Inherit the Mob (21 page)

Carlo Sesti smashed a hard overhand serve just inside the baseline, inches past Shelby Strothers’s outstretched racket. “Game,” called Strothers, breathing hard. “That’s enough for me. You’re too tough for me this morning, Carlo.”

Sesti smiled thinly. Fifteen years ago, Strothers had played on the U.S. Davis Cup team, but he was out of shape now, and not hard to beat. Sesti felt contempt for the former tennis pro’s lack of discipline.

It was almost noon, and Sesti had a one o’clock meeting at his office. He showered and shaved for the second time that morning, put on his weekend clothes—a white shirt, gray wool slacks, gleaming cordovan loafers and a dark blue blazer—and walked up Madison Avenue. He disliked Manhattan on Sundays; with the stores and offices closed, there didn’t seem to be any real point to the city.

Carlo Sesti’s firm occupied the top floor of a skyscraper on Fifty-seventh between Fifth and Sixth. That afternoon the floor was deserted, and Sesti’s footsteps echoed as he walked down the corridor to his office. Although he was the firm’s senior partner, his large room was spare, almost spartan. The walls were lined with bookshelves, the floor was covered with a thick carpet and the room was dominated by a gleaming oak desk. It was Sesti’s trademark that, no matter how much work he had to do, the desk was always clean. Not even a single paper was allowed to remain overnight unattended.

The lawyer’s mind worked the same way. He confronted each problem as it arose, solved it with dispatch and then dismissed the matter. That was what he intended to do with the Flanagan question.

He had already laid the groundwork. On the way back to Brooklyn the night before, when the Don had bitterly cursed Gordon in
Sicilian, Sesti had delicately pointed out that it was Flanagan, and not Gordon, who had been responsible for the outrage. At first Spadafore had been unreceptive; he had, after all, a boss’s perspective that naturally fixed guilt on the senior partner for the behavior of his subordinate. But gradually, Sesti could see, he had gotten through. He knew that in his heart the old man wanted to blame the Irishman, and not the nephew of his friend. Sesti, himself, had to protect Gordon. Without him, there was no plan.

Once Spadafore weakened, Sesti knew what had to be done. A less expeditious man might have waited until Monday, but the consigliere did not want to postpone the execution of a decision, once taken, even for a single day.

In this case, Sesti also realized that delay could be dangerous. He had witnessed the humiliation of Don Spadafore. In some sense, because he had brought Gordon’s invitation to the Don, he could even be considered accountable. But the main thing was, he had seen the injury to the old man’s dignity, and this, he knew, Spadafore would find hard to forgive. Only swift, brutal retaliation would mollify him.

Sesti knew all this without being told, just as he knew that Spadafore would never give him an order to avenge his honor. The Don, who prided himself on his sense of proportion, could not ask his consigliere to have a man killed because that man had arranged for a naked girl to sing “Happy Birthday.” It was Sesti’s role to understand this, and to act on his own.

In Sesti’s personal view, what had happened the night before was of no importance whatsoever. He considered Don Spadafore to be a primitive man with the same romantic, childish attitudes as his own father. To Sesti every sort of pride—national, ethnic or personal—was merely a foolish irrelevance. A man above pride would always best a proud adversary, just as a sober man had the advantage over a drunk.

Sesti felt contempt for Spadafore’s weakness, but he in no way underestimated the Don’s power or ruthlessness. He never forgot, for example, that the old man would have no compunction about killing him in order to protect his own sons. This, too, he saw as a foolish kind of sentimentality, but it was, nevertheless, a fact.

The consigliere looked at his watch. In less than half an hour he
would meet with Grady Rand, and order the execution of John Flanagan. Rand was a professional assassin from South Carolina, a man who specialized in making murder look like an accident. Sesti had used him before and been impressed by his meticulous attention to detail as well as by his discretion. Most of the Family’s so-called button men were simply unreliable thugs, and Sesti avoided employing them whenever possible. The contract that he intended to offer was a simple one—follow Flanagan and kill him as quickly as possible—but it had to be done elegantly. Flanagan was, after all, still a deputy editor of an important newspaper, and he could not be gunned down in the street like a common criminal without raising a tremendous fuss.

There were several advantages to Flanagan’s prompt execution. It would win Sesti a temporary reprieve from the old man’s wrath. It would concentrate Gordon’s mind wonderfully. Finally, it would simplify his future dealings with the journalist by establishing a precedent. Sesti smiled with satisfaction at this last consideration. As a lawyer, he regarded precedent as the very cornerstone of an orderly society.

Rudy Parchi sat in the front seat of the Bentley with the windows rolled up, listening to a Connie Francis cassette on the tape deck and cutting long, wet-sounding farts. Rudy liked the way they smelled when they mingled with the fresh, saddle-soap aroma of the leather seats. A lot of people thought the habit was disgusting, but a lot of those same people, he had noticed, had no problem with belching in public, which was only farting through your mouth as far as he was concerned.

Rudy had enjoyed farting for as long as he could remember. In the service, during his first days of boot camp, a smartass sergeant had called him up in front of the whole platoon during barracks inspection and made fun of him for it. “Soldier, quit stenching up the area,” he had screamed. “You got a problem with your plumbing or what?”

“It’s a habit I got,” Rudy said, and spat on the floor.

“Wipe up that spit, soldier!” the incredulous sergeant screamed.

“OK,” Rudy said. He hit the sergeant with a looping right, knocking him unconscious. Then he gathered up the limp body by the legs
and, with the entire platoon watching in awed silence, methodically wiped the floor with the sergeant, like a mop.

Parchi spent six months in a military stockade before receiving a medical discharge for mental instability. Then he came back to Brooklyn and resumed his career as a prizefighter. In the ring, inhibited by rules and referees, he was only fair; he beat slow heavyweights, lost to quicker ones. In the street he grabbed shifty boxers by the throat and hit them with a pipe.

Basically, Rudy didn’t care much about boxing. It was just a way to mark time until there was an opening in the Spadafore Family. He was inducted at twenty-five, young for a neighborhood kid without blood connections, and he had been with the Family for twenty-one years. Sometimes he ran errands; occasionally, like last night, he drove Spadafore some place, but usually he just hung around the house waiting. Half a dozen times in the past twenty-one years he had been asked to kill a guy, usually with a gun, and he had done it. Each time he had been given a cash bonus of a thousand dollars.

Rudy had no opinion of Luigi Spadafore other than that he was the boss, and a Man of Respect. He despised Carlo Sesti, with his fancy manners and sissy accent. He had grown up on stories about men going to the mattresses, but throughout his years with the Family he had been pretty much a peacetime soldier, and he blamed Sesti for that, feeling the grunt’s contempt for the cookie-pushing diplomat.

Parchi saw Mario park his Cadillac across the street from the Don’s house, and he tooted the horn softly. Mario saw him, waved and headed in his direction. Of all the brass, he was the only one who paid any attention to Rudy. Sometimes Mario would sit with him in the Bentley and they’d talk about the fights. They agreed that Rocky Marciano would have torn the head off Cassius Clay, that LaMotta was robbed in his losing fights with Sugar Ray Robinson, and that, in general, niggers were OK in the ring but on the street, where what counted was balls and heart, they didn’t have a thing. Thinking about it, Rudy was sometimes amazed by how much he and Mario had in common.

Mario opened the passenger door and slid into the front seat.

“Hey, Rudy,” he said.

“Hey, Mario.”

“Hey, how’s it goin’?”

“Real good, how’s it with you?” said Rudy. It was always easy for him to talk to Mario.

“How come you ina car? The old man goin’ someplace?”

“Naw,” said Rudy. “He’s probably still steamin’ from last night.”

“Yeah? What was last night?”

Rudy shrugged. He knew that sometimes Mario gave him little tests, pretending not to know what his own father was up to. Parchi figured it was a way to check out his loyalty. He didn’t mind; when Mario took over, he might have a chance to get his own living. Rudy knew that the Don wouldn’t be around forever.

“On the way back,” said Rudy. “From dinner. The Don was cursing up a storm about that guy Gordon.”

“Gordon?” said Mario. “You sure it was Gordon?”

“Yeah, the Don and Sesti had a whole big argument about it. Sesti says it was some guy named Flanagan’s fault, the Don says no, it was Gordon’s fault.”

“What happened?” asked Mario, his eyes glinting with curiosity.

Rudy shrugged again. “I dunno, but it must of been something, like, really serious for the Don to be steaming like that. I ain’t never seen him so mad.”

Mario lifted his thick leg and cut a loud fart. That was another thing Rudy liked about him. “Listen,” he said. “I’m going in there to see the old man. You wait here, don’t go nowheres. I might have something I want you to do for me later.”

G
ordon sat watching the Redskins-Colts game, sipping a Bloody Mary. His “no drinking” resolution had lasted until the second quarter, when he fixed himself one medicinal Mary, heavily laced with Worcestershire sauce. It had made him feel so healthy that he drank two more during halftime, and he was now on his fourth. The vodka and the decision to call off his crazy adventure with Spadafore put him in a glowing mood.

He had been trying to reach Sesti all afternoon, but the lawyer was out, and his housekeeper had no idea when he would be back. He looked at the clock on the table next to his bed. Three-fifteen—Flanagan would be up by now. He picked up the phone and dialed. Flanagan answered on the second ring.

“John?”

“Gordon! I was just thinking about you,” said Flanagan. He heard the note of forced joviality. Jupiter was wrong, he thought; Flanagan was a terrible actor.

“That was some night we had,” said Gordon. “You really know how to throw a party, chief.”

Flanagan laughed, and Gordon sensed his relief. “I thought you’d be pissed,” the Irishman said. “Shit, kid, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hit you, but you wouldn’t stop pushing me, and there wasn’t anything else to do. You all right?”

“Hell, yes,” said Gordon, rubbing his tender jaw. “You punch like a girl.”

“I owe you one. Free shot,” said Flanagan. “You, ah, didn’t hear from Spadafore, did you?”

“You mean did he call up to thank me for the swell evening? Naw, I’ve been trying to reach Sesti, but he’s not home.”

“You better let me do that, boychik,” said Flanagan, his spirits restored. “I’ll explain that it was my idea, you had nothing to do with it. Let me handle it, OK?”

“Forget it, John,” said Gordon. “It’s all over. I’m gonna tell Sesti that the deal’s off. I don’t feel like playing anymore.”

“You mean because of last night? Hey, come on, you’re taking this too hard. It’s not that big a deal, believe me, I can straighten everything out—”

“No,” said Gordon, “if it wasn’t last night it would have been another night. Those guys come from a whole different planet. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s over, John. That’s final.”

There was a long pause. “You got any plans for later?” Flanagan finally asked.

“Not really,” said Gordon. “I want to see the end of the game, maybe watch a little of the Rams-Raiders. Nothing after that.”

“Let’s get dinner, then,” said Flanagan. “We might as well celebrate the end of the Mishpocha.”