Looking at him, I wondered how he had done it. Except for a few short periods of spontaneous remission, Franzini had been confined to that wheelchair ever since, growing fat and bulbous from lack of exercise and his fondness for gorging himself on Italian pasta. Yet, he headed one of the most powerful Mafia families in the world with a business acumen and a reputation in underworld circles second only to Gaetano Ruggiero.
This was the man I had come to New York to work for, and to destroy if J could.
"Louie!" He barked, his voice raspy but surprisingly loud. "It's good to have you back." He glared malevolently around at the rest of us. "Who are these people?"
Louie hastened to make introductions. He gestured. "This is Gino Manitti."
"Bon giorno, Don Joseph." The Neanderthal man half bowed toward the crippled giant.
" 'Giorno." Franzini looked at Franco Locallo.
There was a quaver of fear in Locallo's voice. "Franco Locallo," he said. Then his face brightened. "From Castellemare," he added.
Franzini grunted and turned to me. I met his gaze steadily, but it wasn't easy. Hatred burned in those black eyes, but I'd seen hatred before. This was different Popeye Franzini hated with a fervor I had never encountered before.
Suddenly, I understood. Franzini's hatred was so malevolent because it wasn't directed at one man, or group of men, or at a country or an idea. Franzini hated himself. He hated his diseased body and because he hated himself he hated the God he had created in his own image.
Louie's voice cut across my thoughts. "This is Nick Canzoneri, Uncle Joe. He's my friend. I met him in Beirut."
I nodded toward the old man, not quite a bow.
He cocked one white eyebrow, or tried to. The result was more of a maniacal grimace as one side of his mouth gaped open and his head tilted to one side with the effort. "A friend?" he rasped. "You weren't sent over to make friends. Ha!"
Louie hastened to reassure him. "He's one of us, too, Uncle Joe. Wait till I tell you what he did one day."
It seemed strange to hear a grown man calling another one "Uncle Joe" but I guess it was all part of Louie's somewhat juvenile approach to life. And as for what he could tell about what I had done one day, he didn't know the half of it.
I smiled at Franzini as sincerely as I could, but I really couldn't think of anything to say so I just shrugged. It's a marvelous Italian way out of any situation.
The old man stared back steadily for a moment and then with a quick flick of his hands, half-turned the wheelchair so that he faced Louie. It was a remarkable move for a man who a moment before had had a difficult time cocking one eyebrow.
"Book these guys into Manny's," he ordered. "Give them tomorrow off, then tell them to report to Ricco." He looked over his shoulder at us. "Goddamn!" he said. "They don't even speak English, I bet."
He glared up at Louie. "We got a party at Tony's Gardens tomorrow night. It's your cousin Philomina's birthday. You be there."
Louie grinned happily. "Sure, Uncle Joe."
His cousin Philomina blushed prettily.
The old man spun his wheelchair deftly and headed back into his office under his own power. Spelman looked me over coolly one more time, then followed his boss. If he'd ever known who I was, one of these days he was going to remember.
As Manitti, Locallo, and I followed Louie out of the office and down the hall, I had a very uneasy feeling about Larry Spelman.
Chapter 8
Manny's was the Chalfont Plaza, one of the grand old hotels on the east side of midtown Manhattan. The Chalfont Plaza had had more than one member of European royalty as a guest during its long history. It is still one of the standard stops for out-of-town businessmen visiting New York, and the Skycloud Room on the roof is a regular watering hole for the jet set.
Years ago, a group of prominent businessmen had bought the Chalfont Plaza from its original owners as a business investment, then later sold to Emmanual Perrini, a young, ambitious businessman with a lot of ready capital.
The sign on the front still says Chalfont Plaza, but the Mafia, to its eternal ego, refers to it as Manny's.
"Want to stop and have a drink, Nick?" Louie asked just before I stepped into the elevator after registering.
"No thanks, Louie," I groaned. "I'm exhausted."
"Okay," he agreed cheerily. "I'll call you tomorrow afternoon and let you know what's going on."
"Great." I mustered up one final friendly grin and waved goodbye as the elevator door closed. Exhausted? It wasn't just "jet lag" that made me forget to tuck Wilhelmina under my pillow before I went to sleep. Instead, I dropped her in her holster on top the heap of clothes I had left lying on the floor when I undressed.
When I woke up she was just four inches from my mouth and pointed directly at my left eye.
"Don't move, you son of a bitch, or I'll kill you."
I believed him. I lay perfectly still, trying to adjust my eyes to the momentarily blinding light from the bed-table lamp. Wilhelmina is only 9mm, but at that moment I felt as if I were staring down the muzzle of a sixteen-inch naval rifle.
I followed my line of sight up Wilhelmina's barrel to the hand that was holding her, then on up a long arm until I came to a face. Predictably, it was a familiar one: Larry Spelman.
My eyes burned from fatigue and as I came more fully awake I could feel the aches in my body. I had no idea how long I had been asleep. It felt like about thirty seconds.
Spelman jerked his hand and the steel-plated grip of my own pistol slammed against the side of my face. Pain welled up my jawbone. I managed to keep from crying out.
Spelman smirked and pulled back, still keeping the gun trained on me. He stood up, groped behind him with one hand for the nearby chair, and pulled it to him without ever taking his eyes off me.
He sat back in the chair and gestured with Wilhelmina. "Sit up."
Raising myself up cautiously, I tucked two pillows behind me. Nice and comfortable, except for that damned pistol. I glanced at my watch on the bed table. Three o'clock, and since no light showed through the blinds it had to be three o'clock in the morning. I had been asleep about four hours.
I looked at Spelman questioningly and as I became more awake decided he must be drunk. There was a strange look about his eyes; they didn't seem to be focusing properly. Then I saw that the pupils were contracted. He wasn't drunk, he was riding high on junk!
My jaw throbbed with pain.
"Think you're a pretty smart son of a bitch, don't you Carter?"
I winced mentally. He'd blown my cover, all right. I wondered if he had told anyone else yet. Not that it made a lot of difference. The way things looked at the moment, he would have all the time in the world to tell whoever he wanted.
"I don't feel very smart right now," I admitted.
He permitted himself a slight smile. "I finally remembered, about an hour ago. Nick Carter. You work for AXE."
Damn heroin! It will sometimes do that: trigger a long-forgotten memory. I'd seen it happen before.
"It was about four years ago," he went on. "Tom Murphy pointed you out to me down in Florida."
"Nice company you keep," I sneered. Beneath his façade of being a distinguished lawyer, the dapper gray-haired Murphy was one of the country's most successful purveyors of pornography. And in Murphy's case, it wasn't just a matter of sex and skin; he dealt in real filth.
Spelman jerked the pistol at me threateningly. "Who else is in this with you?"
I shook my head. "If you know I'm Nick Carter, you know I usually work alone."
"Not this time. As soon as I remembered who you were, I called Beirut. Su Lao Lin is dead. Charlie Harkins is dead. Harold is in the hospital."
"So?" At least that part of my plan had worked.