Murder by Magic (6 page)

“What’d she say when you asked her to marry you?” I asked Joey.

“She told me she’d rather fry in hell.” He shrugged. “She’ll come round.”

I shook my head. “Joey, Joey, Joey . . .”

He gave a friendly little wave to the Widow Butera. She hissed at him. The priest, Father Michael, smiled vaguely at her and said, “Amen.”

So, to take Joey’s mind off the Widow, I said, “Anyhow, like I was saying before, it’s a funny thing.”

“What’s a funny thing?”

“About Vinny.”

“No, no,” Connie Vitelli was saying into her cell phone as she shook Father Michael’s hand, “the condo’s got to have an ocean view, or no deal. Understand?”

“Funny?” Joey said. “Oh! You mean about the vest, right?”

“Yeah.” I shook my head when Father Michael gestured to me to throw some dirt onto the coffin. Hey, I didn’t kill Vinny, so no way was I doing the work of deep-sixing him. Not my problem, after all. “Why’d Vinny take off that vest for the first time in five years? It ain’t like him. He was a religious bastard.”

“I think you mean superstitious.” Joey’s an educated guy. Almost read a book once.

“Okay, superstitious. Vinny always thought he’d get killed if he ever took that thing off. And, sure enough, look what happened. So why’d he take it off? It don’t make sense.”

“You mean you didn’t hear, Vito?”

“Hear what?”

Connie was shouting into her cell phone. “Speak up! Are you driving through a tunnel or something? I’m getting tons of static!”

Vinny’s daughter, now twenty-two years old and reputedly still a virgin, stepped up to the grave, made a face at her father’s coffin, and then spit on it.

“Poor Vinny,” said Father Michael, who looked like he’d taken a fistful of Prozac before coming here. “He will be missed.”

“Not by anybody I ever met,” muttered Joey.

I said to Joey, “What is it that I didn’t hear?”

“Oh! The strange thing is, Vito, Vinny was still wearing his vest when they found his body.”

“Huh? So how’d four slugs wind up in his chest?”

Joey shrugged. “It’s a mystery. No holes in the vest. No marks at all, like it was never even hit. But as for Vinny’s chest . . .” Joey grimaced.

While I thought about this, Connie Vitelli said, “But how big is the master bathroom?”

“So, Joey, you’re saying that someone clipped Vinny, then put that vest back on him? For what? A joke?”

Joey shook his head. “That vest never came off him, Vito.”

“Of course it did. How else did four bull—”

“The cops said the fasteners on Vinny’s vest were rusted and hadn’t been disturbed for years.”

“Jesus. So it’s true what Connie said. Vinny even
showered
in that thing!”

“Uh-huh.”

I frowned at Joey. “But what you’re saying . . . I mean, how did the bullets get past the vest and into Vinny’s chest?”

“That’s what’s got the cops stumped.”

“And why’d the cops tell
you
this?” Cops don’t usually say nothing to guys like us besides, “I’ll get you into the witness protection program if you cooperate.”

“I don’t think they meant to tell me,” Joey said. “It just sort of slipped out somewhere during the seven straight hours they spent interrogating me yesterday.”

“Oh,
that’s
why you weren’t at the wake.”

Joey nodded wearily. “I’m thinking of suing them for the emotional trauma caused by missing a dear friend’s wake, as well as the stain they have placed on my good reputation.”

“How come they think you’re the one who whacked him?”

“Well, you know, I had that argument with Vinny last week at Buon Appetito.”

“So what?”

“So it turns out there were three undercover feds in the place at the time, and they took it the wrong way when I held a steak knife to Vinny’s throat and said I’d kill him if I ever saw him again.”

“Man,” I said, sick of how unfair it all was. “You just have to be so careful these days. Watch every damn little word.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Whatever happened to the First Arraignment?” I said.

“Amendment.”

“Whatever.”

“I admit,” Joey said, “I thought about whacking Vinny.”

“Sure.”

“Who didn’t?”

“You said it.”

“But it’s not like he didn’t deserve it,” Joey said.

“Absolutely,” I said as Vinny’s son opened his fly and pissed on his father’s grave.

“So I don’t see why the cops have to get so bent out of shape just because someone finally
did
whack Vinny.”

“Me, neither.”

“And just because I’m the last guy anyone saw threatening to kill him, the cops ruin my whole day. Now, is that fair? Is that the American way?”

“It really stinks.” I patted Joey on the back. “Just out of curiosity,
did
you kill him?”

“No. I was proposing to the Widow Butera at the estimated time of death.”

“Did she alibi you to the cops?”

“No.”

Women.

“So I wonder who did it,” I said.

“Could’ve been any one of a hundred guys,” Joey said.

“More,” I said.

“Yeah.”

The Widow Butera stepped up to Vinny’s grave and looked down at it for a long moment. Then she crossed herself, glared once more at Joey, and started walking to her car.

When Connie Vitelli got off the phone for a split second, Joey and I paid our respects so we could get the hell out of there.

“Such a shame,” Joey said politely to Vinny’s widow. “Him being so young and all.”

“Not that young.” Connie shook her head. “And I think dementia was setting in already. He was seeing things.”

“Seeing things?” Joey said. “Then ‘dementia’ probably isn’t the right word, because that’s when—”

“Oops! I gotta take this,” Connie said as her cell phone rang.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What things was Vinny seeing? Feds stalking him? Hitters from the Bernini family coming after him?” If we knew, we might be able to figure out who’d whacked him.

Connie rolled her eyes. “Himself, if you can believe it.”

“Huh?”

“The day before Vinny died, he came home in a cold sweat, babbling about how he had just bumped into the spitting image of himself on the street outside Buon Appetito. The guy was even dressed like Vinny. Right down to the bulletproof vest. Go figure.” Connie shrugged off the idea that her husband’s perfect double was out there somewhere and added, “Now, I’ve really got to take this call. Thanks for coming, fellas.” She turned away and said into her cell phone, “Hello? Oh, good! Thanks for getting back to me today. Yes, I’ll be out of the house by tonight, so put it on the market right away.”

“So Vinny was losing his mind,” I said.

Joey nodded toward Connie and the kids. “And you’re surprised by this?”

“No, I guess not.”

Which is why I didn’t think any more about it. Not then, anyhow. Not until three days later, which was when a dinner-and-dance cruise accidentally found Johnny Be Good Gambone’s body floating in the Hudson River.

“But it can’t be Johnny,” I said to Joey Mannino when he told me about it.

“It is. Positive ID, no doubt about it.”

“No, it can’t be, because—”

“Vito, pull yourself together,” Joey said. “Two of our guys dead in one week. We’re going to the mattresses.”

“It can’t be Johnny, because I saw him alive at the same time they were fishing that corpse out of the river.”

“It must be the Berninis doing these hits. Who else would have the nerve? Those bastards! Well, if they want another war, we’ll give them another w—”

“Joey, are you listening to me? I’m telling you, whoever they found in the Hudson, it wasn’t Johnny Gambone, because I had dinner with him last night!”

Joey stared at me. “Are you losing your mind, too?”

“No! They’re just putting the wrong name on the corpse.”

But when we showed up at the mortician’s to inspect the body, I saw there’d been no mistake. That was Johnny Gambone lying on that slab, no doubt about it. Who else in the world had a purple tattoo of a naked broad on his shoulder with the word “Mom” written across it?

“So you’re not still denying that’s Johnny?” Joey prodded.

“Couldn’t be anyone else, but . . .”

“But?”

“But I’m telling you, I was having dinner with him that evening. We talked about Vinny’s death. Johnny told me that no matter how much we hated Vinny, it was our job to find out who’d clipped him, because we can’t just let people go around killing made guys without even asking first. Especially not
our
made guys.”

“Vito, that’s impossible. According to the cops, Johnny had already been dead for thirty-six hours by the time you had dinner with . . . with . . .”

“Something’s not right,” I said.

And whatever was not right became even more wrong a couple of days later when Danny “the Doctor” Bardozzi, best known for chopping up four members of the Gambone family and passing them off as ground ostrich meat at an East Village restaurant which went out of business soon after Danny was indicted, was found dead.

I know what you’re thinking, but we didn’t do it. We didn’t even
know
who did it, just like we didn’t know who’d clipped Johnny and Vinny. We were knee-deep in bodies by now, and we had no idea who was stacking them up.

“And the
way
the Doctor was killed,” Joey told me as we walked along Mott Street, “is really strange.”

“You mean compared to the normal way Vinny was killed, with four bullets pumped into his chest and not a scratch on the bulletproof vest he was wearing at the time? Or the normal way Johnny Gambone was found floating in the river while I was watching him eat linguine and bitch about his indigestion?” Okay, I was feeling irritable and got a little sarcastic.

Joey said, “Listen, Danny showed up at Bernini’s Wine and Guns Shop in a panic, armed with two Glocks and a lifetime supply of ammo, and locked himself in the cellar. There’s no way in or out of the cellar except through the one door he’d locked, and—because Danny was acting so crazy—there were a dozen Berninis standing right by that door trying to convince him to come out.”

“And?”

“Next thing they know, they hear a few shots go off. So they break down the door and run downstairs. Danny’s alone. And dead.” Joey grimaced. “Shotgun. Made a real mess.”

“But you said he had two Glocks.”

“That’s right. And, no, there wasn’t a shotgun down there. Not before Danny locked himself in . . . and not when the Berninis found him there.”

“Then it wasn’t a shotgun. He blew his own head off with a Glock.”

“No. His guns hadn’t even been fired, and there was buckshot everywhere. Just no shotgun.”

“In a locked cellar with no windows and no other door? That’s impossible.”

“Like it was impossible for you to be eating dinner with a guy whose two-day-old corpse was floating in the Hudson River at the time?”

“We’re in trouble,” I said. “We’ve got something going on here that’s bigger than another war with the Berninis.”

“That’s what they think, too.”

“What? You mean they ain’t blaming us for Danny’s death?”

“How could they? I just told you what happened. They know we’re not invisible, and neither are our guns. In fact, they knew something strange was happening even before we did, because they knew they didn’t kill Johnny Gambone.”

“We’ve got to have a sit-down with the Berninis.”

“I’ve called one for tonight. At St. Ignazio’s. I gotta have dinner at my mother’s in Brooklyn first, but I’ll be there.”

St. Ignazio’s was dark and shadowy, lit only by candles. The whole place smelled of incense and lingering perfume—the Widow Butera’s perfume, I realized, as I saw her kneeling before a statue of St. Paula, patron saint of widows.

Father Michael and two guys from the Bernini family were waiting for me in an alcove on the other side of the church.

“Is Joey here yet?” I asked the Widow Butera.

“What do I care? What do I care about any of you fiends?” She rose to her feet and came toward me. “I hate you all! Every single one of you! I spit on you! I spit on your mothers’ graves!”

“So you haven’t seen him?”

She shook her fist at me. “Stay away from me!”

“Hey, I’m not the one trying to make you a widow for the fourth time. So don’t yell at
me,
sister. And . . .” I frowned as wispy white things started escaping from the fist she shook at me. “Are those feathers? Whatever happened to praying with rosary beads?”

She made a real nasty Sicilian gesture and stomped toward the main door in a huff just as Joey entered the church. The poor guy’s face brightened like he’d just met a famous stripper.

He asked her, “Have you thought any more about my proposal? I mean, take all the time you need. I just—”

“Get out of my way!” she shrieked. “Don’t ever come near me again! Don’t even look at me!”

“Maybe we’ll talk later?” Joey said to her back.

She paused to look over her shoulder at him. “Amazing,” she said in a different tone of voice. Then she left.

“You’re late,” I said to Joey.

“Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.”

“Gentlemen,” said Father Michael, smelling strongly of sacramental wine as he came close to us, “the Berninis are eager to begin this summit, so if you—”

“Summit?” I repeated.

“Sit-down,” said Joey.

“Oh.”

“So if you’ll just take your seats . . .”

“You’re fucking late,” said Carmine Bernini. He was Danny “the Doctor” Bardozzi’s cousin by marriage, and also the world’s biggest asshole.

“But we haven’t been waiting too long,” added Tony Randazzo. He was a good-looking kid who’d been a soldier in the Bernini family for a few years. A stand-up guy, actually, and I’d let him date my daughter if I didn’t think I’d probably have to kill him one day.

“Would anyone care for some chips and dip?” Father Michael asked. “Maybe some cocktails?”

“We ain’t here to fucking socialize,” said Carmine.

“Don’t curse in church,” said Joey.

“Well, please fucking excuse
me.
”

Like I said—the world’s biggest asshole. “Never mind the refreshments, Father,” I said. “This’ll just take a few minutes.” I looked at Carmine. “Let’s lay our cards on the table.”