Still, DeFazio knew he had been right! The way...
Still, DeFazio knew he had been right! The way the Jew shrink talked under the needle there
was no other route he and the ex-spook could take but to Paris and their good buddy, the fake hit
manSo Nicolo and the shrink disappeared, went poof-zam, so what the fuck? The Jew got away
and Nicky would do timeBut Nicolo wouldn’t talk; he understood that bad trouble, like a knife in
the kidney, was waiting for him wherever he went if he didBesides, Nicky didn’t know anything
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so specific the lawyers couldn’t wipe away as secondhand horseshit from a fifth-rate horse’s ass
And the shrink only knew he was in a room in some farmhouse, if he could even remember thatHe
never saw anybody but Nicolo when he was “compass mantis,” as they say
But Louis DeFazio knew he was rightAnd because he was right, there were more than seven
million big ones waiting for him in ParisSeven million! Holy Christ! He could give the Palermo
gumballs in Paris more than they ever expected and still walk away fake cartier watches with a bundle
An old waiter from the old country, an uncle of Trafficante, approached the table and Louis held
his breath“There’s a telephone call for you, Signor DeFazio
As was usual, the capo supremo went to a pay phone at the end of a narrow dark corridor outside
the men’s room“This is New York,” said DeFazio:
“This is Paris, Signor New YorkThis is also pazzo!”
“Where’ve you been? You pazzo enough to drive to London, England? I’ve been waitin’ three
hours!”
“Where I’ve been is on a number of unlit country roads, which is important only to my nerves
Where I am now is crazy!”
“So where?”
“I’m using a gatekeeper’s telephone for which I’m paying roughly a hundred American dollars
and the French buffone keeps looking through the window to see that I don’t steal anything—
perhaps his lunch pail, who knows?”
“You don’t sound too stupid for a gumballSo what gatekeeper’s what? What are you talking
about?”
“I’m at a cemetery about twenty-five miles from ParisI tell you—”
“A cimitero?” interrupted Louis“What the chanel jumbo bag hell for?”
“Because your two acquaintances drove here from the airport, you ignorante! At the moment
there is a burial in progress—a night burial with a candlelight procession which will soon be
drowned out by rain—and if your two acquaintances flew over here to attend this barbaric
ceremony, then the air in America is filled with brain-damaging pollutants! We did not bargain for
this sciocchezze, New YorkWe have our own work to do
“They went there to meet the big cannoli,” said DeFazio quietly, as if to himself“As to work,
gumball, if you ever want to work with us, or Philadelphia, or Chicago, or Los Angeles again,
you’ll do what I tell youYou’ll also be terrifically paid for it, capisce?”
“That makes more sense, I admit
“Stay out of sight, but stay with themFind out where they go and who they seeI’ll get over
there as soon as I can, but I gotta go by way of Canada or Mexico, just to make sure no one’s
watchingI’ll be there late tomorrow or early the next day
“Omerta,” said Louis DeFazio
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The hand-held candles flickered in the night drizzle as the two parallel lines of mourners walked
solemnly behind the white casket borne on the shoulders of six men; several began to slip on the
increasingly wet gravel of the cemetery’s pathFlanking the procession were four drummers, two
on each side, their snare drums snapping out the slow cadence of the death march, erratically out of
sequence because of the unexpected rocks and the unseen flat grave markers in the darkness of the
bordering grassShaking his head slowly in bewilderment, Morris Panov watched the strange
nocturnal burial rite, relieved to see Alex Conklin limping, threading his way between the
tombstones toward their meeting ground
“Any sign of them?” asked Alex
“None,” replied Panov“I gather you didn’t do any betterI got stuck with a lunatic
“How?”
“A light was on in the gatehouse, so I went over thinking David or Marie might have left us a
messageThere was a clown outside who kept looking into a window and said he was louis vuitton mahina the
watchman and did I want to rent his telephone
“His telephone?”
“He said there were special rates for the night, as the nearest pay phone was ten kilometers down
the road
“A lunatic,” agreed Panov
“I explained that I was looking for a man and a woman I was to meet here and wondered if
they’d left a messageThere was no message but there was the telephoneTwo hundred francs—
crazy
“I might do a flourishing business in Paris,” said Mo, smiling“Did he by any chance see a
couple wandering around?”
“I asked him that and he nodded affirmative, saying there were dozensThen he pointed to that
candlelight parade over there before going back to his goddamn window
“What is that parade, incidentally?”
“I asked him that, tooIt’s a religious cult; they bury their dead only at nightHe thinks they
may be gypsiesHe said that while blessing himself
“They’re going to be wet gypsies,” observed Panov, pulling up his collar as the drizzle turned
into rain
“Christ, why didn’t I think of it?” exclaimed Conklin, looking over his vintage chanel jewelry should