The old man sighed forlornly.
“Okay, Pop?”
“Stay till I find somebody else.”
“Well, how long will that be, Pop? Andrew says I can start next Monday. That’s the eighth. Will you have somebody by then?”
“I’ll ask Guido.”
Guido was one of the old man’s friends. He came into the back room of the shop on the first Tuesday of the surveillance and the two chatted over lunch. Regan and Lowndes figured they were eating because there were a lot of references to food and wine and a great many words mumbled around chewing and swallowing. The gist of the conversation was that Benny had been offered a better job and Louis would now need someone to run the pressing machine. Guido told him this was a great pity...
“Che peccato, che peccato...”
... but that he would look around and see if he could find someone.
“E necessario che tenga la bocca chiusa,” Louis said.
“Si, naturalmente,” Guido said.
Since neither Guido nor Louis had been named in the warrant, and since criminal activity did not seem to be the subject of the conversation, Regan and Lowndes turned off the equipment and stopped listening. Neither of them knew what the Italian meant. The sentences were translated by an Italian-speaking secretary in Michael’s office on Wednesday morning as Louis saying, “It’s necessary that he keeps his mouth shut,” with Guido replying, “Yes, of course.” Meaning, Michael supposed, that whoever ran the pressing machine would have to remain silent about the comings and goings in the back of the shop, a perfectly natural precaution. Suddenly, this, too, seemed like a criminal conversation.
The comings and goings started on Wednesday morning at ten o’clock, when Andrew Faviola himself arrived. Benny helpfully identified him for the digital recording equipment.
“Hey, Andrew, how you doing?”
“Good, Benny. Good.”
Earphones on their heads, Regan and Lowndes listened. Benny was still at the pressing machine; apparently Louis hadn’t yet found a satisfactory replacement. This was the first thing Benny complained about.
“I told my father I want to start working for you next Monday,” he said, “but he’s draggin’ his heels about finding somebody.”
“I just spoke to him,” Andrew said. “He thinks it’ll be okay.”
“’Cause I’m really anxious to start, you know.”
“It’ll be okay, Benny. We’re working on it.”
“I hope so.”
“Trust me.”
“Go hide the silver,” Regan said.
“Trust him,” Lowndes said disdainfully.
“I’m expecting some people,” Andrew said.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll send them up.”
“Send them up?” Regan said.
“Up where?” Lowndes said.
They heard his footsteps crossing the room. Over the hiss of steam from the pressing machine, they heard a scraping sound, and then a click, and then what sounded like a door opening and closing, and then only the hissing again.
The first of the people to arrive was Rudy Faviola.
“Hey, Rudy, how you doing?”
“Fine, Benny. My nephew here yet?”
“Yeah, he said to tell you to go on up.”
Regan looked at Lowndes. Lowndes looked puzzled.
They heard footsteps crossing the room. Silence. Then another voice, sounding as if it were coming over a speaker. Andrew’s voice?
“Yeah?”
“It’s Uncle Rudy.”
“Come on up.”
A buzzer sounded. They heard what they recognized as the door again, opening and then closing with a firm thud. Then silence. In Coulter’s report, he had mentioned a door with a deadbolt lock on it and a speaker set into the jamb beside it. They were already beginning to fear the worst.
The next person arrived at ten past ten. He was identified by Benny as “Mr. Bardo.”
“Good morning, Mr. Bardo.”
“Good morning, Benny.”
“Petey Bardo,” Regan said.
“The consigliere,” Lowndes said, nodding.
No, the fuckin’ Pope, Regan thought. You jackass.
“They’re upstairs,” Benny said.
They listened carefully. Footsteps. Silence. Then:
“Yeah?”
The voice on the speaker again. Sounding very much like Andrew Faviola.
“It’s Petey.”
“Okay.”
And the buzzer again. And the door opening and shutting. And silence again. Upstairs was where they were going. Downstairs was where Regan and Lowndes would hear shit.
Sal the Barber arrived next.
“Sal,” he said into the speaker, and was immediately buzzed upstairs.
The fifth man to arrive that morning was introduced for the record as Bobby.
“Hey, Bobby, how you doing?” Benny said.
“They here?”
“Upstairs.”
Footsteps. The speaker voice again.
“Yeah?”
“Triani.”
Thank you, Lowndes thought.
“Come up.”
The door opening and closing. Silence again. At the pressing machine, Benny Vaccaro began singing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
The next two men arrived together. Before Benny could greet them, one of them said, “Hello, Benny.”
“Hey,” Benny said, sounding surprised, as if he hadn’t heard them coming in. Regan and Lowndes listened to heavy footsteps pounding across the room, heard the familiar voice on the speaker again, “Yeah?” and then “Carmine and Ralph,” and then “Come on up,” and the buzzer, and the door opening and closing — welcome to the party. Ralph Carbonaio and Carmine Orafo were here, and everybody was upstairs, and nobody was going to say a fucking thing down here except Benny, who was singing again at the pressing machine.
Regan took off his earphones.
In the conference room upstairs, they were planning the murder of Alonso Moreno.
“This is not to teach him a lesson,” Andrew said. “The lesson is for whoever follows him.”
“I think we may be starting something we can’t finish,” Carbonaio said. He was called Ralphie the Red because he had red hair. He also had freckles all over his face, and years ago they used to call him Ralphie Irish till he broke a few heads. He had gained a little weight since then, and he sat now at the conference table in gray flannel slacks and a blue cashmere sports jacket with a gray V-neck sweater under it. He was due in Seattle tomorrow morning. He considered this business of having to take care of Moreno a nuisance. Better not to start something that could lead to complications. There were times when Ralphie considered himself a totally legitimate entrepreneur, all evidence to the contrary.
“If we don’t start it, there’s no Chinese deal,” Rudy said. “The fuckin’ Chinks are tellin’ us shit or get off the pot. We gonna let this spic stand in the way of what could be billions?”
“Rudy’s right,” Sal the Barber said in his gruff, rumbling voice. “Fuck ’em. We do our own thing, fuck ’em.”
“Easier to pay him, though,” Triani said. “What he’s askin’.”
Bobby Triani was married to Rudy’s daughter, Ida, and as an intimate member of the family was fourth in the hierarchy of command. He was forty-two years old, a burly, brown-eyed, dark-haired chain-smoker who did not smoke when he was here in Andrew’s apartment, office, whatever the fuck he called it. He resented not being able to smoke here. He felt he could think better when he smoked. He knew his father-in-law was dying of lung cancer, but he still thought smoking helped his thought processes. Whenever Bobby was with one of his little girlfriends, he smoked his fucking brains out. His father-in-law didn’t know about the girlfriends. Bobby hoped he would die before he ever found out.