(Prospective husbands)
That Giuseppe Ciampini visited Ezra Knightsbridge testified to his regard for the aging peddler. Normally, he took appointments only at his office. Scant few men were deemed worthy of a visit from Montreal’s kingpin of crime.
Although he was always prudent, Ciampini did not travel through town with trepidation. Neither did he flaunt his authority or net worth. He had a driver and sat in the rear seat, yet his vehicle remained a nondescript Chrysler. The driver didn’t carry a submachine gun in the trunk. At the pawnshop, Ciampini sent his man inside to ascertain that the coast was clear, then stepped from the car. He did not wait to have his door opened for him. He had famously snarled that when he couldn’t open his own door he’d sign-up for beauty school.
He entered the premises under the jingling bell.
Among trusted cohorts, Giuseppe Ciampini was known simply as ‘Joe’. As a young hoodlum, he’d gone by the nickname ‘the Whip’. An aunt had remarked that he was ‘as quick as a whip’, and the name stuck until he scrubbed it from his resumé. When a judge asked why he was called ‘the Whip’, he replied that he was descended from lion tamers. The judge pointed out that lions don’t dwell in Sicily and threw the book at him. Graduating from prison, Ciampini emerged as a leader of men. Determined to eschew the customary trappings of the gangster, he wouldn’t drive Cadillacs or conduct business in bars or visit his own strip clubs. He’d remain both tattoo-free and bling-free. A businessman, he’d conduct himself accordingly. He should be able to sit at a table with CEOs, as he did for certain charities, without anyone being able to differentiate the mob boss from legitimate businessmen. To those CEOs he was Giuseppe or Mr Ciampini, while his close allies and enemies in the business called him Joe.
During a brief stint in prison, Ciampini had forged a friendship with a man called Dezi, or Dez, whose full name was Dezyderiusz Pilachowski. He might sometimes slip up and still call him Dezi, or Dez, although he knew him now as Ezra Knightsbridge. In prison, they had discussed opposing strategies to guarantee they’d never return. One man desired to be the cog in a machine no one noticed; the other plotted to insulate himself within an impenetrable cocoon.
‘A boat in the water,’ Ciampini noted back then, ‘needs sacrificial zinc. You know this?’
‘I was not informed.’
‘Electrodes in water cause metal to disintegrate.’
‘If you say so, Joe, then I believe with my whole heart.’
‘The least noble metals go first. Zinc corrodes first. That way, the zinc spares the more noble metals, such as the bronze. When the zinc wears away, the other metals corrode, and fast. Replace the zinc, that’s the solution. No corrosion.’
‘I do not want to be the zinc.’
‘Neither me,’ Ciampini philosophized. ‘I will circle zinc around me like a wall.’
‘Makes sense. I will not live on water. I will be like dust.’
‘Also makes sense. Underwater is where I breathe.’
‘Should I call you the Dolphin?’
‘You can call me Joe.’
‘I don’t know my name yet, Joe. Dezyderiusz has a record. A clean slate, I want. I will not be who I have been.’
‘Good plan. Let me know your name when you are like dust,’ Ciampini said. Decades later, as he stepped into the man’s shop, he called out, ‘Ezra, good to see you, old friend.’
‘Good to see you, Joe. You look better every year. My eyes, hard to believe what they see.’
‘What I love about you, Ezra. You talk like a nut.’
‘From the heart. On a sad note, I am sorry for your loss, Joe.’
Ciampini gesticulated with a flex of his shoulders. ‘I didn’t lose my daughter. Only her husband.’
‘Still, that’s not right.’
‘Our talk is connected?’
‘Come into the back room. Let me lock up. Your wife is well, Joe?’
Ezra made tea. Ciampini sat expectantly, waiting for the kettle to signal the end of their introductory catch-up. A sortie into physical grudges – the liver, the lower bowel, the esophagus – came next.
‘Gout in February. My God, Joe.’
‘I heard it’s bad.’
‘A wickedness. The whole of your life lives in your big toe. Now, it’s one more pill. Who can count? For the acid. Uric.’
‘We’re older, Ezra.’
‘Are we wiser yet?’
The kettle whistled.
Ezra served the tea and added a butter biscuit on the saucer.
‘How’s business?’ Ciampini asked. His tone shifted as nostalgia was put aside.
‘I live free. No debt. No villa in France yet, either.’
‘Before somebody shot my son-in-law, the surgeon, he was robbed.’
‘A terrible thing. We live in a city of thieves.’
‘You should know.’
‘I will deny it to the police. To you, Joe, no.’
‘Who else does not deny me?’
‘Who would? No man.’
‘The police. When I want to know what they know, I get answers.’
‘Of course.’
‘Her identity is known to me, Ezra.’
‘Of course. You are speaking of the girl who robbed Savina. Foolish child. She had no idea who lived in the house.’
‘Your friendship means a lot, Ezra.’
‘Yours to me.’
‘You know the girl. You don’t hide this. I appreciate.’
‘We cannot call her one of mine.’
‘Is she not?’
‘She does freelance. I am in a process, the beginning, to recruit.’
‘I know where she lives. Do I have a good reason to send someone?’
‘Why do I have a feeling?’ Knightsbridge asked him. ‘The hair on my arm rises. You look for someone who is not the girl. I sit in front of you. It cannot be me you are looking for.’
Ciampini rarely smiled, and only in response to humor. When he did so, his look was genuine. He was smiling now.
‘A punk is missing. Gone to ground. The police hunt him, also. Remember Arturo Maletti? You trained him before he came to me. He’s my sister’s husband’s aunt’s long-lost cousin or something.’
‘First, he went to jail,’ Ezra reminded him. ‘Not a kid anymore when he got out. A man, he went to you. He did not betray you then.’
‘He did not betray you, either. He was too old for you when he got out.’
‘I have no concern. I keep an age limit. The older ones grow less trustworthy when they learn too much. I do not have your resources for discipline.’
Ciampini nodded and sipped the tea. He bit off a portion of his biscuit and chewed with evident satisfaction. Tested a finger in the air briefly. ‘I have concerns, Ezra. A surgeon with two bullets in his chest is no more a good surgeon.’
Knightsbridge was startled. ‘He’s alive yet?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He is totally dead. Did I not mention two bullets?’
‘My heart goes out to Savina. The funeral, shall I attend?’
‘Don’t risk it. You don’t like to be seen, and photographs will be taken by police. Not important. Savina will take a new husband. Do better next time maybe. An Italian man, maybe is next. What she cannot do next time is hook up with a man like Arturo Maletti.’
‘Or exactly him, if I take your meaning.’
‘Exactly my meaning. Her next man will not be him, a punk. A standard has been set. Maybe a lawyer will be good for a change of pace. An Italian would be nice, but not Maletti.’
Ezra nodded and caressed his left forearm. ‘How do you prevent?’
‘Find Arturo Maletti. The rest I take care of.’
‘If I trip over Arturo, a stumble in the dark, I will call you.’
‘I have no concerns. Even I will let the cops squeeze his balls. I hear they have a case. With me, I don’t need a case. Either way, the lost must be found. The lost staying lost I do not accept.’
‘I hope he trips over me, or me over him. Then I can help.’
‘Good.’ Ciampini cocked an ear toward the radio. ‘Is that Andor Toth? I have the same record! But mine has scratches.’
‘Exactly him.’
‘A favorite.’
‘I thought more of him when he was younger.’
‘You’re too critical. But when he played with Toscanini …’
‘What the young can do. He was eighteen, then. I have a concern, Joe. Forgive my impertinence, please. No disrespect. But what if Maletti didn’t do it?’
‘Which murder we’re talking about?’
‘Either. Both. None.’
Joe Ciampini took a moment to think. Even after he made up his mind, he was willing to reconsider a position. ‘Are you saying a terrible thing to me, Ezra?’
Knightsbridge put his cup down and spread his hands apart. A gesture of reconciliation. ‘Only we think the best of our children. At times, disappointment knocks on the front door.’
‘I’m aware,’ Ciampini conceded, ‘that Savina can be a bitch. But even if Maletti is innocent of these two whacks, the both, does that make him an innocent man?’
Ezra was sifting for a nuance – he would not be given more – for verification. ‘If it looks like Maletti did a terrible murder,’ Ezra postulated, ‘then to be accused is just. If he did not, he is a man who can stand being accused.’
‘Always I enjoy talking to you, Dezi. In prison, nobody could understand us. Except us.’
‘The girl? She will be a good recruit for me, I predict.’
‘Send her to me, Ezra. We will talk. I can find her myself, but better if you send her.’
‘What will you talk about?’
‘I will ask her where is my baseball?’
Ezra expressed his curiosity the way many dogs and other creatures do, by tilting his head. ‘Baseball?’
‘It’s my baseball. That stinking surgeon bag of shit was not supposed to lose it for me just because he got robbed. He stole it from me, the stinking hacksaw, the limp prick. The least he could do after that was keep it safe.’
‘A baseball. Any old baseball?’
‘Jackie Robinson signed. For Old Sal. Remember him?’
‘A special baseball,’ Ezra said. ‘I will keep my eyes peeled.’
‘Your eyes are important, Ezra. You know the thief who stole it. Get me the girl for talking to, and my ball back real quick.’
‘For you, I will do my best. My utmost.’
‘Track it down. Get me the girl so I don’t need to trouble myself. Police are talking to her. They hang around. Why? That is a difficulty for me, that they hang around. A Night Patrol guy. If she comes to me on her own, not so difficult. You see? Be quick, too. That I will respect.’
‘For me – forgive my request – you can do one thing. A small thing. For old times’ sake, Joe. For all the good years.’ Ciampini waited. ‘Leave the girl alone.’
Joe Ciampini remained silent. Not a good sign. He asked, ‘She’s a good recruit?’
‘Her father is Jim Tanner. Remember him?’
Ciampini nodded. ‘The circle turns inside a wheel. The mother I remember, too.’
‘Everyone remembers the mother.’
Ciampini gave it more thought, then said, ‘Get me the baseball. The girl, we’ll see. If you spot that skunk Maletti slinking around, if you get word … If we find him and the ball, then the girl – so young, her mother’s daughter – we can forget.’
After Joe Ciampini departed, Ezra Knightsbridge went behind the counter in his shop to process the talk. If he gave Joe the baseball outright, Joe would kill him. Possession of the baseball combined with knowledge of what it meant led to death, he knew that much. He was one of the few who had knowledge of what that baseball signified. Given the possible scenarios, Ezra did not believe he should be the one to die. A better outcome was warranted.
He could not allow the girl to fall into Ciampini’s hands, either. If she did, she’d talk, reveal who possessed the baseball. He needed to keep the girl safe, if he could. Worst case, he’d adopt Ciampini’s old strategy. The girl would be his zinc, to be sacrificed. He’d endeavor to avoid that, up to the point where he might be given no choice.