Warren Murphy: Mafia Fix

It was the second please, and Remo did not try to think of anything smart-ass to say. He nodded again and Smith closed the suitcase and walked toward the door. Without a word, he left. He was glad he had not found it necessary to tell Remo that one of the addicts not yet lucky enough to be dead was Smith's own daughter.

CHAPTER FIVE

For Dominic Verillio, the good Italian restaurants would not do. Neither would his sprawling estate in Kensico, New York, nor his three-story English tudor home in Hudson, New Jersey. The Palm Beach home was out too. They were all being watched. Or bugged. Little electronic devices that so fitted the character of America. Neat. Clean. Technical. Unemotional. And you didn't know they didn't work until it was too late.

But they worked well enough so that Dominic Verillio would not even discuss big business in his office. Not well enough to stop him or even hinder him once he knew about them. But enough so the good restaurants, his country estate, his three-story home or his Palm Beach home were out for something that was really important. The flaw in electronic surveillance was timing. Given time, the feds, the state police- even your credit agency-could bug any place you could build or buy or rent. Given time.

But what if you didn't give time? If you conducted your real business within ten minutes at a new location, you were as safe as if the bug had never been invented.

So on that bright afternoon when the center-lane trees on Park Avenue and 81st Street in New York City still gloried in their summer green, taxis began arriving on the east side of the street, pulling up one after another, letting off their passengers who were, invariably, one middle aged man accompanied by two young men. All between 2:05 p.m. and 2:10 p.m. The little crowd was consumed by bowing and hand-kissing and nodding until Dominic Verillio, in black business suit, white shirt and black tie, said:

"None of that. Not now. Not now."

And since most of the hand-kissing and bowing was to him, that stopped it. Five rented limousines pulled up, rented ten minutes before in five different locations and the group of people rapidly filled them.

Dominic Verillio was in the front limousine. It was the car of honour and therefore, with him also was Pietro Scubisci, a sweet-looking gray haired man from New York City in an off-the-rack suit and white shirt with upturned collar because his wife, now being seventy-two years of age, did not see so well as she used to.

Pietro Scubisci was Capo Mafioso in New York City and within a day and a half could present, if he wished, eighty-two million dollars, in cash in paper bags. The rolled up, crinkled brown paper bag he now held in his lap, however, contained fried peppers, in case Dominic Verillio was to hold the meeting in a restaurant. Scubisci did not like paying New York City restaurant prices because "all the time they go up." That he was in a degree responsible for this was not at issue. That was money coming in. Paying the prices was money going out. He brought his peppers.

Beside him in the back seat was Francisco Salvatore, younger than Scubisci, in his early forties, in a Pierre Cardin suit whose stylish, flowing lines seemed incapable of wrinkling. He had sculptured hair, manicured fingernails, and a deep, tanned face. His teeth were white, even and flawless, and he was often told he could be a movie actor if he wished. He did not wish, however, because, at his age, making what Rock Hudson or John Wayne made would have been a pay cut.

He carried no money, because even cash would have altered the lines of his suit. When the elderly Scubisci turned to speak to him, he accidentally brushed the greasy bag against the knitted fabric of Salvatore's pants. If left a dark splotch. Salvatore pretended he did not notice it. Later, on the flight back to Los Angeles, he would curse silently to himself until the suit was off him and in the garbage pail.

To Scubisci's right was Filemeno Palmucci-or Fat O'Brien-a lump of a head set on a roll of a neck and expanding out from there to hips. The mound was topped by a gray fedora, a half-size too small. Fat O'Brien never smiled and just stared straight ahead, as if intent on digesting his intestines. He was from Boston.

In front, of course, was Don Dominic Verillio who had called them all together. He was half-turned, facing the back seat, and was polite and cordial. His face could have graced the cover of BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, but he spoke with more emotion and with gestures more human as opposed to the cadaver-like expressions of top level American management.

"I take it you are in good health," said Dominic Verillio, smiling.

"Good," said Pietro Scubisci who had the right to answer first. "The wife she good too, although she no see too good now."

"I am sorry to hear that, Pietro."

"Life is life, Don Dominic," said Scubisci. 'It begin blind and weak and end blind and weak. I did not make life."

"You would have made it better, Don Pietro," said Francisco Salvatore in a display of white teeth.

"Francisco. God make life. Nobody make it better. Nobody make it worse either," said Pietro Scubisci. Somehow the grease from his fried peppers never seemed to smudge his dark suit.

"And you?" said Verillio to Francisco Salvatore.

"I am well, thank you, Don Dominic. My wife is well. My children are well. It is a good life in the sunshine. You must visit us some time."

"I shall," said Dominic Verillio. "I shall."

"I'm fine too, Don Dominic," said Fat O'Brien.

"That is good. Health is most important. We have been having good weather here in the metropolitan area of New York. Good weather makes good wine, as they say."

"Good wine makes good weather, too," said Pietro Scubisci and smiled. All smiled with him.

And thus it went in the caravan of rented limousines. Health, weather, the family. The big innovative discussion came when Guglielmo Marconne, or Apples Donnelly as he was known from time to time, told Vittorio Pallellio that "you can't get a good steak in Miami Beach." They were in the fourth car from the front. Guglielmo Marconne was from Duluth and Vittorio Pallellio was from Miami Beach.

"We got good steaks," said Vittorio Pallellio. "Maybe you didn't look in the right places."

"I looked in the right places, Don Vittorio."

"You didn't look in the right places, Guglielmo."

"I looked in the Boca Del Sol."

"The Boca Del Sol doesn't have good steaks."

"I looked in-what's the name of that place that looks like a shlock furniture store?"

"That's the whole city, Guglielmo."

"I didn't get a good steak there, either. And I didn't get a good one in the Boca Del Sol."

"The Boca Del Sol doesn't have good steaks, Guglielmo."

"I know that. I got a bad steak there."

And so the small talk went among the representatives from Dallas and New Orleans, Chicago and Rochester, Portland and Kansas City, Cleveland and Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville, Denver, Phoenix, Norfolk, Charleston, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Wheeling.

Downtown went the caravan which, because the rented limousines were not all the same color, did not look like a caravan. Only Don Dominic Verillio knew the destination and every so often he would tell the driver to turn here and turn there, always careful not to lose the cars behind. Finally, before a small art shop in Greenwich Village, Don Dominic Verillio signalled his driver to stop.

He jumped out, opening the door for Pietro Scubisci, Francisco Salvatore and Fat O'Brien, saying "no time for formalities. No time."

The driver, Willie the Plumber Palumbo, also jumped out and, checking a wad of bills in his pocket, ran into the little boutique art store with the dresses and paintings in front.

Almost as soon as he opened the door, he said, "There is a strawberry scene here I want to buy for $5,000."