William Lashner - Bitter Truth

“Yeah, sure there was pictures. Front page. Surprised you missed it.”

“I read the Inquirer .”

“Hey, Victor, let me give you a ride back to the city.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll go back with the limo.”

“Take a ride with me, Victor.”

“No really, it’s taken care of.”

His hand slid across my shoulder onto my neck and squeezed, lightly sure, but still hard enough for me to know how hard he could squeeze if ever he wanted, and with his other hand he reached over and gave my head a few light knocks with his knuckle.

“Hello, anybody home? Are you listening? I think maybe you should come and take a ride with me, Victor. I’m parked over there.”

We crossed the road with the hearse and the limousine and the other cars and kept going, across a field of tombstones with Jewish stars and menorahs and torah scrolls carved into the stone, with names like Cantor and Shure and Goodrich and Kimmelman, until we reached another road, where, down a ways, was parked a long white Cadillac.

We approached the passenger side and Lenny opened the rear door for me. “Hop on in, Victor.”

I gave him a tight smile and then ducked into the car. It must have slipped my mind for a moment, what with all the wiseguys at the funeral and the sadness of the pebbles scudding across the top of the coffin and the words of the Kaddish still echoing, but Lenny was not just any driver, and his invitation of a ride was less an invitation than a summons. When I entered the cool darkness of the car’s interior my eyes took a second to dilate open and I smelled him before I saw him. The atmosphere of the car was rich with his scent: the spice of cologne, the creamy sweetness of Brylcreem, the acrid saltpeter tang of brutal power waiting to be exercised.

Slowly, the car drove off along the cemetery road.

“I THOUGHT IT BEST IF I PAIDmy respects from a distance,” said Enrico Raffaello, sitting next to me on the black bench seat in the rear of his Cadillac. He was a short, neat man in a black suit and flowered tie. His hair was gray and greased back, his face cratered like a demented moon. His voice was softly accented with a Sicilian rhythm and a genuine sadness that seemed to arise not from the surface mourning of a funeral but from a deep understanding of the merciless progression of life. Between his knees was a cane tipped with a silver cast of a leopard, and his thick hands rested easily atop the crouching cat. “Jimmy was a loyal friend and I didn’t want to ruin his day.”

“I think that was wise,” I said.

“Did you like the service?”

“It was touching. The son especially.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard. I arranged for it to happen like that.”

“Flying him in from L.A. was very generous.”

“That is not quite how I arranged it. You see, Jimmy was not a diligent family man. He hadn’t seen his son in years and the son refused to come after what Jimmy had done to his mother. Jimmy was wrong in how he handled his wife, granted, but that was no reason for a son to show such disrespect for his father.”

“So how did you get him here?”

“I didn’t. Such rifts can be wide and deep and I am not a psychologist. I hired an actor instead.”

“That was an actor?”

“I told him I wanted some emotion. This actor, he said that crying was extra. I could have wrung his fat neck, but I am a sentimentalist, so I paid.”

“I never knew you were such a soft touch.”

“I’m getting too old, I think. It is one thing when my colleagues die, that is the natural order of things. But when the new generation start dying from natural causes and I’m still around, there’s nothing but a weary sadness. Maybe they are right. Maybe it is time to loosen my grip on the trophy.”

He sighed, a great sad sigh, and turned away from me to look out the window. We were just heading out the gates of the cemetery, turning into traffic. Lenny was breathing through his mouth as he drove. Though it had become a warm sunny day outside, with the darkened windows and the cool of the air conditioning it felt like fall.

“Have you found out anything from Pietro?” he asked still looking away.

“I wish you would let someone else do this.”

“Tell me what you know,” he snapped.

“Cressi wasn’t working alone,” I said. “He had to check the details of the arrangement with someone else before agreeing to the purchase of the guns. I’ve made some inquiries to area Mercedes dealers, no one reported stolen cars. I also talked with the ATF about the group to whom Peter says he was going to sell the guns. White supremacists, skinheads. Those brothers who butchered their parents up in Allentown were members. ATF has been watching them for years and says they do buy guns, but not in quantity. They’re too strapped for cash to even mail their newsletters out. I don’t believe he was going to resell them.”

“Then what were they for?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He sighed again and lifted a hand so he could examine his fingernails. “I believe I can trust you, Victor, and that is good. You are my scout. Like in the old cavalry movies, every general needs a scout to find the savages.”

“I hope I’m not the only one.”

“I’m being betrayed from within. I’m ready to step down, to retire to New Jersey and paint flowers, like Churchill, but I won’t be pushed out by a Judas.”

“Who do you think it is?”

Raffaello shrugged, his shoulder rising and falling as gently as a breath.

“Dante wanted me to report directly to him,” I said. “That is not our arrangement.”

“He is overeager perhaps, but a good man.”

“How did he rise so fast?”

“He is the eye in back of my head.”

“Maybe he needs glasses.”

“Do you have any reason to doubt him?”

“No, but I don’t trust him. What happened to Calvi? I thought I could trust Calvi.”

“We had a disagreement.”

“Over what?”

“What do you think this is about, Victor, the cars, the secrets, the deals, the threats? It’s all about money, rivers of money. We drive around in our Cadillacs and people give us money. When they don’t, we get a little rough and then they do. I keep the peace because that way we make more money. I distribute what we get fairly so everyone will stay in line and we’ll make even more money. It’s fun, sure, and we eat well, but we’re not in it for the pasta or the fun, we’re in it for the money. Now the animals who are against us, they want more than their share and to get it they’ll do whatever they need to, commit whatever crime they have to. It would be no different if we were selling cars, or canned goods, or cannoli, we’d still have the same fight. Just the tactics would be different and there would be more survivors. They want me gone so they can control the city and decide who gets what and once they control the city they’re going to milk it dry. And then it will grow too ugly to even imagine.”

We were on the Schuylkill Expressway again, going east, toward the city. We were in the center lane and all about us cars were surging and changing lanes and halting abruptly as another car got too close. Lenny was driving remarkably steady, never rising above fifty-five, acting as if we were being followed by a cop car at all times, which we very well might have been. A red convertible pulled even with us to the right, the driver’s blond hair flying behind her like a dashing scarf, before she rammed her way ahead.

“What about Calvi?” I asked.

“Calvi became unreliable. He hated everybody, trusted no one, and everyone hated him back. He had risen beyond his abilities and he knew it, but he wouldn’t step down. And then we discovered he was taking more than his share, so I was forced to step him down.”