Criminal Conversation

by Ed McBain

  He would have her killed, of course.

  First because she’d betrayed him yet another time …

  But she had done it for her daughter.

  Fuck her daughter, he thought angrily. She double-crossed me, she came in wearing a wire, this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, this was something that required planning, this was something she did to me personally! Told her husband we wouldn’t be going to the bugged apartment this Wednesday, we’d be going out instead to a delightful little restaurant someplace. Oh, really, darling? Well, no problem. Here’s a tape recorder to stuff up your kazoo.

  Have her killed, of course.

  Call Sal the Barber.

  Sallie, baby, remember what happened to that runner in Washington Heights, the one who stiffed you with a stolen black ring? Well, I have something similar that needs taking care of.

  Immediately.

  Call him right now, nail her tomorrow morning on the way to school.

  Now!

  Do it!

  He hadn’t looked at all like what Andrew had imagined.

  Eighty-five grand a year, he’d expected a wimp.

  A nice-looking guy, actually. Controlling himself, Andrew could see that. His hands shaking. Wanting to kill him, he supposed, well sure. Fucking the man’s wife, of course he’d want to …

  But I love her, he thought.

  Never mind that, call Sal.

  She has to go.

  Because without her, there’s no case. He admitted himself that he can’t get that Connecticut tape in without calling her as a witness. And if he had enough on the other tapes, he wouldn’t have come here trying to deal. Whatever he’s got, it isn’t enough without the Connecticut tape, and without her he can’t get the tape in. So, it’s simple really. When you think of it, it’s really very …

  But I love her.

  He stared up at the ceiling and wondered how she could have done this to him, coming in wired, telling him she wanted to marry him, was she serious about that, had she at least meant that? Did she know how he was aching inside right this minute just thinking she may have been lying to him about that, too? Just so he would open up, just so she could get him talking for the wire?

  He’d have to call Sal.

  What time was it, anyway? Two, three o’clock? Sal would be asleep, it could wait till morning. Catch her as she came out of school tomorrow, catch her as she …

  Tomorrow was Wednesday.

  She’d be expecting Billy to pick her up on Fifty-Seventh, as usual. Or had her husband told her he’d be coming here with a deal tonight? I shouldn’t be too long, darling, I just want to play this incriminating tape for your lovely boyfriend. Ta-ta, don’t wait up.

  Well, come on, he wasn’t like that at all.

  Tall, good-looking guy, you could sense a kind of … I don’t know … strength about him. Something strong about him. The way he sat there, looking me dead in the eye. Except when … whenever he mentioned Sarah, his lip began quivering. Well, his wife.

  But you know, Andrew thought, I didn’t want to hurt you, mister, I mean that. For what it’s worth, I mean that. I didn’t even know you. You weren’t even a part of the scheme, the equation. It was just Sarah and me. You had nothing to do with any of it. So …

  You know.

  I hope you didn’t come here thinking you’d find some kind of … bum.

  Some kind of cheap …

  Wop.

  I love her, you see.

  Oh, Jesus, how could this have … ?

  I mean …

  I wanted her to meet Ida. Ida, I was gonna say, this is her. This is the woman I was telling you about, isn’t she beautiful, Ida? I love her to death, Ida, we’re gonna get married.

  Why did she have to do this? How the fuck could she have done this to me? To us? Come in wired? How could she have done such a thing?

  Well, the daughter.

  You love someone, you do whatever’s necessary to protect that person. You really love someone with all your heart, you can’t let that person be destroyed. You can’t do that.

  It was my understanding that you loved her.

  The stiff way he’d said those words, as if they were very hard to get past his lips. As if he would choke on them.

  It was my understanding that you loved her.

  Yes, Andrew thought, that’s true, Counselor, your understanding is entirely correct, I do love her, Counselor, but if you think I’m going to cop to murder one …

  I didn’t think you’d want this to happen to her.

  . . . and spend twenty-five to life in a state pen just so you won’t put her on the stand and embarrass your fucking daughter …

  I didn’t think you’d want this to happen to her.

  “I don’t,” he said aloud.

  It was my understanding that you loved her.

  “I do love her,” he said aloud.

  He lay in bed for a long while, silent and thoughtful and troubled.

  At last, he snapped on the bedside lamp and opened the drawer in the nightstand. He found the number in his directory and swiftly dialed it.

  Billy drove her to the Buona Sera, the Brooklyn restaurant where first they’d dined in public …

  Wrong.

  Wrong?

  We had dinner in public in St. Bart’s. And we also had coffee and croissants in that little place on Second Avenue.

  That was all before.

  Yes. That was all before. Chocolate croissants. The day we had our first fight.

  That wasn’t a fight. I simply got up and left.

  Because I kissed you.

  Yes.

  I’m going to kiss you now. Don’t leave.

  He kissed her the moment she was at the table.

  “You look beautiful,” he said.

  “So do you,” she said.

  She was wearing a blue suit, a white blouse with a stock tie, and patent blue pumps. He was wearing a blue suit, a white shirt, a rep tie, and black shoes.

  “We match,” he said.

  “We do,” she said.

  He took her hands in his. The way he had that first time they were here. When she’d been so terribly afraid they’d be seen.

  “We have to talk,” he said. “But let’s order drinks first.”

  “What about?”

  “The future. Our future.”

  The unctuous proprietor came over, wringing his hands, smiling like Henry Armetta.

  “Sí, signor Faviola,” he said. “Mi dica.”

  They went through the drink-ordering ritual yet another time. She was thinking There is no future to talk about. When the drinks arrived, Andrew lifted his glass and said, “To you.”

  “To you,” she said, and lifted her glass.

  “To us,” Andrew said, and clinked his glass against hers.

  They drank.

  “Ahhh,” he said.

  “Ahhh,” she said.

  He put down his glass. He took her hands again.

  “When I called last night …”

  “I thought you were crazy.”

  “Why? He knows. There’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

  “Four in the morning?”

  “Do you still sleep with him?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I called because I was going to tell you all this on the phone. But I thought …”

  “All what?”

  “I heard the Connecticut tape.”

  She almost pulled her hands back from his. They tightened on hers. His hands would not let her go, his eyes would not let her go. He’s going to kill me, she thought. He’s taken me here so that someone will kill me.

  “I think I know why you did it …” he said.

  “Andrew, you have to understand …”

 
“I wish you hadn’t, but I …”

  “Mollie,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I had to.”

  “I know.”

  “But … the tape? You heard the tape?”

  “Your husband came to see me.”

  “What? When?”

  “Last night. He offered me a deal.”

  “Andrew, what are you saying?”

  “I plead, he sends me away, we keep you out of it.”

  “Plead?”

  “Guilty. To two counts of murder one. I refused. I think he’ll agree to a single count. If he does, I’ll take it.”

  “What do you mean, you’ll keep me out of it?”

  “No one will ever know. No one will ever hear any of the tapes.”

  She nodded.

  He kept holding her hands, looking across the table at her. She turned away from his steady gaze.

  “I feel rotten,” she said. “I feel as if I’m personally sending you to prison.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Sarah,” he said, “I still want to marry you.”

  She looked into his eyes.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be away,” he said.

  She squeezed his hands hard.

  “. . . but I’ve got good lawyers, and maybe we can pull some strings here and there. I’m hoping to get out …”

  “Andrew,” she said, “please don’t break my heart this way.”

  “I love you, Sarah,” he said.

  “Oh, I love you, too, Andrew. Oh my darling, darling, darling, I love you so very much.”

  “Then tell me you’ll …”

  Petey Bardo’s goons came in the front door.

  They moved like automatons, right hands inside their jackets, fingers wrapped around the nine-millimeter Uzis under the jackets, legs propelling them speedily toward the rear of the restaurant. “Excuse me, sirs, do you … ?” a waiter started to say, but they shouldered him aside and continued their swift, steady glide to the table on the right in the rear of the place. The man at the table had spotted them, he was already beginning to stand up. The woman stood up, too, puzzled, her hand in his, and turned to look where he was looking as he started to pull her away from the table. The gunman in the lead fired four rounds into the man’s face. He fell over backward against the wall, his chair falling over, the gunman pumping round after round into him. The woman was screaming. She held onto his hand as he went over and backward, screaming, screaming all the while.

  The second gunman fired seven rounds into her face and her chest, and left her slumped against the blood-spattered wall as he and the other one ran down the hall and into the kitchen and out a back door into the alley.

  5: June 2–June 9

  The owner of the Ristorante Buona Sera was a seventy-three-year-old man named Carlo Gianetti, who had migrated from Puglia some fifty years ago, but who still spoke English with a marked Italian accent. He told reporters he had no idea who the slain man was. When informed that he was almost certainly a known gangster named Andrew Faviola, he shrugged and said he didn’t know this, but he hoped someone would by the way pay for the damages to his place.

  He did not know who the dead woman was, either, and he had no idea whether they’d come in together or not. When one of the reporters suggested that the woman had possibly come there to dine, with the murdered man, Gianetti said he supposed they might have been there for dinner, though five-fifteen was a little early to be eating; normally, they didn’t start serving till six. In any event, he was sorry this had happened here in his restaurant.

  The cashier told them that the man had come in first, and was waiting for the woman when she came in. A black town car had dropped her off at the curb, but the cashier hadn’t noticed the license plate. It seemed to her she’d seen these two before, though, seemed to remember them coming here, some months back, she couldn’t remember exactly when, and sitting at that same table.

  The investigating detectives tossed the dead woman and found in her handbag a current New York State driver’s license that gave her name as Sarah Welles. A laminated ID card with her picture on it stated that Sarah Fitch Welles was a member of the teaching staff of the Greer Academy on East Sixtieth Street in Manhattan.

  They did not learn until later that day that she was the wife of an assistant district attorney.

  The New York Post headlined it DEADLY IRONY.

  The inside story raised more questions than anyone in the District Attorney’s office was willing to answer “at this point in time,” as Chief Charles Scanlon of the Organized Crime Unit was quoted as saying. There was no question but that Sarah Fitch Welles was the wife of the unit’s deputy chief, a man named Michael Welles, who was responsible for sending away the Lombardi Crew, which before his successful investigation and prosecution had been a powerful arm of the selfsame Faviola family run by the murdered hoodlum. Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Welles had planned to meet at the restaurant for an early dinner. She’d arrived before him, and was caught in the deadly hail of bullets as she passed Faviola’s table on her way back from the ladies’ room.

  The Post asked why the reservations book showed no listing for a party of two in the name of Welles. The Post asked why the cashier seemed certain the two murder victims had been sitting at the same table. The Post asked why one of the waiters thought he’d seen the murder victims holding hands and in deep conversation shortly before the gunmen came in. The Post asked why one of the busboys thought he’d seen Faviola trying to yank the woman away from the table as the two assassins approached. The Post asked whether the District Attorney’s office was in the habit of sending town cars to pick up and drop off the wives of salaried employees.

  In the coverage of Sarah’s funeral two days later, a good photograph of Luretta Barnes appeared on the front page of the Times’s Metro Section. It showed her coming out of the funeral home, weeping. The caption under it read: GRIEVING STUDENT LEAVES CHAPEL.

  Up where Luretta lived, nobody read the Times.

  The meeting had been called for the Monday following the sumptuous funeral given Andrew Faviola. Bobby Triani called the meeting, and it was held in a place they all knew to be absolutely clear of any eavesdropping devices. This was the notorious Club Sorrento on Elizabeth Street, which was so full of bugs you’d have thought it was a mattress.

  The two detectives assigned to the wiretap were working under a re-up court order granting permission to listen for yet another thirty days. They did not know the voices of all the wiseguys gathered here, so they listened very carefully for mention of identifying names.

  Bobby Triani, they knew.

  “This is a terrible thing that has happened here to the family,” he said, “the loss of this great man, especially in a time of increased activity and prosperity.”

  “He sounds like a fuckin’ banker,” one of the detectives said.

  “Shhh,” the other one said.

  “I want to promise each and every one of you here today,” Triani said, “that we won’t rest till we find out who did this, and till this murder is revenged. Not only to prove this won’t happen again while I’m around, but also out of respect to the man who was killed.”

  “May he rest in peace,” someone said.

  “The minute we find out …” Triani said, and there was a sound that resembled zzsstt. The detectives figured he was running his finger across his throat like a razor, indicating what would be done to the assassins the moment their identity was known. Too bad you couldn’t show an unseen, unheard gesture in court.

  “As you know, “he said, abruptly switching gears, “the stuff arrived from Italy a week ago,” never once mentioning what stuff, even though the club was as sacred as the Vatican when it came to anybody listening, “and is already being distributed to our various people throughout the city. In short, Anthony Faviola’s plan is in motio
n. The stuff is here and will be hitting the streets any day now. Our hope is to retail it for a dollar, attract new customers that way. Very soon, thanks to Anthony, and thanks to Andrew, too, who made sure the original plan got the legs it needed, there’ll be more money pouring in than we know what to do with. This will require new thinking, new ideas. I’m hoping this new leadership will be able to come up with plans that will be acceptable to all of us. Me, Petey Bardo as my second, and Sal Bonifacio under him. I think you all know …”

  There was a round of applause.

  “Thank you,” a new voice said.

  “Grazie mille,” another new voice said.

  “Okay, okay,” Triani said. “Thank you, okay. I think you all know what kind of experience these two men have had, and what kind of people they are. I want you to know …”

  “Yeah, they’re fuckin’ hoodlums,” one of the detectives said.

  “. . . first order of …”

  “Shhhh.”

  “. . . business will be to find the two bastards who did this murder. I promise you we will not rest till our honor’s been …”

  “Bullshit,” one of the detectives said.

  “Shhh,” the other one said, and grinned. “Pay a little respect here, huh?”

  Mollie could not understand how the man who’d saved her life last December happened to be in that same restaurant where her mother was killed last Wednesday. Six months since they’d seen him, and all at once he pops up in the same restaurant where catastrophe is about to happen. This was some odd coincidence, it seemed to her, something she’d have surely asked her mother about, if only her mother were still alive.

  She could not believe all the things the newspapers were saying about Andrew, whose name it now turned out wasn’t really Farrell, but was instead Faviola. How could the person they’d had dinner with shortly after Christmas last year be the leader of a powerful crime family, a person the newspapers were calling the “Boss,” as if he were Bruce Springsteen? The Boss having an early dinner in a little Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, where coincidentally, mind you, her mother and father were also meeting for dinner. Small wonder that all the newspapers were just full of speculation and innuendo as to what the ADA’s beautiful young blond wife was really doing in that place last Wednesday.