Inherit the Mob (7 page)

Gordon poured them each a Wild Turkey on the rocks—her first, his third. He had never lost hope, even after so many years, that he would someday say the magic words that would make her stop being what she always would be. The booze gave him a quicksilver optimism and the illusion of eloquence. It also dulled the pain. Sometimes he could get through an entire night pretending to be as detached and cool as she was; but this wasn’t going to be one of those times. Tonight he would reach out for her, and she would, with humor and exquisitely calibrated distance, say no. Tonight it would hurt. And so, tonight, he would be drunk.

“I saw you on the news,” said Jupiter. “You looked very handsome in that black suit.” She let her gaze run over him, now back in jeans and a Wisconsin T-shirt. “I take it you’re out of mourning,” she added in a droll tone. “Think you’re up to a steak and salad at Barney’s? My treat.”

“I thought we’d order in Chinese. I want to talk to you about something.”

A wary, weary look came over Jupiter’s face. “What’s on your agenda, William?” she asked.

“Nothing special, really,” he said. Gordon still hadn’t decided whether to tell her about the will. He was tempted; Jupiter was shrewd about money and people, especially him. It made him uncomfortable to admit it, but she knew him better than anyone; she was the only person in the world who had seen him beg. On the other hand, he was afraid that she would find the story ridiculous, and him
comical for taking it seriously. He decided not to decide; he would just talk, and see what came out.

“Did Max leave you a lot of money?” she asked, as if she had read his mind. Jupiter could do that. Sometimes they would be drinking together in a bar and she would casually nod toward a woman at a distant table and say, “She’s one,” meaning a lesbian. Invariably, it was someone Gordon had noticed and wondered about. Before meeting Jupiter he had rarely thought about lesbians; now they seemed to be everywhere.

“Uh, that depends on what you mean by a lot of money,” he said. “Its all sort of up in the air right now. But let’s say he did leave me a lot. Would that make a difference?”

“To you or to me?” she asked, smiling.

“To you.”

“That would depend on how much it was,” she said, still smiling, but paying attention, too. “I’ve always wanted to own a big boat. Could you buy me a big boat?”

“Let’s say I bought you a big boat. Would you marry me?”

“We’ve been through this before,” she said. “You forget Mexico already? Marriage isn’t the solution to your problem or mine, you know that.”

“Kesef yanes akel,”
Gordon said. “That means ‘money solves everything.’ My aunt Ida says that.”

“Your aunt Ida is an old Jewish lady with emphysema and vulgar jewelry,” said Jupiter in a tight, cruel tone. “If you’re going to quote from the sages of your people, pick somebody a little more profound.”

“OK, as Moses said to Pharaoh, fuck you,” Gordon said. He got up to pour himself another drink and came back with the bottle. Jupiter held out her glass for a refill, and then put a placating hand on his arm.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you know I don’t like playing pretend with you. It hurts us both too much.”

“Listen,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “You want a big boat or don’t you want a big boat?”

“Goddamn it, you know what I want,” she said. “I want a baby. I want to be normal. I want to go home and be by myself.” Jupiter was on her feet, already pulling on the mink. Gordon grabbed a
sleeve and she lost her balance, falling back onto the couch. He leaned over and held her hard by the shoulders. Their faces were close enough for him to see the flecks of yellow in her brown eyes.

“I can give you a baby,” he said, hoping that this time, the magic words would come and open the gates. “I can give you a normal life, and a boat, and any goddamn thing you want. I can—”

“You can give me another drink, sugah,” she said, affecting a Southern accent. Gordon cursed inwardly; the magic words weren’t about to open anything that night. He kissed her gently on the cheek, the way he always did after one of these scenes, like a man smoothing the sheets of a rumpled bed.

“I like you when you’re sweet, Will,” she said. “Be sweet tonight, and let’s not drive each other crazy.”

“How big a boat?” Jupiter asked, wiping the juice of her second nineteen-dollar hamburger off her lips.

Barney’s was full that night and, as usual, people were staring at Jupiter Evans. She ignored them, and for most of the meal she pretty much ignored Gordon as well, devouring the burgers with a carnivorous concentration that belied her quiche-and-mineral-water image.

“You eat like a linebacker,” Gordon said.

“I eat like a healthy growing girl. How big a boat?”

“Let me ask you a question. How much did you earn last year?”

She paused, fork in midair, considering. “With the money for the movie, and counting past royalties for TV stuff and so on, pretty close to five million dollars,” she said. Although she tried to keep her voice level, Gordon detected a note of pride; there was more than a little carnivore in Jupiter when it came to money, too.

“Well, let me put it this way,” he said. “Potentially, what my uncle left me, the interest on it alone is about ten times that.”

“What!” she said, loud enough for the people at nearby tables to turn and look.

“Yeah, you figure it out, you’re good with numbers. Four, five hundred million at, say, eight percent. Most of it tax-free. I guess it comes to more than fifty million when you think of it that way.”

“This is a joke, right? Your uncle couldn’t have been that rich.” Jupiter had stopped eating and her brown eyes shone. Plainly she was
fascinated. Incongruously, Gordon recalled Kissinger’s old line about power being an aphrodisiac, and felt a swelling in his crotch. Next time I see Henry I’ll tell him I got a hard-on because of him, Gordon thought.

“Rich, richer, richest,” he said to Jupiter, feeling optimistic again. “Crime pays, it turns out.”

“Five hundred million dollars,” she said, turning the phrase slowly on her tongue. “Just thinking about it gives me a chill. You really could give me a big boat, couldn’t you?”

“And a baby,” he said. For the first time in three years, Gordon felt as if he might have a real chance with Jupiter Evans. He had suddenly discovered the magic words.

He awoke early the next morning, but not early enough to find Jupiter still in his bed. There was only a hastily scrawled note: “Had to go. Early exercise class. You were wonderful last night. Call you later. Love, J.”

Gordon had a high-quality Wild Turkey 101 hangover, but the adrenaline in his body was offsetting it nicely. She loves me, he thought. For my money, OK, but what the hell’s money for if not to buy happiness? Now all I have to do is find a way to keep the dough from a group of bloodthirsty Sicilian murderers and I’m all set.

At seven-thirty he called his father’s number. The old man picked it up on the second ring and barked “Grossman.” Gordon pictured him sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee, a toasted bagel with cream cheese and the sports page. “Grossman,” he said in reply. “How did the Knicks do?”

“Won by eleven,” said the old man happily. “Beat the spread by three, which is how I went. I think I’ll use the dough to plant some trees for Max in Israel.” He laughed, and Gordon could almost smell the stale cigars and cream cheese on his breath.

“You’re getting sentimental in your old age, Pop.”

“Nah, Max would have done the same for me,” he said. “What’s a brother for, after all? Whataya want, Velvel, I’m in the middle of something here.”

“You know about Uncle Max’s will, Pop?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. Gordon waited for more, but there was only silence.

“ ‘Yeah, I know’? Your only son inherits half a—”

“Shut up, Velvel!” Grossman exploded. “What the hell’s wrong with you, for crying out loud?”

“Pop, what’s the matter—”

“The telephone, you shmendrick. You got something to say to me, meet me where we had lunch last time. You remember? Twelve o’clock, sharp. All right?”

The phone rang while Gordon was in the shower. Hoping it was Jupiter, he stumbled out, wrapped in a towel, and caught it on the sixth ring. It was Flanagan.

“Top of the morning to you, boychik,” he said in a carefree tone. It was too early for him to sound like that, Gordon thought; he must be just getting home.

“What’s on your mind, chief?” he asked.

“Thought we might go over together, later on,” Flanagan said,

“Go over together where?” asked Gordon.

“To Ida’s. The shivah. Its a weeklong period of mourning in case you didn’t know,” he said.

“Ida’s probably on her way to Vegas.”

“Vegas! She wouldn’t do that; Max isn’t even cold yet,” he protested. He seemed genuinely shocked.

“Listen, Flanagan, do you fuck with a rubber?”

“Yeah, when need be. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Catholics aren’t supposed to fuck with a rubber. Jews aren’t supposed to go to Vegas after their husband’s funeral. But nobody’s perfect. It’s an irreverent world.”

“OK, so Ida’s in Vegas. Why don’t you come by the paper, we can go around the corner for a drink and talk.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Are you kidding?” asked Flanagan. “I want to hear what Nathan Belzer told you.”

“How do you know what he told me?”

“I don’t. But I saw your face when you came out yesterday, boychik. You know what you reminded me of? Of the way you looked in Saigon when you got the cables.”

Until that moment Gordon hadn’t decided whether or not to tell Flanagan about his uncle’s will, but now he realized that he would. He had to tell someone besides Jupiter; it was too good a story to keep. “OK, I’ll meet you at three,” he said. “How will I recognize you?”

Flanagan laughed at their old gag. “I’ll be the Catholic wearing the rubber,” he said.

G
ordon spotted the top of his father’s head as soon as he walked into the Emerald Isle. Grossman was sitting in a rear booth, wearing a gray tweed sport coat over a black turtleneck, bending over the
Sporting News
.

The small restaurant was crowded with the usual mix of workmen in flannel shirts and jeans drinking lunch at the bar and junior TV types from nearby ABC kibbitzing in the booths. On the way to the table he heard the name Reggie twice, and Peter three times.

Gordon had never met Reggie Jackson, but he vividly recalled his last encounter with Peter Jennings. They had been having dinner together at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem when Jennings was summoned to the phone. It was New York calling to inform him that he had just been voted one of America’s ten best-dressed men.

“It’s like a Pulitzer for your wardrobe, Peter,” Gordon had told him.

Gordon slid into the seat opposite his father, who looked up from
his paper and grunted a greeting. At seventy he still had a head of grizzled gray hair and taut, thick-looking skin that made him seem fifteen years younger. “Pistons against the Knicks tonight,” he said. “This city is the sports capital of the universe.”