Condemned (42 page)

“You never stop, do you?”

Nichols shrugged. “What's wrong with that? You'd be in a position to contain the whole drug market in New York except for people you're friendly with. You'd be a hero to your agency. And your friends—if you know who I mean, like me—would be in pretty good shape, too. What do you think?”

“I think that you think you've got this whole thing tied up in a neat little package for yourself with a ribbon and all, don't you?”

“For the moment.” Nichols smiled.

“Don't forget, if everything goes according to that devious mind of yours,
if I let it happen
, remember, I'll have no compunction swatting a fly who doesn't keep his word or who blows smoke at me.” Becker turned his gaze from the road, looking intently at Nichols. “You get me?”

“Absolutely.”

Park Avenue : August 4, 1929 : 7:15 P.M.

A black Buick sedan was driven to the curb in front of a tall apartment building on Park Avenue. A uniformed doorman moved quickly toward the car, reaching for the handle of the rear door.

“Good evening, Miss Swanson,” the doorman said, smiling at the young woman in a white silk blouse and long, tight, white skirt, cinched by a black patent leather belt. On her head, she wore a white cloche with a black band. The hat extended rakishly down the left side of her head. Her shoes were black and white Spectators.

“He here yet?” the young woman said to the doorman.

“No, Miss.”

“Good. I'm not late.” She started toward the entrance.

The doorman shut the car door and scurried quickly toward the entrance doors. “How's the show going?” he said. “I read real nice reviews in the paper.”

“Everything is great, thanks,” she said, smiling into the doorman's eyes. Her eyes were dark, sparkling. “Buy Anaconda.”

“Still Anaconda? Thanks yourself, Miss,” the doorman smiled, touching the peak of his cap. “Penthouse,” he called to the elevator operator who was standing inside the foyer.

The elevator traveled to the top of the building, opening into an apartment that occupied the entire floor. A butler held out a tray of champagne glasses on a silver salver. The young woman took one and walked into the parlor, smiling, looking about. One wall of the parlor consisted entirely of French doors leading to a balcony that overlooked Park Avenue. Small groups of people were spread around the room. A heavy set Negro was playing jazz on a Baby Grand piano in one corner.

“Good evening, Miss Swanson,” said Jerome Marks, the host, in white slacks, blue blazer, and foulard ascot.

“Oh, hello, yourself,” she smiled, touching her champagne glass to his. “Frank's not here yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Nice party,” she said, looking more closely at the knots of people.

“Anything you need, just ask.”

“Thanks.”

A tall, thin man with slicked blondish hair and glasses walked toward the actress. “Hello, Miss Swanson,” he smiled.

“Hello, Joe,” she said. “How's everything downtown today? Any tips?”

“Well, I'd say you might look.…” at that moment, the elevator gate scissored open. A man with slicked-back dark hair and a prominent nose, walked off the elevator. “Here's Frank now.”

Frank Costello, in an elegant white suit, wing-tipped, black and white shoes, entered the parlor. Several people glanced at him momentarily.

“Hello, sugar,” Costello said to the actress. “You look great. Hello, Joe.”

“Hello, Frank,” said the man with the glasses.

“Hello, Frank,” the host, Marks, said, coming over to shake Costello's hand. “Some champagne?”

“I don't drink. Excuse us a minute,” Costello said to Marks and Miss Swanson. “Joe and me have a little something to talk over”—he then turned to Swanson—“then we have to get going over to the Park for dinner before the show.”

“Fine with me. I'll just mingle.
”

“Let me introduce you to some of the others,” Marks said to Miss Swanson.

Costello walked toward one of the open French doors that led to the balcony. Joe snared a glass of champagne from a roving waiter and followed. “Anything wrong, Frank?”

“A lot. I'm on my way to see Jimmy at the Tavern on the Green,” said Costello. “There was some trouble a little while ago.”

“Trouble with the product?”

“No. A couple of mugs were killed—bludgeoned, a real mess.
”

“Who? I guess I shouldn't ask.”

“Some rogues from the Bronx. They stepped on the wrong toes.
”
Costello dismissed the rogues—and their rubout—with a single lift of his eyebrows.

“You kidding?” Joe was visibly shaken. Costello fixed Joe with his dark eyes. “No, I guess you're not. When was this?”

“About an hour ago. The newspapers are starting to get all over it, making like it's another Valentine's Day party. Jimmy's a little miffed because I assured him there'd be no rough stuff, like there was in Chicago.”

“Jimmy doesn't need any more trouble than he has at the moment,” said Joe. “How many did you say? Two?”

“Three.” Joe shook his head ruefully. “I'm going to talk to him,” said Frank. “You try to reach Hines. We may need him to smooth Jimmy's feathers.
”

“I'll make it a point to see him straight from here. He's probably at the ‘21 Club'.”

The two men watched the traffic on Park Avenue down below for a moment.

“Is this going to cause us any problems, business-wise?” Joe asked.

Costello dismissed the concern, now with a purse of his lips. “I don't see no reason why it should. You see it as a problem?”

“If it's not a problem with you, it's not a problem with me,” said Joe. “Say, Frank, this actress, Miss Swanson, is she … are you …?”

“You like her, Joe?”

“She's really something. Beautiful.”

“Joe, it's okay. She's just an occasional friend to me. You like her, she's yours. I got to get going over to the Park. Make sure you see Hines, so he can talk to Jimmy. We don't want the Police or the newspapers to make more out of this than it is. That wouldn't be good for business.”

“I'll see him, and I'll even make a couple of calls to the newspaper people. Keep it in perspective. You sure you don't mind, Frank, about—” Joe nodded toward Miss Swanson.

“About what”? About Gloria? Joe, what'd I say?”

Joe smiled.

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn : July 31, 1996 : 10:30 P.M.

Moscarella's was a nice looking Italian restaurant, for Brooklyn. Actually, for anyplace. It compared well with fine restaurants in Tuscany, where the food was served in clean, well-lit rooms of little pretension, with straight-backed chairs, and square tables, where the cuisine, not decor, was the stellar, the only reason for being there. The expensive Italian restaurants in Manhattan, with dimly-lit ambiance and elegant decorations, where the showcase is more important than the show, were really New York restaurants, a breed and species all their own, totally unlike their counterparts in Italy.

From Moscarella's folding glass doors on Third Avenue, you could see the double stranded pearls of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge's suspension cables stretched across the dark Narrows. Inside the Restaurant, the walls were peach, the same color as the table linens and napkins. The bar was mahogany, with a hammered copper surface. Crystal glasses hung from mahogany racks above, suspended from polished copper chains. Everything was shiny, brilliant.

Tony Balls' brazen laughter filled the area as he stood with his back against the bar. Seated on a stool next to him was Flor. Next to her, facing the bar, a crystal stem glass in hand, was,
il proprietario
, Enzo Moscarella. Except for the three, and a busboy hauling out the evening's trash, the restaurant was deserted. Tony Balls glanced out through the front windows as a police car passed. “
Bitza merda
,” he muttered.

Flor shook her head. “You shouldn't talk like that in front of a lady.”

“Hey, Flor, give me a break, okay?” said Tony Balls. “This is just us here.”

“You only make it harder on yourself, sayin' things like that all the time. They hear you, not out in the car, but when you practically say it to their face, they could make things hard for you, just to get back at you. You never know.”

“Hey, Flor, not for nothin', but I don't give a freak about them guys or anything they can do.”

Flor shrugged.

“Hey, Tony, how about I buy you two another drink—in my fancy new glasses,” said Enzo, stepping behind the bar.

“Now you're talkin',” said Tony Balls, turning to face the bar. He put his arm around Flor's shoulders. “Cops just get me steamed every time I see them.”

“I know, I know,” said Flor. She hugged herself closer to Tony Balls. “I just don't want you gettin' in any more trouble. I missed you too much the last time, to let anything happen to you again, Papi.”

Tony Balls smiled, kissing Flor's temple, hugging her tightly. When he looked at her, he still saw the beautiful young woman she had been when they first met—flashy, but nonetheless, a beauty. That was fifteen years ago. Life was sweet then. Money flowed; hundreds filled Tony Balls' pockets every day. Tony Balls was crazy about Flor from the first moment he first saw her. So crazy about her, it almost wrecked him. In fact, it did wreck him, or rather, one of his Cadillacs. At five in the morning, having just risen from Flor's bed, still drunk with champagne from a celebration that Fat Tony had thrown at the Copa, Tony Balls fell asleep at the wheel, went off the road in Brooklyn, and crashed into a tree. Flor had put on some weight lately, going from a size 8 to a size 12, and was pushing that. Her hair was driving her crazy, the gray coming in so fast. And she had to use a lot more makeup to do what nature used to take care of by itself.

“What do you think of the glasses, Tony?” said Enzo as he placed two drinks in crystal stem glasses in front of Tony Balls and Flor.

“Enzo, you outdid yourself this time,” rasped Tony Balls as he leaned back against the wall in the corner of the bar. This corner had become Tony Balls' usual spot, his post at Moscarella's. From this out-of-view-of-the-street vantage point, he could keep his eye on the entire restaurant, and, through the glass panes of the French doors, the street outside. Tony Balls sipped, then held his glass up to better study it. The crystal glasses were formed with thin, parallel, vertical lines on the inside surface, coursing elegantly up to the drinking edge. “Are these glasses sharp, or what?” Tony Balls said to Flor.

“They're beaut-aful, Enzo,” said Flor, smiling toward Enzo. “Maybe, a little too good for everyday at the bar, but.”

“Flor,” Enzo said, with that hint of accent that remained though he had lived in America for more than thirty of his forty-eight years, “this place is my baby. I want everything elegant. Nothing is too good for my place. If the customers break some glasses, at least they break elegant glasses, the best.”

“Atta boy, Enzo. What the hell, if you gotta break, break in style. Salute,” rasped Tony Balls, lifting his Chivas Regal toward Flor and Enzo.

Tony Balls was dressed in a white linen weave suit, with shoes to match. His shirt was open at the neck, revealing a heavy gold chain with a Capricorn medallion. He wore a pinky ring with a large red stone.

“Salute,” said Enzo. They all touched glasses. “Nice,” said Enzo, lifting his glass to his ear to hear the resonance of the crystal.

As usual, the night had been busy at Moscarella's. Diners from all over Brooklyn and Staten Island, even some from Manhattan, came to enjoy Moscarella's new wave Italian cuisine. Actually, as in most New York restaurants, most of the people preparing the food in the back were Chinese or Hispanic. The menu items had been initiated by Enzo, then translated into modern presentation by Claude Spencer, a graduate of the C.I.A. (Culinary Institute of America), and now prepared according to recipe by the kitchen staff. The wine list at Moscarella's was admirable; four and a half pages of substantial wines, assembled and collected by Enzo, who considered himself a connoisseur.

“Come down to the office a second, will you, Tony,” said Enzo as he started toward a stairway that led to the lower floor where the rest rooms and his office were located.

“Sure,” said Tony Balls, following Enzo. “I'll be right back, honey,” he said to Flor.

“The front door locked?” Flor said to Enzo.

“Yeah, sure, we're locked up for the night. Don't worry.”

“I'm not worried, Enzo.”

“What, Flor worry? Somebody comes in to knock off the joint while we're downstairs, Flor'll deck them with a barstool. Right, Baby?” laughed Tony Balls.

“You're not just kidding,” Flor laughed. “I just didn't want any customers coming in wanting to sit down or nothin'.”

“No, no. The door's locked.”

Once inside his office, Enzo took a roll of bills out of his pants pocket and sat down. “Nice night,” he said, counting the bills, “mostly cash.”

“That's good,” said Tony Balls, watching Enzo count. Tony Balls put his foot up on a chair next to Enzo's desk. Enzo glanced quickly at Tony's leg, then continued counting. Tony Balls reached into the cuff of his pants. Under a flap inside the cuff, he drew out a small plastic envelope of white powder. Enzo momentarily suspended his count as he glanced at Tony Balls' envelope, then returned to counting. Tony tapped a small amount of the white powder on a small note pad on the desk in front of Enzo. With a Moscarella business card he took from the top of the desk, Tony Balls divided the powder carefully into two thin lines on the pad. When he was satisfied with the division, Tony Balls licked the edge of the card. “Waste not, want not,” he said, laughing.