Secrets & Lies (11 page)

It was dark when I slithered down the telephone pole. 2nd Street was mostly empty, but 2nd Avenue was crowded with pedestrians.
That was nothing new to me, so I took off uptown along the east side. I had no desire to go west and revisit scenes from my last outing.

There were the usual surprised reactions from people on the streets, good and bad. “Look, the Black Stiletto!” “Hurray for the Black Stiletto!” “Someone call the cops!” As usual, I'm friendly to everyone if I'm forced to stop at a light. Most people just get out of my way and gawk.

I made it up to 37th Street without any incidents. No crimes in progress. Nothing for me to do. But it was still early; I didn't want to turn back just yet. I kept going, and as I approached 38th Street I stepped into a mess of trouble. Cop cars appeared in front of me, blocking off the intersection, lights blazing. I did an abrupt about-face and started running toward 37th so I could slip east. But police cars appeared with perfect timing, blocking that intersection, too.

It was a coordinated plan, it had to have been. The only thing I can think is that the police have informers planted around the city. If they see me, they call it in, and then the task force that was set up to catch me goes into action. I now realize that's what the cops were attempting the last couple of times I saw them—cutting off the escape routes on both ends of a street or avenue.

If I crossed 2nd Avenue, I'd be wide open. They could easily shoot me. There was no fire escape on the building I stood in front of. Up was not an option. If I moved forward or backward, I'd run into cop cars and the men who ride in them. I didn't know what to do. Cops were advancing from north and south. Some stayed behind to guard the intersections. So I did what I thought was the less risky thing. I figured they wouldn't try to shoot me because traffic was heavy and there were too many pedestrians about. So I bolted west into 2nd Avenue traffic to cross to the other side.

It all happened so fast. A car slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting me. As a result, a taxi behind it crashed into the back. It then swerved into oncoming traffic and flipped. For some reason, a city bus was also moving at a ridiculously fast speed behind the cab, and it was full of passengers. It, too, collided with the now upside-down
taxi and the first car, which I saw had two men in it. The bus plowed heavily through the disabled vehicles, nearly crushing the taxi, and then began to tilt. It careened on two wheels and fell over on its side and slid twenty or thirty feet. The noise the metal made on the road was like the roar of a gigantic, wounded beast. When the bus finally came to a rest, I heard the screams. Everyone heard them. I stopped running. My intention was to go to the bus and see what I could do to help.

“Freeze! Raise your hands!” Cops with guns drawn ran toward me from the east side of 2nd. I didn't hesitate; I turned back and continued my trek across the road to the other side, and then dashed south. One policeman fired his weapon, but I heard another shout, “Hold your fire!” Suddenly it seemed there were a million people swarming around the accident.

And one of them yelled, “It's the Black Stiletto's fault!”

I kept running until I got to 36th Street, then I turned east to disappear into the darkness. From then on, I zigzagged east and west and moving southward until I got to the East Village. It was no problem getting to the gym roof and through the window to my room.

It was horrible. How many people were hurt? Was anyone killed? The driver of the taxi must have suffered the worst. I don't think I'll be able to block the echo of those screams from my mind.

Oh, my God, dear diary, what have I done?

T
HE
P
AST

I was invited to Vincent DeAngelo's birthday party bash. It was always a big to-do and a spot on the guest list was coveted. I've been asked a few times, but I'm not on the list every year. I don't know why. This year the don remembered me. He didn't invite Christina, though. Maybe he didn't realize we lived in the same house. Maybe he thought she was still in jail. She pretended not to care, but I knew she was a little miffed that I got to go and she couldn't. You'd think we could just call up and ask if she could come, seeing as how our pop was good friends with DeAngelo and all; but that just wasn't done with the DeAngelos. I wasn't even allowed to bring a date. They kept a strict watch on the invitees. Sal Casazza, Mario, and Shrimp were always there. A couple of the other big shot wiseguys in L.A. got to go. Mostly the parties consisted of DeAngelo's extensive family, the Las Vegas crew, and rotating privileged close friends.

DeAngelo—I sometimes referred to him as “the don,” although that's more of an East Coast Italian thing; no one called him that here—lived on a ranch on the north side of town. There were no cattle or anything like that; it's just a lot of desert acreage and a huge mansion and swimming pool. He had the place landscaped, so there was green grass—the kind they had on golf courses—on the huge back lawn, fountains, trees, and gardens. It was indeed beautiful. If
it wasn't so damned hot outside, it'd be paradise. Well, there was supposed to be a little bit of hell in paradise, right?

They kept the riffraff out of Shangri-la with a big stone fence that surrounded the entire property. Armed men watched the front gate twenty-four hours a day. DeAngelo rarely left his castle except to go to the Sandstone Casino in town. He was always protected, no matter where he went. Vincent DeAngelo was probably the most important man in Vegas next to Howard Hughes.

The party was in full swing by the time I got there. The sun was just starting to go down, so the temperature was gradually dropping from what seemed like a hundred-and-ten degrees to a balmy one hundred. The food was indoors where the A/C was on. What a luxury. I just had A/C installed in my home in Hollywood. Don't know why I never had it before.

It was quite a spread. Carlotta DeAngelo, the don's wife, was famous for her pasta dishes, and there were plenty—spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, and fettuccini Alfredo. Then there was veal and sea bass, lots of vegetables and fruit, plates of bread and cheese, finger food, and ice cream and pastries for dessert. They were going to top off the evening with a gigantic birthday cake for Vince. He was sixtyfour.

The man was enjoying himself. He sat in a lounge chair by the swimming pool, decked out in swimming trunks, sunglasses, and a cowboy hat. Somehow that hat just didn't look right on him. DeAngelo wasn't as heavy as Sal, but he outweighed me by a hundred pounds at least. He was bald except for some gray hair on the sides of his head above his ears. I guess the hat protected him from the sun—he'd look pretty funny with a pink head.

DeAngelo stayed busy greeting friends and chain-smoking cigarettes. I liked tobacco, but they're saying it's not good for you. Now they tell us. Some of Sal's business was moving black market cigarettes. People craved the stuff. I couldn't imagine people were going to pay much attention to the surgeon general, whoever he was. As for DeAngelo, he would
never
give up smoking. They were going
to have to bury him with a couple cartons of his stinky Italian numbers, or else his corpse would rise and demand them. I figured I'd go say hello a little later. It'd feel weird shaking his hand with me all dressed and him practically naked and looking a little bit like Humpty Dumpty in a cowboy hat.

DeAngelo's bodyguard, Rico Mancini, and the consigliere of the family, Luchino Battilana, stood close by. Everyone called Battilana “Lucky,” although I didn't know why. He had his eye gouged out in Sicily during World War II, and he lost an arm in an automobile accident. Maybe he was Lucky because he was still alive. Rico caught my eye and glared at me. He didn't necessarily have anything against me, but he had some issues with Boone, of all people. I guessed there was some kind of one-upmanship contest going on in the bodyguard union. Maybe he thought he could beat Boone's ass, but if I had to bet real money on a fight, I'd pick Boone every time. Hell, I think
I
could take on Rico.

I meandered around the grounds, eyeing the various guests. Many of them I knew, most I didn't. I did business with quite a few. One guy was a client who paid me a ton of money to store some drugs he smuggled from Corsica to Los Angeles via the Port. I didn't normally like to get in the narcotics business, but at the time I needed the dough. With my warehouse leasing operation, it turned out to be pretty easy. They hid the junk inside engine parts, which was pretty clever, if I was to say so myself, and I leased them an old warehouse in the Wholesale District south of downtown L.A.

Casazza was in his element—eating all the food and drinking the booze. He appeared to be chumming it up with Tweedledum and Tweedledee—Faretti and Capri. I'd heard they had made new gun-selling deals with the Heathens and were now like crown princes or something.

I noted I didn't see a single guy wearing a Heathens leather jacket. DeAngelo hates those guys. He doesn't like doing business with outlaw motorcycle clubs, but he does it anyway. The money's too good.

The women in attendance were always breathtaking. I thought DeAngelo routinely hired a couple dozen party girls for decoration. That way, if any of the VIP guests wanted to try and get lucky, they had an opportunity. I figured I might as well give it a shot, too. I saw a very attractive redhead heading inside for the food. It'd been a couple of days since I nailed that blonde with the little mole on her cheek. I met her at Flickers, of course. She was a lot of fun. It was possible I'd give her another call some day, unless something better came along.

What could I say? I've been called a ladies' man more than once in my lifetime. It's something to be proud of. There were plenty of fags in Hollywood, believe me. You'd think the women would run away screaming for a virile man—
any
man—to rescue them. Well, I figured that was my job. Who was it that said, “Too many women, so little time?” It was certainly the goddamned truth.

Speaking of the opposite sex, I had to go to New York in a couple of weeks. Mookie wanted me to meet with a paper supplier for the counterfeit dough. Believe it or not, dollar bills were made of a special paper that's manufactured exclusively for the government. It had wood pulp, cotton, silk, linen, and I didn't know what else in it. Mookie was a genius when it came to stuff like that. Anyway, I had to go and work out an acceptable price for some rolls of the special paper. So while I was there, I thought I'd call that girl I met last month. Judy Cooper. What a dame. She was a lot of fun. Gorgeous, smart, and built like an Olympic track star. I liked 'em tall, too, and she had legs that stretched for miles. I charmed her pretty good. Didn't get her in the sack, but it was a first date. I got the feeling she could be persuaded to do it, but she was playing nice girl who had to be romanced first. She just might be worth the effort.

I made my way over to the gazebo, which stood on the far end of the lawn, near the trees. They had a bar set up there, so I grabbed a beer. It was then that I noticed a square hole in the floor of the gazebo. A waiter climbed out of it with a case of wine.

“What's down there?” I asked the bartender.

“Oh, that's an underground passage. It leads to the house, the wine cellar, in fact. Mr. DeAngelo had it built so the staff could easily retrieve food and beverages without having to carry them across the lawn, through the clusters of guests. He built the gazebo on the far side of the lawn to give people an incentive to spread out away from the house. Mr. DeAngelo likes to see every inch of his grounds filled with happy people when he throws a party.”

“That's incredible. Can I go down and look?”

“Sure.”

I entered the gazebo and climbed down a ladder ten feet to a paved tunnel. It was twenty degrees cooler down there. I walked a little ways into it. The passage was lit with a ceiling bulb every ten feet or so. I went all the way to the wine cellar and saw the staircase leading up into the house. Impressive.

When I was back outside, I spotted the redhead I'd seen earlier. She was walking away from the bar with a drink in hand, so I started to follow her. But Maria DeAngelo was also at the bar, and she said, “Leo!” I stopped. She gave me a pretty smile and asked, “Leo, are you an employee now?”

I laughed. “I was just having a look at that tunnel. I never knew it was there. That's amazing.”

“There are all kinds of secret passages and tunnels on the property.”

Maria was a swell-looking babe. Talk about a
blonde
; whew. We've known each other since we were kids, but didn't see each other very often. You could count the number of times on one hand. She was going to turn twenty-five this year, five years younger than me. Never married. She was still a virgin. No one could get in her pants unless he gave her a ring. And that was a challenge because she was daddy's little girl, and no one was good enough for her. DeAngelo would have a big say in who she ended up with.