by James Lepore
3.
“What did Allison do when she first got here?” Chris asked.
“She waited tables. She was trying to enroll in acting classes,” Michele replied.
“Did she mention her roommate in L.A. at all, Danielle Dimicco?”
“In the beginning, she did.”
Chris and Michele were sitting at the small folding table in the apartment’s cramped kitchen on the sixth morning after Joseph’s death. Michele had gone through her withdrawal. Chris had made tea, and she had taken a few sips, but the rest was getting cold in the cup.
“Was she a junkie?”
“No. Labrutto got her hooked.”
“Then he used her in porn movies.”
“Right.”
“And as a recruiter for his next snuff film.”
“I guess so.”
Chris had spoken to Danielle Dimicco three times in the last two weeks: to tell her that her friend Allison McRae was dead; to tell her that Joseph was dead, and to hear the results of the inquiries he had asked her to make regarding Allison’s friend, Heather Jansen. Heather and Allison, it turned out, had met just before Allison left California for New York. Heather, like Allison, from the Midwest, and like Allison, an orphan, had been kicking around Los Angeles for a couple of years trying to find a life. Pretty, vivacious, in her mid-twenties, she worked to put a roof over her head and to party. She had no known relatives and one or two friends at the temp agency that sent her out steadily on secretarial jobs before she stopped answering her phone in February. It was from these people that Danielle put together Heather’s two sentence biography, which Chris titled, “The Perfect Snuff Film Victim.”
Joe Black and Joseph had died violent deaths, but their faces remained in Chris’ mind’s eye as they had been in life, one handsome and strong, the other beautiful and weak. Nick Scarpa had literally gone down fighting. Chris had no trouble imagining the fire in his eyes as he grappled with Mickey in the car at the edge of the cliff. Allison McRae’s senses had been blunted by heroin. It was Heather Jansen’s face at the moment of her death that haunted Chris. It was for her as much as for anyone else that he was planning on becoming a multiple killer.
“I need to stay here a few more days,” he said.
“Do I have a choice?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Sure.”
“You’re free to do what you want,” Chris said, “but I’d appreciate it if you’d wait until I left before starting to shoot up again. I paid your rent and the rent for this apartment for the month. I don’t think you should move back to your apartment.”
“Right now, I just want to sleep.”
“There’s one Valium left. It might help.”
“Where is it?”
“In the bathroom.”
“Who was here last night?”
“A friend.”
At around midnight, while Michele was in the bedroom trying to sleep, Vinnie had stopped by with the movies and a bundle of cash, which Chris had wrapped in a dish towel and put in the back of the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Two days ago, his boyhood friend had delivered three untraceable cell phones. Two of these Chris had used to repeat his tape-playing call to Ed Dolan, on successive days. The third phone he was saving for a final call to Dolan.
Vinnie was due back soon with the gun and the remaining cash. When he was there last night, Vinnie told Chris that he had heard from Teresa, and that his meeting with Junior Boy was scheduled for tomorrow, a Sunday, at noon, at Benevento on Forty-Fourth Street. Teresa also asked Vincent to tell Chris to stay away from her house in North Caldwell as it had been under twenty-four hour surveillance since Monday, which Chris knew coincided with his first call to Dolan.
“You said something about killing some people,” Michele said.
“When?”
“I don’t remember. When you first got here.”
“You were delirious.”
Before answering, Michele’s sunken eyes fixed on Chris’s. For the first time since he met her, he saw something in them that was not put there by drugs or the need for drugs.
“Stay as long as you want,” she said. “I’m not interested in going on the street.”
For the moment, Chris was about to say, but he held back. That was the reply, ten times out of ten, he would have made to Joseph in similar circumstances.
“I’ll get that Valium now,” Michele said, and Chris watched as she rose and walked the few steps to the bathroom. Although the apartment, which had only two small windows, was very warm, she was wearing a bulky cardigan sweater, flannel pajama pants and thick socks.
While Michele was in the shower, John Farrell arrived. “I’ve been trying to call you,” he said, once inside and seated in the living room,
“My phone is dead,” Chris replied, “and so is Michele’s.” He had removed the batteries from both phones. He did not want messages accumulating that a third party might be able to access. Michele did not have a land-line phone in her apartment.
“How is she?”
“She’s okay.”
“Is that her I hear in the shower?”
“Yes.”
“What do you plan to do with her now?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? She’ll be craving heroin badly.”
“I plan on giving her some money. She can do what she wants with it.”
“I can help her find a program.”
“Fine.”
“How long are you staying?”
“A few days. I’ll call you when I leave.”
Farrell looked slowly around, nodding slightly once or twice, as if noticing the apartment for the first time. Chris had kept it clean and neat, but there was no denying its meanness, its hopelessness.
“Whose place is this?” the cleric asked.
“A woman named Allison McRae, a friend of Michele’s.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s dead.”
“I see. What happened?”
“She was killed by the same people who beat up Michele.”
“Allison McRae? Isn’t she the one who went over the cliff?”
“That was her.”
“I’ve been reading about it in the Daily News. How are you involved?”
Chris did not answer. He did not want to patronize Farrell, a man who had lived a long, hard, decent life, but neither did he want him to be an accessory to murder.
“I’ll be dead soon, too,” Farrell said. “Take it as a last request. I might even be able to help.”
“Dead soon?”
“I was diagnosed with lung cancer a month ago. Advanced stage. They tell me I have six months, maybe two or three on my feet.”
Chris stared hard at Farrell as he took this in. It could not have been easy for the old man to state plainly that he was going to die. It takes courage to live, and faith, but more courage and more faith to die, more of both than Chris felt he had at the moment.
“My brother’s been killed, too,” he said. “Ed Dolan set him up.”
“Ed Dolan?”
“Yes. He’s also looking to charge me with the murder of Allison McRae and the other person in the car, Nick Scarpa.”
“So much death. Will there be more?”
Before Chris could answer, Michele came out of the bathroom, wearing the same sweater, this time with jeans and a pair of even thicker socks. She had shaved her head and stood smiling crookedly when she saw the two men.
“You’re back,” she said to Farrell.
“I am,” he responded, rising to shake her hand. “Now that you’re clean, I’ll reintroduce myself. John Farrell.”
“The priest,” Michele said, taking in the frail old man before her, whose presence in his clerical black shirt and slacks and white clerical collar was somehow still commanding.
“No,” Farrell said. “I’m a member of a religious order. The Christian Brothers. You can call me John. How are you feeling?”
“Cold. Scared.”
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“Craving dope?”
“Yes.”
“It takes three to six months for it to stop.”
“Three to six months?”
“Yes. The best way to do it is to go into a residential program.”
“Can’t I get methadone from the city?”
“You don’t need it. You’re already clean. I can help you get into a program.”
“I’d rather work it out myself.”
“You mean you’d rather go back on the street,” Chris said.
“You’ll be gone soon,” Michele said, her face blank. “What do you care?”
“Yes,” Farrell said, “what do you care?”
Chris shook his head, got up from the sofa and went to his overnight bag on a chair near the bookshelf. Reaching in, he took out a handful of twenty dollar bills.
“Here,” he said to Michele, walking toward her and reaching out with the bills in his hand. “Go out now. Get it over with.”
Michele stepped back as Chris advanced. They both stopped at the same time, facing each other a few feet apart. Chris threw the money on the floor.
“Take it,” he said.
“Fuck you,” Michele answered, and, turning, went into the bedroom, slamming the nail-scarred door behind her.
John Farrell, still standing, said quietly, “Let me help, Chris.”
“You can take care of Michele when I’m gone,” Chris answered. “I’ll pay for her treatment.”
“Of course.”
“My brother was a junkie. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“And my father was a hitman for a Mafia family. They’re both dead now.”
“There were rumors about Dolan’s dad and your dad.”
“They’re true.”
“You need to take your anger out on the right people.” Farrell looked down at the twenty-dollar bills on the floor and over at the bedroom door as he said this.
“I plan on it.”
In the afternoon, Vinnie Rosamelia stopped by with groceries and a small television, but no gun. Michele ate half of a tuna salad sandwich for lunch and then returned to the bedroom. She nodded when Chris introduced Vinnie, but was silent during the brief time it took for the three of them to eat. Vinnie had thought to buy the gun without using an intermediary because he did not want any witnesses who could connect it to him and thus to Chris, except for an anonymous street dealer. After a couple of aborted attempts, however, he realized that there was too much that could go wrong in a cold street buy. The seller could be a cop, the gun could be unsound or traceable to crimes under investigation, Vinnie could get ripped off or killed. He had, therefore, decided to trust his bartender, a savvy kid whose beautiful face and body belied his cunning and hard-earned ability to maneuver in the city’s underworld, and was waiting for an answer. Joe Black’s .44 Ruger was in Chris’ overnight bag, but he needed two guns, both of which had to be disposed of immediately after they were used.
The television was Vinnie’s idea, but, although he had been cooped up for two weeks, Chris had no interest in watching it. When Vinnie left, he brought it into the bedroom and put it on Michele’s dresser while she glowered at him from the bed through the haze of her cigarette smoke. There is not much to do for a heroin addict going through withdrawal: sponge her down, bring her some water, clean up her puke and diarrhea, listen to her moan for endless, sleepless hours. In the past few days, to divert himself, Chris had managed to read most of the screenplays lined up on Allison McRae’s little yellow book shelf. Her notes in a cramped but confidant script filled the margins. She was Kay in both Godfather movies, the teenage hooker in Taxi Driver, Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde, the world weary housekeeper who almost makes a man out of Paul Newman in Hud. Allison’s intelligent, often poetic comments were just as interesting as the scripts – her legacy.
When he lay down on the sofa to sleep on Saturday night, Chris smiled as he stared up at the shadowy ceiling. He had forgotten completely about the things that had been so pressing on his mind and his heart in the lifetime prior to the one he had just begun: his disbarment and so-called public disgrace, the devil’s bargain that Junior Boy had offered him, the anxiety about what to do for a living. After reading Joseph’s letter at La Luna, he had stepped into a new world where there was no room for such mundane worries. Such are the blessings of big trouble: it puts little trouble in perspective. The dead paraded slowly across Chris’ mind as he lay there: Joe Black, Rose, Heather Jansen, Allison McRae, Nick Scarpa, Joseph. They reached out for Chris as they passed, mouthing something he could not make out. Honor me? Don’t forget me? I love you? Exhausted, he fell asleep.
4.
On paper, Benevento was owned by Paul DeLuca, a legitimate restaurateur who owned two other successful restaurants in Manhattan, but it actually belonged to the DiGiglio family. The family owned, in similar arrangements, half a dozen other restaurants in and around the city, which Junior Boy used, on a randomly rotating basis, to hold special and regular meetings with his people and important colleagues. Benevento was in the shape of a long rectangle, with the bar in front on the left and a balcony seating area that overlooked the main dining room. The hallway in the back that led to the restrooms also led to the don’s private dining room, which contained, along with his always-set dinner table, a sitting area with four comfortable chairs around a circular coffee table and a small bar off to the side, all resting on a beautiful Persian rug in muted maroon and gold tones. The don and his two brothers were seated at three of these chairs when Nicky Spags brought Chris into the room on Sunday at noon.
“He’s clean,” said Nick.
“Sit,” Junior Boy said to Chris, indicating the empty chair across from him. “You can go,” he said to Nicky. Chris sat and rested the small black bag he had with him on the floor next to his chair. Nicky Spags’ face had registered only the mildest of professional curiosity when he saw the contents of the bag. Chris knew that it was not for Nicky to judge the transactions of his superiors, but to simply ferret out weapons and listening devices, and, with his massive bulk and unnerving smile, instill the fear of God in those admitted through him into the don’s presence.
“Do you want a drink? Something to eat?” Junior Boy said to Chris.
“No, thanks.”
“There’s water there,” DiGiglio said, pointing to the set-up on the coffee table: a bottle of Pellegrino, four cutcrystal glasses, a silver ice bucket and a small bowl of lemon wedges.
“I see it.”
Moving slowly, deliberately, the don made himself a drink and sat back in his seat. He put the glass down on the end table next to him after taking a sip, then remained silent for a moment, the fingers of his right hand drumming softly on the arm of his plush chair.
“We’ve been looking for you,” he said, finally.
“I thought you might be.”
“And now you come to us.”
Chris nodded: “Right.”
“What’s in the bag?” Aldo said. Fidgeting in his chair, he had barely waited for the don to speak first before blurting out this question.
“Hold on,” Junior Boy said, holding his hand up in Aldo’s direction, but keeping his eyes on his former son-in-law. Then to Chris:
“Your brother? Is that it?”
“No.”
“Do you know what he did?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He left me a letter.”
Chris noticed the deepening concentration in Anthony’s eyes as he said this. Had the old man believed that he had conspired in Joseph’s near-demented scheme?
“He left you a letter. That’s convenient,” Aldo said. “We thought you sent him, that you masterminded his idiot fucking plan.”
Chris stared over at the man who he knew could not control his two asshole sons, now in their forties. The fruit had not fallen far from the tree. It must have been Aldo who pushed the Chris-Joseph conspiracy theory, as an argument for eliminating Chris. Chris
stared at Aldo for a second, but said nothing.
“He had to die.” As the don said this, Chris saw Frank’s head turn as he shifted his gaze from him to his older brother, surprised possibly by this open admission of murder.
Chris had changed his mind about the nature of Joseph’s death. For years, he had lived with the thought that one day he’d receive a call telling him that his brother had been found dead in a gutter. At first, Joseph’s executionstyle murder had stood up well to this scenario. In an admittedly macabre way, it had more dignity. But watching Michele go through withdrawal this past week had given him a new insight into addiction, and a respect for its power to overwhelm the will. Joseph would have died peacefully from an overdose, at least compared to the terror that must have been pounding in his heart and brain when he was taken someplace dark and leafy and the barrel of a gun was placed against the back of his head. And he must have thought himself a fool as well to be so taken in by Ed Dolan. Could there be a worse death? If he had to die, then so do you, Junior Boy, Chris thought.
“I’m not here about him,” he said out loud.
“Then what?” Junior Boy said.
“I have a proposition to make.”
“Go ahead.”
“I assume you realize that Joseph was set up by Ed Dolan. He figured if Joseph’s wire was not discovered, he might get something on you. If it was, and Joseph was killed, who would know or care? He broke every rule in the U.S. Attorney’s office, and made himself an accessory to murder. That’s how badly he wants you, Junior Boy. He wants me, too. He pulled me in to talk about the Palisades thing. He’s a renegade, and he won’t stop until we’re both dead or in jail. I can stop him.”
“How?”
“Joseph taped his meeting with Dolan to arrange for the wire. I brought you a copy. It puts Joseph in your house, wearing a federal wire, on the day he disappeared, which is not good for you. It’s also very bad for Dolan.”
The DiGiglio brothers stared hard at Chris. They were not, he knew, used to being threatened, or told harsh facts, by anyone, let alone someone outside the family. The around-the-clock surveillance on Teresa’s house must also be unsettling.
“It gets worse,” Chris said. “Joseph gave Dolan a copy of the snuff film that I took from Labrutto’s house. If he links it to the DiGiglio family, it’s all over for you.”