Wiseguys In Love (5 page)

She slowly stood up and gathered a pad for notes.

She was sitting in the conference room, staring at her pad, thinking about her weekend escape from New York. Andrew's friends had a nice big house and a pool, and they were going to have a big barbecue this evening.

She looked up and watched the new executive editor, who nobody liked, begin his speech by telling everyone in the room that they were incompetent.

Boy, she wouldn't mind getting fired. She could get unemployment. She could take her sweet time looking for another job, maybe even a job with someone human as a boss. She could go on a visit home with Andrew. The summer was almost over and she could be sitting on the porch of her family's hunting lodge, right near the Canadian border, looking at the leaves change around the cool lake, where she and Grandpa fished.

She watched the executive editor's mouth move without a sound. She was still at the lodge.

The meeting seemed to last forever. Every person Henry Foster Morgan had hired recently had nothing but demeaning things to say about anyone who'd worked on
Scope.
Her eyes flashed at Lynn, who was in a losing battle for her job.

“You call that a cover?” Henry bellowed, leaning forward.

“Well I—”

“Look at this. A four-year-old could come up with something better.” Henry was snorting at her.

Lynn glared at him, trying to control herself.

“You weren't around to tell me what you wanted.”

“Don't give me that. The only thing I have to tell you is that I don't like it.”

“Can you at least tell me what it is that bothers you about this one?” Lynn asked, still holding up the board with a perfectly decent cover design.

He'd leaned forward, shaking his head.

“When you give me something, I'll know it.”

“I've done eight covers!” she snapped.

“Well do eight more … and what the hell is that on the cover?”

“What?”

“That's not the headline. I don't even know what that word means.”

Lisa cringed.

“It's dummy type.”

“What?”

“It's not a word, it's letters in the right typeface.”

“Huh?”

“It's to show placement.”

“When the hell did we start doing that?”

“We've always used dummy type.”

“Well, why didn't I get a memo on it?”

“Because I didn't think—”

“Well, if you don't think, maybe we'll just have to get someone who can.”

The truth of the matter was that the only thing wrong with the cover was that Henry had a friend who wanted Lynn's job.

It was two minutes to five before they were dismissed. People walked out of the meeting looking as if they had just been interviewed by Torquemada.

Lisa walked tiredly back to her desk and dropped her pad. She plopped down on the chair and kicked off her heels.

At least it was Friday. And Henry had decided to “cover the social scene” from the beach for the rest of next week. He had done this the last two years. At least she could look forward to that.

Lisa leaned over and began tying the laces on her sneakers. She stopped for a moment.

Mrs. Morelli.

Lisa stood up and grabbed her bag. She doubted she'd still be at her desk, but she should at least walk over there. It was nice that they allowed Mrs. Morelli to miss the traffic. She wouldn't want to be almost sixty-five and still being crushed in rush-hour traffic.

She walked down the long hallway. Thank God someone had a decent boss in this place. The vision of Mrs. Morelli going into the office for her appeared in her head.

She owed Mrs. Morelli. The woman had always been nice to her, but standing up to her boss was above and beyond.

She should do something nice for her, bring flowers in on Monday.

She walked into Accounting and over to the desk. She must have gone home. Just as Lisa was turning to leave, she suddenly stared at the desk. Something was not right. She stared at the empty space where the old adding machine had been. Her ashtray was gone. Her chair was left pulled out, and her slippers were nowhere to be seen. She stared at the ghosts of photos and greeting cards that had decorated the woman's wall.

She turned around and stood staring at a young woman who sat across from Mrs. Morelli.

“Where is all of Mrs. Morelli's stuff?”

“Didn't you hear? They fired her this afternoon.”

“What?”

“Yeah, can you believe those bastards? Thirty-one years she gave to this company, and one afternoon, wham, it's all gone.”

“Oh my God. Why did they fire her? Do you know?”

“Oh, they gave the official reason as leaving early, that she'd left more than three times in the last month. They even came up with memos supposedly showing that she'd been warned about this. I'd told her not to trust Carol. I said all this ‘women together' shit would be until you got in her way—she's a barracuda in L'eggs. First, she tells her it's okay and then she fires her by using it as an excuse.”

Lisa began to get a sinking feeling.

“What's the real reason?”

“Aw, she says it's 'cause she caught some bigwig padding his expense report and he had her fired for it 'cause she said something.”

Lisa stood there frozen as the woman began shaking her head and looking through her handbag.

“You know, you just don't mess with the big guys, I always say. The middle managers you can bring in, but stay away from the big ones. Bastards even took her pension away.… Are you feeling okay?”

“I, I … can they do that? Take her pension away?”

“It's in the company rules. In the fine print. They don't have to give you nothing, unless you leave in ‘good standing.'” She took out a lipstick as Lisa sank into Mrs. Morelli's chair. She watched the woman apply a coat of an odd orange color to her lips, holding up a small mirror as she kept talking.

“Sue the bastards, that's what one guy told her. Take 'em to court and get every cent they got.”

“Is she going to do that?” Lisa asked hopefully.

“Ah, I don't think so. It's not worth it. By the time the legal eagles around here get their teeth into it, they could just stall it and stall it. I had a neighbor, fought getting fired in court. Shirley musta been sixty-four when she started the thing. Her old firm's legal department, they dragged it out nine years. By the time she got a settlement, she was seventy-three, owed it all to her lawyers, and she was dead in one week.”

Lisa's stomach knotted. It was her fault.

“What a racket, huh?” The woman grimaced, putting the lipstick back in her purse. “You okay?” she asked again.

Lisa nodded as the woman shrugged.

“Well, I gotta get home,” the woman said after a moment.

Lisa nodded again and stood up. She walked mechanically to the elevators in silence. The woman next to her kept shaking her head and exhaling.

“How come it only happens to the good people? No husband to look out for her. I'm gonna go over there tonight and see how she is.”

“You have her address?” Lisa asked.

“Sure.”

“Could you give it to me? I'd really like to go see her.”

The elevator door slid open and they both got on as she rifled through her bag for a piece of paper and a pencil.

“Jeez, and on the ‘Donahue Show' they can't figure out why there's no company loyalty in America anymore.”

TWO

“That SONOFABEECH. I want him, you hear? I want the sonofabeech dead!”

Rosa Morelli's voice was like nails on a blackboard. It made your fillings hurt.

“He's busy, Rosa—”

“Naw, you don't give me this shit. I want to talk to Solly right now! I want him to send me my Tony.”

Ralphie took the phone away from his ear. She'd been calling since three. He exhaled. Rosa was not going to give up until she got through. He knew it. Once she got an idea into her head, she didn't let go. She was like a pit bull when she was angry. Ralphie looked toward the back wall at the closed door. Solly was in a mood today, and getting mixed up with Rosa would be all he needed to take it out on Ralphie.

Ralphie had blown it big that afternoon. He was supposed to meet up with Solly's car in lower Manhattan, then drive to Giuseppe Geddone's union office on account of he was stiffing them on the dues payments. On his way out to meet them, Ralphie had picked up two Channel 11 reporters on his tail and hadn't noticed until Vesey Street. The bastards had a video camera and everything, and in his heart Ralphie knew there was gonna be another embarrassing “News at Six” report on “Snappy Soltano,” New York's “best-dressed don.”

Ralphie's mind came back into the club. He could hear Rosa's voice still audible, even through his meaty hand. He was going to have to do something. The way he saw it, he was just as dead if he didn't mention it. He put the phone back to his ear.

“… and I want his thumbs. And his ears…”

“Rosa, whatta you gonna do with his ears?”

“I'm gonna send 'em to his mother. You get him on the phone, or I swear it, I'm gonna make big trouble for you, Ralphie.”

He took the phone away.
Stunadze
Sicilian bitch. What's she gonna do? Have little pieces of him torn off, too?

“Rosa, I see what I can do,” he said, and smashed the phone down before she could scream back at him.

He stared at Louie behind the bar, watching him brew espresso. The phone rang at once and Louie stared at him. Ralphie shook his head and Louie ignored the ringing.

Ralphie took off his glasses and wiped them with a paper towel. He then wiped his pudgy face. He was sweating now. He stared down at his big pinkie ring and exhaled. He had to do it. He put his glasses back on.

He tapped as gently as he could on the door. After a moment, it was opened and Ralphie walked in. He stood staring at Solly behind his desk. He was on his private line. He crossed his hands respectfully in front of him as Solly placed a hand over the receiver.

“What?” he barked at him.

He cleared his throat. “Rosa Morelli been calling for two hours. She's real upset. She wants Tony to come up to her house right away.”

“So?” he snapped, then immediately added, “What she want with Tony?”

“She wants him to kill some guy at her office and take his thumbs and ears to send to his mother.”

Solly's eyes bulged.

“Go,” he said, tilting his head.

Ralphie nodded and backed out of the room.

Solly hung up the phone and dialed Rosa. The line was busy. He hung up and stared at the desk.

Son of a bitch. Thirty-three years he'd been paying for Gino's death, and it wasn't even his fault. Gino'd been a hothead, a real jedrool. Go
talk
to the PR on a Hun' four street about selling crap from Nunzio at half price.… Gino'd walked in with two pistols. Got himself all shot up on the avenue, and somehow, in Rosa's mind, Solly owed her.

Gino'd been a distant cousin by marriage, and Rosa was his wife, which made her even more removed from the Soltanos, but you wouldn't know it from the way she talked to Solly. You'd think she was blood.

It was the women. She'd gotten in tight with the women. His own wife looked after Rosa better than she did her own sister.

Thirty-three years of phone calls—Con Ed, the phone company, the dry cleaners, the grocer. Every time she got it into her head she'd been done wrong, he was supposed to hack people up for her.

Some days Solly wondered whether Gino hadn't gotten himself blown away just to get away from her.

This afternoon, he didn't need it. He didn't have the time to listen to her scream for an hour, then come up with something that would appease her and all the wives. He couldn't let Tony go up there. Then he'd lose him to her craziness. He needed Tony to run up to Harlem and straighten out Giuseppe Geddone.

Acid began to churn in his stomach as the
agita
set in.

Fuckin' Ralphie! That shit shoulda been cleared up this morning. He reached into his desk drawer, took out a roll of Rolaids, and popped two in his mouth. They exploded from the pressure between his teeth.

How could a grown man miss a black van with a Channel 11 logo, three feet high in reflective white lettering?

Some days Solly felt as if he was surrounded by morons. He stared at his nails. He should get Georgie up; he was due for another manicure. Ralphie, Tony Mac … His mind flashed on Tony's cousin Michael Bonello.

He swallowed the last of the Rolaids and took out his silk pocket handkerchief, wiped his forehead, then carefully refolded it and put it back in the breast pocket of his Armani suit.

He picked up the phone again and dialed Rosa's. He could see her stomping through her house to get to the phone, her face as red as her hair. Why she dyed her hair red, anyhows?

“Ralphie?”

Solly winced as he heard her voice deep in his fillings.

“Rosa? It's me, Solly. Whadda you scream at Ralphie for, huh?” This was the only way to handle her. Let her know you were annoyed, right from the start.

“Solly…” she said, and then she did something that in all the years Solly had known her he'd never heard her do.

She cried.

*   *   *

If muscles were brains, then Tony Macarelli would've been a Nobel laureate. Standing, he was six foot five and weighed 290. He was a solid walking wall. His body was so built up that he had to have his suits and shirts made for him, as his arms were short, his chest unbelievably wide, and his neck so thick, you swore his shoulders began at his chin. His face was flat, his forehead high, and his nose went off at an angle. He kept his hair cropped short and respectable and carried himself with power.

He was known by the name Tony Macaroni, or Tony Mac, in the neighborhood. He'd always been called that, probably because the stuff didn't seem to make a dent in his voracious appetite. Michael had sat through many a meal as a kid amazed, watching his cousin go through bowls of ziti as if they were water. Five serving bowls later and Tony would be ready for “the meat.”