Permanent Interests (11 page)

If problems came up -- God forbid -- if they could be deferred, they were, until Al's normally jolly, generous humor returned.

Problems plagued his business dealings with the various ethnic groups with which he had assiduously forged links over the years. Sectional rivalries in the Latino outfits were hurting business. Colombians and Dominicans were fighting it out over turf over crack distribution in the Bronx. Al's Chinese counterparts in Manhattan were unable to bring under control the growing Asian youth gangs which were extorting and threatening Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese shopkeepers around the city. Many of these small scale business people were suppliers of Al's businesses, or had cooperative arrangements with Al's PERMANENT INTERESTS

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territorial capos. When the Asians suffered, Al also suffered as profits went down and the complaints from his people rose. Along 125th Street in Harlem, city authorities had cleared out illegal vendors. Al had provided the seed money to Harlem business cohorts to get the vendors started and supplied in return for eleven percent of the receipts, now dried up. Even the Irish, Jewish and other politicians with whom he had carefully cultivated discreet and mutually enriching relationships over the years were not returning his calls. The
New York Post
was running a series of investigative articles documenting the cozy relationships between city politicians and alleged organized crime figures, making the former suddenly gun-shy.

Even his right-hand man, Ricky, was falling down on the job. Smitten by a red headed co-ed philosophy major at NYU, Ricky was busy squiring the young lady on vacation trips to St. Kitts, Stowe and Las Vegas.

The only shining exception in this miserable picture was Wentworth. The young man now had Al-Mac Construction Co., Inc. running like a finely calibrated machine. In fact, Al-Mac was the one business free of problems. As efficiency increased, so did contracts and profits. Things were running so smoothly there that Al began to worry that his newest acolyte might be getting bored despite the frequent fat bonuses Al bestowed. The lad was unquestionably trustworthy. Nonetheless, Al carefully kept him out of his other enterprises, preferring to use Wentworth as gloss on his ongoing program to portray himself and his wide-ranging commercial realm as clean and legitimate. He came, however, to depend on his ex-Marine more and more in face of the compounding problems and Ricky's goofing off.

Al's most reliable business partners, the Russians, now also fell into the same jinxed category of problem-makers.

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It was six weeks since the last meeting with Yakov. Al passed word that he wanted an urgent conference.

A private upstairs room was set aside at Pironi's. Al wanted to confront the Russian on his own turf this time.

Whether out of growing paranoia or prudence, Al took precautions he had never taken before at Pironi's. He made the reservations under an alias. He told only Ricky -- just back and visibly fatigued from a gambling-cum-sex binge in Las Vegas -- and Wentworth in advance that the meeting would take place. Bags and Herman "The German" were given much shorter notice. They were Wentworth's muscle on the security side.

With Bags at the wheel, Al, Herman and Wentworth drove at a leisurely pace to the lower Manhattan address in an unassuming, maroon Buick Lucerne. Al told Wentworth only that he needed to discuss financial and other business matters with an associate and wanted to ensure that no competitors were tuning in. He instructed Wentworth to sweep the meeting room for bugs. Wentworth, Bags and the German were to wait outside while Al and Ricky met with Al's counterparts upstairs.

Al washed down a couple of Tums with a glass of cold Brioschi. "Where the hell is that son of a bitch nephew of mine?" Al demanded to no one and everyone as he nervously paced the meeting room. "Those goddamn Russians will be here in ten lousy minutes and that no-good-for-nothing, shit-for-brains, jerk-off nephew of mine is off doing God knows what!"

Bags, never a master of tact, replied, "Geez, Al, could be he's shackin' up with that college chick again. You never know, yah know?" He finished with a pointless shrug and a dumb grin.

Al stopped in his tracks, wheeled around, held his face six inches from that of Bags' and glowered at the PERMANENT INTERESTS

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unfortunate flunky. The sight of Al's big, bloodshot eyes boring in on him without so much as a blink and his nostrils flared like those of a wolf about to pounce a prey caused Bags to take a step backward. Sensing fallout from an imminent multi-megaton explosion, Herman turned his shoulder away from the blast site. "I think I better go outside and keep an eye out for Ricky. Yeah, that's what I'll do," Bags said. The diminutive lieutenant flew down the stairs, barely avoiding smashing into a platter-laden waiter climbing the steps.

Ever the epitome of cool, Wentworth ignored Al's blustering and proceeded to sweep the room methodically with his electronic detection equipment.

Al shook his head and slowly turned to Wentworth. He visibly untensed. No explosion after all.

"Chuckie, you sure what you're doing will do the job?

The FB-…uh, I mean the…my competitors got all kinds of the latest technology. The last thing I need is for them to--"

"Al, I used to do this in our embassies. The CIA and NSA trained us in counterespionage. We were taught all the sophisticated m.o's of the Russians and Chinese. I know what I'm doing."

"Just asking. That's all."

"Somebody will have to ensure that your visitors aren't wired, or that any of them are even carrying portable radios, calculators and other electronic devices. I can sweep them bodily, if you wish." Wentworth pulled out of his black, leather satchel a "magic wand" -- a hand-held instrument used to check a person's body for metal and electrical items.

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"No. I want to make them feel at home, unwind; not make them think that they're here for a colonoscopy. Get my drift? And when they arrive, I want you to keep an eye on Bags and Herman downstairs. Make sure they're doing their job and not getting distracted by re-runs of the

'Flintstones'."

"Sure. I'll finish up at nineteen-hundred."

"Wha'?"

"Seven p.m. In five minutes, I'll finish sweeping the place."

"Yeah. Right. Nineteen-hundred."

At seven sharp Wentworth packed up his gear and proceeded down the stairs. Al had resumed pacing back and forth, his nervous tension radiating like electricity humming from a power line. Suddenly, he bolted toward the stairwell. Cupping his mouth, he yelled after Wentworth.

"Chuckie! You know what
calamare
is?"

Wentworth turned at the bottom of the stairs. "Ate it all the time in Rome. Why?"

"Do me a favor. Go in the kitchen and make sure those greasers in there aren't mangling the
calamare
. Should be crisp, not overdone, and light on the oil."

"Roger that, boss!"

"Hey, one other thing."

"Yes?"

"Soon as that no-good-for-nothing nephew of mine shows up, holler. Okay?"

Pironi's was packed. Unusual for a Tuesday night in February. This made Al that much antsier. After all, the object was to keep this meeting as low key as possible.

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Al's greater circle of goombahs also patronized the place.

But lower Manhattan's Little Italy was fast becoming a suburb of Chinatown and not many ordinary Chinese knew Al or his associates. Twenty years previous, if you had a business dinner on or near Mulberry Street, chances were good that all the city's families would know about it, if not the content, by breakfast the following day. But as the community dissipated, the likelihood was less.

Like a medieval baronet, Tony Acquello made a point of visiting every table every evening to check on his guests.

Tony was owner, manager, maitre d' and sometimes alternate waiter and assistant chef when the need arose. He inherited the place from his father-in-law, Frank, whose own father, Angelo, had started Pironi's in 1911. The family had kept the restaurant in continuous operation since, closing only for Christmases and on November 22, 1963 when Jack Kennedy was killed. As to the latter event, every ginzo gangster in New York swore on the Madonna to Frank that the mob had nothing to do with it. Many of the old-timers, after all, had had lucrative dealings in the old days with Joe Kennedy. Furthermore, why would the mob want to rub out the first Catholic President, himself a son of immigrant stock? Wise guys might not be great at a lot of things, but one thing they were good at was remembering who was good for them and who was not.

Like his father-in-law, Tony was a paradigm of discretion, an essential ingredient for a successful restauranteur to the rich and infamous. He hired his help with this in mind. The long-termers were generously tipped by regulars like Al. Patrons knew that they could hold sensitive meetings and carry on business at Pironi's without worrying that a vain, loudmouthed host would be blabbing about it all over town. Conversely, Tony knew that such trust meant good business from regulars and the 98 JAMES

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parvenus. Violating that trust could be painful -- physically as well as financially. It was that simple. Whatever problems some of his clientele had with the law, that was their business and Tony was happiest the less he knew, though he invariably knew a lot simply through osmosis.

Give me your tired, your weary, free-spending nouveau riche seeking refuge from the authorities. In return, I'll guarantee you a reasonably safe, quiet and comfortable place to conduct your affairs, nefarious or otherwise. But leave me out of it. That was Tony's code. And, by the way, the food was the best in town.

The establishment itself was little touched by the passing of time. The bar, first way-station before dinner for many of Pironi's clients, occupied the left side and featured the restaurant's original, ponderous, curving, dark oak bar.

Oak wood panels, carved elaborately
a fin de siècle
, lined the walls. A brass tube rail skirted the perimeter. The centerpiece behind the bar, a large fish aquarium with little medieval castles, was flanked by scores of liquor bottles --

Strega, Galliano, Vermouth Rosso, Sambucca and assorted

"digestivi" being prominent. A small clip stand offering little bags of "Beer Nuts" for a buck stood forlornly off to the rear left, sharing little noticed space with a large jar soliciting donations for some crippling children's disease.

A framed homily on the bar's mirrored rear wall read, "Old Age and Treachery Will Beat Youth and Idealism Every Time." The half-Irish, half-Sicilian bartender, Ralph Madden, had been in Pironi's employ for the past ten years.

Always ready with a naughty joke and sympathetic ear, he knew the favorite drinks of half of Pironi's clientele without asking. The overall atmosphere was somber yet warm, almost musty, of another era. Unprepossessing old-fashionedness.

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The dining area followed the same unpretentious, atavistic style. Simple white linen cloths covered nondescript tables adorned with generic candle lights. The walls featured frescoes of the island of Capri and classical Tuscan landscapes painted by some mediocre artist many years before. Framed official portraits of the President and the Pope occupied equal positions over the swinging doorway to the kitchen. A few autographed publicity photos of quasi-famous show business and sports celebrities hung in the waiting area near the entrance. "To Frank and Tony. Great food and service. Your pal, Al Martino," read one black and white glossy. Aging waiters and corpulent waitresses whisked food and dirty dishes efficiently.

The customers resembled the establishment: dark, modest, rumpled, self-satisfied, alert. By habit and dress, they were as much at home in this habitat as forest creatures were in theirs.

The older males wore dark suits, often with no necktie.

They were straight-backed and stately. Old Worldly.

Several sat at small corner tables -- familiar, staked-out perches habitually occupied by individual regulars. They read their newspapers --
Wall Street Journal, New York
Times, Italo-America
-- reading glasses cocked upward, their faces held at a comfortable distance, as if the reading material were infused with some unpleasant odor. Most nursed a demitasse of espresso; some with an accompanying shot glass of Grappa; others with a tumbler of sparkling cold Pellegrino with a twist of lemon. None was accompanied by a female.

Occasionally, two or three could be seen huddled closely together engaged in animated conversation, spoken
sotto
voce
, punctuated by lively hand gesticulations. Was it business they talked about? Or the Old Days? Or, their 100 JAMES

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grandchildren? If you asked Tony Acquello, he'd answer with a silent shrug of the shoulders. But the answer would be "yes" to all of the above.

The younger males, ranging from a few twenty-somethings to those in their forties, most falling in the middle-aged category, generally were slicker, shinier and shiftier looking than their elders. They had stiff, blow-dried haircuts and wore shiny suits, as often as not timeless.

Chest hair was in. Sedateness was not. These often were escorted by females who appeared to fall into one of two categories: bleached blondes with big boobs and love handles or permed anorexic brunettes weighed down with oversized jewelry. The conversations were loud and centered on football and politics. Johnny Walker Black with soda on the rocks and dry martinis predominated among this group.

Tony hovered at Carl Giovanezza's table. Carl was with his wife, of the dark-haired, anorexic variety. Carl himself had no hairline to speak of, his graying, wavy locks anchored firmly into his forehead in a semicircle. A former stevedore, he worked his way up the ladder of the Longshoremen's Union, gaining five pounds every step of the way. Carl never smiled, probably not because he didn't want to, but because the peculiar physiognomy of his hardened Calabrian face simply wouldn't permit it. What Carl lacked in articulateness he made up for in vociferousness. But in the same matter-of-fact tone, he might talk about the correct way to de-bone
calamare
, as how he had sent his former rival in the union, Stan Janoszewski, on a one-way cruise in a cement canoe. Stan used to be good friends with Jimmy Hoffa. Anyway, Carl grunted to Tony how fine the linguini with clam sauce was this evening. "Can't be beat!" he growled. Ever the diplomat, Tony complimented Mrs. Giovanezza on the PERMANENT INTERESTS