Deacon King Kong(57)

The Governor eyed him a long moment, then gave in to his fatigue. He shifted and pulled his legs on the couch and lay down, stretching out, an arm on his forehead. He raised his other arm and pointed a finger to a desk behind Elefante. “Hand me a pen and paper from that desk, would ya? They’re right on top.”

Elefante did as he was told. The Governor scratched something on the paper, folded it tightly, and handed the paper to Elefante. “Don’t open it yet,” he said.

“You want I should stuff ballot boxes for you too?”

The old man smiled. “That’s not a bad thing to know, considering what happens to old codgers like me in our game. You get tired, y’know. Your father understood that.”

“Tell me about my poppa,” Elefante said. “What’d he like to talk about?”

“You’re trying to trick me,” the Irishman said with a low chuckle. “Your father played checkers and said six words a day. But if he said six words, five of them were about you.”

“He didn’t show me that side much,” Elefante said. “After he came back from prison, he’d already had the stroke. So talking was hard. He was in bed a lot. He was about survival in those days. Keeping the boxcar busy, working for the fami—” He paused. “Working for our customers.”

The Governor nodded. “I’ve never worked for the Five Families,” he said.

“Why not?”

“A true Irishman knows the world will one day break your heart.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I like breathing, son. Most people I knew who worked for the families ended up getting dragged across the quit line in pieces. Your father was one of the few who died in bed.”

“He never trusted them completely,” Elefante said.

“Why?”

“Lots of reasons. We’re northern Italian. They’re southern Italian. I was young and stupid. He didn’t think I’d live long when I got made. He kept me busy running that dock. He gave orders. I followed them. That’s how it was. Before he went to jail and after. He was the puppet master, I was the puppet. Work the boxcar, move the stuff, ship it here, there, store this, pay this guy, pay that guy. Pay your men well. Say nothing. That was the gig. But he always kept a foot in other things: construction, a little loan business, even a gardening business for a while. We always had other interests.”

“You had other interests because your father did not trust.”

“He did trust. He was just careful about the people he trusted.”

“Because . . . ?”

“Because a man who doesn’t trust cannot be trusted.”

The Governor smiled. “That’s why you’re the right lad for the job.”

He looked so satisfied Elefante blurted, “If you feel a song coming on, don’t bother. I had Cousin Brucie on the radio in the car all the way over. He played Frankie Valli. Nobody sings better than him.”

The old man chuckled, then raised a frail hand and pointed at the piece of paper in Elefante’s closed fist. “Read it.”

Elefante unfolded the paper and read: “A man who does not trust cannot be trusted.”

“I knew your father well,” the Governor said gravely. “As good as I knew any man in this world.”

Elefante didn’t know what to say.

“Now I am gonna sing,” the Governor said brightly. “And it’s gonna be better than Frankie Valli.”

And he proceeded to talk.



* * *





As Elefante drove his Lincoln down the Major Deegan heading home that evening, the note still folded in his shirt pocket, his mind was spinning. He thought not of the story the governor told him, but of the country-looking farm girl who’d come into the room and backed out the door apologizing, excusing herself. A shy, pretty Irish girl. Fresh as spring. She was a little younger than him, thirty-five or so he guessed, which was old not to be married. She seemed so shy, he wondered how someone so meek could run a business. Then again, he thought, I’ve never seen her in action. Maybe she’s like me, he thought. All show business at work, gruff and bitter, but at home, at night, crowing to the stars for love and company.

Or maybe I’m a moron, he thought bitterly. Just an aching heart—in a city full of them. Geez.

He gunned onto a ramp that exited to the FDR Drive, then zipped down the east side of Manhattan toward the Brooklyn Bridge. He was glad to be driving. It allowed his mind to roam and the confusion to quell. It was just past four thirty p.m. and traffic was still moving smoothly. He turned on the radio and the music jarred him back to reality. He scanned the East River, checking the line of barges moving along. Some of them he knew. A few were run by honest captains who refused hot items. They wouldn’t move a stolen tire if you paid them a thousand bucks. Others were captained by blithering idiots who would kick their scruples out the window for the price of a cup of coffee. The first type were honest to a fault. They just couldn’t help it. The second type were born crooks.

Which one am I? he wondered.

Am I good or bad? he thought as he maneuvered the Lincoln through traffic. He thought about getting out of the game altogether. It was an old dream. He had plenty saved up. He’d made enough to live. That’s what Poppa wanted, right? He could sell his two rental houses in Bensonhurst, sell the boxcar to Ray out in Coney Island, and step out once and for all. To do what? Work in a bagel shop? He couldn’t believe the thought entered his mind. The Governor’s daughter didn’t even know who he was and he was already putting himself in her kitchen. He pictured himself ten years from now, a fat husband in a cook’s outfit, slinging dough and slamming it into an oven at three a.m.