by Tim Green
He looks away, and I grab his ear and twist it until he shrieks and flops back and forth.
“Look at me! Do you like it?”
“No,” he croaks, his eyes glued to me now, welling up. “Please, no.”
“I did nothing wrong,” I say, standing up and trying not to choke. “My father did nothing wrong. You killed us both and now that you know how it feels, I’m going to save you. Not because you deserve to live. No, Rangle.
“It’s because you don’t deserve to die…”
I walk back up the path. In a ragged choking voice I hear him call the name of the man I used to be.
Raymond. Raymond White.
Back at the cabin, I sit down with the others around the potbelly stove and soak the heat out of my coffee cup with two hands. When they’re warm, I look at Alexi and say, “Your American client needs medical care. You have a hospital in Uelen.”
“Ten year was Soviet hospital,” he says. “Now maybe ten room. Doctor, yes. Animal doctor. But have army nurse good… medical.”
“I’d like you to pay them enough for him to live there,” I say. “He has no one to care for him in America, so he will stay here.”
“How long he stay?” Alexi asks, his eyebrows soaring.
I shrug and say, “I don’t know. Ten years? Twenty? As long as he lives.”
“He no talk Russian,” Alexi says. “Doctor cutting hands and feet and nose. Ears too. They no speaking him. He no walking. He staying bed.”
“Yes,” I say, getting up from the table and patting Bert’s hunched-over shoulders. “In America we do things in a big way. Isn’t that right, Bert?”
“That’s what the white men say.”
“Come on, chief,” I say to him, tugging him toward the door. “We’re not done.”
63
IT’S A CHILLY DAY for August, and outside the van, the late-afternoon rain hammers down on the metal roof. But I’m warm. I want Frank to live in fear and I know that someone like him fears only one thing.
I listen and watch as the guards frisk Bert outside the Yacht Club, but it isn’t until he walks into the meeting room overlooking the misty gray river that my heart starts to race. There is Ramo Capozza at the end of the table with his cappuccino and there in the middle is Frank, leaning back with his hands folded over his big belly.
Bert sets down a briefcase of documents on the table in front of him and sits. Frank’s eyes never leave him.
“Well, Mr. Washington,” Ramo says, setting down his cup on its saucer with a soft clink, “I trust your group is happy.”
Bert clears his throat and recites his line, saying, “We would like to know if since we’re buying Frank Steffano’s piece of the business that we’ll get the same deal with the unreported cash.”
Ramo glances at the man with the glasses on his right and smiles. He folds his hands together and puts his elbows on the table, leaning forward. His pale green eyes are big behind the thick lenses. Their lids are half closed.
Frank has his jaw set and he glares at Bert.
“Our disbursements,” Capozza says, “are all accounted for as payments to the partners. As you can see, this partnership is very profitable. Everything is legitimate. That lets me sleep at night. I like thinking that my grandchildren can go to college without worrying about wiretaps. You understand that, don’t you?”
I push the red button on the audio control board in front of me and say, “Pass him the documents. Tell him that’s how you do business too.”
Bert shifts and pushes the briefcase away from him. The man on his left passes it toward Capozza’s end of the table.
“That’s how we do business too,” Bert says stiffly.
“So why do you think there’s an issue with some cash?” Capozza says, still smiling, but with his lips at an odd angle across his capped teeth.
“Tell him, ‘If you look at these papers, you’ll see that over the last three years Frank’s taken almost seventy million dollars in cash out of the casinos,’” I say.
Bert repeats the words. The briefcase gets to Frank. Instead of passing it on, he takes hold of it in both hands and stands up.
“I think before this goes any further,” Frank says, “that this partnership needs to know more about who you are. Don’t you think that would be a good idea?”
He is grinning at Bert now, and Bert shifts in his chair and folds his arms across his chest just below the tiny camera lens.
“Little warm in here, Bert?” Frank says, his eyes still glued. “You should be feeling a little warm, ’cause I know this whole thing is a scam. It’s a scam by you and it’s a scam by Seth Cole.”
The men around the table begin to murmur, and Frank raises his voice above them.
“You don’t represent a group of casino owners, do you?” Frank says. “The Iroquois Group is nothing but a front, and I have some papers here of my own.”
Bert pushes back his seat away from the table.
“Wait, Bert,” I say. “Stay there. Tell them if you’re a scam then why doesn’t he let them look at the papers in the briefcase and decide for themselves. Do it. Now. Be angry, Bert.”
Bert clears his throat and repeats my words in a rumbling voice that sounds better than anything he’s said so far.
“Why don’t you give us those papers, Frank?” the pock-faced Dominic says from across the table. “Pass them down to Ramo. You got nothing to be afraid of, right? You wouldn’t steal from the partnership. That’d be too stupid…”
“I’ll pass this down,” Frank says, and, reaching down beside his chair, he comes up with some papers that he puts down on the table and slides toward Ramo Capozza. The man to Capozza’s right examines them through his glasses.
“This proves what I’m saying,” Frank says. “This Indian is some low-level muscle for a guy named Bonaparte. The only thing they got is a juiced-up bingo parlor and a drug racket up on the St. Regis Indian Reservation. There is no casino group. The money in that Iroquois Group account came from a shell corporation owned by Seth Cole. It’s all a scam to get at me.”
“Shit,” I say. I turn to Chuck Lawrence and he lifts his headset. “Get ready. If this gets bad, you’ll call 911 and report an armed robbery at the Yacht Club. We might have to break this thing up, but wait till I say.”
I turn back to the TV monitor.
“What about the briefcase?” Dominic is asking.
“Whatever’s in this,” Frank says, patting the briefcase without letting go, “is all lies. This guy and Cole had almost two weeks to cook this shit up. It’s nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, then we can look at it,” Dominic says, putting both his hands flat out on the table. He looks down at Ramo Capozza, whose eyes are going back and forth between Bert and Frank.
To Bert I say, “Tell Capozza Frank’s lying. Tell him to look at the briefcase.”
Bert says, “He’s lying.”
“You son of a bitch,” Frank says in a growl, reaching inside his jacket. “I ought to take you out right here.”
“Frank!” Capozza shouts.
Everyone falls silent and the older man softly says, “This is a business meeting.”
He looks at Bert and says, “Mr. Washington, we run this business like a family. We trust each other. We cover each other’s backs. Isn’t that right, Dominic?”
“Yeah,” Dominic says, looking at the table. “We do.”
“If you and Mr. Cole have a problem with Frank, you shouldn’t be bringing it to us. We’re a very loyal group. Frank treated my nephew-God rest his soul-like his own blood and for that I owe him a debt.
“Now, Frank,” he says, turning his cold eyes on Frank. “You shouldn’t have any problem letting us see that briefcase. Of course we know you wouldn’t steal from us and that’s how we’ll look at it. But we will look, Frank…
“If what you say is true, and I have no doubt it is, Frank, then you can deal with Mr. Washington and Mr. Cole how you see fit. But… we’re businessmen here. Isn’t that righ
t?”
“Yes,” Frank says, handing the briefcase to the man on his right and watching it until it is in the hands of the man next to Capozza.
“Mr. Washington,” Capozza says, standing up to signal an end to the meeting. “I know you and Mr. Cole are friends and I appreciate the hospitality you showed me and my great-grandson, but I do not appreciate any of this and you can tell Mr. Cole I said that.”
Bert stands up and says, “Can I go?”
Capozza looks at him with an expression of surprise and says, “Of course, Mr. Washington. I told you. We’re all businessmen here and our business is finished.”
Bert is quickly escorted out into the rain and put in my limousine. When the door closes, he holds out his tie and looks down into the camera.
“Jesus Christ,” he says.
“You did good,” I tell him.
“I thought they were gonna kill me,” Bert says.
I signal Chuck to get going. He puts down his headset and climbs into the front of the van and we pull away from the curb.
“I was ready to pull the pin,” I say. “We were going to call the cops if it got any more dicey.”
“Yeah, when they started dicing me up,” he says.
“You know what I mean,” I tell him. “Have a Molson Golden. There’s a six-pack in the ice chest. Have a couple.”
“Now we’ll both have to go to that doctor in L.A. and have our faces changed,” he says.
“Maybe not,” I say.
“You got a plan?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s comforting.”
I hear the slushy sound of ice and the hiss of a can. Bert brings the gold can up to his mouth and sucks it all the way down before punctuating it with a belch.
“On that note,” I say, “I’m signing off. I’ll see you at the house.”
When I get back, the butler meets me at the car with an umbrella and tells me that Helena just got there a few minutes ago. I find her on the couch in the bedroom with her knees drawn up to her chin and staring out at the rain. She’s dressed in jeans and a dark green Jets sweatshirt, barefoot, with her dark silky hair pulled back into a ponytail. She jumps up, startled, and meets me halfway across the room, throwing herself into my arms with a squeal, kissing me, and wrapping her legs around my waist.
“I missed you,” she says, then repeats it three times and starts laughing when I bite her neck.
“Me too,” I say.
“What’s wrong?” She lets go and touches my cheek with the back of her hand.
“Things,” I say. “Helena, we need to talk.”
We sit down on the couch and I tell her about Frank, the man who killed her father. What he did to me. What I’m trying to do to him. I even mention Lexis. I tell her all about Bert’s meeting with Ramo Capozza, the brother of her grandmother, my plan, and how it all came to pass. The point is, I never dreamed I would need her to get involved in this, but we’re in trouble.
When I finish, she looks out into the gloom. Silver drops of rain slide down the long pane of glass. Some run into the others and become one. Some twist apart and go their own ways. I have no idea why.
“I thought about it a million times,” she says, tracing the pattern on the couch with her fingernail. “I told you. I knew who my father’s uncle was. Sometimes, when I was up in Alaska, I’d dream about it. Me going to him, and him sending people after Frank Steffano for what he did. But I was always afraid…”
“Why?”
She looks at me with tear-filled eyes and says, “I don’t know. Part of me thinks the whole thing is my own fault.”
“That’s not true. I told you that.”
“I know,” she says, looking at me. “But it’s how I feel.”
I put my hand on hers and squeeze.
“It’s all right,” I say.
She presses her lips tight, looks away, and sighs.
“I’ll go see my uncle,” she says.
“I don’t want you to do this just for me,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “But I was thinking about how you said it was your job to do this, and I don’t know if that’s right.
“I get up there and I sing, and people-some of them-even cry. And I think they do because it’s like they know that I’m still crying inside. I think people sense that. I don’t want to sing only like that for the rest of my life and I think maybe if I did this, it would help.”
64
THE MORNING SUN gleamed off the surfaces of the puddles from the previous night’s rain, giving the air the steamy hint of garbage. At the dock, a towering blue freighter caked with rust with the name Bella Napoli creaked and swayed. Cranes worked steadily to remove the truck-size containers from her belly while along the dock, long bladed forklifts moved them around like a small colony of ants carrying food ten times their own size.
A long black Mercedes limousine eased through the chain-link gates with their faded red-and-white sign that read Absolutely No Trespassing. On the dock already was another limousine, a Cadillac. Outside it stood a well-built man in a suit. Two others walked on either side of an old man, stooped over and wearing brown wingtip shoes, brown slacks, and a baggy yellow cardigan sweater. His glasses were thick and his thin gray hair was plastered down with some kind of barbershop formula.
The man next to the Cadillac stepped in front of the Mercedes, preventing the car from driving right up to the old man, who was now bent over a crate that two workers had removed from a red container. The two thugs with the old man approached the Mercedes as well, reaching into their jackets with their eyes scanning not just the car, but the whole dock.
Helena got out and made them stare, even though she wore no makeup and nothing fancier than sandals, a pair of faded jeans, and a man’s white V-neck T-shirt.
“Holy shit,” one guard said to the other. “That’s Helena.”
Chuck Lawrence got out right after her, and he and the two big men approached one another like dogs in a vacant lot.
“She needs to talk to Mr. Capozza,” Lawrence said.
They looked at their boss, who stood with a tomato in each hand, blinking at them all. He nodded.
“Okay,” one of them said.
Helena took slow uneven steps and looked down only once to skirt a deep oily puddle. When she reached the old man, she held out her hand. He put the tomatoes into one hand and took hers with the other. Smiling, he held up the bright red fruit. Their stems were a rich green.
“When I was a boy,” he said, “my father used to come here to make sure the tomatoes came from Italy. What they do is, people will take a crate from Mexico and put them in a crate that says Italy. But if you don’t get good tomatoes, then the sauce is no good and the whole meal stinks.”
“Do you know me?” she said with the beginnings of a smile.
“I’ve seen you on TV,” he said. “I have a couple grandkids who’d be happy to trade places with me right now.”
“No,” she said. “Do you really know who I am?”
Tears filled up in Helena’s eyes and she wiped them on the back of her arm. From her back pocket she took out a birth certificate and unfolded it.
Ramo Capozza looked at his men, searching their faces, smiling, but with his eyes narrowed.
“Who sent you?” he asked.
“No one,” she said, offering up the certificate. “I’m Helena. My father was Tony. Tony Romano.”
“Tony?” Capozza says. His hand falls to his side and the tomatoes drop to the wet pavement, bursting and spilling their seeds. “They killed him. My sister tried to find you, but your mother disappeared…”
“I wasn’t with my mother, Uncle Ramo,” she said, her face crumpling. “He took me away. They made me do things-”
Ramo Capozza hugged Helena to him and patted his gnarled hand on her back.
“Shhh,” he said, glaring at his men over her shoulder to make them look away.
Softly, he said, “I killed those men.”
“No,” Helena said,
pulling away. “You didn’t. There weren’t any men. It was one man.”
Capozza scowled, his thick eyebrows crunching down on top of his pale green eyes.
“That can’t be,” he said. “Someone is telling you lies. Tony’s partner was there.”
“It is, Uncle Ramo,” she said. “No one is telling me. I saw it. It was his partner who did it. I saw Frank Steffano kill my father. I was only ten, but I could never forget his face or what he did to me-”
Ramo Capozza held his niece tight. She was shaking. He continued to pat her back, until his fists were curled into balls. His teeth were clamped together and the corners of his mouth were pulled tight.
He was shaking too.
And then she told her story.
65
IN THE BOWELS OF A GARAGE on 79th Street, Frank locked up a dark green Ford Excursion with a beep and a blink of its lights. The truck was loaded up with almost everything he needed. Food. Clothes. Weapons. Passports. They’d cross the Canadian border into Montreal. From there they’d fly to Sydney. The other end of the world. The only thing left was the money-he checked his watch-and by now, Mickey should have that.
He walked up and around the concrete bend. The parking attendant, a dark young black man reading a paperback, had his feet propped up on the glass inside his booth. Frank held up his ticket and winked at the kid, then proceeded up the ramp and into the gritty wind, where he turned right and headed for home.
They were waiting for him in the first narrow alleyway between buildings. He saw them as they sprang and he tried to turn and run, but he hadn’t taken a step before they were on him and he felt the sharp point of a knife prick his skin an inch from his windpipe. He froze.
The blade came to rest along the carotid artery, pressing into his skin. The warm flow of blood seeped down into the folds of his neck. Frank swallowed and lost control of his bladder. He quickly squeezed and kept the warm wetness from spreading beyond his underwear. A hand reached around and removed the gun from under his arm.
“Get in, Frank,” said a voice in his ear that he recognized.