Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (14 page)

"Attack?"

"Yeah. Must have been locusts or grasshoppers or
something, but I guess the prisoners just went nuts, account of they
thought it was like the plague from the Bible and the fucking bugs
were gonna eat them. So apparently this same MP captain—he wasn't
their commandant like that Klink guy from Hogan's Heroes, he had to
come from somewhere else—he yells at them through an interpreter
again to get back, get back into the center of the compound. And then
the captain, he takes a flamethrower—a fucking flamethrower—and
starts frying these bugs, on the wire, in the air, you name it."

"Sounds wild."

"It gets better. After the bugs incident, I
guess the real commandant decided he ought to do something for the
prisoners, they been scared out of their fucking wits and all. So he
asks them, 'What do you guys want to do?'—as kind of a break, you
know? And they tell him, 'We want to go see Hollywood.' They've been
captured in a fucking world war, but everybody knows about Hollywood,
right? So the commandant, he tells them, 'I'l1 take you out there a
couple, three busloads at a time.' "

"You've got to be kidding."

"Uh-unh. Enrico says the prisoners were real
well-behaved in the camp, and Hollywood turned out to be only a few
hours away from where they were. I guess the commandant got all these
Italian prisoners GI American uniforms, but no insignia on them.
Enrico said he thought there'd be some kind of
'shoot-us-like-we-was-spies' problem if the commandant gave them
patches and stuff. So, they troop onto these busses, in American
uniforms, and go to Hollywood, where—get this—the guards let them
leave the buses and fucking walk around, see where the actors had
their stars in the cement and all."

"This really happened?"

"Hey-ey-ey, Cuddy, what do I know? I wasn't
there, but Enrico says he was, and the way he described things, I'm
inclined to believe him. Well, anyways, they're walking around
Hollywood when this same MP captain—the one who moved them from
Indiana and fried all the bugs?—comes roaring up in a jeep to the
bunch of guys Enrico's with and just goes bullshit on them. In
English, of course, but Enrico said you could kind of catch the guy's
drift in any language. And then they all had to get on the buses
again and back to the compound. The rest of the prisoners never got
to see Hollywood, and Enrico says he never saw the camp commandant
again."

"Great story, Primo, but how was the gambling?"

"Huh?"

"In Atlantic City. You went there to gamble,
right?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah. Picked up almost four thousand on
one of the tables."

"Roulette?"

"Right, right. But I gotta tell you, I like
watching the suckers play the slots almost as much as gambling
myself. The machines, they've changed most of them over to a computer
thing now. Totes up your money, keeps track of it like a bank
account, all you got to do is look at the screen."

"Sounds like expensive equipment.”

"Yeah, but you know why they did the
changeover?"

I thought about it. "So the suckers don't have
to waste gambling time by feeding in the quarters."

"You got it. Good example of what can happen
when higher technology falls into the wrong hands. Of course, there's
a row or two of the old-fashioned machines, too, the jobbies with the
big handles? They keep those for the illiterates, I guess, the ones
get scared off by anything like a computer. Anyways, I'm walking
along, and this rickety broad—had to be eighty she was a day—is
pulling the lever on one of the old machines so hard and so fast,
you'd have thought she got paid by the quarter herself. Only thing
is, she all of a sudden lets go of the handle and grabs her chest,
like she's having a heart attack. The rickety broad hits the floor,
and there's at least three other old people rushing to take her place
at the machine, thinking, 'It's gotta pay off now, right?' Then this
young broad next to me says, 'What do you suppose happened to her?'
And I say, 'Maybe all the blood rushed to her wrist.' "

A laugh from Primo. “Get it?"

"I got it."

"You just don't think it's funny, am I right?"

"That's right."

The toothpick rolled from port to starboard this
time.

"Good thing the young broad did. We had
ourselves a hell of a weekend." Zuppone glanced over again.
"Climbing in the car here, you looked a little tender."

"Actually, that's what I wanted to talk about."

The half-smile faded. "Maybe you oughta get to
it, then."

"I had some visitors an hour ago. Two guys,
starting rough then tapering off."

The smile disappeared altogether. "Let me guess.
Italian-looking, am I right?"

"Could have been."

"Could have been? You didn't see them?"

"Dark hair, slicked back, only I don't think it
was cut to wear that way. Olive-skinned."

A nod. "What about clothes?"

"Long-point collars, open buttons, gold chains."

"And that's what makes you think they're
connected?”

"They tried to play the role, Primo. Only they
overplayed it, like out of the movies."

"How?"

"They said 'capisce.' "

Zuppone winced.

"Twice," I said.

We made a left tum. "These guys, they were the
first people talked to you?"

"And they didn't start out by talking."

Zuppone shook his head. "It don't sound right to
me. You stepped in something, we'd send like an emissary first, you
know?"

"Like you."

The half-smile came back. "Yeah, like the way I
handled it with you the first time. Nice-nice till nice-nice don't
work no more."

"That's what I thought."

"You got any idea what you might have stepped
in?"

"They were pretty clear on that. I'd been asking
questions about a real estate management company, and they told me to
butt out."

"What kind of questions?"

"How good a company it was, as though I had a
client that was interested in hiring them."

"You were doing like a reference check?"

"That's right."

Another shake of the head. "What's the name of
this outfit?"

"Hendrix Property Management, out of
Marshfield."

"Marshfield, down on the South Shore there?"

"Right."

Zuppone said, "It don't ring a bell, but then
that's No Man's Land."

"Sorry?"

After making another turn, Primo checked his mirrors.

"You know how that guy Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano
turned rat down in New York there?"

"Testifying against John Gotti?"

"Right, right. It's happening
every-fucking-where, but that cocksucker Gravano, he gets a reduced
sentence of five years—five fucking years, now—for being involved
in nineteen killings he admits to, and even then, the feds'll give
him the witness protection thing when he gets out. Meanwhile, he's
nearly destroyed three of the Five Families down there with his
testimony."

"And?"

"And that's kind of what's happened up here too.
The destroying part, anyways. Back when the Feebs—the
FB-fucking-I—wired the Angiulos' place and put them all away,
things around Boston were kind of up for grabs, you know what I mean?
One family, it runs most of the operations for twenty, twenty-five
years, then it gets brought down, the operations, they have to be . .
. 'redistributed' would be a good word for it."

"And Marshfield didn't get 'redistributed' to
anybody in particular."

"Not much there to work with, kind of a summer
resort that's going year-round. Still . . ."  A shrug.

"Still?"

"Maybe somebody's trying to establish some kind
of presence there. But it don't have to be from the North End, you
know."

"Meaning they could have come up from
Providence."

"Maybe. Or to tell you the truth, the La Strada
guys from East Boston or some of your Irish friends from the Winter
Hill Gang. That's assuming, of course, that it's us."

"Us?"

"White people. You got the Jamaicans, or the
fucking Dominicans, now, Christ knows what the hell they're doing."

Tangela Robinette said she was born in Haiti of a
father from Jamaica, but that seemed a pretty slender thread.

"Go on."

"Only those crazy bastards'd make more sense in
Rox."

Roxbury, a substantial minority neighborhood of
Boston. "Actually, Primo, I was thinking that part of the
Danucci family lives on the South Shore not so far from Marshfield?

Zuppone chewed on the toothpick. "One of the
brothers lives down there, he ain't gonna piss in his own soup."

"How about if he just lives close?"

"No. No, it don't feel right, even to you. The
family sent me to talk with you the first time when I didn't know
you. Now I know you, if they're in this, they'd for sure send me to
talk with you, am I right?"

"Probably."

The ha1f-smile. "You're a piece of work, Cuddy.
Don't you trust nobody?"

"I trust you, mostly." I decided to take a
chance. "My asking around about the management company was just
a cover. I'm really looking into the background of a guy."

"What's his name?"

"I'd like to keep my own counsel on that for
now."

Another shrug. "Hey-ey-ey, you're the one called
me, remember?"

"I remember." Reaching into the pocket of
my suit jacket, I took out one of the Andrew Dees photos. "This
is him."

Zuppone checked all three mirrors again before
bringing up the interior lights and looking at the photo I held. Then
he doused the lights and rechecked the mirrors. Ever the careful
driver, and even more the perfect poker player. I couldn't tell by
his expression whether he'd recognized the man in the photo or not.

Primo made a left. "You let me see the guy's
picture, but won't tell me his name?"

"I just want to know if you recognize him."

"Why?"

A reasonable question. "If I got paid my visit
because somebody's interested in Hendrix Management, so be it. I'd
want to know, though, if the man in this photo is the real reason the
two guys came to see me."

"Because he's connected himself."

"Right."

Another glance at the photo. "I gotta admit,
there's something rings a bell about him, but he's a pretty
ordinary-looking fuck, so what can I tell you? Could be he's just
somebody I passed on the street some time."

"Can you check around?"

"What, I'm supposed to describe your guy to my
friends, see if one of them makes a match? Come on, Cuddy, this fuck
could be anybody."

Zuppone had a point. "How about if I give you
his picture, and you show it around discreetly, ask if anybody knows
him."

The tick-tocking head again. "I guess I can do
that." He took the photo from me. "You got any other
information on this guy?"

"Not for sharing."

Half a laugh. "Christ, Cuddy, you gotta have
trust in something, you know?"

"What do you trust, Primo?"

"Me?" Zuppone got serious. "I trust
the organization. Back in school the nuns treated me like a dunce,
far as I went. I try to get a job in the straight world, the
citizens'd treat me like a bum. I don't talk so good, I don't spell
so good, I don't fit in so good. With the organization, I'm in my
element, you might say. A made member, blood oath and everything.
They know they can trust what I do for them, and that makes me want
to trust them too. Understand?"

"I do. But that's why you should understand the
reason I can't entirely trust you."

Primo turned left again, bringing me back to where
he'd picked me up. "You got that right. You got brains for
thinking of it and heart for saying it to me, man to man. But I like
you, Cuddy, and that can make all the difference in the world."
A glance. "All the fucking difference, you know what I'm saying
here?"

The toothpick rolled one
last time.

* * *

After Zuppone dropped me off, I walked randomly for a
while, just in case anybody who might have been interested in him
decided to be interested in his passenger as well. I didn't spot
anybody following me, so I found a pay phone and dialed Olga
Evorova's home number on Beacon Hill.

"Yes?"

"Ms. Evorova, John Cuddy."

"Ah, you have something to report?"

"Yes, but it would be easier in person."

"Well . . ."

"Is Andrew Dees with you?"

"No, no. But . . . how long would it take for
you to come see me now?"

"I'm five minutes away."