by Pierre Rey
After Mauro Zullino called upstairs, the two sentries on the seventh floor hadn't even had to wake Merta. Don Ettore and Angelo Barba had gone to get some rest, but
Merta had stayed up with Frankie Sabatini, Simeone Ferro, and Carlo Badaletto. A couple of hours earlier, they had witnessed the wildest fit of rage Ettore Gabelotti had ever been seized by—and all they could do was lower their eyes and endure it
"A phony number!" the don had screamed. "That fuckin' rotten moron, that shit-eating piece of manure O'Brion gave me a phony number. He dared to do that to me!"
Struck dumb, the three capiregime, the two consiglieri, and Thomas Merta himself had silently prayed for the storm to pass. Gabelotti was liable to do almost anything, including holding his own people unfairly responsible for what had happened. This time, Carlo Badaletto was the scapegoat
"A fine thing!" Gabelotti had stormed at Carlo. "You wanted to drill Yudelman! You wanted to take a shot at Angela Volpone! You poor sick fucker! My enemies aren't out there, they're right here, among the bastards on my payroll! No one had to tell me that Italo was too stupid a prick to even think of double-crossing us! If I lis tened to you guys, by now I would have knocked off the entire Volpone family. You're all a bunch of useless dopes! Now he's gonna feel he has to get even with us for grabbing his wife! And all this time our two billion bucks have been sitting still in Switzerland where some stu pid fuckin' flatfoot from the SEC might stumble on them and start trouble. While you guys think you're real sol diers and wanna play war!"
Carlo Badaletto made the mistake of speaking. "Don Ettore, if Italo is as pure as you say, - what the hell's he doing in Zurich?'
"Shut your fucking moron mouth!" Gabelotti’s jowls trembled as he planted himself squarely in front of his lieutenant "Well, have you got anything more to say?" he demanded. "You heard me! Go ahead and talk!"
Carlo knew he might get killed if he opened his mouth. He shook his head humbly, put his hands behind his back, and walked over to look at a picture of longshoremen unloading citrus fruit wondering whether he was about to get shot in the back of the neck. He had seen Don Et tore fire point-blank at a punk who had the impudence to crack a joke while he was being dressed down for not hav ing followed orders properly. The punk, with a gaping hole in his shoulder, had had the presence of mind to get on his knees to apologize and kiss the don's hand before he passed out He had been taken to the family doctor for treatment but only that last-ditch show of contrition had saved his life.
'I’m going to go see Angela Volpone and try to get us out of the fucked-up mess you got us into!" Gabelotti snorted as he, .dashed from the room.
His lieutenants had exchanged embarrassed-looks. Was Don Ettore naive enough to think that the insult could be washed away with a few kmd words?"
"Frankie, get the Buick out of the garage," Thomas Merta said. "Drive past them without looking, and then take off. As soon as you're out of sight go around the block and stop on one side of the side streets facing this one, and don't turn off your engine. From the time you leave here, count seven minutes. Simeone, you get behind the wheel of the Pontiac, and in six and a half minutes come into this street slowly, turn your lights on so they can see you, then head straight at them as fast as you can. They'll jump on their fuckin' cycle and beat it. Frankie, as soon as you see them coming, take off full speed and run'em down."
He looked at his watch.
"Ready? Okay, Frankie ... go!"
Quinto Favara walked quickly from the diner, al though his cyclist's outfit was not made for fast walking.’ When he was within earshot of Vito Francini, he called, "We're on our way."
He pulled the visor of his helmet down sharply and hopped onto the back seat Francini didn't waste time ask ing him to explain. He started up the Honda, slipped into first gear, and with a twist of his hips released the foot stand. A big black sedan was coming at them from behind, its lights on bright, gaining speed. Vito smiled and gave the bike some gas. No car could pick up speed as fast as his cycle. It would move ahead as if the car were standing still.
Vito accelerated so sharply that Quinto had to lean on him, with his arms around his chest In six seconds the speedometer was at 100, and the street rushed past beneath them as if they were on a bobsled out of control. It was still well before daybreak. There was nothing on the street Vito shifted into high gear with a roar, and then, a hundred yards ahead at the first corner, he saw the nose of another big black car slowly coming out of the side street
It was too late to slow down; he had to get by it, The car was stopped, cutting off about a quarter of the roadway. Vito Francini knew the trick: as soon as the Honda started to head into the open space, the driver of the car would simply lurch forward and make the motorcycle hit him.
In a tenth of a second Vito decided his only chance of making it was to pull a feint He veered to the left, giving the impression that he was falling into the trap. As he ex pected, the car moved six yards forward. This was what he had been waiting for and he thought he had it made when the tip of his stand caught the corner of the car's rear bumper. Francini tensed to try to keep his balance, but he moved just a shade too much. The front tire of the Honda rubbed against the curb on the right The motorcycle started to sway, and at a speed of almost 120 mph it smashed into a concrete wall that erased the faces of Francini and Favara.
When Gabelotti went to his room after talking to Angela, he tried to get some rest and calm himself. Unfor tunately, at 5:30 he was still awake and sullen, ready to kill. However, this wasn't the time for it On the contrary, what he had to do was soft-soap Yudelman in order to re establish peace between the two families—at least until there was a favorable resolution to Operation OUT.
Whatever Babe Volpone might claim, Yudelman was, and would remain, the brains of the Volpone family. Italo didn't have the experience or the composure to stay at the head of the clan very long. Behind him, there wasn't a soul who could take over. And that opened all kinds of fine pros pects for the day, which would come very soon, when the Commissione convened to determine what to do about Volpone, whose responsibilities as capo presented a real danger for the Syndicate as a whole.
Gabelotti got up and went into the living room. "Go get me Moshe," he ordered.
Thomas Merta handed him a pot of coffee and a pile of buttered bread slices that Carlo Badaletto had prepared in the hope of getting back into the don's good graces. Ettore started to eat them, dunking them into his coffee, and then Badaletto came back with Yudelman. Apparently Moshe had not much more sleep than the rest of them, and the way he moved bespoke discouragement and defeat
Don Ettore gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder.
"Moshe excuse me for having gotten you up so early. Won't you have a cup of coffee with me?"
Gabelotti poured the coffee and offered him the: tray of bread and butter.
"I guess I'd better start explaining things," Gabelotti began. "I owe you some explanation, Moshe. I hope you'll believe every word of what I’m telling you in front of all these witnesses."
Badaletto and Merta exchanged a look of surprise.
"We're partners now, Moshe. Whatever happens to one of us affects us all; it don't matter what family we're in. This whole business has us on edge. Look at me—I never slept a wink. Why? Because I been thinking everything over. There are things you don't know, things I didn't want to tell you before we had it all settled. Besides, I didn't want to give you no worries. Yesterday two of my men tipped me off that somebody was planning to make a grab on Angela Volpone. You can figure out why. Who would her husband have blamed for it, huh? Me, of course! Don Ettore! Somebody is trying to bring about a split between us, Moshe. There have been leaks. Too many people would like to see our two families at war with each other..."
Gabelotti looked angrily at Carlo Badaletto. "Well, how's about some bread and butter? You can see it's all gone!"
Carlo dashed out.
"With Don Genco dead," Gabelotti continued, "there will be a lot of people who
get ideas. So when I heard about this kidnap business—I won't lie to you—I was scared. I had only one idea: how could I protect Italo's wife! Right away I sent two of my men to bring her here for safekeeping. You approve, dont you?"
Yudelman concentrated on trying to sip his coffee. When he felt he was sufficiently in control of himself, he said, 'There was. Nothing better anyone could do, Don Ettore. I congratulate you for your prompt action, and I thank you in Italo's name.’’
"This kind of help is the most natural thing between friends like us," Gabelotti protested, equally unabashed. "During the night, I went in and explained to Angela why this all happened. Of course, she would rather have been at home, and I can well understand it She is young and headstrong, and, after all, she don't know who I am. That's true. What am I to her except a rifardu, a stranger? I had to insist to get her to agree to stay here the rest of the night But she did. You'll see her as soon as she gets up."
Yudelman might well have asked Don Ettore why he had been kept under lock and key, but he didn't A new element had crept in, and now it seemed that Gabelotti was trying to smooth things out
"While I was asleep, Don Ettore, did you get in touch with the bank?"
"I tried, Moshe. I tried," the don lied, looking him in the eye. "Kloppe wasn't in, and I wasn't going to give the number to some subordinate. So I’ll call back in a little while."
Gabelotti got up, took a few steps toward the window and glanced down at the street, seven floors below. At the corner, he saw uniformed policemen tracing chalk marks on the sidewalk where some human forms lay, temporarily shrouded in blankets. He turned toward Thom as Merta and asked, "What are those cops doing down there?'
Merta shrugged. "A motorcycle accident, Don Ettore. These kids today, they drive like crazy lunatics..."
Vittorio Pizzu made sure to warn his lieutenants: This job is for us, not for the soldiers. Italo wants it that way, and so do I. This time ifs a question of honor. No one touches a member of our family without having to pay for it"
Aldo Amalfi, Vincente Bruttore, and Joseph Dotto had concurred fully. Their envied positions as capiregime in the Volpone family meant that they more often super vised murder than committed it themselves. Violence and death had been their job in the early apprentice years, and now, sometimes they missed the action.
'They're holding Moshe. And they probably grabbed Angela Volpone too."
"Do we knock off old Gabelotti too?" Amalfi asked.
"We knock off anything that stands in our way. Vin cente, send four men over there right away. Dress them as sanitation men. Have them get a garbage truck and start manicuring the sidewalk till we get there. See that they have machine guns and grenades."
Bruttore nodded. At every level of the city's services, the Volpone family made ample year-round payments to men who were always ready to carry out orders without asking why. One of the dispatchers in the Sanitation De partment was on their pad.
"I’ll set it up," Bruttore said.
Now, Pizzu and the three lieutenants were just a few yards from Gabelotti's building. The car that brought them was standing a short distance away, its driver behind the wheel His orders were to come creeping toward the building and be on hand as their getaway car.
Vittorio could see the four sweepers lazily running their brooms before the entranceway, pretending not to notice Pizzu, Bruttore, Dotto, and Amalfi coming toward them. Pizzu winked approvingly to Vincente Bruttore. However, he couldn't help shivering when he saw the squad car. It wasn't daylight yet, and the flasher on top of the car hit them intermittently with a hard beam.
Vittorio looked quizzically at one of the sanitation men.
"Motorcycle accident," he mumbled between his teeth without interrupting his work. "You can go ahead."
Vittorio frowned. "You sure you told Francini and Favara to come back in?" he asked Bruttore.
"Sure. Why?"
"Nothing. Okay, let's go."
The Volpone men didn't realize that they had a very lucky break. They had stayed up against the walls of the houses on their way to Gabelotti’s bunding, and the second-floor lookout, Mauro Zullino, had relaxed his attention, having just witnessed the masterful way Don Ettore's men had taken care of those guys on the Honda. It had
been enough to make Zullino turn off the TV.
He was lending a distracted eye as the cops put the two corpses into an ambulance and got ready to leave the scene of the accident The street was perfectly quiet ex cept for a few sanitation men emptying garbage cans and sweeping up the trash on the sidewalk. When Pizzu and his three lieutenants slipped in the front door, Mauro Zullino never saw them.
Amain, Bruttore, Dotto, and Pizzu didn't say a word. They knew the elevator opened directly into the seventh-floor vestibule where there were always at least two sol diers on guard. The success of their expedition might de pend on those men's reflexes.
The elevator came to a stop with a sigh. The two sentries opened the door without hesitation, assuming that Frankie Sabatini and Simeone Ferro were returning after their punitive sortie against the cyclists. The elevator door was barely opened when Vittorio Pizzu shot them each in the head. They collapsed, their faces bathed in blood, and Dotto, Bruttore, and Amalfi practically knocked Pizza over as they charged upstairs into the living room, re volvers in their right hands, grenades in their left
Gabelotti was biting into some bread and butter. Carlo Badaletto, half-stooping, had his hand inside his jacket as did Thomas Merta, whose gun was almost out But at the sight of Pizzu and his henchmen, they froze like statues. Seated across from Don Ettore, a livid Moshe Yudelman suddenly jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and shouted to his men, "Don't shoot!"
"You okay, Moshe?" Vittorio asked, the muzzle of his Smith and Wesson 39 Parabellum not moving an inch away from the target it had lined up: Gabelotti's heart
Moshe nodded. Don Ettore turned toward him and asked with a pained expression, "Moshe, your friends have a very strange way of breaking into people's houses. Did you ask them over?"
He then calmly sat down and took a gulp of coffee.
"If s all a misunderstanding," Moshe said.
"Where is Angela Volpone?" Pizzu demanded in an evil tone.
"Asleep—unless you people woke her up. Moshe, please tell them how things stand." "That's right," Moshe said. "Go get her!" Pizzu ordered. "Carlo!" Gabelotti called. "Going, padrone"
"Don't move!" Pizzu hissed. "Aldo, go with him."
Amalfi shoved his gun into Badaletto's ribs and pushed him toward the door.
Ettore Gabelotti was well aware that at this moment his life wasn't worth two cents. Yet, despite the terror that made his legs shake, he pretended to be the one who was put upon.
"Well, now gentlemen, I think you ought to explain right away why you acted in such an unfriendly way."
"We've made peace," Moshe quickly cut in. "Put your guns away."
No one moved.
"Could be," said Pizzu. And then to Gabelotti: "Your two watchdogs wanted to shoot us without any pretext They're offed."
Don Ettore raised his eyes to the sky and said to Moshe in a reproachful tone, "How unfortunate for them —and for us, too. Those two men were the only ones who knew the names of those bastards who wanted to snatch Angela Volpone!"
After Italo Volpone finished dictating the letter, he chained Inez to the radiator again and went into the living room, Lando at his side.
'If her fuckin' cousins get here, what do I do?" said Lando.
"You leave her loose. And you sit tight If anything happens, blast away at 'em right through your pocket Your black bitch is blown. I’m keeping her on hand for a few hours, but what can we do with her in the end? She's not one of us. She'll talk."
Orlando bit his lip. There was no way he could stop her from being executed, but he didn't want to be part of
'‘I’ve got work for you to do," Volpone went on. "Bellinzona will come and relieve you any minute now. He's finishing a job I gave him. I want you to go on hom
e, shave and change, and make yourself nice and handsome. You have to look your best I want you to fuck a broad."
"Who, padrone?"
"The banker's daughter. Renata Kloppe."
For all the respect he had for Genco's brother, Lando now looked at Italo as if he had just arrived from outer space..
"But padrone, she's getting married tonight The whole town's talking about it!"
"All the more reason to show me what you can do."
"On the eve of her wedding? Really, padrone, what difference could it make whether I fuck her or not?"
"Don't argue!" Volpone replied with a vicious over tone. "You just fuck her. I’ll handle the rest"
"Okay, padrone."
He went and looked at himself in a mirror. He hadn't been home since the day before, and he was beginning to look a little hairy, with an unshaven mug and a wilted shirt. And he was supposed to fuck her. He had no idea what the cunt looked like, nor was he in the mood for this kind of caper.