Bad Guys (12 page)

Gibbons leaned back in her creaky desk chair and watched her skimming through Richie Varga's testimony, her face alternating between gravity and that false mirth. She was a real sketch. Lorraine Bernstein, tenured professor of medieval history at Princeton, leaning over an open tome on an antique podium in her tome-lined study, the sound of birds singing in the pines outside her window, all her weight on one foot conqueringly positioned on the camel saddle she'd brought back from a trip to Morocco, her wonderful tits hanging out of the open front of a full-length painted silk kimono, her wonderful snatch hidden in the rosy shadows of the fuchsia-colored silk lining, her thick dark silver-threaded hair hooked around one ear. The sight of her standing there suddenly made him sad, wondering why the hell they'd never gotten married.

He knew the answer to that, of course. At least, the excuse they
gave each other. The victims of two bad marriages do not a good marriage make. She'd put the Chaucerian touch on the phrase and it had become their motto over the years.

What they had together, in Gibbons's words, was “a good intellectual friendship with sex.” They got a real kick out of being a Mutt-and-Jeff couple and delighted in their differences: the stoic Roman versus the capricious medievalist, the hard-ass fed versus the knee-jerk liberal, the troll under the bridge versus the hookah-smoking caterpillar, his dingy three-room apartment in Weehawken versus her comfortably shabby Cape Cod in the farm country of the Hopewell Valley. But Gibbons didn't like to think about the particulars anymore; it made him uncomfortable. He had liked their differences, probably because it kept them together yet slightly distanced in a safe, nonconfrontational orbit.

He took a sip from the mug of coffee she'd brought him. It didn't have the metal-polish taste of the diner coffee that was his standard, and even that made him sad. Gibbons sighed quietly. Why the hell couldn't they have made a life together?

She laughed through her nose. “Charlie ‘Tailpipes' Riccodelli? Where do they get these names?”

Gibbons shrugged. “You know why they use the nicknames?”

She shook her head and took a sip of her own coffee.

“Wiretaps. Mobsters talk in code, almost. They started using these nicknames to cover themselves in court. If you tried to connect them with something they said on a phone tap, they'd deny everything, say they were talking about tailpipes, not killers.”

“Interesting,” she said.

“A lot of these guys get their names when they're ‘made.'”

“What's that mean?”

“Made is when you're officially brought into the Mafia. It's like getting knighted.” He flashed a wry grin at her.

“Yeah, I'll bet.” She flipped over another page and glanced down at it. “Here's one I like. Nicky ‘Two Quarts' Salerno.” She forced another laugh.

Gibbons could've cried.

“Do you really think any of this is going to help you find Mike?”

“I found him,” he said.

She stared at him for a moment. Anger flashed in her eyes, then disappointment. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I thought you'd be better off not knowing anything. Legally, I mean.”

“Where is he? What's he doing?”

“He's onto something very big,” Gibbons said, getting up from the chair. “I've decided to help him.”

“With the Bureau's sanction?”

He sat on the edge of the desk and looked her in the eye. She knew the answer to that one.

She tried to conjure up a picture of her cousin—as an adult, not as a kid. Nervous energy was what always came to mind. Dark and good-looking, but always those dangerous flashing eyes. Whenever she thought of him, she always thought of a picture he'd once shown her in a copy of
National Geographic.
It was a vivid stop-action color photo of a pouncing leopard about to overtake a fleeing antelope. He had been about ten years old at the time. She remembered thinking how his eyes flashed just like the leopard's if you watched them closely.

“So how is he?”

“He's okay.” Gibbons reached for his coffee and pulled the transcript he'd been reading across the desk.

“Good.” Lorraine nodded, feeling locked out again. She knew better than to ask too many questions. Gibbons would just clam up. She pulled her kimono closed and walked over to the windows to see the morning. The only times she saw it this early were when Gibbons stayed over. Fear for her cousin gripped her as she pondered just how much trouble he was in.

Gibbons picked up where he'd left off in the transcript. Varga was giving testimony to an assistant federal prosecutor named Denise Monkhouse about the murder of Pinkus Litvak, an Israeli who'd tried to stiff the Mistretta family for their share in a diamond heist.

MONKHOUSE:
Mr. Varga, how was Mr. Litvak's proposal received when he originally approached the Mistretta family with his idea?

VARGA:
Mistretta's people had some reservations. Litvak claimed to be intimately connected with the gem trade on Forty-seventh Street, but he wasn't a Hasid and that made them suspicious. They figured the only people really intimate with anything on Forty-seventh Street were the Hasids. But by then Litvak had made friends with a couple of Mistretta associates, Ray Bilardi and John DiMarco.

MONKHOUSE:
How did Mr. Litvak's friendship with Mr. Bilardi and Mr. DiMarco affect Mr. Litvak's relationship with the Mistretta family?

VARGA:
Bilardi and DiMarco told Mistretta's people they'd spent some time with Litvak and could pretty much vouch for him. On their say-so, Mistretta's people decided to hear the guy out.

MONKHOUSE:
How and where did they hear Mr. Litvak out?

VARGA:
There was a meeting at the Roman Treat, an espresso bar on Mulberry Street. As
consigliere,
I was present at that meeting. Anthony Trombosi was also at that meeting. Anthony Trombosi is Sabatini Mistretta's underboss, his second-in-command.

MONKHOUSE:
And what took place at this meeting?

VARGA:
Litvak told us about a group of upstart jewelers in town who were buying diamonds from a new supplier who was getting his stones from Russia. Litvak said that a large shipment of Russian diamonds was scheduled to come into Kennedy Airport via Sweden on March 10, 1983. Litvak had apparently done his homework. He knew what flight the diamonds were coming in on, what warehouse they'd be kept in overnight, what kind of safe the stones would be kept in, and what kind of security the warehouse had. We were all impressed with him. He told Mr. Trombosi that he could pull off the heist if he could use Bilardi and DiMarco as well as three other hoods who they had suggested. Trombosi told him that his proposal would be considered and that they'd let him know.

MONKHOUSE:
Why, Mr. Varga, do you think he went to the mob with his plan? Couldn't he have attempted this robbery on his own? Hired manpower from other sources?

VARGA:
Yes, he could have, but what Litvak was after was more than just manpower. He wanted assurances. He knew that if he went ahead with the job on his own and word got out that he was the one who did it, he'd have every punk in New York trying to hit on him for the diamonds. However, by cutting in the Mistretta family, he'd have protection. No jerk with half a brain, Ms. Monkhouse, would dare touch someone involved in a mob-sponsored operation, and God forbid if some idiot did, because he wouldn't be around very long. That's how the Mafia works. They provide advice, protection, and assurance for those kinds of criminal entrepreneurs who naturally cannot get these services through regular business channels. You can think of the Mafia as a combination
consulting firm, savings and loan, insurance company, and police force. It's a multiservice conglomerate for extralegal activities.

MONKHOUSE:
There is a growing organization in this country commonly known as the Israeli Mafia. Do you have any idea why Mr. Litvak didn't go to his own, as it were, for these “services,” as you call them?

VARGA:
He was asked that at the Roman Treat meeting. He simply said he wanted to work with professionals, not thugs. Those were his exact words. When Mr. Trombosi reported this back to Mr. Mistretta, Mr. Mistretta was very pleased with his high regard for the organization.

MONKHOUSE:
Now when Mr. Trombosi got back to Mr. Litvak after consulting with Mr. Mistretta, what did he tell Mr. Litvak?

VARGA:
Trombosi told him that the Mistretta family wanted thirty percent off the top of whatever the diamonds brought in. As part of the deal, the Mistretta family would provide the vehicles and the guns, and afterwards they would take care of fencing the diamonds. After the family took its cut, the five men involved in actually pulling off the job would each get ten percent of the balance. The rest would be his. Litvak did some figuring on the calculator in his wristwatch before he answered. He figured out that his cut would be the same as thirty-five percent off the top. It was a fair deal. He agreed to it, and the heist was pulled off as planned.

MONKHOUSE:
Based on your knowledge, as an intimate of the Mistretta family, what happened after the diamonds were stolen?

VARGA:
Sometime before dawn on March 11, Litvak and Ray Bilardi were driving south on Ocean Parkway in a van with roughly 1.7 million dollars' worth of Russian diamonds in two briefcases on the seat between them. They were heading for a dry cleaners in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, where they'd been instructed to deliver the diamonds. Litvak was sitting in the passenger seat with a cannon in his pocket, a Smith & Wesson 645. When they came to a red light at the intersection of Avenue Q, Litvak pulled out the gun, pistol-whipped Bilardi, reached over him to open the driver's door, and pushed him out.

I imagine Litvak was anxious to knock out Bilardi in one shot, but he didn't realize how hard he hit him. Litvak wasn't experienced in this kind of thing. Sometime later, I'm not sure how long, a cabbie spotted Bilardi lying in the road. The cabbie chased down a patrol car and informed the officers about it. Bilardi was taken to King's County Hospital, where he was treated for a severe concussion that resulted in a partial paralysis down the right side of his body.

MONKHOUSE:
Were you with Sabatini Mistretta on March 11?

VARGA:
Yes, I was. I was attending a breakfast meeting at his home.

MONKHOUSE:
And how did he react when he received news of Mr. Bilardi's condition and the aborted plan?

VARGA:
He just looked at Trombosi and said, “I want the Jew by noon.”

MONKHOUSE:
And did Mr. Mistretta get his wish?

VARGA:
His men found Litvak at Newark International Airport before nine o'clock. He was getting ready to board a plane for Montreal. According to the tickets they found on him, he'd planned to make connecting flights to Athens and then Tel Aviv. All along he'd planned to stiff everybody and take off with the diamonds to Israel where he'd probably have them recut and eventually resold. It didn't work out that way, though.

MONKHOUSE:
What happened to Mr. Litvak?

VARGA:
At about eleven o'clock, Mr. Mistretta, Mr. Trombosi, and I were having coffee and
biscotti
in Mr. Mistretta's study when a Polaroid picture was brought in. It was a picture of Litvak's body. The front of his coat was covered with blood. It was reported to Mr. Mistretta at that time that Litvak's body was disposed of in the backseat of an old Ford, which was then compacted to the size of a steamer trunk.

MONKHOUSE:
What was Mr. Mistretta's reaction to this news?

VARGA:
He just nodded, then he leaned over toward Mr. Trombosi and said, “Make sure Ray knows.” We continued with our meeting after that.

What struck Gibbons about this story, like all the other incriminating stories that Varga had told, were the details, the particulars. It was almost as if he had taken notes when these things had happened, planning to use the information later. His recall about times, dates, places, attitudes, chain of command, who knew what, and who ordered what was just too precise. He must've been planning to rat on the bosses someday from the moment they took him in and made him their
consigliere.

Gibbons took another sip of coffee, which by now was lukewarm. He didn't notice, though, because he was thinking about loyalty and the glaring absence of it in Richie Varga. Over the years, Gibbons had done his best to refute the image of the Mafia as an association of honorable men standing firm in a dishonorable world. That
Godfather
crap was a load of bullshit, but as much as he wanted to, he couldn't deny the fact that for them, loyalty was a way of life. Each little schnook knew his place in the hierarchy, and they all knew to respect their system. The boss was their father. And like a father, the boss took care of his sons. “Make sure Ray knows.” It was truly remarkable.

He began to wonder if this ironclad loyalty really was what made them so strong. It was a quality that certainly wasn't very evident in the rest of the world. He'd always believed that Brant Ivers's first loyalty was to his own career, not the FBI. Even Tozzi had jumped ship, even though his intentions were theoretically good.