But to know that his blood enemy, Giancarlo Lo Manto, was his blood brother shook Pete Rossi down to the very core of his being. It had rocked him more than any betrayal he had ever encountered, caused him more pain than any bullet that could be aimed in his direction. And it ultimately would do more harm to him as a sitting don than any charge that could ever be dreamt up by the various federal task forces breathing down hard on his organization.
For the first time in his entire life, Pete Rossi was at a loss as to which way to turn. The plan devised by Gaspaldi was as close to a slam-dunk assassination as any ever presented to him in his years as family boss. It would all but guarantee the death of his sole nemesis, a cop he respected and despised and one he swore to destroy. It would send a message to all the other police officers, on both sides of the Atlantic, cops neither as dedicated nor as driven as Lo Manto, that to interfere in Camorra business would only result in a brutal end. It would bring a suitable peace to his crime family and allow their ongoing quest for power to continue unabated. It was the perfect move made at a perfect time, one that any crime boss would green-light without the slightest hesitation. Rossi understood that now was not the time for reflection, nor did it call for an examination of a life led. It was a time for action. A moment designed for him to step up and show his enemies the extent to which he would strive to maintain the iron grip on his crime family. Pete Rossi could not afford to take the time to think and react like a civilian. He needed to be a don and proceed with the most precious order given to someone in his position.
The ability to order another man’s death.
“We’re all locked in,” Gaspaldi said. “The money’s been collected and handed out. Other than your final say-so, we got everything we need.”
Rossi turned his gaze away from the highway and looked back at Gaspaldi. “It’s a go,” he said, his words low and clipped.
“When?” Gaspaldi asked.
“Today,” Don Pete Rossi said. “This ends today.”
22
LO MANTO AND FELIPE walked down the slopes of Strawberry Fields in Central Park, each one munching on a street-vendor hot dog. “How far from here was he killed?” Felipe asked. “I mean, I know it was in front of his house, but where is that from here?”
Lo Manto turned and pointed to the Gothic building on the far corner, just visible through the heavy branches. “Lennon lived in the Dakota,” he told the boy. “Him, his wife, and his kid. The guy waited and shot him just in front of the place in plain sight of anyone to see.”
“For no reason,” Felipe said, shoving the last of the hot dog into a corner of his mouth. “So I read, anyway.”
“Most people get shot for no reason,” Lo Manto said. “Famous or not.”
“Shouldn’t we be heading back up to the Bronx?” Felipe asked as they walked deeper into the mouth of the park.
“Why the rush?” Lo Manto asked. “You got a date and forgot to tell me about it?”
“Don’t I wish,” Felipe said. “Every time I look at a girl she looks the other way as fast as she can. I guess they don’t see the romance in going out with a homeless kid.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Lo Manto said. “You just haven’t met the right girl yet. Once you do, she won’t care where you live or how much money you have in your pocket or what kind of car you drive. She’ll only care about you. That’s when you’ll know it’s special.”
“That what happened to you?” Felipe asked.
“Not yet,” Lo Manto said. “But I’m not as good-looking as you and I lack your natural charm. Girls can look right through me, spot the cop in a heartbeat, and most of the time that’s not a place they want to go.”
“I never thought about dating a cop,” Felipe said, stepping aside to let two young Rollerbladers zoom past.
“Why would you?” Lo Manto asked. “Why would anyone? It’s a heavy suitcase to lug, even on the best of days.”
“What about that partner of yours?” Felipe asked. “Jennifer. She definitely has the sounds for your kind of music. You can see it in her eyes. And I know you feel the same, you just haven’t brought home the onions to talk to her about it.”
Lo Manto stopped and looked down at Felipe. “Two seconds ago you said you didn’t know anything about girls,” he said to the boy. “Now all of a sudden you’re Dr. Phil. Which is it?”
“I said girls didn’t give me a second spin,” Felipe said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about them. And what I do know is that you and the other end of your team have a soft place for one another. But I think she needs you to take a breath and make with that big first move. Which I would think is like rolling a natural, what with you being Italian.”
“It’s complicated,” Lo Manto said. “Let’s leave it at that. Unless you have some other deep insights on the subject.”
“No,” Felipe said. “My deck is clear, said all it is I have to say. The rest I leave to experts like you.”
They walked over toward a bench that looked out at the softball fields. “Let’s sit for a minute,” Lo Manto said. “We need to talk. Been wanting to do it for a while, just haven’t been able to make time.”
“This about women?” Felipe asked, flopping down, swinging his legs in the open space under the bench.
“Let that go for a while, would you please?” Lo Manto said, sitting next to the boy.
“And if it’s about me stealing, you can save your chat,” Felipe said. “I’ve been thinking about going easy on that. It’s a nasty habit and I plead guilty to it. It’s going to take me a little time to break clean. But I’m working on it.”
Lo Manto stared at the boy, shook his head and smiled. “You have a lot to work on and none of it is going to be easy,” he said. “You started out with a sour hand, no folks, no family, no home. Most kids in your place, same situations, same setups, are out there mugging for money and snorting drugs to forget why. I don’t want you to end up one of them.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Felipe said in a low voice. “I don’t see myself going that way, but I can’t swear it to you for sure. Sometimes it’s the street that decides, not the kid living on it.”
“That only happens if you let it, Felipe,” Lo Manto said. “And no one could stop that but you. This is one you’re going to have to face alone, just like everything else you’ve had to deal with. But you’ll do it. You got the heart for it and the brains. Plus the cash that friend of yours told you to sit on for a couple of years. You can climb out of the hole and make a good life for yourself. You deserve to have that, get a taste of what that’s like. I’d hate to see you miss out on it.”
“Does that mean I’m not going to have you around to hound and check up on me?” Felipe asked. “You saying good-bye with this?”
“One way or the other, in coffin or coach, I have to go back to Italy,” Lo Manto said. “And that leaves you where I found you. Jennifer will check on you now and then, but it won’t be the same and it shouldn’t. I don’t want you to use any excuses, Felipe. I don’t want to hear about how tough you have it and what other choices did you have that led you down a crooked path. That’s all bullshit and you know it and I know it.”
“What are you getting all steamed about?” Felipe asked. “Have I let you down since we teamed up?”
“It’s not about letting me down,” Lo Manto said. “I don’t count in this one. It’s about not letting yourself down, about being true and honest to who you really are. There’s only one person that gets hurt if you screw up, Felipe. And that’s going to be you. If I’m still alive, I would hate to hear it happen. And if I’m dead it won’t matter. You’ve come this far on your own. You can go the rest of the way.”
They sat in silence for several moments, content to watch the passersby, rummies mingling with harried young mothers pushing packed strollers along the walking path.
“Why did you pick me?” Felipe asked. “It’s not like you needed me to get you through the day. You know more
people in my neighborhood than I do. And I haven’t done all that much to earn the twenty a day you’re putting in my pocket.”
“You can never have enough friends,” Lo Manto said. “And there’s only so many people you can trust. With you, I figured I had both bases covered.”
“You work out a way yet for us to bring this crew down?” Felipe asked. “Or you just going to wait until they start shooting to figure up a plan?”
“There is no us on this,” Lo Manto said. “You don’t come anywhere near the gunplay. The next couple of days, I worked it with a friend of mine that you could stay at his place. He’s old, he’s blind, and he’s got a mean dog. That should keep you in your place. He doesn’t like to talk much, but when he does, he expects you to listen.”
“Do I get a say?” Felipe said.
“Not a word,” Lo Manto said. “It’s one part of my plan that I would hate to see changed. No give to it at all.”
“When do I have to go?” Felipe said. He sat back against the hard wood of the bench, trying not to show any emotion, glancing down at the gauze still taped across his damaged palm. He knew that after this moment, he might never see Lo Manto again. At least not alive. He had tried not to get close to anyone, realizing life on the street didn’t allow for such emotions. It was always the safer bet to keep most people at a distance and friendships to a minimum. It was too much of a risk to do otherwise. And he had tried not to like the cop from Naples, to treat what they had between them as a strict business deal and not take it any further. Felipe had learned that survival on the street required an ability to bury any emotion. It helped to keep him strong and focused and not fall prey to vulnerability or despair. He knew that to be homeless in any city, especially in one as harsh as New York, meant it was best to stay invisible. It made it so much easier to stay alive. Lo Manto changed all that. From their first moment together, Felipe knew he could no longer hide in plain sight.
“There’s a car waiting for you on the other side of the park,” Lo Manto said. “The driver will take you to my friend’s office. You’ll be comfortable there and safe.”
“Where’s this friend of yours live?” Felipe asked. “I mean is it a neighborhood I’m going to know?”
“He lives in Harlem,” Lo Manto said. He stood and began to walk down the path leading to the East Side exit of the park. “It’s just like the East Bronx. Only with better music. But that’s only if he lets you hear any of it.”
“Why don’t you just lock me in a holding cell?” Felipe asked. “It sounds like I’d have a lot more laughs there than with this pal of yours. And I won’t get mauled by any dog either.”
Lo Manto pulled a pack of gum from his jacket pocket and offered a piece to Felipe. The boy slid two out and put them in his front pants pocket. “Any clown can end up in jail,” Lo Manto said. “It’s the easiest thing in the world to have happen. My idea is to keep you out. I hope I’m around to see how well I did.”
“I’ll make it work with your friend,” Felipe said. “You got enough on your plate. There’s no need for you to waste any more time worrying over me.”
“You’re my friend, Felipe,” Lo Manto said. “And worrying about a friend is never a waste of time. Just do me one favor?”
“What?”
“Try not to piss off the dog,” Lo Manto said.
Felipe smiled. “I can’t promise,” he said. “But I’ll do my best. In return, how about you throw a favor my way?”
“What is it?” Lo Manto asked.
“Try not to get killed while I’m gone,” Felipe said.
Lo Manto nodded. “I can’t promise,” he said to the boy. “But I’ll do my best.”
Jennifer sat in the kitchen of her father’s house, sipping from a large mug of hot coffee, a radio tuned to WCBS-FM playing softly at her back. Sal Fabini was working the stove, making their favorite breakfast of two eggs, sunny side up, coated with roasted peppers and fresh mozzarella and placed on top of two thick slices of toasted Italian bread. In a second pan, he had half a dozen slices of fresh cut bacon sizzling over a low flame. He kept the serving plates in the oven, the temperature at 250 degrees, white oven mitt on the countertop within easy reach.
The smell of the food mixing with the fresh coffee and the low-volume voices of the Four Tops helped remind Jennifer of the happiest times she had spent with her father. It was when he allowed himself to just be her dad and not a famous cop working a hard-to-crack case or an abusive husband coming off a heavy binge and yet another brutal fight with her mother. On those rare occasions, he would sit across from her and smile when she broke the bread the right way and folded it over the top of the egg, using her fork to crack through to the yolk. They saved their conversation for the two cups of coffee and small slivers of Entenmann’s Danish ring that would serve as the topper to their morning feast. It was during those quiet early hours, her mother either still asleep or running errands, that Sal Fabini took the time to catch up with her life. She filled him in on her schoolwork and her friends, few of whom he had ever met. She talked about her after-school sporting events and the plays she either wrote or acted in, none of which he ever found the time to attend. She told him about her teachers, who always asked about the detective they had read about but never seen. And she tapped him into the neighborhood gossip, keeping out the parts that involved his romantic affairs with some of the local married women.
“You’re going to make a great cop someday,” he would tease her as they stood side by side along the kitchen counter, Sal washing the dishes and Jennifer drying and stacking them away. “You remember every detail. Even the stuff most people leave out because they don’t think it’s important. More often than not, what went down, the key parts to every story, criminal or not, turn on those very basic elements.”
“I don’t want to be a cop, Dad,” Jennifer would say. “One in the family is more than plenty.”
“That’s only if you listen to what your mother tells you,” Sal said with a dismissive wave. “She never cared much for the badge or the person behind it. But you can’t fight what’s in your blood, and, like it or not, police blue is what you got running in your veins.”
“I’m pretty good in English and my teachers all say I write pretty well,” Jennifer said. “Maybe I could grow up and teach. That might be fun.”
“You get off at three in the afternoon and have nothing to do in the summers,” Sal said. “What kind of way is that to live? Your cousin Theresa’s a teacher in the Bronx. She’s been razor-slashed twice in four years, all for trying to drum home some math lessons to a band of kids who only care about the numbers they take in from their daily drug sales.”
“There are other things I could do besides teach, Dad,” she said. “Being a cop isn’t the only job in the world, you know.”
“You could do plenty of other things,” Sal Fabini said. “Dozens of different jobs you could tackle and there isn’t a one of them that you wouldn’t be good at. But a cop is the only job where you would be great. And that’s almost impossible to pass up.”
“We’ll see what we’ll see,” Jennifer would say, leaving her father alone in the kitchen, heading out to spend a day with her friends.
“That’s right,” Sal would call after her, his voice calm and confident. “We’ll see what we’ll see.”
Sal sat down and passed her one of the two hot plates filled with the eggs, bread, and bacon. He reached behind him and grabbed two large glasses of orange juice and nudged one to her side of the table. They ate and drank in silence for a few minutes, the warm food and cool drink going down smooth. “Coffee’s fresh,” he said to her, finishing off the last of his eggs. “I made it about two minutes before I put the food on.”
“I’ll get it,” Jennifer said. She pushed her chair back and brought her cup over toward the Mr. Coffee, the glass pot filled to the brim. She tossed what was left of hers in the sink and poured in the rich, black liquid that she knew he spiked with Italian Stock 84. “You want a cup?” she asked
.
“I’ll hold to it later,” he said. “I like to save it for when I read my morning papers.”
Jennifer walked back to her seat. “Thanks for making breakfast,” she said to her dad, knowing how much he enjoyed being complimented on his cooking abilities. “This was one of your best yet. You were really on top of your game.”
“I’ve changed it a bit since you were a kid,” he said, with an appreciative nod. “I started adding oregano and basil to the mix.”
“Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop,” she said, giving him a slight smile. “It’s good enough to give Emeril a run for his money.”
“You don’t usually come by during the week,” he said, glancing at her over the rim of his juice glass. “In fact, if I think about it hard enough, I would have to say this is a first. Am I right?”
“You can put down your cop antenna, Dad,” Jennifer said. “There’s no mystery to it or plot behind it. I just came by to see how you were doing and grab a bite.”
“This Italian cop they paired you with,” Sal said, pushing aside his cleared plate and empty juice glass, “it working out okay?”
Jennifer looked across at her father and nodded. She knew without being told that Sal had already been given as much information as could be gathered from his still-solid sources within the department and any attempts to dodge his questions would be futile. “He’s the best partner I’ve ever worked with,” she said. “Good on the street, great when our back is at the wall. He goes his own way more than I’d like to see, but that’s all part of what makes him click, so I cut him some slack.”