ground lamb, too. Hers are better.”
So it went through the melitzanosalata — eggplant and feta cheese and a lot of herbs-the soutzoukakia of lamb and beef sausage served with pita bread, and a dynamite tzatziki of cucumber and yogurt that Dante fought him for.
“I know all this ain’t out of the goodness of your heart, chief,” said Tim, waving a greasy-fingered hand, “since we been eating forty-five minutes and haven’t gotten to our dinners yet. So c’mon-talk to Daddy.”
Talk Dante did, over kefthes, fried meatballs that released tantalizing aromas from the kitchen as they were cooked, and the horiatiki salates of tomatoes and cucumbers and black olives and onions and feta cheese topped with dried oregano, known to most people just as “Greek salads.”
“So this guy has called five times-”
“I think it was him after Moll Dalton,” said Dante, forking flaky-crusted spanakopita — spinach pie-into his mouth and talking around it, “but I didn’t save the tape. By Hymie’s voiceprints, all the others are different people. Raptor used Gideon Abramson’s own voice as his message. Telling a Jewish joke.”
“Recorded him off the phone, I bet,” mused Tim.
Main courses were kotopoulu fournou for Tim, roast chicken with potatoes, and baked lamb with pasta, giouvetsi, for Dante. Over impossibly sweet baklava served with thimble-size cups of thick Greek coffee, Dante told about the note pinned to his shirt while he slept in the Death Valley dunes. Tim started to guffaw.
“That’s one I would have liked to see, chief,” he chortled. “It’s only because of that note that I’m buyin’ into the calls. Otherwise I’d be laughin’ in your face while I’m readin’ these.” He was shuffling through the transcripts of the calls like a hand of cards. “None of them really say, bang, bang, I did it, do they? Uh-uh. But that note pinned to your shirt…”
“And doing Abramson from four hundred yards out.”
“Whadda they got on the slugs?”
“Not much so far. The ones they could find are badly distorted. Since the killing occurred in a national monument, the FBI’s involved, and you know their Forensics Ballistics lab takes its own sweet time to analyze and report.”
“Four football fields away, so we know high-velocity, scoped…” Tim shook his head. “Near a fifth of a mile? That’s shooting, it tells us stuff about him.”
“Like what?” Dante had ideas of his own, but he liked to watch the big homicide cop’s mind work.
“Probably a good ol’ southern boy from Arkansas, Tennessee, like that. Maybe sniper-trained, maybe by the Marines in ’Nam.”
“Lots of Marines in ’Nam weren’t from the South.”
Tim leaned back with a luxurious sigh, his belly out over his belt. “More than you’d think. And southern boys make about the best killers there are-of animals or men. Take one of ’em who really likes killing…”
“Yeah,” said Dante, “with maybe some seasoning as a CIA spook or mere or somebody before going to work for the mob.”
“I buy it-he’s too methodical for a guy just poppin’ caps ’cause he’s got a hard-on against somebody.”
“Somebody who knows Popgun Ucelli’s M.O. and has Raptor use it on the close-in hits.”
“All of a sudden you don’t think Popgun did any of ’em?”
“Not if we have one man here-and I think we do, because of the Raptor messages and note. Popgun wouldn’t be bright enough for the gas line trick, and from his federal rap sheet he sure as hell couldn’t make any four- hundred-yard rifle shots.”
“Unless this Raptor shit is just a smoke screen,” mused Tim. “Multiple hitters…” He shook his head. “That doesn’t make much sense, does it? Single perp.”
Dante paid their bill with a 20 percent tip. They kept at it on their way down Polk Street toward the Hall where Tim had to pick up his own car.
“What can we maybe figure about who hired him?”
“Mob,” said Dante instantly. “Prince… or old Garofano.”
“Old, all right-old as water. Why’d he want to knock off a bunch of his compeers? He can’t have too many years left.”
“Maybe that’s why.”
“Go out with a bang? Maybe. How about your boyfriend?”
“Gounaris? I can see him hiring Raptor for the others, but Abramson was his mentor, his buffer with the big boys. If he screwed up and let Moll Dalton get too close to him, he’d need all the buffers he could get.”
“But what if he’s been skimming or something? If she nosed it out, that’s why she’d have to go. Then Lenington dug it out… Spic Madrid… right up to Abramson and St. John. I read him as a guy’d hit just about anybody who threatened him.”
“What about the calls? The note?” They were stopped for the light at Market. “If it’s Gounaris, there’s nothing I can do to confirm it; I’m gonna focus on Raptor. He’s made himself my business.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Kosta thought long and hard about going to Uncle Gid’s funeral. Myra would expect him to be there, she and Gid had been regular visitors aboard Kosta’s yacht in the Gounaris Shipping years. The visits had ended when Uncle Gid had started grooming him as a front man for the Cosa Nostra. But still, Myra…
Now Gid and St. John both were gone, who could he talk to about Myra? He finally made a call to a safe number in L.A.; Prince called him back from Vegas on the scrambler phone.
“We all commiserate with you on your loss, Kosta,” came Mr. Prince’s heavy baritone, “but the funeral is out of the question. Too public. The value of Atlas Entertainment would be markedly reduced should our involvement be proven.” His voice dropped several degrees in temperature. “What was that policeman, Stagnaro, doing in Death Valley? What does he know?”
“Stagnaro was in Death Valley?” Kosta’s surprise was real.
Prince must have realized it. He merely said, “Stagnaro could get to be a problem for us. He gets around.”
“Do you want me to-”
“No, I will initiate action if it seems indicated.”
Kosta hung up uneasily, drove back to his apartment playing the conversation over in his mind. The way Prince had offered no comment on the man who had hit Uncle Gid suggested he had ordered the hit himself. Who would be next? Kosta?
Or was there an independent operating here, for his own obscure ends? As Kosta had been operating for his? He wasn’t going to let Myra down in her hour of need. She was respected in the Family, might be useful to him in turn. He would go down to Palm Springs for the private service where they would sing kaddish for Uncle Gid. That would be for family only, not Family, so Mr. Prince wouldn’t find out.
Martin Prince sat at his desk, frowning. Myra had been a good and faithful Organization wife, she would understand that Gounaris couldn’t attend the funeral, and Gounaris would know that. Gounaris could have some agenda of his own, could have had Gideon hit, perhaps by some contract hitter imported from Greece.
There’s been too much killing recently, and Gounaris was vital to Atlas Entertainment at present. But eventually…
And then there was Stagnaro. Just a little mosca buzzing around right now, but he kept turning up. When Moll Dalton had been hit. And Spic. Even St. John. And there he was on the scene in Death Valley. What did this guy know? Who did he report to? Was his superior reachable? Or maybe a break-in at his office, to see what he had in the way of hard evidence.
Maybe better, for the moment, just leave him alone.
Basta. He used the scrambler phone again to call Enzo Garofano back in Jersey.
“What is going on out there, Marcantonio?” came Garofano’s ancient but strong voice. “Why are all these people dying? Do we have problems in the Organization? And why is this Stagnaro turning up all over? Do you think he is working with Rudy Mattaliano here in Manhattan? That could be dangerous.”
