Sons and Princes (15 page)

“What’s your name?”

“Chris.”

“Then we’ll die together, Chris.”

“No, we won’t. We’ll live. I will, anyway. Don’t fall asleep. With that head injury, you could go into a coma. I’ll make some coffee. And some calls. Do you still have Allison’s keys?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’re moving into her apartment.”

Chris found the makings and put coffee on. While it was brewing, using the phone on Michele’s kitchen wall, he dialed information and asked for the number of LaSalle Academy in Manhattan. Michele, through whom Chris could get to both Labrutto and Rodriguez, assuming he could fashion some kind of a plan, needed to be nursed, fed her drugs, and – for want of a nicer word – imprisoned for the next few days. If John Farrell felt he needed to make amends for what he did to Chris twenty-seven years ago, then here was his chance.

6.

“Joseph?”

“Yes?”

“It’s me, Jodi.”

“Hi. What’s up?”

“Someone else is looking for Woody.”

“What?”

“Someone else is looking for Woody. I thought you should know.”

“Who?”

“A guy named Rocco Stabile.”

“How do you know?”

“Patrice called me. This guy Stabile stopped by the bar today.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

“He wanted to know who Woody hung out with last night, and where.”

“Did Patrice tell him about your girls?”

“No. She thought he was a cop. She said she hadn’t seen Woody in a couple of weeks.”

“Woody’s dead, Jodi.”

“Dead?”

“Killed by Stabile’s people.”

“What’s going on?”

“Do you still have your place in Florida?”

“Yes.”

“Get on a plane. Take Nicole and the other girl that was with Woody. I’ll call you in a few days.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I know what’s going on.”

“Woody did a hit. A mob connected hit. He killed two people. He was eliminated as a witness. Now they’re wondering if he spilled his guts to somebody, to eliminate them, too. Are you following me?”

“Yes.”

“Things will calm down, but you have to go away for a week or two.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I talked to Woody, then I saw him get shot.”

“Christ.”

Joseph had arrived home, that is, at Marsha’s twentyfirst floor apartment overlooking the East River, taken ten milligrams of Valium, and fallen asleep on the plush sectional sofa in the living room. The buzzing of his cell phone had awakened him with a start. Now, his head clear, he was standing on the balcony, the phone to his ear, watching with one eye as the light from the setting sun turned Queens’ industrial riverbank into a magic kingdom of shining smokestacks, geometrically shaded rooftops and glittering windows.

“Nicole can be a bitch,” Jodi said. “What if she won’t come?”

“Someone else may have seen her with Woody at the Royalton, or at the hotel. They’ll kill anybody they think talked to him last night. Tell her that.”

“Including you. Come with us.”

“I can’t. There’s something I need to do. Maybe I’ll fly down next week. We can play.”

“I’m worried, Joseph.”

“That’s good. You’ll be cautious. But it’ll be fine. I have a plan.”

Joseph did not have a plan. Plans did not play a prominent role in his life. The furthest ahead he thought was to the identities and hangouts of the people, usually women, he could borrow or scam money from. Occasionally, when desperate, he could be creative. He once staged an accident in which twelve street people in a van he was driving sustained whiplash injuries when he was rear-ended by a bus on Sixth Avenue. The lawyer he referred his passengers to gave him ten percent of each settlement, and he made an easy ten thousand dollars. But this was not an insurance scam he had on his hands now.

Before taking his Valium and falling into a dead sleep earlier, he had called Vinnie Rosamelia, who told him that the albino had ransacked Chris’ apartment late last night, and that this morning, Rocco Stabile had stopped by asking for Chris. Earlier, from Lou Falco, he learned that Ed Dolan, knowing of the Scarpa-Chris Massi connection, was looking at Chris as a suspect in the Scarpa/ McRae murders. Dolan would soon discover, if he had not already, that Chris had visited Allison’s apartment on Sunday, which would make his case against Chris that much stronger.

The hit on Woody by a DiGiglio soldier, the search of Chris’ apartment – obviously for the stolen DVD – Rocco Stabile’s inquiries, these all meant one thing: it was Junior Boy who was in the snuff film business, not Barsonetti. DiGiglio, proud of his reputation as an honorable, even noble, gangster, would kill anybody who could expose him: Scarpa, Allison, Woody, Chris. And Dolan – the psychotic cocksucker – now had compelling evidence connecting Chris to a double murder. DiGiglio or Dolan alone wanting Chris dead would be bad enough, but both of them at once pretty much guaranteed that his brother’s life was over – unless Joseph could think of something, could actually come up with a plan that would save Chris’ life. Standing on the balcony, his tailored gray slacks and dark blue silk shirt wrinkled from sleeping in them, gazing down at the river but not seeing it, Joseph smiled. No one took him seriously. He was a lackey, someone to be taken advantage of, or abused, to be tossed an occasional crumb in deference to his father. The last thing anyone saw him as was a threat.

Marsha was in Northern California, painting. She would not be back until Saturday. The bargain they had initially struck – she could have a fling with a sexy, dangerous thirty-two year old as long as she let him roam at will and financed his life style – had lately turned into something else. They liked each other. It would be hard to say which of them was more surprised by this turn of events, Marsha, the never married workaholic – her drug was her art – or Joseph, clean of heroin but daily edging closer to the abyss.

Marsha gave Joseph, who had never had a credit card, a thousand dollars a month, and paid his tab at two local restaurants. Searching through her desk for her checkbook, he thought of what she said when they got home from dinner with Chris and the kids on Saturday night:
He’s a handsome guy, your brother, but you’re handsomer, and a lot more fun. He’s too serious. What cross is he carrying? His disbarment? That’s probably a blessing. Still, I knew you had a brother, but I never knew how much you loved him until tonight. I saw it in those beautiful eyes of yours all night long.

7.

Guy Labrutto had refused to say word one to the investigators sent by Ed Dolan to interview him, and the documents obtained in the search of his home revealed nothing incriminating. Corporate taxes were fully paid by West Coast Productions, his porn video company, and Labrutto paid the appropriate personal income tax on the substantial salary he took annually from the business. “Consultants fees” of close to two million dollars per year were paid to Claremont Enterprises, a New Jersey company that invoiced for services that included casting, script editing, talent development and marketing. This company was owned by the same two men, brothers named Alphonse and Achilles Cirillo, who owned and operated a strip club called RazzMaTazz on Route 46 in Garfield.

State records showed that Claremont was formed in 1992 by Thomas M. Stabile, Esquire, a known mob lawyer and, of course, Rocco’s brother. Alphonse and Achilles, dumbfounded that the authorities would be interested in them for any reason, referred Dolan’s investigators to Stabile, who politely refused to say anything unless and until he received a subpoena. The Cirillos, with their gold necklaces and onyx pinky rings, were no script editors, and were probably passing their “fees” on to Junior Boy via Tom Stabile, whose presence guaranteed that the don was involved. To make matters worse – excruciatingly worse – forensics had just reported that the fingerprints found on the water bottle and glass taken from Labrutto’s living room were a near match to Chris Massi’s but inconclusive for courtroom purposes.

All of this information came to Dolan in a report he received on the Thursday afternoon following the murders. As he read it, a familiar mix of dread and anxiety began to drum its fingers in his gut. Of late, he had kept this old foe at bay with drugs: Paxil and Zoloft prescribed by a psychiatrist on Fifth Avenue who charged four hundred and fifty dollars for a fifty-minute session the sole purpose of which was to write a prescription. He was certain that a victory over Massi and DiGiglio would vanquish this enemy as well.

And he was close. Without having to work very hard, or do anything rash, meaning illegal, he was very close. He had the Massi-Scarpa connection, he had Chris’ fingerprints in Allison McRae’s apartment with the hooker’s statement that she had let him in on Sunday. He had Labrutto’s name and address in Scarpa’s wallet, and he had the Labrutto-DiGiglio connection. But he was not close enough to indict anybody. He did not have enough on any individual suspect to leverage them into a traditional testimony-for-free-pass deal, and empaneling a grand jury was out of the question. Everyone would take the fifth amendment and he’d be worse off than when he started, having tipped his hand with nothing to show for it.

Dolan knew that the panic he was feeling came from his fear that this, his one, great opportunity to avenge his father’s death, was slipping away from him, that never again would he have both Junior Boy and Massi within such tantalizingly easy reach. The efforts of the Christian Brothers at LaSalle Academy and of the Jesuits at Fordham to instill in their students the simple premise of all morality – that the end never justifies the means – had had no effect on Ed Dolan. In fact, like all true believers, he saw his point of view as the morally correct one. He was perfectly justified in returning hurt for hurt, death for death. He had tried to terrorize Massi with a false indictment and a disbarment complaint grounded in lies, but he now saw the inherent softness of that approach. Indeed, Chris’ acquittal at the trial could be viewed as evidence of Dolan’s timidity. He would not let that happen again. All he needed was a better plan, a stronger will, and he would prevail. His faith in the tenets of his cult-of-one invigorated, lost for a second in his daydream, the ringing of his telephone jarred Ed Dolan forcefully back to reality.

Picking it up, and listening to his secretary, it was as if the machinery of the universe had been all along operating quietly but efficiently for the sole good of Ed Dolan Jr. Joseph Massi was at the front desk, asking to see him, and only him.

“What should I do?” his secretary asked.

“Bring him back,” Dolan answered, “and then hold my calls.”

Dolan had not seen Joseph Massi since the June day twenty-four years ago when he and Chris graduated from LaSalle. The younger Massi, a pretty, eight-year-old boy in a blue blazer and tie, with a mop of thick black hair and big, liquid eyes, had held his mother’s hand the entire day. That he had turned out a junkie and a punk was common knowledge and a source of satisfaction to Dolan. Anything that hurt the Massi family made him happy. But beyond that, Joseph did not interest him. There would have been little or no gratification in destroying such a weakling. Better that he lived to torture his parents and his brother. Entering his office, Joseph, still pretty, in his summer-weight, finely spun dark blue suit, creamy turtleneck and braided Italian shoes, looked more like a Ralph Lauren model than a habitual heroin user.

“Joe Massi.”

“Ed Dolan.”

They faced each other in the sunlit room, Dolan at his oversized government-issue desk, Joseph settling in a worn faux leather chair with brass studs around the seat.

“You look good,” Dolan said. “Have you quit using?”

“You haven’t changed,” Joseph replied.

“You want some kind of royal treatment? You’re a junkie. State your business.”

“I can help you with the Scarpa and McRae murders.”

“How?”

Joseph drew a DVD in a jewel case from the pocket of his suit coat and put it, with one of his calling cards, on Dolan’s desk. “That’s a snuff film,” he said. “The male lead is an albino who works for Guy Labrutto. Nick and Allison were killed because they found out about the film.”

“I’m not impressed.”

“Labrutto and Anthony DiGiglio are in the snuff film business. Junior Boy ordered the killing, Labrutto and the albino carried it out.”

“How do you know this?”

“It’s on the street.”

“So I’ll subpoena the street to testify before the grand jury, and the case will be all wrapped up tight.”

“I can get Junior Boy on tape.”

It had been obvious that Joseph, who was trying to remain calm and focused and not doing a bad job of it, was on a mission of some kind. But a kamikaze mission was the last thing Dolan expected, and the one thing guaranteed to get his full attention.

“How?”

“My nephew’s fourteenth birthday is on Sunday. Junior Boy’s having a party at his house. You wire me. I’ll get him to talk about the snuff film and the murders.”

“In return for which, you want what?”

“I want you to lay off Chris. You know he didn’t kill anybody.”

Dolan did not respond immediately. He picked up the DVD, read the title and flipped open the case, eying the shiny silver disk inside.

“Where’s Chris now?” he asked.

“He took a vacation. I don’t know where to.”

“Where’d you get this?” Dolan asked, holding the DVD up and tilting it toward Joseph.

“Allison gave it to me. She stole it from Labrutto.”

“How did you know her?”

“She was a friend of an old girlfriend.”

“They fake these things,” Doaln said, “to make them look violent when they’re not.”

“This is the real thing. Take a look at it when you get a chance.”

“I will. If it’s real, we’ll talk some more.”

“What about Chris?”

“If he didn’t kill anybody, what does he have to worry about?”

“You. Your vendetta.”

“And you thought only the Sicilians were good at that.”

“What about Chris?”

“If I get Junior Boy, your brother can walk.”

“I have one other condition.”

“What’s that?”

“If there’s trouble in the house, or the wire goes dead, your people have to be ready.”

“Junior Boy wouldn’t do violence in his own house,” Dolan said, “with his family there.”

“He might. Your guys have to come in. I need your word on that.”

“I couldn’t protect you afterward.”

“I’ll run.”

“Okay. If you go in, you’ll have backup.”

“I ran into an old friend of yours last week,” Joseph said, getting to his feet.

“Who’s that?”

“Johnny Logan, remember him?”

Dolan sat straighter in his chair and stared hard at Joseph. He did not respond.

“He’s got a colostomy bag,” Joseph continued. “The poor fuck. He gets some kind of government check. Isn’t he a cousin of yours or something? I thought he was long dead, actually.”

Dolan, remaining silent, eyed Joseph standing now behind his chair. Logan had survived his stomach wound and told the police that he had shot Dolan in a fight over money, Dolan having drawn first. What else could he say? If he had tried to finger Joe Black, the Velardo family would certainly have killed him. He went off to a five-tofifteen-year prison sentence for manslaughter, and had not been heard from since.

The true story had spread quickly, however, from Logan’s girlfriend at the time, Moira, and Andy O’Brien, who soon thereafter sold Valerio’s and moved to Phoenix. Everyone in the Greenwich Village/Lower East Side/Mafia subculture knew what happened in Valerio’s back room that February night, including, without doubt, Joseph Massi, who was now, incredibly, reminding Ed Dolan of
who killed who
twenty-seven years ago, throwing it in his face.

But Dolan remained calm. Joseph would soon be dead. Either that or Dolan would have hard evidence of Junior Boy DiGiglio’s involvement, along with Labrutto, in three murders: the snuff film victim, Nick Scarpa and Allison McRae. With that, he could make a deal with one of them, preferably Labrutto, for testimony implicating Massi. He could not lose his cool and scare off Joseph, his junkie stalking horse, no matter how much he wanted to throw him out the window. That Joseph could be the instrument of Chris’ final fall was the sweetest of ironies, a gift from the gods.

“I don’t know the guy,”the prosecutor finally responded.

“He was asking about you.”

“You need to get fixed, don’t you, Joseph,” Dolan said, ignoring this last remark, forcing a sympathetic smile. “I can see it in your eyes. Hold off. I need you clean. Keep Sunday morning open. If this film is the real thing, that’s when you’ll get wired, and we’ll go over the plan. Don’t go and O.D. on me in the meantime.”

After Joseph left, Dolan sat and contemplated the various aspects of his windfall. The type of operation that Joseph Massi was suggesting, involving the wiring of a civilian with no law enforcement experience, required the approval of the head of the criminal division in Washington, the number three man in the Justice Department. The approval process took some time, and expedition was rare. For a true national emergency, it might be done in a day or two. And then, if it were known that the civilian was a heroin addict going into a houseful of innocent people, including women and children, the chances for approval would be virtually nil.

But Dolan wasn’t worried about the approval process. He would bypass it. He would put a remote wire on Joseph’s chest himself, a dud, and give him a voice-activated tape recorder to put in his pocket. He would tell him to arrive at a certain time, and instruct his surveillance team to leave when they saw him pull up. If DiGiglio did a strip search, Joseph was a dead man, but who would know or care? If he made it out alive, with Junior Boy incriminating himself on tape, it would be a home run.

He could deal with Joseph later, maybe set him up for a kill by DiGiglio’s people as part of a truly outside-the-box plea deal. His only fear was that Joseph would lose heart and back out. Ed Dolan hadn’t prayed in almost thirty years, and he wasn’t about to start now. But, he readily acknowledged to himself that if he were to start again, his first request would be that Joseph Massi stay strong on his present course, that he walk into Anthony DiGiglio’s Tudor mansion on Sunday afternoon wired for sound and ready to martyr himself for the only religion that really mattered, the only cause worth praying for: Ed Dolan’s revenge.