by James Swain
Nucky nudged Valentine with his elbow.
“You hear that?”
“What about it?” Valentine said.
“Guys that did that, same guys that broke into your house,” Nucky said. “You want my advice? Stay away from those feds. You’re scaring people, Tony.”
The old gangster finished his drink, and then he was gone.
Chapter 23
It was Liddy Flanagan who came to Lois’s rescue the next day.
Liddy was the oldest daughter from an Irish family with twelve kids, and knew a thing or two about taking charge. Hearing about the burglary, she’d gotten the afternoon off at the bank where she worked, then rounded up four women from her church, and appeared on Lois’s doorstep, armed with brooms and vacuum cleaners and plastic garbage bags. Seeing them, Lois had let out a shriek.
“You’re a godsend,” she exclaimed.
While the church ladies cleaned the house, Liddy sat with Lois at the kitchen table, and made her write down every single item that had been broken, or was missing.
“For insurance,” she explained.
The list ended up being two pages long. It made Lois miserable all over again. The family heirlooms and the presents they’d gotten at their wedding could never be replaced, nor the memories that went with them. But it was a start.
By early afternoon the broken furniture was sitting on a pile on the front lawn, and the church ladies were gone. Liddy had brought over a portable TV, and the two women sat on the rug in the empty living room and watched the soaps. Their favorite soap was called Endless Love. Although they both worked, they watched the show every day during their lunch breaks. So did most of their friends. When the program was over, Liddy let out a deep sigh.
“And we thought our lives were complicated.”
They went to the kitchen and stood at the counter. Lois fixed a pot of coffee, then picked up the phone and dialed a number. She spoke to someone in Italian for a minute, then hung up. Liddy quizzed her with a glance.
“That was my Aunt Rosealita in Brooklyn,” Lois explained, pouring two cups. “I call her every day, and explain what happened on the show.”
“Your aunt doesn’t speak English?”
“About ten words. Hello, goodbye, yes, no, pizza, coke, you know, the essentials. She immigrated here from Italy, came through Ellis Island with my folks. My mother used to translate the soaps for her. When Mom died, the tradition was passed on to me.”
“It’s good that you do that.”
“Thanks.” Lois leaned against the counter and blew steam off her cup. “Listen Liddy, I want you to come clean with me about something.”
“What’s that?”
“I think you know.”
“Honestly, Lois, I don’t.”
Lois shot her a look. Liddy avoided confrontation whenever possible, and Lois guessed it came with being part of a large family. She pointed out the window at the ugly concrete birdbath in the backyard. “Tony buried something out there. I want you to tell me what it is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Liddy said.
Lois put her drink on the counter, and pinched her friend’s arm. “Remember the promise we made to each other when we first became friends?”
“The one about not keeping secrets?”
“That’s right.”
Liddy swallowed hard. She and Lois had met in high school during their senior year. Tony and Doyle, their boyfriends, were already best friends, so it had made sense for them to be as well. They were both practical that way.
“I remember,” she said.
“I know Doyle confides in you — you told me so a hundred times,” Lois went on. “He tells you things he can’t keep bottled up. Tony buried something out there, and I think you know what it is.”
Liddy looked at the floor, feeling trapped. “Doyle made me promise —”
“No secrets,” Lois said.
Liddy started to protest, then caved in.
“All right,” she said.
They sat at the breakfast table. Liddy played with a paper napkin as she spoke. “There’s something rotten going on at Resorts’ casino. Doyle said the three cops who got killed at the Rainbow Arms were part of it. Tony buried an address book and a videotape he thinks is evidence. Doyle said that’s why your house was ransacked.”
“Evidence of what?”
“Some kind of stealing. Tony got his hands on the casino’s financial statements, and sent them to that guy in Las Vegas, only he said the numbers were okay.”
“You mean Bill Higgins?” Lois said.
“Yes. Bill compared the financials to the casinos he polices in Las Vegas. He said the percentages were correct, and nothing was wrong.”
“Which means no one at Resorts casino is stealing anything.”
“Right. Doyle and Tony think the money is coming from someplace else.”
“Where?”
“They don’t know.”
“Who’s behind it? The mob?”
“I don’t know.”
“No secrets.”
“Yes, it’s the mob.”
Lois suddenly felt afraid. She put her hand on Liddy’s wrist and squeezed it.
“Is Tony scared?” she asked.
Liddy stared at the floor.
“They’re both scared,” she whispered.
That night, Lois and Tony slept on the floor of their bedroom on a mattress borrowed from a neighbor, while Gerry stayed down the street with friends. Lying beneath the bare window, Lois stared at the smiling face of the moon while remembering the night fifteen years ago when they’d moved in and had no furniture. Their lives had just been starting, the future filled with promise and unfulfilled dreams. Turning on her side, she propped her head on her hand. Tony’s eyes were closed. She licked his ear, and his eyes snapped open.
“We need to talk,” she said. “Liddy told me everything. Were you trying to protect us by not telling me what’s going on?”
He stared at the ceiling, as if considering the request.
“Yes,” he said.
“It didn’t work.”
Lois ran her fingers through her husband’s thick head of hair. He hadn’t been much to look at when he was a teenager, just a gangly kid with a thin face and a long Roman nose. As he’d gotten older, his face had taken on character, and he’d turned downright handsome. It had been like watching him grow into himself.
“I paid Nucky Balducci a visit last night,” he said, breaking the silence. “I confronted him, told him I wanted to know who’d robbed us.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it was the New York mob.”
For a moment, Lois couldn’t speak. “Is that who Nucky works for?”
“Yes. The mob has somehow gotten their fingers into Resorts’ operation. I have an address book they want. It has some names in it, all hoods. They’re tied to whatever’s going on. The trouble is, I can’t prove a damn thing.”
“Then why should Nucky or anyone else care?”
“Because I’ve been seen around town with the FBI. I told Nucky I was helping them find a serial killer, but he didn’t believe it.”
“What are you going to do?”
He took a deep breath. “Two things. I’m going to figure out what the mob is doing. And, I’m going to stay away from the FBI.”
“You’re not going to help them catch the killer?”
“Being connected to the FBI right now isn’t healthy,” he said. “I need to back away from it. It’s not worth jeopardizing our lives over. Nothing is worth that.”
“Oh,” she said.
Soon, her husband was asleep. Lois fell back on her pillow and stared into the darkest corner of the room. She had never heard Tony say he wasn’t willing to help someone. It was the thing she loved about him most, the quality that drawn her to him when they were teenagers, and made him so special in her heart. It saddened her to think that his job had changed him, and only after he had started to lightly snor
e did she let herself cry.
Chapter 24
Someone once said, the heart is a lonely hunter.
Izzie could not get Betty out of his mind. Trying to track his beloved down, he’d called around Nyack, and discovered she was renting a one room apartment over a butcher shop with freezing cold floors. He got her number from information, and called her every night. Most times, Betty cursed him and slammed down the phone. Once, she’d tortured him by talking dirty, then hung up. She could be rotten like that, but Izzie still missed her. He decided to send her a present. Not just any present, but a true expression of his love. Slipping out of the house in Ventnor one morning while Josh and Seymour were asleep, he drove up and down Atlantic Avenue until he found a pawnshop. The store was called Goldfarb’s, and could have given Fort Knox a lesson in security. Iron bars on the windows, multiple surveillance cameras, a burly armed guard by the door. The owner was a Rumpelstiltskin-like character named Herbie.
“What’s your pleasure?” Herbie asked.
Izzie placed a stack of hundred dollar bills on the counter. Herbie riffled the stack with his thumb to make sure they were all real.
“I’m looking for something special for my girlfriend,” Izzie said.
“She must be quite a lady.”
“She itches where I can’t scratch,” Izzie explained.
Herbie disappeared behind a beaded curtain. When he returned, he was carrying a metal strong box. It was heavy, and he placed it on the counter with a grunt, then popped the lid. Inside was a collection of the most beautiful jewelry Izzie had ever seen.
“Do you ship?” Izzie asked.
Two days later, he phoned Betty. This time, she’d wanted to talk.
“I can’t believe you bought this for me. It’s so beautiful,” she cooed.
Izzie was sitting in the second floor bedroom of the rented house with the phone pressed to his ear. He could hear the ice melting from his beloved’s voice. He had sent Betty a spectacular diamond bracelet along with a pair of fur-lined slippers.
“I wanted you to know how I felt,” he said.
“How many diamonds does it have?”
“Thirty-five.”
She purred into the phone. “One for every year.”
Izzie knew she was older than that, but played along. “That’s right.”
“Are they all real?”
“They sure are. No glass for you, baby.”
“And the metal. Is it silver?”
“Platinum.”
“God. It must have cost a small fortune.”
“It’s hot, so the guy gave me a good price.”
Betty screamed so loud that Izzie had to pull the phone away from his ear.
“You sent me a hot bracelet?”
“Yeah,” Izzie replied. “Whatta you think, I got it from Tiffany’s?”
Betty called him a fucking asshole and slammed down the phone.
Izzie went downstairs feeling lower than a snake’s belly. This long-distance romancing wasn’t working. He needed to drive to Nyack and see Betty, and apologize to her before she tore a hole out of his heart as big as Manhattan.
The first floor was jumping. He and his brothers had brought home a dozen suckers from the casino, and everyone was drinking and smoking and having a good time. They had expanded their operation to include a pool table, which doubled as a craps table, and a second card table, where the suckers could play each other before Izzie cleaned them out. He found Josh in the kitchen fixing a tray of sandwiches. His brother looked worried.
“What’s eating you?” Izzie asked.
Josh said, “Whose idea was it to invite that guy Vinny Acosta?”
“Mine. He’s got a ton of money. And he’s dumb as a fence post.”
“He’s a scary guy. I want to get rid of him.”
“His money’s as green as anyone else’s. Leave Vinny to me,” Izzie said.
By four A.M., all of the suckers had left the house except for Vinny Acosta. He was a scary guy, about six-two and two hundred and fifty pounds, with a nose turned sideways, slicked back hair, and a way of looking at you that made your skin crawl. Vinny had gotten drunk, sat down in front of the TV, and started watching a new cable station called ESPN that showed crazy stuff like sumo wrestling and log rolling. At four, a college basketball game came on, and Vinny killed the set, and came over to the card table where Izzie, Josh and Seymour were sitting.
“Basketball is for fags,” Vinny declared, throwing down a wad of cash. “Let’s play cards.”
Izzie whistled through his teeth. “What did you do, rob a bank?”
“None of your fucking business. Deal ‘em.”
Izzie shuffled the deck sitting on the table, and had Vinny give them a cut. Vinny was watching him like a hawk, and Izzie knew not to try and switch a deck on him. Instead, he held the deck over his Zippo lighter, and sailed cards around the table. It was called using a shiner, and let him see every card as it was dealt. He memorized only one hand — Vinny’s — and signaled it to his brothers when he was finished dealing. If Vinny was strong, they would all drop out. If not, Vinny would be raised and cleaned out.
Vinny had a pair of 7's. Izzie signaled the hand to his brothers, then glanced at Josh. His brother was sweating. Vinny had him spooked.
Izzie didn’t like it. If Vinny sensed that Josh was nervous, he might realize the game wasn’t kosher. Josh needed to regroup.
“Hey Josh,” Izzie said. “Get me a Coke, will you?”
“Sure,” Josh said. “Anyone else want anything?”
“I want a slow gin fizz,” Seymour said.
The brothers laughed. Vinny, staring at his cards, didn’t say a word.
Josh retreated to the kitchen, and ran cold water over his wrists. They’d made a lot of money since adding the pool table and the second card table. So why did Izzie have to bring this cretin home? They were playing with fire, and were going to get burned. He grabbed a bottle of Coke from the fridge and returned to the den.
Josh approached the table, then froze. Vinny had his back to him, and was staring up at the ceiling. Looking up, Josh saw tiny butterflies dancing above Izzie’s head. It took a moment before it registered what they were. The Zippo had caught the overhead light, exposing the gaff.
Josh looked at Vinny, and saw him start to pull a gun. He’s going to shoot Izzie. Josh figured he had a few seconds to save his brother’s life. Flipping the Coke bottle over in his hand, he smacked Vinny on the back of the head. The bottle disintegrated upon impact, and Vinny fell forward, and hit the card table with his face.
“Why did you do that?” Izzie shouted.
Josh pointed at the ceiling. Izzie looked up at the butterflies.
“Whoops,” Izzie said.
They laid Vinny out on the floor. He was still breathing, and except for a small cut on the back of his head, did not appear to be seriously injured.
“He told me he’s staying in one of the high roller suites in Resorts’ hotel,” Izzie said, calmly smoking a cigarette while Josh and Seymour paced the den. “He must have a key on him. I say we take him back, and lay him out on his bed. Then we pack our stuff, and go find another house.”
“What about the furniture?” Seymour said.
“We leave it.”
“The pool table, too?”
“Yes. We’ve got to move fast. If Vinny comes back, we’re history.”
Seymour stomped around the room in anger. He’d spent a whole week gaffing the pool table so they could cheat at dice on it. It was a thing of real beauty, and was going to make them rich.
“We can’t leave it,” Seymour whined.
“Stop acting like a baby,” Izzie said.
Josh got on his knees, and searched Vinny’s pockets for a room key. The lower buttons on Vinny’s silk shirt had come undone, and Josh spied a thick canvas money belt wrapped around Vinny’s stomach.
“Oh-oh,” Josh said.
Izzie knelt down; so did Seymour. They had seen the money belt, too.
“Better see what he’s carrying,” Izzie said.
Josh undid Vinny’s shirt, then unzipped the money belt. Inside the belt were stacks of brand new hundred dollar bills. Josh removed the money and counted it.