Invasion of Privacy - Jeremiah Healy (32 page)

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Stopped at a traffic light back downtown, I checked
my watch. Only 1:00 P.M. Still an hour before picking up Nancy, and
plenty of time to visit the office for any mail Olga Evorova might
have sent me. From what Rick Ianella had said the first time I met
him, he and Cocozzo were more likely to be camped outside the condo,
where there was some parking, than outside the office, where there
was none. Even so, rather than put the Prelude in the space next to
the dumpster off Tremont, I left it three blocks away and walked the
rest.

At my building's entrance, I looked around. The
trolley ticket guy, with nobody at his booth across the street, was
the only person paying any attention to me. Upstairs, I stood outside
the pebbled-glass door for a full minute, hearing nothing. Using my
key on the lock, I went inside, skimming the mail that had come
through my slot. All but one envelope had a return address on it, and
the exception proved to be from a former client whose daughter I'd
tracked down a year before, the letter thanking me again, because the
girl was still at home and now doing well in school.

Facing the windows, I called my condo number, got
Primo Zuppone's voice twice on the tape machine, and hung up. Next
was my answering service, with two more messages from him. Nothing
else.

I was returning the receiver to its cradle as my door
opened. Coco Cocozzo came in first, wearing the same suit, a
semiautomatic nearly lost in his right hand. Close behind was Rick
Ianella, a different suit but the same expression on his face.

Cocozzo said to me, "Up, and real slow."

I did what he wanted.

"Assume the position against the wall."

I went over to it, legs spread apart, palms leaning
into the plaster above Junior's punched holes. Cocozzo planted the
outside of his left shoe against the instep of my left foot and began
to frisk me.

I said, "This come kind of natural to you?"

The balding man brought the barrel of the gun up hard
between my thighs, but not as hard as he could have. I bit back what
was in my throat.

Cocozzo found the Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special
on my right hip and pulled it free carefully Finishing the search, he
stepped back.

Ianella said, "Turn around and look at me,
dickhead."

I turned. "The trolley guy, right? You paid him
to watch for me."

Cocozzo said, "We paid four shifts of them, just
in case you decided to show up when we weren't around." The scar
through Junior's eyebrow was twitching like a rabbit's nose. "Coco
and me, we been waiting since Friday for you to fucking call us, and
that fucking Primo says you ain't been answering your phones again. I
been in touch with Milwaukee, telling them, 'Let my father know, it's
gonna be any time now.' Only you been letting us down,
shit-for-brains. How come?"

"I didn't have anything to tell you, until now."

Ianella moved closer to me. "Until now?"

"Yes. I found out some things, but I want Primo
here when I tell you about them."

Junior contorted his features like a chimpanzee's,
nodding elaborately but not sincerely. I figured I knew what I was
coming.

Ianella made the quick effort to cuff me on the chin,
the way he had with Zuppone. I parried it, the edge of my left hand
slashing into the fleshy part of his right forearm. Junior bent at
the waist, his left hand clawing at the place I'd hit him, the
mottling coming over his cheeks.
j
"You little fuck, I'm gonna—"

"Boss?"

The younger man turned toward Cocozzo. "What?"

"Probably be easier, we just call Primo on his
car phone, get him over here."

A look of disbelief. "You don't think I can
handle this I piece of shit?"

Softly, patiently, Cocozzo said, "I know you can
handle him, Boss. It's just you might not want to handle him here,
and Primo's the one with the car and maybe a place we can take him."

Junior brought himself
under control, then jerked his head toward the telephone. "Do
it." I

* * *

From the floor of the Lincoln's backseat, I could
hear Primo Zuppone say, "Mr. Ianella, I don't think—"

"You don't got to think." Junior was in the
front, on the passenger's side. "You just got to find us a
place, so's we can have a talk with dickhead here."

Cocozzo sat on the leather upholstery above me, one
shoe resting lightly on the back of my neck, the muzzle of his weapon
just under my earlobe. He said, "A quiet place, Primo."

We were in the car for about half an hour before I
could feel the suspension leaving a good road for a potholed one, my
nose bouncing off the floor mat, the transmission hump compressing my
ribs. Then Zuppone braked very gradually, killing the engine.

Junior said, "This looks good. Your people
control it?"

"Yes, Mr. Ianella. But—"

"Let's go."

I heard and felt the doors of the Lincoln open.

Primo pulled on my right shoe. "All right,
Cuddy. Back out, real slow."

Once my feet were on the ground, Cocozzo said, "Hands
behind your neck."

With Zuppone leading, the others trailed me toward a
derelict industrial building, windowpanes rock—broken on the first
two floors. At the main entrance, Primo keyed a huge padlock, the
door swinging inward, the way they were built before the Coconut
Grove fire in 1942. A wave of dank air greeted us as we moved inside,
the pang of old blood hanging heavy between the stone walls and above
the stone floor.

Junior said, "Fucking place smells like a
slaughterhouse."

Primo shrugged. "That's what it was, Mr.
Ianella."

Cocozzo said, "Lights work?"

"We got a utility thing, down the hall."

"Why don't you go put it on," said the
balding man. Zuppone faded into the darkness, his steps even, like a
sentry marching along his castle's battlement. At the end of the
hall, one of those hooked and caged lamps with a rubber handle came
on. Hanging from a nail in the crossbeam, it spotlighted Primo's head
and torso.

Cocozzo nudged me between the shoulder blades, but
with the off-hand, not the gun one. A careful guy, Coco. Not exactly
a good sign for my future.

I walked toward Zuppone, Ianella saying behind me,
"Fucking slimy stones, gonna ruin these loafers."

Primo said, "Hey-ey-ey, I'm sorry, but this was
the best place I could—"

"Shut up and let's get to it."

I could see Zuppone's cheeks whiten in anger around
his acne scars as he unhooked the light from its nail, giving himself
plenty of slack in the long extension cord. We moved down the
corridor, almost a torch-lit processional. Primo stopped at a solid
oak door with an oversized, icebox handle. He yanked on it, and the
door groaned on rusty hinges. A while since anyone else had been
through it.

"Hey," said Ianella, "we gonna find a
guy wearing a hockey mask in there?"

Cocozzo said, "With a chainsaw, maybe."

"No, Coco. You're thinking of a different
fucking movie altogether," said Junior.

“
Actually, Boss, I was thinking of Cuddy here."

Ianella grinned and nodded. "That's good, Coco.
I like that, yeah."

The interior of the locker spread before us, twenty
feet square, the big meat hooks still embedded in reinforced beams
running the width of the room. A couple of gouged and stained oak
benches occupied the center of the space, some cobwebbed cutlery like
cleavers and long-handled knives on an old oak stand against one
wall.

Junior looked around once, returning to the old
cutlery. "Perfect." Then, to Primo, "Pull one of those
fucking benches over here."

Zuppone hung the lamp from one of the meat hooks,
then did what he was told.

Ianella put his right foot atop the bench, a football
coach about to diagram a play for the defense. "Cuddy, you go
sit on the other one."

I went over to it, turning and lowering myself, the
old oak feeling as cold as the old stone had looked in the corridor.

Cocozzo picked a wall and tested it with the pads of
his fingers before deciding not to lean against it. Primo moved to
the other side of where I was sitting. If you'd had a compass, Junior
and I would have been north and south, Cocozzo and Zuppone east and
west.

Ianella spoke to me from ten feet. "Okay,
dickhead, we did this like you wanted. Now talk to us."

"Can I put my hands down?"

He looked at Cocozzo, who said, "Yeah."

I brought them to my lap. "Here's what happened,
as straight as I know it. A woman comes to me, says she wants her
boyfriend investigated. I find out he isn't what—"

Junior said, "We heard all this shit. Cut to
where DiRienzi's at, or"—glancing meaningfully toward the old
oak stand—"we start cutting you."

I just watched Ianella. "When I told the client
what I'd found out, that your bookkeeper wasn't who he claimed to be,
I think she went down to see him at his condo unit. There's some
indication they took off together."

The mottled look. "What's this 'some indication'
shit?"

"His neighbors overheard an argument. One of
them saw your guy loading suitcases into her car the night he cleaned
out his bank accounts."

"What night's this?" said Cocozzo.

I still addressed Ianella. "Thursday."

"The night we got here," said the balding
man.

"Right. Only thing is, my client never touched
her own money, and when I went around to the parking lots at Logan—"

"Where?" said Junior.

To my left, Zuppone's voice said, "That's our
airport, Mr. Ianella."

"When I checked the lots, I found my client's
car, a flashy Porsche."

"There another kind?" said Cocozzo.

"Which didn't strike me right, since your
bookkeeper was driving a much quieter car for dumping. And the
parking attendant said the male was driving, when my client told me
she never let anybody else touch the car. And the driver waved to the
attendant."

Junior said, "Waved to him?"

"Yes."

Shake of the head. "That Judas fuck DiRienzi
never waved to anybody in his life."

Cocozzo said, "He was a cold guy that way,
Cuddy. No personality, you know?"

I said, "Even if DiRienzi was Mr. Congeniality,
he wants to ditch the car and disappear. Why would he try to make an
impression by waving to anybody?"

Cocozzo didn't reply.

I went back to Ianella. "Which is what I meant
before by 'some indication.' I think it's possible they took off
together, but those things seem wrong."

Junior looked over at Cocozzo, who said to me, "You
been sticking your nose into DiRienzi's cover, the feds running the
witness program should have been on to you."

"They are. They say they don't know where he is,
and they don't care."

Ianella said, "The fuck does that mean?"

"I think it means he's already given them what
they wanted, which was testimony against your father, and now they'd
just as soon he did disappear as have to be accounted for."

"Accounted for?"

Cocozzo said, "Like if we got to him, Boss. Only
we didn't." The balding man turned to me. "You say the
neighbors where he lives told you that DiRienzi and his girlfriend
were arguing on Thursday night, right?"

"Right."

"Seems to me, they were lovey-dovey before, now
they're not, it's gotta be because the girlfriend tells him she hired
you."

"Probably."

"Yeah, but that means DiRienzi oughta know his
cover ain't blown, except to you and her, right?"

Cocozzo's point was a conversation-stopper. I hadn't
thought about it that way.

Junior looked lost. "The fuck you saying here,
Coco?"

The patient voice. "What I'm saying, Boss, is
that DiRienzi knows the only one on to him is his own girlfriend and
Cuddy here, then his new ID is still just line, account of we don't
get into town ourselves till Thursday night and Cuddy don't know who
his 'client's boyfriend' really is till we see him at his office on
Friday."

I didn't like where this was leading.

Cocozzo said, "Which means that Thursday night,
DiRienzi's got no reason to run. He just calls his keepers, and they
straighten things out, and he gets to stay Mr. Whoever-he-is."
From ten feet away, the muzzle of the semiautomatic hovered about
heart-high on my chest. “If  Cuddy's been telling us the
truth, that is."

Primo Zuppone stepped toward Ianella. "Cuddy
don't lie."

Junior looked at him, astonished. "The fuck you
saying, he don't lie?"

"I seen him in a bad situation before, Mr.
Ianella. I grant you, the guy might have more balls than brains, but
he don't lie."