by Mike Lawson
“Now we get to Paul. Paul’s about thirty at this point; he’s ambitious but he’s going nowhere. He’s just another assistant DA. A smart one, a good-looking one, but he’s just one of the herd. And his father-in-law, the big judge, a guy who could have helped him, had just retired from the bench in disgrace and if anything, Paul’s now tainted by his association with the guy.
“So along comes Dominic. He says he can help Paul, and he says he wants to help his daughter and the granddaughter he’s never met. We’ll get to Kate later. But the main thing is he says he can help Paul’s career. And then he makes a threat. Dominic says that if Paul doesn’t agree to work with him, then maybe the word gets out that Paul’s related to Dominic through his wife. That would have killed Paul’s political career.”
DeMarco remembered what Lydia had said the day they walked along the canal: Then the devil danced in.
“And it worked for Paul. He and Calvetti made it work. They didn’t do dumb things, they didn’t try to make barrels of money or get Calvetti’s minor hoods out of jail. They focused mostly on advancing Paul’s career.” Harry laughed. “When Paul was mayor of New York, everybody thought he was a genius the way he kept the unions in line. But it was Dominic who controlled the unions. He’d been controlling unions ever since the days Hoffa ran the teamsters.”
“And the other reason Morelli did so well,” DeMarco said, “was because Calvetti would destroy his political rivals if they became a problem.”
Harry shook his head. “Rarely, Joe. Rarely did Dominic have to intervene. Paul was a good politician. He did most of it on his own.”
“So that’s it, Harry? That’s how Paul Morelli became Calvetti’s pet politician?”
“No, Joe, you still don’t get it. Paul wasn’t anyone’s pet. He and Dominic worked together. They were equal partners, as near as I could tell. Paul concentrated on being a good politician and he did good things. Those stories I told you the day we had lunch, they were all true. If anything, Paul turned the mob into a positive force.”
“Come on, Harry. Calvetti helped Morelli for the good of the people? Who the hell are you trying to kid?”
“I’m not saying that. Sure, Dominic got some things out of the arrangement. But they didn’t do things just to make money. Calvetti was already a multimillionaire when he hooked up with Paul. And if you look at Paul’s finances, you’ll see that he’s not real rich, not Kennedy-rich.”
Harry paused. “I’ll tell you something I’ve suspected for a long time,” he said. “I think for Dominic this wasn’t about money at all. It was a game to him.”
“A game?”
“When Dominic hooked up with Paul, he already had everything. And I don’t just mean money. He had power, respect. He was at the pinnacle of his career. But the idea of making a man mayor of New York, then a senator, then president . . . I think that’s what appealed to him. I mean can you even imagine the feeling? His guy in the White House. I think for Dominic that’s what it was all about: he just wanted to see if he could do it, see how far he could help Paul rise. It would be Dominic’s way of giving the finger to the whole system. But for Paul, of course, it wasn’t a game at all. The White House was what he had wanted from day one.”
A game, DeMarco thought, played with people’s lives and reputations.
“And someplace along the way,” Harry said, “something else became important to Dominic and that was Kate. He never knew Lydia when she was young, but Kate, he saw her the first time when she was about two and he just fell in love with her. Kate may have been the only person in the world Dominic Calvetti ever really loved. I know he didn’t love his own wife or Lydia’s mother or even Lydia. And he never had children of his own. But Kate, she was different. Dominic actually cried when she died; I saw him. So I think part of the reason he helped Paul was so he could have some contact with his granddaughter, not that Kate ever knew who he really was.”
“Wasn’t it dangerous for Calvetti to meet with Paul or his family?”
“Damn straight it was dangerous. If anyone ever tied them to each other, Paul would have been finished. So Dominic and Paul, they’ve only met face to face maybe two dozen times in the years they’ve been working together. But when Kate was little, before she was really old enough to know who Calvetti was, she’d be taken to see him sometimes. And these visits, they were set up like . . . like I don’t know what. They’d switch cars, meet in remote spots, use helicopters for surveillance. It was like a military operation, every time he saw the girl.”
“But at some point when Kate was older she must have been curious about old Uncle Dominic,” DeMarco said. “She must have realized he wasn’t your average, smiley relative.”
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I don’t know what they told Kate when she got older. And when Paul moved to D.C. the meetings had to stop. The logistics were just too hard and the stakes too high.”
DeMarco walked over to the window and looked down at Central Park. He could see a squad car down there now, near the skating rink, its light bar flashing red and blue. The lights of the patrol car blended in with the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree near the pond.
Now everything made sense to DeMarco, including why Paul Morelli had not solicited Dominic Calvetti’s help to kill Lydia. Morelli would have been asking Calvetti to kill his own daughter. And there was another thing: if Morelli had asked Calvetti to kill Lydia he’d have to tell him why, and he couldn’t tell him that it was because he had molested Calvetti’s cherished granddaughter.
There was something else that now made sense as well: now he understood why Lydia had been unwilling to name Calvetti. Lydia had wanted to destroy her husband because of what he’d done to her daughter, but her motives hadn’t been entirely pure. She didn’t want the world to know that Calvetti was her father and that she’d gone along with all the things that he’d done for her husband.
“Harry,” DeMarco said, “what was your role in all this?” DeMarco was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that question.
“I was the go-between for some things Paul did with Dominic. Dominic’s known me a long time, since the early days with your dad, and he trusts me. And I knew Paul from before he ran for mayor, and he trusted me too. There were a lot of things that had to be done—people to talk to, deals to make—things that neither Paul nor Dominic could be involved in. And for those kinda deals, Paul couldn’t send some snot-nosed kid from his staff and Dominic, he sure as hell couldn’t send one of the bent-noses that works for him. So they used me.”
And they paid you, DeMarco thought, and they paid you well. Harry’s high-rent office made a lot more sense now.
Although Harry looked as he had the last time DeMarco had seen him—carefully trimmed silver hair, manicured hands, well-tailored suit and silk tie—he seemed somehow a bit seedier, a bit closer to the mean streets he had escaped years before. And DeMarco, as much as he loved Harry, knew he’d probably never see him again. Assuming he lived to see anyone again.
DeMarco already knew the answer to the next question too, but he still asked it.
“Harry, what do you think would happen if Paul Morelli told Dominic Calvetti the names of the people who had cost him the White House? Do you think Calvetti would help him get even?”
“In a New York minute,” Harry said. “Dominic’s big on payback. He might do something even if Paul didn’t ask for his help. Like most people, Dominic likes Paul.” Harry made the last statement sound like an accusation.
DeMarco stood at the window with his back to Harry. The cops were now putting someone in the squad car and it looked like a guy in a Santa suit. Only in New York.
Now he knew who was helping Paul Morelli and why, and the answer was even worse than he had expected. If Dominic Calvetti wanted him dead, he had the life expectancy of a snowflake.
DeMarco said, “And what do you think Calvetti would do if he found out that Paul Morelli killed his daughter and molested his granddaughter?”
Chapter 66<
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Harry set up the meeting with Dominic Calvetti in the same small restaurant where DeMarco and Harry had eaten lunch the last time DeMarco was in New York. It had taken DeMarco an hour to convince Harry that he needed to see Calvetti. He had told Harry that he had to do something, because if he didn’t, Paul Morelli was going to have Calvetti kill him. It was either meet with Calvetti and make him see reason, DeMarco argued, or leave the country and have his face rebuilt. Harry had said that a meeting with Calvetti was suicide; they had anesthetics for plastic surgery.
When he and Harry arrived at the restaurant there was a CLOSED sign in the window but Harry opened the door and walked in. The only one in the place was the owner. DeMarco recalled that his name was Benny and remembered how he had thanked Harry for all the things that Paul Morelli had done for his son and daughter. Benny didn’t look so grateful now.
Twenty minutes later two men walked into the restaurant. The pair looked enough alike to be brothers—scary brothers, the type who quit boxing because it wasn’t violent enough. They were in their mid-forties, with dark wavy hair and permanent five o’clock shadows. Not tall, but very broad—52-large jackets and 38-short pants. One wore a blue suit, the other wore gray.
Blue Suit took Benny by the arm and walked him toward the rear of the restaurant to check out the kitchen and restrooms. Gray Suit just stood there, looking at DeMarco and Harry. Blue Suit returned to the dining room, nodded to Gray Suit, and took up a position near the entrance. Benny came back into the dining room with a bottle of wine. He proceeded to clear away the glasses and ashtray that Harry and DeMarco had been using, put on a fresh tablecloth, and placed the wine bottle and three glasses on the table. He stopped a moment to survey his work, then took a vase of flowers from a nearby table and placed it in the center of DeMarco’s table. Gray Suit said something to Benny in Italian and he removed the flowers, then left the dining room.
After Benny had disappeared, Gray Suit made a motion for DeMarco to rise. There was something odd about the man’s hands, DeMarco noticed. They looked as if they’d been caught in a lawn mower and put back together. After he patted DeMarco down for a weapon, he told DeMarco to unbutton his shirt, then ran his scarred hands over DeMarco’s bare chest and back checking for a surveillance wire. As he searched, he stared impassively into DeMarco’s eyes. There was no animosity in Gray Suit’s face; he was just a man doing his job, going about his trade with as much emotion as the guy who changes the oil in your car. He’d look at DeMarco the same way shoving a knife into his heart.
Gray Suit gave the restaurant one final sweep with his eyes, then nodded to his partner, who turned and exited the restaurant. A minute later, Dominic Calvetti came through the door.
Calvetti ignored Harry and DeMarco while one of his bodyguards helped him with his topcoat and took his fedora. They both rose as Calvetti approached the table. Harry held out his right hand and Calvetti shook it, his grip soft. “Harry,” he said, his voice cool and noncommittal.
“Dominic,” Harry said, “this is Joe DeMarco. He’s my godson.” Calvetti ignored DeMarco’s outstretched hand and said to Harry, “I came tonight, Harry, because we’ve known each other a long time. But I can make you no promises, no commitments, where this man is concerned.”
The fact that Calvetti knew who DeMarco was confirmed everything he suspected.
As Harry had said, Dominic Calvetti was old. He was wearing a suit, a white shirt with a slightly frayed collar, and a wide, old-fashioned tie. His hair was white and very fine; his complexion a burnished bronze; and there was a network of wrinkles around his eyes and a single deep furrow on each side of his mouth. He had probably been handsome in his youth but age had elongated his nose and ears and put a slight curve in his spine. His eyes were black and empty, like stellar black holes, absorbing light and life, belying any possibility of mercy.
Gray Suit poured a glass of wine for Harry and Calvetti. He pointedly turned DeMarco’s wine glass upside down. Harry gave DeMarco an apologetic glance.
“And how’s your health, Dominic?” Harry said. “You look good.”
“No, Harry,” Calvetti said with a small shake of his head. “No chit-chat. Just tell me what you have to say.”
Harry nodded, his face becoming serious. “Dominic, my godson’s a good man. An honest man. I want you to listen to him. If I didn’t believe him I wouldn’t have brought him here tonight.”
Calvetti didn’t respond.
“He’s also Gino DeMarco’s son,” Harry said. “You remember Gino? He worked for Carmine Taliaferro.”
Calvetti raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Is that right?” he said, and Harry nodded.
It was a hell of thing, DeMarco thought, when a blood link to a killer was considered a character reference.
Calvetti glanced at DeMarco and said, “I see the resemblance now. I thought this man was a civilian.”
“I am, Mr. Calvetti,” DeMarco said. He was tired of this guy not looking at him and speaking only to Harry. “I never had anything to do with the Taliaferro family. I’m just a lawyer who works for Congress.”
“Not just a lawyer,” Calvetti said, giving DeMarco the full force of his eyes. “You’re a man who traps other men using young women for bait. You’re lower than a pimp.”
“Dominic . . .,” Harry said.
“Mr. Calvetti,” DeMarco said, “I’m not going to deny that I destroyed Paul Morelli’s career. But you need to know why I did it.”
“You did it because you work for some other politician,” Calvetti said. “We don’t know which one yet, but we’ll find out. Maybe we’ll find out tonight.”
DeMarco had an immediate image of Gray Suit’s huge, mangled hands pounding on his face until he gave up Mahoney. It wouldn’t take long.
“I destroyed Paul Morelli because he killed his wife, Mr. Calvetti. Your daughter. I couldn’t let a man like that become president.”
DeMarco had thought that mentioning Lydia’s death would have some emotional impact on Calvetti, but if it did, DeMarco couldn’t see it. The mobster’s face remained completely impassive.
“Why would he murder his wife?” Calvetti said. “If he was dissatisfied with her, he would have divorced her. It’s what Americans do.”
That was rich: murder was apparently acceptable to Calvetti but divorce wasn’t.
“He killed her,” DeMarco said, “because she was going to tell the newspapers what she knew about him.”
“What did she know? She didn’t know anything.”
DeMarco hesitated; what he was about to say could get him killed on the spot.
“Lydia was going to tell the press that Paul molested your granddaughter.”
Calvetti came out of his chair with surprising speed, and backhanded DeMarco across the face. His bony, old man’s hand stung and DeMarco could taste blood on his lower lip. DeMarco noticed that both bodyguards had drawn guns and now waited like Dobermans for the command to kill.
Harry stood up and said, “Dominic, wait. Listen to him. Please.”
Calvetti remained standing for a minute, looking down at DeMarco. His thin chest rose and fell from exertion and emotion. Finally he turned to his bodyguards and motioned for them to put their weapons away. He sat back down, lit a cigarette, then said to DeMarco, “You know Arabian Nights? Scheherazade?” There was a thin, cruel smile on Calvetti’s bloodless lips.
DeMarco nodded. He knew exactly what the old gangster meant: tell a good story or he wouldn’t see morning. DeMarco wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and began by saying, “I had always admired Paul Morelli.”
DeMarco told Calvetti everything, everything he learned from Lydia Morelli and why he was certain that Paul Morelli had killed Lydia and Isaiah Perry. While he was speaking, Calvetti was silent, smoking one cigarette after another, staring at DeMarco through half-shut eyes. DeMarco had never been a trial lawyer. He had never made a desperate plea to a jury to save an innocent man’s life. This was his day in court—and he would hav
e liked it better if someone else’s life had been at stake.
DeMarco finished speaking and Harry said, “Dominic, this thing with Paul and women. There was a woman here in New York . . .”
Calvetti raised a hand, stopping Harry in mid-sentence. He looked at DeMarco for what seemed a lifetime. DeMarco could tell that Calvetti had not immediately dismissed his story as a self-serving pack of lies. No, he had doubts about Morelli, that much was clear, and now he was obviously trying to come to a decision. It occurred to DeMarco then that Calvetti was, in his own right, an executive. He made decisions all the time based on the information available and his instincts. He wasn’t going to argue or ask for clarification—he had heard all he needed to hear. Now it was just a matter of deciding. At last he spoke.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “you be standing in front of Harry’s apartment at ten o’clock. Capisce?”
DeMarco nodded. “Dress warm,” he added.
Dress warm?
Calvetti rose and Gray Suit helped him into his topcoat. Blue Suit left the restaurant first, while Calvetti and Gray Suit waited by the door. Blue Suit gave the all’s-clear signal from outside, and Gray Suit opened the door for his boss. Before leaving, while placing his fedora on his head, Calvetti turned to look at DeMarco a final time. Looking into Calvetti’s eyes was like looking down the barrels of a shotgun—if you saw any light at all, it meant the triggers had been pulled.
Chapter 67
It was a brilliant December morning, Christmas only two days away.
The winter sun sparkled off the roofs of a million Yellow Cabs and people bustled by with shopping bags in their hands, the season generating smiles for strangers. As DeMarco stood waiting for Calvetti, the old Indian expression about it being a good day to die flashed morbidly through his mind.
A long black Lincoln pulled up to the entrance of Harry Foster’s apartment building at exactly ten a.m. The man driving the car was Gray Suit, the one with the deformed hands who had frisked DeMarco at the restaurant. Today he wasn’t wearing a suit. He had on a navy peacoat over a plaid shirt and wool pants. On his head was a dark blue stocking cap. He looked like a guy who should be stamping his feet for warmth outside the longshoremen’s union, waiting for his name to be called.