by Tod Goldberg
Now, as Jeff and Matthew pulled up to a new model home tract located just outside of Milwaukee in the lake country town of Oconomowoc, it was impossible not to notice how things had changed. First, there was the series of billboards featuring Bruno and his “gold pro team” of real estate agents that lined Silver Lake, the long street that wound through Oconomowoc toward a subdivision called Pleasant Farms Lakes, that pronounced Bruno the “king of lake country home deals!” Then there was the yellow Hummer Jeff saw in front of a half-built two-story house at the entrance of the tract. It had a picture of Bruno and his “Gold Pro Team” emblazoned over the whole driver’s side of the vehicle.
“I thought you said he was a quiet guy,” Matthew said.
“He was,” Jeff said. When they spoke on the phone, Bruno suggested they meet at the development since it was a good place to do business—good guys wouldn’t bug a house that’s being built, and bad guys wouldn’t be smart enough to do it in the first place—which made Jeff think Bruno was still doing a bit of crooked work on the side. Which was fine. As long as he wasn’t piling up bodies, Jeff didn’t really care anymore about a little white-collar stupidity—in the larger scheme of things, everyone was at some point getting robbed.
Jeff parked down the street at the sales office—which was actually the garage of the Saddle Rock model home, a modification that would be changed once the development was built out—and waited outside, near a blue minivan and a ten-foot-wide map of the proposed community. Pleasant Farms Lakes boasted that space had been carved out for over two hundred homes; a multihole putting green; a dog park; a day care center; three man-made lakes, each one stocked with different kinds of fish; and, the map noted, “several lots scaled for Devotional Worship development.”
“Nice place,” Matthew said.
“It has the same basic layout of a federal prison,” Jeff said. “Minus the dog park.”
“I could see myself living in a place like this one day,” Matthew said. “Once I’d lost all hope.” He pointed three fingers at the map. “I’m trying to figure out the wisdom behind man-made lakes in lake country.”
“Easier to dump pesticides into a lake you own,” Jeff said.
Bruno’s yellow Hummer came down the street then and stopped a few feet from Jeff. The doors opened, and a family of four came tumbling out, followed by Bruno himself. The family looked happy, or at least normal: The father was maybe thirty-five, dressed head to toe in L.L.Bean, while the mother looked like she’d robbed J.Crew, as did their two small children, both girls. Bruno, however, looked completely different from how Jeff remembered him. He was the kind of guy who had a sweat suit for every occasion, but now he was in tan chinos, a black cashmere sweater over a white collared shirt. He had a Movado on his wrist, leather band, black face, classy. He’d grown a beard recently—or at least since the photos that appeared everywhere had been taken—and had a suntan, which meant he was spending his free time in a tanning bed, since it was already in the low forties and thirties in town and the skies had been gray for a good two months.
The father thanked Bruno for showing them around, and then the entire family systematically climbed into the blue minivan and drove off. Bruno waved at them as they meandered down the road, his face all smiles, his eyes wide and bright and filled with the kind of bottomless optimism all real estate agents seem to have when they stare at you from the calendars left on your doorstep. Jeff couldn’t help but wonder about the intersection in Bruno’s mind between cutting up bodies for the mob and showing nuclear American families real estate they probably couldn’t afford.
When the van finally turned the corner, Jeff got his answer.
“Fucking maggots,” Bruno said. He pulled his cashmere sweater off, balled it up, and tossed it into the Hummer, then walked inside the sales office and came back out with a bottle of Windex and some paper towels. He opened the back passenger door and started scrubbing at the seats. Jeff walked over and peered in. Brown leather, built-in TV monitors. State of the art. Matthew stayed a few feet back, probably trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Fucking kids spilled a full Coke on my backseat,” Bruno said, not that Jeff had asked. “Splashed it up on the back of my fucking sweater, too. Two-hundred-dollar sweater and now it’s sticky as shit. They don’t make sippy cups anymore? You gotta give your kids a full can of soda?” He stopped his rant for a moment, appeared to notice Jeff and Matthew for the first time, and said, “I thought you were coming alone.”
“Good to see you, too, Bruno,” Jeff said.
He regarded Jeff with a look of exasperation, like they’d been together on some kind of horrific experience, then he just got back to scrubbing. “Two hours I spend with that family. And what do they tell me? They’re just looking. You know, look on your own time.”
“This is Matthew,” Jeff said. “He’s working with me.”
“And one more thing,” Bruno said, “if you got a problem with two-story houses, then move to the Saharan desert and get a tent, okay? What is wrong with people these days? A two-story house is America. It’s the dream. Am I right?”
“I live in an apartment,” Jeff said.
“You don’t count. You work for the government.” Bruno finally paused and gave Matthew the once-over. “What about you, Encyclopedia Brown? You want a two-story house? Basement, wet room, big yard. You want that, right?”
“I’d just be happy not to have any more student loans,” Matthew said.
“When I was a kid, you know what I wanted?” Bruno said.
“To be an adult?” Jeff said.
“That’s right, that’s right,” Bruno said. “I just wanted to be bigger. You know? These kids, they kept telling their parents what they needed in a house, like they were gonna bust their asses on the mortgage. The gumption. That’s what gets to me.”
“This doesn’t sound like the sort of talk that made you the King of Lake Country Home Deals,” Jeff said. “Hardly what one would expect from a person who has his own Gold Pro Team.”
“You wanna know the truth?” Bruno said.
“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “Do I?”
This got Paul Bruno to laugh. “There is no Gold Pro Team. I’m it. These other people? I just found them in some clip art book. They don’t exist.”
“I believe they call that a racket,” Jeff said.
“Just false advertising,” Bruno said. “Anyway, I’ve sold more houses in this shit hole than anyone. This is my baby out here. You know more people move to Wisconsin than any other state in America?”
“That can’t be true,” Jeff said.
“It isn’t,” Bruno said. “So I always say it like that. Make it a question. People, they’ll hear what they want to hear, right?” He looked at his watch. “I got another client in an hour. Come on, get in the Hummer. I’ll drive you down to this development I’m buying into. We can talk in the car.”
Jeff slid in the front seat, left the sticky backseat for Matthew, who didn’t seem to mind. Bruno got behind the wheel and fired up the engine. It sounded like a bomb going off. Jeff couldn’t figure out one good reason for anyone to own a Hummer unless they had designs on attacking Baghdad. He knew several agents who drove them, but they were always ex-military types who wanted you to know just how comfortable they’d been riding in armored vehicles, so much so that they bought them to drive around the South Loop, too.
Bruno drove them through Pleasant Farms Lakes, pointed out where all the amenities were going to be, all of which were just mounds of dirt, and then pulled out of the development and headed down a road that had only recently been paved. Up ahead was a gate and a sign that proclaimed the development, called Legacy at the Lake Country, was Oconomowoc’s first “over 55 luxury retirement destination.” Jeff saw only dirt and gravel behind the gate. Bruno hit a button on a remote control, and the gate opened, and the Hummer pulled through and then came to a stop a hundred yards in, near a construction trailer. In the distance Jeff could make out two land gr
aders moving back and forth near a low outcropping of tamarack and shagbark.
“This place,” Bruno said, “is my secret nest egg.”
“How secret is it if you’re showing it to us?” Jeff said.
Bruno considered this. “You got the can, right? For the Cupertine shit?”
“Paid leave,” Jeff said.
“Same shit. What about you, Encyclopedia Brown?”
“Fired,” Matthew said. “Just for knowing Agent Hopper.”
“So neither of you is officially FBI right now, right?”
“Correct,” Jeff said, though officially he was.
Bruno turned in his seat to face Jeff and Matthew. “So I tell you the plan, you tell me what kind of legal trouble I’m looking at, okay?”
“Fine,” Jeff said. He’d had conversations with Bruno like this before. He always had a scheme of some kind.
“So the builders? They’re friends of mine, plus, you know, I’ve got cash in the deal. Whatever. It’s a good deal, right? So they’re gonna put in these windows and sliders with locks. Everyone afraid of the world, they all want locks. Every single house is going to be Fort Knox, because these old motherfuckers will be moving in here with all their worldly goods, waiting for the Rapture and all that. Thing is, I’m going to have a master set of duplicates to every house. I fall on hard times, need a quick score to get me out of the city, on a boat to Hawaii, or I just want some extra cash to buy my groceries, whatever, I got my own mall right here. All I can steal. What do you think of that?”
“That’s a sound plan,” Jeff said. “I’d say ten years, maybe fifteen. Could probably plead down and get five.”
“Nah,” Matthew said. “I bet he’d only get two years. Non-violent crime? They’d process him out in a year.”
“Maybe so,” Jeff said. “Maybe plea insanity, Bruno, hope the people you’re ripping off get Alzheimer’s before they need to testify.”
“These old motherfuckers,” Bruno said, “they won’t know if a ring or two is missing. It’s not like I’m going to be housing the whole joint. Just diamonds, Baccarat crystal, easy stuff to move. Just little things, here and there. Maybe a car if I need one. Free and clear, I think.”
“It would be hard to get caught,” Matthew said. “Having a key makes it easier to be discreet. Having a car key makes it even easier in the event you decide to move into full GTA mode.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Bruno said. “See, Agent Hopper, Encyclopedia Brown here knows a good score.”
“Of course,” Matthew said, “you might break into the wrong house and there’s some old man who did a couple tours in Korea waiting for you with a shotgun. Or maybe someone’s grandson with a nine and good aim. Things could take a turn.”
“Risk of doing business,” Bruno said. “What do you think, Agent Hopper? My feeling, if it works, I do this all over the country.”
“I wouldn’t bank on it,” Jeff said, though of all Bruno’s scams, it did have the highest degree of possible success, “but if you feel like in the future you’re going to need extra money, who am I to tell you who not to rob? But why not just make it simple and have the builders put in a false wall for you, something on the side of the house, near the garage, something you can just pop in and out and have it open into the back of a closet or something.”
Bruno pondered this. “Tongue and groove it, essentially?”
“Sure,” Jeff said.
“Maybe make sure there’s a shrub in front of it, make sure it’s a guest room closet or some shit, right?”
“Right,” Jeff said. He’d spent his entire life trying to stay one step ahead of crooks, and this had been the one idea he’d really appreciated stumbling on. A small arms dealer operating out of Rochester had a similar setup in his home as an escape route.
“That’s a pretty good idea,” Bruno said. “Why the fuck did you tell me that?”
“I need you alive,” Jeff said. “This seems like a better way to keep you above ground.”
“The FBI really dump your ass?”
“Really,” Jeff said.
“Just for Cupertine killing your boys?”
“No,” Jeff said. “I might have harassed Cupertine’s wife, telling her I thought her husband was still alive and it was being covered up by the FBI.”
Bruno snickered. “How’s Jennifer doing?”
“Tough,” Jeff said.
“Nice girl, that one,” Bruno said. “Her dad and my dad used to bowl together.”
“Yeah?” Jeff said.
“Yeah, the Frangellos were good people. Jennifer, she fell for Sal hard. Her dad, you know, he hated that she was married to a gangster. He was no idiot. I mean, everyone knew that Sal Cupertine was a killer, right? But I guess he told old man Frangello that he’d never bring that shit home, that they’d live a normal life, and I guess maybe they did. They had that little house in Lincolnwood, right?”
“White picket fence and everything,” Jeff said.
Bruno laughed at something.
“What’s funny?” Matthew said.
“I was just thinking,” Bruno said, but then he paused for a second. “Did I know any of your boys who got killed?”
“Not as FBI agents,” Jeff said. “You ever do any business with a guy calling himself Gino Ruggio?”
“Furniture guy? Always with the nice leather shit?”
“Yes,” Jeff said. “He was one of ours.”
“Huh. Good guy.”
“Two kids,” Jeff said.
Bruno laughed again. “I’m not laughing at your friend getting it,” he said quickly. “I’m just thinking how here I am, ninety minutes away, showing real estate to people, living a pretty good life, right? And all that same shit is still going on. End of the day, I’m forty now, I just want a comfortable place to sit, maybe someone to sit and talk to, periodically go see a flick, whatever. All that shit they’re still doing in Chicago doesn’t make sense to me anymore.”
“Money,” Jeff said. “But not what Cupertine did.”
“Don’t kid yourself, it’s always about money,” Bruno said. “No call to kill a fed. But if you don’t think there was some kind of financial reason behind it, you deserve to be on leave, Agent.”
“Three people,” Matthew said. “Three people got killed.”
“I said I was sorry to hear that,” Bruno said, a little edge to his voice now.
“And a confidential informant,” Matthew said. “Bullet right between the eyes. Brain matter all over the Parker.” Matthew toying with Bruno now, reminding him that he knew what, exactly, Bruno was. Jeff respected that, even if it was a bit misguided.
Jeff watched Bruno, to see if what Matthew told him made him pause to rethink his current status in life. If the Family was now in the business of killing federal agents and snitches, well, Bruno could have a short life expectancy.
“Did you tell Encyclopedia Brown how you saved me from my life of crime?” Bruno asked Jeff.
“I gave him the basics,” Jeff said.
“He tell you I like men?” Bruno asked Matthew.
“He did,” Matthew said.
“How you feel about that?” Bruno was testing now. Each of them trying to find their margin, Jeff just happy to sit back and watch.
“I don’t care,” Matthew said.
“See,” Bruno said, “that’s how all the kids are now days.” He shook his head. “I bet if I were coming up now, my life would be easier. Probably be a capo by now.” He paused for a moment and looked back out the front window of the Hummer. “You hear my dad died?” he asked Jeff.
“No,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, he got Lou Gehrig’s. All his life, you know, he was about being as precise as he could be cutting up steaks and shit. One day, he comes to work, can’t cut straight. Hand’s all shaky. I hear this from my mother, because my dad wouldn’t have shit to do with me. Anyway, you know what that fucker did? He swallowed a bunch of my mother’s Valium, put a bag over his head, and, just like that, good nig
ht, world. You believe that?”
“That’s how I’d do it,” Matthew said.
“Really?” Bruno said.
“Absolutely,” Matthew said. “Less pain for everyone.”
Bruno sniffed once, rubbed his face, and then didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Reason I tell you that, man, you just never know how people are going to go, right? Gotta always be getting right with the people you care about. Him dying, that had an effect on me. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since you called me, Agent Hopper, asking about Sal and about that body in the dump.”
Normally when Bruno came in to give information, it was quick. This long conversation had Jeff off-center. He’d never known Paul Bruno to be an overly emotional guy, at least not one prone to introspection. There was something more here.
“What do you know about Sal?” Jeff said.
“Good guy,” he said. “Smart as fuck.”
“If he’s so smart,” Matthew asked, “why did he kill those men?” Good, Jeff thought. Just like that.
“I’ve been trying to wrap my head around that,” Bruno said. “There had to be money involved, like I said, one way or the other. The Family don’t send out Sal Cupertine just to hang out, you know? I mean, you ever get his prints, anywhere?”
“Never,” Jeff said.
“I knew the guy his entire life,” Bruno said, “and from the time he started doing hits until today? I never once saw him in the daylight. I mean, the man was a shadow, but that was his shit, too, you know? He wasn’t dumb. Made him sound like the boogeyman.”