Her eyes were moist. She squeezed my hand.
“I wish I’d met you a long time ago,” she said.
“I wish I could say I’d have done right by you.”
A waitress came around with a dessert menu. I ordered us a dish of spumoni to share, so we could sit here and talk some more. Before it arrived, however, the host himself, bald, chubby, cheerful Biggie in a tux, leaned in with a smile. I figured he was going to ask if we’d enjoyed our supper, but I was wrong.
“Mr. Vitale requests a few moments of your time, Mr. Heller. He’s in the Red Bird Room.”
“Uh... certainly. Tell him I’ll be there shortly.”
Biggie patted me on the shoulder and was gone.
Sandy clutched my sleeve. “Heller... what’s going on?”
“No idea. I’ve done enough business in St. Louis over the years to know Vitale’s one of the town’s top Mafiosi. Second only to Tony Lopiparo.”
“Tony Lap is ailing,” she said, a frantic edge in her voice. “He’s fucking dying.”
“Yeah, well, Vitale is dining. I better pay my respects.”
She clutched harder at my sleeve. “Nate, he’s Joe Costello’s protector. Those two are tight. He’s probably who Joe turned that ransom money over to! And if he knows you and I are here together...”
“I’ll handle it.”
The waitress positioned the dish of spumoni on the table between us. With two spoons. I was on my feet.
“Work on this,” I said, putting the colorful ice cream in front of her and handing her a spoon. “Save me some. I’ll be back before it melts.”
“Don’t be fooled by his nice-guy bull! Vitale’s a smiling snake. And goes everywhere with bodyguards.”
“They all do. Anyway, what’s he going to do to me in a big busy dining room?”
The Red Bird Room was big, all right, adorned with red velvet drapes on one wall and on another a mural of Cardinal ballplayers in action. Busy it wasn’t, however: it was entirely empty but for two central tables. At one, a couple of thugs were eating a spaghetti and meatballs dinner; they wore cauliflower ears and off-the-rack suits, the jackets a little too big, to help conceal their armaments. A table was between them and where sat two men both about fifty, well-dressed, in sharp suits and ties. They were either waiting for their meals or, more likely, had already eaten; they had a carafe of coffee with cups for each, sugar and cream handy.
I recognized these latter two, from the papers. The more conservatively attired of the pair was Morris Shenker, the mob lawyer of choice in St. Louis and a counselor utilized nationally by the Teamsters union. The other was John Vitale, whose heavy black eyebrows recalled those of Lou Shoulders, but otherwise reminded me of that smiling, pleasant, deeply self-interested straight-man, Bud Abbott. If only Joe Costello from Ace Cabs was here, we’d have the full team.
Both men stood as I approached — the two thugs just kept eating — and I shook hands first with the smiling Vitale, a warm lingering grasp, and then with the unsmiling Shenker, a quick catch and release.
As I sat and the two men resumed their seats, Vitale said, “I don’t believe we ever met, Mr. Heller, but we got many mutual friends in Chicago. I hear you knew Frank Nitto well.”
This insider’s use of Nitti’s actual last name seemed purposeful to me.
“We got along,” I said. “What can I do for you, Mr. Vitale?”
He threw a casual wave. “I won’t keep you long, Mr. Heller. I’ll let you get back to your pretty companion.”
He didn’t say whether he recognized that pretty companion or not.
“But actually,” Vitale continued, leaning in chummily, “this is about what I can do for you.”
“Oh?”
He nodded, then the black eyebrows lifted. “Coffee or a drink or maybe wine?”
“No thank you. Please go on.”
He grinned, shrugged. “I like to pride myself on bein’ on top of things in my little corner of the world. Uh, excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude or anything. This is my attorney, Mr. Shenker.”
I gave Shenker a nod and got back half a nod for my trouble. Then, risking a grin, I said to Vitale, “I hope you don’t feel you need legal counsel, chatting with me.”
He laughed a little, more than the remark deserved. “No, no way... though I do need to get into some dicey territory.”
“How so?”
“Like I said, I stay on top of things.” He gave me a mock scolding look. “So what’s this about you goin’ around talking to people about a very old, very sad crime? The Greenlease kidnapping?”
I leaned back in my chair casually. I could sense the eyeballs of the spaghetti eaters nearby landing on me occasionally, like flies cruising for a meal.
I said, “Not the kidnapping so much as the ransom. Or anyway, the missing half. Why, did you have some information for me?”
“I do. And this’ll save you a trip, lookin’ me up. What I got for you is this: I never in any way, shape or form had nothing to do with that missing money. Not a goddamn fucking thing.”
“That’s good to know.” I put a confused frown on. “But why would I think you did, Mr. Vitale?”
He glanced at the attorney, who gave him another barely visible nod. Then Vitale said, “There is a rumor that Joe Costello, who is a good friend of mine going way back, was on the receiving end of that dirty money.”
“You don’t say.”
“And,” he went on, after receiving another tiny nod from the attorney, “that I paid him ten cents on the dollar for it, then sent that hot cash to Havana for the casinos to put back in circulation.”
Shenker spoke for the first time, a rich courtroom baritone, and it damn near gave me a start.
“Mr. Heller,” he said, “may I remind you that your client confidentiality pertains here.”
“My, uh, client... what?”
“You and I,” he said smoothly, damn near smiling, “both represent an individual whose name we don’t need to be bandying about in public.”
This was in public? A mob guy, his mouthpiece and two bent-nose meatball munchers? A waiter who stuck his nose in now and then to check if anybody seemed to want something? What the hell?
Then I wised up — since the client Shenker was referring to obliquely was hardly Bobby Kennedy, or Robert Greenlease either, a certain Teamster came to mind.
“Understood,” I said.
“May I continue?” Vitale asked.
That query was not issued to me.
Shenker again barely nodded.
The mobster went on, “For there to be any truth in such a foul goddamn rumor, you would have to figure Joe Costello felt on the hook to me for any big score he made. That if he had fell into any kind of heavy-duty dough, I would expect him to come to me with it.”
I squinted at him. “Not the case?”
He shook his head, firm. “Not the case, no. Joe is what you call an ally. Really, a friend. And a sometime business associate. But he is not... one of us. More a, uh...”
“Friend of the family?”
Vitale’s smile this time was sly. “Friend of the family, that’s good.” The smile slipped away. “Anyway, he could be a made man and I still would not feel I had any right to any part of that money unless I helped bring about how that money happened.”
He was implying something that had been nibbling at the back of my mind; but I let it sit.
I asked, “And you did not provide any help in how that ransom came to be in Costello’s hands?”