The Undertaker (26 page)

“The water cooler wasn't available?”

“Nothing happened. It was a month after Eddie walked out on me, and I wouldn't have minded a little hot, sweaty groping to get even. But not from him. He's married and at heart I'm really not a bimbo.”

“Not at heart?”

“Thanks!” She glared up at me. “You know, this isn't a particularly good morning for you to give me shit, Talbott. I don't have to be here.”

“You're right, I'm sorry, it's none of my business, but you're always joking…”

“Oh, never mind.” She walked on, fuming.

“So, you blew off a U. S. senator and nothing happened,” I asked as I caught up.

“Not exactly. I think I threw up on his shoes in the foyer of my building.”

“He wouldn't have gotten that from the water cooler.”

“Hey, after all this time, he won't remember me. And even if he is a complete letch, he was the one who organized all those hearings on the Mafia in Washington, so he's not a complete waste. And neither am I.”

As we walked away, I could see she was hurting, and from more than just the hangover. Suddenly I felt a cold shiver. I hardly knew this girl. How long had it been? Twenty-four hours? I was beginning to enjoy her company. She was fun and interesting and I knew if I had given her half an opening the night before she would have been a lot more. A huge rush of guilt washed over me like an ice cold shower and I knew my problem wasn't her. It was me — too much baggage, too much pain. And if I wasn't careful, I could get her killed.

I looked up at the sky. I saw some soft, lazy clouds drifting by, but I couldn't find Terri's face up there anywhere. I got panicky. Where was she? She was always up there scolding and disapproving when I was doing something wrong, so where was she when I needed her help? The buildings were tall and blocking out about half of the sky, so I stepped over to the curb where I could see the sky better. Still, nothing, I couldn't find her.

“Talbott, you okay?” Sandy frowned, sounding concerned.

“I'm fine,” I forced a reply and a smile. “It's nothing.”

“No, well, you look like you saw a ghost.”

“No, the problem is, I didn't… Oh, never mind, it's just a joke,” I quickly recovered and tried to smile.

“Where are we going now? Back to my aunt's? Because if you still want that stuff on Eddie that's in my closet over on Clark, I have another idea.”

“Another one?” I asked, still searching the clouds.

“Come with Mama,” she laughed as she hooked her arm in mine and led me away. We went back west and north on the side streets until we found that walkway between the buildings that got us to the alley behind her apartment building. The gray government car was still parked there with a blue-suited goon sitting inside. She pulled out her cell phone and turned it on. “Relax, watch the pro work.” She pulled out an official-looking business card and dialed the number. “I need to talk to Agent Dulaney,” she whispered, as if she was in a panic. “He isn't? Hey, this is Sandy Kasmarek. I'm in a little Greek restaurant at Lincoln and Belmont, and that guy Agent Dulaney is looking for? Talbott? Well, he's standing outside watching me, so you gotta help me.... No, I can't wait. Oh, God, he's coming in. I'm so scared.” Then she snapped the phone's cover closed and grinned.

It took less than a minute for the car to start and tear off down the alley.

“Can I hear a big Amen,” she grinned. At the corner, the gray car put a flashing red light on the dash and took a sharp turn west, tires squealing.

“That should hold them for a while, let's go.”

“You're pretty good at this, aren't you?”

“I'm pretty good at a lot of things.”

Because the papers say so...

T
he
rear of Sandy's apartment building had an open wooden staircase that zigzagged up from the small, fenced rear yard to the upper floors. She took the stairs two at a time and I followed close behind, across the landings to the third floor. She had her key out and we were through her rear door into the kitchen in less than a minute. Once over the threshold, she stopped and I plowed into her. My first impressions of her kitchen were empty beer cans, fast-food bags, a half-full bottle of vodka, dirty dishes, and a half-dozen scraggly houseplants on the window ledge. But Sandy wasn't looking at any of that. She was looking at the imposing figure of Gino Parini sitting in one of her kitchen chairs. He had a Chicago Sun Times in front of him open to the sports page and his chrome .45-caliber automatic laying next to it.

“Close the door,” Parini said as he motioned us to come in the rest of the way. He threw a quick glance around the kitchen and said, “Some housekeeper, your woman,”

“I'm not his woman,” she shot back.

He ignored her. “You really are one persistent pain in the ass, Ace. I've been sitting here since last night. Where you been? Shacked up with her?

“Oh, fuck you!” she shot back.

“A housekeeper with a foul mouth,” he snorted. His long black hair hung straight down to his shoulders today and he wore a navy blue, double-breasted blazer with gold buttons, crisp white slacks, and a maroon silk shirt, open at the neck.

“You off to Newport for the yacht races?” I asked.

“Cut the crap,” he growled. “You shoulda done what I told you back in Columbus.”

“You told me to get out of town. I did.”

“Yeah, but the wrong freakin’ way. You didn't go back to Boston; you came here. Now take a seat. You too, Sweet Pea. There's things we gotta talk about.”

“You know this grease ball?” Sandy demanded, looking at him and at me.

“His name's Gino Parini,” I said with an apologetic shrug. “He's a hit man for the New Jersey Mafia.”

“A hit man? For the Mafia?” She slapped herself on the forehead.

“Don't worry, he's not after us.”

“A nice guy, with puppy-dog eyes,” she muttered. “Jeez, how could I be so stupid again? How?”

“And how do you know who I'm not after?” Parini growled.

“He's the one who showed me the obituaries back in Boston. And he even came to my funeral in Ohio.”

“How nice. Did he send flowers?”

“Shut up and sit down,” Gino glared at her. “Both of you.”

I sat. Sandy didn't. She looked over at me, then at him, then back at me again. “The FBI. The Mafia. And now a hit man.” She shook her head angrily. “Non ci credo.”
I don't believe this
, she muttered in Italian.

“Cosa t'aspetti?”
What did you expect?
Parini chuckled. “And is that a hint of Palermo I hear underneath that bad Italian?”

“Her Polish in-laws call her “that little wop girl,” I added, but she had had enough. She turned and smacked me across the side of the head. I barely saw her hand move, but my ear was ringing. “I thought you were on my side, Gino. How come you didn't stop her?”

“You thought wrong. I ain't on nobody's side and it ain't me she was smackin’,” he said as he stood up and pushed her into her chair with one finger to the center of her chest. “Nuthin’ personal, but like I said, sit down.” With his big arms and barrel chest, he towered over her and her courage shrank into the chair cushion. “Now what do we got here, Ace? A great housekeeper. Speaks Italian. From all the beer cans and bottles, she drinks too damned much. And it says "S. A. Kasmarek" on the mailbox. So who is she?”

“Eddie Kasmarek's widow,” I said.

“Who the fuck's Eddie Kasmarek?”

“Like me, another name they used to bury somebody up in Oak Hill Cemetery, compliments of Messieurs Varner, Greene, Tinkerton, and Dannmeyer.”

I had Gino's full attention now. “No shit?”

“No shit. And you followed me here, didn't you? All the way from Columbus.”

“All the way from Boston. I put a beeper on your Bronco but you lost it.”

“I didn't lose it, they stole it.”

“Yeah, well, that made following you a whole lot harder.”

“Why didn't you just give me a ride?” I asked. “It would have made the trip a lot easier, but you wanted to see what I'd flush out, didn't you?”

Parini shrugged. “Yesterday morning I saw you checking her out, then you tailed her over to that mall on Michigan, where I lost you. But Tinkerton's clowns still had this place staked out, so I knew they hadn't got you yet. I came back here and waited.”

“They laid a trap for me over at the Water Tower,” I answered. “But they missed.”

“Missed, huh?” Parini studied me for a moment. “Don't let it go to your freakin’ head. You been lucky. If Tinkerton really wants you, sooner or later he's going to get you.” He motioned toward Sandy and shook his head. “And I'm disappointed in you, Ace. It ain't smart, you draggin' her into this thing. I expected better.”

“I needed her help,” I answered sheepishly.

“Help? When a guy drags a broad into shit like this, they always screw up and get the guy killed.” He focused those hard eyes on me. “So, what was so freakin’ important that you had to come to Chicago and get her “help” in the first place?”

“Okay,” I tried to explain. “You know how they buried Louie Panozzo and his wife in Oak Hill using my name and my wife Terri's, right? Well, there's another grave up there with her ex-husband Eddie's name on it, and two for a guy named Skeppington and his wife, two for a guy named Pryor and his wife, and two for a guy named Brownstein and his wife. If you dig those up, you're going to find the bodies of some your old pals from Newark, like Richie Benvenuto, Clement 'the Mole' Aleppo, Paul Mantucci, and Johnny Dantonio. But I think there's more, a lot more. They're only the tip of the iceberg.”

Parini stared at me, astonished. “How the Hell did you…”

“I read the newspaper. Panozzo and his wife lived in Columbus for over six months, using my name and my wife's before they had their little “accident.” And that's the way they were buried: Mr. and Mrs. Peter Emerson Talbott. The others were all the same. That's how I found them. Accidents. Varner signed the death certificates, Greene buried them, Tinkerton was their executor, and Dannmeyer provided the police protection, not that they needed it, because they thought Terri and I were already dead and buried back in California. In her case, they were right. In mine, they were wrong.”

“So they bit on that old obituary in LA papers, the one that said you died in Mexico?” Parini leaned forward and listened intently.

“When I told Tinkerton how they got it all wrong, he just laughed and admitted that every now and then their computers screwed up.” I smiled. “What they missed was the fact that I wasn't dead.”

“Not yet anyway,” Parini snorted as he looked over at Sandy.

“Okay, Gino, a little wager.” I leaned forward in the chair. “I'll bet you that .45 of yours that ‘the Mole’ wasn't married.”

Parini leaned back and studied me carefully for a moment, but he didn't bite.

“Come on, Gino. A little gentlemanly wager?” I goaded him.

“Nah, I can read your eyes. You don't bluff so well, kid. You know something.”

“I told him he can't lie worth a damn,” Sandy interjected. “But while you two keep screwing around, those guys in the gray sedans are coming back.”

“I'm right, aren't I?” I ignored her. ‘The Mole” was single, wasn't he?”

“Yeah, he was single, but how'd you know?”

“With a name like that?”

Parini roared with laughter. “Yeah, my dumb. That was a no-brainer, wasn't it?”

“That's why when they dig up Eddie Kasmarek's grave in Columbus, they're going to find “the Mole's” body inside,” I said. “See, they needed the name of a single guy and they thought Eddie was single. They didn't know about Sandy, because they had an ugly divorce last year and none of Eddie's obituaries mentioned her.”

“I wouldn't let them,” she answered. “I didn't want anything more to do with that bastard.”

Parini leaned back and stared at her and at me, then slowly nodded. “You know, you might be onto something, Ace.”

“Peter, we need to get that stuff and get the hell out of here,” Sandy said.

“What stuff?” Gino asked

“The papers I have on Eddie,” she answered. “His death certificate, the obituary from the Tribune, maybe receipts from his insurance, the ambulance, the cemetery, that kinda stuff.”

“And if I can get some proof on those other guys: Skeppington, Brownstein, and Pryor, and their wives...”

“Not a bad idea.” Gino nodded. “But you got lucky. They've only got a skeleton crew here, pardon the pun, just the three cars so far, but there'll be a lot more pretty soon, Tinkerton too. My big Lincoln's parked two blocks over and you and me, we gotta get out of here, Ace.”

Sandy looked at me and almost exploded. “What's this “you and me, Ace” crap? I thought it was you and
me
doing this thing, Talbott, the two of us,
together
, remember?”

“Sandy, look…” I tried to explain.

“What? You're leaving me here? I knew it!”

“They don't have anything on you.”

“No? How about a bunch of men's clothes on my credit card, all your size, and your fingerprints all over my aunt's place. Well, at least I don't have them all over me!”