the Plan (1995) (23 page)

They avoided the prying, vacant eyes of the resident hookers by moving out the back through the narrow, dirty corridor. Kaz left Ryan leaning on the doorjamb as he went and got the car, brought it around, and helped Ryan into the front seat. The cold January night air perked Ryan up.

They drove around Trenton until Kaz found a bleeding meat joint that was empty and out of the way. Kaz helped Ryan out and got him into the back booth of the diner. They ordered rare steak and coffee while a waiter set th e t able. After he left, they took stock of each other.

"I may not be the smartest guy on the planet, but I don't figure you came outta that stand of trees and blew up Mickey's driver because you needed target practice. I also don't think you're taking care of me because you want a career in nursing."

"Why don't you keep talking and I'll tell you when you stop making sense."

Ryan filled him in on how Mickey had approached him., how he'd decided to get out of Hollywood and give his battered career a rest. He told Kaz about going to work in Princeton for Malcolm Rasher, about the confrontation in Joseph's study, and the overheard conversation between A . J
. and Mickey during which A . J
. mentioned cash from the Bahamas. He told him about Haze Richards and the Republic Airlines flight . . . the tape Rellica shot and the man who attacked him in the Savoy. He ended with the troubling argument with Mickey in the boathouse and the feeling that he'd overplayed his hand. When he was finished, Kaz sat there digesting it all.

"What's your connection with Mickey's sister?" "She's a friend. I've known her since I was fifteen, she was seven."

"Bullshit. You've got a case on her," Kaz said.

"Mickey is probably going to take over now that his father is dead," Ryan said, trying to change the subject.

"So the Alos are trying to put Haze Richards in the Oval Office. . . . Ain't that a fucking nightmare?" Kaz thought for a minute. "A campaign would be a great laundry; the money can't be traced."

Ryan picked up his coffee. It was cold.

"When you saw the story about Haze going to the Teamster meeting, you said A
. J
.'s fingerprints were all over this. What'd you mean?"

"A. J. Teagarden doesn't let Haze do anything where he doesn't already know what the result is going to be. If Haze is going to New York to try and solve that strike, thenyou can bet its already a done deal," Ryan said.

"Mickey could set that up easy."

They sat in silence and thought about it.

"Y' know what doesn't figure?" Ryan finally said, bringing Kaz back from his thoughts. "Here, we got Brenton Spencer, this prime-time network anchorman who's got this bulletproof TV persona, always in control. He's hosting a nationally televised debate and, because one of the candidates calls him to task for his attitude on stage, he completely loses it. I don't buy it. People like Brenton Spencer don't act on random emotions. I think Spencer may be in on it."

"Why don't we talk to him and find out?" Kaz replied, realizing he finally knew what his next move should be.

Chapter
32.

FOOL'S ERRAND

THE PRESS HAD BEEN MILLING THERE FOR HOURS, ADDING
their gum wrappers and cigarette butts to a sidewalk already littered with beggars and pigeon shit. A
. J
.'s plan had been for Haze to go in alone and emerge from the room a few hours later, victorious.

Haze moved into the old building on East Fifty-seventh Street. The press swarmed. Sun guns went on, directional mikes were unsheathed like Wilkinson swords, questions were fired in an overlapping flow of hyperbole and skepticism.

"No comment," Haze said to the clattering motor-drive lenses. "I'm trying to find Bud Rennick."

A door opened and Bud stuck his massive head out. Camera lenses focused.

Shutters grabbed milliseconds of pictorial truth.

Bud grabbed his jacket, put it on as Tom Bartel came out of the same room and joined him in the hall.

"Anybody expecting me?" Haze asked dryly. CNN had elected to go with the story live and their "on-site" producer was pushing his cameraman forward.

"We're live," he was saying as if his fellow newsmen cared. "Outta the way."

"Come on in," Tom Bartel said, shaking Haze's hand. They moved into the room and closed the door, leaving the press in reportus interruptus.

The high-ceilinged conference room was a rectangular war zone. Paper cups, empty Winchell's boxes and crumpled yellow legal sheets littered the battlefield, dead reminders of the struggle. The room had been cleared of business agents and lawyers for Haze's visit.

"We have a deal," Bud said. "I caved on all Tom's points."

"I'm a happy -camper," Tom Bartel said, grinning.

Haze sat down at the table, opened his briefcase, and took out a deck of cards. He finally grinned. "Anybody wanna play gin rummy?"

Two hours later, they walked out into the glare of the TV cameras. Bud put up his hand for quiet over the din of shouted questions.

"Excuse me, excuse me . . . be quiet. We have a statement." They waited until the news crews settled down.

"We've reached an accord," Tom Bartel said. "We've signed a tentative agreement, which I'm sure we'll be able to get ratified within hours by the association."

A loud gasp went up from the pod people and the liveat-fives.

"Speaking for the Teamsters," Bud concluded, "I want to say that we're happy. I've been empowered by my board to accept this tentative agreement and I'd like to tell the brotherhood ... Get back in your trucks, guys, this thing is over."

Through it all, Haze said nothing. He stood between them, looking grateful.

"Governor Richards, Governor Richards . . . Stan Hooks, CBS Business Report," a tall, bald reporter yelled. "What did you bring to these negotiations to produce this amazing result?"

"I didn't settle this dispute, I want to make that clear. I simply brought to the table some new cards and an open mind," he said truthfully. "This was not a dispute wher
e l
abor and management couldn't come to terms. This was simply an example of ending the divisiveness and malting good things happen because good people on both sides of the issue are trying diligently to solve problems. I was glad to be part of it. I believe America can work again if we let it."

In his park-view room in the Sherry Netherland Hotel, A
. J
. watched the live coverage on CNN while he ate his room-service lunch. He had a smile on his face and pasta sauce in his beard.

"Un-fucking-believable." He grinned at the TV screen.

Chapter
33.

THEY STARTED SHOWING UP AT NOON. SAD-FACED VISItors in black suits with silk shirts and hand-painted ties. First to arrive were the Medinas. With his son beside him, the don from New York sat in the back of his maroon., custom-made Rolls-Royce with the bulletproof door panels. His two creepy Vietnamese bodyguards were riding in the front seat.

Bart "the Doctor" DiAgusta arrived at one, with his wife and three sons. They'd flown commercially from Chicago. The Doctor had made his name by dismembering his enemies with a chain saw in a sixties business dispute with the New York Colombos. He rolled down the window in his rented limo and looked at the two Alo guards under the supervision of Pulacargo Depaulo, who was a cousin of Mickey's and fresh off the boat.

"DiAgusta," he said to the recent arrival from Palermo, who found the name on his guest list and checked it, asking politely in his fractured English if the driver could let DiAgusta of at the main house and bring the car back down because it was going to get crowded up there.

Penny was in full mourning and greeted them all, thanking them for their condolences.

Mickey was in the study, receiving eachguest se rately, talking softly, assuring every one that his father had died in peace, that the family would endure.

Some had come out of respect, but all were looking forward to the open-casket funeral where they could make absolutely sure Joseph Alo was one-hundred-percent stone-cold dead. Then they would deal with Mickey and decide whether he was strong enough to hold on to what the Mos had.

Lucinda was upstairs. She had heard about her father's death on television and had come home to the big house to be with her mother. She had been trying to avoid her brother. They both happened to be in the kitchen at the same time and looked at each other without saying anything. She moved around him and out into the hall. People spoke to her and expressed condolences but largely ignored her. This was a time of sorrow, but it was also a time for politics. Any shift in power affected them all. New alliances were already being forged and tested. Lucinda had gone upstairs to be alone, trying to come to grips with the mixed emotions she felt about her brother's anger and her father's passing.

The funeral was at six. The church Mickey had chosen was a Gothic Catholic cathedral in downtown Trenton. Mickey had selected the church because it was large, but also because there was a protected side entrance that would make it difficult for the OCB surveillance cameras to get clear shots of the mourners.

At five in the afternoon, the pipe organ played a dirge for Joseph. Long-lens cameras rested on doorjambs of federal sedans. Blank-faced agents with buzz cuts watched, not bothering to disguise their presence.

The church was full. Late arrivals stood in the back, in silence. Many of the mourners crossed themselves and thanked God that Joseph Alo was really in the box.

Mickey spoke to them from the carved pulpit. The light refracted from the stained-glass Jesus on the cross threw a river of red across the floor in front of him.

Mickey spoke of the loss a son feels when his father passes, of the pure love that exists in a bloodline. He praised the guidance his father had given him. He said his life would never be as full as when his father was there to explain its inconsistencies and fight against its corruptions. It was a moving eulogy and would have been even more heartwarming if Lucinda hadn't been close enough to see Mickey's eyes. They were shining with excitement. Mickey Alo was finally in control and anyone who thought they could take his turf would be watching the parade from a skybox.

They put Joe in the ground as the sun was setting and returned to the Alo estate, where a tent had been set up over the tennis court. The space was warmed with party heaters. A band played peasant songs from Sicily. Penny and Lucinda roamed the periphery of the gathering feeling oddly out of place.

Penny went up to her room at nine, leaving Lucinda alone. After a minute, she found herself again face-to-face with her brother. This time, he smiled at her.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

Mickey took Lucinda's hand and led her out of the tent and around the side of the house. They stood listening to the music and laughter coming from the tent.

"That was really nice, what you said about Daddy."

"Thank you. Are we okay?" he said, looking at her carefully. "What I said the other day, I didn't mean it. I've been upset because of Pop. Can you understand that?"

"Yes," Lucinda said, realizing that she was now desperately afraid of her brother, that she was choosing her words instead of speaking her mind, that she wanted to get away from him.

He reached out and hugged her, but his eyes were cold and impersonal. "We're a team," he said. "I'd never let anybody hurt you. I'd never do anything to make you unhappy." He kissed her cheek. "I gotta get back. We'll talk after everybody leaves," he said, moving away.

She watched him go and then looked down. At her feet, she saw a faded wooden cross. She had made it when she was seven. She had knelt in her bathroom, crying, and nailed the wood together. She had painted the name on with her mother's nail polish. She had crept outside late at night and pounded it into the ground with a rock. She had prayed to God to take the soul of Mickey's dog. She had promised herself never to forget the puppy's happy face.

Her brother's voice rang in her ears.. .
. I
'd never do anything to make you unhappy. But he had laughed after his dog had been shot. Somehow he found that funny.

She looked down at the weathered cross and knew everything he said was a lie. "What about Rex?" she finally whispered.

Chapter
34.

KAZ WAS GOOD AT ROUSTS. EVERYBODY STARTED OUT
with a pile of attitude--"I got my rights"; "I'm gonn
a c
all my lawyer." What you had to do was get the bandit s t o buy into the concept of fecal gravity.

"Shit runs downhill," he used to shout at the frightened felons who were trying to tough it out in Vegas in front of his elite "mob squad" of feds.

Usually he could turn them. He'd convince them they had a better chance with the Vegas DA than their own asshole buddies. Of course, most of them weren't very smart.

Brenton Spencer would be a lot tougher, but the thing about people involved in a criminal conspiracy was, they were always sure they were gonna get found out. That thought haunted them. Their own imaginations were what finally busted most of them. Brenton wasn't used to being interrogated, so Kaz had to get him away from his normal surroundings, find a place where he felt uncomfortable, and convince him he was involved in a federal crime.