35

Charley was picked up at the New Franciscan Hotel at 4:45 P.M. that Sunday afternoon by Natale Esposito, a small plump man who was sliding down the backside of middle age in a small, middle-aged Dodge. In the backseat of the car was a teenage girl wearing patent-leather Mary Janes and a modified pinafore. She was able to chew gum and make up her mouth at the same time.

They parked in a side street on the far side of Canal away from the Vieux Carré, and went into the New Iberia Hotel through separate entrances—Charley alone, Natale with the girl. Natale was carrying a suitcase. They rode in separate elevators to the eighth floor and met again at the end of a hall outside room eight-twenty-seven. Natale took out a master key and let them into the double bedroom.

Charley found Marvin’s empty suitcase in the large closet. As Natale emptied the bureau drawers of shirts, underwear, and socks, Charley packed them into the empty suitcase with the suit and three neckties he found hanging in the closet. The girl unpacked the suitcase they had brought with them, taking out women’s lingerie, sweaters, dresses, and accessories in two sizes, and putting them into the bureau drawers or hanging them in the closet. When the packing-unpacking was finished Natale said to the woman, “Get ready.”

She took off her jacket and turned to face Natale. He took a firm hold on the top of her blouse and pulled down heavily, ripping the entire front of her blouse in half. She was not wearing a brassiere. For such a young kid, Charley thought, she was certainly stacked.

“Here comes the hard part,” Natale said.

“For you, not for me,” the girl said.

He hit her a really good shot on the upper left cheekbone, knocking her down. He helped her to her feet and she sat down, messed up the hair on her head, and lighted a cigarette.

“About ten minutes,” Natale said, looking at his watch. “I gotta pee.” He left the room. Charley looked out the window.

“You new at this?” the girl asked him.

“Sort of.”

“It’s not as tough as it looks.”

Charley wandered over and stood at the wall beside the door, to be on the offside of the door when it opened.

“You sure are a good soldier,” he said to the girl.

“They are paying me for it.” She had hard Texas speech.

“I might as well stay in here,” Natale said from the john.

They remained where they were, silently and reposefully until there was the scratch of a key at the lock. The door opened. Marvin Mallon, short, fat, came into the room. He stared at the woman in the chair. “My God!” he said. “Excuse me. I must be on the wrong floor.”

Charley chopped him with a rabbit punch across the back of his neck. He went down. Charley closed the door. Natale came out of the john holding two tinfoil packets and a revolver. Charley unzipped the man’s fly, ripped open his shorts, and exposed his limp genitals. Natale put the tinfoil packets in each breast pocket of the man’s suit jacket and slid a revolver into the waistband of his trousers.

“Okay,” he said to the girl, whose left eye was swelling and discoloring nicely.

He and Charley left the room with the suitcase packed with Marvin’s clothes. The girl gave them about two minutes to get down the hall to the staircase leading to the lower floor, then she screamed. Almost instantly, the house officer, followed by two city police detectives and a news photographer, let himself into the room with a passkey. The girl tried to cover herself with her bare arms. “Thank God, you are here,” she said. “That junkie beat me up and tried to force me into unnatural practices.”

Charley and Natale went into room six-ten, two floors below and on the other side of the hotel, unpacked the suitcase, hung up the suits, put the shirts and underwear in the bureau drawer, laid out the toilet articles on the washbasin shelf, and rumpled up the bed.

While the police were doing their best to: (a) cover the girl decently, and (b) interrogate her about what had happened, her “mother,” Mrs. Elton Toby, returned to the hotel room from a shopping expedition and, on being told by her daughter what had happened, that the man on the floor had let himself into the room with a key and had attacked her, turned on Marvin Mallon with the fury of a tigress and kicked him so hard and so repeatedly before she could be restrained that she fractured three of his ribs.

Charley was back at the New Franciscan at about six thirty. There was a message to call Birdie Fustino, Gennaro’s wife, so he called her.

“Mrs. Fustino? Charley Partanna.”

“Hey, whatta you? Call me Birdie.”

“Sure. Great. Certainly.” She was the don’s sister, fahcrissake.

“I had a call from my niece tonight. She’s coming down tomorrow.”

“Your niece?”

“Maerose. Your intended. She’s coming down.”

“Oh. Great. She’s coming down?” Then he heard what she had said. “My intended?”

“Whassamatta?”

“Who told you that?”

“She did. Who else? I thought maybe you’d like to go out and meet her.”

“Well. Sure. You bet.”

“She’s gonna be staying with us. Here.”

“Sure. Absolutely. You got a flight number?”

“A car will pick you up at eleven. He’ll have the flight number. She gets in at twelve five, then youse can drive back here and we’ll all have lunch.”

“That sounds great.”

“Hey, you know what I’m gonna make for dessert, because I noticed that you got a real tooth for a dessert?”

“What?”

“Uccidduzzi with ‘scursunera! Real Sicilian. Hah? Hey?”

“Terrific. That will be absolutely terrific, Birdie.”