Don of the Dead (28 page)

Carmella shrugged. "Can't say. Really, I didn't know anything about the boy except that he was what they called a
cugine
, you know, a young tough, itching to be made. He showed up at our home one day and started working forAugustino . That means someone recommended him. You understand about that, don't you? They don't take just anybody. You have to be a friend of a friend."

"And whose friend was Tommy?"

Another shrug. "All I know is that one day he was standing by my front door. Watching to see who came and who went. Keeping an eye out forAugustino and the rest of the boys. He stuck around for maybe six months, then he was gone. Did you say he died? I didn't know that."

"It's what I've heard."

"Maybe so. And I won't ask how. It's not something I want to know. And you… " Carmella gave me a careful look. "Are you sure you do?"

"I'm being very careful," I told her, leaving out any mention of Albert. "I'm not looking to get anyone into any trouble. All I want to do is write my book."

"But someone may not want to see that book get published."

"Not to worry." I finished my cookie and brushed the crumbs from my fingers. "The way things are going, there's no chance of that. I can't find anyone who knows anything about how Gus died."

"Gus." Carmella tipped her head, studying me. "Funny you should call him that. Hardly anyone did."

I got up and headed to the front door. "After all the research I've done, I feel like I know him."

Carmella grabbed my hand but didn't shake it. She gave it a pat. "Be thankful you never did," she said.

Her final words reverberated in my head. Even once the front door was closed behind me. Still considering them, I climbed back into my car.

Gus was there waiting for me.

"So how does she look?" he asked.

I turned the key in the ignition and carefully backed down the driveway. The last thing I needed was an accident report that involved the black sedan still parked across the street. I also couldn't risk looking like a crazy person, so I waited until I was all the way down the block before I said anything.

"If you wanted to see her," I told Gus, "you could have come inside with me."

He frowned. "Nah. Don't need to do that. I just wondered. That's all."

"You forgot to mention that she is married to VictorLaGanza now."

"Yeah. Well." Gus cleared his throat. "I told you she didn't know anything. She was nowhere near me the night I was killed."

He had mentioned that before. And I'd never wondered how he knew.

By now, I was out on a main street, and I turned into the next drive and parked in front of a health food store. "You knew. You knew about Victor all along."

"If you're asking if I knew where she was the night I died… " Gus cracked his knuckles. "Yeah, I knew."

"But how?"

He looked out the passenger-side window. "She told me. About a year after I died. She must have been feeling guilty. Came into my mausoleum one day, crying and pouring her heart out." He turned to me. "I wonder what she'd say if she knew I was right there listening the whole time."

How much did I really know about Tommy Two
ToesCavolo ?

Short answer: Not much.

Longer answer: Not much, but the merry-go-round that was my investigation kept coming right back to him.

The big question, of course, was why.

I thought it over while I printed out my article on tombstone symbolism, and I thought about it some more when I delivered the article to Ella, listened to her rave about what a swell employee I was, and hightailed it back to my office before she could read what I'd written and come to the conclusion that

"swell" was not the word to describe the information I'd cobbled together.

Gus was there waiting for me.

"You look worried."

"Do I?" I plunked down into my desk chair and propped my chin in my hands. "I'm not. Except about what Ella's going to say about that article. Actually, I'm just thinking. About Tommy Two Toes."

"You're nuts!" Gus settled in the chair in front of my desk. "And you're wasting your time. He's been dead longer than me. He couldn't have been the shooter."

"Then why do we keep tripping over him?"

Gus's shrug was elegant. "He was a mope."

"You had him killed."

"Did I?"

"Nobody else had the authority to order his hit."

Something very much like admiration glistened in Gus's eyes. "You're getting good at this."

I wasn't sure if that was a compliment and if it was, I wasn't sure I wanted to gloat about it. I concentrated on the problem at hand instead. "How did Tommy end up working for you, anyway?" I asked Gus. "Who recommended him?"

He pursed his lips. "Can't remember."

"It might be important."

"Trust me, honey, it wasn't then. It isn't now."

"Why did you kill him?"

Gus cocked his head and studied me. "Back when you lived in your big suburban house with your perfect suburban family, did you ever think you'd betalkin ' about murder like it was just another day at the office?"

I didn't want to think about my big suburban house or the perfect family that wasn't so perfect so I just said, "Around here, murder
is
just another day at the office." I'd brought a salad for lunch, and though it was before noon, my stomach rumbled and I realized I'd been in such a hurry to leave the apartment that morning so I could get to the cemetery and continue my investigation, I hadn't eaten breakfast. I grabbed the salad out of the bag and popped the lid on the Cool Whip container I was using as a bowl. I drizzled on low-fat Ranch dressing and crunched into a pea pod. "Why'd you have him hit, Gus?"

He gave a barely perceptible sigh. "Tommy was a bigmouth. You know the type. Always trying to impress people. Always talking like he was some big man with a big future."

"So you cut his future short before he could do the same for you."

"Please!" Apparently, I offended Gus's idea of the right order of things. Disgusted, he got up and he would have done a turn around the room if there'd been enough room in the room to turn in. Instead, he paced to the door and back again. "I don't have… what do you call them?… issues. I don't have inferiority issues, if that's what you're saying. I was never worried that Two Toes was going to try and squeeze me out. He didn't have the brains, he didn't have the muscle, and he didn't have the balls, you should excuse my use of the word. He wasn't good at nothing except going on at the mouth. He was a
babbo
. You know, a dope."

"A
babbo
who merited a hit."

Gus sat back down. "He was talking. To the FBI."

"A snitch, huh?" I added a little more dressing to my salad. "How'd you find out?"

He tipped his head back, thinking. "It was Benny. I'm pretty sure. He came to me one day. All upset.

You've met Benny, you know how high-strung he is. Was." Gus corrected himself. "Benny, he had his sources, and one of them told him about Two Toes. Told him that the punk was downtown there at the federal building, talking to people he shouldn't have been talking to. He wasgonna sell us out."

"Who did the hit?"

Gus's eyebrows rose. "You'regettin ' mighty nosey."

"I'm getting mighty tired of trying to feel my way through this investigation like Helen Keller on a cloudy day!" I chomped a radish. "If you really want to leave when Anthony—"

"All right. All right." He clicked his tongue. "I had Johnny do the hit. I remember because his son was getting married that day and Debbie, his wife, she had one holy hell of a fit when he got to the church late.

The woman could swear like a sailor. My ears are still ringing. But Johnny, he was good at that sort of thing and I trusted him. Wedding or no wedding, it had to be taken care of and taken care of fast. Before Tommy met with the feds again and said more than he should have. I knew Johnny was the man for the job. I knew it would be done clean. And I knew he wouldn't leave no evidence. He never disappointed me."

My chart was in the top drawer of my desk, and I pulled it out and drew a line between Benny and Johnny Vitale. Beneath them both, I added Tommy's name.

While I worked on my salad, I tapped the tip of the pen against the paper, thinking. I was almost done with my lunch by the time another thought occurred to me.

"Why'd you hire him if he wasn't good for much of anything?" I asked Gus.

"Huh?" He'd been lost in thought, too, and he snapped out of it. "You mean Two Toes? Why did I hire Two Toes? We always had these young guys hanging around. Had a lot of stuff for them to do. Errands and things. And like I said, he came recommended. He must have. Otherwise we wouldn't have let him in the front door."

"Family connections?" I meant it in the traditional sense, though either definition fit.

"He didn't have no family." Gus was apparently thinking in the traditional sense, too. "Tommy was an orphan or something. It was one of the reasons I hired him on. Figured he wouldn't have any of them there divided loyalties. And hey, it was one hell of an advantage. No one missed him once he was gone."

I didn't bother to point out that Gus's attitude was cynical. Not to mention cold-hearted.

I finished up the last bite of my salad and tossed the Cool Whip container back in the bag I'd brought it in. I stuffed the whole thing in my bottom desk drawer, thinking out loud. "I wonder how we could find out more about Two Toes."

"Well, he's buried here."

I looked at Gus in wonder.

"What?" He was instantly defensive. "You never asked."

He was right. I never had. I'd never much cared. And maybe this avenue of my investigation would end up nowhere just like all the others had. But it was something to do and something was better than sitting there thinking. The fact that it was close to seventy outside and that the sun was shining might also have had an influence on my decision.

I grabbed my car keys out of my purse. "We're going to pay Tommy Two Toes a visit."

TommyCavolo was buried in what the folks in administration liked to call the "new" section of the cemetery. Considering that "new" covered everything from 1930 on, it was a little hard to understand the logic, but I suppose at one time, it made sense.

In that section, near the high stone wall that separated the cemetery from the neighborhood that surrounded it, most of the headstones were modest and flat to the ground. There were only a few standing headstones and no carved angels looking over the scene. No obelisks and only one fancy mausoleum as far as the eye could see.

It was the Garden View equivalent of general admission. The folks back there weren't rich or as famous as the ones who occupied the prime real estate near the main gate and because of that, the new area of the cemetery wasn't as active.

That didn't mean it was desolate. Or that it wasn't taken care of.

The grass was neat and from the scent that still hung in the air, I could tell it had been cut earlier that day.

I parked my car and Gus and I got out, and I noticed the wreaths and flowers that had been brought to some of the residents. Someone had hung a small wind chime from a tree near the road and it chinked and clinked in a sort-of song that was the only thing I could hear except for the sounds of traffic from the other side of the wall.