Merolla’s laugh sounded like a dry cough.
“That’s funny! The banker wants to meet The Banker!” he crowed. “Why come to me? Carmine has his business in New Orleans; I have mine in New England.”
“Because he would never see me without an introduction.”
“That’s right.”
Merolla set down the spoon and wandered along the counter to check a tray of antipasto. He swiped a sliver of salami from the tray and popped it in his mouth.
“You have a problem in New Orleans, prick?” he asked.
“Possibly.”
“Possibly. You didn’t lower yourself to come here for ‘possibly.’ ”
Merolla shuffled back to the long table and sat down, forcing Kitteredge to follow him around like a lovesick suitor.
“We believe that it is in Mr. Bascaglia’s interests to talk with us,” Kitteredge said.
“Carmine will let you know what’s in his interests,” Merolla said. “I can do this for you. It’s a phone call.”
Kitteredge felt the cool breath of relief.
“But why should I?” Merolla asked. “Why should I do anything for you?”
“Perhaps you can tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What it is that you want in exchange,” Kitteredge said. “You wouldn’t have asked to see me if you didn’t think that there was something I could do for you.”
Merolla bent over and gestured with his fingers for Kitteredge to do the same. Kitteredge found himself inches away from the old man’s face. The old man’s breath smelled of fresh garlic and stale cigars.
“This thing of ours, it’s over,” Merolla said. His rheumy eyes looked teary now. “The Chinese, the South Americans, even the niggers are running us out. I can’t fart without the Justice Department telling me what I had for lunch, and every time I turn on the TV, I see another associate singing songs to congressmen.
“I have grandkids, great-grandkids. You understand?”
“I think so.”
Merolla grabbed Kitteredge’s hands.
“I’ll put you with Bascaglia,” he said. “I don’t want anything from you, prick. But maybe my grandkids, my great-grandkids will need a favor sometime…”
Merolla’s hands felt like old musty paper.
Kitteredge slid his own hands away, swallowed hard, and said, “I’d be pleased to assist them in any way.”
Merolla wiped his hand on his trousers.
“Favor for favor,” he said. “Like the movie.”
“Sorry?”
“That movie. With Brando,” Merolla explained. “The Godfather.”
“Yes, of course,” Kitteredge answered, making a mental note to ask Levine to watch this film and brief him. Kitteredge had gone to a movie theater once and hadn’t liked it. He could scarcely hear the hopelessly banal dialogue over the incessant bovine sound of popcorn chomping, an overly involved viewer spoke back to the actors during the entire ordeal, and his shoes got stuck on spilled soda as he tried to leave. He recalled it as a thoroughly miserable fifteen minutes.
Merolla shakily rose to his feet, signaling that the meeting was over.
“You’ll be hearing from Jimmy,” Merolla said, pointing his chin at the silver-haired man. “Get out of here before the families come in.”
He turned and shuffled back to the kitchen counter.
Jimmy walked Kitteredge to the door.
“I’m afraid I’m unacquainted with prison etiquette,” Kitteredge said at the doorway. “Do I tip the guard on the way out?”
Jimmy answered, “We got it covered, chief.”
Kitteredge had the driver take him to the bank. He stopped in the rest room to scrub his hands, then went into the office. Ed Levine was poring over books at the conference table.
“How did it go?” asked Ed, concerned that Kitteredge looked so tired.
“He will make the introduction,” Kitteredge said. He sat down behind his desk and began to stroke the thread lines on the model of his boat, the Haridan.
“What’s it going to cost?” Ed asked.
“Have you seen a film called The Godfather?”
“Sure.”
“So has Dominic Merolla,” Kitteredge said. “He wants a return favor for his grandchildren or great- grandchildren. In exchange for a telephone call, the Merolla crime family has our marker for potentially the next century.”
The news didn’t surprise Ed, but it did add heat to the heartburn he’d been feeling for the last hour or so, ever since he’d figured out what had been bothering him about Marc Merolla’s fraternity picture.
“I’ve been doing some research,” Ed started. “Guess who was Peter Hathaway’s college roommate.”
Kitteredge had a headache. He didn’t want to guess. “Who?”
“Marc Merolla.”
Kitteredge gazed at the sleek lines of his boat. He longed to be skimming through the clean blue water of the open ocean.
After a while he smiled and said, “We’ve been had, Edward.”
“We don’t know that yet, sir,” Ed answered. “It might be a coincidence. I have people working on it now.”
Kitteredge nodded, but his instincts told him the truth: Dominic Merolla had just committed him to the Mafia takeover of the Landis television empire.
“It brings rather a new meaning to the Family Cable Network, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“There’s something else.”
“Oh, good.”
“Just an oddity, really,” Ed added quickly. “He had another roommate at Brown.”
“Martin Bormann?”
“Kenny Lafreniere.”
Kitteredge stared at him blankly.
“Dr. Kenneth Lafreniere,” Ed prompted. “Seven years ago, he sliced up his wife and took a header off the Newport Bridge. It was in all the papers.”
Ethan Kitteredge realized that he had never managed to make Ed understand that the only newspaper articles he ever saw were the ones that Ed clipped out and made him read.
“Small world,” Kitteredge said. “Providence.”
Perhaps it’s time to retire, he thought, attend board meetings, social functions and the like, and let Ed run Friends. The board would have to be persuaded to allow someone outside of the family in that post, but perhaps they could be persuaded that times had changed.
Kitteredge sighed. “Does it seem to you that the world becomes more vulgar every day?”
“I live in New York,” Ed answered.
Kitteredge stood up.
“I’ll be at home,” he said. “Check out Marc’s involvement; let me know the second our mob associates call.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Ed, visit with a realtor, would you?” Kitteredge said from the doorway. “I might want you to relocate to Providence. I’m thinking of taking a long trip when this is over.”
“Where to, sir?”
To the clean open ocean, Kitteredge thought, away from all… this.
