by J. L. Abramo
The devil was in the details, and Balducci ran out of wise cracks.
“Why aren’t you telling this to the police?”
“Because the police would be asking embarrassing questions like why I didn’t do something to stop it, and the police wouldn’t dig up a hundred grand for the video.”
“And I would?”
“You will, or I’ll give it away for free.”
“The heat will still burn you for standing by.”
“You’re right. So I guess I’ll send it to Carmine Pugno instead.”
That did the job.
“I’ll need time to get the cash.”
“No you won’t, because I’m positive you have at least that much sitting in a shoebox somewhere. I need it tonight. Grab a pad and pencil, I’ll tell you how this is going to work.”
Holden was on a roll. I hate to admit it but I was disliking the guy less.
He gave Balducci the where and when for the money drop, hung up the phone, and turned off the tape recorder.
“He won’t come himself,” Holden said as I was putting the tape into a plastic bag with the one I recorded earlier starring Dolores Atanasio.
“No. He’ll send his boy Rocco. But my friends from the Sixtieth Precinct will be there, they’ll play Rocco the tapes, and he’ll fold like a lawn chair.”
I called Ivanov and asked her to meet me at the Del Rio Diner on Kings Highway, four blocks from the train station, at ten-thirty. Rocco would be showing up around eleven.
“Want to stick around for another drink while you wait?”
“I need to run over to my office and make copies of these tapes before I see the detective.”
“What for?”
“For Carmine Pugno,” I said. “If I were you, I would get out of here for a while, until this all goes down.”
“Don’t forget the pictures.”
I grabbed the envelope from the kitchen table and headed for the door.
“Behave yourself, Bob.”
“Absolutely.”
I found Detectives Ivanov and Falcone at the Del Rio. I gave them the tapes and the lowdown, had a quick cup of coffee and wished them good luck.
I delivered the copies of the tapes to a guy I knew who knew a guy who could get them to Carmine Pugno that night. Carmine would not be happy that a Made Man in his family had been iced without his blessing. It was one of the few violations of the law in Pugno’s world, nearly as felonious as talking out of school. And it would be considered a grievous show of disrespect.
I made it back to Sheepshead Bay by midnight. I was afraid the constant movement of the boat would keep me awake again. Instead, the motion of the bay gently rocked me to sleep.
I slept like a baby.
The next morning I got to Neptune Avenue at ten and stopped into the pizzeria before heading up to the office. Carmella greeted me with a bear hug. Tony was back on the garbage truck with his brother Richie, all charges dropped. Carmella insisted I join her for a potato, sausage, parmesan and Portobello frittata. It was good to see her back to herself.
“Nick,” she said, as I was about to leave.
“Yes?”
“I hate to do it, but I’m going to have to raise your rent.”
Before I could decide how to react she broke into a robust laugh.
“April Fool’s,” she said. “You’re a good boy, Nicholas. God bless you.”
Amen.
When I got up to my desk I called Ivanov.
They had picked up Rocco Ianucci rummaging through the trash can at the Highlawn Avenue end of the Kings Highway subway station, armed with an unregistered .44. They played both tapes for Rocco and he gave it up. Same old story, I didn’t do the shooting. Warrants were issued for Dolores Atanasio and Sonny Balducci.
Just past eleven James Gleason arrived at the office.
He handed me a check for five thousand dollars.
“This is too much,” I said.
“It’s a bargain. You saved me fifteen thousand and saved my daughter’s career.”
“I appreciate it, and can use it. Do you want these?” I asked, indicating the envelope from Holden’s apartment.
“Are you sure that’s all of it?”
“Positive.”
“Please destroy them for me.”
“Done.”
I accompanied Gleason down to his car. I walked over to the Chase Bank at 17th and Mermaid to deposit the check and back to the office to pay the rest of the monthly bills.
Dolores Atanasio was picked up at a motel in Newark later that afternoon with a one way plane ticket to Morocco and a key to a safe deposit box at the Attijariwafa Bank in Casablanca. She made the mistake of using a credit card to pay for the room.
A lack of experience will sink the novice criminal nearly every time.
Sonny Balducci had vanished into thin air.
Or into the East River.
Roseanna Napoli called around four.
“Are you busy tonight?” she asked.
“I’m done being busy today.”
“How about you come over and I cook dinner?”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. “I’ll bring wine and dessert.”
“Bring your pajamas also.”
WALKING THE DOG
I don’t remember hearing the gunshot, but the bullet nearly killed me.
The last thing I could remember hearing before I woke up in a hospital bed twenty days later was a voice calling from behind. I can remember stopping to turn—feeling as if I knew the voice but unable to place it. The moment I came out of the coma, the thought briefly grabbed me and then let go.
There are only two things that scare me more than death.
Most frightening by far is the thought of something truly horrible happening to one of my children.
My son had disappeared for two hours one summer. Charlie was six years old and had strayed from the area where we had been camping. It was a fairly desolate spot, so we weren’t afraid he would be abducted. We were terrified he might take a dangerous fall or discover a lake to drown in. Frantically we searched and called out for him, praying darkness wouldn’t fall before we could locate him.
Finally, there he was. A good half-mile from our campsite. He was surrounded by fallen tree branches, a kind of makeshift fortress. Sitting there, piling small stones he had gathered to create a squat tower. Totally at ease and fearless—completely glad to see us. I told him what a nice job he had done with the stones, asked him if he was ready to leave, scooped him up in my arms and carried him over to his mother.
It was at least a week before I slept well again.
Next on my list of personal terrors, lurking between concern for the well-being of my children and my own mortality, is the thought of losing my sight or the use of my legs.
Two of my childhood friends had lost their legs, one to diabetes and the other in an automobile accident. One crawled away from life toward an early death while the other passionately embraced life with both arms. I fear my approach would be much more like the former. It is impossible to describe what went through my mind when I found myself in a hospital bed with no feeling at all below my waist.
When I came out of my twenty-day sleep they were all there—my wife, my son, and my daughter.
The moment I opened my eyes Annie, who is thirteen going on thirty, said, “Gee, Dad, you must have been very tired.” For an instant I could hear the voice that had called from behind me the night I was shot, and then it was gone. I was happy to see my family. When I discovered I had no feeling below my waist I asked my wife what was going on.
“Don’t be afraid, Johnny. The doctors say it will be okay and you shouldn’t worry.”
Nice try.
I was born on the first day of October 1973. While my mother was in labor, my dad was in the maternity ward lounge with other expectant fathers watching the baseball game. My mother would often tell us how my father came running into her room bubbling with excitement and cried, “The Mets clinched
the East—how are you doing?”
When I came out of the coma, my son Charlie ran and jumped up onto the bed, landing on my knees. I didn’t feel a thing.
“Hi, son,” I said, “getting excited about the Mets’ home opener?”
“That was two weeks ago, Dad.”
That was when I asked Maggie what week it was.
Charlie asked me if he was too heavy. I told him he was as light as a feather and to stay right where he was. He laughed and asked me what kind of feather. I was doing whatever it is you do with your mind when you want to move your toes. I began to feel lightheaded and must have passed out.
When I woke again my family was gone and had been replaced by two men in white lab coats and stethoscopes. One held a silver clipboard in his left hand while he twirled a pen like a baton in his right. The other was stroking his chin like a Rodin statue and self-consciously dropped his arm to his side when my eyes popped open.
As I looked up at them they smiled simultaneously.
I anxiously waited to find out which of these geniuses would be the first to speak.
After a barrage of mumbo jumbo from the Thinker, about where the bullet had entered and exited and how a bone fragment was affecting my ability to feel the entire lower half of my body, he turned it over to medical mastermind number two. Using his clipboard for protection he assured me the condition was almost surely temporary.
Almost surely?
I wondered why doctors insisted on using terms that were absolutely meaningless to their patients. Being a gambler myself, I told him I would prefer simple odds. He said we were looking at a touchy operation but one that was not without a good rate of success and worrying about it would only make my situation more difficult. I wanted to kick him but I couldn’t move my leg. As they turned to leave the room they promised they would return soon to complete the touchy operation consent forms and reminded me that all of the resources of the great City of New York were at our disposal.
“The mayor has been here to see you, twice,” said Clipboard.
If I had been doing something more in the line of duty than walking my dog in the park on the night I was shot, I suppose the Governor may have popped in also.
I asked them to thank His Honor for me, twice, and to please send my wife and children back into the room.
When my family returned, I asked Maggie to find Sam and beg him to get over to the hospital as quickly as humanly possible.
I met Maggie during my senior year at Queens College. It was the fall of 1995 and on the minds of most Americans was the O.J. Simpson trial. Margaret Kelly sat behind me in a Political Science class called Law and Social Change and was constantly voicing her extremely emphatic opinions over my left shoulder. She predicted that innocent or guilty Simpson would be acquitted. I personally couldn’t call that one, but every other student and the professor strongly disagreed.
I bumped into her in the cafeteria the next day and worked up the nerve to approach her as she sat down to her lunch.
“Mind if I ask you one question?” I asked.
“That is a question. Was that the question?”
“Okay, can I ask you another question?” I asked, and then quickly added, “I mean beside this one?”
“Sure, sit.”
I sat.
“Do you really believe Simpson will beat the rap?”
Not exactly out of the book on how to pick up girls.
“Yes, I do. And what’s more I never say what I don’t believe.”
“Never?”
“Never, now did you want to ask me out?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you ask me, before you run out of questions?”
Simpson was found not guilty a few weeks later.
The night of the verdict Maggie and I were sitting in my Bonneville.
“Well, you nailed that one. Are you always that good at predicting the future?”
“Try me.”
“Will we both get into Law School?”
“Yes. Though perhaps not the same Law School.”
“Will we both become lawyers?”
“You will if you really want to.”
“Fair enough. Here’s one,” I said. “If we were married someday, would we be happy together and have lots of kids?”
“Very happy. Two children, but only after I get done with school, and you’ll have to help a lot with the kids so I can practice law before I’m an old woman.”
“Fair enough.”
Margaret Kelly was right about everything. She was accepted into Columbia Law School, completed her studies, passed the New York State bar, had two beautiful children, and was now a prosecutor in the New York City District Attorney’s Office. I graduated with a degree in Political Science and Criminology, but I guess I must not have really wanted to be a lawyer, so here I was instead, lying half-paralyzed in a hospital bed waiting to hear from my partner Sam.
Maggie had to take the kids home to feed them and then drop them off with my sister Barbara so she could get back for an evening visit alone. She said she would try to track Sam down as soon as she reached the house.
After they left, I had one thought and one thought only. I wanted a cigarette. Whether smoking was allowed in the hospital room was not an issue. I couldn’t care less. The problem was finding a cigarette, particularly a Camel straight.
The chances of finding one in that room were not good. In fact, even if there was a pack two feet from me I would not have been able to reach it in my condition. There was no denying I was going to need some help.
I am not exactly proud of the fact I smoke cigarettes. It is an unhealthy habit and a tough one to kick.
I am, nevertheless, resolved to the fact. I concluded long ago that one thing I am, among many others, is a smoker. I am an Irish-Italian-American, a very good cook, a loving father, a faithful husband, a devoted son to my cantankerous old man, a better than average softball player, a fair harmonica player, a great Pinochle player, an avid reader, a moderate drinker, an opera lover, a lousy car mechanic, a gun control advocate, a movie addict, and a cigarette smoker.
I pushed the button that was pinned to my gown. This would theoretically summon a nurse to my side. The theory was empirically confirmed when two minutes later a nurse whose nametag identified her as Mary Campanella walked into the room.
“Can I help you, Mr. Sullivan?” she asked.
“I hope so.”
“I’ll do my very best.”
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
“I don’t care if you burst into flames,” she said and then added, “Sorry, just joking. I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“What are the chances you could get me a Camel cigarette?”
“Slim and none, and slim already left town.”
“Let me guess, you’ve always wanted to say that?”
“No, that one I use every time a patient asks me for a cigarette.”
“No exceptions?”
“Well, there is one. If you can give me a really good reason why I should break the rules and bring you a cigarette so you can break the rules, I might give your request some consideration.”
“I work with your Uncle Pete.”
She walked to the foot of the bed and glanced at the chart hanging there.
“Oh,” she said, “you’re that Mr. Sullivan.”
“John.”
“Camel you said?”
“Yes.”
“Non-filter?”
“Please.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
I suppose the cigarette was a little too much for me after almost three weeks cold turkey because the next thing I remembered was opening my eyes to a room lit only by the glow of the television screen on the opposite wall. I don’t know how far I made it with the Camel before I fell asleep, but I did notice in the faint green illumination that the ashtray and
all other evidence of my transgression had been deftly removed from the scene of the crime. I was reaching for the buzzer on my chest to call for some light when a voice out of the darkness almost got my legs working again.
“How are you feeling, son?”
“Not half bad, Pop,” I said. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Didn’t want to wake you, want a cigarette?”
“No thanks, I think I just had one. Pete Campanella’s niece was good enough to smuggle one in for me.”
“Mary?”
“Yeah, she’s a real sweetheart.”
“She have a boyfriend?”
“She’s a little young for you.”
“I was thinking about your cousin Jimmy.”
“Forget it. She’s a nurse, not a psychiatrist. Where’s Maggie?”
“She took the kids over to Barbara. I asked her to drop me off here first. Who shot you, son?”
“Don’t know. I’m hoping Sam will show up soon with some ideas.”
“When I find out, I’m going to kill the bastard.”
My father wouldn’t hurt a fly unless the fly was involved in an armed felony.
“Thanks, Dad, or we can just rough him up a little.”
“Are you going to be able to walk again?”
“That’s what they tell me. I certainly hope so.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Next time you come, bring one of Aunt Tillie’s veal parmesan sandwiches on Sabatino’s bread and keep Jimmy away from the Campanella girl. And could you change the television station? I think Jeopardy is on. And turn on the lights so I can see you.”
The lights revealed what was totally hidden from his voice. My tough-as-nails father had clearly been crying. It was almost enough to get me going myself, but I controlled my emotions. I could do that well. After all, I had learned from him. Or maybe I was just saved by the bell, because just then Maggie walked in.
“Hi, Counselor. Thanks for dropping Dad off.”
“I’m surprised you two aren’t smoking your brains out.”
