Gangsterland: A Novel (16 page)

“That’s a sound plan,” Jeff said. “I’d say ten years, maybe fifteen. Could probably plead down and get five.”

“Nah,” Matthew said. “I bet he’d only get two years. Non-violent crime? They’d process him out in a year.”

“Maybe so,” Jeff said. “Maybe plea insanity, Bruno, hope the people you’re ripping off get Alzheimer’s before they need to testify.”

“These old motherfuckers,” Bruno said, “they won’t know if a ring or two is missing. It’s not like I’m going to be housing the whole joint. Just diamonds, Baccarat crystal, easy stuff to move. Just little things, here and there. Maybe a car if I need one. Free and clear, I think.”

“It would be hard to get caught,” Matthew said. “Having a key makes it easier to be discreet. Having a car key makes it even easier in the event you decide to move into full GTA mode.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Bruno said. “See, Agent Hopper, Encyclopedia Brown here knows a good score.”

“Of course,” Matthew said, “you might break into the wrong house and there’s some old man who did a couple tours
in Korea waiting for you with a shotgun. Or maybe someone’s grandson with a nine and good aim. Things could take a turn.”

“Risk of doing business,” Bruno said. “What do you think, Agent Hopper? My feeling, if it works, I do this all over the country.”

“I wouldn’t bank on it,” Jeff said, though of all Bruno’s scams, it did have the highest degree of possible success, “but if you feel like in the future you’re going to need extra money, who am I to tell you who not to rob? But why not just make it simple and have the builders put in a false wall for you, something on the side of the house, near the garage, something you can just pop in and out and have it open into the back of a closet or something.”

Bruno pondered this. “Tongue and groove it, essentially?”

“Sure,” Jeff said.

“Maybe make sure there’s a shrub in front of it, make sure it’s a guest room closet or some shit, right?”

“Right,” Jeff said. He’d spent his entire life trying to stay one step ahead of crooks, and this had been the one idea he’d really appreciated stumbling on. A small arms dealer operating out of Rochester had a similar setup in his home as an escape route.

“That’s a pretty good idea,” Bruno said. “Why the fuck did you tell me that?”

“I need you alive,” Jeff said. “This seems like a better way to keep you above ground.”

“The FBI really dump your ass?”

“Really,” Jeff said.

“Just for Cupertine killing your boys?”

“No,” Jeff said. “I might have harassed Cupertine’s wife, telling her I thought her husband was still alive and it was being covered up by the FBI.”

Bruno snickered. “How’s Jennifer doing?”

“Tough,” Jeff said.

“Nice girl, that one,” Bruno said. “Her dad and my dad used to bowl together.”

“Yeah?” Jeff said.

“Yeah, the Frangellos were good people. Jennifer, she fell for Sal hard. Her dad, you know, he hated that she was married to a gangster. He was no idiot. I mean, everyone knew that Sal Cupertine was a killer, right? But I guess he told old man Frangello that he’d never bring that shit home, that they’d live a normal life, and I guess maybe they did. They had that little house in Lincolnwood, right?”

“White picket fence and everything,” Jeff said.

Bruno laughed at something.

“What’s funny?” Matthew said.

“I was just thinking,” Bruno said, but then he paused for a second. “Did I know any of your boys who got killed?”

“Not as FBI agents,” Jeff said. “You ever do any business with a guy calling himself Gino Ruggio?”

“Furniture guy? Always with the nice leather shit?”

“Yes,” Jeff said. “He was one of ours.”

“Huh. Good guy.”

“Two kids,” Jeff said.

Bruno laughed again. “I’m not laughing at your friend getting it,” he said quickly. “I’m just thinking how here I am, ninety minutes away, showing real estate to people, living a pretty good life, right? And all that same shit is still going on. End of the day, I’m forty now, I just want a comfortable place to sit, maybe someone to sit and talk to, periodically go see a flick, whatever. All that shit they’re still doing in Chicago doesn’t make sense to me anymore.”

“Money,” Jeff said. “But not what Cupertine did.”

“Don’t kid yourself, it’s always about money,” Bruno said. “No call to kill a fed. But if you don’t think there was some kind of financial reason behind it, you deserve to be on leave, Agent.”

“Three
people
,” Matthew said. “Three people got killed.”

“I said I was sorry to hear that,” Bruno said, a little edge to his voice now.

“And a confidential informant,” Matthew said. “Bullet right between the eyes. Brain matter all over the Parker.” Matthew toying with Bruno now, reminding him that he knew what, exactly, Bruno was. Jeff respected that, even if it was a bit misguided.

Jeff watched Bruno, to see if what Matthew told him made him pause to rethink his current status in life. If the Family was now in the business of killing federal agents and snitches, well, Bruno could have a short life expectancy.

“Did you tell Encyclopedia Brown how you saved me from my life of crime?” Bruno asked Jeff.

“I gave him the basics,” Jeff said.

“He tell you I like men?” Bruno asked Matthew.

“He did,” Matthew said.

“How you feel about that?” Bruno was testing now. Each of them trying to find their margin, Jeff just happy to sit back and watch.

“I don’t care,” Matthew said.

“See,” Bruno said, “that’s how all the kids are now days.” He shook his head. “I bet if I were coming up now, my life would be easier. Probably be a capo by now.” He paused for a moment and looked back out the front window of the Hummer. “You hear my dad died?” he asked Jeff.

“No,” Jeff said.

“Yeah, he got Lou Gehrig’s. All his life, you know, he was about being as precise as he could be cutting up steaks and shit. One day, he comes to work, can’t cut straight. Hand’s all shaky. I hear this from my mother, because my dad wouldn’t have shit to do with me. Anyway, you know what that fucker did? He swallowed a bunch of my mother’s Valium, put a bag over his head, and, just like that, good night, world. You believe that?”

“That’s how I’d do it,” Matthew said.

“Really?” Bruno said.

“Absolutely,” Matthew said. “Less pain for everyone.”

Bruno sniffed once, rubbed his face, and then didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Reason I tell you that, man, you just never know how people are going to go, right? Gotta always be getting right with the people you care about. Him dying, that had an effect on me. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since you called me, Agent Hopper, asking about Sal and about that body in the dump.”

Normally when Bruno came in to give information, it was quick. This long conversation had Jeff off-center. He’d never known Paul Bruno to be an overly emotional guy, at least not one prone to introspection. There was something more here.

“What do you know about Sal?” Jeff said.

“Good guy,” he said. “Smart as fuck.”

“If he’s so smart,” Matthew asked, “why did he kill those men?”
Good
, Jeff thought.
Just like that.

“I’ve been trying to wrap my head around that,” Bruno said. “There had to be money involved, like I said, one way or the other. The Family don’t send out Sal Cupertine just to hang out, you know? I mean, you ever get his prints, anywhere?”

“Never,” Jeff said.

“I knew the guy his entire life,” Bruno said, “and from the time he started doing hits until today? I never once saw him in the daylight. I mean, the man was a shadow, but that was his shit, too, you know? He wasn’t dumb. Made him sound like the boogeyman.”

“He took out my guys in broad daylight,” Jeff said. “His DNA was everywhere.”

“Then there’s no way it was a hit,” Bruno said. “No way.”

“No,” Jeff said, and then he told Bruno about how Sal Cupertine had figured out he was dealing with agents, how he got Jeff’s name, how he’d gone back upstairs and killed the whole room.

“That’s why you’re here?” Bruno said. “You’re taking a personal affront to this?”

“I am,” Jeff said.

“Dumb,” Bruno said. “Sal Cupertine will kill you and not even miss a meal afterward. Personal vendettas are stupid, and this is coming from a person who has a lot of personal vendettas.”

“It’s about justice,” Jeff said.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Bruno said. “Anyway, my thinking? Sal must have snapped. Just exploded.”

“Do you recall him ever doing that before?” Matthew asked. It was a phrase hammered into young agents:
If possible, find a pattern.

“When we were kids, yeah, sure,” Bruno said. “After his dad got thrown off that building, he had some anger problems. But last ten, fifteen years? Nothing. I mean, I never got why he went into the killing business, except that he was good at it. And Ronnie was his only family. Sal didn’t have shit. Murdered father, mother was a nut job. For a time, rumor was she was
fucking the principal at Winston so Sal could get free lunches. I mean, crazy shit like that. That was his life. That’s what he dealt with before he fell in with Ronnie. So I don’t begrudge him a few problems, you know?”

“So why now?” Matthew asked. “He’s methodical. He’s smart. He’s got this nice family now. Living the perfect gangster life. Why just lose it?”

“There any drugs involved?”

“Heroin,” Jeff said. “The initial report was that he sampled a bit of everything.”

“He was a mean fucker on heroin,” Bruno said. “Once he had a kid, he stopped doing any kind of junk. But you know, if some good shit came through, he’d have a taste. Last guy you wanted paranoid at a party was Sal Cupertine.”

“Then you go home, get your family, and run away,” Matthew said. “You don’t murder four people.”

“Normal person, maybe,” Bruno said. “This isn’t a normal person. Killing is what he does, that’s his nature. You put him in a situation where he might kill someone, he’s gonna do that. So, probably realized he was caught. Realized everything he’d been doing for fifteen years was gonna get undone, and he did what he could to get out. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t kill everyone in the whole Family for putting him in that position.”

“He didn’t have the time,” Jeff said.

“Still,” Bruno said. “Ronnie Cupertine shows up somewhere missing his head, don’t act surprised. Only reason Ronnie would send Sal out in the day would be to get caught. Ronnie, he’s the one with problems. On TV playing a gangster. The perfect cover. A fucking embarrassment, you ask me. Sal was just doing what he was told and if he blew, it was because someone put him in a position where that was the only choice.”

That was the problem. Sal Cupertine was consistent. By acting inconsistent, by being reckless, he’d thrown everything off. Jeff couldn’t figure out what his next move might have been, couldn’t even figure out where he was. Once they got the records, the FBI had pinged his cell phone off towers close to Ronnie Cupertine’s and then, hours later, it looked like he was driving in circles around southern Illinois. And then . . . nothing. He surely ditched his phone, but that there was no chatter at all about him, that the Family all spoke of him in the past tense, and that Jennifer Cupertine was alone and not exactly prospering made it all clear enough.

“What about the body in the dump?” Jeff asked.

“Not him,” Bruno said. “My opinion? That body was a kid called Chema, real name Jose Espinoza. Half Mexican on his dad’s side. Couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, twenty-three.”

Jeff hadn’t heard of any half-Mexican members of the Family, though he supposed it wasn’t beyond possible. The Gangster 2-6 street gang ran a lot of the cocaine and heroin in the city for the Family, so it reasoned that they might occasionally find an able body there. Still, that Bruno had a specific idea on who had been murdered and then dumped was curious. “How do you know him?” Jeff said.

“He used to come up to Milwaukee to hit the rainbow clubs,” Bruno said. “So I recognized him. His brother Neto used to courier H for the Family before he got sent up to Stateville. I’d check and see if he’s dead, too. My guess is he is. Family is good about that sort of thing. If Neto is dead, then for sure that’s Chema they dumped.”

Bruno fell silent for a moment, and Jeff realized he needed to ask a question he really didn’t want to ask, had to ask the
question he was hoping Bruno would explain on his own. “So,” Jeff said, “you two were a couple?”

“Not in the traditional sense,” Bruno said. “You know, we had fun, but he was a dumb, confused kid. Had a girlfriend, was Catholic, also, which fucked him up. Plus, he thought he was going to rise up in the Family, even though he saw what happened to Neto.”

“You know who he was working for?” Jeff asked.

“He just got on Fat Monte’s crew,” Bruno said. “Day your boys got hit, he called me to say he couldn’t drive up to see me. He had an errand to do for Monte. I never heard from him again.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s the body,” Matthew said. “Maybe he just didn’t want to see you anymore. Maybe he decided to make it work with his girl. Could be a hundred different things.”