Tim Green: Exact Revenge

I shrug and say, “I don’t know. Ten years? Twenty? As long as he lives.”

“He no talk Russian,” Alexi says. “Doctor cutting hands and feet and nose. Ears too. They no speaking him. He no walking. He staying bed.”

“Yes,” I say, getting up from the table and patting Bert’s hunched-over shoulders. “In America we do things in a big way. Isn’t that right, Bert?”

“That’s what the white men say.”

“Come on, chief,” I say to him, tugging him toward the door. “We’re not done.”

IT’S A CHILLY DAY for August, and outside the van, the late-afternoon rain hammers down on the metal roof. But I’m warm. I want Frank to live in fear and I know that someone like him fears only one thing.

I listen and watch as the guards frisk Bert outside the Yacht Club, but it isn’t until he walks into the meeting room overlooking the misty gray river that my heart starts to race. There is Ramo Capozza at the end of the table with his cappuccino and there in the middle is Frank, leaning back with his hands folded over his big belly.

Bert sets down a briefcase of documents on the table in front of him and sits. Frank’s eyes never leave him.

“Well, Mr. Washington,” Ramo says, setting down his cup on its saucer with a soft clink, “I trust your group is happy.”

Bert clears his throat and recites his line, saying, “We would like to know if since we’re buying Frank Steffano’s piece of the business that we’ll get the same deal with the unreported cash.”

Ramo glances at the man with the glasses on his right and smiles. He folds his hands together and puts his elbows on the table, leaning forward. His pale green eyes are big behind the thick lenses. Their lids are half closed.

Frank has his jaw set and he glares at Bert.

“Our disbursements,” Capozza says, “are all accounted for as payments to the partners. As you can see, this partnership is very profitable. Everything is legitimate. That lets me sleep at night. I like thinking that my grandchildren can go to college without worrying about wiretaps. You understand that, don’t you?”

I push the red button on the audio control board in front of me and say, “ Pass him the documents. Tell him that’s how you do business too .”

Bert shifts and pushes the briefcase away from him. The man on his left passes it toward Capozza’s end of the table.

“That’s how we do business too,” Bert says stiffly.

“So why do you think there’s an issue with some cash?” Capozza says, still smiling, but with his lips at an odd angle across his capped teeth.

“ Tell him, ‘If you look at these papers, you’ll see that over the last three years Frank’s taken almost seventy million dollars in cash out of the casinos ,’” I say.

Bert repeats the words. The briefcase gets to Frank. Instead of passing it on, he takes hold of it in both hands and stands up.

“I think before this goes any further,” Frank says, “that this partnership needs to know more about who you are. Don’t you think that would be a good idea?”

He is grinning at Bert now, and Bert shifts in his chair and folds his arms across his chest just below the tiny camera lens.

“Little warm in here, Bert?” Frank says, his eyes still glued. “You should be feeling a little warm, ’cause I know this whole thing is a scam . It’s a scam by you and it’s a scam by Seth Cole.”

The men around the table begin to murmur, and Frank raises his voice above them.

“You don’t represent a group of casino owners, do you?” Frank says. “The Iroquois Group is nothing but a front, and I have some papers here of my own.”

Bert pushes back his seat away from the table.

“ Wait, Bert ,” I say. “ Stay there. Tell them if you’re a scam then why doesn’t he let them look at the papers in the briefcase and decide for themselves. Do it. Now. Be angry, Bert .”

Bert clears his throat and repeats my words in a rumbling voice that sounds better than anything he’s said so far.

“Why don’t you give us those papers, Frank?” the pock-faced Dominic says from across the table. “Pass them down to Ramo. You got nothing to be afraid of, right? You wouldn’t steal from the partnership. That’d be too stupid…”

“I’ll pass this down,” Frank says, and, reaching down beside his chair, he comes up with some papers that he puts down on the table and slides toward Ramo Capozza. The man to Capozza’s right examines them through his glasses.

“This proves what I’m saying,” Frank says. “This Indian is some low-level muscle for a guy named Bonaparte. The only thing they got is a juiced-up bingo parlor and a drug racket up on the St. Regis Indian Reservation. There is no casino group. The money in that Iroquois Group account came from a shell corporation owned by Seth Cole. It’s all a scam to get at me.”

“Shit,” I say. I turn to Chuck Lawrence and he lifts his headset. “Get ready. If this gets bad, you’ll call 911 and report an armed robbery at the Yacht Club. We might have to break this thing up, but wait till I say.”

I turn back to the TV monitor.

“What about the briefcase?” Dominic is asking.

“Whatever’s in this,” Frank says, patting the briefcase without letting go, “is all lies. This guy and Cole had almost two weeks to cook this shit up. It’s nothing.”

“If it’s nothing, then we can look at it,” Dominic says, putting both his hands flat out on the table. He looks down at Ramo Capozza, whose eyes are going back and forth between Bert and Frank.

To Bert I say, “ Tell Capozza Frank’s lying. Tell him to look at the briefcase .”

Bert says, “He’s lying.”

“You son of a bitch,” Frank says in a growl, reaching inside his jacket. “I ought to take you out right here.”

“Frank!” Capozza shouts.

Everyone falls silent and the older man softly says, “This is a business meeting.”

He looks at Bert and says, “Mr. Washington, we run this business like a family. We trust each other. We cover each other’s backs. Isn’t that right, Dominic?”

“Yeah,” Dominic says, looking at the table. “We do.”

“If you and Mr. Cole have a problem with Frank, you shouldn’t be bringing it to us. We’re a very loyal group. Frank treated my nephew-God rest his soul-like his own blood and for that I owe him a debt.

“Now, Frank,” he says, turning his cold eyes on Frank. “You shouldn’t have any problem letting us see that briefcase. Of course we know you wouldn’t steal from us and that’s how we’ll look at it. But we will look, Frank…

“If what you say is true, and I have no doubt it is, Frank, then you can deal with Mr. Washington and Mr. Cole how you see fit. But… we’re businessmen here. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” Frank says, handing the briefcase to the man on his right and watching it until it is in the hands of the man next to Capozza.

“Mr. Washington,” Capozza says, standing up to signal an end to the meeting. “I know you and Mr. Cole are friends and I appreciate the hospitality you showed me and my great-grandson, but I do not appreciate any of this and you can tell Mr. Cole I said that.”

Bert stands up and says, “Can I go?”

Capozza looks at him with an expression of surprise and says, “Of course, Mr. Washington. I told you. We’re all businessmen here and our business is finished.”

Bert is quickly escorted out into the rain and put in my limousine. When the door closes, he holds out his tie and looks down into the camera.

“Jesus Christ,” he says.

“ You did good ,” I tell him.

“I thought they were gonna kill me,” Bert says.