Class Act

11

Bob Cantor flopped down in the chair next to Stone’s desk. “What have you got?” Stone asked.

“This could be good for your client.”

“How’s that?”

“Mickey O’Brien hit it big,” Cantor said. “Probably a fixed race.”

“How big?”

“Well, he paid a visit to his bank this morning and made a deposit and got cash back, a transaction that required the approval of the manager; that indicates a substantial sum. Tiny Blanco, a known bookie, was waiting outside, and Mickey paid him. Then he ambled down the street and went into a real estate office, then a woman agent took him to look at three houses. He bought the best one, a duplex and two rental apartments and a garage.”

“How much?”

“Just a guess: a million and a half. And the only other way he could have come into that much money, I figure, is to murder his mother, who’s quite well off. But she’s still alive. The other good news is, he’s not going to need your client’s money, not until he makes a few more bad bets, anyway, which he will surely do.”

Mickey met Geraldine Conner in the bar at the River Café, the swankiest place in Brooklyn. She had dressed for the occasion and looked great. They had a champagne cocktail, then they were shown to their table, overlooking the East River and Lower Manhattan.

“This is gorgeous!” she said. “I’ve heard about this place, but I’ve never been here.”

They had a look at the menu. “You were the talk of the bank yesterday,” she said. “I mean, nobody just walks in and deposits two million dollars in his personal checking account.”

“Bankers talk, do they?”

“Just among themselves, not to anybody else.”

“I bought a house yesterday,” he said.

“A whole house?”

“A duplex and two rental apartments, not far from here.”

“Oh, wow. You’re having a good week!”

“I certainly am.”

“When do you close?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That’s fast.”

“My lawyer is handling it.” He looked at his watch. “He’d better be reading the contract right now.”

They dined and drank until ten o’clock. “I’d ask you back to my place for a nightcap,” Mickey said, “but there’s no furniture yet.”

“Well, we’d better go back to my house,” Gerry said. “My roommates have got a rental in the Hamptons, and they’re out there.”

“Invitation accepted,” Mickey said.

Mickey stumbled out of her place around two am and walked back to his mother’s house, all aglow.

Jack Coulter sat at a table in the sun and worked on his tan. His nose, under the plastic protector, had become very white. A waiter brought him a second cup of coffee, and a busboy took away his breakfast dishes. His phone rang. He looked around, found nobody within range, and answered it.

“Yeah?”

“Johnny. You know who this is.”

“Yeah. You’re late, Vinnie.”

“My boss says to tell you there won’t be any more money.”

“Did he say why?”

“He doesn’t have to. He’s the boss. Me, I figure he thinks you’ve gotten all your money back and more, and he ain’t giving you no more.”

“You tell him for me that I want last week’s vig and a refund of the mil I gave you in the beginning in my bank account by noon tomorrow.”

“Or what?”

“Or you’re both dead within a week, that’s what. And if you think I’m kidding, you’re already dead.”

“Johnny...”

“You see, I know exactly where you both are, but you don’t know where I am. Got it?”

“Yeah, but...”

“You’ve got the message,” Jack said. “Deliver it, and if he doesn’t come through by noon tomorrow, get a head start on your funeral arrangements. Both of you. Goodbye, and I mean goodbye.” Jack hung up. He didn’t run, and he wasn’t afraid. He knew what he had to do and how to do it, and they couldn’t get at him.

Vinnie, the bookie, didn’t walk — he walked fast from his position at the post, out of the track, and across the parking lot to an Airstream trailer parked at the outer edge, next to an old-fashioned telephone pole that was festooned with aerials and satellite dishes. He knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” a muffled voice replied.

“It’s Vinnie. I gotta talk to him.”

There was some muttering, then the sound of something being unlocked, and the door opened. “Get in here,” a man said from behind the door.

Vinnie got in there, and the door slammed and was locked behind him. His boss, Manny, sat at the breakfast table of the trailer, which sported three phones and a calculator. A man was seated across the table, packing stacks of hundreds into air-shipping boxes.

“What?” Manny inquired, not looking up.

“You might want to hear this alone,” Vinnie said.

Now Manny looked at him. “Are you serious?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Manny tapped the money packer on the arm and jerked a thumb toward the opposite end of the table. “Lose yourself, but don’t go out.”

The man did the best he could, given the confines of the trailer.

“Sit,” Manny said. He had always been a man of few words.

Vinnie sat. “Johnny Fratelli called.”

“I figured, when he didn’t get his money.”

“Manny, I’m going to tell you exactly what he said, to the best of my recall. I want you to remember that I didn’t say any of this. Johnny did.”

“Right.”

Vinnie repeated his conversation with John Fratelli, word for word, with the emphasis in all the right places.

“He’s kidding right? He thinks he can threaten us?”

“Manny, when we was in the joint together, Johnny had a reputation. Well, he had more than one reputation, but the big one was about threats.”

“What about threats?”

“He didn’t make threats. He made promises, and he always kept them. Always.”

Manny looked just a little impressed. “Yeah?”

“I saw it happen time and again, over fifteen years. He never failed to come through, not once. If Johnny said it was going to happen, it happened.”

Manny made a swallowing noise and looked around, as if for help. He was unaccustomed to being threatened. He had known Johnny Fratelli well enough to believe what Vinnie was saying.

“You know where he is?”

“No,” Vinnie said. “He always uses throwaways, then he throws them away. The important thing is: he knows where you and I are. He knows where this trailer is. Can you imagine how much money you would lose if this trailer got burned up?”

“Did he say he would do that?”

“No, he just said we have until noon tomorrow for his mil and the vig from last week to turn up in his account.”

“Or what?”

“He didn’t say how, just that it would happen. Then he said, ‘Get a head start on your funeral arrangements. Both of you.’ ”

“Pay him,” Manny said. “And make sure the amount is correct.” He pointed at the money packer and jerked a thumb toward the unpacked money. “Beat it, Vinnie.”

Vinnie beat it. And he was already on the phone to the money guy, with instructions.