The article went on to say that law enforcement sources now believed that someone named Andrew Faviola, the nephew of the recently deceased dead gangster, would likely be heading for the maximum security prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, to consult with his incarcerated father, the aforementioned Anthony Faviola, about succession in the Faviola family, which name tickled Mollie because it reminded her of the Farkel family on the Nick-at-Nite Laugh-In reruns.
On the facing page there was a story about a big drug bust in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. Undercover detectives from the Thirty-Fourth Precinct had raided a supposed body repair shop where they’d recovered five hundred kilos of cocaine — according to the Times, this translated as eleven hundred pounds — and two and a half million dollars in cash. On the bottom of that same page, the Times ran a small item they obviously felt was related by subject matter if nothing else. A twenty-four-year-old man named Richard Palermo, described as a small-time drug runner, had been found dead in a basement room on Eighth Avenue. The two bullets in the back of his head led the police to believe this was a gangland slaying, more than likely drug-re—
The bus was pulling into the curb at her stop. Mollie grabbed for her book bag and rushed to the exit door.
Standing in the bitter cold at the phone on the southeast corner of Sixtieth and Park, Sarah first dialed Andrew’s Great Neck number, got no answer there, hung up, managed to retrieve her only quarter even though someone had fiddled with the return chute, and immediately tried the Mott Street office. She got his voice on the machine again.
“The office will be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday...”
But this was Thursday already.
“Please leave a message at the beep and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you.”
But when? she wondered.
The beep sounded.
She said, “Hi, it’s me. Where are you?”
Then she put the phone back on the hook and ran across Park and past Christ Church toward the school.
He had flown out on Wednesday night, after all of Uncle Rudy’s friends, relatives, and associates had come by Ida’s house to pay their respects following the funeral. Now, at ten o’clock on Thursday morning, he sat opposite his father in the visitors’ room at Leavenworth. A thick glass panel was between them, a two-way microphone-speaker set into it.
“Everybody was there to pay their respects,” Andrew said. “People from all over, Pop. Families from Chicago, Miami, St. Louis, in spite of the storm, they got there. Some of them I didn’t even know.”
His father nodded.
Andrew could sense the fury seething in him. Their attorney, Abraham Meyerson, had petitioned the warden to grant an overnight leave for Anthony Faviola to attend his only brother’s funeral, but the request had been denied. The indignity of being kept here in a prison deliberately far from his friends, relatives, and business associates was now compounded by the fucking warden’s refusal. Andrew’s father sat on his side of the glass partition, his hands clenched on the countertop, his mouth set, his dark eyes glowering. He had lost weight in prison, and his complexion was pale, and his sideburns were turning gray. All at once, Andrew felt the same sense of sadness he’d felt when driving to the hospital on the night of his uncle’s death.
“There were flowers, Pop, you’d’ve thought it was summertime, we had three cars of flowers following the hearse.”
“Did anybody from the Colotti family show up?”
“Oh, yeah, they all came, sure, Pop. There was a tremendous snowstorm, you know, but it didn’t stop anybody, they all came anyway. Jimmy Angelli, Mike Mangioni...”
“Mike the Jaw, huh?” his father said, and smiled. “I’m surprised. It was my brother gave him that jaw. This was when we were still kids. He was some fighter, my brother.”
Andrew began reeling off the names of everyone he could recall who’d been at the church services or the funeral or at Ida’s house later, but his father was staring into the distance beyond his shoulder now, his eyes appearing somewhat out of focus, remembering the brother they had buried only yesterday.
“The priest gave a nice elegy,” Andrew said. “Father Nigro, do you know him?”
“Do I know him? He baptized you.”
“This wasn’t the boilerplate elegy they give when they don’t know the dead person from a hole in the wall. Father Nigro knew Uncle Rudy, and he talked about him as a personal friend. It was very moving, Pop.”
“I’m glad,” his father said, and nodded.
There was a long silence.
Then he said, “They should’ve let me come.”
“They should’ve, Pop.”
“Sfasciume,” he said bitterly.
“Anyway,” Andrew said, “I brought you some newspapers to look at. This is the News,” he said, and held the tabloid up to the glass to show his father the front page. “And this is the Post, it’s a miracle they’re still publishing with all the trouble they’re having. Uncle Rudy got the front page there, too, and also a feature story inside. The Times had an obit and a story in the Metro Section. I’m leaving all these for you, they told me they’d send them to your cell. There’ll probably be stories on the funeral, too. I’ll send them to you when I get back. I asked Billy to hold them for me.”
“Thanks,” his father said.
“Who’d’ve thought a heart attack?” Andrew said. “The doctors were giving him six months, a year.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s, you know, one of those things you can’t figure.”
“No, you can’t figure something like that.”
The two men fell silent again.
“How’s everything else going?” his father said at last.
“Fine, Pop.”
“The thing I was working on before I...”
He stopped talking, his anger virtually choking him. He was thinking again of the unfairness that had caused his present intolerable situation. He took in a deep breath, let it out, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and in a soft, controlled voice said, “Before they sent me here. My project. How’s it coming along?”
“It’s a done deal, Pop.”
“Good.”
There was satisfaction in his voice. Something he had conceived, something he had initiated, had come to fruition under his son’s guidance. He nodded contentedly, and a tiny pleased smile touched his lips. Andrew figured this might be a good time to bring up the little matter of succession. Or was it too soon? Uncle Rudy just dead, just buried?
“Pop, I know this is a bad time,’ but...”
“I know what you’re going to ask.”
“What am I going to ask, Pop?”
“You’re going to ask who.”
“Yes.”
“By rights, it should go to Petey Bardo.”
“I know.”
“Those brown suits,” his father said, and shook his head and began chuckling. Andrew smiled. And waited.
“But Bobby has bigger balls,” his father said.
“I know.”
“So keep Petey where he is, and give Bobby the spot. Petey has a problem, tell him to talk to me about it.”
“Okay, Pop.”
“Don t you agree?
“I do.”
“Good,” his father said, and fell silent again. After a while, he said, “I miss you, Lino.”
“I miss you, too.”
“Tell your mother I love her.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“When you gonna find a nice girl, get married?”