Permanent Interests

by James Bruno

  "Bob, I really don't like this!"

  36 JAMES

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  Innes was sold. "Yeah, let's go." He left some euros on the table and the two left.

  Next day, the Mortimer investigative team slapped together a final report with a schizophrenic conclusion that shed more confusion than light. The team members were scheduled to catch the Friday afternoon Delta flight to JFK, connecting onward to Dulles. Most of them began breaking away for some rushed last minute shopping.

  Innes was packing his bags, waiting for a phone call that didn't come. He had to give up. Mike Hammer he wasn't.

  If Mikki wouldn't call, then so be it. And she didn't.

  Innes killed time at Fiumicino browsing half-consciously among the usual displays of perfumes, Rolexes, silk ties, cognacs and whiskeys and overpriced kitsch at the duty free shops. He managed to escape from the rest of the team members, who, on the way to the airport, droned on and on about how the 'Skins would do this season. There was only one thing in the universe that Innes enjoyed doing more than prattling on about ball games and that was getting a root canal without an anesthetic.

  He pondered Colleen. She surprised him by showing up at the terminal to bid farewell. "Good luck!" she chirped as she pecked him ever so lightly on the lips, which caused him to have to shift his posture again. "Stay in touch!" she shouted as she rushed back.

  Delta 161 was now boarding, announced the public address system. Innes snapped to, slung his carry-on bag over his shoulder and quickened his step in the direction of Gate 47.

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  "Signore! Signore!" called a female voice behind him.

  A hand touched his shoulder. Innes turned to find a striking blonde with crystalline blue eyes. At five-foot-ten, she possessed an unself-conscious, radiant beauty.

  "Signore Innes?" she queried with a slight inquisitive nod.

  "Yes?"

  "I am a…friend of Mikki's," she continued. Her Italian was broken and accented, Slavic Innes thought.

  "I understand you are friend of Morty's," she continued, switching to English.

  "Morty? Uh, you might say that, yeah."

  The blonde took a deep breath and pensively poked her tongue in the corner of her mouth. The crystalline gems looked briefly to each side as her mind raced to select her next words, then fixed directly into his eyes.

  "I knew Morty." She shifted her gaze to each side every few seconds. "He was fun-loving, not bad man. But his friends…his friends, they are very bad, some of them."

  They were announcing the final call for boarding Delta 161.

  Seeing that time had run out, Innes wanted her to get to the point. "What is it you want to tell me?

  "Some terrible people were after him. At first, we did not know he was American ambassador. He did not tell us this. What happened to him is no surprise, believe me!"

  "And…?

  "You should stay out, Mr. Innes. Go home. Stay there.

  Drop what you are doing. It is too dangerous. Believe me."

  "What's your name? How can I reach you?"

  "No…No. I must go now. You will never see me again." With her long legs, the woman strode swiftly back toward the main terminal.

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  "Wait! Please! Come back! I won't tell anyone."

  " Ciao, Mr. Innes," she said as she skipped away, enclosing a black fur-lined coat around a shapely frame.

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  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Hey

  boss!"

  "How many times I gotta tell you not to call me that, godammit! You call me that, next thing you know people start calling me the 'Boss of Bosses'! Cut it out, capisce?"

  Two months after the trial, Al remained testy and as paranoid as ever. After all, the Feds were everywhere. No doubt about it. No telling how many listening devices insidiously picked up every word he said, how many informants the Fibbies may have infiltrated into the structure. Besides, if Al was to exude legitimacy, Mr.

  Malandrino, or just plain Al, were proper. Boss, Don and other such appellations misled, misinformed, tarnished the image of respectability that Al was so carefully cultivating.

  The brunt of his wrath was Joey "Bags" Giambonzano.

  Joey's dad had worked for Al's father, Carlo, who, in the old days, had been known affectionately as "Chick" by just about everybody who was anybody in New York. So Joey, the heir of bequeathed nepotism, had a sinecure for life.

  Joey, all 135 pounds of him, liked to work out at the boxing gym, hence "Bags." He wasn't too bright, but he was loyal and could be trusted.

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  "Yeah, sorry there, bo--, I mean Al. Yeah, sure, I'll watch it, yeah."

  "What do you want?" Al demanded.

  "Our friends from the east, they wanna see youse."

  "Dumbass. Not here!" Al then mimed that they should step out for a walk. He pointed a finger at his ear and then to a wall, signaling that the latter could hear.

  "Yeah, gotcha," responded Joey as they left through the back door into an alley lined with garbage cans, parked cars and dumpsters.

  As they strolled to nowhere special, Joey resumed relating his message. "Our pal there, Yakov, just got in.

  His people called this morning. Say he wants a meeting as soon as we can swing it. Somewheres safe and secure.

  Know what I mean?"

  "Same

  place?"

  "Yeah, Brighton Beach again. They like it there. With their own kind and all."

  "Okay. Tell Yakov I'll meet him at the same place today. Late lunch. But only the three of us know. You get me? Start blabbing over the phone or telling others and you can be sure the goddamn Feds will know too."

  "You got it b--, I mean Al. I'll go over there myself, personal. Just like before."

  Al was of the new generation of his ilk. With the great globalization of world commerce over the preceding two-and-a-half decades, all businessmen needed to adjust, be flexible, if they were to survive in the world market place.

  The Japanese now owned Rockefeller Center. The Germans produced Mercedes in Mississippi. Labor unions had given up on picketing over "foreign" auto and tractor imports -- transmissions made in Tennessee were hooked up to engines manufactured in Germany with carburetors built in Brazil, perhaps encased in a body cast in Canada.

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  Earth-moving equipment assembled in Illinois was the product of "Fiat-Allis."

  Along with his counterparts at IBM, GE and Exxon, Al went with the flow, adapted, opened up and reached out.

  His father's generation had run their businesses in a cozy, ethnic cocoon comprised overwhelmingly of Sicilians, with modus vivendi relationships with the Irish and Jews. Al, on the other hand, was diversified. He had forged fruitful business connections with Chinese, Israelis, Colombians and others. The most promising relationship, however, was turning out to be with emigres from the ex-Soviet Union, many of whom had settled in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn. Unlike the Colombians, who were vicious but not very clever, or the Chinese, who were clever yet unreadable, the Russians combined braininess with ruthlessness. And unlike some of the other groups, they could be trusted to keep a deal as well as their word.

  The Russians brought with them old world values, something even third generation Sicilian-Americans could feel comfortable with.

  The "Café Novoye Rossiya" exuded warmth, especially on a late fall day in New York. Its narrow but long confines were heated by old fashioned radiators. A large brass samovar shared space with a locomotive-like coffee machine at the bar in the rear. Great wafts of steam, interlaced with the rich aromas of Ceylonese teas and Turkish coffee, billowed to the high pale-green ceiling bordered by plaster rococo of the gilded age. The bay windows jutting to the ice-covered sidewalk sweated from the released vapors. Mama Irina Boronova, the rotund jocular proprietor, mothered ov
er her customers, mostly 42 JAMES

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  working men, many taxi drivers, who huddled at the little tables flush against wainscoted walls.

  Yakov was seated at a rear table, waiting for Al. He cracked a broad smile as Al entered the cafe, Mama Boronova taking his coat and Bags's. Yakov half-rose from his chair and extended his right hand in a show of welcome.

  Yes, Al liked these people. They had couth, manners, respect for colleagues. Trust, however, he reserved for no one.

  "Ah, Al! It is too long since we meet," Yakov greeted in his thick Russian accent. He put an arm around Al's shoulder, slapped him heartily on the back and embraced him. "You look too skinny. You are not eating? Come, we eat blini together. I order already. Mama B., she is bringing out."

  "Hey! I'm trying to lose weight. What're you trying to do, kill me?" Al slapped his belly, then poked at Yakov's playfully. Bags took a seat next to Yakov's two poker-faced aides.

  "I want to kill some people, but you are not one," Yakov said with a stiff smile. The two took seats across from each other.

  "Your trial. My heart was with you," Yakov said, his unreadable hazel eyes and Cheshire grin illuminating a broad face.

  Al grunted. "You know me. They'll never get me.

  Maybe I'm smart. But more important than that, I got lawyers even smarter than me."

  "But you know they won't give up. Same now in Russia. People demand justice, so government goes after businessmen. Businessmen, gangsters; Russian people still do not know difference. They still think like communists.

  Anybody who makes money is bad. They want everybody to be poor, like in old days."

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  "Yeah, just like here. They go after the businessmen, like me. And then they tax to death anybody who does okay for himself. So, we got government harassment and lots of poor people. But the FBI, the Manhattan D.A., they want to nail me bad, in particular. I've bitten them in the ass too many times and got away with it. They don't like that."

  Mama Boronova brought a large plate of freshly made cream cheese blinis and a pot of steaming coffee.

  Al waited until she departed and no other outsiders were nearby. "So?" he said.

  With a single, curt nod, Yakov indicated that he was ready to get down to business. "Al, business is not so good.

  In fact, very bad. Last week, DEA hit my warehouses.

  They find nothing. But I am very worried. Legitimate contacts, they think I am crook. Afraid to do business with me."

  "Cost of doing business. After that goddamn trial, people don't want to know me. If it wasn't for some old friends, I'd be out of business completely. Construction keeps me going. Some old customers keep the jobs coming. And I've tightened up running things."

  "Yes, I heard. Good move to hire young soldier to handle security."

  Yakov always had solid information, excellent sources.

  Invariably, he knew who was doing what to whom, who was doing well and who not, and why; who was sleeping with whom. This inside knowledge on the part of a relative newcomer spooked Al and imbued in him an element of mistrust toward his slick foreign friend. Yakov placed both hands on the table, leaned forward, looked side-to-side, then unsmilingly locked his eyes on Al's.

  "Al, I need that special information like we used to get before."

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  Al blinked as if sand had just blown in his face. He shifted uneasily, leaned forward inches from Yakov's face.

  "Look, in case you didn't know, what with all your secret sources, I'm trying to lay low. For all I know, the friggin'

  FBI may be listening to us through that goddamn coffee pot." Al's jugular and the veins in his temples pulsed.

  Sore subject, Yakov could see. Putting on an expression of concerned sympathy, he signaled for Al to calm down.

  He leaned back in his chair. Bags was instantly alert and jumpy, like a hunting dog at the surge of a flock of ducks.

  Yakov's two faceless flunkies barely stirred, yet monitored every move with hawk-like attention.

  A minute of tense silence followed. Yakov grinned and proceeded to dish out three hot blinis onto Al's plate.

  Extending his arm to it, Yakov commanded, "Eat. Best in Brighton Beach." He dug in with the table manners of a Visigoth. The others joined in.

  After three solid minutes of forks hitting plates and loud chewing, Yakov spoke up again.

  "Al, times are not so good. Both of us have problems.

  Good business requires good information. Contacts to pull strings to make things happen the way we want them. Six months ago, before your troubles, such information flowed like melted gold." Pointing to Al with an up-ended palm, and then back to himself, Yakov continued, "I help you and you help me. Things will get better for us both."

  Al looked at Yakov with non-committal eyes as he continued to eat, now more slowly.

  "My people, back home, they are ready, but they need important information, they need …" He searched his brain. "Green light. They need green light that is safe at this end."

  Al wiped his mouth roughly with a gray cloth napkin, briskly tongued loose food from his gums and cheeks and, PERMANENT INTERESTS

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  pointing to Yakov with his right index finger just above his dish, said, "Yakov, we've made a lot of money together.

  We make a good team. You know if I can do it, I will. But right now the time isn't right."

  Yakov listened attentively. Mama Boronova interrupted with amiable obliviousness to recommend her currant-covered cheesecake for dessert. Made it herself that very morning. Okay, we'll take five big slices, Yakov exclaimed in Russian without consulting the others.

  "I'll tell you what I'll do," Al went on. "Let me get back on my feet, get everything on track. Then, when I feel the heat is off, I'll reactivate some old contacts, make some calls, see what I can do. Right now though, I'm trying to bore the Feds to death."

  "Yes, okay." Yakov extended his right hand. The two shook in agreement.

  "Dimitrov here," Yakov gestured to a humorless flunky with a nasty scar that ran from the top of his forehead, across the left eye and down to the middle of his cheek.

  "He will be go-between with your people. Dimitrov is discreet. He is quiet. He will make sure that communications do not break down," Yakov added more as a veiled threat than a mere statement. Dimitrov's rugged face remained impassive, a granite mask.

  "Yeah, right. For the time being, have him call me direct. I'm sorting things out right now. Lots of personnel changes."

  After protests all around that they couldn't eat another morsel, the table of "business associates" attacked the cheesecake.

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  Al's paranoia about frequenting the same establishments went by the wayside when it came to Pironi's. In business steadily since the turn of the century, Pironi's was a haunt of several generations of Malandrinos. Al's niece, in fact, had married the son of the proprietor. Al had a semiconscious superstition about the place, that it held a metaphysical immunity. Like some mystical Wagnerian Ring, it kept the Feds at a safe distance. He ordered a pot of espresso and some biscotti.

  Richard Anthony "Ricky" Laguzza walked in. Ricky was Al's nephew, the adopted son of Francesco "Little Shoes" Fagliarone, a long-time Colombo stalwart and politically influential don who died a natural death at 89.

  "Uncle Cheech," as he was affectionately known, never had a blood son. After Ricky's widowed father became a fatal casualty in the Riccobene Wars of 1982-84, Cheech took his boy under his wing. What the flashy, young street tough failed to learn in the way of class from the older man, he made up for in a singular lust for getting his own way.

  "I just had East-West talks with our pals again," Al said as he shoveled a fourth spoonful of sugar into the demitasse. He signaled for Ricky to sit.

  As he took a seat, Ricky straightened his gray sharkskin suit over a muscled frame otherwise clad in a black T-shirt and n
o socks. "What, the Russians?"

  "Yakov. He's getting impatient. Wants insider information again. Told him things are still too hot."

  Ricky grunted and slurped his coffee after gulping a cannolli down in one bite. He cast a lascivious eye at a well-proportioned waitress who whisked by with a tray of antipasti. "This gonna be a regular thing, or what?"

  "Naw. Too risky. His guy, that, uh, Dimitrov guy. He's the go-between."

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  Ricky choked, spraying a fine mist of Lavazza on the lapels of his silk Guido Ceruti suit.

  " Minghia! Uncle Al. Not that guy. He's a fuckin'

  nightmare on two legs. He's wigged out. He makes me look normal."

  "You two have a lot in common," Al said with a smirk.

  "That's why you're gonna deal with him on my behalf." Al raised a hand and closed his eyes before Ricky could get a word out.

  "I can't take any chances. You know that. Yakov says the DEA just raided his warehouses, in Jersey. The heat's on him just like it's on me. I can't afford to be careless. He thinks he's still in Moscow where all the cops are on the take and things are out of control. Let him take all the risks. That's why I need a buffer -- and you're it."

  "You saw the job they done on Morty. So, the guy had it coming. But, Christ, they didn't have to turn him into chopped meat. Yakov's okay. For a Jew. We all make money together. But his men, they all did duty in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Made 'em all gonzo. They all got that post … shell-shocked syndrome, or whatever the hell they call it. They’ll shoot you dead just to see if their gun works"

  Al gestured that he didn't want to hear any more objections. "What're you doing lately? Back to collecting rents. Hustling for Al-Mac Construction. Making sure all our mom 'n' pop bookies keep the payments up."

  Ricky looked away.

  "I don't know about you, but I'm bored stiff. More important, Al Persico, Barney Bellomo, you think they aren't watching us? They're just waiting to pounce. They see the first sign we're floundering, BAM! They'll hit us so hard, it'll make our heads spin."