by James Lepore
“It was her,” he said, “bad breath, fresh track marks on her arms and hands, her pupils dilated, totally stoned, totally fucked up.”
Chris watched Joseph take his time before responding. What was he thinking? He knows what junkies look like and smell like. He was one.
“At least I can tell her Allison’s alive,” his bother finally replied.
“Let’s watch the movie first.”
Chris rose carefully from the couch, put his cell phone in his pocket, and followed Joseph downstairs to Vinnie’s office at the back of the African Queen, which, at six p.m. was empty except for the beautiful black bartender who gave each Massi brother a long look as they filed past.
Vinnie’s office, like Vinnie, was cool and spartan: a chrome and leather couch with matching chairs faced a functional desk; on one wall was an entertainment unit, on the other a bar. Vinnie wore a goatee and kept his thick black hair fashionably clipped, like a Roman senator’s. He stood gracefully erect, as he always did, appearing much taller than his actual five feet,eight inches. His liquid brown eyes were his one feminine feature. They softened what was otherwise a chiseled, imperial face. It was his haughty bearing as much as the girl in him that had marginalized him as a boy on Carmine Street. Chris Massi, respected in the neighborhood because of his father, fell into a natural friendship with his exotic neighbor, and thus, without either of them knowing it, was Vinnie shielded from much of the nastiness that was increasingly on offer in their swiftly changing part of the city.
Inside, Chris handed Vinnie “Candy Meets Ron,”, which Vinnie slid into his DVD player, and the three of them settled down to watch. The film went from a simple title card directly into the action, in which a young woman, whom Chris immediately recognized as Allison’s California friend, Heather, arrives at the hotel room of a traveling businessman played by Mickey Rodriguez. Heather, in a short skirt, halter top and spiked heels, is playing a faux blind date arranged by an escort service, a role within a role, which she handles fairly well. Mickey is supposed to be a closet pervert hiding behind a mask of nerdiness and inexperience. The dialogue is forced, the sound uneven. The lighting, first too harsh and then too dark, settles in to a shadowy gray pierced across the bed by a hot and glaring band of sunlight probably coming in from a window off camera. Mickey makes drinks, and within a few minutes, he and Heather have their clothes off and are going through the typical sex acts on the bed, moving in and out of the shaft of sunlight that gives the film, shot in color, a noir feel, its only professional touch, probably unintentional.
Mickey suggests bondage, which Heather agrees to, but there is for a moment a look of genuine puzzlement on her face. They resume, Heather on her back, handcuffed to the spokes of the headboard, her mouth duct-taped shut. There is cunnilingus, and there is the missionary position, and then, after several boring minutes, Mickey pulls away and ejaculates on Heather’s stomach and breasts; his face – glistening with sweat, eyeballs even more rolled up into his head than usual – is a truly frightening sight.
The camera then moves to a head shot of Heather, who is staring up at Mickey, a look of real wonder – and revulsion – in her eyes, as if she had seen a statue of Medusa come suddenly alive. She then turns to her right to follow something happening off camera. A nickel-plated handgun, identical to the one Mickey pulled earlier on Chris, enters the frame, held by a stubby, hairy hand. The gun circles Heather’s face for a long second, as if drawing a bead, and then, quickly, it is placed against her right temple and fired, jerking her head to the left and spilling blood, brains and bone shards onto the pillow. The hairy hand pulls the gun away, and the film ends with a very tight shot of Heather’s face – contorted, bloody, eyes wide open in terror – dead.
The three men sat silently until the screen went blank, then they looked at each other, their faces grim. “It looked real to me,” Vinnie said.
“You mean she was killed?” Chris asked.
“Fuck,” Joseph said.
“I think so,” Vinnie said. “I really do.”
“I do, too,” Joseph said, turning to his brother. “That’s why the albino was ready to kill you. I take it he’s the male lead?”
“Right, and the girl is a friend of Allison’s,” Chris said. “The one in the picture. Heather.” Joseph and Vinnie stared at Chris.
“This is getting worse and worse,” Vinnie said.
“Chris,” Joseph said, “you need to move from here, right now. If Junior Boy’s behind this, or worse, Barsonetti, you’re a dead man. If it’s Labrutto acting on his own, he’ll want you dead, too, and he’ll want this film. It’s fucking radioactive. Labruttto will be slower finding you. He doesn’t have the Mafia’s resources. But he will come after you – you can’t commit a worse murder than what’s on that DVD.”
“I’ll destroy it,” said Chris, who had taken the disk out of the DVD player, and was holding it between thumb and forefinger, knowing he could easily snap it in two and preparing to do just that.
“Are you crazy?” Joseph said, snatching the disk from Chris. “That’s your only bargaining chip.”
“You’re definitely in trouble,” said Vinni. “I agree the disk shouldn’t be destroyed. You can keep it in my safe, if you want.”
“Thanks, but I’ll hold onto it,” Joseph said, slipping the disk into its case, and putting it in his jacket pocket.
“I’ll pack a bag,” Chris said, eying his brother, surprised to see how aggressively he took possession of the DVD. Possibly, he was thinking of a way to profit from it, without a doubt something Joseph was capable of. Giving credit where it was due, however, his junkie brother had responded swiftly to his call for help. His advice had been sound. His motives could, for once, have more to do with love and loyalty than personal gain.
“Be careful,” Chris said. “The gun looked like the one Mickey pulled on me, and that looked like Guy Labrutto’s fat little hand holding it.”
“Get ready,” Joseph said, nodding. “I’ll call Louie Falco at La Luna. He’s got that room in the back.”
“Here,” said Vinni, handing Chris vials of Valium and codeine. “You’ll need them.”
“One last thing,” Joseph said to Chris.
“What?”
“What’s up with you and Barsonetti?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Yes, I do. You’re in deep shit, Chris. Anybody who’s seen this flick who wasn’t supposed to will be killed. I might be able to help you, but I need to know what’s going on.”
Chris looked at Joseph across the few feet that separated them. I might be able to help you. The irony of this statement was inescapable, but it occurred to him that they were beyond irony. In times of crisis, junkies, Chris knew from bitter experience, get high. Why hold back? If he had a brother, Chris would find out in the next few days.
“He killed Pop,” Chris said. “I thought I’d have a talk with him.”
Joseph said nothing at first, just stared at Chris as if he had never seen him before.
“I think that will have to wait,” he said, finally.
Chris nodded, and put the vials Vinnie had handed him in his pocket. He then turned toward the office door, thinking to go upstairs to quickly pack an overnight bag. Before he could reach it, the door swung open and two men in blue suits entered Vinnie’s office.
“FBI,” said he first one in, holding up a badge and an I.D. card in a two-sided leather case. “We’re looking for a Chris Massi.”
Book II
Joseph
1.
While Chris was in his drug-induced sleep, Ed Dolan was very much awake in his office overlooking Foley Square. His chief investigator, Rick Magnuson, had just called to tell him that, according to Antoinette Scarpa, her husband left their house early that morning to pick up Chris Massi in Manhattan for a meeting “somewhere in Jersey.” It seemed more and more certain to Dolan, alone for the moment, gazing down at the cluster of famous buildings – City Hall, the Tombs, the hexagonal County Court House – that
comprise the legal and administrative nerve center of the city, that it had been pre-ordained that Massi pay for his father’s sins. How else to account for the fact that the New Jersey State Police, having found Scarpa’s body in navigable United States’ waters, had immediately notified the FBI in Manhattan; and that the FBI, having run Scarpa’s name through their computers and seen “Organized Crime” stamped across the first page of his long rap sheet, had immediately notified Ed?
Dolan had endured some bad years during his tenure as head of the U.S. Attorney’s Organized Crime Task Force in Manhattan, frustrating years in which organized crime as a synonym for the Mafia had faded from the public eye, and his main quarry, Joe Black Massi, had eluded him, only to be killed by another enemy, not worthy of the name. There would be no trial and public disgrace, no death sentence to hang for years over the elder Massi’s head, but the next best thing had happened: Dolan had, in the last eighteen months, sent Massi’s son, Chris, reeling, just missing putting him jail by the whims of a federal jury. Now, miraculously, effortlessly this time, Chris was in his sights again. What else to attribute this to but the rightness of his lifetime cause?
At six o’clock, over a beer and a sandwich with Magnuson at a local pub, Dolan was filled in on the rest of his longtime investigator’s findings regarding the two dead bodies dragged that afternoon out of the river. As they were paying the check, the night clerk at his office called on his cell phone to tell him that Massi had been located and was on his way in. Prosecutors come in all stripes, and do a lot of things, but it is rare for them to actively participate, except to give legal advice to the police, in the investigation of crimes. Investigators ultimately become trial witnesses, a role that, if played by a prosecutor, could force him off the case.
Dolan, the head of a major task force, was able to break this rule from time to time without serious repercussions. He liked to go to the occasional crime scene, to ride out on a bust, and to sit in on the interrogation of a suspect or a witness that held a certain interest for him. He therefore did not expect Magnuson to be surprised when he told him, on the walk back to the office, that he would be interviewing Massi and did not need any help. Magnussen wasn’t. He had had a long day – murder scenes, and the first several hours of investigation after discovering dead bodies, have to be handled with great care – and was happy to have an early night.
As he approached the third floor interview room, Dolan could see Chris through the one-way plate glass window used by agents and prosecutors to observe interviews taking place inside. Massi, in a dark blue, long-sleeved polo shirt and jeans, was sitting squarely on a metal chair, his arms at his sides, his eyes closed. He opened them with a start, as if he had sensed Dolan’s presence on the other side of the glass only a few feet away. Then he settled down, and looked around the room, putting his hands on the edge of the table in front of him and pushing himself into even more of an upright position. Still proud, Dolan said to himself, but not for too much longer.
Ed Dolan, in his rumpled summer-weight tan suit, white shirt and knit tie, entered the room and sat down at the table across from Chris. He took his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, lit one, then put it on the ashtray in front of him.
“You want one?” he said, nodding toward the pack of Camel Lights he had also placed on the table.
“No.”
“You don’t smoke.”
“No.”
“How’s everything?”
Chris ignored this. It was too weird.
“Your people,” Chris said, “told me I could come in here voluntarily, or be arrested as a material witness. A material witness to what?”
“A woman in Yonkers saw a car go over the Palisades today. She was washing dishes. Do you know anything about that?”
“No.”
“There were two people in the car. An ex-con named Nick Scarpa and a junkie named Allison McRae. They’re both dead. They took a nine millimeter round from Scarpa’s brain. Allison was naked from the waist down. She was also loaded with heroin. Is this ringing any bells?”
“Am I under arrest?” Chris said. “Because if I’m not, I’m leaving, and if I am, I’m calling a lawyer.”
“Scarpa’s wife told us he picked you up this morning for a meeting in Jersey. She said he saw you in the city last week, and that he spoke with you on the phone on Sunday.”
“What about Paulie Raimo?”
“Paulie Raimo?”
“I thought you wanted to pin his murder on me?”
“That’s taken a back seat at the moment.”
Chris assessed his old friend impassively. During his conspiracy trial a little over a year ago, he and Dolan had seen each other every day for two weeks, but had not spoken. These words on this early summer evening in May of 2003 were the first they had exchanged in twenty-five years. Chris could see the weight of those years on Dolan’s shoulders, hunched and locked into a lifelong tenseness; in the contours of his once trim but now thickening body; and on his face, pale and slightly bloated, his once thick blond hair wispy and lusterless. But it was in his former friend’s eyes, flat and hard, that his soul was visible. Who better than Chris to mark the stark contrast between the cautious but happy boy and the impulsive, bitter man Dolan had become?
“You saw Junior Boy on Saturday night,” Dolan said. “Did he order Scarpa killed?”
Chris had seen a white van parked across the street from Junior Boy’s house when he brought his kids home on Saturday night, and, during their talk, DiGiglio had mentioned that he had been under surveillance for the past five or six months.
“Are you out of your mind?” was his reply.
“You need work,” the prosecutor said. “Your father was a killer. Junior Boy pays well, I’m sure. What was Scarpa’s crime?”
Chris remained calm, but not without effort. He had no doubt that Mickey Rodriguez had bumped Nick Scarpa’s twenty-year-old Pontiac off the Palisades, no doubt that Labrutto, alone or with others, was behind it, no doubt that he, Chris, was indeed a material witness to murder, and no doubt that Ed Dolan’s bitterness had corroded his soul, had cast him adrift among the psychotics of the world. The malice in Ed Dolan’s eyes was not put there by Joe Black Massi, it was put there by Dolan himself. This sudden thought was a relief to Chris, who had struggled for years with his father’s role in the devastation of Ed Dolan’s life, a relief he could not savor, replaced as it was, almost immediately, by the realization that Dolan’s enmity was mortal in nature, and would not be restrained by such things as morality or the niceties of the law.
“Do you know a Guy Labrutto?” Dolan asked. “We found his address in Scarpa’s wallet.”
“I’m leaving,” Chris said, getting slowly to his feet, wincing involuntarily at the sharp pain in his side even this careful movement caused.
“Go ahead. We’re tracking down Allison McRae’s relatives. I’m sure they’ll be helpful. Don’t leave the city, I may want to arrest you as a material witness – at least.”
Chris walked the eight blocks to La Luna, which was crowded and bustling as ever. Peering over the group at the hostess’ station waiting to be seated, he saw Lou Falco talking to a foursome at a table near the back. Lou spotted Chris and quickly weaved through the close packed, noisy tables to greet him.
“You don’t want to walk through here,” Lou said, shaking Chris’ hand, and leading him by the arm back toward the front door. “Go around back, down the alley, it’s the green door. Joseph said he’d be by tomorrow morning. Here’s a key. What time do you want coffee?”
“I’ll go out for it.”
“No. You better stay in until we can find out what’s up.”
“Nick Scarpa’s been killed,” Chris said. “That’s what’s up, and a girl named Allison McRae, the one I was supposed to be looking for.”
“Christ.”
“Where did Joseph go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Probably to get high.”
Lou, at five-eight
and a rotund two hundred pounds, going bald, pushing fifty, had remained single and content since his second divorce, eating his own southern Italian food, living above La Luna. His current marriage – to his restaurant – had worked out fine. He knew Chris’ family history, in particular Joseph’s; had, in fact, “lent” the younger Massi countless twenty dollar bills over the last fifteen years. Like almost everyone else from Carmine Street, except Chris, Lou had a warm spot in his heart for Joseph, who was usually too charming or too genuinely desperate to resist. He also recognized that if it was his brother who was the junkie, he would probably feel the same anger – and despair – that he knew Chris struggled with. Joseph had caused the Massis a lot of trouble. To a stranger, he would defend Joseph. With Chris, he just changed the subject.
“What happened?” he asked. “To Nick and the girl?”
They were out on the street by now. Chris, seeing the stream of tourists walking by, headed into the alley before answering. “They were in Nick’s car,” he said, once in the alley’s shadows, “which someone pushed off the Palisades.”
“Who?”
“Do you know a Guy Labrutto?’
“No.”
“He works for Junior Boy.”
“Joseph mentioned an albino.”
“He works for Labrutto,” Chris said. “His name is Mickey. They might send him.”
“Let’s hope nobody recognized you in the restaurant just now.”
They were standing at the back of the building, the green metal door to Chris’ new home – partially blocked by a brimming Dempsey dumpster – only a few feet away. Chris was beyond tired, and his side hurt badly; otherwise, he would not have put Lou at risk by staying in his back room. With an effort, he picked his stocky friend’s sleepy brown eyes out of the darkness of the restaurant’s airless “backyard,” no more than ten feet by ten feet square.
“Use that alley to come and go,” Lou said, pointing to a narrow street to their right. “It comes in from Elizabeth Street. They pick up the dumpster tomorrow morning at six.”