Chapter 5

NICK GERACI heard footsteps coming from across the darkness of the abandoned casino. A heavy limping man in squeaky shoes. “Sorry to hear about your ma, kid,” a voice called.

Geraci stood. It was Laughing Sal Narducci, Forlenza’s ancient consigliere, dressed in a mohair sweater with diamond-shaped panels. When Geraci was growing up, Narducci was one of those guys you saw sitting out in front of the Italian-American Social Club, smoking harsh black cigars. The nickname was inevitable. A local amusement park had this motorized mannequin woman at the gate called Laughing Sal. Its recorded laughter sounded like some woman who’d just had the best sex of her life. Every Sally, every Salvatore in Cleveland, and half the Als and Sarahs, got called Laughing Sal.

“Thanks,” Geraci said. “She’d been sick a long time. It was kind of a mercy.”

Narducci embraced him. As he let go, he gave Geraci a few quick pats, though of course Falcone and Molinari’s bodyguards had frisked him back in Detroit. Then Narducci opened the wall. Laughing Sal saw the bag, lifted it, and nodded. “ Arizona didn’t help her none, huh?” He put the bag down without even opening it, as if he could count money purely by weight. A half million in hundreds weighs ten and a quarter pounds. “Bein’ away from this fucking weather?”

“That definitely helped,” Geraci said. “She liked it there. She had a pool and everything. She was always a big swimmer.”

Narducci closed the wall. “Her people were from by the sea, you know. Milazzo, same as mine. Me, I can’t swim farther than from here to the far side of a whiskey glass. Ever been?”

“To the far side of a whiskey glass?”

“Milazzo. Sicily.”

“ Sicily yes, Milazzo I never quite made it to,” he said. He’d been in Palermo only last week, working out minor personnel issues with the Indelicato clan.

Narducci put a hand on Geraci’s shoulder. “Well, like they say, she’s in a better place.”

“Like they say,” Geraci said.

“Jesus Christ, look at you.” Narducci squeezed Geraci’s biceps, as if they were fruit he might buy. “Ace Geraci! Looks like you could still go twenty rounds in the Garden.”

“Nah,” Geraci said. “Probably just ten, eleven.”

Narducci laughed. “You know how much money I lost on you over the years? A bundle, my friend. A bundle.”

“Should have bet against me. That’s what I usually did.”

“I tried that,” Narducci said. “Then you’d always win. And your father? How’s he?”

“Getting by.” Fausto Geraci, Sr., had been a truck driver and a Teamsters official. Connected but never inducted, he’d driven cars and done various favors for the Jew. “He’s got my sister there.” And the Mexican woman on the other side of Tucson he thinks no one knows about. “He’ll be fine. He misses going to work, if you want to know the truth.”

“Retirement don’t suit some people. But he should give it time, the retirement.”

Not a problem Nick Geraci ever expected to face. You come in alive, Vito Corleone had said at Geraci’s initiation, and you go out dead. “We ready?” Geraci said.

“Ready.” Narducci slapped him on the ass and escorted him back through the casino. Geraci looked for an exit route, a flight of stairs. Just in case.

“How long since that casino was in business?” Geraci asked.

“Back in the Italian navy days,” Narducci said, meaning the fleet of speedboats they’d operated on the Great Lakes during Prohibition. “Now we got these ships. Best things to have. No local fuck has the resources to raid ships. Plus, your guests are stuck out on the lake all night. Give ’em a show, set up a few rooms with some girls, then drop ’em back off at their cars. You’ve taken all their money, and they’re happy you did it.”

The Stracci Family had huge secret casinos in the Jersey Palisades, but as far as Geraci knew, none of the Families in New York had gambling ships like that. Maybe he’d look into developing a few, once the peace was solid and things cooled down.

“Other than legal joints in Vegas and Havana, we’re out of the on-land stuff altogether,” Narducci said. “Except down in West Virginia, which don’t really count. You can buy off that whole state for less than the heating bill on this place here.”

He ushered Geraci into a dank room and pulled open the door to an old cage elevator.

“Relax, kid,” Narducci said. “Who’s going to kill you here?”

“I get any more relaxed,” Geraci said, “I’ll need you to tuck me in and read me a story.”

They got in. Narducci smiled and hit the button. He’d called it right, though; it was how Geraci had been trained: elevators are death traps.

“Changing the subject,” Narducci said, “I gotta ask. How’d a big cafone like you get through law school?”

“I know people.” He’d done it on his own steam, night school, busted his ass. He still had a few classes to go. But Nick Geraci knew the right answers to things. “I have friends.”

“Friends,” Narducci repeated. “Attaboy.” He put his hands on Geraci’s shoulders and gave him a quick rub, the way a cornerman might.

The door opened. Geraci braced himself. They stepped into a dark, carpeted hallway crowded with chairs and settees and little carved tables that were probably worth a mint. At the end of the hall was a bright marble-floored room. A young redheaded nurse pushed Vincent “the Jew” Forlenza toward them in a wheelchair. Narducci left to go get Falcone and Molinari.

“Padrino,” said Geraci. “How are you feeling?” His speech and probably brain were fine, but he wasn’t going to walk again.

“Eh,” Forlenza said. “What do doctors know?”

Geraci kissed Forlenza on each cheek and then on his ring. Forlenza had stood as godfather at his christening.

“You’ve done well, Fausto,” Forlenza said. “I hear good things.”

“Thank you, Godfather,” Geraci said. “We hit a rough patch, but we’re making progress.”

Forlenza smirked. His disapproval might have been gentle, but it registered; a Sicilian doesn’t have the American faith in progress, doesn’t use the word the way Geraci just had.

Forlenza motioned to a round table by the window. The storm raged even stronger now. The nurse pushed Forlenza to the table. Geraci continued to stand.

Narducci returned, accompanied by the other Dons and their bodyguards, who’d freshened up from their airsickness episode but still seemed shaky. Frank Falcone entered with a heavy-lidded stare, bovine in its blankness. It told the whole story. Molinari had, as planned, told him who Geraci was. Falcone pointed at the paintings of men in jodhpurs and pale stout women in tiaras. “People you know, Don Forlenza?”

“Came with the place. Anthony, Frank. Let me introduce you to an amico nostro.” A friend of ours. A friend of mine was just an associate. A friend of ours was a made guy. “Fausto Dominick Geraci, Jr.”

“Call me Nick,” Geraci said to Falcone and Molinari.

“A good Cleveland boy,” Forlenza said, “Ace, we used to call him, who now does business in New York. He is also, I am proud to say, my godson.”

“We met,” Falcone said. “More or less.”

“Eh, Frank. I’m sure you can indulge a man’s pride in his godson.”

Falcone shrugged. “Of course.”

“Gentlemen,” Geraci said, “I bring you greetings from Don Corleone.”

Forlenza looked at the guards and pointed to Geraci. “Go ahead, do your job.”

Geraci presented himself to be frisked, though of course they’d done it to him back in Detroit, too. One more time today and we’ll be going steady, he thought. This search was state of the art, complete with a hand inside his shirt and under the band of his underpants, looking for recording devices. As they finished, two white-haired waiters in bow ties brought out a crystal tray of biscotti all’uovo, small bowls of strawberries and orange wedges, and steaming glass mugs of cappuccino. They set a silver bell beside Forlenza and left.