Wiseguys In Love (13 page)

But Sophia was an old woman by neighborhood standards—she was past her prime—and there were no dashing young men of Piedmontese background waiting to marry her in East Harlem.

And then came Vincent.

He had seen her in the marketplace and on her way to church in the mornings. After awhile, he made a point of standing watch across the street from church. He would look down or away when she came out, but he was always there. She knew him from his comings and goings at the Soltanos' house on a Hun' fourteen, which whet her interest enough for her to find out exactly what he did for the Soltanos.

She remembered literally breathing a sigh of relief when she was told he was nothing more than a bookkeeper. A full-fledged wiseguy, she didn't want. They lived too fast and died too young.

The first time they spoke was at a dance given in the church's basement for Valentine's Day. She and her best friend, Maria, had gotten dressed in beautiful silk dresses. Hers was light pink, with lace on the front. They had made a special journey and bought them in a shop in midtown. In midtown, it was a “frock,” bought from a “frock shop,” not just a dress.

It had been cold that night, and her teeth were chattering as they started down the basement steps. Music echoed up the long, dark passageway, lighted at the bottom like a tunnel. And as they walked down, the air got warmer and warmer, taking the chill off of her.

And there was Vincent, standing at the bottom of the steps, guarding the door. He'd gotten a job as bouncer, using the Soltanos' name.

Only she knew, or thought she knew, that if anything really happened, the worst he could do was probably run for cover.

The dance was beautiful, decorated with paper hearts and doilies, red streamers and pink balloons. Maria found someone to dance with, and Sophia found herself hovering near the front door. They made conversation, talking about the neighborhood, when their parents had come over, how long they'd been here, the doings of the neighborhood—meaningless chatter of two people who wanted to know each other and didn't know how. The dance was coming to an end.

“I should be finding Maria,” Sophia said, looking around.

“You gotta go now?”

And then she said something that came out kind of nasty, even though she meant it as a tease.

“I should stand around here talking to some wiseguy all night?” She sniffed and turned to walk away.

That was the first time he touched her. It sent shivers up her spine as his fingers easily curled around her forearm and he whirled her back around and they stood, so close she could feel his chest expand and contract with each breath. It seemed so long that they stood quietly and began leaning against each other tighter and tighter, never letting go of each other's gaze. Her body was tingling all over.

“For months I watch you going in and out of church and all I can think is, How do I talk to Sophia?… I got this job so I could speak to you. I'm no wiseguy, Sophia. I just didn't know any other way to talk to you. I'm an accountant.”

She melted on the spot.

She also knew he was lying through his teeth about not being a wiseguy.

And that was the first reason she'd decided to marry him. After all, this was a man she understood. And no matter how many lies he told or how craftily he thought he was pulling one over on her, she would know. She would know every moment of the day where he was and what he was up to, because she could look right through him into his soul.

The other reason she'd decided that Vincent Bonello was the right man was because she knew he had a reputation in the neighborhood for having a good heart, and, she reasoned, any hoodlum with a good heart was not going to be a hoodlum for long.

A couple of years of marriage, let him get it out of his system, a child or two, and he'd soon be walking the straight and narrow with a little help from her.

They were married soon after, and quickly after that she was happily pregnant and distracted enough not to say anything about it. He was out till three in the morning, then they would sleep till three in the afternoon, and she would get up and make him black coffee, and he would lovingly rub her growing belly, then go out to get a shave and a haircut.

That was the first thing that had tipped her mother off—the fact he never shaved himself.

“All the hoodlums go to that barber!” her mother had lectured while he was gone. She wouldn't come into the house when he was home.

“So? I shop at the same
salumeria
as Gina Soltano, that makes me some mobster's wife?” she'd countered.

And she remembered her mother shaking her head sadly at what a jerk for a daughter she'd raised. And she
was
being stupid; she needed to be. She was finally married to a dashing, mysterious man who worshiped her and had given her a baby. And she was confident in the fact that when it came time to face him on his chosen profession that she would win. Besides, what was she going to do? Move back in with her mother?

As the months passed and the baby came, the hours and the rumors begin to gnaw at her, and the strangeness with money, and how things like rugs or silverware would suddenly appear.

And one week, the money stopped and all hell broke loose. Vincent announced that there was trouble and they had to leave town for awhile. It was then that she'd confronted him, and that was when she'd found out how deeply she'd been lied to, and, according to her mother, tricked into marrying him.

Because the truth of the matter was, while Vincent was not proud of what he did, he wasn't ashamed of it, either. It held a certain fascination for him, and the fact was, he was good at it. He was good at running the numbers, he was a good controller, good at running the crap games, and he never had to break anyone's knees because of the shylocking. He was good at being a hood, and would be till the end of his days.

It was then that they'd had the first in a long line of fights, she remembered angrily.

Being angry at the dead, she chided herself, then realized that she hadn't thought about this, about the bad times with Vincent, in the entire past two years.

Her eyes focused back in on the clock. It was 9:30, and it jarred her back into the kitchen. The reality of the time sank in.

Oh God, she thought, where is my son?

FOUR

They rode in silence across the Brooklyn Bridge. Periodically, Tony would grunt, and Michael could hear Michigan draw shivery breaths.

That was it. There were going to be three murders tonight, and he'd be in on all of them.

This made litigation law look like a piece of cake.

Giuseppe Geddone's union office was just on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a small union, which had been supplying dynamiters for the local construction sites of city buildings since the thirties, and skim for the Soltanos since the fifties.

*   *   *

Giuseppe Geddone stood, inhaling from his cigar and staring out the window at the lights in Manhattan. It had been a rough day for him. He'd been told Solly was going to visit him in person. So that was it. It was over, after all this time.

He'd paced about the floor, wondering what to do. Should he make a run for it right then? That was when the call had come in from Ralphie.

“Solly's comin' to see you.”

“Yeah?” he'd said calmly, even though he broke into a sweat at the name. “Whatsa matter, Ralphie?”

“Aw nothin'. He just wants to talk some things over with youse. You know Solly, he likes to keep in touch with his people,” Ralphie'd said easily.

Yeah, Giuseppe knew Solly all right. This was the same guy he'd grown up with, the same guy who by the time he was seven was shaking down the whole first grade for their milk money at Our Lady of the Holy Virgin.

“When he's coming?”

“Ho, tomorrow sometime. Why you gotta ask?”

“No reason, just want to make the place neat-looking, that's all. This is a big honor for me, Ralphie.”

He'd hung up and stared at the phone. That was the call. That was Ralphie trying to assure him he wasn't gonna be murdered, so when he did send someone over, he'd be there to kill. Of course Giuseppe knew they didn't have a hope in hell of finding him here in the morning. He'd heard that they'd picked up two Channel 11 reporters, so he figured he was okay for the day at least. Okay, he'd work the rest of the day, just like normal, then go home, eat, come back to work overtime, just like normal, and then get the hell out to the airport in time for the flight to take off.

By 5:30
P.M.
, he shut off his light, took his briefcase, and went home. He made it through a leisurely dinner, laughing out loud at the TV report showing Solly, Ralphie, and Tony Mac knocking the camera out of the cameraman's hands. Then he sat in the living room, watching “Bowling for Dollars,” trying to tune out the heavy-metal music coming from his son's room.

He took a Havana out of his humidor and smoked it down. This was the last time he'd do this, he thought. Then he went over to the box and stuffed several cigars he'd been saving for the right occasion into his briefcase.

About 8:00
P.M.
, he told his wife he was going back to the office to do a little overtime. She was on the phone and barely looked up at him as he left the kitchen. He stood at the front door, looking at the front hall, the dark living room, and listening to the sounds of his wife in the kitchen. He walked back into the living room and took a picture of his family—his daughter, Gina, his son, Alphonse, and his wife—off the mantel and shoved it underneath his raincoat.

He walked out of the building, down the tiny front walk, and closed the gate silently behind him. He stood staring at the small town house for a moment, then turned and stared at the softball field in the park across the street on a Hun' fourteen.

The high-pitched sounds of boys at play mingled with the crack of a ball hitting a bat as childhood games he'd played in the park materialized in his mind. He stared at the park hard as figures of people, some long dead, filled it.

He got into his car, puffing from the exertion of fitting his big belly behind the steering wheel, and tried to etch the sights into his brain.

This would be the last time he'd ever see this place. This would be the last day he'd ever be called Giuseppe Geddone. A small pang of homesickness went through him, surprising him that it was there at all.

He drove to his office and opened up the safe. He took out the ledgers and a passport he'd had made. A fuzzy picture of himself in a dark wig stared out, and next to it was typed the name Myron Baxter.

He'd spent one week writing out the name, trying it different ways until he was satisfied with it.

He wrote one last check to Myron Baxter for $100,000 and signed it Giuseppe Geddone at the bottom. He put the check and the passport in his briefcase next to his airplane ticket and snapped it shut. He lighted a cigar and stared out at the view from the window for one last time. He had four hours to kill before his plane took off. He figured he'd make his way slowly and easily out to the airport, maybe stop somewhere for a bite to eat, then check in.

He caught himself smiling as the homesickness vanished forever. Now it was his turn—no wife, no screaming daughter, no basket case of a son.

No. Myron Baxter's first order of the day was gonna be to rent himself a yacht and sail around for awhile.

Women. He could have women again—young, beautiful European women. They wouldn't care that he was fifty pounds overweight, bald, and short.

He was a rich American, a rich WASP American aboard his yacht—out for a journey, a little sail, while other people worked like dogs in offices.

He could imagine himself, his yacht moored on the French Riviera or in Marbella on the Costa del Sol. And, after a couple months of sailing, he'd find himself a place to live, probably in one of them Latin countries with no extradition.

Of course, at this point, the law was the least of his problems.

*   *   *

“What are you, some kind of loony?” Michael whispered hoarsely into Michigan's ear, so close, he brushed her earlobe.

“Me?” she whispered back. “What did you expect me to do? Just sit there, knowing you're going to kill my boss?”

Tony Mac coughed up front and they both shut up for a moment. He turned the radio up louder and began to hum to the music and think about Angela and that dip Joey D. and dating. Veal scaloppini.

“Who do you think you are? Fuckin' Joan of Arc? We're in a city where solid citizens step over poor starving people in the street, where you can shoot someone in front of one hundred people in a restaurant and nobody'll see a thing—”

“Tell me about it. The cops weren't even interested.”

“What do you mean?”

“I called nine-one-one. They hung up on me. I just don't get this city.”

“You called
them?
” his voice rasped.

“Of course I called them. What kind of a person do you think I am?”

“Ssshh!” Michael said sharply into her ear, and his eyes got big and round as he stared at the back of Tony's head. “Never, ever say that aloud again, you hear me?” His lips were nearly pressed against her earlobe. He stayed there for a second, then leaned back, his eyes bulging.

He was flabbergasted. How naïve could she be? Not only had she called the cops but she was telling the guy with the gun that she had?

“What planet do you come from, Mars?”

“No, Michigan. Remember?” she snapped at him.

“Jesus! I told you what to do.”

“Oh, and I'm supposed to follow some thug's advice? I might not have done the best thing, but at least I tried to do the right thing, don't you understand?”

He stared her right in the eyes. “I got you off the hook back there. Don't you understand? I told you to count to one hundred and then get the hell out of the office. Go to your tea party in Boston.”