The Good Guys Page 6

  Bobby got the message. Whoever this professor was, he meant something special to this woman. The last thing she wanted to do was get him hurt. So he shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not.” For emphasis he waved his hands palm-down away from his body, sort of like a football official indicating no catch. “This doesn’t really even have anything to do with him. We just want to find him to ask him a few questions, that’s all it is.”

  She took a long, contemplative drag on her cigarette and exhaled deliberately, watching the swirling smoke trail slowly dissolve. “They don’t like me smoking in here, you know. But I’ve been here longer than the paint, so there isn’t much they can do about it.” She made her decision. “His name is Peter Gradinsky,” she said as she reached for the yearbook, which was still on her desk, “and he’s been missing for almost a week. Here, this is him . . .”

  As they got ready to leave several minutes later, Geri Simon asked Bobby, “When you find him would you tell him to call me, okay? I just want to know he’s okay.”

  “Oh, he’s fine,” Bobby said, dismissing her fears, “don’t worry about it. We do this kind of thing every day. It always turns out good. But I’ll remember to tell him. Thanks.”

  And just before they walked out, Little Eddie took an unopened pack of Salem out of his pocket, literally straight off the truck, and put it down on her desk. “Compliments of the FBI,” he said.

  Bobby had known Eddie since the day he’d walked into the club laughing about being soaked by the dripping air conditioner. And that was pretty much the nicest thing he had ever seen him do.

  But in the car heading back to the social club Little Eddie was furious. “Fuck those no-good fucking bastards,” he screamed, slamming his palm against the leather dashboard. “Who the fuck do they think they are, fucking with us like that? Jesus fucking Christ, that pisses me off.” He leaned back and glanced at Bobby, who was calmly driving. “That ain’t right, Bobby, and you know it.”

  “You’re right, Eddie,” he agreed. “It’s not right.” Bobby liked to keep his anger contained. When it got loose, he knew from experience, real bad things happened. When he lost control, he did stupid things, he didn’t think things through. The last time he’d really lost it, when some motherfucking rope jockey at Xenon tried to make him and Pam wait outside, it had cost him almost $5,000 to square it. Losing his temper was a luxury he couldn’t afford at the current prices.

  But he definitely was angry. Here he was being a nice guy, doing a small favor for people he didn’t know, and all of a sudden he was butting heads with the Federal Bureau of Investigation? The FBI? Where the fuck did that nuclear bomb come from? That was a problem he had not earned on his own. Franzone should have warned him that there was more to this than finding a name. That wasn’t right, what they did. They should have told him the truth, given him all the information. Then let him make his own decision about whether to get involved or take a hike.

  Now whatever it was that was going down, he was connected to it. For example, if this professor’s body floated up onto the shore one day without a head, or if he turned up missing for good, both of which were reasonable possibilities, those agents might decide to have another conversation with the redhead. And where was that going to end up? Bobby licked his lips and told Eddie, “Anyway, there’s nothing we can do about it now. They wanted a name, we got the name for them. Now we’re out of it.” He said it again, this time with finality. “We’re out of it.”

  They drove in angry silence for a few more minutes, until Little Eddie asked, “What do you think this is all about?”

  “Who gives a flying fuck?” Bobby snapped. “Let’s just drop it, that all right with you? They want us to know, they would’ve told us.”

  In the world of organized crime curiosity can end up costing a lot more than a lost temper. In that sense it’s like a military organization. Sometimes you do what you’re told to do without asking questions. You be the good soldier. You do what you’re told based on your strong belief that the larger organization exists for the common welfare, and you as an individual are not considered an expendable part. That the people who ask you to do certain things are going to protect you, whatever that takes. Things can get a little nasty . . . actually a lot nasty when somebody tries to stick out your neck for their business. So Bobby decided to pass along the information he’d learned, keep his mouth shut, pay attention, and see what developed.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t curious. He was. Surprisingly, in a world in which actions were based entirely on the reality of money—the bottom line is always the bottom line—there were a lot of people who still relied on faith, superstition, and gut feelings. Gangster intuition. Members of organized crime might not go to Mass every Sunday, for example, but religion plays an important role in their lives. They pray, they give the sign of the cross at appropriate times, a lot of people wear the crosses they’ve carried most of their lives—and will even kiss them for luck. They contribute regularly to their parish and invoke the help of the Blessed Virgin. Also, some of these people are superstitious. Maybe their things need to be put in exactly the same place every day or they knock three times on wood before leaving for a meeting or maybe they don’t gamble on Friday the 13th. One guy, for example, was so superstitious that for luck every morning before he started his car he’d get down on his hands and knees and look underneath it.

  But almost everybody pays attention to their intuition. If something doesn’t feel right, there probably is a good reason it doesn’t. The people in this business are all professionals. Experienced. Organized crime is one industry in which you don’t survive and move up without being knowledgeable. This is a world replete with danger, so you have to pay close attention to what’s going on around you all the time. You get to notice every ripple in the breeze. Or maybe you detect a slightly different tone in a familiar voice. Or somebody does something just a little bit out of their ordinary behavior. Noticing the little things, and responding to the slightest change, can be a matter of life and ending up in a trunk under the Williamsburg Bridge.

  So Bobby paid attention to the uneasiness he was feeling. It was pretty much impossible to pinpoint the exact cause. It might have been the unexpected presence of the FBI, but it also might have been the body they found. He asked Eddie the question being asked in every club in the city: “What do you make of this thing they did to that crazy fucker, that what’s-his-name, Skinny D’Angelo?”

  At that moment in the office of the New York City coroner an assistant medical examiner was working up a sweat trying to saw through the breastplate of 320-pound Alphonse “Skinny Al” D’Angelo. A day earlier an anonymous telephone caller had informed the NYPD that they would find a “big surprise” in the trunk of a 1982 Ford Granada parked beneath the Williamsburg Bridge. After receiving that call, finding the body really wasn’t much of a surprise.

  D’Angelo had been shot several times at close range with a small-caliber weapon, although none of the wounds were of themselves fatal. But no effort had been made to stem the flow of blood, so D’Angelo died slowly, possibly conscious as his life drained out of him. But before he died, presumably he had been tortured. The killers, again presumably more than one, had stuck lit cigarettes in his ears, which burned through his eardrums, on his testicles and penis. Also, both his arms and one leg and foot had been crushed practically flat by some unknown method. The assistant medical examiner had never seen anything quite like this and could not even begin to speculate on the way this was done. The bones in the victim’s arms and leg had splintered into flat fragments. The only detail released to the news media was that Alphonse D’Angelo, a reputed member of the Genovese crime family, had died of four gunshot wounds to his body.

  What the coroner’s office released to the media or tried to keep private didn’t matter. As it turned out, the assistant medical examiner had a sister-in-law who sold inside information to certain city journalists. Everybody denied this kind of thing happened, but they also knew it was
absolutely true. Reporters paid people for information. And it wasn’t just those crazy weekly scandal sheets, but reporters for the mainstream city tabloids. The reporters, in turn, shared the purchased information with other sources, looking for a headline. So within hours every connected person in New York knew the details of the murder. It was obvious that this wasn’t a sanctioned mob hit, this was somebody else sending a message. But only those few people for whom that message was intended knew what it meant. Or could guess who sent it.

  “D’you know him?” Little Eddie wondered.

  Bobby shook his head. “Heard of him. He was with Two-Gun Tony, over on Bath Street. You know him?”

  “A little. He was around. I used to see him at the Oasis. Big fucking guy, I remember that. I swear to God, Bobby, this guy was so fucking fat that after he took a shower he’d work up a sweat drying off. Shit, a guy like that I woulda bet on him popping his ticker. See, the thing I can’t figure out is how they fit him into that trunk. Even with the little guys that’s tough sometimes, but with a guy that big . . .” Eddie was obviously impressed by the killer’s persistence. “I’ll tell you what, though,” he added, “he must’ve pissed somebody off pretty good. They burned holes in his eardrums and pecker. That’s a tough way to go.”

  Although the possibility of a sudden and violent death was a fact of life for everyone in the business, I never knew anyone who wasted time worrying about it. What could be prevented was prevented. But what is, is. People rarely talked about others being the victim of a hit, except as a matter of professional curiosity. Like the way stockbrokers might talk about ripping off investors. But this hit got their attention because it was so unusual. It wasn’t a mob hit; the families didn’t conduct business this way. They could be brutal when it was necessary, but this was a special kind of torture. It had to come from the outside. So the question became, who on the outside had balls big enough to take on the New York families?

  “Colombians, you think?” Bobby asked.

  “Who knows? They definitely got the cojones. You get in their business, they let you know.” Little Eddie shook his head in wonder and laughed out loud at something only he found amusing. “There’s a lot of crazy motherfucking people walking around out there.”

  As soon as Duke saw them walk through the door, he began steaming milk for the cappuccino. Bobby and the Duke had always had a pretty good relationship. For whatever reasons, Bobby had always watched out for him. Unlike a lot of the other guys, he never made fun of him, and he tipped him a few bucks extra on all the holidays. In the summer he made sure the Duke had a good fan for his closet, and in the winter he got him one of those compact space heaters. In return the Duke tried to do little extra things for Bobby.

  “So, bubelehs,” Tony Cupcakes asked when they sat down at the card table, “you find that professor guy?”

  Eddie answered, “What are you all of a sudden, Charlie fucking Chan?” His eyes settled on the full box of Hostess chocolate cupcakes directly in front of Cupcakes. “Gimme one of those,” he said, reaching long across the table and grabbing at one of them.

  Cupcakes pulled the box out of Little Eddie’s range. “What is it, a big fucking secret? You either did or you didn’t.”

  Eddie answered with his mouth full. “It’s complicated is all. Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  Bobby agreed. “Hey, Cakes, trust me, the man’s doing you a favor. If he told you, he’d have to whack you. Then where would you be?” Knowing that the FBI was involved, Bobby and Little Eddie had no intention of sharing their information with anyone except a boss. It probably was a wiseguy who once said you could know somebody forever, but you never really know them.

  Bobby and Little Eddie were both connected guys, meaning they were involved in the family business but had not yet been made, or literally inducted into the Mafia. There is a formal ceremony, a very secret ceremony, in which the chosen man is made. The day I was made was one of the most fulfilling days of my life. For me, in addition to the responsibilities it carried with it, being made meant that I had earned the respect of my father. It wouldn’t have happened without his approval. He believed I was capable of carrying on the family name. Personally and professionally.

  It was pretty well accepted that Bobby was going to get his badge the next time the books opened up, which is what it’s called when the heads of the families agree to induct new members. It’s also known as being made or “straightened out.” Maybe Eddie too. But as connected guys they were still subject to all the rules and had to pay a percentage of every dollar they earned to their family—although they were not entitled to share in the family profits and didn’t receive the full respect or protection guaranteed to made guys.

  Bobby had decided that the only person he would talk to was Henry the Hammer, Henry Franzone. Franzone generally came into the club to take care of business early in the afternoon and stayed as long as necessary. It wasn’t like the old days, when the boss would sit at a smaller table in a corner of the room and one by one each member of his crew who had business with him would join him. They would share pleasantries, then discuss whatever they had to talk about. Anybody who was planning a job had to go through the details with Franzone, who would then—almost always—grant permission. There was no work done by a member of his crew that Franzone had not personally approved. And when the job was done, Franzone was paid his piece of it.

  In a world where respect has to be earned, Henry Franzone was one of the most respected individuals. He had been around for a long time, ever since coming out of the army after World War II. He had volunteered in 1940 after emigrating to New York from Sicily and fought his way through the entire Italian campaign. He’d won a Silver Star on Monte Cassino but never talked about the details.

  He was easily one of the oldest capos still working actively. As he liked to say in his Italian accent, most people his age were already dead, or at least permanently retired. Henry had survived all those years by keeping his mouth closed, treating people decently, staying clear of family politics, and being just a little tougher than his enemies. Some people said he was the living proof that the good die young.

  Henry was a small man, almost frail-looking, but no one who knew his reputation was fooled by his appearance. Franzone was a stone-cold killer. It was said about him that he could open up a skull with one solid smack. No one really knew how much heavyweight work he had done in his career, but for a time in the 1950s he was considered one of the most ruthless killers in the city. There was nothing that bothered him; he was just as cool walking into a crowded restaurant and putting three slugs into a guy’s head as he was standing out in the middle of a field looking a guy right in the eyes as he smashed his skull with one blow, then pulling out his brains with the claw end of a good Stanley. Around 1968 he pleaded to a trumped-up attempted-murder charge, mostly to avoid a trial that might have implicated an NYPD lieutenant, and did a quiet twelve years. When he came out, he was given control of the Freemont Avenue crew as his reward.

  Most people in the crew respected Henry because he usually found a way to say yes to whatever jobs they were planning. And he had enough experience in the business to be able to offer sensible advice. In a world that was changing rapidly, Henry was a living reminder of the tradition that had brought them all together.

  “I got the name of that professor and where he lives,” Bobby explained when he sat down with Franzone.

  “Dat’s good,” Franzone mumbled in a raspy voice vaguely reminiscent of Brando playing Don Corleone, but actually the result of a lifetime of smoking. “Here. You want some of this calzone? ’T’s good for yas.”

  “No, that’s all right. The guy’s name is Peter Gradinsky. He lives with his wife on West End between 73rd and 74th. He teaches Russian grammar.” He waited for Franzone to respond, but the old man didn’t say a word. “There’s one more thing,” Bobby said finally. “Turns out the FBI’s also looking for this guy. They were all over the place yesterday asking questions.”
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  Franzone rested his elbows on the table, entwined his fingers, and took one very long breath. “Pay attention ’cause I’m gonna tell you something here,” he said. “But this don’t go no further. Right?”

  Bobby nodded his agreement.

  “See, Bobby, there’s some things going down that nobody needs to know about the details right now, you unnerstan’ what I mean? Big things.”

  Trust me is what he meant. Again Bobby nodded.

  “Sos when I ask you do me something, you do it no questions. Now, I want you should do this for me. I want you to go to this guy’s place and talk to his people. If he got a wife, you talk to his wife. Talk to the neighbors. See what you see. But you be nice now, you be good, because we don’t need nobody making no problems for us. Maybe you find out what happened to him. You need to spend on this, that’s all right, we got it covered. Just you be careful what you do. Bobby, listen to me now, this is an important thing I’m asking you. I’m asking you because I trust you. Don’t go fucking up. Capisce?”

  “It’s done.”

  Franzone would never admit it, but the presence of FBI agents, while troubling, did not surprise him. When he first started working in the 1940s, it had been possible to keep the matters of the families private. Omerta. This code of silence was honored by everyone. Absolutely everyone. Betraying the family was the worst sin that could be committed, and for that there was no forgiveness. There weren’t enough Hail Marys in the universe to make it right. You talked, you died. That simple. No appeals. Those were stand-up men, men who accepted responsibility for their actions, who did their time honorably. Now? Fugetaboutit. People get a hangnail they talk. You can’t turn around without bumping into some ambitious prosecutor looking to make his name licking the bones of the families.

  For Franzone the questions to be answered were, how did the FBI find out that this professor was missing and how deep was their interest in him? Admittedly there were several people looking for him, so the information was around. It could have come from anywhere. But for his own safety he would have to assume that it had come out of his club. Either somebody had a big mouth or the government picked up something on a bug. Maybe, he decided, this was a good time to talk to some old friends of the friends who worked downtown.