The Inglorious Arts

by Alan Hruska

  “I won’t.”

  “Who you have helping on this?”

  Before DiBrazzi can answer, Nicoli’s cousin, Joe Gura, opens the study door. “Sorry, Don Salvatore. There’s a kid here, a teenager, claiming to be your niece.”

  Word reaches Ben Braddock that Alec has returned from Philadelphia. He calls Frank Macalister and says, “Meet me in Brno’s office. Now.” Before Alec can hang up his coat, the two senior partners are upon him. He gives them a quick report of the meeting at PECO and his conversation with Kane.

  “Have you spoken to Stamper?” Ben asks.

  “Lee called him,” Alec says. “They’ve already made contact with Schlumberger. That case is history.”

  Mac says, “And what about yours? You think the utilities will stay in their caves?”

  “They’ll wait. Every one of them. For someone else to make a move. And no one will.”

  “Including PECO?”

  “That’s the thing,” Alec says. “PECO is the one they’re all expecting to sue and give them all another month to think about it. When Kohn lets PECO’s claim lapse, everyone else’s claim will swirl down the tubes right along with it.”

  “And you think you can trust Kohn not to file?” Mac says.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Braddock sits on the sofa. “Okay. Glad to hear it. I gave you an assignment: to get rid of the electrical equipment litigation before it went to trial and destroyed our oldest client, Allis-Benoit; and to get rid of the computer litigation before it went to judgment and destroyed our biggest client, U.S. Computer Corp. Now that you’ve finally done those things, you’ve got time to attend to a new matter of some importance that’s just been offered.”

  “I thought I might take a few days.”

  “Take a few days?” says Braddock. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Means a vacation, Ben. With my daughter.”

  “Vacation?” Ben looks at Mac, as if for the definition of yet another strange word. “What the fuck’s that?”

  “Days in the sun?” Alec says. “Beach on an island? As I recall, you own a house in the Hamptons, so you must have some familiarity with the experience.”

  “My lazy kids go there. But look, you do what you want. I’ll give this case to someone else.”

  “Good.”

  “How ’bout you, Mac?” Braddock asks.

  “Is that the steel case?” Mac’s tone is far too innocent.

  “Yeah,” Braddock says. “The domestic steel industry. Our steel industry. Getting killed by subsidized steel from abroad. British steel, for example, comes here, sells at $400 a ton; gets subsidies from the UK totaling $405 a ton. We can’t compete with that.”

  “What’s the remedy?” Alec asks.

  “What do you care? You want to sit on a beach.”

  “Right,” Alec says. “That’s what I want.”

  “It’s called a counterveiling duty,” Braddock says. “You want one, you petition the International Trade Commission, from which appeals go to the Court of International Trade. You prove you’re not getting a subsidy, the foreign company is, and the domestic industry is injured. The duty equals the amount of the subsidy and levels the playing field, so our companies can compete. There are literally hundreds of cases to prosecute, because steel is the macho industry. Almost every country in the world has one and gives it subsidies to exist. In effect, they’re exporting unemployment.”

  Alec says, “Sounds great for Mac.”

  “No hole in my schedule, sorry,” Mac says.

  “One of the younger guys, then, right?” Alec says. “New partners, new clients, perfect fit.”

  They’re both staring at him. “Actually,” Braddock says, “they want you.”

  “You’ve made that up.”

  “No. I simply talked to them for a few minutes about which of our partners might be available, and they chose you.”

  Alec sits on top of his desk and stares back at them. “Then they can wait a week,” he says.

  Braddock flashes a rare smile. “I’ll get it organized.”

  Sarah says to the man who is plaguing her life, “This is between you and me.”

  “Mr. DiBrazzi is my close associate,” Sal says.

  “I don’t want him here,” Sarah says, her eyes fixed on her tormentor.

  Sal, smiling, nods at DiBrazzi, who gives a shrug and leaves the room. As the door closes, Sal says, “I’m actually very pleased to see you.”

  “You’ve been following me. People working for you have.”

  “True,” Sal says.

  “You admit it?”

  “Yes. I am interested in you.”

  “In me or my money?”

  “You say ‘your money,’ and under civil law, you are correct. But the family, whose rules apply to you, operates under a different law.”

  “Which you,” Sarah says, “as head of family, lay down and interpret.”

  “Bright girl.”

  “Nice gig,” Sarah says.

  “Believe me, I’ve earned it.”

  “Your rules mean nothing to me.”

  “Which doesn’t surprise me,” Sal says. “It’s the way you’ve been brought up.”

  “Y’know, I don’t really remember Phil very well—”

  “You call him Phil?”

  “I have a real dad. And from what I do remember, Phil was a lot like you.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “He also made the rules. And he couldn’t understand why anyone would question them.”

  “Did you?” Sal asks.

  “I was five years old.”

  Sal laughs, and Sarah talks over it. “So why I came here today, the way I see it, we’re at an impasse, you and me, because you’re being very foolish, if you don’t mind my saying so.” At his expression, Sarah says, “I can see you do mind, but that’s just too bad. The point is, I’m not going to hand over my money, least of all to you. You obviously know that, so you sent Tino to get it. And if you’d just leave things alone, let them develop naturally, your plan, if that’s really your plan—to have my money in the family—might actually succeed. I really like Tino. But if you insist on interfering, trying to control everything, you’ll screw it up. That’s called irony, in case you didn’t know.”

  Sal laughs again, this time more heartily.

  Sarah says, “I’m so glad I amuse you.”

  “You are a delightful young woman.”

  “I’m sixteen.”

  “I know how old you are. But you are very naive, even for sixteen.”

  “Okay, what am I missing?”

  “Well, for starters,” Sal says, “you come here out of the blue, intrude yourself on my meeting as if I were someone you could do that to, announce yourself as my niece, and expect to charm me into submission—twist me around one of your charming little fingers. I am charmed, my dear, but there has never been a possibility that I would be submissive. And I am not your uncle. I am your second cousin. What is more, your father—your blood father—was not my friend.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Of your naïveté? As I said, barely the beginning. We now turn to the serious part.”

  “Which is what? That I should know that if I come to your home, you’re going to kidnap me? What do you think it feels like every time I go outside having a bunch of your goons following me? You think I don’t know they can jump me at any time you blow your tin horn? And get away with it? With people trying to protect me—people I like—getting murdered in the street?”

  Sal sits back in an attitude of reappraisal. “No, I thought you probably understood such a risk. What I doubt you appreciate is what it feels like to be in captivity.” He gives her a thin smile. “But you will.” He presses a button on his desk. “Let me reintroduce you to Mr. DiBrazzi. For a time, he will own you. And he will want to do things to you that you probably cannot even imagine. But you will want to do what he says. Because the alternative would cause you more pain than you will be able to endure.”<
br />
  Alec leaves the office early. Schlomo suggests taking the streets. Alec says gamble on the FDR Drive. Traffic is hellacious. When they finally get to Alec’s building uptown, Harvey Grand stands waiting outside. “They told me you’d left. I came straight here. I have bad news.”

  “We need the car?” Alec asks.

  “Just a phone. ASAP.”

  Alec thanks Schlomo and leads Harvey into the building. They ride silently upstairs, while a jovial elevator operator natters on about the rain. Harvey begins as soon as they get inside. “We trailed Sarah’s walk through the Ninety-Sixth Street Transverse and south on Central Park West. Usual route when she visits Tino. Only this time she didn’t. She took us totally by surprise by ducking into Sal’s building. We covered the front; we covered the back. We know Sal maintains a heliport on the roof. Getting up there required manhandling three building employees, which may have alerted Sal. Two of our guys broke into his apartment, which was empty. I made the roof in time to see the chopper pull out. Shooting it down was obviously not a feasible option. We stood there helplessly, watching it leave.”

  In the front hall, Alec, face grim, works out in his mind any other options that might now be available.

  Harvey says, “I did not—and this is my fuckup—have anyone at the Westchester Airport, even though I know that’s where Sal keeps his Learjet.”

  “We can stop his takeoff,” Alec says, trying to stay calm, trying to think straight.

  “Too late. They took off three minutes ago.”

  “We have the flight plan?” They both head into the living room.

  “They’re refueling in Shannon,” Harvey says, “then off to Sal’s island.”

  “Maybe we can stop them in Shannon.”

  “That’s out of my league,” Harvey says.

  “I know the ambassador to Ireland,” Alec says. “The father-in-law of a friend of mine. But whether he’d stop, or even could stop, a plane from taking off from an Irish airport… on my sayso… I’m not sure.”

  “Let’s get him on the phone,” Harvey says. “At least he’ll take your call.”

  “Look, there’s a separate phone in my study. Why don’t you track down the embassy number in Dublin. I’m going to try Lee.”

  “Lee Norris?” Harvey says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Harvey pushes his lip up in an appreciative expression, then bites it. “There’s more bad news. Sal’s organization has a safe house in Fort Lee. It’s included in our surveillance. Before Sarah went into Sal’s place on Central Park West, Jesse was seen entering the house in Fort Lee.”

  “Jesse?” Alec says, not fully comprehending it.

  “Weirdly, she seemed okay with it, no pressure. She was even carrying a suitcase. But the guy she went in with was Lou DiBrazzi, who is one of Sal’s lieutenants.”

  “Oh, Jesus!” Alec says.

  “You knew something about this?”

  “That she was being conned, yes. And I told her. But I didn’t predict this.”

  “This is a fucking mess,” Harvey mutters, and heads to the study.

  Using the living room phone, Alec gets Lee Norris on the first ring. “You just caught me,” he says. “I’ve already let everyone else go home and was about to do the same myself.”

  “My daughter and sister-in-law have been kidnapped.”

  “What did you say?”

  “They were taken by Sal Angiapello, who is a mob boss you may have heard of.”

  “Alec, what the hell have you been doing with a mob boss?”

  “Well, there’s a history. I thought you knew.”

  “Oh shit, right,” Norris says. “You once killed one. I keep not placing you in that context. And what is this? Retribution?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I’ll bet,” Norris says.

  “Do you know our ambassador in Dublin?”

  “What do you want him for?”

  “Angiapello will be refueling his jet in Shannon in about four hours.”

  “And you want what?” Norris says. “Our embassy to get the Irish police to seize the plane? On your say-so or mine? In four hours from now, which is in the middle of the night for them?”

  “Our ambassador can’t do this?”

  “By the time I track him down—maybe wake him up—all the red tape he faces? The people he’d have to find and call? I doubt he’d even try.”

  “Will you try?” Alec says. “I’ll also call; I know him, but it would come better from you.”

  “Yes, I’ll try. But as I said—”

  “I know,” Alec says.

  “Do you know where Angiapello’s going after Shannon?”

  “Yeah,” Alec says. “His island.”

  “Oh, yes,” Norris says. “I know about that island. All right, I’ll tell you what I think I can do, which might have a better chance of succeeding.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Sarah awakes in a bag. It has air holes through which she can see light, but it’s a definite bag. Her head thumps with pain; her clothes stick with sweat; she inhales grit, and it chokes her. Confusion. Terror. She screams. The voice responding stifles her own. It’s Jesse’s. They both start screaming each other’s name. As an outlet for hysteria, it almost, temporarily, calms them.

  “You? Jesse, is it really you?”

  “Sarah?”

  “Where the fuck are we?” Sarah shouts.

  “This must be a plane.”

  “Did they drug you?”

  “I think so,” Jesse says. “Never saw it. Blacked out.”

  “Are we alone? Some compartment or something?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Any idea where they’re taking us?” Sarah says.

  “No.”

  “I’m in a sort of bag,” Sarah says.

  “Same for me. I think it’s a body bag.”

  “Have you tried to get out?”

  After a longish pause, Jesse says, “No,” which frightens Sarah even more.

  “Why not?” Sarah says.

  “Because those bastards took my clothes.”

  “Oh, God,” Sarah says.

  They both hear some men laughing. Then a rough voice. “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Sarah shouts from the bag.

  Another laugh. It’s Lou DiBrazzi. “To hell,” he says. “Now do what you’re told. After we land, we’ll clean you up and get you ready.”

  “For what?” Sarah, now screaming again.

  “Hey! I said shut the fuck up. Or we’ll start working you over on the plane.”

  Norris streams by in a limo. Alec and Harvey are waiting downstairs. “So what’s the drill?” Alec asks, getting in.

  “I couldn’t reach the ambassador,” Norris says. “He’s on a plane somewhere. But I’ve managed to line up something else. A chopper to a naval station in Maryland, NAS Pax River. Where I’m hoping we can get on a plane that can land on a carrier.”

  “Hoping?” Alec says.

  “Yeah. I’m afraid the president will have to approve this. I’m not a fan of Nixon’s, and he doubtless knows that, but I treated him with respect during the transition, and our dealings have always been cordial. And who knows—maybe he’ll think I might be reappointed secretary of state in the next Democratic administration, and he’ll need something from me. But the people he’ll listen to on this are his counsel, Len Garment, and his own secretary of state, Bill Rogers, who I do know reasonably well. I haven’t gotten through yet to Nixon or Rogers, but I did talk to Garment, who, incidentally, speaks highly of you, Alec.”

  “Len Garment, Christ yes. I’d forgotten he followed Nixon to Washington.”

  “How do you know him? He didn’t say.”

  “He’s a great trial lawyer. He won a huge jury award against Telemarch News, and I worked on the appeal. Opposite sides, but we got along fine.”

  “Where is the carrier we’re trying to get on?” Harvey asks.

  “Near Naples,” Norris s
ays. “Part of the Sixth Fleet. And in that, we’re lucky in several respects. The carrier is already heading toward the Malta Channel with a destroyer escort. It’s the destroyer I want to take us to Angiapello. Aboard that carrier is the best friend I made in the military while I was in Washington, Gerry Starnes, more formally addressed as Vice Admiral Gerald X. Starnes, commander of the Sixth Fleet. And Gerry is the kind of guy who might actually welcome the opportunity for a maneuver of this sort. If it is blessed by the secretary. And, oh yes, the president.”

  “Garment will push this?” Alec asks.

  “He’s the one who’s getting us on the chopper,” Norris says.

  Harvey says, “Nixon should jump at it. Rescuing two young lovelies from the clutches of the evil Mafia! It’s tailor-made for him. Exactly the kind of publicity he needs.”

  “One might think,” Norris says.

  “So what’re you not telling us?” Alec says, picking up the somber note in Lee’s voice.

  “Well, in truth, Garment was not optimistic. He said the obvious, that Nixon has other things on his plate. But also—and this actually worries me more—Nixon is, as Garment put it, ‘in one of his moods.’ I know the man suffers from depression. And he can get into a state in which he’s unreachable.”

  Alec looks as if he’s entering a similar state.

  Norris says, “It’s what we’ve got going, Alec.”

  “I know. Thank you. I’m grateful. And I know few people in this world could even get us on that chopper.”

  “What worries me,” Harvey says. “Even if we get on the plane—the blunt fact is, Sal Angiapello will be holding Sarah and Jesse on an island he controls. So we’re vulnerable as hell, and he’s got time on his side. No matter how many destroyers we have.”

  “It’s a nasty hostage situation,” Norris acknowledges. “But his island has a cannabis plantation and factory, plus two huge munitions warehouses. The stuff is worth billions. It’s all hostage to a destroyer’s guns. Also, he’s got to know that if he harms either woman, we’d cart him back to New York, throw him in prison, and lose the key.”

  Harvey says, “I’m not sure we can count on his acting rationally. At least by our standards.”

  “We need to talk to him,” Alec says. “Before we simply storm the island.”