The Accidental Pallbearer (18 page)

“In other words?”

“Politics, Eliot.”

“Love.”

“Now we’re cooking with gas!”

“How are you feeling, Dad? I mean right now.”

“Better.”

“Physically, you mean.”

“The mental way too. How about you?”

“I got very little sleep last night.”

“I mean the mental way, El.”

“Do I have to answer?”

“Don’t we feel better the mental way too? Just a little?”

“I’ll be back after lunch. Before I go, though, I could use some insider information on Sanford Whitaker.”

“You won’t say you feel better too?”

“No. Not now.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t either.”

“Sorry, I can’t. Not now.”

“After I’m gone, I hope you won’t go too negative against yourself because of us.”

“Maybe I’ll deserve to go negative. Maybe you were doing the best you could. Nobody should ask more of anyone. (Pause.) We ask anyway.”

“Maybe we were both dealt bad cards in the family game. I think I feel more energy in my legs. Do I seem better, El?”

“You actually do. This Whitaker, Dad. He writes vicious editorials on you twice a month for as long as I’ve been back, but I have the suspicion he’s dirty in a matter that interests me.”

“I’ll make it short so you can get some rest. At the beginning, years ago, maybe thirty-five years back, he came into the
O.D
. hierarchy on a mission to destroy me. Then one summer night, you were still out in California, one of Utica’s finest in plain clothes, a
paesan
, Don Belmont, caught him propositioning an underage girl. Thirteen years old. Naturally, the detective, while he still has him cuffed in the car, gives me a call from a pay phone about nailing this stone in my shoe. I tell the detective to hold off until I give the go-ahead. Put him on the phone. I say to Whitaker, I can make this go away. I can get your property tax reduced to a dollar a year and your utility bills to disappear. He says to me, Mr. Conte – I say don’t call me that. Say Big Daddy and say it like you like me. He says, Big Daddy, I’ll never write a critical editorial about you again. Sanford, I say, I want you to keep writing those editorials, but make them even more vicious because since you came to town your editorial writing has solidified, and deepened, my support in this fair city. Do you agree? Good. And if I ever hear you doing a disgusting proposition again, I go directly to Jerry Fiore at WKTV. I had the detective write a letter, notarized, concerning Whitaker’s sexual taste. A copy of this document was delivered to Whitaker.”

“You own Whitaker.”

“I don’t believe in slavery.”

“Whitaker is your creature.”

“You have a way with words, son.”

“I’ll see you later today.”

“I look forward.”

“Bye, Dad.”

Eliot moves to the door. His father is seized by a violent fit of coughing. Eliot freezes at the door, turns, but cannot go to his father. The cough is ceaseless. When at last Eliot takes a step in his father’s direction, Silvio’s white shirt, tie, and pants are sprayed with bloody mucus. Eliot freezes again, staring. Eliot goes to his father’s side. The coughing stops. Silvio spits, chokes, slumps over.

“Dad?”

Silvio, who rarely curses, mumbles, weakly, “Any idea what I shelled out for these fucking … clothes? Help me to the bed. Please … this way, with my arm over your shoulders … pick up my arm … thank you … stand on my own now … hoist me … I walk on my own if you hold … can’t … can’t do it.” At which point, Eliot picks his father up and carries him, like a child in his arms, his father’s head resting on Eliot’s chest, to bed.

“I’ll get you a change of clothes.”

“The nurse.”

“I’ll do it.”

“The nurse.”

“I’ll call the nurse.”

Big Daddy summons what’s left of his disappearing strength: “The son should never undress the father.”

The door’s ajar and a man of impressive size sits again at Conte’s desk with
Moby-Dick
: “This fucker could write, El. Listen to this: A damp, drizzly November in my soul. Describes you to a tee. Maybe me.”

“You shouldn’t be anywhere near me today, Robby.”

“November the first and it’s drizzling on my assistant chief’s D-Day.”

“Better get over to the hospital. He could go any minute.”

“I’m on the way. He was bad last night. You just see him?”

“Yes. He’s very bad.”

“So why aren’t you there?”

“As if you didn’t know. What time does our friend leave the station?”

“Around 5:15 – 5:30.”

“Make sure he stays until then. Denise and Millicent in New York, I trust?”

“I’m trustable, El.”

“After tonight our friend is safe.”

“How about me, El? Am I safe?”

“I need sleep, Robby. Better go now.”

“Call me after.”

“Count on it. Go to Silvio.”

“Coca’s gonna lie through his teeth, El.”

“You’re a man of quite impressive size, Robby.”

Antonio doesn’t respond.

“Go to him, who art not in Heaven.”

3:45
P.M.
He’s had two hours of dead sleep.

Conte changes the license plate on his car, in his driveway. Out of sight. In the car, puts on his costume. Ten minutes later, the same car pulls up to a well-kept, single-family house on Sherman Drive. A man in coveralls and a large floppy hat pulled low emerges, goes to the trunk, removes a garden hose and shovel, walks to the back of the residence, where expertly and quickly he opens the door, enters, finds a bottle of Campari about two-thirds full in the dining area, unscrews the top, pours something in through a small funnel, secures the top and shakes gently, then departs, expertly and quickly locking the door from the outside. Leaves the hose but takes the shovel. The car pulls into the driveway at 1318 Mary Street, where the man removes the costume in the car, enters the house at 4:17.

5:30. He hasn’t eaten all day, but has no appetite. An hour early, carrying a shopping bag, Rintrona arrives. They sit in the kitchen. Conte has prepared a sandwich of salami and provolone for Rintrona, who had announced his hunger upon arrival. Conte sips a cup of his favorite tea.

“This is the craziest operation I’ve been involved in. Great salami! You think this guy is going to cough up something that’ll crack the triple assassination? Don’t we already have the obvious suspect in mind? This Kinter. He’s the fuckin’ doer, got to be. Why do we do a job on this Coca?”

Conte tells him what Castellano has uncovered and Rintrona replies, “So, okay, let’s come down on Kinter and forget about Coca.”

“We can’t forget Coca – he might be the key to a conspiracy of some breadth. Who killed DePellaccio? Ronald Sheehan? Nelson Thomas? Who killed Janice McPherson?”

“Kinter is the leading and probably only candidate, all due respect. Sheehan? Thomas? On those two you might be talking out of your et cetera, all due respect. Accidental more likely with those two. McFarlane? A sex killer. Kinter is a sex killer on top of everything else? You working on a bad movie? DePellaccio? Okay, I buy DePellaccio, if Kinter gave him the bribe. But only if. We add them up on your theory, Kinter did seven since he came to Utica to open a slaughterhouse, for Chrissake.”

“I have a feeling that seven is accurate.”

“You have a
feeling
? From what part of your body does it emanate?”

“I take your point, Bobby.”

“On the basis of your feeling, let’s say you’re right. Okay. Kinter’s paid to do three hits on three Mafia heavies. That we can take to the bank. What’s the motivation to do the others? Mafia hitmen do not hit civilians. In the history of these scumbags, I know of no deliberate civilian hits. Maybe here and there an accidental innocent bystander.”

“Unless there’s something involved that’s not Mafia-related. Mafia plus X.”

“What would that be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Raymond Patriarca, Mr. Detective Conte, got what he wanted with the elimination of Aristarco. The Barbones were gravy, as we discussed. Okay. DePellaccio maybe could identify the hitman, okay, if the hitter did the bribe personally, which I doubt because doing bribes is entrusted to non-hitters, like lawyers usually. I don’t buy your theory. Your theory doesn’t touch facts. So where are we,
paesan
?”

“We put the squeeze on Coca and do whatever we need to do to Kinter’s body, but without crossing the line, and see what that yields.”

“In this kind of event, Eliot, it’s good to bring the equalizer. I’m packing a .38 special. What d’you have?”

“.357 Magnum.”

“A blessing upon you. You carrying it to the festivities?”

“Yes.”

“We can only pray to our Virgin Mother that one of us gets pushed over the edge. I forecast you.”

6:00. Conte and Rintrona in street clothes drive in the car with the changed plate to the house on Sherman Drive. The street is deserted. Rintrona gets out, walks rapidly to the front door, knocks. No answer. Rings doorbell. No answer. Presses bell repeatedly, finally leaning on it. Nothing. Walks behind front hedge and peers in. Turns to Conte, who’s still in the car,
and smiles, then returns to tell him that a man with an obvious toupee is stretched out on the couch. A glass on the floor beside him, turned over. Conte sneer-smiles. Seeing that the street is still deserted, Conte and Rintrona, each carrying a shopping bag, walk rapidly in the full dark to the back door and enter.

6:23. Rintrona closes the door, pulls the drapes, turns off all lighting in the house with the exception of a small, low-wattage lamp, which he places on the coffee table fronting the couch, where the man known with scorn as Michael C lies in profound sleep. Conte and Rintrona proceed carefully to haul the man to the floor. Blindfold him with a black cloth. Strip him naked. Handcuff him wrists to ankles. And, last, with the utmost of delicate precision, do something to the man with a lubricated dildo of modest size.

Thinking of himself as a priest conducting a baptismal ceremony, Rintrona pours a glass of cold water on the head of Michael C, who groans but does not come to. A second glass. Again he groans, awakes, falls back asleep. A handkerchief soaked in ammonia, pressed to the nostrils. Violent head snap – he awakes, screaming, but will not be heard because Pavarotti at high volume is singing “Di quella pira,” the heroic call to arms from
Il Trovatore
. A voice close to Coca’s ear. The voice says the music must be turned off for purposes of “penetrating conversation,” and should Coca scream in the ensuing quietude “feel this against your cheek?”