Love or Honor

by Barthel, Joan;

  Harry called back. “Cardinal Hayes High School,” he said. The Pope would be making a stop there to use the facilities, take a short nap, maybe; have a bite with some church bigwigs. It was a small segment of the Pope’s day, very private, closed to the press and almost everyone else. Very few people. Harry would be stationed at one of the entrances; Chris was to use that entrance. “I can’t guarantee you’ll see him,” Harry said, “But I can get you in. And no disguise, for Chrissake. Just a nice suit.”

  The hot Brioni was the nicest suit Chris owned, but that didn’t seem right, somehow. He found a three-piece gray suit and had his best silk tie cleaned. It occurred to him he might run into some people he knew. If the mob could penetrate the White House, why not Cardinal Hayes High School?

  At the door, Harry looked at him, nodded curtly and handed him a round button to wear, to show that he was authorized. Inside, “very few people” turned out to be swarms of guys with walkie-talkies, some uniformed cops, but mostly men in dark suits—Secret Service, FBI, State Department, you name it. One of them buttonholed Chris the minute he stepped across the threshold.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Chris fingered his ID button and looked the guy straight in the eye. “I’m with catering,” he said. “Where’s the dining room?”

  “Upstairs,” the man said.

  The upstairs hall wasn’t as crowded. A few more guys with walkie-talkies, some uniformed cops stationed at points along the wall. Nobody said anything to him, so he wandered around, inspecting the dining room with interest—Harry had said they were even bringing in food tasters.

  He wandered out into the hall and was just standing there by the elevator when suddenly the elevator door opened and the Pope stepped out.

  Chris looked at the Pope. The Pope looked at Chris. After that frozen millisecond, Chris lunged forward, grabbed the Pope’s hand, and bent his head. The Pope laid his hand on Chris’s curly mop and murmured a blessing.

  As the Pope moved past, with his entourage behind him, Chris straightened up. He stepped into the elevator the Pope had just come out of, and rode down.

  In and out.

  Marty told Chris that Anna had been preparing for days for Christmas Eve dinner. Both Anna’s parents and John’s parents had been raised in villages in Italy where seven fish dishes were traditionally served on Christmas Eve, in honor of the seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Holy Orders, Anointing of the Sick.

  And Matrimony.

  Chris was so immobilized by the thought that Marty was expecting an engagement ring at Christmas that he didn’t buy anything for anybody. In midafternoon on Christmas Eve he ducked into a department store to buy something for Anna. He stood at the perfume counter, feeling dazed. “I want the best perfume you’ve got,” he told the clerk. She began naming perfumes, when a name Chris had heard somewhere stuck in his head. “Chanel Number Five,” he said. When she gave him the cellophane-wrapped box, he looked at her doubtfully. “Are you sure this is the best you’ve got?” he asked. The woman told him he was making an excellent choice.

  Marty’s house was a swirl of lights and laughter and music. Chris put the package for Anna under the Christmas tree. “I don’t have a present for you right now,” he told Marty.

  She smiled brightly at him. “Valentine’s Day, then,” she said. “Right now you’re my Christmas present. You’re all I want for Christmas.” She pulled him into the archway between the foyer and the dining room, where a thick bunch of mistletoe was pinned up, and kissed him.

  The table was laden with more fish dishes than Chris thought existed. Some of them were familiar to him—the stuffed clams, and the mussels marinara—but some were new. When Marty told him that one fish had been marinated in olive oil and white wine, then baked in a paper bag, he said he’d never heard of such a thing. The linguine was served with a thick lobster-and-tomato sauce.

  Chris counted twenty-two people, including wives. Christmas was a family holiday in OC; the gummares got New Year’s Eve.

  After dinner, they sang “Silent Night” around the tree. Then some people got ready to go to Midnight Mass. Anna asked Chris to join them at Mass, but Chris said he was sorry, he couldn’t.

  He told Marty he’d call her. He shook hands with John. He reached out to Anna and kissed her, for once, before she could kiss him. He held on to her hand and looked at her for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  Liz was asleep. Chris tried to be very quiet as he made a pot of coffee. He sat at the kitchen table with coffee and cigarettes. He was watching the sky lighten when he heard the alarm clock, and Liz moving around.

  She came into the kitchen, fully dressed. Two shopping bags brimming with gifts stood by the door.

  She opened the closet and got her coat. She took a woolly blue hat from the closet shelf, and her warm gloves from the coat pocket.

  “Are you coming?” she said.

  “No,” Chris said. “I’m not coming.”

  When he heard the door slam, he jumped at the sound. He looked around, startled. Then he folded his arms and put his head down.

  He cried and cried. “Oh, Pop,” he mumbled. “Hey, Pop, help me. Please, Pop.”

  He made another pot of coffee and watched the clock. When he thought Liz would have reached her house, he telephoned. “I’m coming,” he said. “I’m leaving now.”

  “Don’t bother,” Liz said. “I don’t want you to come. I want a divorce.”

  All that Christmas Day Chris sat in the apartment. Several times he picked up the phone to call somebody, then put it down again. He couldn’t speak to his mother or to his sisters. He couldn’t speak to Marty. He couldn’t speak to Phil. He had nothing to say to anyone, including himself.

  In late afternoon, when it was already dark, he went out. He walked up and down Austin Street, his feet stiff with cold.

  He thought he never could have imagined a time when he would be glad his father wasn’t around. He thought it was a blessing that George had not lived to see how deeply he had disgraced himself, and the family name.

  He thought it was incredible that anyone could ever rationalize loving two different women in two different ways because he was two different men. He thought that anyone who could think that way was a rotten person, a liar and deceiver and cheat.

  He thought it was as simple as that.

  “You’ve had it, kid,” Harry told him. “You’re coming up.”

  “Give me a couple more weeks,” Chris pleaded. “I’ve got some things to do.”

  “Look, you’re going nowhere,” Harry said. “You did enough. You’ve had enough. What else do you have to do, for Chrissake?”

  “I just have to figure some things out,” Chris said.

  “What’s the matter?” Harry asked. “What do you have to figure out?”

  “Just some things,” Chris said desperately. “I just need a little more time, Harry. Please.”

  “Okay,” Harry said in a surprisingly soft voice. “Two weeks, but then I’ve got to yank you. Two weeks, then you’re coming up, that’s it, period.”

  Chris felt he had to prepare Marty—he couldn’t just vanish. So he told her he was going out to the Coast. A friend of his was opening a health club in L.A. It was going to be a knockout place, with entertainment—that’s how they did things in L.A.—and his friend wanted him to come out and set up the music. Chris told her he didn’t know how long he’d be gone—a few weeks, maybe a month, maybe longer.

  Once he’d done that, he didn’t know what else he had to do. He didn’t go back down to Mulberry Street. He’d gone back a couple of times, after the TV deal, because he didn’t want to just disappear. He’d played some cards, hung around a while, engaged in some conversations. Everybody was talking about the dog. When the caretaker had come by at six o’clock to take Duke out, the dog had lifted its leg against a hydrant and keeled over. Duke went out like a light and had to be dragged back inside. “The fucking d
og was drunk!” they kept saying. “He was stupefied!”

  There wasn’t a lock made that the black baggers couldn’t handle, no piece of equipment they didn’t find a use for, including tranquilizing guns.

  He went to see his mother. When he found that Katrina had turned part of his room into a storeroom, with boxes stacked along the wall, some old toys, a tricycle that his nephew had outgrown, he resented it a little. That had always been his room, with his books—the set of encyclopedias Katrina had bought, when he was in fourth or fifth grade—and the drums packed away in the closet. There was a framed newspaper article on the wall: HERO COPS TIP SCALES OF JUSTICE FOR A SLUM CHILD

  He went over to the Grotto and had a drink with Kostos. He had lunch at Stani Sistaria, with its plaintive Greek music and sentimental oil paintings of Mediterranean scenes on the walls. He walked past the building on 23rd Road. The weasel’s place downstairs looked busy, but the C&G club was closed. Gene’s wife had refused to take him back; Gene had gone to Florida. The place had served its purpose: Like many clubs, it had allowed him to do some social climbing.

  He went to the urologist. He thought it was funny that, for all of today’s high-tech equipment and sophisticated medical procedures, the doctor still used just a flashlight in a darkened room.

  “How long have you had this?” the doctor demanded.

  “About a year, year and a half,” Chris said.

  The doctor stared at him. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”

  “I was busy,” Chris said.

  “Are you crazy?” the doctor said. “I should take your own gun and beat you over the head with it. This has to come out.”

  “I know,” Chris said. “I’ll have to have that done sometime, I guess.”

  “Now,” the doctor said. “It has to come out now.” He pointed his finger at Chris sternly, but his voice was gentle. “Do you know what this could be?” he asked.

  “Yes, I know,” Chris said.

  Marty insisted on driving him to the airport. He was going to L.A., and when he got there, he was going to turn around and come back. He knew he could have handled it more simply, without flying all the way out to L.A. for nothing, but it seemed important that Marty see him leave, knowing he was going far away. He showed her his ticket.

  “Just drop me off,” Chris said. “You don’t have to bother parking.”

  “I know I don’t have to,” Marty said. “I want to. I want to be with you till the last minute.”

  They walked to the ticket counter, where he got his boarding pass. They went through security and down to the gate. Thank God the plane was already boarding.

  “Here’s your Christmas present,” Marty said. She handed him a small package wrapped in plain white tissue paper. “Don’t open it now, there’s no time. Open it later.”

  He slipped the package into his pocket.

  Marty began to cry.

  He wanted to cheer her up. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, tell her everything would be all right. But he had lied long enough. So he just held her face between his hands and said what he’d always found so difficult to say. He told her the truth.

  “I love you,” he said.

  Epilogue

  In January, 1980, Chris had surgery for testicular cancer. He was given a 65 percent chance of surviving. He thought those were good odds, considering.

  On February 13, 1980, a Gambino soldier from Brooklyn met with Sicilians in Palermo to arrange for the shipment of 40.6 kilograms of heroin, worth one hundred million dollars, to New York via Milan.

  When Chris left the hospital, he moved into a studio apartment near the little beach where he and Phil had met. He kept a portable police radio near him at all times, because Harry thought that Chris should be able to communicate with the department instantly, if he needed to. Chris thought so too. He continued to sleep with the lights on.

  In July, 1980 and in December, 1980, armored-car robberies took place in Queens and in Brooklyn. One robber used a gun with a red barrel.

  Chris was in and out of the hospital all year, taking massive doses of chemotherapy. His curly hair fell out in chunks. He vomited so severely that he tied a robe around his stomach to keep his insides in place. Phil came to see him every day. Chris lost fifty pounds. Phil lost twenty.

  In the summer of 1980, Chris met Nick Gregoris outside the McDonald’s on Cross Bay Boulevard. Chris told Nick he’d been on the West Coast. Nick smiled and said that’s what he’d heard.

  In 1980, electronic listening devices at the Ravenite Social Club recorded conversations about the murder of Carmine Galante.

  In November, 1980, Chris had a second operation. He was cut open, breastbone to groin, in a procedure that took ten hours. The surgeon told Chris that the purpose of the operation was not to prolong Chris’s life, but to save it. The surgery took place on Election Day, so Chris didn’t vote that year, either.

  In February, 1981, the gunman with the red-barreled weapon was sentenced for the armored-car robberies.

  In March, 1981, Chris returned to full-time duty with the New York Police Department. Phil thought Chris hadn’t wanted to return until all his hair grew back. When Chris was assigned to diplomatic escort, Katrina made him a tuxedo of wool and rayon.

  It was suggested to Chris that he return to John’s house and borrow $50,000, so that John could be charged with usury. Chris declined. It was suggested that he change his identity, leave New York, and live under a protection program. He declined.

  On January 26, 1982, the men who had met in Palermo were among several dozen men indicted in Italy for drug trafficking and conspiracy.

  At 4:30 A.M. on May 8, 1982, Nick Gregoris and three other men were gunned down at the corner of 156th Avenue and Cross Bay Boulevard. Nick died instantly, with four bullets in his upper chest, and a shotgun blast.

  On September 3, 1982, an undercover cop with the NYPD, a woman, was stabbed while attempting a “buy and bust” with a drug dealer on the street.

  In June, 1983, the Italian court convicted the defendants of heroin trafficking. More arrests and convictions followed, in Italy and in the United States, in cases involving the FBI, the DEA, and other agencies, as well as the NYPD. Organized crime figures in this country were shown to have worked often through some Sicilian immigrants, nicknamed “zips.”

  In February, 1985, Aniello Dellacroce and Paul Castellano were among several men indicted on charges of operating a “Mafia Commission.” Dellacroce, his son Armond, and John Gotti were indicted on RICO charges of conspiracy and racketeering.

  In November, 1985, Chris was transferred from diplomatic escort and reassigned to undercover work.

  On December 2, 1985, Aniello Dellacroce died of cancer at Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens, where he had been admitted as “Timothy O’Neil.”

  On December 6, 1985, Armond Dellacroce pleaded guilty. He disappeared before trial.

  On December 16, 1985, Paul Castellano was shot six times in the head and chest as he got out of a car in front of Sparks Steak House in Manhattan. He took his driver with him.

  On November 19, 1986, eight organized crime figures were convicted of operating a “Mafia Commission.” One of them was Anthony Corallo, head of the Luchese crime family.

  On January 13, 1987, seven of the eight men were sentenced to one hundred years in prison. Apiece. In court, a prosecutor called it a “never-before day.” Law enforcement officials gave credit for the convictions to a series of successful undercover operations, involving the use of “probable cause” to allow the placing of listening devices and hidden cameras. A detective who was part of the operations on Mulberry Street says that Chris appears in a surveillance photo, but Chris has never seen it. He never saw the photograph of him and Marty, either.

  In June, 1987, Chris went down to Little Italy. He didn’t see the Penguin, but he saw Solly standing in front of a pizza place on Prince Street, smoking a cigarette. Chris was wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and a cap, while at the Kew h
e’d always been impeccably dressed. Still, Chris turned back. Why take the chance?

  In April, 1988, Armond Dellacroce died in Pennsylvania, where he had been living as a fugitive.

  Since the Mafia Commission verdict, more OC figures have been tried under RICO. John Gotti has been acquitted. Among those convicted was Frankie’s uncle. More trials are expected.

  Chris still lives in the little apartment near the beach, with his books and records and his favorite Hopper print, “Early Sunday Morning.” There are no people in that picture, just a persistent sense of loneliness.

  Liz came to see Chris when he was in the hospital the first time. He has not seen her since. Bing came then too, bringing a pair of slippers. Chris reminded Bing he’d told him it was going to be all right.

  He has stopped drinking. His regular checkups show no recurrence of cancer. He doesn’t go to the opera anymore, or to museums. He chooses restaurants carefully, and does a grid search. He wears dark glasses. At the racetrack he saw both Kostos and Frankie. Neither man saw him. He goes to the movies often. He saw An Officer and a Gentleman as soon as it came out. “Piece of cake,” he said.

  He sees his mother nearly every Sunday. Katrina has been offered half a million dollars for the house in Queens that George bought for sixteen thousand dollars cash, but she will not sell. Why would a person want to leave home? Chris has not yet gone back to Maple Grove Cemetery, but he intends to go, someday. At some point, atonement has been made, or what is redemption all about?

  He still reads a lot, including Bulfinch’s Mythology. There’s always a lesson there. Bulfinch seems uncertain about the lesson of Jason, though. He suggests that perhaps, in the end, golden prizes may not be worth it. Bulfinch just relates in a straightforward way what Jason did—some heroic things, some things unworthy of a hero. He makes clear that Jason did what he was sent out to do. Jason accomplished his mission. Beyond that, Bulfinch doesn’t analyze or assess the blame. Maybe he thought it wasn’t as simple as that.