A Scourge of Vipers
Page 14
“Got something for me?” I asked.
“My guy at the airport’s been keeping an eye on incoming flights from Atlantic City,” he said, “and last night something interesting came up.”
“Oh?”
“Mario Zerilli met the last evening flight. I just e-mailed you a couple of frame grabs from one of the security cameras.”
“Hold on a sec,” I said.
I opened the e-mail on my desktop computer and clicked on the attachments. One grainy photo caught a short, stocky man in a business suit standing behind the trunk of Mario’s car. He was clutching a black briefcase in one hand and holding the handle of a small rolling suitcase in the other. In the second photo, which showed his face more clearly, he was sliding into the passenger seat. He had thin lips, slits for eyes, a hawk’s beak, and luxurious salt-and-pepper hair arranged in a pompadour.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“I asked my Jersey P.I. pal, but he wasn’t sure.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“There’s more,” McCracken said.
“Oh?”
“After my guy at the airport came up with this, he went back over the video of incoming flights from South Jersey for the last couple of weeks. Turns out the same man arrived on an afternoon flight a week ago and got into a cab.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I ended the call, forwarded the photos to Judy Abbruzzi at The Atlantic City Press, and dialed her number.
“I wondered when I was going to hear from you,” she said. “I thought maybe you were blowing me off.”
“Check your e-mail,” I said, “and call me right back.”
So that’s what she did.
“Recognize him?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
“So?”
“First tell me what the hell’s going on.”
I took a moment to think it over and decided to give her most of it—the super PACs competing to influence Rhode Island gambling legislation, the bundles of cash in Lucan Alfano’s briefcase, his attempts to bribe state legislators, and the unsolved murder of Phil Templeton.
“Do you know the names of the legislators Alfano tried to bribe?” she asked.
“Some of them.”
“Give.”
“I don’t feel comfortable sharing that.”
“Why?”
“I got it off the record.”
She paused, taking her time deciding if I’d given her enough for her to reciprocate.
“The guy in the photo is Romeo Alfano,” she finally said. “He’s Lucan’s younger brother.”
“They were in business together?”
“In the payday loan company, yeah.”
“And as fixers?”
“So the Jersey state cops are telling us.”
“The murder-for-hire business, too?”
“Maybe, but they can’t say for sure.”
“What else have you got?” I asked.
“The three super PACs you mentioned are active down here, too. All three have made big media buys.”
“Anybody bribing state legislators down there?”
“All the time,” she said.
“Well, sure. But on Christie’s sports gambling proposal?”
“I don’t have anything solid on that.”
We promised again to stay in touch and signed off.
* * *
At noon I skipped lunch, walked a couple of blocks to the Omni, and asked the desk clerk if Romeo Alfano was registered. He wasn’t.
“What about Michael O’Toole?” I asked. That, I remembered, was the name his late brother had registered under.
“Hold on a moment, sir.… Yes, he is a guest. Would you like me to ring his room for you?”
“No thanks, but could you give me his room number?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but that would be a violation of company policy.”
I nodded, took two twenty-dollar bills out of my pocket, and dropped them on the counter.
“Suite 914,” he whispered.
I considered going it alone, thought better of it, and rang McCracken. Fifteen minutes later, we rode the elevator to the ninth floor and knocked on the door to 914. I sensed someone peering at me through the peephole. Then the door swung open.
“Good afternoon, Mario,” I said.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“A word with your boss.”
“Get lost, assholes.”
He pushed against the door. McCracken pushed back and shoved Mario deeper into the room.
Romeo Alfano was seated on a beige sectional sofa, a black briefcase by his side. A carafe of white wine and a room-service luncheon of mixed seafood were tastefully arranged on the coffee table in front of him. I elbowed Mario out of the way and headed for him.
The kid didn’t like that. He grabbed my shoulder with his left hand, spun me, and reached for his waistband with his right. That was a mistake.
McCracken popped him in the nose with a stiff left jab, grabbed his left wrist, yanked his arm behind his back, and bulled him against the wall. Mario’s head bounced against a framed Rhode Island Tourist Bureau photo of Newport Harbor, cracking the glass. The P.I. calmly lifted Mario’s T-shirt and slid the silver revolver from his waistband.
“Piece of junk, Mario,” the P.I. said. “Damned thing could have blown up in your hand.”
He opened the cylinder, shook out the shells, wiped his prints away with his shirttail, and tossed the gun on the carpet. Mario raised the hem of his T-shirt and used it to stanch the blood flowing from his honker.
Alfano looked up at us and smiled. Then he calmly picked up his wineglass and took a sip.
“If this is a robbery,” he said, “you two bozos are fuckin’ with the wrong people.”
“What’s in the case?” I said.
He smirked and took another sip.
“Let’s have a look,” I said.
That’s when Mario decided to take a swing at McCracken. The P.I. slipped the punch and shoved him against the wall again, less gentle about it this time.
“No can do,” Alfano said.
I pulled my Kel-Tec and pointed it at him.
He gave me a blank stare, then worked the combination lock and raised the lid.
“Still full, huh?” I said. “What’s the story? Doesn’t anybody want your dirty money?”
“Hey, give me a chance. I only got to town last night.”
“You were here last week, too.”
“With a different briefcase,” he said. “I don’t like to lug too much cash in a single trip.”
“Afraid you might get ripped off?”
“Nah. I never worry about that. The people I work for? Only a fool would steal from them.”
“Why, then?”
“Cash is heavy, pal.”
I took the chair across from him, rested the automatic on my lap, picked up the wine bottle, and downed a slug.
“Nice,” I said, although I had no idea if it was.
“A 2007 Stonestreet chardonnay. I always go first class.”
“Sorry about your brother,” I said.
“You know my name?”
“I do.”
“You’re not here to rob me?”
I shook my head no.
“Who sent you?” he asked.
“The question is, who sent you.”
“Are you from Zerilli?” he asked.
“The bookie? No. I work for The Dispatch.”
“Ah. The newspaper.”
“That’s right.”
“Piece of shit,” he said.
“I agree.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mario lunge for the revolver. What did he think he was going to do with an unloaded gun? Throw it at us?
“Leave it be,” McCracken said, “if you want to keep that hand.”
“So let me ask you again,” I said. “Who sent you?”
Alfano didn’t say anything.
“I
know it was Atlantic City casino interests,” I said. “What I don’t know is which ones.”
“If you want to live to see your next byline,” Alfano said, “you should stop trying to find out.”
I slid a Partagás from my shirt pocket and clipped the end. “Mind if I smoke?”
Alfano didn’t say anything.
I dug the lighter out of my pants pocket.
“It’s a nonsmoking room,” Mario said.
“And you’re never one to break a rule?” McCracken said. “I guess shooting a state legislator doesn’t count.”
I set fire to the cigar, took a long draw, and blew a smoke ring. Alfano’s eyes followed it as it drifted toward the ceiling.
“You know,” I said, “you and my buddy Mario here are quite the odd couple.”
“How do you mean?” Alfano said.
“Mario’s got high hopes. He’s angling to inherit his uncle’s bookmaking business. But if sports gambling is legalized, it would ruin everything for him. You, on the other hand, are bribing legislators to get the gambling bill passed.”
I glanced at Mario in time to see his eyebrows shoot up.
“What?” McCracken said. “You didn’t know what your boss is doing here?”
Mario looked at the carpet and didn’t say anything.
“Well,” I said. “I’ve enjoyed our little chat, but I must be running along. Tomorrow’s newspaper won’t come out all by itself, you know.”
I rose, plucked the cigar from my lips, and doused it in his wineglass. I hated spoiling a good cigar, but I thought the gesture gave our departure the proper cinematic effect.
“You just put a target on our backs,” McCracken said as we rode the elevator down.
“I know,” I said. “So let’s put one on theirs.”
From the lobby, McCracken listened in as I called state police headquarters and asked for Parisi.
“If you hurry,” I told him, “you can find Mario Zerilli in room 914 of the Omni Providence. The suite is registered to Michael O’Toole of Atlantic City, New Jersey.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“It’s the fake name Romeo Alfano is registered under. Romeo is Lucan Alfano’s brother, and he’s holding a suitcase full of cash. He’s using the money to bribe state legislators, and he’s paying Mario to do strong-arm work for him. And Captain? Be careful when you bust in. Mario’s packing.”
Then I rang Wargart at the Providence PD and gave him the same tip. That, I figured, would finally get the homicide twins off my back about killing Mario.
29
Late that afternoon, I was sitting in my cubicle bantering with Hardcastle, the metro columnist, about how the other Hasbro toys were taking Mr. Potato Head’s pending elevation.
“The way I hear it,” I said, “G.I. Joe’s so jealous that he wants to stab all the spud’s eyes out.”
“And the My Little Ponies are planning to stampede,” he said. “They want to trample him into mashed potatoes and feed him to Pokémon.”
Hardcastle, who’d been looking for an angle to write a satirical column about time-wasting state legislators, thought the idea had potential.
We were still tossing it around when the security guard rang from the lobby to warn me that three plainclothes cops were on their way up.
I met Parisi and the homicide twins at the elevator. Wargart and Freitas were grinning. Parisi looked grim. I led them to the meeting room, where we seated ourselves around a small table.
“Did you catch Mario?” I asked.
“Course not,” Wargart said. “He was never there.”
“Sure he was,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Freitas said. “We aren’t buying your lies.”
“What about Romeo Alfano?”
“Oh, he was there, all right.”
“And the briefcase full of cash?”
Wargart and Freitas didn’t answer. I glanced at Parisi. He shook his head no.
“Alfano’s in custody?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Wargart said.
“Don’t tell me you let him go,” I said.
Wargart and Freitas smirked and exchanged glances.
“Romeo Alfano is in the morgue,” Parisi said.
“Aw, hell.”
“And you,” Wargart said, “are the last person to see him alive.”
With that, he rose, ordered me to stand, told me to empty my pockets, and pulled my hands behind my back.
“There’s no need to cuff him,” Parisi said.
Wargart slapped the bracelets on anyway. Chuckie-boy looked on stone-faced again as the three detectives led me out. This was getting to be a habit.
At Providence police headquarters, Wargart and Freitas sat across the table from me and hurled questions. Parisi, arms folded across his chest, leaned against the wall and silently observed. From the interrogation, I deduced that Alfano was found dead on his hotel room couch, shot twice in the chest and once in the head.
“We found a cigar in a wineglass,” Freitas said. “Same brand you tossed on the table when you emptied your pockets. Pretty careless of you to leave it at a murder scene.”
“Wasn’t a murder scene when I left,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Wargart said.
“It was Mario,” I said, “and now he’s on the run with a couple of hundred grand in hundred-dollar bills.”
“Blaming the zombie again, huh?” Wargart said. “Where did you stash the money, asshole?”
That rattled me. I nearly blurted out that McCracken could back up my story. But it wouldn’t be right to involve him without making sure he was going to be okay with it. For now, I kept my hole card hidden and invoked my right to an attorney.
When Yolanda bustled in, she told the cops to get out and had me fill her in. Then she summoned Wargart and Freitas and demanded that they charge me or release me.
“We can hold him for twenty-four hours,” Freitas said.
So they stuck me in a holding cell till late the following afternoon.
* * *
When I finally got home, I found Joseph doing housework again.
“The cops?” I asked.
“Yeah. They showed me a search warrant and tossed the place. Threw stuff all over the fuckin’ floors. Made a hell of a mess.”
“They take anything?”
“Your nine mil.”
“Anything else?”
“They took a grocery bag out of the bedroom, but I got no clue what was in it. What’s going on, Mulligan?”
I spilled just enough to satisfy him.
Then I spent an hour trying to figure out what could have been in that grocery bag. Far as I could tell, the Kel-Tec was the only thing that was missing.
30
“I’ve been dreaming about us having breakfast together after a night of unbridled lust,” I said, “but fending off a gangbanger hell-bent on a jail-cell blowjob wasn’t the lust I had in mind.”
“Are you okay?” Yolanda asked.
“Better than the gangbanger. He should see a dentist about those teeth.”
“Your meeting with Romeo Alfano didn’t go as planned either,” she said.
“It didn’t.”
We were seated in a booth at Charlie’s, I with my customary bacon and eggs and Yolanda with a grapefruit half and a cup of coffee.
“One thing I’m not clear on,” she said. “Why did you tell Mario what Alfano was up to?”
“I wanted to drive a wedge between them. But I didn’t figure on Mario whacking the guy.”
“Feeling guilty about that?”
“Not especially.”
“You have to promise me something.”
“What?”
“If you get picked up again, you’ll call me immediately and not answer any more questions.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybes this time.”
“Okay. You win, Yolanda.”
“They ran ballistics on your pistol and determined it wasn’t used to kill Alfano.”
“I’m working on it. You know, for a newspaper reporter, you sure get into a lot of trouble.”
“Always have.”
“Why is that?”
“Trouble is my business.”
“I think I heard that line somewhere before.”
“It’s the title of a Philip Marlowe short story by Raymond Chandler.”
“Marlowe was a private detective,” she said, “so trouble was his business. The business of a journalist is to report the news.”
“You really want to get into this?”
“I do. And none of your jokes.”
I drained my coffee and waved Charlie over for a refill.
“You know how most reporters spend their days, Yolanda?”
“Tell me.”
“They regurgitate lies spewed by politicians. They interview self-serving celebrities. They write features about the nutty lady who has fifty cats or the coot who’s amassed the state’s largest ball of string. And they cover public meetings as if they matter, creating the illusion that democracy is going on.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Of course not. When the political stakes are high or there’s big money to be made, deals are cut out of sight over whiskey and cigars. Or sometimes, cocaine. Journalists try to convince themselves that their jobs are noble and exciting, but mostly the work is pointless and boring.”
“If that’s how you feel, why’d you get into it in the first place?”
“Because it wasn’t always this way,” I said. “In the good old days, which weren’t all that long ago, the job was a license to dig out the truth behind the facade, to expose incompetence and corruption, to explain how the world really works. Now, outside of a few big-city metros like The Washington Post and The New York Times, news organizations don’t have the staff—or the balls—to do much of that anymore. Hell, even the big boys don’t do as much of it as they used to.”
“So you’re a dinosaur,” she said.
“That’s what my boss keeps telling me.”
“But he lets you keep at it?”
“No, he doesn’t. He buries me in press releases and assigns me to write weather stories about stuff readers could find out for themselves if they looked out the window. The velociraptor act is on my own time now.”
“Does he know what you’ve been up to?”