Karp smiled back and took one of Roland’s side chairs. “Nothing, Roland, I just wanted to tell you guys again how much I enjoyed the performance up in Jack’s conference room the other day. Did you rehearse that, or was it improvised?”
“He asked for it,” said Roland dismissively. “Guy’s full of shit anyway. When was the last time Rackets won a case? I don’t mean bookies and that crap. He’s just trying to horn in on my murder, like I’m going to deal him in.”
“Meanwhile, you got shit on the case. Guma? What’s the good word among the wise guys this week?”
Guma said, “The prairie dog sends signals to the hawk.”
The other two men stared at him. “Goom, put away that coffee, for now,” said Roland.
“The prairie dog sends signals to the hawk,” Guma repeated with emphasis. “The hawk’s trying to eat him, and he’s sending up signals, help the hawk out a little. It’s amazing.”
“That’s it,” said Roland, “I’m calling 911. It’s time for the rubber room.”
“What’re you talking about, Guma?” Karp asked.
“Prairie dogs. They live in these burrows, and they come out to feed on the ground. And the hawk flies over them, he’s figuring one of the prairie dogs might not spot him up there in the sky, he dives and bang! Lunch. If he figures right, if the little guys don’t really see him, he’ll nail the dog before it gets into the hole. If not, no payoff. The bird has to fly up there again and start over. The only thing is, the hawk can’t make too many mistakes, he’ll knock himself out, maybe he’ll starve, or his chicks’ll starve. So-and here’s the funny thing-the prairie dog knows this; so if it spots a hawk up there, it’ll like make a little nod of its head. The hawk sees this, it doesn’t dive on that prairie dog, doesn’t waste the effort.”
The two other men exchanged looks. Roland said, “Guma, what the fuck are you talking about?”
Guma ignored this and continued, his voice low and gravelly; Karp listened, fascinated. This was a different Guma. “So you have to ask, what’s in it for the prairie dog? What the fuck does he care about some hawk, the hawk spends the day whacking his pals? Hey, but it’s dog eat dog out there. So to speak. The prairie dogs are competing for turf, I mean real turf, ’cause they eat grass, bushes, whatever. So the dog figures, the hawk’s gotta eat somebody, let him eat the guy who’s a little slower than me, doesn’t look around enough, too busy stuffing his face to check out the sky. I’ll help him out, no skin off my ass, and plus, there’ll be more leaves and shit for me.”
He took a long swig from his cup and was silent.
Roland said, “That was good, Guma. It’s always nice to learn something about the world we live in. Now, would you please get the fuck out of here and sleep it off!”
Karp said, “No, Roland, Guma had a point, didn’t you, Goom?”
“The point is,” said Guma slowly, “the point is, things are not always like they seem. You gotta have all the connections or it don’t make sense, like the prairie dog tipping off the hawk. And we don’t.”
“You’re talking about Catalano, right?” asked Karp.
Guma gave him a long, bloodshot stare. “Of course, what the fuck else’re we talking about? Like I said before, this is a family thing, it’s got fuck all to do with the grand jury.”
“So what’s going on in the family?” Karp asked.
“Wait a minute,” said Roland. “I want to know where you got all that shit about the prairie dogs. I thought you were a sports and pussy man.”
“I am, Roland,” said Guma with grave dignity. “But man does not live by sports and pussy alone. For your information, I got it off a PBS program.”
“I don’t believe this,” said Roland, batting the side of his head with the heel of his hand. “Guma watches PBS? What’re you, joining the ACLU, too?”
“I watch nature programs, Roland. I watch every fucking thing they got, David Attenborough, Nature, National Geographic, Wild Kingdom, I watch fucking Nova, they got an animal program on. What, you’re surprised?” He finished the cup and put it down. “It’s no big thing. Assuming I don’t score with any beautiful young women, and you know they’re all out there just looking for fat, ugly fifty-eight-year-old lawyers with no money, I go back to my miserable, shitty apartment and I watch. It’s relaxing. There’s a whole world out there with no fucking money involved. Eat and be eaten, just like the goddamn city, except they don’t take a percentage. And the lion, or the fucking hyena, wants to get laid, he doesn’t have to make any conversation, he doesn’t have to develop his communication skills, he doesn’t have to respect her in the fucking a.m., he just does it, and the bitch gets the dinner, too. What can I say, it relaxes me.”
“I knew it,” said Roland, “he gets off on the animal fuck scenes.”
“Get back to the family, Guma,” said Karp. “What kind of family thing?”
“Oh, yeah. The Bollanos.” He paused, as if in thought, or maybe, Karp imagined, the old cells weren’t firing quite as fast as they used to.
“You know,” he began musingly, not yet ready to focus, “Phil Garrahy didn’t waste five minutes worrying about the Mob. He thought it was grandstanding, like Tom Dewey did. Fucking Dewey got Luciano deported for what? A nickel pimp charge, and that was the only racket Lucky wasn’t even in. Had a big impact on prostitution in New York, no more whores in town after that, which is not surprising because practically the only thing Luciano wasn’t involved in was pimping. Phil had a clear sense of what was important, and the wise guys understood that. They did their thing and Phil did his, because he knew that, whatever the fucking New York Times says, it’s better for the city to have vice organized, private, out of sight. Which is why in the old days, you didn’t have what you got today, with the drugs and the whores in your face all the time, and the punks blasting away out on the street. And this bum, Colombo, he’s got a hair up his ass, he wants to make sure nobody confuses him with the Mob family. I ask you one question: Did he play any ball, Colombo? No, he was on the fucking debating club. He was the kind of kid got his face pushed in the mud in the schoolyard, probably ran to the nuns with it. Never trust a D.A. didn’t play ball, they’re looking to prove something, they got a dick on them-”
“The family, Goom,” said Karp patiently. Ordinarily he could listen to Guma talk about the Mob and the old days for hours, but he had things he had to do. Guma switched neatly into the new track without a bump.
“Yeah, Eddie Cat. What I said up there in Jack’s, I was pissed, you know? Fucking Anselmo. What I’m thinking now is, is it reasonable to assume the don was in the dark here, and the more I think about it, the more I’m thinking he did know, not that he told Pigetti, whack this guy, but he let it out to Joe that maybe it would be a good idea. I can’t see Pigetti just whacking Eddie Cat without any cover at all, is why. If he wanted to move in on the Bollanos, he would’ve taken out the old man and the kid and Eddie. So the don’s not clean, is my thinking. You know Little Sally’s a nutcase, everybody knows that. But let me tell you something else: he’s following in the footsteps there.”
“The don, you mean?” asked Karp. “I thought he was this icy calculator.”
“Oh, I’ll give you icy calculator; shit, yes. But also the word is maybe the good ten and the three of hearts slipped under the couch while he’s playing, he didn’t notice it. Besides that, he’s-Big Sally, I mean-he’s not a nice guy.”
Roland burst out laughing. “Oh, wait, stop the presses! He’s not a nice guy? Christ, Guma, he’s a fucking Mafia don! He’s supposed to be a choir boy?”
Guma ignored this and continued talking to Karp. “These guys, they’re, when you get right down to it, real conservative. The family’s over in the corner there; they might whack each other, they might whack a girl gets in the way, but they leave la famiglia alone. You understand this, Butch, Sicilians and the family. They sell whores, they use whores, they sell dope, whatever, but they don’t think of themselves as bad guys. Okay, so there’s rumors about Big Sal, always was, that he’s like bent, from way back. Not short eyes, not a faggot, nothing like that, but there’s a twist there. Big Sally would go to some lengths to see it didn’t get out. With the big guys, there can’t be what they call an infamia, they won’t do business with a guy like that, and no business means. .” He made a thumbs-down gesture, suggesting early retirement under a layer of paving material.