“Jack,” Hinchey said, “this tape’s been enhanced. It’s as clear as gin. No trouble at all understanding what the guys on it’re sayin’—none at all. That isn’t what’s botherin’ me.”
“Well then what the hell is it?” Farrier said. “Not sure who they are? It’s dated, for Christ sake—cross-check and find out who the hell was in there that day, that night, when the tape was made. Except the fire escape, only one door goin’ inna the place; get the logs out and check who went through it and didn’t come out, had to’ve been in there while the tape was being made. Gotta be one of those people talkin’ on it. And if that doesn’t do it then look at the stinkin’ video—that’ll show you who went inside that night. Cross-check it again that way.”
He snorted. “Have some confidence in yourself, Bobby, willya? You know what you’re doin’. You’re no flamin’ rookie; you’re an experienced agent. If you think it’s this and you don’t think it’s that, then the chances are that it is this. Don’t ask me to double-check you—I got gangs of work of my own. Figure out for yourself what it means.”
“Jack,” Hinchey said, “this one wasn’t all that garbled to begin with, that it really needed the enhancement. You want the truth, I think I probably could’ve told you who it was and pretty much what they’re saying before I packed it up to be sent down. More a case of didn’t wanna know ’n didn’t. Anyway, now I do know for sure who it is, who’s talking. I know what they’re saying. Know what they mean, too—no doubt at all. So why do I want you to hear it? Because I dunno what to do with it. Well, I do know, but I also know if I do it, you’ll come right out of your tree at me.”
He paused to let Farrier reply, but Farrier sat silently gazing at him. Then he swallowed and frowned and brought his chair back up to his desk, picking up his earphones with his right hand and unplugging them from the recorder with his left. He held the plug out toward Hinchey. “Hike your Ampex over this way, toward me here, this side of your desk, see if the cord’ll reach, willyah?”
The cord was long enough to allow Farrier to audit the tape from his own chair, using the auxiliary jack on Hinchey’s Ampex. Hinchey, watching the footage counter, said “Three-forty-nine. Gotta run her back here little over two hundred feet. One-thirty-seven’s about where it begins. What you hafta hear.” He pushed the rewind button. He put on the headset again, leaving his left ear uncovered. Farrier left his right ear uncovered. “You say we know who’s in there,” Farrier said.
“Right,” Hinchey said. “This’s one of the earliest usable ones, twenty-fourth of September. We’ve now been in there seven weeks, this’s toward the end of the seventh, a Thursday night. You remember back in August, all the trouble that we’d had, interference—couldn’t figure out where it was coming from?”
“I was on vacation, August,” Farrier said. “Lucas was still here then, running things in my place.”
“Well, there was a lot of heavy static,” Hinchey said. “Turned out it was the exhaust fan inna bakery next door that was makin’ it.”
“Oh, yeah,” Farrier said. “Viviano, something.”
“Right,” Hinchey said. “Finally figured it out. Had to be the baker hadn’t oiled his exhaust fan. So one night Viviano broke there and did it for him, changed the frequency just enough so the static disappeared.”
“And when Lucas found out he was pissed,” Farrier said. “Oh, yeah—he got pissed off again, he’s tellin’ me about it. Found out Carl not only didn’t get permission ’fore he did it, also stole six cannolies, his way out.”
“Right,” Hinchey said. “Pissed off that he just went ahead and did it, on his own without permission; more pissed off when he finds out, the cannolies, and then even more pissed off when he asks how come he did it. ‘Well,’ says Carl, like this all makes perfectly good sense, ‘they make really good cannolies. So, if we find out the fan wasn’t what was doin’ it; oilin’ it didn’t fix the interference, then that way, me comin’ back at least with the cannolies, trip wouldn’t be a total loss.’ ”
“Right,” Farrier said, chuckling. “Lucas told me it’s three days before he could even speak to Carl, and then … ’member how high his voice’d get when he got excited? Just tellin’ me about it, he’s screamin’. ’ “You fuckin’ idiot,” I said.’ How he asked him, what if the bakery people comin’ in there in the morning, what if they’d noticed the cannolies’re missing from the day-olds tray?
“ ‘Not sayin’ these’re Nobel Prize winners, runnin’ ah fuckin’ bakery, but they weren’t gonna think somebody’s cat got in and ate ’em—they’d’ve been smart enough to figure out someone broke in. And since nobody breaks in a bakery just to steal cannolies, and they got to know who’s next door, wouldn’t’ve taken them very long to figure out why someone must’ve broken in, and it wasn’t for cannolies. And then mention it to nice Mister Rizzo next door, next time he comes in for coffee. And he would’ve had the place swept and found our installations, and that would’ve fuckin’ creased it. Put the whole fuckin’ mission inna fuckin’ toilet, and God only knows how much hard work, how many people, right inna crapper along with it. Never get even near Carlo Rizzo’s operation again—maybe even get somebody killed, Carlo and them ever found out who gave us probable cause, and for what? A half-dozen stale sweet rolls? You asshole.’ ”
“Right,” Hinchey said, laughing. “You’d’ve been there. It was even better. Viviano listens to his whole tirade, and then when it looks like he’s finally finished tells him obviously they didn’t notice the cannolies missin’, and if the fan interference comes back so he hasta go in again, re-oil the fan, this time he’s gettin’ a pie.”
Watching the footage meter, Hinchey said, “I thought Lucas was gonna shit, have a heart attack or something, he’s so mad. Never seen a man so mad. Ah, there we are.” He shut off the rewind. “Okay,” he said, “one-thirty-seven. Right about here’s where it starts. You’ll recognize Carlo’s best official capo voice of course, all low ’n’ growly, and Tommy Cavicchi’s. And Bacciochi’s, plus Tullio; he’s the Medford cop who dropped in now and then, see if Mister Rizzo needed him do anything. Strictly off duty, of course. Some cops an’ firemen moonlight paintin’ houses, puttin’ decks in? Heavy liftin’? Tullio don’t think so. He’d rather do his moonlightin’ for the Mob, get information from the Registry computer or the Criminal Information one at Public Safety. Little dirt on anybody Mister Rizzo didn’t like. He’s the one with the giggle, does all the laughin’, little piece of shit. And of course, our pal Cistaro’s voice which you’ll recognize, hearin’ it so many times.”
“Tell you what, you cue me,” Farrier said. “Just pause it when you hear it comin’ up to something that you think is real important, tell me who’s talkin’ next.”
“Right,” Hinchey said, “and I will do that. But Cistaro—it’s him especially, I think you got to listen to. Some of what he’s got to say here … I dunno, Jack, like I say, what we do about this. Not really that sure where it could take us—an’ pretty sure, it comes to that, we don’t really wanna go there. But then maybe we’ve got no choice.”
Farrier sighed. “Well,” he said, “no help for it now. Let’s find out what we’re dealin’ with. Let the games begin.”
Hinchey pushed the play button.
“Yeah, but what I always wonder, what I never understood, you know?” Hinchey mouthed, “Carlo.” Farrier nodded. “An’ this’s goin’ back a long time now I’m talkin’, maybe twenty, thirty years. Before there even is a capo here, an’ the man you hafta see, and talk to … if you are a made guy now, and there’s something you want to do, well, it’s still Nunzio, all right? Still him you hafta go to.”
“Nunzio Dinapola,” Farrier said, musing. Hinchey hit the pause button. “This’s how it used to be—players changed; game stayed the same. What I am to Carlo, Al DeMarco was to Nunzio. Except Al didn’t have Title Three or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to hang Nunzio with, like we do to hang Carlo. Changed the whole game, that one ru
le. We nail Carlo, my guess is he’ll turn out to be like the last dinosaur or something. Last of the red-hot Ginzos. Last whale, only no one to protect him. I’m the last Captain Ahab.” He smirked. “Almost makes me feel sentimental—brings a tear to my eye.” He motioned to restart the tape.
“All that time ago,” the voice on it said, “Nunzio, he is still a sotto capo, but he is the man in charge of the family’s interests in this town, and he wanted you, you know, to become one of us, and join him, and you would not do this.” Someone coughed. “You would never join him. Us. You know what he said of you? No? ‘The Cistaro boy,’ he’d say, ‘Guillermo’s boy, Cistaro, he’s a fine young man. Nicolo. He should be with us, Carlo, you and me, you know? In this thing of ours we have. You see him from time to time. You are close to him in age. Say something to him. He would listen, maybe, to you. Make him understand, you know, how this is important—the Family is important. Not just we are important to him, but that he is important to us, too. So that we are united and it is in this way we draw strength from one another. We are a smaller number here, not the same as Providence, where men of our heritage are many more than all the others, than the Irish, the police. So, even more important here, we unite with one another, stand against those who are against us, make them see that we are strong and take care of one another. You should tell him this, Carlo—you can make him understand.’
“He was sure of this, and I could not.”
Cistaro’s recorded voice was firm, assured. Hinchey mouthed the name; Farrier nodded.
“Well, but he knew the reason. Should’ve known it anyway. I told it you enough times, you were doing like he said, after me again to join. Christ, there was a while there, Gallaghers and Rocky, Rocco, goin’ at it left an’ right, I was just back from the service, ’tween Girolamo and his people, an’ you and Nunzio, you’re … both your organizations’re after me at once? Jesus, it was awful. Had me feelin’ like I must’ve been turned into, Christ I dunno what, Marilyn Monroe or something. ‘Oooh, hee hee, I must be pretty—everybody wants me.’ ”
He laughed. “Maybe that’s what I should’ve done. Told you an’ Nunzio, and Rocky Girolamo, ‘All right, first one gives me a fur coat anna white Caddy convert, red leather seats, sets me up a nice apartment, his will be the organization I will join.’ Become a sweet boy, a castrato, have a nice life for myself.”
“Carlo next,” Hinchey mouthed. Someone on the tape belched loudly. Farrier nodded. “Jesus Christ, Tommy, ’chou got any manners? Makin’ awful noise like that. Sound just like a fuckin’ pig. What if our good friend here, Nick, what if he’s got a wire on, huh? Workin’ for the FBI, and then when they hear you do that, what they gonna think of us, huh? ‘Huh, some kind of bigshot Mafia wise guys these are, makin’ noises like they’re pigs. Some kind of animals.’ ” There was general laughter on the tape.
“Cavicchi,” Hinchey mouthed.
“Well, I can’t help it, can I? Fuckin’ Bacciochi always puts too much oil and peppers, garlic, in that stuff, inna sauce, when it’s his turn to make it. Doesn’t bother you guys, I guess, but me, I got a sens’tive stomach. That’s the way it affects me. So what’m I supposed to do? Sit here watchin’ you guys eat, an’ I’m not havin’ any? Fuck that fuckin’ shit, I say, if that’s what you guys want. No, just don’t use so much, the peppers anna garlic—you’ll see then I’ll be all right.”
Hinchey mouthed “Carlo next again.”
“Ah, we shouldn’t blame you, Tommy. ‘It’s all his father’s fault. Look what he married.’ That’s what Nunzio always said, someone like our Tommy here, disappointed him. ‘See what happens? Didn’t marry an Italian. No, Italian girls’ not good enough—he hadda go outside. What that does, it always happens—thins the blood. Weakens the stock. Makes the man less in his mind, his fortitude, you know? What he has to be a man with.’ ”
“Poor Cavicchi,” Farrier said, laughing and shaking hs head. Hinchey paused the tape. “Hafta feel sorry, the guy. His father marries a Jewish girl whose family came from Florence, moved down there from Zurich fourteenth century or so. Generations they’re bankers ’n’ brokers for Medicis, and Borgias. Then the war comes, First World War; they pick the wrong side and they’re ruined. What’s left of them come here, she’s still a little girl. Marries Giovanni Cavicchi, why not? All she’s ever known’re people with Italian names and this’s America, the melting pot—what the hell is wrong with what? Turns out—everything. Here’s her kid now, crowding sixty—even he can’t live it down.”
Hinchey restarted the tape. “And Carlo again,” he said.
“But you say that, along with me for Nunzio here, the Girolamos, when Rocco and his people are having their wars with Brian G. and them, the Girolamos at the same time as I am asking you, they are also doing that. Because Rocco’s not agreeing if the Gallaghers are done with, should be Nunzio in charge—bastard Rocco, he thinks it should be him.”
“Now Cistaro,” Hinchey mouthed.
“Yeah, that’s how I remember it. Me and Hugo, matter of fact, way we were lookin’ at it … well, that he was lookin’ at it …”
“Hugo Bottalico …”
“Right, yeah, Hugo Botto. I was still with Hugo then. Well, I wasn’t with him, really, not that way that you would mean it. I, I did some things for Hugo before I went in the service. You know, little stuff, like you do for someone when you’re still really just a kid, an’ what they’re doing’s testing you, giving you small things to do, seein’ how you handle it. You think you’re the hottest stuff there is but really, all you really are’s a real stiff dick that won’t let the big kid it’s on think about a single thing in the whole world except a place where he can put it, hot, tight an’ wet, ’stead of usin’ his own hand.”
There was laughter on the tape and then Cistaro’s voice continued. “Yeah, we all know that’s how it is because we know how we all were—at the age where the only thing in the whole world that you can think about is pussy. Anyway, then I decide to enlist. My father was all over me. He don’t like what he sees as the way that I am headin’, wants me apprentice with him, learn stonecuttin’, all right? Always tellin’ me it’s an honorable trade, ‘good honest work, always ’ll be needed,’ and … well, you know, it wasn’t like I thought he was wrong, or like that—I didn’t wanna do it.
“I seen the kind of life he had, how hard he hadda work, outside, in all kinds of weather, and what he got for it, and … that just wasn’t what I wanted. So I then decided what I really needed most was some time to think about it, by myself. Or maybe just some time to maybe grow up a little—first some time to learn to think, and then after that, to think. Anna service—that seemed like it’d be the best place to do that, get myself figured out.
So that was what I did. I signed up the navy. But before I went to do it, along with tellin’ this to my parents naturally, about needing time to think, I also went to Hugo, told him what I’m gonna do. So he won’t think, you know, I’m now agreein’ with my father—because he knew what my father said, what my father thought of him, and of me doin’ things for him—he’s not the kind of guy that I should be workin’ with. Because he’d been good to me.”
There was quiet on the tape and then there were murmurs of assent from several speakers.
“Sure, you know, so like I said, I went to Hugo, and I told him, so his feelings wouldn’t be hurt. Said ‘I’m goin’ in the service, gonna be a navy guy.’ And he, you know, gave me his blessing, and that meant something to me.”
Carlo’s was among several voices saying “Sure” and “Course it did.”
“And what he then said to me, this’s Hugo, I’m talking, he said that when I’m back again, I get through with the service, ‘If I am then still alive, and have things that you might do, things that another man would do, I hope you’ll still come and see me and that sometimes now and then we may do some things together.’ Which I knew by that he meant that I would work with him and be like sort of junior partners with him, and that when he was read
y to hang it up, retire, I would then take his place. Well, I took it that way, anyway, and, well, you know, I was kind of honored by it.
“And so that’s what I was doing back then, four years later and I’m now back from the service, when Nunzio had you saying to me I should join with him and you, and Rocky and the guys with him were saying I should join with them, and both of you’re telling me with what I know, explosives and the other stuff, the service, either way it’s guaranteed that whoever gets me will be the ones knock Brian G. off and become the bosses here.
“And I did not know what to do. So again I talked to Hugo. Since I’d come out of the service I’d once again been doing a few things with him, nothing really major but still bigger’n anything I did for him before I went in, and he said to me himself, he’s becoming an old man, and it’s a natural thing for an old man to slow down—‘You know, I hope you stay with me, all right?’ So I had the idea still that I am going to succeed him, and this would mean that I would have my own small operation—not like with Nunzio, where you would be above me, or with Girolamo, where the boss would still be Rocky.
“But the thing with Hugo was that he wasn’t, really, slowing down. His was always a small operation of course, mostly the furnishing of advance money and safe places to keep goods and so forth until they could be sold. Or if you wished, to sell them for you, sixty-five cents on the dollar, no matter what he got. And then of course the money-lending. The airport and the Navy Yard were his territories.
“Now I saw it didn’t have to be this way with what he had. If he had had the kind of operation that you and Nunzio and Rocco had, or even Brian G., then what Hugo had for himself would have been the basis for a much bigger one. A bigger operation and a much larger organization to run it. But he didn’t have partners or people under him, and even though what he had said to me before I went inna the service made me think if I came back that was what we would become, and that in time when he retired, his operation would be mine, I began to see that what he did about retirement was that—he talked about it.
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