The Best Revenge (22 page)

“Will you tell me what you're doing with it?”

“I'd rather you didn't know.”

“Ben, be careful.”

I should have been careful a long time ago.

She waited at least ten seconds for me to say something. I was suddenly afraid that she might hang up. “Jane?”

“I'll bring it over lunchtime,” she said. “I want you to tell me what this is all about.” She hung up.

I looked up at the ceiling. Was I expecting to find Louie there? Louie wasn't anywhere.

19

Mary

Don't ever complain about nothing happening because that's when something happens.

When I came out to prune the roses along the walk I noticed the leaves of the linden tree in front of the Baldridge house across the street dropping a speckled net of shadows across an unfamiliar dark green car. I could make out two men in the front seat.

Nick was very strict about rules. I hurried inside, still holding the pruning shears, and phoned Alice Baldridge.

“I hope I'm not getting you at a bad time, Alice.”

“No, no, fine,” she said. “What's up?”

“Does that green Caddy in front of your place…are those people coming to visit you?”

“I'm not expecting anyone, Mary. But if it's a nice car, maybe I should invite them in.”

She's a joker, Alice. I thanked her and dialed the police as I was supposed to.

“This is Mrs. Manucci, Cedar Drive East.”

“Yes, Mrs. Manucci.”

“There's an unfamiliar car with two men in it parked across the
street.”

“Maybe they're waiting for someone, Mrs. Manucci.”

“I checked with Mrs. Baldridge. She isn't expecting anyone.”

The policeman sighed. “Can you see what kind of car it is?”

“Green Cadillac.”

“Did you note the license number?”

“Can't see it unless I go out into the street.”

“Never mind, Mrs. Manucci. We'll check it out for you.”

When we moved to the suburbs I told Nick I wanted a place where the cops were friendly like in Minnesota. Nick grew up in New York City. He couldn't imagine a place where the cops were friendly.

From the bedroom window upstairs I had a clear view of the street. I saw the patrol car come around the corner and pull up alongside the Cadillac. I could see someone on the passenger side rolling the window down.

The policeman didn't get out of his car. The man in the Caddy was saying something. I guess the policeman then said something. When the police car pulled away, and a few seconds later the Caddy went, too, I went back down to my roses, relieved. The man I had my first affair with, Gary, drove a Cadillac.

He used to come to the house because I hated the idea of motel rooms. The kids were in school, Nick never ever came home in the daytime, so it was safe. Doing it in your own bedroom was exciting in itself because Nick said never bring a man home. Gary came here twice a week until someone told him who Nick was. He asked me point blank, “Is that who your husband is?” I told him yes that was Nick, and he never came back.

Doing the roses gives me peace like nothing else. Nick never touches them. Even the forsythia, the first color we get in this neighborhood, I don't let it grow scraggly, I give it shape. And fertilize it plenty so the yellow is the yellowest yellow you've ever seen.

Would you believe it was a poli-sci teacher who taught me to see color? Mr. Milford, the one great teacher I ever had, used to say
Distinguish color carefully and you'll learn to distinguish carefully in other things.
He'd say
yellow can be a dozen different yellows,
by which he meant from the palest ivory which isn't really yellow, to the lemon-dark of these forsythia.
What color are roses?
he would say, and we would chant back
red, pink, white, yellow,
and he'd say
Go on
and we'd yell our new choices:
peach, orange, lavender,
and someone would say
Who ever saw a lavender rose?
and it was I who said
Angel Face is lavender.
And then Mr. Milford would say
What color is the human
race?
and we'd say
white, black, brown, yellow
and he'd say
Go on
and we'd have to say
tan, pink, rust, ocher, blue-black, café-au-lait.
Mr. Milford said you have to be precise, you have to be clear, you have to make distinctions.

A noise made me look up quick.

My heart skittered when I saw the same dark green Cadillac drive up and stop on my side of the street this time. The nerve, after being chased by the police!

This time the man on the passenger side got out, and the driver took off. I glanced across the street to see if by any chance Alice was looking out of an upstairs window. Nobody.

The man lifted the hook on our gate at the end of the driveway, let himself in, and put the hook back in place. He was dressed in a striped business suit but didn't look like a businessman. Maybe it was his complexion, dark like the southern Italians my father used to have such strong feelings about.

As he came closer, he took his hat off and held it against his chest in a way I hadn't seen since the old movies.

“Mrs. Manucci,” he said. “I just tried to phone you from the drugstore to let you know I was coming, but nobody answered the phone in the house.” He smiled. “I guess that's 'cause you were out here.”

He was letting me know he knew no one else was home.

“My name is Angelo.”

I waited for a last name.

“I need to talk to you. Just for a couple of minutes, okay?”

If I went inside to call the police, would he try to stop me? What would I tell the police, that he was trespassing?

“I don't get involved in my husband's business matters,” I said.

“Sure, sure,” Angelo said, “but this is different. Can we go inside to talk?”

“We can talk right here.”

“If you don't mind people seeing us…”

“Please tell me what you want.”

“I'm sorry if I frightened you before, Mrs. Manucci. I only wanted to get a message to Nick.”

“You could phone him at his office.”

“Not really. Mrs. Manucci, I represent some businesspeople who gave a big loan to one of the regular customers. The collateral on that loan was a very expensive computer setup. You know what collateral is, Mrs. Manucci.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Well, when we turned down a request for more money from the same party because he didn't have any more collateral, your husband lent him some and took a second mortgage on the computers.”

“I'm not sure I understand.”

“Maybe you don't have to.” Angelo took out a packet of cigarettes, looked at it, put it back. “I don't smoke anymore,” he said with a little laugh. “I shouldn't be carrying them. The problem, Mrs. Manucci, is that your husband had the computers loaded on a truck two days ago and moved them to Canada. That's our collateral, Mrs. Manucci, he had no business moving it out of our reach. If he wants to compete with us on loans, that's okay, but what he just did doesn't get done without causing a lot of harm. Please tell Nick that you and the kids would really like to have those computers returned right away.”

He put his hat back on. “That's all you have to remember, Mrs. Manucci, to have the computers returned, okay?”

“Where can he reach you?”

“He doesn't reach us. He just returns the computers.” He went back out into the street, and almost immediately the dark green Cadillac was there picking him up.

I ran into the house to call Nick, but the phone was already ringing. It was Alice Baldridge.

“That car came back. Are you okay, Mary?”

“Sure, sure, I'm okay, it was just some businessmen looking for Nick.”

“I was hoping you'd be okay. I didn't think they'd come back after the police car came by. Were they Americans?” Alice asked.

“I don't know,” I lied.

“The man who talked to you, he didn't look American to me. We never used to have cars just sitting there in the street before.”

“Before what?”

“I didn't mean anything, Mary.”

“I've got to call Nick, Alice, I'll talk to you later.” I hung up without waiting for her good-bye.

Comment by Aldo Manucci

Long time ago I told Mary, “If you have baby, you tell Nick first, if Nick in trouble, you tell me first.” I teach Nick how to wipe his nose, wipe his ass, do business. I tell him never cross anybody. God take you soon enough, don't meet him halfway. When Mary call me, she talk to Nick already. I call Nick. “What make you do stupid thing like that? You got enough customers.”

“They wouldn't give him another loan,” Nick said. “That makes him a free agent.”

“He still owes them. He's their customer.”

“Look, Pop, I'm handling it. Please?”

“Nick, you handle it, that's why you got trouble. They know their business. If they won't give a guy a second mortgage, how come you do?”

“Papa, that computer setup is worth eighteen times what they lent the guy.”

“Bigshot, you think you're ahead of Barone because you got possession of collateral? You got possession of nuts! If they get to you, it's your fault you're dead. Mary's a smart wife, but the world eats widows. Why you take the collateral to Canada?”

For a minute Nick said nothing. He's making up a lie.

“Don't lie to me, Nick.”

“I found out this customer was looking for another loan on top of mine. He was offering the computers as collateral, a third mortgage, without telling them about my loan. I had to protect my loan, didn't
I?”

“What about Barone's loan? He come first. You mad 'cause somebody try to do to you what you do to Barone.”

“The guy said Barone's people never went to his place like I did. They did it all on paper. I never thought Barone would find out.”

“I told you not to lie, Nick. You want give Barone the finger. You want him find out you took his collateral.”

“Hey, Papa…”

“Nick, hear me good. Return it.”

“I can't.”

“What you mean?” Nick got me scared now, I tell you.

“The truck was impounded in Canada.”

“Mary, Mother of God. Get it back.”

“I'm trying. My man up there says it could take three, four weeks.”

“Nick, they kill people, you know that.”

“I'm not afraid of them, Papa. I can take care of myself.”

“I don't give good goddamn about yourself, you hear what the man say to Mary? He said, ‘You and the kids want to have computers returned right away.' He was talking going after them not you,
stupido.
You want the disgrace of a man who loses his wife and kids because of a business mistake?”

“They don't do things like that anymore, Papa.”

“What you know? You know where Morelli's wife went? Into the supermarket, disappear. You think she run away to Mexico with a boyfriend? Nothing has changed. Use your brains. Get that truck out of Canada, you hear me?”

20

Nick

I got off the phone, blam, instant headache like someone's put a spike in my dome. If I lived to eighty and my old man was a hundred, he'd still be telling me do this, do that. Don't people know when they're dead?

So the collateral was driven up to Canada, it's just one mistake, not the end of the world.

The intercom buzzed. My headache didn't need phone calls. It buzzed again. I got on and said, “What the fuck are you bothering me for? If I wanted to pick up, I'd pick up.”

Nothing. She said nothing. Then she said, “It's Bert Rivers.”

So I said, “I'm sorry I yelled. I got this terrific headache.”

“It's okay,” she said. “Shall I tell Mr. Rivers you'll call him back?”

“No, no. Put him on.”

I said, “What's up, Bert, besides your pecker?”

“Hochman called me twice today. Riller's lawyer.”

“I know, I know.”

“You got him. He's ready to sign.”

“Bert?”

“Yeah?” he says.

“You tell Hochman to forget it.”

“You crazy?”

“I got too much on my mind,” I said.

“You said it was a terrific deal for you.”

“I know, I know.” So I told Bert what's happened.

For a couple of seconds all I could hear was my wristwatch. Then Bert said, “Why didn't you talk to me before you moved that truck to Canada?”

“You always said I shouldn't ask your advice on anything that might not be legal.”

“Where's Mary and the kids?”

“At home.”

I could hear his breathing, which means Bert is thinking, which is what I pay him for. He's not one of those that runs off at the mouth with the first thing that comes to his mind.

Finally he said, “Sit tight. Don't leave your office. Don't let anybody in. Don't talk to anybody. I'll be right over.”

21

Bert Rivers

Jesus, I thought in the cab on the way to the Seagram Building, why Barone?

Nancy warned a long time back, “Why are you taking Nick Manucci on as a client?” Could I tell her because he's helping get Barone off my back? She'd have left me if she'd known how much I still owed Barone, which he could ask for any time, all of it, or “Do me a big favor, Bert.” I've seen some of his big favors.