by Jim Fusilli
Benno told the guy at the door Bell was with him. The guy said, “Sure, Sal. Enjoy yourself.”
Cy Geller and his wife were driving south along the Dixie Highway, returning home from their Friday night dinner at Chungking’s. Egg drop soup, two egg rolls, chicken chow mein with crispy noodles and white rice and plenty of tea: the same order for years and the same $2 tip since the proprietor refused to charge the Gellers for the meal.
At Southwest 37th Avenue, Geller eased right, away from the flow of traffic. He entered a familiar street shrouded in darkness by mossy trees, gaslight flickering only every block or so.
When he crossed Florida Avenue, a black car darted into the intersection. Geller accelerated to avoid a crash but he was slammed hard. He and his wife bumped heads and his shoulder banged against the driver’s side window.
After checking his wife, Geller gathered himself and stepped into the night air. The hulking men in the other vehicle were coming toward him, crossing broken glass in a manner Geller took as a threat. So did his armed guards, who arrived seconds later, having been caught at a red light on the highway.
One of the men in the dented car shouted, “What’s wrong with you, you stupid old bastard—”
A guard’s bullet caught the man in the neck, propelling him sideways. He fell to the street.
The guard pointed his gun at the second man, who raised his hands.
Geller looked at the man who’d been shot. He was crawling now, moonlight shining in the pool of blood that trailed him.
“What do you want to do?” Geller said to the second man.
“Well, I don’t want to die,” he replied with surprising composure.
A second guard drew next to Geller and tugged him toward his damaged car. The guard was to drive the Gellers to the marina, the procedure drawn up nearly a decade ago.
But then a police car turned off the Dixie Highway with a squeal and raced along 37th Avenue, and then another roaring squad car followed, red lights whirling. The cops leapt from their vehicles and began firing. Geller’s first guard was hit, his body rattling even before he slammed the asphalt.
The second guard shoved Geller down into the backseat and fired. He clipped a cop near the shoulder. A barrage of bullets killed him seconds later. One bullet came through the rear window and passed through the front, raining glass on Mrs. Geller, who was lying across the seat, arms covering her head.
Geller was pulled from the car, then his wife, who was dizzy from the crash and the shock of violence. He was frisked, shackled and hurried to a squad car just as an ambulance arrived.
Geller watched as the medic treated the man who had been shot in the neck. Sitting on the curb, his friend talked to a policeman, who nodded but took no notes.
At the police station, Geller learned that the man who drove into him was a cop, and so was his wounded passenger. Geller was charged with failure to yield. He was told, to his surprise, that there was an outstanding warrant in his name in New York City for an alleged violation of the Sullivan Act 14 years earlier. Since Geller hadn’t carried a weapon since the mid-’20s, this was unlikely. But when he was released in his own recognizance provided he surrender his passport, he understood—they were demanding he testify at the Dunney hearings in Miami.
Instructing Saul to help transfer his remaining assets to his mother, Cy Geller resigned from the board of Palm Tree Enterprises, liquidating his shares and moving the proceeds offshore. He intended to empty his safe and ship the money to Cuba, but when he tried to contact Don Carlo in Havana, he was told he had returned to Sicily. The embargo of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies by American companies, executed at the urging of Congress and the Department of Justice, had turned Cuban officials against Farcolini and his operation. Since he no longer trusted Corini or Fortune, the cash in the safe, Geller decided, would go to Bruno Gigenti, who would protect his son.
When they spoke by phone, Geller told him everything. “Corini and Fortune,” he said. “It wasn’t you, Bruno. I should have said something before Havana. To Carlo.”
“What are you going to do?”
Geller paused to watch tiny lizards dart across his sunny veranda. “I’ll have to testify or I’ll be cited for contempt.”
“That’s no choice. Let me look into it.”
Geller said, “We’re dealing with men who saved the free world. They’re on a mission. Organized crime, communism… The pendulum swings.”
“Too bad it had to be you.”
“In Miami, who else?”
Geller was no fatalist but the feds’ play was inevitable. Were he on the other side, he would’ve done the same thing, though with less spectacle. The end game was underway, its result clear. He shook his head, he tsked his lips. If only he weren’t in such top-notch shape.
“Where is everybody?” Bell asked as the house lights dimmed.
“Sssh” went Benno, giving him an elbow, too.
By “everybody,” Bell meant Hollywood. He didn’t see a single movie star, not one, not even Ree. Bell figured those guys over there were musicians, especially the Negroes, and maybe recording executives, given how Guy Simon was bullshitting them. Most of people in the bubbly crowd were women dolled up nice, coiffed and perfumed, their husbands dragged along, looking pretty dapper, too, like the California sun had given them good health. Benno asked the waitress who were the guys Simon was with. She said, “Harry Milton. The owner,” and so Benno figured the Jew was Saul Geller and they were checking Bebe out for the Sandpiper.
Ronnie Oliver settled at the piano and the house band went into “C Jam Blues,” a catchy Ellington number, and then a snappy version of one of Bebe’s old hits with the trumpet player, which put the crowd in a happy mood.
Bell whispered, “I thought he hated that trumpet guy—”
“Hey, I’m listening over here.”
“I’m just asking—”
“Will you put a fuckin’ plug in it, Leo? Sheesh…”
And now Bebe, the spotlight bold and bright. A single-note fanfare, and then the band suddenly stopped and only the bass player and the drummer, using brushes on the high hat, continued with a seductive little beat, setting Marsala up like a cool cat strutting down an alley.
“All of me,” he sang. “Why not take all of me?”
Bobbing his head, crooning soft and low, Marsala came down the steps at the lip of the stage and approached the eager audience. As he sang, he strolled from table to table and looked each woman, one by one, right in the eye, a warm, welcoming smile on his lips.
“Take my heart, I’ll never use it…”
He leaned down and cupped one woman under the chin. As she beamed, he went and clapped her husband on the back and started drifting toward the band, his swagger hiding his limp.
“You took the part that once was my heart…”
He was back on stage when he sang the next line and then the band burst in like thunder as he repeated the first verse, snapping his fingers. When the sax soloed, Marsala stepped back and stared at the guy like he was playing the greatest thing he ever heard and for the rest of the tune, it was like they were having a cozy duet.
When it was over, the couples near the stage gave Marsala a fierce ovation, a few of them standing in appreciation.
“Knockout,” Benno said as Bebe nudged the spotlight toward the sax player.
The next night, the club was packed with celebrities and columnists and as Benno told Bell while Bebe napped, this was part of the singer’s plan. On opening night, he let his fan club see that he was still their guy and the music business know he was onto something else. With Benno sitting around doing nothing, Enna spent the afternoon calling the critics who went to the show and then Bebe got on the line. “What did you think?” he’d ask and they’d tell him. Bebe made this gesture with his fingers, saying the guy on the other end was yapping like he knew, but his face said he was glad they were kissing his ass again. “Come back tonight, if you’re free,” he told them. “We’re going to try a
few new numbers.” Bebe might be an empty skull half the time, but he was Sicilian, so he couldn’t help but be smart once in a while, too.
Now it was maybe 10 minutes to showtime. Back in blue sharkskin, Benno was by himself, Bell having taken a pass, so he perched at the bar with Marsala fans. He was staring at Eleanor Ree. Fifteen, maybe 20 Hollywood broads in the place, dolledup women he’d seen on the screen at the Avalon from the time he gave up Westerns and yet Ree was the one nobody could take their eyes off of. OK, she had the best seat in the house, right there where you couldn’t miss her, Bebe seeing to that. But it was like some special light was shining on her or maybe it was inside of her shining out, the way she smiled playful, those cheekbones, those lips, the dimple in her chin. The couple with her, he’s a big star from that picture she went to Spain and Paris for, and his wife is pretty and petite, but nobody’s paying attention ’cause she’s sitting next to Eleanor Ree, whose date is Rico Enna, that lucky fuck. For a moment, Benno thought, I should be sitting in that chair. But then he heard this voice saying, Are you fuckin’ crazy? You’re in Hollywood. You, Salvatore Benno. The people from the covers of magazines are sitting so close you could flick their ears and you complain? You better stay out of the sun and stop with the rum coolers and Champagne, ciuccio.
Aware of the stakes, Ree smoked nervously, sipping a gin martini she would’ve loved to guzzle. The studio called this morning and asked if she’d sit with the star of the Hemingway picture. She knew Enna had already turned out the agency’s clients for the show and as she looked discretely around the club, she knew about half of them had demanded their personal appearance fee to attend. Bill wouldn’t be told. He didn’t have to know anything that might blow him off the tightrope. She’d learned that when he was high, it was best to keep him up there. But if he failed tonight, in front of this crowd, if his voice frogged on him…
She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and turned to find her agent. “Mal,” she said, offering her cheek, her perfume.
Mal Weisberg kissed her, shook hands with the movie star and rapped Enna on the arm, as if to tell him poaching Ree wouldn’t play.
“I’m in Bill’s seat,” Enna explained.
“I heard good things,” Weisberg said to him, “and it’s nice what you did for Klein’s family. Better Bill’s seen as a mensch. Mazel tov.” He turned his attention to his client. “You I haven’t heard from…”
“Oh I haven’t had time to think, Mal.”
“Life magazine. Lunch with Louella. You’ve been busy. I understand.” He leaned in and whispered, “You haven’t told him yet, have you?”
“You’re right,” she replied, glancing at Enna. “Next year at this time he’ll be bigger than he’s ever been.”
Bebe had a late dinner with Ree on Rodeo Drive, but first he had to go home and take a shower and it was almost midnight before Benno dropped them off at a little French joint. Flushed with success, Bebe said, “Leave the car, Sal. Take a cab,” but Benno said no and waited outside, his head bobbing as he sat behind the wheel, black coffee doing nothing to give him a boost.
After dropping them off at Ree’s in Bel Air, Bebe dancing across the lawn, Benno drove back to Sunset Boulevard, parked Marsala’s car in the Beverly Hills Hotel lot and dragged his ass to the bungalow. He put the key in gentle, figuring Bell was asleep.
But Bell was sitting on the sofa, dressed, some kind of odd expression on his face. Like he’d been crying.
“What?” said Benno, tossing his hat aside.
“Ah, Sal…My father died.”
“Oh, Jesus, Leo. No…”
Bell stood and Benno gave him a big hug, Bell hugging back, grabbing at him.
“Leo, I’m so sorry. Jesus.”
Dropping back to the sofa, Bell explained. Imogene called. His father had been taken to St. Patrick’s in Narrows Gate. Chest pains, and some young nurse there who went to St. Claire’s remembered she was dating a Bell, not a common name in the town, and by the time Imogene rushed down from school, his father was dead.
“I’m on the first flight out.”
Benno paced. “This is a fuckin’ shame. Your father was a great guy, Leo.”
“He died alone. He did everything to set me right and I make it so he dies alone.”
“Jesus, I really liked him. I feel awful.”
“He’s going to be buried as a Jew, Sal.”
Benno stopped. “What’s that mean? Wait—I know what it means. Leo. Leo.”
“I’m doing it.”
Benno boiled it down to one question. “Imogene?”
“And everybody,” Bell added. “Like this day wasn’t coming.”
“Maybe you could do it in secret?” Benno suggested to Bell. “The burying…”
“No more secrets, Sal.”
“Hey, I stand by you, Leo. I’m just saying. They got Jews in the A&P?”
“The least of my worries is losing my job.”
Benno was going to tell him, if that happens, go to my uncle. You could fill in for me until I get back to the store, but he thought maybe Bell would take it wrong, Leo with his big ambitions.
“You’re OK in school?”
Bell allowed himself a smile. “At CCNY, it might help.”
“Imogene’s family?”
Bell shrugged. “I can’t see I’m wrong about her.”
Bell’s bags were packed, all his books put away.
“I’ll take you to the airport,” Benno said.
“Good, but let’s go now. Since you got Bebe’s car, I figure we should ditch the DeSoto. Reduce the risk you get nabbed with a stolen vehicle.”
“But we’re at the airport at four in the morning?”
“It’s seven in New York. I can call my father’s partner and get him working on the arrangements.”
Benno thought he’d call his aunt and tell her to go see Leo, hold his hand, make sure nobody leaves him by himself.
Imogene O’Boyle was at the gate at LaGuardia and she kissed Bell’s lips and held him tight as he started to well up again. “I love you, Leo. Look at me. I love you.”
In the parking lot, he stopped and dropped his bag at his side. “I have something to say.”
“I know. The police told Mary Frances.” She was the St. Claire’s graduate who worked at St. Patrick’s. The upstairs tenant in Bell’s brownstone had heard a crash, then he found Mr. Bell in the hallway, clutching his robe, gasping for air. He called the cops and when they entered the apartment, there was his Torah on the nightstand.
“Only Sal knows,” he told her. “I hated keeping it from you.”
“I’ll say it again. I love you, Leo. Now let’s go do what must be done.”
She’d played it out during a sleepless night and today as she took two buses and a subway to Queens. Her father would come around; her mother probably not. If she married a Jew, she might find it hard to find a job at a Catholic hospital.
“They posted time of death as after midnight,” she said.
“He’ll be buried tomorrow.” He told her about Eli Kreiner, who agreed to arrange the service and burial.
“I’ll go with you, Leo.”
Bell tossed his bag into his trunk, a rattle rising as his textbooks hit his toolbox.
“I have something else for you.” She went on her toes and kissed his cheek. “That’s from Sal. He said, ‘Tell him it’s a kiss from his brother.’”
Cy Geller knew the feds were in on it. How else can you reach a man who lives in a fortress with armed guards? The feds made it plain to City Hall: You fail to help us produce Geller and the mayor and chief of police will appear before the Dunney Commission. And that drug money Geller spread around town? Maybe they can explain exactly where it went.
So they called Geller and told him a witness had come forth, a man walking his dog on Florida Avenue on the night of the shoot-out, who said the undercover cops had rammed Geller on purpose and that the guard had fired to protect his injured boss. “Come down,” they said, “let’s make s
ure what he says makes sense.”
A stupid story. A child could do better. But he agreed to go, calling in advance after leaving a note for his wife on his desk in the cabana. Rather than involve his guards, he took a taxi. On the way downtown, he stopped and posted a letter to his son in care of the Sandpiper.
Outside the police station, he paid the fare, giving his customary tip. As he left the vehicle, a dark-skinned man approached. He wore a pale lime suit, a yellow shirt and huaraches. “Mr. Geller?” he said.
Geller opened his arms wide.
The Cuban man shot Geller three times in the chest and then leaped into a car that had raced in, scraping against the curb. As the car sped away, the process server who’d been waiting for Geller leaped down the police station steps, followed by a stampede of cops, some of whom had their weapons drawn. By the time they reached Geller, he lay dying, blood oozing from his chest and bubbling along the corners of his mouth.
The process server called his boss at Justice, who contacted Washington. “How did it happen?” he was asked.
“Suicide,” the lawyer said.
The gunman was back in Havana by nightfall, reporting to Farcolini’s ally, Jorge Ortega.
The night before, Geller had called Ortega. “I can invoke my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States,” he said. “But it will be seen as an admission of guilt. Jorge, I am not a young man. The future is the matter at hand.”
“Come here,” Ortega said, knowing Geller had a small, competent navy at his disposal. “I can assure you that you will be safe.”
“Let’s not postpone the inevitable,” he replied. They had chased Farcolini back to Sicily by pressuring the Cuban government and its medical establishment. They could insist that he be returned to the United States by some similar embargo.
“If it has to be this way,” Ortega said with a sigh. “I am terribly sorry.”
“Jorge, there is another matter,” Geller began. “I would like you to tell Don Carlo of a missing note, an implication, a betrayal.”