Shakedown Read online

  The foreman of the grand jury, a well-dressed, gray-haired man who looked as if he used pomade, rapped his knuckles on the long table in front of him to get the attention of the group. Talking subsided. "The Grand jury for the Southern District of Nevada calls Anthony Parisi." He nodded to a younger man sitting near the door.

  The man stood up, opened the door. "Please step in, Mr. Parisi," he said.

  Tony Parisi, fortyish, well-fed, well-groomed, dark, and wearing a gray silk necktie and charcoal suit tailored to hide his paunch, entered the room. The man showed him to the witness stand. Having been sworn in by the jury foreman, he sat down.

  Elliot stood up. "Please state your full name."

  "Anthony Salvatore Parisi."

  "Mr. Parisi, be advised that you are before the United States Grand jury for the Southern District of Nevada. For the record, I am Ronald Elliot, attorney-in-charge of the Department of Justice Strike Force Against Organized Crime and Racketeering. Do you understand that, sir?"

  "Yes."

  "I am going to ask you a number of questions concerning a matter that this federal grand jury has chosen to investigate. You have the right to consult with an attorney before answering any of these questions. Do you understand that, sir?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you ever had the occasion to meet one Bruno Santoro?"

  Parisi reached into his breast pocket, removed a piece of paper. He unfolded it. "On advice of counsel I respectfully refuse to answer that question on the grounds of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in that any answer I may give could tend to incriminate me." He set the paper down on the witness stand.

  Elliot looked at Novak, then at the foreman of the grand jury. He cleared his throat. "Mr. Parisi, are you a member of the Vacarillo crime family?"

  Parisi picked up the paper. "On advice of counsel I respectfully..."

  Novak bit his lip. He sat there for the next hour as Parisi read the statement over and over again in answer to Elliot's questions. The members of the grand jury began to slouch in their chairs, tip back and forth, yawn.

  When the hearing was finally over and the grand jury was adjourned, Novak followed Parisi out of the hearing room and down a long hallway to an elevator bank. Parisi pressed the button. There was no one else in the hallway.

  "Bruno told me your name isn't shit on the street," Novak said in a low tone.

  Parisi glared at him.

  "The word is the people back East think you're just a flash in the pan," Novak said. "They're waiting for you to make a mistake out here."

  "I got nothing to say to you."

  "Novak's the name... John Novak. I'm coming for you."

  "You're coming for me?" Parisi asked sarcastically.

  "That's right," Novak said. "I'm the one who's gonna lock you up." He smiled.

  The elevator doors opened.

  "Fuck you," Parisi said.

  Novak winked.

  Parisi, still glaring, stepped onto the elevator. The elevator doors closed. Novak stopped smiling.

  Elliot approached, carrying the stack of legal papers he had had with him in the grand-jury room. "We can force him to testify with a grant of immunity. But if we do that, we can never prosecute him for any crime he testifies about. He's got us on a Ferris wheel."

  "Until I recruit another informant."

  "Considering the luck you've...uh...we've had with informants, maybe it's better to approach Parisi from another angle."

  "Like what?"

  "A month or so from now we could call some of his friends before the grand jury again. Make him sweat."

  "They'll just take the Fifth like he did."

  "If we do this by the numbers we can keep him guessing, keep his organization in turmoil, until we get an opening."

  "I'd rather put him in prison than play the bluff game," Novak said.

  "If you can figure a way to do just that, please let me know," Elliot said. He hurried toward an elevator.

  Eddie Sands awoke early. He flipped his prison blanket onto the cement floor, scrambled out of his bunk as if out of a grave. He shaved and dressed. Immediately he began packing his possessions: a box of cheap stationery, a fountain pen, some paperback books (The Art of Playing Craps, Inside the Mafia, James Jones's From Here to Eternity), and a hardcover titled My Way in American Free Enterprise by Harry Desmond, the one-time evangelist turned born-again flag-waving self-serving conglomerateur, a darling of the media who, Sands figured, was probably a ruthless prick and confidence man. He managed to fit all the items as well as a thick stack of letters from Monica into a brown paper sack. Because he was too keyed up to sit down, he stood at the cell door until breakfast time, when the door opened automatically.

  It was noon by the time he was allowed to pass the last guard station and walk out the front door of the prison. Outside, as he marched across the parking lot and directly down Ferry Street, he felt a tingling sensation spread across his back, neck, and face. Then suddenly he was jogging-jogging away from the joint! By the time he reached the sedan he was out of breath. He replaced the license plates, then climbed in, started the engine, and headed toward the freeway. As he wound from freeway to freeway across Los Angeles toward the Cajon Pass, he imagined, just as he had every night in his cell, the various ways he would fuck Monica when he was finally with her again.

  Four hours later, as Sands neared the outskirts of Las Vegas, his rearview mirror was suddenly filled with the reflection of a police car's blinking red light. Holding his breath, he slowed down and pulled to the right shoulder of the road.

  As he came to a complete stop, his eyes were riveted to the rearview mirror. A uniformed officer, a tall man with weathered features, lumbered out of the police car and put on his hat. Sands breathed an audible sigh of relief. He climbed out of the sedan and moved quickly toward the officer. Smiling, he offered his hand. "Eddie Sands," he said. "I used to be on the job-Detective Bureau, Organized Crime Intelligence."

  "Haven't seen you since...uh," the officer said as they shook hands.

  "Since I was fired from the department," Sands said, taking note of the officer's name tag-Fisher.

  The officer, ill at ease, bit his lip. "What are you up to these days?" he said.

  "I'm a private investigator...making lots of bucks," Sands said, maintaining his smile.

  "I never believed any of that stuff I read in the papers about you."

  "Thanks, buddy," Sands said as he gave the officer a friendly punch on the shoulder.

  "Try to slow it down a little," the officer said on his way back to the squad car.

  Sands gave a little salute. "You betcha," he said. As he climbed back into the sedan, the police car sped by.

  A few minutes later, Eddie Sands cruised onto the Las Vegas Strip, a desert mirage of monstrous signboards, casino facades, and million-watt neon marquees which, to him, seemed alive and inviting.

  He was back in his town-the city of lights, tights, and prize fights, pointy-titted showgirls, maitre d's with the slickest palms west of the Mississippi, gamblers who wore Stetson hats, whores who looked like movie stars, professional stick men, fixers, pickpockets, keno addicts, gallery spies, confidence men from all parts of the world, businessmen and their girlfriends in for the weekend, amateur and professional card counters, dice mechanics, and all manner of stage entertainers, those at the top of the show-biz circuit and those on their way down the drain.

  As Sands knocked on Monica's door, he felt excitement well in his loins. He could feel himself becoming uncontrollably erect, like a teenager. Finally, she opened the door. They threw arms around each other. As their lips and tongues met he was enveloped in the scent of her perfume, the softness of her hair. They tore at each other's clothing. Naked, they dropped onto the plush carpet and fucked with abandon. Monica used her palms to wipe perspiration from Sands's brow as he concentrated like a yogi on not ejaculating. Finally, he moaned and gave in to what was perhaps the most powerful orgasm of his life. Neither tired n
or spent, he pulled her to her feet and led her into the bedroom. There he lay on the bed. She climbed on top of him. As he massaged her breasts roughly, they screwed again until they were both completely exhausted.

  "Goddam, I missed you," she said.

  "Don't talk about it."

  She kissed him on the cheek and reached to the nightstand for a package of cigarettes. "Was Bruce O'Hara easy?"

  "Nobody is easy."

  "Where are you taking me for dinner?" she said.

  "Caesars Palace. Nothing is too good for you, fast-talking lady."

  NINE

  Later that evening Eddie Sands sat with Monica in a dimly lit private booth at Caesars Palace. They talked softly, paying no attention to the tuxedoed waiters who weaved expertly among gold-leafed Roman columns carrying flaming dishes, or the piped-in violin music mixing with the sound of jackpot bells and slot machines from the casino floor below.

  A young olive-complexioned waiter brought a standing ice bucket to their table. Having twirled a bottle of Dom Perignon in the ice and filled their glasses, he hurried away.

  Eddie Sands raised a toast. "Here's to you and me," he said. She moved closer to him in the booth.

  "May I ask you a question?"

  "Sure."

  "When you were on the police department, how did you first get started with Tony?"

  "I was investigating him-following him all day and writing bullshit surveillance reports. We got to know each other."

  "The same way you met me."

  Eddie Sands shook his head. "Not really. At the time no one could figure out what Tony was up to, how he was making all his money. But there was no doubt about you. I had a stack of complaints on you."

  "The first time you interviewed me I was shaking like a leaf. Did you notice?"

  Eddie Sands shook his head. "You were smooth."

  "You were smooth, too," she said. "Too smooth for a cop.

  "How so?"

  "You would stare at my tits, look up, smile, then ask me a question. It was unnerving. But I could tell that if I did what you wanted, you wouldn't take me to jail."

  He leaned toward her. They kissed. Eddie Sands picked up his glass, took a sip.

  "You didn't think I'd be here when you got out, did you?" Monica said.

  "I had my doubts," he said after a while.

  "When I love somebody, I really love 'em."

  "I love you too, baby."

  The waiters brought their meal in leisurely courses: escargots, lobster thermidor, a dessert of baked Alaska. Perhaps it was during the dessert that Eddie Sands began to feel as if his conviction and prison sentence hadn't really occurred, as if it were just another distasteful police experience-like finding a swollen corpse along the roadway or having to beat some drunken moron into submission, an event that recurred in one's memory for a while and then, for the sake of sanity, flickered into the garbage can of the mind.

  After dinner they stopped downstairs in the casino. Sands watched the action at a crap table as mesmerized gamblers took turns rolling the dice. Then, having wandered through the casino crowd, they made their way to the parking lot.

  The car windows were open on the way back to Monica's place, and Eddie Sands felt as if the crisp desert breeze on his face was cleansing his mind of the gray prison haze. He steered along a block lined with pawnshops and wedding chapels and onto the highway.

  Monica turned to him. "Now that you're out, what are we gonna do?" she said.

  "We're gonna make money. Enough money to get over...once and for all."

  Monica's eyes returned to the road. "I guess that's about it."

  "And get married," he said. "It's you and me from here on in, fast-talking lady. You're all I've got."

  Without meeting his gaze, Monica slid closer to him and put her head on his shoulder. As she clutched his right arm tightly, he could feel the softness of her breasts.

  Back at her apartment, they hurried into the bedroom and made love again. Afterward, lying with arms around her, Eddie Sands could feel Monica's heart beating, her abdomen gently meeting his with each breath.

  "I wish you hadn't gone to Tony Parisi in order to get out," she said.

  "He was the only one with a connection to the Federal Parole Board. It was either go to him or do the rest of my time."

  "But now he owns you."

  "Nobody owns me, babe."

  "Tony is dangerous. He can have anything done in this town. He just had the Corcoran brothers blow up Bruno Santoro."

  "Lemme tell you something, babe. I am...uh, I was a cop. So hoods don't scare me. And Tony Parisi is nothing but a New York tenement-house meatball who made good. Fuck him and the Corcoran brothers."

  "I'd rather fuck you," she whispered as she reached between his legs.

  The next day, Eddie Sands drove slowly along the Strip, turning off here and there to wind his way along side streets he knew like the back of his hand. There was no corner in town that didn't carry some memory-a foot pursuit in the parking lot of the Sahara, a shoot-out with robbers at the Nevada National Bank on Tropicana Boulevard, three screaming whores in an all-out fight in front of the Showboat Motel.

  Finally he pulled into a gigantic parking lot which surrounded the Stardust Hotel and Casino, an expansive, gaudy building with enormous neon arches criss-crossing a multi-doored entrance. He parked the car. Having removed the briefcase containing the fifty thousand dollars from the trunk, he carried it across the parking lot and up the imitation-marble steps. He strolled through the automatic doors. Engulfed in the familiar whir of slot machines, the smell of cigarette smoke and air-conditioned coolness, he just stood there for a moment and savored the fact that he was a free man.

  As he weaved his way through the crowd of busy slot players he had the strange feeling, which he attributed to having been in prison, that he was invisible. And he saw the "carpet joint" for what it was-an institution designed with neither windows, doors, chairs, nor wall clocks in order to mesmerize the tourists therein trapped into losing track of time and place as they squandered money. He understood this, and he felt at home.

  In the less-than-crowded bar, he approached the bartender, a slim effeminate man who smiled, stealing a glance at Sands's groin.

  "I'm here to see Tony," Sands said.

  "Does he know you?"

  "Just tell him Eddie Sands is here," Sands said.

  The bartender made a brief phone call.

  A few minutes later, a tall man with a grayish Mediterranean complexion and a large purple birthmark on his neck approached. He wore a black Italian-cut sport coat. "I'm Vito Fanducci," he said. "Tony's upstairs."

  They took an elevator to the penthouse level, where Vito led Sands to a suite at the end of the hallway. He used a key to open the door, motioned Sands into the room. "Tony wants you to wait for him in here."

  Sands entered, and Vito closed the door behind him. The room was expansive, airy, furnished with white Danish-modem sofas and chairs.

  Sands strolled across the room to a wall of glass doors which led onto a balcony overlooking the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip. Having taken in the view, he set his briefcase down on a portable bar in the corner of the room and picked up a newspaper. In the Metropolitan section of the paper he read a six-column article captioned "Feds Probe Alleged Skimming at Three Casinos." At the sound of a key slipping into the front door, he set the paper down.

  Tony Parisi, his paunch accentuated by a tight-fitting golf shirt, stepped in the front door. He wore beltless checkered trousers, and his ever-present handful of cigars bulged from his shirt pocket.

  They met in the middle of the room in an insincere abrazo. "Been laid yet?" Parisi asked, giving Sands a slug on the shoulder as he made his way to the bar.

  "What's that have to do with anything?" Sands said.

  "The day I got out of TI I had a broad waiting," Parisi said. "Porked her right there in the backseat of the car in the prison parking lot." He poured whiskey over ice. "When I came it was like m
y balls were shooting out of the end of my cock." He chuckled.

  "Nice," Sands said, He picked up his drink.

  Parisi came from behind the bar, clinked his glass to Sands's. "Welcome back," he said. As they drank, Sands noticed that Parisi barely touched the glass to his lips. Instead, he set his drink down, unsnapped the hinge locks on the briefcase, opened the lid.

  "I pushed for more," Sands said. "But fifty was all the man would go. He was tough. Real tough."

  "How could a guy who's into that kind of shit be tough?" Parisi said. He thumbed some of the bills.

  Sands smiled wryly. "You just answered your own question," he said.

  Realizing that the comment was meant to be humorous, Parisi forced a smile, then a laugh. "That's right. To get a charge out of having hat pins stuck through your nuts you gotta be a tough monkey." He yanked a cigar out of his shirt pocket, and with a rat like bite, offed the end, then spit it onto the carpet. "The juice I have with the Federal Parole Board is new. One of those deals where I get to a guy from Newark who knows a lawyer who knows a Congressman who knows bleepety bleepety bleep. I'm not keeping a dime of the fifty for myself."

  "I hear you've been doing real well," Sands said, not bothering to say thanks. He figured Parisi was bullshitting him about the money.

  "Real well was the way it used to be in this town. When we owned the casinos we didn't have to worry about collecting a little taste here and there. The count-room people, the casino managers, the pit bosses...we was all one big happy family. The biggest problem was finding somebody to drive the skim money back East every week." He licked the end of his cigar, then looked at it. "The way the casinos are now, you gotta crack heads to make a buck. You gotta spill blood before they believe you."

  Sands shook his head as if he really gave a shit.

  "Television."

  "Television?" Sands said.

  "I pay a visit to one of the casino people. I lay the touch on them real nice-like. I tell them I'm their new partner. But they don't get it. They think it's like something they see on TV. They think everything is gonna work out okay even if they don't send me my weekly piece. Just like things work out okay at the end of a TV show." Parisi made a face as he took three big puffs from the cigar, making the ash glow. "So people get clipped."