3

AT SEVEN O’CLOCK ON a raw evening in early December, Doug Fiore hurried down the steps of the Spalding National Bank building. He was wearing a black Burberry raincoat and carrying the extra-large size briefcase favored by litigation lawyers. A Yellow Cab was waiting for him at the curb. Fiore looked younger than his forty-four years, and his handsome face still showed evidence of the flattering tan he acquired in St. Maarten over a five-day Thanksgiving holiday. He said nothing on entering the back seat of the late model Chevrolet, but noticed that the driver was Asian. Probably one of those Vietnamese who’ve been moving into the west end of Providence, he thought. He had driven through that neighborhood on several occasions and felt sorry for the people, mostly new immigrants, who were crowded into the many dilapidated buildings there.

The cab drove east along Kennedy Plaza and took a left turn in front of the United States District Courthouse. One block later it turned left again along the far side of the plaza and onto Sabin Street. It passed the rear entrance of the Providence Herald building and slowed down for several groups of pedestrians crossing the street, headed for the hockey game at the Civic Center between the hometown Bruins and the visiting team from New Haven. Accelerating slightly, the Chevy made a right turn onto Atwells Avenue, but stopped almost immediately for a traffic light just beyond the Holiday Inn at the entrance to Interstate 95. The driver crossed the bridge over the highway and passed under the pineapple-topped concrete arch dominating the entrance to Federal Hill. This was the area known informally in the city as the Italian section, but to Rhode Island law enforcement agencies and the FBI, it was the backyard of the Mob.

Fiore leaned forward slightly as he looked out at the passing storefronts. He was tense most of the day, thinking about the meeting he was summoned to attend. When he returned Joe Gaudette’s call, he was given a choice of two dates, a week apart, for the meeting. The later time was more convenient for him, but Fiore didn’t want to chance displeasing Tarantino by keeping him waiting. He quickly decided to cancel the dinner date he had with a client and be available earlier.

The taxi moved down Atwells Avenue. Its left headlight illuminated the center strip, painted green, white and red, the colors of the Italian flag. Soon the low commercial buildings in the heart of the shopping district gave way to a disorganized mixture of single family and two family homes that alternated with four and six unit apartment houses. Fiore hardly noticed as the driver turned left and traveled several blocks before making another turn onto Broadway. But his attention returned as the cab suddenly slowed and began entering a wide driveway. The building was an old Victorian. It had two flights of stairs leading to an entrance in front, and a side door on the lower driveway level that received most of the traffic. Fiore had been there several times in the past. The dark green awnings that provided shelter from the rain at both entrances informed the public in large white letters, visible at night in the glare of several spotlights, that the establishment was the Vincent A. Milano Funeral Home.

The driver eased past the entrance and continued on into the parking lot. Fiore reached for his briefcase on the seat beside him, his anxiety increasing. As the cab made a slow U-turn in the large yard and headed back toward the street, he counted a dozen other vehicles parked there. The Chevrolet came to a stop, and an attendant wearing a heavy black woolen coat and a Russian style fur hat that partially covered his ears opened the passenger door for him.

“Good evening, sir,” he said, and continued without waiting for a response. “The wake is being held in the first room on the right. Toilet facilities are at the end of the hallway.” The words were spoken in a monotone, as if prerecorded. Fiore thanked him and entered the building, uncertain what to do next. The sign on a metal stand at the entrance to the room on his right indicated that a wake was in progress for a Dominic Sabatini. The name meant nothing to him. Still, as Gaudette didn’t tell him where Sandy Tarantino would be, and as he saw no activity farther down the corridor, he joined the mourners in the room.

Gray, metal folding chairs were set out along the walls on three sides. Fiore saw several faces turn in his direction as he entered, then look away when they didn’t recognize him. Sandy Tarantino was not in the room. He took off his raincoat and draped it over one of the chairs. He placed his briefcase on the floor, under the same chair, and hesitated for a few moments, as if waiting for someone to approach him. When no one did, he silently cursed to himself about having to be where he was, but took a deep breath and walked toward the front of the room.

The casket rested on a low platform built against the far wall. It was almost totally surrounded by bouquets of flowers, several in the form of a wreath. A woman, dressed entirely in black, her face covered by a veil, sat on a dark vinyl chair immediately to the left of the bier. Her hands were folded in her lap, her head bent forward slightly. Fiore guessed that she was Sabatini’s widow.

He knelt before the casket and crossed himself, but did not look at the body. He closed his eyes and remained in that position for less than half a minute. When he got up and started to turn away, the woman spoke. “Thank you for coming,” she said softly. Fiore caught himself quickly, moved to where she sat and said he was sorry for her loss. He could see through the veil that she was somewhere in her forties, close to his own age.

“Did my husband go to you for legal work, Mr. Fiore?” she asked. Her voice was just above a whisper.

Fiore was momentarily confused. He was certain he had never seen her before, but she obviously knew who he was. He searched his brain for a connection to the name “Sabatini,” but came up empty. Suddenly, the flash of a smile on her face made him realize that she was playing a game for his benefit. It must have to do with Sandy, he thought, and knew he had to go along with it.

“Yes, he did,” he answered, smiling momentarily himself. “On several occasions.”

“I’m glad he went to the best.” She took his hand, as if she were being consoled and was thanking him for something kind he said. “Down the hall there’s a door marked ‘Employees Only.’ It’s just after the ladies room. Go in there and wait. But please, first express your condolences to Dominic’s family. That’s them sitting by the window.” She let go of his hand and raised her voice slightly. “It was very nice of you to come. God bless you.”

“Thanks,” he replied. Fiore considered acknowledging her role with a wink, but reminded himself that she was still mourning a dead husband. He made a mental note to find Sabatini’s obituary in the newspaper and perhaps send a donation in his memory to a local charity. “Take care,” he said, and walked over to the window.

A man sat between two women, all of them elderly. The women were both overweight and looked uncomfortable on the small chairs they occupied. One held a man’s white handkerchief in her hand and used it alternately to dab at her tears and blow her nose. The other held a large pocketbook on her lap with both hands. The man’s wide, striped tie was long out of fashion. It was knotted poorly at his neck, revealing the unbuttoned top button of his shirt. Fiore shook hands with each of them and offered his sympathy. He assumed that two of them were Sabatini’s parents and that the other woman was either a close aunt or the dead man’s godmother. They said nothing to him in response, but just moved their heads up and down as he played out the mourner’s role for their benefit by assuring them that he would always treasure his friendship with “Dom.”

Fiore retrieved his coat and briefcase and found the room to which he was directed. A ceiling light was on when he entered and closed the door behind him. A long glass-topped wooden table occupied the center of the room, surrounded by eight red plastic chairs, the kind that could be stacked one on top of the other. Although functional, they were totally out of place next to the imposing table made from a fine-grained dark wood.

The room had no windows. There was an old Whirlpool refrigerator to his left. The droning sound it gave off seemed hardly worth its obviously small capacity. A food-market shopping cart to one side of the refrigerator contained opened packages of small paper cups, paper plates, plastic utensils and napkins. He guessed that the funeral home employees used the room for lunch or a quick snack at break time. There was nothing there to encourage them to linger when they finished eating. Mahogany paneling extended from the crown molding below the ceiling all the way to the baseboard on all four walls, interrupted only by a narrow piece of chair rail about three feet above the floor. Fiore assumed that the elegant space, not visible from the outside, was planned originally to host clandestine meetings.

“Hello, good buddy.”

Fiore was startled. He turned around quickly, in time to catch Sandy Tarantino pushing a panel back against the wall. Nothing on that section of mahogany identified it as a door. He was certain that someone would have to open it again from the other side when their meeting was over.

Doug moved quickly to greet his friend. “Sandy. Good to see you.”

Tarantino took Fiore’s outstretched hand and held it firmly in his own as he shook it. The vise-like grip into which Doug’s fingers had entered reminded him again of the strength of his former roommate, the only member of the Princeton wrestling team who didn’t lose a single fall in four years of varsity competition.

“I’m great, Doug, just great. Thanks for coming tonight. Sorry about all the intrigue, but I had no idea where we’d meet when Joe set up the date with you.”

He walked over to the door, pushed the button in the handle to lock it and steered Fiore over to the table where they took seats across from each other. “The guy they’re waking is Dominic Sabatini,” Sandy said. “He was the construction worker you may have read about who had the ditch collapse on him in Pawtucket a few days ago. The poor bastard suffocated before they could dig him out. We grew up on the same street. I even dated his wife a couple of times in high school. She was one knockout broad in those days. I called and told her to use this place when I heard about Dom. He had some life insurance through his union—something like ten grand—but we’ll help her out with what she needs until she’s back on her feet. That fucking construction company he worked for is going to pay through the nose for this. Fiore understood that the company’s immediate problem would come from the Tarantinos.

“Anyhow,” Sandy continued, “I had one of the guys show Barbara Sabatini your picture and tell her what to say to you. You never know who’s watching, Doug. I assume I’m being followed everywhere I go. And it’s a wake, so any of them could just walk in here like they know the Sabatini family and look around. That’s why I wanted to be sure you paid your respects. If you’re ever asked what you did after you spoke to the widow, your answer is that you went upstairs to say ‘Hello’ to your good friend Vincent and then took a cab back downtown. He’d swear to the same thing.”

Tarantino got up and started moving back and forth along his side of the table. “I’ve got to exercise this left leg a little. There’s a problem with some discs in my back and it shoots pain through my knee like it was a torn cartilage or something. They’re scheduling me for an MRI. Ever had one, Doug?”

“No,” he said. He rapped the side of the table with his knuckles. “No reason for one yet. Knock on wood.”

“It’s murder if you’re claustrophobic like me. You’re like a torpedo they shove into a hole in a machine. It’s pitch-black in there and you can’t move. If I didn’t take some Xanax, I’d be screaming for them to pull me right out. I’ve been through it six times already. My wife calls me ‘The King of the MRIs.’ ” Sandy laughed and Doug smiled back.

Fiore looked at the man he first met twenty-five years earlier, in the second semester of their freshman year in college. Sandy was probably thirty pounds heavier now than in those days, up to about 220, Doug guessed. He still wore the beard and mustache he initially showed off to Fiore about seven or eight years ago. His face was slightly flabbier than back then, especially in the jowls, and the black hair he combed straight back started from higher on his forehead. But the eyes that always grabbed your attention and said, “Look right here, you fucker, when you’re talking to me” hadn’t changed at all. They were the color of the darkest roast coffee beans, ready as always to pull you into a sinkhole.

The two of them took the same political science elective that second semester. They were part of a study group with several other classmates but didn’t socialize otherwise. When the Brown University basketball team played at Princeton, they were both in the sparse crowd that showed up to watch. At halftime they bumped into each other and discovered that each had roots in Rhode Island.

After that, they began meeting at the athletic center a couple of nights a week for some one-on-one basketball, and their friendship grew. Tarantino had his own car, a three-year-old Plymouth coupe, and Fiore drove to Providence with him for several weekends at home. Doug intended to live in a dormitory again for his sophomore year, but Sandy called him during the summer and suggested they share an off-campus apartment.

“You can use my car when you need it,” he said, sensing Fiore’s hesitation.

That clinched it. “You’ve got yourself a roommate,” Doug said.

They kept the same apartment for three years. But back in Rhode Island during summer breaks, neither ever visited the other at home. Fiore recalled that when they briefly discussed their families, Sandy said only that his father was in life insurance.

Together, they made frequent trips into New York and loved everything the City had to offer. Partying and chasing girls came naturally and easily, and they made many friends at Columbia and NYU. They never bothered reserving hotel rooms on those trips. There was always someone who would let them crash. When they went their separate ways with girls after a party, the standing arrangement was to meet the next day at noon at the main entrance to Madison Square Garden. That location was chosen with the hope that the Celtics would be in town to play the Knicks, and if they were doubly lucky, to get their hands on two tickets to the game.

As graduation from Princeton approached, Sandy and Doug both knew they wanted to go on to law school at Columbia, if it accepted them. With excellent college records and high LSAT scores, each applied to just Columbia and one “safe” school.

“Fuck it,” Sandy said sarcastically, “if I can’t get into Columbia or BU with these grades, I’ll follow my father into the life insurance business.” They laughed at that, but Vietnam was still going strong in 1969, and Fiore often questioned whether they could get deferments. Doug reminded his roommate that if both law schools rejected them, they’d be buying life insurance instead of selling it and marching off to Vietnam. Tarantino never seemed worried about it, and asked Doug at one point for the address of his local draft board. By the time they had their degrees from Princeton, deferments came through for both of them. Fiore was never aware of the pressure Sandy’s father put on the officials of the two boards to make sure that his son and his son’s best friend weren’t drafted.

Columbia admitted them both. They rented an apartment within walking distance, at the corner of Broadway and 84th Street. Although the first year was difficult, they finished near the top of the class and still found time for fun. When exams were over, they returned to Providence to spend the summer clerking in law firms. Each was selected to serve on the Columbia Law Review in the fall, and that helped open doors to the better law firms. Fiore chose Walters, Cassidy & Breen from the three offers of employment he received. It was the second largest in Rhode Island, and gave him the chance to pick up experience in several different areas of the law.

Sandy told Doug he took a job with Tecci & Tecci, two brothers who had a small office just above the Roma Pasticceria on Federal Hill. Doug knew the location because the Roma was the best Italian bakery on Atwells Avenue. But when he checked the lawyers’ directory to find out more about the firm, he discovered that it wasn’t listed. No one he spoke to at WC&B ever had a case with the Teccis. Most assumed it was a Mom and Pop type office that drafted wills, did some immigration work and handled personal injury claims for people in the neighborhood. Doug couldn’t understand what Sandy hoped to get out of that experience.

A month into his clerkship, Fiore read about the sudden death of Anthony Buscatelli, head of the Rhode Island crime family. Buscatelli’s fatal heart attack was the subject of a large bold headline in the Providence Herald the morning after his demise. The story reminded readers that his only son died several years earlier in an automobile accident. “It remains to be seen,” the report concluded, “who will assume leadership of the Rhode Island Mafia.”

About a week later, following the wake and funeral which were attended by well-known Mob figures from New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, word filtered across Interstate 95 to the Herald newsroom that Salvatore Tarantino was chosen to replace Buscatelli. Doug noted the similarity of the surname to his roommate’s when he saw the article in the paper. As he read what was written about the State’s new “crime boss,” he was stunned to learn that Tarantino had two children, “a daughter, Ottavia, and a son, Salvatore Michael, known as Sandy.”

Fiore waited two days before calling Tecci & Tecci, still uncertain of what to say to his roommate about what he now knew. The man who took the call told him that Sandy was unavailable, and Doug left word for him to call back. When the call wasn’t returned after a week he tried again, but a different male voice informed him that Tarantino was out of the office and hadn’t said when he’d be back.

Fiore was alone in the firm’s library at eight o’clock on a Friday night when the switchboard operator paged him for a telephone call. He guessed that it was one of his basketball playing friends wanting to know if he’d be at the “Y” in time for his pick-up team’s nine o’clock game. He gave his hunch a shot. “Hello, Butchie,” he said into the receiver, and recognized Tarantino’s answering laugh immediately.

“No, it’s not Butchie. Goddammit, Doug, if I thought you were going to become a fucking big firm nerd workaholic, I’d never have studied for exams with you and given you the benefit of my probing and incisive intellect. If that’s what you’re going to do in this life, it’ll be better if you flunk out of law school and become a more meaningful member of society.”

“Funny guy,” Doug answered. “Shit, Sandy, I called you almost three weeks ago. Where’ve you been?”

The levity in Tarantino’s voice disappeared immediately. “Busy, Doug, really busy.” There was a pause. “I guess you read the article, huh?”

“Yeah, I read it. And all these years you wanted me to believe that your old man was in the life insurance business.”

Since the story about the senior Tarantino first appeared, Fiore hadn’t thought about Sandy’s past references to his father’s occupation. But at that moment he suddenly recognized the subtle humor in a Mafia captain, and possibly a hit man for all he knew, being characterized as a life insurance salesman. Something in his gut told him that Sandy was aware of the connection he just made between the phony story he was given in the past and the reality of the situation. He was right.

“I’m sorry, good buddy,” Sandy said, “but the truth just wouldn’t have made for great conversation. And I was sensitive enough about it to want to be accepted for who I was, not feared or rejected because of my family. You probably wouldn’t have told me to go fuck myself as many times as you did, often to my benefit, if you wondered how thin-skinned I was or whether my father taught me how to use a little muscle to win an argument. That’s the way it had to be.” Then the flippancy returned again: “Anyhow, the next time you tell me to go fuck myself, I may have to have you iced.”

Fiore laughed. “I’ll try and remember that.” He countered with his own jab at humor. “I guess every great friendship has to be tested, and it looks like ours failed miserably.”

Tarantino hesitated but didn’t take the bait. His voice became serious. “Listen, it’s going to be a while before the two of us can sit down and talk about things. What’s happened to my father is changing my life in a lot of ways. Right now I’m at the lowest rung of the apprenticeship-training program. There’s an awful lot I’ve got to learn, especially in the time that’s left before it’s back to school.”

“Yeah, we’ve got to decide when to leave for New York.”

“That’s the main thing I called you about. I’m through with Columbia. My father wants me close to home so we can talk face to face every day. Don’t ask me to explain that. It gets complicated and he won’t take ‘No’ for an answer. Anyhow, I’m transferring to BU in September. If there was a law school in Providence, I’d be staying right here. You’ve got to understand that not everyone who worked for Tony Buscatelli is overjoyed with Sal Tarantino taking over the operation. He’s worried about a few of the unhappy ones going off half-cocked and doing something stupid before he gets established. That’s why I have to have protection whenever I’m away from home. I fought like hell against it, but my dad shot down every argument I made. It wasn’t exactly like moot court, if you know what I mean.”

Fiore smiled and took advantage of the pause that followed Sandy’s last words. “Look, all I know about your father is the stuff that was in the paper. There was nothing there about him ever spending time in prison or being indicted for anything. I assume he must have some brains if they made him head of the Family. But any way you look at it, it’s still the Mafia, crime incorporated as far as the public’s concerned. Are you telling me you’re going to be part of that just because you’re Sal Tarantino’s son?”

Sandy anticipated the question. “Not exactly, Doug. I’ve drawn some lines that I won’t cross, and my father feels the same way I do. We’ll talk about it when I see you, and I’ll fill in all the details, but not now. Listen, when you get back to New York, let me know your address if you don’t stay in the same place. Don’t worry, I’ll keep in touch. A guy in my position never knows when he may need a good lawyer.”

“Do you want me to say anything if anyone in class asks about you?”

“No sweat. Just tell them I decided I’d be happier selling insurance than chasing ambulances. Don’t say anything about BU And do me a favor, okay?”

“Sure. What?”

“Make it whole life, not term insurance.”

“You’re a real comedian. Listen, Sandy, take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will, old buddy. Thanks.” He took a deep breath and raised his voice sharply. “Now get back to work, you fucking nerd.”

“Go fu …” But before Doug could get the words out, he heard the click at the other end.