I told Nancy, “Nick's not like Barone, he's a very successful businessman, he can afford to deal with me as if I were a Chinese doctor, pay me a big retainer just for keeping him well.” So Nancy said, “You don't want to get involved with the mob again,” and I had to sit her down and explain that Manucci had nothing to do with them, that what he did wasn't criminal, that he carefully stayed within the usury laws, etcetera. And now look.
I got shown in right away and Nick pumped my hand as if I'd already done something to save him.
“Take it easy,” I told him. “I don't have a life raft. I need all the facts. Let's sit down.”
I sat down but Nick kept pacing like one of those caged cats in the Bronx Zoo.
“You should keep one of those indoor bicycles on a stand in here to burn off energy,” I said. “You'll get a headache doing what you're doing.”
“I got the headache. I'm trying to think.”
“How long would it take to get the computers back?”
That got Nick to sit down. I have to give him credit. His voice was pretty calm, considering the circumstances.
I began to see the problem. I didn't blame the Canadians. They probably inspected this particular truck by a fluke. There wasn't even any cover-up cargo, just this computer setup in crates. The driver didn't have a bill of lading that meant anything, it was the kind of thing that might fool a state trooper but not a customs inspector. All the Canadians can think is some American company sold these computers to some Canadian company for an illegal enterprise. The driver is a poor liar so he's held, the truck and its contents impounded.
“You realize I can't practice in Canada,” I told Nick.
“Why the hell not?”
“I can advise somebody, suggest things, but we'll need to hire a Canadian lawyer. I know one in Toronto, went to McGill and Yale Law, has contacts, which is probably more important, but in something like this, I don't know. We need to buy time. Maybe I can reach Barone personally, by phone I mean.”
“What are you going to say to him?”
“I don't want to rehearse it, Nick.”
Nick riffled through his small tan leather address book for a phone number I had in my memory as if it were my birthdate.
“You shouldn't keep names like that in your book, Nick,” I said.
If I could calm Barone down, buy some time, I'd earn my retainer ten times over.
Nick wrote the number down for me. “If I kept it somewhere else I wouldn't know how to find it when I needed it,” Nick said.
I said, “I want to make this call in privacy.”
“Don't promise him anything I can't deliver.”
“Don't you worry. The only thing you can deliver that can stop him are the computers.”
“Use my office. I'll go down the hall.”
“Thanks,” I said. He's going to listen in on the conversation. Well, if it hurts Nick's feelings to hear what I've got to say, it's not my fault. I dialed the number. A woman answered. I asked to speak to Mr. Barone. She didn't ask me who I was. A man got on.
“Who wants to talk to Barone?”
“My name is Bertram Rivers. I'm Nick Manucci's attorney.” He must have covered up the mouthpiece. I couldn't make out what was being said. Then a different, deeper man's voice got on.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Rivers?” It wasn't Barone's voice.
“I'd like to talk to Mr. Barone.”
“Just talk.”
“My client, Nick Manucci, did a very stupid thing.”
“Just a minute.”
Then an older male voice with an accent I recognized got on the horn. “This is Barone.”
He's smart, I thought. He'll figure out that somebody might be listening in. He won't tip that he knows me.
“My name is Bert Rivers, Mr. Barone. I'm Nick Manucci's lawyer. I was saying that Nick did a very stupid thing about the collateral. It'll take a few weeks to get the collateral back from Canada, so I have a constructive suggestion.”
“Mr. River, I give you a suggestion. Your client, he committed suicide, you know what I mean? Why don't you find a place to put the body?”
Was he doing that because of Nick or because I was working for the enemy? It was like trying to negotiate with an IRS agent. The other fellow has no reason to be reasonable.
“My suggestion, Mr. Barone, is that my client, as a sign of good faith, buy your loan, pay you in cash the hundred thousand that the computer owner borrowed plus any accumulated interest. In other words, you would be satisfied as to the loan, how's that?”
“In our business my customers are my customers. You can't buy their loans from me. Those people come back again and again, you understand?”
“Mr. Barone, how about twenty percent above the principal plus the interest just because my client did the wrong thing, how's that?”
“Mr. River, if an independent works around my territory but don't bother me, I don't bother them. Old man Manucci never gave me a day's trouble. This Nick, what he did, is just not done. If I accept your offer, every independent will know that if he gets caught doing business with my customers, all he has to do is pay me back. Pretty soon they're all over my turf. I know I'm going to get those computers back sooner or later. If I got them back today, Manucci would still be in the worst trouble in his life. His life, understand? And since we never talked before, Mr. River, I save you some trouble. Don't hide him. I'll find him. Here, there, another country. Doesn't matter. You tell Nick Manucci he's dead.”
Barone hung up.
Nick came in the door. By his expression I could tell he had been listening on an extension.
“I'm glad you heard it from his mouth,” I said. “It saves me repeating it.”
“What do you mean, Bert?”
“Come on, Nick. You're in too much trouble to pretend. You pick up that phone and tell Mary to pack a bag as soon as the kids are home from school, lock the house up tight, and go to her sister's.”
“She doesn't have a sister, Bert. It's me who's got a sister.”
“Your sister got a family?”
“Sure, sure, I told you once. A big house in Forest Hills.”
“Her husband have any connection with your business?”
“Are you kidding? He's some kind of engineer.”
“Tell her to take the kids there. Tell her to pack some clothes and get out of the house real fast. I'll use another phone to call Hochman. I want him to bring Riller over here.”
“What the hell's wrong with you, Bert? I told you I haven't got time for that project now.”
“Nick, you've got two choices. Fire me or listen to me. Which?”
Nick knew how efficient Barone's people could be.
“I'm listening,” he said.
“I'm not going to walk around with you in public because sometime in the next few days Barone's people are going to let loose and I don't want to be standing next to you when it happens. But I do want Ben Riller standing next to you, sitting next to you, walking with you, riding with you till the computers get returned, and Barone cools off enough for me to come back to him with another proposition.”
“What the hell good does it do me if Riller gets it too?”
“Nick, Riller is the best known producer in the theater. He gets photographed in restaurants, coming out of the opera, he's surrounded by well-known actors and actresses, and you're going to be photographed with him, in fact you and Mary are going to be photographed with Riller and his wife, you're going to double-date everywhere, and Riller's PR people are going to see to it that you're going to be as well known as he is. Do you follow? Do you want me to give you a list of the famous people who've rubbed the mob the wrong way who are alive because they're famous? You're an independent and you didn't want any publicity for the same reasons Barone doesn't want publicity. The safest place for you to be in the next few weeks is in the biggest limelight money can buy. And the way to get there is to become Riller's visible partner in this play. If you want to stay alive.”
“Do I have time to think about it?” Nick asked.
“One minute.”
Nick said, “Call Hochman.”
22
Ezra
Ben and I arrived at Nick Manucci's office to find the impressive outer doors deadbolt-locked. I rapped on the thick wood with my knuckles till they hurt.
Ben spotted a dime-sized doorbell on the right jamb and pressed it with his forefinger.
We heard the sound of feet and then a woman's voice saying, “Who is it?”
Before either of us could answer, a gruff male voice demanded to know who we were.
You never know how loud to speak when you're trying to be heard on the other side of a thick door. With a chest full of air I announced, “Hochman and Riller.”
“Not a terrific name for a dance team,” Ben said.
A man in suspenders passing us in the hall laughed.
The door opened a crack. We were being looked at.
The woman's voice said, “It's them. It's okay.”
I heard the deadbolt being turned. The huge wood slab swung open.
“Good morning, Miss Atherton,” Ben said cheerily.
Miss Atherton, happy because Ben had remembered her name, smiled us in. The ox-shouldered heavy standing behind her needed a shave. Ben put out his hand to him. “I'm Ben Riller. How do you do?”
The heavy looked like he was about to flunk an exam. “Dja do,” he said, then quickly double-bolted the huge doors behind us. Were we being locked in?
“Someone's being locked out,” said Ben the mind reader.
Miss Atherton hurried through the security portal to tell Manucci we'd arrived.
The heavy, without a word, closed himself into a side office from which emanated the voices of other men with imperfect locution. Manucci's collectors? His army?
We settled into the expensive black leather of the reception-room couch.
Miss Atherton reappeared, motioned for us to join her at the security portal. She held her hand out for Ben's metal objects, then mine. We passed through and got our stuff back just as a low-set, bald pitbull of a man trotted out of Manucci's office. “Hi, gentlemen, I'm Bert Rivers. You're Hochman,” he said to me, shaking my hand, then Ben's, saying, “I know your face from the newspapers, Mr. Riller. It's a privilege.”
“I thought Mr. Manucci lost interest in our situation,” I said.
“Notâ¦atâ¦all,” Rivers said, punching each word like a preacher. “Mr. Manucci's attention was deflected by some business bother, you know how it is.”
Bert Rivers's smile consisted of withdrawing his lips so that his teeth showed. When Ben first snitched to Louie that I intended to become a lawyer, Louie said, “There are lawyers who mend and lawyers who bend. Which kind are you going to be, Ezra?” Before I could answer, he'd said, “My dear Ezra, when you play chess with the Devil, remember whatever it is he has is catching.”
Manucci came out of his office to shake hands. I could swear his tan had yellowed.
“We will have to speak in confidence,” he said, motioning us in.
What the hell was going on?
“Please be seated.”
We sat.
Manucci said, “There's a manâ” and Rivers cut him off.
“Excuse me,” Rivers said. “I'd like to put things in a way that will clarify matters for Mr. Hochman.” He leaned toward me as if Manucci and Ben weren't in the room. “Mr. Manucci is having a bit of a problem with a certain business rival, a Mr. Barone, you may have heard of him?”
I was shaking my head when Ben said, “I've heard of him. He lends money to actors.”
“He lends money to lots of people. Unfortunately, Mr. Barone has a bad temper,” Rivers said. “He's not the kind of person Mr. Manucci likes to deal with, you understand, but Mr. Barone seems very insistent right now on wanting to deal with Mr. Manucci. Until this blows over⦔
I said, “Can you fill us in a little as to the nature of the dispute between Mr. Barone and Mr. Manucci?”
“It may not be pertinent, but of course,” Rivers said.
He told us some garbage about collateral that vanished up into Canada as if it was a big fuss over nothing.
Why was Ben amused?
“Let me put it this way, gentlemen,” Rivers said. “I believe the best kind of business is reciprocal.”
“I know how you can help Mr. Riller,” I said. “How can we help you?”
Rivers cleared his throat. “Mr. Riller is a well-known man. He is famous to lots of people. Mr. Manucci is not.”
I glanced at Ben's face.
Then Rivers said, “If by any chanceâand I don't mean chance, I mean by prearrangementâMr. Riller and Mr. Manucci were seen a great deal together in public places, especially if their being together made news in gossip columns, Mr. Manucci would overnight be in the public eye.”
I said, “I didn't know that a man in Mr. Manucci's business wants to be in the public eye.”
“Mr. Manucci would rather be in the public eye than in some marksman's gunsight. I trust you understand.”
“Less and less.”
Ben said, “It's simple. Whatever the dispute between Messrs. Manucci and Barone, Mr. Barone is probably just whacko enough to have someone take a potshot at Mr. Manucci.”
Rivers nodded. Manucci nodded.
“Well then,” Ben continued as if I were the dumb boy being lectured to, “if Mr. Manucci is in the limelight he's less likely to become a target. It's a given.”
“Given by who?” I said. “You want to walk around with a target? You came here for an investment, not to put your life on the line.”
Rivers put an avuncular hand on my kneecap. “Mr. Hochman, everyone knows that Barone may be crazy, but he's not a nut. He'd never let his people take someone out with photographers and reporters around. A photograph of someone shooting someone else is the best proof of a crime you can get. There isn't a soldier works for Barone who wouldn't become a snitch under the right circumstances. For instance, the D.A. nicely gives him a choice: he can live in a ten-foot cage until he's too far gone to bang his old lady or he can snitch on whoever ordered the hit. Or the D.A. can throw out some ideas, like who might bang his old lady for him while he rots in the slammerâ¦or he can spend a few minutes snitching and do minimum time. I tell you something, Mr. Hochman, you don't need to be an acupuncturist to know that every human body has got pressure points all over. Find the right one, and bingo. If a snitch helped convict Barone, he could go into a witness protection program and start his crooked little life all over on government welfare. Barone would end up in the pen with fifteen guys he's fucked over the years, excuse my expression. If someone like you or me gets unlucky with the law, Mr. Hochman, we end up in some place like Lompoc, getting tan. If Barone gets put away, his wife could start dusting off her widow's weeds.”