Sons of the City (23 page)

Bravelli told Michelle he had worked out a “genius plan.” Was she interested?

Michelle asked whether it was illegal.

“What the hell kind of question is that?” Bravelli yelled. “Of course it’s illegal. How you expect us to make any money?”

“That’s it,” Michelle told him. “I’m out of here.” She got up and started walking out the door.

“But he called you back.”

“Of course.”

“Suppose he had just let you go?”

“He wouldn’t have done that, Eddie. He’s never been in this situation before. He’s never had a woman who’s forced him to act like a regular person, instead of some image that he has to live up to.”

“Mickey Bravelli could never be a regular person.”

“Part of him is, though. And I think he wants someone to help him bring that out. He knows he’s not going to ever do it himself.”

“Oh, my heart aches for the guy.”

Michelle rolled her eyes, then continued. After she agreed to go along with the plan, whatever it was, Bravelli got on the phone and told Frank Canaletto to come over.

When he arrived, Bravelli finally laid out his idea. He wanted to persuade the Japanese investors to forget about Bikini Planet, and to instead buy Jumpin’ Jiminy’s, the club on the waterfront that he and Michelle went to all the time.

They’d pose as the owners, get the Japanese to agree to a sale, then take their deposit check and disappear. It’d be up to the real owners to deal with the mess that followed.

“These Japanese, they should go for Jumpin’ Jiminy’s,” Bravelli told Michelle. “It’s newer. They like new stuff.”

“How are you going to get them to believe you own the club?” Michelle asked.

Bravelli smiled at her. “You and Frankie.”

Canaletto, he said, would play the role of the owner of Jumpin’ Jiminy’s. He’d call up the Japanese at the Fitler and invite them to take a look at the club.

Michelle’s job was to pose as the club’s manager and give the Japanese a tour of the place, sort of a sales pitch.

“Having a woman in this is what’s gonna make it work,” Bravelli told her. “These Japanese don’t know how to deal with American women, it just confuses ‘em.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Michelle asked.

“I read it somewhere.”

Michelle told Bravelli she probably wasn’t the right person for the job.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” said Bravelli. “All you got to say is, ‘Here’s the friggin’ restaurant. Here’s the friggin’ bar. Here’s the friggin’ outdoor deck. That water there’s the friggin’ Delaware River.'”

“What about the real manager?”

Bravelli told her not to worry about that, either. He knew the assistant manager, that’s who he was talking to on the phone that morning. The club’s manager had the night off, and the assistant manager would let Michelle and Canaletto take over.

Canaletto picked up the phone and called someone he knew at the hotel to get the names of the Japanese, and then rang their room. They agreed to take a look at Jiminy’s, and Bravelli sent a black stretch limo to pick them up. It turned out there were three of them, an older guy and his two sons.

Michelle, wearing a blue silk dress, met them at Jumpin’ Jiminy’s front door.

“Bravelli buy you the dress?” I asked Michelle.

“Yeah. So?”

“Go on.”

“Well, the father didn’t speak any English at all, but the sons were very fluent.” Michelle said she showed them around, and as she did, she called all the bartenders and waiters and waitresses by name.

“How’d you know who they were?” I asked.

“It was easy—they all had nameplates, like cops.”

The Japanese seemed very impressed, and asked to take a look at the books. Michelle led them to the back, to the manager’s office, where Canaletto was sitting behind the desk. Canaletto opened up the books for them, and handed them the report of an accounting firm that showed Jumpin’ Jiminy’s to be in great financial shape. The assistant manager had laid all the stuff out in advance.

Then, Canaletto and the Japanese started haggling. Bravelli had no idea how much the club cost, but he figured that if Bikini Planet was going for $3 million, Jumpin’ Jiminy’s was worth at least that much. So he told Canaletto to offer a better deal than Bikini Planet—$2.7 million.

The Japanese took the bait. They first offered $2.4 million, and the two sides finally settled on $2.6 million. The Japanese evidently thought they were getting an unbelievable deal. During the day Bravelli had got one of his lawyers to draw up papers for the sale, and the Japanese were ready to sign them on the spot.

“Canaletto was such a pro,” Michelle told me. “I knew he was making it up as he went along, but after a while, even I started believing him.”

The Japanese agreed to make a 10 percent deposit— $270,000—to be put into an escrow account. Canaletto told them to make the check to a title insurance company that was actually a bogus firm set up by Bravelli. One of the sons wrote out the check, on a New York bank. Then, both Canaletto and Michelle escorted the father and his two sons to Jumpin’ Jiminy’s front entrance, where the stretch limo was waiting to take them back to the hotel.

The moment it was out of sight, Goop pulled up in the Seville, and they all got the hell out of there.

Goop took them right to Lucky’s, where Bravelli was waiting to start the celebration. They all sat at their regular table, and Bravelli ordered two bottles of Dom Pérignon. When Canaletto handed over the check, Bravelli actually kissed it.

“I’ll deposit it tomorrow morning,” said Bravelli. “It should clear in a couple of days.”

Everybody was drinking champagne and laughing, and then Canaletto’s cell phone rang. It was the Japanese, calling from the hotel. Canaletto didn’t say anything, he just listened, growing more and more angry.

Finally, he yelled into the phone, “We still got your check.” The Japanese guy said something else, and the veins started popping out in Canaletto’s forehead. “We’ll be in touch,” he said, and pushed the button that ended the call.

“We all waited,” said Michelle. “Finally he calmed down and said, ‘Those little Japanese fuckers are trying to fuck us over.'”

The phone call, said Canaletto, was from one of the sons. If Jumpin’ Jiminy’s didn’t give the Japanese $10,000 in cash, they’d go to Jay Bender at the
Post
and say they backed out of the deal because of rats.

“Rats?” said Bravelli.

“Yeah,” Canaletto said, and then went into a Japanese accent: “We going to say big rats. Dirty rats. Run all over restaurant. Come right out of water, eat food in kitchen. No one ever come to restaurant again.”

“They didn’t see any rats,” Michelle said. “I was with them the whole time.”

“Of course they didn’t see no fuckin’ rats,” Canaletto said. “They just want the ten thousand dollars.”

“We have their check,” said Goop.

“Check no good,” Canaletto said in his Japanese accent. “Check never any good.”

“Those motherfuckers are fuckin’ scammin’ us,” said Bravelli.

“Can you fuckin’ believe it?” said Canaletto.

“Who the fuck do they think they are?” said Bravelli.

Michelle said they sat around the table, pissed as hell, trying to figure out what to do. Canaletto wanted to go over to the hotel and kill them. Bravelli thought for a while, then asked Michelle if the Japanese had mentioned whether they had already looked at Bikini Planet.

“They said they went over there three days ago.”

“Tell you what,” he said to her. “You stay here, have a nice dinner. We’ll be back in a little while.”

An hour later, Bravelli, Canaletto, and Goop came back into Lucky’s, smiling and looking very proud of themselves.

“More Dom Pérignon,” Bravelli said as the waiter held out his chair. “We’re going to finish the celebration.”

Bravelli described what had happened. The three of them had gone to the hotel and instructed the Japanese to give them the cash they got from Bikini Planet. Bravelli’s hunch was that the Japanese had also used the same extortion scheme on Bikini Planet, and may have already got the money.

At first, the two Japanese sons claimed they didn’t know what Bravelli was talking about. Eventually, though, they admitted everything.

I laughed. “I’m sure some very effective interrogation techniques were used.”

The Japanese had the money in a suitcase. One of the sons laid the suitcase on the bed, opened it slightly, reached in, felt around for a while, and pulled out a couple of bound stacks of hundreds.

“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Bravelli told the son. He pushed him away from the bed and pulled open the suitcase all the way.

“There was at least fifty thousand, probably more,” Bravelli crowed. “We only had time to do a quick count. They probably been pullin’ this scam all the way up and down the East Coast.”

Before Bravelli left the hotel room, he told the Japanese to keep quiet about the whole thing, and he strongly suggested that they not try to spread any negative publicity about Jumpin’ Jiminy’s.

“Why would Bravelli care about the club?” I asked.

“I wondered the same thing. You know what he said, Eddie? He said, ‘This is
our
fuckin’ scam. If the club gets screwed, it gets screwed
our
way.'”

Later, when they were back in the car, Bravelli gave Michelle the envelope with the $3,000.

“You did good, Lisa,” he told her. “We’re all very proud of you.”

“You
did
do good,” I said.

“It just seemed so natural,” she said. “I don’t know how else to put it.”

I laughed. “You think you’re a natural criminal?”

“No, but …” She crossed her arms, thinking. “Do you remember me telling you how it seemed like I had lost Steve twice? That I felt I never really knew who he was?”

“Right, I remember that.”

“Well, when I was helping out with Jumpin’ Jiminy’s … I don’t know, I felt like I was getting closer to Steve. It was almost like I was getting him back.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“I don’t know if I can explain it. Steve was obviously drawn to something. I think I’m kind of drawn to it in the same way. Maybe I don’t understand him totally, but I think I’m beginning to.”

“Except that we’re not sure what was really going on with Steve.”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking down at the floor. “He and I are a lot alike. We were a lot alike.”

“So is this about Steve, or about you? Are you trying to find out about him, or about yourself?”

“Both,” she said, considering the idea. “I think both.” She looked up at me. “I know it sounds weird.”

“There’s something I have to tell you,” I said. “I’m hearing now that Mickey Bravelli may have ordered Steve’s killing himself. It turns out that the black Mafia may have had absolutely nothing to do with it at all.”

“Do you think it’s true?”

“I think it’s very possible.”

Michelle looked at me, thinking. “I still have to finish the job I started.”

“I think it’s time to end it, Michelle.”

“No, it’s not time to end it at all. Let me tell you why I called you over here, Eddie. It wasn’t really to talk about Jumpin’ Jiminy’s. I just told you that story so you’ll understand my decision.”

“What decision?”

“I’ve decided to do the rest of the investigation by myself.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve really been a great help, Eddie, and I appreciate it. I just don’t think I need you anymore.”

“How can you not need me? How can you not need backup?”

“I just don’t. I’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“What’s going on, Michelle? You have a thing for Bravelli?”

“No, I don’t have a thing for Bravelli.”

“I think you do. And that fucking asshole scumbag may have killed your brother.”

“You have to trust me on this, Eddie. I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? I think you’re getting too caught up in this whole thing.”

She stood. “I have to get up early tomorrow, Eddie.”

I got to my feet. “Michelle …”

“Good night, Eddie.”

I was going to lose her, I could feel it. Do something, I told myself. You have to do something. I cold feel my heart pounding. I took a step toward her, and she took a quick one back, almost tripping over the coffee table. I have to risk everything, I thought, and I took another step forward, and this time she stood her ground, and the space between us vanished, and I put my lips to hers. There was a moment of warm contact, a light touch like a flower petal, and she moved her head away. Too bad.

But then she turned her face toward me and our lips met again, and this time she didn’t pull away. There was a noise, Theresa was coming back into the living room. Michelle and I quickly parted and looked at her, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” said Theresa, “I didn’t know I was interrupting.” She gave Michelle a girl-to-girl look, like I wouldn’t notice, and turned and scurried back into her room.

But the moment was over. Michelle walked me to the door, and I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what had just happened between us, or what hadn’t happened.

We said good night, and I turned and headed down the steps, thinking about the kiss. The door closed behind me, with a click, and I stopped short, suddenly filled with dread.

It had been a goodbye kiss.

W
hen I got home, I went to my hall closet, opened the door, and flipped the switch that turned on the overhead light. On a high shelf were two boxes of Christmas tree ornaments, and I reached up and took them down, then knelt on the living room floor and opened them up. At the bottom of one, underneath the bulbs and tinsel and small colored lights, was a Nike shoe box. I pulled it out, and took the top off.

Inside was a shiny black 9mm semiautomatic pistol, almost brand-new. I had taken it from a mob punk, Junior Vincente, when I was in OC, and I had just never bothered to turn it in. I really didn’t know why at the time, I just figured someday I might need a gun that couldn’t be traced.

That someday was getting very close. I had to get Michelle out of danger. I had to get her away from Bravelli forever.

I dreamed of Michelle that night. We were swimming in a lake, splashing water on each other. She was smiling at me, laughing as she splashed. She had forgotten all about Mickey Bravelli. And she was never going back to Westmount, ever again.