Falling Into the Mob, page 12
Sylvia lifted her head off my shoulder and made eye contact with him. Nothing more than eye contact. The pianist said, “But first, one more song,” and the music resumed. And they were playing just for us. The other couples had left the floor. My instinctive reaction was self-consciousness but she put her cool hand on the back of my neck and I relaxed and we finished the dance. We even received a riffle of applause leaving the dance floor.
Back at our booth she picked up her black purse and, without sitting down, said, “Let’s go upstairs.”
We walked out arm-in-arm. The maitre d’ rushed over and held the door open for us, whispering condolences.
“HOW MANY rooms in this inn?” I asked.
“Eight.”
I took a guess: “Do you own it?”
“We have a piece of it.”
We stopped at Room #1. “Look at this,” she said, opening her purse and pulling out a brass key. “Remember these? They’re called keys. Not a little plastic card.”
I presumed the inn was a former farmhouse and this was the bedroom of Farmer and Mrs. Brown, laid out in a time when folks did not go in for oversized rooms. But the room’s smallness emphasized its coziness. It was lit by a bedside Tiffany lamp. It had a fireplace, solid furniture, a nice little bar, a desk covered with books and framed photos. There was no TV but she had a high-quality radio which she switched on and tuned to an FM music station.
Then she kicked off her heels and before she’d walked the two steps to the bed she’d pulled her dress over her head and tossed it on a small sofa. She reached behind her back, elbows out, to unsnap her black bra. Then she pulled down her panty hose and turned around to face me, long and lean and naked. And utterly unself-conscious.
We sat down on the edge of the bed.
“This is my room,” she said. “It’s never rented to guests. My father bought it for me. He said a woman who lived with her father and brothers should have a sanctuary where she could sneak off and have some peace and be a woman instead of a mother superior.”
She paused for a second, gazing past me. “I was hoping he’d live until Christmas. Was that so much to ask? Two fucking weeks?”
Her voice cracked on these last words and she started to cry. She didn’t cover her eyes but sat straight up, palms on her knees. Modest tears grew quickly into full-fledged weeping and then the dam broke and she bent forward trembling, shuddering, gasping, unrestrained grieving, the old country way. She wrapped her arms around my thigh and rested her face on my knee. I could feel her tears through my trousers. I looked down at her black hair, her neck and spine, her ribs.
“Let me pull back the covers,” I said.
She rose for a moment and stood unsteadily, and then dropped back into the bed, sliding under the covers to the far side where she curled up in a fetal ball. I stroked the curve of her back as she wept. I was hungry to lie down with her but—forgive me if I’d reverted to the age of chivalry—I wasn’t sure it was honorable to get into bed with a woman in this state of vulnerability. I managed a few stumbling words to that effect but she shook her head and without turning her face, flung a fist at me, to punish my stupidity.
So I undressed and when I got under the covers with her she moaned and stretched out. I pulled her heavy quilt over us and put my arms around her and she pushed back against me. She squeezed my hands to her breasts. Her crying continued for a long time until we were both asleep.
THE BIG crossover in our lives began at 4:04 a.m. I read the time in the large red numbers of her digital alarm clock as I sneaked back into bed after a bathroom trip. She had shed every tear and it was now time for luxurious kissing followed by a drowsy progression to better things. It was perfect, a silky ride with a glorious finish and an intensity of bonding I think we both recognized as permanent.
“Let’s do it again,” she said.
“Again? At my age it takes awhile to bounce back.”
“How long?”
“Three years.”
She laughed out loud.
“Really, it’s been at least three years since my last time.”
“You can do it.”
“Can we sleep a couple hours and then try it?”
“No.”
“It’s not going to work.”
“Yes it will. Watch me.”
I WOKE to the smell of coffee. Sylvia was sitting on the edge of the bed in a blue robe unloading a silver platter, a breakfast she’d carried up from the inn’s kitchen. The clock said 6:50 A.M.
“There’s something I want to say,” she said. “It may sound schoolgirlish but it’s true and it’ll always be true: I love you.”
“That sounds kind of schoolgirlish.”
“Want some steaming hot coffee on your dick?”
Instead she poured the coffee into cups.
“I just said I love you,” she said, looking right at me. “Is that, like, good news, or not? Would you be happier if I told you the NASDAQ had gone up twenty points or something?”
“No. It’s great news. Sorry, I’m just a little stunned. I was unprepared for that. I’m a little groggy. This wasn’t an average night for me.”
“Now is when you say, ‘I love you too, Sylvia, and I want you to be mine forever.’ Can you say that?”
“Yes,” I said. “I love you too, Sylvia.”
“And?”
“I want you to be mine forever.”
“We’re giggling now but this is serious and it will get more serious, and not just in a fun way. There’s always a weight, a pressure, to being in the family or even around it, even if you’re not directly involved in the business. And sometimes it’s really bad. Can you handle that?”
“Yes,” I said, taking a giant step away from the play-it-safe instincts that had always ruled my life.
“I fell in love with you on the train. I told my dad you were the guy for me. I may have told him at just the right time because he had something pretty negative in mind for you.”
“I heard about that. You saved my life.”
“Yeah, it could have been a short romance.”
I wasn’t finished trying to screw myself out of the best thing that ever happened to me. “Let me just suggest one thing,” I said. “Your father has just died. My life has gone from nothing happening to so many things happening that I’m completely dizzy. Doesn’t it make sense that we’re both at points in our lives when we’re needy and vulnerable to big mistakes? Aren’t we rushing into this too emotionally and not thinking about what happens when reality sets in?”
“Go fuck yourself,” she said. “Do you remember what Brutus said in Julius Caesar? He was in a debate about whether to attack the enemy now or later. He said there is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. And then he said, ‘On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.’ So Philly, are we going to take the current or lose our ventures?”
“Let’s take the current.”
She crawled in next to me and we quietly pondered the ceiling.
“So we’re going to do it,” she said.
Life was good. Then my cell phone rang.
“Fuck Draybin,” I said.
I SPRANG out of bed, grabbing my suit jacket, looking for the pocket, finding the cell phone on its tenth ring. It was Jane Dooley, Draybin’s assistant.
“I called you on your home phone and you didn’t answer. Where are you at seven in the morning?”
“Don’t ask, Jane. What’s up?”
“Lunch at one. He’s running for president, but you saw that coming. We’re now full speed ahead. Dick Tindall will be joining you at lunch. Do you know him?”
“No, but I’ve seen him on TV a million times. Is he Pete’s campaign manager?”
“Looks like it.”
“Lunch is at the boat or office?”
“The Tower of Fear. Forty-fifth floor. Executive Dining Room #1.”
Sylvia was waiting to ask, “Who’s Jane? Do I have to kill her?”
“I want to get back in bed.”
She let her robe slide off her shoulders. We embraced and fell back to the horizontal.
“Is this the famous Peter Draybin you’re lunching with?”
“He’s my last remaining client.”
“How did you know it was him calling?”
“I know his ring. Actually it was his assistant, Jane. Nice woman, don’t kill her.”
“Why did you say ‘Fuck Draybin’? Is he a bad guy?”
“No, but his priorities take priority over my priorities. I must do what he says at any hour and I have to be enthusiastic about it.”
“That’s so different from all the other jobs in this world.”
“What do you have to do today?”
“I have to finish the arrangements for the funeral and burial. I have to get the house shipshape because everyone will end up there this afternoon. Then I have a thousand other problems including security.”
“What’s the problem with security?”
“When the word gets out that Poppa’s gone we’ll be vulnerable. We have a guy, Paul Bazzanella, who’ll be trying to find out what’s going on with the bad guys. And there’s another guy, Richie Roncade, who’ll be making sure we’re safe and the bad guys are not safe.”
“The bad guys are who?”
“Don’t ask.”
“You can’t say ‘Don’t ask’ to me anymore now that we’re floating on a high tide with all our ventures.”
“Okay. The bad guys are everybody else in organized crime in the world. But mainly the Vavolizza family, the family we’re supposedly part of. The boss is Nicky Vavolizza. Who is some spicy meatball.”
“He’s the boss but you regard him as a threat?”
“Oh yeah, a big threat. Viv will have to deal with him. Viv hates this. He went back to Venice thinking you’d be the acting boss and Nicky would be your problem. But you said no.”
“Part of me wanted to say yes, Sylvia. But it’s not my thing either.”
“I’m glad you said no. It’s an ugly business. It’s also boring. It’s either ugly or boring and I don’t see you as an ugly or boring kind of guy.”
“But Catcher is?”
“Catcher isn’t boring but he’s good at ugly.”
“Will he hate me?”
“Don’t expect a big kiss. The job he wanted and expected all his life was offered to you instead of him, by his own father. Now it looks like he’ll get the job by default. But you’ll end up liking each other. You like Jimmy and Catcher’s the older version of Jimmy. Did you know he had a good shot at major league baseball?”
“Jimmy told me he screwed it up by fighting.”
“Yeah. He went down to Florida spring training and had a problem with two Hispanic players who were hot prospects. They were pitchers, he was a catcher. They didn’t like his signals or something. They thought they were tough dudes from the islands and he was just a pretty boy from New York. They got in his face.”
“They attacked him?”
“I think it was more of a taunting thing. It takes very little to get Catcher in demolition mode. When it was over the Dodgers were looking at two kids who could no longer throw a baseball and a catcher from the Cosa Nostra. End of three careers.”
“Why is he in prison?”
“Parole violation.”
“What did he do?”
“If you must know, he killed a guy in a bar. This was about two years ago. But it was self-defense and he got off, which pissed off the legal establishment which doesn’t like to see a mob guy get away with a high-profile killing, even if the victim is also a mob guy. Catcher had done time on another thing and was on parole, so they got him for associating with known armed criminals in a bar after midnight and called it a parole violation and sent him back upstate.”
“What was the other thing?”
“It was an assault thing, business related.”
“Have the other brothers been in jail?”
“Nothing serious. They’re good when they have to do something but they’re not really into it. What’s going on with your friend Mr. Draybin?”
“He wants to run for president. Of the United States.”
“He’s running for president of the United States? And you write for him?”
“You can’t tell anybody about his wanting to be president. That’s a huge secret.”
“Oh, like I can’t keep secrets? I’ll tell you what: I won’t spread the word about Draybin and you don’t reveal the existence of the Mafia.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Can I explain something? In my world we keep secrets every minute of every day. Can I tell you how shitty that is? If we accidentally let something slip or break any of the many rules, we can be killed for it.”
“I just read a federal report saying the New York mobs kill about thirty people a year. Do the Sforzas contribute to that?”
“I doubt it but no one would tell me. What are you doing reading federal reports like that?”
“There’s an organized crime chapter in the book proposal I’m writing for Draybin.”
“You’re writing a book about us?” Her eyes widened. “Are you spying on us?”
“No, no, no. Calm down. It’s just one chapter in a book showing Draybin can be a problem-solving president. I’m not spying on you. Your father invited me to your house for Thanksgiving. Do you think I was trying to infiltrate the family?”
“The FBI has infiltrated the families several times.”
“Do you think I’m an FBI agent?”
She laughed, genuinely. The idea of me being an FBI agent was so absurd she dropped all of her suspicions.
“Why do they have the rule about never admitting the Mafia exists? Everybody knows it exists. Mafia guys have admitted it in court.”
“They admit it because it’s part of the deal when they bargain their way out of forty-year jail sentences. Of course they can never go back on the street again or they’re dead ducks. Phil, what’s going to happen to us when Draybin’s running for president? You can’t be hanging around with a woman from the notorious Sforza crime family.”
To my astonishment, this had not occurred to me. I suppose I’d regarded my writing life and my mob adventure as parallel realities. Now I realized they would inevitably intersect.
“Are you going to drop me?” she asked.
“No. Of course not.”
“You will,” she said. “You’ll have to.”
“I won’t. We’ll get through this somehow. What else can we do?”
“Don’t ask me. You’re the smart guy who writes for presidents. I’m just a high school graduate.”
“Isn’t it fun to be lying here naked and having our first fight?”
“It’s the best thing ever. But I have to get going. I’ll understand if you can’t come over today but I hope you can come to the funeral tomorrow.”
“I’ll come today if I get home on time and definitely to the funeral. Sylvia, will the cops and newspapers be there? Taking pictures and such?”
“Probably. Does that bother you?”
“A newspaper photo of me at a Mafia funeral might not be a good thing for me.”
“Okay. I can see that. Wear a hat and sunglasses and stand behind me and probably no one will notice you.”
“Okay.”
“Can we do it again?”
CHAPTER 12
I was so mellow leaving Sylvia that I missed the train to New York. When I arrived, forty minutes late, Draybin and Dick Tindall and a small young woman in a black suit were in deep conversation around the gleaming table in Executive Dining Room #1, high above the streets of Manhattan.
I had been in this room a few times, always wondering how shareholders would feel about the splendor in which their company’s leaders dined. I particularly enjoyed the wallsized oil paintings of Hudson River Valley scenes and the large window with its postcard-perfect view of the Statue of Liberty.
The woman looked up at me with a scowl and then looked at her watch, reminding me I was late.
I’m not keen on rudeness from people half my age. She turned away and stared out the window as Draybin and Tindall rose to shake my hand.
I recognized Tindall from his countless appearances on political talk shows which love him because he seems so well cast as a political operative. He looked like a retired army colonel, in his sixties but still trim and hard-bodied. His hair was close-cropped; he had a December tan; he wore his standard no-frills uniform: blue blazer, starched blue button-down dress shirt, and never a necktie.
We did some mutual ass-kissing: I was honored to meet a man with his long record of achievement and expertise. He was thrilled to meet me because he’d had his eye on me for years. Or since yesterday.
Tindall said, “Let me introduce Kitty Fromkin from my staff. She’s the best campaign speechwriter I’ve ever known. She’s been in the business since she was a teenager and she’s written for everybody. Plus she can knot a swizzle stick with her magical tongue.”
“Fuck you, Dick,” she said in a flat voice.
“No, sincerely, Kitty is number one,” Tindall said, patting her shoulder. She flinched at his touch.
I realized that if Kitty was number one, I was now number two. In every sense. I was chagrined that I hadn’t seen this coming: Draybin’s deal with Tindall obviously included moving Tindall people into key roles while Draybin people would be moved out. Starting with me.
Kitty Fromkin,
Dressed in black,
Is here to stab me
In the back.
“Great to meet you, Kitty,” I said with false cheer. She didn’t reply, her eyes shifting between Tindall and Draybin, looking for signals.
I wondered if I was ever like her: so avidly on the make, so primed for combat. I had no chance against her. She was a campaign professional and I was not. She would be tireless and whip-smart. Her young brain would have every detail on instant recall, while I had almost nothing on instant recall. I dreaded the thought of my first senior moment in her presence. There would be no mercy for doddering dad.
