“Yeah,” said Vin, seeing an opportunity and jumping in. “We got a young guy just like that ourselves. Very capable. My own boy, in fact. We’re trying to move him up .. .”
Teddy cut him off with an angry glance.
Mrs. Marino came out of the house again with another tray full of glasses and a tall green bottle of Pellegrino water. She poured two glasses for Jackie and Sal and they smiled appreciatively. She returned to the house and could be seen weeping through the kitchen curtains.
“Ted,” said Jackie, raising the water glass. “I just want you to know we went through proper channels before Billy got whacked. We talked to everyone on the Commission before it happened. I know you weren’t able to make it down to the last meeting, but I just wanted you to know we did the right thing.”
“Jackie, on my son’s grave, it never entered my mind.”
They all stopped talking a moment and looked out at the garden. Since Atlantic City was set on a barrier island, it was difficult to plant anything more than a rose garden out here. Another salt breeze riffled the plain short blades of grass. Smoke from a barbecue rose from the other side of the brick wall. Teddy sniffed, looked down at his glass of Remy Martin, and finished the rest of it.
Jackie watched him carefully. “I wasn’t sure if anybody mentioned it to you, Ted, but there was something else on the agenda the last time the Commission met.”
“What’s that?”
“We were talking about some of the unions down here and it was decided that Ralphie Sasso over at the hotel workers’ should now belong to us.”
Jackie sat back with a hand on each of his lapels, waiting to be challenged.
“What’re you talking about?” Teddy’s face began to burn. “That’s been our union for twenty years. You can’t just come in and claim it!”
Jackie folded his arms across his chest and Sal Matera sat up a little straighter.
“I’m sorry, Ted, but that’s the way the Commission wanted it,” Jackie explained.
Teddy’s mouth was hanging open. Vin was tearing furiously at his shock of gray hair.
“Look, Ted,” said Jackie, crossing his legs. “We’re all getting squeezed now with these federal cases and the economy the way it is. We’re gonna have to learn to share.”
Vin shook his head. “I just saw Ralphie the other day. He didn’t say a thing to me.”
Teddy was furious. “This is unbelievable, Jackie. You think you can come in here and put my balls in your pocket?”
“Hey,” Jackie interrupted him. “It wouldn’t hurt so bad if you hadn’t given up the narcotics to the niggers or if you’d gotten a little further with the casinos.”
“What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Jackie raised his voice, “that everyone knows you’ve never placed an executive at one of these places.”
“You try doing it with all these cameras and state troopers around,” Teddy protested. “It’s off-limits. You can’t get in there. It can’t be done. They got regulations up the ying-yang. No one’s ever had an amica nostra on the payroll.”
“And for twenty years, you’ve been feeding off the crumbs from the unions.” Jackie put a hand flat on the picnic table and stared him down. “And now it’s time for you to share it with the rest of us.”
Teddy started to stand up. “This is bullshit, Jackie!” he shouted. “It’s absolutely indecent. You’re trying to cut my fucking balls off!”
Jackie looked over at Sal, who reached down toward his sock as though he had a gun holstered there.
Vin put his arm across Teddy’s wide chest, trying to calm him down.
“Listen, Ted,” said Jackie, standing up and buttoning his jacket. “You got a problem with this, take it up with the Commission. Otherwise, that’s the way it’s gonna be. It’s decided.”
Teddy sat down, still sputtering angrily, but afraid to do anything about it. Vin put an arm around his shoulders. Jackie checked his Rolex and then signaled for Sal to stand up and leave with him.
“It’s not right, Jackie, not right.” Teddy wouldn’t look at him. He stared down at the picnic table as his stubby fingers grappled with each other on his lap. “You come down here, eat our food, and then you stab us in the back.”
“Hey,” said Jackie, pointing to the platter, which was still piled high with cold cuts. “We hardly ate anything.”
The two guests left abruptly, without saying goodbye. Teddy sat quietly stroking his middle for a few minutes while Vin tried to comfort him. More smoke came from the barbecue on the other side of the brick wall. Mrs. Marino peered out once from behind the kitchen curtains and went back to crying about her dead son.
Teddy stuck a finger into the platter of cold cuts and poked at them awhile.
“All this food I just bought,” he said to Vin. “It’s all gonna turn to shit.”
9
IT WAS TIME TO start raising money if I was going to get serious about the fight game. Fifty thousand dollars was what John B. said we needed. But I couldn’t have Teddy know I was going after that kind of money, or he’d want it all for himself.
That night I had to drop by Rafferty’s, to look at invoices. And since the place was usually crawling with wiseguys and union officials, I figured it might be a good time to renew old contacts and see about getting a little work for my contracting business.
I spotted Paulie Raymond, a guy who I knew had union connections, sitting with his brother Albert the hunchback at a round table. I went over to join them.
They looked like they were having the time of their lives. It was the first night we had Foxy Boxing and Hot Oil Wrestling at the club. Since topless dancing wasn’t allowed at bars in Atlantic City, Teddy decided to have the girls fight instead. Paulie had a ringside seat. He was all red, like a lobster, and every time you saw him he was wearing another piece of jewelry. This night, he had on a gold bracelet with his name spelled out in diamonds. Even though he was over sixty, the skin was tight around his jaw and lizardlike down his neck, as if he’d just had plastic surgery. It didn’t matter though; he still looked like an old fag you’d see hanging around the bus station late at night. It was hard to believe he’d been a detective with the Atlantic City Police Department for more than thirty years.
But Paulie was one of those cops who act more like wiseguys than wiseguys. The badge was just a license to steal. He was into everything: money laundering, ripping off drug dealers, securities frauds, insurance swindles. And on the side, he’d also gotten himself into a position where he was a go-between for Teddy’s crew and one of the local construction unions, where his uncles and cousins were all members. You had to treat him with respect because he had access to half the major building contracts in town.
“You’re lookin’ good, Paulie.”
“Yeah?” he said, watching the girls fight in the makeshift ring we’d set up.
A greased-blonde in a string bikini was throwing a body block on this busty redhead in a green one-piece bathing suit.
“I told that fuckin’ doctor to do something about my hands,” Paulie said.
“He’s got hands like an old woman,” said his brother Albert the hunchback. Albert was a quiet guy who liked to listen to classical music and go out with seventeen-year-old girls.
Paulie held up his hands. The knuckles were raw and the backs were well-mapped with blue and green veins.
He was wearing a fresh coat of clear nail polish and I thought of my mother lying there in the casket with her hands folded, after the last pill overdose. The memory made me gag and I had to stop myself from throwing up right there at ringside with the girls tossing each other around.