Blood Money

19

Frank Delfina wondered whether he should have done something about Augustino’s bus after all. He had listened to a plan that his lieutenants liked, but had rejected it. He had spent an hour in his Jersey City cannery listening to the route, hearing his guys tell him the details, and had even examined some of the equipment. The presentation had been impressive. They had shown him how the stop-stick worked. He could easily accept the idea that the device probably didn’t look like anything when headlights shone on it at sixty miles an hour. When the guys waiting out of sight beyond the reach of the headlights pressed a button, a row of spikes popped up from the flat base and punctured all the tires. Then a picked team of men would swarm over the bus like ants on a dead carcass, blow the doors at both ends with explosives, toss in a couple of grenades, and spray the interior with MAC-10s until the blood in the aisles was up to their ankles.

He had listened politely and thoughtfully. It was probably the only time in a generation when that many heads of families had been in one small, enclosed space all at once. But something in the back of his mind had remained hungry and unsatisfied. The men in front of him were credible. He knew they were not likely to be hesitant in the execution, or likely to panic afterward and fail to slip back into the darkness and escape. All of them had dropped the hammer on people before. They exuded fitness and strength and competence. He just didn’t trust military-style operations that required perfect timing and mechanical efficiency. Once in a while they worked for armies, but not always. If any detail of the plan went wrong, Delfina was dead. And creating devastation around him was not even what he wanted.

“No, I don’t think so,” he had said. “It’s not for me.”

They had all looked at him like dogs that had smelled rabbit and then heard the click of the clasp as the chain was snapped onto their collars.

It had reminded him that he was alone. He could get people like this to take risks for him, but he couldn’t get them to grapple with the complexity, the subtlety of events. Each act set off a series of reactions, and each of the reactions caused some divergence in other sequences of events. Yes, he wanted to get his hands on the money Bernie the Elephant had hidden. Yes, if most of the other people who had a realistic chance of getting to it were dead, it would increase his chances. But no, he didn’t want to do it.

A massacre would have brought on a period of anarchy across the whole country, and that was not good for anyone. A few thousand soldiers in a dozen cities would suddenly be cut adrift without leaders. Undoubtedly they would regroup and reconfigure, but not instantly, and not in predictable ways. Everywhere there would be internal fighting to determine who would take the places of the dead men, and Delfina could not exert influence to determine the winners. When the struggle was over, there would be a dozen new faces, or even three dozen—who could say that the big families wouldn’t split?—for Delfina to try to deal with.

While the fighting was going on, the rivals who were always waiting on the fringe for the Mafia to weaken would be eagerly streaming into pieces of territory, making inroads into businesses everywhere. The value and security of the mob’s holdings would be drastically eroded.

Delfina’s family would be more vulnerable than anyone’s. The others had fixed, solid ground that they could defend. His empire was a network of filaments extending vast distances, like a spider web. He didn’t have collectors and bagmen, he moved money on the Internet. He depended on the slow, lumbering dinosaurs to keep his enterprises safe. When he sent five of his people to visit a business competitor in Cleveland, what he was doing was invoking in the competitor’s imagination the hundred soldiers that Al Castananza had within a mile of that office, and who would never go away. The fact that Castananza had no knowledge of what Delfina was doing or interest in it was not something the competitor could know.

Delfina had held his hand. But now he squinted under the glare of the New Orleans sun and wondered. He drove along Iberville Street looking for the corner, then realized that he must have missed it at least a block back. He spotted a big old Buick pulling out of a parking space and decided to take it. He eased his rental car into the space, then sat still for a moment in the air-conditioned atmosphere while he checked his street map. Yes, it had to be about a block behind him. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and he could see the four-story building just as he remembered it. He had come from his hotel south of here this time. Last time he had approached it from the north, so he had been looking on the wrong side of the street.

He folded the map, turned off the engine, and got out of the car. The weight of the hot, humid air came down on him as he glanced at his watch and began to walk. He still had fifteen minutes, and that was good. Being late would have negated the effect he had constructed in coming alone and driving himself.

He walked into the yellowed marble lobby of the building and looked around for the elevator. There was only one, and it fit with the ornate, old-fashioned decoration of the place. There was a pair of shiny gold doors with a folding gate behind them and an elderly operator sitting on a high stool who pushed a lever to get you to the right, unmarked floor. The building had been a bank when Chi-chi Tasso was a child, and it still had that substantial, heavy look. Tasso had told him that he had owned it for a year before he noticed that the designs on the pillars and pressed into the plaster along the edge of the ceiling were copied from the filigrees and swirls on a one-dollar bill.

Delfina stepped into the elevator, and the white-haired operator said, “Top floor, sir?”

He nodded, and the man cranked his lever all the way down and jolted him upward. He could see the floors moving from floor to ceiling, first old brick and then a horizontal stripe of concrete and gold doors, then brick. The elevator came to a quick stop below the floor, and the man nudged it upward in little jerks until the concrete stripe was roughly the same level as the floor of the elevator, then pulled back the iron fence as the gold doors parted.

Delfina stepped out and walked along the shiny floor of the empty hallway. The door at the end swung open and a man in his thirties studied him with an expressionless face. “Hello, Mr. Delfina. Would you mind if I … ?”

Delfina held his arms up and let the man pat his shoulders, ribs, legs, then run his hands along his belt and the small of his back.

“Thank you, sir.” He stepped aside and let Delfina walk into the next room. It was a reception area that had probably once contained a desk for a secretary, but now it was furnished with only a set of long couches along the walls, where six men sat smoking cigarettes and talking. They did not stir while Delfina walked to the open door, but when he had entered, one of them stood and closed the door behind him.

Tasso was sitting behind a big desk, his head wreathed in smoke from his cigarette, the sunlight that shot through the blinds illuminating some layers of it and leaving the others invisible. He half-stood to shake hands. “Frank,” he said. “It’s really nice of you to come all the way down here to see me. I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you someplace, but it’s hard as hell for me to travel now.”

“It’s okay, Chi-chi,” said Delfina. “It’s like a little vacation. My business never takes me down here, so—”

“It better not,” said Tasso. His wide grin showed the way his teeth had come in at odd angles.

Delfina smiled. “I’ll bet sometime you and I could do something together,” he said. “It wouldn’t have to be anything based in New Orleans.”

Tasso nodded politely. “I’ve given it some thought,” he said. “I always had you picked out as the smartest one of the guys coming up, but it’s probably too late. I’m old, and the time when I could have done much for you is about over. You’re established, and you probably know everything I know and a few things besides.”

Delfina kept his smile unreadable and waited.

Tasso’s wide, jowled face assumed a worried look. “The reason I wanted to talk to you is that I think I caught sight of a little problem the other night.”

“Problem?” Delfina feigned a low-level alarm. “Another one. First it’s Bernie Lupus, and now what?”

“Actually, we’re still not past the Bernie Lupus problem. This is part of it. The other night, a bunch of us had a sit-down.”

Delfina’s low-level alarm appeared to intensify. “You did? You mean the Commission?”

“No,” said Tasso, looking up at the ceiling. “Just the heads of families that had money that Bernie Lupus was holding for us.” His eyes suddenly settled on Delfina. “I was kind of wondering why you weren’t there.”

Delfina said, “I wasn’t invited. Nobody said anything to me.”

Tasso muttered, “Well, that takes care of that question. But it does raise another issue, doesn’t it? You had money with Bernie, didn’t you?”

Delfina nodded solemnly. “Sure.”

“Why?”

Suddenly the sharp little eyes were on him, but to Delfina it felt as though the big, thick fingers were poking his chest. “Why?” Delfina repeated.

“Yeah. By the time you had any, he was already getting old. The guys of his generation, like me, he bought us fifty years of security. Why would you hide money with him?”

Delfina said, “I’ll tell you, because I know you’ll keep this in confidence.” He saw that Tasso didn’t contradict him. “I had a couple of things in mind. When Castiglione was out, and DeLuca and I were supposed to split the family, think about my position.”

“I know your position,” said Tasso. “I helped invent it.”

“DeLuca got the city. He could put money anywhere inside it. I would have had to carry it in a suitcase. I had to put it in places that were guaranteed for a while, until I could start using it. I didn’t lay off much with Bernie, but some.”

Tasso took a deep drag on his cigarette, then slowly blew the smoke out. “Bernie was guaranteed?”

“Sure he was. He had you and the others to protect him.” His smile returned. “Is there any other way I could have had you all protecting my money?”

“Not that I know of.” He looked at the cigarette as though he was reluctant to say good-bye to it, and then snuffed it out in his big glass ashtray. “I’m trying to protect you now.”

Delfina could see that what he had said wasn’t enough. “There was another thing. I didn’t put money with Bernie for a lot of years, but Castiglione did. He was in it from the beginning, I heard.”

“Practically,” said Tasso. “In the beginning it was the Langustos. And the Augustinos were in it before it started, because they found him. Then the other New York families, then me and Castiglione and Castananza.”

“That’s a long time ago. When Castiglione was pushed out Tommy DeLuca and I were supposed to split everything.”

Tasso nodded slowly. “There. Now I heard something that sounds like you thought of it. You figure you’re entitled to the money Castiglione laid off with Bernie.”

“Half of it, anyway,” said Delfina. “That was money the family made. When the Commission took the family away from him and gave it to me and DeLuca, did they mean he could take the family’s money to Arizona with him?”

“And that’s why you put money with Bernie.”

“Sure,” said Delfina. “That way I kept up a relationship with Bernie. I thought if DeLuca kept bringing money to him, and I didn’t, he would start to think of DeLuca as a straight one-for-one replacement for Castiglione. Then I lose out.” He shook his head sadly. “Only we all waited too long to ask for the money. Now we all lose out.”

Tasso shrugged. It looked like a sudden jump of his mountainous body. “It ain’t over yet. That’s why there was a meeting.” He reached into his desk and pulled out the two flyers he had picked up on the bus. “This one is Danny Spoleto. Know him?”

“No.”

“He came up in New York. He was Bernie’s bodyguard for a while, then he was a bagman for a while. He went ‘poof’ the day Bernie died.” He sighed. “Probably he heard about Bernie and heard people were looking for him at the same time, so he got scared. But they want to talk to him.” He handed Delfina the picture of Rita Shelford. “This one is even less likely. She’s just a kid, but she worked as a servant in Bernie’s house.”

“Did she disappear too?”

“That’s what they tell me,” said Tasso. “I’m not real hopeful that this is the way to find out who killed Bernie. But the Langustos and some of the others have been watching to see if big money started moving around, and they say it is. They think somebody got a list Bernie kept, or something, and now they’re washing the money. I’m giving it to you, for whatever it’s worth, just so there’s nothing everybody else knows that you don’t know.”

“Why?”

Tasso smiled in appreciation. “Now you’re doing it. But I like things the way they are. I’m old. I’m not happy that Bernie died with some of my money stuck in his frontal lobe. And if anybody ends up with it, I’m going to go see them. I haven’t skipped any meals. I don’t need it. But I like things in balance.” He glared at Delfina. “That’s the lesson I learned from Castiglione,” he said. “We let him get strong. We let him make side deals with some families in other places without telling the rest of us about it. He almost got too strong.”

“Are you worried?”

“I move before I need to worry. That’s why I’m telling you this. At the meeting Molinari asked why you weren’t there. It sounded like he wondered if the reason was that you were the one who did Bernie.”

“Me?” Delfina looked shocked.

“You’re in a lot of places, and you’re smart enough to know how to move money around if you had it. I think he’s satisfied, but don’t forget that the subject came up. If the money doesn’t turn up, the idea could come back. You might want to at least make motions to help find these two.”

“How did Molinari get satisfied?”

“That’s the other thing you should know. Tommy DeLuca said, ‘I didn’t think I should bring more of my guys than necessary.’ ”

“The son of a bitch,” said Delfina.

“Don’t get mad,” said Tasso. “You would have done the same thing if there was a chance to claim all the money Castiglione laid off instead of splitting it. Just keep it in mind, and you’ll be okay. You weren’t invited because DeLuca kept you out.”

“I see,” said Delfina. “If I know it, then it’s neutralized, and you maintain balance.”

“Not quite. You need to know one other thing,” said Tasso. “Molinari knew that Augustino had called the meeting, and that he did it because the Langusto brothers asked him to. If they told DeLuca but not you, then there could be a special relationship.”

“You mean they’ll back him if he says Castiglione’s money goes to him?”

“Maybe. But now you know.”

“Now I know. More balance.”

“That’s right. We could sit here and watch the heads of the families in Chicago and Pittsburgh making an alliance with one of the New York families. But it sounds a little familiar.” He lit another cigarette. “That’s all I have to say right now. Do what you want.”

“Thanks, Chi-chi.” He stood up. “If there’s another meeting will you tell me?”

Tasso nodded. “I’m not going to sit here and watch everything get all screwed up.”

Delfina went through the outer office and down in the elevator with the white-haired operator. It seemed to him that the temperature rose as he descended from floor to floor, until the lobby seemed like an oven. When the old man let him out, he closed the doors and the gate again. Delfina could see the little lights illuminating on the wall above the doors as he rose to the cooler floors.

Delfina walked to his car. He could barely touch the door handle without burning himself. He turned on the air-conditioning as high as it would go, rolled down the windows, and drove a few blocks before he closed them again.

When he reached his hotel room in the Vieux Carré, he saw that there was a fax waiting for him. He called Caporetto in Niagara Falls. “It’s me.”

“Sorry to bother you,” said Caporetto, “but there’s something new. We got a guy to pretend he was a cop and talk to the desk clerks at the hotel. The girl was really there. She checked in by herself, with her own credit card. Then, when she checked out, there was an older woman with her, who had them transfer the hotel bill to her card. But the girl had eaten in the restaurant and charged it to her card, not the room. That’s why the charge stuck and we got it.”

“What’s the woman’s name?”

“Kathleen Hobbs,” said Caporetto.

“Did you run her?”

“Yeah. The card is real, but I think the woman may be a ringer. The card’s about five years old, but it looks like she doesn’t use it much. There’s nothing recent, and nothing major on the credit report, either. No mortgage, no car payment, nothing bought on time.”

“Of course she’s a ringer. Would you have put that bill under your real name?”

“No.”

Delfina began to pace his room, but the cord kept pulling him back to the desk. He looked down, and the flyers Tasso had given him were staring up at him. “Did you get her description?”

“Yeah. Tall—like five-nine—and thin—a hundred and twenty-five or thirty. Late twenties or early thirties and pretty, but not like a movie star. More like a dancer or something, lots of leg and kind of all elbows and sharp edges. Long black hair. Blue eyes.”

Delfina said, “Get an artist, the way the cops do. Have him work with each of the clerks separately until they both agree you’ve got a perfect likeness. Then get it out as fast as you can. Fax it to all of our guys.”

Delfina hung up and thought for a moment, then went to the folding stand by the wall and closed his suitcase. He just had time to catch his flight to San Diego.