentina? Maybe. There were Jews in Argentina.

  If he wanted to live with his wife and son, it would have to be somewhere foreign. The FBI wasn’t just going to forget about the Mafia. They hadn’t for the last seventy years, anyway. Didn’t stop during WWI, didn’t stop during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq. They never stopped coming . . . but also never fully completed the job, because the feds needed job security, too. Good to leave a few loose ends, so you could round them up into a ball every few years and then start again. But they didn’t give up on people who killed their men. Sal Cupertine would be on their to-do list until they had his head in a noose.

  Pain shot up into David’s right eye and he realized he was gritting his teeth, which had become a bad habit. He let his mouth open half an inch, exhaled, waited for the pain to subside.

  It didn’t.

  It just lingered there, his face throbbing.

  The sun would be completely down in an hour or so. There would be toasts. Rabbi David Cohen would dance the hora, would pose for photos, would engage the congregants of Temple Beth Israel with talk of next month’s High Holy Days, would touch women on their elbow, men on their shoulder, would chastise the old and the young for eschewing yarmulkes on a wedding day. Rabbi David Cohen would leave the wedding at an appropriate hour, would drive the five miles back to his guard-gated house inside the Lakes at Summerlin Greens, would strip off his suit, stuff his yarmulke into a drawer, go to his in-home gym and work the heavy bag for an hour, until he felt like Sal Cupertine again, made sure he knew who the fuck he still was.

  3

  Matthew Drew should have shot Ronnie Cupertine in the back of the head. That would have solved a lot of problems. Stopped everything. But nothing was going according to plan, and Matthew Drew was a guy who needed a plan.

  For one thing, it was barely six in the morning—Matthew always pictured killing Ronnie around midnight—and for another, he was twenty miles northwest of Milwaukee, inside the shitter at the Chuyalla Indian Casino, not in a warehouse in Chicago with a bat in his hand, contemplating where he was going to bury the body of one of the biggest crime bosses in the country.

  Matthew always imagined beating Ronnie Cupertine to death inside an abandoned warehouse. Black Visqueen over the windows. Graffiti on the walls. Ronnie tied to a chair. An old stuffed bear on the ground, though Matthew wasn’t sure how the bear got there.

  Funny thing was Matthew didn’t think he’d ever been in an abandoned warehouse, didn’t know if warehouses got abandoned. Yet in movies and TV shows, that’s always where the bad shit went down, as if criminals had access to all the prime unoccupied industrial real estate. Most people, if they got murdered, it either happened inside their own home or the home of their killer. Usually in bed. Or the car.

  That wasn’t going to work for Matthew. He wasn’t some criminal.

  So Matthew had gone out and done the physical recon, just like he’d been taught at Quantico. Developers were turning old timber plants along Wolcott—the half-abandoned industrial corridor of Chicago—into loft spaces, and now artists were moving in, setting up coffeehouses and artisan bread stores, places to get henna tattoos, galleries where on Sundays they’d hold open mics and poetry slams. At night, however, the area was still a little rough, so all the artists locked their doors, turned up their music, and pretended not to hear the sirens. Kaufman and Broad had gutted three warehouses down to the studs for a development they were calling the Timber Factory Lofts, but for two years, nothing had come to pass; the sign offering Executive Loft Spaces Starting in the Low 800s! didn’t even have a phone number on it. So Matthew broke in one night—which was hardly breaking and entering, since there wasn’t even a lock on the door—scoped out a suitable space, set up the chair, rolled out some Visqueen, even found an old Teddy Ruxpin at Goodwill and tossed it on the floor, came in one night with a boombox, blared a mixture of punk rock and Sarah McLachlan for forty-five minutes, checked the acoustics and the taste of the neighbors.

  Warped Tour or Lilith Fair, no one said a thing.

  He could take a hacksaw to Ronnie Cupertine, and as long as he played music at the same time, no one would give a shit.

  Then Matthew proceeded to phase two, which entailed watching Ronnie for months.

  He didn’t have anything else to do.

  Two years ago, he’d spent six months hiding out in Jeff Hopper’s house in Walla Walla after Hopper turned up dead, trying to piece together what the fuck happened. Hopper had gone to Las Vegas, Matthew to Palm Springs, to follow a lead on Sal Cupertine’s disappearance, after Hopper figured out that Cupertine was smuggled from Illinois in a frozen meat truck, most likely to Nevada or California. The two of them were to reconnect in a few days, make their next move, except Matthew never heard another word from Hopper. He just disappeared. Then he turned up dead. But not before telling the Tribune everything Jeff and Matthew had learned in their investigation . . . save for any mention of Matthew’s name, which was probably why he still walked the earth.

  It didn’t make any sense. It was the opposite of everything he and Matthew had been working toward, their entire focus being the capture of Sal Cupertine for the murder of those three FBI agents and the CI. Delivering actual justice, not this media bullshit. Going to the press before he had Sal Cupertine in cuffs, and without telling Matthew ahead of time? No. That wasn’t his style. And neither was the giant picture of Hopper that graced the front page of the paper, right next to a grainy photo of Sal Cupertine. Jeff would never consent to that.

  After leaving Walla Walla, when Hopper’s estate was settled and the bank sent a sheriff over to give Matthew the boot, Matthew spent another month at a Ramada in Springfield waiting to get called in on the corruption trial of Kirk Biglione, his former boss at the FBI. That never came to pass, either. Biglione took a deal before anything went to the jury, the FBI admitting that they’d disregarded evidence to keep a long-running—and ill-fated—surveillance program of the Family going, even admitting that they delivered a box of ashes to Sal Cupertine’s wife, Jennifer, that were actu
ally the remains of Chema Espinoza, a soldier in the Gangster 2-6 who was doing scut work for the Family and ended up in that landfill for his troubles. That would have been a decent civil lawsuit if Sal Cupertine hadn’t been a Mafia hit man and if Jennifer Cupertine was interested in being deposed, which Matthew figured she probably wasn’t. Biglione didn’t even get any time, just a suspended sentence, and was now doing big-money corporate security in Detroit, making a hundred times the salary he pulled from the government.

  Matthew kept tabs on him, waiting for his next fuckup. Biglione had fired Matthew for doing the right thing. That wasn’t something he was going to forget. Ever.

  But Matthew kept tabs on everyone these days . . . which made tracking Ronnie Cupertine easy. Ronnie had come out of the whole FBI corruption scandal without a single charge against him, his crimes dumped on Fat Monte Moretti, who was dead, and Sal Cupertine, who was in the wind and on his way to becoming something of an urban legend, and then half a dozen soldiers and capos willing to take a five-year bid for shit they didn’t do. If the courts, the FBI, or the media couldn’t hold Ronnie Cupertine accountable, Matthew Drew figured he could.

  Catching him? That was another matter.

  Ronnie Cupertine’s Gold Coast manor had a six-foot wrought-iron gate out front, topped with cameras, and there was a private security guard out front, some rent-a-cop with a badge, flashlight, Glock, and walkie-talkie, usually sitting in the front seat of an armed response squad car—not unusual in a neighborhood where Cupertine’s neighbors included most of the Cubs roster and a quarter century of Chicago’s robber-baron industrialists. What was unusual was that Ronnie also owned the house across the street and the one next door, on the corner, giving himself a de facto compound, all on public streets, which was smart. You couldn’t bug a public street. Likewise, Matthew couldn’t just park his car in front of Ronnie Cupertine’s house, not unless he wanted his plates run, the Family good about having tendrils in mundane government operations like the DMV. He also didn’t like the idea of getting shot at from three different angles, since those two houses were filled with a rotating band of Ronnie’s guys.

  But half a block away was a brand-new Starbucks where Matthew could sit all day if he pretended to peck away at his laptop. So he’d grab the big chair by the window, nurse latte after latte, and watch Cupertine pace his sidewalk, taking calls.

  He always had one of his kids with him, usually the little girl, Cupertine knowing no one would take a shot at him with his kid right there. Still, one of his Family guys would always be a few steps behind, thick with Kevlar; even the Mafia had body armor these days. With a sniper’s rifle, Matthew could take Cupertine out from that distance, no problem, and not even get blood spatter on the kid. Could put one in Ronnie’s body guy with no problem, too, since he wasn’t wearing Kevlar on his face. Might even put a bullet into the armed response vehicle down the block, just for kicks.

  But he wasn’t an assassin.

  Not yet, anyway.

  So Matthew waited for Ronnie to slip—run outside in his underwear to get the newspaper, step out for a smoke by himself on the day his body guy had the stomach flu—thinking then that maybe he could poison the security guy . . . or involve himself in a minor hit-and-run, if need be.

  Matthew just needed a tiny opening.

  It never happened.

  Ronnie Cupertine was never alone. He never fucked up. There wasn’t a single moment when Matthew could have exacted his plan without needing to kill two or three other people in the process. Ronnie flew out of town, he flew with three guys. He drove to Trader Joe’s for some artichoke dip, he drove with two guys and a second car running interference. He went to his daughter’s ballet recital, there was a guy at the front door, a guy at the back, a guy on his body.

  Not that any of them ever noticed Matthew. They were meat, plain and simple. But they were human beings. Just because they had shitty jobs didn’t mean they deserved to die.

  But then, one day, Matthew woke up in the Chicago apartment he was back to sharing with his sister, Nina, two miles from the FBI office he was legally barred from, and didn’t pretend to go out on a job interview—instead he actually went on the interview, not because he wanted to, but because the night before, Nina walked into his bedroom and handed him a Post-it with a phone number. “You got a call while you were out,” she said, “doing whatever it is you do.”

  “Great,” he said. He stuck the Post-it to his desk calendar, which he hadn’t changed since 1999.

  “It was about a job.”

  “Wonderful,” he said.

  “They called yesterday, too,” she said.

  She stood there in his doorway, arms crossed over her chest, not moving. “Look at you. What are you doing to yourself?”

  “I’m trying to figure a few things out,” he said.

  “By doing what?” He couldn’t exactly tell her he was stalking Ronnie Cupertine, not that she didn’t already know enough to be worried. When the world flipped after Fat Monte’s suicide, he’d taken her with him to hide out in Walla Walla, Hopper worried that the Family might come after them, which hadn’t transpired. “Look,” she said, “I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be up in your head, but Matt, I’m right here, and I need you.” She sat down on the edge of his bed. “Also, wash your sheets. It smells like a frat house in here.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She waved him off. “Mom says she can’t send me any more rent money,” she said, “and that she’d appreciate it if you’d return her calls every now and then, too.” Their mom lived alone, back in the family home in Maryland, which she was trying to sell. Matthew had shared this apartment with Nina for two years, splitting costs while they both got on their feet, Nina in college, Matthew at the FBI. He’d kept paying half the rent even after he lost his job, with the money Hopper gave him, because Matthew didn’t want her with a bunch of roommates. He told her he didn’t think it was safe, which, he recognized now, was silly. Nothing is safe. Nowhere is safe. But that money was gone. And his unemployment was up, too.

  The last few months, they’d both subsisted on a little bit of inheritance they’d received from their father’s life insurance.

  “I’ll call her,” Matthew said.

  “I’m worried,” Nina said. She leaned back on Matthew’s bed, closed her eyes, and shook out her hands and feet, an old habit she’d carried from childhood.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Clearly you’re a liar,” she said. She sat back up. “Mom doesn’t think she can help out on tuition, either. I’m going to get a loan.”

  “No,” Matthew said. “You don’t have to.” He tried to sound bright. “I’m going to take care of everything. Okay?” He picked up the Post-it. “I’m going to call this, first thing.”

  And then he actually did. It was a headhunter for a new Indian casino opening outside Milwaukee, who told Matthew that he’d been referred to them. Matthew figured it was someone at the FBI doing him a favor. They needed a head of security to run the whole shop, six figures, moving expenses, everything. The headhunter told him he could write his own ticket, maybe end up in Las Vegas in a few years, get a house with a pool, no more winter, basically be retired for the next thirty-five years . . . if he spent two, three years making it work in Milwaukee. It was close enough to Chicago that he could still keep an eye on Nina, but far enough away that he wouldn’t be running into Gangster 2-6 shot callers and Family enforcers at Target. It also meant he couldn’t drive over to Cupertine’s house whenever he wanted, couldn’t roll by his car dealerships (not that Ronnie Cupertine ever showed up at any of them), couldn’t wait out by one of the Family’s bars in Bridgeport or Andersonville, couldn’t run by his murder warehouse to check on the Teddy Ruxpin.

  And, all things considered, that was probably a good thing.

  Because what Matthew Drew had come to realize was that he was
obsessed with Ronnie Cupertine, but Ronnie Cupertine didn’t give a shit about him. Probably never had. Hadn’t even noticed he was being stalked. Matthew had lone wolfed him for so long, he wasn’t even sure he knew why he wanted to kill him anymore. Oh, sure, he blamed him for Jeff Hopper’s death, but the fact was he didn’t even know if Ronnie had been directly responsible. Matthew could dig up the bodies of Al Capone and J. Edgar Hoover, piss on them, rebury them, and the net result would be the same as putting one between Ronnie Cupertine’s eyes: Jeff Hopper would still be dead, his men would still be dead, and both of their killers would still be out there. Matthew’s career would still be over, and the Mafia would beat on, the FBI would beat on, history forgetting about it all, the minor wars of thugs and government agencies usually not enough to merit any civilian review whatsoever.

  You wanted to be remembered, you had to kill innocent people.

  Sal Cupertine, wherever the fuck he was, would never know any different. Ronnie Cupertine was a Mob boss, a killer, sold shitty cars, but he wasn’t the only one. Every crime these days was organized. The Cartels moved heroin and coke into the cities, the Mafia middled it to the gangs, the gangs sold it to the people, the people got hooked, lost their jobs, had to rob a liquor store for the fifty bucks they needed to score . . . and the cycle started all over again. That wasn’t Ronnie Cupertine’s fault. That was just his job.

  The obsession, Matthew then understood, had become the result of the thing, not the thing itself.

  The thing was Sal. He’d killed the FBI agents. He didn’t need to do that. He wanted to do that.

  It was disorganized.

  No planning.

  The thing was Sal Cupertine. If he had to, Matthew would get that tattooed on the back of his hand so he wouldn’t forget going forward. Every time he raised his fist, he’d know why.

  •

  Now here it was, Saturday morning at the ass end of a twelve-hour shift running the casino’s security, Matthew ducking into the high-roller restroom, the one with all the marble fixtures. Bottles of Drakkar, Polo, Grey Flannel, and something called Joop lined the countertop—high rollers in a Wisconsin Indian casino being a relative thing, at least as it related to their smell—along with an array of toothpicks, mouthwash, mints, and Hershey’s chocolates.