A Long Walk Up the Waterslide (22 page)

He went on to relate the usual litany of fraud, larceny, extortion, blackmail, and fornication, got sentenced to three Hail Marys and a Sincere Act of Contrition, went out and did them, then met Harold at the back of the church.

“If I died right now, Harold,” he boasted, “I’d go straight to heaven.”

Joey was always trying to get Harold to go to confession but insisted that he do it in another jurisdiction, like Guatemala or someplace like that. He didn’t fully trust Harold to confess his own sins and keep him out of it, and the nuns had never been really clear—despite Joey’s constant questions—on what happened if someone dropped a dime on you instead of you doing it yourself.

“God send you a long life, boss,” Harold said.

Joey wasn’t entirely happy that his bodyguard seemed to be leaving this matter to God, but he had other things on his mind. “Have you located that one-armed midget yet?”

“Get this, Joey. Yesterday, it’s like he drops off the face of the earth. This morning, he’s sitting out on the River Walk eating breakfast like he doesn’t have a care in the world.”

“I’ll give him a care,” Joey said as he got into the car.

This worried Harold.

“Joey,” he said, sliding into the driver’s seat, “you remember Carmine said you were supposed to keep a low profile here. I don’t think he’d like you trashing some guy on the River Walk on a Sunday morning.”

“I’m just gonna talk to him.”

This didn’t do much to soothe Harold. He’d been present at one of Joey’s conversations, when his boss smacked the listener in the face with a tire iron and then peed into the guy’s shattered mouth. True, that conversation had been in the back of a warehouse, but Harold had also tried to restrain Joey the night he’d made the late Sammy Black take his clothes off, stroll through a shocked crowd of theatergoers on Times Square, and recite, “I will never hold back on Joey Foglio. I will never hold back on Joey Foglio.” Both those evenings had started off by Joey saying that he just wanted to talk.

Harold thought he owed it to Joey to try again, because Carmine “The Banker” Bascaglia wasn’t going to put up with this kind of shit. The reason Don Carmine was called “The Banker” instead of “The Butcher,” even though the latter sounded better, was because he was all business. He had warned Joey in no uncertain terms that he was there to make money, not headlines.

So Harold said, “Joey, you know this is going to end in an ass kicking. I’m just saying, let me do it. I’ll get the guy under a bridge, then give him a couple of shots. You can stand on the bridge and watch.”

Joey thought this over. In normal times, he’d make the smart-mouth son of a bitch beg to die, but these weren’t normal times. Despite going to confession, Joey had an anxiety. Some smart bastard had sandbagged Overtime last night—which meant they were on to Gloria—and the assassin was highly pissed off. It had taken an hour to settle him down, and even then it meant causing some trouble in New York. Too bad about Gloria, but she had it coming.

He needed something to make him feel better.

“How about it, huh, Joey?” Harold was saying.

“Okay,” Joey said, “but you have to throw him in the river.”

“Aw, Joey!”

“If you won’t, I will,” Joey warned.

“Come on, Joey.”

“In the river.”

Rip off his fake arm, throw him in the river, and don’t give him back the arm until he repeats “Mr. Foglio, Mr. Foglio” a hundred times.

Harold saw that Joey’s imagination was slipping into high gear, so he said, “Okay. I’ll throw him in the river.”

Satisfied, Joey Beans went back to worrying what the hell was going on in Nevada.

Joe Graham was wondering the same thing as he finished his breakfast at an outdoor table on the River Walk.

The whole Polly Paget operation had been undertaken in haste and executed in ignorance. Friends should never have taken Polly over until they had thoroughly scouted the opposition. And Eddie and Kitteredge blowing a safe house was beyond explanation. And it wasn’t even our safe house—it was Neal’s. The kid finally finds a home and we blow it up on him.

We’re getting sloppy, Graham thought. We have some success and start to think we’re better than we are.

He leaned back and let the morning sun hit his face. He glanced over to his right at a footbridge to see whether the goon was still there. He was. Graham wondered what the hell was keeping Joey Beans.

The room-service guy must have fingered me, Graham thought, because Joey’s goon picked me up at the hotel and followed me down here. Maybe the waiter was getting back at me for taking silverware. And I’ve been sitting here like a signpost for an hour and a half. If Joey Beans wants me, he’s taking his sweet time. Maybe he’s too smart. I hope not.

Graham opened his newspaper to the sports section and was disappointed to find that there was very little interest in the New York Giants in San Antonio. This was to be expected, however, from a city where the food squirts at you.

Foglio’s head goon, Harold, walked onto the bridge.

Don’t go away, Graham thought. It’s time to play. He set his newspaper down, signed the credit-card slip, got up, and walked south toward the bridge. He looked up, pretended to see them for the first time, then tentatively kept walking.

Let’s see what you want me to do, Graham thought. If you want me to walk south, you’ll let me pass the base of the bridge and fall in behind me. If you want me to head north, you’ll block my path and let me turn around. If you want my ugly Irish butt now, you’ll meet me at the base of the bridge.

Graham watched as Harold slipped down to the base of the bridge and let himself be seen in the middle of the sidewalk. So he “spotted” Harold, turned around, and started to walk north.

This means that Joey Beans is in front of me somewhere, thought Graham. If they just wanted to give me a beating, both of them would be coming. But they’re taking this seriously, and Harold is herding me toward his boss, because mob guys never do anything alone, so it’s going to be Harold and Joey. And it’s going to be a beating, not a killing, because even Joey Beans isn’t crazy enough to do a hit in downtown San Antonio on a Sunday morning. So this is good.

Joe Graham had assigned himself the task of cooling out Joey Beans.

He’d made a point of scouting the River Walk a few dozen times, so he was getting to know it pretty well. About three blocks north, the river made a big bend under the Convent Street Bridge. So the north side of Convent would be the place to do it. Graham figured he had nothing to worry about until Convent Street.

Graham looked back over his shoulder at Harold, then picked up his pace to let the bodyguard think he was doing the chasing. Harold matched his pace, which made Graham think he was right about Joey being up ahead somewhere, because Harold wasn’t trying to shorten the gap, just stay even.

Graham tested the theory by stopping suddenly. Harold hit the brakes.

Graham started out again and wondered when Harold would start to close in. It would have to be pretty soon if the shit was going to hit the fan at Convent, because Harold shouldn’t leave him too much room to maneuver after he’d spotted Joey.

Sure enough, Harold picked up his pace and lengthened his stride. Graham made a token effort to walk a little faster just to keep up the show.

It’s refreshing to work against a professional, Graham thought. That made him remember Walter Withers in his heyday—the smoothest street man on the slickest streets. He pushed the memory from his mind because it was too painful and because he spotted Joey Beans, grinning and waving at him from the top of the Convent Street Bridge.

“Hello, Stumpy the Clown!” Joey yelled.

This is where Harold moves in and I make the frantic effort to escape, Graham thought as he felt Harold’s hand on his shoulder. He tried to go under the arm, but predictably, Harold spun him and pushed him up against the arc of the bridge.

They picked a good spot, Joe thought. The bridge was a wide concrete job, and the curve of the river put the underside out of view.

“Do yourself a favor and hop in the water,” Harold muttered. “I’m supposed to hit vou a few shots, but I don’t feel right about hitting a guy with one arm.”

“Then hit me with both arms,” answered Graham, who didn’t know the word
syntax
but recognized a straight line when he heard one.

“What’s your story?” Harold asked, then moaned as he saw Joey come down the staircase.

“Yeah, what’s your story?” Joey asked.

“Get back on the bridge,” said Harold.

“You giving the orders now?” Joey said. “Turn the monkey around where I can get a look at his ugly face.”

“Speaking of ugly,” Graham said as he was spun around, “you look like it’s Roy Rogers night at a wise guy costume party, with your snakeskin boots, Stetson hat, and big fat gut hanging over your longhorn belt buckle. You guys should stick to the open shirt, gold chain, black ankle boot thing. It still looks stupid, but not this stupid.”

“You’re still in a funny mood,” Joey said.

“Something about you brings the chuckles out in me. I don’t know,” Graham said. “Maybe it’s the image of Don Annunzio making you eat all that garbage. That’s funny stuff.”

Graham didn’t wait for the punch he knew was coming. Harold had him by the shoulders—too high—so it gave him plenty of room to swing his heavy artificial arm down in an arc, which had an effect similar to a croquet mallet whacking a ball. Graham’s fist whacked
both
Harold’s balls, though, driving them up somewhere near his chin.

This inspired Harold to release him immediately and bend deeply at the waist. Foglio went right for Graham’s throat but stopped suddenly when the serrated edge of the steak knife pressed against his scrotum.

“Did you ever want to sing in the Vienna Boys’ Choir?” Graham asked as he pressed the knife and stepped forward, forcing Joey to take baby steps back toward the edge of the water. “Or wait on the nice ladies in a Turkish harem? Or change your name to Joey No Balls? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, or if you never want your compass to point north again, just get stupid now, Joey Beans.”

“What do you want?” Joey croaked.

“You know about
famiglia,
right, Joey?”

“I know about family.”

“Well, you’ve been fucking around in Nevada,” Graham said, “And you almost hurt one of my
famiglia. Capisce?
”

“I don’t know what—”

A little pressure of the blade stopped him.

“Don’t bother,” Graham hissed. “Just listen. There’s been a misunderstanding of some kind. We’re going to get it straightened out. That might take a few days. In the meantime, you call off your dogs. You got that?”

“You don’t know what you’re messing with.”

“Right now, I’m messing with you, Joey,” Graham said. He saw Harold start to straighten up and noticed that Joey saw it, too. “You want me to mess you up permanently, Joey, you have Harold make a move.”

Joey looked at Harold and shook his head.

Graham continued: “You’re right, though. I don’t know what I’m messing with, but I’m going to get it all straightened out. And nothing better happen to any of my family.”

Graham pressed the knife just enough to close the deal.

“Okay,” Foglio said. “You through now?”

Graham heard a tourist barge heading toward them from upstream.

“Not quite,” he said. “There’s still that ‘Stumpy’ business.”

He brought his rubber forearm up and smacked Foglio in the chest. Foglio waved his arms to try to keep balance, then crashed into the muddy water. It was shallow, only chest-high, and Foglio was on his feet quickly, but the tourists on the barge were amused.

Graham saw Harold reach inside his jacket and said, “Yeah, dummy, shoot. Unless you don’t think there are enough witnesses.”

He pushed past Harold and trotted up to the Convent Street Bridge. He paused only long enough to enjoy the sight of Harold fishing the soaked, muddy Joey Beans out of the river and the sound of laughter. Then he picked up his bag at the hotel and caught a taxi to the airport.

21

Ed Levine took a cab up College Hill. He could have walked, but he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

Marc must have been waiting at the door, because he opened it before Ed could ring the bell. He took one look at Ed’s serious face and said, “You know, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Ed answered. “But I don’t know why.”

“Come on in.”

Marc led him into the den this time and sat next to him on the sofa. He turned the volume off on a late game from the West Coast but left the television on.

“Theresa and the boys are at her mother’s,” he said.

“Sorry I missed them.”

“Being Peter Hathaway’s partner isn’t a crime, Ed.”

“Then why keep it a secret?” Ed asked.

Marc’s smile was bitter.

“Because I’m Dominic Merolla’s grandson and Salvatore Merolla’s son.”

“What does that mean?” Ed asked, annoyed. He had come for answers from a friend.

“It means, among other things, that the FCC would never grant me a license,” Marc said. “It means that I have to be a silent partner. It means I need a front man like Peter if I want to pursue certain opportunities.”

“You’re a successful businessman, Marc!” Ed yelled. “A lot more successful than I realized. You own almost half of the Family Cable Network.”

“Peter has quite a piece,” Marc said quietly.

“Is it mob money?” Ed asked. “Do you do your grandfather’s laundry?”

Marc shrugged.

“You’re asking two questions,” he said. “I have a trust fund, various monies from my grandfather and father, which I’ve invested. Most of the money I put in the network comes from good investments I’ve made. So, is Dominic’s money in FCN? To the extent that he gave it to me, yes. Do I launder his business profits? Of course not, and I’m offended by the question.”

“Are you telling me Dominic’s not involved?” Ed asked.

“See, that’s what I mean,” Marc said. “I have to answer that question. Every Italian businessman in this country has to live with the assumption, at least the suspicion, that his success is due to his underworld contacts—myself more than most.