Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

The younger man just looked at him, still ignoring me, and moved to one of the two client chairs in front of my desk, rearranging the angle of it so that he'd be focusing past me toward the Statehouse dome. The balding guy positioned himself at the wall, shoulders against it, hands at his side, watching me and nothing else.

  Primo laid a palm lightly on the back of the younger man's chair. "Rick Ianella, John Cuddy."

  Nobody made to shake hands.

  Sitting down next to Ianella, Zuppone thumbed toward the balding guy. "Coco Cocozzo."

  To Cocozzo, I said, "Sorry there's only the two chairs."

  "I want one, I can always just take yours."

  Same accent, but deeper voice. Primo jumped in with,

  "So, Cuddy, you're back from out-of-state, and you got in touch. That's good. These gentlemen flew in last night, and they need some information?

  I looked from Ianella to Cocozzo and back again.

  The younger guy said, "Now, dickhead."

  "What's the matter, Rick, you leave your manners on the plane?"

  Zuppone winced.

  Ianella's face grew mottled, the eyebrow with the scar through it twitching, as though maybe some nerve damage went along with the scar. Within seconds, his grip on the arm chair was so tight, you could see the man shaking and hear the wood creaking. "Now you listen, you little piece a shit, and you listen good. My father's doing a long fucking stretch, time that's gonna probably kill him, account of a fucking bean counter saved his own ass by selling us out to the fucking feds. DiRienzi wasn't family, but my father treated him that way. And my father gets rewarded not by loyalty, but fucking betrayal. So, we're here in this filthy fucking city, and it's just as easy to do two as one."

  "Not necessarily?

  Ianella looked to Cocozzo, but the balding man just kept watching me, which seemed to bother Junior enough to turn back in my direction. "All right, dickhead, where's DiRienzi?"

  "I don't know."

  "The fuck does that mean—'I don't know'? Primo here showed us the picture you took of him."

  "I'm going to tell you some things, Rick. You're patient, I'll tell you some more."

  Zuppone closed his eyes for a moment. Cocozzo, so far as I could tell, came from a species that didn't need to blink.

  Ianella crossed his arms, bunching the fabric of the suit jacket. "Just start talking, dickhead, and don't fucking stop."

  I said, "A woman asked me to look into the background of her boyfriend. I started to, finding out he wasn't what he seemed. I gave her a hint of that, and she seems to have disappeared."

  Junior coughed impatiently. "Look, I don't give a shit about—"

  I took a little leap. "And your bookkeeper seems to be gone, too."

  Ianella stopped, the eyebrow twitching again. "Gone where?"

  "Like I said before, I don't know."

  "The fuck you mean, you don't know."

  Old ground. "I was out of state, Rick, checking on this guy's supposed education for my client. After learning he wasn't who he claimed to be, I called her long-distance, and she said, 'Thanks, don't do anything more.' Now I'm starting to think that she contacted her boyfriend and something happened. I don't know what, and if they're really gone, I don't know where."

  Cocozzo, still watching me from the wall, said, "She tells you to butt out, how come you know she's taken off somewhere?"

  Damned sharp question, since it was Zuppone's information on the ride to the airport about who Dees really was that prompted me to try contacting her again. I thought Primo was holding his breath.

  "One of her friends called me," I said. "Worried about her."

  Cocozzo nodded. "And how did you know DiRienzi was a bookkeeper?"

  "What?"

  The balding man inched his right hand a little closer to his beltline. "A minute ago, you said 'And your bookkeeper seems to be gone too.' How'd you know what DiRienzi was to us'?"

  I looked at Cocozzo, then to Ianella. "Rick here used the word 'bean counter.' That's what makes me think bookkeeper or accountant?

  Junior uncrossed his arms, waving off the cross-examination. "Look, 'bookkeeper,' 'bean counter,' whatever the fuck he was, that's none of your concern, dickhead, you hear what I'm saying to you? What your concern is, you had this fucking Judas, and now you say you can't find him, am I right?"

  "That's right."

  "Well, then, here's what you're gonna do for us. You're gonna get up from behind your shit-eating desk here, and out of this shithole of an office, and you're not gonna sleep till you find him. And when you do, you're gonna sit the fuck on him till we get there. I got to clarify any of that for you?"

  "Maybe the part about why you think my office is a shithole."

  The mottled face, with the twitching now more like jumping jacks and the grip that set the chair to groaning.

  "Coco, how's about you clarify that for dickhead here."

  Cocozzo still hadn't taken his eyes off me. "Not a good idea, Boss."

  Ianella acted as if he'd never heard the phrase before.

  "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  The balding man said, "I'm ninety percent sure he's holding a piece in his lap."

  "What?"

  Cocozzo sighed just a little, like he'd had to explain a lot to the younger man over the years. "His hands, Boss."

  "His hands?"

  "Yeah. We been here ten, fifteen minutes, talking away. You seen his hands yet?"

  "No." Junior watched me now too. "No, I haven't, now that you mention it. Show us your hands, shit-for-brains.”

  "Uh-unh."

  "And what if I stand up and come over and look for myself?"

  I said, "Then you'd maybe come between Coco there and me, in which case he's going to draw whatever he's got under his coat, and I'm going to have to shoot him."

  "Shoot Coco?" said Junior.

  "Yeah. I don't have to worry about you, Rick, because you're having him do the carrying."

  Ianella looked at Zuppone. "The fuck you letting happen here?"

  "Hey-ey-ey, Mr. Ianella—"

  The younger man cuffed Primo, a heel of the hand to the jaw. Junior was quick, but, in my opinion, not very smart for doing it.

  Zuppone struggled to control himself. "Mr. Ianella, please—"

  Another cuff.

  "Mr.—"

  And another.

  I saw Primo's fist get ready to come up, and I think Cocozzo saw it too, because the balding man said, "Boss," but not as a question or for permission to speak.

  Ianella turned to him. "What?"

  "I got a different idea. What say we have Primo talk to this guy some more while you and me go out, buy a capuccino or something, wait by the car?"

  "You mean just walk the fuck out, after all the shit this dickhead's been giving us?"

  Again patiently. "Boss, we want to find DiRienzi, but this ain't our turf. We'd be spending our time asking for directions, spinning our wheels, am I right? We let Primo and Cuddy here handle it for us, we're ahead of the game and back home sooner, with that rat's head on a platter."

  Ianella didn't like it, but I was getting the impression that Cocozzo had been right in the past about a lot of things, and somebody, maybe the patriarch, had made Junior recognize it.

  The scarred eyebrow seemed to resolve itself as the younger man rose, unbuttoning his own suit jacket. I tensed, but all Ianella did was pick up my chair and use it as a battering ram, legs first, on the door side of Cocozzo's wall. Once, twice, and a third time, the legs penetrating the fiberboard, sending dust into the air and chips of paint to the floor. A series of three, like his cuffing Primo, and a dozen jagged holes.

  Junior dropped the chair so that it was standing on its feet. Then he shrugged his shoulders to get the suit jacket to drape correctly and buttoned up. "Next time, dickhead, it won't be your wall."

  Cocozzo waited until the younger man was into the hall before backing up and through the door himself, closing it behind them.

  Zuppone had watched
all this without a word. Waiting a count of five after they left, he turned back to me.

  "Thanks for returning my calls, you stupid fuck."

  * * *

  "Look at it this way, Primo, things could be worse."

  "How?"

  "We1l, instead of just the one section of fiberboard there, I might have to replace—"

  "I don't mean about your fucking wall, Cuddy." Zuppone squared himself in the client's chair. "You got to understand something. My organization owes their organization, only it's more personal than that. We owe them for a favor they did us when we fucking needed one bad. Now they think we can, like, reciprocate, get me? And it sure looks like we can, and should, but you're playing the turd in the soup."

  "Primo, I told you before, I'm not setting up this DiRienzi for those guys to kill."

  "The fuck do you care, they whack him or not? The fucking guy's a rat. What's he to you?"

  "Nothing. But I'm not going to be the reason they find him if I can help it. And besides, it's more complicated now."

  "Complicated how?"

  "My client's missing."

  "On the level?" said Zuppone.

  "Yes."

  "That wasn't just some bullshit con you were running to stall us?"

  "No. Ever since I told her that the boyfriend wasn't checking out, nobody's heard from her, and several people should have."

  Primo looked down at the floor. "I guess I gotta take your word on that."

  "It's the truth."

  "And that's the complication."

  "If she and this DiRienzi are together somewhere? Zuppone's head snapped back up. "What, you're worried about us hitting the woman too?"

  "Yes."

  "I told you once, Cuddy, we don't go off on a drive-by, spray some fucking street corner with an Uzi like these kid gangs. We do a hit, it's specific."

  "Primo, why do you suppose Junior there came on this trip?"

  " 'Junior.' That's all you need to call—"

  "Cocozzo's the executioner type, Rick's here without a gun, but when it comes to happen, I think I can picture the son avenging his father. That way on visiting day, he can go out to the prison, say to the old man, 'Hey, Poppa, I'm the one did the Judas for you. Tell him, Coco! "

  Zuppone just shrugged.

  “Primo, if somebody anonymous was tapped to pull the trigger on DiRienzi, then I can see my client being okay. How's she going to identify some guy from Vegas or St. Louis, brought in for one specific contract? But Junior does the hit, and my client's anywhere near DiRienzi at the time, Cocozzo has enough brains not to leave a witness behind who can finger a member of the family."

  Zuppone tsked his tongue off the roof of his mouth.

  "Cuddy, I won't lie to you. Yeah, she'd be cooked too. And I can understand why you're trying to protect her. No shit, I do. But that's not the problem."

  "It is from my end."

  "No. No, you and me are the problem. I'm sitting in a fucking frying pan, and Rick Ianella's turning up the heat. And it's not even his fucking fault, really, on account of he's just trying to do the right thing. You're the one gave me the bookkeeper's picture, and now you're the one's got to come through somehow."

  "After the way Junior treated you?"

  Zuppone flicked his head, shaking something off. "Don't bring that up, okay?"

  "Primo—"

  "Look, the guy's under a lot of pressure. His father's in the fucking slam, and he sees us as the way to avenge the gentleman, and instead you play Lone fucking Ranger with him. What's the guy supposed to do?"

  "Not knock you around in front of me."

  “Nobody knocks me around, Cuddy."

  "You really believe this Ianella is worth helping?"

  "That's not my call. And it's not yours, either. I told you this once already, I'm not gonna say it again. The organization's been good to me. They took me in and they gave me a chance and I grew into it. Maybe with you it was the Army. Or your girlfriend there, her law school. I don't know, maybe for each person it's something different. But I do know it's all the same too. You got to be loyal to the thing that made you what you are, Cuddy. And you got to remember that about me."

  “And vice-versa."

  Zuppone blew out a breath. "All right, so where does that leave us?"

  "How long can you stall your guests?"

  "My guests." Primo shook his head. "The fuck, you saw them. How long you think it'll be before they decide talking and wall-banging ain't working out too good?"

  "What kind of control does Cocozzo really have over Junior?"

  "I wish you wouldn't call him that."

  "Sorry."

  "I mean, you get used to saying an insulting nickname, it'll pop out some time, and then we'll see blood whether we had to or not. I remember this one guy from the neighborhood, he was big, huge even, but you took a leak next to him, you could tell he had this little tiny dick. Not that you'd exactly be looking at it, you know, but you'd just kind of notice it. And another guy kept referring to this huge guy as—"

  "Primo, you're right. How much control?"

  "What? Coco over Jun—Jesus Christ, now you got me doing it."

  "I said I was sorry."

  "Cuddy, if this ever—"

  "Primo, how much control?"

  The head tick-tocked. "About what you saw today, if I was betting on it. Ianella's into the grand gesture. You know, like putting the fear of God into that hotel clerk out in Milwaukee, get me my suite there, or your chair thing here. Coco's more like me, a 'situation guy.' He can handle his boss, but only up to a point, account of Ianella's still the boss, and they both got to go back home sometime."

  Probably a fair assessment. "Okay. Do your best to keep them occupied, and I'll call you as soon as I can."

  "With what?"

  "With what I can do."

  "Cuddy, let me tell you something, you don't already know it. I'm in the frying pan, like I said. These people, they start believing they can't trust me, they're gonna put you in the fire. They ain't gonna care you got friends on the cops, or your girlfriend's a DA. And there ain't gonna be a fucking thing I can do about it,"

  Primo Zuppone stood and left me. I thought he was pretty cool not to have asked whether I really had a gun in my lap.

  =17=

  After waiting five minutes, I tried Olga Evorova at her condo. Just the tape machine. Then I called her at the bank. The formal female secretary said Ms. Evorova was "in conference? I asked for another extension. When I gave my name to the brusque male voice, Craig said, "One moment," as though he'd been instructed to put me right through.

  "Claude Loiselle."

  "This is John Cuddy. I asked for Olga first and got the 'in conference' answer."

  “That's just the party line. Nobody's heard from her."

  Loiselle hesitated, then said, "I take it you haven't learned anything either?"

  "Not that helps us find Olga."

  "Wel1, I feel small and weak just sitting here while my friend may be in trouble."

  “Believe me, I know what you mean."

  "Can't we file a missing-persons report or something?"

  "Olga hasn't been missing very long by police standards. Also, there's no indication she didn't go off on her own."

  "Oh, for God's sake! You have to believe Andrew Dees has something to do with this."

  "He probably does, Claude. But my client told me not to horn in on him directly."

  "An observation?"

  Loiselle was using the command voice. I said, "Go ahead."

  "Maybe it's about time you stopped worrying about your client's wishes and started worrying about your client's welfare."

  The phone went dead in my hand.

  Setting the receiver back in its cradle, I thought about what Claude Loiselle had just said. Then I thought about Primo trying to stall the Milwaukee boys. Finally I thought about what Robert Murphy had suggested.

  Client's wishes, client's welfare. Maybe Loiselle was right.

  Call
ing the DA's office, I drew the secretary who liked to tell me Nancy was still on trial. I left a message that I'd see her in South Boston that night.

  Then I locked up and went down to the Prelude.

  * * *

  Driving south along Route 3, the moonroof was open to the warm October air, the rose in its plastic wrapper now wedged between the passenger-side seat and door. I left the highway several exits short of Plymouth Mills, just to see if a Lincoln Continental or other car followed me. None did.

  Reaching Main Street in the town center, I cruised slowly past the photocopy shop. No sign of the brown Toyota Corolla I'd seen Dees using, and inside there was only Filomena, talking to a customer.

  Continuing on, I parked near The Tides. From the pub's front door, the rear bar seemed nearly filled with lateafternoon, TGIFing business people. As I moved up to it, two fiftyish guys in sports jackets holding what looked like scotch/rocks were lamenting the legislature's decision to ban happy hours as a way of protecting lives on the roads. The ban had gone into effect three years earlier.

  Then one of them brought up baseball. "Hey, you get to Camden Yards last summer before the strike?"

  "No. The company had me in Wichita till a couple of weeks ago."

  "Man, you missed something. Baltimore really done itself proud there."

  "That's what I heard."

  "And not just the ballpark, either. The food you can get, Boog Powell's Barbecue, Tom Matte's Ribs—"

  "Matte?" said the second guy. "He played for the old Colts, not the Orioles."

  "Right, right. Remember the season both Unitas and Morrall went down, and Matte had to switch from halfback to quarterback, and they still won?"

  "Like it was yesterday. But Matte played football, not baseball. What's his food doing at Camden Yards?"

  "Baltimore's a good city," said the first guy, taking a bite of the scotch. "They don't discriminate?"

  Just then, a younger man shifted toward a woman holding a beer bottle with a lime section in it, and I could see Edie, wearing that same frilly white blouse, her lower lip curled under as she concentrated on drawing somebody a Harpoon from the tap. I moved in past the new couple and said hello to her.

  She glanced up once from the frosted mug in her hand, but without smiling. "You want a drink, it'll be a while. I'm kind of backed up."