The Godfather's Revenge (25 page)

This, too, was something Geraci had thought of immediately that Momo might not have come up with given all the time in the world. Even if there were witnesses who saw the two private investigators run off, the killing could still be linked to Hagen. If the case against Hagen stood up in court, fine. If not, that was fine, too. It would hurt him to have been charged in the court of public opinion with the crime of hiring killers to whack his inconvenient mistress.

“Serious as a judge,” Momo said.

“Look,” the detective said. “I been thinking. I can tell you from experience that any time a gal dies, anybody she’s been sleeping with is
automatically
a suspect. I guarantee you that this mess here is going to take the course you want it to take
without
me. All I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to get caught in the middle of a thing that’s none of my business.”

This hadn’t apparently troubled him when he’d taken that lunch sack full of cash in appreciation of his passing the job on to a suitable investigator.

“I don’t give a shit what you want.” The Roach had enough dirt on the detective to bury him twice, and they both knew it. “Go in there, now. When you find what you need to find, which I’m confident will happen in no time flat, let me give you the address of where at the present time you’ll be able to find the suspect in question. Anytime in the next hour or so, you’ll be fine. My advice is also to send over a whole fleet of cars, lights on and all that good stuff, loud as shit, OK? Just in the interest of whattayacallit. Safety. Everybody’s safety.”

The Roach hung up and went downstairs to get a glass of water. He drank, closed his eyes, and tried to picture the look on Eddie Paradise’s face when the cops pulled up. Eddie’s big chance to show off in front of all the
pezzonovanti
—ruined. Embarrassed. Weakened. It’d go through the self-important little prick like God’s perfect stiletto.

Momo opened his eyes.

He was standing right in front of one of Eddie’s World War II posters, the one with the woman with the nice tits, pointing at those red dice.
PLEASE DON’T GAMBLE WITH YOUR LIFE! BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY
. For the first time, the poster struck him as a big joke. The broad with the tits was in on it, too. Just look at her. Snake eyes on the dice, bedroom eyes on the broad. The Roach put a finger up to her flat, pouty lips. Against her small, porcelain-pale face, his suntanned skin looked almost black. He winked at her. “Shh,” said the Roach.

Then he laughed and went up on the roof to enjoy what was left of the fireworks.

T
he killing of Judy Buchanan played in Peoria. It became one of those murder cases that—arbitrarily, it would seem—takes on a circus-logic life of its own. It did have all four basic ingredients of such cases. It was frosted with lurid extramarital sex. It had ambitious politicians who used it as a stage. It had a sociopath who was widely presumed to be guilty but who somehow remained free. Most crucial of all, the victim was a strikingly beautiful blonde (that it was dyed was irrelevant), one unknowable enough to be a blank slate upon whom the masses could project their own prejudices, hypocrisies, and fears.

The sidewalk outside the building where Judy Buchanan’s supposed contract murder took place was nearly always crowded and strewn with flowers. (
Location, location, location,
the old florist on the ground floor muttered each night, counting his money.) Periodically, earnest Protestant ministers in shirtsleeves came there to bellow sweet nothings about the wages of sin. But most of the people on the sidewalk had come to embrace each other and cry crocodile tears suitable for any newscast’s B-roll. Often, these people waved cheaply printed posters of Judy Buchanan’s now-famous head shot (for sale at souvenir stands throughout New York). It was ten years old and was something she’d had taken during her brief, fruitless stab at acting. Any appreciation of the irony of this—blowing up a head shot of a woman whose lovely head had been nearly blown off—seemed lost on most Americans, perhaps like irony in general. Increasingly, the mourners and gawkers waved one of the surveillance photos that had been sent, anonymously, to the NYPD, the FBI, the Justice Department, and a host of newspapers, tabloid and otherwise. The shot of Judy Buchanan in an exquisitely tailored pantsuit, on the train platform in Milwaukee—alone and, in the opinion of many, looking trapped—became an especially popular choice. Once in a while someone would even deploy photos of her mentally retarded son, Philip, who, despite his afflictions and the violent deaths of his parents, seemed always to have a smile for the camera.

Outside the building where Tom Hagen lived, Al Neri stationed uniformed private security officers—off-duty or retired cops all. Despite this, the cul-de-sac was often clogged with curious civilians, both from the press and the public. Miles of TV footage were shot, nearly all of it featuring dark cars with tinted windows emerging from the building’s underground garage and driving uneventfully away. Even early in the morning, when Neri went out to get his roadwork in, there was always some clown looking up toward the building’s top floors and pointing.

The case dragged on for months, spewing money, minting new minor-key celebrities, selling newspapers and magazines, garnering book deals and reliable TV ratings, and inspiring debates in barbershops and beauty shops from sea to shining sea. All this for a case that was yet to yield a single arrest.

WHEN HE WAS INITIALLY BROUGHT IN FOR QUESTIONING,
Tom Hagen had, of course, said nothing until his attorney showed up. The attorney he hired was Sid Klein, famous for his role as a congressional counsel during the anti-Communism investigations. Hagen had admired his work for years and had put him on retainer for a rainy day. There was no one, anywhere, who was more vicious, more zealous, more comfortable in the glare of a high-profile case. Defending those alleged to be connected with the so-called Mafia had actually become one of Sid Klein’s specialties. Both the Barzini Family and the Tattaglia Family—following Hagen’s lead—had Klein on retainer as well.

It looked like the police didn’t have much. They seemed to want to make something of the .22 caliber pistol, a Ruger, that they’d found on the scene. It had recently been fired three times, and someone had wiped it clean. “We have evidence that shows the gun belongs to an ex-convict named Richard Antony Nobilio, Jr.,” one of the detectives said. Richie had done a stretch in Lewisburg for conspiring to violate federal narcotics laws.

“Was it the murder weapon?” Klein said.

“At this point, we’re not sure.”

Meaning
no,
Klein and Hagen immediately understood.

“Mr. Nobilio is an associate of yours, though, right?”

Hagen and Sid Klein exchanged whispers, and Klein let him answer.

“Yes. I do some legal work for Mr. Nobilio—who has, by the way, paid his debt to society and plays the organ at his church. I am an associate of his in a few investments. As for the pistol, I think I can save you some time. Mrs. Buchanan wanted to get a pistol for her protection—she travels frequently in connection with her job as a courier for some businesses I work for as well. I don’t know a thing about guns myself, so when she asked me what to get, I referred her to my dear friend Richard Nobilio, who’s something of a buff on the subject of firearms. He was supposed to drop by this afternoon and help her out. I’m not sure if the gun you found is the gun he got for her, but I do know that he thought she should get something smaller, easy to handle for a lady. A .22 is a gun like that, right?”

“No man who took his woman’s safety seriously would set her up with just a .22.”

Right
, Hagen thought.
Exactly
. He started to answer, but Klein shut him down.

“Questions, Detective,” Klein said. “Not statements.”

“All right,
question.
” He sneered. “Would Mr. Nobilio have had any reason to harm Mrs. Buchanan?”

“None,” said Hagen.

Sid Klein laughed. “I don’t mean to tell you gents how to do your job—for which I thank you. I mean that. My father was actually a cop, as you may know, one of the few Jews on the force in those days, but maybe you knew that, too. At any rate, if the gun really is Mr. Nobilio’s, doesn’t that tell you something? Who’d leave a gun at a crime scene if it could be easily traced? That gun being there, don’t you think it rules Mr. Nobilio
out
as a suspect? And by extension, his associate Mr. Hagen as well? I think we can safely say that what you have there is either a plant or tampered evidence or both.”

“Tampered
evidence
?” one of the detectives said. “Sweet Jesus Christ. This early in the game, you’re pulling out your cheap lawyer tricks.”

“
Cheap
?” Klein said. An elongated beat later, he raised an eyebrow. It looked vaguely motorized. “I doubt that when Mr. Hagen gets my bill, he’ll agree that I’m cheap,” Klein said. “And I certainly don’t have to tell you that the laws of the land are not
lawyer tricks.
”

Klein had struck a nerve, the way for which had been paved by preying on the detective’s anti-Semitism. Even under the circumstances, it was a pleasure for Hagen to watch Sid Klein work.

Another detective started talking, but Klein interrupted him and turned to the first one.

“That was her gun, probably, right? How could she have been in any position to wipe her prints off of it? Why would the killer have bothered?”

“I don’t know,” the detective said, clearly working to put on a front. “You tell me.”

Klein raised his palms. “I can’t! All I’m trying to say, those are some interesting questions. Food for thought, I guess would be the expression.”

When the interview was over, the police let Hagen go, though he was asked to remain within the five boroughs of New York until further notice. He looked at Klein, and Klein closed his eyes and very slightly shook his head. Fighting that could wait.

A pool of reporters were waiting for them. “Mr. Hagen!” one shouted. “Why would an innocent man need to hire Sid Klein?”

Hagen started to answer, but Klein—almost like a third baseman cutting off a waiting shortstop—strode forward to field the question. “It is a sad fact,” Klein said, “that in this cruel and fallen world, only small children are innocent. There is no such thing as an innocent adult. It’s an oxymoron. However, not-guilty people hire me all the time for various matters, and I’m happy to announce that Congressman Hagen is among them.” Hagen had been Nevada’s lone congressman for less than six months, appointed to fill out the term of a man whose ranch was downwind of the nuclear testing ranges and who had died of cancer. Sid Klein’s use of the title was calculated. Every breath he took seemed calculated. His pregnant pauses, his gestures, even his eye blinks made him seem like a remarkably lifelike robot. “Congressman Hagen is merely here to be of service to the authorities,” Klein continued. “It is certainly our hope that those responsible for this reprehensible act are brought swiftly to justice. As you may know, Mrs. Buchanan was a valued employee of a company in which Congressman Hagen is a member of the board of directors, and she will be missed. Our sympathies and indeed our hearts go out to her family.” Klein took an unnecessarily deep bow. “Gentlemen.”

Al Neri—who hadn’t been around this many cops since he was one himself—squared his shoulders like a football lineman and led the way to a waiting car. It sped away.

Hagen showed no remorse.

Why should he? He
hadn’t
had anything to do with the murder. And what could he do about it now? Nothing. Nothing, that is, except to swing into what he’d spent half his adult life doing: damage control (the other half had been spent on negotiation). Hagen did
have
some remorse, at some level, about various things—he was not a heartless man; quite the opposite, he believed—but it was nobody’s business but his own.

Nobody said anything. When the car pulled up outside Klein’s building, Klein patted Hagen on the knee and got out. Hagen nodded his appreciation.

Neri got in back with Hagen, and Hagen raised the partition so that the driver couldn’t hear. The car was not a limo, but Neri had had it tricked out with limousine details. It was also armored, of course. What used to be one of Momo Barone’s chop shops, over on Bergen Street, now did exclusively legal custom work, specializing in jobs like this.

“How bad was it,” Hagen asked, “after I left?”

Neri stuck out his lower lip. “Not so bad.”

Meaning
very,
Tom understood. “The cops didn’t…”

“Nah. They left when you did. Mike tried to conduct more business and wrap things up, but from what I understand, the other fellas, they was all excited and this and that, so there was various concerns raised about the security, and everybody pretty much left after that. You didn’t miss nothin’, believe me. Unless you was of a mind to see the boss take Eddie Paradise aside and quietly rip him a variety of new assholes.”

Hagen nodded.

They rode the rest of the way home in silence.

She was dead. It didn’t seem possible. Gone. Just that afternoon, she’d been susceptible to the little death, at least twice, and thereby seemed breathtakingly alive. Tom couldn’t think about that. About
her.
About Judy Buchanan, who was dead. Murdered.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to focus.

Tom Hagen’s biggest fear now wasn’t that he’d get pinned with the murder itself. He had too much on his side, too many strings he could pull or have pulled, to get taken down by a crime he did not commit. His biggest fear was that the killing had had something to do with Theresa. That she’d somehow arranged it.

In any event, some ugly things were bound to come to light. What and how and how much? That was still up in the air and might remain that way for a while. Obviously, Tom needed to have a long and difficult talk with his wife. He obviously needed to talk to Michael as well.

When he got home and he and Al got into the elevator, Tom did not hesitate.

“Penthouse,” he said.

Al nodded.

This thing of ours must come before your wife, your children, even your mother.
Tom Hagen would never take the vows, but he knew them. No man was ever more faithful to them.

“We have any idea who tipped off the cops?” Tom asked on the way up. “How they knew where I was?”

Neri shook his head. “Unless somebody shows us his hand, I doubt we ever will.”

“How you figure?” Tom said.

“Too many possibilities,” Al said. “My first thought was that it was a cop. There are plenty of men on the force who’ll look the other way at a lot of the things we do but not when it comes to a murder, especially of a white woman. If it
is
a cop, we’ll probably never know who, and we’ll never be able to retaliate. But then I started considering all the people on the scene—almost forty, by my count. Who knows who
they
told about where they were going to be tonight? How many top men in various Families knew when and where the meeting was going to be? How many of those people might have some kind of ax to grind against you or Michael or our whole organization, who’d like to see us taken down a notch the way I guess it happened with the Cuneos? I’m not ruling out that it’s one of our people, either. And, yeah, it could be the
disgraziato
, too,” meaning Nick Geraci, “although, you ask me, that cocksucker gets credit for too much already.”

“But if you had to bet?” Tom asked.

“Cop,” the ex-cop said, shrugging. “And we’ll never know who.”

The elevator doors opened.

It was almost three in the morning, but the lights in Michael’s study still burned.