This time he succeeded with the vault combination on the first try and pulled open the heavy door and stood at the threshold for a minute or so taking it in. The vault was tall enough for Magliacci to stand up in, about eight feet deep and just wide enough for his 350-pound frame to squeeze between the boxes lining the shelves on the side walls. A single fluorescent light overhead lit the top shelf but left those below in shadows. He rummaged through the contents of the boxes for close to an hour before conceding they contained nothing more important than yellowed bank statements, political correspondence and real estate files dating back to the beginnings of the Golden Touch. The vault was nothing more than dead storage. Magliacci’s hopes took a dive.
Standing at the vault door taking a final doleful look, he spotted a small black bag he hadn’t noticed before, stuffed behind a box on the bottom shelf in the front corner of the vault. His heart raced as he emptied the contents out on the carpet. In it were a pair of earrings, a gold chain, a colored gemstone ring, a small serrated kitchen knife, a ring with a large stone that looked like a diamond, a tiny black dress he thought was silk, and a phone number someone had penned on a Golden Touch memo pad. All of the items were crusted over or at least spattered with a dark substance Lenny thought was blood. He sat looking at all of this, considering the possibilities. After a few minutes he put everything back into the nylon bag, closed the vault and left with the bag in hand.
By the time he reached his car, he had held his excitement as long as he could. He kicked the rusted rear bumper of the Lincoln. “You are one smart dude, Lenny Magliacci. One smart dude!”
CHAPTER 4
Magliacci’s usual routine was to show up at the office around nine. After moving papers around his desk all day he would go to Harry’s High Hat Lounge, whose clientele and worn furnishings betrayed its name, four blocks from the Golden Touch where Eve the bartender had a pitcher of beer and frosted mug waiting. Several beers and a M*A*S*H rerun later he’d wander over to his apartment, find something in the refrigerator and turn on the TV. Some nights Eve would come over after work and they would nuke some frozen pizzas. It was always around two when he rolled into bed, and waking up to go to work was hard. His supervisor over at the Golden Touch warned him several times about his appearance and work habits, which led to snipes back and forth about Lenny’s attitude.
That was before Frank Gallardi’s death. Tonight he went straight to his apartment and dumped the bag out on the kitchen counter. He scrutinized each item one at a time and kept going back to the diamond ring.
Next morning, he woke up before the alarm clock went off — first time he could remember that happening — and got to the office at seven-thirty. He closed the door and pulled the Golden Touch memo sheet from the bag. It was the kind of pad the hotel placed by the phone in guest rooms. Brownish-black stain dotted the page but the scribbled word Post and a phone number were legible. Lenny dialed the number and got a recorded message that said the area code had been changed. When he redialed using the area code the recording gave him, a voice said he had reached The Washington Post. He hung up.
As he lined through the newspaper’s old area code on the memo sheet and wrote in the new one, he noticed that the Golden Touch’s area code beneath the logo also was no longer current. Both the Washington and the Atlantic City area codes had changed since the blood stained pad was printed.
At lunch Lenny walked over to Pacific Avenue a block off the Boardwalk where unlucky gamblers traded their remaining possessions for a last, desperate chance to reverse their losses. He stopped at a door that said Barella’s. A red neon sign in the window read Cash for Gold. Halogen light beamed down on the gold jewelry and diamonds that sparkled on black velvet. The elderly shopkeeper kept one hand in his pocket as Lenny walked in.
“Tony Barella?” Lenny said.
“That’d be me.” The man was expressionless.
“Leonard Magliacci. Junior.”
A smile began to develop on the man’s wrinkled face. “I’ll be damned.” He removed his hand from his pocket and shook Lenny’s. “You were knee-high last time I saw you. How’s your mother, son?”
“Fine, good. I, uh, need—”
Barella reached across the display case and grasped Lenny’s big shoulder. “Your dad and me, pretty good buddies. Yeah, soon’s we got back from Germany after the war, I made that wedding ring of your mother’s for him. I bet you didn’t know that!”
Magliacci nodded and started to speak, but Barella continued.
“Say, too bad about your uncle Frank. Your mother’s younger brother, right? Couldn’t believe it.”
“Yeah, yeah, bad day for us,” Lenny said, looking at his watch. “Look, I need a—”
“So did I hear you’re a lawyer?”
Lenny nodded and forced a faint smile. “Need a favor.” He pulled the diamond ring he’d found in Gallardi’s safe out of his pocket and placed it on the glass top of the case. “Bought this off a guy who needed some cash. Wanna be sure I didn’t get stuck.”
Barella considered Lenny for a long moment as his enthusiasm disappeared. “I see.” He louped the stone and measured it. “Well, some of these shops along here, they’d give you maybe three or four grand for it. Worth more but you know how it works. Guess you know, it’s a Tiffany.”
Lenny was surprised.
“Yeah, they’d get thirty for it today. Find the right buyer, you might get eight, ten grand.” Barella looked at the inside of the ring under the loupe. “Got some initials in it. Here. Take a look.” He handed the ring and magnifying glass to Lenny. Magliacci moved the loupe around until he could see the tiny inscription: “KA & JAG.”
His mind raced as he headed back to the casino. He could forget about this whole affair right now, sell the ring on the spot, and put a small fortune in his pocket. God knows he could use it. But he had a feeling the names associated with those initials were worth more to him than that. A lot more. He was going to gamble on it.
Lenny stayed at Harry’s High Hat until midnight that evening before returning to Gallardi’s private office suite. It looked the same as always. Magliacci knew the family had pleaded with the authorities to leave it intact for the time being: Frank was still there with them as long as his office looked the same. Lenny himself didn’t go for that kind of bullshit thinking. Some of that bunch were still crying and people like them made Lenny sick, but it had worked in his favor. The outmoded Rolodex Gallardi had maintained his phone contacts in was still sitting there on his credenza.
Lenny sat in Gallardi’s chair and turned the directory to K. Frank had entered first names and very few last names but within minutes Lenny narrowed the possibilities for KA down to someone named Kent or a Karly. He copied both numbers. The Rolodex yielded no clues to JAG’s identity.
The next morning he dialed the number for Kent. The woman who answered said Kent wouldn’t be home until after high-school baseball practice, around six. There was no other Kent there and never had been. She’d had the number for seventeen years. Lenny hung up. He guessed Kent was a player on one of the little league teams Gallardi sponsored.
The Rolodex number for Karly now belonged to someone who’d moved to Atlantic City a year ago and didn’t know anyone named Karly, and the phone company told Magliacci it never revealed information about the prior owners of a phone number for any reason short of a court order.