Omerta

by Mario Puzo

  Within an hour Kurt Cilke received a report from the surveillance team that had rescued Astorre Viola. What really surprised him was that Astorre, beneath all his foppish dress, wore a bulletproof vest that covered his torso the length of his red riding jacket. And not just your ordinary Kevlar, but one specially handmade. Now, what the hell was a guy like Astorre doing wearing armor? A macaroni importer, a club singer, a flaky horse rider. Sure, the impact of the bullets had stunned him, but they had not penetrated. Astorre was already out of the hospital.

  Cilke started writing a memo to have Astorre’s life investigated from childhood on. The man might be the key to everything. But he was sure of one thing: He knew who had attempted to murder Astorre Viola.

  Astorre met with his cousins at Valerius’s home. He told them of the attack, how he had been shot. “I’ve asked you for help,” he said. “And you refused and I understood. But now I think you should reconsider. There is some sort of a threat to all of you. I think it could be solved by selling off the banks. That would be a win-win situation. Everybody gets what they want. Or we can go for a win-lose situation. We keep the banks and fight off and destroy our enemies, whoever they are. Then there is the lose-lose situation, which we must be careful not to fall into. That we fight our enemies and win but the government gets us anyway.”

  “That’s an easy choice,” Valerius said. “Just sell the banks. The win-win.”

  Marcantonio said, “We’re not Sicilians; we don’t want to throw everything away for the sake of vengeance.”

  “We sell the banks and we’re throwing away our future,” Nicole said calmly. “Marc, someday you’d like your own network. Val, with big political donations you could become an ambassador or a secretary of defense. Astorre, you could sing with the Rolling Stones.” She smiled at him. “OK,that’s a little far-fetched,” she said, changing her tone. “Forget the jokes. Is killing our father nothing to us? Do we reward them for murder? I think we should help Astorre as much as we can.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?” Valerius said.

  “Yes,” Nicole said quietly.

  Astorre said to them gently, “Your father taught me that you can’t let other men impose their will on you or life’s not worth living. Val, that’s what war is, right?”

  “War is a lose-lose decision,” Nicole said sharply.

  Valerius showed his irritation. “No matter what the liberals say, war is a win-lose situation. You are much better off to win a war. Losing is an unthinkable horror.”

  “Your father had a past,” Astorre said. “That past now has to be reckoned with by all of us. So now I ask you for your help again. Remember, I am under your father’s orders, and my job is to protect the family, which means holding on to the banks.”

  Valerius said, “I’ll have some information for you within a month.”

  Astorre said, “Marc?”

  Marcantonio said, “I’ll get to work on that program right away. Let’s say two months, three.”

  Astorre looked at Nicole. “Nicole, have you completed the analysis of the FBI file on your father?”

  “No, not yet.” She seemed upset. “Shouldn’t we get Cilke’s help on this?”

  Astorre smiled. “Cilke is one of my suspects,” he said. “When I have all the information we can decide what to do.”

  In a month Valerius came through with some informationunexpected, unwelcome. Through his CIA contacts, he had learned the truth about Inzio Tulippa. He had contacts in Sicily, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Colombia, and other Latin American countries. He even had a relationship with the Corleonesi in Sicily and was more than their equal.

  According to Valerius, it was Tulippa who was financing certain nuclear-research labs in South America. Tulippa who was desperately trying to set up a huge fund in America to buy equipment and material. Who, in his dreams of grandeur, wanted to possess an awful weapon of defense against the authorities if worse ever came to worst. It therefore followed that Timmona Portella was a front for Tulippa. This was happy news for Astorre. This was another player in the game, another front on which to have to fight.

  “Is what Tulippa plans possible?” Astorre asked.

  “He certainly thinks it is,” Valerius said. “And he has the protection of government officials where he’s located the labs.”

  “Thanks, Val,” Astorre said, patting his cousin on the shoulder affectionately.

  “Sure,” Valerius said. “But that’s all the help you get from me.”

  It took six weeks for Marcantonio to research the network profile on Kurt Cilke. A huge file of information was given to Astorre by Marcantonio, hand to hand. Astorre kept it for twenty-four hours and returned it.

  It was only Nicole who worried him. She’d lent him a copy of the FBI file on Don Aprile, but there was a whole section that was completely blacked out. When he questioned her about this she said, “That’s how I received it.”

  Astorre had studied the document carefully. The blacked-out section seemed to be about the period of time when he was only two years old. “That’s OK,” he told Nicole. “It’s too long ago to be important.”

  Now Astorre could no longer be put off. He had enough information to begin his war.

  Nicole had been dazzled by Marriano Rubio and his courtship. She had never really recovered from Astorre’s betrayal of her when she was a young girl, when he had elected to obey her father. Though she had had some prudent short affairs with powerful men, she knew that men would always conspire against women.

  But Rubio seemed an exception. He never got angry with her when her schedule interfered with their plans to be together. He understood her career came first. And he never indulged in that ridiculous, insulting emotion of many men who thought their jealousy was proof of true love.

  It helped that he was generous in his gifts; it was even more important that she found him interesting and enjoyed listening to him talk about literature and the theater. But his greatest virtue was that he was an enthusiastic lover, expert in bed, and aside from that did not take up too much of her time.

  One evening Rubio took Nicole to dinner at Le Cirque with some of his friends: a world-famous South American novelist who charmed Nicole with his sly wit and extravagant ghost stories; a renowned opera singer who at every dish hummed an aria of delight and ate as though he were going to the electric chair; and a conservative columnist, the reigning oracle on world affairs for The New York Times who took great pride in being hated by liberals and conservatives alike.

  After dinner Rubio took Nicole home to his opulent apartment in the Peruvian consulate. There he made love to her passionately, both physically and with whispered words. Afterward, he lifted her naked from his bed and danced with her while reciting poetry in Spanish. Nicole had a wonderful time. Especially when they were quiet and he poured them champagne and said sincerely, “I do love you.” His magnificent nose and brow shone with truthfulness. How brazen men were. Nicole felt a quiet satisfaction that she had betrayed him. Her father would have been proud of her. She had acted in a truly Mafioso fashion.

  As head of the New York FBI office, Kurt Cilke had far more important cases than the murder of Don Raymonde Aprile. One was the broad investigation of six giant corporations that conspired illegally to ship banned machinery, including computer technology, to Red China. Another was the conspiracy of the major tobacco companies perjuring themselves before a congressional investigating committee. The third was the emigration of middle-level scientists to South American countries such as Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. The director wanted to be briefed on these cases.

  On the flight down to Washington, Boxton said, “We have the tobacco guys nailed; we have the China shipments nailed–internal documents, informers saving their asses. The only thing we don’t have is those scientists. But I guess you become a deputy director after this. They can’t deny your record.”

  “That’s up to the director,” Cilke said. He knew why the scientists were down in South America, but he didn�
�t correct Boxton.

  In the Hoover Building, Boxton was barred from the meeting.

  . . .

  It was eleven months after the killing of Don Aprile. Cilke had prepared all his notes. The Aprile case was dead, but he had better news on even more important cases. And this time there was a real chance that he would be offered one of the key deputy director’s jobs in the Bureau. He had made his mark with good work, and he had put in his time.

  The director was a tall, elegant man whose descendants came to America on the Mayflower. He was extremely wealthy in his own right and had entered politics as a public duty. And he had laid down strict rules at the beginning of his tenure. “No hanky-panky,” he said good-humoredly in his Yankee twang. “By the book. No loopholes in the Bill of Rights. An FBI agent is always courteous, always fair. He is always correct in his private life.” Any bit of scandal—wife beating, drunkenness, too close a relationship with a local police official, any third-degree antics—and you were out on your ass even if your uncle was a senator. These had been the rules for the last ten years. Also, if you got too much press, even good, you were on your way to surveillance of igloos in Alaska.

  The director invited Cilke to sit down in an extremely uncomfortable chair on the other side of his massive oak desk.

  “Agent Cilke,” he said, “I called you down for several reasons. Number one: I have placed in your personal file a special commendation for your work against the Mafia in New York. Due to you we have broken their backs. I congratulate you.” He leaned over to shake Cilke’s hand. “We don’t make it public now because the Bureau takes credit for its individual achievements. And also, it might place you in some danger.”

  “Only from some crazy,” Cilke said. “The criminal organizations understand they cannot harm an agent.”

  “You’re implying that the Bureau carries out personal vendettas,” the director said.

  “Oh, no,” Cilke said. “It’s just that we would pay more attention.”

  The director let that pass. There were boundaries. Virtue always had to tread a very thin line. “It’s not fair to keep you on the hook,” the director said. “I’ve decided not to appoint you one of my deputies here in Washington. Not at the present time. For these reasons. You are enormously street-smart, and there is still work to be done in the field. The Mafia, for lack of a better word, is still operational. Number two: Officially you have an informant whose name you refuse to divulge even to the top supervising personnel of the Bureau. Unofficially, you have told us. That is classified AFLAX. So you’re OK, unofficially. Third: Your relationship with a certain New York chief of detectives is too personal.”

  The director and Cilke had other items on their meeting agenda. “And how is our operation ‘Omerta’?” the director asked. “We must be very careful that we have legal clearance on all our operations.”

  “Of course,” Cilke said, straight-faced. The director knew damn well that corners would have to be cut. “We’ve had a few obstacles. Raymonde Aprile refused to cooperate with us. But of course that obstacle no longer exists.”

  “Mr. Aprile was very conveniently killed,” the director said sardonically. “I won’t insult you by asking if you had any prior knowledge. Your friend Portella, perhaps?”

  “We don’t know,” Cilke said. “Italians never go to authorities. We just have to look for dead bodies turning up. Now, I approached Astorre Viola as we discussed. He signed the confidentiality papers but refused to cooperate. He won’t do business with Portella, and he won’t sell the banks.”

  “So what do we do now?” the director asked. “You know how important this is. If we can indict the banker under RICO, we can get the banks for the government. And that ten billion would go to fight crime. It would be an enormous coup for the Bureau. And then we can put an end to your association with Portella. He’s outlived his usefulness. Kurt, we are in a very delicate situation. Only my deputies and myself know of your cooperation with Portella. That you receive payments from him, that he thinks of you as his confederate. Your life could be in danger.”

  “He wouldn’t dare harm a federal agent,” Cilke said. “He’s crazy, but he’s not that crazy.”

  “Well, Portella has to go down in this operation,” the director said. “What are your plans?”

  “This guy Astorre Viola is not the innocent everyone says he is,” Cilke said. “I’m having his past checked out. Meanwhile, I’m going to ask Aprile’s children to override him. But I worry, can we make RICO stick all the way back ten years for something they do now?”

  “That’s the job of our attorney general,” the director said. “We just have to get our foot in the door, and then a thousand lawyers will go all the way back. We’re bound to come up with something the courts can uphold.”

  “About my secret Cayman account that Portella puts money into,” Cilke said. “I think you should draw some out so that he thinks I’m spending it.”

  “I’ll arrange that,” the director said. “I must say, your Timmona Portella is not frugal.”

  “He really believes I sold out,” Cilke said, smiling.

  “Be careful,” the director said. “Don’t give them the grounds that would make you a true confederate, an accomplice to a crime.”

  “I understand,” Cilke said. And thought, easier said than done.

  “And don’t take unnecessary risks,” the director said. “Remember, drug people in South America and Sicily are linked with Portella, and they are reckless fellows.”

  “Shall I keep you advised day by day orally or in writing?” Cilke asked.

  “Neither,” the director said. “I have absolute confidence in your integrity. And besides, I don’t want to have to lie to some congressional committee. To become one of my deputies, you will have to clear these things up.” He waited expectantly.

  Cilke never dared even to think his real thoughts in the presence of the director, as if the man could read his mind. But still, the rebellion flashed. Who the fuck did the director think he was, the American Civil Liberties Union? With his memos to emphasize that the Mafia was not Italian, Muslims were not terrorists, that blacks were not the criminal class. Who the fuck did he think committed the street crimes?

  But Cilke said quietly, “Sir, if you want my resignation, I’ve built up enough time for an early retirement.”

  “No,” the director said. “Answer my question. Can you clean up your relationships?”

  “I have given the names of all the informants to the Bureau,” Cilke said. “As for cutting corners, that’s a matter of interpretation. As for being friends with the local police force, that’s PR for the Bureau.”

  “Your results speak for your work,” the director said. “Let’s try another year. Let’s go on.” He paused for a long moment and sighed. Then he asked almost impatiently, “Have we got enough on the tobacco-company executives for perjury in your judgment?”

  “Easily,” Cilke said, and wondered why the director even asked. He had all the files.

  “But it could be their personal beliefs,” the director said. “We have polls that show that half the American people agree with them.”

  “That’s not relevant to the case,” Cilke said. “The people in the poll did not commit perjury in their testimony to Congress. We have tapes and internal documents that prove the tobacco executives knowingly lied. They conspired.”

  “You’re right,” the director said with a sigh. “But the attorney general has made a deal. No criminal indictments, no prison time. They will pay fines of hundreds of billions of dollars. So close that investigation. It’s out of our hands.”

  “Fine, sir,” Cilke said. “I can always use the extra manpower on other things.”

  “Good for you,” the director said. “I’ll make you even happier. On that shipping of illegal technology to China, that’s very serious business.”

  “There’s no option,” Cilke said. “Those companies deliberately broke a federal law for financial gain and breached the securit
y of the United States. The heads of those companies conspired.”

  “We do have the goods on them,” the director said, “but you know conspiracy is a catchall. Everybody conspires. But that’s another case you can close and save the manpower.”

  Cilke said incredulously, “Sir, are you saying a deal has been made on that?”

  The director leaned back in his chair and frowned at Cilke’s implied insolence, but he made allowances. “Cilke, you are the best field man in the Bureau. But you have no political sense. Now listen to me, and never forget this: You cannot send six billionaires to prison. Not in a democracy.”

  “And that’s it?” Cilke asked.

  “The financial sanctions will be very heavy,” the director said. “Now, on to other things, one very confidential. We’re going to exchange a federal prisoner for one of our informers who is being held hostage in Colombia, a very valuable asset in our war on the drug trade. This is a case you’re familiar with.” He referred to a case four years ago in which a drug dealer took five hostages, a woman and four children. He killed them and also killed a Bureau agent. He was given life without parole. “I remember that you were adamant on the death penalty,” the director said. “Now we are going to let him go, and I know you won’t be too happy. Remember, all this is secret, but the papers will probably dig it up and there will be an enormous fuss. You and your office will never comment. Is that understood?”

  Cilke said, “We can’t let anyone kill our agents and get away with it.”

  “That attitude is not acceptable in a federal officer,” the director said.

  Cilke tried not to show his outrage. “Then all our agents will be endangered,” Cilke said. “That’s how it is on the streets. The agent was killed trying to save the hostages. It was a cold-blooded execution. Setting the killer free is an insult to the life of that agent.”