As we sat opposite each other, and the Don started to reach for the baked ziti, I asked, “Uh-uh-uh! Don’t you think we should have a prayer, first?”
If movies and TV could be believed, these Italian Mafia types had an odd respect for religion, or maybe it was fear. But I wanted to put him in a forgiving mood (you’ll see why) and this seemed a good start. Yes, I had once been a stickler about saying grace with little Brandy, until she started spouting, “Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat!”
“Yeah, yeah, why not?” he grumbled. “But you say it.”
I bowed my head and closed my eyes—I can’t tell you whether he did or not, because it’s not polite to peek—and entoned my favorite Danish prayer: “Lord, bless this food which now we take and make us thine for Jesus’s sake. Amen.”
As I unfolded my napkin, the Don frowned at me. “You call that a prayer? You Protestants kill me. Let me show ya how’s done.” He bowed his head. “We give you thanks from grateful hearts for this meal, for your love, for those who prepared this wonderful meal for us. . . .” He looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “Was it you, Vivian?”
“No. Coppola’s.”
“All the way from the city?”
I nodded.
He continued, “Lord, help us to remember that you are with us around the table and may our hearts and words be a blessing to you in return. Let’s eat.”
We did, the Don piling up his plate, me not so much, as I was already stuffed to the gills.
While we dined on the wonderful food, sipping white wine, my gracious host (and he really was gracious) asked me to tell him about myself, my family, my hometown, my hobbies. And so I did, although I avoided using the name “Serenity,” for reasons that will become clear.
Not that I believed he was really interested—I figured he was just a typical older person who wanted someone talking while he ate, keeping him from having another lonely meal alone.
Then, to my surprise, the Don began reminiscing about his own life—his beloved deceased wife, a son he adored, and several grandchildren, beaming with the pride of any patriarch, never mind what line of work he might be in. Vito seemed to get a special charge talking about the now-vintage cars he had collected over the years—Caddies, Mercedes, DeLoreans—which he had bought right off the assembly line to put into storage, knowing that one day they would be extremely valuable.
But he kept any mention of his “business” out of the conversation—for which I was thankful, as it prevented me from having to cover my ears and hum.
“That’s why I’m in this glorified rat hole,” he said, while we were having dessert. “I ain’t really sick in no major way. It’s just . . . I didn’t want to be no burden to my son.”
That made me feel so thankful that I was in no way a burden to Brandy.
Then, emboldened by wine that I shouldn’t have had in the first place (meds), I asked, “May I ask you a personal question?”
He’d had some wine, too. And we were old friends by now. “Sure, Viv. Shoot.”
Well, I didn’t particularly like the way he’d put that, but I took him at his word and asked, “Why did you put Tony Cassato on the spot?”
Suddenly, the Don’s genial manner disappeared. “That’s a very old way of puttin’ it—‘on the spot.’ Goes back to the twenties, Vivian.”
“Well, I thought it might be rude for me to say, ‘Why did you take a contract out on Tony Cassato?’ I mean, you’ve been such a lovely host, and I don’t want to offend.”
“What the heck do you know about that Cassato thing, anyhow?”
And I told him: That the Serenity chief of police was my daughter’s beau. About the attempt on Tony’s life in Serenity by two hit men, and how Brandy had been with him at the time.
The Don pushed back in his chair, shrugged facially. “You gotta understand—I reached out to your Tony, and asked him to give a relative of mine a pass on some minor thing. I didn’t insult him with no offer of money. I didn’t threaten him—just asked him to show me some respect. We come from the old neighborhood, you know. His family at one time was in the same business as mine.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Vivian, really. But he turned me down, and he embarrassed me, made me lose face with my crew . . . and I had to do somethin’ about that. Cop or no cop.”
“My daughter could have been killed, over some silly grudge of yours! You have a son, Vito. You know what that means to a parent.”
His response seemed sincere: “My apologies.”
“I thought your crowd had a hands-off policy when it came to police officers.”
“Usually, we do.”
I waited for the explanation that this seemed to promise, but none came.
“Please tell me, Vito. I need to know. I won’t repeat anything you share with me. I promise.”
He sighed. “It was my nephew, Carlo. Tony Cassato put him away. Cassato led the investigation, he made the arrest, he gave the key testimony.”
I said, “Sounds like an officer of the law just doing his job. Was there already bad blood between him and your people?”
“No.” The Don tossed his napkin on the table. “Makes no difference! I promised my wife, before she passed, that I’d look after that kid. Carlo was her favorite—although God knows why. He’s a mope, he really is, that kid.”
“What did Carlo do that got him arrested?”
“Well, he wasn’t working for me. My wife made me promise that I wouldn’t hire the kid, that I’d help him go straight. But he’s no good. I get him into college, he drops out. He got to taking dope, and that’s something, by the way, that my family has never done business in.”
“What did he do, Vito?”
The Don shrugged, shook his head in disgust. “He and some pals busted into a jewelry store, stole a bunch of Rolexes. They sold the things one at a time, mostly to pawn shops, and one of those guys dropped the dime.”
He meant a legitimate pawn shop dealer had called the police after checking the “hot” sheet of stolen items. I knew this from watching Pawn Stars. (By the way, for those of you too young to know, or too old to remember, a dime is what a phone call used to cost. Back when there were public phones.)
“Carlo sounds like a real gavone,” I said.
For a tense moment, I didn’t know how the Don would react to me calling his nephew an idiot.
Then he laughed. “You got that right, Vivian! A first class jamook!”
“Oh well. Perhaps Carlo will learn something from his time in prison.”
I always find incarceration instructive.
The Don was nodding. “He can start with, ‘Don’t get caught.’ ” The old boy sighed and sat back. “Well, at least the kid is outta my hair for a while.”
I smiled and raised my wine glass. “Dark cloud, silver lining.”
We clinked glasses.
Then the Don shook his head, his expression glum. “Only, now I got another problem with another relative—distant though he may be.”
“You mean Gino, and the Bufford killing? He called you, too, didn’t he?”
The Don studied me for a moment, his eyes dark and hard. Then he nodded.
“Tell you what, Vito. I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.” You just knew I’d go there, didn’t you? “If I clear Gino of Tommy Bufford’s murder, you drop the contract on Tony.”
Gentle reader, you’ve no doubt realized by now that finding Aunt Olive and peddling our Superman picture were not my only agendas in making this East Coast journey.
“All right, Viv,” he said, nodding slowly, admiration in his sly smile. “You got yourself a deal.”
“Goodie! Do we need to prick our fingers and make a blood oath?”
That made him laugh. “No, I think maybe we can skip that, just this once.”
Great! The Godfather and I had a deal. This was going just as I’d planned . . .
. . . just so long as Gino didn’t turn out to be the killer.
The Don was s
aying, “That kid being suspected of that murder, it’s bad for business.”
“The boys did seem a little jumpy,” I said, referring to the four-gun salute that had greeted me at the Badda-Boom.
The Don nodded. “Things been good between Jersey and New York for some while—oh, we have our little territorial squabbles from time to time. But I’m afraid if Gino’s not cleared, we could have a real war on our hands.”
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?”
My left hand had been resting on the table, and he placed his on top of it. “There is something else you can do for me, Vivian. . . .”
This was a little early for the Don to be calling in his marker.
“What is it?” I asked.
His voice was strangely gentle. “Stay, Viv. Don’t go right back to the city. Stay tonight.”
Well, dear reader, I was so flabbergasted I nearly tumbled out of my chair! On the other hand, I felt a rush of pride for being back in the high-class concubine sweepstakes. Still, I was just too conservative for such casual carnality—after all, we had just met!
Then again, sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do, as John Wayne said (although in a boy way).
Then the Don, reacting to my expression, threw back his head and laughed heartily, so much so that tears filled his eyes.
“My dear lady,” he said, or rather coughed, at last catching his breath, “I wasn’t propositioning you . . . lovely though you are. It’s just that I have this terrible gosh-darn insomnia, and I would love it if you’d stay . . . and play Scrabble.”
“It will be my pleasure,” I said, if that was his pleasure.
And play Scrabble we did, well into the night.
If anything else transpired, well, you won’t get it out of me.
Haven’t you ever heard of the code of Omerta?
Mother’s Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
When attending a comics convention, the hotel’s safe is not your only option for protecting valuables. Consider leaving your collectibles with a trusted dealer in the dealers’ room, where the after-hours security is high. Of course, when I asked one dealer friend of mine to guard my recently acquired autographed picture of Sonny Tufts, he merely laughed at me.
Chapter Nine
Con Grats
I was in the outer area of our suite, seated on the couch, about to put away one last bite of room-service cheesecake, when the door opened with the suddenness of a slap.
A buoyant Mother breezed in. “A moment on the lips, dear, a lifetime on the hips!”
I jumped up, relieved to see her, and went to her like a worried parent whose errant teenager had shown up well past curfew, scolding, “Where have you been?”
Despite her sunny disposition, Mother looked a mess—hair mussed, makeup smeared, clothes wrinkled.
“Let me catch my breath, dear,” she said with a dramatic hand to her bosom. “I have so much to tell you.”
She traipsed over to the couch, plopped down, kicked off her shoes, and clunked her nyloned, bunion-ridden feet onto the coffee table.
“Let’s start with why your top is on backwards,” I said, sitting back down next to her.
“Is it, dear?” She waved a hand. “I hadn’t noticed. A trifling detail in a story whose broad strokes are so compelling.” She peered at the plate on the coffee table. “May I have that last bite, dear?”
“What happened to ‘a lifetime on the hips’?”
“At my age, that’s less of a commitment.” She speared the remainder of Lindy’s fame with the fork.
I folded my arms and looked at her like an irritated eunuch in a harem (you’d be irritated, too). “I tried your cell phone—and guess what? You left it behind in a drawer.”
“Did I, dear?” she said, savoring the morsel. “Why, I am getting forgetful in my golden years.”
“Don’t give me that! I know your devious ways. You left it on purpose.”
“And what if I did? There are times when a woman does not want to make herself available.”
“That would carry more weight if your top weren’t on backwards. Anyway, you lied to me. I asked you, ‘What if I need to get in touch with you?’ and you said you’d have your cell.”
“No, dear. What I said was, ‘Call my cell.’ You only assumed I’d have it with me. And how often have I told you? When you assume, you make an ass of you and me.”
Shot down again by Mother’s specificity. No woman in history had ever found more relish in fooling her daughter on technicalities.
She was saying, “And if you’re going to be shrill and unpleasant, I will not share with you what I discovered and where I’ve been.”
“Shrill?” I said, and realized it’s impossible to deny being shrill without sounding that way. “All right. All right.” I smiled. “Pleasant enough for you?”
“I suppose a forced smile is better than no smile at all.”
My tone was soft, my words measured. “Mother . . . where have you been? Not visiting old thespian pals, I take it.”
She gave me a smile that on the demented scale was about a seven. “You’ll never guess!”
“I don’t want to guess! Just friggin’ tell me already!”
She drew herself up. “Dear, I won’t engage in conversation with a potty-mouth. Well . . . actually, under certain circumstances, conversing with potty-mouths can be a necessity.” She sighed dramatically, not that she ever sighed any other way. “I’ve had enough foul language in the past twelve hours to last me a lifetime!”
“Good. It can keep that bite of cheesecake company.”
“Maybe we should continue this after you’ve had some rest. Lack of sleep makes you decidedly crabby.”
I raised surrender palms. “Sorry. Sorry. Really, Mother, sorry. I was just very, very worried something had happened to you.”
She patted my knee. “I understand, dear. Your concern warms the cockles. Thursday was quite a busy day, wasn’t it? And yet they say it’s the slow day at the convention! Is there anything else to eat? Perhaps we could order room service.”
Defeated, I said, “If you don’t want to tell me, I will just go back to bed. We can resume this in the morning.”
“I need nourishment. It was a long cab ride back from New Jersey.”
Okay. Now she had me. I got up, and went to the minibar, and came back and gave her a six-dollar packet of cashews. “Nuts for the nut,” I said.
“Cheap shot, dear. Really. Particularly considering we are both on medication.” She popped a few cashews, chewed, swallowed, and said, “After I left you, I took a cab to Lodi, New Jersey.”
“Lodi, New Jersey?”
She pressed a finger to her cheek. “No, that’s not right. First I went to Coppola’s for a takeout order of scrumptious Italian food, then I took a cab to Lodi, New Jersey.”
“What is in Lodi, New Jersey?”
“Why, the Badda-Boom, dear!”
“That sounds like a strip joint.”
“Well, I believe they consider themselves a nightclub, but they do have exotic dancers. You know, this surgical enhancement is getting out of hand. And the tattoos!”
“Why on earth would you go to a strip joint in New Jersey?”
“Well, none of the appropriate nightclubs are in Manhattan. I didn’t want a club run by New York mobsters. I wanted to commune with the New Jersey variety.”
“Commune with the . . . you went looking for the New Jersey Mafia?”
“Yes. And from the disapproval in your tone, is it any wonder I didn’t invite you along?”
“How could you even know about a place called the Badda-Boom?”
“The wonders of the Internet, dear. The twenty-first-century detective’s best friend!”
“And what was the takeout Italian for?”
“Isn’t it obvious? A peace offering.”
“Tell me you’re kidding.” Though she never kidded. “Tell me you aren’t capable of doing something as crazy as approaching mafiosi.” But of course sh
e was.
“I thought it best to beard the lion in his den—or in this case, lions in their den. Anyway, I wanted to hear from the horse’s mouth if they were responsible for Tommy’s death—oh, dear, I’m mixing metaphors again. I think it’s that horse’s head in The Godfather that got me off track.”
Suddenly, I didn’t feel so good. An order of Lindy’s cheesecake might be comin’ right up.
“Mother,” I groaned, “you’re going to get us in serious trouble. I mean real trouble. I mean get-us-killed kind of trouble.”
“Pish posh. Those men were quite cordial, once they put their guns away, and assured me they had nothing to do with Tommy’s demise.”
“Well, of course they’d say that!”
Mother stared at me. “Brandy, skepticism can stay etched in one’s face, and yours is much too pretty to risk it.” She tossed a few more nuts into her mouth and chewed. “You have simply got to shake this negativity, dear, always thinking the worst of people.”
“Thinking the worst of gangsters isn’t negativity, Mother—it’s common sense.” Like “common sense” was in her vocabulary.
“They were all very nice, and very helpful. Why, the boys even set up a meeting between myself and Gino.”
I cocked my head. “You spoke to him? Moretti?”
Mother nodded. “He came to the club and we had a nice little tête-à-tête, during which he assured me he hadn’t killed Tommy.” She paused, adding, “And you know what, dear? I believe him.”
Actually, that made me believe him, too—Mother had a remarkable built-in b.s. detector.
I asked, “Did Gino happen to mention that he was at the opening ceremony, waiting to talk to Tommy?”
Mother’s eyes widened behind the thick lenses; it was like having a cartoon bug stare you down. “However did you know that, dear?”
“I got it out of Brad Webster. I wasn’t completely asleep at the wheel while you went M.I.A.”
“Good job!” Then she popped more nuts and chewed through them as she said, “Gino did inform me he went to the ceremony hoping to apologize to Tommy . . . but Tommy was too busy. Gino added that he witnessed Brad getting into an argument with Tommy backstage.”
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