Tender Is LeVine: A Jack LeVine Mystery (40 page)

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Authors: Andrew Bergman

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I ignored him and continued my spiel. “And there are letters to be opened in case of my death, sitting in various safe-deposit boxes”—this part was total bullshit, but I thought it had an authentic and lawyerly ring to it—“so if anything happens to me or to Toots, it’s not only front page in the
News,
with all names named, but in a half dozen other papers as well.”

Luciano’s face flushed to a sort of pinkish red. Lansky just sipped merrily at his scotch.

“Very prudent of you, Jack,” he said. “I’m sure Charles agrees. We want no harm to come to anyone. We just want to do business. Charles isn’t supposed to be in this country in the first place.”

“I’m going back to Italy tomorrow,” Luciano said, transforming himself into lovable Uncle Charlie. “Can’t take New York anymore. Too many goddamn nervous people. Too much fucking traffic.”

Lansky smiled. “Charles just wants to grow his tomatoes. Me, I go back to Havana.” He finished his second scotch. “You want to come down, bring Barbara, be my guest. I’ll be there most of the winter. Just call the Nacional.”

Lansky put his glass down and Lucky pulled himself up off the couch. They looked much less imposing standing up.

“Matter’s closed, right?” Lansky said. “You’ll tell Barbara that I said so. That it was taken care of, that her father’s death was avenged. I want her to know that.”

“That you put the contract on LaMarca.”

Lansky smiled. “‘Contract.’ You talk like a fucking star reporter. I don’t know from contracts. I know from taking care of your friends and loved ones and doing business. Period.”

“I’ll tell her.”

We all shook hands and then the two gangsters brought their glasses into my kitchen and put them in the sink, just like their mothers had taught them.

Then they walked out the door and out of my life.

NINETEEN

The next night was
a Friday and I traveled up to Washington Heights to have dinner with Barbara and her mother and her sister Linda. The kid seemed to have perked up in the past couple of weeks, but Hilde was still living in the cemetery. The circles under her eyes were dark and deep, and she sighed frequently, but she dutifully observed the Sabbath and tried to play the host. She brought out a pot roast that weighed as much as a jukebox and served it with noodles and mixed vegetables and it all smelled like Central Europe on a platter. Then she went back into the kitchen and returned with a shiny
challah
in a silver bread basket and asked me if I would say the blessing. I dug into my memory bank and managed to remember it.

Barbara took my hand and recited it along with me.

I heard a clattering against the windows. It had begun to rain. I felt safe and sound and very contented.

Call me a softy. Go ahead, I can take it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There were a number of books about Arturo Toscanini that I consulted before writing this novel. Among them were Joseph Horowitz,
Understanding Toscanini
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), Samuel Chotzinoff,
Toscanini: An Intimate Portrait
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), and Samuel Antek,
This Was Toscanini
(Zurich: Müiler, 1963).

For a general background into the lives of Meyer Lan-sky and Lucky Luciano, I used Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan, and Eli Landau,
Meyer Lansky, Mogul of the Mob
(New York: Paddington Press, 1979), and Sid Feder and Joachim Joesten,
The Luciano Story
(New York: McKay Publishing, 1954).

Invaluable for its descriptions of Las Vegas at the dawn of the 1950s was A. J. Liebling’s article, “Our Footloose Correspondents: Action in the Desert,” published in the May 18, 1950, issue of
The New Yorker.

I would also like to thank the bassist David Walter, once a member of the NBC Symphony, for sharing his memories of Toscanini and of the orchestra’s 1950 crosscountry tour.

—A.B.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This edition published in 2012 by
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