She nodded.
“One last thing,” he said. “We need a danger signal. If I ever call you here or anyplace else and ask how things are, give
me one of two answers. If everything’s fine, just say‘fine.’ But if there’s a gun at your head, say‘
never better,’
and I’ll know. If you’re the one calling, the same signal holds. OK?”
“Yes.”
She looked curiously abandoned as he left. Or was he imagining it?
At a theatrical costumer’s on Ninth Avenue, Gianni took care of his camouflage needs with an iron-gray hairpiece, a matching
moustache, and a pair of plain-lensed horn-rims that gave him the look of an aging accountant.
Trick or treat. Still, it was strangely effective… almost as
if he were being offered a furtive glimpse of himself, a full thirty years into the future.
I should only live so long.
Feeling much less exposed in his home city of suddenly faceless hunters, he went to work. His primary target was his onetime
fat, curly-haired art school classmate, Angie Alberto, whose father, as reported by Don Carlo, had been Vit-torio Battaglia’s
last assigned hit before Vittorio’s own disappearance. He had no idea what Angie could tell him about Vittorio, or whether
Angie was even still alive and in the city. But he was all he had at the moment.
Gianni found a Manhattan phone book and immediately got lucky. There was only one Angelo Alberto and he had both a home and
a studio listing at the same Riverside Drive address.
Twenty-five minutes later, Gianni got out of a cab in front of a vintage Art Deco building that faced the Hudson with the
faded elegance of the early thirties. A frail doorman of about the same age as the building was studying a racing form in
the lobby.
“Angelo Alberto,” Gianni told him.
The doorman barely glanced up. “Apartment twelve C.”
In the elevator, Gianni removed his brand-new hairpiece, moustache, and glasses and put them in his pockets. No point in scaring
Angie any more than he had to.
On the twelfth floor, he walked along a musty corridor, rang the bell of apartment 12C, and a moment later was staring into
the round, aging face of a no-longer boyish, but even-fatter-than-before Angelo Alberto.
“Hello, Angie.”
Angie’s dark eyes blinked and his lips worked. Emotions passed like shadows over his face. “Gianni?”
“It’s me.” Gianni grinned broadly, working to show good intent. “How’re you doing?”
“Hey! Not as good as da Vinci and you. I keep reading about you.” Angelo gathered some composure. “Come in… come in. Jesus,
this is some surprise. How long’s it been? Twenty years?”
“Feels more like two hundred.”
Gianni walked in on Angelo Alberto’s life.
One careful look exposed it all… gloomy hall, kitchen,
combination studio-living room, single bedroom. Angie’s work was freelance advertising and catalog art, specializing in men’s
fashions. At best, it was third rate. His family pictures showed a fat boy and girl, but no wife. Poor Angie was still getting
beat up on. You smelled it the minute you walked in. The odor was sour, as if Angie himself secreted it. Being kind, Garetsky
pretended to notice nothing.
In the studio-living room, Angie cleared a couple of shirts, a sweater, some socks, and old newspapers off two chairs. He
fluttered nervously about. Gianni wondered when someone had visited him last.
“Sit down, Gianni. I’m honored you’re here. Can I get you something? How about a cold beer?”
“I could use one. Thanks.”
Gianni looked out the window at the brick wall of another building. That was the view. Faded brick.
Angie returned from the kitchen with two sweating cans. Handing one to Gianni, he noticed his bruises for the first time.
“Jesus! What’s with your face?”
“A couple of Fibbies worked me over.”
“You kidding, or what?”
It was a good lead-in.
“That’s why I’m here, Angie. I’m in real deep shit. I was hoping you might be able to help me out.”
Angelo stared dumbly. “Me?”
“These two feds who did me? They were looking for Vit-torio Battaglia. Never told me why. But since we used to be close, they
figured I knew where he was. Which I don’t. But the bastards wouldn’t believe me.”
“They took you apart for
that?”
“The going-over was just a friendly start. It looked like they were gonna waste me.”
Angelo worked his beer can, squeezing, bending. “But they didn’t.”
“Only because I grabbed one of their pieces and used it.”
The 220-pound fashion artist sat looking at Gianni. He had to work it through twice before he was ready to accept it. When
he did, his plump face was flushed red and sweating.
“You blew away two feds?”
“It was that or get done myself. So now I’m on the lam and don’t even know why. And I could die not knowing unless I find
Vittorio.”
“You think
I
know where he is?”
“I’m hoping.”
An all-too-obvious attempt at innocence crossed the fat man’s open face.
The guy can’t even lie effectively,
thought Garetsky.
“Why me?” said Angelo. “What did I ever have to do with Vittorio after art school?”
“I spoke to Don Donatti. He told me your dad was the last contract Vittorio handled for him before Vittorio himself disappeared.”
“And that’s supposed to make me the murdering son-ofabitch’s buddy? Because he did my old man?”
“I’m sorry about your father, Angie. It just hit me as very strange that he should happen to disappear at the exact same time
as Vittorio.”
“So?”
“Wouldn’t you call that kind of a coincidence?”
Angelo mopped his face with a soiled handkerchief. He was sweating heavily now. “So it’s a coincidence. So what?”
“So I don’t really believe in coincidence. Never did. It makes me wonder how you knew it was Vittorio who did your papa.”
Gianni stared long and hard at Angelo Alberto. “How
did
you know, Angie?”
“You just told me.”
“You’re lying, Angie.”
Angelo did his best to manifest anger, but it came out more like a whimper. “You shouldn’t call me a liar.”
“Then you shouldn’t lie. You weren’t even surprised when I said Don Donatti told me your dad was the last hit Vittorio ever
did for him. So you had to know it before.”
About to protest, Angelo changed his mind and drank his beer instead. The can shook in his hand. Beer dripped from his chin.
“Who told you?” said Gianni.
Angelo began to smile, tried it, then let it go.
“I think it was your papa who must have told you, Angie.”
“You mean from the grave?”
“What grave? Your father was never in any grave. There was no body to bury. He just disappeared. Remember? Like Vittorio.”
Gianni looked evenly at Angelo’s sweated face. “Your father’s alive, isn’t he?”
“You’re crazy.”
“Where is he, Angie? I won’t hurt him. I swear. I’ve no reason to hurt him. All I want is to talk to him. Ask a few questions.”
“He’s dead. You wanna ask a fucking dead man questions?”
The way Angelo said it made Gianni remember how he always said things as a kid, half-whining and cringing as though he expected
to get whacked and was just waiting for it to come.
“I’m giving you a choice,” said Gianni. “You can tell me where your dad is, or you can tell it to Don Donatti after his soldiers
chop off your thumbs. If you tell me, nobody knows or gets hurt. If you tell the don, you can kiss your papa goodbye and go
looking for your thumbs.”
His expression set for another denial, Angie’s face suddenly seemed to melt down like butter in the sun.
“Why are you doing this to me, Gianni? You were never like the others. You always treated me decent.”
“I’m still treating you decent. Just don’t be stupid about this.”
“My dad’ll beat the crap out of me if I tell you.”
“He’ll be dead if you don’t. And you’ll wish you were.”
Angelo slumped in his chair, sank back. Then he seemed to continue sinking, beyond even the chair and himself.
“Shit,” he moaned. “I was always a lousy liar.”
“That’s not such a bad thing. Sometimes it’s even good.”
“Sure. It’s terrific. Except maybe if you want to sometimes get through a whole stinking day without getting ripped apart.”
Angelo pushed himself to his feet and wandered absently about the room. He stopped in front of a closed closet door and rocked
gently back and forth like an old Jew praying at
the Wailing Wall. Then without changing expression or missing a beat, he suddenly smashed his head against it.
The door splintered at the point of impact.
Angelo turned and looked at Gianni where he sat. His eyes were vacant and a trickle of blood ran down his forehead and dripped
onto his shirt. For several seconds Gianni could feel himself living inside Angelo Alberto. It was not a happy place to be.
Like Gianni Garetsky, Mary Yung took care of changing her appearance as her first priority.
Being Chinese, of course, limited her options. So she settled for one of those dark, curly-haired, Kewpie Doll wigs with which
more and more beautiful Asian women were trying to westernize their looks, but were really only perverting themselves into
a far less attractive hybrid species.
For the rest of her new persona, she took Gianni’s advice and modeled herself after the battalions of tourists currently crowding
Manhattan. Which meant trendy designer jeans, T-shirt and sneakers, wraparound sunglasses, and oversize shoulder bag.
Thus disguised, Mary drifted along busy Fifth Avenue, thinking things Gianni Garetsky knew nothing about, but which she had
been carrying deep inside her head for more than nine years. Although it was only for the past few days that it had started
to hold any particular meaning for her.
The fact was, she had lied to Gianni about never having known the name of the woman for whom Vittorio Battaglia had allegedly
broken off with her.
She knew, all right.
She definitely did.
The things we do when we’re alone inside ourselves.
And why had she done it?
Part curiosity, part wounded pride, part the nature of her instincts. Men didn’t usually walk out on her like that. Certainly
not for another woman. So she secretly followed Vittorio one night and found out who the woman was. And followed the woman
herself the next day and learned where she worked and what she did there. And followed her again at night… in fact for several
nights… and each time saw
her with a man.
Who was not Vittorio.
And found out too who that man was. Which, in a vindictive sort of way, amused her. The two-timing bitch.
Poor Vittorio, she had thought, and was almost able to feel sorry for him. Soon he’d be knocking at her door again.
Two weeks later she saw in the paper that the woman, Irene Hopper, had died when the plane she was flying crashed into the
ocean.
But Vittorio somehow never knocked at her door, or called, or answered the phone when she called him. Eventually, his phone
was disconnected. When she went to his apartment, other people were living there. All they knew about Vittorio Battaglia was
that strangers were always coming around and asking for him.
Eventually, she officially buried him.
Good-bye, Vittorio.
And now? Nine years after the fact? With the FBI seemingly willing to torture and kill to find him.
Maybe not so officially buried.
Moving with the well-dressed, confident-looking Fifth Avenue throng, Mary Yung tried to make herself feel one with them. At
times she could do that. At times she was able to make herself feel as much a part of America’s golden dream as anyone on
this beautiful golden street.
But not today. Any such dreams she had today were quickly reduced to no more than foolish flights of fancy. And she became
what she knew herself to be, a scrawny little kid with matchstick arms, afraid of closets, and broken dolls, and hunger. Afraid
of darkness, and open boats, and black water. Afraid of reaching, touching hands. Afraid, finally, of breathing. She might
use up all the air.
I’m a banana child. I look like an unripe banana. Yellow mixed with green, and full of stomach cramps.
Mary Yung had started for the hotel, but now she changed her mind and found a pay phone in the lobby of an office building.
Feeling the need for information she didn’t have, she called Jimmy Lee, who either knew or could very quickly get to know
just about anything.
“Your little hyacinth needs a great big favor,” she told him, speaking their usual Cantonese.
“Just hearing your voice brings the sun to my day,” Lee said in the same dialect. “What’s your need?”
“I need to know as much as you can find out about a woman named Irene Hopper.” Mary spelled the name for Jimmy Lee. “She died
in a plane crash about nine years ago.”
“Where was she from?”
“Right here in New York.”
“Was it a major crash with a lot of fatalities?”
“I don’t think so. In fact, if I remember correctly, she was flying her own plane.”
“Was her death reported in any of the newspapers?”
“Yes. That’s how I found out about it.”
“All right, sweet thing,” said Lee. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You never fail me. I bless you.”
“I’d rather have you love me.”
“Ah, Jimmy. I’m an empty husk. I’d only disappoint you.”
“Please,” he whispered. “Disappoint me.”
“When should I call you?”
“Every hour on the hour.”
They had dinner in their room that evening. Gianni had asked Mary Yung to do the ordering, and she turned the meal into an
occasion, with champagne, good French wine, and a chicken
contadina
that Gianni found superb.
“You make being on the run seem like the thing to do this year,” he told her.
“May as well make the best of it.”
She checked the bill the waiter had left. “Expensive. How are we fixed in the money department? We certainly can’t use any
plastic.”
“No problem there. I’ve plenty of cash and a couple of clean credit cards under phony names.”