King of New York, page 15
* * *
For the first hour, it had been a regular Wednesday night at the club—a little flirtation with the waitresses, a new cocktail to sample to appease the mixologist, a little time with a cugino.
Just the way Jimmy liked things.
He was starting to unwind when a very gray-looking man sidled up on his left, and a much younger, blonder, muscular guy posted up on his right. A third burly man stood in the distance.
Mattia—his bodyguard for the night—made eye contact, looking for guidance. Jimmy nodded to say it was OK. For now.
“Comrade Martello,” said the gray man. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“You seem to have me at a disadvantage. Alas, I don’t think I know who you are,” Jimmy said. “Tell me, how can I help?”
“Oh, we were merely curious, my friend and I. We were curious about your interest in Russian business.”
Jimmy laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d heard in months. “Ah. My new friend, believe me, I’m interested in everyone’s business, because that’s how I mean to do my business.”
“That is a dangerous game to play,” said the gray man. “People do not like having outsiders digging too deeply into their family life, if you understand me.”
“I’m a family man myself,” said Jimmy. “I understand well.”
“Let me speak plainly, then, family man. What specifically spikes my curiosity is why a young, seemingly intelligent man like yourself would want to make an enemy of Lev Volkov? It makes no sense to me.”
“I’m not looking to make enemies, comrade. Not my style, ever. Ask around. Everyone will tell you I’m interested in making friends.”
“How incredibly charming.” The gray man shook his head. “And naive. Believe me, it’s easy enough to see what you’re up to, Mr. Martello. You said ask around. We have. You’re getting quite a reputation for doing people favors. So, we hear your people are asking about Ivan Popov, and that trips alarms for us. Now, this could all be very innocent, but equally, it is very likely that Lev Volkov isn’t going to like what you are doing. And you wouldn’t want to be the source of his displeasure. Believe me. So, I ask you again, why are you so willing to make an enemy of this man?”
Jimmy stood up. “Well, this is all very tedious, I have to say, and quite disappointing.”
The big, blond muscle made a grab for him, but Mattia intercepted the move, then threw a punch that had the guy sprawling back across several tables, with drinks spilled and glasses smashed before his bulk hit the floor.
The club’s security spilled in.
Given a choice of shooting or running, the two Russians still on their feet made their retreat, while the third was thrown through the door and onto the street before he knew what was happening.
No one disrespected Jimmy in his bar.
* * *
Alessandro had a girl with a camera following Jimmy around. The fact that she was female was no coincidence. It was a gamble based on ego. If Jimmy noticed her, there was a good chance he was arrogant enough to assume she was looking to go home with him, and not make much of it. In the time he’d been watching, he’d seen enough women come onto Jimmy to know it was a viable explanation for her presence. And Mya was more than pretty. She had a way about her that made lesser men weak while she was entirely ruthless.
Alessandro had used her before. He knew she could be counted on for discretion. She was a pro. One with expensive tastes.
Mya got him some decent shots of Jimmy talking with the Russians.
She’d done well. There were several that looked like a far more convivial conversation than she said had gone down. He recognized the older man, Bogodan Yakovlev. Alessandro had run into some drama with him some years back and hadn’t forgotten the experience. The man dripped menace. The muscle’s name didn’t really matter, not when Yakovlev was with him.
He showed Sale the photos, laying them out on the table.
“This is why we cannot trust Jimmy Martello,” Alessandro reasoned. “Yakovlev is the worst of the Russians, believe me. He’s the kind of Bratva that other Bratva are afraid of.”
“This is not a good look for us,” Sale agreed, staring at the gray-haired man in the photographs. “What the fuck is Jimmy boy playing at?”
“I don’t know, but I ask you this, Don Martello: What can Jimmy say to these people that they want to hear? What can he offer them that they want to buy?” The unsaid part: How can this be anything other than a threat to his own people?
Three hours later, Sale was puffing on a cigar and drinking Angelo’s cognac as he repeated those lines.
His delivery was stilted, but he got the message across, taking credit for Mya and Alessandro’s detective work and passing it off as his own.
“I’ve had business with Yakovlev, many years ago,” Angelo said, “though it is hard to call it business. Three men died, and another two could not work again after what he did to them. Their children work for me now, because I am a man of honor, and grieve still for their loss. They will always be taken care of. Yakovlev is unpredictable. He collects finger bones. If Jimmy has made friends with him, that would be a cause for concern, yes, but for Jimmy as much as us. As I said, I know him. He doesn’t make friends. Whatever else is happening here, Yakovlev is using the boy to get to the rest of us.” He was thinking to himself, nodding. “I think it would be wise to avoid any family gatherings for the time being.”
Sale agreed with him, and let him have some of the photos.
A few days later, Angelo had his own little chat with Louie Graziano, and passed a few of those photos along.
Word got around, and the families agreed that no large gatherings were to be had where Yakovlev might be tempted to turn them into a massacre.
After a couple of days, Sale took the last of his photos to Jimmy.
“These must be fake,” he said, as he handed a photo over. “Tell me these are fake, nipote.”
Jimmy shrugged. “Mattia had to haul this thug off me. It turned ugly fast.” He looked at the photos. “Not that you can tell from these photos. They might look friendly, but I promise you, it wasn’t.”
Sale shrugged in return. “You’re out there being friendly with so many people these days, my boy. It’s hard for people to be sure where your loyalties lie.” That was an attempted jab, though Jimmy metaphorically bobbed and weaved.
“Well, people should know,” Jimmy said, fighting to control his rising anger. “I’m a Martello. Family first. Always. It is not open for discussion.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Jimmy, but no one seems willing to tell you the truth to your face, so I have to yet again. People doubt you. And these photos don’t help. The families are growing concerned. We don’t get into bed with the Russians. Ever.”
Sale enjoyed the moment. He had the upper hand. He knew Jimmy cared about the family, and more so what the family thought of him. Doing anything to tarnish his blessed corpse of a father’s memory was a knife to the heart for the little prick. That made it all the more entertaining, turning the family he so adored against him. It was almost as good as being in charge, Sale thought. In the meantime, he would continue to chip away at the image of his nephew, and at some point, he’d do enough damage that Jimmy would be out—or dead. Then it would behoove him, a better man, to step in to fill the power vacuum.
* * *
Jimmy made a point of gathering with the family as often as possible, and always on a Sunday afternoon for dinner. There were, of course, times when he couldn’t make it because his business had a way of intruding with the larger family gatherings, so on those occasions, he made sure to visit his mother and Zia Rosaria during the week to make amends.
He worried about both of them.
Today would be especially difficult for his mother. It was one of those landmark dates. A day full of grief. Her wedding anniversary. He bought her a bunch of white roses and a box of her favorite chocolates, though neither would make up for what he couldn’t give her—yet.
“You’re a good boy, Jimmy.” She smiled softly, taking the flowers from him. She headed for the kitchen. Four steps away from the sink, she couldn’t resist. “No matter what anyone else says, I know you’re a good boy.”
“A lot of things are being said, Mamma, but there’s no truth to them. I need you to believe me. I’m not selling the family out to the Russians. I’m not doing business with them. Nothing like that. It’s gossip, and it’s meant to cause us pain.”
“Ah, people always talk, Jimmy. It doesn’t matter what you do, or what you don’t do,” Rosaria said. She was stirring a pot of sauce on the stove that smelled of fragrant herbs. “People like to make up their own truths. We call it gossip, but it’s more than that. They’ll say all sorts of things about you, because that’s what they want to be true. I’ve had my share of it; I can tell you.”
“I only worry, because any rumor about me reflects badly on Mamma.”
“Don’t you worry about me, son. You make me proud every day. People don’t understand what you’re doing, and that’s just fine, because you do, don’t you?” Anna said.
“I do,” he promised.
“There you go, then. Let them worry, and then let them talk to each other and worry each other.”
“Why can’t you just tell us what this secrecy and running about is for?” Rosaria asked, without looking up.
“Ah, in time, I promise, but right now, everything depends upon no one knowing what I’m up to. Well, Nicky and Enzo know, of course, and they’re with me totally. All I can tell you is, it will go some way to making us whole again, after everything that’s happened. Our loss……”
He looked at both women in turn, still struggling to speak to either of them about the men they had lost.
“I can’t see how that works,” Anna said. “But I don’t need to.”
He breathed deeply, thinking about saying nothing but decided they needed to know something was happening, that their men hadn’t been forgotten. Someone was still speaking for them. “I think I know who was behind it,” he told them. “I don’t know how to prove it yet, and it’s…delicate. So, nothing happens until I can prove it. Sure, I could have put a bullet through his brain a year ago, but that’s not justice. That’s anger. We are better than that. My father was better than that. My uncle was better than that. So, truth above anger. I want people to know what really happened in that room, what led to it, and why. The truth is more than a bullet. And that’s what I’m working on. Trust me. It’s best if you don’t know any more than that.”
“You know who killed my Italo,” Anna said slowly, “and you never told me?”
“I think I know, Mamma, and that’s not the same. I want a confession to give to you,” Jimmy said. “I want to hear him admit it. I want you to hear him admit it. I think you should both have that.”
Tears shimmered on Anna’s cheeks, but she was a tough woman. She kept a fierce grip on her emotions. “You’re right,” she told her son, nodding once. “I want that. I need that. I need to make sense of this, after all this time. I’ll never forget what happened, but I think if I understood, I could make my peace with it.”
Jimmy put his arms around Anna and held her for a moment. Neither of them spoke. It was a difficult day for both them. “I only want to give you that, Mamma, believe me. Everything I am doing, it is for that moment.”
“I never regretted marrying your father,” she told him. “Not ever. Find a girl you can love like that, Jimmy.”
Jimmy wanted to tell her that he knew who she was; he just hadn’t found her yet. But anything that came out of his mouth would be admitting to the crazy. How could he admit to such strong feelings for a woman he had never met, whom he had never seen beyond a photograph, and had never so much as heard her voice? That wasn’t the kind of infatuation you admitted to your mother. What sort of man even pretends to himself that a girl like that is just waiting to be saved so she can fall in love with him?
And yet…
It felt like fate.
And that was the kind of thing his mother could easily love and believe in fiercely enough for both of them.
* * *
The research and development team had a hand in the design of their office space, and had taken measures to ensure that surveillance by conventional means was useless. They’d set up hidden cameras in the corridors so they knew if anyone was outside. They also had disruption devices running on frequencies that interfered with listening devices. They swept the room for bugs every morning and scoured it for signs of new technology in the most unlikely places.
They weren’t taking chances.
“You should do this for my office too,” Jimmy noted, after Daniel walked him through it.
“Sure thing, boss,” Daniel replied with a smile. “Although from what I see on the cameras, your biggest issue is our mutual friend hanging about in the corridors, trying to get close enough to whisper his poison in your ear.”
Jimmy laughed at that. Sale always had something he wanted to discuss, something that was so important, it couldn’t wait. And when he heard it, it felt, if not abject, then at least pointless. Jimmy guessed it was more about his uncle trying to keep an eye on him in the hopes he’d let something slip rather than trying to prove his own usefulness. Which, as far as Jimmy was concerned, amounted to a big fat zilch.
“Still bugs me that he manages to be such a nuisance, given how much time he spends hanging around here like a bad smell.”
“Not working alone,” Indie said. “Only answer.”
It was rare Indie said anything in their meetings. “We can’t prove it, though,” Daniel agreed. “But from what I can source, I’d say his MO has changed radically as of late, so I’m with Indie on this.”
“Enzo is seeing the same thing, insofar as he can access any figures. What we do know for sure is that Sale is spending a lot of money at the moment. He can’t help splashing out. It’s a compulsion, and he’s making a point of showing off his merchandise, so we get some sense of his income from that,” Jimmy said.
“I can’t see why anyone clever enough to stay hidden would want to work with Sale,” Daniel remarked.
“We’re all in agreement on that,” Jimmy said. “Now, far be it from me to make the obvious connection, but there aren’t many groups content with being invisible power brokers where drugs are concerned. So, the question is, which cartel is he in bed with, how deep, and how long before they cut him down and replace him with their own man?”
“Wishful thinking, maybe,” Daniel said, stroking his furrowed brow. “But there’s something to the idea. Maybe…He’d have a hard time advancing his little empire of drugs if he wasn’t dealing with one of the major players, and we know it’s not the BMF. Someone like the Sinaloa Cartel could be a decent candidate, but I didn’t think they were that active here.”
“But this is what they do, export business. Like a pyramid scheme where the aim is getting everyone high enough, they keep trying to crawl up each brick until they are on the top and the only thing left is to fall…” His hatred of drugs and the trade that preyed on vulnerable and addicted people wasn’t exactly hidden. “The structure of the pyramid can make it hard to tell who they’re working with, but if Sale’s into cocaine, he’s got to be dealing with them, even if only indirectly,” Jimmy reasoned.
“I’ve been looking into the people he was in prison with,” Daniel said. “You said he claimed that was where he made his key contacts?”
“That’s what he always says,” Jimmy confirmed. “He made his connects on the inside. S fucking B.”
“Well, for all the digging, I couldn’t find any major players locked up at the same time and place. They’re all small-time, the fall guys.”
Jimmy nodded. “So, if there was no one in there to connect with, how the fuck did he come out with so many useful contacts? Because that motherfucker has been able to get ahead despite pretty much everything we’ve done to screw with his trade.”
“Someone in there recruited him. They supplied him with the contacts as part of his work for them.”
“But, again, no one is going to pick Sale for his smarts,” Jimmy said.
“So, there’s some kind of gameplay here, way bigger than the drug deals Sale has been making. It’s the only obvious solution to all of the questions. There’s another player behind it all, with their own agenda.”
“And Sale is their useful idiot,” Jimmy finished that line of reasoning.
Daniel nodded.
“Judas,” said Indie.
“I wondered about that too,” Daniel said. “I guess the good news is that whoever these people are, getting you killed isn’t high on their list of priorities right now.”
“Small comfort, assuming they even exist.” Jimmy smiled. “This is all speculation.”
“It is,” Daniel agreed. “But I’m very good at what I do; that’s why you pay me the big bucks, and I’m prepared to stake my life being right. Or, more accurately, I’m going to stake your life on that.”
Jimmy laughed.
He knew that was true.
* * *
Don Pasquale Genovese was ninety-two when he died.
He’d been long retired from his family business, even before he’d shuffled off his mortal coil.
He remained an impressive man to the end.
Despite all the anxieties about Jimmy, there was no way they could not have a funeral for Don Pasquale and not expect every significant family man in the country to pay his respects, including Jimmy Martello.
The whole situation might have been awkward, but he’d already booked a flight to Europe for a few days, so he delegated Nicky as his capo to take Rosaria and go in his place. He would make his own pilgrimage later, upon his return. All that mattered in terms of the families was that the Martello clan had shown their respect in sending their capo. There was honor in that. For now. But not to make his own pilgrimage later, that was an insult. It was a fine line to walk.
