Bressio

by Richard Ben Sapir

  “I did get you in this. I did. Oh, my God. I did. Oh, no.”

  “Now listen, Duff. I said you didn’t. I will have a great deal better chance of surviving if I know you’re safe somewhere.”

  “That’s beautiful, Al,” said Clarissa. She reached for a Kleenex and blew into it. She was crying. Bressio felt incredibly uncomfortable.

  “I mean, I won’t have you getting in the way and fouling things up.”

  “Oh, shut up, Al. You’re beautiful.” Clarissa blew strong into the Kleenex.

  “So you’re gonna leave tonight, right?” said Bressio.

  Clarissa shook her head and blew strong again into the Kleenex.

  “I got my pride, too, Al. I mean, you’ve got to respect my pride, also. I won’t leave you now. You can use me to answer the phones here for a checkpoint. You can’t trust your answering service. There isn’t a girl there who wouldn’t sell you out for a sawbuck. You need someone you can trust. You can’t send me away from this like some kid. I’m a woman. I want to stand by you now. I’ve got a right to this.”

  It struck Bressio as terribly unjust that the only compliments he could think of were in masculine terms. So all he said was “Okay, Duff. Okay.”

  He wrote down the address of a small farm in Mount Carmel, New York. Clarissa was to take Mary Beth and Bobbi there, then return to the city. She should rent a car. If she found herself tailed, she shouldn’t try to lose the tail. Just keep going around, stop and talk to some cop or state trooper about the weather or anything. Tails tended to lose themselves after a few hours anyway. No fancy driving.

  “Maybe we could phone the police? I mean, why not? You’re an honest citizen, Al, so am I.”

  “It is the nature of this situation, Clarissa, that the cops have probably been reached already, very heavily reached, and anyone rendering us assistance is going to be reached, heavy. I know these things. There’s a lot of money out there.”

  “After this will you cut yourself off from that business, Al? Will you?”

  “Don’t you think I would if I could? I don’t want to die, Clarissa. I’m afraid,” said Bressio. “Maybe because of my looks there are a lot of people who think I shouldn’t be scared. That’s bullshit. You can be ugly, tough and afraid. I didn’t ask for this face. If I had a choice, don’t you think I’d rather look like John Kennedy or even Roddy McDowell? I got feelings, very tender feelings, that I don’t think anyone cares about because of the way I look.”

  Clarissa Duffy placed her hands on Al Bressio’s cheeks and kissed him gently on the lips. “You’re the most beautiful man I know, Al.”

  “I don’t think I could live if they got you, Clarissa.”

  “You take care of yourself too, huh, Al?”

  “Betcher ass, sweety.”

  “I don’t like that word,” said Clarissa.

  “Betcher ass, Duff.”

  “That’s better, handsome.”

  Bressio hung his head like an embarrassed little boy. He was blushing. With a big stupid grin all over his face he was blushing right out there in the open.

  “Big tough man,” said Clarissa teasingly, and she punched him gently in his ample stomach.

  Suddenly her phone rang, and when she went to answer it, a second light underneath the phone buttons lit up, signifying a second call.

  “It’s for you. Mrs. Dawson,” said Clarissa. Bressio took it in his office. Even Bobo could not achieve annoying him now.

  “Hello, Al. I thought you people looked down on pimping.”

  “What are you working at now, Bobo?” said Bressio.

  “That chippy you imported for Murray this morning. Miss Sunnyville Farms.”

  “If you’re referring to Rebecca Hawkins, she’s a nineteen-year-old witness in the Fleish defense. You know, Marvin whom you find so funny and entertaining.”

  “Oh, they’re calling them witnesses now,” said Bobo.

  “I don’t have time to talk, Bobo.”

  “Just a minute, Al. I’ve got some great news for you. Cuthy Dempster of The Dempsters is interested in you.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “You met her at the party.”

  “Don’t remember.”

  “She said you were definitely interested in her and she returns the sentiment. She says she wants you to phone her. I have her number. If her husband answers, ignore him.”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about, Bobo. I have never known a Cuthy Dempster and only vaguely remember hearing of The Dempsters. That’s not my crowd.”

  “Of course not. The Cutlers are. If you move with the Cutlers, why step down to a Dempster?”

  “I’m doing some work for William James Cutler.”

  “More than that, from what I’ve heard. You’ve had an invitation to join Mitchell, Walker and Cutler. Murray couldn’t get into that firm with a crowbar. Don’t kid me, Al.”

  “Me working in Mitchell, Walker and Cutler? Goodbye, Bobo,” said Bressio. “I’ve got another call hanging.”

  Bressio popped the second lit button. It was Dawson.

  “Al, I’m glad I reached you before Bobo did. Don’t tell her about Becky.”

  “She already knows, Murray.”

  “That woman has radar in her head. Incredible. Fleish has got his pretrial tomorrow. I know you like to watch me work.”

  “You’re not going to appear yourself, are you? You’ll draw a crowd.”

  “I got one of the kids representing Marvin officially. He’s on the docket. I’ll substitute at the last minute.”

  “But what’s a pretrial? You’re not going to do any work at a pretrial that any of the younger lawyers couldn’t do for you.”

  “Becky wants to see me in action. I thought she’d like it. You know, sort of a thrill for a country girl. Phone my secretary tomorrow morning. She’ll give you the judge and court.”

  “I know what court,” said Bressio. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing, Al. I’m finding out the meaning of life.”

  “You know, sometimes I think you and L. Marvin have a lot in common, Murray.”

  Bressio heard Dawson laugh and hang up.

  He went out to Clarissa’s office, but saw no one. She was gone. A note was folded beneath the bar of her typewriter.

  Al,

  You keep yourself alive. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be back in the morning with mission accomplished. You are a very beautiful man.

  Love,

  Clarissa.

  Bressio smiled and tore the note several times. He dropped a few pieces in Clarissa’s wastebasket and out in the hall, and dropped a few more pieces in the garbage. He deposited the last of the note in the street. She would have to stop leaving things like that. If the stash at 285 Pren disappeared, as it had to any day now, someone coming across that note in the typewriter or on Bressio’s body would assume she knew something. Too many women thought to know something had their nipples burned off with lit cigars.

  If he and Clarissa were married, everyone would know she would be kept unaware of such things, partly for that reason. But as his secretary—well, secretaries and mistresses and whores had a rough life in the business of the five families.

  The prostitutes who had once testified against a don during the 1940’s had had Draino forced into their vaginas. It was not a nice business. A woman without status during times of trouble was open game.

  Bressio felt depressed. Perhaps the beating he gave Willie Knuckles might help. Maybe they would think of Clarissa differently. A wedding ring, however, would have been more effective. Would she marry him? Could he keep her out of the office? These were things to be resolved if he were alive to resolve them.

  On Chambers Street he picked up a tail he didn’t recognize. Ah, well, he would have liked to have kept the note. He ducked into a bar and got change for the telephone. By staying alive, he was Clarissa’s best insurance. Who knew what the animals were thinking and doing? Any sort of horror was possible when the natural ord
er of commerce was disrupted. Then the lunatics took over. It eased his mind little that he could think of no don or underboss who had authorized sadistic torture on women, nor did these things happen often. They were, as Don Carmine called them, “regrettable sicknesses.” Still, they happened. And in times like this they happened most.

  Bressio dialed Connecticut information, hoping. Cutler would not have an unlisted number. He didn’t.

  “Let me speak to Mr. Cutler, please, this is Al Bressio … Hello, Jim, I’ll take that office you promised, but only for a couple of hours. I need it tonight. Is there any way you can get me a key? … No, you don’t have to open it yourself. As a matter of fact it would be better if you didn’t … Yes, dangerous … Yes, Mary Beth could be in some sort of trouble, but I think I can keep her out of it. I’d rather not talk on the phone. How long would it take you to get in from Old Lyme? … All right. Just circle your building. I can’t stay any one place for a long time … I’ll be there but not waiting. I’ll bang on the side of your car. Gotta run. Thanks.”

  Bressio left the drink he had ordered on the bar and walked out. He went to City Hall Park and sat on a bench as the traffic went by. A car with three men parked in front of him. He waited five minutes, then cut back through the park and was picked up by another car. It was probable people just wanted to know where he was all the time. He turned into a one-way street, lost the car and picked up two walkers. He stepped down into a subway, got a token, and went to a phone booth. He dialed the number of his dinner guest. The two walkers waited by a gum machine.

  The dinner guest was out, said his wife. Bressio said he would call again and he wished the wife would relay a message. She said she did not have a good memory and knew nothing about these things. Wise woman. Bressio did not stand near the edge of the subway platform. When an uptown local came in, he took it. So did the walkers. He got off at Forty-second Street and went upstairs to the street. He hailed a cab. It got stuck at a light. His two walkers got in a second cab. By the time the taxi reached Rockefeller Center, there was the cab and a Lincoln following him.

  “You want to go through the park?” said the cabby at Central Park.

  “No,” said Bressio. “Take the East Side Highway downtown. Leave me off at the Staten Island Ferry.”

  At the ferry he got another cab.

  “Wall Street,” said Bressio. “The Stock Exchange.”

  Bressio told the driver to stop a block short of Cutler’s building. The Lincoln behind stopped also. When he saw a gray Cadillac limousine with Connecticut plates circle the block ahead, he gave the cabby a ten-dollar bill, told him to keep the change and to catch up to “that car over there.”

  Bressio was out of the cab and running and banging on the side of the limousine. Cutler opened the rear door, slowing down.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you in your office. Park in front of your building.”

  After they had signed in with a pathetically old night watchman and were riding up in the elevator to Cutler’s office, Bressio told him that what he thought could never happen, happened.

  “About how much worth?”

  “You name it,” said Bressio. “Thirty, maybe fifty million dollars’ worth of pure heroin. You can’t really fix a price on it. Like stocks. If someone were to dump a few thousand shares of General Motors on the exchange in an afternoon, the price would go down, so what’s it worth? Pick a figure. A lot.”

  “That’s a small fortune,” said Cutler.

  “Yeah,” said Bressio.

  “Is Mary Beth safe?”

  “Probably,” said Bressio and explained that because of his interest in her that he had made known in an effort to afford her some small protection from the vicissitudes of life, people now believed that he was interested in the stash at 285 Pren Street. It was a question, Bressio explained, of people only being able to see their own motivations in a situation.

  “Is there a contract out on your life, is that the term?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Bressio, looking nervously left and right as they left the elevator. “They want to know where I’m at all the time. Of course, if I sit down and wait, somebody may decide it’s a lot cheaper to kill me than to watch me.”

  “I have some very good relationships with people in Justice. I think we could generate some protection for you in some way.”

  “What would they do, identify the body and then file a report on man-hours to show they tried? Dead is dead, Jim.”

  Cutler let them in through the front way and went searching for lights. As he explained, he was not used to this—the lights always being on when he needed them.

  Bressio used a secretary’s phone. He got his dinner guest’s wife. She said her husband would come to the phone. All right, he had obviously checked around and was coming to the phone with marching orders. Bressio explained that it was only this day that he got his message. He wanted to talk to him to explain his position in this matter. The dinner guest suggested a place of meeting, which Bressio refused. He gave him Cutler’s office address, where he knew nothing had been prearranged for him.

  But what of the risk to the envoy? asked the dinner guest.

  “What risk?” Bressio countered angrily. “Don’t tell me this silliness has affected you, too? Why should I wish to harm a bearer of messages?”

  Yes, Bressio assured the man, he knew they were strange times. He hung up, found Cutler in his office, and thanked him for the use of the office that evening. He could go now if he wished. Cutler refused.

  “This is Mitchell, Walker and Cutler. I’m not abandoning it to some threat of thugs. If one paper is moved by those people I can virtually promise the entire weight of the U.S. government coming down on their heads.”

  “And what if they’re not bright enough to realize that, Jim? A threat is only as good as its recipient’s belief in it. I don’t even know who’s outside waiting for me. What could the government do to them?”

  “Apply pressure in the areas of shipping, gambling, things like that.”

  “Which would be fine for your dealing with people like Don Carmine. With him you’d get along fine. Unfortunately, this is the time of the zanies. The damn—the goddamn stash on Pren Street has let them out of the woodwork. A silly thing. A silly, silly, silly thing,” said Bressio. And he shook his head slowly.

  “It could work out for the best,” said Cutler. “I know some people at the FBNC. Our firm has done a lot of pro bono work in narcotics legislation. They’re good people at FBNC. Got iron in their blood. They just may tough this thing out. Most great victories occur when times look most perilous.”

  Bressio looked at the conviction in Cutler’s face. He couldn’t believe it. But he did, and Bressio had wanted to sit in counsel with this man, held him up in a dream of what was good and worth striving for, and all he was with all his power and fame and influence was a man who got a health warning on a pack of cigarettes. His claim to fame was engineering something that purposely didn’t work. There was no more to him, Bressio saw it now.

  “Maybe, Mr. Cutler,” said Bressio and asked to use a private phone.

  “You’re still working for us, for Mary Beth, aren’t you?” said Cutler seeing a strong change in Bressio’s face.

  “Yes, I promised to try to help,” said Bressio. He explained that Mary Beth was safely on a farm outside of New York City so she would not accidentally be involved when the shooting started at Pren Street. Dawson had had the adoption papers filed for Cutler’s granddaughter, and L. Marvin Fleish had been given a warning to stay away, which he would probably follow. Bressio’s rates were seventy-five dollars an hour on an eight-hour day.

  “It looks as though we’re in a reasonable position,” said Cutler.

  “Very reasonable,” said Bressio. “You think it’s reasonable, then it’s reasonable.” He glanced down the hallway through Cutler’s open door.

  “Don’t worry about anyone breaking into Mitchell, Walker and Cutl
er. Only the office manager, Mitchell and I have keys to the New York office. We changed the locks several years back when some important papers were missing.”

  Cutler’s rock confidence was somewhat shaken when he and Bressio heard a key in the outer door. Bressio stepped out of the sight of the hallway and drew his gun.

  XVII

  Bressio stood, back to wall, gun loose and ready and pointing at the open door to Cutler’s office, listening to the footsteps in the hallway designed to muffle footsteps. There were several men.

  Cutler, as Bressio had ordered, remained at his desk, appearing to work on papers, an executive spending a late night at the office. Cutler looked up from his work. He was supposed to be surprised, stand up and back away. Hopefully this would draw whoever it was into the room.

  But Cutler did not look surprised nor did he stand up, nor did he back away. He smiled, a big grin of relief. “Farnsworth. What are you doing here?” he said. “It’s all right, Al. It’s my landlord, the president of Alpen Realty. I said it’s all right, Al. I know him.”

  Then Cutler saw confusing things happen. Al Bressio did not lower his gun, and the president of Alpen Realty stopped in the hallway and the two men with him, both apparently businessmen, in suits and ties, drew revolvers.

  “Hello, Alphonse,” said Farnsworth. “Have things gotten so bad that you would hold guns in my presence?”

  “His men have guns,” said Cutler with a good deal of courage, for when he said this he was looking into the barrel of a snub-nosed .32.

  Bressio’s free hand made a short wave of the fingertips signifying he knew and that Cutler should stay out of it. “Hello, Mr. Felli,” said Bressio. “It is not from evil in my heart, but from apprehension in these troubled times.”

  Cutler was both amazed at the florid eloquence emanating from Bressio, and the force. What force in the man! So this is what the dossier meant when it referred to him as a man of respect. But why was he calling Farnsworth “Felli”? And Farnsworth was responding to that name. Funny, thought Cutler, he had always thought Farnsworth had changed his name from Feldstein or Feinberg or something like that. Farnsworth had acted so, so Jewish.