Find Her a Grave Read online

  Many years ago, still in their teens, they’d tried to hijack a Puerto Rican poker game, he and Tony G.—the “two Tonys.” They’d carried switchblades and iron pipes wrapped in friction tape. One of the players had pulled a gun, an enormous long-barreled revolver, the first gun Bacardo had ever faced. He’d run—and stumbled. And fell. Tony G. could have gotten away clean, but instead he’d turned, come back, shouted something in Spanish to the Puerto Rican with the gun. The Puerto Rican had started, staring at Tony G. Then, amazingly, the Puerto Rican had begun laughing, a wild, loud laugh. Then, with the gun, the Puerto Rican had—

  “—something else,” Venezzio was saying. Still he spoke quietly, evenly—all business. Expectantly, Bacardo looked at the other man. Awaiting orders.

  Once more, Venezzio wrote on the pad.

  Janice Frazer.

  Instantly, Bacardo sensed the significance of the two words, written on the same page beneath Tony G. It was the turning point, Venezzio’s final accounting. Kill Tony G., and that point was made.

  Leaving only Janice Frazer, the name that was never spoken, the woman who never was. Janice, and one name more—the name Venezzio was writing now: Louise.

  “Yes,” Bacardo said, “I understand.” As he said it, the memories returned, taking shape and substance: Janice Frazer, the incredibly beautiful peaches-and-cream waitress, no more than nineteen years old. He and Venezzio had been together when Venezzio had first seen her. Venezzio had been twenty-nine, married to Maria for less than a year, with one child on the way. Maria had been nineteen, too, the same age as Janice. But Maria was the daughter of a Mafia don; Janice was a runaway teenager from the Midwest.

  And Louise was the love baby Janice bore—the baby Janice took with her when she left New York.

  At twenty-nine, Venezzio had only been eight years away from the top job, capo di tutti. Luciano couldn’t stop him, and neither could Genovese.

  Only Janice Frazer could have ruined his chances—Janice and her love baby. Louise.

  “We never talked about them,” Venezzio said. “But everyone knew. You, and everyone else. You knew.”

  “I—” Uncertain how to say it, Bacardo broke off. Then: “I saw her a few times, dropped off a couple of envelopes, like that. After she had her baby.”

  “Ah …” Venezzio nodded. “Yeah. Right.”

  “We never talked about her, though, you and me. Not really.”

  Gesturing to Bacardo’s pocket, Venezzio said, “Turn it on.”

  Nodding, Bacardo withdrew the small pocket radio he always brought with him. He found a music station, golden oldies, and put the radio between them on the couch.

  “A little louder,” Venezzio ordered.

  “Say when.”

  “That’s fine.” For a moment they listened to the soft, syrupy strains of “Deep Purple.” Then Venezzio began to speak.

  “I never lost track of Janice. You know that.”

  Bacardo nodded, a slow, measured inclination of his large, rough-featured peasant’s head. “I knew that, yeah.”

  “Until she had the baby, it was all right to have her in New York. But when she had the baby, she started making demands. So I had to send her away. I waited until the baby—Louise—was six months old, but then Janice had to go. Especially when, Jesus, Maria had Carlo Junior just about the same time. Carlo and Louise, they’re both the same age—thirty-five now.” Venezzio shook his head, an expression of memories remembered with regret. “Life’s funny, you know. Very funny.”

  “Funny. Yeah.”

  “Janice took the kid and went out west. She had relatives out there. So every once in a while, I’d—you know—drop in on her, you know what I mean.”

  This, Bacardo knew, was the story no one else had ever heard—the story no one would ever hear again.

  This was a story with a purpose.

  “Maria, you know—” Venezzio drew a deep breath, began to shake his head. “Maria, as soon as she had Carlo, she started laying it to me. I was pretty much—you know—just starting out then, climbing the ladder, and whenever I did something she didn’t like she’d go to her old man. Don Salvatore always spoiled her, I knew that when I married her. I always figured one reason he never got married after Lucia died was because he was hung up on Maria. Fathers and daughters, you know—it happens.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “But, anyhow, by the time we had Maria—that tells you something, you know, the mother naming her daughter after herself—by that time, that was pretty much it for the marriage. We lived together, went through the motions, but that’s all.”

  “Like almost everyone.”

  “Yeah.” Venezzio smiled, a thinning of his lips, no more. Never had Bacardo seen Venezzio really smile. Or laugh. It was, someone had once said, the secret of his success. If a man smiled, he could forgive. But Venezzio never forgave. Or forgot.

  “But you always had—” Bacardo pointed to Janice’s name in the notebook lying beside the transistor radio.

  In response, Venezzio nodded. “Yeah. Right. I always kept track of her—her and the little girl. And I have to say, speaking of fathers and daughters, I always liked it, being with the girl. She was someone to—you know—give presents to, take to Disneyland, like that.”

  “Sure.” Bacardo said it quietly, sympathetically. Then: “Did you ever go to that other one? Epcot Center?”

  “No.”

  “Amazing. Really amazing.”

  A short silence fell as they listened to Tony Bennett winding up “That Old Black Magic,” one of Bacardo’s favorites. Then Bacardo decided to ask, “So how’re they doing now?”

  “Well …” Venezzio pointed to Janice’s name. “She’s dead. She died about a year ago.” He spoke without inflection, without emotion. “She went out west, like I said. For a while—a few years—she did all right, she and Lou—she and the little girl. I took care of them, saw they had everything they needed. If I couldn’t make it, I’d send someone, make sure she was all right. I sent you, I remember, once or twice.”

  “Twice.”

  “Yeah. Twice. And for a while—years—she was all right. They had a nice house, and the little girl did fine in school and everything. You know—the way most people live, with white picket fences, and a garden, and bicycles on the lawn.

  “But then she started to drink—” Venezzio pointed to Janice’s name. “When she was a girl, her mother drank, and her father was never around. That’s why she left home, because her mother was a drinker. So then, Jesus, she starts drinking.”

  “That happens. It happens a lot. The parents are boozers, so are the kids.”

  “Yeah, well—” Venezzio gestured, an expression of helplessness, of futility. “Well, that’s what happened. She drank herself to death, ruined her liver.”

  “She seemed real nice,” Bacardo offered. “Always real—you know—cheerful, very friendly. Some women—beauties—they aren’t friendly. They figure they got the looks, that’s it.”

  Looking away, lost in memory, Venezzio made no reply.

  “Did she always have the house with the white picket fence?”

  “Always. She always kept it nice, too. And you’re right, she was always cheerful. Some people, you know, they get mean when they drink. Or else they start slobbering. Not her, though. Maybe she’d get a little loud, but that was all.”

  “What about the little girl? She’s thirty-five, you said. Is she married?”

  “She was married, with a child of her own. She’s been married twice. Once it was a divorce, and once her husband died. It was out in Los Angeles. She doesn’t live there now, but that’s where she lived when—” He left the rest of it unsaid. But a glance at Venezzio’s face revealed the rest of it: with a divorce behind her, and now widowed, Venezzio’s daughter was struggling, needed help.

  “What I’ve been doing,” Venezzio said, “I’ve been thinking about this. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Gravely, Bacardo nodded.


  Venezzio picked up the notebook, slipped it in his shirt pocket. He gestured to the radio, which Bacardo switched off.

  “What I want you to do,” Venezzio said, “is think about this too. I want you to figure out a plan, if something happens with my heart. You understand?”

  “I understand. Sure. No problem.”

  “You think, and I’ll think. Come back in ten days, and we’ll talk.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay …” Venezzio nodded, allowed his eyes to momentarily close as he drew a deep, ragged breath. Then he raised his hand, wearily signifying dismissal. Meaning that Bacardo should go to the door of the office and summon a guard.

  “Tell him to get a golf cart,” Venezzio ordered. “I feel like riding.”

  “Sure.” Bacardo rose, hesitated, then decided to touch Venezzio’s shoulder, in sympathy.

  FRIDAY, JULY 19th

  2:20 P.M., EDT

  “NO GOLF CART,” BACARDO said.

  Venezzio nodded as they walked through the door to the small exercise yard, a featureless expanse of concrete surrounded by prison buildings with closely barred windows. Overhead, in the clear, bright July sky, a small formation of birds whirled against the sun. At Venezzio’s request, the exercise yard had been cleared for Bacardo’s visit.

  “No golf cart,” Venezzio answered. “When we talked it was—what—ten days ago?”

  “Yeah. Ten days.”

  “Well, the day after you were here, a couple of heart specialists came.”

  Bacardo nodded. “I know. I just got the bill.”

  “How much?”

  “Plenty. The trip, everything, Jesus, it was something like seven thousand dollars. And then there was another bill from the lab. Those guys, we could take lessons.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever it was, it’s worth it. They really gave me confidence. And they told me the bill would be stiff, for all the business they lost coming here. So pay.”

  “I already paid. I took care of it personally.”

  “All right. Good.” Venezzio gestured, and they began walking slowly together.

  “So what’d they say?” Bacardo asked.

  “They said to start exercising. There’s a treadmill thing that I can hook myself up to, all computerized. I get on that thing, and start walking, and I do what the dials tell me to do. They say walk, I walk. They say stop, I stop. And there’s a tape. When the tape runs out, I send it to the doctors.”

  “So you feel—what—okay?”

  “Better than okay. I’m eating two meals a day, no meat but a little fish and skinned chicken. No booze, not even wine with dinner. And I feel fine. I’ve lost six pounds since I saw you.” As he spoke, Venezzio changed their direction. Soon they were in the center of the yard. With their backs to the windows of the buildings that surrounded them on three sides, the only place of concealment for directional mikes, they could talk business.

  “Tony G.” Venezzio said. “So far, so good, eh?”

  “Tony wasn’t so well liked, it turns out.”

  “Who’d you take along? Caproni?”

  Bacardo shook his head. “I decided to take Maranzano. He’s—well—he’s steady, on something like that. Besides, Caproni and Cella, they get together once in a while.”

  “Cella. Yeah. I was going to ask you about Cella. It’s been—what—six days since Tony died?”

  “Yeah. Six.”

  “Did you talk to Cella afterwards?”

  “The next day. We had clams, pasta, a bottle of wine. Great lunch. Fuchini’s, you know.” In tribute Bacardo shook his head. “The way they do clams, with garlic and white wine, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “So Cella’s all right about Tony G.”

  “As far as I could see, no problems. He insisted on picking up the check. Absolutely insisted. So that says something. Plus, he sends you his best regards.”

  “Ah … good.” Venezzio nodded. Then: “Tony’s funeral, I hear it was first-class.”

  Bacardo considered. “It was okay. I mean, everything we could do, we did. But I was expecting more people.”

  “His family—what, three children?”

  “Four.”

  “Take care of them. The whole works. College, everything.”

  “Right.”

  “Let’s walk a little. We can walk along the wall. If they’re using a shotgun mike, it’s still okay along the wall.”

  “Sure.”

  As they began to walk, Venezzio said, “About Louise, what we talked about last time.”

  “You’re thinking you want to get enough money to her so if anything happens to you, she’ll be okay. Is that it?”

  “She and her kid, yeah. Her little girl. Christ—” Venezzio shook his head. “Christ, she’s fifteen already. Fifteen.” In wonderment, he shook his head.

  Bacardo smiled. “So. You’re a grandfather.”

  Another incredulous shaking of the head.

  “So she was—what—nine, ten, the last time you saw her?”

  “Nine.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Angela.”

  “Nice name.”

  “She’ll be twenty-five before I get out of here. And I’ll be seventy-five.”

  “Well,” Bacardo said, “I’ll be sixty-five.”

  “Jesus. Time. That’s the real enemy, you know. Time.”

  They walked in silence for several paces. Finally Bacardo said, “Well, it shouldn’t be so hard. Get some money together, start feeding it to her. She invests it right, she’ll be all set. Both of them.”

  “Except that I don’t want her to have anything until I die. It’ll be—you know—like a will, for her.”

  Startled, Bacardo looked at the other man. In their organization, nothing was written down. Ever. No records were kept. Ever.

  “I don’t mean a real will. Relax.”

  “Ah …” Bacardo nodded.

  “What I mean, Louise’s no good with money. She gets with some guy, he starts sucking away, and pretty soon she’s broke. So I want to fix it so she’ll have it when I die, but not before. Or anyhow, not till I say it’s all right.”

  “How’re you going to do that?”

  “I thought you were figuring out something,” Venezzio said.

  “I was. But I wasn’t figuring on any delay. I thought you were talking about now, give it to her now.”

  “Okay. Forget about the delay. What’d you figure?”

  “Well, I was figuring maybe get together some money, but mostly jewels. Unmounted jewels, that’s better than gold.”

  Venezzio nodded. “Okay. So then what?”

  “Well, where’s she live? In California?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. So we collect, just to say something, let’s say a couple of hundred thousand in old money. Then we get, say, eight hundred thousand in jewels. Good jewels.”

  “I was thinking a million and a half. But the jewels, that’s good.” Approvingly, Venezzio nodded. “They’re better than cash, if there’s inflation. And lighter than gold.” He nodded again.

  “And easier to sell, if you do it right. Gold, there’s a paper trail a lot of times.”

  “Okay,” Venezzio said. “We get the jewels. Then what?”

  “Well, I was thinking she should get maybe five safe-deposit boxes, in different cities, whatever. And—”

  “I don’t know.” Dubiously, Venezzio shook his head. “Safe-deposit boxes—all it takes is a judge and a court order, and the feds’re all over you.”

  “Yeah, but she’s clean, isn’t she?”

  Emphatically, Venezzio nodded. “She’s clean. Absolutely.”

  “Okay—well—safe-deposit boxes, that’s only one idea I had. The other idea, I had something fancy.”

  Venezzio frowned. “Fancy? What?”

  “We give her a house, and hide the stuff in it. You know—in the walls, under the floor, whatever. When the time comes, I tell her where to look.” Bacardo spread his hands. “No problem.”
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br />   As Venezzio considered, he gestured for them to turn, begin another lap, walking parallel to the wall. Finally he shook his head. “It might leak out. You know—carpenters, whatever.”

  “We must have somebody can hammer a nail. That’s all it’d take.”

  “I want only one guy in on this. You. Or maybe one other guy, if we need him. But I’ve got to know this other guy. And I don’t know any carpenters.”

  “This whole thing, it isn’t easy. I mean, if you want me to put a million five together, get somebody to ride shotgun, and we get on a plane and I fly out to California, or wherever, that’s one thing. But if you want to stash the stuff until, God forbid, you die, that’s something else. And you can’t write it down, ‘open on my death,’ anything like that. So that means when the time comes—maybe a year from now, maybe five, ten, twenty years from now—I find her and I say—”

  “No. That’s wrong. We’re just talking about when I’m in here. Ten years. No more.”

  “Okay. Ten years. So what’m I going to do, put the stuff in my hall closet for ten years? Do I want that responsibility? Let’s face it, some of the guys—Cella, let’s say, he finds out …” He let it go ominously unfinished.

  “No,” Venezzio said. “I’m not saying any hall closet. But the stuff’s got to be safe.”

  “For ten years, safe? Without even Louise knowing?” Bacardo shook his head. “Things happen in ten years. Let’s say, God forbid, you should die in here. So then Cella decides, hey, he’ll whack me, make his move. So what then? Where’s Louise then, if—?”

  “Wait.” Venezzio held up a hand. “Wait, I think I know a way.”

  “Hmmm.” Deliberately, Bacardo let the skepticism show. Was Don Carlo losing it?

  “I’m going to figure someplace for the stash. I’ll decide on one guy to handle it. He’ll know where he’s stashing something, but he won’t know what it is. All he’ll know is that he’s doing something for me. So—” Venezzio broke off, letting the words catch up to the thoughts. His eyes had sharpened, working out the plan, seeing how it would go. His voice, too, was sharpening: “So you’ll collect the stuff, and get it ready. So then our guy, the one I pick, he gets the bundle from you. He doesn’t know what’s in it, and you don’t tell him. It’s just a bundle, period. He takes the bundle, does what I tell him to do. So after he’s done the job, you come here. I give you four or five words, whatever. Then I tell Louise to come here, later. I’ll give her four or five words, too, to put together with the words you’ve got. So you put them together, and you know where the bundle is.”