Omerta (34 page)

Aspinella had heard about Rudolfo during an undercover vice investigation she conducted in the city’s elite hotels. One concierge was worried that he might be asked to testify, so in exchange for not being summoned, he gave her the tip about Rudolfo. Aspinella thought about making the bust, but once she met Rudolfo and experienced one of his massages, she felt it would be an even bigger crime to deny women the pleasure of his extraordinary talents.

After several minutes he knocked on the door and asked, “May I come in?”

“I’m counting on it, baby,” she said.

He walked in and looked her over. “Great eye patch,” he said.

During her first session, Aspinella had been surprised when Rudolfo entered the room naked, but he had said, “Why bother getting dressed just to get undressed?” He was an extraordinary specimen, tall and taut, with a tattoo of a tiger on his right biceps and a silken mat of blond on his chest. She particularly liked the chest hair, which separated Rudolfo from those magazine models who’d been plucked, shaved, and greased so carefully you couldn’t tell whether they were male or female.

“How have you been?” he asked.

“You don’t wanna hear about it,” Aspinella said. “All you need to know is that I need some sexual healing.”

Rudolfo began with her back, pressing deep, honing in on all her knots. Then he gently kneaded her neck before turning her over and lightly massaging her breasts and stomach. By the time he began to caress between her legs, she was already moist and breathing hard.

“Why can’t other men do this to me?” Aspinella said with a sigh of ecstasy.

Rudolfo was about to begin the premium part of the service, his tongue massage, which he did expertly and with remarkable stamina. But he was struck by her question, which he had heard many times. It always amazed him. It seemed to him that the city was exploding with sexually undernourished women.

“It’s a mystery to me, why other men can’t do it,” he said. “What do you think?”

She hated to interrupt her sexual reverie, but she could tell Rudolfo needed pillow talk before the grand finale. “Men are weak,” she said. “We’re the ones who make all the important decisions. When to get married. When to have kids. We rein them in and hold them accountable for the things they do.”

Rudolfo smiled politely. “But what does that have to do with sex?”

Aspinella wanted him to get back to work. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just a theory.”

Rudolfo began to massage her again—slowly, steadily, rhythmically. He never seemed to tire. And each time he brought her to great heights of pleasure, she imagined the terrible depths of pain to which she would bring Astorre Viola and his gang of thugs the following night.

T
he Viola Macaroni Company was located in a large brick warehouse on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. More than one hundred people worked there, unloading giant burlap bags of imported Italian macaroni onto a conveyor belt, which then automatically sorted and boxed it.

A year before, inspired by a magazine article he’d read about how small businesses were improving their operations, Astorre had hired a consultant straight out of Harvard Business School to recommend changes. The young man told Astorre to double his prices, change the brand name of his macaroni to Uncle Vito’s Homemade Pasta, and fire half of his employees, who could be replaced by temporary help at half the price. At that suggestion Astorre fired the consultant.

Astorre’s office was on the main floor, which was roughly the size of a football field, lined with shiny stainless-steel machines on both sides. The back of the warehouse opened to a loading dock. Video cameras had been placed outside the entrances and inside the factory, so he could keep track of visitors and monitor production from his office. Normally, the warehouse closed down at 6:00
P.M.
, but on this night Astorre had retained five of his most qualified employees and Aldo Monza. He was waiting.

The night before, when Astorre had told Nicole his plan at her apartment, she was adamantly opposed to it. She shook her head violently. “First of all, it won’t work. And second, I don’t want to be an accessory to murder.”

“They killed your assistant and they tried to kidnap you,” Astorre said quietly. “We’re all in danger, unless I take action.” Nicole thought of Helene, and then she remembered her many dinner-table arguments with her father, who would certainly have sought vengeance. Her father would have said that she owed this to the memory of her friend, and he would have reminded her that it was reasonable and necessary to take precautions to protect the family.

“Why don’t we go to the authorities?” she asked.

Astorre’s response was curt: “It’s too late for that.”

Now Astorre sat in his office, live bait. Thanks to Grazziella, he knew that Portella and Tulippa were in the city for a meeting of the syndicate. He couldn’t be sure that Nicole’s leak to Rubio would force them to pay a visit, but he hoped they might try one last attempt at persuading him to turn over the banks before resorting to violence. He assumed they would check him for weapons, so he didn’t arm himself, except for a stiletto, which he stored in a special pocket sewn into his shirtsleeve.

Astorre was carefully watching his video monitor when he saw a half dozen men enter the back of the building from the loading dock. He had given his own men instructions to hide and not to attack until he gave them the signal.

He studied the screen and recognized Portella and Tulippa among the six. Then, as they faded off the monitor, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching his office. If they had already decided to kill him, Monza and his crew were at the ready and would be able to save him.

But then Portella called out to him.

He didn’t answer.

Within seconds Portella and Tulippa paused at the door.

“Come in,” Astorre said with a warm smile. He stood to shake their hands. “What a surprise. I hardly ever get visitors at this hour. Is there something I can do for you?”

“Yeah,” Portella cracked. “We’re having a big dinner and we ran out of macaroni.”

Astorre waved his hands magnanimously and said, “My macaroni, your macaroni.”

“How about your banks?” Tulippa asked ominously.

Astorre was ready for this. “It’s time we talked seriously. It’s time we did business. But first I’d like to give you a tour of the plant. I’m very proud of it.”

Tulippa and Portella exchanged a confused look. They were wary. “OK, but let’s keep it short,” Tulippa said, wondering how such a clown had been able to survive this long.

Astorre led them to the floor. The four men who had accompanied them were standing nearby. Astorre greeted them warmly, shaking hands with each of them and complimenting them on their dress.

Astorre’s own men were watching him carefully, waiting for his command to strike. Monza had stationed three shooters on a mezzanine overlooking the floor, hidden from view. The others had fanned out to opposite sides of the warehouse.

Long minutes passed as Astorre showed his guests through the warehouse. Then Portella finally said, “It’s clear that this is really where your heart is. Why don’t you let us run the banks? We will make you one more offer and cut you in for a percentage.”

Astorre was about to give his men the signal to shoot. But suddenly he heard a rattle of gunshots and saw three of his men fall twenty feet from the mezzanine and land facedown on the concrete floor in front of him. He scanned the warehouse, looking for Monza, as he quickly slipped behind a huge packaging machine.

From there he saw a black woman with a green eye patch sprint toward them and grab Portella by the neck. She jabbed him in his protruding belly with her assault rifle, then she pulled out a revolver and threw the rifle to the ground.

“OK,” Aspinella Washington said. “Everybody drop your weapons. Now.”When no one moved, she did not hesitate. She turned Portella around and fired two bullets into his stomach. As he doubled over, she slammed her revolver down on his head and kicked him in the teeth.

Then she grabbed Tulippa and said, “You’re next unless everybody does what I say. This is an eye for an eye, you bastard.”

Portella knew that without help, he would only live for a few more minutes. His vision was already beginning to fade. He was sprawled across the floor, breathing heavily, his florid shirt soaked with blood. His mouth was numb. “Do what she says,” he groaned weakly.

Portella’s men obeyed.

He had always heard that being shot in the stomach was the most painful way to die. Now he knew why. Every time he took a deep breath, he felt like he had been stabbed in the heart. He lost control of his bladder, his urine making a dark stain on his new blue trousers. He tried to focus his eyes on the shooter, a muscular black woman he didn’t recognize. He tried to utter the words “Who are you?” but couldn’t find the breath. His final thought was an oddly sentimental one: He wondered who would tell his brother, Bruno, that he was dead.

It took Astorre only a moment to figure out what had happened. He had never before seen Detective Aspinella Washington, except in newspaper photos and on TV news shows. But he knew if she had discovered him, she must have gotten to Heskow first. And Heskow must certainly be dead. Astorre did not mourn for the slippery bagman. Heskow had the great flaw of being a man who would say or do anything to stay alive. It was good that he was now in the ground with his flowers.

Tulippa had no idea why this angry bitch was holding a gun to his neck. He had trusted Portella to handle the security and given his own loyal bodyguards the night off. A stupid mistake. America is such a strange country, he thought to himself. You never know where the next violence is coming from.

As Aspinella dug the nozzle of the gun deep into his skin, Tulippa made a promise to himself that if he escaped and could return to South America, he would speed up production of his nuclear arsenal. He would personally do everything he could to blow up as much of this America as possible, especially Washington, D.C., an arrogant capital of lazy bullies in armchairs, and New York City, where they seemed to breed crazy people like this one-eyed bitch.

“All right,” Aspinella said to Tulippa. “You offered us half a mil to take care of this guy.” She pointed to Astorre. “It would be my pleasure to accept the job, but since my accident I’ve had to double my fee. With only one eye, I have to concentrate twice as hard.”

K
urt Cilke had been staking out the warehouse throughout the day. Sitting in his blue Chevy with nothing but a pack of gum and a copy of
Newsweek,
he waited for Astorre to make his move.

He had come alone, not wanting to involve any other federal agents in what he believed might be the end of his career. When he saw Portella and Tulippa enter the building, he felt the bile rising in his stomach. And he realized what a clever foe Astorre was. If, as Cilke suspected, Portella and Tulippa attacked Astorre, Cilke would have a legal duty to protect him. Astorre would be free and would clear his name without breaking his silence. And Cilke would blow years of hard work.

But when Cilke saw Aspinella Washington storm into the building toting an assault rifle, he felt something different—cold fear. He had heard about Aspinella’s role in the airport shooting. It sounded suspicious to him. Just didn’t add up.

He checked the ammunition in his revolver and felt a distant hope that he would be able to count on her for help. Before leaving the car, Cilke decided it was time to inform the Bureau. On his cell phone, he dialed Boxton.

“I’m outside Astorre Viola’s warehouse,” Cilke told him. Then he heard the sound of rapid gunfire. “I’m going in now, and if things go wrong, I want you to tell the director I was acting on my own. Are you recording this call?”

Boxton paused, not sure whether Cilke would appreciate being taped. But ever since Cilke had become a target, all of his calls were being monitored. “Yes,”he said.

“Good,” Cilke responded. “For the record, neither you nor anyone else within the FBI is responsible for what I’m going to do now. I am entering a hostile situation involving three reputed organized-crime figures and one renegade New York City cop who is heavily armed.”

Boxton interrupted Cilke. “Kurt, wait for backup.”

“There isn’t time,”Cilke said. “And besides, this is my mess. I’ll clean it up.” He thought of leaving a message for Georgette, but he decided that would be too morbid and self-indulgent. Better to let his actions speak for themselves. He hung up the phone without saying anything more. As he left the car, he noticed he was illegally parked.

The first thing Cilke saw when he entered the warehouse was Aspinella’s gun digging into Tulippa’s neck. Everyone in the room was silent. No one moved.

“I am a federal officer,” Cilke announced, waving his gun upward. “Lay all your weapons down.”

Aspinella turned to Cilke and spoke with derision: “I know who the fuck you are. This is my bust. Go collar some accountants or stockbrokers or whatever the hell it is you suits spend your pansy-ass time on. This is an NYPD matter.”

“Detective,” Cilke said calmly, “drop your weapon now. If you don’t, I will use force if necessary. I have reason to believe you are part of a racketeering conspiracy.”

Aspinella had not counted on this. From the look in Cilke’s eyes and the steadiness of his voice, she knew he would not back down. But she was not about to give in, not as long as she had a gun in her hand. Cilke probably hadn’t fired on anyone in years, she thought. “You think I’m part of a conspiracy?”she yelled. “Well, I think
you’re
part of a conspiracy. I think you’ve been taking bribes from this piece of shit for years.” She jabbed Tulippa again with the gun. “Isn’t that right,
señor
?”

At first Tulippa didn’t say anything, but when Aspinella kneed him in the groin, he folded and nodded.

“How much?” Aspinella asked him.

“Over a million dollars,” Tulippa gasped.

Cilke controlled his fury and said, “Each dollar they wired into my account was monitored by the FBI. This is a federal investigation, Detective Washington.” He took a deep breath, counting down, before he told her, “This is my final warning. Put down your weapon or I’ll fire.”