“It’s an interesting theory,” Gibbons said. “You think you can sell it?”
“Too early to tell. The important thing now is that we find the rotten apple in the Bureau. I have a feeling that once we find him, everything else will start to fall into place. Including who killed Lando, Blaney, and Novick.”
“What do you want me to do?” Gibbons picked up a blunt pencil and looked around for a pad. He rummaged through the piles of books on the coffee table, the books he’d been meaning to read for years. The pad was lost. Fuck it, he’d remember. What else did he have on his mind these days?
“Check the files on Varga,” Tozzi said. “See who he worked with when he turned state’s witness—you know, feds, prosecutors, marshals, everybody. Poke around for anything peculiar. Also, try to get a list of all the agents who worked undercover in the families in the past five, six years. It’s possible that our rotten apple went over to the other side while he was working inside the mob.”
“You got it,” Gibbons said.
“I’ll be in touch—”
“Hold on. I want to know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
Gibbons grinned into the phone. “Was she good?”
“What do you think?” Tozzi said just before he hung up.
The dial tone droned in Gibbons’s ear, but he ignored it. He studied the Oreo he’d been holding and then ate it whole.
NINE
The next day Gibbons lucked out. It was Friday and Ivers wasn’t going to be in that day. The New York SAC was taking a long weekend to pick up his son at summer camp in Maine. Gibbons had discovered that Ivers had an annoying habit of popping in unexpectedly when he was working with the computer and reading through files. He may have given Gibbons free access to the files, but he never said he’d keep his nose out of the investigation. Ivers wanted Tozzi’s ass on a hook, and Gibbons was sick of giving him evasive answers, quoting him procedural chapter and verse on just what he was doing, how he was doing it, and what his goals were. Today, thank God, he’d be able to work in peace, and he planned to take advantage of the situation and get a lot done.
By one o’clock his eyes were burning. His cubicle in the File Room was stacked with the transcripts of Richie Varga’s testimony at the federal grand jury hearings. The CRT screen tilted up from the desktop and glowed green at him. His head was throbbing, but he couldn’t stop now. He was beginning to get a feel for what Tozzi suspected. Varga was intimately linked to three mob families in New York, a unique position for anyone. The three bosses of these families obviously had to have agreed on killing Lando, Blaney, and Novick, so if anyone was privy to such a pact, Varga certainly could have been. And if Varga had known about the plans for the hit, it was possible that he also knew who fingered the three agents.
Gibbons had put together a list of agents from the New York office who had worked undercover in the three families during the last ten years. Besides Lando, Blaney, and Novick, there were sixteen others—four in Mistretta’s family, five in Giovinazzo’s family, and seven in Luccarelli’s. Gibbons studied the names. He knew some of them pretty well, the younger guys he didn’t know at all. But that meant nothing. The rat could be your best friend, the most inconspicuous guy in the world, the one no one would ever suspect. It could be any one of these guys. Gibbons stared blankly at the yellow legal pad where he’d written the names down in a column with the Italian cover name each man had used in parentheses.
Before tackling the volumes of courtroom testimony, Gibbons had decided to read through the FBI standard file on Varga. Richie was born in Havana, Cuba, on September 3, 1949. Gibbons counted the years; Varga would turn thirty-seven in two weeks. His father had been some kind of gofer for the American mobsters who controlled the Havana casinos. Emanuel “Manny” Vargas, Richie’s father, adored gangsters because they were macho and they were American. When Batista fled Cuba in 1959 and Castro’s revolution drove the mob off the island, Vargas moved his wife and son to Philadelphia, where he found work with the mob, specifically running an after-hours gambling club in the basement of a bar called the Peppermint Lounge across the river in Camden, New Jersey. Like most of the Cubans who fled their homeland, Manny Vargas became a superpatriot in his adopted country, openly and frequently praising the United States, the great enemy of world Communism. He was very proud of the fact that his only son had the same first name as the great anti-Communist champion, then Vice President Nixon.
In the Philly organization, Richie’s father answered to Jules Collesano, a loyal lieutenant who was generally known as a “good Joe” and a soft touch. Manny apparently encouraged his son to suck up to Collesano, who took to the boy, presumably because he had three daughters despite his wife’s best efforts to produce a son. (Mrs. Collesano had suffered two miscarriages trying, in 1955 and again in 1956.) Richie grew up in an atmosphere of casinos, bars, and numbers parlors but was a quiet, studious kid. He graduated from St. Joseph’s Prep in Philly, went on to Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, then eventually got his MBA from Temple. Collesano liked the fact that Richie was well-educated. He gave Richie a new car when he graduated from Holy Cross. For years, Jules and Manny had joked about making the match between Richie and Collesano’s youngest daughter, Joanne. In the summer of 1972, after her freshman year of college, Joanne Collesano did marry Richie, who by this time had legally changed his name from Vargas to Varga.
There was a newspaper clipping of their wedding announcement in Varga’s file. Gibbons studied the picture carefully. The bride looked frail, a small face lost in a lot of long straight hair, bangs covering her eyebrows, a real flower child. The groom had a kind of sleepy-eyed suaveness, dark wavy hair, long sideburns, and a droopy Zapata mustache over a toothy Latino smile. Not bad-looking, if you liked the type. Gibbons took note of the hippie influence in their hairstyles and was spitefully pleased to see that even the Mafia wasn’t completely unaffected by the sixties.
Gibbons turned back to the terminal and started scrolling up, searching for more on the Atlantic City double cross. In the early seventies, Atlantic City was a quiet town, not a whole lot of action at what was then a decaying resort. Jules Collesano was getting older and wasn’t much of a go-getter anymore, so the Philly mob sent him to Atlantic City to oversee what little they had going there. Jules was happy to be down the shore, and he took Richie and Joanne with him, putting his son-in-law the businessman in charge of the books. Eventually Richie was given responsibility for the day-to-day operations of everything in Collesano’s jurisdiction—narcotics, prostitution, gambling, loan-sharking, protection, food suppliers, laundry services, garbage collection—everything. Jules knew that Richie was a good boy, capable enough and, if nothing else, trustworthy. Jules was very happy with this arrangement. He could hold on to his position of authority and still take it easy and enjoy his semiretirement.
But that was all before gambling became legal in Atlantic City. That’s when things started to heat up.
Traditionally Atlantic City had always been the province of the Philadelphia boss, and when legalized gambling came into their territory, the Philly mob saw gold, Vegas East. But the other capi around the country had other ideas, particularly the three powerful New York bosses, Sabatini Mistretta, Joe Luccarelli, and Phillip Giovinazzo. They felt it was only fair that Atlantic City be an open city, the same as Las Vegas, so that everyone could get a piece of the action. Philly didn’t see it that way and basically told them all to go fuck themselves. Jules Collesano assured his boss that he was prepared to go to the mattresses to defend his turf. Bolstered by a fresh crop of heavy hitters from the City of Brotherly Love, Collesano then let it be known that he’d come down hard on anybody who arrived from New York or anywhere else trying to get cute in his town.
Gibbons rubbed his tired eyes with the heels of his hands and imagined Collesano as a bullet-head centurion crammed into his breastplate, a good foot soldier once upon a time but promoted beyond his capability. He was ready to defend his walls to
the death, but the thought of a fifth column never occurred to him. What a blow it must have been when he found out that his beloved Richie had been playing footsie with the New York bosses all along, feeding them inside information about his operations so that they could eventually take over Atlantic City as systematically as an epidemic.
Richie Varga may have looked like a jerk, but he must have had nerves of steel to do what he did. For over three years, he worked with Collesano while he was really spying for Mistretta, Luccarelli, and Giovinazzo. Finally when New York’s hold on Atlantic City was strong enough, Richie made his true allegiance known, in effect spitting in his father-in-law’s face.
The file didn’t have anything about Varga’s wife except to say that their marriage had never been a paradise. Gibbons simply assumed that when Richie betrayed his father-in-law, that was it for the marriage.
Gibbons kept scrolling. Jesus, this was a long file. He stopped for a moment and glanced out the tinted window at the blazing orange sunset beaming off the hard surfaces of the World Trade Center. It looked hot and hazy out there, in sharp contrast to the cool, dimly lit File Room.
He looked over at Hayes the librarian, who was poring over a stack of printouts. Gibbons stared at him, glassy-eyed. How the hell does a guy who looks like a pro linebacker and can’t put three words together in the same sentence end up a librarian for the FBI? Gibbons stretched his back and cracked his knuckles, then finally went back to the screen.
He skimmed through Richie’s involvement with the New York bosses, how he was instrumental in getting them to work together so they could all get what they wanted in Atlantic City. Mistretta, Luccarelli, and Giovinazzo were in love with the little asshole. Whatever Richie wanted, they got for him. They actually tried to outdo each other with expensive gifts. Nothing was too good for Richie. How fucking stupid. If he did it to Collesano, why didn’t they think he’d do it to them?
It was odd, though, how his turnaround seemed to just come out of the blue. One day Richie’s their prince, and the next day he’s spilling his guts out to the federal prosecutors. Very strange. By all indications, his conversion was totally unmotivated. He was sitting pretty under the protection of three of the biggest Mafia bosses in the country. Why give all that up? What happened? Did he suddenly get scared? Of what? Maybe he found religion, who knows?
Gibbons rubbed his mouth and looked at the two thick volumes sitting in front of him on the desk, Varga’s grand jury testimony. Not today. He decided to take it home and look at it over the weekend.
He rolled his head on his shoulders and listened to his neckbones creak, then he hit the scroll key again, stopping it at random to skim the rest of the file. He passed over the parts about Richie’s testimony and the resulting convictions—he knew all about that. Dozens of mobsters were sent to jail, including Luccarelli and Mistretta. Giovinazzo’s trial was still pending as he was recovering from an alleged stroke reportedly triggered by the news of Richie’s betrayal. The file ended with an abrupt paragraph after the litany of Richie’s victims.
Richie Varga is presently living under the auspices of the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program. His identity has been changed for his own protection. Inquiries of Varga, which pertain to ongoing investigations, must be submitted in writing and sponsored by a Special Agent in Charge. Appropriate written inquiries should be forwarded to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Witness Security Program.
Tight as a clam’s ass, Gibbons thought.
But just when he thought he was finished, Gibbons was annoyed to see that there was a short addendum to the file, miscellaneous information about Varga that had been collected after he entered the program, mostly inconsequential personal stuff. One item did catch Gibbons’s attention: “Varga diagnosed for testicular cancer, 1979. Surgical removal of affected testis; St. Jude’s Hospital, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania; March 1980. Eighteen-month course of radiation and chemotherapy followed thereafter.”
Gibbons shut off the terminal and leaned back in his chair, staring at the black screen. Cancer of the nuts. “Surgical removal.” He shuddered and rubbed his crotch.
He quickly removed his hand when he heard the door to the File Room opening. Fluorescent light spilled through the doorway as someone came in, someone Gibbons didn’t know. One of the younger guys, he assumed.
“Hi . . . Bert?” the guy said as he walked toward Gibbons, his hand outstretched. “Bill Kinney.”
Gibbons sized him up in a glance: young SAC material. Tall, trim, broad smile, crinkly eyes, athletic-looking. In a way he sort of reminded Gibbons of that asshole singer from the Rockies, what’s his name, John Denver, but not so anemic. He wore a trim blue suit that was a shade lighter than navy and a pale yellow linen tie, Cub Scout colors. Gibbons shook his hand—firm grip, heavy college ring with a big garnet stone on his fourth finger. He slipped his other hand into his pants pocket, very casual, and Gibbons noticed a gold chain hooked onto his belt that looped into his pocket. Probably not keys, given his Ivy League looks; probably grandpa’s old pocketwatch. Definitely SAC material, Gibbons thought.
“I heard you’ve been looking for me,” Kinney said. “I was out of town for a few days.”
“Yeah, Ivers told me. I wanted to ask you about Vinnie Clementi’s apartment,” Gibbons said.
“Did you read my report?”
Gibbons nodded. “I just wanted to know what your impression of the place was. If you got any . . . impressions, you know what I mean?”
“Well . . .” Kinney pulled up a chair and sat down on it backward, resting his forearms on the seatback. He even looked neat doing that. “I think it’s all pretty much in the report. I wouldn’t say there was anything that unusual about Clementi’s apartment. Modern, predictably garish, but not cheap stuff. The whole place had that look as if he’d bought all his furniture in the same day. Not a whole lot of care, no little touches, none of the little items that seem to clutter up a place after you’ve lived in it for a while.”
Gibbons thought of the stacks of books in his own living room, the books he’d meant to read years ago. He knew exactly what Kinney was talking about.
“Six ounces of coke in a box of Frosted Flakes in the cupboard, some crack too. Not much for the kind of dealer he was reputed to be. There was also a plastic bag full of cash behind the refrigerator, a little over two thousand dollars. Again, not much for a big dealer. Nothing in the fridge. Jug of white wine, a few beers, ketchup, no real food. Clementi probably wasn’t much of a cook.”
Kinney grinned and shrugged. Gibbons wondered what he found amusing.
“And other than that,” Kinney went on, “there wasn’t much else. Lot of good stereo and video equipment, projection-screen TV, all top-of-the-line merchandise. But oddly enough, I only found three albums, a few cassettes, and just one blank videotape.”
Gibbons nodded slowly, imagining what the apartment looked like, wishing he could’ve examined the place himself before they rented it out again. Too late now.
“You and Tozzi were on his case a while back, weren’t you?”
“Yup. We followed him around for a month. He was a cunning bastard, did everything over the phone and always made it sound like he was calling out for pizza. The guy never went anywhere near street-weight quantities.”
“So what happened?”
“Ivers ordered us to drop the investigation. Unless we could rope in a big haul of dope with the bust, he said it was a waste of time, that Clementi would fly in no time. He likes getting on the six-o’clock news, standing over a table full of dope, cash, guns . . . you know.”
Kinney nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve heard that about him.”
They fell silent. Gibbons was thinking about Clementi’s apartment, Tony the Tiger on the Frosted Flakes box, the big TV screen, the fancy stereo equipment. He was hoping something might click, but nothing did.
“Well . . .” Kinney went for that chain in his pocket. He pulled out a gold watch, hexagonal-shaped with large
Roman numerals on the face. It was a very unusual piece, the kind of heirloom a crusty old Boston banker might pass on to his favorite son. Gibbons had never seen one like it before. “I’ve got to be on my way,” Kinney said. He stood up and held out his hand again. “Nice meeting you, Bert.”
Gibbons took his hand. “Yeah, you too, Bill.”
“By the way, how’s it going?”
“What?”
Kinney nodded at the transcripts on the desk. “Your case. Any progress in finding Tozzi?”
Gibbons frowned and shook his head. “Nothing solid yet.”
“Well, if I can do anything for you, let me know.” Kinney got up and went for the door. “So long, Bert.”
“Yeah, take it easy.”
Gibbons couldn’t believe it. In his entire career as an FBI agent, this had to be the first time another agent actually offered to help him on a case. Even if Kinney didn’t mean it, it was still incredible. Maybe the guy wasn’t half-bad, even though he did look like a SAC.
TEN
“I love the names,” she said, flipping through the pages of one of the volumes. “Pat ‘Irish’ Facciano . . . Louie ‘the Flea’ Musso.”
She laughed, but it was strained. Gibbons knew she was worried about Tozzi. He studied her face and focused on her throat. Her skin was tight under her chin, like one of those aging movie stars who’d had several face-lifts to look twenty-five again, but whose neck told the tale. Gibbons’s gaze slipped to the mostly exposed breast hanging out of her open kimono. Lorraine still had nice tits for a forty-seven-year-old.
Gibbons leaned back in her creaky desk chair and watched her skimming through Richie Varga’s testimony, her face alternating between gravity and that false mirth. She was a real sketch. Lorraine Bernstein, tenured professor of medieval history at Princeton, leaning over an open tome on an antique podium in her tome-lined study, the sound of birds singing in the pines outside her window, all her weight on one foot conqueringly positioned on the camel saddle she’d brought back from a trip to Morocco, her wonderful tits hanging out of the open front of a full-length painted silk kimono, her wonderful snatch hidden in the rosy shadows of the fuchsia-colored silk lining, her thick dark silver-threaded hair hooked around one ear. The sight of her standing there suddenly made him sad, wondering why the hell they’d never gotten married.
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