Callie’s Last Dance

“Glance at the sheet in front of you that shows the location of the tapes”

“What about it?”

“There are tapes in those evidence cubicles. But one’s Paul Revere and the Raiders, the other’s Peter & Gordon’s Greatest Hits. You’re holding the originals.”

Sal frowns. “You like that sissy music?”

“Who doesn’t?”

Callie groans.

Sal looks at her and says, “I’m right, right?”

“You are,” she says.

“What about the phone tapes?”

“They’re in a different building. I couldn’t get to them. But I had a friend erase them.”

“How?”

“They were on magnetic tape.”

“So?”

“He put a giant magnet in an envelope and stuck it in the adjoining cubicle.”

He looks at me a long time, then calls Big Bad, his bodyguard. When Big Bad enters the room, Sal holds up the tiny tape and says, “We got anything here that can play this size tape?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Yes you do,” I say.

“What’re you talking about?”

“When you patted me down you took my microcassette player.”

“Oh yeah.”

Sal frowns. “Go get it,” he says.

When Big Bad comes back, Sal says, “Stay in here. I want you to hear this when I hear it.”

He fiddles with the recorder a minute, then gives up and says, “I don’t know how this shit works. You do it.”

He hands me the recorder and one of the tapes and we listen to Sal telling Frankie to kill the DiPietro brothers. Then we hear some small talk. Then he tells Frankie how and when to torch the Jersey Icehouse restaurant. Then I switch tapes and we listen to the meeting where Sal decided not to support Roy in his effort to kill Carmine Porello because he heard I shattered Roy’s hand and forced him to kiss Carmine’s ring in front of the entire Top Six audience and staff.

When the tape ends, Sal says, “You heard all that?”

Big Bad nods.

“That’s a tape Frankie made and gave to the FBI.”

“Frankie done that? Naw, not Frankie! I don’t believe it.”

“You were in this very room when that discussion happened!” Sal says. “And the first one was in my own home, in the basement!”

Big Bad stares straight ahead, as if it takes him longer to hear things than the rest of us.

“There were only two of us in the fuckin’ room,” Sal says. “Me and Frankie. Unless you think I’m stupid enough to tape my own conversations and send them to the FBI.”

“The Feds?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Maybe the Feds bugged the office and your basement.”

“Do you personally let Cheech in here twice a week to sweep my office?”

He nods.

“You ever see him find any bugs?”

He shakes his head no.

“And he sweeps my house the same days. It’s not a fuckin’ bug, it’s a wire. Frankie made these tapes, and gave them to the FBI.”

To me he says, “How much did they pay him?”

“You’re not going to like my answer.”

“Go ahead. Say it.”

I shake my head, sorrowfully.

“How much?” Sal repeats.

“He did it for free.”

“Son of a bitch!” Sal yells. “Now do you see why I told Creed to kill the bastard?”

Big Bad nods.

Sal says, “You heard the proof. Now tell the others what you know and tell them to shut their fuckin’ mouths and let me run my own business. And never speak of this again. Frankie was a rat. You wanted me to kill these two today? Well this is why I’m in charge. It’s why I make the important decisions and leave you to decide how many times you can pull your pud in the shitter while pretending to shit.”

Big Bad looks at Callie. He’s embarrassed. She shrugs as if it’s no big deal.

Sal says, “Thank God for these two. Callie and Creed saved our asses. Again.”

41.

“THANK GOD FOR these two?” Callie says.

“They saved our asses,” I say. “Again.”

“You have got to tell me what happened back there,” she says.

We’re in her limo, heading to her hotel so we can, ahem, do the deed.

She adds, “When Sal said he was in on the heroin deal I thought we were dead in the water.”

“We would have been, but you saved us.”

“How?”

“Last night you failed to create a backup plan to escape Frankie’s closet.”

“So?”

“It made me re-think our backup plan for explaining why we killed Frankie.”

“Why?”

“My real reason for killing Frankie was to protect Sal. I thought he’d be furious at Sal for ordering a hit on his wife. So that was the main reason, and you tortured Frankie so we could have a backup reason. But something you said last night made me think Frankie already knew Angie was getting whacked.”

“Something I said?”

“You said it to Frankie.”

“Tell me.”

“After torturing Frankie a long time you said, ‘You know what really pisses me off? You haven’t even asked about Angie.’”

“Ah,” she says. “He didn’t ask about her because he assumed she was already dead. Because he knew I was there to kill her.”

“That’s what it sounded like to me. Plus the fact he lingered in the garage a while when she walked in the door.”

“So the real reason was no longer a valid one.”

“Right. So now the heroin deal became our reason for whacking him.”

“Which left us without a backup reason.”

“Exactly.”

She says, “So how did you make all this happen overnight?”

“The geeks worked all morning on it. That’s the reason I was late getting to Cincy.”

“I understand that. But the geeks couldn’t manufacture the tapes out of thin air.”