A Long Time Dead Read online

  “No. Next question.”

  He crossed his legs. He was not particularly manly, though not effeminate, either. “Do you understand why I thought you might have the book?”

  “Yeah. On his deathbed, your uncle said he was bequeathing the thing to somebody he trusted.”

  He nodded slowly, the big dark sleepy eyes in the narrow face fixed on me. “You did a few jobs for the old don, jobs that he didn’t feel he could entrust to his own people.”

  “That’s true as far as it goes.”

  Now the big eyes narrowed to slits. “Why did he trust you, Mr. Hammer? And why would you work for him? You’re well-known to be an enemy of La Cosa Nostra. Carl Evello. Alberto Bonetti. Two dons, representing two of the six families, and you killed them both. That massacre at the Y and S men’s club, how many soldiers did you slaughter there, anyway? Thirty?”

  “It was never proven I did that. Anyway, who’s counting?”

  Another tasty smile. There was an ashtray on my desk for the benefit of clients, and he used it, flicking ash with a hand heavy with bejeweled golden rings. The suit might be Armani, but down deep Sonny was still just another tacky goombah.

  He was saying, “And yet Don Nicholas, Old Nic himself, not only let you live, he trusted you to do jobs for him. Why?”

  “Why did he let me live? Now and then I killed his competitors. Which saved him trouble. As for why I would do a job for Old Nic … let’s just say, he did me a favor now and then.”

  “What kind of favor, Mr. Hammer? Or may I call you ‘Mike’—after all, you and my uncle were thick as thieves.”

  “Not that thick, but you can call me Mike … Sonny. Let’s just say your uncle helped me out of the occasional jam in your world.”

  Oval eyes tightened to slits. “They say he helped you get out of town after the waterfront shootout with Sal Bonetti.”

  I said nothing.

  Giraldi exhaled smoke, blowing it off to one side. Thoughtful of him.

  “What is the government paying you?” he asked.

  “What government? Paying me for what?”

  “You were followed to the St. Moritz, Mike. Senator Boylan is staying there. The G wants the book—maybe to try to bring us down or maybe they got entries in there themself. I don’t give two shits either way, Mike. I want that book.”

  “You’ve got an army. I’m just one guy. Go find it yourself.”

  Again he blew smoke to one side. His manner was casual but I could tell he was wound tight.

  He said, “I have a feeling you’re in a position to know where it is. Call it a hunch. But I don’t think that book got sent to anybody in the family business. Because I was close to my uncle. He would have given it to me!”

  He slammed a small fist onto my desk and the ashtray jumped. I didn’t.

  Very softly he repeated, “He would have given it to me.”

  I rocked back. “What use would somebody outside of the family have for that book?”

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, Mike.”

  “Does the thing even exist? Do you really believe that your uncle wrote down every important transaction and key business dealing in some ledger?”

  He sat forward and the big eyes didn’t seem at all sleepy now. “I saw him with it. The book exists. He would sit in his study—he wasn’t a big man, he was my size, never one of these big fat slobs like so many in our business, a gray little guy always impeccably dressed, bald in his later years, and like … like a monk goin’ over some ancient scroll he would, after anything big would go down, retire to his study and hunker over that goddamn book.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “It was a ledger, but not a big one, not like an accountant uses. Smaller, more like an appointment book … but not that small. Maybe six by four. Beat-up looking brown cover, some kind of leather. But thick—three inches thick, anyway.”

  “Where did he keep it?”

  “Well, it wasn’t in his safe in that study. Or in a locked drawer, and we’ve been all over his house, looking.” He sat forward and did his best to look earnest. “Mike, would it mean anything to you if I said the Giraldis are going to stay on the same path as Uncle Nic?”

  “You mean prostitution, gambling, loan-sharking, that kind of thing? Am I supposed to be proud of you, Sonny?”

  “You know that Uncle Nic never dealt drugs. We’re the only one of the six families that stayed out of what he called an ‘evil racket.’ No kiddie porn, no underage hookers.”

  Did they give a Nobel Prize for conscientious racketeering, I wondered?

  He was saying, too quickly, “And we—I—am gonna continue contributing to charities, through St. Pat’s Old Cathedral in Little Italy. We fund orphanages and drug treatment centers and all kinds of good works, Mike. You know that. We’re alone in that, of the six families.”

  “Okay. So you Giraldis are the best of the bad guys. What’s that to me?”

  He shrugged. “I suspect it’s why you were willing to do jobs for my uncle. Not just because he bailed your ass out when crazy Sal Bonetti damn near killed you.”

  I trotted out my lopsided grin. “Sonny, I don’t have the book.”

  “But you know where to look. There’s one-hundred k in it for you, Mike, if you turn that book over to me. Cash.”

  “That’s a lot of green for a ledger whose contents you aren’t sure of.”

  “Find it, Mike. Find it.”

  Sonny got up, stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. Smoothed his suitcoat. “Do you think I’m the only one who knows that you were on the old boy’s list of trusted associates? And do you think the other five families aren’t going to be looking for that thing?”

  Suddenly the government’s ten thousand wasn’t seeming like so much loot after all. Even Sonny’s hundred k seemed short of generous.

  “Of course, you can handle yourself, Mike. That’s another reason why you’re the ideal person to go looking for this particular volume. And any members of the other five families who you might happen to dispose of along the way, well, that’s just a bonus for both of us.”

  He gave me a business card with his private numbers, with an after-hours one jotted on the back. Then he went out with a nod of goodbye that I didn’t bother to return.

  I just sat there thinking. I heard the door close in the outer office, and then Velda was coming in. She skirted the client’s chair and leaned her palms on the desk. Her dark eyes were worried.

  “What’s going on, Mike? First cops, now wiseguys? What next?”

  “I missed lunch,” I said. “How about an early supper?”

  She smirked and shook her head, making the arcs of raven-wing hair swing. “Only you would think of food at a time like this.”

  “Give Pat a call and have him meet us at the Blue Ribbon in half an hour.”

  “What makes you think a captain of Homicide is going to drop everything just because you call?”

  “He’ll drop everything because you called, doll. He has a thing for you, remember. And me? I’m the guy who solves half his cases.”

  The Blue Ribbon Restaurant on West Forty-fourth Street was in its between-lunch-and-supper lull, meaning Velda and I had the restaurant part of the bar damn near to ourselves. We sat at our regular corner table with walls of autographed celebrity photos looking over our shoulders as I put away the knockwurst and Velda had a salad. She worked harder at maintaining her figure than I did.

  Pushing her half-eaten rabbit food aside, Velda leaned in and asked, “So … you think you can find this ledger? What leads do you have?”

  “Just two.”

  “Such as?”

  I gulped from a pilsner of Miller. “Well, one is Father Mandano in Little Italy.”

  “Makes sense,” she said with a nod. “His parish is where Don Giraldi was the primary patron.”<
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  I laughed shortly. “Patron. That’s a good way to put it.”

  “Buying his way into heaven?”

  “I don’t think these mob guys really believe in God, not the top guys anyway. Buying himself good will is more like it. Like Capone in Chicago opening up soup kitchens in the Depression.”

  “So you’ll talk to the good father.”

  “I will.”

  “That’s one lead, Mike. You said two.”

  I looked at her slyly over the rim of my glass. I was almost whispering when I said, “Remember that job we did for Old Nic about twenty years back? That relocation number?”

  Velda was nodding, smiling slyly right back at me. Like me, she kept her voice low. “You’re right. That’s a lead if ever there was one. You want me to come along?”

  “I would. She liked you. She’ll talk more freely if you’re around. But I’ll talk to the priest on my own.”

  “Yeah,” she said with a smirk. “Only room for two in a confessional.”

  Pat came in the revolving door and came straight to us—he knew where we’d be. Enjoying the spring afternoon, he was in a lightweight tan suit, chocolate tie, and no hat—though he and I were two rare New Yorkers who still wore them. He stopped at the bar to grab a beer from George and brought it along with him when he came over, sitting with me on his left and Velda on his right.

  “Don’t wait for me,” he said, noting the meal I was halfway through. “Dig right in.”

  “I said thirty minutes,” I said. “You took forty-five. A man has to eat.”

  “Yeah, I heard that rumor. You didn’t say what this was about, so let me tell you—old Don Giraldi finally croaking. Everybody and his dog is out looking for that legendary missing ledger of his.”

  “Is it legendary, Pat?”

  His expression was friendly but the blue-gray eyes were hard. “Legendary in the sense that it’s famous in certain circles. But I think it’s very real, considering the stir it’s causing among the lasagne set.”

  “The other families?”

  “Just one, really—the Pierluigi bunch. They were the family that Old Nic was allied most closely with. Their territories really intertwined, you know. Talking to the OCU guys, they say Old Nic’s reputation as the most beneficent of the Mafia capos is bullshit. Specifically, they say he invested in drug trafficking through Pierluigi. That and other nasty criminal enterprises that wouldn’t have made the old don such a beloved figure around Little Italy.”

  “Meaning if the don really was keeping a record of his transactions,” I said, “that book would be of high interest to the Pierluigi clan.”

  “Damn straight. But they aren’t the only interested parties—there are a couple of underbosses in the Giraldi family who are looking at the old don’s passing as an invitation to move up in the world.”

  “You mean, Sonny Giraldi doesn’t have the don’s chair sewn up.”

  “He might if he had that book. So, Mike.” Pat’s smile was wide but those eyes of his remained shrewd. “Do you have it?”

  “Well, I may be older, but I hope I still have it. What would you say, Vel? Do I still have it?”

  “I should say you do,” she said.

  “Can the comedy,” Pat said. “It’s well-known you had a soft spot for Old Nic, Mike.”

  “That’s horseshit, Pat. I had no illusions about the old boy. He was probably the best man in his world, but what a lousy world, huh?”

  Pat sipped beer, then almost whispered: “Word on the street is, that book went to somebody the old don trusted. Are you that somebody, Mike?”

  “No. Tell me about this guy Hanson.”

  “Hanson? What Hanson?”

  “Hanson on the department. He didn’t show me his badge but he didn’t have to. He had a buddy with him whose name I didn’t catch—younger guy.”

  “That would likely be Captain Bradley.”

  I grinned at him. “Captain! How about that? A young guy achieving such a rarefied rank. You must be impressed, Pat.”

  “Screw you, buddy. Hanson is an ass-kisser … my apologies, Velda … and a political player from way back. He made inspector at thirty-five. You never ran into him before?”

  “No.”

  “When did you run into him?”

  I ignored the question. “So this Hanson is strictly a One Police Plaza guy? No wonder I don’t know him. But is he honest?”

  “Define honest.”

  “Is he bent, Pat? Not just a little, but all the way?”

  Pat shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t sound very convinced.”

  “We don’t travel in the same orbit, Hanson and me. Mike, I never heard a whisper of corruption in regard to him, but that doesn’t make it impossible. I mean, he’s a political animal.”

  I gave him a small, nasty smile. “Could Inspector Hanson be in that ledger?”

  Pat had a sip of beer and thought about it. “If he is bent, of course he could. But so could any number of bad apples. Why, did he come looking for it?”

  I ignored that question, too. “Seems to me there are a lot of people with guns who might like to check this book out of whoever’s library it’s landed in.”

  “Brother, you aren’t kidding.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Pat, let me treat you to a platter of this knockwurst. On me.”

  “What’s the occasion for such generosity?”

  “I just think it’s a pity that average citizens like me don’t take the time out, now and again, to properly thank a public servant like you for your stalwart efforts.”

  “Stalwart, huh? Normally I’d say ‘baloney.’”

  But instead he ordered the knockwurst.

  St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, built in the 1870s, was a late arrival compared to old St. Pat’s on the corner of Prince and Mott. The first St. Pat’s had started saving souls in Little Italy a good seventy years before that.

  I sat with Father Mandano in his office in the Prince Street rectory—this was a Wednesday night with no mass at old St. Pat’s. Velda sat outside in the reception area, reading an ancient issue of Catholic Digest—a desk where her nun equivalent usually sat was empty. This was early evening, after office hours.

  The broad-shouldered priest, in casual black and that touch of white, sat with thick-fingered, prayerfully folded hands on the blotter of a massive contradiction of a desk, its austere lines trimmed with ornamental flourishes. The office with its rich wood paneling and arched windows had a conference table to one side and bookcases everywhere, the generous, burnished chamber under-lit by way of a banker’s lamp and a few glowing wall-mounted fixtures, the desk itself cluttered with work.

  The father was as legendary in Little Italy as that ledger of Don Giraldi’s—the old priest deemed tough but fair, his generosity renowned. Still, even in his seventies, he had the well-fed look and hard eyes of a line coach, his white hair cut military short, his square head home to regular features that were distorting with age.

  “I have of course heard the tales about this notorious ledger, Michael,” he said in a sonorous baritone schooled for the pulpit. “But the late don did not leave it with me.”

  “You had many meetings with Giraldi over the years, Father. Would you have any notion about who he might have entrusted with that book?”

  He shook his head once, a solemn and final gesture. “I only met rarely with Mr. Giraldi. For many years, I dealt solely with his wife, Antonietta, who was a wonderful, devout woman.”

  “How could she be devout and married to a mob boss?”

  “Our Father’s house has many mansions.”

  “Yeah, and compartments, too, I guess. And mob money can build plenty of mansions.”

  His smile was barely perceptible. “When were you last at mass, Michael? I assume you are
of the faith, Irish lad that you are.”

  “I haven’t been a ‘lad’ for a lot of years, Father, and I haven’t been to mass since I got back from overseas.”

  “The war changed you.”

  “The war showed me that God either doesn’t give a damn or has some sick sense of humor. If you’ll forgive my frankness, Father.”

  The dark eyes didn’t look so hard now. “I’m in the forgiveness business, Michael. You hold God responsible for the sins of man?”

  “If you mean war, Father, fighting against an evil devil like Hitler isn’t considered a sin, is it?”

  “No. But I would caution you that holding God responsible for the actions of men is a dangerous philosophy. And I gather, from your words, that you do believe in God.”

  “I do.”

  There was nothing barely perceptible about his smile now. “Years ago, the headlines were filled with your colorful activities, working against evil men. You were raised in the church, so surely you know of St. Michael.”

  “Yeah, the avenging archangel.”

  “Well, that’s perhaps an oversimplification. Among other things, he leads the army of God against the minions of Satan, the powers of Hell.”

  “I’m semi-retired from that, Father. Let’s just say you don’t have time to hear my confession. But I bet you heard some beauts from Old Nic.”

  The smile disappeared and the priest’s countenance was solemn again. “Nicholas Giraldi never came to confession. Not once.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, he will lie in consecrated ground. I gave him bedside Last Rites at St. Luke’s. But he never took confession. And I will confess to you, Michael, that I was surprised when, after his wife’s death, he continued to fund her charities. If there was any purpose in it, other than his own self-aggrandizement, it might have been to honor her memory.”

  “He bought himself a lot of good will here in Little Italy.”

  “He did. But I don’t believe his good works had anything to do with seeking forgiveness. And before you ask how I could accept contributions from the likes of Don Giraldi, I will tell you that even a spiritual man, a servant of God, must live in the physical world. If suffering can be alleviated by accepting such contributions, I will accept that penance, whether sincere or cynical. You might consider this in itself a cynical, even selfish practice, Michael. But we were put here in this place, this, this …”