Chapter 7
Mitch had Hurley leave him off on 50th Street at one of those while you wait places that did graphic reproductions. He ordered six copies of the Kalali photographs. The clerk there, a paper-faced young fellow whose lips looked as though they were shedding, told Mitch it would take an hour.
Mitch didn’t see why inasmuch as he was the only customer, asked why.
The clerk did the New York thing, deliberately crumpled up and discarded Mitch’s work order invoice.
Mitch handled it, did a smile from his New York repertoire, the one that begged pardon and asked for leniency.
The clerk filled out another work order.
While you wait is right, Mitch thought on the way out.
He went to the corner. Bought two pounds of big black grapes from a street vendor. Sat in the mid-morning sun on the bank of the stream of Avenue of the Americas, that is, on the raised ledge that bordered the pool and fountain of the IBC Building. Come noon, office people would be on this ledge, having their brought lunches. Tuna salad and marijuana would be in the air.
At the moment Mitch was alone there, digging rather automatically into the brown bag for grape after grape, storing their seeds in his cheek until they were many and then, careful of passersby, jettisoning them with maximum force.
It occurred to him that despite his well-dressed appearance, his loitering there at this hour might cause people to take him as one of the recently unemployed, a guy whose clothes hadn’t yet gone shabby or out of style, a jobless guy who was still shaving every day.
Three hundred thousand and some.
That, Mitch reminded himself, was how much he stood to make if he recovered the Kalali jewelry. Possibly those goods had already been sucked up and taken apart by the street. Maybe not. Maybe the street wouldn’t ever get a look at them because they had gone to Los Angeles and on to Hong Kong. No, that wasn’t how it would go, his optimism predicted, he’d be lucky, the stuff would practically fall in his hands.
His pager beeped.
He went to the pay phone down the way and dialed his office.
Shirley was in her strictly business mode, recited his messages without gripe or comment. There’d been another please return my call from Visconti and Ruder had phoned twice suggesting lunch or, if not lunch, at least drinks later. Ruder hadn’t believed when told Mitch wasn’t in.
Mitch wondered why Ruder was reverting. He’d thought he had Ruder conditioned. As for Visconti, now that could prove to be timely.
He’d left the bag of grapes on the ledge. It was gone. He returned to the graphics place. His photos were ready, had been for half an hour. He’d specified that they be collated in sets and placed in individual gray envelopes, and that was how they were.
He walked down Avenue of the Americas to 47th. He felt suddenly changed, more assertive. It was as though the sight of the street and its prospects had injected him. He crossed over against the belligerent traffic and turned in at the entrance second from the corner.
The Capital Jewelry Exchange.
A deep, narrow place strongly lighted by spotlights on tracks. Typical of 47th. There were identical, contiguous counters with display cases that ran its entire length on the left and on the right. Each section of counter was a booth-like space occupied by a separate business.
No major dealers here. The seller of pearls on one side offered mainly biwas. Opposite, the merchandise was 14k gold chains sold by weight. Next, wristwatches, various makes of inexpensive digitals. Then came gold charms: French poodles, tennis racquets, names such as MaryLou and Rosalie.
Nothing better.
The counter-to-counter carpet of the center aisle wasn’t living up to the claim that its geometric pattern wouldn’t show dirt.
Mitch walked on it, went straight to the back, ignoring the verbal hooks that were cast at him. Let me show you something. How about a nice pendant? I need the money. Take your pick at half price. He resented that in their practiced eyes he was being taken as a chump.
A door in the back gave to a steep, narrow stairway up. Lighted by a bare hundred watts. The vinyl-covered steps of the stairs were gritty and edged with nailed-on metal stripping that in places had come loose enough to trip. Fifteen steps up was halfway up. At that point was a landing with a shallow alcove.
Snugged into the alcove was a daybed covered in red Naugahyde. The guy who got up from the daybed was one of Joe Riccio’s have-around guys. He wasn’t tall but he was big, with such a gut his trousers in profile were triangular.
Mitch took it all in: cigarettes grounded out on the floor, a bag of Cheetos on the daybed along with an overhandled porno magazine that had on its cover a hard-faced blonde grinning around her foreshortened buttocks. On the wall above the daybed an intercom. The have-around in a pink, short-sleeve shirt wasn’t wearing a piece, although no doubt there was one within easy reach beneath the daybed.
The have-around blocked the way. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to see Riccio.”
“Sure you are. Got an appointment?”
“Yeah, Mitch Laughton.”
“For this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“I think not. Riccio ain’t seeing nobody this morning. He told me.”
“Look on his agenda.”
“Okay, asshole, down you go.” The have-around crowded Mitch with his belly.
Mitch avoided it. “Don’t contaminate me.”
“I’ll break your fucking face, that’s what I’ll contaminate.”
Mitch did a take that stopped everything. He focused his interest on the guy’s eyes, craned forward a bit, scrutinizing more closely.
“You wearing eye shadow?”
“Huh?”
“It’s smudged. Your eye shadow. The left eye.”
“You calling me a fagala?”
“You’re also quick.” Mitch indicated the intercom. “Call up and tell Riccio I’m here. You’re bad for business. When I see Riccio I’m going to tell him you cost him.”
“Fuck you. All I got to do is press that red buzzer and three cowboys will come down and rip your head off.”
“And all you’d do is watch, right? What is it, you afraid you’ll break a fingernail or something?”
The guy fisted his fat right hand and swung.
Mitch easily sidestepped it.
The momentum of the miss carried the guy forward in a sort of clumsy lunge, spun him on his fat legs so now his back was to the stairwell. While he was trying to recover his balance Mitch brought his foot up to the guy’s gut and shoved.
The guy grabbed at the air as he went over backwards, pitched down the steep stairway, caromed from wall to wall with the sharp edges of each of the fifteen steps hurting grunts out of him all the way to the bottom. He lay there face up.
Mitch peered down at him, thought the fat of the guy should have cushioned and prevented serious injury. Maybe not, though. The guy wasn’t moving.
But then suddenly he was up and coming up, awkwardly clambering on all fours, gorilla-like.
Mitch had time to think how much he disliked this kind of guy, how this sort seemed to always bring out a mean part of him. It wasn’t anything personal.
The guy’s hands got to the landing. He tried to grab Mitch’s leg.
Out of sympathy Mitch didn’t kick him. A kick was in order and would have been easy, but, instead, Mitch merely gave the guy’s face a push.
The fall the guy took this time was about the same, looked and sounded just as painful. He lay sprawled in a contorted position at the bottom of the stairs and, from the sounds of his moans, it was doubtful he’d attempt another climb.
Although the way was cleared now, Mitch had second thoughts about continuing on up to see Riccio. Before getting to Riccio there’d be more have-arounds to contend with and if he managed to get past those there would be Riccio’s routine.
All Mitch had wanted was to exchange a few words with the man and leave with him a set of the Kalali photograp
hs. But Riccio would never allow only that. He was an advocate of old-mob ways, slow, snaky, respect and all that. He’d insist on having espresso poured into merely rinsed cups and a couple of petrified anisette cookies placed on the saucers along with tiny stainless steel spoons.
Riccio would conversationally circle the reason for Mitch’s unscheduled visit with irrelevant observations and opinions and throw in a mob anecdote here and there. As though he had all the time in the world and Mitch wasn’t suffering the place with its cheap, tasteless furnishings. Black synthetic carpet with such a high pile it looked like a million writhing worms and no telling what might be hiding in it.
At times Mitch had given thought to that carpet and how many loose diamonds and other precious stones must have been carelessly dropped to it out of the many thousands of carats Riccio took in and dealt out. Mitch could imagine Riccio down on his knees searching the deep black for several D flawless caraters he’d accidentally sent flying from their unfolded briefke paper diamond containers when he put his feet up on his desk. An agitated, grumbling Riccio digging around in the tendrils, not finding, finally giving up and trying his best to put the loss out of mind. In that carpet a fortune lost.
Mitch looked up the stairs and knew what would be imminent. Riccio would sit there, backgrounded by a repaired wall enameled an avocado shade and punctuated by the faded prints of the Virgin and a De Beers magazine advertisement, and Mitch would have to endure Riccio’s invitation of congeniality, his latter-day version of all the spaghetti suckers and mustache Petes he’d ever seen portrayed. Not for an instant admitting how anachronistic he was, he in his pointed, black, cap-toed shoes and white silk socks and over-starched shirt. A one-of-a-kind pinkie ring. Paved ruby, diamond, emerald version of the Italian flag.
Mitch had been up there in Riccio’s lair maybe a half dozen times.
If he went up now he’d again have to stifle how amused he was by Riccio’s voice. A voice too small, too thin, too high-pitched for any mobster, especially one who took such effort to come off as one. It was as though at age thirteen his pubes had refused to drop.
Riccio was well aware of this shortcoming, tried to overcome it by speaking breathily with as little throat as possible. So, Mitch, if he went up, would have to strain to hear him, would miss words and have a hard time keeping from laughing when Riccio’s temper took over and he cocksuckered and scumbagged someone in his natural upper range.
Joseph Riccio.
He’d come quite a ways since back when he was an all-around, have-around guy for Nick Russo, when Russo was running the diamond district for the people who got answered to. For nineteen years Russo was the man those in the trade went to when the bank said no way. There was hardly a dealer on the street who at one time or another hadn’t strung out what he owed the bank beyond the bank’s tolerance. Many dealers were excommunicated for eternity by the bank’s computer.
Such unfortunates were some of Russo’s best customers.
Russo was also the man a dealer went to for fast money. When an opportunity came along that had to be jumped on right away or be lost. A packet of emeralds, for instance, nice Muzos that some coke mule from Columbia showed up with and was willing to let go at only slightly more than half what they were worth. Or a lot of nice-quality diamond rough that a black had carried in a white handkerchief all the way from Sierra Leone.
They came up, such chances, when going to the bank for a loan was out of the question. The bank would want to know all and require a week or so to process its forms.
Russo, on the other hand, wasn’t interested in knowing anyone’s reason for borrowing and there were never any papers. Ask for the money at eleven, it was there by noon, or sooner, politely delivered in a brown paper bag or a shoe box.
With the first week’s interest of ten percent taken out in advance.
No matter, it was fast money, and also no matter that it was black money, the proceeds from pornography, extortion, numbers, bust-out bars, hijacking and the like. The important thing was it was there when needed, available with no more than a phone call. Forgive the usury. Whoever gave that illegal aspect much of a thought?
Thus Russo was a fixture on the street. In his criminal way a benefactor. Without him most of 47th wouldn’t have been able to conduct business and many of those that could wouldn’t have profited nearly as much.
That was especially true of the fences, guys on the first level of swag who worked teams of swifts. Russo was always there for them. He was the next level, a fence for the fences. He bought from established fences only, those that he knew, the dozen or so. He never bought from an unconnected swift or slick-looking jewelry crook.
“Someone told me you might be interested in something.”
“Someone was wrong,” Russo would say.
“Let me show you.”
“Keep it in your pants.”
However what the fences brought usually got bought. Russo was wise in the ways they did business and invariably he got the best of them. They were, he knew, like two-hundred-dollar whores who could be negotiated to lie down for fifty.
Swag.
Regarding it, Russo set some smart rules for himself. Like never keeping a piece of stolen jewelry intact for any unreasonable length of time, which to Russo meant no longer than an hour or two. Normally, a major piece that he’d acquired, say, a diamond necklace, would be broken up within minutes. It made no difference to him that the necklace was exceptional, made by Cartier or Van Cleef or whoever, he was merciless. Out came the stones, the gold and platinum tossed into the smelting crucible.
He had no appreciation for beauty.
And it was said of him that he could pop stones from their mountings by merely looking coldly at them.
Joseph Riccio was one of Russo’s favorite have-arounds. One of.
Furio Visconti was just as much a favorite.
Russo played them against one another. Probably he figured that way he got more out of them. Eventually, when Riccio was made Russo’s right hand, there was Visconti just as close on the left.
For years that’s how it was. Russo telling Riccio he was number one in line and, practically in the same breath, telling Visconti the same. So, it followed that when Russo didn’t have the heart to wake up one morning and forever, both Riccio and Visconti felt eligible to be allowed to take over the street.
It wasn’t something they could settle amicably. They went at each other as early as during Russo’s wake at the Scalise Funeral Home up on 188th Street, and again at the funeral. Scuffled and threatened around grave markers and consecrated ground and had to be restrained.
The suggestion was made that the way to settle the matter was the old way.
A sit-down.
On a sweltering Thursday afternoon in August Riccio and Visconti were transported in separate cars by guys they didn’t know to the house of a man they’d only heard of. An unremarkable house on the Connecticut blacktop road between New Fairfield and New Milford. With a mailbox bearing the family name right on the road, as though that name didn’t deserve to be self-conscious. House with aluminum siding and a screened-in rear porch overlooking a garden of zucchini and peppers.
They, Riccio and Visconti, sat on the porch in yellow canvas director chairs across from the old guy years past his days, who hooded his creamy eyes and did a great many nods and made a protruding lower lip so they would believe he was listening to their claims.
Riccio was in mob heaven. The only thing missing was an invisible orchestra playing O Soave Fancinella. Being in the presence of this fabled consigliere awed him, caused his little voice to go tremulous.
“I knew your uncle,” the old guy said at Riccio, which made Riccio feel that he had an edge, until the old guy added: “Your uncle was a spuce.
“As for you,” the old guy said at Visconti, “you probably think bris-cola is a soft drink.”
Visconti knew it was a Sicilian card game but figured it best to let the old guy have his opinion.
The
old guy announced that he had to take a leak. He went into the house, leaving Riccio and Visconti to ignore one another. Riccio craned up to get a better view of the garden. He would have stood but thought that might not be proper once one had sat at a sit-down. He considered complimenting the old guy on the garden and maybe make a point, but then he didn’t know shit about gardens except that old guys like this one enjoyed fucking around in them and that was where he’d seen Don Corleone die six or seven times.
The old guy returned with the decision in his mouth. He’d had it in his head all along, even before they’d arrived, could have said it right off but knew some mob theater was expected of him.
He remained standing because to sit would probably give the impression that he intended to prolong this matter. He wanted to go down to Danbury and have the tires on his Lincoln rotated and get some fresh batteries for his flashlight so he could watch the raccoons try to beat the electrified fence he’d had put around his peppers and zucchinis.
He didn’t say his say directly at either Riccio or Visconti. He aimed his words between and over their heads, focused on the screen where there was a blotch of bird shit. In a monotone that made it sound more like an indisputable decree he told them they were both good boys, they both deserved. Told them Russo had spoken equally well of them numerous times. (Actually, he’d only met Russo once about twelve years back when he needed a new stolen wristwatch.) Therefore, he concluded, it was fair that they both be promoted to caporegime and both have the territory.
Half each.
Riccio was to have everything from address number 39 to Avenue of the Americas and around that end of 47th.
Visconti would have everything the other way, from address number 38 to Fifth Avenue and around that end of 47th.
Shake hands.
Embrace left and right.
And the thing was done.
Except for the tribute, the cost of the sit-down, so to speak.
A hundred thousand was the figure mentioned, and to mention was like presenting an already overdue tab that would, if not promptly paid, be put into collection, so to speak.
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