• • •
Jane Gardella, staring through her darkened bedroom window, saw Alvaro standing in the side door of Rita O’Dea’s house and suddenly remembered where she had seen him before.
A part of her went cold.
The beard had fooled her. Slowly she dropped back from the window and only with the greatest effort restrained herself from running downstairs to her husband. It was not something she could tell him.
It had been three years ago.
She was Jane Denig then, a stewardess for Delta. She sat in the passenger seat of a red Porsche in a crowded car park at Miami Airport and watched through the windshield as her boyfriend Charlie dealt with a buyer some twenty yards away. Charlie had no choice. He was in debt, behind in his child support, the mortgage on his condo, and the payments on the Porsche. She had no choice either. She loved him, or thought she did.
She watched the deal go down while sitting safely in the car. She was unobserved, her face shrouded in shadow as the richness of the Florida evening poured in on her. Money changed hands in an almost priestly way. Cocaine was passed, though with a slight hesitation. Then in a snatch of light she glimpsed the buyer, who was obviously Hispanic, slim, clean-shaven, and very handsome. He seemed to throw Charlie a little kiss before he vanished.
Charlie scurried back to the Porsche and pushed himself behind the wheel, his face ashen. “Damn it!” he said, trembling and searching for a cigarette he couldn’t find. “He only paid me half what he said he would.”
“Then why’d you give him the stuff?” she asked.
“I didn’t want to fool with him,” Charlie said miserably. “I know what he does on the side.”
She waited for the answer.
“He kills people.”
• • •
Christopher Wade met with Russell Thurston in frail light behind a dark building where scraps of paper, fruit rinds, and flattened soft-drink cans littered the asphalt like fragments from an explosion. Wade, catching the whiff of an alley used as a privy, said, “Couldn’t you have picked a better place?”
“Call it an adventure.”
“You want a report?”
“I already got one. Things went well.” Thurston’s smile was an ironic shadow in his steep face, and his breath smelled of what he’d eaten, which was French food at the Café Plaza. “But tell me, are you really afraid of Gardella?”
“You bet I am.”
“As long as it doesn’t make you too cautious. When do you think he’ll make contact?”
“Soon. Victor Scandura’s been nosing around.”
Thurston’s breathing quickened. “Gardella will want to take you to dinner, no guinea joint, but someplace nice. He likes to put on airs.”
“You know his habits.”
“I know guineas.”
Wade experienced a quality of feeling he couldn’t explain. Nor did he want to. Having it was bad enough, and watching the glint in Thurston’s eye made it worse. Thurston moved closer.
“Something’s breaking down in Miami that could have repercussions here. We think it involves Gardella’s money operation, somebody’s greedy fingers. Bodies could fall.”
Wade said, “You going to let it happen?”
“How can I stop it? And even if I could, why would I want to? It gives Gardella more to think about and you more of an edge.”
“That contract on him, he must know about it.”
“Fits, doesn’t it?” Thurston said and turned sharply. There was static from the alley, a derelict’s gut-rending cough, and they moved quietly to another side of the building, the windows meshed in steel. “You know who owns this building?” Thurston asked and smiled as if from a private joke. Wade looked up and just barely made out the weathered sign that read gardella’s cold storage.
“Damn you,” Wade said. “This is my life you’re playing with.”
• • •
Anthony Gardella closed the door of his library to give him and his sister total privacy. The chairs were leather. His voice was sober. He gave an account of what had happened at G&B Toxic Waste and later at Aceway Development. “I should’ve been called too,” she started to say, but his eyes silenced her. He gave a curt assessment of the situation, no more than she needed to know, and then informed her of happenings in Miami, which caused her to tighten. He spoke without haste, without inflection, almost — it seemed — without interest. Then there was silence. She knew enough not to break it. She also knew that her involvement in his operations — unprecedented in the eyes of his associates — was distant, token, a gesture of his to make her feel useful, valued, good about herself. He let his head drop back, closed his eyes, and said, “You got any questions?”
“I know why you told me about Miami,” she said in a small voice. “Ty’s there.”
“What do you feel for him?”
“He’s still my husband. I don’t want to see him dead. I don’t want to go to the wake knowing we did it.”
“He’s garbage.”
“No, Tony. He’s only weak. He’s not big like you and me. And it wasn’t all his fault. You remember how it was. I was never good to him. Maybe you know why.”
“I don’t care why.”
“He made me mad. He wasn’t you. I wanted you, Tony, but you’re my brother.”
“I don’t want to hear talk like this.”
“My big brother.”
“You been drinking?”
“No, Tony, making love with the spic, that’s all.”
“I got more things to tell you. You want to listen, or you want to keep saying things that get me mad?”
“I want to be sixteen again. I want to get into a size-ten dress, and I want Papa to scold me and you to hug me.”
Gardella opened his eyes and looked at her. Her dense hair gathered light; no lines in her large face, only a shadow. “Go home, Rita. I’m tired.”
Much later, after receiving a succinct phone call from Victor Scandura, he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. A small bedside light was on. His wife lay well into the covers. He leaned over and kissed the top of her blond head.
“I’m not asleep,” she said.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her cheek. “You were me,” he asked in a weary voice, “what would you do about Rita?”
“Be good to her.”
“I am,” he said. “A lot of times too good.”
“Tony.”
“What?”
Her slim hand floated up to his face. “Thank you for asking me.”
9
A CADILLAC fishtailed through traffic into the Combat Zone and eventually forced itself into a parking space, one wire-rimmed wheel up on the curb. Victor Scandura climbed out of the passenger side, leaving his topcoat unbuttoned. The March morning was mild. He walked along the sidewalk’s edge at a brisk pace until all of a sudden his step faltered. There was a burning below his chest from an ulcer that hadn’t kicked up in a long time. As he waited for relief, a woman police officer approached cautiously and asked whether anything was the matter. He shaped a smile of sorts. “Everything’s fine. Thanks for asking.”
A minute later he entered the dim of a girlie joint. There was not much of a crowd, nothing near the numbers that would be there later. A couple of blowsy women occupied a booth, another sat at the bar. Scandura proceeded to the end of the bar, and a man with a spotted forehead and thin combed-back hair emerged from a table, where he had been checking race results in the Herald. His smile was effusive.
“Victor. Good to see you.”
Scandura nodded, no smile. “We want a woman to do something for us. She’s gotta have class, talk right, know how to throw her ass around so it don’t hit you in the face. You got somebody like that?”
“No problem. I’ll get on the phone, get back to you in a coupla hours. Where will you be?”
“I’ll call you.”
The man batted his eyes. His voice squeaked. “I hear Anthony’s got trouble.”
“What tr
ouble?”
“The crime-buster thing. That guy Wade, he gonna hit on here too?”
“He does, you call me.” Scandura started to turn away.
“Hey, Victor. Can I get you something before you go?”
“Yeah, get me a glass of milk.”
When Scandura returned to the car, Ralph Roselli immediately switched on the ignition and looked at his watch. “Plenty of time,” Scandura said, sitting back, half closing his eyes. They drove to Logan Airport, Delta terminal. The Cadillac slid to a sharp stop. Ralph Roselli, his baggy face immobile, grabbed a flight bag from the back seat and slipped out. Scandura eased himself behind the wheel and said, “Good luck.”
• • •
Christopher Wade telephoned Russell Thurston and said, “You were wrong. He doesn’t want to meet in some fancy restaurant. He wants me to take a trip.”
“What are you saying to me?”
“He’s got a summer house in Rye Beach, New Hampshire. That’s where he wants to meet.”
“I know the place,” Thurston said. “Blodgett took pictures of it a few years ago. A ninety-minute drive from here. That’s where he used to take his wife — the one he’s got now — before he married her. He didn’t let her into his house in Hyde Park till she had the ring on her finger.”
“Interesting.”
“When are you meeting him?”
“He wants Wednesday, the evening.”
“Give it to him.”
“I already told Scandura I’d be there, no promises on what I’d listen to, or even if I’d listen at all.”
“Beautiful,” said Thurston. “You’re a Hollywood actor.”
“What does that make you — Otto Preminger?”
“Make it John Ford,” Thurston said. “He was my favorite.”
• • •
Anthony Gardella took his wife to the theater, choice seats, a hit play, and later they went to a small North End restaurant that stayed open late, just for them. The owner made much of them, as did the waiters. They especially made much of her, to honor him. Later, at home, after he had locked up and checked the security alarms, he watched her remove her earrings. When she slipped out of her pumps, he placed slow arms around her. “You’ve been quiet lately. How come?”
“I’m happy, Tony. I don’t need to shout.” She smiled at him, but with care, as if to give him no wrong impressions. “How about you? Are you happy? Do you love me?”
“You know how much I love you. I loved you any more, it wouldn’t be right.”
Her lips grazed his cheek. “Talk to me that way always, I can live on it.”
He said, “This is a funny mood you’re in, but I like it.”
Afterward, in bed, their hands touching under the covers, he told her they would be going to Rye Beach on Wednesday. “I have to entertain somebody,” he said and told her who it would be. Her head shifted imperceptibly on the pillow.
“I read the papers, Tony. I know who he is, and what he’s trying to do to you.”
“The DA’s behind it. He’s looking to make political points, get some exposure on TV, some good ink from the Globe and Herald. Him I can’t talk to. Wade I can.”
“What makes Wade different?”
“He’s got a heart. He let it show once.”
There was a silence, no explanations sought. She was lying on one of her bobby pins, and she moved herself slightly. She let her eyes close with a flutter, as if from feelings that had uncoiled slowly, perhaps reluctantly.
Gardella said, “There’s going to be a woman with us. I want you to pretend she’s your friend.”
She kept her voice light. “And you don’t want me to ask why.”
“That’s right,” he said and gave her hand a playful squeeze. “I want you to be a real wop wife.”
• • •
Ralph Roselli drove over the Southern Boulevard Bridge into Palm Beach and, turning left, drove for more than a mile on Ocean Boulevard. Then he took another left, which aimed him into a network of narrow residential streets, tiny stucco houses jammed in from corner to corner, many painted pink. Checking signs, he eventually wound his way to a street narrower than the others and parked in front of a house more rose than pink. A man in rumpled pants that once went with a decent suit was watering his meager patch of lawn. The man looked up with a start as Roselli shuffled toward him. “You’re early,” he said and turned off the hose.
“No,” Roselli said. “If anything, I’m a few minutes late. You got my material?”
“Your material, huh. Yuh, I’ve got your material. It’s in the garage, back of my car.”
The garage was under the house, stuck in the ground, part of what passed for a basement. Roselli wrinkled his nose. “Stinks in here.”
“We got problems in the ground. Stuff seeps up that shouldn’t be down there in the first place. Half of Florida’s poisoned. Don’t drink the water.”
“Hurry up,” Roselli said.
The man opened the trunk of his car, gingerly lifted out a package the size of a shoe box, and passed it into Roselli’s careful hands. “Want me to explain the mechanism to you?”
“I needed you to explain it, I wouldn’t be taking it.”
The man said, “How long you going to be in the area, Ralph?”
“Why d’you want to know?”
“If you’re going to be around till Wednesday, my wife’s uncle’s having a big cookout. Lives in Lantana. You’re welcome to come.”
“Enjoy yourselves,” Roselli said and returned to his car. With much care he placed the package inside his flight bag. Moments later he was back on Ocean Boulevard. He drove south to Miami, scrupulously observing the speed limit all the way.
• • •
On Wednesday, late morning, Miguel Gilberto was killing time with a waitress in a hotel bar in downtown Miami. The waitress, who had joined him at his table when the only other customer had drifted out, sat with her knees knocked together, her kinky red hair worn long and wild. She said, “Maybe you got it mixed up. It must’ve been your mother was American, not your father.”
“No,” he said, his enormous black eyes sinking into her, “it was my father.”
“Then how come your name isn’t like his?”
“Gilbert didn’t go with Miguel. I put the o on to make it ring right.”
She laughed. “I bet you’re kidding me.”
“I don’t kid.” He scooped peanuts from a dish and ate them out of his hand, then licked the salt off his palm. “How about it, you gonna go out with me later or not?”
“You’re too short for me.”
“I got shoes with heels,” he said, “I’ll wear ’em.” She let out another laugh, but not as loud this time. His eyes were too sardonically into hers. He said, “Al Pacino’s short. You wouldn’t turn him down.”
“You serious? You really want to take me out?”
He gazed beyond her, and his face abruptly changed, grew hard in a way that daunted her. “You’d better go now,” he said quietly.
She got to her feet fast and went to the bar. Sal Nardozza dropped himself into the vacated chair. He was smoking a cheroot and wearing an open shirt, leafy in design, his silver chest floss showing. Leaning forward, he rasped, “Who we dealing with?”
“Couple of Cubans,” Gilberto said. “I’ve done business with them before. Ty O’Dea knows them. You can check with him, you don’t believe me.”
“I’d take your word before I’d take his. How many pure pounds we talking about?”
“They didn’t tell me. They just said how much money they’re going to need to make it happen. Million five.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You can’t handle it all, maybe we can bring in some other people, make up the difference.”
Nardozza said, “Million five is nothing to me. But I’ll feel better when Alvaro does his thing.”
“Alvaro does his thing, we’ll all feel better.” Gilberto’s eyes moved restlessly. “Right now, we got this busin
ess to decide.”
“I want to be eye to eye with them,” Nardozza said, “let them understand they got guns to their heads every minute my money’s in their pockets.”
“You want to talk to them, that’s easy. They’re waiting to hear from me out in the parking lot, sitting in a red-and-black Trans Am, dent on top of the hood, like somebody pounded his fist on it.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
Chairs scraped. Gilberto sprang to his full height, which was half of Nardozza’s. “I’ll meet you out there, I gotta say something to the waitress.”
“The one you were talking to?” Nardozza gave a look. “She’s got stupid hair.”
Gilberto grinned. “Kind that drives me crazy.”
The waitress was sitting on a high stool at the bar and doodling on a pad, her eyes blank and bored. Gilberto sidled up. He had on a short-sleeved jacket with epaulettes and redundant pockets. From one of the pockets he withdrew a thick roll of bills, big denominations. She lowered her eyes and said, “What’re you showing me that for?”
“I’m going to California, live near the movie stars, I’m going to leave this bar, walk through the lobby, and catch a cab. Get me to the airport in ten minutes. You want to come, right this minute, no thinking it over, you’ll live like a queen.” He paused without a smile. “Up to you. Think fast.”
“One chance in a zillion you’re telling the truth.”
“Minute’s up.”
She slipped off the stool. “I’m going to take the chance.”
Sal Nardozza stepped out into the parking lot at the back of the hotel and immediately glimpsed the red-and-black Trans Am, two faces in it. Nardozza, chewing on his cheroot, walked closer and gestured, and the two men climbed out. One of the Cubans had a shaved head, which gave him a moronic look. The other, clad in a vested tropical suit, had a more intelligent bearing, despite mirror sunglasses. He said, “Where’s Miguel?”
“Coming,” Nardozza rasped. “We have to talk. Ground rules you guys got to know.”
“Sure, go ahead. Talk.”
“Not here. My car.”
Nardozza’s car was parked several rows away, a topaz-yellow Lincoln Continental with tinted windows and a bumper sticker touting Crandon Park Zoo on Key Biscayne. Beneath the Lincoln, gummed to its fuel tank, was a plastic explosive that could be detonated from across the street. Nardozza unlocked the door on the driver’s side and punched a button that unlocked the others. The two Cubans appeared wary, especially the one in the suit, who said, “Let’s wait for Miguel.”
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