Thomas Perry: Blood Money

Castiglione nodded.

Molinari knitted his brows as though he had trouble reconstructing the list. “There’s one of Bernie’s bodyguards. He got scarce about the same time Bernie died. There’s this girl who cleaned Bernie’s house. And there’s this woman.” He shrugged. “Nobody knows anything about her, but somebody saw her with Bernie’s housekeeper. They made a drawing of her, like the cops do.”

Castiglione’s eyes shone with amusement as he watched Molinari.

“We sent people everywhere with pictures, offered rewards. We watched airports, hotels, car rental places, everything. The only one who gets seen is the woman, and it may not even be the same woman.”

Castiglione listened, his eyes gazing down into the deep, dark wine in his glass, letting the sunlight shine into it and turn it blood-red.

“Yesterday, my people start to look over their shoulders, and something has changed,” said Molinari. “Castananza’s guys are gone. Okay, I figure, he’s got a small family, and he just decided he’s lost enough on this. Next thing, it’s a few of Catania’s guys—not all, but some. This morning, my guys start seeing Delfina’s guys leaving for home.”

“So what did you come to me for? You think I got Bernie’s money?”

Molinari made the face of surprise that Castiglione expected. “I’ll be open with you, Don Paolo. I’m nervous. I want to know what you think.”

Castiglione sighed. “I’ll be open with you too. The money we all stashed with Bernie in the old days was big from the start. That was when a million dollars was still a million dollars. It’s billions by now.”

“That’s what we all figured.”

Castiglione spat toward the tile floor. “Kiss it good-bye. It died with him.”

“But somebody is moving it.”

“Maybe somebody in the FBI watching Bernie figured out where it was, and they’re washing it because they’re sick of asking Congress for money. Maybe Bernie confessed to his priest where it was, and now there’s a crew of Jesuit accountants secretly slipping it to the lame, the halt, and the blind. Who gives a shit? If you can’t find it and grip it with your hands, it’s gone.” He glared at Molinari. “The only question is, who was the first one to figure that out?”

“I don’t know … Castananza pulled his guys out first.”

“I’m sorry, kid,” said Castiglione gently. “But you’re way behind on this. Somebody used this to see what he could take that was worth more than Bernie’s money. When you had this sit-down and decided everything, who was the one that arranged it? Where was it held?”

“John Augustino got everybody down to Pennsylvania. We met in this bus he has.”

“It figures.”

“Why? The Langustos seemed to do all the talking, and they were the ones who brought Bernie into the city in the first place. Or their father was.”

“I’m talking about way before that. Bernie was from Pittsburgh. There was a meeting in the forties in Miami. The one who brought Bernie in and sold him to all of us was Sal Augustino, John’s father. The Langustos just had the job of keeping Bernie fed and protected because in those days we wanted him in New York. I’d say that the one you want to watch out for isn’t the one who’s doing the talking. It’s the one who’s sitting behind him and watching everybody’s faces. If Phil and Joe Langusto did all the talking, forget them. The one who’s getting ready to cut your throat is John Augustino.”

“I never would have thought of it that way,” said Molinari. He stared at Castiglione for a few seconds. “I know that when you came here, you didn’t get out of the life. I can see you still have money coming in, and somebody is telling you things.”

Castiglione’s face was empty of expression.

Molinari said, “I think maybe you still have people who work for you but don’t say they work for you. I think maybe, if you said the word, all of a sudden you would have some soldiers.”

Castiglione stared into his glass of wine. The time was here. “That’s a dangerous thing to talk about. If anybody thought there was a chance you wanted that, they’d get together and come for your head.”

Molinari shrugged. “If I get through this and they don’t, it won’t matter what they would have done.”

Castiglione lifted his wine glass, held the stem between his thumb and forefinger and twirled it, watching the wine try to catch up. “I’ve been here for a long time. The soldiers I had, they’re still where they always were. Their bosses probably don’t remember what family these guys belonged to before.”

“I want you to come back with me.”

Castiglione pretended to think about it. He had known that this day would come. After all these years sitting in the desert and waiting, it was all coming together. Molinari had no idea who he was asking for help. He was too young to remember. In a month or a year, all of the capos who had forced Castiglione to come here would be dead. Then it would just be Castiglione and Molinari, then just Castiglione. “I’ll try to help you,” he said.

“How many of these guys from the old days will come if you call? How many are you sure of?”

Castiglione pursed his lips. “Not many. Two hundred.”

Molinari’s heart began to thump. He had been right all along, but this was beyond his expectations. Let Augustino come; let all of them come. It just could be that when they did, the guys they had come to trust, the middle-aged, reliable ones who had worked for them for a dozen years, and before that had been part of the old Castiglione organization, would put the shotgun to the backs of their heads.

39

Phil Langusto stared at his brother, then at Tony Pompi. Their faces were expressionless. They didn’t want to come in and tell him anything that required them to draw a conclusion. They just wanted to pretend they were technicians, showing him facts and figures because facts and figures weren’t their fault. He waited impatiently while Pompi extracted the folded map from its envelope and laboriously unfolded it. His brother Joe took the other end of it, and they held it like a blanket and set it on the floor.

Phil walked to the edge of the map and looked down. It made him sick. The country looked like the body of a dead hippopotamus, lying there on its side with blood-red dots all over it. The spatters of red that had been concentrated on both coasts now overlapped into huge streams that ran down from Canada to Mexico in the west, and from New England to Florida in the east. But the part that had changed most was the midsection. There were dots on most of the major cities from Minneapolis to New York, and from the Great Lakes south to the Mason-Dixon line.

Phil said quietly, “This is what you wanted to show me?”

Joe nodded. “It was pretty much what we thought. They were on their way into the Midwest to mail the rest of the donations.”

Phil glared at Joe, then at Pompi. “What is it? Did you come in just to tell me that you were right and get a pat on the head? Do you have some new theory, some new plan?”

Joe stared down at the map regretfully. “Not exactly. We just thought it was time to show you what we were seeing.”

“I see a few thousand bright red dots. What do you see?”

Joe cleared his throat, nervously. “The map hasn’t changed in a few days.”

“What do you mean? It looks terrible.”

“Yeah,” said Joe. “It does. But what worries us is that it isn’t any more terrible than it was about a week ago.” He waited for Phil to catch on, but his brother’s eyes just burned into his. “We think they’re through mailing letters.”

Phil stared down at the map. “But there are still a few empty spots. Nothing down in here at all.” He pointed at the bottom of the map with the toe of his shoe, vaguely indicating Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana.