It was MacAullif.
“Tony Gallo.”
“Huh?”
“The name you wanted. It’s Tony Gallo.”
“Oh.”
“That’s right. Runs a salvage company down by the docks. That’s ‘salvage company’ in quotes. Tony Gallo is connected. In a big way. So big I don’t even
have
to look him up. The guy’s a mob boss. A notorious mob boss. With a rather nasty disposition.”
“Great.”
“Isn’t it. So if that bare-titted broad you’re infatuated with is involved with Tony Gallo, she’d be a hell of a good person to stay away from.”
“I see.”
“I ran her plate, by the way. She’s Angela Russo. In case the name comes up, you’ll know to run the other direction.”
“Angela Russo.”
“Christ, he’s in love. I’m not kidding, here. The girl’s living poison, you give her a wide berth.”
“Yeah.”
“You get rid of that gun?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Good. Even if it’s not the gun that killed her boyfriend, you want nothing to do with it. You want nothing to do with her. Just pretend she doesn’t exist.”
MacAullif hung up.
I flipped my cell phone shut.
Oh boy.
Jersey Girl’s married boyfriend was Tony Gallo, and Tony Gallo was a mob boss, and not just any mob boss, but a mob boss so scary, MacAullif had not only warned me off him, but also off her. And that was without even knowing she had the gun that killed her boyfriend.
All right. This was it. I’d painted myself into a corner where I couldn’t do anything because every move was bad.
Which was actually good. It didn’t matter what I did, because any move was apt to be fatal.
So I could do anything.
32
T
ONY
G
ALLO
’
S
‘
SALVAGE COMPANY
’
LISTED
an address in Newark. I cruised by. It was an empty lot.
The address had a phone number. I dialed it.
A voice answered with a Jersey twang. “Speak to me.”
“Tony Gallo.”
“Who’s calling?”
“A friend.”
“Then why don’t I know you?”
“Are you Tony Gallo?”
“No.”
“That’s why.”
There was a silence on the line. Small victory. If salvage meant what I thought it did, I’d bluffed out a wiseguy.
After a moment the voice said, “What do you want with Tony?”
“It’s personal.”
“Then call him at home.”
“I can’t call him at home.”
“Why not?”
“It’s personal. I need to have a talk with him without involving his wife.”
“Hold on.”
I waited half a minute.
A voice of authority said, “Who’s this?”
“Mr. Gallo?”
“Who are you?”
“You and I should have a little talk.”
“About what?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“If I were a son of a bitch, I’d be calling you at home. I’m calling you at work so as not to make trouble.”
“Listen, I don’t know who you are or what your game is, but you picked the wrong guy. You make trouble for me, you’re making trouble for yourself. That is not a smart thing to do.”
“I’m not making trouble. I’m trying to help you.”
“You got a funny way of doing it.”
“You got girl trouble. I could help you out with that.”
“I don’t have girl trouble.”
“That’s not what your wife thinks.”
“What?”
“Didn’t she tell you? How Miss Hotpants rang your doorbell and she chased her away.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“She didn’t tell you, did she? That’s kind of creepy. If she called you on the carpet, demanded to know what was going on, that’s one thing. But sitting on it, keeping quiet, gotta start you thinking. What’s her game?”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“How do you know?”
“Wanna have a little talk?”
“We’re talking now.”
“Not on the phone.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t trust your line.”
“About a family matter?”
“How do I know that’s all it is?”
“You called me.”
“So?”
“What’s your angle?”
“Not on the phone.”
There was a silence on the line. The guy was clearly not used to people standing up to him.
“All right. Where are you?”
I told him.
“Okay, there’s diner five miles south on the left hand side, just past the mall. Be there in fifteen minutes.”
I stuck the cell phone back in my pocket and pulled out. Wondered if I was heading into a trap. A diner was where
The Sopranos
ended, the last we ever saw of Tony Soprano and his clan. Not to say that they died there, what with the ambiguity of the ending. Still, if I walked in the door and the jukebox was playing “Don’t Stop Believing”, I was going to freak out.
I drove south, keeping my eye on the odometer and wondering just how many diners there happened to be on the left side of the road. Not to worry. The shiny aluminum tube with the neon Diner sign had to be it.
I got out and glanced around the parking lot for any henchmen, gunmen, snipers, marksmen, saboteurs, cronies, hitmen, or thugs. I didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
I also didn’t see the man I was supposed to meet. Of course, I didn’t know what he looked like. One small flaw in the plan. But not a real problem.
I walked in the front door of the diner, struck a pose, and glanced purposefully around. I figured I didn’t have to know him, he’d spot me. I figured right. A man in a booth halfway down the row stood up, cocked an inquiring eye in my direction.
I walked over, said, “Mr. Gallo?”
“Yeah.”
I extended my hand. “Mr. Smith.”
I don’t know if he believed it or not, but he sat back down.
I slid into the booth across from him. “You want to talk here?”
“I want coffee.”
“And you waited for me? How nice.”
“Don’t be an asshole.” He waved the waitress over, said, “Coffee.”
“Two,” I said.
He was a burly man in a suit and tie with a full head of curly, black hair, despite seeming close to fifty. His face, rounded but hard, seemed vaguely familiar. Like someone I recognized from the newspapers or TV, most likely a story on some indictment or investigation.
“All right,” he said. “What’s this all about?”
“A girl with the body of a porn star came to see you last night.”
“The hell she did.”
“Your son answered the door. She asked for you, but he came back with your wife. She offered to use the girl’s body parts for origami.”
“What girl?”
“Her name’s Angela Russo. Vinnie Carbone’s girlfriend.”
His eyes flicked.
And the penny dropped.
I knew where I’d seen him before.
Going into the motel room next to the one I was staking out.
I tried not to betray my recognition and said calmly, “Mean anything to you?”
“What?”
“The girl’s name.”
“Can’t say as it does.”
“How about her boyfriend?”
He measured his answer. “I knew him. Not well, but I knew who he was. He did odd jobs for people. Sometimes he did them for me.”
“In the ‘salvage’ business?”
He looked at me sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I looked for your company. I couldn’t find it.”
“You probably got it wrong.”
“Yeah, that’s probably it. So you don’t know Jersey Girl?”
“Who?”
“Sorry. Angela Russo. Vinnie’s girlfriend. You know, Vinnie, the guy who sometimes worked for you.”
“I don’t like your attitude. You’re here because you said you had something you didn’t want to spill in front of my wife. That sounded bad, but it turns out it isn’t. You don’t know dick.”
“You were meeting a girl at a motel.”
His eyes flicked again. “Says who?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He stared at me. “What?”
“It doesn’t matter who’s making these charges. What matters is whether they’re making them to your wife. I’m not, so I’m your friend. But other people might. So, why don’t you and I cooperate and see that doesn’t happen.”
“That sounds very much like a threat.”
“If you listen, you’ll see it’s just the opposite. I mean, come on, think about it. If that were a threat, I’d be asking for money. I’m not asking for money. I don’t want money. I may be able to help you. But it’s hard, with you thinking everyone’s out to get you.”
The waitress returned, slid coffee in front of us.
I dumped milk in mine, stirred it around.
He’d banged two packets of sugar against his hand, tore off the ends, dumped it in.
We stirred our coffee, sized each other up.
“What’s your angle?” he said.
I was afraid he’d ask me that. I didn’t have one. At least not one I could tell him.
“I’m sweet on the girl.”
“What?”
“That’s my angle. I like the girl.”
“You’re too old for her.”
“I thought you didn’t know her.”
“I don’t know her. I’m going by what you said. Body like a porn star.”
I shrugged. “There’s old porn stars.”
He looked at me sideways. “You’re kind of weird.”
“You don’t know the half of it. I like this girl. I don’t want her to get hurt. Someone hurt her boyfriend. I’m hoping it wasn’t you.”
“That’s silly.”
“Not at all. Her boyfriend gets killed and she comes to your house. Rings your doorbell, pisses off your wife. Hard to believe she just came to cry on your shoulder. More like why’d you kill my guy?” I stuck a finger in his face. “Unless you were having an affair with her. Unless
she
was the girl you were meeting at the motel.”
He scowled. “How many times do I have to tell you. I wasn’t meeting any girl at any motel.”
“Then what were you doing there?”
“What?”
“What were you doing at the motel if you weren’t meeting a girl?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. What are you talking about? I wasn’t at any motel.”
“Ever?”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t say when this was. You haven’t been to a motel recently, say within the last month?”
“Why should I remember that?”
“How hard can it be? You live in a nice house, why should you go to a motel unless you were shacking up. Which I would expect you to remember.”
Tony thought that over. “All right, asshole. You made your pitch. I got nothing to say. You wanna talk to my wife, talk to my wife.” He pointed his finger in my face. “But it will not be conducive to your health. You know what I mean?”
“I get the gist.”
“Don’t get smart with me. You stay away from my wife, if you know what’s good for you. You got that?”
“Absolutely.”
33
T
HE WOMAN WHO ANSWERED THE
door had curly hair and perky breasts, a far cry from the battle-ax who attempted to rip Jersey Girl’s tits off on the front lawn the night before. She wore a lime-green pullover and a pair of sweatpants that might have been for running, but primarily served to emphasize a spectacularly rounded derriere. That may sound sexist, but I’m a detective and I’m trained to notice such things.
“Mrs. Gallo?”
“Yes.”
I flashed my ID in the way I do when I’m hoping no one will actually look at it. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?”
“Mind if we go inside?”
“Why?”
“I’d prefer to do this quietly, but if you’d like to come with me, that’s fine.”
She thought that over, blinked, stepped aside. “Come in.”
I followed her into the perfectly ordinary kitchen of a perfectly ordinary house. I don’t know what I expected. Guns and drugs and hitmen, perhaps.
She stood at the kitchen counter, stuck out her chin. It almost cleared the tips of her breasts. “What’s this all about?”
“I’m investigating a charge of aggravated assault.”
“My husband isn’t home.”
“No, ma’am. And your son’s not home either?”
“No.”
“There’s no one else in the house?”
Her eyes narrowed and she took a step back. “Don’t get any ideas.”
I sighed in exasperation at the aging process. What was acceptable once now just made me a dirty old man. I sat down to make her feel less vulnerable. “Sorry, ma’am. I don’t mean to upset you. But these things come up. Do you deny being involved in an aggravated assault against Angela Russo?”
Her mouth fell open. “What are you talking about?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Right here, on your front lawn. Did you assault one Angela Russo?”
“I don’t believe this.”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. That would be your first reaction. But these things have to be investigated. I understand you had a dispute with the woman in question.”
“No dispute. The slut banged on the door, asked to see my husband. I told her to get the hell off the lawn.”
“And what is her relationship to your husband?”
“She has none.”
“Then why was she here?”
“I have no idea.”
I grimaced. “See, that’s where your story falls apart. If the woman has no relationship with your husband and you don’t know her from Adam, why would you go nuts when she knocks on the door?”
“I did not go nuts.”
“Did you let her see your husband?”
“Of course not. What right does she have to see my husband?”
“I don’t know. But when a stranger knocks on your door, the usual reaction is not to drive them away. At least, not without finding out why they’re there. Did you ask her what she wanted with your husband?”
She smiled, leaned forward, inviting cleavage appreciation. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. The woman looked like she stepped out of a men’s magazine. Who the hell did she think she was, banging on my door asking to see my husband? That’s not how it’s done. You want to see someone, you call first.”
“You drove this woman away for a breach of etiquette?”
“I didn’t drive her away. I told her she couldn’t see my husband.”
“Did you ask her why she was there?”
“I didn’t care why she was there.”
“Did you know who she was?”
“No.”
“You didn’t know her boyfriend had been recently killed?”
“No. How would I know that?”