«You the best we can do in this big fuckin’ national emergency?»
«Hey, Vinnie—it is you, ain’t it, Vinnie?… Sure, it’s you, I can smell the garlic and the bay rum.»
«Basta!» said the veteran of the Caribbean theater of operations, walking inside. «Where’s the consigliere? Him I want to see right away.»
«No consigliere,» interrupted a tall, slender man emerging from a side door into the darkened vestibule. «No dons, no Mafia lawyers, no Cosa Nostra guns, is that clear?»
«Who the hell are you?»
«I’m surprised you don’t recognize my voice—»
«Oh … you?»
«Yes,» said the white-jacketed, yellow-ascoted Smythington-Fontini. «We’ve talked several hundred times on the telephone,» continued the elegant Anglo-Italian, «but we’ve never met, Vincenzo. My hand, sir—have you washed yours recently?»
«You got balls for a fruitcake, Fontini, I’ll say that for you,» replied Mangecavallo, exercising the shortest handshake since George Patton met his first Russian general. «How’d you find Meat?»
«Let’s say he was the dimmest star in your constellation, and I’m an expert in celestial navigation.»
«That doesn’t answer my question.»
«Then let’s say the dons from Palermo to Brooklyn, New York, want nothing to do with this enterprise. They give us their blessings and will gratefully accept whatever largesse may come their way, but, basically, we’re on our own. They selected your associate here.»
«There are some things I gotta do on the Big Street, a point of personal honor and self-respect considering what has been decided against my physical well-being. I trust that’s understood—from Palermo to Brooklyn.»
«Most definitely, Vincenzo, a point of honor that must be answered, but not in like terms. I repeat, no guns, no graves, no consigliere leaning on the Boeskys in Wall Street. There can’t be any involvement by your familial associates—which are not my associates, although I certainly expect to be apprised of your moves. After all, old boy, I paid for the damn yacht we blew up on the reefs, as well as the unknown, non-English-speaking Venezuelan crew we flew back to Caracas.»
«Meat,» said Mangecavallo, turning to his sometime lower-level colleague. «Go make yourself a sandwich.»
«With what, Vinnie? All this guy’s got in the kitchen is swelled-up crackers that break if you touch ’em and cheese that smells like stinky feet!»
«Just leave us, Meat.»
«Maybe I should call for a pizza—»
«No phones,» interrupted the cosmopolitan industrialist. «Why not keep your eyes on the back courtyard? We wouldn’t want any intruders, and I’m told you’re an expert at preventing such intrusions.»
«Hey, I guess you’re right about that,» said Meat, mollified. «And about the cheese, hell, I don’t even like Parmesan, you know what I mean?»
«Certainly.»
«And don’t you worry about no intertrusions,» added the capo subordinato, heading for the kitchen. «I got eyes like a bat; they never close.»
«Bat’s eyes don’t see so good, Meat.»
«No kiddin’?»
«No foolin’.»
«Where did you ever find him?» asked Smythington-Fontini as Meat walked into the kitchen. «And why?»
«He gets certain things done for me, and most of the time he’s not sure what he did. That’s the best kind of street gorilla you can have… But I’m not here to talk about Meat. How’s everything going?»
«Efficiently and on schedule. By early daybreak tomorrow the Coast Guard patrols will find debris, as well as several life jackets and various personal articles, including your floating waterproof cigar case with your initials on it. Naturally, the search will be called off, and you’ll have the unique privilege of reading all those marvelous things people who despise you say after you’re dead.»
«Hey, you know some of those things could be very sincere, did you ever think of that? I mean, I gotta lot of respect in certain areas.»
«Not in our crowd, old boy.»
«Here we go with the ‘old boy’ crap, huh? Well, lemme tell you, chum-chum, you’re lucky you had an aristocratica mama who had more smarts than that dizzy title she picked up in Tea Town ever dreamed of. If it wasn’t for her, the only football team you’d own would be a gang of scrawny hoods kicking a round ball in the streets of Liverlake or Liverpool, or whatever the fuck it is.»
«Without the Smythington banking connections, the Fontinis could never have gone international.»
«Oh, so that’s why she kept the Fontini name permanently attached, so people would know who was picking up the markers, ’cause the fox-trot horsey boy couldn’t.»
«This isn’t getting us anywhere—»
«I just want you to know where you sit, Smythie—not stand, but sit! The rest of your silk-underwear crowd are going down the tube!»
«So I’ve been given to understand. Socially, it’s a dreadful loss, of course.»
«Naturalmente, pagliaccio… So after this big Coast Guard search is over and I’m memorialized, what happens?»
«When the time is right, I foresee that you’ll be found on one of the farthest-out islands of the Dry Tortugas. Two of the Venezuelans will join you and swear, while continually blessing God, themselves, and you, that it was your courage and perseverance that saved all your lives. They’ll be immediately flown back to Caracas and disappear.»
«Not bad, not bad at all. Maybe you’re your mama’s boy after all.»
«Conceptually and artistically, I believe you’re right,» agreed the industrialist, smiling. «Mother always said, ‘The blood of the Caesars will always be there, if only more of our southern cousins had blue eyes and blond hair like me.’»
«A real queen, so filled with tolleranza… Now, what about Thunder Ass? How do we keep him and his crazy Indian lovers above ground? They’re no good to me in dirt.»
«That’s where you come in. Apparently only you can make contact—»
«Correct,» broke in Mangecavallo. «They’re all in place and nobody knows where they are but me, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay.»
«If it stays completely that way, there’ll be no protection. One cannot protect a quarry one cannot find.»
«I’ve got that worked out. You tell me what you’ve got in mind, and if I like it I reach the go-between and we set up the meet. What have you got in mind?»
«On the telephone before you flew down here, you said the general and his associates were in what you called ‘safe shelter,’ which, as a yachtsman, I assume is equivalent to ‘safe harbor,’ which basically means the ship is sheltered from a storm, usually in a deep leeward cove, ergo ‘safe shelter’—»
«You always torture yourself like this?… Yeah, I hope to hell that’s what it means, because the big soldier boy said it, and if it means something else we’ve got a really screwed-up army. What’s your point?»
«Why not keep the status quo?»
«What status quo?»
«The safe shelter,» said Smythington-Fontini slowly, as if clarifying the obvious. «Unless, as you suggest, we have a screwed-up military, which in the upper purchasing ranks of the Pentagon is entirely plausible. However, considering the general’s recent accomplishments, we should take his word that the shelter is safe and well out of the weather.»
«The weather?»
«The term, as I employ it, connotes the negative. They’re all in a deep leeward cove and protected from the elements. Why not have them stay where they are?»