The Vig

by John Lescroart

  “Yep,” she said, “just like that.”

  9

  Sometimes when Johnny LaGuardia was pounding into her, like now, Doreen Biaggi made herself think about the way it had started between them, when she had thought he was such a nice sweet man.

  She had been walking out of Molinari’s with some deli instead of a real dinner because she didn’t have much money, when some of the young North Beach neighborhood boys started following her, teasing her as they had always teased “the Nose.” Doreen keeping her head down, trying to walk faster, crying to herself. She was always nice to people. Why did they have to pick on her?

  “What you got there, Noseen, some nose slaw? Maybe some nosadella?”

  Ha. Ha. Ha. Snatching at her clothes, making honking noises, grabbing at her package of deli food.

  And then there was this big man, not too old, chasing them away, walking her home. Johnny.

  She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes closed now, rocking back and forth, taking his time …

  Embarrassed at her tears, at her looks, she wanted to just thank him and go upstairs to her studio apartment. But he was so caring, or seemed so then. Brushing away the tears with a gentle smudge of his thumb. Taking her out to Little Joe’s—now “their” place—to cheer her up.

  Opening up to him. Telling him that she hated herself, her big schnozzola, everything. And him saying (lying, but nice) it wasn’t so bad, but if she hated it why didn’t she just get a nose job?

  But where was a clerk at City Lights bookstore going to get the money for a nose job? It had been nothing but scrape scrape since graduation from high school—three years now—and it was enough of a struggle paying rent, eating, wearing decent clothes. And so long as she looked this way she’d never be able to get out of where she was, going nowhere. It was a catch-22 …

  He was speeding up now, and she got into it a little, leaning back into it, maybe hurry him along. She reached back between her legs and ran her fingernails along the bottom of his scrotum and he made that sound that meant it wouldn’t be too long now …

  He had made it sound so easy. His friend Mr. Tortoni could lend her the money for the surgery. With her new looks she could get hired someplace that paid better, then pay him back when she could. Until then there was only the vig to worry about, and for her it would be nothing, maybe a hundred good-faith money a week—which at the time, with Johnny Mr. Sincere LaGuardia selling her not only on the idea of the loan but on her natural beauty, her chances for coming up in the world and a glorious future, had seemed like nothing.

  It started seeming like something soon afterward. The nose job had been a success and she now looked like a young Sophia Loren, but she couldn’t parlay that into a job that paid any better, and after six weeks of buying nothing, not even going out to a movie, she couldn’t come up with the vig.

  And Johnny, who had been her friend and protector when she had been the Nose, had told her he could cover for her, just up the vig on a couple of other clients, but it was risky and he had to have some payment, some sign of good faith.

  But she didn’t have anything.

  He’d put his and on her, right there—the first time anybody had touched her there—and said that that was worth more than a hundred a week.

  Then she was pulling away, scared, from that different Johnny—and didn’t even see the hand come up so hard she thought he had broken her face—and then he was on top of her.

  And she remembered listening to him explaining afterward that she didn’t have a choice. Somebody had to come up with the vig. He didn’t want her to be hurt and he could protect her. He hadn’t hit her because he was mad at her. He wasn’t mad at her, but she needed to take a little reality check. He was her friend.

  “Oh, oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Johnny LaGuardia said the litany every time he came. Collapsing, he fell against her back, his arms wrapped around her.

  She felt his weight on her, and she started to cry. She would never be able to come up with the vig. This was never going to end.

  At Frank’s Extra Espresso Bar on Vallejo, Umberto Tozzi was on the jukebox singing “Ti Amo,” sounding like an Italian John Lennon. “Ti Amo” was Angelo Tortoni’s favorite song, and whenever he was in the place he played it at least once an hour. If anybody minded, they didn’t say.

  But the flip side was that nobody else played the song anymore. All the regulars, the owner Sal Calcagno, the waitresses, everybody, they were sick to death of “Ti Amo.” It was a good song, and for a long time it had been Johnny LaGuardia’s favorite, too.

  Now, though, as he came up off the sidewalk behind the grilled fence, past the couples drinking their espresso or cappuccino or Peroni beer or sirops, he wasn’t too thrilled to hear it because hearing it meant that the Angel was there already and he wouldn’t have time to ask one of the boys why he’d been summoned down here again.

  Not that he should be too worried. Mr. Tortoni was his godfather. But he was also his employer, and certainly he was no one to get on the wrong side of, and this thing last night—having to explain Ingraham’s disappearance, being six hundred dollars short—had not made him happy. Which Johnny understood. Johnny wasn’t happy himself. He had never been short before. But Johnny thought he had explained it.

  As always, Mr. Tortoni was sitting all alone at the back of the room, back to the wall, under the poster of the Leaning Tower, at the small white table. Two of the other boys were playing pool, and Johnny nodded to them and then presented himself to Mr. Tortoni, who took a sip of espresso and then motioned for Johnny to sit next to him.

  “Can I get you something, Johnny?” the Angel asked in Italian.

  It was amazing how quietly the man talked, how small and frail he looked. You didn’t have to talk loud to get heard; physical strength was a small part of having power. These things Mr. Tortoni had taught him.

  Johnny realized his throat was dry and he said he thought a mandarin sirop would be good, and Mr. Tortoni whispered up to Sal Calcagno at the counter and in two seconds Johnny’s drink was in front of him.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  Mr. Tortoni put his cup down and fiddled for a moment with a short cigar, which Johnny lit for him as it got to his mouth. “You’ve been busy, have you?” he asked through the smoke.

  “Okay,” Johnny said. “Trying to—”

  “So maybe—no, not maybe, I’m sure it’s an oversight.”

  Johnny waited. Mr. Tortoni smoked some more. Johnny took a drink of his sirop. Billiard balls clicked behind him. “Ti Amo” was over and “Love Will Keep Us Together” came on, and Mr. Tortoni made a motion to Sal Calcagno, who walked to the jukebox and pushed the button in the back before Toni Tennille could finish saying “You belong to me now.” Bobby Darin came on with “Volare” and Mr. Tortoni nodded, smiling, at Sal, then lost the smile and looked at Johnny.

  “Well?”

  “Whatever it is, I’ll fix it,” Johnny said.

  “You don’t know? It could be you forgot. The excitement all last night, this Ingraham problem.”

  Johnny nodded, without a clue.

  “Ingraham is five hundred dollars. I get reminded today—bookkeepers, you know, they keep track of things.”

  Johnny still didn’t see it. He was thinking, Five hundred?

  Mr. Tortoni put his hand over Johnny’s, soft as a kitten. “Doreen Biaggi,” he said. He went back to his coffee. “It’s a small thing, Johnny, but then again, it isn’t. Ingraham was five, Doreen Biaggi is one. Last night you’re six short. I think maybe you’re nervous, you got mixed up.”

  In spite of the sirop, Johnny’s throat was sticking together when he swallowed. How could he be so dumb? He had tacked Doreen’s vig onto Ingraham’s, making up a bullshit story to Rusty about Mr. Tortoni’s interest rates going up to cover expenses—hell, Johnny knew Rusty would be able to come up with another hundred a week. So Johnny had gotten used to thinking of Ingraham as a six.

  “So you collect from this Doreen?”
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  “Sure, like always.”

  “Then you got the hundred? Her hundred?”

  Johnny reached into his back pocket, praying to every saint in Heaven that he had an even hundred in his wallet.

  “You still nervous, Johnny? Is something wrong?”

  Madonna mia! A hundred-dollar bill. He took it out and put it on the table. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Mr. Tortoni.”

  Angelo Tortoni palmed the bill and laid a hand softly against Johnny’s cheek. “As I say, it’s not a big thing. A hundred dollars. But the principle of it—am I right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Maybe get a book,” Mr. Tortoni said. “Keep track who’s a six and who’s a five. And who’s a one.” He puffed at his cigar. “That Doreen Biaggi, she’s got to be a pretty girl now with the nose fixed?”

  Mr. Tortoni stared now at Johnny, making sure he got the message that nothing was a secret around here.

  “You know, Johnny,” he said, quietly, gently, “we all got our own businesses to run. Your line of work, the temptations when you’re working with cash, no records … I know what it can be like. You figure old man Tortoni”—he smiled, nodding—“yeah, I’m an old man, that’s okay … you figure old man Tortoni, he just needs his five grand, whatever it is, every week, and so long as you come up with that, you’re covering your end of the business. But, Johnny, that leaves out my side of the business. You might think—I’m not saying you do, I’m just saying I know the temptations and it might cross your mind—you might think you’ll strong-arm somebody for more than the vig I charge ‘em. Cut somebody else, maybe a girl, huh, a little slack.”

  Johnny couldn’t say a word. Mr. Tortoni was holding his thin cigar in his right hand, the one nearest Johnny, and he put that hand over Johnny’s, the wet butt end of the cigar flattening out against the back of Johnny’s hand.

  “I know you hear what I’m saying, Johnny.”

  “I wouldn’t do anything like that,” he managed to get out.

  “I put a man like you in a position of trust. He represents my interests to the community. A man betrays that trust, I got no use for him. Lean closer to me, Johnny.”

  The hand still covered his, gripping lightly.

  “I kiss you now and you’re a dead man.”

  Johnny swallowed, trying to breathe. Mr. Tortoni’s mouth was inches from his cheek. “If this is going on,” he whispered, “it has to stop.”

  The strains of “Ti Amo” began again. Mr. Tortoni leaned back in his chair. He took the flattened tip of the cigar into his mouth like a nipple and drew on it. “I love this song,” he said.

  Frannie wasn’t sure it had been a good idea, letting Dismas stay here. It was stirring things up.

  Earlier, he’d almost gone back to his own house, suddenly worried that staying here was putting her in some danger. He just wasn’t thinking clearly. There was no connection that could bring Louis Baker from Hardy’s place to hers, and she had told him that. He was safer here and he was staying and that was final.

  Now, closing in on midnight, she lay in the king-size bed, Dismas out at the kitchen table, probably staring out at the street as he’d done in every minute of his spare time since he’d been here, watching to see if Louis Baker would show up.

  It wasn’t like Diz. Just sitting there, brooding, with that damn gun out on the table, drinking decaffeinated coffee and waiting for Abe Glitsky to call him.

  Which didn’t seem like it was going to happen tonight.

  Dismas had come in around six-thirty from his day of touring gun shops, excited that he’d proved something—Rusty Ingraham had indeed put in an order for a gun on Wednesday afternoon at a place called Taylor’s in the Tenderloin district. He’d needed the gun as protection against Baker. Also, Louis Baker had evidently come by the Shamrock looking for Hardy. So he had placed a call to his friend Glitsky and thought with the new information, Glitsky would have enough at least to take Baker off the streets.

  Frannie hadn’t really understood. “So what if Ingraham ordered a gun? How does that help you?”

  “Well, Abe’s problem here seems to be Rusty as much as anything else. Since they haven’t found his body, he is somehow not as real a victim as Maxine Weir.”

  “Well, maybe he’s not.”

  Hardy had shaken his head. “You had to have seen him. The man was terrified.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he’s dead. Does it?”

  He’d looked out then at the darkening street, perhaps trying to phrase it for himself. “No, not necessarily. But Abe seems to need a reason to want to go after Baker. His threat to me isn’t enough, I guess, and Abe doesn’t see any necessary connection between Maxine Weir and Baker.”

  “Maybe she was just there and got in the way.”

  “Right. Anyway, what I have to do is show Abe some hard evidence that Rusty’s fear of Louis was legitimate. That it wasn’t, say, Rusty who killed Maxine, motive unknown.”

  “Excuse me for being dumb, but how does the gun show that?”

  “Doesn’t it lead you to the conclusion that Rusty didn’t own a gun? Or even have access to a gun?”

  She’d thought a minute. “I guess it would.”

  “Of course it would. If he already had a gun, he wouldn’t have had to order one.”

  “But why will that make your friend Glitsky do something about Louis Baker?”

  “Abe is my friend, and Louis Baker is going to kill me unless Abe does something first—or I do. What I’m trying to do is get Abe to look at this with his cop’s eyes. I think he sees the Baker angle now as his friend’s understandable fear—without hard evidence-interfering with his real job, which is finding the killer of a known victim—Maxine Weir. I’m trying to make it clear that what Abe would call my paranoia is at least based on something real, which also improves the odds that Rusty Ingraham is a real victim too.”

  But the call from Abe hadn’t come, and Frannie and Dismas had done the dishes and watched some television and Dismas had had a couple of beers before losing his patience altogether and beginning his vigil at the kitchen window.

  Now she heard him moving out there, then a noise like the rustling of newspaper.

  She turned onto her side of the bed.

  Her husband Eddie had been dead for four months now. There was a hole there she would never fill, but she had been getting used to the idea of living alone, of having the baby alone, of making a new life somehow, alone.

  Dismas was making her think again about Eddie. Or he reminded her of Eddie the way Eddie had reminded her of Dismas when she first met him. She told herself it was one of the hormone storms that had been so difficult in the first trimester, but she knew it wasn’t just that. Dismas had inserted himself into her life, and she had welcomed it. And now even little things like doing the dishes and pouring him coffee made her shudder to think that this, too, would end. And then she would be alone again.

  No, it wasn’t just that Since Eddie’s death she had become acutely aware of mortality. She was trying to get over it, this feeling that everything was on its way to dying right now. And with Dismas it wasn’t a theory—it was a good possibility. He believed that his life was in danger. He was no paranoid. She believed it too.

  And if Dismas were gone, like Eddie already was, all the potentiality that might be over the rest of their lives would be gone too—

  When the telephone rang, she rolled over again. Dismas picked it up on the first ring, and she heard him talking too low to make out the words. It must be Abe Glitsky, she thought. The call didn’t last long.

  The receiver was slammed down loudly, followed by a little ring of protest. She looked at her bedside clock, glad she didn’t have to get up for work tomorrow. More rustling of newspaper.

  Leaning up against the doorway to the kitchen, barefoot with her flannel robe around her, her heart went out to Dismas. He sat huddled over the table, the newspaper spread out under him, his head in his hands. She crossed the kitchen and put her hands
on his shoulders, rubbing.

  “It was Abe,” he said.

  “I guessed that.”

  “No. Not just on the phone. It was Abe at the Shamrock today. Not Baker. He said he guessed all us black folks look the same.”

  “That’s not fair. He should have just told Moses who he was.”

  “Why would he? He was looking for me. He knew I was supposed to be working there. It wasn’t official business. So he asks, Moses says I’m not there, doing me a favor, and Abe leaves. Natural as can be.” He breathed out heavily. “So now he really thinks I’m seeing Louis Baker in my dreams, which I am. He didn’t even want to hear about the damn gun.” She pushed in at the muscles on both sides of his backbone. Dismas leaned back into the pressure. “What’s the paper for?” she asked.

  “Tide tables.”

  “You going fishing?”

  “In a way.” Then, “That feels good.”

  As he crossed his arms on the table and put his head down on them, she continued rubbing his back, kneading at his neck, knuckling the knots under his shoulder blades, the softer muscles lower down. His breathing slowed, became regular. She leaned over him and put her mouth by his ear. “Why don’t you get some sleep now.”

  Slowly he straightened up in the chair, lifted the gun, checked the safety, stood. “Good idea,” he said, then turned toward her. “You think you could spare a hug?”

  She put her arms up around him and they stood there, holding one another. “You be careful, Dismas,” she said into his chest. “I’m not about to lose two men I love in the same year.”

  It had been a warm, moonlit night, all the students back in town long enough now to know where they could go get some rock and be ready to party. Money flowing like water, early in the year when all the moms and dads send ‘em off to school with their lunches packed up—money for books, for movies, for food. Money.

  Dido’s roll was thick in his pocket. His throat still hurt where Louis Baker had hit him. But he’d take care of that later. Now he was doing his business. He was mostly selling twenty bags—four rocks. He could do hundreds, but most of these kids tonight seemed to be into the quick-flash, onetime, try-it-out-and-party thing. Later in the year there might be fewer buyers, but those that bought would do more hundreds, so it worked out. Try the crack for a party, and pretty soon you couldn’t have a party without it.