Omerta - Mario Puzo [80]
“Thanks,” Heskow said. “I already had dinner, and I have a long drive home. You played great tonight. I’m proud of you. Now go out and have a good time.” He gave his son a farewell kiss and wondered how he had gotten so lucky. Well, his son had a good mother, though she’d been a lousy wife.
It took Heskow only an hour to drive home to Brightwaters— the Long Island parkways were almost deserted at this hour. He was tired when he got there, but before going into the house he checked the flower sheds to make sure the temperature and moisture were OK.
In the moonlight reflected though the glass roof of the shed, the flowers had a wild, nightmarish beauty, the red almost black, the whites a ghostly vaporish halo. He loved looking at them, especially just before he went to sleep.
He walked the gravel driveway to his house and unlocked the door. Once inside he quickly pushed the numbers on the panel that would keep the alarm from going off, then went into the living room.
His heart took a giant leap. Two men stood waiting for him; he recognized Astorre. He knew enough about death to recognize it at a glance. These were the messengers.
But he reacted with the perfect defense mechanism. “How the fuck did you two guys get in here, and what the hell do you want?”
“Don’t panic,” Astorre said. He introduced himself, adding that he was the nephew of the deceased Don Aprile.
Heskow made himself get calm. He had been in tight spots before, and after the first rush of adrenaline, he had always been OK. He sat down on the sofa so that his hand was on the wooden armrest and reached for his hidden gun. “So what do you want?”
Astorre had an amused smiled on his face, which irritated Heskow, who had meant to wait for the right moment. Now he flipped open the armrest and reached for the gun. The hollow was empty.
At that moment three cars appeared in the driveway, headlights flashing into the room. Two more men entered the house.
Astorre said pleasantly, “I didn’t underestimate you, John. We searched the house. We found the gun in the coffeepot, another taped underneath your bed, another in that fake letter-box, and the one in the bathroom taped behind the bowl. Did we miss any?”
Heskow didn’t answer. His heart had started pounding again. He could feel it in his throat.
“What the hell are you growing in those flower sheds?” Astorre asked, laughing. “Diamonds, hemp, coke, what? I thought you’d never come in. By the way, that’s a lot of firepower for someone who grows azaleas.”
“Stop jerking me around,” Heskow said quietly.
Astorre sat down in the chair opposite Heskow and then tossed two wallets—Gucci, one gold, one brown—on the coffee table between them. “Take a look,” he said.
Heskow reached over and opened them. The first thing he saw was the Sturzo brothers’ driver’s licenses with their laminated photos. The bile in his throat was so sour he almost vomited.
“They gave you up,” Astorre said. “That you were the broker on Don Aprile’s hit. They also said you guaranteed there would be no NYPD or FBI surveillance at the church ceremony.”
Heskow processed everything that had happened. They hadn’t just killed him, though the Sturzo brothers were certainly dead. He felt one tiny pang of disappointment for that betrayal. But Astorre didn’t seem to know he had been the driver. There was a negotiation here, the most important of his life.
Heskow shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Aldo Monza had been listening alertly, keeping a close eye on Heskow. Now he went into the kitchen and came back with two cups of black coffee, handing one to Astorre and one to Heskow. He said, “Hey, you got Italian coffee—great.” Heskow gave him a contemptuous look.
Astorre drank his coffee and then said to Heskow, slowly, deliberately, “I hear you’re a very intelligent man, that that’s the only reason you’re not dead. So listen to me and really think. I’m Don Aprile’s cleanup man. I have all the resources he had before he retired.