“Up until a few years ago, no question: they were the head office and we were the branch plant. Buffalo was a real power, mobwise, all the years Don Magaddino was in charge, and that’s like fifty. You know about the Don?”
“I know his name. I was briefed on his organization when the Ensign sting was being planned.”
“Don Stefano Magaddino was a member of the original national commission that laid out the structure of the organization and assigned territories to the major families. He was up there with Lucky Luciano, Joe Bonanno, Tommy Lucchese, all those guys. A cousin to Joe Bonanno, in fact. Not that it stopped them from occasionally trying to kidnap or kill each other.”
“How’d he wind up in Buffalo?”
“There was trouble in New York and he had to leave. Took a look west and moved to Buffalo. It was a happening place then and he ended up running the town and everything around it, including southern Ontario. Took that over from Rocco Perri, if the name rings a bell.”
“He the one at the bottom of Hamilton Harbour?”
“So the story goes. Everyone after that, including Johnny Papalia and Vinnie Nickels, answered to Magaddino. You want to talk smuggling? This pill business of yours is piddly compared to the booze that used to cross the river.”
“Until Prohibition ended.”
“Nothing ended. Just the commodities changed. Dope going this way, guns going that way. Cigarettes, as you well know, pinball machines, illegal aliens, whatever. When I was a kid, we made runs to Buffalo all the time. I always drove because I was the only one of my gang whose name didn’t end in a vowel. Buffalo and back, a thousand times. At first, we’d just try to bullshit our way across. Sometimes we’d order hockey tickets and dress like assholes and say we were going to watch the Leafs play the Sabres, like I’d cross the street to watch those bums. Once we were established, it got easier. We’d have a friendly border guard on a certain shift and we just had to say Mr. Lewis sent us. That was Vinnie Nickels’ brother Luciano. Uncle Looch knew every bent border guy, what shift he worked, how much you had to pay. We’d get a lane number from Looch, load up our goods and head out on a Buffalo jump.”
“A which?”
“What we called these runs of ours. Come on, we were kids. We had our own code words like everyone else. With us a smuggling trip was a Buffalo jump.”
“It means something else out west,” I said.
“Out west where?”
“Alberta. It was a kill site for Indians.”
“Hey, my kind of topic. What kind of kill site?”
“They harvested buffalo by running them over a cliff.”
“No shit.”
“This was before horses came to the New World. The Plains Indians hunted on foot with spears.”
“Not too productive.”
“No. So they came up with a system for mass killing.”
“The human spirit,” Ryan said. “You just can’t keep it down.”
“They’d fence off runways that led from the grazing area to the cliffs. Then one would imitate a buffalo calf crying in distress. The lead buffalo would move toward the sound and the herd, being a herd, would follow. Then a few guys with capes and blankets would run up behind and start a stampede down these fenced-off lanes. The leader couldn’t see what was in front of him until he roared off the cliff and dropped thirty feet onto solid rock. The whole herd would come crashing down behind him. Any that survived were finished with spears.”
“And they called it Buffalo Jump?” Ryan asked.
“Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, to be exact.”
“Yeah?” Ryan laughed. “We had a few of those too in the old days. Plenty of heads got smashed.”
“But things in Buffalo have changed, you said.”
“Since Don Magaddino passed, there’s been a different class of people at the top. No sense of vision, barely a step above union leaders. Plus half of them are in jail now. Give credit where it’s due, law enforcement has been pasting us lately. You got wiretap technology you never had. You got RICO legislation in the States. You got agencies cooperating instead of pissing up each other’s pant legs. There’s no more Teflon Dons anymore. Plenty of guys are doing serious time. You got more wise guys dying of natural causes in prison than on the street. When did that ever used to be?
“The funny thing is I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove I belong to this thing,” he said. “To their thing. Lamenting the fact that my father was Irish. That I couldn’t be made because of his name. That I had to remain an associate. Given the dirty work. The outsider’s work. Now I look around and wonder why. Why do I want to belong to this? Why did I ever? Half of them don’t have the brains God gave a sheepdog and the other half are just plain dumb. And for this so-called family I’m losing my real family, my wife and my boy, who give me more in ten minutes than Marco and his crew could in ten years. I’ve heard all their jokes. I’ve heard every war story. Do I need to hear again who they beat, who they shot, who they fucked and how much it cost?”
Ryan eased a cigarette out of his pack, lit it and opened his window a crack to draw out the smoke.
“I’m going to tell you something, Jonah Geller, on the understanding that if you repeat it to anyone, ever, I’ll hunt you down and kill you like the dog you are.”
“Some lead-in.”
“I was watching The Lion King with Carlo yesterday. And there’s a part when the king dies, right, and the little guy, Simba, thinks it was his fault. He’s calling, ‘Dad, Dad…’ He’s apologizing, getting desperate, tearing up, and I suddenly picture the same scene with me and Carlo, him finding me dead somewhere. Tears start filling my eyes and going down my cheeks and I wipe them away and more keep coming. I haven’t cried in thirty years. My stepfather used to beat me for sport and I never cried once. But here I am watching a fucking cartoon, for Chrissakes, and I’m blubbering like a schoolgirl who just got dumped.”
He drew on his smoke and stared intently ahead.
I said, “If you need to cry some more, I won’t judge you.”
“Shut up.”
“You can let that side out with me.”
“Shut up.”
“Your vulnerable side.”
“You’re this close, Geller.”
I crooned, “Put your head on my shoulder…”
“This fucking close.”
“Whisper in my ear…”
“I’m warning you.”
“Bay-bee…”
“I’m gonna throw you out the sunroof in one fucking second.”
“Okay, Ryan.”
“Won’t even slow down.”
“I said okay.”
“I never should have said a word to you. In my hour of sensitivity, you turn into a cheap-joke artist at my expense.”
“It’s the Jewish way,” I said. “Laugh your way through the pain.”
“I’m Catholic, I’m armed and I’m pissed at you,” he snarled.
“So maybe we’ll do it your way,” I said.
CHAPTER 37
We were past Yonge Street and making good time when Jenn called my cell. “Where are you?”
“On the road.”
“On your way in, I hope.”
“Not directly.”
“Are you nuts? Clint’s already mad at you.”
“I’ll be in as soon as I can.”
“Shouldn’t keeping your job be a priority?”
“He’s that pissed?”
“Have you ever seen his betrayed look?”
“Oh, God, not the one where he looks like a hound dog?”
“An abandoned hound that’s been beaten with a stick.”
“I’ll call him,” I said.
“It’s your ass.”
“I know. Listen, how busy are you?”
“Manageable.”
“See what you can find on the Vista Mar group and Steven Stone. Check what year he got his MBA at Western. See if it overlapped with either Jay Silver or Kenneth Page, both spelled the way they sound. And if there’s anything Stone has written in the business school quarterly, download it. I bet it has to do with supply chain improvements or using Internet sales to broaden commercial reach.”
“Aren’t you a biz-head all of a sudden,” Jenn said. “Should we expect a suit and a buzz cut?”