After he left, Humphrey told Strom to leave him and Mongelo alone, but not to go too far. He was unarmed, he said, and while he didn’t expect Mongelo to make any trouble, it wouldn’t do to give him too much slack.
“Why’dja let the kid go?” Strom said.
“None a your business,” Humphrey said. “I gotta talk to Monge. Just back off, but stay handy. Capisce?”
When they were alone, Humphrey unlocked the cage and went in. He could see Mongelo was edgy. “Relax,” he said. “Listen, this is it. You’re gettin’ outta here.” That didn’t seem to relax Mongelo. Obviously, he was thinking that “gettin’ outta here” might mean something final. Humphrey tried to calm him.
“You’re lookin’ good, Monge. I’m proud a ya.” It was true. Mongelo looked ten years younger. He had lost over a hundred pounds. He looked better than he’d looked in … well, ever.
But he was a chronic complainer. Tonight, it was the fillings that Humphrey’s dentist had put in. They had gone to the dentist a few days earlier. The dentist hadn’t been a very fancy one. Mongelo had been surprised that Humphrey would go to such a sleazebag dentist, but Humphrey had assured him that he’d been going to this guy forever. And the guy had found some cavities that Mongelo didn’t know were there. His teeth were fine, he’d thought, but the dentist said no. All those X-rays, before and after! Who takes X-rays after? But that was what made this guy so good, he was told: he X-rayed after to be sure the fillings were right and all the decay removed. Mongelo was still sore, though.
“Monge, forget the dentist,” Humphrey said. “I told you I was having trouble, remember? Well, now I need you with me. I want you to come to my place. I got a ’partment all fixed up for you. Together, we’ll fix these bastards that are ratting us out.”
“Who is it? D’you find out?”
“I got a line on them. Malateste was one. I took care a him,” Humphrey said. “But there’s others. We’ll discuss it. So, you ready to go?”
Mongelo was ready.
“Can I count on you?” Humphrey asked, fixing him with a sharp look. Mongelo said he was ready. He was Humphrey’s man.
Humphrey called out to Strom. When he loomed up in the light, Humphrey beckoned him in. “Give me your piece,” he said. Strom looked surprised, but readily pulled out his gun. It was an automatic, a nice, flat, compact .38. He handed it to Humphrey, who held it on the flat palm of his gloved hand. Then he turned to Mongelo.
Mongelo’s eyes grew round. His mouth fell open. But then Humphrey handed the gun to him. He nodded toward Strom. “Do him,” Humphrey said.
Strom whirled and started away, but Mongelo did not hesitate. He blasted Strom down with three quick shots. Strom’s body sprawled on the concrete, in the semidarkness. The shots had reverberated in the chamber, but there was no response in the silence that followed. No one had heard a thing.
Mongelo stood outside the cage, staring down at the body. Humphrey took the gun from his hand and dropped it into a plastic bag. “We’ll get rid of this,” he said. “C’mon, let’s get outta here. Leave him.”
In the parking lot, Humphrey explained that Mongelo would have to ride in the trunk. “Boss, I don’t wanta,” Mongelo said.
Humphrey produced a revolver from his pocket. “Get in the trunk, Monge,” he said. “Trust me. I ain’t gonna hurt you. It’s only, you can’t be seen.”
Mongelo got in the trunk. Humphrey drove home. When they passed through the gate, Humphrey stopped to tell the gate man that he was home for the night. He drove around to the other side of the house, toward the boat slip, and parked. He went into the house. The watch commander was at the console. “Go relieve the gate,” Humphrey said. “Tell him to go to the relief room. I might have a visitor tonight and I don’t want nobody around. I’ll give you a call.”
When the man left—it wasn’t John, tonight—Humphrey switched off the monitors. He went down to the bunker, let himself in, then went out through the emergency exit. He got Mongelo out of the trunk. “See?” he told him. “It’s all right. I told you.”
When they were in the bunker, Humphrey showed him around and explained a few things. He had to understand that he was there in secret. It was crucial. The rats in the organization couldn’t know he was on watch. Nobody would know. Together they’d root those bastards out. Mongelo seemed ready. The bunker was not luxurious, but it was better than the cage. There was plenty of movies, plenty of food.
14
Mouse Hole
Much to his surprise, Humphrey found Mongelo to be an amiable companion. They had known each other all their lives and had more in common than Humphrey cared to admit. Considering the bums they’d hung out with, the fiascoes they’d endured in common, this wasn’t necessarily a happy congruence. But they had an enormous fund of mutual experience. Down in the bunker, they worked out together on the fancy machines that Humphrey had installed: StairMaster, treadmill, weight machines. It was good that the ventilation system was so effective, but it was certainly being fully tested. Even the copious numbers of LaDonna cigars that they smoked could not daunt this system.
Humphrey appreciated a situation in which he was free of just about any social constraints. They swore, farted, belched, made scurrilous comments about everybody, speculated on who was on his last legs and who was still getting it up. They bragged about monstrous acts and indulged each other’s exaggerations and bullshit. It was all quite harmless and foolish, and after a while it palled on them both, although both continued to make tired gestures at it, to keep up the pretense of youthful exuberance.
But soon enough, Humphrey remembered why he had always disliked Mongelo: the man had an appallingly narrow focus. You could start him on a track and he was like the bunny in the television ad: he just kept banging away until he was redirected.
In the evening, after Mongelo had finally sunk into a snoring sleep, Humphrey would take care of his electronic business. He did some of it during the day, but it wasn’t easy, with Mongelo hanging around, yapping and watching amazingly sordid pornography all day on the VCR. Humphrey had not bargained for this. He was glad it wasn’t going to last long.
One thing he needed was for Mongelo to wear his clothes, all of them, and to take showers, to leave his hair and sloughed skin everywhere. Humphrey had some of it cleaned up and bagged, as he’d been doing from the start, when Mongelo was in the cage at the cigar factory. He washed this crud down his own drains upstairs, sprinkled hair on his old hairbrushes, and kept the sheets Mongelo slept on. It was all part of the big plan.
He was happy to see Helen and Joe getting along so well and taking more interest in the operations, although Joe kept pretty clear of that end. Joe had a profound distaste for the prosaic drudgery of business. He could work pretty hard at something that directly concerned his own well-being, but he wasn’t much for financial intricacies. They did get into a conversation once about the possibility of setting up what Joe called “hospices” for AIDS victims, ones in the terminal phase. But here again, Joe seemed to think there were great possibilities in it, for himself. Humphrey couldn’t see it: it was too much trouble for the prospective value of having a ready supply of dead folks who could inherit and leave money—an overelaborate money-washing scam.
Humphrey was busily collecting money and transferring it to offshore accounts, much of it from new franchisees for old mob operations—Russians, Arabs, various South Americans. He was also putting the finishing touches to his grand exit strategy. One of these touches, perhaps the most crucial, was selecting Mongelo’s executioner. For this, in a step that he found wonderfully appropriate, he drew in Mongelo himself.
Mongelo was eager to help, idle as he was, and unaware as he necessarily was of the true end of the process. Together they pored over information that Humphrey had carefully compiled on personnel in the organization. The ostensible purpose was to determine who were the traitors, the rats, and who were their allies and fellow conspirators. Mongelo was very useful here, doggedly sifting through list
s, relating anecdotes, remembering who had done what. He knew everybody, knew their backgrounds, and by now was thoroughly into a paranoiac frame of mind.
Mongelo agreed that Nardo was a traitor. “I was allus ’spicious of da bastid,” he said. “He was such a fuckin’ hard-ass. He never had much to say f’hisself, an’ nothin’ good about nobody else.” He approved of the way that Humphrey had set it up, having him beaten to death with rocks and thrown into a stone quarry. That would point the finger at the Armenian, all right.
As for Kenny Malateste, he’d never liked the punk. “What a fuckin’ wiseass,” he said, “thought he could screw any bimbo walkin’. You ast me, these guys, some a them, all they think about is gittin’ their ashes hauled, they don’t take care a bidniss. Well, he’s gettin’ his ashes hauled now.” Mongelo was a little curious if Kenny had actually been popped by the Arabs; Humphrey just winked, and Mongelo nodded with a little smile.
Soteri? What a bum! Always talkin’ down the next guy. Mongelo was surprised the jerk had lived as long as he had. As for the late Strom Davidson, well, Mongelo could see it had to be done and he was glad to have been of assistance.
Mongelo spotted, without much prompting, what all these guys had in common. They were all allies of the late “Rossie” Rossamani, one of Carmine’s old buddies. Who else was in that circle? Mongelo named a dozen guys. They went over them, one by one. By and large, they were okay fellas, capable enough, seemingly loyal to Humphrey, not too upset with Carmine’s demise, and none of them in a position to do any harm. Who could the rat be? Who to pin the tail on?
At last they came to two figures, John Nicolette and Matty Cassidy. Nicolette was particularly interesting because he was married to Rossamani’s widow’s sister. Humphrey hadn’t known that. In fact, the only reason he was on the list (although he hadn’t told Mongelo this) was because he was the crew chief of the security group that had been working the night Pepe had disappeared. He now became the number one candidate.
Humphrey shook his head, marveling. “Imagine that,” he said, “the devious bastards! The guy who is actually supposed to be watching my back turns out to be one of the traitors. It’s a wonder he didn’t cut my throat while I was sleepin’.”
They had to do something about Nicolette, that was for sure. And Matty Cassidy. Matty was the guy who had brought the killer Heather to Rossamani, who’d suggested her to Humphrey as someone who could take care of Joe Service. She had come close to succeeding, and she’d almost taken down Helen, as well. Humphrey didn’t mention any of this to Mongelo. But it was clear that Matty was another old Rossie buddy and he’d have to go.
“How do you want to handle it, boss?” Mongelo asked.
Humphrey had a plan, but he pretended to think. Finally, he said, “We’ll have ’em down here. I don’t want to take them out unless I’m sure they’re guilty. They oughta have a chance to tell us their side, anyway. With these other guys, Nardo and them, I had them in before you came in on this, and I kinda felt them out. And you know from your own experience, I like to give a guy a chance to do what’s right.”
Mongelo thought that was pretty white of Humphrey. “You just ask ’em right out, eh? An’ then, if they ’fess up, you … ah, what do you do then?”
Humphrey had to laugh. “It don’t work that way, Monge. You ask ’em about somethin’ else, some kinda innocent questions, then, when they’re kinda relaxed, you lay it on ’em. See how they react. That’s where it all comes down. A guy can kinda show his hand, sometimes. Sometimes, you don’t learn nothin’. But, you at least gave ’im a chance. So then you gotta fall back on what you learned. You make your decision. That’s about it.”
Mongelo was impressed. This was a valuable management tip. He was pleased to have a suggestion when Humphrey asked what he thought would be a good excuse to ask the guys in. “A card game,” he said.
“A card game?” Humphrey suppressed a smile. But then he saw that Mongelo wasn’t so stupid. Matty was a gambler. He’d had to cough it up for Mongelo at least once, for getting in too deep. They’d invite Matty and then, just to fill out the table, they’d get Nicolette down from his post. It was ideal. An evening of poker, a lot of talk, plenty of beer, maybe even a little pizza—he could see Mongelo salivating. Small talk that turns a little serious, maybe revealing.
“An’ we could prob’ly win a coupla bucks, too,” Mongelo suggested. Humphrey laughed.
Things were getting close. Humphrey had a world of details to take care of. He was sending men out left and right, all hours of the day and night. On one occasion, just to get away from the fug in the bunker and Mongelo’s monomaniacal drivel, he and Helen took a moonlight jaunt out on the lake to meet Joe.
This time they met in midlake and tied up together out of the shipping lanes. It was a great place to meet, a beautiful warm night. Humphrey told them over coffee that he was getting a little frazzled, but things were going well. The thing that worried him, though, was that Mulheisen seemed to be getting somewhere on the Hoffa case. If he could just hold him off for a day or two.
Joe didn’t see much of a problem. “Just put him off, give him a little something, send him on a wild-goose chase. What do you care what he finds out? You’ll be gone.”
“I sure hope so,” he said.
Helen watched him. Suddenly, she said, “This whole thing is about Hoffa, isn’t it?”
Humphrey equivocated. “Not exactly. Well, maybe. I always knew it would blow up one day. It was a mistake, a big mistake. You can’t … well, let me put it this way: you can maybe cover something like this up, but there’s gotta be a payback, somewhere down the line. So, yeah, it’s Hoffa, but it’s all the other crap I been telling you about. So, I’m doing what Mac kinda showed me, when he was talking about Borgia and them. You gotta know when to fold your tent. I’m folding. But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna leave the business in the hands of these pricks we got around us nowadays. I’m gonna clean up some a this trash.”
More than that Humphrey would not say. He firmed up his plans with them, to the extent that he wanted them to know them, anyway. On the big night, Joe would wait for Humphrey pretty much where they were right now. Helen did not like this plan, Humphrey knew, but she kept her peace. She would not be involved. That was crucial. She would stay to deal with the aftermath, and when that was accomplished … well, it was up to her and Joe.
“I give you kids my blessing,” Humphrey said. “Whatever you decide, I’m sure it’ll be for the best.”
The next day, in an amusing little performance at the Krispee Chips offices, Humphrey and Helen met with Mulheisen and gave him the very strong impression that they were lovers. It was a bittersweet act for Humphrey, one of the few occasions when he’d actually had his hand up Helen’s skirt. He’d miss that, he thought, an intriguing possibility there. But he knew he didn’t stand a chance as long as Joe Service was around.
Still, Mulheisen had jarred him. The detective was much closer than he’d realized. Humphrey had left things dangerously tight. It was time to set it all in motion.
The day before, he had invited Matty Cassidy for poker, tonight. When the gambler appeared, Humphrey talked to him in his study, prior to joining Mongelo downstairs. They were alone. He needed Matty’s help, he explained. He had Mongelo downstairs, he said. The guy had been ill, he was a little crazy. Well, everyone knew Mongelo was nuts. He’d taken the guy in, nursed him. Now, whaddaya think? He had discovered that Mongelo was out to whack him.
“Jeeziss,” Matty said, “and you got him right here, in the house?” He looked around nervously.
“I’m not worried,” Humphrey said, “just careful. I got my eye on him. Only, I can’t have no guns in the room. You understand.”
Matty understood, but he said, “What if Mongelo’s got a gun hidden somewheres? Wouldn’t it be better if I could back you up?”
Humphrey nodded. “Good thinking. I tell you what, give me your piece. I’m not really worried about Monge, you know, but if he gets a littl
e squirrelly, like if you’re winning too much—which you prob’ly will be, if I know you …” He smiled at Matty.
“Monge never could play cards worth a shit,” Matty said, chuckling.
“Yeah,” Humphrey agreed. “But if he gets actin’ crazy, I’ll slip the iron to you. Maybe we could pull that old gag, stashin’ it in the john. We’ll see. If I get up and go to the john, you go in next. The gun’ll be in the drawer of the washstand. Anyways, I’ll have Johnny Nicolette down to play. He’s the night man here. You know him?” Matty had met him, but they weren’t well acquainted. “John won’t be armed either, but between the three of us, we won’t have any problems. The guy is actually a lamb, I really don’t expect no trouble, Matty. But I figured, better safe than sorry. If he gets excited … you just don’t know with psychos.” Humphrey patted Cassidy on the shoulder.
“The guy is sick,” Humphrey explained. “He’s a little pissed at me because I did what hadda be done, I locked him up, kept him under wraps. It was for his own good, but he can’t see that. The guy was a walkin’ time bomb. But he needs a little break. I want the guy to have a little fun, he’s been cooped up so long with this …” He whirled his finger around his ear. “Just keep your eyes open and we’ll have a good time.”
Matty handed over his gun, a 9mm Glock. Humphrey stuffed it into his belt and pulled his bulky cable-knit sweater over it. “Make yourself a drink,” he told Matty. “I gotta talk to John, he’s working the console. We’ll go down in a few minutes.”
Humphrey went directly to the control room, carrying a box of cigars. “John, we’re gettin’ up a poker game, downstairs. We need another hand.” He glanced at the monitors. “Things are quiet, why don’t you come on down?”
Nicolette looked pained. “Gee, Mr. DiEbola, I’d love to, but I’m kinda light just now.”
“No problem,” Humphrey assured him. “I didn’t expect you to spend your own money. Here.” He got out his wallet and thumbed off five hundred dollars in fifties. “Play with this. If you lose it, forget it. If you win, you can pay me back and keep the winnings. If you need more, just give me the nod. No, no. You’re doing me a favor.”
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