“Because I borrowed it from him this morning when I shook his hand. I gave him a man hug and came away with a handgun.” He pulled the pistol out of his pocket and showed me.
“Got his Rolex, too. Couldn’t help myself. Old habits.”
“That was risky.”
“Life is risky, my dear boy. That’s what makes it interesting.”
Rosetti was still banging on the door and screaming. “You two cocksuckers are dead men. Do you hear me? Dead! I’m not going to make it easy for you either. I’m going to make you suffer. Do you hear me, assholes?”
From the day I first met him at Hoover, Nigel was the coolest customer I’d ever known in my life. He tapped on the door with his knuckles.
“Listen to me, dear boy. Please do calm down a bit. Everything’s going to turn out fine. Just relax and you’ll be out of there soon enough.”
“You’re a fucking dead man, Beason!” came Rosetti’s muffled scream from inside.
“What about his telephone?” I asked.
“Cell phone or hotel phone?”
“I didn’t even think about his cell phone.”
“I did,” said Nigel, and he pulled Rosetti’s cell phone out of his pocket.
“What about the hotel phone?”
“Disconnected,” said Nigel.
“The other door to that room?”
“I locked it from the outside. Tricky, but it can be done.”
“Shouldn’t we put the Do Not Disturb signs on the doors so the maids don’t let him out?”
“The maids haven’t even started work yet, Joey. Too early. They won’t find him for another hour. By that time we’ll be long gone. It doesn’t matter if they let him out. We want them to let him out before too long.”
With Rosetti still screaming and banging on the door, Nigel and I left the room and took the elevator downstairs. By the time we got to the grand ballroom, it was 9:15 am. Theoretically, Gangster-Con had been open for fifteen minutes. But nobody—and I mean nobody—was there. Not a single fan. Not even a curious bystander.
The actors, writers, and retired gangsters all sat there playing their parts, waiting for the hordes of fans to arrive. Rosetti’s little group of investors looked dumbfounded and disappointed. But there was another look on their faces, and it became evident with each passing minute: They were angry.
After a while, I looked at my watch. It was almost nine thirty. I caught Jeremiah Pennington’s eye and nodded. He took his cue like the pro he was.
Jerry stood up and, loud enough for everyone in the ballroom to hear, shouted “What the fuck is this? Where is everybody? I was promised thousands of fans.”
Some of the other actors started mumbling in agreement.
“Hey, you,” said Jerry, pointing to me. “What’s your name again?”
“Joey Volpe.”
“You’re one of the guys who organized this thing, right?”
“Well, I’m really just an actor.”
“But this was your bright idea, right? You put this thing together, am I right?”
“I guess so.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Where the hell is everybody? You told me we’d have ten thousand fans here this morning. You told me I’d walk away with fifty thousand bucks in autograph fees.”
“He told me that, too” said Frank Vincent of The Sopranos.
“You fucking lied to us, man,” said Jerry. “This thing is a total bomb. I’m a big star, for chrissakes. I don’t have to put up with this shit.”
“Well, like I said, I’m just an—”
“I don’t even know who you are,” said Jerry. “What show were you on?”
“I was on The Sopranos and …”
“He wasn’t on The Sopranos,” said Frank Vincent. “I can tell you that for damn sure.”
“… and Button Men.”
“Button Men? Who ever saw that show?” said Jerry. “It was canceled after the first commercial. You know what I think? I think you’re a con man. I think this whole thing is a fake and a fraud. And I’m getting out of here right now.”
“Don’t leave, Mr. Pennington, please.”
He ignored me and spoke to all the other actors in the room. “How many people here are members of SAG-AFTRA?”
Two dozen hands went up.
“How about Actors’ Equity?
Most of the hands stayed up.
“Well, listen to me, my union brothers. I’ve been active in the Screen Actors Guild ever since I first came to Hollywood. Even before I got into television, I was the Equity deputy in the plays I did in New York. I take our unions very seriously, gentlemen. Without unions, producers would still be paying actors with room and board. Without unions, there would be no residuals. No catering on the set. No mandatory five-minute breaks every fifteen minutes. Life as we know it would not be the same, gentlemen. I’m declaring a wildcat strike right here and now. I say we walk out of here. Who’s coming with me?”
“I am,” said Frank Vincent.
“Brotherhood!” said Dennis Farina.
Nigel nudged me and whispered into my ear. “Did your friend Jerry ever do Hank Cinq?”
“Henry the Fifth? I don’t think so.”
“What a pity. He’d be perfect for it.”
Every actor in the ballroom cheered and started to follow Jerry out the door. The writers followed suit in solidarity, although the writers weren’t unionized. Good thing, too, or you’d be paying as much for a book as a Broadway show. You’d pay a hundred bucks for the next John Grisham novel. (Even a far-fetched story about gangsters and actors would run you seventy-five.) The retired mobsters joined the walkout, too. After all, many of them were union workers themselves—albeit of the no-show variety.
“Wait a second,” I said to them as they filed past me. “This isn’t even a union production.”
They ignored me and before I knew it, they were gone. Nigel and I were standing in the middle of the grand ballroom of the Mirage Hotel, surrounded by a group of Rosetti’s investors, some of whom were starting to get mad as hell.
“I think we’d better get going, too,” said Nigel. “The natives are starting to look restless.”
“Good idea,” I said.
By the time Nigel and I got to the taxi stand, the last group of actors took the cab in front of us.
“Follow that cab,” Nigel ordered the driver. He turned to me with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
I laughed. “Maybe we should tell the driver where we’re going anyway in case they shake our tail.”
“You’re absolutely right, dear boy,” said Nigel. “Follow that cab, my good man, and take us to Bellagio.”
Bellagio was a half mile from the Mirage, but the cabbie didn’t complain. Las Vegas taxi drivers were used to taking these short hops from one casino to another. The sad thing is that many of them have to wait in line for an hour to pick up one of these lousy fares. I was sure Nigel would give him a big tip. He tipped big wherever he went.
When we got to Bellagio two minutes later, I saw the giant marquee. I was happy to see we got top billing again. The flashing digital sign said, “WELCOME, GANGSTERS!”
39
I saw the line as soon as we turned into the Bellagio’s long driveway. “That can’t be the line waiting for a taxi. Not at nine thirty in the morning.”
“No, they’re not waiting for a taxi,” said Nigel.
“It can’t be the breakfast buffet line either. Can it?”
“The breakfast buffet at Bellagio is lovely,” said Nigel, “but I don’t think the line ever extends out the front door.”
As I got out of the cab, I went up to one of the first people in line. “What are all these people waiting for?”
“Are you kidding me?” said the guy dressed in a golf shirt, cargo pants, and big white running shoes.
“No, I’m not kidding. What’s the line about?”
“Gangster-Con! Have you been living in a cave?�
�
I ran inside, pushing the revolving door too fast for Nigel to follow me. I took a hard right at the Dale Chihuly glass sculpture and started jogging past tourists toward the grand ballroom and meeting rooms. They were located—surprise, surprise—on the other side of the casino. I ran past the blackjack tables until I came to a T at the crap pit. I hung a left and kept running. I was almost in the meeting room area now. I was bumping into so many people along the way I hardly noticed when I plowed into one whom I knew.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “I’m in a hurry.” I started to run again, but she grabbed me by the sleeve.
“Do you not know me, my lord?”
“Oh, my God.”
We hugged and I gave her a long kiss on the lips.
“Are you Ganymede or Rosalind today?” I said.
“Neither one.”
“If there be truth in sight,” I said, “you are my wife.”
“I’ll have no husband if you not be he,” she said. As You Like It, Act V, Scene Four. “Come into the ballroom, Joey,” she said. “You won’t believe your eyes.”
Caitlin was right. I didn’t believe them. Even though I was the one in charge of the Bellagio version of Gangster-Con. (Nigel handled the Mirage.) Caitlin and I had made all the arrangements for set decoration, pavilions, booths, posters, flats, and props. Charlie had told me that it was a big hit, bigger than anything we had ever imagined. He told me the advance reservations were twice what we expected. Judging by the long line outside the door, the walk-in traffic was going to exceed our expectations, too.
The grand ballroom was like the one at the Mirage, but much more so. While Nigel had spent ten thousand dollars of Rosetti’s money to set up the mirage at the Mirage, Caitlin and I had spent a hundred thousand decorating and outfitting the Bellagio ballroom.
Gigantic movie posters on huge flats were fifty feet tall. We parked dozens of antique gangster cars around the room. We had a replica of an electric chair set up, so fans could experience the thrill of capital punishment, and a replica of a prison cell, too. I lied to Rosetti about the movie studios and video-game companies not doing gangster stuff anymore. Sony PlayStation had a new gangster game coming out in a few months. They paid us two million dollars for a pavilion promoting it at Gangster-Con. Fox Searchlight was releasing a new gangster film, too, and they gave us three million for a pavilion in the grand ballroom. It was an absurd amount of money to spend on promotion but—what can I say?—that’s Hollywood for you.
The greatest sight of all was the crowd. Thousands of people. Maybe ten thousand—all of them wandering through the ballroom, gawking at the exhibits, lining up for autographs from the actors, writers, and retired mobsters. There must’ve been a hundred people waiting in line to get Jeremiah Pennington’s autograph. I circled the line and came up behind him. I put my arms around his neck while he signed an autograph for a fan and gave him a hug.
“Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,” I said. “And say my glory was that I had such friends.”
“Shakespeare?” he said.
“No. William Butler Yeats.”
“I always get those two mixed up,” said Jerry, and he gave me one of his famous winks.
I moved down the autograph area from behind the tables and thanked the actors, writers, and retired mobsters for being so cooperative this morning.
“What was that dog-and-pony show at the Mirage about anyway, Joey?” said Frank Vincent.
“Oh, just a practical joke on a friend is all. I really appreciate you playing along.”
“I appreciate the extra thousand for doing it,” said Frank.
That’s an actor for you. Tell them to do this, do that, stand here, move there, stay, sit, beg, roll over. They’ll do it. The only question they’ll ever ask is, “How much extra do I get for this?” Most of the time they won’t ask that. They’ll get their agents to do it for them.
Before long, Nigel caught up to me and put his arm around my shoulder.
“It’s even better than we hoped, isn’t it, dear boy?”
“It’s amazing.”
“It’s enough to make me think about going straight,” said Nigel. “Maybe I have some talent as an event planner. When you stop and think about it, it’s not all that different from running the long con.”
“You’d really quit?”
“Not a chance,” said Nigel with a chuckle. “Once a criminal, always a criminal.”
Speaking of criminals, I felt a tap on the shoulder. I turned and saw the man I was expecting. But I wasn’t expecting him so soon. I glanced at my watch. It was half past ten. “You’re here already?”
“It went down quicker than we expected,” said Spags.
“How did it go?”
“Maybe the three of us should go to a bar and talk it over.”
“Can we find a bar open this early in the morning?”
“This is Vegas, Joey. The drunks show up at five in the morning and ask the bartender to drop two eggs in their beer for breakfast.”
“I guess you’re right. Can my wife come along?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. This is man talk, if you know what I mean.”
I found Caitlin and told her that Nigel, Spags, and I had to work out some last-minute details. I asked her to keep an eye on things in the ballroom until we got back. The three of us walked to one of the bars in the casino. We sat down and ordered three screwdrivers—the breakfast of champions.
“So how did it go?” I said.
“Like a wet dream.”
“Tell us about it.”
“I figured he might be up there for an hour or two before the maids found him. Somehow he managed to break out and come downstairs ten minutes after you left. It worked out better that way.”
“Dare I ask what kind of a mood the poor chap was in?” said Nigel.
“Pissed.”
“What did he do?”
“He came running up to me and the other investors. Most of those guys were already mad at him. They got even madder when they heard what he had to say.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“He said he’d been set up. Conned. He said he needed to borrow a gun, because Beason had stolen his pistol. He was going to the airport and sending Paulie to the train station and Carlo to the bus station. He said you two guys were going to try to leave town with the money, but he was going to find you and kill you. And if he couldn’t find you, he knew where your wife and daughter lived. “
“What did you say?” I asked.
“At first, I played along with him. I said, ‘Yeah, we gotta grab those guys before they get away. I want my money back. I’ve got a seventy-five percent share of this thing.”
Nigel chuckled.
“Then Bruno Bianchi looks at me like I just farted at a funeral. He says to me, ‘What do you mean you’ve got a seventy-five percent share? I’ve got a fifty percent share.’”
“It’s Bugsy Siegel all over again,” I said.
“Then Little Angel Santoro chimes in. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he says. ‘I have a sixty percent share.’ ‘Me too,’ says Al Mancini.”
“You mean No Nose?”
“No, No Nickname.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said. “I forgot. I don’t know how you guys remember all these names. It’s like reading a Russian novel.”
“We don’t use the nicknames much ourselves. The newspapers come up with that shit. We use them when we want to break some guy’s balls.”
By breaking balls, I wasn’t sure whether Spags meant pulling someone’s leg or literally rupturing their testicles. I let it go. “What did you say then?”
“I didn’t have to say much after that. The other guys started closing in on him, asking questions. He couldn’t answer most of them. Everybody knew that you and him did that heist in Columbus together. They knew you were partners in crime, so to speak. They put two and two together and assumed you planned this whole con to rip them o
ff.”
“Perfect,” said Nigel. “In my business, Joey, the role Spags played is called The Fixer. His job is to come in at the end and make sure the mark doesn’t go to the cops, or start shooting, or come up with some other way to spoil the job.”
“So what happened to Rosetti?”
“Well, all of us investors had a meeting of the minds. We decided it was time for Rosetti to resign from our organization, if you know what I mean.”
“I thought nobody resigns from the Mafia,” I said.
“They don’t.”
“They made an exception in Rosetti’s case?”
“They did not.”
“What happened?”
“Let’s just say that Tony Rosetti sleeps with the cactuses. Buon anima.”
“Oh, I see,” said Nigel. “What a pity. He was such a charming fellow.”
“What about the others?” I asked. “Are they going to come after Nigel and me?”
“I doubt it. Tony Moretti said something about looking for you guys to get their money back. I volunteered for the job. I told them I’d hunt you guys down. And guess what? I found you!”
“Are you going to kill us now?” I said, half joking.
“Naaah, don’t sweat it. Lay low for a while. Go on vacation. It’ll blow over. If this convention makes a profit, we can give their front money back to them. But it doesn’t matter. They blame Rosetti for this mess, and he paid for it.”
“‘Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges,’” I said. Twelfth Night, Act V, Scene One.
“Apt quote,” said Nigel.
“What does it mean?” said Spags. Ever since the first day I met him in prison, he always asked for a modern translation of my Shakespearean quotes.
I thought about it for a moment and said, “What goes around comes around.”
“Hell,” he said, “that could be the fuckin’ motto of the mob.”
We were quiet for a long time after that. We sipped our screwdrivers, lost in our own thoughts. I was feeling a little guilty, to tell you the truth. I assumed that Nigel and Spags were not. If I knew them as well as I thought I did, Nigel was thinking about all the money he was making and Spags was wondering how Rosetti’s death changed the balance of power in the Philadelphia mob. These are the lives they have chosen, I thought. I felt someone grab my neck from behind and for a moment I thought Rosetti had come back to life to strangle me.
The Don Con Page 26