“A modest sum,” said Jasper.
“And we require that those involved in activities that aren’t government sponsored and thus not subject to normal taxation pay an even larger share.”
“Think of it like a baseball game,” said Jasper. “And we’re home plate. No matter how big a hit, you need to touch base with us before you score.”
“Do you understand the concept?” asked Raffaello.
“Yes, sir,” I said quickly.
“Now, our information tells us there is a quarter of a million dollars unaccounted for, money that was given by Mr. Ruffing but never received by Jimmy Moore’s organization. A quarter of a million dollars. Whoever ended up with that money never touched home plate. Inadvertently, I assume.”
“Mr. Raffaello is a very forgiving man,” said Jasper, shifting closer to me and leaning so close to my face that I could smell garlic and a touch of rosemary on his breath.
“But still,” said the boss of bosses. “We expect our share. Now one third of a quarter of a million dollars is…”
“Eighty-three thousand,” said Dominic. “Three hundred and thirty-three.”
“Let’s call it an even hundred thousand,” said Raffaello. “I always liked clean numbers. So, Victor, we’re missing one hundred thousand dollars. It is as if someone walked into my house, opened a drawer, and took one hundred thousand dollars from me. I’m a forgiving man, Victor,” but now his voice rose until he was screaming once again, “but to just march into my home and open a drawer and take from me, that I cannot forgive.”
“What happened to the money, Sport?” asked Jasper, still leaning close to me.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Find it for us, Victor,” said Raffaello, “and I’ll forget all about your disrespect for my daughter. You see, I can be forgiving.”
“You should thank the man,” said Jasper into my ear.
“But I don’t know where…”
“Find it, Victor,” said Raffaello, interrupting my pathetic whine. “And we’ll forget about the unpleasantness at the poker game. Otherwise…” He shrugged.
“Thank the man, Sport.”
“Thank you,” I said obediently.
“All right, we’ve taken care of our business,” said Raffaello. “Lenny, do you have something for our friend Victor?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Raffaello.”
Lenny pulled the car over and reached down for something and then turned around quickly. I ducked, expecting another shot to my eye. I was getting sick of these rides around town. But Lenny didn’t turn around to sock me with the back of his hand. When I recovered and opened my eyes he was holding a small white paper sack with slight grease markings on the bottom.
“This is for you, Victor,” said Enrico Raffaello. “It’s a cannoli, from my own special recipe. I hope you like vanilla custard. Now take my advice, Victor. A cannoli this rich you must not eat too fast. I never created the great art I dreamed of, but my cannoli come close. Eating one is like having sex. If it’s too fast, you just end up nauseous. But eat it slowly, carefully, let the custard melt in your mouth. You eat it right and the joy you experience will fill you with an unaccountable joy. You like sex?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, trust me, Victor, you eat it right, you’ll like my cannoli better. We’ll be hearing from you, I assume.”
With that the door opened and Jasper jumped to the street and jerked me out with him. “See you later, Sport.”
I leaned back into the car. “Thank you for the cannoli, Mr. Raffaello. By the way, sir, you didn’t, by any chance, just sort of happen to take a shot at me a few days back, did you?”
Raffaello leaned forward in his seat and smiled as sweetly as he could with a face such as his. “Victor. If we had taken a shot at you, you wouldn’t be around to ask such a question.”
35
ENRICO RAFFAELLO WAS almost right about his cannoli, it was heavy and crisp and I ate it slowly, letting the white custard slide down my throat like sweet, perfumed oysters. It wasn’t quite as good as sex, but after an evening with Veronica it was all I could have asked for. I sat in my car and ate the cannoli and let the cinnamon tickle my nose and bite after bite my spirits fell because, along with giving me that superb cannoli, Mr. Raffaello had opened a door I’d rather have remained shut. On the other side were danger and loss, but there it was, open wide and waiting for me. I didn’t have much choice. I ducked my head and stepped through and found myself the very next morning at the Sporting Club.
The Sporting Club was swank, which wasn’t exactly what I wanted in a gym. Gyms should be sweaty, smelly places, where muscle-bound lugs grunt as they move around great discs of metal and the rubbery thwack thwack thwack of a basketball echoes from the court. That wasn’t the Sporting Club. The Sporting Club was swank.
“I’m interested in joining,” I said. “And I wondered if I could look around for a bit.”
“Of course,” said the woman in the membership office. She wore white, her top stretched by a very fit pair of breasts, worked out, I was sure, on a Nautilus breast machine until they were every bit as taut as her thighs. “Why don’t you fill out this form first.”
They wanted to know my name, my address, my credit card, they wanted to know what I did for a living, who I worked for, my estimated yearly income. It was almost like the way potential dating partners sniff each other out at a party or a bar. Out of pride, I lied to make myself sound like a better candidate for their club, even though I had no intention of joining.
“Well, Mr. Carl,” she said, “let me give you a little tour.”
“How about if I look around myself, get a feel for the place, would that be all right?”
“Of course,” she said. “Take this pass and go right through there. The men’s locker room is on the left and there are signs to the various rooms.” Her gaze drifted down to where my chest would have been had I had one. “Be sure to check out our free weight room.”
I smiled back anyway and left the office, waving the pass casually at the beefy man in white guarding the entrance.
It wasn’t very crowded at seven in the morning, a few haggard souls trying to sneak their workout in before they were awake enough to realize how crazy it was to take an elevator seven floors just to bound up an endless flight of mechanical stairs. In the men’s locker room I grabbed a couple of towels and found a locker and stripped. I couldn’t help but look at myself in the mirrors that surrounded the room. What I saw was pathetic. I would need to join a gym someday, but not this one, not one so swank.
With a towel around my waist, I followed signs to the men’s sauna and steam rooms. The sauna was empty but in the steam room, lying on one of the tiled tiers, was a hard mound of flesh with a towel around its waist and over its face. I sat on a lower tier where it was still possible to breathe and waited for a moment as the steam floated about me and the sweat started sucking from my body.
When sweat dripped from my nose to my knees I said finally, “Enrico Raffaello didn’t kill Bissonette.”
“Good morning, Victor,” said Jimmy Moore, without lifting the towel off his face.
Concannon had told me that Moore worked out at the Sporting Club every morning, primarily by sweating out the alcohol from the night before in the sauna or steam room, depending on his mood. It was directly to the councilman that the door Raffaello opened had led, it was Moore whose answers to the big questions I needed to hear.
“Where did you gather your startling bit of information?” he asked.
“From Raffaello himself.”
“So you had an audience with the pope and the pope told you he’s innocent.”
“And I believe him,” I said. “No reason for him to lie, his hands are already crimson. Which raises the question I have raised before and to which I still don’t have an answer. Who killed Bissonette? Did you?”
He grabbed the towel off his face, sat up, and let out a long grunt that was like the baying of a great wounded mammal.