He complied—he’d practiced Zalesky’s scrawl until he could manage a reasonable facsimile—and handed it to her, saying, “The service here is wonderful.”
She smiled. “We live to serve.”
He watched her rise and head for the teller area. Something way, way off about Ms. Stigall. He eyed those glass doors again. Tempting … he could simply walk out with his briefcase full of cash. He didn’t need the thirteen hundred and change.
But he needed the closure.
She returned and handed him a legal-size envelope. Coins clinked within.
“I believe this concludes our business here today.”
He rose, took the envelope, and shook her hand. “I believe it does. So nice to—” He cut himself off just before he said meet you. “To see you.”
She stared at him. “You don’t look yourself at all.”
Oh, hell.
“I really must be going.”
Through his tumbling thoughts he heard her mumble something about “serious.”
“Pardon?”
Her eyes hardened. “I said, I hope it’s serious.”
They locked gazes for a second, and he knew that she knew something had happened to Zalesky—something not good—and also knew that she was glad.
He decided it best not to reply to that. He simply nodded and headed for those doors at a brisk walk. Outside he looked across the street but didn’t see Ralph.
“What the—?”
At that second Julio pulled up to the curb. Jack hopped in.
“Get us moving. Go-go-go!”
As Julio eased onto Westchester Avenue, he said, “Cop came by and gave me a dirty look. Figured I better get moving. How’d it go?”
“Cleaned him out. Head for The Spot. We’ve got some counting to do.”
As they rolled Jack thought about Eve Stigall. She’d known from the start—or very nearly—that he hadn’t been Neil Zalesky. Yet not only had she kept mum, she’d steered Jack away from complications. What had happened between her and Zalesky? They had some kind of history and it obviously hadn’t been happy.
Zalesky had left a tide of bad feelings and ill will in the wake of his life—exactly what Jack was trying to avoid in his own. In fact, Jack was trying to avoid any wake at all.
4
“Forty-eight thousand bucks,” Julio said, staring at the pile of cash.
Jack started returning the stacks to the briefcase. “Forty-eight thousand, two hundred twenty-two and seventy-four cents, to be exact.”
“What you gonna do with this?”
“No—the question is, what’re you gonna do with it?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. It’s your money.”
“No, man. It’s yours.”
“What happened to ‘meng’?”
“Seriously.”
“I’m very serious.”
“I can’t take it.”
Jack snapped the lid closed and pushed the briefcase across the table.
“I didn’t do this for the money, Julio. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t do it for you either. I did it for me.”
Julio pushed it back.
“Right. So the money’s yours.”
Jack pushed back.
“I like The Spot. I like coming here. I like the way you run it. I want you to keep running it so I can keep coming here. And the only way I can see that happening is if you own it. So I didn’t do this for you, I did it for me.”
Julio started to push back but stopped.
“Hey, that’s really twisted, meng.”
He was back to meng—good sign.
Jack grinned. “Yeah, I know. It’s my nature.”
“It ain’t enough.”
“I got someone who’ll loan you the rest.”
Julio’s turn to grin. “Oh, no. You not gonna pull the same game on me you pull on Rico.” He shook his head. “I know you.”
“And I know you know me.” Jack raised his right hand. “This is legit. These guys’ll lend you the dough—”
He laughed. “Who? Vinny and Aldo?”
“Speaking of which…” Jack tapped the case. “Vinny’s due for a collection today, right?”
“Tuesday’s his usual, yeah.”
“Okay, today you dig into this briefcase and you hand him forty-four hundred—principal and vig—and say you’re even, finished, through, kaput, finis.”
“I can’t—”
“Just listen for a fucking minute, will you! You’ve been paying Harry’s vig with the first stash I lifted from Zalesky, so today—”
“Hey, wait. That never made sense to me until now.”
“What?”
“Paying the Gambinos vig instead of just paying off Harry’s loan. But since it was Zalesky’s money, I let it go. But after Saturday I see what you were up to.”
Jack shrugged. “I wanted to keep Vinny in sight till Zalesky made his move. Now we don’t need him anymore.”
“You one sneaky bastard, Jack.”
Jack spread his hands. “I try. But listen, once the Gambinos are out of your hair, you will get an interest-free loan from my friends. They think they owe me a favor. This will make them feel less in debt.”
He’d talked to Deacon Blue yesterday. They were fine with the loan—hell, they’d offered to give Jack the money, but Jack wanted everything aboveboard between Julio and him.
“How I pay them back?”
The Mikulskis did not want to be involved in collecting, didn’t want to be in constant contact with any third party, so Jack had come up with a method.
“Every month you mail a money order to a PO box. They’ll pick it up.”
Julio looked dubious. “And if I miss or I’m late?”
“They’ll kill you.”
His eyes popped. “Wha—?”
“Kidding. Just send a note so they know what’s going on—that you didn’t forget and you’re not stiffing them. They’re not shylocks.”
The Mikulskis wouldn’t care if the loan was never repaid. As far as they were concerned, giving it to Julio was like giving it to Jack. But if Jack had learned anything in the months he’d known Julio, it was that the little man had big pride and didn’t take handouts. He’d need to know he was repaying the loan.
What he wouldn’t know was that Jack would be collecting the MOs and seeing to it they eventually reached the brothers.
Julio stared at him. “This is legit? This is for real?”
He raised his hand again. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Boy Scout?”
Jack snorted. “Well, no. But you get the idea.”
Julio’s throat worked and he blinked a couple of times. His voice was thick as he spoke. “I don’t know what to say, man.”
Meng had faded again.
“Best thing to say is, What’re you havin’?”
Julio came around the table and stuck out his hand. “Thanks, Jack.”
“No thanks necessary,” he said as they shook. “And don’t even think about a hug. Told you: I did it for me.”
“Sure you did.”
Without warning he grabbed Jack in a bear hug.
“No hug!”
“I’m a Rican! I can’t help it!”
“And I’m an uptight white! Let go, goddammit!”
5
“What’s this?” Vinny said after he’d stepped into The Spot.
The little spic was out front instead of his usual place behind the bar. And three guys—two of the rummies who seemed to live here and another young guy who didn’t look old enough to be in here in the first place and who Vinny didn’t remember seeing before—sat at the table nearest the door.
“Witnesses,” the spic said.
Vinny gave them a closer look. They seemed a bit edgy, but nobody looked like he was thinking of doing anything stupid.
Good thing too. He wasn’t in the mood for any bullshit today. He was still royally pissed at that asshole—make that dead asshole, but Vinny was still pissed an
yway—who’d tried to rip off Mom, and still ticked at her for not telling him what was going down. Add to that a pounding hangover headache and too little sleep—he and Aldo had done major damage to a bottle of grappa after bringing the trawler back—and the result was one fucking-A short fuse.
“For what?”
The spic pulled a roll of bills out of his shirt pocket and began counting C-notes onto the table into stacks of ten. When he had four piles, he looked up.
“That’s four grand—that’s the principal, right?”
It had been so long since anybody had mentioned principal that he had to think back to his meeting with Tony the Cannon. What had Tommy told him?
Thirty-nine ninety-three …
“Yeah. Right.”
Four more hundreds hit the table.
“And here’s the weekly vig. That closes us out, right?”
“Yeah.”
Vinny didn’t want to close out the loan, but what else could he say? Tony C liked to have money out there collecting vig instead of in his safe. Didn’t care if the principal was ever paid off as long as the vig kept coming in. He always said, Dough that ain’t working for you ain’t nothin’ but fucking paper. Vinny figured dough was dough, but he wasn’t about to argue with his capo.
Tony’s current rate was twelve percent a week, which meant he got his principal back in nine weeks. After that it was all gravy. Because Harry had been an old customer, he’d done him a favor by charging him only ten. Of course, nobody’d expected Harry to up and die, but he had, thanks to a little mishandling by Tommy Ten Thumbs. But things turned out okay, because even at the bargain rate, the vig had totaled many times the principal.
Vinny gathered up the bills, folded the stack in half, and shoved it all into the side pocket of his suit jacket.
“Nice doing business with you.”
“What? No receipt?” the kid said.
“You a wiseass?”
The kid said, “He needs a receipt to prove he paid off the loan.”
Was this guy on drugs?
“In your dreams.” He looked around. “Anyone need a loan?”
The kid laughed and said, “In your dreams.”
Vinny realized the wiseass punk had been pulling his chain, knowing he’d never get a receipt. He decided he didn’t like him. Had half a mind to break one of his skinny arms.
That might make him feel better, but it’d only make his headache worse.
Fuck him.
He returned to the car and got behind the wheel. Aldo hadn’t made it today—hungover worse than Vinny—and fucking Tommy had taken the backseat again, making Vinny look like his fucking driver. He passed the bills back over his shoulder.
“What’s all this?” Tommy said.
“Paid off the loan.”
“Shit. You couldn’t do anything?”
Vinny felt his temper surge toward boiling. “What the fuck, Tommy, eh? What the fuck?”
“You coulda told him he couldn’t pay it off until next month.”
“Really? Well, why don’t you fucking go back in there and tell him that? And then when Tony’s business falls off because he’s got this rep for making loans but not letting anyone pay them off, he ain’t gonna be happy. And when word gets back to him that you’re the one putting this new little twist on his game, what’s he gonna do?”
Tommy sighed. “Guess you’re right. Now we gotta go listen to the old fart, and you know goddamn well what he’s gonna say.”
Vinny started the car. “Oh, yeah.”
6
“Dough that ain’t working for you ain’t nothin’ but fucking paper!” said Tony the Cannon Campisi as he slammed his fist on his desk.
Vinny fought to keep his eyes from rolling.
Tony added, “Might as well use it to wipe my skinny ass!”
“Ain’t our fault,” Tommy said.
Tony stubbed out one cigarette and lit a fresh one. “Business is off, guys. The games and ponies, they go up and down, we all know that. It’s part of the flow. But loans are definitely down. Why? Don’t make no sense. I mean, it’s a fucking recession, ain’t it? We should have people lined up out the door looking for loans, but they ain’t there.”
Tommy rubbed his hands together. “We hear the Genoveses have been getting busy in the loan area.”
Vinny glanced at Tommy. Yeah, you’d know, wouldn’t you? Who told you? Jimmy the Blond?
Tony C hadn’t minded that they’d run some games for the Genoveses the other night. Or if he had, his cut had kept him from saying anything. It hadn’t interfered with any Gambino operations, so no harm, no foul. But if they made a habit of it, and it affected the Gambino bottom line, things might get rough—rough as in don’t count on seeing old age, or even next year.
Tony pounded his desk again. “The fucking Chin! Soon as the Chief goes inside, he starts making his moves.”
Vincent “the Chin” Gigante, head of the Genovese family—Tony had a long-standing hate for the guy that went so far back everybody had forgotten why. Everybody except Tony the Cannon.
Vinny took a breath, hesitated, then decided to say something. “You think maybe twelve percent is too high?”
“Too high?” Tony shouted. This precipitated one of his ugly coughing fits. When he finally stopped, he glared at Vinny and said, “Are you outta your fucking mind?”
“I heard the Chin’s people are charging ten. Don’t know for sure, but—”
“And what am I supposed to do—start charging nine?”
“Just saying, boss.”
Maybe just go back to ten, Vinny thought. Christ, if the guy paid only the vig for ten weeks you had your money back and he still owed you the whole nut.
“Yeah? Well, here’s what I’m sayin’. Ain’t enough anymore you guys just go around collecting in this economic climate.” He stopped and shook his head. “Hear what I just said? I said ‘economic climate.’ That’s how bad things are. Things are so fucking bad I’m talking about the economic fucking climate. So I don’t want you guys just collecting—” He looked around. “Where’s Aldo?”
“He ain’t feeling too good,” Vinny said. “Something going ’round.”
“Yeah, well, let him get sick on his own time. And when you see him, tell him what I’m telling you: You hear about someone needs money, you send him to me. Keep your ears open, beat the bushes a little, but nothin’ obvious, you know? Don’t want people thinking we need the business, even though we do.”
“Got it,” Tommy said.
Vinny had to ask. “And when they want to know the rate, we tell ’em what?”
For a second it looked like Tony was going to explode again, but instead he took a drag, exhaled a cloud, and said, “You tell ’em twelve fucking percent. I gotta preserve my price point. You hear that? I’m talking about my fucking price point. I coulda went to business school, coulda aced it, but I don’t need no MBA to know this shit. I graduated from the school of hard knocks, and I learned that I can’t look like I’m cavin’ to them Genovese fucks. So you find a guy needs a loan, you say it’s twelve percent, but tell him because you like him—whoever the fuck he is—you’ll jew me down to ten as a special favor.”
Vinny nodded in unison with Tommy. “You got it, boss.”
Preserving my price point … What kinda bullshit is that? Vinny thought as he was leaving. I’d go eight percent if it brought in the business.
Eight percent, even six percent—didn’t Tony realize that was per week? Like printing money, f’Christ’s sake.
This place needed an Under New Management sign.
THE IDES OF MARCH
FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1991
1
When word came down from Tony the Cannon to meet at his store after midnight and come loaded for bear with tons of ammo, Vinny knew it could only mean trouble.
He arrived after Aldo and ahead of Tommy. When he saw the Colt .44 Magnum that had earned Tony Campisi his nickname sitting on his desk, he knew the trouble was going to be
big.
He gave a mental shrug. It might mean more burials at sea, and that was not a bad thing.
“Okay,” Tony rasped after Tommy arrived. “We’re gonna make life miserable for Vinny the Chin.”
“We talking hit?” Tommy said, looking nervous. His face was flushed and his eyes bright. Probably did a coupla lines before showing up.
“Yeah, but not on warm bodies. We’re hittin’ windows.”
Tommy seemed relieved. Vinny didn’t blame him. Warm bodies were known to shoot back. Windows, not so much.
“Lotta windows around. How we know which ones?”
Tony smiled, something he didn’t do often, which was probably a good thing because his teeth were the same nicotine yellow as his fingertips.
“I got us a list. Soon as I heard them Genovese fucks was movin’ in on the loans, I started doin’ a little research. Remember that, guys. That’s what you do when you’re in business: You research the competition.”
For years now the feds had been cracking down on the windows racket, and probably thought they had it beat. All five families had had a hand in it to some degree. The Luccheses had grabbed the biggest share, and Junior Gotti had been up to his eyeballs in it, but they’d been mostly chased out. The Genovese family had managed to stay in, though, mainly because Benny Eggs Mangano had taken the fall for his boss, Vinny the Chin.
Vinny couldn’t help admiring Gigante—and not because they shared the same first name. His crazy act of wandering around the Village in his bathrobe, looking lost and mumbling nonsense, had convinced the shrinks that he was “mentally unfit” to stand trial. Yeah, right. Plus he was smart about his family business. Unlike the Chief, who’d dressed sharp and held his meetings in the Ravenite Club for all to see, the Chin kept to the shadows, gave orders to a few close underbosses, and let them get their hands dirty.
So while all the other families were bailing out of the windows racket, the Chin stayed in. But instead of bilking the New York City Housing Authority, which was what had landed everyone in hot water, the Chin put private businesses in his sights.
He kept it simple. You find a guy with a window replacement crew who owes you or somebody money. You move in on him and take over. All of a sudden the customers on his list run into trouble with all sorts of window damage—damn kids!—and after a while it’s costing them a fortune to replace them. The solution? You offer a contract that guarantees unlimited window repairs for a flat annual fee. After the contract is signed, the window damage stops. It’s like a freaking miracle. You expand your customer base, and pretty soon you can fire your repair crew and just sit back and collect those annual fees.