Inherit the Mob

by Zev Chafets

  “It’s a wonderful car. If you can afford the insurance and the upkeep, that is.”

  “I think I’m going to get one,” he said. “By the way, my name is Al Grossman.”

  “I’m Bev Friedman,” she said. “Listen, would you like to take a sort of test drive sometime? See if you like the car?”

  “Thanks,” said Grossman. “Yeah, it would be a good idea probably. When would be a good time?”

  “Anytime,” she said. “Now, even, if you’re not busy, I mean. Or you could call me. Do you live nearby?”

  “Stratton Road,” he said. “Across the street from the golf course. How about you?”

  “I live on Harvest,” she said. “Practically neighbors.”

  Grossman looked at his watch, making a show of it. “I’ve got some time,” he said. “I’ll take you up on the test drive, if you’re serious.”

  She smiled, and raised herself lithely over the gear box to the passenger seat. “Hop in,” she said, “you’re going to love it.”

  They stopped for lunch at an old-fashioned roadside tavern on the way to Connecticut. During the drive Grossman let her do most of the talking, telling him about her husband, her kids and various friends he couldn’t keep straight. It sounded like a pretty boring life, and he noticed she hadn’t mentioned any romantic attachments. Grossman volunteered little about himself, not that he wanted to hide anything, but he figured his best shot would be the strong, silent approach.

  At lunch she surprised him. “Are you Max Grossman’s brother?” she asked.

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact,” he said. “How did you know that?”

  “Well, you mentioned that you have a brother named Max, and your last name’s Grossman, so I put two and two together,” she said, laughing. “Are you a gangster too?”

  “A retired businessman,” he said, allowing his face to show he was lying. Broads, he knew, were attracted to gangsters, especially Jewish suburban broads who didn’t know any better.

  “Do you carry a gun?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with interest.

  “Naw,” he said. “What would I need a gun for out here, shoot at the squirrels?”

  “I understand,” she said, putting her finger to her lips. “Code of silence.”

  Grossman winked, took a bite of his lamb chop and washed it down with some beer. “I want to ask you something, a personal question,” he said.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “You think I’m too old for you? Be honest, there’s no point in kidding each other.”

  She reached across the table and touched his arm. “I’ve been wondering that myself all morning,” she said, giving him a level, appraising look. “My husband was fifty-four. You could almost have been his father.”

  “Yeah,” said Grossman. “Well, I told you I have a son about your age.”

  “I wanted you to talk to me in the bookstore,” she said. “You looked interesting. Different from the kind of people you meet out here. At least from the kind of people I meet out here.”

  “You gonna answer my question or what?” asked Grossman, smiling to soften it, but not letting her off the hook. He could tell that she was attracted to him, but some women had rules they made for themselves—no this, no that, whatever. If she had a rule about age, he wanted to know about it up front.

  “Yes,” she said. “I mean no. No, I don’t think you’re too old for me. I think you’re very sexy.”

  That was almost a year ago. Since then they had settled into a pattern that was convenient for both of them. She had her own money, didn’t bug him about his diet, didn’t mind watching sports on television and was always ready to make love. She was good in bed, too, passionate and open without being a stunt girl. They never discussed it, but Grossman didn’t see other women, and he didn’t think she saw other men.

  He heard the water running in the shower. She was a clean girl, too, another thing he liked about her. He picked up the sports page again, and his eye fell on a small item in the lower left-hand corner.

  FORMER HEAVYWEIGHT CONTENDER VICTIM OF HIT-AND-RUN

  (AP) Rudy Parchi (46), a former heavyweight boxer, was killed Sunday night in a hit-and-run incident on Manhattan’s 23rd Street. There are no leads regarding the identity of the driver, according to a police spokesman.

  Parchi, who was once the 10th ranked heavyweight in the country, was employed in recent years as a salesman for the Taste-Rite Potato Chip company in Brooklyn.

  Grossman grunted. He remembered Parchi, a big dumb wop with a right hand and no defense. He had been so crooked he would have fixed his sparring sessions if somebody had offered him two bucks. He vaguely recalled that Parchi worked for Luigi Spadafore, although he didn’t know any details, and he didn’t really care. Grossman wasn’t surprised that Parchi had been run down by a car. It figures, he thought; the guy never had any footwork.

  Bev walked into the kitchen barefoot, hair still wet, wrapped in a terry-cloth robe. Grossman put his arm around her slender waist and pulled her close. “You smell good enough to eat,” he said.

  “Forget it, Big Al,” she laughed. “I’ve got to be in the city by nine. You’re going to have to settle for cream cheese and lox this morning.” Grossman sighed. He’d spend the morning at the health club, then maybe go to the track in the afternoon. He had already forgotten Rudy Parchi. He had no idea that Parchi had saved his son’s life.

  Late that afternoon, Flanagan got a call on his private line at the paper from Boatnay Threkeld.

  “ ’Member what you asked me the other night?” he said.

  “You mean about Spadafore? Yeah. I think you can forget it, though. The deal’s off.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, John,” said Boatnay. “Now you’re using your brains for once.”

  “Why, though, just out of curiosity?”

  “Well, it probably doesn’t mean much, but last night his driver, guy named Rudy Parchi, was killed. Hit-and-run.”

  Flanagan felt a jolt of electricity run through his body. “Hit-and-run? Whereabouts?”

  “Thirteenth Precinct, near the corner of Lex and Twenty-third. The guy used to be a fighter, there was something in the paper about it today.”

  “You think it was an accident?” Flanagan asked.

  “Maybe. Something strange about it, though,” said Threkeld.

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, we found a loaded Smith and Wesson in his hand,” said Threkeld easily. “Course he could have been on his way to the gun show, you never know.”

  “I didn’t see any gun,” said Flanagan.

  “You were there?”

  “Yeah, right there. Gordon and I were coming out of O’Dwyer’s and a Mustang almost numbered us. Would have if Rudy hadn’t gotten in the way. We talked to the cops, didn’t you see my name in the report?”

  “I didn’t see the report,” said Threkeld. “Man, you mean you were standing right there? That’s quite a coincidence.”

  “Could be,” said Flanagan.

  “Could be that Parchi was intending to shoot your ass, too.”

  “It’s a possibility,” said Flanagan.

  “John, I think the time has come for you to tell me what the hell’s going on,” said Threkeld. “Not that I want to know, but I guess I better.”

  “Let’s hold off on that, Boatnay,” said Flanagan. “I’m gonna check this out my own way. It’s probably just a false alarm. No point in getting New York’s finest into it.”

  “What if it ain’t no false alarm?” said Threkeld, using street dialect for effect. “I done warned you, white boy, ’bout fucking ’round with the man.”

  “Boatnay, I love you when you’re being ethnic,” said Flanagan in a prissy voice. “Thanks for the tip, and I’d be obliged if you let me hear anything else that comes up.”

  “John, seriously now—”

  “I gotta go, Captain,” said Flanagan. “Say hi to Morgan. And, Boatnay—thanks again.”

  Flanagan had only one sister, but many co
usins. Most of them were lace-curtain Irish—insurance agents, junior high school principals, chiropractors and municipal employees. One, Terry Flanagan, was a drug addict and petty crook. He was Flanagan’s favorite relative.

  Flanagan gave his cousin Terry fifty dollars to sneak into the parking garage in midtown where Carlo Sesti kept his pearl-gray Rolls and slash all four tires with a knife. Then he waited across the street from the garage until he saw Sesti enter. Flanagan went to the phone on the corner. By the time the consigliere reached the wounded Rolls, his car phone was already ringing.

  “Hi, Carlo, I was just calling to see if I could give you a lift someplace,” said Flanagan in a jovial tone.

  There was a moment’s hesitation. “Who is this?” said Sesti finally.

  “This is the voice of your conscience, you pizza-eating hump,” said Flanagan. “Next time you fuck with me, I’m gonna cut your head off and put it in Luigi’s bed.”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” said Sesti in a cold voice. “I think you must be insane.”

  “I’m talking about Rudy Parchi,” said Flanagan.

  “Rudy was killed in an accident last night,” said Sesti.

  “Yeah, I was there. You ought to run a remedial street-crossing course for the troops, Carlo.”

  “What were you doing there?” asked Sesti.

  “Cut the bullshit, consigliere,” said Flanagan. “I know you sent him down there to hit Gordon and me. You and Luigi can’t take a joke, you know that? OK, fuck it. I’m warning you—if anything weird happens from now on, the Mishpocha is going to the mattresses.”

  “You are insane,” said Carlo, hanging up the phone. He clicked the button on the small recorder attached to the receiver and heard Flanagan’s voice, tinny but unmistakable: “… warning you—if anything weird happens from now on …” Sesti cut off the machine, took out the tiny cassette and put it in his pocket. Then he walked out of the garage and hailed a cab. “Brooklyn,” he told the driver.

  Luigi Spadafore looked at the thick, round face of his elder son and wondered what he had done to deserve such a child. When he had listened to the tape Sesti brought him, one word kept flashing through his brain: “Mario.” Spadafore knew, even before Mario confessed, that he must have been the one who sent Parchi to kill Gordon and Flanagan. No one else could have been so stupid.

  “It was a matter of honor, Pa,” Mario said. That word, on the rubbery lips of his son, snapped the Don’s icy self-control.

  “Who are you to talk about honor?” he demanded. “You try to commit murder against the nephew of my oldest friend, and you call this honor?”

  “He dishonored you, Pa,” said Mario petulantly. “Rudy told me. I can’t have people goin’ around dishonoring my own father.”

  “I am perfectly capable of defending myself, you moron,” his father said. “Who gave you the authority to give such an order?”

  “I’m the son,” Mario said stubbornly. “I’m the number two, and I made a decision. I did what I thought was right.”

  Spadafore sighed. Nothing got through to his idiot son. “Mario, hear me well,” he said. “You are my son, and someday you will be my heir. Then you will run your affairs as you see fit. But, for the moment, you are not in charge and you will do as I say. If a single hair on the head of Gordon is touched, I will personally chop off your hands. Is that clear?”

  “You wouldn’t talk like that to Sesti,” said Mario.

  “That is the first correct thing you have said today,” said Spadafore. “I would not talk this way to Carlo Sesti because he is a man I respect. I respect his intelligence, his loyalty and his judgment. I would not talk to him this way because he would give me no cause to do so.”

  Mario reddened and tried to speak, but no words came out. Spadafore could see that he was in a murderous rage. “One more thing, Mario,” he said. “If something happens to Carlo Sesti, I will cut off both your hands. But first I will cut off both your balls. Now, get out of my sight, and don’t come back until you’re sent for.”

  “But, Pa …”

  “Do not answer me!” Spadafore screamed in Sicilian. “Do not answer me! Go.” Mario rose and slammed out of the room. Spadafore looked at the heavy oak door for a long moment, and then let his heavy head droop into his hands.

  CHAPTER 15

  When he was fourteen, Carlo Sesti had once been rebuked by a master at Downside for his cynicism. “Boy Sesti, you are too clever by half,” the white-haired old man had said. “And a gentleman, although he may be educated, perhaps even intelligent, is never clever. That is the attribute of Jews and Gypsies.”

  Carlo realized that the old man was trying to wound him, but he took the implication that he was a foreigner as a compliment. Although he had been born in London, and trained to act and talk like the other boys of the monied class, he had no illusion that he was an English gentleman, and no desire to be one. Cleverness to Sesti was a virtue; he considered the English sense of fair play to be a crippling affectation.

  All his life, Sesti used his cleverness the way a celebrated beauty relies upon her appearance. Even as a small boy he had been aware of his ability to think faster and more clearly than others, and he had seen the practical benefits of such an ability. It had propelled him through Downside, Cambridge and Harvard Law School with a minimum of effort; it gained him a fortune by the age of thirty; and, most important, it enabled him to navigate the shark-infested waters of the Spadafore Family.

  Thus, where others might have regretted the failed attempt on Flanagan’s life, Sesti saw opportunity, and even destiny. The idea of taping Flanagan’s idiotic threats had been inspired improvisation, but the rest of the plan was a masterpiece of cunning.

  Spadafore, he understood, would naturally see that the attempt on Flanagan and Gordon had been ordered by his son. So when Mario was gunned down three days later, coming out of a midtown restaurant, the old man assumed, as Sesti knew he would, that Flanagan had found out about Rudy Parchi and made good on his threat. As an extra bonus, Sesti had not even paid for Mario’s assassination; Grady Rand had felt so bad about botching the previous job that he did it for free.

  Sesti had, of course, comforted the old man in his grief, and swore to help him take his revenge on the two journalists. Like God, Sesti saw the future. First, Flanagan would be killed in a street mugging. Then, Gordon would respond by having Pietro shot—Sesti had already told Rand to remain in readiness. Finally, Gordon himself would die in an accident. Rand could retire on the money he would earn, although it would be a short retirement, since he would know too much. And Spadafore, if the death of his sons didn’t kill him, would have no remaining heir. Except his loyal consigliere, Carlo Sesti.

  Pietro Spadafore stood silently in the small chapel of the Fortuna Bros. funeral home, looking into his brother’s open casket. Mario made a good-looking corpse, Pietro thought. Death had taken the cruel stupidity out of his face and replaced it with a bland, angelic look. It was, he reflected, the advantage of the ugly man to leave life looking better than before.

  Pietro wondered what he would look like in his own casket, and the thought made him shudder. He was too young to even contemplate dying, and yet, standing in front of his dead brother, it was hard to avoid the notion. He wondered whether his father would give him a send-off as grand as Mario’s—five thousand dollars’ worth of flowers, a silk-lined ivory casket, the cardinal himself to deliver the eulogy. Probably, he decided; he was as much his father’s property as Mario, and for Luigi Spadafore to do any less would be an act of disrespect to someone he loved—himself.

  Pietro sneaked a peek at his watch. Eleven-fifteen. He had promised Debbie Hearns that he would meet her for lunch at the Plaza at one. He looked at the body of his older brother with theatrical grief, hoping his act would appease his father when he told him, in a few minutes, that he had an appointment. He knew he would have a problem with the Don, especially now that Mario was gone. The old man would want him to take over
, and Pietro intended to use all his wiles to avoid that.

  Luigi Spadafore would have been astonished to know that his younger son had a capacity for duplicity that matched his own. From childhood, Pietro had been a misfit in the Spadafore Family, like one of those human babies raised in the woods by wolves. He was oppressed by his father’s harsh demands, and by the solemn, old-world atmosphere of the huge brownstone. He had realized that his only possibility of escape was to play dumb. It had been an easy enough role; his father, already used to one idiot son, had taken Pietro’s stupidity almost for granted.

  He looked at his watch again, and at his father’s grim, stricken face. Five more minutes and he would make his departure. The Don’s grief was, he knew, a pose; the old man cared nothing for Mario. Pietro mumbled what he hoped sounded like a prayer and thought about Debbie Hearns, who liked to make love standing in front of mirrors in public rest rooms.

  For Pietro, women were an acquired taste. He had initially been drawn to them not for glandular reasons but to fortify his image as a foolish playboy. But as he gained experience, he made a surprising discovery; he, Pietro Spadafore, needed and loved women, and he had the capacity to evoke their need and love in return.

  It was not just his looks—he knew hundreds of better-looking guys who couldn’t get laid at a Playboy bunny convention. No, it was something deeper, more subtle. He understood women, knew instinctively how to approach them, what to say, when to act and when to hesitate. Women were not merely a diversion, as his father imagined. They were as crucial to him as a sunrise to a painter, or the song of birds to a composer. They were his inspiration, his medium of expression, each relationship a self-created world of its own, and his ability to bring such worlds to life gave him a power far greater than anything his father could possibly offer.

  He knew the Don considered his passion for women to be an effeminate weakness, but his father was an old man, and limited. Women, Pietro knew, were not trivial, but essential. Throughout history they had humbled kings, made philosophers dumb with desire, caused honorable men to break oaths and spill blood. And he, Pietro Spadafore, conquered these wild creatures. He could never explain this to his father, not because the old man would not understand, but for fear that he might—might realize that his son Pietro had a dominating spirit and intelligence not too different from his own.