Son of the Mob

  “Didn’t you hear what happened?” I plead.

  “I heard you and your old man had a real knock-down drag-out in a monsoon,” he replies. “That’s enough for me.”

  “Jimmy’s club burned down,” I go on. “Ed Mishkin’s coffee bar, too. Along with some strip joint they both had money in.”

  “What’s that to you?” Ray demands.

  “I don’t know! But it’s something! I’ve got to get to the bottom of it!”

  I hear him sigh. “Why do you think your father cut you off from Jimmy and Ed? He doesn’t want you involved.”

  “I am involved!” I insist. “I couldn’t be more involved! The FBI has pictures of me with those two guys! They think I’m a loan shark! I need that number!”

  There’s a long silence on the other end. Then, “If this comes back to me, I’m going to deny it.”

  “I won’t tell,” I promise. “You won’t regret this, Ray. You’re the greatest.”

  He gives me the number.

  It’s normally so hard to get in touch with Jimmy that I’m caught off guard when he answers on the first ring.

  “Don’t hang up!” I blurt.

  “Vince? Hang on a sec—I’ll go someplace private.” I hear voices and footsteps, and then it gets quiet. “I’m in the can at the Plaza. Me and Ed are treating ourselves to a big lunch to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate? Your bar got struck by lightning!”

  “Yeah, Vince. I’m glad you called. Your advice worked out perfect.”

  “Advice?” I croak. “What advice?”

  He laughs. “‘There’s a thunderstorm coming.’ Gotcha, Vince. We talk about the weather all the time. You should see the circus geek they sent from the insurance company. He’d believe me if I told him I had the Mona Lisa hanging next to the dartboard.”

  Now that I’ve got the truth, I don’t want it anymore. “You torched your bar for the insurance money?”

  “Jeez, Vince. Is that any way to talk about an act of God?”

  I’m hysterical. “You did! You did! And Ed too! And then you went up and finished off the Platinum Coast!”

  “Funny thing about that,” says Jimmy. “That must have been real lightning. We didn’t want to be greedy. Just do our own places, pay off the sharks, and start fresh, like you said.”

  “Jimmy,” I quaver, “when I said there’s a storm coming, I meant, there’s a storm coming! I have a leaky sunroof! I never told you to burn your club!”

  “Yeah, whatever. But me and Ed love you, and we’ll never forget what you did for us. You got the gift, kid, just like your old man.”

  I hang up on him. That last part hurts even more than the rest of it. To me there can be no greater insult than to be told I have a talent for my father’s line of work. I make an innocent comment about the weather, and two grown men burn down their livelihoods!

  I don’t ever want to be good at this. You have to be a mobster first and a human being second. Look at how Dad defended Rafael and his scam even to me, his own son. And Tommy. What kind of brother would turn a high-school project into an illegal bookie operation? Only Ray is a real person. And even with him, I had to whine about the FBI snooping on me before he’d give me Jimmy’s number against Dad’s orders.

  A funny feeling comes with that last thought, that there’s something I should be noticing, but it’s just outside my field of vision.

  Maybe it’s this: whenever someone mentions the FBI, my father, Tommy, the uncles, you can see the hair stand up on the back of their necks. But Ray didn’t utter a peep when I told him the feds had pictures of me. I don’t expect him to go berserk; Ray’s no Tommy. But wouldn’t he at least ask how I know a thing like that? I mean, I didn’t tell Ray who Kendra’s father is. He never even met her. He only saw her for a few seconds across a crowded restaurant that night at Topsiders….

  Right before Agent Bite-Me found out about Kendra and me…

  What follows is a moment of terrible, yet perfect, clarity. I see my future, and I’m meddling in my father’s business again. I have no choice. Because I know two things nobody else does:

  1) The FBI really does have an inside man in the Luca organization, and

  2) The inside man is Ray Francione.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RAY FRANCIONE LIVES in a large two-bedroom apartment in a prewar building in Forest Hills, Queens. I’ve only been there once before, when Ray took me to the city and schmoozed me into a sold-out Limp Bizkit concert, front row seats, backstage passes.

  That memory, as close to a warm fuzzy as you can get around the vending-machine business, sparks an odd mix of emotions. Betrayal, sure. For years, someone I considered my friend was living a lie. But there’s a feeling of vindication too. How many times did I wonder how a great guy like Ray could be in The Life? Now I’ve got my answer. He never was.

  I go early so I don’t miss him, and he’s still in his bathrobe when he answers the door.

  “Vince, come on in. What, you fell out of bed this morning? Or are you still up from last night?”

  “I’m taking a mental-health day off from school.”

  He says, “I’m keeping my eye out for a new cell phone for you, but there’s not much around. Supply and demand.”

  “I don’t need it anymore,” I tell him. “Kendra and I broke up. But I guess you know that already.”

  He blinks. “That’s too bad, kid. I had no idea.”

  I just keep talking. “You know because her father is your boss. And when you saw her at Topsiders, you had to give him a heads-up on who his daughter’s boyfriend is.”

  I’ve got to hand it to him. He stays cool, the way an undercover agent should. Only his eyes give him away. They’re alert, following my every move and gesture, very different from the “Who cares?” affect of most wiseguys, that veil of lethargy over repressed violence.

  “That’s crazy, Vince. I’m under your old man.”

  “Please—don’t,” I tell him. “I know what I know.”

  He glances at the door as if waiting for Tommy or one of the uncles to burst in, shooting.

  “Nobody’s with me,” I say. “Nobody knows.”

  “This has to stay between you and me,” he confides, “but your father’s got me working with him special, smoking out this rat, and we’re pretty sure it’s Two-Ton Mike Falusi from your uncle Carmine’s crew. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Mike’s nobody. But you know how Carmine loves to talk—”

  “No.”

  “Gotta be Mike.” He’s losing some of his coolness now. “Remember he got pinched smuggling smokes up from Virginia? He was with the feds for two days. That’s when they must have turned him.”

  He sounds so reasonable that I actually find myself looking for ways to believe him. What am I, stupid? The evidence is right in front of my nose!

  “I know it’s you.”

  And then I see the pistol in his hand, pointed at my chest. I’m not sure how it got there except that it must have been a lightning move, because a second ago it was nowhere to be seen.

  I guess part of me always knew this was possible. If I messed with my father’s business long enough, sooner or later I’d end up staring at the business end of gun. But after surviving the Jimmy Rats and the Boazes of this world, I never expected it to come from the one guy in all this who I thought was my friend.

  The explosion of adrenaline exits via my extremities, leaving me with nothing but cold, clammy fear. My voice trembles along with the rest of me. “If you’re telling the truth, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

  “People in my business are very antsy about rats! I wouldn’t be the first to get clipped just in case! Then, when I’m in the ground, they find out it’s Mike after all, and, oops, too bad.”

  “You can’t shoot me, Ray,” I say slowly. “You’re one of the good guys.”

  “You’re meddling in matters that are none of your business!” he shouts. “And you’re going to get yourself whacked!”

  “Not by the
FBI.” Breathing a silent prayer, I take a cautious step forward.

  His arm is rigid, but the gun is shaking in his hand. “I’ll pull this trigger! I don’t care who your old man is!”

  The thought that a half-inch twitch of Ray’s finger could end my life has completely shut down my brain. I don’t know if I’m right anymore. I can’t access any of the facts that led me to conclude that Ray’s FBI. I’m flying blind, but I take another step, not out of courage, or instinct, or even stupidity. I’m propelled by a voice inside me, somewhere below gut level, that keeps repeating: This is Ray. He won’t hurt you.

  All at once, he lowers the pistol. “Three years,” he says to no one in particular. “Three years I had in this operation. A year with Cosimo before that. And along comes a seventeen-year-old kid, and—” He makes a gesture with the gun that’s so helpless, so harmless, that the weapon might as well be a peacock feather.

  The sudden release of tension turns my bones to rubber, and I sit/collapse into a leather chair. I don’t think football practice ever got my heart rate up this high. Ray’s head is in his hands, and neither of us speaks for a long time.

  Finally, I break the silence. “I used to look at you and think, Ray’s in The Life, and he’s a terrific person. Maybe they’re not all bad. That’s the most disillusioning part of this. Not that you’re a fed, but that my poster boy for mobsters turns out to be a fraud, and that Dad and Tommy will never be like you.”

  “Your father’s a remarkable man,” Ray says sharply. “He brings a lot of integrity to a sick game. In a way, it’s going to be a shame when he goes down, because, guaranteed, the next guy’s going to be a whole lot worse.”

  “Dad’s not going down, Ray,” I say softly. “You are. You’re not in any danger, but you’re out of business as of now. I don’t know what the FBI’s going to do with you, but you don’t work for the Lucas anymore.”

  He shuffles uncomfortably. “You’re not an idiot. You know what this means to your old man, to Tommy. To Pampers. Witness protection—it’s good, but they can’t put you in another galaxy.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” I assure him. “I can’t explain why, but Dad’s not going to look for you.” To his questioning expression, I add, “I’ve found some leverage.”

  “You’ll excuse me for not believing you,” he mutters. “This is my life here.”

  “I understand. But I repeat: you’ll be fine.”

  He regards me with a new respect. “You’re all grown up, aren’t you?”

  I shake my head. “I’m out of my league, which isn’t such a bad thing, come to think of it.”

  “What if I said we’ve got you, too?” he ventures. “Your cell phone was a Bureau phone, and every word you said is on tape. Do you really want to go to jail for your family’s crimes?”

  “No way,” I reply. “If Agent Bite-Me had tapes, he’d have known about his daughter months ago because she’d be on them. Besides, you wouldn’t do that to me. You know I’m clean.”

  “Did you ever consider a career with the Bureau?” he suggests. “A guy with your bloodline could wipe out organized crime in this city.”

  “And wipe out my family in the process.”

  “You know it’s the right thing to do,” he persists. “If you didn’t, you’d have Tommy’s job by now.”

  “I know it’s right,” I concede. “But I was born on the other side.”

  “That’s a cop-out. You’ve got a duty as a citizen. As a human being—”

  I interrupt him. “We made it this far in the conversation. Let’s not go backward. Especially not to the part with the gun. Once is my limit for wetting my pants on any given day.”

  He nods unhappily, scanning his surroundings. “I sure hate to leave this place. Rent control. Want the lease?”

  “Are you kidding?” I retort. “I’m picking a college as far from my family as you can get without falling off the edge of the earth.”

  He laughs mirthlessly. “In that case, I’ll probably see you there.”

  This hypothetical reunion, which both of us know will never happen, drives home the reality that this is good-bye.

  “Before you go,” I manage, grasping for the right words, “how bad is it? Dad’s business, I mean.”

  He looks grave. “What, you want me to tell you they’re lovable scoundrels? You know better than that. It’s all-the-way bad.”

  “Murder?”

  “Sometimes. Not as much as in the movies.”

  “What about the Calabrese hit? It was Dad, right? Just like everybody says.”

  “No,” he replies. “Not Calabrese.”

  I’m surprised. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because we know who did it, and it wasn’t him.”

  I’m astonished. “So why don’t you arrest the guy?”

  He’s tight-lipped. “You wouldn’t want that.”

  “Of course I want that!” I explode. “Murder is illegal for everybody, not just the Lucas! Do you have any idea how much heat we’ve taken because of this thing? I can’t clip my nose hairs without a team of agents listening in on the snip-snip! And all this time you know about the real killer and you’re letting him go free?”

  In answer, Ray gets up and rummages around a closet, producing an audiocassette marked 11/19/93 in Magic Marker. He pops it in the tape deck of his stereo and hits play.

  The smooth, creepy voice I hear first belongs to Uncle Pampers, weekend yodeler and button man. He’s talking about someone named Cel, and how, with him gone, Dad isn’t safe from Calabrese and his crew.

  “Cel is Celestino Puzzi,” Ray explains. “Real old-school Mafia. To the day he died, he never drove a car; never had a phone. We couldn’t touch him. Your dad and Calabrese worked for him.”

  I nod slowly, taking in every word. I realize that I’m hearing the true inner-circle machinations of my father’s business, stuff even Tommy doesn’t know about. This is the ultimate decision: who lives and who dies. I’m repulsed, but fascinated too, compelled to listen the way you can’t look away from a car accident. I try to imagine nine-year-old Vince and Alex, still thinking girls are gross and Michael Jordan is God, shooting baskets in the driveway while this fateful meeting takes place.

  According to Uncle Pampers, there will never be peace as long as Calabrese is “taking up space.” Uncle Big-Nose, who’s been spying for Dad from Calabrese’s crew, has confirmed that they’re ready to move against my father. “It has to be now,” Uncle Pampers finishes. “Say the word, and this problem goes away.”

  I was right. It was Uncle Pampers. But I get no satisfaction from this realization as I hold my breath through a pregnant pause on the tape, waiting for Anthony Luca to give the order.

  And it comes. But it isn’t Dad who green-lights the most notorious mob execution of the last decade, although I recognize the voice immediately.

  It’s my mother!

  “He won’t touch this family!” she exclaims vehemently. “Pampers, I want that son of a bitch totally out of—”

  There’s a loud pop, followed by acoustic guitar, and someone sings:

  “If I had a hammer,

  I’d hammer in the morning,

  I’d hammer in the evening,

  All over this land…”

  I freeze. The voice is a little higher, a little younger, but that’s Kendra!

  Eight years ago, Agent Bite-Me left this cassette on a countertop or a coffee table, and his daughter recorded karaoke over it! I have an instant replay of Kendra telling me about her father’s Never-Bring-Work-Home policy, which started when some evidence was destroyed once. Some evidence. Yeah, tell me about it!

  “You’re probably mad at Kendra for dumping you,” Ray says gently, “but you owe her more than you’ll ever know. If that song had broken in ten seconds later in the conversation, you’d be visiting your old lady in Leavenworth.”

  “Mom,” I barely whisper. The order to take out Mario Calabrese came from June Cleaver! “If there’s one person I was p
ositive had nothing to do with all this—”

  “She protected her family,” Ray reasons. “The other choice was widowhood and fatherless kids. Calabrese had already given the contract to one of his people.”

  “Does Dad know?”

  He shakes his head. “About Pampers, yes, but not your mom. And he knows he’d be dead if it hadn’t happened. He hasn’t been indecisive since. That’s why, when he banned you from Jimmy and Ed, he came down hard. And everybody listened.” He laughs mirthlessly. “Everybody except you, that is.” He ejects the tape and tosses it to me. “Keep it. I hear you’re a karaoke fan.”

  I stand. “I know it doesn’t mean much under the circumstances,” I say, “but I’m glad you turned out to be legit.”

  “It means enough.” He reaches out and ruffles my hair. “Take care of yourself, kid. I’ll miss you.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I GIVE RAY forty-eight hours to get out of town. He’s gone in half that. I call the next morning to make sure everything’s okay, and his phone is already disconnected. I guess that’s one thing the Bureau is good at: making people disappear.

  Funny—I’m the one who forced him away, yet I’m really counting on hearing his voice, even if it’s just to tell me he’s done packing and his plane leaves at eight. He’s been like a big brother to me these last few years, even more than Tommy. I toy with the idea of our paths crossing again, but deep down I know it’s never going to happen. Not as long as he’s in the witness protection program, and my name is Luca.

  I hear a bang followed by muffled cursing. The basement. Seven o’clock in the morning, and Anthony Luca, woodworker extraordinaire, feels the need to express himself through his art. I contemplate doing the cowardly thing, making a break for school without talking to him. I sigh. No, the confrontation is inevitable; he’s going to notice Ray’s disappearance eventually. And anyway, he’s in the right place for a conversation.

  As I descend the stairs, I see the project of the minute. It’s a bookcase, and to my surprise, it actually looks like a bookcase.

  Dad barely glances up from yanking twisted nails out of the back panel with his claw hammer. “Vince,” he acknowledges with a grunt. The Cold War is still going strong at our house.