Chopper Unchopped (183 page)

“What was that girl trying to say?” asked Franco. “It sounded like my name is Carlotta and I don’t know these men,” replied Luigi.

“Poor slut,” said Di Tommaso. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

“Lucky waiter,” said Luigi. “He was two feet behind the girl and not a shot hit him.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” said Franco indignantly. “We didn’t come to fucking Rome to kill fucking waiters, you fucking stupido.”

“Sorry, Franco” said Luigi. It was important to display manners at all times. It was just that the late Saietta family had put a hole in theirs by putting the snatch on Joey Gravano. Who, at that very moment, had a fresh problem rising up to meet him …

THE Terminus Hotel was a far cry from the way it had been. “Jesus,” said Joey, “they certainly have tarted this old joint up.”

Joey looked around the bar and shook his head. Young Jimmy Di Inzabella cleared his throat to attract Joey back to the land of here and now. “Big Al Guglameno feels a bit sad about the bad blood between you and him Joey” he offered.

“Al Guglameno is a police informer, Jim,” grated Joe. “You know it, and I know it.”

“No-one can prove that, Joey” said Jimmy, a little surprised that his olive branch looked like getting tossed on the floor.

“Yeah, well” said Joey bitterly, “if he’s not a dog then he’ll do till we get one. Ha ha.” Jimmy laughed, too.

“Business is business, Joey” he said.

“What?” replied Joey. “So you approve?”

“No, no, no,” answered Jimmy. “But times are changing. Sometimes we have to shake hands with the devil.”

Aussie Joe sneered at this. “If ya lay down with dogs ya wake up with ya bottom getting sniffed, Jimmy,” he warned. “What’s this shit I hear about a gambling club Al opened. I thought the new Crown Casino, faggot mumbo jumbo politicians and mummy’s boy millionaires from south of the river fucked all the illegal gambling in Melbourne?”

Jimmy laughed and said knowingly, “No video cameras in an illegal club, Joey.”

Jimmy smiled and jumped in again with a message from his sponsor. “The point is, Joey, the bad blood between the Sicilians and Calabrians is no good for any of us. Please, mate.”

“Who sent you?” asked Joey suddenly, and very seriously. “I thought when you asked to see me that your old Padrino arranged it. What’s all this talk of let’s make friends with fucking Guglameno bullshit? Guglameno is a freaking big noce di cocco.” This meant “coconut”, but what it really meant was brown on the outside, white on the inside.

Jimmy was puzzled by Joey’s use of the coconut reference. He knew that Scarchi Sicilians had a slang tongue all of their own but the expression was a new one on him.

Jimmy looked at Joey and said in Italian “What?” Joey smiled slyly.

“La noce di cocco, Jimmy. The coconut is hard outside but soft inside. You see one colour on the outside, but the outside hides the inside?”

“I don’t understand,” replied Jimmy in Italian.

Joey shot him an exasperated look, but explained himself patiently.

“Big Al is not what he pretends to be, Jimmy. Like all spies he shows one side and hides another — just like a coconut. Just remember when dealing with that false pretending dog, Jimmy, to look out. You understand?”

Jimmy nodded, thinking to himself Big Al was wrong if he thought there was any chance of making friends with this Sicilian hard head. Joey was old-time mafia in a young body. Such a man could not see the reason of business or compromise or negotiation. The Carlton attitude was to give a little to get a little, live and let live, all for the common good. For Joey there could be no shades of grey; it was either right or wrong, life or death, black or white.

Jimmy liked Joey but he knew Joey would never see reason. Joey asked for a light. As Jimmy held out a lit match Joey noticed his hand was trembling slightly. Joey took his hand and looked into his friend’s eyes and said in Italian softly, “why?” and Jimmy knew that Joey was starting to wonder just what this strange meeting was all about.

“Okay,” said Joey, “then what is this shit all about, Jimmy? Does this nonsense meeting have a point, and if it has then get to it, okay? And by the way, Jimmy, you don’t speak fucking Italiano too good either. Who taught you to speak Italian — a fucking Frenchman with a hare lip?”

“I don’t know,” said Jimmy. “A bit from my mother, a bit from my father, I pick it up as I go.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been nice, Jimmy. I don’t know what the fuck this has been about but don’t ring me again for another get together drink unless ya got a reason. Sorry, arrivederci,” said Joey, “and tell Al I’m not a fucking totally stupido, okay, Jimmy?”

Jimmy went pale. “And get someone to teach you to talk Italian — it’s fucking embarrassing trying to have a conversation with you,” said Joey as he got up to leave.

Jimmy looked at the clock again and wondered when Big Al would arrive. Wasn’t he meant to bump into them by accident? Jimmy had a sick feeling that Big Al had involved him in some sort of set up, but he still said to Joey, “Don’t go mate. Hang around. What’s the hurry?”

Joey looked at him hard.

“La mela cetriolo, hey Jimmy. La mela cetriolo.”

Jimmy froze. Joey had just said “the apple cucumber.” Joey thought the whole thing was a set up.

“No, no, Joey” replied Jimmy.

“When?” asked Joey in Italian.

“No, no, Joey. I swear it’s not. It’s okay, I swear on my mother,” Jimmy implored.

Joey shot back: “Your mother is dead, because this has got set-up written all over it. Why?” asked Joey.

Jimmy had tears in his eyes. “Big Al asked me to talk to you,” he said.

Joey smiled.

“The devil always sends a trusted friend, Jimmy. I forgive you. It’s not your fault. Ha ha, that Calabrian is smarter than I gave him credit.” And with that Joey walked out of the bar, sad but smiling.

BARRY Mann and Hatter Hannigan, the mad cops, stood across the road from the pub. Hatter was softly singing a song he didn’t know all the words to, so he invented his own.

Just then Aussie Joe Gravano stepped out of the pub door onto the footpath. Barry Mann nudged Hatter. “Let’s go” he said.

As Joey walked toward his car he sensed all was not well, but for some reason he wasn’t gripped with any fear, just a quiet sense of fate. What will be will be. Maybe it was just his imagination. As he approached his car he caught sight of two men walking toward him and looked up to see Barry Mann and Hatter Hannigan.

“Hey, Gravano!” yelled Barry Mann.

Joey didn’t need to ask who they were. He also knew as his right hand reached slowly under his coat for his .45 automatic that it was a futile gesture. But still he went for his gun. His brain screamed no and his heart screamed yes. Joey had been pushed too far.

“Don’t do it, son!” yelled Hatter Hannigan as he reached for his revolver at the same time as Barry Mann reached for his. Then the two policemen stepped apart, giving Joey two targets. As Joey raised his gun slowly he said to himself in Italian: “I can’t stop. Why?”

Joey’s gun hand, his mind and his heart were all acting against each other. He saw the two men reach for their guns but he didn’t take aim: he just fired blindly between them, closing his eyes as he did so like a mad zombie. Then he felt his chest and stomach explode and felt himself fall backward. The cops had each punched three shots into Joey’s chest and stomach and as he lay on the footpath he could hear the cries of fright from the crowd around him. He opened his eyes and saw Barry Mann looking down at him.

“Why did he go for his gun, Bazza?” asked Hatter. Mann didn’t reply. He just looked into the eyes of the dying Gravano.

“What’s your name?” whispered Joey.

Mann replied, “Barry Mann. Acting Detective Inspector Barry Mann, Drug Squad.”

Then Joey smiled, laughed and coughed blood.

“What’s funny?” asked Hatter.

Then Joey replied as he died, “I’ve been killed by the man who put the bomp in the bomp de bomp. Ha ha.”

“What’s he on about, Bazza?” asked Hatter.

“Private joke,” said the other detective.

As Joey’s eyes closed he heard Tina’s voice calling him. He looked into the blackness to see a light and he heard her voice again. “Joey, Joey, this way” she called, and he followed the light. Then the words of the old rock and roll song came into his head.

“Who put the bomp in the bomp de bomp de bomp, who put the ring in the ding a ling a ding dong.” What a stupid thing for a man to think about as he died, thought Joey. Then the light came again and he could see Tina, still calling.

And Joey walked toward the light. It was at that moment that the crowd on the footpath saw him take his last breath. He was dead …

IN SICILY, it was after midnight. Don Hector Aspanu woke in fright in his bed. He felt the chill of death on the hot Sicilian night.

“Joey,” called the Don, “Joey, is that you?”

A knock came to the Don’s door. It was Benny Benozzo, who was standing guard. “You okay, padrino?” called Benny. Hector Aspanu felt the chill still and thought of Joey, but he called back to Benny: “Fucking clams. I always dream when I eat clams.”

Don Hector still felt the chill then his left arm felt numb with pins and needles, and his heart felt like the devil was squeezing it. He called to Benny in Italian.

“I’m sick Benny, call the doctor. Help, help.”

Then, silence.

THE Don was dreaming. It was a long, complicated dream about him and his long lost love, Jayne Mansfield, back in the 1960s. He stirred. He could see a light above him and he rose up toward it and felt himself floating. Then he opened his eyes. He saw the faces of Bobby and Benny Benozzo and Franco Di Tommaso, Luigi Monza, young Carmine Baldassare and another man in a white coat, who looked like a doctor.

“Dottore?” asked the Don, and the doctor nodded and said “Si, Don Aspanu.”

“You save me, Dottore?” asked the Don.

“No,” said the doctor. “Your men did. They got you to hospital in time.

“Thank you,” said Hector to his men. “Where is Joey?”

Luigi Monza spoke. “We got a phone call from Melbourne an hour ago. Joey is dead.”

Don Hector nodded.

“I thought so, you know I felt him go. Where is Jayne Mansfield?”

The doctor spoke. “Jayne Mansfield? Don Aspanu, she has been dead for a long time, many years now.”

“Ahh,” replied the Don, “then it was all just a dream, a true dream, a sad dream but still just a dream. But Joey, that was not a dream.”

“No,” answered Luigi. “Joey is dead, I’m sorry, Don Hector” he said.

The Don nodded.

“I’m sorry also, Luigi. I’m sorry. And Jayne Mansfield isn’t here?” he asked again.

His men shook their heads and looked at each other, puzzled by the old man’s strange behaviour.

“Everyone is dead,” said the Don.

“But you are alive,” said the doctor, smiling.

“Not for long,” answered Don Hector. “Not for long. Go now, all of you. Let me sleep and leave me to my dreams. Please go now. Get out, all of you.”

SICILY, 1973. Overlooking the waterfront of the fishing village of Catania stood the grand white marble villa of Catania’s leading citizen, Don Pietro Baldassare, head of the Baldassare clan and a comrade in arms of Don Hector Aspanu.

Don Pietro was a man who had fathered many children to many women, but the apple of his eye was his youngest daughter, Clara. Unlike his other children, who all looked like something out of a Sicilian horror movie, Clara had her late mother’s looks. In fact, she had been named after her dear-departed mother, Clara Massaria, the daughter of the old time New York Moustache Pete mafia boss Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Massaria, who at one time controlled the biggest of the old-style Mafia families in New York.

Don Pietro’s love for his wife and his youngest daughter was the reason he named his grand villa La Casa Di Clara.

Young Clara Baldassare was 16 years old and quite extraordinary in the physical beauty department. Her silky, jet-black hair fell down to her waist. She had a deep olive complexion but because her grandmother, Joe the Boss Massaria’s wife, was from Northern Italy and had blonde hair and blue eyes, little Clara had inherited big green eyes. They gave her a mischievous look that fascinated any and every man who looked into them. Add the beautiful face to a teenage body that would tempt a priest, a set of hips and an arse that would arouse several regiments of the Greek Army, and well-developed tits that made small Sicilian boys think of milk whenever she walked by.

Clara was a virgin, but passion burned inside her. She loved the attention she received from fishermen on the Catania waterfront and when her father went to Palermo on business she would don a specially imported black bikini from Paris, a little pair of black leather beach sandals and a black silk wraparound. From the outside she looked very respectable, until she undid the dress to reveal what was beneath.

Clara would wander down to the docks and make girlish chit chat with the Gamberetti and Gamberoni fishermen who fished the Strait of Messina separating Sicily from mainland Italy. The Gamberetti were shrimp fishermen; the Gamberoni fished for prawns. The fishermen were Clara’s audience and she loved to play to them with a little teasing. She would swing herself about when she walked and was a source of sexual fascination for the fishermen and she knew it. While every man in the village knew her father and feared and respect him, and so treated her like the mother Mary, the fishermen had pirate blood and were a braver lot. They would call to Clara “Buon Giorno, Signoria Clara” or “Buon Giorno, Signoria Baldassare”.

Some would yell “How are you, Clara” and she would stop and chat.

“What do you have for me today?” Clara would ask — meaning fish, shrimp and prawns — and they would invite her onto the boats to check the day’s catch. It was on one of these invitations a year previously, at the tender age of 15, that Clara was introduced to a way of having all the men she wanted and still remain intact so she could come to her husband still technically a virgin on her wedding night. The result was that Clara had in a year sucked the dicks of nearly all the fishermen in the Port of Catania and, after what was at first a painful introduction to the Greek trick, as the fishermen called it, she had been regularly bashed in the buttocks by most of them. She was to the fishermen their little virgin putana — their virgin whore.