Joe Gores: Cons, Scams, and Grifts

The phone rang. Without salutation the recognized voice of Willem Van De Post spoke to Staley in Romani .

“What are the Muchwaya doing to celebrate Millennium year?”

“We have many projects in hand,” Staley said untruthfully.

“So. As I thought. Nothing. Come to Rome. It is the two thousandth birthday of our Holy Mother Church. We are having year-long celebrations, festivities, huge crowds...”

Staley had thought of it, of course. The hordes of believers, the urgency of their spiritual needs...

“But the cost!” he exclaimed prudently.

“I can guarantee you will recoup it in a week in Rome if I can use your people for an operation there in California. Here are the facts as I know them...”

When Staley finally put back the receiver, he said, “That was the man in Italy who is married to your niece. I have never appreciated him before.”

“Willem? Willem Van De Post?”

“Yes, Willem. On the side of the angels, and a saint to protect us! Almost, we will have the Italian government behind us.”

But to do what Willem asked they were going to have to poach on Kalderasha territory in a big way, and pool all of their enterprises to raise money besides. Somehow he would have to convince his tribe to do it, and avoid the cops at the same time.

Just then the spring bell on the front door jingled merrily. Lulu went smiling out into the shop and instantly tagged as cops the two bulky men who had just entered.

She chirped, “What can I get for you gentlemen?”

“Ted Terrizi,” said the bald one.

“Ted, better known as Staley,” said the other.

Lulu tilted her head quizzically. “Staley?”

“Staley Zlachi,” sneered Guildenstern, “as in Gyppo.”

“Papa,” Lulu called in a musical voice.

Ted’s business really was fencing hot electronics rather than repairing them. Staley came through the curtain still clutching the hastily snatched-up Chronicle sports section. His reading glasses were down on his nose, an old-fashioned watch chain glinted across his ample belly. He had kicked off his shoes on the way, a nice touch: who committed crimes barefoot?

“Papa, they call you some other name I don’t know...”

With a protective arm around her shoulders, he gave them a saddened, significant Alzheimer’s eye-roll above her head.

“Mama, she don’t always get things so good these days.”

“What she can get us is the present whereabouts of one of your people,” said good-cop Rosenkrantz as bad-cop Guildenstern slapped a faxed photo down on the countertop.

“You know this guy here?”

“He looks dead,” said Staley.

“Dead as disco.” The two old people hurriedly crossed themselves. “The question ain’t whether he’s dead. It’s whether you know him.”

Lulu’s left eyelid twitched. Staley immediately said, “He is one of our people, yes, God rest his soul. Ephrem Poteet.”

“He’s got a wife, Yana,” stated bad-cop Guildenstern.

“Oh, her we wouldn’t know nothing about.”

Lulu spoke over him. “She once was of our kumpania but she has been declared marime. ” She addressed herself pointedly to good-cop Rosenkrantz. “You know marime , mister handsome policeman?”

“Yeah. You tossed her out on her can. What for?”

“She stopped following the ways of the Rom. ”

Though Gypsies were seldom involved in murder cases, both Homicide cops had picked up enough lore over the years to know that this ritual rejection by the tribe could be for anything from breaking a sexual taboo — showing too much thigh, for instance, as opposed to breast, which didn’t count — to working a straight, gadjo job. In one famous case, a girl’s whole clan had been declared marime because she had joined the Peace Corps.

“So we don’t know where Yana is,” Staley was going on. “Don’t nobody keep track of people who’ve been tossed out.”

“But you know whether she’s in town or not.”

Staley nodded unwillingly. “I hear maybe she is.” Lulu’s right eyelid gave a slight twitch, so he added smoothly, “She’s a fortune-teller when she’s working, I hope that helps you out.”

“Calls herself Madame Miseria,” nodded ever-helpful Lulu.

As Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern were leaving, a lean, very handsome man with gleaming black blow-dried hair brushed by them in the doorway without apology. His high-cheekboned face had the piratical lines of a mob attorney of Sicilian heritage, and his suit definitely wasn’t from the Men’s Wearhouse. The cops appreciated expensive clothes as only honest men who can’t afford them do; they knew it took a K or two, easy, to waltz that grey wool number out the door.

“Looks like a Mafioso,” said Rosenkrantz, “so why’s he goin’ in there? In that suit he didn’t fall off a potato truck.”

“Gonna put a horse’s head in their bed,” Guildenstern wheezed. “He wasn’t carrying anything he could fence, and besides, we’re Homicide.” As they were getting into their plain sedan, he added, “You catch Mama’s twitching eyelid?”

“Alzheimer’s,” said Rosenkrantz wisely.

“Yeah. Guy goes to the doctor, doctor says, ‘I’ve got bad news and worse news. You got cancer and you got Alzheimer’s.’ ”

“ ‘Thank God I don’t have cancer,’ ” said Rosenkrantz.

Guildenstern chuckled, then sobered. “Madame Miseria. At least we got a name to give Dirty Harry down at Bunco.”

Staley hung up the phone and sat back down at the kitchen table. The fragrance of Lulu’s thin stogie filled the room.

“The L.A. cops refuse to release Ephrem’s body and they’re holding his possessions as crime-scene evidence.”

“I’m still gonna hold a pomana for him,” insisted Lulu. A pomana was a ritual feast for the dead at which only fruits and grains are served. “Even if we don’t got his body.”

“We can hold it at my place on High Street in Point Richmond,” said Rudolph Marino. “Big brown shingle house with a great view across the bay. The owners are on a world cruise and the neighbors think I’m their nephew.” He changed the subject. “Why’d you tell ’em that Yana reads fortunes as Madame Miseria?”

“Why shouldn’t I of told ’em?” Lulu was just short of defiant. “They wanted to notify her that Ephrem had been killed, that’s all. You got a problem with getting her into trouble with the cops? She’s been declared marime , what more do you need?”

Staley said cautiously, “How much trouble we talkin’ here?”

“They’re from Homicide, not General Works,” said Marino.

“How d’ya know that? They didn’t say nothing like that.”

“Mama, they showed us a picture of Ephrem — dead,” Staley reminded her. “And then started askin’ about Yana.”

Rudolph added, “Ephrem fingered her as his killer before he died. He said, ‘It was my wife from ’Frisco.’ And at the last second he yelled her name, ‘ Yana-a-a-a-a... ’ — just like that.”

“How you know all this stuff?” demanded Lulu in a suddenly subdued voice. If Yana was guilty of preplanned murder, she had broken one of the most deeply held Rom taboos.

“The bartender at the Hurly Burly in L.A. is a Kalderasha with a pipeline to police headquarters.”

“ Why would she kill him?” asked Staley. “Ephrem never had no money. He always drank or gambled away everything he made.”

“This time he had money.”

“From where?” asked Lulu with a new gleam in her eye.

“He made a big credit and phone card score at Universal Studios and cashed it in at the Hurly Burly two hours before he died. Bragged that he’d taken a lot of cash and traveler’s checks, too. After Yana stuck him and emptied his pockets, she took apart the ceiling light fixture.”