“Pretty.”
“Businesslike,” Bobby said.
“If it’s police protection you want—”
Levine was stopped by Bobby’s cold eyes looking directly at him. “You gonna explain life to me, Mr. Levine?”
“Sorry.”
“I know about police protection,” Bobby said. He lifted his right hand from the steering wheel and rubbed his thumb back and forth over the pads of his other fingers. “With this hand,” he said, “I have paid protective police to be blind and deaf while the subject of their concern was falling out a window. You are an honest cop, Mr. Levine, and that’s very nice, that’s why you and me are talking, but let me break you the sad news. There are one or two rotten apples in your crowd.”
“I know that.”
“I also know about the Feds and their witness protection plan,” Bobby said. “They will give me a new name, a new house in a new city, a new job, a new driver’s license, a whole entire new life.”
“That’s right.”
“All they take away is my old life,” Bobby said. “That’s what Giacomo has in mind, too. I like my old life.”
“So far,” Levine said, “I’m not sure why you’re telling me all this.”
“Because I have a scheme,” Bobby said, “but my scheme is taking too long. I won’t be able to leave town until the middle of next week. I’m okay until Saturday, but when I don’t show at the celebration they’ll start looking for me. It’ll be tougher for me to move around town.”
“I can see that.”
“I need a courier,” Bobby said. “I need protection and assistance. I need an honest cop to run my errands and see that nobody offs me.”
“Tell me your scheme,” Levine said.
“I am assembling information,” Bobby told him. “I am talking into a tape recorder, I am giving facts and names and dates, I am nailing Giacomo to the cross. And I am getting the physical evidence, too, the contracts and the photos and the letters and the wiretaps and everything else.”
“Giacomo shouldn’t have killed your son,” Levine said.
“Not without talking to me.”
“You’ll turn over all this information next week?”
“To the law?” Bobby grinned, a kind of distorted grimace that created deep crevices in his cheeks. “You got the wrong idea,” he said.
“Then who do you give it all to, all these proofs and information?”
“Giacomo’s partners,” Bobby said. “His friends. His fellow capi. His business associates. What I’m putting together is what he’s done to them over the years. I have stuff Giacomo himself can’t remember. I have enough to get him offed ten times from ten different people.”
“I see,” Levine said. “You ruin Giacomo with the mob, and his contract on you ceases to matter.”
“And he’s dead. And the Terri with him.”
“Why do you think I would help you?” Levine asked.
Again the wrenching grin. “Because I’m gonna give you some scraps from my table,” Bobby said. “Just a few things you’d like to know.”
“About Giacomo.”
“Who else?” Under the wide-brimmed hat, under the darting, dashing anxious eyes, Bobby smiled like a death’s head. “Just enough to put Giacomo in prison,” he said. “Where it’ll be easier for his friends to kill him.”
For forty minutes Levine sat at Lieutenant Barker’s desk and looked at pictures, front and side views of Caucasian males, page after page of tough guys behind clear plastic. The infinite variety of human appearance became confined here to variations on one theme: the Beast, without Beauty.
“Him,” Levine said.
Inspector Santangelo leaned over Levine’s shoulder and whistled. “You sure?”
“That’s him, all right.”
It was Bobby, no question. Without the hat, he was shown to have a low broad forehead, thick pepper-and-salt hair that grew spikily across his head, and cold eyes that seemed to slink and lurk behind half-lowered lids. Without the hat he looked more like a snake. The name under the photos was Ralph Banadando.
Inspector Santangelo was visibly impressed. Crossing the lieutenant’s office to resume his seat on the sofa, he said, “No wonder he knows where the bodies are buried. And no wonder he called Polito by his first name.”
Lieutenant Barker, chief of the precinct’s detective squad, whose office this was, said, “Who is he?”
“Benny Banadando,” the inspector said. “He’s Giacomo Polito’s righthand man, they came up through the ranks together. He’s the number two man in that mob.” Grinning at Levine, he said, “That’s no soldier. He told you he was a soldier? That’s a General.” Nodding at Barker, seated in what was usually the visitor’s chair, he said, “You did right to call me, Fred.”
“Thanks.”
It was Friday morning, nearly noon. Yesterday, saying he would get in touch with Levine sometime today to hear his answer, whether or not he would accept the proposition, Bobby — Ralph “Benny” Banadando, now — had let Levine off six blocks from his home, giving Levine ten minutes to walk and think. At home, he had at once phoned the precinct to give Lieutenant Barker a brief recap of the conversation. Given the truth of Bobby’s remark about the “one or two rotten apples” in the Police Department, they’d agreed not to spread the story very widely, and Barker had phoned his old friend Inspector Santangelo, now assigned to the Organized Crime Unit. This morning Santangelo had come down to the Forty-Third Precinct with his book of mug shots, and now Levine had a name for Bobby. He said, “Does Banadando have a son?”
“He did,” Santangelo said in a dry tone. “Fellow named Robert, not very sweet. What do you want to do, Abe? Can I call you Abe?”
“Sure.”
“And I’m Mike,” Santangelo said. “You want to turn this thing over to me, or do you want to follow through yourself?”
“You mean, do I want to tell Banadando yes or no.”
“That’s what I mean.” Grinning at some private thought, Santangelo sat back on the sofa, stretching his long legs in the small office. “Before you answer,” he said, “let me say this. I don’t want to bring this news back to my shop, because if I do it’ll get to Polito and he won’t wait for the symbolic moment of his anniversary dinner.”
Levine nodded. “That’s what we thought, too.”
“In addition,” Santangelo said, “you’ll be marked yourself, Abe, because Polito won’t be sure how much Banadando told you.”
Lieutenant Barker said, “He won’t try to kill a cop.”
“Probably not,” Santangelo said. “But if he’s nervous enough, it’s a possibility. From our point of view, it’s better if Banadando can work his scheme in peace and quiet. But what that means, Abe, we can’t provide backup.”
“I can,” Lieutenant Barker said. “Abe’s partner, Jack Crawley, can back him up.”
“That’s not quite the same as three busloads of TPF,” Santangelo said. “You see what I’m getting at, Abe? This could be dangerous for you.”
“What happens if I tell Banadando no?”
“I pull him in,” Santangelo said. “I try to convince him his scheme is busted anyway and he might as well cooperate with us.”
“He’ll say no.”
Santangelo shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
Levine said, “You won’t have to. I’ll tell him yes.”
“Good,” said Banadando’s husky, low, insinuating voice on the phone. It was twenty to five on Friday afternoon and Levine was in the hospital again, visiting with Andy Stettin. Andy’s phone had rung and it was Banadando, for Levine.
Conscious of Andy’s curious eyes on him, Levine said into the phone, “What happens now?”