It was very cold. She was freezing in her strapless, elegant and completely useless evening dress. The garishly lighted, early evening Strip was jammed with cars. The streets were packed with people. She moved along quickly, the heavy container in the pillow case under her arm. She tried to avoid eye contact as she moved through the sea of people. She needn’t have worried. They were all rushing past her to get to the next place to throw away their money.
There was no way she could afford a cab. And even if she had been able to, she could just see some cab driver saying, “Japanese girl? In an evening dress? Yeah, I picked her up and took her to the Union Pacific train depot.”
She walked as fast as she could in her high heels. When she got to Fremont Street, she headed to the Union Pacific depot. Inside, she moved quickly to the luggage lockers. She opened the door to one and put the box inside. She put in a quarter and turned the lock. She put the key in her purse and hurried out into the street. She had been inside less than two minutes.
Even so, she was sure someone in there had noticed her. But because she hadn’t walked over to look at the arrival/departure board or asked about ticket prices, she hoped she had only been seen by tourists and not Union Pacific employees.
From the depot, Kiko headed west toward the bus station, thinking hard as she walked. She was Japanese and elegantly dressed. Either one of those elements could get her remembered, but there was nothing for it. With only five dollars in her purse, she had no other way to get out of town.
She pushed through the doors into the station and walked to the ticket window.
“How much for a ticket to Los Angeles?”
“Fifteen dollars.”
“How about Barstow?”
“Seven fifty.”
“Is there anywhere I can go for less than five dollars?”
“Three fifty will get you to Baker.”
“When does the next bus leave?”
“Ten minutes.”
She put her five dollar bill on the counter.
Fifteen minutes later she was looking out the window into the dark night as the bus rolled past the “Leaving Las Vegas” sign. Her reflection, frightened and uncertain, stared back at her in the smeared glass.
Chapter 3
Las Vegas, Nevada
March 24, 1961
At one fifteen in the morning, Eddie Mazzetti was just drifting off to sleep when his phone rang. He answered with an irritated, “Yeah.”
“Boss, it’s Clemente. We got a problem.”
Eddie was instantly wide awake.
“Are you at the airport?”
“That’s the problem. I’m still at the hotel.”
Eddie kicked off the satin sheets and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Why?”
“Cause, Frankie ain’t answerin’ his door.”
“Well, knock louder.”
“I did, boss. I pounded on the thing. I been knockin’ since one.
Nothin’.”
“Did you have the desk call his room?”
“Thought it’d be best if I didn’t. If there’s a problem, I don’t think we want everyone in the hotel knowin’ about it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Good, Clemente.”
There was a momentary silence.
“Go get Melvin Meyer. Don’t call him. Go to his house.
I’ll meet the two of you in the casino near the craps tables.”
“Gotcha.”
A half hour later, Eddie Mazzetti, Melvin Meyer and Clemente were gathered outside the door of the suite.
“Knock once more, Clemente. Give it a couple good whacks.”
Clemente hit the door three times with the flat of his big hand.
There was no response.
Eddie produced the key to the suite and unlocked the door. The odor hit the men immediately. He started to step inside. Clemente put his hand across Eddie’s chest.
“Hold it, boss. That’s blood.”
“Shit. Hold the door a minute.”
Eddie stayed in the hallway, reached inside, and turned on the lights.
The source of the tremendous amount of blood was immediately obvious.
“Okay, we all need to get inside without steppin’ in that.”
Clemente pushed the door all the way open and managed to skirt the blood. He held it open while Eddie Mazzetti and Melvin Meyer followed the same path. When they were clear, he pushed the door closed.
The three men stood in the luxurious suite looking down at Frankie’s enormous body, naked save for his tiny undershorts.
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“Jesus, Melvin, do you really think a man can lose that much blood and still be alive?
And he’s been here a while. I mean, he’s stuck to the floor for Chrissake.”
“What killed him?”
“That’s not the first thing we need to know. We need to know where the skim is.”
Melvin Meyer, who had been very calm about the dead body in front of him, turned pale. He turned to Clemente.
“You know what we’re looking for?”
“Sure. I been takin’ guys to the airport carrying that case for a long time.”
“Okay, let’s search the place.”
Fifteen minutes later, they had scoured the suite with no success.
The three men gathered beside the body again.
“Dumb bastard,” said Meyer. “Had to be the big shot, just like Herman said.”
“So, now what?”
“Now we get the hell out of here and away from this stink.
Clemente, round up Guido Battagliano, Lino DeLuca, Vincenzo Zamparo and Fiore Abbatini. I’ll get Herman Silverstein. My office, half an hour.”
At two-thirty in the morning, the eight men were all in Eddie’s office. Eddie, Melvin Meyer and Herman Silverstein were seated behind Eddie’s desk. The other men were standing in front of it.
“You are here because of your loyalty to the family.
The worst possible thing has happened. Frankie Pescatore is dead. Frankie’s body is in his suite.
Melvin and I are going to meet with a detective from the Las Vegas Police Department. This is a good cop. We bought him and he will stay bought. We also have a deputy coroner in our pocket, plus we have a local doctor with a big gamblin’ problem gonna sign the death certificate.
This will be an ‘unattended death.’ Seems Frankie had a sudden and massive heart attack. Poor guy never had a chance. There will be no autopsy. Frankie will be taken to the funeral parlor where he’ll be embalmed and dressed. Casket be on the train to Chicago later today.
Which brings us back to right now.
Frankie died because he fell on a piece of crystal from a whisky decanter that was smashed on the floor. A piece of the crystal stabbed him in the throat and hit his car … cart... Melvin, what’s the word I’m lookin’ for here?”
“Carotid artery, Eddie”
“Right. That artery thing that Melvin said. He bled to death in a few minutes.”
Clemente interrupted. “Yeah, man, you shoulda seen him. He was completely white. He looked like a big gob of Crisco covered with black hair, and he was wearing …”
“Clemente. That’s enough.”
“It just creeped me out. And the smell …”
“Clemente.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry, boss.”
“So, here’s our problem.
Frankie had the skim with him, his room.
It’s gone.
We sent a girl up to his room. Uppity little nip bitch. She’s in the wind, money’s gone. We gotta find her quick. There’s pictures of her for everybody on the desk.
Guido, you and Fiore take the transportation. Hit the airport first. All the airlines and even charters. That’s the quickest way out of town. If she hasn’t been there, do the bus station.
“What about the train depot?”
“Trains have already come and gone.
Clemente, you do the cab companies. I want to know if an
ybody picked this girl up last night or early today.
I know we had her picked up at her place for her date with Frankie, so she didn’t have wheels here.
Lino and Vincenzo, go to the girl’s apartment. Here’s the address. If she has roommates, find out the last time they saw her. Find out if she had a car. If she didn’t, find out if she borrowed one of theirs. Find out if they knew where she was goin’ last night. If nobody comes to the door, break in.
And hey! Find out where they work. Lean on them. Lean on them hard.
Now, before you go, the money is in a metal case about so big. It has a combination lock underneath both latches. If you find it, call me. Then bring it straight here.
There’s a lot of scratch in that case, but don’t get no funny ideas. Just remember, it belongs to The Outfit. Even more important, it belongs to Tommy Bones. So, watch each other. Cause if one a you takes the money and runs, his partner’s gonna take his weight.
Got it?”
There were murmurs of assent.
“Then get outta here. Find that broad. And bring her and the money to me.”
After the two teams left, Eddie addressed Clemente.
“If you find a cabbie that picked her up, bring him here. If not, I want you to shadow the team at her apartment. Make sure they turn over every rock.”
Clemente hurried out of the room.
Eddie, Melvin and Herman were silent for a moment.
Eddie spoke first.
“Melvin, how long you think we have before we have to call Chicago?”
“Frankie’s plane is due at O’Hare at seven twenty. That’s five twenty our time. Somebody will be there to meet him.
If the plane’s on time, by five forty five they’ll know for sure he wasn’t on it. They’ll call here as soon as they know.
So we’ve really got no time at all.”
“Then we better call Sam at home, soon as we get done with the cops and the coroner.
We have him get to a safe phone and call us. We tell him what we’re doin’.
Then we hang up and wait about ten minutes. When the phone rings again, it’ll be Thomaso Cortese. He’ll scream at us.”
“If we’re lucky he’ll scream. But if he’s really pissed, that crazy bastard will whisper in that ‘Tommy Bones’ voice, and you’ll have to strain to catch every word,” said Herman.
“I hope he screams,” said Eddie.
“Jesus, I hope he doesn’t come out here.”
Melvin shuddered. “Me too.
You know, on second thought, maybe we better call Sam right now. You know, get out in front of this? Tell him what we’re doing to try to control the whole thing.”
“Nope. We get the clean-up started. The dead whale in that room makes me nervous. Then tell Sam what we done.”
At four fifteen in the morning, Eddie made the call, waking up a very unhappy Sam Genovese. He kept it short, simply saying that something very important had happened, and Sam should get to the safe phone.
Fifteen minutes later, passersby on Fremont Street were treated to the sight of two of the most powerful men in Las Vegas squeezed into a phone booth next to a black Chrysler parked on a hydrant. While the pedestrians were unaware of the identities of the two men, an officer behind the wheel of a Las Vegas Police Department prowl car recognized them immediately. He had slowed to ticket the car for parking in the red, but when he realized who the men in the phone booth were, he accelerated and drove on past.
It was crowded in the booth. It was also awkward because the two men were trying to position themselves so both of them could hear the conversation.
Eddie dialed the number for the safe phone.
It was answered immediately.
“This better be good, Eddie.”
“Frankie Pescatore’s dead. We found him lyin’ in his own blood in one of our suites.”
There was a long silence.
“Where’s the skim?”
“Jeez, Sam, don’t you even want to know what happened to him?”
“Not as much as I want to know where the money is.”
“It’s gone.”
There was another silence.
“You know what Tommy Bones gonna say, don’t you? He’s gonna say this is on you ‘cause the money never got to us.”
Melvin leaned over and shouted into the phone.
“Sam, this is Melvin Meyer.
I really don’t think that’s fair.”
“Tommy don’t give a damn what you think, Melvin. That’s our money, and you’d better get it back. We know the count to the penny. Frankie called when he had the total. Almost seven hundred thousand dollars, and that’s how much you owe us, plus the vigorish.”
“What’s the vig?”
“The usual. Ten percent a week.”
Eddie broke in.
“Come on, Sam, we’re all friends here.”
“Hey, Tommy Bones don’t have no friends when it comes to The Outfit’s money. That money could be loaned out to patsies, be at work for us all month. You lost it, you gotta make it good. By the time the courier gets out there, you’ll have that money, plus the vig, plus next month’s skim. Otherwise, Tommy Bones may think he has to come out there personally.”
“Okay, okay, we’ll have it, but don’t bury us! It’s going to be hard to make up that much, so how about a break on the vig?”
“I’ll ask Tommy.
Now, let’s leave Thomaso Cortese out of this for a minute. What the hell happened to my wife’s cousin?”
“He slipped and fell on a shard from a crystal decanter. It cut the artery in his neck. He musta bled out in minutes.”
“He did this all by himself?”
“No.
Eyeballed this girl he liked, we sent her to his room. Japanese girl, worked the Keno floor.
She wasn’t no pro, but we sweetened the pot with somethin' she really wanted and talked her into goin'.”
“Ah, Jesus. Always with them oriental broads, that Frankie.”
“Anyway, we really don’t know exactly how it happened. Some kind of struggle, maybe.”
“Struggle? How big was this broad?”
“A hundred pounds, tops.”
“A hundred pound girl put Frankie on the ground? C’mon!”
“I don’t know. Maybe she was one a them judo champs or somethin’.”
“Very funny.
So, what are you doing to clean up the mess?”
“We already met with a cop and a deputy coroner we own, plus a local doctor with a bad gambling jones who signed off on an unattended death. This was officially a heart attack. Easy to believe, guy Frankie’s size.
We have the right kind of ties to a local funeral home. The body is there right now. Frankie’s casket will be on the train to Chicago before the day is over.
We have cleaners, a bunch of our soldiers, in the room. Place will be spotless before the sun comes up.”
“How’s the body look?”
“Other than no blood, pretty good. When he’s embalmed, made up and dressed, he’ll look like he’s goin’ to a weddin’.”
“Good. We’ll have a big funeral for him here. Open casket. Let all the goombahs have a look at him. Local press, too.”
“Right. Be a short piece in the Review Journal out here about the heart attack. Frankie’ll be described as a ‘visitor’.”
“Okay, Eddie.
Thomaso will expect you to be in Chicago for the funeral.”
“Wouldn’t miss it. Besides, I’d rather come there and talk to Thomaso than have him out here.”
“Agreed. I don’t want you guys distracted. You find that money, find that little whore.”
“Like I said, Sam, she wasn’t a pro.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just find the bitch and take care of her.”
“You got it.”
“And Eddie, give me the number you’re callin’ from and stand by.”
Eight minutes later the phone rang again.
Eddie could barely
hear Thomaso “Tommy Bones” Cortese.
“Sam told me what happened.
I don’t like it.”
“We don’t like it either, Thomaso, but whadya gonna do?”
“What you’re gonna do is get us our money. Plus the vig.
Sam asked me for a favor for you, so I’m gonna give you a big break. The vigorish? Ten percent the month, not each week. Best deal I ever give anybody, ever!”
“Thanks, Thomaso, we really appreciate it.”
“And you’re gonna get that little chink.”
“Japanese, Thomaso. She’s Japanese.”
“Yeah, yeah.
Sam told me about you guys takin’ care the mess, makin’ the arrangements. Done good on that.
Now, how much head start this girl have?”
“Pretty good one. The doc said Frankie probably died between seven and nine. But we had guys out trying to pick up her trail right after we found the body at twenty till two.”
Thomaso raised his voice slightly.
“Not regular soldiers!”
“No, no. Family guys. Got them in pairs, watch each other.”
“Just remember, we want the money, but the girl, too. Really want her! Nobody kills a made man from The Outfit and gets away with it.”
“We’ll find her, Thomaso.”
“One more thing. When you come for the funeral, bring the card you fingerprinted the girl when you hired her.”
“What do you need that for?”
“I’m puttin' a contract on this girl. Ten large for the goombah gets her. But he has to bring me her fingers, prove he killed her.
Somebody will call your office and tell you when the funeral will be.”
Eddie started to speak again, but Tommy Bones had already hung up.
A few minutes later, Eddie Mazzetti and Melvin got back in the car. They were having an earnest discussion when the LVPD prowler went by again. Just as before, the driver pretended not to notice their car.
At five in the morning, Eddie Mazzetti, Melvin Meyer and a very nervous Herman Silverstein were in the executive office when Clemente Malaleta walked in.
“Boss, no one at the cab companies picked her up.
Mojave Desert Sanctuary Page 3