Omerta (16 page)

The money pickup in a deal like this always had an element of danger. Sometimes people hated to pay up for something already done. That happened in every business. Then sometimes people had delusions of grandeur. They thought they were as good as the professionals. The danger was minimal with Heskow—he had always been a reliable broker. But the Don’s case was special, as was the money. So they didn’t want Heskow to have a fix on their plans.

The brothers had taken up tennis the past year, but it was the one sport that defeated them. They were so athletically gifted that they could not accept this defeat, though it was explained to them that tennis was a sport where you had to acquire the strokes early in life by instruction, that it really depended on certain mechanics, like learning a language. So they had made arrangements to stay for three weeks at a tennis ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona, for an introductory course. From there they would travel to New York to meet Heskow. Of course, during these weeks at the tennis ranch they could pass some of their evenings in Vegas, which was less than an hour from Scottsdale by plane.

T
he tennis ranch was superluxurious. Franky and Stace were given a two-bedroom adobe cottage with air-conditioning, an Indian-motif dining room, a balconied living room, and a small kitchen. They had a superb view of the mountains. There was a built-in bar, a big refrigerator, and a huge TV.

But the three weeks started off on a sour note. One of the instructors gave Franky a hard time. Franky was easily the best in the group of beginners, and he was especially proud of his serve, which was completely unorthodox and wild. But the instructor, a man named Leslie, seemed particularly irritated by it.

One morning Franky hit the ball to his opponent, who couldn’t come near it, and he said proudly to Leslie, “That’s an ace, right?”

“No,” Leslie said coldly. “That’s a foot fault. Your toe went over the serving line. Try again, with a proper serve. The one you have will more often be out than in.”

Franky hit another serve, fast and accurate. “Ace, right?” he said.

“That is a foot fault,” Leslie said slowly. “And that serve is a bullshit serve. Just get the ball in. You’re a very decent player for a hacker. Play the point.”

Franky was annoyed but controlled himself. “Match me up with somebody who’s not a hacker,” he said. “Let’s see how I do.” He paused. “How about you?”

Leslie looked at him with disgust. “I don’t play matches with hackers,” he said. He pointed to a young woman in her late twenties or early thirties. “Rosie?” he said. “Give Mr. Sturzo a one-set match.”

The girl had just come to the court. She had beautiful tanned legs coming out of white shorts, and she wore a pink shirt with the tennis-ranch logo. She had a mischievous pretty face, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

“You have to give me a handicap,” Frank said disarmingly. “You look too good. Are you an instructor?”

“No,” Rosie said. “I’m just here to get some serving lessons. Leslie is a champ trainer for that.”

“Give him a handicap,” Leslie said. “He’s way below you in the levels.”

Franky said quickly, “How about two games in each four-game set?”He would bargain down to less.

Rosie gave him a quick, infectious smile. “No,” she said, “that won’t do you any good. What you should ask for is two points in each game. Then you would have a chance. And if we get to deuce, I have to win by four instead of two.”

Franky shook her hand. “Let’s go,” he said. They were standing close together, and he could smell the sweetness of her body. She whispered, “Do you want me to throw the match?”

Franky was thrilled. “No,” he said. “You can’t beat me with that handicap.”

They played with Leslie watching, and he didn’t call the foot faults. Franky won the first two games, but after that Rosie rolled over him. Her ground strokes were perfect, and she had no trouble at all with his serve. She was always standing where Franky had to hit the ball, and though several times he got to deuce, she put him away 6–2.

“Hey, you’re very good for a hacker,” Rosie said. “But you didn’t start playing until you were over twenty, right?”

“Right.” Franky was beginning to hate the word
hacker.

“You have to learn the strokes and serve when you’re a kid,” she said.

“Is that right?” Franky teased. “But I’ll beat you before we leave here.”

Rosie grinned. She had a wide, generous mouth for such a small face. “Sure,” she said. “If you have the best day of your life and I have my worst.” Franky laughed.

Stace came up and introduced himself. Then he said, “Why don’t you have dinner with us tonight? Franky won’t invite you because you beat him, but he’ll come.”

“Ah, that’s not true,” Rosie said. “He was just about to ask me. Is eight o’clock OK?”

“Great,” Stace said. He slapped Franky with his racquet.

“I’ll be there,” Franky said.

They had dinner at the ranch restaurant, a huge vaulting room with glass walls that let in the desert and mountains. Rosie proved to be a find, as Franky told Stace later. She flirted with both of them, she talked all the sports and knew her stuff, past and present—the great championship games, the great players, the great individual moments. And she was a good listener; she drew them out. Franky even told her about coaching the kids and how his store provided them with the best equipment, and Rosie said warmly, “Hey, that’s great, that’s just great.” Then they told her they had been high school basketball all-stars in their youth.

Rosie also had a good appetite, which they approved of in a woman. She ate slowly and daintily, and she had a trick of lowering her head and tilting it to the side with an almost mock shyness when she talked about herself. She was studying for a Ph.D. in psychology at New York University. She came from a moderately wealthy family, and she had already toured Europe. She had been a tennis star in high school. But she said all this with a self-deprecating air that charmed them, and she kept touching their hands to maintain contact with them as she spoke.

“I still don’t know what to do when I graduate,” she said. “With all my book knowledge, I can never figure people out in real life. Like you two guys. You tell me your history, you are two charming bastards, but I have no idea what makes you tick.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Stace said. “What you see is what you get.”

“Don’t ask me,” Franky said to her. “Right now my whole life is centered on how to beat you at tennis.”

After dinner the two brothers walked Rosie down the red clay path to her cottage. She gave them each a quick kiss on the cheek, and they were left alone in the desert air. The last image they took with them was Rosie’s pert face gleaming in the moonlight.

“I think she’s exceptional,” Stace said.

“Better than that,” Franky said.

F
or the rest of Rosie’s two weeks at the ranch, she became their buddy. In late afternoons after tennis they went golfing together. She was good, but not as good as the brothers. They could really whack the ball far out and had nerves of steel on the putting green. A middle-aged guy at the tennis ranch came with them to the golf course to make up a foursome and insisted on being partnered with Rosie and playing for ten dollars a hole, and though he was good, he lost. Then he tried to join them for dinner that night at the tennis ranch. Rosie rebuffed him, to the delight of the twins. “I’m trying to get one of these guys to propose to me,” she said.

It was Stace who got Rosie into bed by the end of the first week. Franky had gone down to Vegas for the evening to gamble and to give Stace a clear shot. When he returned at midnight, Stace wasn’t in the room. The next morning when he appeared Franky asked him, “How was she?”

“Exceptional,” Stace said.

“You mind if I take a shot?” Franky asked.

This was unusual. They had never shared a woman; it was one area where their tastes differed. Stace thought it over. Rosie fitted in perfectly with both of them. But the three couldn’t keep hanging out together if Stace was getting Rosie and Franky was not. Unless Franky brought another girl into the combo—and that would spoil it.

“It’s OK,” Stace said.

So the next night Stace went down to Vegas and Franky took his shot with Rosie. Rosie made no trouble at all, and she was delightful in bed—no fancy tricks, just good-hearted fun and games. She didn’t seem uncomfortable about it at all.

But the next day when the three of them had breakfast, Franky and Stace didn’t know quite how to act. They were a little too formal and polite. Deferential. Their perfect harmony was gone. Rosie polished off her eggs and bacon and toast and then leaned back and said with amusement, “Am I going to have trouble with you two guys? I thought we were buddies.”

Stace said sincerely, “It’s just that we’re both crazy about you, and we don’t know exactly how to handle this.”

Rosie said, laughing, “I’ll handle it. I like you both a lot. We’re having a good time. We’re not getting married, and after we leave the tennis ranch, we’ll probably never see each other again. I’ll go back to New York, and you guys will go back to L.A. So let’s not spoil it now unless one of you is the jealous type. Then we can just cut out the sex part.”

The twins were suddenly at ease with her. “Fat chance,” Stace said.

Franky said, “We’re not jealous, and I’m going to beat you at tennis one time before we leave here.”

“You haven’t got the strokes,” Rosie said firmly, but she reached out and clasped both their hands.

“Let’s settle it today,” Franky said.

Rosie tilted her head shyly. “I’ll give you three points a game,” she said. “And if you lose, you won’t give me any more of that macho crap.”

Stace said, “I’ll put a hundred bucks on Rosie.”

Franky smiled wolfishly at both of them. There was no way he would let himself lose to Rosie with a three-point handicap. He said to Stace, “Make that bet five.”

Rosie had a mischievous smile on her face. “And if I win, Stace gets tonight with me.”

Both brothers laughed aloud. It gave them pleasure that Rosie was not that perfect, that she had a touch of malice in her.

Out on the tennis court, nothing could save Franky—not his whirlwind serve, not his acrobatic returns or the three-point spot. Rosie had a top spin she had never used before that completely baffled Franky. She zipped him 6–0. When the set was over, Rosie gave Franky a kiss on the cheek and whispered, “I’ll make it up to you tomorrow night.” As promised, she slept with Stace after the three of them had dinner. This alternated for the rest of the week.

The twins drove Rosie to the airport the day she left. “Remember, if you ever get to New York, give me a ring,” she said. They had already given her an open invitation to stay with them anytime she came to L.A. Then she surprised them. She held out two small gift-wrapped boxes. “Presents,” she said, and smiled happily. The twins opened the boxes, and each found a Navajo ring with a blue stone. “To remember me by.”

Later, when the brothers went shopping in town, they saw the rings on sale for three hundred bucks.

“She could have bought us a tie each or one of those funny cowboy belts for fifty bucks,” Franky said. They were extraordinarily pleased.

They had another week to spend at the ranch, but they spent little of it playing tennis. They golfed and flew to Vegas in the evenings. But they made it a rule not to spend the night there. That’s how you could lose big—take a shellacking in the early-morning hours when your energy was down and your judgment was impaired.

Over dinner they talked about Rosie. Neither would say a disloyal word about her, though in their hearts they held her in lower esteem because she had fucked both of them.

“She really enjoyed it,” Franky said. “She never got mean or moody after.”

“Yeah,” Stace said. “She was exceptional. I think we found the perfect broad.”

“But they always change,” Franky said.

“Do we call her when we get to New York?” Stace asked.

“I will,” Franky said.

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A
week after they left Scottsdale they registered at the Sherry-Netherland in Manhattan. The next morning they rented a car and drove out to John Heskow’s house on Long Island. When they pulled into the driveway, they saw Heskow sweeping his basketball court clean of a thin skin of snow. He raised his hand in welcome. Then he motioned them to pull into the garage attached to the house. His own car was parked outside. Franky jumped out of the car before Stace pulled in, to shake Heskow’s hand but really to put him in close range if anything happened.

Heskow unlocked the door and ushered them inside.

“It’s all ready,” he said. He led them upstairs to the huge trunk in the bedroom and unlocked it. Inside were stacks of money rubber-banded into six-inch bundles, along with a folded leather bag, almost as big as a suitcase. Stace threw the bundles onto the bed. Then the brothers rifled through each stack to make sure they were all hundreds and that there were no counterfeits. They only counted the bills in one stack and multiplied it by one hundred. Then they loaded the money into the leather bag. When they were finished, they looked up at Heskow. He was smiling. “Have a cup of coffee before you go,” he said. “Take a leak or whatever.”

“Thanks,” Stace said. “Is there anything we should know? Any fuss?”

“None at all,” Heskow said. “Everything’s perfect. Just don’t be too flashy with the dough.”

“It’s for our old age,” Franky said, and the brothers laughed.

“What about his kids?” Franky asked. “They didn’t make any noise?”

“They were brought up straight,” Heskow said. “They’re not Sicilians. They are very successful professionals. They believe in the law. And they’re lucky they’re not suspects.”

The twins laughed and Heskow smiled. It was a good joke.

“Well, I’m just amazed,” Stace said. “Such a big man and so little fuss.”

“Well, it’s been a year now and not a peep,” Heskow said.

The brothers finished their coffee and shook hands with Heskow. “Keep well,” Heskow said. “I may be calling you again.”