“Where do you get those ideas?”
“I can tell, Charley. I know the types. They are dangerous people.”
“Dangerous? What about me? You said I was a gangster the night we met.”
“Oh, I know about you. I had a long talk with Mr. Smadja. He told me.”
“He told you?”
“He told me you were an absolutely crack salesman, that you could persuade people right off their feet. Can we have a little snack before you take me home, Charley?”
A snack for Mardell was a steak. “Won’t a snack make you sleepy?”
“Oh, no. And I’m famished.” He took her to Gallagher’s.
While she was eating the steak, the Idaho with the cottage cheese and chives, the side order of onion rings, and the green salad and he was just sitting there just adoring her, she said, “Do a lot of gangsters eat here, Charley?”
“How should I know?”
“That man, two tables on your right.”
Charley looked. “That’s a priest, fahcrissake.”
“They wear disguises.”
“Priests?”
“Gangsters.”
“Where do you get your information?”
“I am rather well informed, Charley. The Buckingham Palace radio beam that keeps me well also keeps me out of danger.”
“Listen, Mardell—I found out what Buckingham Palace is.”
“You found out? Everyone knows.”
“The Queen of England lives there.”
“I know that, Charley.”
“So? How come the Queen of England is taking care of your health?”
“I—I don’t quite understand it. My mother arranged it. But thank heaven she does, and thank heaven it works.”
Mardell invited him into her apartment that night, and the whole sky fell on Charley. It was as if he had never known a woman before. He had gotten laid for the first time when he was eleven—Vito’s sister Tessie—but he had never met the woman. He knew his time would come. He wasn’t in any hurry because he was sure it would happen. That was the way it was set up and, in the meantime, he fooled around a little but nothing that would give anybody any ideas. He generally did it outside the neighborhood, because if he knocked up one of the neighborhood girls everybody would make him marry her. When the Prizzis had made him Vincent’s sottocapo and vindicatore he had turned into sort of an instant celebrity in the environment. Women who had probably just admired him from afar now all wanted to fuck him. But this Mardell! There was no way even to think about it. Nothing like it had ever happened to anybody in the history of the world. Everything fit, there was no problem like he had worried he might get himself lost in there. She keened, she wept, she made noises like a lunch whistle over and over again. He couldn’t believe that he could ever have kept going the way he kept going. He had seen a television documentary once, about mountain climbers, and that was what he was doing, exactly what he had been doing, rappeling up and down Mardell, his mind like a bowl of Jell-O, his eyes rolling like dice in his head, the world and time and the work on Vito all wiped out because she loved him; she had said it and then she said it again: she loved him. After a couple of hours, they just couldn’t move or talk and they fell asleep, holding each other safe from all the dangers.
11
Willie Daspisa had not only taken the oath of omertà but had made a fortune of money off the Prizzis over the years, plus he walked with a hundred and eighty thousand dollars of Prizzi money when he left. He owed them in more ways than one. If he had said he had escaped into the Witness Protection Program to get away from what he looked like, it would have made more sense than the word which got out—that he did it because he was scared by what had happened to his brother Vito.
After Willie finished singing for the U.S. Attorney, he said he wanted to have a meeting with George F. Mallon, the opposition mayoral candidate. Mallon’s campaign was going so badly that he would talk to anybody.
Willie’s singing led the Feds to pick up fourteen key Prizzi shit people between Boston and Miami, and federal indictments were sought on one of the biggest banks on the East Coast for laundering shit money. The indictment, the arraignment, and the trial were slammed through like an express train. Willie and Joey came into the federal courtroom surrounded by U.S. Marshalls. They testified against the fourteen Prizzi people. Joey worked like a Trojan to play it very straight, slipping only three or four times into his impersonation of the Sugarplum Fairy, but no cameras were allowed in court anyway so it didn’t make any difference. Eventually everybody charged would be found guilty, and everybody would be absolutely clobbered by the judge.
Willie and Joey were kept in a midtown hotel suite off Broadway in the protective custody of a revolving team of U.S. Marshalls until the government was ready to move them out to the plastic surgeons, the new pocket litter, and to their new homes and businesses, wherever that would be. While they waited, Mallon came in to listen to what they might have to say.
George F. Mallon was a multimillionaire with a head made of ferroconcrete, “your typical hardheaded businessman,” as he often defined himself. He had made his fortune building tabernacles with their attendant dormitories, broadcast studios, gymnasiums, prayer halls, computer installations, office wings and underground passages, money crypts and strong vaults for the hundreds of evangelical television clergymen in the United States. These preachers instructed the country on such things as the Supreme Court and the Constitution; national and international politics; apartheid, democracy in the Philippines and Nicaragua, and Star Wars; Social Security and welfare parasites; narcotics-user tests for all Americans; the pressing First Amendment constitutional right for cigarette companies to advertise; abortion; selective diplomatic representation in China; and the need for prayer, if not abortions, in the schools.
Mallon undertook the construction of these innumerable holy cities by guaranteeing building costs in return for ironclad mortgage guarantees and a percentage of the electronic pulpit profits. The operations had been successful from the first broadcast. His share of the salvation grosses had put him on the Forbes list among the wealthiest men in America.
He was a wispy, sandy-haired man with a wide mouth and narrow lips. He may have been a bungled-instrument delivery, because his head came to such a point that no hat, other than those designed by Dr. Seuss, would fit him. He was running against everything New Yorkers stood for: corruption, gambling, prostitution, narcotics, high-cost luxury housing, and racism. He had never been in politics before, but he had seen shrewd operators pretending to be country boys, climbing into their pulpits under television makeup, feigning simplicity, to be swept to national heights by crying out to the millions in the unseen congregations for the glory of the Lord and postmarked contributions. He knew what money could do in politics and he had an understanding with the more powerful of the electronic clergy that if he filled public offices they would see that the money and the glory were provided, although he had not taken into account that what had worked so well far out there in the golden fields of the American heartland might be incomprehensible in Gomorrah.
He seemed to be running against the grain of voter prejudice and opinion but, backed by his militant army’s evangelical fervor, he cried out against abortion and for prayer in the schools, wishfully believing that the voters would be able to remember what he was saying while they nurtured what they so steadfastly rooted for: corruption, gambling, purer narcotics, high-cost luxury housing, and racism. These voter passions could have been offseting the righteousness of George F. Mallon’s zeal, he realized, since he was far behind the incumbent in every poll.
Monitoring Mallon’s candidacy was a normal, even a routine part of Angelo Partanna’s job. He maintained a surveillance of the Mallon campaign from the inside by making substantial cash contributions which, by dint of Eduardo Prizzi’s solid political connections on all sides, allowed him to plant his people inside the Mallon organization—and elsewhere—to keep tabs on Mallon’s plans as we
ll as on members of Mallon’s family on the remote chance that they could be used to change Mallon’s mind on this campaign issue or that.
Mallon sat down opposite Joey Labriola and stared into his eyes. “You sent for me?” he said.
“Him,” Joey said.
George F. Mallon turned to Willie, who was resting on a bed. “What’s on your mind?” he asked Willie in as macho a way as a five-foot-six-inch man could assemble, which, in his case, was plenty.
“You wanna talk, get him outta here.” Willie pointed to the U.S. Marshall.
“Would you mind?” Mallon asked the marshall.
“These men don’t leave my sight,” the marshall said. “Those are the U.S. Attorney’s orders.”
Mallon looked at Willie and lifted his eyebrows. Then he gave a short, abrupt shrug. He said, “Rules are rules.”
Willie swung his legs off the bed and faced Mallon. “Did you see the mayor on television the night they gave it to my brother?”
Mallon nodded.
“Did you see that Lieutenant Hanly come out and report to him twice?”
Mallon nodded.
“You thought the cops did the job on him.”
Mallon nodded again.
“No way. The Prizzi family done it while the mayor was practically looking.”
Mallon was stonily disbelieving. “Why would the police allow such a thing? Your brother was entirely surrounded by almost two hundred policemen.”
“They didn’t want to risk anybody. Maybe they wanted to save on pensions and insurance.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“It was business.”
“Business?”
“My brother probably tried to make a deal to get out of there. He was probably going to give the cops everything he knew about the Prizzi’s East Coast shit operation.”
“Shit operation?”
“What you like to have the newspapers call controlled substances. Capeesh?”
“Dope? Narcotics?”
“But the only ones he could work a deal with was the cops. He made his offer to Hanly, the bagman for Brooklyn, so he had to go down.”
“Go down?” Mallon was horrified.
Joey tittered.
“So the Prizzis sent Charley Partanna in to zotz him,” Willie said.
“Zotz?”
“Partanna killed my brother.”
“The mayor was involved in this?”
“He was standing outside, wasn’t he? Hanly reported to him, didn’t he? Hanly was inside the building with Charley Partanna, wasn’t he?”
“How can you prove such a thing?”
“Not me. You. Grab Hanly. Make him talk. Talk to Munger, the task force sergeant who went into my brother’s apartment first, before the cameras. Ask the television guys. They’ll know if Vito was standing up when the cops went in. Then, when you got an airtight case together, pick up Charley Partanna. Charley blitzed my brother for the Prizzis.”
When Willie finished talking to the U.S. Attorney, the Feds took the Prizzis’ stash of $200,000 worth of blow—the cost price, not the street price. After he had finished costing the Prizzis so he could buy his way into the Witness Protection Program, and after he finished paying off Angelo Partanna for saying what he had said about Joey, he and Joey disappeared into the Program with new faces, new prints, and new paper. Before you knew it, they were gone. They were probably selling real estate or Buicks somewhere in Nebraska with both of them now born-again Protestant-Episcopals who could tell a great Irish dialect story.
12
When all the information was in, Angelo Partanna brought it to the don.
“Willie Daspisa did this to his own family?” the don asked rhetorically.
“He gave them the fourteen people. He threw one of our banks away—they’re gonna be hit with a coupla million fine for washing the money which is itself enough of an infamità, Corrado. But he gave Charley to that premio di consolazione, George F. Mallon.”
“He can’t touch Charley. He’s got no evidence. Who’s gonna talk? Hanly? The task force cop? Never. But just to make sure, sweeten them up a little.”
Angelo nodded.
“But you are gonna know if Mallon gets anything heavy on Charley. As soon as you know that, we get Charley outta town. Mallon don’t care nothing about Charley, he wants to nail the mayor so he can win the election. But he can’t win the election unless he can railroad Charley. When Election Day is over, Charley will be in the clear. I’m gonna think up a way to keep him in the clear.”
“I feel better, Corrado.”
“Why did Willie do it? I can’t believe it when he says he was scared because of what happened to Vito. Vito had nothing to do with him.”
“You ever see Joey Labriola?”
“Willie’s helper?”
“Yeah. A finocchio.”
The don’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “A Sicilian?”
“Yeah.”
“Willie’s second man—Joey Labriola—is a finocchio?”
“Yeah. I mean I seen him plenty of times—you couldn’t miss it. I talked to Willie’s wife after Vito caught it. She is outta her head because Willie ditched her for a man. I checked her story out, even. Joey told a hairdresser who works for us that him and Willie is as married.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When did you find this out.”
“I knew for a long time.”
“How come you didn’t tell me?”
“Their operation was making money. Why should I tell you crappy little stories like that?”
“Then they just used the job on Willie’s brother as an excuse to dump Willie’s wife?”
“Yeah.”
“They are finished!” The don’s voice rose as his small fist fell upon the arm of the chair, making so heavy a sound it broke into the strains of Verdi’s Aroldo which was playing in the background.
The don sat silently as if listening to sage advice, then he said, “Go to see Eduardo. Tell him I want him to get Willie’s new address from the Program. If he doesn’t understand everything right away, tell him to come to see me.”
“Yes, Corrado.”
“Is the wife a Sicilian woman?” the don asked.
“Yes.”
“Bring her to me after we handle Willie and I will give her revenge. I will give her Willie’s thumbs. They are finished!”
13
No one was able to find Willie and Joey. Eduardo, who was in charge of looking for them, wasn’t on the street side of the family. Eduardo not only handled the family’s money, but he was the mover of its heavy political influence, the area in which Corrado Prizzi had first tested his breathtaking conception of franchised international criminal operations.
Realizing that no single family could support the demands of politicians on a national level combined with the politicians’ demands on the state and municipal levels as well, Corrado Prizzi showed the families the meaning of strength in union. Under his guidance all the families, each contributing a pro rata share according to the amount of political influence that had to be bought, acted as one constituency that was represented by Corrado’s younger son, the eminent lawyer-financier, Edward S. Price.
Thirty-two years before, when Eduardo had been accepted by Harvard University, Don Corrado decided that he could serve the Prizzi family best if Eduardo changed his name. During the summer vacation before the first college term started, Eduardo had an operation in Switzerland done by a good plastic surgeon to work out new lines for his nose, which was too large and Arabic for a man whose name was going to be Edward S. Price and who was to go on to become a star graduate of Harvard Law School and then to earn his M.B.A.
Eduardo had come up legitimately through the ranks of the establishment. He just had access to a few billion dollars more to invest, which helped to further his career and his position in the WASP community.
Eduardo had large amounts of untaxed money to work with so, over the years, he had become the
great, gray eminence of American politics; the man who had invented the Political Action Committee, which legalized political bribery; the man who had introduced the three-year presidential campaign by as many as eleven candidates roaming in different parts of the country at the same time to divert the public mind from what was happening in the republic; the man with the clout far beyond clout; the briber of governments.
Eduardo operated from the office of the president of the colossal international conglomerate called Barker’s Hill Enterprises, which had thirty-one administrative vice-presidents who ran a staff of 7,390 lawyers, accountants, and managers in thirty-seven states and twenty-nine countries overseas, and which handled the supervision of the Prizzi family’s investments. Eduardo washed the money, handled the politicians, judges, and law enforcement people, and supervised the annual rollover investment of the tax-free money that poured in from the Prizzi street operation and from its partnerships—franchises with other families—from gambling, narcotics, numbers, pornography, tax-free gasoline, stolen cars; extortion, pornography, recycled postage stamps; prostitution, labor racketeering, illegal meat and alcohol; high tech airline and air terminal robbery, counterfeit credit cards, watches, and currency—into Prizzi-owned insurance companies, defense and government procurement contracts, brokerage houses, toxic waste disposal monopolies, clothing manufacturing, downtown real estate in seventy-six cities, eighty-two hospitals, 1,723 parking lots, two film companies, 9.2 million square feet of shopping centers; hotel chains, electronics manufacturing companies, heavy construction, fifty-three banks, television stations, newspapers, and an airline, then depositing the clean money created by these enterprises into Prizzi-controlled banks and personal loan companies to provide a service for those citizens who preferred not to borrow from shylocks.
But even with everything he had going for him, Eduardo insisted that he couldn’t find Willie Daspisa. A lot of times his people gave him credit for being a magician who kept pulling political influence out of the hat, but he knew the muscle he had didn’t work all the time, that there was an unreliability about politicians that may have been the quality that kept them in office. Nonetheless, if he stuck to any single job and he pushed enough money across the line, it rarely happened that he couldn’t get what he wanted. This time, the reason he couldn’t find Willie was that he didn’t try.