Jon Fixx

by Jason Squire Fluck

  Donovan added, “And is so willing to pull it out in a public place at the slightest provocation?”

  If my friends hadn’t asked these questions, I would have. Clearly not ready to talk, Mosconi stared at each of us in turn. I got the sense he still wasn’t sure about Donovan and Luci. “Jim, these are my friends. Anything you’d say to me in private, I’d run it by them later anyway, so speak freely. Why all the cloak and dagger stuff?”

  Mosconi turned his intense brown eyes on me. “You really have no idea, do you?”

  I shook my head, confused.

  “I told you I’ve been following the Mafia in New York for a long time. The last few years I’ve been especially focused on your clients.”

  “Vespucci?”

  “He and the Balduccis and several other guys who run in their vortex.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Mosconi leaned toward me for emphasis, “Because they’re the guys running what I call Cosa Nostra 2.0. The old Mafia went down in the ‘80s and ‘90s with the RICO laws. Now the revived leadership is looking to avoid their predecessors’ mistakes, and just like the rest of the world, they believe the best way is to consolidate the power base by forming trade groups.”

  “Trade groups?” Luci asked

  Mosconi turned toward Luci. “Believe it or not, the biggest problem the Italians have had in getting back to the level of their old power base is not because of the government. It’s because of the rise of other major competing groups, mostly out of Central America and the old Eastern European Soviet Bloc countries. So, in order to consolidate their power base, our American Italians are forging ironclad trade ties, legal on the surface to cover their illicit trade, with their Italian counterparts. The current Italian prime minister was the perfect candidate to help this happen. Much of his political funding has come from the Mafia, allegedly.”

  Marco had mentioned the Italian prime minister more than once. “And you’ve witnessed all this?”

  “I started focusing on the Balduccis several years back, tracking the business they were running in Italy,” Mosconi said. “I followed a hunch. I can’t prove it all yet, but when I can, it will put the Mafia back on the front page.”

  “Jim, none of this explains why you sent me that text on my last trip to be careful. What was that about?”

  Mosconi hesitated, clearly not sure now how to proceed.

  “Look, Jim. I was hired by Vespucci to do what I do, write a love story. But when I write my stories, I like to know who I’m working for and be clear on what I’m writing about. I like to know the truth, whether I write it or not. What you tell us won’t go beyond this table.”

  Mosconi glanced at each of us in turn, then he looked out the window, I assumed, to see if anyone was lurking there, though who, specifically, I wasn’t sure. He leaned forward, dropping his voice a notch.

  “I’m not worried about it going beyond this table because once I tell you this, you’ll be in danger too. Are you sure you want me to continue?”

  There was no doubting the look on Mosconi’s face. He was serious. I glanced first to Luci, then Donovan, looking for input. Each silently nodded in turn. I turned back to Mosconi. “Go ahead.”

  “Giancarlo Balducci. His son, Marco, is marrying Vespucci’s daughter, right?”

  I nodded.

  “What’s your impression of Marco?” Mosconi asked.

  “Not a nice guy. He’s a bully. Doesn’t like me much, either.”

  “Haven’t you ever considered it strange that Vespucci hired you in the first place? I mean, why would a Mafia guy—especially one who’s overly cautious about privacy, both personal and business—voluntarily want someone around asking questions about his family? Seems odd and risky, don’t you think?”

  “I’ve considered that. But after seeing him with his daughter, I understand why he’d want to give her as great a wedding gift as possible.”

  Mosconi ignored my reasoning. “I think he hired you to stir things up. I think he has reservations about his soon-to-be son-in-law. Marco was in Italy for close to ten years. He rarely made any trips back to the States.” Suddenly, Jim stopped, apparently not sure how to continue. He looked out the window, again. Satisfied he didn’t see anything, he continued. “When I discovered the Balducci business several years ago, that was what got me studying the links between the Italian mob and the American mob. I started taking trips to Italy to see what I could find out. Over the last year, I stumbled across information about Marco Balducci that was shocking on several levels. That’s why I’m carrying a gun.”

  I had to press him to continue. “Go on.”

  “Because I think you’re in a far more dangerous situation than you realize, I’ll give this to you on two conditions. One, you do nothing with it until after I publish my story, which, by the way, is going to cause an international scandal. Two, if something happens to me before I can publish, make sure the right people know about it.”

  “Are you insinuating someone might kill you over what you’re about to tell us?”

  “I’m not insinuating. I’m telling you straight out.” He paused to let that sink in. “About three years ago, not long before he ended up back in the States, Marco Balducci got involved with a local village girl outside Palermo, supposedly a real beauty. The only problem was that she was fifteen. Now, over here, that’s a considerably worse offense than over there, at least in the public eye. They had sex. I don’t know much more than that, if it was consensual, rape, if they had a relationship, whatever. She got pregnant.”

  That got my attention. My companions were no less alert.

  Mosconi continued. “The girl’s father didn’t take lightly to the news when he found out. He confronted Marco at his factory. Marco, it appears, doesn’t like anyone telling him what to do, even if it’s the father of a fifteen-year-old girl he got pregnant, so things got out of hand and Marco allegedly beat the guy to death. Family wasn’t rich or powerful by any standards, but murder is still murder.”

  “Did he get arrested?” I asked.

  “No. Case never made the press. He was never arrested. It’s like it never happened.”

  “Then how do you know about it? Where’s your verification?”

  “I got wind of something weird last year when I was in Palermo researching the bigger story. So I spent some time digging around. I didn’t make much headway on that trip, but when I went back this fall, I got much further along. I’m sure it’s true. Soon as I track down the girl and her daughter, I’m going to publish.”

  “So, you’re telling me Marco Balducci has a kid running around somewhere over in Italy, allegedly?” I asked, dumbfounded.

  Mosconi nodded.

  The implications of what Mosconi was telling us were beyond my comprehension. So many different thoughts crossed my mind at the same time that I had trouble separating them. I figured Marco to be a violent guy, but I hadn’t considered how that violence could manifest itself. Beating a man to death was something I couldn’t imagine. More than that, the implications of the entire incident—of Marco being a father, a teenage girl with a baby kept secret somewhere in Italy, a murder that should have landed Marco in an Italian jail—all swirled around in my head. Was Maggie aware of the child? Did Vespucci know of the murder? Luci’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “Jim, what you’re saying has tremendous implications about who we’re dealing with, and the information you just provided puts us all in danger. If it’s true.”

  “I warned you.”

  Luci and I exchanged a look, acknowledging the magnitude of what we were hearing. I looked at Donovan to get his take, but his eyes were focused on something in the distance. I followed his gaze out the window, noticing a man standing on the sidewalk looking in. For a second, I could have sworn Williams was standing on the street. I blinked and looked more closely, but the man had moved out of my vision. M
osconi’s story was making me jumpy, and I figured I was seeing things. I turned my attention back to Mosconi, who had missed the exchange.

  Mosconi proceeded with his story. “In Italy, only two institutions could keep the entire story quiet and make the girl and the baby disappear: the Mafia or the government. If it’s the Mafia, that would explain why I couldn’t get anyone to talk to me. Either way, Marco Balducci is beholden to someone in a very big way, and I’m sure he’ll have to pay up one day.”

  I’d heard enough. I felt overloaded and enervated, as if I’d just worked out. I hadn’t expected any of what Mosconi had just passed on, and the weight of the implications was more than I could process in the time it took him to tell us.

  Abruptly, Mosconi stood up. “I’ve got to get back to the press room. What I just told you cannot leave this table. Marco Balducci is dangerous. This is just a guess, but I’d bet none of the Vespucci clan has the slightest clue about any of this. If I were you, Jon, I would finish what you were hired to do without asking any more questions and go home to California as soon as you can.”

  “Our conversation will not go beyond this table. You have my word as a fellow writer.”

  With that, Mosconi turned and disappeared onto the New York streets.

  My companions sat silently at the table. Our coffee cups slowly drained as we each sat lost in our thoughts. I was the first to speak. “He said there were only two entities that could handle a cover-up. One was the Mafia. But if the Mafia took care of keeping him out of jail, and paid off the girl’s family to stay quiet, don’t you think that Tony Vespucci would know about it?”

  Luci spoke first. “Maybe. Maybe not. Could be a faction in Italy that finds it beneficial to hold this over Marco’s head.”

  “For the moment, though, let’s assume Vespucci does know. Let’s assume Marco’s Mafia connections took care of everything. If you’re Tony Vespucci, do you let your daughter marry this guy? Do you tell your daughter about the incident, about the kid?” I turned to Donovan, “What do you think?”

  “I think we’re being followed.”

  The tired feeling was instantly gone. Luci sat up, alert.

  “How do you know?” Luci asked.

  “Been watching a guy out there on the street who I’m pretty sure has been watching us.”

  Luci said, “Let’s get out of here. Donovan, why don’t you go first, see if you can spot your guy. When you give me the signal, I’ll bring Jon out, and we can get a taxi back to the hotel.”

  Donovan nodded, stood up, and walked to the exit. I watched him go, my heart pounding, worried that something might happen. Donovan exited the door, looking left, then right, then left again. He took a few steps toward the street, did another one-eighty survey, and then turned toward us, giving us the all-clear signal. Luci and I stood up at the same time. I left a ten on the table to cover the coffee and followed Luci out the door. A taxi was waiting at the curb by the time we got to the street. We climbed inside, instructing the driver to take us back to the hotel in Brooklyn. During the drive, Donovan sat in front, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror. The whole thing would have felt silly to me if the circumstances had been different, but only hours before, a guy carrying a gun had broken into our hotel room, and I had just discovered that one of my principals was an alleged murderer. So Donovan’s precautions seemed appropriate. I hadn’t expected Mosconi to tell us what he had uncovered about Marco.

  Now that Mosconi had shared his secret with us, I wished I could give it back to him because I was now responsible for what I did with it. Which was what? Tell Maggie? Tell her father? Check with Marco to make sure it was accurate? None of these scenarios was appealing. On top of it all, what if Mosconi was wrong? If I started passing around unfounded rumors about Marco Balducci, I was sure there would be hell to pay from all parties involved. On the other hand, if Mosconi’s story checked out, I figured it was safe to assume Marco would do just about anything to keep his secret tightly under wraps. Unless Vespucci already knew. Maybe Marco had told his fiancée, but I doubted that. I couldn’t believe anyone in Maggie’s family had any idea. I highly doubted that if Tony knew the truth—that Marco had an illegitimate child in Italy—he would allow the wedding to go forward. We were due for dinner at the Vespuccis in a few hours. I was not looking forward to it. As we pulled up to our Brooklyn hotel, we climbed out of the car, one at a time. I paid the driver and watched the taxi pull away. I turned to Donovan.

  “Anybody follow us?”

  Donovan shook his head. He looked to Luci for affirmation.

  Luci returned the look with a shake of his head as well. “If we had a tail, I didn’t spot them.” He was silent a moment. “Not that it matters. Someone already knows where we’re staying, so if they’re following us, they want to know more than where we’re staying. Or we’re talking about two different parties.”

  Luci’s words hung in the air as we considered the implications. Silently, we entered the hotel, crossed the lobby, and took the elevator up to the fourth floor. As the elevator doors opened, I stared down the hallway toward our room. “Paper-rock-scissors for who goes in first?”

  Luci looked at Donovan. “I say we send Jon ahead of us and use him as a shield.”

  Donovan turned to me. “Don’t duck. Your head will protect my chest.”

  We exited the elevator into the hallway. Donovan and Luci were suddenly all business. Donovan stepped down the hallway, Luci behind him. As they reached the door, they went to either side. Donovan looked at me, putting his finger to his lips. Luci held his hand up, palm out toward me. Then, as quietly as possible, Luci slid the room card into its slot, looking for the haze light. A slight clicking noise offered itself up from the unlocking mechanism. Donovan and Luci traded looks, Donovan nodded, and Luci pushed the door open, quickly and silently. Luci went in low followed immediately by Donovan. I stood in the hallway, feeling a bit useless.

  Seconds later, Donovan popped his head out the door. “All clear.”

  I followed inside the room, not seeing anything out of place. I reflected on our situation, finding it hard to believe it had come to this. But it had. And it wasn’t over.

  For the next two hours, we didn’t talk much about what we had discovered or where we were going for dinner. Donovan lay down for a nap. Luci excused himself, saying he needed to go to the gym and get a quick workout. I planted myself in front of my computer to work on the outline for Maggie and Marco’s story. Until I knew otherwise, I would have to complete this project soon, so I figured I’d follow my normal pattern. I had the broad strokes and could see the story easily enough: a childhood love spark cut short in youth, only to be reignited years later in adulthood; fate would bring the two lovers together on their old stomping grounds and they would begin a wonderful life with each other; their families couldn’t be happier; the fathers had grown up best friends on the streets of New York, and now their children were going to tie the families together.

  I had the makings of a fairytale love story. But was it true? Did I need to add a footnote that the groom-to-be had a toddler running around somewhere in Italy? I sat back from my computer screen, considering this new information. Marco would go to any length to keep it quiet. There was nothing I could do about it right now, so why not make my time productive rather than sit and worry? I put thoughts of Marco aside and spent the remaining hours until dinner organizing the interviews of the other family members and friends I’d completed on my previous visits, pulling out important facts, anecdotal stories, and interesting tidbits about Maggie and Marco.

  While I was working, Luci returned to the room, sweaty and relaxed. He took the first turn in the shower to get ready, followed by Donovan, then me. None of us had brought anything formal, so we all dressed casually. I had called Mrs. Vespucci to ask her if Luci and Donovan were invited. She was as friendly as always, saying she had more than enough food for everyone. When we were ready to
go, Donovan hung back, setting a tell at the top of the door to let us know if it was opened while we were gone. Out front, we climbed into a taxi. Each of us, for our own reasons, was vigilant. Luci and Donovan appeared ready for anything, their eyes alert but their faces masked in a calm repose.

  After a ten-minute ride, we arrived in front of the Vespucci compound, the ivy-covered green walls keeping the grounds in total privacy. We climbed out of the taxi, fanning out across the front of the house as we did so, exchanging looks but no words, staring at the wealth. From the opposite direction, a new Continental Bentley convertible came speeding toward us, slowing at the last second to cut a right turn with the nose facing the large iron gate. From our vantage point, I could see Marco’s scowling face at the wheel of the sports car. As the gate began to open, he looked over at us. His eyes were more interested in my companions than in me. I could see him sizing up Luci, then Donovan, his gaze finally falling on me.

  A smile crossed his face as he spoke, but I didn’t see the smile reflected in his eyes. “Jon, welcome back. Maggie told me you had to do one final assessment of our relationship before putting it all on paper.”

  I tried to match his friendly tone as I responded, but for the first time my aversion for Marco bubbled to the surface. I did not like this guy. I got my lips working. “You guys didn’t hire me to assess you. My job is to celebrate your love and marriage on paper and illustrate how unique and wonderful it is.”

  Marco took a moment to respond, then nodded to my buddies. “Maggie said you brought bodyguards with you. Had some trouble back in Los Angeles that might follow you to New York?”

  I shook my head. I pointed at Luci. “Luci is my artistic director.” I indicated Donovan. “Donovan here just wanted to come along for the ride. He loves New York.”

  Marco stared at each in turn. “Good to have friends here. The streets can be rough. From the look of your face, I’d say you need bodyguards more than you need friends.” Noticing the gate was beginning to close, he nudged his car forward to activate the gate stopper, then pulled the car out of our sight. We watched his Bentley disappear behind the gate, tightening our ranks as the gate closed.