It sounded strange when he heard her say his name out loud. He was used to hearing her call him “Mr. Thompson” with that ironic skepticism of hers.
Tozzi extended his hand to Joanne's father. “
Come stai
, Mr. Collesano?”
Jules smiled broadly and grabbed Tozzi's hand, pumping it vigorously
with a surprisingly strong grip. Tozzi had a feeling his
come stai?
would go over well with him. Jules was that type. To guys like Jules there were three classifications of people: niggers on the bottom of the pile, whites in the middle; and Italians, meaning only
“Sicilian'”
and
“Napoletan',”
on top. He hoped Jules didn't try to continue the conversation in Italian because other than food and curses, Tozzi only knew a few phrases.
“You want a drink?” he suddenly said. Then without waiting for an answer, he called to a bleached blond cocktail waitress at the next table. “Miss . . .
miss!
Two more of these things.” He held up his glass to show her he wanted screwdrivers. Jules seemed to think in short bursts that translated into immediate explosive reactions. Between the explosions, his mind wandered and his face smoothed out to a sort of helpless innocence.
“No thanks, Mr. Collesano,” Tozzi protested. “It's a little early.” It was just after eleven.
“Hey, you listen to me,” he warned. “This is fresh-squeezed, the best. I don't drink it otherwise. Anyway they're free for high rollers like me,” he said, laughing hoarsely. “So take it.”
Joanne just smiled and said nothing. Apparently she figured it was easier to just go along with him and not object. When the bleached blonde came back with the drinks, Joanne took one even though she wasn't even asked if she wanted anything.
The waitress was no kid but she put up a good front. She did have great legs, which was probably what kept her here. The cocktail-waitress uniform in this casino, the Imperial, was spangled black leotards, black tights, and black spiked heels. Tozzi noticed that her bare shoulders were covered with freckles. Roberta had freckles all over her body. Tozzi remembered how much his ex-wife hated them. He picked up the other screwdriver from the bleached blonde's tray, and when Jules called
“Salute!,”
he took a sip to be polite. It was excellent orange juice, and they weren't stingy with the vodka either.
The old man waited for his reaction to the drink, nodding with a big I-told-you-so grin. “What'd I tell you? Only the best for Jules Collesano. This is
my
town.”
Tozzi looked at Joanne, who looked back with pain and pity in her eyes. She'd warned Tozzi that her father wasn't always totally coherent. He had a tendency to slip back in time to the days when he was boss in Atlantic City, she'd said. The Imperial was his regular casino, so
the people here played along with him. It was when he went into other casinos and tried to throw his weight around that problems started.
Jules then started laughing softly for no reason, a sad, knowing laugh. “It's still my town,” he repeated, but not so loudly.
Joanne turned her face away.
“Too noisy in here,” Jules said, and wandered off toward the nearest exit.
“Hey, you all right?” Tozzi put his hand on Joanne's arm.
“Yeah, fine.” Her face was still turned away. “I'll be right back,” she said, and abruptly headed for the ladies' room.
Tozzi followed Jules through the purple-black tinted glass doors that kept the casino in a state of perpetual midnight. The slanted sunlight streaming into the vestibule was so strong it looked like the old man was at the bottom of the stairway to Heaven about to go up and meet his Maker. Tozzi went over to the window where Jules stood looking out at the boardwalk and the ocean beyond. The sun was hot on Tozzi's face, and it made him squint. Jules stared at the waves, his skin almost white in the sunlight. He was like a sad little ghost.
“Do me a favor,” he said to Tozzi. “Be nice to her.”
Tozzi didn't know how to respond to that. “Sure . . . I mean, why wouldn't I be nice to her?”
Jules laughed scornfully. “Richie was a real son-of-a-bitch to her. I don't want that to ever happen to her again.”
“Well . . . I'm not Richie.”
Jules didn't answer that. He was frowning at the ocean.
Tozzi wasn't sure how much about Varga he should let on that he knew. He wished Joanne would get back.
“She used to tell me that he hit her,” Jules said, squinting up at Tozzi. “I don't think he ever did, though. Not really.”
“Why do you say that, Mr. Collesano?”
Jules gulped his drink. “Wasn't his style.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The guy was a sneak. He'd never hit anyone. He was afraid they'd fight back. Even with a woman, he was afraid, I bet.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah, he was something. Yeah, I remember at a confirmation party one of my men threw for his kid. Matty O'Brien's oldest boy, it was. Some punk from Matty's crew thought Richie was making eyes at his wife, and he called Richie on it, right in front of everybody.
Richie just stood there stuttering and mumbling and getting red in the face like a real dummy. The guy roughed him up, right in front of everybody, and Richie just let it happen. I wanted to kill the jerk myself, I was so mad. How do you think it made me look? My goddamn son-in-law, my right-hand man, acting like a fucking mameluke in front of all those people.”
“Maybe he acted that way on purpose,” Tozzi said. “To make you think he was a mameluke.”
“He
was
a mameluke! He was a little yellow, back-stabbing sneak. You think that fat-ass pencil pusher would've ever been able to run a crew like a real man? Never. There was no way in the world he'd ever get made on his own, not the way he was going.”
Tozzi nodded and sipped his drink. Keep talking, Jules.
“But he
wanted
to get made. He told me all the time. I told him to be a good boy and stay with me. I gave him a good job, you know. Better than he deserved. But I guess a lot of guys do that when their daughters get marriedâam I wrong? Even big businessmen. I took care of the bastard . . . and then he took care of me.”
Jules shaded his eyes with his big hand and peered out at the ocean. There were half a dozen ships far out on the horizon. “Who's that? The Russians come to bomb us?” Jules asked. “They don't like fun, the Communists. People have too much fun here at Atlantic City. They like to bomb places where people have fun.” He laughed, but it wasn't convincing.
“I would think they'd hit New York before Atlantic City,” Tozzi speculated.
“I wouldn't shed any tears if they did.” Jules gulped down the rest of his drink. “No tears at all.”
“They put Richie up to it, didn't they?”
“Of course they did,” Jules said bitterly. “What do you think? They promised to make him in New York if he helped them get rid of me. Richie knew it was the only way he could ever get made, so naturally he went along with it. He was ambitious, my son-in-law. He associated with big menâMr. Luccarelli, Mr. Mistretta, and Mr. Giovinazzo.” Jules swiped the fingernails of one hand under his chin, the old Italian gesture that meant “May they spit blood.”
Joanne poked her head through one of the tinted doors then. “There you are,” she said, and she walked over to put her arm around her father and kiss him on the cheek. “How've you been, Daddy?”
Tozzi was touched by the sight of this sophisticated lady in a silk top, linen slacks, and high-heel sandals doting over her old man, but then again he'd never known people to use their office persona or, God forbid, their bedroom persona with their parents.
“I love you, Daddy.” She hugged him tight.
Jules squeezed her close in a way that would have made her seem like a little girl if she didn't have four inches on him.
“Okay, enough of this,” he declared brusquely, and suddenly let go of her. “Don't want people to think I'm fooling around with young girls again, do you?” His booming laugh filled the vestibule.
“Lunch,” Jules said. “You gotta eat”âhe sized up his daughter's slender figureâ“and don't say no.” He turned to Tozzi. “You're hungry, no?”
Tozzi smiled. “Sure.”
“We'll have the clams oreganata. They know how to make them here. Nice, not all bread crumbs. You won't believe.”
He grabbed his daughter's hand and started to lead her away, then made an about-face and pointed at Tozzi. “You like calamari?”
Tozzi shrugged and nodded.
“I'll bet you never had it the way they make it here. Tender like you won't believe. Come on, Richie. Let's eat.” Jules pushed the door open and pulled Joanne with him.
Tozzi caught a glimpse of the pained expression on her face as she went through the doorway.
Joanne leaned back in the passenger's seat and stared through the windshield as Tozzi drove. She was wearing a pair of oversized Jackie O sunglasses. Tozzi noticed her fidgeting with the straps of her purse as if they were a set of rosary beads. The Saab had a nice ride, but it took some getting used to. He kept glancing at the dash, making sure things were where they were supposed to be because the ignition on the floor under the stick shift had thrown him for a loop.
Joanne had been crying, but she'd stopped now. Jules had gotten a little boisterous at lunch, and she couldn't get him to settle down. It was hard for her to see him acting as if he were still the big man in Atlantic City. It must've been even harder hearing him promise her the moon, assuring her that the next time she got married it would be “beautiful.” And Jules didn't say things just once. She'd kept up a good front all through lunch. It was only after they'd said goodbye and Jules went back to the blackjack tables that the tears came.
“I know I shouldn't, but I avoid coming down here to see him,” she said. “He seems to get a little worse every time I see him.”
Tozzi went to shift, then remembered to clutch first. It had been a while since he'd driven a standard transmission. “Your father seemed okay when I was talking to him.”
“What did you talk about?”
He glanced at her, then returned his gaze to the road. “Richie.”
He looked at her again.
“Your father brought him up,” he said. “I didn't.”
“Did he tell you how he and his pals are going to find Richie and make him pay?”
“No.”
“I'm surprised. That's one of his big topics. In fact, I'm surprised he didn't ask you to help.”
Tozzi kept his eyes on the road. “If he'd asked, I might have said yes.”
She didn't respond.
They fell silent. After a while Joanne put a tape in the cassette deck. Tozzi hoped it wasn't classical music. It was, but as he listened he was relieved to hear that this music was very soothing and meditative, more traditional than that cat-screech string quartet in her bedroom. He liked it.
“What's this?” he asked.
“Telemann fugues,” she said. “Turn left here. I'll show you how to get back on the Parkway. The expressway's always jammed on Saturdays.”
Tozzi followed her directions and drove down a wide residential street lined with large homes, old Victorians alternating with more modern houses. The newer homes were either one-story ranches with expensive stone facades or center-hall colonials with big pillars on the front porches. The lawns were all neat and manicured. A solid upper-middle/lower-upper-class neighborhood. Tozzi imagined banker-types living in these houses.
Joanne sat up and stared at one of the colonials, a white house with big pillars and red geraniums in clay pots flanking the front steps. She seemed very interested in that house.
“Somebody you know?” he asked.
“What?”
“That house. You know who lives there?”
“Somebody I used to know,” she said. “When I was a kid.”
She was quiet for a moment. “A girl I went to grammar school with used to live there. Linda Tuckerman was my best friend in third grade. We used to play there all the time until one day after school the maid rushed out as we got to the porch and told me I had to go home, that I couldn't come in. A big black woman from Jamaica. She shooed me away like a chicken. I didn't understand at the time. Turned out that Linda's father was running for councilman and he didn't want to be discredited by his daughter's association with Jules Collesano's kid. It was so cruel.” She leaned her head against the headrest.
“Did your father find out about it?”
“Oh, yeah. I told him all about it, bawling my eyes out.” She sighed and shook her head. “You know what he did? He sent one of his men to Mr. Tuckerton's office bearing gifts. Linda's father got an anonymous ten-thousand-dollar campaign contribution . . . and a broken hand. A few days later when I came home from school, there was a new Barbie doll and a Ken doll in my room with the complete Barbie and Ken wardrobes and every Barbie accessory available, the little sports car, the boudoir, everything. I already had a Barbie and some clothes, but getting the whole thing in one lump was a little girl's dream come true. That night at dinner I asked my father where it came from. He told me not to worry about it, just enjoy it. From then on Linda and I played at my house after school.”