The Five Year Plan (1998)

'What, we never done business with the Jews before? This is Miami, Tony. An open city. It was the Jews who helped to develop this place for business. Meyer Lansky. People like that. Besides, as I understand it, he's only half Jewish. His mother's Irish.'

'Never underestimate a Jew, Al. Even one that's not the whole candlestick. Take my advice, and you'll stay alive a lot longer. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not anti-Semitic. Let me tell you, almost fifty years ago, when I was back in Jersey City? I met this little Jewish broad and fell in love with her. Best lay of my life, and you've seen Sindy. I'd have done anything for that little broad. Including marry her. Wanted to. Asked her often enough. Gave her a ring, the whole Tiffany deal. But it was always the same story. She couldn't do it to her parents, she said. I'm not asking you to do it to your parents, I told her, I'm askin' that you do it to me. But no, she couldn't marry out, she said. What? I said. You think my parents'll be blowing up balloons when I tell them I don't wanna marry a Catholic? You think a Christ-killer is some kind of honor for them? No way. But still she wouldn't have me. She was in love with me all right, but she wouldn't get married. To hell with Shakespeare. To hell with Romeo and Juliet and that stuff. It was like I meant nuthin' to her. Now I ask you Aclass="underline" what kind of people can do that? I'll tell you what kind. The Jewish kind. There is nothing they won't put ahead of being Jewish. I know what I'm talking about. Shakespeare made Romeo and Juliet Italians because he understood what love means to an Italian. There ain't anythin' more important than how your heart feels. But it would have challenged him as a writer a lot more if Juliet had been a Jewish princess, let me tell you. Now that would have been a fuckin' play. That's a play I'd like to have seen.'

Al said, 'I dunno Tony. Delano doesn't want to fuck you. He wants to do business with you.'

'For a Jew, they're the same thing. And don't forget the Ivans. Delano shared a cell with one of them redfellas for four years. Learned to speak pretty good Russkie from what I hear. You see what I'm sayin', Al? It wasn't Italian he learned to speak, it was fucking Russkie. Which means I gotta wonder where he's comin' from. If he's in bed with these meathead slobs or what? I got enough trouble with bums like Rocky Envigado and those Colombian bastards without takin' on the Ivans as well. That's the trouble with this country. Too many damned immigrants.'

'Willy Four Breakfasts seemed to think that Delano was more inclined to believe Willy was carrying out a contract for the Ivans than he was to think you wanted him to take a beating.' Al shrugged. 'Doesn't sound like someone who's in bed with the Ivans.'

Nudelli puffed his cigar thoughtfully.

'There is that,' he allowed.

Al said, 'Hear the guy out. After all, business is business and personal shouldn't ever get in the way of that, right?'

'You're right, of course.' Nudelli leaned forward and took hold of Al by the cheek and then slapped him gently.

'Just taking care of business, Tony.'

Nudelli regarded his cigar's wet end and nodded thoughtfully.

Al said, 'I didn't know you were from Jersey City.'

'It was me or some other poor bastard.'

'What happened to the Jewish broad? The one you were in love with.'

'How the fuck should I know?'

Jimmy Figaro drove the big BMW across the Rickenbacker Causeway, just south of where his offices were located. The road soared high over Biscayne Bay and provided Figaro's uninterested passenger with an unparalleled view of the Brickell Avenue skyline. The first island was Virginia Key, once set aside for Miami's black community and a large sewage plant. The next island was Key Biscayne. Steering the car with one finger now, because everything was more laid back on Key Biscayne, Figaro came down Crandon Boulevard, heading south toward Cape Florida before turning west onto Harbor Drive.

Figaro glanced over at Dave and said, 'Tony's place is just down the road from where Richard Nixon used to live.'

'Tricky Dicky. Yeah, that figures.'

'You a Democrat?'

'What's the difference to a bad guy like me?'

'Haven't you ever voted for someone?'

'Sure. I voted for the prisoners' representative in Homestead. Choice was between a murderer and a rapist. I chose the murderer.'

'Who won?'

'The murderer.'

'What about on the outside?'

'On the outside it doesn't matter who represents you. The murderer or the rapist.'

'That's not much of a political philosophy.'

'After you've been in prison there's only one political philosophy that matters a damn and that's keeping your ass out of prison.'

The car was now gliding smoothly through an immaculately manicured community fringed with Australian pines and coconut palms and one white palace after another, like so many wedding cakes.

Figaro changed the subject and said, 'Harbor Bayfront Villas is one of Miami's most exclusive addresses. Tony's villa is right on the bay.'

'No kidding.'

Figaro slowed and turned down a private road, pulling up at a gatehouse where he gave both their names to the guard. The guard checked them on a clipboard list and then waved them on through the elevating barrier.

'Round here is the last word in European splendor,' Figaro enthused.

'Outside of Europe, you might be right.' Dave grinned. 'You really like it round here, don't you, Jimmy?'

'Wouldn't anyone?' nodded Figaro. 'I mean, wouldn't you just love to live here.'

They pulled up in front of a two-storey open bay villa with full dock and davits. Dave noted the 100-foot motor yacht that was moored there and then turned his attention to the house. With its pantiled roof, keystone columns and arches, and courtyard with fountain, the place looked as if it had been transplanted from a hill in Tuscany.

Dave said, 'I'd sure like to be able to afford to live here. If I could then I'd use the money to live somewhere nice, like London, or Paris. Miami sucks.'

'One man's meat, I guess,' said Figaro.

'And Miami is a cheeseburger.'

They got out of the car, walked up to the front door and were admitted to an atrium foyer with a marble floor and a curving stone staircase. One of Nudelli's bodyguards frisked Dave and then a butler walked them upstairs to an opulent mahogany-panelled library where Nudelli and Al Cornaro were seated inside a stockade of green leather chesterfields. The two men got up and crossed the aquamarine Bokhara rug, and Dave allowed himself to be embraced by the man who'd ordered his fingers broken.

Nudelli said, 'Hey Al, will you take a look at this guy? Five years in the joint and he looks like he spent the summer in Palm Springs. Jesus, Dave, you look great. You look like a fuckin' movie star.'

'You're not looking so bad yourself, Tony,' Dave said patiently.

Nudelli slapped his own belly hard.

'Keepin' fit, y'know? Swim every day. Watch what I eat. You want something to eat? Drink maybe? We got everything. Silver fuckin' service. We're like the frigging Admirals' Club out here.'

'No, I'm OK, thanks Tony.'

'Jimmy?'

'Just a coffee.'

'Miggy?' Nudelli was speaking to the butler. 'Couple of coffees.'

They sat down inside the stockade.

Nudelli said, 'Five years.'

Dave said, 'Five years, yeah.'

'You did good.'

'At the time, it seemed the thing to do, Tony.'

'Dave. About that little misunderstanding with Willy Barizon.'

'Hey, forget about it. These things happen.'

'It's good of you to see it that way, Dave.'

'You know after Willy's cold call I got to thinking about things from your POV, Tony. And I said to myself, I said: Dave, while you were on the inside, Tony knew where you were and what you were doing. It's a variant on what Machiavelli says about composite principalities, Tony. Being on the spot you can detect trouble at the start and deal with it pronto; but if you're absent the trouble's discerned only when it's too fuckin' late.'