The Family Hightower

by Brian Francis Slattery

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Petey says.

  Yes you did, Petey, Curly thinks. But says: “I know. Let’s drop it.”

  But Petey won’t. “I just mean you could go back to Cleveland a very wealthy man,” he says. “Isn’t it worth it?”

  “I don’t know. Is it? I don’t like not being able to see the operation, to know anything about it. They could be into some bad, bad stuff.”

  “Well, how bad could it be?”

  And here, dear reader, is where their imaginations fail them. They just have no idea how bad it is. Which is why they call Dino the next day and tell them they’re in.

  For a time, Petey and Curly live like the princes to the new oligarchs do. The money from Dino starts rolling in. They move out of the Hotel Dnipro and into a string of apartments across Kiev, place remodeled only a year ago with as much going on in them as new money can buy. They go all over Europe—Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam. Change the cut of their clothes, the sweep of their hair, until they have the look of people who spend most of their time moving, on planes, in taxis, but haven’t touched a steering wheel in months. They are driven around Kiev in twin black Mercedes of their own, windows tinted as dark as the metal. Their lives become a wash of vague business transactions, a certain thrill under the feigned casualness, of a stakeout, a spy movie, a bender, a wedding reception. Their tolerance for vodka climbs to heights few Americans ever reach, and they find themselves in slurred debates about the quality of caviar, the best Ukrainian rock band; Petey’s developed a serious love for Vopli Vidopliassova, won’t stop playing Abo abo, even though it’s already a couple years old. And then there are the women.

  It’s too easy for these Cleveland boys. They’re just ignorant enough, in the strange naïveté that America can breed, not to comprehend just how much money is part of—but only part of—the bargain. They don’t see how a few people see them as walking, talking escape hatches out of a collapsing country, or how much their new bosses are using that image. They’re not just dealing with Russians anymore, either; the contacts, the names dropped, seem to go across Asia, North Africa, Latin America. It’s all very exciting to our boys, these phone calls in multiple languages that interrupt their conversations. It should be terrifying. Because their upbringing, their nation, was an invitation and a shield, opening doors and keeping them safe. They’ve left that behind now, and they don’t see how the rules have shifted, been shaken. How dangerous it all is. Nobody cares who Petey’s grandfather is. Nobody knows who either of them are, and the people who sit on the links of the chain of illegal commerce to either side of them are already scheming to cut them out after they’ve taken what they can get from them. A few of their associates are tapping their phone lines, reading their mail, to assess, if Petey and Curly went missing, how many people would come looking for them, how fast the search would start. These associates like what they see. Petey and Curly are a long way from the world that reared and sheltered them, and Petey doesn’t notice.

  Curly does. But it’s only when Petey disappears that Curly starts to worry. Petey and his latest girl, Madalina, a pretty young Romanian woman with long, dark hair. They’ve both vanished. They said they were going on vacation; Curly saw them off from an apartment in Kiev, noticed how they talked to each other, standing close enough to touch. Her hand on his arm. His hand on her shoulder. Curly didn’t realize it had gotten so serious, even though they’ve been together for a few months. For the first week they’re gone, he assumes that they’re just taking a longer vacation than usual. To the Carpathian Mountains, where Petey’s always said he wants to go, or to Odessa, where he always goes. Or maybe Petey is going to meet Madalina’s family, Curly thinks, to smile and speak in slow English that Madalina’s parents don’t understand. They’ll look him over, trying to be cool, but unable to hide their joy for their daughter. That she’s found someone she wants to be with, that nothing happened to her in Kiev that made them sorry they let her go.

  Then Petey and Madalina have been gone for two weeks, no, fifteen days. It’s too long. Curly calls Kosookyy in Parma, the weak thought in his head that maybe Petey went back; maybe he’s standing right next to Kosookyy as the phone rings. Kosookyy will answer the phone, then turn to Petey. You’ll never believe who just called me right now. He never calls me. You guys are big shots now, don’t need me anymore. Curly, Madalina’s a lovely girl. And then the relieved conversation. I’m sorry, I should have told you I was leaving. No, no, I’m just glad you’re all right. But Kosookyy doesn’t know where Petey is. They haven’t spoken, it turns out, since Petey and Curly left for Ukraine. Curly didn’t know that. Now he feels woozy. He starts to feel the loss of his friend, and with it, what little sense of safety he’d fooled himself into. As though he’s been living in a town walled off from the woods outside, and every night, predators circle the settlement while he and his people sleep in peace inside. Now the gate’s been left unlocked, the wind has blown it open, and the wolves are coming for the chickens.

  By the beginning of the third week, Curly’s in a cold panic. He’ll give anything just to see Petey, imagines that when he does, everything will be better. He’s wrong. It’s almost four in the morning when Petey catches him outside his apartment, forces him into an alleyway, first by clapping a filthy, salty hand over his mouth, then by begging, in a fetid whisper in his ear, not to shout. He’s shaking and jittery, his clothes yellowed, his shoes bruised. Like he’s been homeless for days.

  “Listen to me,” he says. “Listen.” He takes his hand off Curly’s mouth.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Things have gone bad. You’re not going to see me for a while.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Right now? It doesn’t matter to you. But do yourself a favor and drop out of all this while you still don’t know anything. Go back to Cleveland. Go back to Parma.”

  “Where’s Madalina?” Curly says.

  Petey just shakes his head.

  “Petey? How much trouble are we in?”

  He won’t answer. They just stare at each other, and Curly feels like he’s spiking a fever. He can see Petey shaking through his clothes. It’s all been a goddamn act, Curly thinks. All that fucking swagger. His panic breaks into anger, the divide between them fills with acid. He has a sharp and unkind thought, and their years of friendship can’t blunt it. He never should have involved himself with this rich asshole, or imagined that the connection between them could change the world around them. Petey wasn’t ever Ukrainian, even if his grandfather was. Fucker doesn’t speak the language—still doesn’t, not a word, though they’ve been here for almost a year. He didn’t go to the schools or to church, in Tremont or Parma. His lineage mixed, and mixed again. His grandfather left Tremont eighty years ago, when Curly’s family was still dodging trains. When Petey’s clan moved its fingers, it knocked over houses in Curly’s neighborhood. The Hightowers will come for their lost son, Curly knows, fish him out of typhoons with helicopters and lawyers, and once they have him, they won’t look back to see if anyone was with him.

  “I think you should go right now, Petey,” Curly says.

  “I know.”

  “And Petey? Don’t screw yourself.”

  “I won’t. I know what you’re saying.”

  “Do you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know. Please tell me you know.”

  Petey doesn’t say anything, again, and Curly can tell he’s angry, too. For a few seconds, they try to keep themselves from fighting it—the class war I mean—as only Clevelanders can. There’s a good chance their friendship won’t survive what they’ll say to each other, and they both know it. Because Petey’s grandfather put up the money to build a bridge that one of Curly’s relatives died building. Paid for the train that crushed a great-great uncle under its wheels on the tracks running through the Flats. Petey’s in the secret suite the V
an Sweringens installed near the pinnacle of Terminal Tower while Curly’s at the elevator doors in the lobby, polishing the bronzework. There’s so much blood between them. Which is why Curly’s way angrier than Petey is, why he throws the first punch and a dozen more. You rich people, he says. You have everything in the world and no idea how it works. You’re like babies, do you know that? If you had any idea what we really think of you. The things you get upset about, it’s like a kid throwing a tantrum. And then you turn around and just ruin other people’s lives without thinking twice. Boys with their toys. You’re going to kill me, Petey. I’m a dead man because of you, aren’t I. But hey, don’t worry. Mommy and Daddy’ll fish you out of whatever trouble you’re in. You’ll be just fine. He’s just getting warmed up. It takes him three full minutes to unload all of it, and it ends in a long chain of profanity. You rich fucking prick. You rich fucking prick. Petey still doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t have anything to say. He just sits there and takes it, and Curly understands that he’s won the only fight he can win with the Hightowers, even though it also means he’s lost: Losing that fight, for Petey, is yet another part of the privilege, because Petey can get his ass kicked and still walk away with every cent he has, everything he’s ever had, and leave Curly to hang. Curly can see what Petey’s thinking: I don’t really have to listen to this.

  “I’m so sorry,” Petey says.

  “No you’re not,” Curly says.

  Petey nods again. “Let me try again. I’m as sorry as I can be, given the circumstances.”

  His coolness is infuriating. The hanging is coming, Curly knows. No. It’s already here, he’s already going down. He thought he’d at least have some warning.

  “Petey, what did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t tell me that. If you’re taking off, I’m done. You know that, and nothing you can do will fix it.”

  “Like I said. If I were you, I’d get as far away from all of this as I can. They won’t come for you.”

  “In Parma?” Curly says.

  “You know how to do it. You just step away. Just—” And stops himself. There’s no way to say it without sparking the war all over again. Accept it. Accept your low-wage, non-union job where you get shit on your hands all day and nobody gives a crap. The kind of job everyone always expected you to have. The kind of job I will never see.

  “Just get out of here, Petey,” Curly says. “I can take care of myself.” Though he has no idea how he’s going to do that. So he says it at last.

  “I could use a little money.”

  And just like that, Curly loses again. He wants to throw up. Petey nods again, reaches into his pocket. Hands Curly a wad of bills without looking at it.

  “That’s got to be enough to get you to Cleveland,” Petey says.

  It is. It’s more than enough.

  He goes back to Parma, where his old friends smile, to his eye, a little too much at him. Ask him how he’s doing and then follow it up fast with something else—been a while, hasn’t it?—so he doesn’t have time to answer the first question. He hates himself for hating being back. And despite everything he thought when he was in Kiev, he just can’t get that normal job, the one that’ll let him put his time in Ukraine behind him. Part of it’s that, as far as the legitimate world is concerned, he hasn’t been employed since he was a teenager, and that was slinging sausages at the West Side Market; once, when he was thirteen—he remembers every second of this—he was coming up the service elevator and spilled a hundred gallons of milk across the market’s floor. He watched it in awe as it washed against the calves of two ladies and raced down the aisles, sloshed against the walls of the stalls. It was like a flash flood. He had no idea a hundred gallons was so much. His boss let him keep his job, but at seventeen, he left it anyway. Thought he had better things to do. He just can’t go back to anything like that now. Wearing an apron, wearing coveralls. Wearing a powder-blue suit with a shiny tie. Checking his watch. Sweaty hands on a faux leather briefcase. All the jobs the men in his family do. He knows he’s being an asshole, thinking he’s above all that, but it doesn’t change anything.

  So he goes back to Kosookyy, who at first refuses to take him on. It’s too dangerous for you now, Curly, he says. I don’t know what Petey did over there, but it was something. They’re looking for him. They shouldn’t really see you, and I can’t really protect you. He’s acting like an uncle now. The White Lady told me not to get Petey mixed into this. I should have listened and I didn’t. I’m sorry. He likes Curly. Wants to keep him alive. But Curly persists, and Kosooky relents. Puts him on small jobs, the kind of thing he was doing before he ever met Petey Hightower.

  “Come on,” Curly says. “Give me something else.”

  “Start where you left off,” Kosookyy says. “Then instead of going this way,” jabbing his finger toward the floor, “try going this way.” Pointing at the ceiling. “Let’s get you into some real business, something where you pay taxes, you know? Build up some assets instead of walking around with your money in a duffel bag.”

  “We made good money over there.”

  “Is that what you’re calling it? Good? Curly, you didn’t make good money, you made big money. Big difference. And you know what? You let it get to your head. Now we have to figure out how to get it out again.”

  “You mean like you?” Curly says. He means it as a jab; he wants to hurt the old man a little. But Kosookyy just closes his eyes, shakes his head.

  “No,” he says. “Not at all like me. Let’s just get you out of this.”

  But Curly never gets his chance. He’s making a delivery with Kosookyy to a warehouse near the Agora, meets three men of a type he recognizes at once, which makes him understand why Kosookyy’s with him. It’s a rare example of the old organization working with a new one, and it’s pretty obvious that Kosookyy isn’t happy about it. Whatever it is they’re shipping, it’s important, though more important to Kosookyy than it is to the three men, who stand around with lazy expressions on their faces. They’re not faking it, either; they’ve done this a million times, are ready to be done for the day and head over to a strip club, do something they’d be too embarrassed to do at home; never shit where you eat, Curly heard someone say once. He eyes the men. Multiple cars in Kiev, he thinks, just in case someone decides to blow one of them up. They have no idea who Curly is, which hurts him; he’s fallen so far out of that game already. They’re talking in soft Ukrainian, turning up the current slang so the old Ukrainian-American man can’t quite understand what they’re saying. But Curly catches every word. They’re talking about a rumor going around the network, of having found someone who was from this very city, that they’re going to do something about it. Kosookyy sees something change in Curly, cocks his head and shoots him a look—don’t you dare—but it’s too late. Curly doesn’t like Petey very much right now, but he doesn’t want to see him dead.

  That night Curly calls Dino in Ukraine. You’re in deep shit, Curly, he says. I know, I know, Curly says. I want to make it right. I want to help you get him. That’s when Dino tells him they think they found a Peter Hightower in Granada, and what are the chances that it’s not the same guy? They have the address, the telephone number. Mind if I have it? Curly asks. I can call him. Tell him to stay put, you know what I mean? There’s a moment’s hesitation, and then Dino says: Sure. How much is it worth to you?

  Curly pays. Then makes that call to Granada that starts the whole thing. He’ll never know he’s called the wrong guy. And forty-eight hours later, the same three men Curly saw near the Agora throw his body, beaten with a metal pipe and shot in the face with a large-caliber pistol, into the bottom of a small motorboat they launch from a dock outside the city and drive out to the middle of Lake Erie, almost to the line across the water separating Ohio from Canada. They sit there for a minute, smoking in the dark, watching and listening for any other boats. They don’t hear a thi
ng. Then they take what’s left of Curly, drape it over the side of the boat, tie a stolen anchor around the body’s neck, and roll everything overboard, nice and easy. So Curly slips into the water without a splash, sinks headfirst one hundred eighty-six feet and stops, suspended in the water, when the anchor hits bottom. The body of the young man hangs there for days, trying to slip out of its noose and come up for air. But the fish get him first.

  Chapter 4

  You got it so far? For four days, while Curly’s at the bottom of the lake, he’s not even a missing persons case; he’s just missing. This whole thing is under the surface. One Peter Henry Hightower has vanished from Kiev. The other’s boarding a plane from Lisbon to New York after having gone by train from Spain to Portugal. At least one man has died. Well, a lot more than that—men, women, and children—and a lot more death is coming. But we’re not ready for that.

  The police in five countries all have just a small piece of what’s going on. In Granada, they’re examining the break-in at Peter’s apartment, wondering where the tenant has gone, wondering what kind of man lives like he does. In Ukraine, local, state, and international authorities have noted the appearance of the two Americans, and their disappearance, too. But Curly and Petey don’t seem important enough to distract them from much bigger problems, or to find out where they went. In Cleveland, the police know the most. Just like Kosookyy hoped, the FBI’s got files on him and all his buddies; they have a pretty good sense of what they’re all up to. It’s been that way at least since the Organized Crime Control Act got passed in 1970, when the feds started being able to prosecute RICO cases—after the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, for the people out there taking score at home. See, for the FBI to bust a bunch of guys at once, it’s not enough that those guys are just doing bad things. The FBI needs to show that those guys are, you know, organized. That they know each other, work together. That there’s a hierarchy, a system, people giving orders, people taking orders. So they’ve been collecting that kind of information for years, for at least a generation. Then they wait until the smoking gun appears, or until something big’s about to happen, something big and bad enough that they can bring everyone in and put them away for a long time. They work, these RICO cases, and the Cleveland FBI office has done some good busts. They’ve gotten Angelo Lonardo, who started off in 1929 by killing the people who killed his father, just a year after the big Mafia convention at the Hotel Statler, and risen to run the Mafia rackets in all northeast Ohio by 1980. They got Joseph Gallo, Frederick Graewe, and Kevin McTaggart, too. Drug running, murder, a bunch of other charges. Twenty-five federal convictions and twenty state ones. Just a couple years ago, they started going international. They’re investigating a Taiwanese company for stealing trade secrets from an Ohio glue factory; they’ll gather enough to convict the company’s president, along with his daughter, in 1999. They’re doing a lot of drug cases; they’ll do a lot of cyber crime. And by 1995 they’ve learned a couple things that don’t make them very happy.