“So he must have had it with him when he died. Too bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, whoever killed him probably took it.”
“I guess,” said Nadleman without interest. “Where’re you going?”
“Up to Howard’s party. I thought I’d take a look at Frank Mackey while I was here. You coming?”
“I’ll be along,” said Nadleman. Karp left him in the office chair, staring at nothing.
The owner’s clubhouse was a low-ceilinged, paneled room, full of large, loud men and thick with the fumes of tobacco, scotch, beer and sports talk. Chaney was there, surrounded by his powerboy buddies, and in the outer circles the usual ruck of sportswriters, sportscasters, publicists and those aging rich kids that the papers still called “sportsmen.” There were no players.
Karp picked up a Coke from the bar and was about to ask somebody to point out Mackey when a hand touched his arm and he turned.
There was a man behind him holding out his hand and Karp instinctively took it. “Mr. Karp? I’m Frank Mackey,” the man said as they shook hands. Mackey wore an open-necked white shirt with a yellow alpaca golf sweater over it, tan whipcord slacks and oxblood tasseled loafers. He was in his mid-fifties, Karp guessed, with a full head of short, wiry, shiny black hair. The skin of his face had the tanned, perfectly matte look that wealthy men purchase at their health clubs. His eyes were dark and intelligent, his teeth were perfectly capped. Karp was interested to see that he had omitted the gold chains and the pinkie ring diamond.
“That was some kind of shot you took tonight. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, except for my voice. And, officially, I didn’t take a shot. I walked into Collins’s flying elbow.”
“Yes, sometimes the referees overlook infractions. If they called everything there wouldn’t be a game.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” said Karp mildly.
“Yes, well, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for some time, Mr. Karp,” said Mackey. “I believe our wives know each other.”
“Fine with me,” said Karp neutrally. “Here?”
“Probably not a good idea,” said Mackey. “Tell me, are you interested in antique cars?”
“I suppose I could develop an interest,” said Karp.
“Good. I have a 1938 Packard V-12 in perfect condition down in the garage here. If you go out of this room and turn left down the hall, there’s an elevator. Take it down to G-2. One of my associates will show you to it.”
The associate, whom Karp found waiting as he left the elevator, turned out to be Carlo Parmagianni, Charlie Cheese to his friends, a man who looked like he had been carved from a large block of that hard, semi-translucent pink rubber they use to make babies’ teething rings.
Charlie beckoned with a finger the size of a center punch, and Karp followed him through the damp fuel-scented corridors to an enormous, shiny, bulging black vehicle. Charlie ushered him into the gray plush rear seat. Karp barely had to stoop to enter, the car was so high and amply proportioned.
Charlie sat in the driver’s seat and lit a cigarette. Karp ran his hand over the plush upholstery, and was caught up in a sense memory from early childhood: seated in the backseat of his father’s 1948 La Salle, with his two brothers, driving somewhere, and his mother’s cigarette smoke drifting back. He was drawing pictures and letters on the plush and then rubbing them out. Karp drew a heart with Marlene’s and his initials in it. It still worked.
The rear door opened and Frank Mackey slid in. He had added a belted tan polo coat to his outfit. “Well, how do you like it?” he asked genially.
“It’s impressive,” said Karp. “You need a bunch of guys with fedoras and tommy guns.”
Mackey laughed. “Yeah. Especially an Italian guy in the trash-hauling business. I piss in their eye with it; not many people catch the humor.” He patted the plush armrest as if it were a horse. “But the real reason is when I was a kid I always wanted one of these, and here it is. So, Mr. Karp: would you care for a quick tour of my native city?”
“It’s your show, Mr. Mackey,” Karp answered. Mackey gave some terse instructions to Charlie Cheese, who brought the great car to rumbling life and steered it out of the garage.
They drove away from the Spectrum arena, through the suburbs, and then through the historic center of the city. Mackey pointed out the sights. Karp let him go on, waiting patiently for the point.
But Mackey chatted inconsequentially as they drove to another section of the city, a zone of squat reddish houses with stone stoops. The car slowed. Mackey said, “The old neighborhood. I was born right above that grocery store. The neighborhood’s still Italian, you notice. Blacks don’t like to come here, especially not at night. There’s Dom Scarfi’s club, where I wasted my youth. Would you like to stop someplace? Get some clams? A drink?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks,” said Karp. “I’m wondering when the show’s going to start.”
“OK, let’s start now,” replied Mackey agreeably. “We have a serious mess here. I’m going to tell you my part in it, bluntly, frankly, with the purpose of seeing whether we can’t figure a way out of it with minimum damage to all concerned. I’ve asked around about you. You’re a no-bullshit kind of guy, and so am I. I figure we can do business. If not, no harm done. Agreed?”
Karp nodded and made a leading-on gesture with his hand.
“OK. You notice I don’t ask you if you’re wired. We’re gentlemen here. I’m not a gangster, you’re not some snotnose prosecutor on the make. All right. Let me start with some background. Like I say, I was born in this area. The Scarfis were gods on earth. I fell in with them, I did a few little jobs, I took a fall for one of them. I shut my yap and did eighteen months in Allenwood.
“I said to myself—fuck this, never again. I’m an example of the success of the criminal-justice system, Mr. Karp. I got caught and I was rehabilitated. There must be about seventeen of us in the whole country.
“After that I moved to New York. I changed my name legally. No disrespect for the Italians, but I wanted to say, that old life is over, you know. It was symbolic.
“I started on a truck, humping cans. It’s the most dangerous job in the country for personal injury, did you know that? Not many people do: worse than coal mining. I saved up enough to buy an old junker garbage truck and fixed it up myself. I had an uncle ran some grocery stores, I started hauling for him. I got a rep for good service—polite, clean. I’m working eighteen-hour days. After five years I had ten trucks. God bless America, right?
“You haul trash in the City, it’s not like running a dress shop on Fifth Avenue. Did I pay off? Yeah, I paid off. The cops, Tammany, the unions. It’s part of doing business in the City. And the wise guys too. But two things I never did: I never let them fuck over my customers, and I never let them use my equipment or property for any hard stuff. They knew the line. They knew I was ready to bust heads if I had to. Charlie up there still carries a piece. He’s the gangster. Am I right, Charlie?”
A friendly grunt from the front seat, and Mackey went on.
“I did one smart thing. In 1947 I bought four hundred acres of land way out on the Island. I figured, I collect garbage, why shouldn’t I have my own dump? Why pay tipping fees? You know what that garbage dump is now? Valley Stream, Long Island. Dumb luck, but it made me. I became a developer.” He laughed.
“What I’m saying to you is, I’m no violet. I played rough. I had to. But I’m not a wise guy. I’m a hard guinea. You understand the difference?”
“I married a hard guinea, Mr. Mackey,” said Karp.
Mackey laughed again. “Yeah, that’s right. I wish I’d done the same. That’s the next chapter. So, local boy makes good. I go back to see the folks in Philly, this is 1963. I had a white Caddy convertible, throwing cash around. I’m in this club one night and there she is. Bang, I’m finished. She’s waiting tables, fresh out of some scrungy little coal town in the Mon Valley. A bohunk. You met her? No? Still l
ooks good, but nothing to what she was then. Kim Novak on top of Brigitte Bardot.
“And she wasn’t giving any away, or that’s what she said. You had to marry it first. And I did. OK, I can see I’m boring you, so I’ll speed it up. Not to reveal the secrets of the marital bed, but Julia is not what you call a passionate woman, at least not with me. It hurts her, she says. So that part of the marriage didn’t work out.
“OK, I asked for it, but I stick by my deals. We have a marriage. She likes being rich. She takes courses. How to fix the house, how to talk, expand her vocabulary, how to walk, how to wipe her royal ass—I don’t know—the works. That’s fine. I’m proud of her. I mean, a little bohunk kid like that, and now she’s a queen in New York. We have the kid, God knows how. We should alert the pope—another virgin birth, practically.
“Do I play around? Yeah, I feel I’m too old for jerking off in the john. But discreet, civilized. You watch foreign films? That’s how they do over there. Very civilized.
“OK, so she starts with this Simmons. Do I give a shit? Yeah, to be honest, I’m a little pissed. But there it is. I can live with it, if she doesn’t rub it in my face. Which she doesn’t, I’ll give her that.
“I figured we had a kind of settlement. Not ideal, but what is, right? Then, one evening I happen to pick up the phone the same time she picks up the extension in the bedroom and it’s Simmons. So I listen in—what the fuck, right? It’s my house.
“And I get an earful. She’s telling him an incredible load of horseshit. I’m this monster, a Mafioso. She’s afraid for her life. I’m threatening to whack her out. I’ll never let her go. Jealous rages—the works. He, on the other hand, is trying to calm her down. I was impressed: he sounded like a sensible kid. Anyway, she’s made up this whole, like, drama, a fatal triangle or something. I’m telling you this so you don’t think I was happy when Simmons got it. I figured the cops would come calling first thing.”
“Why did you think they didn’t?” asked Karp.
Mackey nodded and smiled, as if in approval of the aptness of the question. “Ah, to answer that one, you got to understand about me and Howard. Howard—maybe you know this—is a rich kid. His dad made a pile in shampoos, hair dyes, that kind of stuff, and died pretty young. Howard took over when he was in his late twenties. What I’m saying is, he never had to bust his hump. He was entitled.
“We met through politics. Dan Logan put us together. We were both moving into real estate. Dan steered us to pick up some land where the state was going to put an interchange in, and we made a nice pile. Howard isn’t exactly my kind of guy, but he’s real friendly. He’s generous, throws parties. We went fishing a couple three times. He’s got a yacht so big that his fishing boat goes up on the deck of it.
“Anyway, he’s always broke. He’s leveraged up the kazoo. And gradually, from hints he keeps dropping, I realize he thinks I’m connected. I think maybe it’s why he’s so friendly. I say, Howard, I know the Scarfis, I know people, but I’m not a goombah. He doesn’t listen. It’s one of Howard’s big problems. I explain to him, you don’t want to know these people, and you definitely don’t want to do business with them.
“But he keeps on with it. My theory is, he’s embarrassed he’s rich. He wants to be a hard guy. The beauty business—selling creams to faggots, it doesn’t cut it. And so he’s always with the horses, the ball clubs, the deals. Real man stuff.
“So, one night we’re in Philly for a game, like now, and he says, take me to some places. So I figure, what the fuck, he’s a grown-up. I take him to Vinnie Scoso’s on South Hobart Street, over on the left there. I introduce him to Dom Scarfi. Tommy Fortunato, guys like that. His eyes light up. Another Mafia buff is born. It’s not so unusual nowadays, this Godfather horseshit.
“Before you know it, he’s deep in, he’s talking Jimmy this and Tony that. Street names. His buddies. I wish I’d of known how deep, believe me. OK, the scene changes. Howard wants a new stadium. Fine. He comes to me, we go to Dan Logan. It can be done. I put up some money, Howard’s got this shitload of cash, I don’t want to know where it’s from. And we start blocking up a neighborhood in Long Island City. You know this already? Good. No crime in it, just a little honest graft.
“But we run into problems. We’re evicting right and left, but it’s slow. Howard’s getting antsy, he can’t wait for the payoff. I got a feeling I know why. The vig is killing him. So he says, we got to take care of it, Dom can take care of it. I should’ve pulled out then, but there it is. I didn’t.
“So buildings start going up in smoke. People get fried. Dan’s going batshit, but he can’t stop it either. We’re both in too deep. Then Simmons gets aced, the last fucking straw. We have a meet. D’Amalia’s there, the Queens D.A. Dan owns him. He says, we got lucky, they found dope in the kid’s vehicle. There won’t be a big deal, we can keep the lid on.
“I feel like I’ve been rescued from a fucking plane crash. So it goes on. Then this schmuck kid that D’Amalia’s got handling things, he calls Howard in a panic. You’re looking into it, the famous Butch Karp, independently. Then there’s this woman poking around. Turns out it’s your wife. They go crazy. Later Howard tells me, no problem, they’re framing this jig for the thing. Christ on a crutch! I say, Howard, this shit went out with the fifties.
“No, no, he says, it’ll work out. I try to talk to him. I ask him, Howard, assuming the stadium goes belly up, are you in to the mob for the money? These guys don’t send a final notice in the mail. I maybe can work something out. No, no, he’s cool, he’s paying the Scarfis off. From where? I ask him. I read the financial pages too. No, he’s got another deal, he won’t say what it is.
“I’m almost finished. So, the other night I come home, and the wife is a wreck. Drunk, crying, the works. What’s wrong? She tells me she’s been meeting with this reporter and your wife. She’s cocked up this story about how Simmons was gonna blackmail me, because he knew about the stadium deal, if I didn’t let her go. The truth is, hey, anytime she wants out. I told her a million times. We can have a reasonable separation. Civilized. I got no hard feelings.
“But she’s gotta have these dramas. Come to think of it, she’s got a lot in common with Howard. Now she’s in the shit and she wants me to climb in there and drag her out. The capper is, she tells me Simmons got it right there in my building.”
Mackey let out a long exhalation of air. He said, “Charlie, swing over to the Schuylkill and get downtown. You’re at the Hilton, right?” He fixed Karp with his eyes. “That’s the whole story and it’s the God’s honest truth.”
“It’s quite a story,” said Karp. “Let’s assume it is true. What do you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t really know,” said Mackey. “For me—hell, I’m a big boy. I got lawyers—my lawyers have lawyers. When the time comes, we’ll see. Julia, I’d like her in the background, if that can be worked out. Mainly, I want my kid out of it, no long drawn-out stuff. What do you think?”
Karp considered. “Well, if you told a grand jury what you just told me, I think it would move things along. If you want to keep the press out, a guilty plea beats a trial anytime. But we haven’t even begun to construct any cases. We haven’t caught the people who actually killed Simmons yet. My involvement has been a hundred percent unofficial.”
“Any chance we could keep it that way? Unofficial? I won’t insult you with an offer, but I’m a good friend to have in the City.”
“I’m sure you are, Mr. Mackey,” said Karp. “But I don’t do that, and it isn’t really up to me.”
“I didn’t think so,” said Mackey sadly. Then he laughed. “One thing, though. After Julia spilled her guts there, that night I did get laid. After all that.”
“Well,” said Karp, “then it wasn’t a total loss.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
That’s quite a story,” said Marlene, “especially given its delivery in that husky bedroom voice. Poor baby, do you think you’ll ever recover?”
“I might
, with proper support from my loved ones,” growled Karp. The two of them were sitting up in bed, eating dim sum and drinking hot Chinese tea. It was the morning after the Sixers game, and Karp had whipped out early to Mott Street and brought home a big greasy bag of the little shivery gobbets.
“What is this one?” asked Marlene, brandishing an open white cardboard container.
“Human flesh. Or dog,” said Karp, selecting one. “Is it OK to rest the sauce on the baby?”
“Your wife is furniture. Be my guest,” said Marlene. “Support from my loved ones, eh? Would you like me to lick your wounds, like Catherine of Sienna? My Catholic girlhood fantasy.”
“After breakfast. But, really, what did you think?”
“About Mr. Mackey’s story? Well, my instinct was to discount it as a piece of self-serving chauvinistic horseshit. But then I remembered my own doubts about Julia’s soap opera. So I really don’t know. You know, I’m getting to hate this whole thing. It’s like Venice under the doges: people whispering accusations and counter accusations, and the good guys are the bad guys and the bad guys are the good guys. A girl doesn’t know what to think.”
“A boy doesn’t know what to think either,” said Karp. “I tend to roll with Mackey, but then I didn’t see his wife. That’s another reason why this is so fucked. You’re supposed to get all the people in interrogation rooms and then walk back and forth comparing stories. This, it’s like trying to get a lemon pit out of your tea—there’s nothing to grab onto.”
“So what do we do?” Marlene asked.
They chomped and slurped, while Karp considered this.
“I don’t see what we can do, legally,” he said. “Doobie’s shaving points, but who can prove it? The Queens corruption is going to end up in the Feds. I have a prima facie case of obstruction, misfeasance, malfeasance, and wrongful arrest against Shelly Ehrengard and unnamed co-conspirators, but it’s dumb to move ahead with it until all the other pieces are in place, especially the murder piece. Meanwhile, we hang in there until Bello catches the bad guys and we can talk to them under cover of a New York County case.”
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