Not much escaped Wit.
“Frankie ‘Sticks and Stones’ Motta.”
“Quite a colorful moniker,” he said.
“Never heard of him, I guess. How about Tio ‘the Spider’ Anello?”
“Tio Anello, the man who had his arms in everything? Absolutely! He was the subject of one of my first pieces for Esquire back in the early ’70s. After Anello’s wife died, he started dating this society brat named Ceci Phelps Calvin. It doesn’t get any WASPier than that. Of course she was doing it to rub her parents’ faces in the shit. One
“Sounds like you liked the guy.”
“I’m not certain I had any great affection for the man. The Mafia holds no particular romance for me. However, I did respect Anello. He was very old school. And you realize how us Yale men feel about old-school types. He was never once arrested. Never sold anyone out. Avoided publicity like the plague. Moe, as foolish as it was, he really loved this girl, but he put a stop to their relationship before the ink was dry on the first newspaper story about their affair.
“And unlike Carlo Gambino, Anello had a serious no-drugs policy in his family. It’s the one thing he didn’t have a piece of. Gambino gave lip service to it and looked the other way while he shoved the drug money under his mattress. I know for a fact Anello had people in his own family seen to for selling drugs.”
“Seen to?” I teased. “Interesting turn of phrase.”
“Must I explain the facts of life to you, Moses?”
“No. But his no-drugs policy cost him in the end. Probably why he didn’t have the money or the troops to withstand the Russians moving in on him. The Red Mafia doesn’t have a no-drugs policy.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Stop it, Wit. You sound like the Spider’s campaign manager.”
“I’ll send you a copy of the piece.”
“I’d like that.”
Willie brought our salads and we were too busy stuffing our mouths with bits of bacon, chicken, and avocado to do much talking. But not a second had elapsed between the time his knife and fork hit Wit’s plate and he was back at it.
“You’ve piqued my curiosity, Moe. Why bring up Anello and this other fellow, Motta?”
“No reason, their names just came up in conversation. Larry’s ex and I had dinner the other night. I was hoping she might remember something, but it was sort of a waste.”
“Who was this Frankie ‘Sticks and Stones’ character?”
“Forget it, Wit.”
“Satisfy an old man’s curiosity, will you? I am paying for lunch, after all.”
“Capo in the Anello family. Real tough guy, hence the name. He did a stretch in federal prison and I haven’t heard about him in years. Apparently, him and Larry were tight when they were kids, but Larry never mentioned him to me.”
Wit rubbed his little gray beard and stared off into space. “And the dark-haired beauty, what of her?”
“Like I said, the line didn’t get crossed. Let’s drop it, okay?”
“Very well, my friend.”
“Thanks for the help.”
“Better to thank me for lunch. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help,” he said.
“Yes and no. Sometimes it’s what you don’t find that’s revealing. From the way Larry was acting and the things he said, I thought there might have been something going on recently that was the problem. But no, it’s definitely about the past.”
“What is?”
“Everything.”
I needed to clear my head. The weight of the case, of my lack of sleep, and of my flirtation with Melendez was getting to me. I felt like a fighter pilot pulling too many Gs, losing consciousness, the blood unable to feed my brain.
I started driving over to the Mistral Arms, then turned away. Rico would have no answers and being with him would only add to the weight. Seeing him now, his life in the world of crack whores, cigarette butts, and one-eyed cats, made things worse than when he was completely out of my life. The Rico Tripoli I had known was gone. The harder part to accept, I think, was that the Moe Prager he had known was gone too. You can always rebuild burned bridges, but not the people to cross over them.
I made my way toward Columbus Avenue, to City On The Vine, our first shop. I parked at a meter across the street, but couldn’t manage to get out of the car. I stared at the store. I’d had mixed feelings about the wine business way before I got into it. Like I said, the business was Aaron’s dream, a dream of redemption for our father’s failures, and of security and of a hundred other ingredients that didn’t belong to me. As I gazed through the rush of traffic at the store, I realized
Once I made the decision to move on, the paralysis was gone. I drove into Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge, but instead of exiting onto the streets and going to talk with Klaus, I continued on the B.Q.E. to the Gowanus and finally onto the Belt Parkway. Even the thought of hanging with Klaus wasn’t enough to get me inside one of our stores, not today. Halfway across the bridge, it began drizzling rain. Perfect! But the rain had stopped before I made it to Bay Parkway and I found I was pulling off the Belt at Stillwell Avenue.
Coney Island is a dirty, dark-hearted place, a place that once was and no longer is. Rain washes nothing but the good away in Coney Island. And when the weather drives the visitors back to their cars and subways, they take their happy memories with them. In their wake, only the truth of the place remains: the moldering garbage, the rusted and crumbling rides, empty arcades, and sideshow spielers pitching their rigged games to the crush of absent hordes. I looked up and noticed that the top of the Parachute Jump was lost in the low clouds that covered the beach. I knew just how that felt, to be lost that way.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I could see the future.
A few weeks from now I’d think about the circumstances surrounding Larry McDonald’s suicide or homicide or whatever-icide, and I’d put them away as if I were sliding a few singles change back into my wallet. How many times in my life had I been so completely preoccupied with something or someone that there wasn’t enough room in my head to think, in my heart to feel, in my lungs to breathe? Christ, if we could turn our preoccupations into occupations, we’d all be fat and happy.
And then there was Carmella Melendez. Was my obsession with her any different than with Andrea Cotter, my high school crush, or the ten other women whose paths I’d crossed in the course of my life and thought I could never be without? Now, I barely remembered some of their names or faces or why it was they so consumed me. No doubt, there’s something magical in obsession-a spark, the ultimate reminder of what it feels like to be alive. Yet, afterthought is the sad fate of all obsession. Some obsessions rush out like the tide; others recede slowly like middle-aged hairlines, but they do recede.
Yes, I could see my future. It included vague, half-remembered questions about Larry’s death and wistful smiles about a foolish kiss. Time would bleach out the color and sand off the sharp edges of these things like everything else that seems pressing and urgent at any given moment. Unfortunately, there were people in the world whose vision of the future didn’t jibe with mine. Wish I had known that before I got Carmella’s call. Guess my powers of prognostication had their limits.
The low, misty clouds of the late afternoon had turned darker than the night itself and the romantic pitter-patter of earlier showers was now long forgotten. Rain fell in solid sheets, landing on the roof of my car like swipes from a dull axe. I took it slow over Red Hook’s slick and vacant cobblestone streets. Between the blinding rain and the black streams of overflow sewer water, I couldn’t be sure of where the street might dip or where the next pothole was looming.
In spite of the awful weather, or maybe because of it, Crispo’s was booming. Above the pounding rain, I could hear the buzz of the crowd and the thumping jukebox bass halfway down the block. The noise left me cold. Driving past, I couldn’t shake the sense that all the revelry had the vibe of a party at the end of the world. What the fuck? I was a Cold War baby and my mother’s son. Either way, I was brought up believing we were always on the verge of extinction. At least, thank God, the Cold War was over. My mom’s legacy of pessimism would be considerably harder to outrun.