Inherit the Mob (22 page)

“Yeah, OK,” said Gordon. “You wanna come up here, or you want me to come down there?”

“Why don’t you meet me at O’Dwyer’s, around eight. Dinner’s on me tonight,” said Flanagan. “It’s the least I can do.”

Rudy Parchi stood in front of the Cancellation Shoes show window on Twenty-third near the corner of Lexington and looked at the
latest models. Nigger shoes, he thought to himself; only a jig would buy shoes at a store with a name like Cancellation.

For an hour and a half he had been walking up and down the almost deserted block, pretending to be a window-shopper and hoping no one would notice that he kept doubling back, always keeping the front door of O’Dwyer’s within view. He had followed Gordon down here from his apartment. His original plan had been to shoot him when he came out of his building, but there had been a crowd—a doorman, the waiting cabbie and a couple walking a dog. Mario had said to whack him out, not do another St. Valentine’s Day massacre, so Rudy and his driver, Tubby Calabrese, had chased the cab all the way to O’Dwyer’s in Tubby’s untraceable Toyota with the phony plates.

Except for O’Dwyer’s the whole block was dark, all the way up to Park. Across Lex, on the corner, a Korean fruit store was open, but Rudy didn’t want to walk all the way over there and maybe miss Gordon coming out. Besides, he didn’t want to be seen by anyone, although he doubted very much if a Korean could tell the difference between white guys any more than white guys could tell the difference between Koreans.

It wasn’t particularly cold, but Rudy stamped his feet, trying to keep busy. He figured Gordon must be finishing dinner by now. Idly, Parchi tried to imagine what he was eating. He wondered if you cut a guy’s stomach open right after dinner if pieces of food would fall out, like gumballs spilling out of the glass vending bowls he used to break open as a kid. He could picture Gordon standing there, watching, as a whole order of spaghetti and meatballs came pouring out of him onto the sidewalk. Thinking about it made him hungry, and he began considering where to stop to eat on the way home.…

Suddenly the door to O’Dwyer’s opened, and he saw, framed in the light, Gordon and a tall guy he didn’t know. Rudy walked down Twenty-third in their direction. He could picture the hit in his mind. He would wait until Gordon stepped off the curb to look for a cab, race toward him, blow his brains out from the shortest range possible and then run into the sparse traffic, across Twenty-third and around the corner, where Tubby was waiting.

Across the street, Parchi saw a blue Mustang parked at the curb
with a man sitting at the wheel. The driver looked familiar, but Rudy couldn’t remember where he had seen him. Rudy was almost directly across from Gordon and the other guy now. They looked up the deserted street for a cab, and then stepped off the curb, just as Rudy had pictured.

Parchi drew his pistol and began to run across Twenty-third. Suddenly the blue Mustang leaped from its parking space and headed straight for him. From twenty feet away he could see the driver clearly. “Hey!” he screamed, but it was too late. Gordon and Flanagan jumped back on the curb just as the Mustang smashed into Rudy Parchi, knocking him down. It took him about ten seconds to die, and in that time he saw the faces of his mother and father, his brothers and sisters, Don Spadafore, Mario and Sesti. And the driver. He looked like one of the Everly Brothers, Parchi realized. Either Don or Phil, he could never remember which was which.…

Flanagan recovered first. “Hit-and-run,” he yelled. Gordon looked around dazed, and saw a man lying in the street and a blue Mustang tearing up Twenty-third. There was no doubt that the man was dead. “We better call the cops,” he said.

“You call the cops, I’ll call the paper,” said Flanagan, leading Gordon back into O’Dywer’s. Neither man saw the pistol that was lodged under the broken, bleeding body of Rudy Parchi.

Albert Grossman opened his eyes and cursed the daylight, pale and fragile, that filtered into his darkened bedroom. It was 6:27
A.M
. He knew this without even looking at the clock on the nightstand because he got up every morning at exactly 6:27. It annoyed Grossman to awaken so early and so exactly, as if he were on some special old people’s time that had nothing to do with how his body actually felt, whether he was still tired or rested. And it positively drove him crazy to look at the digital clock every morning and see the same ridiculous hour: 6:27.

Grossman felt a stirring next to him. Beverly Friedman. Forty-two years old, the same age as his son. Widow of Dr. N. Shelby Friedman, MD, who dropped dead one day in his office. Two kids in college, but she had the body of a college girl herself, Grossman
thought. Twice, three times a week he dropped by her place. She grilled fish or a chicken, they watched a little TV and then they spent the night together. Grossman scratched between his legs and sighed. What a world, he thought, where a good-looking young broad like Bev was willing to shtup an old guy like him for free.

Grossman lowered himself out of bed and padded into the kitchen, where he put on the instant coffee maker and dropped two pieces of rye bread into the toaster. Then he went to the front porch and picked up the
Times
. He glanced at the headline, something about Argentina, and opened the paper to the sports section. He found the Knicks in the standings, three and a half games behind the Celtics, and checked last night’s results. Since his retirement, Grossman rarely bet on sports, but he liked to keep an eye on the point spreads, just to see when something funny happened.

Al Grossman hated the
Times
and its lousy sports section. Until a few years ago, he read the
Post
and the
News
every morning in the backseat of his limo, on the way to work in the city. Now, if he wanted to buy those papers, he had to go to the mall, which was where he had first met Bev Friedman.

She had been standing in front of a display of paperbacks at Walden’s, on tiptoe, squinting at the books on the top shelf. Grossman noticed her automatically, the way he noticed all good-looking women; one of the few pleasant surprises about getting old was that he was just as horny at seventy as he had been at forty. The difference was that now he could do more about it. Never in his life had he been surrounded by so many willing women. They seemed to be everywhere, survivors of the internists and tax attorneys, oral surgeons and CPAs who keeled over every day from overwork and too much exercise. The women inherited their husbands’ money, and he inherited them, at least the ones who were still in decent shape. Over the years he had modified his taste—he didn’t mind gray pubic hair, and he barely noticed varicose veins, but he still hated droopy tits, or big flabby asses.

The lady on tiptoe had a mop of curly brown hair, dark almond eyes, full lips, high round breasts and a tight-looking bottom. Looking at her, Grossman got hard. Unexpectedly, she turned and caught him staring at her. He averted his gaze, snuck another look, and saw that she was smiling.

Grossman wandered around the store, waiting for the woman to pick out a book, and then followed her over to the counter. He had never been shy with women, but old age made him bold; what’s the worst that can happen? was his motto.

“I noticed you over there looking at the books,” he said. “What did you get?”

“Just some trashy novels,” she said, as though she had been expecting him to talk to her. She showed him the paperbacks, a Judith Krantz and a Sidney Sheldon. “Escape literature, they call it.”

“You on the lam?” he said, smiling, but putting a little gravel in his voice. She laughed and looked at him more closely, really seeing him for the first time.

“No, I just don’t like daytime television,” she said. “Even these are better than those stupid talk shows.”

They walked together to the parking lot, where she opened the door to a white Mercedes XL. “Your husband must do pretty good, car like this,” said Grossman.

“My husband passed away last March,” she said.

“Sorry to hear it,” he said. “Kids?”

“A boy, nineteen, and a girl, eighteen, both away at school,” she said. “They’re great kids. I miss them.” Grossman sensed she was stalling. Probably she had no place to go but home, and there was nobody there. “How about you?” she asked.

“My wife’s dead,” he said. “I’ve got a son around your age.”

“Really?” she said, smiling, showing nice natural teeth. “You must have been a child groom.”

“I’m seventy,” Grossman said, making it a flat statement, no apology. He saw something in her eyes, but he couldn’t tell what it was. There was an awkward silence.

“I’ve been thinking about buying one of these,” he said, patting the car’s roof. “Are you happy with it?”

“It’s a wonderful car. If you can afford the insurance and the upkeep, that is.”

“I think I’m going to get one,” he said. “By the way, my name is Al Grossman.”

“I’m Bev Friedman,” she said. “Listen, would you like to take a sort of test drive sometime? See if you like the car?”

“Thanks,” said Grossman. “Yeah, it would be a good idea probably. When would be a good time?”

“Anytime,” she said. “Now, even, if you’re not busy, I mean. Or you could call me. Do you live nearby?”

“Stratton Road,” he said. “Across the street from the golf course. How about you?”

“I live on Harvest,” she said. “Practically neighbors.”

Grossman looked at his watch, making a show of it. “I’ve got some time,” he said. “I’ll take you up on the test drive, if you’re serious.”

She smiled, and raised herself lithely over the gear box to the passenger seat. “Hop in,” she said, “you’re going to love it.”

They stopped for lunch at an old-fashioned roadside tavern on the way to Connecticut. During the drive Grossman let her do most of the talking, telling him about her husband, her kids and various friends he couldn’t keep straight. It sounded like a pretty boring life, and he noticed she hadn’t mentioned any romantic attachments. Grossman volunteered little about himself, not that he wanted to hide anything, but he figured his best shot would be the strong, silent approach.

At lunch she surprised him. “Are you Max Grossman’s brother?” she asked.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact,” he said. “How did you know that?”

“Well, you mentioned that you have a brother named Max, and your last name’s Grossman, so I put two and two together,” she said, laughing. “Are you a gangster too?”

“A retired businessman,” he said, allowing his face to show he was lying. Broads, he knew, were attracted to gangsters, especially Jewish suburban broads who didn’t know any better.

“Do you carry a gun?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with interest.

“Naw,” he said. “What would I need a gun for out here, shoot at the squirrels?”

“I understand,” she said, putting her finger to her lips. “Code of silence.”

Grossman winked, took a bite of his lamb chop and washed it down with some beer. “I want to ask you something, a personal question,” he said.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“You think I’m too old for you? Be honest, there’s no point in kidding each other.”

She reached across the table and touched his arm. “I’ve been wondering that myself all morning,” she said, giving him a level, appraising look. “My husband was fifty-four. You could almost have been his father.”

“Yeah,” said Grossman. “Well, I told you I have a son about your age.”

“I wanted you to talk to me in the bookstore,” she said. “You looked interesting. Different from the kind of people you meet out here. At least from the kind of people I meet out here.”

“You gonna answer my question or what?” asked Grossman, smiling to soften it, but not letting her off the hook. He could tell that she was attracted to him, but some women had rules they made for themselves—no this, no that, whatever. If she had a rule about age, he wanted to know about it up front.

“Yes,” she said. “I mean no. No, I don’t think you’re too old for me. I think you’re very sexy.”

That was almost a year ago. Since then they had settled into a pattern that was convenient for both of them. She had her own money, didn’t bug him about his diet, didn’t mind watching sports on television and was always ready to make love. She was good in bed, too, passionate and open without being a stunt girl. They never discussed it, but Grossman didn’t see other women, and he didn’t think she saw other men.