Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  "I will."

  Zuppone said, "It was a good thing you didn't punch back after Joey landed that left."

  "He had a right to be upset. Besides, I didn't Want to press my luck."

  "Luck." The half-laugh. "Cuddy, after what I seen tonight, when it comes to luck, you must shit shamrocks."

  -30-

  THREE DAYS LATER, A TAXI WAS TAKING US FROM NEW YORK'S PENN Station uptown. Our cabbie sat on those woven beads that are supposed to allow circulated air to keep you cooler in summer and wanner in winter. Cooler would be good, the temperature being in the high seventies.

  Around 45th Street, Primo Zuppone leaned forward. Through the Plexiglas he said to the driver, "Go a little farther north, okay? Drop us at Rockefeller Plaza."

  "Whatever you say, mon."

  We got out there, the flags of the nations slacking high above our heads as canned music wafted up from below.

  Zuppone said to me, "Come on. Take a look at this."

  About a hundred people stood around in the heat looking down toward the ice surface. A young woman in leotards and a short skirt, graceful as a ballerina, was doing a figure skating drill. The woman was magic, and she knew it.

  Zuppone said, "One time I'm down here, I remember seeing this. Incredible, ain't it, this time of year?"

  "We had the ice in Boston, kids'd be playing pick-up hockey on it."

  Primo started to walk east toward Fifth Avenue. "Cuddy, you got to look for the art in life."

  We passed a mime in a black scuba wet suit. He wore a Greek mask and was doing his routine to a boombox blaring the theme from The Exorcist.

  I said, "Art is everywhere?

  We turned south onto Fifth catercorner from St. Patrick's Cathedral, the two spires striving heavenward above three massive entrances. On the steps, tourists clicked their cameras, construction workers sunned themselves, and the homeless shook large soda cups containing salted change.

  Zuppone and I did a couple of blocks on Fifth. Past a slim Hispanic woman giving some Japanese schoolgirls directions. Past a Korean grocer helping an elderly couple pick out two nectarines. Past a brawny black man driving a delivery van with a pink stuffed animal tied to the grille.

  I found the address I wanted just where I remembered it, between forty-eighth and forty-seventh, in the jewelry district. On the first floors of the surrounding buildings, bunkers with porthole windows displayed all sorts of set gems against felt backgrounds. Despite the heat, grave men in black frock coats and matching hats moved quickly along the sidewalk, heavy sample cases clutched tightly in their hands. Behind them, graver men wore ill-fitting sports jackets, bulges over hips or under arms. The men in black were Orthodox diamond merchants with ringlets of sideburns and shaved necks, the others their bodyguards with short hair and no necks.

  Primo said, "I get tired of what I'm doing, looks like plenty of work down here."

  We entered the lobby, the directory telling us Empire still had the whole building. Winningham, Bradley K., was listed on fourteen.

  The elevator opened onto a carefully cultivated reception area. Beautiful potted plants, probably professionally maintained, canopied over a beveled desk. The woman behind it held herself like a pre-Hippie Barnard graduate. She asked if she could help us.

  "Brad Winningham, please. I know it's his first day back, but he said he wanted to see us as soon as possible."

  Barnard let me finish. "Will Mr. Winningham know what this is regarding?"

  "Just tell him John Cuddy is here with an associate."

  She looked at Primo, who smiled senilely.

  "Just a moment." The receptionist lifted a receiver, tapped a button, and paraphrased my words to someone else.

  A minute later, another woman about the same age came down the hall. "I'm afraid Mr. Winningham's schedule is full for the day." She sounded like the voice I'd heard when I telephoned Winningham's office the prior week. "Perhaps if you — "

  Zuppone said, "Thanks, we can find him," and set off up the corridor she'd come down.

  The second woman said, "Wait! What are you doing?"

  I told her, "Believe me, this won't take long," and followed Primo as the women spoke urgently to each other behind us. When I caught up to Zuppone in a branching suite, he was standing outside a door with Winningham's nameplate next to it.

  I said, "We have maybe three minutes before some kind of security gets here."

  Primo knocked once and went in.

  Winningham looked up from behind a desk with neat stacks of opened mail on it and a couple of visitor's chairs in front of it. My first impression of him was that not much had changed since I'd seen him last. But then, a nice tan can fool you. When he opened his mouth, I notice the bottom front teeth were a little cruddy, the lines around his mouth digging deeper into the cheeks and toward the ears. He still had a great preppy haircut, though, most of the strands more brown than gray.

  "What the — Cuddy?"

  "Your secretary gave us the impression you were flat out, so why don't we just get to it."

  Winningham stood up, shooting his cuffs even though he wasn't wearing a suit jacket, trying to seize control. "John Francis Cuddy. The 'John F. Danucci' message. Hilarious."

  Hilarious. Four syllables. Some things never change. Winningham turned to Zuppone. "And who might you be?"

  Primo moved forward comfortably, taking a chair and making a ritual out of fitting a toothpick into his mouth. "Let's just say I'm a guy who don't need no introduction."

  Zuppone let that go around the room a bit before adding, "The Danucci family, they ain't crazy about you fucking around here, Bradley."

  The tan faded, the flesh beneath it a tad doughy. "What ...Whatdoyou...?"

  I said, "We want to have a little talk with you, Brad. Without benefit of tape-recording or other memorialization." At that point, Winningham's secretary and two guys in rent-a-cop outfits and sidearms came into the room behind us.

  She said, "Mr. Winningham, these men just barged past me — "

  "I know, Louise."

  "Do you want them removed?" `

  It was still Louise who spoke. The guards, after a quick study of Primo and me, didn't seem all that keen. Winningham looked like a man having trouble toting up the score.

  Zuppone said, "We could always talk later, Bradley."

  Primo didn't make any attempt to move, and there was no doubt that Winningham had a bad feeling about what "later" might mean.

  "No. Er, Louise, that will be all."

  The rent-a-cops exhaled, but the secretary didn't seem so sure. "Mr. Winnining — "

  "No, really, Louise. It's all right."

  She showed her disapproval but left with the uniforms, closing the door behind her.

  Winningham tried a recovery. "Very well, Cuddy, why don't you take a seat so we can — "

  Zuppone said, "Sit down, Bradley."

  Winningham wiped his hands on his thighs and sat. I took the chair next to Primo.

  Zuppone said, "Cuddy?"

  I waited until Wimiingham looked over at me. "Brad, I think you really stepped in it this time."

  "What — "

  I held up my hand. "You get a claim. You recognize the changed name. You think, ‘Hey, be jolly fun, Cuddy chasing his tail, thinking he was doing a favor for old Harry Mullen. Maybe Cuddy gets his tit in the wringer with a mob family.' That would really — what did you call it, Brad? 'Effectuate reparations'?"

  Primo said, "That what you called it, Bradley?"

  Winningham shook a little.

  "Well," I said, "we have a problem, Brad. The family is less than amused by your sense of humor. They think the death of one of their children is kind of a sore subject for practical jokes."

  Primo said, "Listen to the man, Bradley."

  Every time Zuppone spoke, it took a few words of mine before Winningham could look from Primo back to me.

  "Brad, the time with that casualty claim, just before you edged me out of a job? That's nothing compared to thi
s. When that happened, I thought about maybe putting on a sandwich board and standing out on the sidewalk with a cowbell, letting the passing public know what you'd pulled. But then it was just between you and me, Brad. Now, the oil's aboiling."

  Zuppone said, "You ever see anything boiled in oil, Bradley?"

  Winningham's Adam's apple bobbed for the knot in his tie. Time to throw the lifesaver. "So, here's what we're going to do, Brad. Brad?"

  Winningham came back to me.

  "First, we're going to sign off on the death claim on Mau Tim Dani. Paid in full after concluding investigation."

  He said, "I can do that. Tomorrow, there's — "

  Primo said, "Today, Bradley."

  Winningham nodded.

  I said, "Second, we're going to maintain Harry Mullen as Head of Claims Investigation/Boston for — "

  Winningham's eyes bugged. "I can't restore — "

  Zuppone said, "Bradley, Bradley. You interrupt, you might miss something important."

  Winningham just stared at him.

  I said, "You've got the chips to do it, Brad. Over the course of a career, a man like you squirrels away a lot of chips. Haul them out and play them, Brad. See to it that everybody who matters agrees that closing the investigation office in Boston would be a real mistake. See to it that Harry is taken care of with the job he's got for as long as he wants it."

  "You don't understand. There's no way I — "

  Primo made a sizzling sound through his teeth. The sound of something being cooked.

  Winningham looked at him and then to me. Then he nodded again.

  I stood up. "That ought to do it, Brad. I'll send my bill through Harry. See ya 'round the quad, huh?"

  Out on Fifth, Zuppone flicked the toothpick into the gutter at the curb. The traffic was flowing pretty smoothly, lots of taxis just cruising.

  I said, "Want to head back?"

  Primo reached into a pocket. "Little while now, I'm gonna be pretty hungry."

  "There'll be a café car on the train."

  Zuppone made a face, then stuck a fresh toothpick in it. "Tell you what, I know a good restaurant." He pointed downtown.

  "On Mott Street by Hester."

  "Stay over, you mean?"

  "Yeah. We go to a hotel for the night, or we can crash with some friends of mine, we need to."

  "I like the hotel better."

  "Sure, sure."

  "Primo?"

  "Yeah?"

  "What kind of restaurant is this?"

  The toothpick moved from one corner to the other. "What kind."

  Zuppone turned from me with the half-laugh and raised his hand to hail a cab.