by William Wolf
Now she stirred on the couch, closed the Fitzgerald, and said, “This could be an opportunity.”
“No, thanks,” Bobby said, picking up his Fender.
“You’re not even curious? I mean, it is your family.”
“Your father’s a banker. Does that make you curious about banking?”
“Not exactly the same, is it?”
Bobby shrugged. “When I was a kid we went to my grandfather’s place every Sunday for lunch. I ate pasta while a bunch of old people kissed his ass in Sicilian.
After lunch, he gave me a silver dol ar and sent me outside to play catch with a guy in a stingy-brim hat. It’s not my kind of scene.”
“Who was the guy? In the hat?”
“It was a di erent guy every time. I never asked for names. Even then I realized that too much curiosity about my family might be dangerous.”
“You mean like your grandfather would have you bumped of if you knew too much?”
“Yeah, right. No, I gured I’d get dragged into it if I didn’t keep my distance. And that’s the way I stil figure.”
“Poor Bobby, forced to drive a Porsche at gunpoint.”
“Poor Bobby, forced to drive a Porsche at gunpoint.”
Bobby grinned. “Hey, I’m a Tucci, there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s got some advantages. I’ve got al the money I want, that’s cool. And it helps the band get gigs.
A lot of club owners don’t like to say no to Don Vit orio’s grandson.”
“See, you already think like a ma a man, shaking down club owners. It’s probably in your genes.”
“You’re a smart broad,” said Bobby. “You spil the beans to my mother, you’re gonna wind up at the bot om of the river.”
“Like I’l ever get to meet her. What did you tel her?
About the family business?”
Bobby took another slice of pizza. “I told her sure. Cool, no problem.”
“You’re actual y going to do it?”
“For a few days. That’s al it wil take to convince her that I’m not mafia material.”
“You’re gonna play dumb, is that it?”
Bobby shook his head. “Not dumb. She knows I’m not dumb.” He extracted a thin joint from his pocket, lit it, took a deep drag, and passed it to Til ie. “Flaky.”
Chapter
Chapter
Three
DON VITTORIO SAT alone in the rear of the armored Cadil ac limousine as it rol ed down Jef erson Avenue. Looking out the window he felt like the conqueror of an occupied city.
Tribute was everywhere. He saw a construction site where men from a Tucci-dominated union were using Tucci heavy equipment to build a municipal o ce tower on Tucci property; the Detroit River, across which Tucci operatives exported cocaine to Toronto and imported farm girls from the Canadian countryside; a Tucci massage parlor where the farm girls were employed; a Family-owned body shop where Tucci vehicles were serviced; and a strip mal whose merchants gladly paid a monthly security stipend to the Tuccis.
As the car approached the devastated downtown, Don Vit orio smiled a salute to the choice riverfront property, recently rezoned for development, that he owned in partnership with the aunt of a city councilman. He rol ed past the Tucci Building, corporate home of the Family’s legitimate businesses. In the distance he saw the spire of a large church, maintained, now that the Catholics had ed the city, by Tucci generosity.
The don hit the speaker but on. “Go up Michigan, a The don hit the speaker but on. “Go up Michigan, a couple blocks past the bal park to the Bul Pen Deli,” he instructed Seluchi. The don trusted Seluchi, but not enough to let him know in advance where he was headed.
Only Mendy the Pearl knew he was coming. Mendy he trusted absolutely.
Their relationship went back forty years. Vit orio Tucci had been the head of the Italian faction at Jackson Prison; Mendy Pearlstein was a young guy doing ve to seven for rebombing some laundries in a union dispute. Mendy was stacking cans of beans in the prison kitchen when Tucci walked in. Vit orio was a fearsome-looking man then, six feet tal and broad across the chest, with a head of wooly black hair, thick brows over narrow brown eyes, and an almost lipless mouth. There was a scar embedded in the leatherlike skin of his left cheek. When he spoke, his voice was loud and gruf .
“Take a break, kid,” he commanded, handing Mendy a Camel and lighting one for himself. “I got a proposition. I want you to learn me and some of my guys how to talk Jewish.”
“Aw,” said Mendy, shy in the presence of a celebrity. He was a smal man, half a head shorter than Tucci, with big brown eyes, a large broken nose, and a welterweight’s torso. “You’re joshin’, right?”
Tucci shook his head. “They got dago turnkeys al over the joint, but there’s no Yids. Capisce?”
Mendy nodded. “Yeah, but I ain’t no teacher. I only got Mendy nodded. “Yeah, but I ain’t no teacher. I only got through the fourth grade.”
“Hey, I don’t want no col ege prep, just a few hundred words to rat-a-tat-tat with,” said Tucci.
“There’s fel as here born in the old country. They talk Yiddish way bet er than me,” Mendy said.
“Yeah, but I want you.”
“How come?”
“I been watchin’ you. You got a pleasin’ personality. I’l give you two cartons of smokes a week. We got a deal?”
“That’d be swel ,” Mendy said. Two cartons a week would make him rich.
They shook hands and Tucci said, “Before you start, take it to the Jew click, so it don’t look like you’re sel in’ out the secret code.”
“What if they say no dice?”
“You tel Abramsky that Vit orio Tucci’s asking for a personal favor. And then you o er to split the smokes.
That’l do it.”
Tucci was right. “Just don’t learn them lokshen too good,” Bad Abe Abramsky instructed Mendy. “Enough so they can talk to each other, but not enough to understand us. Fershteit?”
At rst Tucci’s men cal ed Mendy “Professore” and mocked the gut ural sounds of Yiddish, but he won them over by teaching them a vocabulary they could appreciate: gonif for thief, curva for hooker, schtarke for strong-arm man. Soon he had them gleeful y cal ing one another man. Soon he had them gleeful y cal ing one another schmuck and dreck and mamzer and refering to Mendy respectful y as the melamed—the teacher. Tucci gave him a dif erent nickname: Mendy the Pearl.
NOW THE DON left Seluchi in the limo and went alone into the Bul Pen. The diner was closed and empty except for Mendy, who sat at the worn Formica counter sipping co ee. The two men embraced, and Mendy said, “You give me more warning, I would have whipped you up my spinach ravioli.”
Tucci made no e ort to feign disappointment. The Bul Pen was a popular gathering place for downtown types and nostalgic suburbanites, but it smel ed of corned beef and pickles and, to the don’s meticulous eye, appeared none too clean. He held Mendy at arm’s length and said,
“You’re the worst cook in town, but you’re lookin’ good, I got a admit.”
It was true. Mendy’s hair was white, slicked back, and fastened down by Yardley’s pomade. His skin was smooth, his features wel de ned, and his expression boyishly open. Although he had a smal gut, his body looked hard.
He scrunched his eyes shut and ducked his head, but he didn’t return his old friend’s compliment.
The don wasn’t surprised. Mendy the Pearl never lied except under oath, and tel ing the truth would have required him to say that Tucci looked awful. He had required him to say that Tucci looked awful. He had shrunk to Mendy’s height. His thick olive skin was mot led and gray, he had gone bald, and his hands shook. Only his eyes and his voice were stil strong. “How about a drink?”
he said.
Mendy reached under the counter, brought out a bot le of Seagram’s Seven, and poured three ngers into a chipped co ee mug—as a convicted felon he couldn’t get a liquor license. He handed the mug to Tucci, raised his own cup and said, “Salud.”
They sat down and Tucci said, “You remember Annet e?
Roberto’s wife?”
Mendy raised his eyebrows a rmatively. Nobody forgot Annet e Tucci.
“The other day she come to me with a proposal. I want your opinion.”
Mendy sat silently while Tucci recounted his conversation with Annet e. When he was nished, Mendy said, “Whew!”
“Yeah,” Tucci said. “So? Whaddya think?”
Mendy shrugged. In forty years, Vit orio Tucci had never once solicited his opinion except as a prelude to asking a favor. Mendy didn’t resent this. He knew his limitations.
There was no reason for a bril iant man like the don to seek his counsel.
Tucci said, “She puts out the word Bobby’s next in line, and I won’t even be cold before somebody whacks him.
and I won’t even be cold before somebody whacks him.
Rel i might not even wait that long. Then that no-neck old man of hers steps in and plants the Niccola ag in Detroit.”
“She’d do that to her own kid?”
“Remember Lot ie LaScuzz?”
Mendy nodded. Lot ie had been a Hamtramck madam who put her three daughters to work at a Dodge Motors whorehouse screwing autoworkers. When one ran away, she assured the loyalty of the others by hooking them on heroin. Lot ie had been dead for years, but she lived on in the memories of old-timers like Mendy and Don Vit orio, a reminder of the unreliability of maternal devotion.
“I don’t wanna see my Family go to those fuckin’
Niccolas,” said Tucci.
“You gonna go to war?”
Tucci sighed. “Look at me. Do I look like I can go to fuckin’ war?” He lowered his voice and said, “My goddamn memory’s shot. Half the time I forget what people tel me.”
A look of genuine concern spread over Mendy’s face.
“Jeez,” he said, “that’s lousy.”
“Yeah, wel . I can cover it up good enough to handle my business, but I’m not in shape to ght a war. I’d rather turn the whole thing over to one of the New York Families, let them deal with it after I’m gone. Only—”
“What?”
“Annet e got me thinkin’. Maybe Bobby does deserve a
“Annet e got me thinkin’. Maybe Bobby does deserve a shot. I mean, we’re not talkin’ about peanuts here.”
“He’s a col ege boy,” said Mendy.
“Yeah, but he’s a Tucci. He’s got the blood. What I wonder is, does he have the heart? Which is where you come in.”
Mendy held up a handful of crooked, broken ngers and said, “Hey, I’m retired.”
Tucci waved dismissively “Nobody’s talkin’ about a comeback,” he said. “Just meet the kid, sound him out like. Tel him some of your bul shit stories about the old days, see how he reacts.”
“Jeez, why don’t you just talk to him direct?”
“Cause I ain’t retired,” said Tucci. “He starts asking me questions, maybe he shouldn’t know the answers. You talk to him, see if the kid’s got any larceny in his soul. If he ain’t, no harm done. But if he’s got a taste for it—”
“I got two priors,” said Mendy “One more felony, I go back to the joint for life.”
Tucci took Mendy’s hand in his, pul ed him close, and said, “You think I’d get you in dutch? After al we been through together?”
“Aw,” said Mendy, embarrassed.
“Damn right, ‘Aw,’ ” said Tucci. He looked deeply into Mendy’s eyes and said, “I pledge to you I won’t do nothin’
to get you involved. You understand?”
Mendy held the stare for a long moment. Al his professional life he had been lied to by bosses; it was his professional life he had been lied to by bosses; it was his inability to know when and why that had kept him from an executive career of his own. Vit orio Tucci was a boss, but he was also a friend. Mendy blinked and nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “I’l talk to the kid.”
Tucci gave Mendy a lipless grin and pat ed his arm. He saw the skepticism in the Pearl’s eyes, but it didn’t worry him. Sicilians talked about loyalty al day long, but there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t sel his mother. Mendy Pearlstein was the only truly loyal man he had ever met.
That was why Vit orio needed him. If Bobby had the makings, Mendy was the only one he’d trust to initiate the boy. Mendy, despite the life sentence hanging over his head, would never rol over on the kid. And there was something else. He could rely on Mendy to teach his grandson how to make his bones without fal ing in love with it.
Chapter
Chapter
Four
ALBERTO RELLI PULLED his four-year-old black Eldorado into the service bay of Cady Brothers Car Stereo & Sound, o Gratiot. The car seemed plain next to the other vehicles in the lot—a Rol s Silver Cloud and a gold custom-made van whose vanity plate read FLY. Rel i didn’t care that his car was drab. He had other ways of making an impression.
There were three men with Rel i. One stayed behind the wheel; the other two fol owed him into the squat brick shop. R&B blared from huge speakers. Four young black men dressed in striped bel -bot oms, neon silk shirts, platform shoes, and wide-brimmed Super ies lounged near the counter, moving to the thud of the bass. Cady Brothers was sound merchant to Detroit’s most musical y discriminating pimps and drug dealers.
Rel i saw Solomon Cady behind the counter. Cady was in his early twenties, an Iraqi Christian weight lifter who sometimes worked as a bodyguard for visiting rock stars.
A few months earlier he had borrowed $50,000 from a Tucci loan shark, and now he owed $125,000.
Rel i walked briskly to Cady and, in a uid motion, hit him across the head with a tire iron. Cady staggered and fel . Rel i went around the counter, kicked him in the fel . Rel i went around the counter, kicked him in the head, and began dragging him by his feet toward the soundproof listening room in the rear of the shop. The whole thing took less than thirty seconds.
The black guys at the counter glanced at Rel i’s men, who were holding sawed-o shotguns. “Looks like y’al got business,” said one. “That’s cool, we’l swing back around later.”
One of Rel i’s men locked the door behind them and hung the OUT TO LUNCH sign. The other went into the soundproof demo room where Rel i was binding Cady’s hands and legs with telephone wire. Blood ran from the gash in Cady’s skul , but he was conscious.
“I told you to pay back the money by the rst of the month,” said Rel i. He was around forty- ve, not short and not tal , with a wiry body, strong, hairy arms, irregular features, and, already at noon, a heavy ve o’clock shadow. He spoke with a at Michigan accent. “You operating on some kind of special A-rab calendar or what?”
“Fuck you,” said Cady.
Rel i dragged Cady over to the largest set of speakers, placed one against each side of Cady’s head and secured them with wire, like huge electronic earmu s. “I talked but you didn’t listen,” Rel i said. “You turned a deaf ear.
Or maybe you got a problem with your hearing?”
“Fuck you,” Cady said again, but this time his voice shook.
shook.
“We’re gonna do an experiment,” said Rel i. “A hearing test.” He put a Sly Stone casset e in the master tape deck and began pressing but ons. When he found what he was looking for he slipped in a pair of earplugs and tossed a pair to his man, whose name was John Bertoia. Then he said to Cady, “Listen to this. Tel me how it sounds to you.” He gave the volume dial a vicious twist. Cady’s scream, as his eardrums shat ered, was drowned out by ten thousand decibels of “Everyday People.”
Bertoia watched in admiration as Cady writhed in pain.
After a minute or so, Rel i abruptly turned o the sound, leaving a silence almost as loud as the music.
“Did you get that?” Rel i hol ered to Cady. Then he hit ful volume again. Cady twitched in agony. Tears ran down his face. Rel i gave him a look of cold contempt and left him jerking on the oo
r, the music crashing against his ruined ears.
THEY WERE BACK in the Cadil ac, heading down Gratiot toward the far East Side, before the ringing in Bertoia’s head subsided enough for him to speak. “I never heard of nobody slammin’ a guy like that, using stereo speakers,”
he said. “You think it up yourself?”
“I came up with it watching the eggplants out on Bel e Isle, the big radios they walk around with,” said Rel i. “I figured, hey.”
figured, hey.”
Bertoia and the others shook their heads with appreciation for Rel i’s ingenuity.
“You keep your eyes open, you get ideas,” Rel i said.
Rel i dropped Bertoia and the others at the Palermo Inn, popped some Dean Martin into the tape deck, and headed for the freeway. He was running late for his meeting with Luigi Catel o, the consigliere. Rel i liked to be early for meetings; get ing there rst gave him an advantage.
Especial y when the venue was a new spot.
It was like Catel o to have chosen a Big Boy restaurant on the other side of town. The sensitive nature of the meeting dictated that it be held out of the way—Rel i accepted that—but he didn’t see why they had to meet in a fucking Big Boy. He worked hard al day long, and he looked forward to his meals. That was one of the di erences between a warrior like himself and a desk jockey like Catel o.
Rel i and Catel o were about the same age, and they had been rivals ever since Rel i joined the Family as a young recruit during the Mossi war of 1954. The war eventual y consolidated Tucci control over southern Michigan al the way down to the Ohio border, but when Rel i signed up the outcome was stil very much in doubt. Vit orio Tucci was in active command of his troops, which were outnumbered and outgunned by the men of Don Silvio Mossi of Cleveland.
Rel i had been assigned to a search-and-destroy squad Rel i had been assigned to a search-and-destroy squad that roamed the city looking for Mossi targets of opportunity Soon his skil and daring came to the at ention of Don Vit orio himself, who made a point of publicly praising the young soldier. When Rel i caught a Mossi captain in a roadhouse near Monroe and brought him in as a hostage, the don, in an almost unprecedented gesture, asked him to dinner at his own table. The don’s son, Roberto, invited him to join his regime as an underboss. It was a wartime rank, but even so, Tucci Family veterans could not recal a more meteoric rise.