The Best Revenge

by Sol Stein

  “Any of that good news?”

  She shook her head.

  “Looks like we’ll have to make some of our own,” I said. “Get Steve Nissof on the phone. And don’t look at me that way.”

  *

  “Oh, Mr. Riller,” Nissof said, in a tone that acknowledged an honor. Maybe he hadn’t heard about the trouble I was in. “What can I do for you?”

  “Depends.”

  “Give me the name.”

  “I’d rather see you in person.”

  “I could make time tomorrow.”

  “How about right now? Where’s your office?”

  He gave me the address.

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes tops.”

  He’d charge more for an emergency. So what? There was zero time to spare.

  *

  Getting a cab in New York quickly always gives me a rush of triumph. I got in. The driver didn’t say a word. That isn’t reticence. It means he doesn’t speak English as well as the drivers who speak it badly. I had to repeat the address twice and, in pidgin, told him how to get there. I didn’t want to look up and find myself crossing one of Manhattan’s bridges into another borough.

  I persuaded myself to sit back in the seat. I’d never been to Nissof’s office. He’d come to mine or we’d talked on the phone.

  His address turned out to be one of those partially remodeled ancient office buildings. The front had been sandblasted clean only to slightly above eye level. The rest of it was New York gray.

  Inside the lobby, the elevator starter, who looked like he had survived the Spanish-American War, tiredly held out a sign-in clipboard, which I waved away.

  “It’s rules,” he said, his voice a mixture of fatigue and rust. I scrawled Al Pacino. The man didn’t look. He waved me toward the elevators.

  The two self-service elevators had new, imitation bronze doors. I stepped into the one with the doors open and pushed seven. The creak of machinery made me think some mechanical giant with a hernia was trying to haul the elevator up on a single, frayed rope. Miraculously it reached the seventh floor. I stepped out and the doors immediately groaned to a close, abandoning me.

  I faced an array of frosted glass doors. Number 704 was halfway down the hall. All it said was STEPHEN NISSOF. I wasn’t the only producer on Broadway who used him to check out potential investors if they suspected dirty money.

  The doorknob didn’t turn. The sound of a chair scraping came from inside. I rapped on the glass.

  “Coming, coming,” said a voice. Nissof, a tall, skinny man with freckles, had to open two deadbolts to let me in.

  Arrayed against a wall was a row of steel filing cabinets, gray, beige, and brown, each with a vertical bar lock. The waiting area looked as if no one had ever waited there. “It’s a real pleasure to have you here, Mr. Riller,” he said, nodding me into the inner office. He gestured to a wooden chair and took refuge behind a desk that must have been secondhand before he owned it. Fortified by a yellow pad and pen, he said, “Name?”

  “Nick Manucci.”

  Nissof put his pen down. “That’s a name I don’t have to look into.”

  “Bad news?”

  “Stay away from him.”

  “Too late, Steve. He’s buying a big share.”

  “In what?”

  “My new play.”

  “The dog?” He coughed into his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Steve, we’ve been doing business a long time. Your opinion about plays is not why I’m here.”

  “I was just kind of repeating. The word’s around. I didn’t mean anything personal.” He poised his pen again. “What do you want on Manucci?”

  “His short hairs.”

  Nissof didn’t move.

  “How’s business?” I asked. “Not too good?”

  “What kind of short hairs?”

  “Income tax filings. Audits in progress. Women. Wife’s boyfriends. Kids on dope.”

  “I can do income tax. Have to pay out so it costs you more. Women won’t do you any good, his wife knows. I wouldn’t play tiddlywinks with Manucci. If you want to play hardball, it’ll cost.”

  “How much?”

  “Five thousand and no attribution.”

  “How will I know it’s worth it?”

  “Mr. Riller, you didn’t get where you are being Santa Claus. Have I given you your money’s worth in the past?”

  “Sure, Steve, at three hundred per name.”

  “You don’t want to find out if Manucci’s money is clean. You want to negotiate better terms, right?”

  “I sometimes forget you were a lawyer.”

  “Don’t get unpleasant, Mr. Riller. I am a lawyer. I practice more than some guys who still have their licenses. You want to play hardball with Manucci, my retainer is five thousand. That’s backstage only. Your lawyer has to play out front. Deal?”

  Where to get the five thousand?

  “I need to know more,” I said.

  Nissof smiled. “Seeing’s we done a lot, I trust you.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “You got the five grand, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Ever hear the name Barone?”

  “Lends money to actors.”

  “Biggest shylock operation in New York State. Manucci’s a pimple on his ass.”

  “I know Manucci’s family. I don’t know anything about Barone.”

  Nissof laughed. “I wasn’t suggesting Barone as a substitute investor. He wouldn’t get into anything as lunatic as play production. You asked about short hairs. Barone is Manucci’s short hair. Barone hates him. Five thousand gets you a meeting with Barone.”

  “What good would that do me?”

  “Let me finish. A meeting with Barone and a script. I’ll write the script. You know what to do with a script, don’t you?” Nissof laughed again. “I’ll call you.”

  I stood up and put my hand out to Nissof.

  “Cash,” he said. “No checks.”

  “Nondeductible.”

  “Tough.”

  “Okay, cash.”

  He shook my outstretched hand. “What’d you do to your cheek,” he said as if noticing the Band-Aid for the first time.

  “My barber tried to cut my throat and missed.”

  “You won’t have to worry about things like that if this goes wrong,” Nissof said. “You won’t have to worry about anything anymore.”

  17

  Nick

  Forget what somebody else told you, I’m telling you a lawyer is a soldier. His job is to go out and kill the enemy. You wind him up, point him in the right direction, and get the hell out of the way. All the rest is bullshit.

  My lawyer was a friend from school, Dino Palmieri. First, he was clean, which was good for my business when I started up. You don’t need guilt by association from the wrong lawyer. Second, Dino did a good job on my loan agreements, mortgages, crap like that. Then I get hit with trouble. Twice I lent money to Golub, a beer distributor on Long Island. The second time, when it’s due he twiddles me. We have a big argument in his office, he calls the cops to throw me out, you believe that? Worse, he throws a lawsuit at me for three times what I lent him on the grounds that I am interfering with his business.

  Dino arranges a settlement conference in Golub’s lawyer’s office. I don’t want to be in the same room with Golub, it’s too tempting to reach across the table and grab him by his neck. Dino estimates what it’s going to cost to fight this case, I swallow and agree to the conference, and what I see there makes my eyes bug out. This distributor has got a lawyer so short you wouldn’t be able to see him if he sat behind a desk. And he’s Yul Brynner bald. But when he shakes your hand you know this dude could squeeze an apple into apple juice. Golub’s half-size lawyer is named Bert Rivers, and every time Dino opens his mouth, this lawyer pisses into it. In ten minutes, I wouldn’t want to be represented by Dino if he was my brother. I want this Bert Rivers.

  The meeting breaks so we can each talk privately a
bout settlement money. For Dino, I got only one question. “How come you so fucking scared of Rivers?”

  “His reputation is he doesn’t lose too often.”

  “And you’re scared shitless of his reputation, is that it?”

  “Hey,” Dino says. “Easy, Nick.”

  “You expect to get paid, win or lose, right? How about you only get paid if you win? Don’t answer me.”

  I walk back into the conference with a check in my hand. “Golub,” I say to the distributor, “the way I see it is if we let these two lawyers fight it out in court, mine is going to get money he’s not worth, anybody can see that, and yours is going to get money from you every month for how many years it takes, and then you’re going to find out that N.M. Enterprises, Inc., which is what you’re suing, is only one of eleven corporations I got, and by coincidence, N.M. Enterprises doesn’t own enough assets to keep these lawyers in toilet paper. This check is for ten G’s, drawn on one of my companies that has ten G’s. I can tear it up or hand it over to you and you give me a release and that’s it.”

  I start to tear the check, just a quarter inch, and Golub is standing, saying, “You’ve got a deal.”

  The first thing I do when we’re out of the building is say, “Goodbye, Dino.”

  He says, “Don’t you want to talk about this?”

  “Why? You going to pay me for my speech in there? I can’t afford you, Dino. You’re fired. As of yesterday.”

  The second thing I do is arrange for someone I know to do a little night work in Golub’s offices. I tell him not to bother with the bookkeeper’s cash box, to go straight to Golub’s office and I tell him two places to look. A guy who runs his business the way Golub does has to keep a lot of cash handy. I tell my guy whatever’s in there, I want exactly ten G’s, not a penny more or less. I want Golub to know. I pay my guy two G’s, which is less than what Dino would have cost me. Then I call Golub. I’m hanging on a long time, but he takes the call. I say, “This is a friendly call, Golub. I don’t think you should keep cash around the office. In fact, I don’t think you ought to carry it because who knows what happens in the streets these days. Don’t you agree?”

  “I’m listening,” is all he says.

  “About your loan, with the vigorish to date, you know what that comes to?”

  “I can figure.”

  “Can you figure you start paying that down like five G’s a week minimum?”

  I hang up before he can say anything because under the circumstances the only acceptable answer is yes.

  The third thing I do is call Bert Rivers.

  *

  “I shouldn’t be talking to you,” Rivers says. “I should only speak to your attorney.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have an attorney anymore, Mr. Rivers, because I fired him and I’m expecting to hire you. You don’t have a conflict of interest anymore because Mr. Golub and I settled our case, right?”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “I’d like to tell you why I’m sure.”

  *

  In his office Rivers interviewed me like a machine gun—how did I make my money, did I know the New York State laws on usury, how many times did I get sued, how many times did I get threatened, how often did I threaten somebody else? I made zero impression until I told him my office was in the Seagram.

  “Is that right?” he said.

  “What kind of retainer do you get?”

  “Money,” he said.

  I gave him the ha-ha. “How much?”

  “I believe,” he said, looking me straight in the eye, “you would take a lot of my time.”

  “Hey,” I said, “I never sued nobody in my life. I never been arrested. I just want the paperwork done on time, good advice, and your phone number just in case ever, you understand?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Manucci,” he said, “genuinely sorry.”

  Genuinely shit. You ever hear of a one-man law shop that turns down business? There’s got to be a reason he isn’t jumping into my lap.

  “Is it Golub?” I asked. “That conflict-of-interest stuff?”

  “Not really. I’ll see you to the door,” he said.

  “I can find my way out,” I said.

  I walk back to my office bumping into people, steaming. That shitkicker turns me down? My old man always said to look for dirt in a man’s laundry basket. I had my usual check run on Mr. Highfalutin Rivers, same as I do when a new customer wants heavy money. Two days later Gorgeous hands me a four-page memo I could have kissed. Mrs. Rivers number one and number two left him because he’s got race-track disease? And guess who his bank was? You got it, Barone!

  I’m sorry, Mr. Manucci, genuinely sorry. In a pig’s ass he turns me down. Twenty percent a week vigorish kills you quick. That’s when Barone looks to see what else you got besides money. Barone isn’t stupid. Inside a couple of weeks he does what all the psychiatrists in New York put together couldn’t do. He cures Rivers of gambling by putting out four words to the bookies: No credit to Rivers. This city ever wants to stop all drug traffic real cheap all they got to do is pay the right price to Barone and give him five weeks to clean up Queens and Harlem and three days extra for Wall Street. Only any politician got the guts to go to Barone better have another job waiting as soon as the smear starts.

  When Barone gets a guy like Rivers up against the wall, he doesn’t break Rivers’s legs, he uses them.

  I remember five, six, seven years ago, when that gorilla bought out the independents in his territory, one by fucking one. The guys Barone couldn’t buy, he ran out. When he said he wanted to see me, I said, “Sure. In my office. Alone.” He came all right, looked around blinking like he was above ground for the first time in his life.

  “Some office,” he said.

  “What’s on your mind?” I said, as if I didn’t know.

  So he told me. And I told him to go take a flying fuck. At the door, right in front of my secretary, he said, “Soon as your old man six feet down, somebody’s going to send you to keep him company.”

  I told her, “Write that down. What you heard him say. Take it to a notary. I want an affidavit that you heard his threat.”

  I heard Barone went nuts in front of his boys, screaming, “How come I got to work out of restaurants, lofts, when that little shit Manucci got an office like a king?” My guy phoned me, laughing so hard I could hardly make out what he was saying. He said the boys tried to quiet Barone down, saying, “Boss, the Feds can’t bug you if you move around.”

  Barone’s problem was I had figured out how to get away with what he couldn’t get away with. I was a businessman. He would always be a hood.

  I never don’t lock my car in parking lots. One day three four years ago I came out of the barber shop and saw someone sitting in my front passenger seat.

  I’ve got a good smeller for trouble. I started walking away when the guy inside my car rolled the window down and said, “Mr. Manucci, Mr. B. would like to have a short discussion with you.”

  I knew two guys who’d been summoned to “discussions with Barone.” Along the Belt Parkway the tall grass will hide a body, but not for long.

  “Where?” I said, thinking maybe this is a chance to get a finger to Barone again.

  “There’s a little restaurant near Mosholu, you know, near Montefiore, the Italian Garden.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I know the place.”

  The door on the driver’s side was still locked. He reached across and opened it for me. I slid in, wondering if he’d checked the glove compartment and discovered the .38. I wasn’t about to find out with him sitting right in front of it. Besides, I had something else in mind. Barone had taken the initiative, but this was going to be my show.

  “You’re driving slowly,” the man said after a while.

  “You in a hurry?” I asked.

  “Maybe Mr. Barone is in a hurry.”

  “I’m a slow driver,” I said, my eyes searching. I spotted the cruising police car about four blocks away, headed t
oward us. The man saw it, too. He didn’t react. What’s a police car?

  I let the left wheels go over the double yellow line a bit. Then a bit more as we got closer. I wanted them to notice me. Then when we were half a block apart I turned just enough into the oncoming lane to cause the police car to brake.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” the man said, stretching his cords.

  I stopped a couple of feet between my radiator and theirs. Both cops came out at once, the tall one reaching my window just as I rolled it down.

  “Thank you,” I said to the cop. “I wanted to get your attention. This man…” I jerked a thumb in the direction of my visitor, “broke into my automobile in a parking lot and was abducting me.”

  They made us both get out and put our hands against the roof of the car. I could see the anger boiling in the man’s face. The cop frisked me, found nothing. The shorter cop patted the man down and, surprise, he had a gun in a holster under his arm. “You have a permit for this?” the cop asked. “I want to phone my lawyer,” the man said as the cuffs were snapped on him. The cop was deaf. He pushed the hood’s head down as he shoved him into the back of the police car.

  “We’ll need a statement from you,” the cop said to me. “Follow us to the station house.”

  On the way I reached into the glove compartment and put the gun in my pocket in case the car was searched.

  *

  Barone phoned me at my office. My girl told him I was out. He called a second time and said, “Tell Mr. Manucci one of my people saw him come into the building a little while ago so he ain’t out.” Okay, I took the call.

  Barone said, “I don’t understand you, Nick. What’d you do to my fellow?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “I just introduced him to some local law-enforcement people. If you want to talk to me I’m always happy to see you in my office, alone. Would you like to make an appointment?”

  “This was going to be a friendly meeting,” Barone said. “I was going to make you two offers. I buy all your outstandings for five hundred percent of face. You can retire rich for a few years or you can come in with us on a percentage of everything. How do you think about something like that?”

  “Mr. Barone,” I said, “my father didn’t like the idea of working for somebody else. He said he was no good as an employee because he didn’t know how to take orders. And I’m like him, no feeling for organization. I’ve got a long-term lease in the Seagram. Though I have to tell you, Barone, five hundred of face is pretty damn generous.”