“Yeah, I like Nixon,” Gianetti was quoted. “I got a nephew come back from Vietnam with his arms blown off but I still support the guy (Nixon). Someone’s got to stop the Commies.” The article went on to say that Gianetti apparently put his money where his mouth was, using his influence to get jobs for Vietnam veterans in Chicago’s busy produce market district where it was rumored the Chicago mob con trolled a lot of what went on.
When Jan sidetracked into the Chicago produce market topic in her search on the computerized system, she came across Steve’s name. Her first thought at seeing his name on the computer screen was of his stroke because, in a way, the world seemed a much smaller place now, the world shrinking because of the media and mass communication the way it suddenly shrinks for a stroke victim.
The article mentioning Steve concerned a suspect in a then re cently-exposed scam in which trucks entering the South Water Market Street produce market were expected to pay a “parking fee.” During police questioning of the suspect, whose name was Rickie Deveno, there was an implication that a Chicago private detective might have been hired to enforce some of the fees, and Deveno had named Steve Babe. But the article went on to say that, after Babe was brought in, and after several truck drivers were questioned, it was found that Babe was not involved and Deveno had apparently pulled Steve’s name out of the air to protect his relatives who were actually the ones providing the muscle in the scam.
Back on the Gianetti track on the computerized system, Jan read an article from a Chicago magazine praising Gianetti for his support of the handicapped, especially Vietnam veterans. The article, published in 1988, said that before his death, Gianetti was a big supporter of handicapped veterans, and after Gianetti’s death in 1986, his nephew, one Maximo Lamberti worked to continue that legacy. According to the article, Lamberti, who did his stint in the military in the eighties, had no less than seven handicapped employees, three of them Vietnam veterans, working for him at his produce company.
When she finished with the Gianetti references in the archives, Jan looked up Max Lamberti. It seemed Max’s father before him, then Max, had been involved in some kind of peripheral organization, but not much was known about it. There was a photograph of Max as a much younger man in his military uniform posing with his father. The caption said the photograph was taken during Max Lamberti’s first leave after boot camp and that soon he’d be headed for Fort Bragg and the 82nd Airborne Division. In the photograph, Max held his ser vice cap at his side and, because the boot camp haircut had grown out some, Jan could see that Max had already lost a lot of his hair back then. She recalled Max at the funeral, leering at her while holding onto her hand unnecessarily. Now she was certain Max wore a hair piece because the mane of hair that plunged down onto his forehead was much too thick for a transplant.
The only connection she found between Antonio Gianetti Senior and his nephew Max was a hint that Max worked for the Gianetti or ganization when he first got into organized crime after his military discharge, and that he probably learned the ropes there before stepping into his father’s shoes after his father died. None of the articles im plied Max took over Gianetti’s old organization after Gianetti’s death. In fact, one of the articles went out of its way to show that the old or ganization seemed to die with the senior Gianetti.
One thing that did stand out, after reading about uncle and nephew, was that Max, the nephew, had apparently been involved in the business of bringing drugs into Chicago. In contrast, her earlier reading about Gianetti indicated he had a great disdain for drug traf ficking. This difference made Jan think of Steve’s references to a “fly in the ointment” and “Max the fly” and she wondered if Max’s peripheral organization trafficked exclusively in drugs, and if that’s what made him a “black sheep” in the larger family.
Jan moved from the archive computer to one of the Internet com puters where she searched out more recent references to the Gianetti family. In these articles the name Antonio had been dropped in favor of Tony. There she found several articles about Tony Junior and even a couple articles written by him. As she read the articles about global warming and other environmental issues, Jan recalled Marjorie saying something about her son being a lover of nature. One of the articles, bylined Tony Gianetti, with no mention of him being a junior, was from Sierra Magazine. The article was from 2004, itemizing what he considered President Bush’s environmental failures and giving reasons why Bush should not be reelected President.
As Jan sat at the computer reading outspoken environmental and political articles by Tony Junior, the librarian came over. Her name was Bonnie and she had a soft look and sallow complexion that made it seem she never went outside the library into the sunlight. Of course Bonnie wouldn’t have been able to go out into the sunlight this day because the rain was still slanting sideways against the large windows in the reference area.
Bonnie’s hair was long and straight, tied behind her head. She wore a maroon sweater over a white blouse and gray wool skirt. It looked like one of only a few outfits Jan had ever seen Bonnie wear. She remembered Steve once saying maybe when the three or four skirts got threadbare they could buy some new ones for Bonnie. Though this may have seemed cruel at the time, it was not. Steve had been perfectly serious, the statement not a joke at all, but an indication of his concern for Bonnie.
Bonnie had once had problems with a library patron from whom she accepted an invitation for a date. Following the date, which turned out to be a date rape, the man had stalked Bonnie. She was working evenings at the time and the stalker kept showing up at the library before closing time. He would wait inside, watching Bonnie close up behind the front desk, then he would go outside to wait for her in the parking lot. She told Steve about this one evening when she could stand it no longer. Jan did not know what Steve said to the man, all she knew was that Steve approached the man in the library that eve ning, sat beside him, opened a book and pretended to read while he spoke softly to the man. The result of this one-sided conversation was that the man left, saying goodnight to those at the counter, including Bonnie, and never returned.
Bonnie pulled out the chair next to Jan. “Mind if I sit?”
“Not at all.”
“You looked busy,” said Bonnie. “But I didn’t want you to leave before I had a chance to ask about Steve. How’s he doing?”
“Not bad. They’re working him pretty hard, running him through the mill at Saint Mel’s.”
“I’ve heard good things about their program,” said Bonnie. “Is he still getting a lot of physical therapy like at the hospital?”
“Quite a bit. At first it bothered him, having to be shown how to do simple things, but he got used to it. At the rehab center the physical and occupational therapy is more advanced—using the phone, com puters, and they’ve even mentioned the possibility of driving soon. But they mainly work on verbal and written communication skills.”
“How’s the aphasia?” asked Bonnie.
“Better,” said Jan. “It turns out the damage to Steve’s left brain caused mostly expressive aphasia rather than receptive aphasia. That means he’s pretty good at understanding what you’re saying, but has trouble respond ing. The way he describes it, sometimes the words are there, floating right in front of him, but they’re upside-down or inside-out. And at other times, when he finally comes up with the word that matches the concept and he’s ready to say it, it’s like grasping at straws. The word is there, but when he goes to grab it, it slips away. But he is getting much better typ ing things. I was just reading something about global warming and it reminded me of what he typed the other day. He said when he came out of the stroke and started trying to follow news on television about global warming, it was as though the world had had a stroke.”
Bonnie reached out and put her hand on Jan’s for a moment be fore pulling it back. “It must be very frustrating for Steve and for you. He was always one who knew how to say just the right thing. I should know.”
“It is frustrating
sometimes,” said Jan. “He’s been referring to the stroke as a brain bullet. I guess the description is about right. After the stroke some circuits are shot, some aren’t. It’s pretty random.”
“What about the medication you told me about last time?”
“The Citicoline?”
“Yes,” said Bonnie, “that was it. The article I read said they have high hopes for Citicoline helping the injured brain repair itself by somehow internally bypassing or fixing damaged circuits.”
Jan looked toward the window at the droplets running into one another on the glass, then cascading down in a stream. “Steve’s doc tors say the Citicoline did some good, but that it can’t bring the brain all the way back. There’s also the timing. Citicoline is supposed to be started within twenty-four hours of the stroke, and within the first few hours for maximum effect. They gave it to him right after they gave him the clot-dissolving drug. But there’s still some question as to whether we got him to the hospital and got the Citicoline in him within the window for … for maximum effect.”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” said Bonnie.
Jan turned from the window and looked back at Bonnie, saw the sad face, reached out and touched her hand. “It’s okay, Bonnie. He’s doing better. In speech therapy he runs the tape recorder and dem onstrates word pronunciation to newcomers. It’s just that I’m always there, and from one day to the next it probably seems as if nothing’s changed, when in fact he’s making steady progress. We’ve kept a goals diary for Steve since he first went into the hospital like they suggested, and I suppose if I looked back in it once in a while, I’d see how much he’s progressed.”
After she and Bonnie exchanged goodbyes, Bonnie came back. “I almost forgot. You looked so busy on the computer. Is there anything I can help you find?”
“I think I’ve about exhausted it, Bonnie. I’ve been looking for information on Chicago organized crime figures. It has to do with something Steve … well, it has to do with Steve.”
“Do you have names?” asked Bonnie.
After she gave Bonnie the names Gianetti and Lamberti and told about what she’d found so far, Bonnie led Jan to a small file behind the checkout desk. After a while Bonnie wrote something down on a card, then had Jan follow her to the audio-visual department. There she searched through educational videos until she came out with one. She had a smile on her face.
“It’s a four-part PBS program on organized crime. Part three is an hour-long segment on Chicago, past and present. It was aired a few years ago, but maybe you can find something.”
The excitement of the search. Jan began to feel it when Bonnie handed her the tape and took her to a viewing room. The feeling grew even stronger at the beginning of the hour-long Chicago seg ment when the introduction showed flashes of Chicago crime figures, including a photograph of Antonio Gianetti right in there with those of Capone and Spilotro and Accardo. And the feeling reached it’s peak when she got to the part of the video covering not only Antonio Gia netti Senior, but also his nephew, Maximo Lamberti.
Although there were only stills of Gianetti, apparently because Gianetti Senior valued his privacy and did not give interviews, there was a brief interview with nephew Max.
In the video, Max was a few years younger than the man she met at Marjorie’s funeral, but older than the boot camp graduate she’d seen photographed with his father. He had not yet grown a mustache, but he’d already donned the thick black hairpiece. He stared at the camera as he spoke, leaning closer to it. As she watched the interview, it became obvious to Jan that Max was not one to shy away from the limelight the way his uncle had.
“Tell me,” said the interviewer, “was your uncle part of the orga nization or wasn’t he?”
“My Uncle Tony?”
“Yes.”
“My Uncle Tony was a good man. He might have been part of some kind of organization, I don’t know.”
“By organization, I mean organized crime in Chicago.”
“Jesus, you mean the mob?”
“Okay, the mob. Specifically, the Chicago mob. However, before the interview you asked me not to use the word.”
“That’s right,” said Max, staring at the camera. “I don’t like the word mob. But if you’re going to ask questions and you expect me to answer, I’ve got to call a spade a spade.”
Max looked to the side, smiled and reached out, shoving at some one off camera. “Hey, don’t take it so serious… Okay, you want to know if my Uncle Tony was in the mob. Sure he was. But things were different back then. Truck drivers were in the mob and grocery store owners were in the mob and politicians—especially politicians—were in the mob.”
“I see your point,” said the interviewer. “But what about more re cent times? What about just prior to his death? Tony Gianetti died in 1986. Was he still in the mob in the 1980s?”
Max smiled and nodded at the camera. “That’s a very good ques tion. But I’m sorry to say there’s no way to know the answer. I was in the military in the eighties serving my country, so I couldn’t exactly keep track of what was going on back here in Chicago. As far as my Uncle Tony was concerned, he was a very private man. He never did interviews or any of this. He never wanted publicity. And in his later years, he was even private from his own family. He was a good man, giving to charities, especially the Vietnam vets. But he never wanted a medal for it.”
“I understand you’ve taken over where your uncle left off, hiring veterans and supporting their causes.”
“Something bad about that?”
“No.”
“Sure, just because there wasn’t a war when I served, doesn’t mean I don’t love my country. I’ve hired U.S. vets from all services and all conflicts to work for me. And not only vets, but other handicapped people. I got one guy who got his legs chopped off in a combine ac cident. He’s just standing there one day out in the field in Kansas and the combine … see, it’s dark out and the driver can’t see him and … what’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I just wondered if we could stick to the topic.”
“Okay, if you insist.”
“I understand the Vietnam Veterans of America recently presented you with an award.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but I don’t like to brag about it.”
“Are you a member of the mob, Max?”
Max’s face went sour, but the smile quickly returned. “That word, mob, it’s one of those funny words that can be okay sometimes, but not okay at other times. This is one of those times when I don’t care for it.”
Because of the edit on the tape, Jan wasn’t sure if the interview had ended there or not, but by the look on Max’s face she figured it had.
The interview with Max was near the end of the Chicago seg ment, and the conclusion showed a video clip that encapsulated every thing she had read about while on the computer search system earlier. The clip showed Max on a motor yacht cruising out of Burnham Har bor. He sat at the stern in the sun with several younger men gathered about him. The Chicago skyline was behind Max and it was obvious the shot had been taken through a telephoto lens. It appeared Max was lecturing, driving his right fist into his left palm for emphasis. The voiceover during the clip asked, “Are these young men recruits for tomorrow’s Chicago mob?” What made the clip important to Jan was that she recognized one of the men as Dino, a much younger Dino, but definitely the one Steve pointed out at the funeral. And now she recalled the way Steve said, “Dino, Rickie’s son,” and how this had reminded him of a past incident involving Rickie Justice, Dino’s fa ther, who had changed his name from Deveno back when she first met Steve.
After giving the video back to Bonnie and thanking her, Jan re turned to the computer and looked up Dino Justice and Rickie Jus tice. She found nothing under those names, but when she looked up Deveno, she not only found the article about the produce market scam in which Steve had been mentioned, but she also found another refer ence to Rickie Deveno.
This article, writ
ten in 1992, concerned a huge drug bust that took place in 1980. Deveno was mentioned as one of several mobsters who disappeared or dropped out of organized crime in the Chicago area in the years following the drug bust. The article implied that per haps some of those who disappeared were in reality living on tropical islands. The article said that during the drug bust in 1980 on Chica go’s south side, cocaine and heroin having a street value of 280 million dollars had been confiscated. Drawing on other evidence, the writer of the article showed the drugs were in transit and were most likely just about to be turned over to a buyer or buyers when the raid took place. The writer wondered what had happened to the money that must have been gathered for such a huge deal.
Suddenly, as Jan sat at the reference room computer rereading the article, she thought of something Steve had told her several years ear lier. He had been on a case involving the missing wife of a cop he once worked with. At one point, when evidence seemed to point to foul play, and when the cop insisted he knew nothing about a certain piece of evidence, Steve had mentioned the 1980 drug bust and told Jan about a theory that had made the rounds.
According to Steve, several Chicago Police detectives had been murdered or had so-called “accidents” during the eighties. What many insiders wondered was whether the money gathered for the drug deal had actually been there at the scene when the bust came down. And if it had been there, who had provided it and how had it disappeared? The theory that had made the rounds was that the money came from the east coast organization and a group consisting of cops and hoods had agreed to hold the money back, lie low, and split it later. The under-the-table agreement was that the deal to lie low and keep quiet would go sour and Chicago mob figures would end up with most of the cash, leaving the crooked cops with the rest. The internal turmoil had supposedly resulted in an increase in the number of deaths among Chicago detectives.
Pure speculation, Steve had admitted at the time, but the thing that came to her now, the really important thing Steve had said, was that the rise in deaths among Chicago detectives seemed to have last ed only a few years. Perhaps, he’d said, this was due to a general in crease in violence against authorities in the eighties. Or, he speculated, perhaps it really did have something to do with the 1980 drug bust. Maybe the money was there, then a few years later, it just wasn’t there anymore. Or maybe those who had an interest in the money were gone, one way or another, and it ended up in the hands of someone who outlasted the others.
Final Stroke Page 18