“He wants you to run a crooked game in kindergarten?”
I got down on one knee and gave it a spin. Sure enough, the ball nestled in number six.
“I hope he didn’t ask for a percentage.”
“He say I can keep anything LESS than five dol-LARS,” he said with earnest concentration.
“Is this what’s going to happen to you if I go away?” I took the wheel from him and tried to fit it in my pocket. “You’re going to grow up to be a little knucklehead?”
He looked alarmed. “Are you going somewhere?”
I didn’t meet his eye. “Look, forget the roulette. Go get me a baseball, will you? I wanna show you a few things about throwing it.”
He went tearing back into the house, eager for the chance to do anything with his daddy. But what kind of father was I, anyway? All the time I’d been sick—blackmailing, hustling to put the fight together, killing Nicky, turning myself into a monster—I told myself it was all for the kids, so I could provide for them. But what was this legacy I was leaving for them? I’d already turned into a thug like Vin and now I was thinking about disappearing from their lives like Mike.
Maybe it would be better if I just went away, I thought. I remembered how Teddy’s son, Charlie, used to get high and turn paranoid about his father’s karma catching up with him. “He’s done a lot of bad shit,” he’d say, “and it’s all gonna come back.” At the time, I didn’t know what he was talking about. But now I found myself worrying about what kind of damage I’d already done to my kids.
I almost didn’t notice that dark-haired detective with the basset-hound eyes moseying across my front lawn.
“Afternoon, junior,” he said in a husky voice. “Must be a big day for you.”
He looked me up and down. I was wearing my good blue suit with the trim waist and the peaked lapels.
“Do I know you?”
He flashed a badge and showed me some I.D. Detective Peter Farley, Atlantic City Police Department.
“What can I do for you?”
I felt my back teeth floating. Had somebody given me up for killing Nicky?
“Actually I’m not here on police business,” said Detective Farley, pulling out a roll of Turns and offering me one. “Some of our mutual friends at the Doubloon Casino had some questions they wanted me to ask. Seems they’re a little concerned about the sudden change on the bill. They don’t understand why Meldrick Norman is out and Elijah Barton is back in.”
“These things happen all the time in boxing.” An answer Frank Diamond would’ve been proud of.
“I know, but the casino people are a little worried that everything might not be—how shall I put this?— kosher.”
“Why’s that? I wonder.”
“Well, Vinny Russo’s your stepfather, isn’t he?” He sounded almost apologetic about asking.
“We’re estranged.” I folded my arms across my chest.
Little Anthony came charging out of the house, clutching a rubber softball. When he saw me talking to the cop, though, he stopped to watch us from the porch, about twenty feet away.
“If everyone had their family background held against them, half this town would be out of work,” I said, nervously clicking my heel on the driveway. “I am and always have been a legitimate businessman. And if you want to get technical, Detective, my real father was a man named Michael Dillon. He was legitimate too.”
“I know,” said this Farley. “I knew him.”
For a second, he looked like he wanted to tell me something about Mike. He’d half grimaced when I mentioned Mike’s name, as if it gave him some kind of pang. But then my son started tossing the softball against the porch railing and demanding to know when we could play catch.
“So cut to the chase,” I said to the detective. “Do you have any reason to believe I’m anything less than legitimate?”
If I was in trouble, I figured I wanted to know about it right away and get myself a good lawyer.
“No, no reason.” Farley shrugged.
“Then I don’t see any point in us continuing this conversation, do you?”
He hesitated, drawing back one corner of his mouth, as though he’d just realized he had a toothache. “No, I guess not.” He turned as if he was getting ready to walk away. “Just one thing, though,” he said. “You know, there are some people who might be less than pleased about your success in the fight game.”
Clearly he was talking about Teddy. Now it was my turn to shrug. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Anytime.” He gave me one more thorough look before he backed down the drive. “I think Mike would’ve been pleased with the way you turned out. Anybody ever tell you you look like him?”
“No one who counts.”
He smiled and I went to play catch with my son.
51
THE PROSECUTOR IN A previous case had entered an AK-47 assault rifle into evidence in Judge Leonard Scibetta’s federal courtroom in Philadelphia, so when Teddy and his lawyer Burt Ryan walked in for a status conference to set a trial date, the judge was still looking down the sights and aiming the gun at the jury box.
“Judge, I was hoping we could move this along quickly,” said Burt, wheezing and ducking as the judge swung the barrel around and pointed the gun at a clerk. “It’s no secret my client is not in the best of health, and I think it’s in everyone’s interest to have a speedy trial.”
Teddy coughed into his fist as the judge, a cadaverous-looking man with a widow’s peak of dark hair, put the rifle down and began conferring with his clerk.
“I have a date open on the fourteenth of October,” the judge said as he flipped pages on a desk calendar. “Could we start jury selection at that time?”
“Your Honor, that won’t work for me.” Burt studied the appointment book he had open on the defense table.
“What do you got, another polo game?” sneered Teddy, standing beside him.
He’d lost even more weight in the four weeks since the operation. The skin under his chin and around his eyes was hanging off his face like loose crepe paper streamers.
The judge looked at his clerk and flipped through more pages. “How ’bout November second?”
At the prosecution table, a trim young lawyer named Nevins, who had shiny auburn hair and black horn- rimmed glasses, clicked his pen and stood up abruptly. “Your honor, we may need a little more time.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s hard to be definite.”
“I will not have you wreaking havoc on my docket.” The judge looked like he was ready to pick up the rifle again. “What do you have in mind, Mr. Nevins?”
“Judge, it’s not for me to say at this point.”
“Are you planning to bring a superseding indictment?”
“Well.” Nevins hesitated and looked down at his co-counsel, a young woman with straight dishwater-blonde hair, who was busy scribbling on a yellow legal pad.
“If you are, then I want you to give notice now what the additional charges are going to be,” the judge demanded.
Teddy and Burt exchanged nervous glances. The young prosecutor swallowed hard.
“Judge,” he said, clicking his pen several times. “As I believe Mr. Ryan knows, the grand jury has been considering adding homicide charges as they relate to the DiGregorio situation. And they might supersede the simple racketeering indictment you have before you.”
Burt Ryan took out his asthma spray. Teddy cursed, winced, and delivered himself of a belch that sounded like something out of a county fair.
“Your Honor,” said Burt, taking a long shot from the spray as he prepared to feign outrage. “I want the
