by William Cain
“It’s a strange life we can lead sometimes,” Daphne reflects. “First you think you’ve lost Frank, and the next moment, you’re engaged,” she observes happily.
Addie can’t believe what’s happened herself. “I couldn’t have predicted this in a million years. I haven’t given it much thought, but I wonder how much of a change it’s going to be to have a husband.”
“Oh, wow. That will be big!” Daphne declares. “Having someone else when you wake up, when you get home, have their toothbrush in your bathroom, their clothes in your closet. It’s a huge, huge change!”
Addie is becoming a little scared, with trepidation and foreboding creeping into her thoughts. “I didn’t really consider the reality of everyday life yet, but you’re right. Do you think it’s fun, to have that change? I mean, it’s a major life shift.”
Without thinking about it, Daphne tells her, “You will love it. I just know it. Who else wears a ring made from a bloody bandage?” They both share an intimate laugh.
“Do you have a special someone?” Addie asks and waits patiently for Daphne’s reply.
After a hesitant moment, Daphne tells her secretively, “I’m seeing Al for a while now. I haven’t felt like this about a man in a long time.”
Addie asks her, “Al? Who’s that? Al who?”
“Al Gangi, Mr. Battaglia’s friend.”
Addie thinks to herself that she is going to need a lot of therapy to cope with all of these revelations she’s been given in the past five days. “You are seeing Gangi, Gennarro’s right hand man. You know who he is, right?”
Daphne believes Addie doesn’t exactly approve, and she doesn’t exactly disapprove. “I know Al was his underboss, yes. When I met Al here, it wasn’t the first time I had run into him. I was a police officer in Chicago, and we had our share of run-ins. I retired and came here, and so did he, and we ran into each other again, and the past is the past.”
“I’ll tell you a little story,” Daphne says. “When I first ran into Al here, he thought I was going to arrest him. His eyes were as big as saucers. He tried to hide, so he ducked into a candy store. Picture that: The big, tough Alberto Gangi hiding in a candy store,” and they’re both laughing. “He came out when he realized he couldn’t get away. I was waiting for him and I said ‘Hello, Al, what are you doing here?’ and he was so scared he couldn’t speak, so he flubbed his words and I leaned over to whisper in his ear, ‘Remember me? Detective Coleman?’ and I think he peed himself a little.” The two of them are screeching with laughter, and the pilots, hearing this, just look at each other over this scene they’ve seen played out before. “Later, we talked after he calmed down and we’ve been seeing each other for around a year.”
“I know he can be a naughty boy, especially when he goes to Chicago. But he’s doing that less and less, and I think I know why.” Addie looks at her expectantly. Daphne appears soulful as she reaches within, and, looking at Addie, she quietly tells her, “He knows I like him, and that’s something he doesn’t get anywhere else.”
“I think I love him.”
Addie is speechless. After a short while she asks, or rather, tells, her, “You were a police officer? In Chicago? And you know Al Gangi? And you’re in love with him?”
Daphne nods, reaches behind her, and brings out her service weapon, “Narcotics, undercover. Mr. Battaglia requires everyone that works for him be armed.”
Addie looks at it, then back to Daphne, then back to the gun, “No shit.”
◆◆◆
As the pilot guides the jet close in on the Smoky Mountains, he announces to the girls to take their seats, they’ll be landing soon. They sit and buckle themselves in, and each is looking out their tiny windows. The low cloud cover is sliding around peaks dotted with tall pine trees and heavy undergrowth and settling in over valleys. There isn’t much traffic today, and it’s early yet. The flight from Teterboro is around seventy minutes long, and they touch down at Asheville Regional easily. Once the aircraft arrives at her hangar, Addie looks over to see Gennarro waiting. She’s not happy with what she has to do today. She hopes Gen won’t be angry with her. But it’s her job, and she’s probably the best person to tell him. She’ll give him a chance to clear things up, but it looks bad. If anyone has to do this, she’s the one best suited.
The door is opened by one of the pilots, and, as she hugs Daphne in farewell, she exits through the door and begins to walk down the stair, waving to Gennarro and watching him wave back. “Hi, Gen, thanks for picking me up.” They get into his car and leave. Driving to Heritage Hills, Gennarro decides to take surface roads as opposed to the expressway and explains Mother Nature has given them a good weather day and winding roads will mean a longer trip back, but not too much. They’ll enjoy the scenery, and it’ll give them more time to talk.
His eyes are on the road as he says, “It’s nice to see you, Addie. It can be lonely up here sometimes, and it’s good, for me anyway, to see a friendly face. I see and talk to neighbors and people at the club, but it’s not the same. I’m thinking about leaving Heritage Hills, did I tell you that?” Addie tells him no. “I’m thinking about moving nearer to Al.”
“Really? You might like that,” Addie replies, adding, “Did you know that Al is seeing someone around here?”
Gen glances her way and smiles, “You mean Daphne? Sure, I know about that. Al and I are like brothers. We know everything about each other. We have no secrets. He told me he likes her, and I see he’s spending more time with her. People in our line of work don’t find too many others that ‘like’ us, whether we’re retired or not. When we were in Chicago, she served as the arresting officer in cases involving Al around five times. Now we know why. No better way to get close to someone than to arrest them.” He lets a quiet chuckle loose.
Then he notices her hand and asks, “What is that?” referring to the bandage ring, “It looks dirty.”
Addie manages a broad smile, and, before Gen can remark on how wide it is, she tells him, “Frank asked me to marry him and I said yes. He made a ring out of his surgical dressing, and no, it’s not dirty, it’s dried blood.”
Gen allows a soft whistle to escape slowly and remarks, “That was some trip. Save a guy’s life, get engaged, private jet. You have some life, Detective. The gods are smiling on you.”
Addie feels the same way, except for what she has to say to him, but she saves it for when they arrive at his home.
Gennarro’s satisfied but bothered that he achieved revenge for Elsie. Still, he’s sure Riggoti did it, but at times he’s not sure Riggoti did it. The confession was extorted from a man who was roasted alive. Riggoti committed a violation of his ‘space’ by killing his wife, invading his home. The nagging thoughts won’t stop, and it’s eating away at Gen, but with each day it becomes less and less, and Gen’s certain he’s just feeling natural remorse. He’s human after all.
“Gen, before I left I told you I had information for you, about your wife’s murder. Now, this is important, the only ones that know this are my captain and the commissioner.” Gen is listening intently, his eyes never leaving the road, and she takes a deep breath, “When I went to Chicago in August, my mission was to speak with around thirty sources. One of the visits I paid was to Anthony Spadaro. By the way, he’s a pig.”
“I know.”
“The FBI are watching his home.”
“They watch everyone’s home.”
She laughs a little. “Anyway, while I was there, I was stopped by someone I didn’t expect to talk to. That source told me that Spadaro ordered a job, a hit.” She ends by dropping the bomb, “and that job was to have been carried out in July.”
He shows no reaction. His wheels are turning inside his head. As they pull down the long driveway and the garage door opens, he mutters under his breath, “That fat prick.” Addie knows he’s no friend of Anthony Spadaro.
Then Gen speaks out loud, “This means Helen’s involved.”
◆◆◆
“Helen t
ells me she didn’t do the job,” Addie says after they’ve entered the house. “She told me there was someone else there, and we’re looking for that person.”
“Helen told you this?” Gen is a little confused.
“Yes, she’s helping us. I had the goods on her, so she’s helping, but we don’t have anything solid yet. She tells me she likes doing it, looking at mug shots and stuff.”
“The Helen?” he asks.
“Yes, we got to know each other. We even went clothes shopping a few times.”
“Helen the hitman? Clothes shopping?”
“Yes,” she says, emphatically this time.
“Helen Richter?” Gen’s just staring at her.
“Yes, we kind of like each other. She told me she’s retiring.”
Gen shakes his head, as if trying to clear it. “Wow…Wow.” After coming to grips with this news, he invites Addie to make herself at home. “Please take a seat in the living room, Addie, and I’ll make some coffee for us. I can feel you have more to tell me, so let’s not rush things. I want you to tell me about your trip,” he says as Addie walks by and into the living room.
She’s thinking, He’s not wrong about that. I have a lot to tell him. She reflects on the scene she’s a player in at the moment; the detective and the mobster, one of the most dangerous and richest men in the world, making coffee for her.
As he enters the room with a tray of coffee and cookies, she tells him, “I arrived early in Manhattan the day I left here. I am so grateful for your help. I was beside myself, and you helped me. Daphne and the pilots were really nice to me, too. You should have seen Frank’s son’s face when I walked in. If it wasn’t for Frank’s accident, his expression would have been hilarious. Frank’s ex was there, too. Turns out she’s very nice and we became friends.”
Pouring coffee, he adds, “That’s great; so far so good.”
Continuing, she recalls, “After they brought me up to date, Frank returned from surgery and we went to his room,” and she becomes grim, “and he was badly hurt. He was really bruised and banged up. The doctors told us he was devoid of any internal injuries and that he would recover quickly. And he did. We all feel that Frank was very lucky. The person in the other car died.”
“Oh, that’s bad, I’m sorry.”
“There was a lot of crying that day. But he did recover, and we could eat together and take walks, and he proposed the next morning very early from his hospital bed. He made a ring from his bandage and placed it onto my finger. Later in the week, we paid a visit to a dealer in the Diamond District and, well, the ring should be ready in a month.”
“I see,” Gennarro tells her, “I’m happy for you. You look happy.” He pauses, studying her, “You have something else to tell me, and it’s not good news.”
Addie’s a little startled that he can read her emotions and motives from looking at her, but she’s not very good at hiding her feelings sometimes. “I have something I learned while I was away. There’s really no easy way to tell you this.”
He looks confused.
Addie assembles her thoughts and begins, “I learned you are engaged to Reggi Thomas, another resident here.” There, she said it. And she looks for his reaction, but he’s good, and his poker face is on. “I’m also told you started dating her in September, two months after Elsie was killed.”
Still, poker face.
“That you and Reggi have been on trips to Wyoming together, where you have a ranch. And that you gave her a pony.”
“That you and she bought a yacht and it’s anchored near your newly purchased mansion in Naples. That her name is going to be on the deed after you’re married.”
Still, poker face.
“Gen, you know how this looks,” she pleads. He feels bad for her, she finds telling him these things very unpleasant. “This looks like you had an affair and conspired to take your wife out of the picture. This is how it looks. At best, you used or tricked Reggi into killing her, or having someone kill her.” She’s practically begging him to tell her a valid reason for all of it.
Inside, his wheels are turning. Who told her about Spadaro? What’s this? Who told her about Reggi Thomas?… It happened on her trip?
Addie leads Gen to believe their investigation into the murder of Mrs. Jones has two suspects—him and Spadaro. Everything points that way, and once they have a concrete case, someone will need very good lawyers to defend themselves.
She tells Gen to not leave the area.
Gen is pacing, and while constructively thinking, says, “There is more to the story. You’ve just started scratching. Something is happening, and you need to dig deeper.”
She stares at Gennarro, wondering what he means.
Gen’s talking out loud again, “I don’t know, but you need to keep digging on this. I wouldn’t kill my wife.” He tells her about how he met Elsie, the little rich girl with the pigtails and red hair, how he got involved with the DiCaprios. He tells her Elsie agreed to marry him against her family’s wishes. He tells Addie how much he loved his wife.
Addie is so confused and twisted. She believes him. She believes also that there is more, somewhere, and resolves to open the investigation up wide. “Ok, Gen, I believe you. Frank tells me that he never lies to people he cares for. I think you see things that way, too. But others from my station will just want to put you away with this evidence.”
“I know. I’ll tell you something else.” Addie looks at him, and he says, “You didn’t have to give me Spadaro, although that is very interesting.”
He tells her in a friendly way, one man to one woman he feels is someone he can trust,
“I was ready to loan my jet to you anyway, no matter what.”
Chapter 13 Decisions
March
I’ve never felt better – Douglas Fairbanks, right before he died.
Gangi terminates the call after speaking to Gen. That was some phone call. That detective friend of his told him Reggi Thomas said she was engaged to Ken Jones. So, Gen wants a complete work-up on Reggi Thomas. Gen tells him her address in Heritage Hills. After writing it down, Gen dropped the next news headline about Spadaro ordering a hit, and the job was supposed to be done in July of last year. That’s when Elsie was murdered. Then Gen told him that Helen got the job, but she didn’t do it. Gangi’s wondering how this friend of his gets all this great information. Someone is dropping things right into Gen’s lap. The news about Spadaro is big, and then Gen told him about the Detective and Helen being friends, and he was blown away. Helen Richter, the nail. He and Gen shared a couple of stories about Helen, especially her younger days, and this is certainly not normal for her, or for the detective.
Gangi calls his boy Roger and gives him the parameters on the work-up. Roger’s the guy they use to investigate people. He may be in Chicago, but he does his work remotely anyway, and he’s never onsite. Gangi wants Roger to do some deep diving on Reggi Thomas and her family, and her grandchildren. He wants a clear picture of everyone’s financials—debt, assets, money made and money lost. He even wants to know about pets. Roger knows how to get this done quickly. He’ll use social media and he’ll hack their email accounts; nothing is private on the internet anymore.
He wants to know about their affiliations, friends, habits, professions and licenses, arrest history, driving record.
Lastly, Gangi wants the work-up on their medical state and history, medications, and psychiatric specifics, but he can wait on that. Information of this nature takes longer to obtain.
When he’s almost done talking to Roger, he hears a knock at his front door. He’s a little surprised. Strangers are rare, and where he makes his home, there are no solicitors. It can’t be Daphne. He spoke to her this morning and they talked about having dinner out tonight. He decides to not answer the knock and continues on with Roger, giving him the final instructions on when to deliver what, and how rushed some of this is. The knock persists, and now Gangi is annoyed. He walks into the kitchen and over to the video feed fr
om the front door, and what he sees is nerve wracking.
It’s Helen Richter, and she bangs on the door again, loudly, and he hears her singing, “Helloooo. Open up, Albertooooo.”
“I have to call you back, Roger,” and he hangs up without hearing his answer. Before she can knock again, he rushes into his bedroom and opens the nightstand. Taking out his Glock, he stuffs it into his pants, resting in his rear beltline. Peering through his bedroom curtains, he finds Helen staring back at him and he jumps a little, “Hi, Al! It’s me, Helen. Open up.”
He runs to the front door and pulls his weapon, thinking he almost shot himself as he grabs it. Helen can hear his breathing through the door jamb, and she softly tells him, “I have something to talk to you about. You know, like one person to another. Mano y Mano.” She’s kind of enjoying this. She knows Gangi believes she’s there to kill him. She knows he learned about the Spadaro-ordered hit from Biggie. It’s only natural Gangi would be thinking he’s on the A list.
“C’mon Al, open up. I have to talk to you,” she says laughingly. Al is puzzled, why is she laughing? Helen Richter doesn’t laugh, he’s never seen her even smile, or crack a grin. “I have an offer for you, Al.”
He’s thinking, I’ll bet she does. Six feet under, that’s her offer. His mind is trying to put together his options. You can’t outrun her, and you can’t scare her. He could make a call and get some help, but he’d be dead by the time they showed up. His only choice is to face her on even ground, but he knows his odds are pretty dim. It’s the only way. So he asks her nervously through the door, “What do you want, Helen? Why are you here? I’m fuckin’ retired. What do you want?!”
“I want to talk to you, that’s all. Calm yourself, boyfriend. Take a look through your peephole and I’ll show you I’m not armed.”