Find Her a Grave Page 5

  “But then how do I—I mean—” Once more, hesitantly, she broke off. Then, more resolutely: “But if you should die, then how—” She bit her lip, began to shake her head.

  He took his notebook and pen from a jacket pocket. He wrote three words, then held the notebook angled so she could see the words he’d written: “Don’t say anything out loud,” he whispered. “There’s directional microphones. They can pick up a pin drop. So just look. Memorize these three words.” Holding the notebook, he watched her lips move, mouthing the words.

  “Okay?” He closed the notebook.

  “Y-yes.” She spoke cautiously, her voice pitched low. Fixed on his face, her eyes were large and anxious. “But how—?”

  “Tony. He’s got three words, too. If I die, the two of you get together. He’ll come to you, where you live. So you should just sit tight, wait for him. The two of you, you’ll go get the package. Tony’ll help you, tell you what to do.”

  Tentatively, she nodded. Then, venturing cautiously: “But what if Tony finds out my three words, and then he—”

  “He won’t,” Venezzio interrupted curtly. “Forget it. There’s only one person I trust, and that’s Tony.”

  “But you’d be—I mean, you couldn’t—”

  “I’d be dead, is that what you’re trying to say?”

  Chastened, she nodded.

  “The answer is, Tony’s already out on a limb on this one. A couple of guys in New York—dons—if they knew about this, Tony’d die. It’s what I said before, about whose money it is that bought those jewels.”

  “But you’re the boss. You run things.”

  “I run things as long as I play by the rules. It’s the same for me as anybody else. I don’t kid myself. There’s one of the dons—Cella—if he doesn’t like what I do, the decisions I make, well …” Venezzio shrugged, looked away.

  “Will he take over, after you? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Venezzio nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” It was the first time he’d said it out loud, admitted that, yes, Cella was waiting—and watching. At the thought, he felt a sudden weariness, a quick, piercing chill. Without looking at his daughter, he flipped the toggle that switched on the golf cart’s electric motor. “It’s getting cold.”

  “I know,” she answered. “I know.”

  MONDAY, MAY 19th

  1:10 P.M., EDT

  “HERE.” MARANZANO POINTED AHEAD through the windshield. “Turn right.”

  Behind the wheel, Fabrese nodded, flicked the Oldsmobile’s turn indicator.

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes,” Maranzano said, “and we’re there.”

  “Do we both go in?”

  Maranzano shook his head. “It’s only when Bacardo does it that two people go inside.”

  “That’s when they’re carrying,” Fabrese said. “You know—suitcases.” As he said it, Fabrese looked aside at Maranzano, briefly searching the other man’s face for a reaction. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, Maranzano made no response. Always, with Fabrese, there was an angle, a hustle. Fabrese was almost thirty-five years old, and still a soldier, nothing more, driving the car and asking questions he shouldn’t be asking, looking for yet another angle, another way in. But their organization was like any other business. By age forty, you were either on the fast track or else you were passed over, given the shit jobs, an embarrassment. Couldn’t Fabrese see it? Couldn’t he see what was happening, who was on the fast track, who wasn’t? Like today. Right now. Right here. Two days ago, Maranzano had gotten the word from Bacardo: Don Carlo had a job for him. Meaning that today at two o’clock he was to be at the prison gate, stating his business: an appointment with Mr. Venezzio. “Don’t call him the don,” Bacardo had cautioned. “Not when you talk to the guards.”

  He would be taken to the don. He would be greeted according to his rank: a new capo, not yet forty years old, a comer. Then, saying as little as possible, he would receive his orders, learn of his mission.

  “Remember,” Bacardo had warned, “keep looking in his eyes. The don doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t look him square in the eye.”

  In a half hour, probably, he would be back in the car. Fabrese would be waiting to drive them away from the prison.

  Fabrese, his driver …

  At the thought, covertly, he smiled. Perks, they were called. Little things that meant nothing—and everything. It’s who opens the doors for who, Luciano had said once. That’s what it’s all about, who opens the doors.

  2:20 P.M., EDT

  SEEING MARANZANO WALKING BETWEEN the rows of parked cars, Fabrese leaned across the front seat, tripped the door latch, pushed the passenger door open. Maranzano was moving as he always moved: compactly, purposefully, with his head slightly lowered, his short, muscular arms tight to his sides, like he was ready to throw a quick punch. Maranzano was one of those short, stocky men who looked bigger than he really was. His head was large, covered with thick black hair, always perfectly barbered. Everything about his dark, Sicilian face and head was thick: a short, thick neck, thick nose and brows, thick lips, a wide, thick jaw. His small eyes were black, sunk deep in the face.

  As Maranzano slipped into the car and pulled the door closed, Fabrese started the engine, backed out of the parking place, began driving away from the prison. They drove for a time in silence. Finally Fabrese said, “So how’d it go?”

  “It went fine.”

  “The don—how’s he doing? I mean, everyone knows he’s had heart trouble. They say—”

  “He looks fine. As good as ever. Better, maybe.”

  “How much longer has he got inside? Nine, ten years?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “He’s—what—sixty-five, something like that?”

  “Yeah.”

  Fabrese looked at the other man, studied the dark, closed face, those black eyes that seemed never to blink. Appearance, he knew, was important. You looked like a mafioso, people paid attention. Never mind Venezzio, who looked like he could be a tailor. Never mind Cella, who looked like he should be teaching school—or hearing a confession. And Bacardo, who looked like a farmer—and thought like one, too. But the old-timers—Luciano and Costello and Anastasia—they looked the part. And, now, Maranzano: another Sicilian who looked the part. And, yes, acted the part. Think big, he’d once read. Think success. Meaning that the way you thought about yourself, your self-image, that’s the way people saw you.

  So here they were: him doing the driving, Maranzano trying out his new job. Maranzano, the family’s newest capo.

  They’d grown up in the same neighborhood, hung around the same places. Pitched pennies together, rooted for the Yankees, chased the girls. Always, from the first, they’d wanted to be what they were right now: connected, part of the organization, their thing. La Cosa Nostra, the papers had called it.

  Except that he’d been ordered to wait in the car, a flunky, while Maranzano, in his new suit and gleaming white shirt and fifty-dollar tie, had just seen Don Carlo.

  Had it been one on one, the don and Maranzano? Had it been—what—a ceremony, congratulations from the big man, something every new capo got?

  Or had it been a job?

  “Bacardo wants to step down,” Don Carlo could have said. “He wants to retire, take it easy, maybe go to Florida, where it’s warm.” And then the question, asked in Venezzio’s thin, reedy voice: “So I was thinking about you, to take Bacardo’s place. I’m thinking new blood, the newest capo, the new number one. What d’you say?”

  Fabrese took his foot from the accelerator, let the car slow for the four-way stop ahead. At the intersection he saw a gas station, a fruit stand, and a boarded-up restaurant. In the desolate, low-lying countryside that surrounded the prison, there were no other structures in sight, no other signs of life.

  As the car came to a stop, Maranzano pointed to the gas station. “Pull in there, see if they’ve got a pay phone.”

  Resentful of the other man’s clipped tone
of command, Fabrese answered in kind, short and not so sweet: “Right.”

  “Where’re the quarters?” Maranzano asked, still talking like a capo, not like a friend from the old days.

  “In the glove compartment.” Fabrese brought the car to a stop on the concrete apron of the gas station, close beside a weather-beaten phone booth.

  “Sit tight.” Maranzano put a handful of quarters in his jacket pocket, swung the passenger door open, walked to the phone booth, called Bacardo, who was waiting for the call.

  “Hello, Tony.” To be sure Bacardo recognized his voice, Maranzano spoke very distinctly.

  “How’re you doing?” Yes, Bacardo knew who was calling—and why.

  “I’m fine. We’re all set here.”

  “You know what to do, then.”

  “No problem.”

  “When d’you want to come by?”

  “How about tomorrow morning? Eight o’clock?”

  “So early?”

  “I thought I’d pick it up, then go right to the airport. But if you want to make it later—” He let it go unfinished.

  “No. Eight’s fine. I’ll give you some coffee. And a blintz, too. I’ve got a great bakery for blintzes.”

  Maranzano decided to chuckle, one capo to another, free and easy, trying it out: “Blintzes. That’s Jewish, Tony.”

  “Okay. Snails. Whatever.”

  “I—ah—” Maranzano hesitated. “I was wondering how big it is? How heavy?”

  “It’s about five inches by twelve inches, a tube. The weight—I’m no good at guessing weight. But I’d say maybe ten pounds, give or take.”

  “That’s fine. I was thinking, is all, if it’s fifty pounds, something like that, then I’d have to make plans.”

  “No. Fifteen pounds. No more.”

  “Well, that’s fine. So—eight o’clock. You’re sure that’s okay, so early?”

  “It’s fine. Eight o’clock.”

  TUESDAY, MAY 20th

  8 A.M., EDT

  “VERY NICE,” FABRESE SAID, bringing the Oldsmobile to a stop in the wide combed-gravel driveway. “Has he got his own dock?”

  “I think so. He’s crazy about boats.”

  “It’s hard to imagine, Tony belonging to a yacht club, all those Ivy Leaguers.”

  Ignoring the remark, Maranzano glanced at his watch: good, exactly eight o’clock. “I’ll just be ten, fifteen minutes. Then we’ve got to haul ass for the airport. Ten minutes after ten, my flight leaves. So that’s nine-thirty I’ve got to be there.”

  “The rush hour—” Fabrese shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know. It’ll be an hour and fifteen minutes to Kennedy.”

  Without comment, Maranzano swung open the passenger door and walked down the driveway. Fabrese watched him move, that cocky, compact walk, eyes straight ahead, concentrating. Every day, Maranzano was coming on stronger, pulling the feeling closer around him, getting deeper into his part: the capo, don’t fuck with the capo. Yesterday, a trip to the prison, everything hush-hush. The conference with Venezzio, the man himself. Followed by the phone call from the gas station, probably to Bacardo, passing the word along to Venezzio’s top gun outside, no time to waste. And now, ahead, Bacardo coming out on the front porch of his big two-story brick-and-stone house on the water, shaking hands and gesturing for Maranzano to come in. Bacardo, still in his pajamas and bathrobe.

  Them that had, got. And Maranzano was getting. Fast. Two weeks ago he’d been a soldier, taking orders, driving his own car, holding doors for the dons, even for the capos, if that’s the way it worked out. Sometimes, like Luciano had said, that’s what it all came down to: who held the doors for who, and who had to smile, whether the joke was good or bad.

  Ten, fifteen minutes, Maranzano had said.

  Fabrese turned in the seat to look at the sun coming off Long Island Sound, the water sparkling beneath a clear, high sky. He’d heard about Tony Bacardo’s boat, a big cabin cruiser. Someday—someday soon, maybe—Maranzano would be invited out on that boat, drinking beer, wearing a yachting cap, one of those blue caps with the embroidered ship’s wheel and anchor, hot shit.

  Now Fabrese twisted, looked into the back seat where Maranzano had put his suitcase and his topcoat. He’d been wearing the topcoat when he came out of his apartment building, carrying the suitcase. Before he’d gotten into the car, in front, he’d taken off the topcoat. He’d carefully checked the inside pocket, then he’d folded the topcoat neatly, laying it across the rear seat cushion, with the suitcase on the floor.

  Meaning that, in the inside pocket of the topcoat, Maranzano had probably put his airline ticket.

  Ten, fifteen minutes …

  Coffee, maybe, with Bacardo, a few minutes to get their signals straight, make sure Maranzano understood whatever job Venezzio had given him—whatever job would take him out of town.

  Out of town where?

  The answer, Fabrese knew, could be imprinted on the airline ticket.

  It was unusual for a New York capo to go out of town on business.

  So unusual that Cella, for one, might want to know.

  He turned, looked at the house. From any one of a half dozen windows, it would be possible for someone to see him as he rested his right arm casually on the back of the front seat—

  —and then, still casually, dropped the arm down behind the seat—

  —as he was doing now.

  For a long moment, watching the house, his arm behind the seat, concealed, he sat motionless.

  Then, as his fingers found the topcoat, camel hair, soft to the touch, he moved his head again, to look at the coat. Working awkwardly with only the one hand, he folded back one of the lapels to expose the inside breast pocket. Yes, there it was: the airline ticket envelope.

  Aware of the risk—aware that, yes, he was going hollow at his center, beginning to tremble—he drew the envelope clear of the pocket. Still using only one hand, fumble-fingered as a child, he managed to open the envelope, take out the itinerary slip that accompanied the ticket.

  Flight 235A to San Francisco, the printout read. And: Flight 87 to Sacramento.

  In the margin of the itinerary slip, four words had been handwritten: Janice Frazer, Fowler’s Landing. It was Maranzano’s scrawl.

  Carefully he refolded the envelope, returned it to the pocket, refolded the topcoat’s lapel. Then, drawing a long, shaky breath, he turned back to face the house, both hands resting once more on the steering wheel. Safe.

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 21st

  11:57 P.M., PDT

  WITH THE TINY FLASHLIGHT Maranzano shone a slim beam of light on the ground. With his free hand he carefully brushed the fresh dirt away from the newly laid square of sod. He switched off the flashlight, straightened, looked carefully around, slowly pivoting. The night was still, the sky overcast. Holding up his wrist, he checked the time: midnight. The whole job, from the time he’d arrived, had taken twenty-five minutes. It was longer than he’d estimated; the ground had been hard and dry, the digging had been slow. Lying at his feet, the plastic shopping bag rustled faintly in the gentle breeze. He stooped, picked up the small collapsible shovel, began to turn the large knurled nut that would collapse the shovel to backpacking size. He laid the collapsed shovel on the ground, picked up the plastic bag, upended it, shook out the dirt left from the sod. He put the shovel and penlight in the bag, used the paper toweling he’d brought to clean the dirt from his hands. Then, with time passing, each minute a risk, he picked up the plastic bag. He began walking to the gate. He’d left it closed but unlatched. His rental car was parked a few feet from the wrought-iron fence, perhaps a hundred feet from the gate. He’d parked the car on the grass in the shadows cast by a small grove of trees.

  When he was still thirty feet from the gate, he saw headlights. The car was coming slowly, making steady progress down the narrow, uneven road that led past the gate. A large tree grew close beside the pathway he was on. He must move fast enough to reach the tree before the car’s headlights picked him
up—but not so fast that the movement would attract attention. “In the dark,” Bacardo had told him once, “if you move too fast, they’ll see you.” He’d been only twenty when Bacardo had told him. He’d been the lookout when Bacardo and two others went in after Tommy the Cork. They’d found Tommy in bed—with a boy.

  When he was five feet from the tree’s shadow, the oncoming car’s headlights dipped down, then bobbed up—and caught him. Instantly immobilized, he waited until the headlights dipped again. Then, two strides took him into the shadows, hidden behind the trunk of the tree. Safe.

  Safe?

  No, not until the car passed would he be safe.

  Carefully, he lowered the plastic shopping bag to the ground. His .38 was thrust into his belt, on the left side. The gun had a two-inch barrel, easy to conceal but useless beyond fifty feet, even in daylight.

  By now the driver had seen Maranzano’s car, parked in the grass beside the fence. Had it been a mistake to park the car so far from the gate?

  Soon he would know.

  Because, yes, the car was slowing, stopping. The headlights shone for a moment after the engine died, then went out.

  Revealing, across the car roof, a police patrol car’s light bar, plain in the pale light from the sky.

  Slowly, the driver’s door swung open, and the driver laboriously climbed out. He was a big, slow-moving man who stooped, reached inside the dark car. When he straightened, he was adjusting a wide-brimmed Smokey the Bear hat on his head. With a long flashlight in his left hand, the policeman began walking toward Maranzano’s car. As he walked he unsnapped the safety strap of his holster, then continued with his hand resting on the butt of his service revolver.

  Still in the shadow cast by the single tree, Maranzano used his right hand to slip an ice pick from its homemade leather sheath slung beneath his left arm. After a moment’s thought he slipped the ice pick point first into the left sleeve of the light wool jacket he wore, adjusting the pick so that the handle was cupped in his left hand. Then, leaving the plastic shopping bag where it lay, he stepped boldly away from the tree, began walking toward the gate, dragging his feet noisily on the gravel pathway. As he pushed open the gate he called out cheerfully, “Looking for me, Officer?”