Vito Lanza, for a moment, thought he was going to throw up, then he felt hands on his arms, and a Highway Patrolman put his hand on the top of Vito's head, and pushed down, so that Vito wouldn't bang his head on the door as he got into the back seat of one of the Highway RPCs.
"Watch your fucking head, scumbag," the Highway officer said.
Ricco Baltazari's voice, when he answered the telephone, was sleepy and annoyed. "Yeah?" he snarled.
"Ricco?" Tony asked.
He recognized the voice. His tone changed to concern and anger.
"What are you doing, calling here?"
"Who is it?" Mrs. Baltazari asked, rolling over on her back.
"Ricco, the cops were just here. They arrested Vito."
"What?"
"A guy who said he was a captain, and two detectives, and they told him to get dressed, and they took his gun away and put handcuffs on him, and when I looked out the window, there was cop cars all over the street."
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"
"Whatis it, honey?" Mrs. Baltazari asked. "Who is that?"
"Go back to sleep, for Christ's sake," Ricco said. "Okay. I'll take care of it. You just keep your mouth shut, Tony, you understand?"
"Ricco, I'm scared!"
"Just keep your goddamned mouth shut!" Ricco said, and hung up.
He got out of bed, and found a cigarette, but no matches.
He walked to the bedroom door.
"Where are yougoing!" Mrs. Baltazari demanded.
"Just, goddammit, go back to sleep."
Mr. Baltazari then went downstairs and into the kitchen and found a match for his cigarette, and lit it, and then banged his fist on the sink and said, "Shit!"
He then picked up the handset of the wall telephone and started to dial a number, but then hung up angrily.
If the cops have the cop, they maybe have this line tapped. I can' t call from here. I'm going to have to go to a pay phone.
But shit, if the cops have the cop, they're as likely to have Gian-Carlo's phone tapped as they are to have this one tapped.
I'm going to have to go to Gian-Carlo's house and wake him up and tell him the cops have the cop. And that means they have the shipment for the people in Baltimore!
Jesus Christ! He's not going to like this worth a fuck! And Mr. Savarese!
It's not my fucking fault! I don't know what happened, but it's not my fucking fault!
But they 're not going to believe that!
Oh, Jesus Christ!
Salvatore J. Riccuito, Esq., a slightly built, olive-skinned thirty-two-year-old, was a recent addition to the district attorney's staff. Prior to his admission to the bar, he had spent eleven years as a police officer, mostly in the 6^th District, passing up opportunities to take examinations for promotion in order to find time to graduate from LaSalle College and then the Temple University School of Law, both at night.
Understandably, because he knew how cops thought and behaved, if he was available, he was assigned cases involving the prosecution of police officers. When this case had come up, via a 3:15 A.M. telephone call from Thomas J. "Tommy" Callis, the district attorney himself, Sal had pleaded unavailability. Callis has been unsympathetic.
"We'll rearrange your schedule. Get down to Narcotics and see Inspector Peter Wohl."
Sal knew there was no point in arguing. Wohl had been the investigator in the case that resulted in Judge Findermann taking a long-term lease in the Pennsylvania Penal System. Callis had prosecuted himself. The publicity would probably help him get reelected.
In a way, Sal thought as he drove to the Narcotics Unit, it was flattering. Wohl almost certainly had not asked for "an assistant DA." He had either asked for "a good assistant DA" or possibly even for him by name.
"Let me tell you how things are, Vito," Sal, who had grown up six blocks from Vito, but didn't know him personally, said.
Vito was sitting handcuffed to a steel captain's chair in one of the interview rooms in the headquarters of the Narcotics unit. He was slightly mussed, as it had been necessary to physically restrain him on his arrival at Narcotics, when he had seen his mother similarly handcuffed to a steel captain's chair.
"Tell me how things are," Vito said with a bluster that was almost pathetically transparent.
"You're dead. That's how things are. They saw you steal the suitcase. They saw you sneak it out to the parking lot. They havephotographs."
"The sonsofbitches, fucking cocksuckers, had no right to do that to my mother!"
"Let's talk about your mother," Sal said. "She gave the suitcase to Detective Martinez. They have photographs. They have witnesses, a detective, a sergeant,a staff inspector. The chain of evidence, with your mother, is intact. The suitcase contained about twenty pounds of cocaine. Nine Ks. They just got the lab report. It's good stuff. If they decide to prosecute, she's going down. Simple possession is all it takes for a conviction."
"She didn't know anything about it," Lanza said. "They tricked her. Can they do that?"
"The little Mexican said, quote, Can I have the suitcase Vito brought? end quote, and she gave it to him. No illegal search and seizure, if that's what you're asking."
"Sonsofbitches!"
"They will not prosecute your mother if you cooperate."
"Fuck 'em!"
"You want your mother to ride downtown to Central Detention? You got the money to make her bail? You got ten thousand dollars to pay a bondsman? And that's what the bail will be for that much cocaine. Or do you want her to spend the next six months waiting for her trial in the House of Detention?"
"Why the fuck should I trust them after what they did to my mother?"
"You're not trusting them. You're trusting me.I'm the assistant DA. You cooperate, and I'll have your mother out of here in ten minutes. I'll even see she gets home safe."
"Okay, okay," Vito said. He tried to put his right hand to his eyes to stem the tears that were starting, but it was held fast by handcuffs. He put his left hand to his eyes.
Sal handed Vito a handkerchief.
"Take a minute," Sal said. "Then we'll get a steno in here."
At 8:45 A.M. Marion Claude Wheatley finished his breakfast of poached eggs on toast and milk, left a fifty-cent tip under his plate in the dining room of the Divine Lorraine Hotel, and rode the elevator up to his room.
He unlocked the closet, and took AWOL bag #4 of the three remaining AWOL bags-another one withSouvenir of Asbury Park, N.J. airbrushed on its sides-from the closet and locked the closet door again.
He was pleased that he had had the foresight to prepare all of the AWOL bags at once. Now all he had to do was take them from the closet as he began the delivery process.
He looked around the room, and, although he really didn't think it would do any good, walked to the Bible on the desk and read Haggai 2:17 again, seeking insight.
"I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord," made no more sense now than it ever had.
Marion picked up AWOL bag #4 and left his room, carefully locking the door after him, and went down in the elevator to the lobby.
He left his key with the colored lady behind the desk. He had learned that her name was Sister Fortitude, and he used it now.
"It looks, praise the Lord, as if we're going to have another fine day, doesn't it, Sister Fortitude?"
"Yes, it does," Sister Fortitude said.