Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud

Fifty-Eight

I was sitting with Pete Colapietro in the front seat of his car. It was our plan to spend the next several hours following Albert Antonioni around, as long as Albert began this day the way Pete said he began most days, with an espresso and a pastry at Constantino’s Venda Ravioli in DePasquale Plaza.

We were up the block, with a good view of the front entrance.

Pete had been telling me about how Albert Antonioni had a rather complicated home life, according to some checking he had done with Police Intelligence and Organized Crime. Turned out, he said, that despite the fact that Albert was the legal owner of the house in which Maria Cataldo had lived and he had frequently visited, he had at least three other homes in Providence in the names of various business associates.

Pete had put air quotes around “business associates.”

“One is the guy who’s listed as the CEO of Albert’s vending-machine business,” Pete said. “The other two are top lieutenants in his less legitimate enterprises: Tommy Marchi, Ed Schembri, Matt Connors.”

“Matt Connors?” I said.

“He must be trying to be inclusive,” Pete said.

Then he touched me on the arm and pointed and said, “Showtime.”

An SUV had just pulled up in front of Constantino’s Venda Ravioli and Antonioni had gotten out. There were two men in the car with him. They got out as well. The one from the passenger seat opened the door for Albert. He walked between them into Constantino’s, to what Pete said would be his regular table, a round marble one in the back near the freezer.

One of the troopers stayed in the car, the other stood to the side of the front door.

“You recognize either one of those guys?” Pete said.

“I think they both might have been in the room at the Old Canteen,” I said. “But neither one of them is who I’m looking for. The driver is too blond, and the guy by the door is too old and too fat.”

I showed him the copy of the picture of Maria and the little boy I’d brought with me.

“I’m looking for the grown-up version of him,” I said.

“Because you think he’s the one doing all this.”

I nodded. “Now I just have to find a way to prove it.” I sighed and shook my head. “The things I can prove don’t help me enough. But the things I can’t prove, I know I’m right about.”

“I actually think I followed that,” he said.

“I feel like I’ve been some kind of drone from the start,” I said. “Just being operated by a kid on a sugar high.”

“I got one of those,” Pete said, “you can have him, you want him.”

Albert stayed inside for an hour, came back outside with another old man, hugged the other old man, kissed him on the cheek, got back into the SUV.

“Tallyho,” Pete said.

“You’re not worried they’ll make us?”

“Ho ho ho,” he said.

Besides, Pete said, Albert being the creature of habit that his friends at Organized Crime said he was, he was fairly confident where his next stop was going to be. Pete was right. A few minutes later the SUV pulled up to the Acorn Social Club on Acorn Street.

“You’ve heard of the Ravenite Social Club in New York, right?” Pete said. “Gotti’s old hangout?”

“I have.”

“This is the Providence version of that,” he said.

He said he’d been in there, and it was pretty much everything he’d expected, a windowless front room, old men playing cards, a couple television screens, one showing horse races from various tracks around the country, the other showing the security feed from the camera above the front door.

“They let you inside?” I said.

“The goombahs think it’s funny, having a lively exchange of ideas with cops sometimes,” he said.

He grinned.

“Last time I was there one of them was bitching that he had to go get some cash from an ATM nearby and bail his son out on a DUI,” he said. “I asked him how old his son was. Guy said, ‘Fifty-seven, going on fifty-eight.’”

This time Albert Antonioni stayed inside two hours. When he came out, the SUV was still there, but he got into a different car, a black Town Car. Before he got in, he turned and waved at a Crown Vic parked up Acorn Street.

“Who’s he waving at?” I said.

“Couple guys from Organized Crime,” Pete said.

“They know you’re following him around today, too?” I said.

“More the merrier in Goombahville,” he said.

“Ours is a glamorous lot.”

“Ain’t it?” he said.

The next stop, as predicted by Pete, was at the Palomino Vending Company, which Pete said was actually a legitimate business, and one with which Albert had always done pretty well, even though he left the hands-on running of it to others.

“That way he can focus on his real passion,” Pete said. “Doing really bad shit to people.”

It was past four o’clock when Albert Antonioni finally came out of the Palomino Vending Company. I was past hungry by then, and needed to pee.

The Town Car was long gone. The SUV was still there. But now a black Lincoln Navigator pulled up, only the driver inside.

The driver got out, came around and hugged Albert Antonioni, gave a quick survey to the street, opened the back door, and helped Albert into the backseat. Came back around the front of the car.

I had already pulled the long-lens camera out of my bag, one I’d brought along just in case I needed it.

“Shazam,” I said.

I kept snapping away until the guy got back behind the wheel of the Navigator and drove away.

“We got a winner?”

“Think so,” I said.

“You know him?”

“And had forgotten him,” I said. “He was there at the Old Canteen, both times. I remember thinking the first day that he reminded me a little bit of my ex-husband.”

“Shazam, shazam, shazam,” Pete Colapietro said.

And put our car into gear.

“We gonna stay on Albert?” Pete said.

“I think of it as staying on Little Richard,” I said.