by Pierre Rey
How could they expect to convince him that Morti mer O'Brion had guts enough to double-cross him? He bit into the bread and swallowed a huge bite almost without chewing. O'Brion was scared of his own shadow. Ettore half choked on the last hunk of bread, began violently coughing, and leaned against his bedroom wall to catch his breath and be able to spit He had left his brain trust in the office; they had been sitting in an embarrassed silence that rubbed him the wrong way. Bent double, he uncapped another bottle of beer. There was a knock on the door.
"Yes?" he answered in a furious tone.
Angelo Barba peeked through the half open door. "Are you all right, Don Ettore?"
Gabelotti, coughing again, signaled to ask what he wanted.
"A package for you," he said. "From Switzerland." Gabelotti's cough stopped. With eyes watering, he looked at Angelo.
"Who brought it?"
"A messenger from the airport"
"Legume have it!"
Warily he took the little package that was carefully wrapped in tan paper. The label on it had his name and address. 'No sender's name. No stamps or postmark.
"How do you know it's from Switzerland?"-
"The messenger said it just came in on the Zurich flight."
Sabelotti weighed the package in his hand. It seemed too light to have any kind of trap in it; neverthe less, he gave it to Angelo Barba with a gesture of uncon cern.
"Here, open it"
He turned on his heels and went a safe distance away, to the refrigerator next to his bed. He got down on his knees the better to look for the beer bottles that were right in front of him, well aware that the bed would act as a cushion if there were an explosion. Moving the bottles around on the refrigerator shelf, he tossed off, "Probably just something from Rico Gatto."
He heard Barba tear the paper. Instinctively he hunched as low as his paunch would allow.
"Well?" he asked without looking up or moving.
"Shit!" Angelo exclaimed.
"What?"
"Come and see, Don Ettore."
Gabelotti got up, holding a beer bottle. If there were going to be an explosion, it would have happened by now. "Did you open it?"
Angelo came toward him, holding the package. With out taking it, Gabelotti looked curiously at the wristwatch circling another small packet that seemed to have the shape and size of an egg. Barba put the package up to his ear.
"It's running," he announced in amazement.
The wristband had a tag on it, with an inscription carefully printed in big capital letters: souvenir of Zurich.
Angelo slipped the watch away from the smaller packet, which was wrapped in a wrinkled bluish paper. Dying of curiosity, Ettore took it from Angelo's hands and unfolded the paper, revealing a matchbox, which he cau tiously put down on a chair.
Glued to the middle of the piece of wrapping paper was Rico Gatto's picture. It was the identification page of his passport. Gabelotti read: Enrico Gatto, Real Estate Agent, 256 Washington Avenue, Miami, Florida’
Barba and he exchanged a brief look of wonder. Then Ettore, setting caution aside, grabbed the matchbox and opened it
Lying on a thin bed of cotton that had dirty brownish spots was a small piece of bloodred meat with clots of blood that gave off a sweetish odor. Despite his revulsion, Gabelotti looked closer, and he saw that it was a piece of a human tongue.
The tongue of Rico Gatto.
14
Italo Volpone woke up just as the sun was rising. As was usual when he had not slept long enough, he wondered where he was. He didn't recognize the blue velour drapes, the heavily canopied bed, or the outsize pieces of dark fur niture. Through the open window he heard a concert of birdsong. The slits in the shutters let in a golden light that made parallel stripes on the carpet, and he stretched, yawned, scratched his head, and looked at his watch: it was 6:30. Then it all started to come back to him.
The evening before, after he had spoken to Angela and the phone had been hung up, he had dialed again.and let it ring, but neither Angela nor Fiorentina had answered.
Wild with worry, he had phoned Moshe Yudelman, and had no more success. Feverishly Italo tried Genco's sottocapo, the faithful Vittorio Pizzu, who had been identified with the family for twenty years. But Vittorio's Eighth Avenue apartment didn't answer either.'It seemed like all those connected with him had suddenly disappeared. Between trying those three numbers over and over again, Italo did succeed in contacting Genco's three capiregime, Aldo Amalfi, Vincente Bruttore, and Joseph Dotto.
To his amazement, none of the three knew about Gen co's death. Cursing Yudelman for having ignored his in structions, Italo filled them in briefly, saying his brother's passing in no way changed the family's operations. He announced that he was taking over as boss, and he ordered them to mobilize all the soldiers they could and find Angela and Moshe Yudelman.
After that, he tried his home one last time. Fiorentina was finally back. Her mistress had sent her out for the papers, but when she got back, she told him, the apartment was empty. With a lump in his throat the size of a baseball, Italo could only pray that his wife was attending his sister-in-law, Francesca. But Francesca informed him in her hollow mourning voice that she hadn't seen Angela since the day before. Then, changing her tone, she demanded an explanation about what had happened) to her
husband. Intensely embarrassed, Italo didn't know what to tell-her. He certainly couldn't tell her the details he knew. At least not yet.
Sobbing desperately, Francesca begged him to tell her where Genco's body was so that she might-go and kneel before it one last time before he was buried. Italo stam mered something about calling her back, saying he was tak ing care of everything. As he hung up, he tried to react against his confused feeling of guilt: he was in no way responsible for what had happened.
On the other hand, what was to come was entirely within his control. Kloppe was going to find out that you couldn't toy with other people's misfortunes. The banker's reply to his threats had completely floored him, filling him with a pent-up rage that he would not long be able to contain.
He opened the blinds, blinking against the sunlight shining on his face. In the garden of the estate, every thing was as pure and sweet as on the morning of the Creation. Not a trace of human life on the flower-deco rated lawns that were being invaded by bunches of black birds. The lilac along the wrought-iron fence swayed im perceptibly as a slight breeze shook the highest branches of the cedars and bent the frail stems of jonquils around which white butterflies were playing.
It wasn't fair for such beauty to exist, for the living pulsation of all that sap to go on while his brother's body was rotting somewhere.
He forced himself to stop wasting his time over the promise of life in the radiant April morning. He needed to keep his hate charged up. He turned his back on the sun, went into the shower, and turned on the cold water, counting to a hundred while the icy jet nipped at his skin.
He put on clean underwear and one of his invariable black suits, and he went down to the kitchen. Everyone was still asleep. He found a canister of coffee, made him self a cup, lit his first cigarette, and was about to take a small walk in the garden when he sensed a presence at his side, although he had not heard a thing.
"I had hoped to be able to make your coffee for you," Folco Mori was saying to him.
"I have to talk to you," Italo answered.
"Me too."
"Well, go ahead."
"Here's the thing. You really have to know about it. Everything's been happening so fast since we got to Zur ich. You had so much to do and were so shook up about your brother, the same as we all were, that maybe you didn't see what was going on behind your back."
Folco was speaking quietly. Babe Volpone watched him from behind half-shut eyelids. Mori had always been a mystery to him.
"What was going on behind my back?" Italo asked, puffing on his cigarette.
"I knocked off two guys," said Folco.
"When?"
"Sinc
e we got here." "Why?"
"They were tailing you from New York. They were on the plane with us." "Gabelotti?"
"No. When I offed the first one, I couldn't know. But, I'm sorry to say, he was a cop. A New. York cop."
Italo shuddered. "How did you kill him?"
"He fell from the sixth story of Sordi's Hotel. An accident."
"Accident?"
"No one'll ever be able to prove it wasn't Bellinzona and me are the only ones who know what happened."
"And the other guy—was he another cop?"
"Yep. Same squad. Kirkpatrick's special brigade. When you went up to the mountains with O'Brion and his blonde, and the nigger broad, he was right behind you."
‘Where were you?"
"Behind him. He wasn't as easy as the first one. He almost got me. But I lucked out." "Where's his body?"
"Half a mile from the sawmill. I stashed it in a gulley."
Volpone looked away, concentrating on the tip of his cigarette. Then he enunciated slowly, "You think I ought to congratulate you?"
"I don't think anything. I'm just telling you. That’s all."
"Didn't you know the second one was a bull?’
'If I hadn'a done what I did, we'd all be: collared already for murdering the blonde and Morty O'Brion'
'Italo spat out the butt of his cigarette. It landed on a daisy and burned away the pistil. He sighed as he turned back to Folco. "What you did was right, Folco. You had no choice. Thanks."
He tapped Folco on the shoulder in a friendly manner, and Folco was just about to say. something, but Pietro Bellinzona appeared, surprised to find them there. He was bursting out of a dressing gown he had found in a closet
"Here I thought I was the first one up," he said, forc ing back a yawn. His tough, jowly skin was blue with an unshaven beard. He raised his face to the morning sun and said, "I'm hungry."
Volpone looked at him. "I'm only gonna warn you once," he snapped. 'If I ever find you doing the least little thing without my approval, you're out of the family."
Taken unaware, the big guy looked bug-eyed at him and whimpered, "What'd I do now?"
"You helped Folco off two cops. And I didn't even know about it!"
Bellinzona looked reproachfully at Mori. If he hadn't mentioned anything to Italo, it was because Folco had insisted he shouldn't.
‘I thought—" he started to mumble.
"You don't have to do no thinking for me. I'm the one who gives the orders around here."
"Pietro didn't have anything to do with it" Folco said quietly.
"You—just keep out of it" Volpone stormed at him. "I already told you how I felt about it You oughta have told me. I expect to know everything. Get that? Every thing!"
He stared at them. Neither Bellinzona nor Mori blinked. The birds in the garden, temporarily startled by the noise of the voices, now began singing all the louder.
Italo pointed at Bellinzona. "In two hours," he said, ''you're gonna have one helluva toothache."
Worried by what that could mean, Pietro sneaked a look over at Folco Mori, but Mori's face didn't show a thing.
"Folco!"
"Yes, padrone."
"You know what I came to Zurich for?"
"In general, yes," Mori answered without hesitation.
"A shitass little banker is trying to hold up the money my brother deposited with him. That bastard has to be offed. But not right away. I want to cut him down little by little. If he croaks too soon, we'll never get the dough. I gotta make him talk. You get my drift?"
"Yes."
"Zurich is gonna get too hot for us. We gotta work fast Pietro!" "Yes?"
"How would you feel if you was Gabelotti and some body offed one of your soldiers?"
Bellinzona rubbed his jaw, the heavy beard squeaking beneath his fingers.
I’d get me an execution squad and go out to get even."
"Right And you, Folco, if you was Kirkpatrick and two of your flatfoots disappeared?"
"Same thing. I’d get in touch with the Swiss coppers."
Volpone confirmed both statements with a nod.
"You said it! So that means we're gonna have a whole flock of fuckers on our tail. All the more reason to get done in a hurry and beat it Everything depends on the lousy banker. He's a tough bastard, but I’m tougher. I’ll break him down! Yesterday's warning wasn't enough. To day we gotta make him cough it up."
Folco looked skeptical. "If he knows we gotta keep him alive, he may not go for any bluff."
Italo smiled nastily. "Try that on me in a couple hours. I’m betting hell understand, all right. Now listen. At 9:30 I want you to take Bellinzona to 9 Zweierstrasse. You'll go up to the third floor and ring the bell of a den tist, name of Professor August Strolh. His wife, Ingrid, will open for you. She'll say you don't have no appoint ment, but Bellinzona will be holding his aching jaw. You'll say his wisdom tooth is hurting him so that he's been screaming his head off."
Pietro, finally beginning to catch on, sighed with re lief.
"You scared me when you said I was gonna have a toothache, padrone. Once we get inside, what do we do?"
A cruel little light flashed in Volpone's eyes.
"Lemme tell you..."
"Why should you wait, Don Ettore? Volpone is not only robbing us, he's making monkeys of us besides!"
For the hundredth time since the long vigil began, Gabelotti looked at his watch. It was nearly four in the morning. All the influential members of his family, gathered around him, had talked at length about what was to be done. Carmine Crimello and Angelo Barba thought . they ought to wait until the Zurich Trade Bank opened for business, to make sure of what had happened to the two billion. After that, if necessary, reprisals could be set into motion immediately.
Carlo Badaletto was all for taking it out on Moshe Yudelman and Angela Volpone without waiting. And no halfway measures. As he saw it, Rico Gatto's tongue had been the final proof of Italo Volpone's treachery and had also been intended as an open challenge, the unforgivable insult
'I tell you this Volpone is a fuckin' madman!" Bada letto said. If he feels we're weakening the least bit, he'll take every one of us, one after the other!"
In order to soothe frayed nerves, Don Ettore had had a ten-pound can of caviar sent up to the office. But his men, knowing the boss's pathological need to keep stuffing himself, had hardly touched a drop of it, despite his re peated invitations. By now there were just a few scraps of the fish eggs left in the bottom of the tin, and the don was scraping them up to spread on his buttered rye bread. He chewed it and then washed it down with a shot of vodka followed by a can of beer. Caviar always made him thirsty.
Up to this point he had simply listened without taking sides, merely shrugging when it seemed like Badaletto was getting carried away with his own violence. The fact was, he thought Badaletto was too chicken-livered. What did he care about the lives of Moshe and Angela? If Volpone really had double-crossed him, he would see to it that the whole goddamned family paid with their lives—from the lowest foot soldier right up to Italo himself. And he'd spend the rest of his life searching the bastard out so he could do away with him with his own hands, if that was what it took. No matter how long he had to wait, nor what it cost, he'd get him!
However, business had to come before revenge.
"Carmine, what time?" he asked.
"One minute after four."
Gabelotti's watch said only 3:59, but he had been holding his rage in check for so long that now he could not keep himself from picking up the phone and dialing. In Zurich it was 9:00 a.m. The bank had just opened its doors. On the second ring he got an answer.
"Hello," he yelled, ‘I’m calling from very far away! I have to talk to Homer Kloppe. I have an account with you. This is urgent—very urgent!"
On his way through the lobby of his bank, Homer Kloppe sensed an undertone of sarcasm in the way his employees greeted him. He couldn't believe they hadn't heard about yesterday's scandal. An event of that magni tude c
ouldn't remain secret in a town like Zurich.
Homer had spent part of the night trying to sort things out, crushed by a feeling of insuperable guilt Chimene would know about it his daughter would know, the whole town, the whole country would know! All the little discrepancies between what he considered himself to be and what he actually was appeared grossly magnified by the lens of remorse. How many years did he have left to live? What had he done to warrant salvation? Had he giv en his only daughter the proper upbringing? If so, how had this imminent marriage come about? And how would Chimene, whom he had so unjustly rewarded for her impec cable faithfulness by deceiving her with a prostitute, react when the scandal splattered over her.