Omerta - Mario Puzo [27]
“It was great,” Cilke said. “You’re cutting a record for distribution?”
Astorre smiled, a wide, good-natured grin. “I wish. I’m not that good. But I love these songs, and I give them to friends as presents.”
Cilke decided to get to work. “This is just routine,” he said. “Do you know of anyone who would have wanted to harm your uncle?”
“No one at all,”Astorre said, straight-faced. Cilke was tired of hearing this. Everyone had enemies, especially Raymonde Aprile.
“You inherit controlling interest in the banks,” Cilke said. “Were you that close?”
“I really don’t understand that,” Astorre said. “I was one of his favorites when I was a kid. He set me up in my business and then sort of forgot about me.”
“What kind of business?” Cilke asked.
“I import all the top-grade macaroni from Italy,”
Cilke gave him a skeptical look. “Macaroni?”
Astorre smiled; he was used to this reaction. It was not a glamorous business. “You know how Lee Iacocca never says automobiles, he always says cars? Now, in my business, we never say pasta or spaghetti, we always say macaroni.”
“And now you’ll be a banker?” Cilke said.
“I’ll give it a whirl,” Astorre said.
After they left, Cilke asked Bill Boxton, “What do you think?” He liked Boxton enormously. The man believed in the Bureau, as he did—that it was fair, that it was incorruptible and far superior to any other law-enforcement agency in its efficiency. These interviews were partly for his benefit.
“They all sound pretty straight to me,” Boxton said. “But don’t they always?”
Yes, they always did, Cilke thought. Then something struck him. The medallion hanging from Astorre’s gold collar had never moved.
The last interview was the most important to Cilke. It was with Timmona Portella, the reigning Mafia boss in New York, the only one besides the Don who had escaped prosecution after Cilke’s investigations.
Portella ran his enterprises from the huge penthouse apartment of a building he owned on the West Side. The rest of the building was occupied by subsidiary firms that he controlled. The security was as tight as Fort Knox, and Portella himself traveled by helicopter—the roof was equipped with a landing pad—to his estate in New Jersey. His feet rarely touched the pavement of New York.
Portella greeted Cilke and Boxton in his office with its overstuffed armchairs and bulletproof walls of glass that gave a wonderful view of the city skyline. He was a huge man, immaculately dressed in a dark suit and gleaming white shirt.
Cilke shook Portella’s meaty hand and admired the dark tie hanging from his thick neck.
“Kurt, how can I help you?” Portella said in a voice that rang through the room. He ignored Bill Boxton.
“I’m just checking out the Aprile affair,” Cilke said. “I thought you might have some information that could help me.”
“What a shame, his death,” Portella said. “Everybody loved Raymonde Aprile. It’s a mystery to me who could have done this. In the last years of his life Aprile was such a good man. He became a saint, a real saint. He gave away his money like a Rockefeller. When God took him his soul was pure.”
“God didn’t take him,” Cilke said dryly. “It was an extremely professional hit. There has to be a motive.” Portella’s eye twitched, but he said nothing, so Cilke went on. “You were his colleague for many years. You must know something. What about this nephew of his who inherits the banks?”
“Don Aprile and I had some business together many years ago,” Portella said. “But when Aprile retired he could just as easily have killed me. The fact that I’m alive proves we were not enemies. About his nephew I knew nothing except that he is an artist. He sings at weddings, at little parties, even in some small nightclubs. One of those young men that old folks like myself are fond of. And he sells good macaroni from Italy. All my restaurants use it.” He paused and sighed. “It is always a mystery when a great man is killed.”