You had to get on the inside, and to do that, you needed a reputation. The most prestigious member of the professional criminal community, Frankie had concluded, was the guy who everybody knew took people out. Nobody fucked with a hit man. So clearly the thing to do was become a hit man, and the way to do that was obviously to hit somebody.
The problem there was to find somebody who wanted somebody hit and was willing to give you the job. Frankie was proud of the way he had handled that. He knew a guy, Sonny Boyle, from the neighborhood, since they were kids. Sonny was now running numbers; only on the edges of doing something important, but he knew the important people.
Frankie picked up their friendship again, hanging out in bars with him, and not telling Sonny what he was doing to pay the rent, which was working in the John Wanamaker’s warehouse, loading furniture on trucks. He let it out to Sonny that he had been kicked out of the Crotch for killing a guy-actually it had been because they caught him stealing from wall lockers-and when Sonny asked what he was doing told him he was in business, and nothing else.
And then the next time he had seen in the newspapers that the mob had popped somebody-the cops found a body out by the airport with. 22 holes in his temples-he went to Sonny Boyle and told him he needed a big favor, and when Sonny asked him what, he told Sonny that if the cops or anybody else asked, they had been together from ten at night until at least three o’clock in the morning, and that they hadn’t gone anywhere near the airport during that time.
And when Sonny had asked what he’d been doing, he told Sonny he didn’t want to know, and that if he would give him an alibi, he would owe him a big one.
That got the word spreading-Sonny had diarrhea of the mouth, and always had, which is what Frankie had counted on-and then he did exactly the same thing the next time the mob shot somebody, and there was one of them “police report they believe the murder had a connection to organized crime” crime stories by Mickey O’Hara in the Bulletin; he went to Sonny and told him he needed an alibi.
Three weeks after that happened, Sonny took him to the Inferno Lounge and said there was somebody there, the guy who owned it, Gerry Atchison, that he wanted him to meet.
He’d known right off, from the way Atchison charmed him and bought him drinks, shit, even as much as told him he could have a shot at fucking his wife, that Sonny had been telling Atchison about his pal the hit man and that Atchison had swallowed it whole.
There were to be other compensations for taking the contract in addition to the agreed-upon five thousand dollars. Frankie would become sort of a mixture of headwaiter and bouncer at the Inferno Lounge. The money wasn’t great, not much more than he was getting from Wanamaker’s, but he told Atchison that he was looking for a job like that, not for the money, but so he could tell the cops, when they asked, that he had an honest job.
That would be nice too. He could quit the fucking Wanamaker’s warehouse job and be available, where people could find him. Frankie Foley was sure that when the word spread around, as he knew it would, that he’d done a contract on Atchison’s wife and Marcuzzi, his professional services would be in demand.
Mr. Foley slid onto the backless high stool next to Mr. Atchison. Atchison seemed slightly startled to see him.
“You got something that belongs to me, Gerry?” Frankie Foley asked Gerry Atchison, whereupon Mr. Atchison handed Mr. Foley a sealed, white, business-size envelope, which Mr. Foley then put into the lower left of the four pockets on his two-tone jacket.
“We got everything straight, right?” Mr. Atchison inquired, somewhat nervously.
Mr. Foley nodded.
Mr. Atchison did not regard the nod as entirely satisfactory. He looked around to see that the counterman was wholly occupied trying to look down the dress of a peroxide blonde, and then leaned close to Frankie.
“You will come in for a drink just before eleven,” he said softly. “I’ll show you where you can find the ordnance. Then you will leave. Then, just after midnight, you will walk down Market, and look in the little window in the door, like you’re wondering why the Inferno’s closed. If all you see is me, then you’ll know I sent Marcuzzi downstairs to count the cash, and her down to watch him, and that I left the back door open.”
“We been over this twenty times,” Mr. Foley said, getting off the stool. “What you should be worried about is whether you can count to twenty-five hundred. Twice.”
“Jesus, Frankie!” Mr. Atchison indignantly protested the insinuation that he might try to shortchange someone in a business transaction.
“And you lay off the booze from right now. Not so much as another beer, understand?” Mr. Foley said, and walked away from Max’s Cheese Steaks.
Mr. Paulo Cassandro, who was thirty-six years of age, six feet one inches tall, and weighed 185 pounds, and was President of Classic Livery, Inc., had dined at the Ristorante Alfredo, one of the better restaurants in Center City Philadelphia, with Mr. Vincenzo Savarese, a well-known Philadelphia businessman, who was sixty-four, five feet eight inches tall and weighed 152 pounds.
Mr. Savarese had a number of business interests, including participation in both Ristorante Alfredo and Classic Livery, Inc. His name, however, did not appear anywhere in the corporate documents of either, or for that matter in perhaps ninety percent of his other participations. Rather, almost all of Mr. Savarese’s business participations were understandings between men of honor.
Over a very nice veal Marsala, Mr. Cassandro told Mr. Savarese that he had a small problem, one that he thought he should bring to Mr. Savarese for his counsel. Mr. Cassandro said that he had just learned from a business associate, Mrs. Harriet Osadchy, that an agreement that had been made between Mrs. Osadchy and a certain police officer and his associates was no longer considered by the police officer to be adequate.
“As I recall that agreement,” Mr. Savarese said, thoughtfully, “it was more than generous.”
“Yes, it was,” Mr. Cassandro said, and went on: “He said that his expenses have risen, and he needs more money.”
Mr. Savarese shook his head, took a sip of Asti Fumante from a very nice crystal glass, and waited for Mr. Cassandro to continue.
“Mrs. Osadchy feels, and I agree with her, that not only is a deal a deal, but if we increase the amount agreed upon, it will only feed the bastard’s appetite.”
Mr. Cassandro was immediately sorry. Mr. Savarese was a refined gentleman of the old school and was offended by profanity and vulgarity.
“Excuse me,” Mr. Cassandro said.
Mr. Savarese waved his hand in acceptance of the apology for the breach of good manners.
“It would be, so to speak, the nose of the camel under the flap of the tent?” Mr. Savarese asked with a chuckle.
Mr. Cassandro smiled at Mr. Savarese to register his appreciation of Mr. Savarese’s wit.
“How would you like me to handle this, Mr. S?”
“If at all possible,” Mr. Savarese replied, “I don’t want to terminate the arrangement. I think of it as an annuity. If it is not disturbed, it will continue to be reasonably profitable for all concerned. I will leave how to deal with this problem to your judgment.”
“I’ll have a word with him,” Mr. Cassandro said. “And reason with him.”
“Soon,” Mr. Savarese said.
“Tonight, if possible. If not tonight, then tomorrow.”
“Good,” Mr. Savarese said.
Mr. Cassandro was fully conversant not only with the terms of the arrangement but with its history.
Mrs. Harriet Osadchy, a statuesque thirty-four-year-old blonde of Estonian heritage, had come to Philadelphia from Hazleton, in the Pennsylvania coal region, four years before, in the correct belief that the practice of her profession would be more lucrative in Philadelphia. Both a decrease in the demand for anthracite coal and increasing mechanization of what mines were still in operation had substantially reduced the work force and consequently the disposable income available in the region.
She had firs
t practiced her profession as a freelance entrepreneur, until, inevitably, her nightly presence in the lounges of the better Center City hotels had come to the attention of the plainclothes vice officers assigned to the Inspector of Central Police Division.
Following her third conviction, which resulted in a thirty-day sentence at the House of Correction for violation of Sections 5902 (Prostitution) and 5503 (Disorderly Conduct) of the Crimes Code of Pennsylvania, she realized that she would either have to go out of business or change her method of doing business. By then, she had come to know both many of her fellow freelance practitioners of the world’s oldest profession, and several gentlemen who she correctly believed had a certain influence in certain areas in Philadelphia.
With a high degree of tact, she managed to get to meet Mr. Cassandro, and to outline her plan for the future. If it would not interfere in any way with any similar arrangement in which any of Mr. Cassandro’s friends and his associates had an interest, she believed the establishment of a very high-class escort service would fill a genuine need in Philadelphia.
Since she was unaware of how things were done in Philadelphia, and was a woman alone, she would require both advice, in such things as finding suitable legal and medical services, and protection from unsavory characters who might wish to prey upon her. She said she believed that ten percent of gross receipts would be a fair price to pay for such advice and protection.
Mr. Cassandro had told Mrs. Osadchy that he would consider the question, make certain inquiries, and get back to her.
He then sought an audience with Mr. Savarese and reported the proposal to him. After thinking it over for several days Mr. Savarese told Mr. Cassandro that he believed Mrs. Osadchy’s proposal had some merit, and that he should encourage her to cautiously proceed with it.
It was agreed between them as men of honor that Mr. Savarese would receive twenty-five percent of the ten percent of gross proceeds Mrs. Osadchy would pay to Mr. Cassandro, in payment for his counsel.
The business prospered from the start. Mrs. Osadchy chose both her work force and her clientele with great care. She also understood the absolute necessity of maintaining good relations with the administrative personnel of the hotels-not limited to security personnel-where her work force practiced their profession.
For example, if she anticipated a large volume of business from, say, a convention of attorneys, or vascular surgeons, or a like group of affluent professionals, she would engage a room (or even, for a large convention, a small suite) in the hotel for the duration of the convention. No business was conducted in the room. But between professional engagements, her work force would use it as a base of operations. This both increased efficiency and eliminated what would otherwise have been a parade of unaccompanied attractive young women marching back and forth through the hotel lobby.
And Mrs. Osadchy was of course wise enough to be scrupulously honest when it came to making the weekly payments of ten percent of gross income to Mr. Cassandro.
For his part, Mr. Cassandro introduced Mrs. Osadchy to several attorneys and physicians who could be relied upon to meet the needs of Mrs. Osadchy and her work force with both efficacy and confidentiality. And, more important, he let the word get out that Mrs. Osadchy was a very good friend of his, and thus entitled to a certain degree of respect. An insult to her would be considered an insult to him.
It was a smooth-running operation, and everybody had been happy with it.
And now this fucking cop was getting greedy, which could fuck everything up, and was moreover a personal embarrassment to Mr. Cassandro, who had not liked having to go to Mr. Savarese with the problem.
I should have known, when he started wanting to help himself to the hookers, Mr. Cassandro thought angrily, that this sonofabitch was going to cause me trouble.
He’s a real sleazeball, and now it’s starting to show. And cause me trouble.
What I have to remember, because I keep forgetting it, is that Lieutenant Seymour Meyer is a cop, a cop on the take, and not a businessman, and consequently can be expected to act like an asshole.
When Mr. Cassandro left Mr. Savarese in the Ristorante Alfredo, instead of getting into the car that was waiting for him outside, he walked to the Benjamin Franklin Hotel on Chestnut Street and entered a pay telephone booth in the lobby.
He telephoned to Mrs. Harriet Osadchy and told her that he was working on their problem, that he had been given permission to deal with it.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” Mrs. Osadchy replied. “He’s really getting obnoxious.”
“Financially speaking, you mean?” Mr. Cassandro asked, laughing. “Or generally speaking?”
“He called up about an hour ago, and asked what the room number was at the Bellvue. So I told him. And then he said the reason he wanted to know was because it was a slow night, and he was a little bored, so why didn’t I send Marianne over there, so they could have a little party.”
“He’s a real shit, Harriet,” Mr. Cassandro sympathized.
“It’s not just the money that he don’t pay the girls and I have to. He’s a sicko with the girls. I had a hard time making Marianne go.”
“He’s a real shit,” Mr. Cassandro repeated, and then he had a pleasant thought. “Harriet, why don’t you call over there?”
“What?”
“Tell her to keep him there. I want to talk to him. That’s as good a place as any.”
“I’ll call her,” Harriet said dubiously. “But I don’t want her involved in anything, Paulo.”
“Trust me, Harriet,” Mr. Cassandro said, and hung up.
Detective Matt Payne turned off the Parkway into the curved drive of a luxury apartment building and stopped with a squeal of tires right in front of the door. The uniformed doorman standing inside looked at him in annoyance.
The car was a silver Porsche 911. It had been Matt’s graduation present, three years before, when he had finished his undergraduate studies, cum laude, at the University of Pennsylvania.
Miss Penelope Detweiler, who was his fiancee in everything but formal announcement and ring-on-her-finger, frequently accused him, with some justification, of showering far more attention on it than he did on her.
He was still wearing the gray cotton uniform of the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel Maintenance Staff. By the time he had gone from the hotel to his apartment on Rittenhouse Square, which is five blocks west of the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel, to get the car, he had concluded (a) the smart thing for him to have done was to have prevailed yet again on Tiny Lewis’s good nature and asked him to take the damned tapes to Washington, and (b) that since he had failed to do so he was going to be so late that changing his clothing was out of the question. He had gone directly to the basement garage and taken his car.
“I’ll just be a minute,” he said to the doorman, who, accustomed to Payne’s frequent, brief, nocturnal visits, simply grunted and picked up his telephone to inform Ten Oh Six that a visitor was on his way up.
Mrs. Martha Washington, a very tall, lithe, sharply featured woman, who looked, Matt often thought, like one of the women portrayed on the Egyptian bas-reliefs in the museum, opened the door to him. She was wearing a loose, ankle-length silver lame gown.
“He’s not here, Matt,” she said, giving him her cheek to kiss. “I just opened a nice bottle of California red, if you’d like to come in and wait. He was supposed to be here by now.”
“I’m already late for dinner, thank you,” he said. “Would you give him this, please?”
He handed her a large, sealed manila envelope.
“Dinner, dressed like that?” she said, indicating his maintenance department uniform. “It looks like you’ve been fixing stopped-up sinks. What in the world have you been up to?”
She saw the uncomfortable look on his face, and quickly added: “Sorry, forget I asked.”
“I’ll take a rain check on the California red,” Matt said. “I don’t know where we’re going for dinner, but I’ll be home early if he wants me.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Ten minutes later, Matt pulled the Porsche to a stop at the black painted aluminum pole, hinged at one end, which barred access to a narrow cobblestone street in Society Hill, not far from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. A neatly lettered sign reading “Stockton Place-Private Property-No Thoroughfare” hung on short lengths of chain from the pole. A Wachenhut Private Security officer came out of a Colonial-style redbrick guard shack and walked to the Porsche.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Matthew Payne, to see Mr. Nesbitt.”
“One moment, sir, I’ll check,” the Wachenhut Security officer said, and went back into his shack.
It was said that, before renovation, the area known as Society Hill, not far from the Delaware River, had been going downhill since Benjamin Franklin-whose grave was nearby in the Christ Church Cemetery at Fifth and Arch streets-had walked its narrow streets. Before renovation had begun, it was an unpleasant slum.
Now it was an upscale neighborhood, with again some of the highest real estate values in Philadelphia. The Revolutionary-era buildings had been completely renovated-often the renovations consisted of discarding just about everything but the building’s facades-and turned into luxury apartments and town houses.
One of the developers, while doing title research, had been pleasantly surprised to learn that a narrow alley between two blocks of buildings had never been deeded to the City. That provided the legal right for them to bar the public from it, something they correctly suspected would have an appeal to the sort of people they hoped to interest in their property.
They promptly dubbed the alley “Stockton Place,” closed one end of it, and put a Colonial-style guard shack at the other.
Having been informed that Mr. Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV, who with his wife occupied Number Nine B Stockton Place-an apartment stretching across what had been the second floor of three Revolutionary-era buildings-did in fact expect a Mr. Payne to call, the Wachenhut Security officer pressed a switch on his control console which caused the barrier pole to rise.
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