West 47th (42 page)

Hotels became Comforti's specialty. Within a year he possessed the master passkey of every major hotel in Manhattan. It was so easy. Before long he progressed from hotel rooms to hotel vaults. The first vault he did encouraged such focus. A hotel on upper Park at three in the morning. Comforti and another guy went in, frightened the resistance out of the night clerks and other staff. Got to the strongboxes with a prybar. It was so easy. The first box they forced open contained two hundred thousand in hundreds. The second and third yielded five hundred thousand in jewels. It went like that, so easy. They gathered up ten minutes' worth, the contents of fourteen strongboxes. Went out the front in no hurry.

Got away with it.

He didn't always, of course. He served some three to fives but the way he accounted life and its pleasures his scores had him way ahead. Glamorous scores, headline scores, seemingly impossible, audacious scores. So many that eventually the police had him come in and, as a favor to them, clear away the unsolved jewelry theft cases from their books. In return one hundred percent immunity. While he was at it, as a gesture of professional largesse, he admitted responsibility for a few sizeable scores he'd had nothing to do with, thus absolving some other swifts he probably didn't even know.

The Jimmy Comforti episode Mitch chose to tell Maddie now was one that had taken place about four years back. It began when Comforti was released from Attica state prison. A Thursday. He arrived in the city and went directly to the Hotel Carlyle.

He had paid a porter of that hotel two hundred a month, half in advance, to hold three pieces of very presentable luggage down in the guest's storage room. The luggage was sent up to the suite Comforti had reserved from Attica using his platinum American Express. One of the Carlyle's high-priced, high-up suites with an ascendant southerly view. Bouquet of Casablanca lilies. Huge black grapes swagged from a silver salver of fresh fruit. Fax machine, five telephones including one on the wall next to the commode.

The liberated Comforti immediately set about to liberate his belongings. He summoned the valet on duty to have some pressing done and within a half hour was approving of his appearance in a full-length mirror. He hadn't gained or lost a pound or inch while in the joint all those months, so his suits and shirts were still perfect fits. Nothing about him gave him away as an ex-convict, nor would anyone guess that his tasteful guise and easy countenance concealed a first-class criminal mind. For all the world he looked like a respectable civilian, in town for a few days to take care of some little legitimate matter, and perhaps to visit his tailor.

He sat slouched in one of the sofa chairs and brought the nearest telephone to rest on his crotch. His first call was to a certain West 47th dealer named Wattenberg who middled upscale swag behind a straight reputation. Wattenberg was more than pleased to hear from Comforti again. He agreed to the meeting Comforti arbitrarily set much later that night.

Comforti's second call was to a certain young woman he'd never been with. He'd met her just before he'd gone inside and had held her in mind all the while, so she'd become somewhat essential. The given name she'd given herself was Laura. The two family names she'd chosen to go with it were hyphenated.

The thing about this young woman Laura that appealed to Comforti was her well-bred looks and mien, and the fact that she had enough imagination to carry off that impression most of the time.

When it came to women Comforti's preference was unusually limited. No bimbos or go-go's for him. To qualify for his ardent attention a woman had to at least convincingly seem as though she might have had some years at Smith, Wellesley or the like, possess a desperate sort of wildness to compensate for being quickly bored with everything, and whose family could possibly have an engraved brass nameplate on a reserved pew at St. James's Episcopal.

Comforti had never bedded the genuine article. However, there was a type of young woman scattered in the social mélange of Manhattan who looked pretty much the part, who had the requisite features, figure and bones, acquired taste and such, as well as the appropriate range of high-strung attitude. Usually these young women were aware of their assets, relied on them, placed hope in them. Believing that because of them there'd come a day, a just reckoning, when they'd no longer need to receptionist or sales clerk. This was the wellspring from which Comforti drew. What made this young woman Laura so vital to him. There'd be others like her when he got back into circulation; however, at the moment, she was it.

Maddie interrupted with a scoff. “How could you possibly know what went on inside Comforti's head? You're embroidering, aren't you?”

“I'm telling it the way it was told to me,” Mitch said.

“You're not embroidering it for my sake?”

“Not much.”

“How much is not much?”

“Shall I go on?”

Maddie re-settled. “Please do.”

After the Laura phone call Comforti went out and down Madison a short ways to a branch of a major bank where he kept a safety deposit box. He had four boxes at four different branches in which he stored what he called his “sleeping beauties.” These were swag goods that he'd chosen to not sell. A reserve of some of the finer pieces. He awakened two, so to speak, put them to pocket and returned to the Carlyle.

Wattenberg showed up at the appointed hour. Three in the morning. Normally he was in bed by eleven but the prospect of huge gain had him high. A stocky sort with a weak, nearly indistinguishable chin and a pate that looked as though it had been buffed. He said the routine opening lines. No mention of prison. Nice to see, looking good, all that. It was like Comforti had been away on a long trip. Wattenberg declined a drink and accepted one of the chairs opposite the sofa but didn't sit back in it.

Comforti took the sofa. He wasn't merely relaxed. His limbs felt softly, delicately attached to his torso, his edges blunted. He was wearing a suit but nothing else. Bare chest, bare feet.

The door to the bedroom was partially open. A bright light on in there. A section of the used bed was visible, a bare part of woman upon it. Wattenberg couldn't help but notice. He got momentarily caught on that view, then self-consciously looked anywhere else. He tried to sit back but couldn't remain back, seemed to not know what to do with his hands.

Comforti noticed Wattenberg's abruptly increased unease, a giveaway of erotic envy. That amused him, caused him to put off for a moment his bringing the bracelet out from his jacket pocket. He placed it on the low sofa table.

Wattenberg took up the bracelet and sighted it with his loupe. First, a cursory all-over look, then a longer, thorough examination of its individual stones.

Eight sugarloaf-shaped cabochon sapphires spaced by eight emerald-cut diamonds, mounted in platinum. It was signed
Cartier
.

Wattenberg asked what was the aggregate weight of the sapphires and Comforti told him without hesitation it was seventy-four carats. Comforti anticipated what Wattenberg's next question would be, and said the total carat weight of the diamonds was a few points less than twenty-six.

Wattenberg remarked that the bracelet was a pleasant piece. An obvious understatement. He hopefully complimented the sapphires by saying they were nice number-one Burmas.

Comforti knew the game, stated that the sapphires were Kashmir. Which made them much rarer and five or six times more precious.

Wattenberg took another lengthy look and pretended only now to recognize the sapphires' Kashmir characteristics.

It was at that point the young woman Laura came from the bedroom. In a full-length bias-cut nightgown of gray silk charmeuse. Bare on top. The thinnest possible straps. She was possibly over twenty-five but not thirty, a fine-boned, slender brunette with every good reason to be confident of her body. There was an attractive disorder about her. Without acknowledging Wattenberg or even Comforti she went directly to the room service cart that was off to one side. Helped herself to a leftover toastpoint.

Wattenberg noticed a tiny price tag discreetly attached to the rear hem of her nightgown by a tiny gold safety pin. He had a momentary battle with distraction, particularly the way the silk charmeuse fabric declared her gorgeous buttocks.

Maddie interrupted again. “Now I'd call that overembroidering.”

“Would you rather have it plain, a less colorful, more abridged version?”

“Not really,” Maddie decided, “just go a little lighter on the gorgeous buttocks stuff, hmmm?”

Amused by that, Mitch went on.

Telling how this lovely pseudo-highbrow Laura came over and occupied the other sofa chair across from Comforti. True to her affectation, she managed to be blasé about the Cartier bracelet. It couldn't dazzle her. Even when Wattenberg laid it back onto the table where it was right before her eyes, the diamonds shooting scintillations, the sapphires glowing their vivid blue, she disregarded it. As though such a thing was commonplace to her. She also appeared completely disinterested in whatever transaction Comforti and Wattenberg were involved in. It meant nothing to her.

Wattenberg was into his own act, containing his enthusiasm for the swag bracelet, concealing his eagerness to buy it. He waited a long beat, scratched his temple and did an ambivalent mouth before asking Comforti how much.

Comforti had the figure ready. Four hundred and fifty thousand.

The amount hung in the air.

Wattenberg wasn't fazed. He had a lady client in Milan who would consider eight hundred thousand a bargain. He nearly agreed to four hundred fifty; however, his West 47 nature caused him to ask if four hundred fifty was the asking price.

Comforti just looked at him.

Wattenberg offered four hundred.

Comforti didn't make a big thing of it. Calmly, he picked up the bracelet, held it up at eye level, dangled it for a moment as though bidding it goodbye.

Wattenberg felt certain it was about to become his.

Comforti tossed the bracelet to Laura. Gave it to her, just like that. No big deal.

Within the next minute Wattenberg was out in the hotel corridor awaiting the elevator. Unable to not hate himself. He realized the gaffe he'd committed. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have forgotten that Comforti always considered his stated price for a piece of swag to be more than fair, a price that allowed everyone to make. Comforti's cardinal rule, as proverbial as the man: no haggling, ever.

Perhaps, Wattenberg thought, all wasn't lost. He hung around the lobby of the Carlyle believing sooner or later he'd catch this Laura on her way out. She'd want the money more than the piece.

Came noon he gave up on that.

The following day, just by chance, he spotted her as she came out of the 580 Fifth Avenue building. Bound for a limo at the curb.

She pretended to not recognize Wattenberg at first, which was understandable, considering prior circumstances.

He didn't waste words, offered her three hundred seventy-five for the bracelet.

Her face went weary, but then she managed to modulate her regret. She did a resigned shrug and informed Wattenberg that just minutes ago she'd sold the bracelet to Visconti …

… for two fifty.

Maddie chuckled. “You tell one hell of a bedtime story,” she said, “but, you know, I seem to recall Hurley telling me that one sometime back.”

“When?”

“Four, maybe five years ago.”

“Why didn't you say so?”

“You were really into it.”

“I suppose it was better the first time you heard it.”

“To the contrary,” she said turning onto her side and snuggling his thigh. “I'll bet years and years down the road from now you'll forget you told it and tell it again and I'll probably enjoy it even more.”

Years and years from now, Mitch thought. He'd discerned a degree of sleepiness in Maddie's voice and it was even thicker as she smiled a mainly inward smile and said: “I love you, precious.”

She began to sleep. It always amazed Mitch how quickly she could drop off. He believed it might have something to do with her black. Perhaps her black made it less of a fall for her. He heard her breathing change and although her eyelids were partly open he knew she was a goner. He waited, allowed time for her to get surely, really deep, then, disturbing as little as possible, he got up and lifted her. Carried her down to the second floor to their bedroom and gently laid her on the bed. Placed a pillow close next to her, his surrogate for her hugging.

He hurried back up to the dormer, settled down. For some reason, now that Maddie was asleep and he her lone guardian, he was instilled with even greater resolve. They wouldn't get to her. He wouldn't let them get to her. He gazed out at the night. It seemed changed, as though the dark had solidified everything out there into one piece.

He leaned out the dormer window and gazed upwards. Overcast, no stars, no sky. He told himself that didn't mean no heaven. He settled down again.

He couldn't prevent Ralph Lentini from coming to mind. Ralph and the fur-coated hooker. Their bodies shriveled white and bloated with the gas of decay, risen by now, trying to break through that layer of green scum.

Ruder was another matter. Probably the harbor current and undertows had scuttled him along the bottom, and the fish, all sorts and sizes, the blues and snappers and such, had fed on him. For sure the sharks down off Sandy Hook.

Poor Ruder.

Chapter 32

Riccio's have-arounds didn't come that night, nor the next morning.

Since daybreak a fine rain had been falling, so misty a rain that it seemed to be atomizing the land. Every exterior surface looked slick and darker, as though it had been varnished, especially the trunks and leaves of the apple trees down in the orchard.

The rain contributed to the complacency that was now sharing Mitch's outlook. He had begun to think that inasmuch as the have-arounds hadn't come by now they might not come. Possibly Riccio only intended to intimidate. Wasn't it, after all, a ridiculous vengeance, senseless, way out of proportion? At that very moment Riccio was probably in his West 47th lair operating his money-counting machine or popping caraters out of their mountings, while his have-arounds, all of them, were in that room off to the side eating heros and watching reruns. The killing of Mitch Laughton and wife the furthest thing from their minds, or, if they gave that any thought, it was to laugh at the way they had Mitch shitting in his pants.