“Oh, a friend of yours, Skippy! In that case it should be double. No telling what manner of sand a friend of yours might kick up. For old time's sake, I'll call it thirty-five a night, payable each day before two in the afternoon. Skippy's aunt Grace,” the old man explained to Sean, “was with us for almost thirteen years, which makes the boy family once removed.”
“I'll be out for a while if anyone is looking for me, Max,” an elderly woman's voice chirped.
Sean pulled the guest card toward her and started filling it in with lies.
“I'm just going to the coffee shop,” the old woman continued. She was frail and bright-eyed like a bird. “If my niece calls, tell her I'll call her back. Do I have any mail? I'm expecting a note from my great-nephew Peter.”
“I'll be right here, Betty,” Max promised. “No mail delivered yet today.” He took the card from Sean. “Phone calls are extra. No loud music, no overnight guests.”
“No getting drunk and setting fires, no bothering the resident spooks, and no cloning sheep in the rooms,” Wire Dog added.
Max scowled at Wire Dog. “No cloning of anything.”
Sean said, “I'm a writer looking for a quiet place to edit something I've been working on. You won't even know I'm here.”
“She's a novel author,” Wire Dog boasted.
“A novelist.” Max winked at Sean and held up a finger. “Room four-sixteen will be perfect. Tom Wolfe stayed in that room once. Native son, you know. If you need anything, just let me know.” He looked down at the card Sean had filled out. “Miss McSorley.”
Sean handed over the cash and took the receipt.
The brass fence on the ancient elevator gleamed. The operator looked as if he had come with the equipment. He was a stooped man in a crisply starched white shirt with cuff links and a belt cinched tight just below his chest. He called out the floors as the numbers crept by outside the cage. “Two. Three. Your floor, ma'am. Four.”
Four-sixteen was unexpectedly large, with high ceilings and tall narrow windows, which, when she opened the drapes, let in plenty of daylight. She could get onto the fire escape platform by unlocking the window without the A.C. unit. The push-button telephone and the TV set were the only contemporary evidence in an otherwise perfectly preserved '40s room. There was a small brass plaque on the front of the table which read: AUTHOR TOM WOLFE SAT AT THIS DESK ON 10-13-1969.
The tiled bathroom had a deep, claw-footed tub, a pedestal sink, and a toilet with its porcelain tank set up high on the wall. Sean wouldn't have been surprised to have found a TOM WOLFE SAT HERE sign on the seat.
55
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bertran Stern was waiting for the Saturday morning FedEx delivery. Four decades as Sam Manelli's personal attorney had given him something of a cast-iron constitution. Bertran didn't worry about anything, didn't fear anyone but his own best client-and only then what his client was capable of doing to those few people Bertran loved. The lawyer had willingly traded his morals, ethics, and very soul to the devil for a seven-figure income and substantial perks.
Bertran had once believed he was better than Sam Manelli. His superiority complex had been a shield he had hidden behind-a lie worn so thin it was transparent as window glass. He now knew he was infinitely worse than the mobster he worked for because he had entered his world with his eyes open, even if he'd been blinded by pure greed. He'd lunged at the opportunity to skip the hard work of building a practice. He had known from the beginning what Sam Manelli was, who he was getting involved with.
Out in the open, Stern's firm handled Sam Manelli's legitimate businesses. Stern amp; Associates prepared contracts, filed incorporation papers, foreclosed on collateral, collected debts, and filed lawsuits for Sam's companies.
Bertran rarely had to defend Manelli's companies from lawsuits because there had only been one that made it to a courtroom. The injured parties either dropped the suit as soon as they discovered who owned the company, or they gladly accepted the first offer Bertran made them. On the only occasion someone had insisted on taking their grievance to court, the judge demanded it be settled. The judge was a man who had an appetite for high-dollar male prostitutes. In New Orleans, all prostitutes worked, however indirectly, for Sam.
Stern hand-delivered cash to judges, cops, and politicians. He carried the money in a briefcase that was designed so that when he pressed a button on the handle, an envelope filled with cash dropped on the floor or desk, depending on the recipient's paranoia level. Bertran had specific knowledge of thousands of crimes. In fact, he had lost track of how many felonies he had been the conduit for. He received his orders from Sam's mouth only, usually at Sam's favorite meeting place-his sauna room in the basement of his house. Even naked in this sauna, deep in the bowels of his home, Sam spoke in code. Luckily Bertran dealt with Johnny Russo only when neither could avoid it.
Bertran had daydreamed about pulling a gun and killing Sam a million times. But Bertran, for all his complacency, was not a killer.
The receptionist buzzed in the FedEx delivery guy who deposited three overnight letters on her desk. Bertran took the envelopes from her and his heart almost stopped when he read the return address he'd been expecting on one of them. FARNEY, JAMES amp; COMPANY, 221 STONE STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10016. The letter had been sent out from some drop-box service, paid for in cash.
The lawyer strode straight back to his office and slammed the door shut.
Johnny Russo sat behind Bertran's desk, his hand already out for the envelope. Russo opened it, and three pictures spilled out on the blotter. Bertran didn't care to inspect the images. In the split second before he closed his eyes and turned away, he saw what he needed to see. The instant and sickening impression was of blood and heads with features rearranged into perspectives that a cubist painter might have imagined.
“Mission accomplished!” Johnny Russo's enthusiasm for violence repulsed Bertran. “Smart cops. You can tell by the fucking brains.” He snickered. “Herman's guys are something. Christ, will you look at this!”
“I'm glad Sam got his money's worth,” Bertran murmured.
“You got a problem with this?” Johnny gloated over the pictures. “It was necessary.”
“Necessary or not, it's grotesque.”
“Then get out,” Johnny snarled. “You don't need to look, you fucking hook-nose, liver-lip, sack-a-shit-kike fuck!”
“You just make sure you turn those pictures into confetti,” Bertran reminded him calmly. “You get caught with those and you'll get buried so far under the jailhouse you'll be hearing Chinese through the walls.”
He stepped out, softly closing the door behind him.
Johnny Russo stared down at the photos, each showing another view of the carnage inside the cabin of an airplane. This was too good. He was elated, he wanted to laugh out loud, to yell and destroy things. It had seemed impossible, but here was the evidence. Here was something wonderful, something rare and beautiful. The whole thing was coming together more perfectly than he had hoped. He stared at each of the pictures as long as he dared. Then he fed all but one into the shredder beside the chair, turning them into tiny squares of confetti.
In the remaining photograph, Dylan Devlin's eyes were open and the front of his shirt was covered with blood and gobs of brain tissue. The entrance wound looked like a dot applied with a Magic Marker. Another man's shattered head was resting on Dylan Devlin's shoulder. In the background, there was what had once been Avery Whitehead, a man Johnny Russo was familiar with. “Now, this shit is art.”
Johnny lifted a pencil and pushed the photo under some papers on Bertran's desk. “You'll get a close look now, you prick.” Johnny loved screwing with the stuffy lawyer's head. If it weren't for Sam, Johnny would have made the guy vanish years earlier. But Sam needed the lawyer and knew Bertran loved money and his family too much to rat Sam out. Besides, a lawyer couldn't testify against a client. But Johnny believed the old attorney knew too much about too many things. The second Sam was gone, Johnny would take him out. There were lots of greedy attorneys to replace him with.