Omerta - Mario Puzo [75]
Tonight the girl was brought to his suite by the owner of the escort service, who stayed for a drink and then disappeared. Then Portella whipped up supper for two while they chatted and got acquainted. Her name was Janet. Portella cooked with quick efficiency. Tonight he made his specialty: veal Milanese, spaghetti in a sauce with Gruyère cheese, tiny roasted eggplants on the side, and a salad of greens with tomatoes. Dessert was an assortment of pastries from a famous French patisserie in the neighborhood.
He served Janet with a courtliness that belied his exterior; he was a large, hairy man with a huge head and coarse skin, but he always ate in shirt, tie, and jacket. Over dinner, he asked Janet questions about her life with concern unexpected in so brutal a man. He delighted to hear her tales of misfortune, how she had been betrayed by her father, brothers, lovers, and the powerful men who led her into a sinful life through economic pressures and unwanted pregnancies so she could save her poverty-stricken family. He was amazed at the varieties of dishonorable behavior displayed by his fellow men and marveled at his own goodness with women. For he was extremely generous with them, not only by giving them huge sums of money.
After dinner he took the wine into the sitting room and showed Janet six boxes of jewelry: a gold watch, a ruby ring, diamond earrings, a jade necklace, a jeweled armband, and a perfect string of pearls. He told her she could choose one as a gift. They were all worth a few thousand dollars—the girls would usually have them appraised.
Years ago one of his crews had hijacked a jewelry truck, and he had warehoused the contents rather than have them fenced. So, actually, the gifts cost him nothing.
While Janet considered what she wanted, and finally chose the watch, he drew her a bath, carefully testing the temperature of the water and providing her with his favorite perfumes and powders. It was only then, after she had relaxed, that they retired to bed and had good normal sex, as any happily married couple would do.
If he was particularly amorous, he might keep a girl until four or five in the morning, but he never went to sleep while she was in his suite. This night he dismissed Janet early.
He did it all for his health. He knew that he had a wild temper that could get him into trouble. These weekly sex trysts calmed him down. Women in general had a quieting effect on him, and he proved the efficacy of his strategy by going to his doctor every Saturday and hearing with satisfaction that his blood pressure had returned to normal. When he told this to his doctor, the man had only murmured, “Very interesting.” Portella was very disappointed in him.
There was another advantage to this arrangement. Portella’s bodyguards were isolated in front of the suite. But the back door led to the adjoining suite with its entrance into a separate hallway, and it was there that Portella had meetings he did not want his closest advisors to know about. For it is a very dangerous business for a Mafia chief to meet in private with an FBI special agent. He would be suspected as an informer, and Cilke might be suspected by the Bureau of being a bribe taker.
It was Portella who supplied the phone numbers to be tapped, named the weaklings who would cave under pressure, pointed to clues to racket murders, and explained how certain rackets worked. And it was Portella who did some dirty jobs that the FBI could not legally do.
Over the years they had developed a code for arranging meetings. Cilke had a key to the suite door in the opposite hallway so he could enter without being detected by Portella’s bodyguards and wait in the minor suite. Portella would get rid of his girl, and their meeting would begin. On this particular night, Portella was waiting for Cilke.
Cilke was always a little nervous at these meetings. He knew that not even Portella would dare harm an FBI agent, but the man had a temperament that verged on insanity.