The Good Guys Page 14

  She was freezing. She had cracked open a window in her bedroom when she got home, and now she was standing there naked and wet. That’s fine, she decided, cold keeps you alert. Holding the gun with both hands, she eased her way along the wall, moving toward the door. If possible, she wanted to get a look at the intruder through the peephole. He was still there—she could hear him muttering as he worked the lock. She leaned against the door and with her left hand reached for the peephole.

  “Fuck,” he snapped angrily. “Fuck—” His words sliced through the door. He was inches away from her. The width of the door. Two, three inches at most. She held her breath. “—This bullshit.” His voice had a meanness to it. It was gruff, threatening. Dirty. She thought she recognized it from the Country Club sessions but couldn’t be certain.

  She exhaled. She took another deep, soothing breath and slid open the peephole—just in time to see the muscular back and shiny long black hair of a tall man disappear down the stairs. She leaned against the door and put on the safety. She relaxed. The sound of the exterior door slamming shocked her back into action. She moved quickly through the living room to the front windows. As she pulled back the blinds, she heard a car door slam. She scanned the street, but it took her several seconds to find the car. It was a dark sedan. From that height she couldn’t identify the make or model. It looked like some type of sports model, but she couldn’t even be certain of that. The driver pulled out from the curb and took off down the block. The car was already moving before he turned on the lights.

  The traffic signal on the corner had just turned red when the car reached the end of the block. The driver paused to check traffic, then made a left turn through the red light. And was gone.

  It was several minutes before she turned on a light. And then she turned on all the lights in the apartment and picked up the phone to call O’Brien.

  SEVEN

  The day had not started well for Bobby Blue Eyes. He had about four million things that needed to get done and instead he found himself sitting in a headmaster’s office listening to this guy blabbing about the many benefits of Manhattan Poly’s enrichment program. Yeah, Bobby thought, and I bet I know who gets the main benefit. You get my $15,000 to teach a ten-year-old which fork to use on the salad. Personally he thought the whole thing was ridiculous. They were going to be studying the same gravity he’d studied back at St. Margaret’s, and no matter how much tuition you paid, what went up still came right down. Enrichment program? Enpoorment program was more like it. As far as he was concerned, it was just more of that liberal bullshit.

  But there he was, sitting quietly and looking happy about paying $15,000 tuition. He was there because Ronnie insisted he be there. She made very few demands on him, but about this she was adamant: Whatever it cost, Angela was going to get the best possible education. That was the price of peace in his home and he knew he had to pay it.

  He didn’t like being judged, though, and that was exactly what it felt like this headmaster was doing. “We’re a national product transportation company,” he’d explained when asked about his job as the vice president of A&I Trucking, adding, “I think it’s fair to say that we’re well known all over the country for moving hazardous materials.” That statement was totally accurate, if perhaps a bit short on the details. A&I was known by prosecutors in eight states primarily for moving steel drums containing chemical waste products into toxic dumps.

  Mostly they discussed Angela, who was sitting between Bobby and Ronnie chewing on a straw. While her grades in her previous school, St. Mary’s of Brooklyn, were slightly below average, when Bobby casually mentioned a few of the right names and promised they would call him directly, the headmaster complimented Angela’s consistency. As the meeting ended, the headmaster explained that while he couldn’t make any promises, pointing out that there were a limited number of places available for new students, Angela would receive every possible consideration.

  As they drove home, Bobby asked Ronnie, “You want her going there?” She did, she said. “Okay, then. She’s in. Case closed.”

  “Yeah, right, Mr. Magician,” she said sarcastically. “Like you know.”

  Bobby shrugged a “what do you want from me?” shrug. It was a pretty amazing thing: Fourteen years they’d been together and Ronnie still did not fully appreciate the power generated by the organized crime families of New York City. Bobby didn’t care, let her be in the dark. But the fact was that nothing that happened in the city was beyond the reach of the families. Nothing. Unions, cops, politicians, tables at exclusive restaurants, publishing, admission to exclusive schools, tickets for anything from Broadway to Yankee Stadium, all of them were for sale. The city worked because the people whose responsibility it was to make it work understood this and made the proper accommodations. Bobby didn’t fool himself into believing that he himself had the power to get Angela into Manhattan Poly—that important he wasn’t—but as a respected individual he could ask that the necessary telephone calls be made and they would be made.

  He put Ronnie and Angela in a cab and headed out to Queens to pay his respects to Skinny Al’s family. Franzone had asked him to represent the crew at the funeral. Franzone had also sent enough flowers to bury a battalion. This was still pretty early in the day for Bobby; in his life mornings generally weren’t considered prime time. As Little Eddie once explained to him, “Late nights and mornings go together like homos and hookers.”

  Bobby was through the Midtown Tunnel and on the Expressway before he picked up the tail. What surprised him was not that he was being followed, but rather that whoever it was, was driving a great car. Usually the feds drove “vehicles,” boring boxes on wheels with all the excitement of a dark green Dodge sedan. But this tail was driving a charcoal-gray Firebird. That was a really nice car, really nice. Bobby’d looked at buying one himself when they introduced the sloping nose design in 1983, but the elegant design just made it too easy to pick out of a getaway race. He was actually angry with himself that he hadn’t spotted the tail sooner, as he made it a habit to regularly check his mirrors. He didn’t know when they’d got on his ass; he guessed it had to be when he dropped off the wife and kid at the house, but there was no question they were there. He sped up, slowed down, changed lanes, played ticky-tack with his signals, but no matter what he did, they stayed comfortably in their slot, three cars back and—when possible—one lane to the right.

  Bobby waited until the last possible minute, then sliced through two lanes to get over to the Van Wyck ramp. The Firebird stayed with him. Jerks. One thing for sure, they weren’t trying to hide their presence. It took him a little while to figure out the ploy: Only after they’d followed him through several turns did he realize that the Firebird was the decoy. He was supposed to spot it. A third car, the traditional dark sedan, was trailing the Firebird. That was the real tail he was dragging along. It’s a fucking wagon train, he thought. After the Firebird dropped back, the dark sedan would take its position. That was supposed to fool him? That was a pretty funny idea. Two cars, that definitely appealed to his ego: He was so important that they assigned two cars—actually a car and a “vehicle”—to track him to a funeral.

  Bobby had been tailed several times previously. He’d play the game depending on how he felt at that moment. Sometimes he tried to lose them, sometimes he’d let them come along for the ride. It didn’t seem to make any difference in the outcome. He figured they did it because that’s the way they had always done it. It was like moving clockwise in Monopoly: It didn’t actually make any difference which way you moved around the board, but the rules of the game had to be respected and followed. But these people tailing him were an embarrassment to the whole cops. They didn’t even have enough respect for the rules to pretend they weren’t following him.

  Actually it was a pretty funny thing. The funeral was being held at the Linden Brothers Funeral Home off Grand Avenue. Bobby had been to Maspeth maybe five times in his entire life and didn’t really know his way around there.
He knew the funeral parlor was off 62nd Street and figured he could find it. How hard could it be? He found 54th Street and turned right, watching the street numbers get higher. Unfortunately he turned left on 62nd Road by mistake. He figured the sign was making the mistake. How could they be stupid enough to have a street and a road with the same number that weren’t the same one? But they did. He tried to correct his mistake by doubling back and he got lost. And then he got angry because he was lost, so he drove faster, which caused him to get even more lost. He started cursing the bastard cafone who figured out they should name the street and the road the same number just to confuse people. Within a few minutes he was completely lost in Queens, mad at everybody.

  And the two cars tailing him followed as he made every single wrong turn. He kept going. They kept going. There was no way he was going to stop and ask for directions. He never asked for directions. He wasn’t an ask-for-directions kind of guy. He could find his own way. He didn’t care how long it took—Skinny Al could be Skeleton Al by the time he found it, but he would find it.

  Suddenly the dark sedan sped up, passed the Firebird, and, finally, passed Bobby. He didn’t get a clean look at who was driving, he just saw two people in the front. The sedan cut into his lane about thirty feet in front of him. The driver slowed down and put on his blinker. Bobby figured out what they were doing and smiled. Then he put on his blinker. Then the Firebird put on its blinker. Obviously the FBI knew where he was heading. That was not much of a surprise—where else would he be going at eleven o’clock on a Thursday morning? More important at that particular moment, they knew how to get there.

  The sedan led them right to the Linden Brothers. When they got there, the driver of the sedan parked at a hydrant directly across the street from the funeral parlor. Bobby pulled into the parking lot, which was filling up fast. The Firebird followed him but parked in the back of the lot. Bobby watched as two men, both neatly dressed in tailored dark suits, got out of the car and went inside. The driver was tall and dark, well tanned; his passenger was considerably smaller, with very short blond hair and extremely broad shoulders. Who the fuck are those guys? he wondered.

  The Linden Brothers was crowded. As Bobby walked in, he respectfully took off his white hat. There were two funerals, but only a few elderly people were there for the Schwartz service. The second chapel was packed for Skinny Al.

  A mob funeral is a social occasion at which at least some business is conducted. There are rules to be followed. Certain people are required to be present, among them his boss, members of his crew, his family and friends. As Skinny Al wasn’t a boss, Henry Franzone was not required to be there. While Bobby didn’t fit into any of those categories—he wasn’t with Cosentino and wasn’t friends with the victim—he was welcomed as the official representative of Franzone’s crew. An ambassador of respect.

  Two large men wearing sunglasses flanked the entrance to the chapel. Bobby recognized one of them as Jackie Fats, whom he’d known casually for maybe ten years. Fats was bouncing up and down nervously. Bobby walked over and shook his hand. “Jackie,” he said.

  “Good to see youse,” Fats responded. “Go ’head in.”

  The room was buzzing. Men were gathered in small groups at the back of the chapel. A closed mahogany coffin covered with flowers stood on two trestles at the front of the room. Bobby went forward, bowed, and paid his respects, then joined the mourners in the back of the room.

  Bobby looked around, spotting several familiar faces. He saw Cosentino in the middle of the side aisle and started walking toward him. This was protocol; he would convey the deep sympathy of Henry Franzone and his people at the untimely death of Al D’Angelo. But as he got closer, he saw that Cosentino was talking to two men—the two men from the Firebird. Cosentino was facing the rear doors, looking toward Bobby, so their backs were to him. But their suits were unmistakable. Whoever those guys are, Bobby decided, definitely they’re not FBI. Another guy, a soldier Bobby had met a couple of times named Jimmy or Johnny something, was watching over the group. Bobby stopped, waiting for permission from him to proceed. He was standing only a few feet away from them, close enough to overhear bits and pieces of conversation. So he didn’t even have to strain to hear their heavy Russian accents.

  He looked down and cleared his throat, trying to hide his surprise. Russian? Bobby didn’t know Russian, but he’d seen enough movies and watched enough television to recognize the accent. Whatever was going on, it was now officially crazy. Why were there Russians at Skinny Al’s funeral? And why were those Russians following him? He kept his eyes averted, not wanting Cosentino to think he was listening to a private conversation.

  After standing there for several minutes he was beginning to feel uncomfortably exposed and maybe just a little bit insulted when Cosentino and the two Russians laughed loudly and shook hands. The Russians turned and started walking right toward him. As they passed him, one of them, the stocky guy with a blond buzz cut and a pockmarked face, glanced at him and immediately looked away. It happened much too quickly for Bobby to even guess whether or not the guy had recognized him. As he turned to take another look at the Russians, he heard a deep voice commanding, “Mr. Cosentino is ready for ya.”

  Bobby pasted on a disarming smile and moved forward. As he did, Jimmy or Johnny whispered something in Cosentino’s ear, probably Bobby’s pedigree. Cosentino grasped Bobby’s hand firmly and accepted his condolences and, still holding Bobby’s hand, pulled him closer. “How’s it going?” he whispered. “That thing you’re doing?”

  “It’s okay,” Bobby told him. “We got some interest.”

  “That’s good. But see, don’t take too long. This thing, it’s gotta be done by next Thursday night. You unnerstand what I mean, right? It’s gotta be done by then.”

  “I understand, Mr. Cosentino,” Bobby said.

  Cosentino released Bobby’s hand and took a step backward. “Maybe you need some more help, huh?”

  “No, we’re doing okay,” he said. Thursday? That was a week, not a lot of time. But for some reason next Thursday was a big day.

  “That’s good, that’s good,” Cosentino said, tapping him lightly on the cheek to indicate their brief conversation was finished.

  Bobby sat through the service. According to the priest, Skinny Al was a pillar of respectability. He gave to the church, he was nice to his friends, and he worked hard to earn a living for his family. It was a speech long on platitudes, short on details. Skinny Al’s brother, a civilian, gave a nice little talk, telling a funny story about the Thanksgiving when Skinny Al almost choked to death. Al was so big, the brother explained, that no one could get their arms far enough around him to give him the Heimlich, so instead, they punched him in the solar plexus, dislodging a chunk of bread. By the time he was finished speaking, he was laughing so hard at the memory that tears were rolling down his face. Bobby noticed the Russians leaving early, but at least 150 other people stayed. It was not the kind of room in which you spent a lot of time looking around, but the day did have the feeling of a team reunion to it. People in this business may not become close friends, but through the years they do business with a lot of different people.

  As the service droned on—several cousins felt it was necessary to tell not-so-funny Skinny Al stories—Bobby sat there trying to figure out what the hell was going on: With all the heavyweights in this room why did Cosentino farm out the work to another crew? What was going on that he didn’t want his own people involved? Why were those Russians following him? And why did they make themselves so visible at Skinny Al’s funeral? Things like that didn’t just happen. Their showing up at the funeral had a motive and had to have been approved by Cosentino himself. And where did the FBI fit into the whole thing?

  Like theme music running softly in the background of a movie, the reality against which everything in the world of organized crime takes place is the possibility of sudden death. Just like what happened to Skinny Al, although based on the damage done, it had to be semisudd
en. It’s always there, always bubbling just below the events of the day. So Bobby carefully measured all of these questions to determine if they added up to some type of threat against him.

  It didn’t seem like it. If somebody wanted to whack him, they would try to get permission to whack him, and if they did, then they would whack him. It wasn’t any more complicated than that. There was no reason to go through all these shenanigans. But as he reviewed the last six months of his life, the last year even, he couldn’t think of a single thing he’d done—to anybody—that would put his life in jeopardy.

  In fact, it was pretty much a time of peace in the mob. There were always certain beefs, there were always some people ready to complain that they weren’t being treated fairly, there were always disputes about territory or splits, that was the natural order of things. But overall the families were doing well; business was good, people were earning, and nobody more than necessary was getting hurt. Even the recent recession that the whole country had stumbled through hadn’t put a dent in business. People always want to gamble. They always want girls. They always want bargains. They want to drink, they want drugs, they want what they want when they want it. And when the national economy is bad, people always need to borrow money. It was simple economics: demand and supply. What the people demanded the mob supplied.

  As Bobby walked out of Linden Brothers, he noticed that the dark sedan was still parked across the street. By this time several other nondescript sedans were also parked there. Law enforcement always turns out for a mob funeral. As Bobby walked toward his car, he put on his sunglasses—then suddenly changed direction and walked directly across the street to the dark sedan. Even from a distance he could see two men sitting in the front seat. One of them was black, which was still somewhat of a novelty in this part of the crime world. Hey, Bobby thought, it’s pin-the-tail-on-the-honky time, and laughed to himself.