Operation Bamboozle

by Derek Robinson

  “He was slow. I got no room for slow.”

  “It happens! People get old. Maybe you will, one day. I don’t see why you had to whack the old man.”

  “Obvious to me. How could I saw him up unless I whacked him first?” Vito was clicking his fingers like castanets. “Speed up, Uncle. Get the lead out.”

  5

  Jerome checked into the Silvermine in Beverly Hills, not so much a hotel as a rich man’s motel: a scattering of bungalows, each spacious enough and far enough apart to guarantee comfort and privacy. He wanted to be undisturbed so that he could think. Having traveled all the way to Los Angeles he didn’t know what to do next.

  Go and see Stevie? Instinct told him that wouldn’t work. Invite her to meet him, perhaps for dinner? Maybe. Maybe not. Meet for a drink somewhere? Possibly. And if she refused? Oh, Christ. Don’t even think of that.

  He lay on the bed and examined his life. It was going to hell in a handbasket, a stupid, ancient, obsolete phrase. Well, sometimes he felt old and foolish and pointless. In New Jersey and New York he used to boast that anything in America he wanted could be in his possession within 24 hours. Now suddenly he was out of his depth, out of his realm.

  He could ask Cabrillo for help. No. A shameful idea.

  That left Vito DiLazzari. The fiancé. Surely the fiancé could act as a go-between? Bring about a reconciliation?

  The kid was a punk. The punk was a kid. He ran his Mob like a street gang. He was a disgrace to organized crime. But, here and now, there was nobody else. Jerome heard himself groan. Was that because his teeth had started to ache, or because the thought of meeting DiLazzari gave him chest pains?

  Uncle phoned Stevie. “He would like for you to go with him to the cemetery. Dress respectable. No sneakers. No jeans.” She was working on an answer when he hung up. “I got a cute little black shroud,” she told the phone.

  Uncle drove. On the way there, Vito told her it was time she learned the family traditions. “Hollywood isn’t LA. And forget the oil business. Forget the aircraft factories too, Douglas and Lockheed and North American, that’s all new money, it’s not the real Los Angeles. The DiLazzaris are old money. We were here before the freeways. Here before the trolley lines, even.”

  “Big Red Cars,” Uncle said softly. “Greatest electric railway on earth.”

  “Didn’t last, did it?” Stevie said. “You tore up the tracks, right? New York got its subway. We’re smart.”

  “Miles and miles of California poppies every spring,” Vito said. “Dad told me, he paid a nickel for a trolley ticket, picked all the poppies he could carry. DiLazzaris belong here. Old money.”

  “I got a three-dollar bill,” she said. “Been in the family since great-granma Fantoni won it off George Washington in a peanuckle game. Is that smog, or am I gettin’ all teary-eyed?”

  Vito said nothing for about a quarter of a mile. Then: “Mother will be joining us. She says she likes you. Says you got a good figure. She means for child-bearing. The breasts especially. She asks, are they real? See, she really likes you.”

  “Oh, sure, we got along fine. On my side, mainly by semaphore.”

  Vito rubbed his thumbs against his forefingers, working on the best way to say what he had to say and getting nowhere, so in the end he just said it. “She wants we should make a grandchild for her real soon.”

  “Good, we start tonight, she can watch.”

  “No jokes,” Vito said. “Family matters are very sacred to mother.”

  “Christ, I hope this thing is catered,” Stevie said. “I could murder a steak sandwich.”

  Uncle eased the car respectfully into Forest Lawn and let it drift along unhurried driveways that wouldn’t know a pothole from a hole in the ground, past manicured hillsides and noble trees, and finally stopped beside a modest mausoleum of dark granite. A matched pair of black Cadillacs was nearby. Vito grunted. Mother had got there first. “No lip,” he warned Stevie. They got out.

  Music could be heard. They ducked their heads and shuffled into the chamber. It was candlelit. In a corner, a string quartet was playing a selection of Verdi’s Greatest Hits. In the center was a white marble tomb, covered with red roses, pink carnations and Mrs. DiLazzari. She was sobbing at a volume that would have filled La Scala, Milan. “What the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed pink shit is this?” Stevie demanded. “Get the hook!”

  Vito grabbed her and pulled her outside. “Show some respect for a mother’s grief,” he said. “Goddammit.”

  “I’m leavin’. Your ma’s crackers, and you ain’t too normal. You don’t want a wife, you want a wall of nudes you can slobber over. Now let go of me.” But he tightened his grip, so she took a big pace back which jerked him off-balance, and she kicked him in the crotch. Good technique: knees bent, eyes on the balls. He made a noise like a plumber unblocking a drain. His knees folded and he collapsed. “Smack between the posts,” she said. “We score the extra point.” Uncle hadn’t moved. “First thing they taught us at Bryn Mawr,” she told him. “I got a Highly Commended.”

  “Ain’t really leavin’, are you?”

  “Yeah. Headin’ east. Had enough of LA. Need a good hot pastrami on rye.”

  Keys had been left in the dash of one of the Cadillacs. This was Forest Lawn, for heaven’s sake. Who steals a car in Forest Lawn? She did. Uncle was helping Vito to his feet as she passed. They smiled.

  Vito said nothing until they were home. Then he said one word: “Ice.”

  He lay on a couch with a bag of ice cubes stuffed inside his pants and another bag between his thighs.

  Uncle sat at the other side of the room and did the quick crossword. He had got everything except 21 down, Scottish mountain 3,5, and he was brooding on how the bastards always put in one clue that was a real bummer, usually down in the bottom right-hand corner, just to trip you up when you think you’ve romped home; and Vito grunted, adjusted the ice cubes and said, “You just stood and watched. She could of killed me. Damn near did. And you …” He swung his legs so that he could sit and stare. “Dereliction of duty. In the army they shoot you for that. I’ve a mind to—”

  Uncle laughed. He never laughed at Vito. Never interrupted him. First time Uncle ever laughed and interrupted. Vito dragged the ice cubes from his crotch and flung them. Missed by a yard. The bag split and ice skittered all over the floor. Uncle picked up a couple of cubes and rolled them in his fingers like dice. “A mind? Don’t kid yourself, kid. You haven’t got a mind. You’re not running the Mob, the Mob’s running itself. Your old man built the machine. You don’t have the smarts for that. Your old man said to me, Vito knows enough to zip his fly, period. His words. He knew his heart was on the blink, he asked me, he said stick around when I’ve gone, watch Vito’s back for me. Where you go wrong, kid, you think the business of the Mob is all take. The only thing you want to give is whackin’ a guy and believe me, that ain’t enough. Where there’s take, there’s gotta be give. They balance each other, see? We run the numbers racket, an’ that’s take but it’s also give, on account of we guarantee the game is on the square, it’s an honest racket, people like to gamble because they trust us not to cheat. You, Vito, don’t like the give part. Not in your nature. You want to chisel everybody over everything. Won’t work. No morality in it. Gotta have morality, kid.”

  “Don’t lecture me about morality. I got a B in morality at UCLA.”

  Uncle stood up and tossed the ice cubes into the fireplace. “How about sweetness and charm? They teach you any of those? That’s how you just lost Miss Stephanie. Treat your fiancée like she’s part of the furniture and she’ll vote with her feet. I tried to warn you, but …” He shrugged.

  “Stupid bitch shouted obscenities at Mother.”

  “Hell of a kick. A nutcracker, we used to call it.”

  Vito got to his feet, cautiously. The second bag of ice fell to the floor. “Pick it up,” he ordered. “Get me a drink.”

  Uncle saw a stray ice cube. He sidefooted it into position and played a lazy, ima
ginary golf shot. “Two hundred yards,” he murmured. “Sweet as a nut. Think I’ll take me some lessons. Florida, maybe. I’m not going to stick around here an’ watch you pissin’ your dad’s money against the wall. Starting with this Ukraine lottery stupidity.”

  “Ah … now I see what this is all about. I take the organization down a new road, somewhere you never been, and Uncle feels threatened. Scared. Can’t move that fast. Kinda stiff in the joints.”

  “Scams like the Ukraine thing are for Hollywood. Go sell it to Hitchcock. Better yet, Bugs Bunny.”

  “You know your problem, Uncle?” Now Vito was almost whispering. Maybe he was talking to himself. “Old guys like you are never happy unless they’re plumb in the middle of the road, waitin’ to get run over.”

  “And young guys like you drive the wrong way up a one-way street,” Uncle said, “because nobody else does, so you reckon there must be money in it.”

  That was when Jerome Fantoni was shown into the room.

  After the introductions, he said: “I’m told you’re engaged to my daughter.” Inevitably there was some starch in his voice.

  “Used to be,” Vito said. “We decided otherwise.”

  Jerome was taken aback. “That’s not what I expected to hear.”

  “She left today,” Uncle said. “Going home, she told me. Driving east.”

  Jerome shook his head. “I spend a week on the train. All for nothing.”

  “She know you were coming?” Vito asked.

  “No. It was to be a surprise.”

  “You got no complaints then. You got the surprise.”

  Jerome dropped into an armchair. He felt cheated, duped, fooled, but he was too tired to be angry. “Stephanie’s always been impetuous. I suppose there’s no possibility she might reconsider …”

  “She kicked Vito in the balls,” Uncle told him. “Said she’d sooner have a hot pastrami on rye, hold the mustard.”

  Jerome stayed for dinner. This was a mistake. The longer he brooded over the way Stevie had gone East just as he arrived West, the more he felt betrayed: by her, by his own good intentions, by his diminishing life, his failing health, his hopes, his dreams. Especially his dreams, which would certainly return to mock him with foolish enigmas and cruel paradoxes. He feared the prospect of sleep. And at dinner he drank too much. The Californian red came straight from the fridge, but even the cold could not hide its grim bite.

  Los Angeles could be chilly in autumn, especially in this great, gaunt, granite house. A log fire worked hard to heat the room where they took their coffee. Jerome stared into its throbbing heart and tried to ignore Vito’s nasal twang, copied from the movies, he was sure of that. “Stick around, Jerry,” Vito said. “I’ll show you how we do things in California. It’s all about youth, know what I mean? Speed, new ideas, risk. Like football. I was in the squad at UCLA until I got a bum knee. Coach said the young know no fear. Ain’t afraid of failure. Damn right. Soon I’ll have the youngest Mob in America. Back East you got a lot of experienced guys. What they know from experience is, you can’t fail if you never take a chance. That’s bullshit. No disrespect to you, Jerry. You either, Uncle.”

  “Huh,” Jerome said.

  “Last year we out-grossed Pepsi in Southern California,” Uncle said. “You drink Pepsi, Mr. Fantoni?”

  “Not since puberty.”

  “Youngest population in the nation is right here in this state,” Vito said. “I told Uncle, when I start acting old, he can shoot me.”

  “What Vito wants, Vito gets,” Uncle said. Joke. Nobody laughed.

  Hollywood dialogue, Jerome thought. Everyone’s a star. Then he thought of a small piece of good news in the real world.

  “At least Stevie’s not with the Cabrillo gang any longer,” he said.

  “That really worried me.”

  Silence. A log spluttered and fell. Flames jumped and wavered. Hello, Jerome thought. What have I said?

  “Worried, huh?” Vito hung a leg over the arm of his chair. “I imagine you not bein’ easily worried. I mean, a top man back East and everythin’.” The nasal twang had gone. Now Vito was a gunslinger in Dodge City.

  “Cabrillo’s not a good man to be around,” Jerome said. “People keep getting found dead. No proof he killed them, but coincidence has got to end somewhere. And counterfeiting, that’s a fool’s game. Federal offense, and you leave a trail of evidence with every fake dollar you spend. I wouldn’t touch it.”

  “That’s where you an’ me see different.” Vito’s loafer was dangling from his toes. He was having fun. “You hear counterfeit, you see phony bucks at the corner store. I see hot lottery tickets over yonder, other side th’Iron Curtain, makin’ the KGB look real stoopid. An’ makin’ four hunderd percent per annum for li’l old us.”

  “It’s just a maybe,” Uncle said. “Ain’t a sure thing.”

  “Russia,” Jerome said. “You’re screwing the Russians.”

  “Ukraine,” Vito said. “Cabrillo get hisself a sweet deal with the KGB boss there. CIA chickened out. I’m carryin’ the flag.”

  “Patriotism? You’re in bed with Uncle Sam? Now I see why Stevie left. You got bran for brains.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Uncle said. “Let’s forget it.”

  “It’s one hell of a big deal,” Vito declared. “Cabrillo an’ me, we’re fightin’ the Cold War. In secret.”

  “Secret?” Jerome punched the arm of his chair. “You can’t keep a secret. You just told me, for Christ’s sake! Any secret you got is a leaky bucket!”

  “Mr. Fantoni’s leaving,” Vito told Uncle. “Get his car.”

  Stevie dumped the Cadillac at Konigsberg. “Ain’t my style,” she told them. “Sooner have the Pontiac. You keep it.” She went off to pack.

  “Dang my hide,” Julie said, “if Cupid ain’t crashed and burned yet again. Counting the Air France pilot who got put in plaster to the hips, that makes five flops in a row. I know she yakkity-yaks, but she’s built like Miss America with extra sodium monoglutamate. You’d think men would be kicking down the walls, for Pete’s sake.”

  “She wants romance,” Princess said. “She told me Vito’s in love with Vito. I told her, so what? Never met a man who didn’t reckon he was Mr. Wonderful.”

  “Not me,” Luis said.

  “Yes you, you lying creep,” Julie said fondly.

  “Only in deference to the opinions of others.” He strolled over to a framed nude of Stevie and studied himself in the reflection. “I bow to the vast majority … Vito won’t be buying any more canvases, will he?”

  That knocked the conversation on the head. Vito had been their meal ticket for several weeks. Julie was thinking: I’m not going to hit the galleries again. Done that. Once was too much. Princess was thinking: Stevie holds a pose like it’s her last dime. Skin fits her like it was made to measure. Where am I gonna find a model like that? Luis was thinking: Vito’s hurt, Vito needs a boost. I need ten grand. Twenty would be better. Or fifty.

  “I’m leavin’ with Stevie,” Princess said.

  “I’ll go fetch your share of the take,” Julie said. To Luis: “Get Mrs. DiLazzari’s address from Stevie. That Caddy goes back home before the cops come looking for it.”

  Farewells were brief. The leaving was too sudden for real understanding. Princess piled her unsold paintings on the back seat. “They’re just crap,” she said. “But better crap than my Mexican crap.” Stevie wiped away a tear. “Keep in touch,” she said. “Send me your address.”

  “How?” Julie asked. “Where will you be?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Neither do we.”

  Stevie drove away before it got complicated. She knew how. Been doing it all her life.

  Julie left the Cadillac in Mrs. DiLazzari’s driveway and hurried to where Luis was waiting in the Packard. “Unless you’ve got some secret bank account …” she said. He shook his head. “Then we’ve got enough to pay the rent for maybe a month, provided we don’t eat or drink or feed Othello.”
>
  He thought about that, and when he opened his mouth she said. “No, smart remarks, Luis. I’m hungry. Nothing’s funny when you’re hungry.” He shut his mouth.

  WET ENOUGH FOR SHARKS

  1

  Once a month, Agent Moody played small-stakes poker with a bunch of people he’d known for many years, not all of them in law-enforcement. One was Charlie Denny, about Moody’s age, built like a barrel of beer, played his poker with a kind of cheerful abandon that was hard to read and that sometimes won. He was in shipbroking or marine insurance, something like that. One day he called Moody, suggested lunch, and over the best pheasant casserole Moody had ever tasted Denny told him he was with the CIA. He named several people whom he thought Moody was investigating. “It could be of mutual benefit,” he said, “if we exchanged information.”

  “You’re not hiring those bastards, are you?” Moody asked.

  “How is your pheasant? I believe they fly it in from Scotland. Or is it Ireland? I forget?”

  Moody wasn’t paying. They lunched often. Charlie Denny was right about the mutual benefit: whatever it was the CIA was doing in LA, he knew things about the Mob. And he knew the good restaurants.

  Now Moody was eating an excellent grilled trout, drinking a crisp Chardonnay, and listening to Denny talk about a curious friendship between Cabrillo, Conroy and DiLazzari.

  Moody told him what he knew. It didn’t take long.

  “Has Cabrillo spent any time in Ukraine?” Denny asked.

  “Possibly. We don’t know. He’s traveled a lot lately. We can’t track him everywhere, the Bureau can’t justify spending the resources when there’s no hard evidence of crime, just a lot of hearsay. Smoke but no fire. Maybe the smoke is fog. Maybe ‘Ukraine’ is a code word for something else.”

  “Maybe ‘counterfeiting’ is another code word.”

  “Fake counterfeiting. Is that a crime? Tricky, isn’t it?”

  Denny poured more wine. “The whole set-up is … uh … interesting. Please stay in touch. How is your trout?”