Straight Pool

by JJ Partridge

  “What do you need?”

  “Their vans and trailers got to be on Mary Street, Angell, Waterman, probably Brook and Hope, and side streets while they film. Parking bans and the side streets blocked off when they need it. It’s all in the fact sheet and schedule we gave the Traffic Division weeks ago. Which they approved! Those trucks and trailers have got to get in and out and be on the streets. Cops directing traffic….”

  “And Nardello blew off Tuttle?”

  “Right.”

  A long, breathy pause. “Okay. What I want you to do is leave a message for Puppy Dog that you called me. If you don’t get cooperation by tomorrow, it’s force majeure, you’ll cancel the movie’s use of the campus….”

  “I can’t do that!”

  “Listen, tell him that! He doesn’t know what you can or can’t do. The movies use union guys. Lots of ‘em. The Teamsters drive the trucks, the IBEW has the lights, the Carpenters Union is all over that place, the Laborers are the service people, carting, loading and unloading, everything. Plus, the police and fire details. Nobody gonna like it if they don’t get hired, with all that overtime and star power, not to mention the free food. Say that since he’s not around, you had to call the Commissioner. Meanwhile, Fausto will get some calls made to appropriate guys in the unions.”

  I didn’t respond immediately. There was enough of a silence for him to say, “Algy, it’s simple. If Sonny screws you, it’s no problem for anyone but the University. If he screws the unions, and the cops and fire lose their overtime details, it’s his problem. They have to know what Sonny’s threatening to do, that his vendetta against the University will cost them jobs and money.”

  Ah, Providence politics at its best.

  He hung up.

  I left the required message for Puppy Dog and called Tuttle to tell him about Tramonti’s move. “The Commissioner’s got street smarts,” he said appreciatively. “He’s gonna be a great mayor!”

  His comment was meant as a tip of the hat to me, that my relationship with Tramonti would eventually bear fruit for the University. So, why did it leave me cold?

  I went home.

  * * *

  The bricks seemed to radiate heat as I took a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio and the latest Sue Grafton ‘Alphabet Murder’ mystery with me to the patio. I raised an umbrella against the brilliant four o’clock sun; the cooling breeze that had been coming off the Bay most of the day had died, and there was no masking of the murmur of traffic, even when I played a CD of Madame Butterfly. In the distance, the granite facades on two new condo buildings in Capital Center had reached their sixth or seventh floors in their race to penthouses.

  In the shade of the umbrella, the cushions of the chaise were soft, the wine was dry and cool, and finding my place in the book, I got comfortable. Nadie complains I’m shamefully envious of the thrills and spills of my fictional heroes and heroines and it is true I tend toward mysteries in a series, where over time the character of the detective becomes more robust, discernable, and human. A series makes me feel like an insider as my favorite detectives learn their craft, find their slants on the state of the human condition, develop personal traits helpful and hurtful, and confront their inner devils. Except for Parker, they even age.

  I guess I dozed off after a few pages because I awoke with a start as two squirrels fought a territorial war in the patio’s dogwoods. I roused myself and went into the kitchen and found that before leaving for the campus, Nadie had posted an underlined Journal obituary to the door to the hall:

  Angelo Columbino, 64, of Napoli Drive, Johnson, a retired tavern owner and a former mob enforcer, died Saturday at St. Joseph’s Hospital after a short illness.

  Born in Providence, a son of Domenic (“the Dom”) and Maria (Fiori) Columbino both of Cranston, he had lived in Johnston for fifty years.

  Mr. Columbino owned Pace’s Tavern, Providence, until recently.

  He served a five year federal prison term for extortion after he and Felix (“Happy”) DelFusco were convicted of shaking down Providence bookies in the early 1980s.

  Mr. Columbino was an associate of the Marfeo crime family.

  The funeral will be held Wednesday at 9 a.m. from Parkside Funeral Home, 1010 Park Ave., Cranston, with a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 in St. Maria’s Church, Birch Street, Johnston. Burial will be in Peace of God Cemetery, East Providence.

  Nadie’s postscript? “Only in Providence!”

  * * *

  I was in the den when I heard the front door open, the kitchen door’s swing, and the click of heels across the kitchen’s tile floor followed by the plop of a bulging leather shoulder bag landing on the divan. Followed by herself. I asked if she wanted some wine.

  “No.”

  “Some chips and salsa?”

  “No.”

  “A fat lip?”

  “No!”

  I almost repeated Danby’s remarks about her ‘shaking the tree’ in her department but stopped in time. She might take that as a prelude to interference. Independent Nadie works alone! I asked about dinner and maybe watching the debut of The Hill and got a pouty, ‘I don’t care’ response.

  Giving up on commiseration and empathy, I told her about the problems with the movie production and my calls for help to Tony Tramonti, which elicited a hand slap on the divan. “Providence!” she declared. “Nothing is ever on the up and up. You can’t get anything done without some politician putting his thumb in it.” Oh, she was on a toot! “And how does the University Counsel deal with it? You do it by politics!”

  Hm-m-m. Perhaps I should read up on some positive psychology.

  She got up from the divan and took the three steps up to the kitchen. “Don’t you ever get sick of it?” she said over her shoulder.

  “Look, there are certain realities in my job.”

  She changed her mind about the wine; I heard its gurgle as she poured. “So, you play into their politics,” she said. “You think you can beat them because they’re so awful and Tony is your friend. But if Tony is elected, is it going to be any better? Aren’t you going to call him for favors? If an ordinary person has an issue, will he or she still have to know a someone to get it resolved? Is that going to change?”

  “Somehow, incrementally, for the better. I thought the idea was to do the best you can….”

  The phone rang, breaking into her retort. Nadie answered it quickly and reacted with a covered receiver and a mouthed, “Charlie Fessenden.”

  Ugh. What timing!

  I went up to the kitchen and took the phone. After a ‘hello,’ I barely got another word out.

  “I went to Laretta’s office. Right out of Goodfellas! Characters all over the place. This receptionist, a blonde bombshell—you should see her—takes me in and I wait for him in a conference room with terrible artwork. I mean God awful! Laretta like he could be … well, you know,” his voice lowered, “a consigliere to the Godfather!”

  “He’s a very competent lawyer and deserves your respect and absolute candor.”

  “But, you can understand why I wasn’t comfortable ….”

  Ugh!

  “Anyway, things are looking up,” he said brightly. “Ackley reported to the Board that negotiations with the insurance company are going well. The Governor tees off on Saturday, two weeks before the July third deadline. Everyone will feel much better….”

  I agreed. What else was there to say.

  “Algy, Dani and I appreciate your efforts. You and I are cut from the same post.” I cringed. Nadie could not be told. “We’d like to invite you and Nadie down here tomorrow for dinner. I know its last minute, but the kids are in Narragansett with their grandparents for a few days. I’ve already invited Tom Flanaghan and his wife and they’re coming. It’ll be a good party. Let us say ‘thank you’ properly.”

  I should have immediately excused us on ‘short notice’ but instead I asked Nadie what she thought and was surprised by her nonchalant, “Sure, why not.” It was too immediate and direct. Was sh
e spoiling for a fight with Charlie? I responded to Charlie and we agreed on six-thirty at Charlie’s home. I hung up and turned to tell Nadie about the arrangements but she was in the den retrieving her shoulder bag. “I’m going home. I’m terrible company tonight. I’ll get some Chinese on Thayer Street.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked and then, “Why did you agree to dinner?”

  “Because, we are leaving for Italy in two days and I want to hear from Charlie and Dani that your services are no longer required. I’ll be ready by five-thirty. That should be plenty of time, right?”

  I said it would be. She came forward, gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and left.

  What was this my ‘services are no longer required?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Shortly after Nadie left last evening, just before The Hill began with two ‘fellas’ gunned down on Acorn Street, Fausto Tramonti telephoned, informing me of a meeting with Joe Laretta, and Benno Bacigalupi at Fausto’s law office in the morning at eight-thirty. He didn’t mention my hang-up of his last call; in fact, he was off the call with a ‘gotta go’ before any further explanation.

  Which was why I was in barely moving traffic in a sodden downtown where a morning rain grayed the city. Drivers seemed even more impatient and ruthless than usual, pedestrians scurried to avoid the splash of cars, and buses blocked streets, doubling the time from College Hill of Providence’s East Side to Broadway on Federal Hill on the other side. I stop-started, seeing the frustration build in the faces of other drivers as we advanced a few feet and fell back, waiting for someone to lose ‘it’ in the lines of cars stalled between Francis Street and the bridge over Route 95. Rhode Islanders honk at any car that doesn’t move a nano-second after a light change or at any pedestrian dashing between cars clogged in traffic so there was a chorus of angry horn blasts from near and far over the sounds of rain spatting the car, the wipers, the defrost, and NPR news on the radio. To make things worse for me, my back started to ache. Not a good beginning for a session with Fausto.

  * * *

  A hundred and fifty years ago, Broadway was planned as a treelined thoroughfare linking downtown to the sprawling West Side. By the eighteen nineties, it was Providence’s widest avenue and the prestigious address of mill owners, lawyers and physicians, downtown merchants, and bankers. Broadway never quite recovered from Depression-era dislocations, and after World War Two, the neighborhood’s mansions were chopped up into apartments, the stately oaks and elms became diseased and dust laden, and a place of middle class pride deteriorated into a shambles. But through benign neglect, which came easy in Providence, Broadway escaped urban renewal plans and was reclaimed during the real estate boom in the eighties and thereafter. Now, its trees are cared for, the sidewalks maintained, professional offices like those of Fausto A. Tramonti, Esq., and elegant condominiums have replaced tawdry apartments, and you couldn’t touch one of the mansions for under seven figures!

  The striped parking lot behind Fausto’s Victorian was stained with the rainbows of oil when I pulled in fifteen minutes late. I parked between Benno Bacigalupi’s car and Fausto’s white Maserati Quattroporte sporting a single digit license plate that signified Rhode Island clout, and dashed through the wet to rear stairs. I had been here many times, usually in a conference room where he held regular lunches with ‘Tramonti people.’ These worthies included ambitious young politicians like ‘Junior’ Lucca, the smart-alecky councilman from Federal Hill and son of former Senator Lucca; a disaffected union leader; a wealthy Tramonti cousin who manufactures costume jewelry; a Latino councilman with a laundry list of grudges against Sonny; and ‘old timers’ Frank Rotundo, a state senator who works for Tramonti Corporation in ‘public affairs’; and Charles ‘Knocko’ O’Reilly, vice chairman of the state party. In such a seasoned group of Providence pols, you can imagine how much weight is given to my East Side political insights. How many times did I hear, ‘Ya don’t get it, Algy, ya just don’t get it!’

  Fausto’s secretary, Eva, was coming out of his office with a tray holding an espresso pot; she held the door open with one foot and I entered what was once a mill owner’s living room, lavishly furnished, with a crystal chandelier and marble fireplace. Benno, in a dark suit and sitting rigidly in a leather chair in front of Fausto’s mahogany desk, acknowledged me with a flick of an eyelash as I took off my Burberry and put it on a sofa. Fausto stood by the desk, his squat wrestler’s body, curly black hair, and wolfish demeanor bespeaking his roots; he wore an immaculate starched white shirt with gold cuff links and a Pucci tie, and his trousers were likely part of a Canali suit. He held a tiny white cup. “Joe Laretta is on the line,” pointing to a speakerphone, and sat behind the desk.

  Laretta said, “Like I said, Charlie authorized me to speak to you. I told him he did well….” From the background noise coming through the speakerphone, Laretta was in his car.

  “Mistake,” Fausto muttered gruffly into the speakerphone. “He’ll believe you.”

  Laretta ignored the comment. “I had him prepped, dressed right, so all he had to do was tell a straight story with no edits, no sidebars. They got right into Charlie firing Randall. He called Randall a ‘villain.’ ‘Villain?’ The smirks on their faces at that? Anyway, he went through how Randall got fired for showing up drunk. They had statements from witnesses who saw the ruckus and the Westerly cops who took Randall off the property, including his threats against the Club and Charlie. They knew Randall’s history, that he was a drunk with a couple of DUI’s, suspected of selling stolen goods….”

  Fausto interjected, “And everything backed up Charlie, right?”

  “All the Staties were interested in was tying Randall to the fire. They’re pretty much convinced he set it and didn’t get out in time because he was drunk.” He paused. “Don’t ask me how you test for alcohol level when he had to be mostly charred bones. Charlie said that Randall could have known about the temporary storage under the porch, even though that was a last minute thing, if he was snooping around. And, he could get through to the clubhouse on the back trails from his trailer easy enough. Not so sure if he knew about the fireworks because that was a last minute deal. One Statie asks why Charlie got Randall hired if he was a troublemaker. Charlie answered it was because Randall lived nearby, knew the land like the back of his hand, and was mean enough to frighten trespassers. In other words, to neutralize him. But the Statie asked if he was a troublemaker, why take the chance?”

  Good question. One we hadn’t asked.

  “Charlie hems and haws and there is a long pause, like maybe something might be coming out. Because, he says, it might keep Randall from getting the other Quonnies riled up while the clubhouse was being built on their ‘signal hill.’ So that brings out a slew of questions about the ‘signal hill’ and the Quonnies. They hadn’t focused on that angle. Bingo! Not only did they have a dead, drunk suspect who was fired by the Club and hated the Fessendens, but now they had an added revenge motive.”

  I hesitated to ask a follow-up but I couldn’t leave it alone. “Did they ask Charlie about the night of the fire?”

  “Yeah, but just as a prelim. He said he joined everybody else when he heard the sirens. Which is true. Didn’t ask about where he was before. And he didn’t volunteer anything.”

  I almost followed up with something like ‘Charlie should have told them about the pump house’ but didn’t; he was Laretta’s client, not mine. My question, however, prompted Fausto’s frown and a question directed to me. “Why are you asking?”

  I ignored him. Despite the veneer of modernity of his automobile, his spacious office, and fine Italian suits, Fausto carries suspicion like a sledge, which often annoys me.

  “And,” Laretta continued, “it was over, one guy yawning and the other guy tapping his coffee cup impatiently, and I’m putting my pad away when Charlie volunteers that he couldn’t think of anyone who gained from the fire. Not even Ugo Calibrese!”

  Fausto lurched forward in his chair, spilling his coffe
e.

  “They asked him what he meant and he went into Calibrese’s leased land deal. But since Ugo only benefits if there is no golf play on the course, and that starts in a couple of days, it’s not an issue. Charlie was trying to stir up trouble for Calibrese, a pay back, he told me later. I never saw it coming. Jerry Franks has represented Calibrese. That could have put me in a compromising position.”

  Fausto swore in Italian and hunched over the speakerphone. “So, bottom line …?”

  “I think they’ll file it away as a fire set by a vengeful drunk. They’ve got Randall with motive and opportunity. Probably will stay that way unless they want to look for an accomplice, which according to Benno could be that buddy of his, the crazy one.”

  Fausto looked up at Benno with a ‘what’s going on’ glare as a car horn sounded and a muffled vulgarity came over the speakerphone. Laretta said, “Traffic’s terrible. I’ll be late for court. It’s over, I think,” and he left the call.

  Fausto punched a button on the speakerphone console. He used a paper napkin to delicately blot the drops of coffee on his trousers. I looked out a window to the sputtering traffic on Broadway, not wanting to watch Fausto’s face as his mind worked through an evaluation of where he was, and what to do. Benno, of course, remained inscrutable. Finally, Fausto, his voice evidencing decision and pride in his selection of Laretta, said to Benno, “Looks like that’s it. Laretta’s good, huh?” When Benno didn’t reply, Fausto, annoyed at the lack of expected concurrence from the detective, switched his attention to a topic that concerned me. “By the way, don’t worry about your movie. People from Local 252 and a couple of councilmen had a meeting with Sonny, the Chief, and Puppy Dog last night. Sonny said it was all a scare, just to let you know what he could do, if he wanted to. Put you on the hot seat for a day or so. According to my source, he was showing off.”

  Fausto scowled; I had been the occasion of another insider’s victory for Sonny.