Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (19 page)

Another pause.

"Olga?"

"I am trying to think, but I cannot."

It hurt to hear her say the words. "Is Claude
Loiselle there?"

"I am not sure."

"Maybe it'd be a good idea for you to speak with
her. I can keep looking into this, but I'm afraid that what I've
found suggests Mr. Dees is involved in something very wrong."

No response.

"Olga, are you still there?"

"I think you must be right about—'Andrew,' can
that even be his real name?"

"I don't know. If you want, I can approach him
directly, and maybe—"

"No. No, please, do nothing further until I
speak with you, yes?"

"Okay."

A very sad sigh. "Thank you so much."

Somehow that was even harder to hear.

After hanging up, I tried
Nancy again, but got the same secretary with the same information
about her being on trial, so I left the same message. I considered
checking my answering service and telephone tape machine one more
time, but figured if Primo was on them again, I'd be back in Boston
sooner if I just started driving.

* * *

I pulled the Prelude into the night-darkened space on
Fairfield Street behind the condo building. I was thinking about
Nancy, about the reassuring message I hoped was waiting for me, and
so I missed spotting the car until I heard the voice.

"Cuddy!"

I ducked, and my empty hand told me I wasn't carrying
a weapon just a split second before I recognized the voice and face.

"Primo."

Zuppone had started to duck himself, still standing
at the open, driver's side door of the Lincoln when he saw me reach
behind my back. "Christ, the fuck were you gonna do, shoot me?"

"Sorry. I was thinking about something else."

"Something else, huh? Let me tell you about
something else." Primo slammed his door. "What's the
matter, you don't return your fucking phone calls no more?”

It was the first time I'd seen Zuppone do anything
but baby the Lincoln, and there was an edge to his voice I'd heard
only once before. When I'd been in a lot of trouble with his
employers. '

"What's going on, Primo?"

He came up the sidewalk toward me, taking the
toothpick from his mouth and throwing it violently to the ground.
"What's going on is I been calling you non-fucking-stop at your
office, at the condo here, I even thought about leaving a message for
your girlfriend the DA, asking her to pretty please get you the fuck
in touch with me."

We were almost nose-to-nose. "Don't ever call
her,
Primo."

"I didn't."

"Ever."

Zuppone drew in a deep breath. "All right, all
right. Let's both calm down a little, huh?"

The "situation guy" was rattled, and I
didn't like that at all. "Primo, what do we have to calm down
from?"

He let out the breath with
a whooshing sound. "You and me got a problem."

* * *

"Where're we going?" I said.

The Lincoln turned soundlessly onto Storrow Drive,
the potholes and speedbumps we'd hit on Back Road barely noticeable
through the land yacht's suspension system. Zuppone was thumping his
right thumb against the cradled car phone, and I didn't like the fact
that no New Age music was coming from the speakers.

"Primo, where?"

"Logan."

"Why the airport?"

Zuppone glanced over, then checked all his mirrors
before focusing on the traffic ahead of him. "That picture you
gave me. Of your guy, remember?"

“
I remember."

A fresh toothpick moved from one corner of his mouth
to the other. "Yeah, well, I said I thought something rang a
bell somewheres, but I wasn't sure?"

"Go on."

"So I show his photo to some friends of ours,
including this one friend, does some coordination work between us and
Providence, us and the Outfit."

"The Chicago organization?"

"Yeah, that's what they call themselves in the
Windy fucking City. And I even went out there with this coordinator
once, kind of show the flag a couple, three years ago. But you told
me your guy was South Shore or some fucking thing, right?"

"That's right."

"I mean, that's where the property company and
all was from."

"Yes."

A reverse migration of the toothpick as Zuppone drove
past the exit for Government Center. "Okay, so that's what I'm
thinking when I show his picture to our friend the coordinator this
morning. Only thing is, the friend takes one look at the photo and
another at me, then says, 'Primo, keep an eye on this guy,
understand? "

"Keep an eye on him?"

"Yeah, and the coordinator basically—the fuck
would you call it, 'outranks' me like—so I gotta say, 'Hey-ey-ey,
I'd be glad to, only I don't know where he is.' And this friend of
ours says, 'Well, you better fucking hope you can find him again.'
And I don't like the sound of that, so I don't say nothing else, and
lo and fucking behold, the coordinator's on the phone, wants to call
Milwaukee. "

"I thought you said Chicago?"

Zuppone shot me a look. "You wanna let me
fucking finish'?"

"Al1 right."

"You let me finish, then you'll fucking know."

"Sorry, Primo."

He shook his head, spoke more deliberately. "This
friend of ours gets on the horn, and he asks me what the fucking area
code is for Milwaukee, like I'm Nynex or something, then all of a
sudden it hits me."

I said, "What hits you?"

"Why your guy's picture rang that bell with me,
why I thought I knew the fuck."

"And?"

We stopped for the traffic light at Leverett Circle.
"It's from when I'm in the Midwest there with this coordinator,
visiting the Outfit."

"In Chicago."

"Right, right. Only he wants to take a little
side trip, over to Milwaukee, see this other friend—a gentleman
named Mr. Ianella."

I didn't like that Primo was telling me the name of a
mobster from another organization.

"This Mr. Ianella," said Zuppone, "he
did us a favor one time, and we wanted to pay our respects,
understand?"

"I think so."

"Okay. We drive to Milwaukee, and we meet Mr.
Ianella at his house—big fucking place on this cliff overlooking
the lake, only it looks like a fucking ocean to me, seagulls and
everything. We're just sitting down to lunch with this gentleman when
his bookkeeper comes in the room, carrying some papers that gotta be
signed that day, otherwise the IRS is gonna have a coronary."

The Lincoln started to climb the ramp for the Central
Artery. "So?"

"So the bookkeeper's your guy from the photo
there."

Swell. "You're sure, Primo?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Oh, he looked a little
different back then. More gray in the hair, and I think his nose's
been fixed or something, that's why I got thrown off when you showed
me the picture. I mean, three years ago, and I'm not paying a lot of
fucking attention to the bean counter in Milwaukee, you get me?"

I just nodded.

Zuppone glanced over. "Be helpful you kind of
said something, I'm supposed to be keeping my eyes on the road and
all."

"Sorry, Primo.”

Another head shake. "So, anyways, our friend the
coordinator is on the phone to Milwaukee today, and he tells the
Ianella family that we found DiRienzi for them."

"DiRienzi is the bookkeeper?"

"Yeah, Alfonso DiRienzi."

Andrew Dees, keeping the same initials. When Zuppone
didn't continue, I said, "What do you mean, we 'found' him?"

A shorter glance. "That's the problem part."

"Go on."

"Seems this DiRienzi got a whiff of something
coming down the pike from the IRS out in Milwaukee there. Something
they could indict on and send him away for a long time to the wrong
kind of cellblock, spend his nights choking on foot-long dicks, black
in color."

I had to hear the rest of it. "And so DiRienzi
flips."

"Like a fucking pancake. You remember what I was
telling you last time, about Sammy the Bull down in New York there?
Well, your guy the bookkeeper, he goes to the feds, cuts a deal like
Gravano did, and rats out Mr. Ianella."

"Testifies, you mean?"

"Secret grand jury, evidence out the wazoo,
trial's over so fast it'd make your fucking head spin. The gentleman
we owe the favor to finds himself in federal stir a thousand miles
from Milwaukee. And nobody in the family's very fucking happy about
any of it."

I tried to think things through. Olga Evorova's
boyfriend picking a town in "No Man's Land," between the
Boston and Providence mobs, an area where grads of Central Vermont
who might have known the real "Andrew Dees" tend not to
settle. Camera-shy, living in a nondescript suburban condo complex,
running a low-profile and very local business. Never talking about
his background with neighbors or even his almost-fiancée. Being
willing to eat at most kinds of restaurants but not Italian, being
willing to attend most kinds of musical events with Olga except her
favorite, Italian opera—like Verdi's Rigoletto. Because of who he
might run into?

I said, "This DiRienzi's in the Witness
Protection Program."

"Yeah, that's my guess. I'm thinking the feds
sent the bookkeeper east, as far from fucking Milwaukee as they
could. They dye his hair, change his nose, and put him some place you
happen to find him."

"But what about the two guys who came to see
me?"

"Not ours, like I told you. This friend, the
coordinator—who recognized DiRienzi from the photo?—he thinks
they must be freelancers, maybe something to do with the property
management people."

I filed that as Zuppone took the exit for the
Callahan Tunnel. "So why are we going to the airport?"

Zuppone rolled the toothpick. "Usually, one of
our people rats somebody out and goes underground, we catch up to him
pretty quick. He doesn't know how to live without the old
neighborhood, the family—his relatives, I mean. He's gotta stay in
touch, telephone, postcard, that kind of shit. Sooner or later he
fucks up, and somebody figures out where he is, and that's the ball
game."

"Primo, I'm—"

"Or, the rat goes into the Witness Protection
thing there, but he can't break his other habits, you know? The guy's
got a thing for the ponies, he goes to the racetrack. Somebody spots
him, thinks he looks familiar from somewhere, and after a while
remembers where. Or maybe the guy likes cards, so he goes to a
casino, though I gotta tell you, with all the Indians opening up on
their reservations and the states having all these boat games, it's
getting pretty fucking hard to cover them all with enough soldiers,
you're gonna be sure to spot somebody, he shows up."

"Primo."

Another glance over as Zuppone merged into the
traffic entering the tunnel. "What?"

"I'm not setting this DiRienzi up for a hit."

"That's something else we gotta talk about."

"We just did."

"I mean we gotta talk about it with some other
people."

"Primo, I'm also not going to Milwaukee."

“
You don't have to." Zuppone took a breath.
"Milwaukee is coming to us."

The traffic in front of
the Lincoln made Primo stand on his brakes, and through the
windshield I noticed again how being stopped in the tunnel could
remind you of lying in a big, beige coffin, lid closed.

* * *

"So, you ever been there, Cuddy?"

"Where?"

"Where? Milwaukee where."

"Not that comes to mind."

We were waiting in the arrival lounge of the
Northwest Airlines terminal, the only people around except for a
weary gate agent. Before parking the car, Primo had asked me if I was
really carrying, and I said no. Then he drew a Beretta semiautomatic
from a shoulder holster and slid it under the driver's seat.

In the terminal, Zuppone sweet-talked the security
people into letting us meet our party at the gate, even though we
didn't have any tickets ourselves. In the ten minutes we'd been
sitting in the black-and-chrome chairs near a bank of telephones,
he'd gotten up to check the video monitor three times.

Now Primo stretched some, rocking his heels on the
purplish carpet, trying to relax. "I was out there just the once
I told you about, but it was enough."

To help pass the time, I said, "How come?"

"Well, first off, Mr. Ianella sends some of his
associates to pick us up in Chicago, and we drive north through some
of the worst fucking traffic I ever seen. You think the Southeast
Expressway is bad? I'm talking eight, ten lanes across, jammed in the
middle of the fucking day. Then maybe eighty, ninety miles later, you
get up to Milwaukee itself. And the city's clean as a fucking
whistle, only there's this smell."