In the normal course of things, Guma should have been in Rackets under Anselmo, but between the two men lay a morass of near visceral antipathy. This, even more than the hazards of the case on the agenda, accounted for the tension in the room. Keegan let the sports talk peter away. “Guys, you all know how important this one is. We’re going to come under a lot of pressure, and I want some early resolution. Butch has my full authority on this one.” He looked up as O’Malley came in looking concerned and tapped her wristwatch. “The goddamn lieutenant governor,” growled Keegan. He stood, said, “I’ll be back,” and left. All faces rotated to the other end of the table. Karp nodded to Anselmo.
“Frank, your meeting.”
Anselmo’s smile broadened by an inch, showing even, small white teeth, and he ducked his head in a fetching gesture of humility. He shuffled some papers on his lap and passed out a set of neatly bound blue manila folders stamped confidential in big red letters. Guma turned his face toward Karp, out of Anselmo’s view, and flashed his gargoyle imitation-a convincing one, given his physiognomy.
“All right: Catalano,” said Anselmo. “To review the bare facts: on the night of June ninth, a body later identified as that of Edward Catalano was found in a car parked under the West Side Highway at Vestry Street. He’d been shot from behind at close range with a small-caliber weapon. Five shots to the head, a typical gangland murder.”
Here what might have been construed by an unsympathetic listener as a snort of derision issued from Guma’s direction. It was a low sort of snort, however, and if Anselmo heard it, he paid no attention.
“That method,” he resumed, “and the fact that Catalano is known to be a capo regime of the Bollano family suggested that this was a professional hit having to do with the politics of the New York Mob. So-as you probably know, when they start hitting capos, it means that the power balances are shifting. There’s disorder in the ranks, shifting loyalties, the wise guys are all looking for where they’re going to end up after the dust settles, and so this is a prime time for us to do ourselves some good. Now, the first question we have to ask when something like this goes down is, naturally, cui bono. We look inside the family first, table one in your handout.”
Shuffling of papers. Karp cast an eye on Guma, who had leaned back in his chair, the unopened file on his lap, and seemed to be getting set for a snooze. It was not unknown for Guma to drop off in meetings, and Karp hoped that he would not break out in snores. That too was not unknown.
“At the top, of course, we have the don, Salvatore Bollano, known as Big Sally. He’s seventy something and not in good shape. Last of the breed, by the way, actually born in Sicily. There’s some question as to whether he’s still in control. Next in line is Salvatore Bollano, Jr., Little Sally, but not to his face, ha-ha, aka, Sally Jump, age forty-three. You have his arrest record there. Assault, rape, jury tampering, bribery, dozens of collars, never convicted. Violent, short-tempered, little son of a bitch; he may be mentally unstable, in fact.”
Here came a snort from Guma. This time Anselmo paused and directed his attention to Guma’s chair. “Um, Ray? Did you have a point to make?”
“Uh-uh, Frank,” said Guma. “You’re doing fine.”
“Thank you. Next came Carlo Tonnati, street name Charlie Tuna, currently serving a life stretch in Attica for ordering the murder of Vinnie Ferro a dozen or so years ago.”
Karp knew this, as he had personally put Charlie Tuna away, and everyone else did, too. Anselmo was often excessively thorough. He listened with half an ear and took precise notes on autopilot as the man ran through the order of battle of the Bollano crime family and presented his Machiavellian analysis of their various rivalries. The Bollanos were the smallest of New York’s Mafia families, not looking to expand at all, but what they held, they held very hard. Their base was the Lower East Side, and Anselmo had charts and tables showing their various estimated sources of income, so much from drugs, so much from prostitution, so much from shakedowns and loan sharking. This was boring. Who cared about the enterprises or politics of thugs, except someone planning to write one of those inside-the-Mob books? Karp’s instinct was for the concrete, for the facts, for the evidence. They had a crime; was there a case? Anselmo came to the end of his aria. In the silence that followed, Karp asked, “So you like Joe Pigetti for it?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s the only scenario that makes sense. Pigetti and Catalano were the two most powerful capos. Catalano was tight with Little Sally, Pigetti was on the outs with both of them, but he was Charlie Tuna’s protege and he had more or less replaced Tonnati with Big Sally. If the old don were to kick off, though, he’d be up shit’s creek. Or maybe he heard that the two of them were going to do him. So he goes to the don and lays something bad on Catalano. Some betrayal, he’s skimming-whatever. The old guy’s not so sharp, so he gives the okay. For Pigetti it was a good career move.”
Karp seemed to give this serious attention. “Roland?”
“Well, Pigetti’s out as the actual trigger,” said Roland. “He’s alibied to the neck. Apparently there was a big party the night of. One of the don’s nephews was getting married, and the goombahs threw him a party at the Casa D’Oro on Elizabeth. Pigetti was there until two or so, and then he and a bunch of them went out clubbing until four-thirty. Catalano was at the party and he left around one-thirty, or it could’ve been an hour earlier or later, because all the boys were feeling pretty good by then and vague about the time. In any case, it happens that we know the exact time of death because one of the bullets fired into the back of Catalano’s skull came out through his eye and broke the dashboard clock at three-fourteen a.m.” He paused to see what effect this detail had on the assembled group.
“That’s a fancy touch,” said Karp carefully.
“It is a fancy touch,” Roland agreed. “A little fancier than we’re used to from the wise guys. Call me cynical, but you might suspect that it was done on purpose that way to give Joe an alibi. It turns out that a little before three, Joe was checking into the valet parking at a club at 57th off Eighth. So clearly the cops are looking for an associate of Joe’s who doesn’t have an alibi for the time of, and they come up with Marco Moletti. Moletti was also seen leaving the Casa D’Oro with Catalano and a couple of other guys. Catalano was going to drop by his girlfriend’s house, and he took this bunch along for the ride, maybe call up some ladies and continue the party. But Mutt and Jeff got talking to some girls at a light and they bailed. According to Mutt and Jeff, Marco was the last guy in the car. According to Marco, Marco wasn’t feeling so hot, having overindulged at the fiesta, so after dropping Catalano at the girl’s place at Park and 36th, he handed over the keys, walked to his place, Lex and 49th, and crashed. He says.”
“That’s a long walk, you’re not feeling so good,” said Karp.
“The cops thought so, too,” said Roland. “Besides that, Catalano never made it to the girlfriend that night. The cops think Marco stuck a gun in Catalano’s back, made him drive to under the highway, and popped him there. Then either someone picked him up or he walked away and took a cab or the subway home. In any case, Marco was the last person to see Catalano alive.”
“The second to last if he wasn’t the shooter,” said Karp. “Are you charging him?”
Roland waggled a hand and twisted his face into a doubtful expression. “It’s thin. He was in the car, but they all admit that. The search found a box of.22 longs in his place, but no gun. The vic was killed with.22 longs. There was also a bag with a little short of fifty K in it. Payoff money? Ordinarily, I’d give it a pass, but. .” Here he looked over at Anselmo, who put in, “Right, but this is not an ordinary case. I’m pushing Roland to charge him and then squeeze him to give us Pigetti. This could be the thing that cracks the whole Bollano family.”