Exact Revenge

by Tim Green

  “You’ll be the first person on the planet who wanted to do a favor for Frank Steffano,” Rangle said.

  “I thought you were old friends,” I say.

  “That’s a strong word,” Rangle says. “Frank is a pompous goombah. All this casino stuff has gone to his head, not to mention his ass. Wears a goddamned diamond pinky ring.”

  “I’d really do it for Allen,” I say with a shrug.

  Rangle writes something on a piece of paper and hands it across the desk to me.

  “Ramo Capozza?” I say, looking at him.

  “He’s out on Staten Island. Calls himself a businessman. A casino owner. Frank helped out his nephew when he was in some trouble up in Syracuse. Frank likes to tell everyone they were business partners in a development company, but he was a cop and I heard they ran a book until the nephew got murdered.”

  “Think Ramo’s a football fan?”

  “His business is gambling,” Rangle says.

  “The first preseason game is next Friday,” I say.

  “There you go.”

  “So, how do I get in touch with him?”

  “Actually,” Rangle says, picking up the phone. “My lawyer that just called me? He knows Capozza’s lawyer…”

  Five minutes later I have a number.

  52

  I THANK RANGLE and head uptown. I’m meeting Dean Villay for dinner at Patroon. After a week, I grew weary of watching him suffer every night. Instead, I get a report every morning from Lawrence. Two days ago, he said Villay was very close, so I wanted to see him in person. The maître d’ shows me to a round high-backed leather booth. Villay looks up from his glass. I can smell the scotch. I extend my hand and notice that his is trembling, damp, and cold.

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” I say. I slide into the soft seat and the maître d’ puts a linen napkin in my lap.

  Villay’s curly hair is matted. He is wearing a suit, but the knot on his tie is crooked and has been pulled loose. His eyes are red-rimmed, puffy, and moist, and there are several scabs on the side of his face. He picks at one of them and says, “I still want it.”

  “I’m sorry?” I say, tilting my head. The sounds of the restaurant are muted.

  The waiter appears and I order a sparkling water with lime and another scotch-a double-for the judge. Somewhere by the darkened windows a table of people laugh together, then break out in polite clapping that quickly fades.

  The shoulders of Villay’s jacket are sprinkled with flakes of dandruff. He goes to work on a different scab and leans toward me, whispering.

  “The Supreme Court. I don’t care about her,” he says. The ragged edges of his pupils gape open. “I care about Oliver Wendell Holmes. I want that. Think. Harlan, Rehnquist, Brennan. Great justices that no one but law students remember. And Holmes was known for his dissents. Opinions that didn’t even become law. The law is malleable. People don’t understand that. She doesn’t.”

  “I felt bad that the weekend didn’t turn out,” I say. “And I wanted to check on you.”

  Villay finishes his drink and smoothes out a wrinkle in the heavy linen tablecloth before clenching his empty hands.

  “You know there’s nothing they can do?” he says, looking up at me through the tops of his eyes. “They complain about me. Say there’s something wrong…”

  He pounds the table, jarring the silverware, and says, “Of course there’s something wrong. That’s everyone. We all have secrets. Don’t we? But I am appointed for life. No one can touch me. Even she can’t take it.”

  As the waiter sets down the drinks, Villay picks at another scab. He winces and examines his finger. A crimson smear. His knee jiggles under the table. His eyes dart from side to side.

  “You’re having trouble?” I say, squeezing the lime into my glass and taking a sip. Another waiter goes by with plates of steaks still sputtering from the grill, leaving a scented trail of seared meat.

  Villay leans forward again, grabbing the new drink, whispering. “There should be a law against the jealousy of women. Now that would be jurisprudence. That would be helpful. They’re like cats. Bitter. Unforgiving. Relentless. Goddamn fucking demons.”

  “You have a beautiful wife,” I say.

  “She sleeps,” he says. “Beautiful, but do you think she feels? Do you think it even affects her? We went to that house… and she sleeps... but she caused it all to begin with.”

  “Dean,” I say. “You need to rest.”

  “Ha!” he shouts, and people turn to stare. Villay leans close again, lowering his voice. “That’s the last thing I need. I need Holmes. I need to write laws that squeeze the hordes into small spaces and cull them like a reaper.”

  I leave a hundred-dollar bill on the table and get up.

  “Where are you going?” Villay shrieks, licking his lips and hugging himself so hard that he rocks forward.

  I look down on him, smile, and say, “You’ve lost your mind, old friend.”

  “What friend? Are you giving it to me?” he says loudly, then puts a knuckle in his mouth and clamps down. Those oddly torn pupils widen, then contract.

  The maître d’ appears beside me and says, “Is everything all right, sir?”

  “Fine,” I say, tossing my napkin down on the seat. “Everything is just right.”

  53

  WHEN MY CAR PULLS INTO THE GATE of my Fifth Avenue home, I raise my eyebrows at the sight of Andre’s red Ferrari. My reports on Andre are that he spends every minute with Dani Rangle. She is showing him Manhattan in a big way. They drink rare champagne, eat gold-covered sushi, dance all night, and snort generous amounts of cocaine. Sometimes an expensive call girl will join them to finish things off at his flat.

  Against my advice, Allen didn’t give up on Dani entirely and there was a scene at the China Club, where she threw a drink at him and Andre threatened to break his neck. Martin and some other friends dragged Allen out and that was the last of it, but it seemed to fuel the fire between Andre and Dani even more. Still, I know Andre hasn’t run out of money, even though he’s doing a good job trying, so I can’t imagine what would bring him here.

  A servant opens my limo door before I can. I straighten the edges of my suit coat and readjust my tie knot as I walk up the broad marble stairs and into the cavernous foyer. Bert is waiting by the stairs, his eyes on the arched doors to the library.

  “The dog leg?” I say, angling my head toward the doors.

  Bert pinches his lips, nods, and says, “Better than that. Your old friend is with him.”

  “Russo?”

  “The scarecrow-face himself. Birds of a feather.”

  “Where’s the girl?”

  Bert shrugs and falls in behind me. I take a deep breath and exhale before opening the door.

  Russo is sitting on the couch in front of my desk. Gone is his flap of hair. A shadow of razor stubble extends from his face all around the fringes of his round dome. He is thin and pale, and his shoulders have all but collapsed. He’s dressed in ratty jeans, a Rolling Stones T-shirt, and a black knit cap that pushes those ears out even farther. His Adam’s apple jerks up and down in his neck and his bulging eyes dart back and forth between Andre and me. The insides of his arms are spotted with tiny bruises.

  Andre is dressed in pleated navy slacks and a matching silk shirt open at the collar. A heavy chain hangs down to the smooth crease of his chest muscles. He’s treated himself to a Rolex and in his hand is a crystal decanter. He hands Russo a large snifter, fills it with bourbon, and then refills his own.

  “Drink?” he asks, raising the decanter.

  I sit down behind my desk and say, “No. Have a seat, Prince.”

  “Yeah,” he says, half his mouth pulled up in a smile. He throws himself down sideways in a leather chair with his legs over the arm. “I like that. And we’ve got some business to discuss.”

  He glares at me until I nod my head.

  “My former partner here is down on his luck. So, he naturally sees how things are going for m
e and he wonders if he can get in on some of the good fortune. I guess you two know each other anyway, right?”

  Russo won’t look at me, but he is nodding his head so that his dorsal-fin nose cuts the air. Under his breath, he says, “Yep, that’s Arthur Bell.”

  I slip open the top drawer of my desk and wrap my fingers around a Glock 9mm that has been fitted with a silencer. Everything is too close to happening for my plan to be disrupted by these two. I’ve got my in to Frank. Villay is on the edge. Rangle’s financial empire is about to crash. I expected Andre to run off with Rangle’s daughter or at least drag her down into addiction; she is Rangle’s brightest jewel, and that would make his ruin complete. But I can’t be greedy. I’ll have to do without these two.

  “You’re a lot of people at once, apparently,” Andre says, grinning at me and raising his glass before taking a swig. “And that’s okay with us. We just want to get paid for the information, same as we would if we sold it to, say, the Post or someone. You’re becoming an important man, Quick Buck-Seth Cole-Arthur Bell-Running Deer. Owning the Jets and all that.”

  “I think I have something that will make everyone happy,” I say. “Bert, would you get that small suitcase that I keep in the upstairs vault?”

  “The…”

  “The brown alligator suitcase,” I say. “In the vault. If you go, you’ll find it.”

  Andre sets down his snifter and shifts in his seat. From his waist, he pulls out a jet black Colt.45 and points it at my head.

  “Nothing funny, Bert,” he says, curling his lip up away from his teeth. “I’m not here to fuck around.”

  “You’ll like what he’s got,” I say, letting go of the Glock and easing back in my chair.

  Russo stands up and says, “Andre, we-”

  “Sit down! You just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. You wanted some payout,” Andre says without taking his eyes off me. “I’m getting it for you. With the money this guy’s got, you sure as fuck don’t need mine.”

  Bert returns and sets down the suitcase on the coffee table between Andre and Russo.

  “Open it,” Andre tells his partner.

  Russo fumbles with the latch and pops it open. His eyes get wide and shiny. He takes a small knife from his pocket, nicks a bag, and touches his finger to the white powder inside. He puts his finger in his mouth, looks at Andre, and says, “Heroin. It’s pure.”

  “About five million dollars’ worth,” I say. “A gift from me to you. To help keep your partner from having to sell a story that wouldn’t help any of us.”

  “Yeah,” Andre says, nodding his head and getting to his feet. “A gift. We can all still get along. We’re having a good time, you and me, aren’t we, Seth Cole?”

  “Things are going very well,” I say.

  Russo closes the suitcase. Andre and he back out of the room.

  “No hard feelings,” Andre says. “You know I’m working on that guitar.”

  “No problem. You two are doing me a favor. Our deal still stands,” I say, and they’re gone.

  Bert stands looking at me for a moment, then says, “I thought you were going to kill those snakes.”

  “I thought about it,” I say. “But I think this will work even better. I got the heroin from the Russians who run the market. Under the circumstances, I didn’t want to refuse it, and now I’ve put it to good use.”

  I pick up the phone and call my contact at Vance International, asking them to put two agents on Andre, twenty-four hours a day.

  “Just watch him. If he hurts anyone,” I say into the phone, “then just tell your men to point the police his way and stay out of sight.”

  When I put down the phone, Bert says, “You know they’ll be back for more.”

  “Well, it will take even Andre some time to work through that,” I say. “And by then, a lot of things can happen.”

  54

  BERT AND I RIDE in the back of my limousine down the steep ramp and into the dark gut of Giants Stadium. At the head of the tunnel leading out onto the field, we get out and watch as Ramo Capozza’s long car pulls to a stop behind ours. An eight-year-old boy wearing a Kevin Mawae jersey gets out, followed by a burly gray-haired man with thick eyeglasses and a stooped, shuffling gait. The boy is Joey Capozza and he holds his great-grandfather’s hand without shame. There are three other men in suits who surround the Capozzas, carefully examining the tunnel with their scowling eyes. Their mouths are clenched tight and you can see the muscles rippling in their jaws.

  I greet the old man and the boy warmly and introduce Bert as my good friend and business associate Mr. Washington. Capozza eyes him carefully up and down. Bert smiles and winks at the kid and we all walk out of the tunnel together with the three suits creating a perimeter.

  As we step out onto the turf, a security guard in a yellow windbreaker touches my hand and says, “No one on the field.”

  Another guard grabs him and yanks him away, saying, “That’s Mr. Cole.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Cole,” the man says, and I nod to him.

  Our little group is the only one on the field besides the Jets players and their opponents, who warm up in their football pants and jerseys without the shoulder pads. The white glow of the stadium lights give the turf a false hue, and you can smell that it’s not real. The air is still warm, but a cool breeze makes it pleasant to be outside.

  “Pappa,” the boy says, tugging his great-grandfather’s sleeve. “It’s Kevin Mawae and Dave Szott. Look.”

  “Come on,” I say, “let’s talk to them.”

  “Can we?” the boy asks.

  “Sure.”

  The two enormous players are all grins. They sign the boy’s shirt and call Chad Pennington over to meet him too. The boy bounces on his toes and makes circles around his great-grandfather as we walk back inside the tunnel to make our way upstairs. Ramo Capozza wears a silent grin. He nods to me and quietly says thank you.

  Inside the suite, we sit in the front row of the box with the Capozza muscle standing behind us drinking cans of Diet Coke. The game begins, and Joey informs Bert and me who all the players are and what they do.

  “I’m sorry,” Ramo Capozza says, his brown eyes large but twinkling behind their thick lenses. “Joey, I’m sure Mr. Cole knows his own team.”

  “Not as well as some people,” I say, ruffling the boy’s hair. “It’s more of an investment for me.”

  “I understand you’re doing quite well with your investing since you’ve come to New York,” he says.

  I nod and say, “I’ve certainly expanded what I’m involved in. It used to be just art. Bert is interested in diversifying too.”

  “I understand that from you,” Ramo says, “but we weren’t able to find out much more about Mr. Washington.”

  “The Akwesasne are a secretive group by nature,” I say with a soft laugh. “But I know that when you see Bert’s financials, you’ll be comfortable bringing his group in as investors. I understand you have a partner who’s looking to get out and I just thought… well, that it would be good to put the two of you together, Mr. Capozza.”

  The older man says nothing more. We watch the game until the second half. Since it’s a preseason game, the first-team players are taken out. The boy’s eyelids begin to droop and he puts his head on his great-grandfather’s shoulder. Ramo Capozza nods to one of the men in back and he scoops the boy out of the seat, cradling him in his arms.

  “I think it’s time for us to go,” Capozza says, shaking my hand. Then he hands a card to Bert. “Call me, Mr. Washington. I’d like to talk more and maybe you could bring us some of that financial information. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but Frank’s interest is worth around a hundred million dollars.”

  “That’s right around what Bert’s group is looking to do,” I say, and Bert nods.

  We thank Mr. Capozza for his time and see him to the door of the suite. He thanks us for giving him a night his great-grandson won’t forget.

  “Jesus,” Bert says when the
y’re gone. “Did you see those three guys? They make Andre look like a choirboy.”

  “This is the big leagues, Bert.”

  “And you’re going to send me into a meeting with all those guys without you?”

  “You’ll do fine,” I say, taking a can of Bud Light out of the refrigerator and cracking it open for him. “You did great tonight.”

  “Yeah,” Bert says, “with an old man and a little kid.”

  “Don’t let that ‘old man’ fool you. His teeth are razor-sharp.”

  “Exactly,” Bert says, “and I just want to make sure it’s not us that get bitten.”

  55

  WE’RE RIDING IN THE BACK of the limo, quiet in the darkness, when Bert says, “How about you have a beer with me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you and me. How about we just have a beer, like we used to when you lived in my trailer. Remember that?”

  “Yeah. I remember.”

  “Good days, huh?” he says, and I see his massive shape leaning over and I hear him rattling around in the ice chest.

  “Not bad,” I say. “A little cramped.”

  “Yeah, that shower wasn’t no marble cathedral like that thing you got now. But sometimes I miss just having a bologna sandwich with ketchup on white bread. You?”

  I hear the snip and clink of two bottles being opened. Bert hands me one. A Molson Golden that makes me smile. We touch the lips of glass together and drink.

  “I like good food,” I say. “Good food and red meat.”

  “I see how you eat those steaks. That ’cause you got hungry in jail?”

  “I did get hungry,” I said.

  “That go away any?”

  I take another swig of beer and think about it. We’re crossing the GW Bridge now and I can see all the lights of Manhattan.

  “You want to thumb wrestle?” I ask.