The house was a brick Colonial, waterfront, on a quiet cul-de-sac. It had its own dock on the channel and a speedboat, Cecilia Theresa, named after his first child.
Although the compound's location was well known, the gates around the place were secure, and Maggione had doubled his bodyguards. He felt good about the safety of his family. The Butcher was only one guy, after all. Realistically, how much damage could he do? How much more damage?
Junior had plans to go in to work later in the morning, then make his regular stop at the social club in Brooklyn. It was important for him to keep up appearances. Besides, he was sure he had things under control now He had assurances from his people: Sullivan would be dead soon, and so would his family.
At eleven in the morning, Maggione was swimming in the indoor pool at the compound. He'd already done thirty laps and planned to do fifty more.
His cell phone began to ring on the chaise longue.
Nobody else was around, so finally he climbed out of the pool and answered it himself. "Yeah? What?"
"Maggione." He heard a male voice on the line.
"Who the hell is this?" he asked, even though he knew who it was.
"This happens to be Michael Sullivan, chief. The nerve of the cheeky bastard, huh?"
Maggione was quietly stunned that the madman was actually calling him again. "I think we better talk," he said to the hit man.
"We are talking. Know how come? You sent killers after me. First in Italy. Then they came near my house in Maryland. They shot at my kids. Then they showed up in Washington looking for me. Because I'm supposed to be a loose cannon? You're the loose cannon, Junior! You're the one who needs to be put down!"
"Listen, Sullivan -"
"No, you listen, you asshole punk bastard. You listen to me, Junior! There's a package arriving at your fortress right about now. Check it out, chief. I'm coming after you! You can't stop me. Nothing can stop me; nobody can. I'm crazy, right? You try and remember that. I'm the craziest bastard you ever met, or even heard of. And we will meet again."
Then the Butcher hung up on him.
Junior Maggione put on a robe; then he walked out to the front of the house. He couldn't believe it – FedEx was making a delivery!
That meant that the crazy bastard Sullivan might be watching the house right now. Was that possible? Could it be happening, just like he said it would?
"Vincent! Mario! Get your asses out here!" he called to his bodyguards, who came running from the kitchen holding sandwiches.
He had one of his men open the delivery box – out in the pool house.
After a couple of nervous moments, the guy called out, "It's pictures, Mr. Maggione. Not exactly Kodak moments."
Chapter 93
"WE MIGHT HAVE FOUND HIM, SUGAR."
A woman named Emily Corro had just finished her morning therapy session with me, and she'd gone off to her teaching job, hopefully with a slightly better self-image. Now Sampson was on my cell phone. Big John didn't usually get excited, so this had to be something good.
Turned out, it was.
Late that afternoon, the Big Man and I arrived in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn. We proceeded to locate a neighborhood tavern called Tommy McGoey's.
The neat- and-clean gin mill was nearly empty when we walked inside. Just a tough-looking Irish bartender and a smallish, well-built guy, probably midforties, sitting at the far end of a well-polished mahogany bar. His name was Anthony Mullino, and he was a graphic artist in Manhattan who'd once been best pals with Michael Sullivan.
We sat down on either side of Mullino, pinning him in.
"Cozy," he said, and smiled. "Hey, I'm not going to run out on you guys. I came here of my own free recollection. Try not to forget it. Hell, two of my uncles are cops here in Crooklyn. Check it out if you want."
"We already did," Sampson said. "One's retired, living in Myrtle Beach; one's on suspension."
"Hey, so I'm batting five hundred. That's not so awful. Keep you in the Big Leagues."
Sampson and I introduced ourselves, and at first Mullino was sure he knew John from somewhere, but couldn't place where it might be. He said he'd followed the case of the Russian Mafia head called the Wolf, an investigation I'd worked on while I was at the Bureau, and which had played out right here in New York.
"I read about you in some magazine too," he said. "What magazine was that?"
"I didn't read the story," I said. "In Esquire."
Mullino got the joke and laughed in a way that was like sped-up coughing. "So how did you find out about me and Sully? That's kind of a stretch nowadays. Ancient history."
Sampson told him a little bit of what we knew – that the FBI had done audio surveillance on a social club frequented by John Maggione. We knew that Maggione had ordered a hit on Sullivan, probably because of the Butcher's unorthodox methods, and that the Butcher had retaliated. "The Bureau asked around on Bay Parkway. Your name came up."
Mullino didn't even wait for Sampson to finish. I noticed that when he talked his hands were in constant motion. "Right, the social club over in Bensonhurst. You been there? Old Italian neighborhood. Mostly two-story buildings, storefronts, y'know. Seen better days, but still pretty nice. Sully and I grew up not far from there.
"So how do I fit in again? I'm a little confused about that part. I haven't seen Mike in years."
"FBI files," I said. "You're his friend, right?"
Mullino shook his head. "When we were kids, we were kind of close. That was a long time ago, guys."
"You were friends into your twenties. And he still keeps in touch," I said. "That's the information we were given."
"Aw, Christmas cards," Mullino said, and laughed. "Go figure that one out. Sully's a complicated guy, totally unpredictable. He sends a holiday card now and then. What else is going on here? Am I in trouble? I'm not, am I?"
"We know that you have no association with the mob, Mr. Mullino," Sampson said.
"That's good to hear, because I don't, never did. Actually I'm a little tired of all the bullshit slurring against us Italians. Bada bing, all that crap. Sure some guys talk like that. Know why? Because it's on the TV"
"So tell us about Michael Sullivan," I said. "We need to hear whatever you know about him. Even things from the old days."
Anthony Mullino ordered another drink – seltzer water – from Tommy McGoey himself. Then he began to talk to us, and it came easily for him, the words anyway.
"I'll tell you a funny thing, a story. I used to be Mikey's protector in grammar school. Immaculate Conception, this was. Irish Christian Brothers. In our neighborhood, you had to develop a pretty good sense of humor to keep out of fights every other day. Back then, Sullivan didn't have much of one – a sense of humor. He also had this mortal fear about having his front teeth knocked out. Thought he might be a movie star or somethin' one day. I swear to God that's true. Verdad, right? His old man and his mom both slept with their store-boughts in a glass of water by the bed."
Mullino said that Sullivan changed when they were in high school. "He got tough, and mean as a snake. But he developed a pretty good sense of humor, for an Irish guy anyway."
He leaned in close to the bar and lowered his voice. "He killed a guy in ninth grade. Name of Nick Fratello. Fratello worked at the newspaper store, with the bookies. He used to hassle Mikey all the time, break his balls strenuously. No reason. So Sully just killed him with a box cutter! That got the attention of the Mafia, of Maggione in particular. Maggione Senior I'm talking about.
"That's when Sully started to hang around the social club in Bensonhurst. Nobody knew what he was doing exactly. Not even me. But suddenly he had money in his pockets. Seventeen, maybe eighteen years old, he bought a Grand Am, a Pontiac Grand Am. Very hot wheels at that time. Maggione Jr. always hated Mike because he'd gotten the old man's respect."
Mullino looked from Sampson's face to mine, and he made a gesture like What else can I tell you? Can I go now?