West 47th (25 page)

She would leave her husband. They would go somewhere, anywhere kinder, and be together. No longer would they have to sneak afternoons.

They would. If they had the money.

Mrs. Kalali had little of her own. A few thousand was all.

There was, however, the jewelry.

She proposed they sell it. It was worth far more than they'd get for it. That was the way with jewelry. Buy dear, sell cheap. The dealers on 47th, for example. They feasted on misfortune. They seemed able to smell one's need to sell and, once they got the scent, they started grubbing.

New music, old words, Mitch thought.

Anyway, Roger continued, there was the jewelry. And there was the insurance on the jewelry. He wished now she'd never mentioned the insurance.

She brought the policy to one of their afternoons at the Plaza. It was like a catechism. Questions and answers. Clearly, if the jewelry was stolen the insurance company had to pay Mrs. Kalali the appraised value within ninety days. The future contained a check for six million.

“So, you arranged for a gimmie,” Mitch said.

“A what?”

“You made a deal with someone to steal it.”

“What did you call it?”

“A gimmie. It's a street term.”

“Oh.”

“Did you or Mrs. Kalali make those arrangements?”

It was like Roger hadn't heard the question.

Mitch asked again.

Still nothing from Roger. He got up. It seemed he was going to leave; however he went to the cafeteria counter. He returned to the table with a plastic container of bread pudding and, evidently, a decision. Between the second and third spoonfuls of the pudding he mumbled something.

“What?”

“I took care of it,” Roger repeated.

“The gimmie?”

“Whatever you call it.”

“You know those kind of people?”

“I didn't. I happened to know someone who knew someone of that sort.”

“Who?”

“I'd rather not say.”

“I mean who did this acquaintance of yours hook you up with?”

“I met the man. I met with him twice.”

“Where?”

“The Four Seasons.”

“Really, the Four Seasons?”

“He bought lunch. With a platinum American Express.”

“What was the man's name?” The key question.

“He introduced himself as Frank Melton.”

Frank Melton didn't ring a bell with Mitch.

“But,” Roger said, “I got a glance at the name on his platinum card. It was Crosetti. I didn't get the first name.”

Crosetti? That rang all kinds of bells. Sal Crosetti.

Roger continued: “He wasn't very receptive until I told him the jewelry was valued at six million. I gave him the layout of the Kalali house, the alarm system and everything. He told me more or less how it would go, assured me there wouldn't be any violence. Just a nice, quiet robbery were his words. I believed him. I'm in trouble aren't I?”

“You're in trouble.”

“But I didn't do anything.”

Mitch sat back and took a moment to study this Roger Addison. His hair was well-cut. His ears had an almost translucent quality to them. Mitch still hadn't gotten a direct look at his eyes. There was a small birthmark, purplish, like a berry stain on the back of his neck just above the collar of what was probably this Monday's version of his daily fresh shirt. In a better world this Roger would never have stepped into the stream of 47th and been carried in over his head.

“I didn't do anything,” he was again insisting.

Mitch wondered if he should level with him, tell him he was an accessory to murder for one thing and would probably do ten to fifteen on that count alone, tell him he wasn't the sort who'd do well in the joint, that he'd get fucked to death.

No use spoiling his day, Mitch decided.

Chapter 19

Salvatore Crosetti had been an outside-insider of 47th for going on twelve years. At one time he'd been just a have-around guy for an underboss in Providence, which was his hometown. Back then, when he wasn't just being around, he was out collecting from or paying off people who bet on sports. Mostly collecting from. He got paid a fixed amount weekly for doing that.

He saved a few thousand. Chances for scores came along and he'd had the money to take advantage. Like a certain race on the Saturday card at Narragansett that he knew the winner of the Thursday before. He also handled a little side action from suckers on football and baskets. No telling to what extent his boss wouldn't have appreciated that.

The big break for Crosetti came when a friend of his Uncle Mario developed emphysema and was advised by the doctors to go live as long as he could someplace where the air was easier to breathe and he wouldn't have to move around much. This friend was an established New York City fence with a crew of swifts and numerous 47th Street contacts. He sold out to Crosetti for fifty thousand. Twenty-five on the handshake, twenty-five on the come.

Crosetti was a fence to be dealt with from his first week at it. It was as though he was spontaneously transformed, the way he assumed the image. Probably it was the way he'd had himself in mind for years. No more acrylic in his suits. No more once-a-month haircuts. He dressed tastefully conservative, bought his suits and accessories at Dunhill. His knowledge of gems and jewelry was limited, but he bluffed convincingly while he picked up on them quickly.

He had an instinctive sense of how to handle his swifts, when to be hard or lenient on them. His crew consisted of three blacks and two whites. They all lived in Mount Vernon.

Early on, Crosetti caught one of the whites holding back and got rid of him. Refused to take him on again. Another was apprehended in the closet of a house and was sentenced to three years. For the year and a half the swift was inside Crosetti kept true to the code, provided for the guy's wife and kids. An envelope containing cash every month.

Crosetti wasn't married. He always had a juggle of women friends, both straights and hooks. He preferred hooks who looked straight and straights with a hooker semblance to them. He had a physical reputation that, according to persistent firsthand testimony, must have been deserved.

During his first few years on 47th Crosetti did business with both Riccio and Visconti. Then he had a falling out with Riccio over a piece of swag Riccio had bought from him. A ring with a fair-sized stone in it that looked for all the world to be a good ruby. Refractive tests proved it was a spinel, and, as such, wasn't worth a tenth of what Riccio had paid.

Typically, Riccio old-mobbed. Didn't merely ask for his money back but demanded and insulted, claimed for all the street to hear that Crosetti had intentionally cheated him.

Crosetti took exception. His reputation was at stake. Out of resentment rather than deceit he counterclaimed he'd sold Riccio a ruby that was a ruby and that Riccio was trying to fuck him out of both the ruby and the money.

The bitterness between the two men reached its apogee one noontime when Riccio was out on the street and happened to spot Crosetti across the way. “Piece of shit!” Riccio shouted.

“Dirty prick!” Crosetti fired back.

What ensued was a name-calling battle that continued for the length of the block. Riccio on one side of the street. Crosetti on the opposite side. A crowd followed each along as they
scumbagged
and
cocksuckered
at one another. Spit sprayed the air, fists were raised. Every so often Riccio did a meaner face and feinted a charge across. Crosetti sneered defiantly, extended his arms and beckoned Riccio to come ahead.

How many times and ways could they shout
asshole?
When they'd exhausted such everyday defilements, they found fresh ammunition in calling down venereal diseases on one another.

At various times in the past there'd been other al fresco arguments on 47th, but never one to compare with Riccio versus Crosetti. It was an event still being recalled. People who'd been nowhere near 47th that day claimed to have witnessed it.

Mitch was one of those who missed it; however both Riccio and Crosetti told him their conflicting versions of it—what brought it about and who got the best of it.

He preferred to believe Crosetti.

Because he enjoyed disbelieving Riccio.

In Mitch's opinion, of all the fences, Crosetti was the least slippery. That was not to say Crosetti was entirely lacking in that unctuous quality. He had a reserve of it in him that he could apply to help him squeeze out of a tight spot; however, slippery wasn't his everyday way.

As yet, Crosetti and Mitch hadn't needed to confront one another head-on. They'd only sideswiped a few times.

Like five years ago when Mitch was out to recover a pair of Van Cleef & Arpels diamond bracelets that were the major pieces taken in a robbery up in Larchmont. Mitch was on the corner of 46th and Fifth having a hot dog and a Hire's at a street vendor's wagon. Crosetti came up. He had an unlighted seven-inch Cohiba Robusto protruding from the left corner of his mouth. An element of his cachet. Mitch had never seen him light up. He literally conducted conversations with it, held it between his first finger and thumb and wielded it like a baton.

The color of the cigar was a perfect match for the beaded-stripe, double-breasted suit he had on that day. A blue paisley silk square puffed stylishly from his breast pocket.

“I'll have what he's having,” Crosetti told the vendor, “except for the kraut, no kraut.”

He removed the cigar from his mouth so he could put in a third of the dog and roll. He hardly chewed before swallowing.

“How's it going, Mitch?”

“Okay, Sal, how about you.”

“Good and bad, you know. A little of each and not too much of either. That's what keeps things interesting, right?” Another bite and then, as though the exchange had been going on for a while, “By the way, the two similar Van Cleef pieces you been looking for.”

“What about them?”

“They ain't anymore.”

“You know that for sure.”

“Why should I shit you? They went three days ago. I personally saw them go. Personally.”

Crosetti was letting Mitch know that the diamonds of the Van Cleef bracelets had been plucked from their platinum settings and the settings had been melted down. It wasn't good news but being told was a sort of favor.

Mitch thanked Crosetti for it.

Now was another time. Now was the Monday when Roger Addison had revealed Crosetti's involvement in the Kalali robbery and it looked as though a head-on between Mitch and Crosetti was inevitable.

Mitch went directly from New York University Hospital to 47th. He worked the street, on the lookout for Crosetti, inquiring here and there in an offhand manner.

“Crosetti.”

“He was around.”

“When?”

“Last week. Tuesday I think it was. He hasn't been around since.”

“I understand he hasn't been offering much lately.” A leading remark from Mitch.

“Not to me anyway.”

“He usually throws you a little something, doesn't he?”

“Very little and not usually.”

Crosetti hung out, when he hung out, in the Monarch, a large exchange located mid-block on the north side of the street. His spot was the concession of a somewhat hooked-up guy who was seldom there. A narrow spot in the left front corner of the exchange. No display cases, no merchandise. Business was done pocket to pocket. Crosetti would sit in there at the window and watch the street, as though it was an all-day movie.

But he wasn't there today.

He wasn't around.

Mitch pay-phoned Visconti, who immediately came on. His excuse for the call was to thank him for the binoculars.

“How was it up in Kinderhook?” Visconti inquired.

“Fine.”

“Nice country, especially this time of year.”

How, Mitch wondered, did Visconti know Straw's place was in Kinderhook, not just upstate somewhere, but specifically Kinder-hook? Just as puzzling, why did he know?

“You missed out on a great weekend Mitch. Besides the people I told you would be there, there were some others you know.”

“Such as?”

“The dealer, Ben Ziegler, for one. He dropped by. You know Ben, and Sy Plansky, the colored stone guy from L.A.”

Mitch knew Plansky from the Laughton and Sons days. A business acquaintance of his father's who, when a better piece was missing one of its colored stones, could be depended upon to come up with a close enough match.

“Sal Crosetti was also out,” Visconti said. “You know Sal, of course, but I bet you didn't know he could do magic.”

“He's never done any time. I guess that's magic.” Mitch did a little laugh.

So did Visconti. “Sal dazzled us with his sleight of hand. The only thing he didn't make disappear was his hard-on. You should have seen the quality bimbo he had with him.”

“What else did he have with him?”

“Like what?”

“Like anything?”

“We didn't do any business if that's what you mean. Shit, Mitch, you want to know you should ask. I'm not saying I'd tell you true, but, you and me, we're close enough for you to ask straight out.”

Such bullshit, Mitch thought.

“What is it,” Visconti wanted to know. “Does Sal have something you're after?”

“No.”

“Like the Kalali goods?”

“If he did you'd know it,” Mitch said. “You'd be the first to know, wouldn't you?”

“Fucking right. If he didn't bring it to me I'd shove his tongue up his ass.”

Silence in reverence for that image.

“Come to think of it,” Visconti went on, “the Kalali thing isn't Sal's style. There's never been blood on any of his goods. His crew never carries.”

“You're making too much of this. I just inquired and you stretched it.”

“You're right, Mitch. Yeah. Hey, you play squash or handball?”