Operation Bamboozle (18 page)

No longer. Now he had to take responsibility for the overall financial structure of the organization, and it was tough. “Look what I found in the accounts,” he told Uncle. “Charlie Duffy's funeral service, a thousand dollars. Not counting the mortician.”

“The family takes care of its own, Vito. Always has.”

“I
went
to that service. He was agnostic, for Christ's sake. No flowers, no choir, no organ, no fuss. We were in and out of St. Timothy's in twenty minutes. And it cost a
grand?”

“What we always pay. St. Tim's depends on us. The organist, the florists … They all got mouths to feed.”

“I'm running a goddamn charity.” Vito waved his hand as if his fingers were burned.

“Your father rewarded loyalty,” Uncle said. “Charlie Duffy took a bullet for us. Charlie hijacked a truckload of Scotch, got jumped by some kids too lazy to do their own hijacking, died in the line of duty.”

“Yeah. What a waste. Ten-year-old single malt. Teenagers didn't know Pepsi from Seven-Up probably used it for mouthwash. This city …” Vito grunted his disgust. “Forget it. I was looking for a straight business we could use as a cash flow, remember? Way to tap-dance around the Revenue?” He held up a piece of paper. “Got it. We buy a laundry. Customers pay cash, right? We put in our dirty money, take out clean money. We launder our money. It's a money laundry.” He was very pleased with his idea.

“We already own a laundry, Vito.”

“We do? Where?”

“In the Valley, near Van Nys. It's a bummer. Never makes a cent.”

“We
own
a
laundry?
How come?”

“It was the only place knew how to starch your father's shirts the way he liked. Not too much, not too little, just right. Then in 1935 they lost a sock. Just one sock, but he refused to pay their bill until they found it. So they stopped doing his laundry. Now
he didn't have a clean shirt. Deadlock. So he bought the laundry. Happy ever after. But it doesn't make a cent.”

Vito tore up the sheet of paper.

“He never forgave them for losing that sock,” Uncle said. “Even when he owned the laundry, he wouldn't pay that bill. To the day he died he owed nine dollars and thirty-three cents to a company that he owned. They'd lost his sock, see. Unforgivable.”

At breakfast next day, Princess told Stevie to lay off the blueberry pancakes. “I don't want you fat an' frumpy,” she said. “I want you skinny, so your titties poke holes in the air. Shove the coffee this way, Luis.”

“It's time we sold some paintings,” Julie said.

“My figure's perfect,” Stevie said. “Whatcha think, Luis?” She pulled up her t-shirt until it covered her face. “Any complaints?”

Luis shook his head. “When you've seen one, you've seen them both … Don't buy another gallery, Julie. We still own that place in El Paso.”

“Cover yourself up, girl,” Princess said. “You're scaring the dog.” Stevie pulled down her t-shirt, and looked at Othello. He sprawled against a wall, drooling hard.

“I'm planning on visiting some galleries,” Julie said. “Show them a few things, maybe do a deal.”

“Fat chance,” Princess said. “This is LA. Disney scores big here. Get me some more canvas while you're in town.”

Later, Julie searched the Yellow Pages. Not many art galleries for a city this big, and most were Downtown. She drove to where Wilshire Boulevard met South Grand Avenue. She parked the Packard and carried four paintings under one arm and three under the other to Pierre's Contemporary Art. Pierre saw her coming and did not open the door. Inside, the furniture was chromium plated, the walls were leather, the lights were neon, the art was Day-Glo kindergarten. Pierre was about 30, bald as an egg, with a tiny tuft of beard below his lip, as worn by all the best jazz musicians.

“You don't know the artist,” Julie told him. “American, been living in Mexico. Terrific on atmosphere.”

He looked them over. “Somewhat strident for my taste.”

“Strident?” She looked at the works on the walls. “Yeah, see what you mean. Your stuff is kinda soporific. Might almost say narcoleptic.” After that, relations grew worse. She gathered up her pieces and left.

A gallery calling itself Mike's looked more promising. It was all stripped pine and no foolishness, and the stuff on show was fairly honest: large abstracts spray-painted in pastels. Mike turned out to be Mrs. Mike, an ash blond old enough to be your mother. Within sixty seconds she had identified Julie as a New Yorker. “One thing you got to realize, honey, this is a conservative city,” she said. “The people who buy my art are likely to be Baptists, Methodists or Mormons. They'll never hang your nudes on their walls. Never.”

“I thought Mormons were hot for sex.”

“In the dark, under the sheets, with the door locked,” Mrs. Mike said. “Me, personally, I think your nudes are damn good. But I just work here.”

Next stop was Art For Art's Sake. It was run by Art. “Bad joke,” he said. “I'm sick of it. What you got there? Oh, my. Who is she? I don't keep up with the new movies like I should.”

“She's nobody,” Julie said. “She's a model.”

“Pity.” He looked more closely. “Good skin tone. The wet look is a nice gimmick. Now if this was Marilyn Monroe, say, or better yet Jane Russell. Maybe Piper Laurie. The new French girl, Bardot.
Then
you got a product.”

“Rembrandt didn't paint movie stars.”

“That was before Hollywood. Bring back Rembrandt today and you know what he'd do? He'd follow the money. Where we are, it's spelled Tinseltown.”

Julie visited five more galleries. One owner said he thought he recognized Stevie and asked for her phone number. Two were amused by the idea of a Comanche squaw artist and wanted to meet Princess. Apart from that, all she got out of the morning was smarting eyes from petrochemical smog, sweat, a parking ticket, hunger and suppressed rage. She wasted fifteen minutes driving around, looking for an outdoor restaurant, until a cop put her straight. “Only place I know of is a burger stand in Griffith Park, up beyond the Hollywood sign. Down here, folks like to eat indoors. The smog, see.”

She drove on, thinking
If I didn't feel so damn tired I'd have worked that out for myself
Suppressed rage was exhausting.

The church of St. Nicholas of Tolentino had a wonderful priest, Father Reilly, warm, encouraging, generous with his time, always ready to share your problem, never averse to a taste of Irish whiskey if it helped smooth the rocky road of life. But he was in Rome for a conference, so Jerome Fantoni got Father Fletcher instead.

“I have this serious problem, Father. I'm afraid of flying.”

“No, you're afraid of crashing.” Fletcher was a large young man, under 30, and he had a voice like a box of broken glass. “Flying never hurt anyone, did it? The takeoff and the landing, those're your hotspots.”

“It's not as easy as that. Just getting on the plane is torture. Even thinking about flying, the days beforehand, it …” He had no words.

“Of course! You're only human.” Fletcher grinned. He always grinned. “I know about airy-planes. I flew off carriers in the Pacific, flew Hellcats against the Japs, and brother I saw more crashes that you could count, and that's using all your fingers, toes and what-you-will.”

“I've taken up too much of your time,” Fantoni said.

“Relax, we've got all eternity. You'll agree with that? I'm here to tell you, as God is my witness—God and a couple hundred US fliers now at the bottom of the Pacific—crashing is nothing to be scared of.”

Fantoni stared. He had a stare that made bungling hitmen wet their pants. It bounced off Father Fletcher. “You must have crashed and burned and gone to your Maker many times,” Fantoni said, “or you wouldn't speak so flippantly.”

Father Fletcher laughed. “Flippantly. That's good. I must remember that.” He reached out a meaty hand and touched Fantoni's arm. Fantoni flinched. “My, we are
tense
today,” Fletcher said. “Here's the good news. When you make a hole in the Pacific, or in New Jersey for that matter, you don't feel a thing. You're like that light switch over there. One moment you're
on
 … a flick of the fingers … you're
off.
Lucky you.” Big grin. He rocked his eyebrows as if they were coming in to land.

“Lucky to be dead? Lucky to be nothing?” Fantoni took a little walk and came back. “I must have missed that press release from Rome.”

“Okay. This is the easy bit.” Fletcher clapped his hands. He was happy in his work. “From the day we're born, each of us is preparing for his death. That's what really matters. The rest is just tap-dancing through the calendar. Now the great thing about flying is, it's a win-win situation. Either you arrive, or …” His forefinger flicked an imaginary switch. “Job done.”

“Uh-huh.” Fantoni rubbed his arm where Fletcher had touched him. “Preparing for death. Includes you?”

“I'd be a sorry salesman if I didn't buy my own product.”

Father Fletcher's hearty laughter followed Fantoni out of the church.
Maybe I can help you reach your goal,
Fantoni thought.
Don't thank me, fellah. It's what I'm here for.

He canceled his reservation on American Airlines and took the Twentieth Century Limited to Chicago.

This was the way to travel: speedy, safe, luxurious. He sat in an armchair in a private compartment with his shoes off and a Bloody Mary at his side and watched the farmland stream past. People stood and waved. So they should. This train was one of the triumphs of America. He saw a contrail scratching a thin white line across the baby-blue sky and said aloud: “Suckers.”
They rushed from the city to the airport so they could rush from another airport to another city.

It was good to get away from the job occasionally and take a wider view. America was changing—well, America was always changing, but now it was getting younger, fast. There was this young girl, Maureen Connolly, only 16 and already the best woman tennis player in the world. At 16! Ridiculous. Adolescents were invading everything. Their new music, rock'n'roll, was corrosive, nobody over thirty could dance to it without damaging his joints. Movies were going the same way, there was a new picture out that used the word
virgin,
for Christ's sake. And how could anyone write a bestseller about a kid who gets kicked out of school? But teenagers had money and influence, and that was something organized crime couldn't ignore, so Jerome Fantoni had reluctantly bought a copy of
Catcher in the Rye
and now was a good time to read it.

When the train pulled into Chicago, Sam Giancana was waiting. They shook hands, they embraced, they made counterbalancing noises of appreciation, they made their way to the bulletproof limousine. Doors closed with the reassuring thud of battleship steel. “Good trip?” Sam asked. “Dumb question. The TCL is always tops.”

“Caught up on my reading.” He showed Sam the book. “Rave reviews. You read it? It's pathetic. If this is the way America is going, we might as well send the Kremlin a postcard: come and take us, we quit, it's all yours.”

“I sorta skimmed it,” Giancana said.

“Sixteen-year-old kid. He's the hero, can you believe. Flunked out of three prep schools. Knows nothing. No girlfriend, no friends at all. Big ambition is to be a deaf-mute.”

Giancana laughed. “I remember that bit.”

“Yeah, I thought it might be a joke. If only. This kid lies, cheats, and swindles. What does he know about adult behavior? All adults are phonies, he says.”

“That's how it is with teenagers, they have a small vocabulary.”

“Most of it obscene.”

“The kid's a pain in the ass, I agree. Forget the goddam book, Jerome, it's a freak, up like a rocket and down like the stick. You got bigger problems, I'm told. Family problems.”

Fantoni described his worries about Stevie: the Cabrillo-Conroy connection, the counterfeiting activity, the risk of a long stretch. “She won't listen to me. Her mother was the same.”

“Know what you mean. Women's brains aren't put together like ours. Scientists proved it. God was holding the blueprint upside-down that day. Leave it to me, Jerome. I'll send Tony Feet. He knows Stevie, they're old friends, problem solved. Look, I bought this for you.” He pulled out a magazine. “First edition. Makes
The Catcher in the Rye
look like the
Ladies Home Journal
.”

Fantoni opened
Playboy.
“Jesus … Nothing phony about
that”

“Try the centerfold,” Giancana said. “Look hard, you can almost see where you came from.”

Size matters. Of course size matters. When Stalin took the salute at those May Day Parades in Moscow, he made very sure that everyone else stood well behind him. At a squat five feet four inches, Stalin never let himself be overshadowed. Napoleon—five feet six-and-a-half—was taller than most men of his day, even the fighting men. Mozart at five-four could at least look the orchestra in the eye. But Holly Hanna, at five-two, was born in the wrong century and the wrong state where, to make it worse, all that orange juice was working like fertilizer on the rest of the population. Now, wherever he went, he was always looking up at people. You think size doesn't matter? Try being five-two for a while.