“I remember both them trials like it was yesterday,” Quinn said. “Don’t remind me. I was right there in the courtroom both times. I can still see the shit-eating grin Buscatelli had on his face when the judge told him he was free to go. You remember that, Joe?”
Gaudette, sitting almost erect in a straight-backed wooden chair, nodded affirmatively. “Wish I didn’t, but I do,” he answered.
“In fact, Gerry,” Jenna continued, “what comes out of the Herald’s files is that the Tarantinos have gotten away from the kinds of things Buscatelli had a big hand in. I’m talking drugs and prostitution, mainly. You’d know that better than anyone. It looks like now they concentrate all their efforts on gambling and want nothing to do with street crime. Is it okay to say that the Mob has cleaned up its act?” She smiled at him.
Quinn didn’t answer directly. “So what’s this getting us to?” he wanted to know.
“I don’t think the Tarantinos had anything to do with Niro’s death.” She spoke the words in a matter of fact tone. “What happened doesn’t fit their pattern at all. But like that old saying goes, ‘It takes a thief to know one.’ I want the chance to go over this case with them. They may have a feeling about what happened. They could say something that means nothing to them but gives me a lead to go on. My guess is that they’d love to see this Chi-Chi killing get solved A-S-A-P. That’s the only way the bad publicity they’re getting will go away.” Jenna paused. “What do you say, can I read the letter?”
“Ya welcome to look at it, provided I don’t see one word about it in ya paper.”
“Agreed,” she said.
That was good enough for Quinn. He picked up the telephone, dialed a single digit and instructed someone to bring in the Niro file. “And I gotta figure out who coulda leaked it,” he said, hanging up the phone. Quinn got up, stretched his arms above his head and sat down again. “But,” he continued, “getting Sal Tarantino or his son to talk to ya may be impossible. The only talking they’ve ever done in the years I’ve been in this chair is through a lawyer. Maybe if I mention getting their letter it would help. What the hell, I’ll give it a shot and let ya know.”
A police sergeant came in with the large file. Quinn removed the two heavy elastics from either end, opened it and picked up the document sitting on top. He handed it to Jenna. She read it carefully and saw it was signed by Sandy Tarantino.
“How old is the son, and what does he do?” she asked.
“Mid-forties. Sorta the general manager over there from what I hear,” Quinn replied.
She returned the letter and thanked Quinn for his time. She gave him a Herald card with her extension at work and her home telephone number. “Just in case you threw away the last one,” she said.
“Do ya have enough left for the guys at the singles bar?” he asked her. “I can just copy these numbers down, ya know.” Quinn smiled at her and looked over at Gaudette. The State Police officer got up from his chair, but looked serious.
“I’m very impressed with your analysis of this case,” he told Jenna, approaching her again for a farewell handshake. “If I were Sal Tarantino and heard about what you told us today, I’d want to meet you. Good luck, Miss Richardson.”
* * *
Jenna’s horoscope that Friday morning said she would be meeting an interesting stranger. A sometime believer in the stars, she gave it two hours to happen in the Twin Oaks lounge on the way home from work. Back in her car, she consoled herself with the thought that the would-be object of her affections was there, but that they simply missed each other. Arriving home at nine o’clock, she looked through the mail, turned on the radio and put a package of frozen broccoli in the tiny microwave before remembering to check for telephone messages.
There was only one, but it made up for her earlier disappointment.
“Hiya Jenna, it’s Gerry Quinn. Would ya believe it? Some guy called me back today for young Tarantino, just when I’d given up hearing from them. Said he’d meet with ya but it has to be off the record. He can do it Tuesday morning, nine o’clock, if ya get outta the sack that early. His place is at 241 Atwells Avenue, next door to the Abruzzi Bakery. Ya gotta walk up a long flight of stairs. There’s a parking lot further down that block and around the corner. Ya owe me one for this.” There was a short pause before Quinn continued. “As they say on Federal Hill, ‘Ciao, baby.’ ”
Jenna called Dan McMurphy at the Herald. He always stayed late on Friday night, as if unwilling to let the job get away from him for the weekend.
“It’s a good thing you’re seeing him when you are,” McMurphy said. “I just got through assigning you full-time, starting Wednesday, to hit the road with the major campaigns. That’s Wednesday through Monday, the fifth through the tenth.”
He wanted her to follow the two US Senate candidates, Sacco and Whitley, for a day each and do the same with Singer and Fiore right after that. She’d finish the job by getting a look at the incumbents and challengers for the two seats in the House of Representatives over the last two days of her road trip. He didn’t care about the fact that Tarantino might give her something to go on in the Niro case when she visited the Family’s headquarters on Tuesday.
“There’s an old saying about ‘a bird in the hand,’ Jenna. Maybe you heard it. I think Dolph Jameson, my predecessor, was the one who first made it up.” Then he got serious. “Listen, we’ve got to run some in-depth stories about these campaigns. I’m talking at least a full page for each one, and I need all of it in a couple of weeks. After that, you’ll have more time to shoot for the Pulitzer Prize on the Niro business. That’s the deal, and it’s final.” McMurphy let a couple of seconds pass before he added, “Agreed?”
“Thanks for the choice, Dan,” she answered. She hoped her good-natured sarcasm struck the right chord. “But as long as you brought it up, do you want to give any odds on my getting that Pulitzer?”
“If I lose, can I pay it off over a year?”
“Six months.”
“Sorry, I can’t afford it.”
71
AT THE TOP OF the stairway, twenty-four steps up, another door greeted her. A foot above it, a security camera pointed down toward the street entrance. Richardson assumed she was being watched on a monitor since first ringing the bell and gaining entrance from Atwells Avenue. Once again, when a buzzer responded to her ring, she pushed the door open and went inside.
Her first reaction was one of surprise to how old and uninviting a reception area it was. There was just one small window in the room, facing the street. A plain walnut desk, somewhat beat up, sat a few feet away from the window, a matching chair behind it. The top of the desk was bare except for an old black rotary telephone, an empty plastic tray with a paper IN label taped to its front and a magazine, entitled NFL Football. No rug or carpeting was there to hide the well-worn hardwood floor. Several other wooden chairs, each with a cheap gray vinyl seat pad tied to it, were placed along the wall that continued forward from the entrance. The pale green walls of the room were entirely bare, although some discoloring in several places indicated the size of a picture or poster that once occupied the space. Richardson sat down in the chair farthest from where she entered. She could see several offices off a hallway to the right and realized they were located directly above the Abruzzi Bakery and its adjoining cafe.
Just then, Sandy Tarantino walked into the waiting room and introduced himself, adding, “Most everyone calls me Sandy,” as he shook hands with her. He led Jenna back to his office, the closest one to the waiting room. The contrast with the area in which they met startled her. A large oriental rug covered most of the floor space. Its deep pile made her wish she could take her shoes off and experience the luxury. Matching bookcases, made of a dark lacquered wood, lined the walls of the room except for the space behind Tarantino’s desk. There, a single large venetian blind covered the only window in the office. Its slats were tightly shut to keep the light out. A lamp, with a Tiffany style glass shade, sat on the corner of Tarantino
’s busy desk, providing the work area of the room with sufficient illumination. A table, several feet from the desk, held a computer, a printer and a fax machine. Jenna noticed that two of the bookcases near Tarantino were filled with numbered volumes containing the cases decided by the Supreme Court of Rhode Island.
Once inside the office, he opened a door to the adjoining room. “Jenna Richardson is here, Pop,” he said. She noticed that the son waited in the doorway until his father came in, then closed the door behind him.
“I’m Sal Tarantino,” the older man said as he approached her, not offering his hand in greeting. Again, Sandy waited to see where his father sat before pointing to a chair for Jenna. She sensed that it would have been perfectly natural for Sal to make himself at home behind his son’s desk, establishing his authority in that manner. But he chose a side chair instead, and Sandy did the same. The two of them sat facing her, just a few feet away.
Jenna was struck by the differences in their appearance. Sal Tarantino, probably close to seventy she guessed, was tall and almost slim. A Pendleton style shirt and a pair of khaki pants with a large silver belt buckle lent a cowboy’s masculinity to his appearance. He walked erectly and sat the same way. His hair, receding at the forehead but gray only at the fringes, was slicked down with pomade. He was clean shaven, despite the fact that a beard would have hidden a series of unsightly red splotches that ran along the lower edges of his cheeks. But it was the senior Tarantino’s eyes that riveted Jenna’s attention to him. They were coal black, reflecting no light whatsoever, and seemed overly protected under almost semicircular thick hairy eyebrows.
The younger Tarantino, on the other hand, was both shorter and heavier than his father. He had a neat beard and mustache, but a bald spot in the middle of his head appeared to be advancing steadily toward the curly black hairline in front. He wore eyeglasses whose tinted lenses hid the true color of his eyes. Jenna wondered whether those eyes would have the same effect on her as his father’s. Sandy countered Sal’s casual look by being dressed in a traditional businesslike manner, his well-tailored suit receiving her unspoken admiration.
“Is it agreed that this discussion is off the record, that you won’t report meeting with us?” Sal asked.
“Of course,” Jenna answered. She felt as if he was staring right through her.
“Chief Quinn says you have a view of the Niro murder he thought we’d be interested in hearing,” Sandy said, to open the conversation.
Jenna said that was right, and when both men answered her with silence she proceeded to tell them everything she related to Quinn and Gaudette a week earlier.
“Since then,” she continued, “I also found out that Niro was using two all-night self-service gas stations in Providence for his pickups and deliveries. If you lost, you put your name and the cash you owed inside a sealed envelope and left it with someone at the station within two days. Whoever was on duty gave you a receipt for the envelope with his initials and that day’s date on it. Niro did the same thing with a payoff, except he just wrote the customer’s name on the outside of the envelope. I spoke to the attendants at each place. They told me the cars pulling in for that business were usually Chevys and Toyotas, not Lincolns and Lexuses. To me, that confirms the fact he was dealing with small bettors.”
“I congratulate you on that entire analysis, Miss Richardson,” Sandy said, when she finished. “We agree with your conclusion and are pleased to know we’ve got someone like you on our side.” He looked toward his father at that moment. “I’m sure my father is especially happy to hear that the direction in which he’s brought the Family over the past twenty years can now be seen very clearly by anyone taking a good look at the record.” As Sandy spoke, Sal Tarantino nodded his head up and down. “Since we’re on the same side in this matter, what is it we can do for you?”
Jenna looked straight at each of them, Sandy first, before answering. “I’m not sure there’s a right way to say this, but I was hoping that from the different view you have of these kinds of things—seeing them from the inside, so to speak—you might be able to tell me something that could help with my investigation. I’d like to find out who killed Niro and why. Someone must have been upset at his taking bets. But if it wasn’t you, who was it? I just feel there’s something here I’m missing.”
Sal Tarantino answered. “She wants our professional advice, Salvy. If we can help her, maybe we could go into a business of giving this kind of advice to the police. After all, there’s more and more crime every year. We could charge as much as the lawyers.” He laughed when he finished, breaking the tension Jenna was beginning to feel. Sandy smiled at his father.
“I’ll tell you this, Miss …” Sal had forgotten her name.
“Richardson,” she offered.
“Miss Richardson,” he continued. “Niro was shot by a pro. That whole scene was strictly by the numbers, except for Cardella getting hit too. But that don’t mean it was because Niro was booking football games. All we know is whoever did it wanted him dead for some reason or other. Or whoever paid someone else to do the job wanted to see him out of the way. He’s got a helluva good-looking wife. Maybe the man you’re after is nuts about her, whether she knows it or not. Maybe he decided that’s the only way he’s got a chance. See who she starts going out with in another month or so. But it could be some other reason. I don’t know. That’s what you or Gerry Quinn’s got to figure out.”
“I guess you’re right,” Jenna said. She hesitated momentarily before asking her next question. “Is there anyone in Providence who would be upset by the business Niro was doing?”
Sal answered her again. “Sure. Maybe one of those other barroom bookies thought Niro had the best place to operate out of and was jealous. Maybe this guy, whoever he is, wanted to grow his own operation. Look, I thought about that, but I can’t see any of them getting a professional hit man to do the job.” He frowned as he spoke and shook his head from side to side. “I can’t figure it out. And my son here, the Princeton graduate, doesn’t have the answer yet either. So it won’t be easy.”
Jenna realized that there was nothing more to discuss. She got up and thanked them for letting her come.
“You left out one thing before, Miss Richardson,” Sal said on their way to the door. “Of course, you wouldn’t know about it. Al Niro used to bet with us every week. Usually he came to the club over on Academy Avenue, just a few blocks from here. Right, Salvy?” Sandy nodded in agreement. “And he probably left us a good chunk of what he made on the telephone. So we didn’t have to go after his business. We got it indirectly, through him, without putting in the work. I don’t know who all the other local books are, but it’s probably the same story with them. Know what I mean? Bookies like to gamble. Easy come, easy go.”
“And I guess Rhode Island wants to make it easy for everyone to do all sorts of gambling,” Jenna said.
“Singer does,” Sal answered, “but Doug Fiore don’t. You should vote for Fiore.” He opened the door for her. “My Salvy and I thank you for coming,” he said. “And good luck.” As soon as Jenna started down the long flight of stairs, Sal smiled at his only son, followed it up with a wink and headed back to his office.
72
ON THE SIX DAYS that followed her meeting with the Tarantinos, Richardson did the job McMurphy laid out for her. She spoke earlier to the press secretaries for each of the candidates and obtained their itineraries for the days she would cover their campaigns. She then made arrangements to travel with each candidate and his or her core group of advisors so she could interview them as they moved from one speaking engagement to the next.
Jenna listened to all the speeches the various office seekers made. The essential message each sought to deliver was referred to as “The Speech” by the TV crews and print media that recorded each event. She was quickly able to separate the core points of their deliveries from the glut of issues they felt obliged to sift through and mention in some way or other before different audiences. She watch
ed everyone and everything very carefully, listened to the banter that took place between a candidate and his “brain trust,” and made notes of all her impressions.
Character traits were important to Jenna. It was the reason she observed how each of the candidates treated staff and the media. She noted whether they reacted calmly or with some degree of panic to poor audiences or unexpected events. Something bizarre occurred often enough, as when a heckler stood up in the middle of a David Whitley speech to a Catholic organization and asked if it was true that Whitley’s daughter had an abortion. Jenna was also curious as to how they spoke about their opponents, both to the voters and in private conversations.
McMurphy warned Jenna that her stories about each of the candidates were only part of the assignment. He said that, later on, when it came time for the Herald to make its endorsements, she would be called in by the senior editors and asked a multitude of questions. They would want to know how the candidates either responded to, or evaded the important issues. She’d be told to rate each of them on aptitude, character and sincerity. And the executives would be especially interested in her impressions of whether the candidates’ egos seemed more important to them than the welfare of the citizens of Rhode Island.
Other than the half day in which she observed Kate Williston, who was running to keep her seat in Congress, Richardson moved in a man’s world during this intense period. Each evening, before going to bed, she assembled the notes she made during the day and used them to draft a rough outline of the stories to be handed in to McMurphy after she returned. At the same time, she reviewed all the background material about each candidate that was contained in the press kit given to her. She was often able to weave pieces of that individual’s personal history into what audiences were promised would get done if he or she was elected.
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