The Godfather's Revenge (49 page)

Johnny Fontane’s new single came on the radio and, in disgust, she leapt up to change the station. It had been Louis Armstrong’s recording of “Hello, Dolly” that stopped the Beatles run at the top of the charts, and now it looked like Johnny Fontane was headed that way, too.
The revenge of the geezers
, Connie thought. Johnny’s song—a version of “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love),” with several new, vulgar examples of what sort of creatures do it—seemed like a tarted-up caricature of his great records of only a few years ago.

She turned the dial.

The first station she came to interrupted its regularly scheduled programming to bring its listeners a special announcement.

When Connie heard what it was, she pulled up a tulip-backed metal chair and sat down. She hated herself for wondering if her brother might have had anything to do with this.

Then again, she thought, like most people worth knowing, she was filled with self-loathing already.

NICK GERACI NEEDED A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP AND A
hot shower, and he was going crazy from the mosquito bites, and his shoes were probably ruined. But as he headed up I-95, a little south of Jacksonville, driving a ten-year-old bread truck with a broken radio and an engine that shimmied when he tried to take it past 60, he was still a happy man: just days away from being reunited with his whole family and maybe a month or so from having this ordeal draw to a close.

As planned, he stopped into Lou Zook’s jewelry store in downtown Jacksonville, to get another car, presents for his wife and daughters, and to thank Lou for everything.

Lou—who’d long since eluded the burdens of his given name, Luigi Zucchini—had grown up in Cleveland’s Little Italy, between Mayfield Road and Lakeview Cemetery, ten years older than Nick Geraci and a few blocks north. They’d been friends, though—chiefly from playing basketball against each other at Alta House: they were about the same size and usually guarded each other. Lou went on to build a nice business for himself in Cleveland, as a fence and small-scale shylock. When Nick took over the remnants of Sonny Corleone’s
regime,
his first big responsibility had been to set up the Family’s narcotics operation, but he was shorthanded, and so he’d pulled in a few old friends from Cleveland. Lou had been instrumental in creating a literal and figurative beachhead in Jacksonville. He solved problems at the docks and helped oversee the acquisition of the cars and trucks and drivers necessary to ship the goods where they needed to go. He was also an all-purpose source for moving the other interesting items that are prone to show up in the course of doing a vibrant import/export business. Over the past year—because, other than Momo Barone, the men in New York didn’t know Lou Zook from an actual zucchini—he’d been among Geraci’s more useful and reliable allies as he maneuvered his way back into power. Even the literal and figurative Philadelphia lawyer who’d reviewed Nick’s legal situation and judged that nobody had anything on him that could stick, any legal charges: that gentleman had been a Lou Zook find as well.

Zook’s place didn’t look like much from the outside, just a metal-clad storefront in a neighborhood that was neither black nor white. The brands of watches for which Lou was an authorized dealer were listed in decals on the plate-glass window, many of them peeling.

“A bread truck?” Lou said, looking up from behind the counter as Nick entered. He pointed at Nick’s temporary vehicle and chuckled.

Nick crossed the store, and the men exchanged a warm embrace.

“You know, my old man drove one of those when we were kids.”

“I was sorry to hear. I sent flowers to the widow.”

“Thank you, my friend.” He hadn’t been able to go himself, which inspired a fury he doubted would ever subside.

“So, you picked that thing up for sentimental reasons or what?”

“Something like that. Actually, I figured you’d thank me,” Nick said. “National brand of bread, good-size cargo area. Somebody ought to be able to take it just about anywhere, packed with just about anything. Stack a few flats of bread at the end just in case.”

“Oh, is that how we do things?” Zook said, bemused. A big part of his job was making sure the people above him, Nick in particular, didn’t know exactly how he did things.

“Wiseguy,” Nick said. “Forget I said anything.”

“Did you say something? I don’t hear so good no more.”

“So what do you got for me?”

“See for yourself.” He pointed toward his parking lot in back. Nick looked out the door.

“That Dodge a fifty-nine?”

“It fit your description,” Lou said. Which was to say: a used car, bland-looking, good title, well maintained, no customizing except for bulletproof glass.

He showed Nick the three diamond-encrusted Cartier watches, symbolizing the time he wanted to make up for with Charlotte, Barb, and Bev, each engraved on the back.

“Perfect,” Nick said. “Wrap ’em. What do I owe you?”

“Nothin’.”

“Listen, all you done for me, I ought to be buyin’ you a gift, too. How much do I owe you?”

“I’m telling you, Nick, we’re square. I’m pushing sixty years old, and I got a house out at the beach and enough saved up, even my worthless kids don’t need to work. Without you, I’m an old broken man freezing my balls off in Cleveland and dealing with dumb fucks trying to fence Avon bottles and Tupperware.”

Nick didn’t know what those things were, but he got the picture.

He patted Lou on the shoulder. “Without you—”

“Forget it,” Lou said, waving him off. “Where does it end, eh? Listen, I don’t want to pry,” Lou said, “but ain’t there a bakery owner somewhere wants his truck back?”

Nick shook his head. The New Orleans distributorship of that bread had been swallowed up by Carlo the Whale. The truck had been depreciated off the books. Its serial number was gone. The Florida plates had come from a room full of them—various states, passenger and commercial, even dealer—next to the counting room in a casino outside Bossier City. “A friend of mine gave it to me,” Nick said.

Just then the barber from the shop next door burst in. “It goddamned sure wasn’t me,” the barber said.

“What wasn’t you, Harlan?” Zook said.

“It wasn’t me what shot the president.”

“Who said you did?”

“Nobody said I did, but somebody done
went
and did.”

“Somebody shot him?” Geraci asked.

“Down in Miami, they did, yessir. It’s up on the TV, even.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Zook said.

“All the times I said I wanted that nigger-lover shot and now someone shot him and there ain’t no pleasure in it, which is for damn sure. I been right next door all the time. I got witnesses.”

“Don’t even joke about shit like that, Harlan,” Zook said. “Is he dead?”

“How would I know? I wasn’t there, and I don’t know what happened to the guy what did it.”

“Not that guy,” Zook said. “The president.”

“Him, it seems like maybe yes.”

“Who shot him?” Geraci asked.

“I will swear on a stack of Bibles, mister, I don’t know and couldn’t guess,” and he slammed the door behind him.

“Crazy Nazi fuckstick,” Zook muttered. He had an old tube radio on the counter crackling to life now.

Geraci didn’t see a picture of Juan Carlos Santiago until the next day, when the paper he bought ran the mug shot taken after Santiago’s 1961 arrest in a bar altercation. Geraci recognized him right away as one of the people he’d met at the Tramontis’ rifle range.

IT WOULD SWIFTLY BECOME AN INDELIBLE IMAGE
in American history, that, when Daniel Brendan Shea heard, he was holed up in a tiny, borrowed office at the Miami Beach Convention Center, stripped down to his undershirt and white boxer shorts, laboring over the introduction to his brother’s speech that night. The room was filled with wadded-up paper and crumpled coffee cups. Earlier that day, the A.G. had told those close to him that he had decided to run for the United States Senate in 1966 and thus would not be a part of his brother’s second term. He had done this, by all accounts, with real tears in his eyes. It might have been true that his Senate career was to be launched from the podium, on national television, via this speech. But Danny Shea would not mention this in the speech. He made it clear to those who mattered that he was honored to have this chance to tell the world—directly, candidly, and specifically—what a great man his brother was.

Although Jimmy Shea had been a skilled orator, most of the things he was supposed to have written (including both his books and his senior thesis) were penned by seasoned professional writers. Danny, on the other hand, was a gifted writer and, more important, someone willing to work at it. He had professional speechwriters at his disposal, of course, including two accomplished American novelists. But even the things they worked on, he rewrote and rewrote until he got them the way he wanted them; remarkably, those writers usually thought Danny Shea had improved the speech.

Danny, like many good writers, believed that he wrote better while stripped down to his underwear.

When the knock came at the door, he said he thought he was almost finished—though he’d been saying this for hours.

“No, sir.” It was his brother’s chief of staff. “It’s not that. May I come in, please?”

The attorney general got up and unlocked the door.

The chief of staff was not fazed by Danny Shea’s standing before him in an undershirt and boxer shorts.

Danny, in contrast, seemed devastated just by the look on the chief of staff’s face.

“It’s your brother,” the man said.

Danny Shea froze. Then, as he listened to the details about what happened, he started to take short breaths—not so much hyperventilation as an effort to keep a lid on his emotions.

Suddenly, he began frantically to get dressed, as if getting out of that small room and going to his brother’s side would make any difference now.

“I’m a fool,” he said.

“Sir?” said the chief of staff.

“This is all my fault,” said Danny Shea.

“I’m not following you,” said the chief of staff.

WHEN EDDIE PARADISE HEARD, HE WAS ABOUT TO
go downstairs at his Hunt Club and show Richie Nobilio the lion, which Richie Two-Guns had been good enough to help him acquire from a down-on-its-luck circus that was about to cash in its chips.

Richie had met him for a late lunch at a place on Court Street, bearing gifts: a box of twenty-four pairs of socks—the right brand, too—and a poster in a tube. It was another World War II poster for the collection. In it, a lone man sank into a blue-black sea, his arm extended, his hand huge in the foreground, pointing right at the viewer. The caption was
SOMEONE TALKED
!

Eddie thanked him profusely for two such thoughtful gifts. “How you been?” Eddie asked. “You been all right?”

“Can’t complain, but I still do.” He bugged out his eyes comically. “Yourself?”

“Not exactly number one on the hit parade,” Eddie said, “although who is?”

“One guy, I guess, is,” Richie said. “By definition.”

“Yeah, but it don’t last long. There’s always that next song rising with a bullet.”

They ordered.

“Listen,” Eddie said when the waiter left. “How did you mean this here? Because I think maybe you’re trying to say something about me not wearing socks more than once and also maybe being the traitor. Or if not me, one of the men under me.
Someone talked.
Eh? Real cute. Admit it.”

Richie poker-faced him and milked it. “You know you’re nuts, right?”

Eddie stared him down and then gave up and laughed.

“You’re right.” Eddie rapped his knuckles on the box full of socks. “Very thoughtful. Again, I thank you. It’s just, with everything going on…”

“Trying times,” Richie said, nodding in commiseration.

“Exactly.”

Richie Two-Guns raised his glass. “
Salut’
.”

They drank.

They discussed the rumor about Acapulco, that Geraci’s whole counteroffensive had been launched via someone he’d contacted down there. They each had a top guy they were hoping pretty passionately it wasn’t. They talked about the timing of when they—and others—were down there, and it was inconclusive.

“So, how do we ever figure it out?”

“We keep a close eye, I guess,” Eddie said. “We keep on doing what we’re doing. Sooner or later, it all comes to a head. Like the turtle says, huh? Slow and steady wins the race.”

“That’s
tortoise,
Ed. The tortoise and the hare.”

“Same difference.”

“Not to a tortoise.” Richie smiled. “But the principle still holds, I guess. Obviously, you’re right. If we act too fast, if we act like we’re concerned, the men under us get nervous, which we don’t want. But if we act too slow, Geraci’s our boss again, and, to use your analogy, we’re knocked right off the pop charts.”