Ransom

by Jon Cleary

  “I’d rather be alone when I call them - “

  Malone shook his head. “Come on - get on the phone!”

  Padua took the phone reluctantly. He stepped on another piece of china, heard it crush beneath his heel, and he shut his eyes as if in pain, as if the shard had gone right in to cut his foot. He opened his eyes again, looked at Malone with hatred, then dialled a number.

  Malone, his anger dying down, reason returning, lifted a hand and looked at it. The knuckles were skinned and a trickle of blood ran down the back of his hand. He stared at it in surprise, then looked at Jefferson as if asking the cause of it.

  “It got what we wanted,” said Jefferson quietly. “Sometimes it’s the only way.”

  Padua spoke into the phone: “This is Frank Padua. I’ve had a visit from - from one of our friends.” He glanced at Malone, smiled thinly; he was recovering his composure. “He wants to see someone … Anyone, I guess - ” He looked at Malone again.

  “Not anyone” said Malone. “The top one. The bloke who sent you up to see the Mayor.”

  Padua sighed, spoke into the phone again. “He insists on seeing the top man.” He waited, looking from one policeman to the other. Once he looked down at the shattered pieces of china on the floor, bit his lip, then glanced around the room at what he still possessed. Then he held the phone close to his ear again: “Okay. They’ll be there as soon as they can.”

  He hung up, scribbled an address on the pad beside the phone, tore off the sheet and gave it to Jefferson, ignoring Malone. “Someone will be waiting there for you.”

  “They’re prepared to see both of us?” said Jefferson.

  “I don’t know. You’ll know that when you get there.”

  When the two policemen had gone, Padua remained

  standing in front of the fireplace looking about him. He put his fingers up to the weal across his jaw where Malone had hit him, but the pain there was nothing to the other pain he felt. He knelt down, picked up the largest piece of broken china. Now he had regained his composure he knew that not only the Australian was to blame for what had happened. There were others, the ones who had never forgotten that his father was a Sicilian. The ones who had done him favours years ago when he had first crossed to Manhattan, who had waited all these years before asking for repayment. Men like Don Auguste Giuffre, a voice from the past that had called today and mentioned an old debt.

  “Where are we going?” Malone said.

  “Staten Island. We’ll go over the Verrazano Bridge from Brooklyn.”

  Verrazano: the man who had been eaten by cannibals. “John, are you sure you want to see this through with me?”

  “I’m sure. Only when we see these guys, don’t get rough. They won’t stand for it the way Padua did.”

  They had driven across from Manhattan through the Queens Midtown Tunnel, out along the Long Island Expressway, then turned on to the Brooklyn - Queens Expressway. Malone could see little but watery auroras of neon off on either side of the expressway; for all he knew they could have been passing through the Brooklyn tundra, if there was such a thing. They saw three cars piled up on the side of the expressway, two police cars and two ambulances parked behind them; but Jefferson drove past without a glance at the accident, his mind intent only on the interview ahead. He knew he was laying his head on the block by accompanying Malone on these “unofficial” visits to Padua and whomever they were going to see in Staten Island, but he liked this phlegmatic Australian and he knew how he

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  would have felt if any jerk had ever kidnapped Mary. There were times when the job was of no importance at all except for the clout it could give you.

  They crossed the Verrazano Bridge, the storm blasting at them, threatening to sweep them off into the Narrows beneath. “If they release those guys from The Tombs, they’re gonna have to drive them to Cuba. I can’t see any planes taking off tomorrow, not unless this storm blows itself out all of a sudden.”

  “I’ll drive the bastards there myself,” said Malone, “if it means getting my wife back.”

  They came down off the bridge on to the Staten Island Expressway, turned off and headed south. There was less neon out here; they were in the suburbs of darkness. Then Jefferson slowed, began peering out at street signs; finally he turned right and pulled up in front of a tavern. There was a small neon sign in the window, offering Beer and Cocktails to the traveller in the storm.

  They got out of the car and went into the bar, a dingy stall staffed by a St Bernard in a dirty apron. Before they had time to speak to him a thin young man in a black raincoat and a plaid cap got up from one of the booths.

  “Mr Malone?” He had a pleasant smile and he looked to Malone like one of the youngsters one used to see in the films they no longer made any more, the quiet dark boy who was the buddy of the college hero. There’s something wrong: this kid looks too square to have anything to do with Padua or his connections or the kidnapping. “You have a car? We’ll go in that, if you don’t mind. Mine is an MG, it might be a squeeze for all of us.”

  Once in the car he gave them directions, then sat back, occasionally passing casual remarks about the weather. “I was sailing only yesterday, out on the Sound. Now look at this - ” Then he leaned forward. “That’s the place.”

  It was a closed-down picture theatre standing in a line of dark locked-up stores, some of them with their fronts boarded up. As they got out of the car, the wind and the rain still

  lashing at them, the young man said, “We are waiting for this section to be re-zoned. Eventually, we hope, we’ll have a development of better class homes and apartments here.”

  “Are you in real estate?” Jefferson asked.

  “I’m still at college studying business administration. But I was the one who saw the possibilities here.” He said it with almost shy modesty, as if he were ashamed of being so precocious. “This way, please.”

  “Do I come too?” said Jefferson.

  “That’s up to you - Captain Jefferson, isn’t it? Mr Padua rang back after you’d left, just to say you were with Mr Malone. Are you here officially or unofficially?”

  “Unofficially,” said Jefferson. “Very.”

  “Then there’s no problem.”

  He slid back a grille across the front of the theatre, opened a door and led the way across the lobby. The place was in darkness, but by the light of the flickering street lamps outside Malone had seen the posters peeling off the billboards on the walls. A torn and mangled Shirley MacLaine smiled at him, and behind her dozens of other stars were leaning on her as they peeled off the wall. The posters, Malone imagined, might go right through the wall: Tom Mix might be buried somewhere there in the peeling sheets, pushing Lillian Gish out of the way to smile at the public who had gone forever. The young man opened another door into the picture theatre itself.

  Malone paused, all at once realizing how far they had come, aware of the unknown danger that might lie ahead. “Why do we have to come to a place like this?”

  “Privacy, Mr Malone. You’ll have to trust us. We don’t want trouble, any more than you do. We’re just trying to be civic-minded, Mr Malone.”

  “That’s all you guys are these days,” said Jefferson. “Nice harmless civic-minded people.”

  “I get your point, Captain,” said the young man with a smile. “But would you believe - I’ve never heard the word Mafia spoken in our family?”

  “How about Cosa Nostra?”

  “Fairy-tales.” The young man smiled again, but now there was just a slight coolness to his voice. “But is this the time to be asking such questions?”

  Then he led them into the theatre, down an aisle between the rows of empty seats. Malone, eyes alert, saw the four men standing in the shadows, one to each corner of the big cavernous barn. He saw Jefferson undo the button of his jacket, making it easier to get at the gun in his shoulder-holster if the emergency arose. Then they had stopped by an elderly, heavily-built man sitting in an aisle seat.

 
“Grandfather, this is Mr Malone and Captain Jefferson.” The young man gestured at the old man who was wrapped in a dark overcoat and was wearing a black homburg hat. “My grandfather, Don Auguste Giuffre.”

  “Wait at the back, Ralph. In case we have some other customers.” He chuckled, waited till his grandson had gone back up the aisle. Then he raised his hand, waved it in a dismissal gesture. The two men down at the front of the theatre moved up the side aisles, joined their partners at the back and the four of them disappeared through the door into the lobby. Then, and only then, did Don Auguste Giuffre look up at Malone and Jefferson. “I own this movie house. Once I come here with my family every Saturday night -two features, three shorts, a newsreel, all for fifty cents. Pete Smith was my favourite. Now - ” He made a gesture of disgust. “I could keep it open, make money by showing dirty movies. But my grandchildren, the young ones, not Ralph back there, they might come here. Not good. Sit down, gentlemen.”

  Malone looked over his shoulder towards the back of the theatre. The four men had disappeared, but Ralph Giuffre stood by the door. The two policemen moved into the row in front of the old man, faced him with their buttocks perched on the backs of the seats behind them. The lights along the side walls were on, but they had been dimmed: the show was about to start. Two features, three shorts and a newsreel, all

  for fifty cents: Malone wondered what price the old man was going to ask for what he was about to offer them.

  “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” Giuffre’s accent was rough, as ineradicable as a birthmark; but his manners were impeccable, he took his position as don of his Family as seriously as any president or prime minister. “Our friend said you were having some trouble - “

  “Mr Padua - ” said Malone.

  Giuffre held up a hand. “No names, please. Is better that way.”

  “All right, no names.” Malone had decided he would do the talking; it was too long since he had been a junior cop, keeping his mouth shut, and, besides, he could take the questioning further than Jefferson could. If he could think of the right questions … He would begin with a lie, not always the best approach but one that had, accidentally, had its effect on Padua: “The kidnappers have threatened your friend. They said they would plant a bomb outside his house if you interfered.”

  “Did they say that?”

  “They implied it.”

  “Implied - what’s implied? I do not have the education my grandson has.”

  “They hinted - suggested - “

  “You mean that’s what you think they meant?”

  This old bugger may not have gone to college, but he is educated all right. “No, that’s what I’m sure they meant.”

  “I think you are bluffing, Mr Malone.” The old man took off his hat, put it on the seat beside him. He was bald, with white wings of hair that stood out above ears that seemed almost at right angles to his head; the effect was to broaden his whole head, like primitive masks Malone had seen in museums. Now that Malone’s eyes had become accustomed to the dim light he could see that the old man’s face was mottled, as if his skin had been tie-dyed. At certain moments and in certain moods, Malone decided, Don Auguste Giuffre could be downright ugly. But so far his temper and

  his voice were even. “The kidnappers do not know who our friend represents.”

  I can be cunning too. “If they don’t know who he represents, how do you know who they are? I think you are bluffing too, Mr Giuffre.”

  Giuffre sat very still in his seat for a long moment, then he shifted his bulk, took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “Every year, this time, I get a cold. I never get used to the New York climate.”

  “You should go home to Sicily,” said Jefferson, shifting his own bulk on the back of the seat.

  The old man shook his head. “Nothing there, Mr Jefferson. Everybody I know is dead. Stupid vendettas - ” He looked back at Malone. “You think I am bluffing, Mr Malone? That is insulting.”

  “My wife is in danger,” said Malone. “I didn’t come here to watch my manners. I’m sure if Mrs Giuffre was in the same situation, you wouldn’t be too bloody polite.”

  “My wife is dead, Mr Malone. But you are right - ” He looked down to the front of the theatre, to the big blank screen, defaced by a large rip in it, that still hung there. He was not an imaginative man and the screen remained blank for him: he did not see there the scenes that had mirrored this clandestine meeting with his enemies, the police. Edward G. Robinson, Joseph Calleia, Eduardo Cianelli: he had never come to see movies that had featured Italian gangsters: to him they had been as dirty as the sex movies of today. He had never condoned even the amount of flesh that was shown in Italian-made movies; but Mama, God rest her lately departed soul, had liked Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. If anyone had ever attempted to kidnap Mama, he, personally, would have cut the heart out of the son-of-a-bitch. “I am trying to help you, Mr Malone. And the Mayor.”

  “How?”

  “Everybody has the wrong picture of us Italians. The Negroes also, eh, Mr Jefferson ?”

  “At least you’re the right colour.”

  “You think so? An olive skin, dark hair, a name like Giuffre or Rapelli or Gasperi, you get into trouble with the police, and what they say? Who you know in the Mafia?” He looked around as if searching for a place to spit. “When I come to America sixty year ago, nobody talk about the Mafia. My father and me, we had an oyster lease in those days. There were coloured folk there too, nice peaceful people from the South, and we got along fine. The oyster leases, they nearly all gone now, everything muddied up. What they call it - polluted ? Anyway, when I first come here nobody heard of the Mafia. Men with Italian names get into trouble with the police, lots of them, but nobody say anything about the Mafia.”

  Jefferson said nothing, his dark face an asset in the gloom: Giuffre could read nothing in it. Over this past year or two he had heard this plea so often he could recite it by heart, The honest, decent Italians were entitled to resent being classed as all related to the Mafia, but that did not say there was no Mafia.

  “Why do they call you Don Auguste?”

  Giuffre shrugged, shifted again in his seat. He should have had the meeting up in the circle, where he and Mama used to sit in the old days: the seats were wider and more comfortable up there. “Just respect, Mr Jefferson. And a little pride for me, too, I suppose - it’s a title. Like yours. Why do they call you Captain?”

  “Maybe because I earned it.”

  “Me, too. I have done much good in this parish - ask the priests and the sisters, ask anybody. Now I want to do some good for the Mayor.”

  “Why him?” Malone asked.

  “The Mayor, he is not gonna stay in City Hall. If we have an Italian in the White House, nobody is gonna say all Italians belong to the Mafia. Mr Forte, everybody respect him. I would like to see him in the White House, the first Italian President. The Greeks got a Vice-President, didn’t

  they ? What the Greeks ever do for the world ? They invent something called democracy and they sit on their asses ever since.”

  So much for Greek history, Malone thought; but his own education could not add much to it. “All right, then, help us. But don’t let’s waste time.” He held up his watch, looked at it in the dim light. Though he always wore a watch, in the past he had rarely looked at it; but now time had become a growing sore, like a skin cancer on his wrist. “If these people stick to their deadline, every minute counts.”

  “I got information on all those men in The Tombs. Maybe more than you got, Mr Jefferson - ” For a moment there was a twinkle in the dark eyes; they had seemed as dull as black olives to Malone. “You try Fred Parker, ask him about San Francisco and Pasquale Parioli. Maybe he tell you something?”

  “Do you know something?” Jefferson asked.

  The old man smiled, put his hat carefully on his head. “If I tell you, Mr Jefferson, maybe you think you owe me something. Is that what you want?” He stood up and Malone was surprised at how short he
was; he had looked a much taller, bigger man in the seat. He stepped out into the aisle, looked down with distaste at the litter. “Was a very clean place when we ran pictures here. Everywhere. Up there - ” he gestured at the screen ” - here, everywhere. It’s a dirty world now.”

  “He should know,” said Jefferson as they got into their car. “It’s his kind has made it dirty. I just never understand the split in their characters. They lead blameless family lives -they go to church, bring their kids up strict, protect and respect their women. Yet that old bastard has ordered more contracts - ” “Contracts?”

  “Orders to kill. He’s handed out more of those than I can count - but we’ve never been able to lay a finger on him. He runs the drug racket in South Brooklyn and there isn’t a bar or restaurant for miles around that he isn’t leaning on in some way or other. He’s got the prostitution game sewed up and he runs two union locals in the construction business. He sure knows it’s a dirty world.”

  “I’ll worry about my conscience later - when I get my wife back.”

  Malone watched Giuffre, his elbow held solicitously by his grandson, cross the sidewalk and get into the big black Cadillac drawn up in front of Jefferson’s car. The Cadillac drove off into the night, its tail-lights lost almost at once in the driving rain. A moment later it was followed by another car containing the don’s four bodyguards. Malone looked across at the flapping, shredded posters beneath the theatre marquee. A sticker had been pasted across the posters: Last Week Ever: behind the obituary notice The Love Bug rode into oblivion.

  “Were the good old days really that good and innocent?”

  “Maybe not innocent, but a goddam sight better than today.” But Jefferson wondered if he spoke the truth. Nostalgia was only an escape and everyone had his own exit; but it could never be proved that the past had been better, memory could never be trusted to be objectively selective. He started up the car. “Do we go and see Fred Parker at The Tombs?”