Now, he added a few more. “Look, Nikki, I need this. You have no idea how badly I wish I didn’t.”
He waited for her response. It came in the form of a tiny change in her stance, a hint of defeat, of her certainty that, whatever the facts, she’d have to learn them elsewhere. He came around from behind his desk, embraced her, kissed her ear, whispered: “Thank you.”
Her arms remained at her sides. DiMartini drew his face back from hers, hands on her shoulders.
“The plane will be ready in an hour. Johnny’ll brief you on the way.”
Nicole nodded, exited. DiMartini stood very still for almost a minute, then turned, cleared a space on his desktop, Next, he opened the safe built into the credenza behind him, began removing banded packets of paper money which he placed on the desk in neat stacks.
* * * * * *
It was two hours till first light when Charlie slipped out of Mrs. Murck’s rooming house. Started walking Moab. East, briskly, observant, past small homes, alleyways, trailer parks, the newly expanded Courthouse, still partially surrounded by scaffolding, till the streets turned to gravel and finally dirt as they petered out on the steep mountain slopes bordering the valley. He’d walked south on Main till it became Route 191, then west along Kane Creek Road to the bank of the Colorado, up along 500 West, past more trailer parks, turning onto 191 as it emerged from the north end of town. He followed the highway’s northwesterly course for about a mile till just before it crossed the Colorado. There, on his left near the riverbank, was a bizarre sight; an Indian village consisting of twenty or thirty teepees, some intact, others being dismantled by a small crew which was loading the materials onto trucks.
Probably a movie-shoot. The area was frequently used as a location for Westerns.
Charlie turned east on Highway 128, which snaked along between the river’s south shore and the base of towering, precipitous cliffs. There was almost no bank on the north side; similar cliffs rose out of the river itself. It was cold, blustery. The late autumn sun didn’t arc high enough to touch more than the tops of the wind-and-weather-sculpted sandstone, leaving far more of the previous night’s snowfall than remained in town, particularly on the northern faces. Charlie hiked as far as the entrance to Negro Bill Canyon before turning back, satisfied that he’d familiarized himself with his playing field. And gratified to have found the spot at the foot of Box Canyon where he and Dorothy had picnicked.
By 8:55 Charlie was in his Chevvie, smoking a Camel, sipping from a container of coffee. He had parked a few yards up Center Street, watching Main ahead of him and, via his rear view mirror, the Courthouse, whose employees were arriving. By 9:00 they were inside.
Mormons. Or not. But punctual. Good.
Two minutes later, coming from the north, a black Lincoln sedan with Utah tags slowly turned left off of Main into Center Street. Charlie held the coffee container near his face as the big car rolled past. He recognized Moe Saperstein at the wheel, Rocco Parisi beside him. Reno muscle. Harry Feldman’s guys. Reflected in his mirror, they parked further up the block, on the opposite side of the street. The black Cadillac that swung in from the south a moment later had Arizona plates, carried three enforcers, presumably Vegas talent. Neither their arrivals nor the vehicles themselves surprised Charlie. Especially the cars.
It’d kill these assholes to drive anything that isn’t black.
As Charlie guessed, the five men converged on the Canyonlands Café at the corner. Another guess, not confirmed but fairly certain, was that none of them knew the real reason they were in Moab.
It was scary, these clowns showing up. But predictable – and definitely stimulating. The game was almost in play. Charlie snuffed his cigarette, started the engine. Heavy clouds were moving in from the west. He hadn’t expected for a minute that DiMartini would follow his rules. Not all of them. For Charlie there were only two that really counted. The money – and Nicole DiMartini’s presence. Given the stakes, he was confident the guinea would comply with those. Reasonably confident.
Wind-driven rain had been pelting for nearly two hours. The faint shape beyond the end of the runway gradually assumed the form of an airplane, then, at about fifty feet, it burst into the clear. A twin-engine Convair. From his chair, Charlie watched it touch down, slow as it rolled past. The plane bore no commercial markings. With studied casualness, Charlie folded the Mirror-Gazette and his copy of the Deseret News, rose, crossed to the picture window. It was important that he not appear anxious, nor especially interested in this particular aircraft. The only others in the small Moab Airport terminal were the somewhat effeminate young Frontier Airlines deskman who was on the phone, a young mother with her infant child, and a rather tense American Gothic couple, she in a prim hat, he in a necktie that looked new, uncomfortable and inexpertly knotted.
Charlie leaned close to the window. The Frontier clerk hung up the phone, addressed the room. “Frontier Airlines flight 27 from Denver and Grand Junction to Salt Lake should be arriving in about five minutes.”
Charlie was near enough to the desk to hear him mutter the rest of it: “Then – please god – I can go home.”
The Convair did not turn and taxi back to the terminal. Instead, near the far, west end of the strip, it turned right, stopped at the Butler Aviation hangar. Several small single-engine planes were parked nearby, as well as a black Lincoln, which then moved to a position near the front of the aircraft. Charlie had to squint to see through the rain; at that distance it was impossible to discern faces. A door just aft of the cockpit opened downward, forming a ramp. What appeared to be a crewman emerged with an umbrella, which he opened, held aloft as two figures, and then a smaller one, deplaned. Charlie guessed the latter was Nicole DiMartini. A portly man greeted them on the tarmac, held open the rear door of the Lincoln. Charlie was fairly certain it was the car he’d seen earlier on Center Street, that the man was Moe Saperstein.
Two crewmen transferred luggage and several bulky cartons from the plane to the Lincoln’s trunk.
Phone and recording equipment, probably.
Charlie went back to his seat, again perused the local weekly. A front-page column, black-bordered, beneath a photo of a flag at half-mast, was headlined Moab Joins Nation in Mourning Pres. Kennedy. Another item: Movies Complete Work in Moab, Leave Sunday. Film director John Ford and a large crew had been in the area till Saturday night, shooting Cheyenne Autumn for Warner Brothers. Which explained the Indian encampment and equipment he’d seen near the river. He turned to the sports pages of the Deseret News. The sole baseball item was about the death at 67 of James Arthur (Rube) Parnham, a pitcher with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1916-17. Charlie vaguely remembered his father mentioning the guy. International League Hall of Famer. Won 33 for the 1923 Orioles, including 22 straight during 1923-24.
Man. Who wins twenty-two in a row...?
The fellow at the desk announced the arrival of the Frontier plane. Charlie stood up with the others, pretending to be expectant. A half-dozen passengers from flight 27 entered the terminal. The young mother greeted one of them, a salesman-type, presumably her husband. The older couple showed their tickets to the clerk, who waved them toward the plane. The others dispersed, Charlie among them, making a point of blending in. Twenty minutes later he was back in bed, catching some much-needed sleep.
The Nagra tape recorder’s little red light glowed, satisfying John Ciccone that it was in working order. He shut it down. Wires ran from the recorder to an extension telephone and a pair of heavy-duty headphones. Through the bathroom door came the sound of the toilet flushing. Gino Borgese lounged in a chair, ate an apple, thumbed Sports Illustrated, tried not to look at Nicole as she emerged from the bathroom, zipping the fly of her jeans. The entire flight up here from New Orleans, sitting across from her, he had a hard-on. Slender, totally self-assured. It was almost impossible for her to not look sexy. Her room at the Ocala was spacious, comfortable, cluttered with seven hours’ worth of crumpled paper napkins, empty food containers, soda
bottles.
Nicole removed the barrette from her black hair, let it fall below her shoulders, impatiently glanced at the clock. It was 11:04 PM. “Shit, if we came all this way for nothing...”
Only someone who knew John Ciccone well, and they were few indeed, could have read the fleeting, acid look. Nicole recognized it. Then he spoke, his voice as much a mask as his face. “Games, Nikki. A power-play.”
He glanced at Gino, as if challenging him to comment. The lanky young man had what would come to be known in a later era as “an attitude.” But on the plus side he was smart, capable – and made. Gino did not respond, or look up from his magazine; his body language spoke for him: Ciccone was old-hat, past it.
The phone rang. All three were immediately alert. Ciccone gestured Borgese to the headphones, activated the recorder, poised his hand over the extension phone. Nicole moved to the phone on the nightstand. She looked back at Ciccone, who raised a forefinger, swung it down till it pointed to her. Simultaneously they lifted their handsets. Nicole spoke. “Hello?”
Nothing tentative about that. Aggressive. Hostile. Charlie already liked her. He was phoning from a rural saloon a dozen miles south of Moab. The place was about half-full, mostly male. They looked to be oil and mining workers, some still in their hardhats. On the jukebox, Carl Butler wailed Don’t Let Me Cross Over. Charlie swallowed the last bite of his greasy but eminently satisfying cheeseburger, pressed his right palm against his non-phone ear. “Miss Gruber...?”
“Yes.”
Charlie referred to some notes he’d scribbled, spoke rapidly. “Your mother died when you were fourteen, right? Her maiden name was Salano.”
“Salerno, and yes.”
“So that was in 1955.”
Again, she came right back at him. “’57.”
“That protest you were arrested for in April, in Montgomery, Alabama, that was---”
“Ofor--- That was Birmingham in September. I’ve never been to Montgomery. Look, can we knock this off? I really am---” She caught herself. “I’m who you insisted on. Now when are we going to---?”
Okay, all of that stuff was from magazine and newspaper stories. She could still be a well-rehearsed ringer.
“The last four digits of your Social Security number.”
“Um - two-eight-five-six. How the hell did you---?”
Charlie had no idea what her number really was, but her response felt right. “I’ll call you back in ten minutes.” He hung up. In case DiMartini’s goons were somehow running a trace.
His room had been dark when he awakened, disoriented, feeling semi-drugged. Alarmed to see that it was past 9PM. Then Charlie remembered where he was. He sat on the edge of the bed, lit a Camel.
They’ve gotta be sweating. Good...
Charlie slipped into his clothes, quietly descended the stairs, was almost out the door when he was startled by:
“No need to tiptoe. I’m still up.”
He turned. Mrs. Murck was standing in the dining room doorway, wearing an apron over her housecoat, drying a dinner plate. She was smiling, but without warmth.
“I went to clean your room – a couple of times – but your door was bolted from the inside.”
“Things kinda slow down youknow just before the holiday.” Charlie had told her he was in mining equipment sales.
She nodded. “Hmmm. And since you were up awful early...”
One of those. Shit.
“I take long walks.”
“Mmm. Well, have yourself a nice evening.”
The Chevvie started immediately. Vern may have been a redneck asshole, but he knew his shit. Charlie guessed he couldn’t blame him for the new noises which, thank god, hadn’t worsened. In fact, Charlie was already used to them. He had driven two blocks south on Main Street when he recognized the man strolling casually past an outdoor payphone. Even with his coat-collar turned up, Rocco Parisi’s round-shouldered slouch was unmistakable. In the next few blocks were three other men covering phones and still-open stores, pretending to be reading newspapers or window-shopping. They were conspicuous because they were almost the only pedestrians in a town not notable for its bustling late-November nightlife. Charlie lit a Camel, rolled on out of Moab. He was feeling – if not exactly great – a certain sense of elation. And hunger. He had eaten almost nothing since last night.
John Ciccone downed another Coke. “I called it. The sonofabitch is nobody’s fool.”
Nicole waited till Gino Borgese disappeared into the bathroom, then: “Neither am I, Johnny. What in hell is this really about?” It was the first time she’d asked him, the first time they’d been alone together. She’d struck out with Alex Moffat that morning. Except that he’d been unable to look her in the eye.
Not so with Ciccone. “Gambling money.”
“Johnny...” Nicole couldn’t honestly say she liked John Ciccone. He was too distant for that. But he’d been a respected presence in her life for as long as she could remember, even before she and her then-newly widowed father moved into the big antebellum mansion. Way before she understood how her daddy earned a living.
“That’s all I can tell you, Nikki. Look, relax. The guy’s gonna be calling back any minute. Hopefully this’ll be over tomorrow, we can all go home.”
If it hadn’t all seemed so important to her father, or if she had had the courage to walk away from it. The non-conversations on the long flight to Moab, being met by that pig, Saperstein, whom she recalled from his occasional visits to Beautour. The silent ride into town. Too much that wasn’t being said. And on top of it all, that ugly, depressing business in Dallas. She wondered what that was really about, who the little Oswald creep had been working for. Well, now that he’d been taken out – she had little doubt it was a hit – nobody was ever going to know. She switched on the TV.
Charlie glanced about. Quiet. The little Chevron station several miles south of the saloon was closed, dark except for the reflected light of a million stars and, aginst the far wall of the service bays, a phone booth. The day’s rain had washed away the last vestiges of snow. No other buildings nearby, except for a small house far up the unpaved side-road into which, after killing his headlights, he’d pulled the Chevvie. Traffic along the highway was almost non-existent. He quickly crossed the narrow road, ducked as an eighteen-wheeler labored up the grade toward Moab, then moved through the chaparral toward the rear of gas station, the now-frozen mud crunching beneath his feet. In the glow from the phone booth around the corner he found a suitable rock. A last listen, then, in a crouch he moved out into the light-spill, stuck his arm into the booth, turned his face away, shoved the rock upward, smashed the overhead fixture.
Nicole DiMartini and John Ciccone picked up on the second ring. She answered. “Yes?”
Charlie again spoke rapidly. “I’d tell you to listen carefully, but I know your pals’ll play it back for you. Exactly twelve-noon tomorrow. Exactly. Not eleven fifty-nine, not twelve oh-one. In front of the main entrance to the Courthouse. You’re there alone, with the money in a corrugated cardboard box. You still with me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay. You hold it out to me with both hands, and you stand there while I examine it. Move and you’re dead. When I’m satisfied, I take it from you and give you my package. I wanta see both of your hands the whole time. Then you can leave. Any questions?”
Gino muttered: “Smart. Cop, maybe.”
Which drew a look from Ciccone.
“How will I recognize you?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll find you I. Do exactly the way I said, or the deal’s off. Like I told your father, I can’t make as much selling the stuff to Life Magazine, but I will if---”
Nicole glowered at Ciccone. “What the hell is he---?”
Ciccone cupped the extension, commanded her: “Hang up. I’ll take it from here.” Nicole didn’t move. Ciccone jerked his head at Gino, barked into the phone. “Listen, asshole, no way this is gonna work. We have got to be able to verify the merchandi
se---” During this, Gino discarded his headphones, went to Nicole, yanked the phone out of her hand.
Charlie was glad to hear the voice; it helped personalize his opposition. “Forget it, pal. Like I told DiMartini, if I wanted to cheat you I would. Dupe the negs, send prints to a bunch of people – all that. You’ve got no fucking choice. Just like I won’t know for sure the money isn’t marked or wired to explode or you aren’t gonna blow my head off as she’s handing it to me. Everybody takes their chances. Anyway, that’s my last word. Except be there.” He clicked off, peered warily about, then emerged from the booth.
“Daddy, I want the truth about this, and I want it now. Do you understand? Or I’m out of it!” Nicole had been furious when Gino Borgese grabbed the phone away from her, furious at Ciccone, but most of all at her father.
When the phone conversation with “Russell” ended, she demanded that Ciccone explain. “What merchandise?” It was obviously not about skimming from a casino. “Goddammit, Johnny, you’re going to tell me. I come home for a quiet, restful Thanksgiving and end up in fucking Moab, Utah? What for? I wanta know now – or screw the whole lot of you!”
Ciccone disregarded Gino’s smirk: “I’ll call him. He can explain it to you.”
“I’ll do it...” She grabbed up the phone, started dialing the “special” number he’d given her, which she assumed meant it wasn’t bugged. “...That way he won’t have time to concoct some new bullshit.”
Nicole underestimated her father’s quickness of mind; Santo DiMartini had been unable to sleep, torturing himself for his decision to remain at Beautour, to have placed Nikki at risk. He sat on the edge of his bed, sighed. “All right, baby – listen. I did not want you to know this about me. I’d have given anything to keep it from you, but...I – I had an affair. The wife of an associate in Vegas. A major executive at one of the---”
“A fucking gangster, you mean---”
“Nikki, please. Someone – some sleazebag – took pictures. I have no wish to hurt my friend, or the woman. I am simply making a purchase that will save everyone a lot of grief. I’m sorry you had to be dragged into it, that you had to find out about it at all, but this individual is highly paranoid, and insisted---”
The Sixteenth Man Page 21