Inherit the Mob

by Zev Chafets

  Sesti knew all this without being told, just as he knew that Spadafore would never give him an order to avenge his honor. The Don, who prided himself on his sense of proportion, could not ask his consigliere to have a man killed because that man had arranged for a naked girl to sing “Happy Birthday.” It was Sesti’s role to understand this, and to act on his own.

  In Sesti’s personal view, what had happened the night before was of no importance whatsoever. He considered Don Spadafore to be a primitive man with the same romantic, childish attitudes as his own father. To Sesti every sort of pride—national, ethnic or personal—was merely a foolish irrelevance. A man above pride would always best a proud adversary, just as a sober man had the advantage over a drunk.

  Sesti felt contempt for Spadafore’s weakness, but he in no way underestimated the Don’s power or ruthlessness. He never forgot, for example, that the old man would have no compunction about killing him in order to protect his own sons. This, too, he saw as a foolish kind of sentimentality, but it was, nevertheless, a fact.

  The consigliere looked at his watch. In less than half an hour he would meet with Grady Rand, and order the execution of John Flanagan. Rand was a professional assassin from South Carolina, a man who specialized in making murder look like an accident. Sesti had used him before and been impressed by his meticulous attention to detail as well as by his discretion. Most of the Family’s so-called button men were simply unreliable thugs, and Sesti avoided employing them whenever possible. The contract that he intended to offer was a simple one—follow Flanagan and kill him as quickly as possible—but it had to be done elegantly. Flanagan was, after all, still a deputy editor of an important newspaper, and he could not be gunned down in the street like a common criminal without raising a tremendous fuss.

  There were several advantages to Flanagan’s prompt execution. It would win Sesti a temporary reprieve from the old man’s wrath. It would concentrate Gordon’s mind wonderfully. Finally, it would simplify his future dealings with the journalist by establishing a precedent. Sesti smiled with satisfaction at this last consideration. As a lawyer, he regarded precedent as the very cornerstone of an orderly society.

  Rudy Parchi sat in the front seat of the Bentley with the windows rolled up, listening to a Connie Francis cassette on the tape deck and cutting long, wet-sounding farts. Rudy liked the way they smelled when they mingled with the fresh, saddle-soap aroma of the leather seats. A lot of people thought the habit was disgusting, but a lot of those same people, he had noticed, had no problem with belching in public, which was only farting through your mouth as far as he was concerned.

  Rudy had enjoyed farting for as long as he could remember. In the service, during his first days of boot camp, a smartass sergeant had called him up in front of the whole platoon during barracks inspection and made fun of him for it. “Soldier, quit stenching up the area,” he had screamed. “You got a problem with your plumbing or what?”

  “It’s a habit I got,” Rudy said, and spat on the floor.

  “Wipe up that spit, soldier!” the incredulous sergeant screamed.

  “OK,” Rudy said. He hit the sergeant with a looping right, knocking him unconscious. Then he gathered up the limp body by the legs and, with the entire platoon watching in awed silence, methodically wiped the floor with the sergeant, like a mop.

  Parchi spent six months in a military stockade before receiving a medical discharge for mental instability. Then he came back to Brooklyn and resumed his career as a prizefighter. In the ring, inhibited by rules and referees, he was only fair; he beat slow heavyweights, lost to quicker ones. In the street he grabbed shifty boxers by the throat and hit them with a pipe.

  Basically, Rudy didn’t care much about boxing. It was just a way to mark time until there was an opening in the Spadafore Family. He was inducted at twenty-five, young for a neighborhood kid without blood connections, and he had been with the Family for twenty-one years. Sometimes he ran errands; occasionally, like last night, he drove Spadafore some place, but usually he just hung around the house waiting. Half a dozen times in the past twenty-one years he had been asked to kill a guy, usually with a gun, and he had done it. Each time he had been given a cash bonus of a thousand dollars.

  Rudy had no opinion of Luigi Spadafore other than that he was the boss, and a Man of Respect. He despised Carlo Sesti, with his fancy manners and sissy accent. He had grown up on stories about men going to the mattresses, but throughout his years with the Family he had been pretty much a peacetime soldier, and he blamed Sesti for that, feeling the grunt’s contempt for the cookie-pushing diplomat.

  Parchi saw Mario park his Cadillac across the street from the Don’s house, and he tooted the horn softly. Mario saw him, waved and headed in his direction. Of all the brass, he was the only one who paid any attention to Rudy. Sometimes Mario would sit with him in the Bentley and they’d talk about the fights. They agreed that Rocky Marciano would have torn the head off Cassius Clay, that LaMotta was robbed in his losing fights with Sugar Ray Robinson, and that, in general, niggers were OK in the ring but on the street, where what counted was balls and heart, they didn’t have a thing. Thinking about it, Rudy was sometimes amazed by how much he and Mario had in common.

  Mario opened the passenger door and slid into the front seat.

  “Hey, Rudy,” he said.

  “Hey, Mario.”

  “Hey, how’s it goin’?”

  “Real good, how’s it with you?” said Rudy. It was always easy for him to talk to Mario.

  “How come you ina car? The old man goin’ someplace?”

  “Naw,” said Rudy. “He’s probably still steamin’ from last night.”

  “Yeah? What was last night?”

  Rudy shrugged. He knew that sometimes Mario gave him little tests, pretending not to know what his own father was up to. Parchi figured it was a way to check out his loyalty. He didn’t mind; when Mario took over, he might have a chance to get his own living. Rudy knew that the Don wouldn’t be around forever.

  “On the way back,” said Rudy. “From dinner. The Don was cursing up a storm about that guy Gordon.”

  “Gordon?” said Mario. “You sure it was Gordon?”

  “Yeah, the Don and Sesti had a whole big argument about it. Sesti says it was some guy named Flanagan’s fault, the Don says no, it was Gordon’s fault.”

  “What happened?” asked Mario, his eyes glinting with curiosity.

  Rudy shrugged again. “I dunno, but it must of been something, like, really serious for the Don to be steaming like that. I ain’t never seen him so mad.”

  Mario lifted his thick leg and cut a loud fart. That was another thing Rudy liked about him. “Listen,” he said. “I’m going in there to see the old man. You wait here, don’t go nowheres. I might have something I want you to do for me later.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Gordon sat watching the Redskins-Colts game, sipping a Bloody Mary. His “no drinking” resolution had lasted until the second quarter, when he fixed himself one medicinal Mary, heavily laced with Worcestershire sauce. It had made him feel so healthy that he drank two more during halftime, and he was now on his fourth. The vodka and the decision to call off his crazy adventure with Spadafore put him in a glowing mood.

  He had been trying to reach Sesti all afternoon, but the lawyer was out, and his housekeeper had no idea when he would be back. He looked at the clock on the table next to his bed. Three-fifteen—Flanagan would be up by now. He picked up the phone and dialed. Flanagan answered on the second ring.

  “John?”

  “Gordon! I was just thinking about you,” said Flanagan. He heard the note of forced joviality. Jupiter was wrong, he thought; Flanagan was a terrible actor.

  “That was some night we had,” said Gordon. “You really know how to throw a party, chief.”

  Flanagan laughed, and Gordon sensed his relief. “I thought you’d be pissed,” the Irishman said. “Shit, kid, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hit you, but you wouldn’t stop pu
shing me, and there wasn’t anything else to do. You all right?”

  “Hell, yes,” said Gordon, rubbing his tender jaw. “You punch like a girl.”

  “I owe you one. Free shot,” said Flanagan. “You, ah, didn’t hear from Spadafore, did you?”

  “You mean did he call up to thank me for the swell evening? Naw, I’ve been trying to reach Sesti, but he’s not home.”

  “You better let me do that, boychik,” said Flanagan, his spirits restored. “I’ll explain that it was my idea, you had nothing to do with it. Let me handle it, OK?”

  “Forget it, John,” said Gordon. “It’s all over. I’m gonna tell Sesti that the deal’s off. I don’t feel like playing anymore.”

  “You mean because of last night? Hey, come on, you’re taking this too hard. It’s not that big a deal, believe me, I can straighten everything out—”

  “No,” said Gordon, “if it wasn’t last night it would have been another night. Those guys come from a whole different planet. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s over, John. That’s final.”

  There was a long pause. “You got any plans for later?” Flanagan finally asked.

  “Not really,” said Gordon. “I want to see the end of the game, maybe watch a little of the Rams-Raiders. Nothing after that.”

  “Let’s get dinner, then,” said Flanagan. “We might as well celebrate the end of the Mishpocha.”

  “Yeah, OK,” said Gordon. “You wanna come up here, or you want me to come down there?”

  “Why don’t you meet me at O’Dwyer’s, around eight. Dinner’s on me tonight,” said Flanagan. “It’s the least I can do.”

  Rudy Parchi stood in front of the Cancellation Shoes show window on Twenty-third near the corner of Lexington and looked at the latest models. Nigger shoes, he thought to himself; only a jig would buy shoes at a store with a name like Cancellation.

  For an hour and a half he had been walking up and down the almost deserted block, pretending to be a window-shopper and hoping no one would notice that he kept doubling back, always keeping the front door of O’Dwyer’s within view. He had followed Gordon down here from his apartment. His original plan had been to shoot him when he came out of his building, but there had been a crowd—a doorman, the waiting cabbie and a couple walking a dog. Mario had said to whack him out, not do another St. Valentine’s Day massacre, so Rudy and his driver, Tubby Calabrese, had chased the cab all the way to O’Dwyer’s in Tubby’s untraceable Toyota with the phony plates.

  Except for O’Dwyer’s the whole block was dark, all the way up to Park. Across Lex, on the corner, a Korean fruit store was open, but Rudy didn’t want to walk all the way over there and maybe miss Gordon coming out. Besides, he didn’t want to be seen by anyone, although he doubted very much if a Korean could tell the difference between white guys any more than white guys could tell the difference between Koreans.

  It wasn’t particularly cold, but Rudy stamped his feet, trying to keep busy. He figured Gordon must be finishing dinner by now. Idly, Parchi tried to imagine what he was eating. He wondered if you cut a guy’s stomach open right after dinner if pieces of food would fall out, like gumballs spilling out of the glass vending bowls he used to break open as a kid. He could picture Gordon standing there, watching, as a whole order of spaghetti and meatballs came pouring out of him onto the sidewalk. Thinking about it made him hungry, and he began considering where to stop to eat on the way home.…

  Suddenly the door to O’Dwyer’s opened, and he saw, framed in the light, Gordon and a tall guy he didn’t know. Rudy walked down Twenty-third in their direction. He could picture the hit in his mind. He would wait until Gordon stepped off the curb to look for a cab, race toward him, blow his brains out from the shortest range possible and then run into the sparse traffic, across Twenty-third and around the corner, where Tubby was waiting.

  Across the street, Parchi saw a blue Mustang parked at the curb with a man sitting at the wheel. The driver looked familiar, but Rudy couldn’t remember where he had seen him. Rudy was almost directly across from Gordon and the other guy now. They looked up the deserted street for a cab, and then stepped off the curb, just as Rudy had pictured.

  Parchi drew his pistol and began to run across Twenty-third. Suddenly the blue Mustang leaped from its parking space and headed straight for him. From twenty feet away he could see the driver clearly. “Hey!” he screamed, but it was too late. Gordon and Flanagan jumped back on the curb just as the Mustang smashed into Rudy Parchi, knocking him down. It took him about ten seconds to die, and in that time he saw the faces of his mother and father, his brothers and sisters, Don Spadafore, Mario and Sesti. And the driver. He looked like one of the Everly Brothers, Parchi realized. Either Don or Phil, he could never remember which was which.…

  Flanagan recovered first. “Hit-and-run,” he yelled. Gordon looked around dazed, and saw a man lying in the street and a blue Mustang tearing up Twenty-third. There was no doubt that the man was dead. “We better call the cops,” he said.

  “You call the cops, I’ll call the paper,” said Flanagan, leading Gordon back into O’Dywer’s. Neither man saw the pistol that was lodged under the broken, bleeding body of Rudy Parchi.

  Albert Grossman opened his eyes and cursed the daylight, pale and fragile, that filtered into his darkened bedroom. It was 6:27 A.M. He knew this without even looking at the clock on the nightstand because he got up every morning at exactly 6:27. It annoyed Grossman to awaken so early and so exactly, as if he were on some special old people’s time that had nothing to do with how his body actually felt, whether he was still tired or rested. And it positively drove him crazy to look at the digital clock every morning and see the same ridiculous hour: 6:27.

  Grossman felt a stirring next to him. Beverly Friedman. Forty-two years old, the same age as his son. Widow of Dr. N. Shelby Friedman, MD, who dropped dead one day in his office. Two kids in college, but she had the body of a college girl herself, Grossman thought. Twice, three times a week he dropped by her place. She grilled fish or a chicken, they watched a little TV and then they spent the night together. Grossman scratched between his legs and sighed. What a world, he thought, where a good-looking young broad like Bev was willing to shtup an old guy like him for free.

  Grossman lowered himself out of bed and padded into the kitchen, where he put on the instant coffee maker and dropped two pieces of rye bread into the toaster. Then he went to the front porch and picked up the Times. He glanced at the headline, something about Argentina, and opened the paper to the sports section. He found the Knicks in the standings, three and a half games behind the Celtics, and checked last night’s results. Since his retirement, Grossman rarely bet on sports, but he liked to keep an eye on the point spreads, just to see when something funny happened.

  Al Grossman hated the Times and its lousy sports section. Until a few years ago, he read the Post and the News every morning in the backseat of his limo, on the way to work in the city. Now, if he wanted to buy those papers, he had to go to the mall, which was where he had first met Bev Friedman.

  She had been standing in front of a display of paperbacks at Walden’s, on tiptoe, squinting at the books on the top shelf. Grossman noticed her automatically, the way he noticed all good-looking women; one of the few pleasant surprises about getting old was that he was just as horny at seventy as he had been at forty. The difference was that now he could do more about it. Never in his life had he been surrounded by so many willing women. They seemed to be everywhere, survivors of the internists and tax attorneys, oral surgeons and CPAs who keeled over every day from overwork and too much exercise. The women inherited their husbands’ money, and he inherited them, at least the ones who were still in decent shape. Over the years he had modified his taste—he didn’t mind gray pubic hair, and he barely noticed varicose veins, but he still hated droopy tits, or big flabby asses.

  The lady on tiptoe had a mop of curly brown hair, dark almond eyes, full lips, high round breasts and a tight-looking bottom. Looking
at her, Grossman got hard. Unexpectedly, she turned and caught him staring at her. He averted his gaze, snuck another look, and saw that she was smiling.

  Grossman wandered around the store, waiting for the woman to pick out a book, and then followed her over to the counter. He had never been shy with women, but old age made him bold; what’s the worst that can happen? was his motto.

  “I noticed you over there looking at the books,” he said. “What did you get?”

  “Just some trashy novels,” she said, as though she had been expecting him to talk to her. She showed him the paperbacks, a Judith Krantz and a Sidney Sheldon. “Escape literature, they call it.”

  “You on the lam?” he said, smiling, but putting a little gravel in his voice. She laughed and looked at him more closely, really seeing him for the first time.

  “No, I just don’t like daytime television,” she said. “Even these are better than those stupid talk shows.”

  They walked together to the parking lot, where she opened the door to a white Mercedes XL. “Your husband must do pretty good, car like this,” said Grossman.

  “My husband passed away last March,” she said.

  “Sorry to hear it,” he said. “Kids?”

  “A boy, nineteen, and a girl, eighteen, both away at school,” she said. “They’re great kids. I miss them.” Grossman sensed she was stalling. Probably she had no place to go but home, and there was nobody there. “How about you?” she asked.

  “My wife’s dead,” he said. “I’ve got a son around your age.”

  “Really?” she said, smiling, showing nice natural teeth. “You must have been a child groom.”

  “I’m seventy,” Grossman said, making it a flat statement, no apology. He saw something in her eyes, but he couldn’t tell what it was. There was an awkward silence.

  “I’ve been thinking about buying one of these,” he said, patting the car’s roof. “Are you happy with it?”