by Justin Scott
“Why?”
Uncle Eamon said, “You’re part Italian. You know how tight your families are. How do we infiltrate? Even using Italian cops is tough. Everybody knows who everybody is. It goes back to the old neighborhoods.”
“It sounds like you’re saying we’re criminals because we’re Italian, Eamon,” Chris interrupted. This was nothing new from the Irish side of the family; nor, he wanted Eamon to know, had he missed the sideswipe about bid rigging.
“Your people are tight,” Eamon continued blandly. “They know who went to jail, who went into the service, who went to college, who stayed home, who joined the Force. Isn’t that right, Jack?”
Chris noted that Jack Warner tactfully dodged Eamon’s question. “Also, the balance of power is constantly changing. When we do infiltrate, or persuade an informant, we often find we’ve connected with people who’ve already been edged out of power. The Cirillos are getting stronger and stronger with alliances and takeovers.”
When a telephone rang, Warner answered, excused himself, and left the room quickly.
Uncle Eamon said, “It’s a long chain. And tough for the law to break.”
“The law sucks.”
“Often,” Eamon agreed.
“I’d like to kill them with my own hands.”
“That’s a normal reaction.”
“I mean it. I feel like sawing the barrels off a shotgun—”
“I’ll not hear that talk, Chris.”
Chris’s mind leaped to an old untraceable weapon he had bought at a country tag sale. His father’s workbench at their Cats kill cabin had a heavy vise; hacksaw the barrels, throw away the blades, vacuum the metal filings, dump the vacuum bag... He looked his uncle in the eye and made what he knew was the most careful decision of his life. “Sorry, Eamon. I just feel so angry.”
“Revenge is a normal desire. Of course, you want to get even.”
Tony had been studying the chart intently, tracing names with his finger. “That’s precisely the same stupid thing Rendini did,” he said. “Instead of suing Pop for a punch in the nose.”
“What?” At this new resistance from another quarter—his own brother—Chris felt himself starting to lose control again, felt rage searing his throat.
“Revenge is crazy,” Tony replied coolly. “That’s what courts are for. The law is the only civilized way to get even.”
Chris spewed the rage at his brother. “Didn’t you hear Uncle Eamon say the law can’t touch them?”
“It’s practical, too. Not just civilized. If you take revenge on a killer, the killer’s friends will take revenge on you, and back and forth and back and forth. But when the law catches a killer, the whole bloody chain is broken.”
“You sound like a fucking textbook. Jesus Christ, Tony, I’m talking about Pop.”
“So am I.”
Uncle Eamon said, “Tony’s right. You go ahead. You live, you forget.”
“I’ll never forget.” The brothers locked eyes, the gray-blue and the dark in somber harmony. They had spoken as one.
He put up the trucks as collateral for a sixty-day bank note. But even as he signed the paper on Pete Stock’s desk, he saw the future in a terrible instant—even if he could finish his father’s building, he would never lose his rage.
The bank advanced him two million dollars to bring men and suppliers back to the job. The final construction cost required over twenty million. A brief respite, but the sharks smelled blood in the water. A second Cirillo shylock called with the same offer of short-term money at 24 percent.
The accountant who was steering Taglione Concrete and Construction over the mud flats of probate joined with Arnie to advise that he abandon the project. “You want I should tell you something, Chris? Your father shouldn’t have gone into that fucking building. There’s another recession coming, and we’re still not out of the last one. Real estate’s dead.”
“Real estate goes up and down in cycles.”
“Three blocks away that turkey on Fifty-seventh Street’s been standing half-built for six months. Jobs are shutting down all over Manhattan.”
“Not this one.”
“How you going pay for it?”
“I don’t know yet.” He was too angry to be worried. And he had much grimmer thoughts in his mind. Business and the dreams he had dreamed with his father were one thing—but murder was another.
He called a staff meeting. Arnie, Ed the accountant, the bookkeeper, the foreman of the mixing plant, and Sylvia Marx filed gloomily into his father’s office. Their faces and the silence reflected their doubts that Taglione Concrete and Construction really existed without Mike at the steering wheel. Chris had to admit he felt a little silly sitting at the scratched metal desk.
“We got some pretty screwy files,” the accountant reported. “Your dad kept a lot in his head.”
Chris knew his father had run a one-man show. He was haunted by his father’s arcane business habits, yet instincts he had never tapped were welling up from memory. First and foremost, his father always had an answer. Chris stood up, put his hands in his pockets, sat on the desk, and told the sad-faced accountant, “Start new files.”
Ed exchanged an incredulous look with the bookkeeper.
“Buy one of those little computers. We had one in business class at school. They run about thirty grand and they’re great for keeping track.”
“Buy a computer? With what? A lot of your dad’s customers figure with him gone there’s no rush to pay their bills. We’re crunched for cash. I don’t even know if we can make the payroll.”
“Sell a truck.”
“You mortgaged them.”
“Thirty-four, thirty-seven, eighty-six, and one fourteen were in the shop. I forget to tell the bank we owned them.”
The accountant smiled.
“Sell it to old Alphonse. Lease a computer. Feed it our delivery invoices for the last six months. Give me a list of who owes us what by the end of the week.”
As they filed out, Sylvia Marx hung back. His father’s secretary was a statuesque fiftyish blonde, a former Copa dancer with stunning legs. At the funeral she had stood off to the side, not sure of her place. Grief had cut hard lines in her pretty face.
“What’s up, Sylvia?”
“I know the accounts that owe us the most.”
Chris visited the worst of the worst at a job site in the financial district. The steel was halfway to the sky, which meant they had owed on the foundation pour for a long time. He pushed into the main office trailer and introduced himself to the project manager.
“Sorry about your father, kid. What can I do for you?”
“I’m collecting our outstanding accounts.”
“And I’ll bet we’re standing way out. Right?”
“Right.”
“And you’re pressed for cash?”
Chris admitted he was.
“Well, I know exactly what you’re going through, because so am I... Tell you what. You want to clear things up? I can try and raise maybe about forty cents on the dollar.”
“Forty cents? But—”
“Help me out and help you too, right?”
“No. That’s not even cost.”
“That’s the best I can do for you.”
“Forty cents is ridiculous. You owe me a legitimate debt.”
The project manager stopped smiling. “You want to settle for thirty-five?”
Defeated, Chris returned to the office and told Sylvia what had happened.
“Get a haircut.”
“Nobody cares about long hair anymore, Sylvia.”
“Sure. All the builders’ kids look like you.”
“So?”
“You can’t afford to look like a kid. It’s show biz. You gotta look the part.”
“It wasn’t looks with my father.”
“Your pop was born with a part. Anybody looking at Mike Taglione knew this was one tough, smart, straight guy. Looking at you they see a nice college kid with long hair. You�
�re big, but you look a little too sweet to hit anybody.”
“They could be wrong about that.”
Sylvia gave him a shrewd look. “Maybe.”
“I don’t even know a barber. Girls at school cut my hair.”
“That I can believe. Why don’t I make an appointment with your pop’s barber? And meet me at Paul Stuart’s afterwards.”
Chris watched his image change in the Waldorf-Astoria barber shop mirror as his hair slid down the satiny sheet like yellow straw. He looked a little like a stranger and a lot like his father. His nose seemed bigger, and his brow grew broad and high. Freed of the shadow of long locks, his glittering blue eyes became the most prominent feature in his face.
Chris went to the colored bottles in front of the mirror, opened one after another, sniffing the contents. “This one.”
“That’s what your father liked.”
“Right.”
“Very nice,” Sylvia said when he walked into Paul Stuart’s. She took his arm and led him to the second floor.
“People are staring at me.”
“They think you’re my gigolo.”
“Christ, Sylvia.”
“I used to take all my fellas shopping, but your father, God bless him, absolutely refused to buy clothes.”
He bought a suit and Sylvia chose a half-dozen shirt-and-tie combinations.
“French cuffs are not really appropriate for daytime wear, madam,” the sales clerk remarked.
“The guys on his dance card aren’t up on their Emily Post.” Later she revealed why she had insisted on the French cuffs. “I already bought these for your pop’s birthday. I want you to have them.”
Chris opened the unmarked box. Two big cufflinks burned white on a black velvet bed. “Are these diamonds?”
“Don’t worry about it. I know a guy.” She worked them into his cuffs. “Kinda loud, but your pop woulda liked them.” She stood back and admired the effect. “You’ll probably outgrow ’em, turn conservative when you’re a big success. Now go get ’em!
Chris visited the next job on the debtors’ list, found the project manager’s office in a tenement across the street, and presented his bill.
“Hurting for cash, are you?”
“I’m just straightening up some loose ends before I start a new building.”
“What new building?”
Chris shot a French cuff, exposing a flash of diamond. “I can’t go into it yet. My father’s partners are very nervous—afraid somebody’ll bust in on the deal. Now if you can just give me a check.”
“Is that the same building your father started?”
“Another,” he embroidered the lie, looking hard at the guy. “I want to clear things up with you.”
The guy scratched his head. “It’s a kind of a heavy number.”
Chris shrugged. “I won’t bust your balls. I’ll let you give me half now and half next month.”
Heart in his throat, he sat back as if he had the day to spend, and watched the man actually write a check. He forced himself to straighten his other cuff instead of lunging for it.
“Dinner,” he told Sylvia. “To celebrate and thank you.”
He chose the Palm because he remembered his father mentioning it, but the restaurant was one Mike had taken her to and the evening turned somber. They talked about how much they missed him. Sylvia got drunk, but covered well until the cab, where she cried. Chris said he wished he could kill the bastards. At her door she kissed his cheek and said, “Finish your pop’s building. That’s the best revenge.”
“You have only one month left and no way to raise more money, and Arnie’s already behind schedule.” The accountant nudged the bookkeeper, who nodded grave agreement. “But you did great on collections and we’re billing like a real business. So you don’t need banks. You’re fine if you just get out of that fucking building.”
Two problems. And both were Arnie. His father’s old project manager couldn’t hack it. And to make things worse, the bank knew. He went back to the best run of the jobs he had dunned to talk to the project managers, who ran the business end, and the superintendents, who bossed the field. Ben Riley was the first he clicked with, a blunt-spoken, middle-aged superintendent who reminded him a little of his father. Riley was sufficiently charmed by his brash approach to repair with him to a bar, where he ordered milk for his ulcer—a common superintendent affliction—lit a cigarette, and passed one to Chris. Nervous, Chris dropped it. Riley ground it under his boot and gave Chris another. “The building business is bids and schedules. You know diddley about bids, zip about managing supplies, and zilch about labor. How do you expect the banks to lend money to somebody who can’t guarantee a schedule?”
“I know a lot about building. I know that labor’s going to try to fuck me over and suppliers are going to try to steal me blind because they think they can. I think I know from my father how to control them, but the bank doesn’t believe it, so I need help.”
“You sure do.”
“I’ll top what these clowns are paying you by ten percent, including your incentives. Plus I’ll pay you a two-month bonus up front in cash.”
“You’re not kidding?”
“I’m too young to kid. I’ll be at the job tomorrow morning.”
Again and again, he raided his competitors until he had hired four top managers to do the job his father and Arnie had done alone—two top field men and two in the office.
“Fancy window dressing,” Arnie grumped. “They’re tripping over each other. You got enough bosses on the payroll to build the fucking pyramids.”
“Window dressing for the banks’ sake,” Chris mollified him. “With all these heavy hitters running the job, they can’t bitch about Taglione Construction being one kid. Now you gotta make me look good by whipping the cement into shape.”
“Hey, wait a minute—”
“Arnie, you were a week behind schedule.”
He moved the Brooklyn headquarters into trailers at the foundation site so he could personally oversee the project. When the staff complained that his father never made them work under such rough conditions, Chris dipped again into Mike’s reserves of good will. “The sooner we finish the building, the sooner we get indoors. Besides, how can I learn to build Manhattan skyscrapers in Brooklyn?”
When his notes came due, his new managers had the foundation poured ahead of schedule and steel rising out of the hole. He put on his new suit and went to the bank, confident that Taglione Construction’s performance had proved itself creditworthy, and proud that the interest check in his pocket proved he had put Taglione Concrete in the black. He failed to register that Pete Stock’s receptionist was emptying her desk drawers into a shoulderbag.
“Chris Taglione to see Pete Stock.”
“Mr. Stock is no longer with the bank.”
“What? Where’d he go?”
She looked up, her face bitter. “Where do you think? The unemployment line.”
“Fired? Christ... Well, can I see his boss? Who’s his boss? Sphunt?”
“Sphunt’s fired, too. Everybody’s fired.”
Chris looked around, noting belatedly that the corridors were in disarray, with pictures off the walls and boxes on the carpet. “Who’s in charge?”
“Mr. Bunker.”
Through the open door Chris saw a man about his age unpacking a cardboard box. He wore shirt sleeves, a narrow tie loose at the neck, and wire-rimmed glasses. Chris knocked on the door frame and stepped in. Bunker said, “You’re late.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re from Wharton.”
“Taglione Construction.”
“I’m looking for my assistant.”
“I’m looking to roll a note. Taglione Construction. You’re backing my Fifty-sixth Street tower.”
“Was this one of Stock’s deals?”
“Sure. My father dealt with Mr. Stock for fifteen years.”
“Bye-bye.”
Bunker pulled a framed diploma from a c
ardboard box and hung it on one of the many picture hooks Stock had left on his wall. It said that Bunker had graduated from the Harvard Business School three months ago.
“You mind telling me what’s going on?”
“The bank has eaten too many loans,” Bunker replied, straightening his diploma. “About two hundred million dollars’ worth, to be precise. So they’re cleaning house. They fired everybody in the real estate department and hired me to pick up the pieces.”
Chris sank in a chair and stared in disbelief.
“My bank has to do this now?”
“Well, it’s obvious you possess one quality a builder needs— total egocentricity. Not just your bank. Every bank.”
“What?”
“Every bank in New York has, as of this morning—or will, as of tomorrow—fired its entire real estate department. It seems some very cozy relationships have sprung up between real estate officers and developers.”
“How the fuck do you think we got buildings built?”
“You got too many of them built. Nobody said, ‘Stop.’ So you’ve got twenty million square feet unused, empty, and unrentable.”
“My building’s preleased.”
“There’s another recession coming. Are you sure your tenants can afford the space?”
“We can’t just stop. We’ve promised to supply the space.”
Bunker reached into his box and pulled out a coffee mug. “It suddenly hits me, this is what I went to school for. Guys like you and Stock get so cozy nobody asks the hard questions.”
Chris stared at him. “So you’re going to run an uncozy department?”
“Right. Nobody’s pulling friendship to jolly me into dumb loans.”
Bunker removed the last item from his box, a Hewlett-Packard calculator, and set it beside the mug.
“Let me ask you something.”
“And then I must excuse myself.”
“How are you going to know who’s honest?”
“Credentials.”
“And who keeps their word?”
“Track record.”
“That’s the past. Track records and credentials only tell you what’s already happened. Cozy is knowing about it now.” A childhood and adolescence of conversations half heard at family dinners and job-site trailer offices started galloping onto his tongue. “How do you know who’s maybe getting into trouble with some building inspector? And who’s about to get slapped with a mechanics’ lien ’cause he stiffed his employees? And whose contractor is overbooked? Who’s undercapitalized? Who’s got union problems? Who can’t hack it anymore? Whose subs are about to go broke? Cozy pays, man. You gotta be in touch. Otherwise you miss the good deals and only the people everyone else knows to avoid will come to you. Now I’m bringing you a good deal. I am preleased, thank God, and I’m running ahead of schedule. The slowdown means I’m getting breaks on everything. And my building is small enough so even if some of my tenants back out, I won’t be killed.”