The Price of Honor: The Making of a Man Page 13

  “His nursery is waiting,” she said. “Whatever Uncle Carmine wants can wait. Let me call him. I’ll talk to him. He’ll listen to me.”

  Holding her shoulders, I kissed her forehead. “Let me talk first.”

  She nodded again.

  “Something happened. I’ve been waiting to tell you. But the truth is you’ll notice as soon as we leave the room. We have more protection here than just Franco. Your uncle’s people have been here since Monday. Assigning them to you and Lennox was his doing, but I approved.”

  The sadness in her blue eyes morphed to fear. “Why? What happened? Was there a threat?” She gasped. “To our son?”

  “No, not to him. Not to us, either. We’re just being safe—taking precautions.”

  Apparently, our small son had grown tired of his cries going unresolved. His little eyes were now closed as if there weren’t a care in the world besides his next feeding or diaper change. I turned Angelina toward the bed and encouraged her to sit beside the car seat. Even though Lennox had quieted, she was still rocking the large handle.

  “Monday night,” I began, “there was a planned meeting of all the bosses at Sparks Steak House on 46th. Carmine and Vincent were there, but inside. When Paulie Castellano arrived, he was shot and killed outside on the street. Obviously, he was there because of the meeting. It wasn’t secret. People from all around knew it was going to happen. The rumor is that the hit came from within his family. The problem right now is that there are a lot of different speculations—an inside job isn’t the only rumor.

  “All of the other bosses were already inside the restaurant. Some of Castellano’s people are saying that it was a conspiracy, that the other bosses knew it was coming, and that’s why they were all inside the restaurant early and not out on the street.”

  Angelina’s eyes grew wider with each word.

  There was another good reason for the suspicion. There’s a rule in the LCN—a rule whose violation is punishable by death. It states that a boss can’t be marked without the approval of the rest of the commission. The commission was made up of all of the five family dons. If Big Paulie’s murder was approved, all the other bosses in attendance knew it was about to take place.

  It was a bitter pill to swallow. It would mean that Carmine was part of the plan or at the very least, privy to it. However, Carmine stated unequivocally that he didn’t know anything about it.

  He said it once in my presence. It was in the waiting room. I saw how visibly shaken he and Vincent were.

  He didn’t need to say it again.

  “It makes them all suspects,” I went on. “Not for the police. Their personal alibis are solid. They couldn’t have been on the street when they were inside. That doesn’t mean they didn’t approve or order it. Though from your uncle’s mouth, they didn’t, or at least he had no knowledge.

  “Our increased security is over the concern that anyone in Paulie’s family believes the rumors about the other bosses...”

  With each sentence, more of the color drained from my wife’s face.

  “Is that why Uncle Carmine wants us at his house? Wouldn’t we be safer away from him?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “He’s well protected.”

  “So was Big Paulie.”

  “Not as much as you’d think. He was stupid and arrogant. He thought he was untouchable. According to the news reports, neither he nor his bodyguard was even carrying. Carmine doesn’t think that way. He believes we’re all touchable.”

  Another concern I didn’t bring up to Angelina was that like Carmine, Big Paulie had been anti-illegal drugs. It was the same unrest we were feeling within the Costello family, and now with the possibility that it was an inside job, that concern was amplified.

  “For now,” I said as reassuringly as possible, “your uncle wants us and Vincent’s family all together.” I reached for her hand. “One day, mio angelo, I’ll build you a fortress.” I looked down at our sleeping son. “A place where you and Lennox are safe. For now, I think we should listen to your uncle. Besides, you’ll have Rose and Bella to help you.”

  “I thought I’d have you to help me.”

  Her words tore through me like a jagged knife. “I will. I promise. Right now, there are things to secure and alliances to reconfirm. Once it calms down, you’ll have me. I promise.”

  Angelina nodded quickly as her chin fell forward.

  Letting go of her hand, I placed the palms of my hands on either side of her face and lifted her eyes to mine. “Your and Lennox’s safety is the most important thing. Never doubt that.”

  “I don’t. I’m just...scared.” Her eyes went to Lennox. “He’s three days old and this is what his world is about?”

  I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close to me. “I’m scared too. We’ll get through this together. Once it’s clear that the bosses didn’t know, the heat will be off the other families.” I feigned a smile. “I never thought I’d hope for an inside job, but that’s what I’m hoping it was.” I shrugged. “Or maybe the feds. Paulie was their star witness in their upcoming case.”

  “Why would the feds off their star witness?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe because their case is crap. Now they have an excuse when it fizzles.”

  Angelina looked up, smiling through her tears. “Hey. You’re going to spend the night in my room in Uncle Carmine’s house.”

  We’d been married for a year, yet the thought of the scene she described sent a chill down my spine colder than when I’d been told of Paulie’s death. In all the time of our dating, her room had been the place of only stolen touches and kisses. I placed too much value on my life to get caught in Carmine’s home with my pants down—literally. This was different. This was a command presence. Assuming Rose didn’t create a bed for me on the couch in the living room, I would be sleeping with my wife under Carmine Costello’s roof...if I actually slept.

  I hadn’t done much of that since Monday.

  It wasn’t because of our son’s schedule; however, I presumed that wouldn’t help with my slumber once we were settled.

  Instead of saying all of that, I went with the answer that would keep the smile on my wife’s lips. “Yes, mio angelo. Yes, I will.”

  She leaned forward and brushed my lips with hers. “Okay. As long as you’re there, I’ll be there. We’ll be our family within the bigger family.”

  We didn’t have any choice.

  We both turned toward the opening door. “Mrs. Demetri, it’s time...” the nurse said, arriving with the wheelchair.

  The winds of winter blustered beyond the windows of the Costello brownstone. Large flakes of white snow whipped in waves, creating drifts as the temperature plummeted. Slush turned to ice, changing bridges and roads within the city into rinks unfit for navigation. And yet commuting outside would have been easier than the conversations occurring in Carmine’s office.

  Despite the storms at hand—metaphoric as well as meteorological—the mood within the home outside of Carmine’s office was festive. The multicolored lights on the tall tree by the front window reflected onto the hardwood floor and beyond into the hallway. Stockings were hung on the mantel with Luca and Lennox scrawled in shimmering glitter. Bells jingled each time the front door was opened or closed. Christmas was near, and Rose Costello had her family close. She had no intention of allowing the worries from outside to dampen the spirit within.

  Angelina and I were welcomed within the Costello home with open arms. That invitation did not extend to Carmine’s office, not when others were present. And as hours and days passed, others were constantly present; however, even the ‘others’ were limited. Only the truly trusted made it into the Costello home. Gioconda and Vincent spent hours at Carmine’s side. Other capos came and went, but always with Stefano or Jimmy present who were always visibly armed. The constant presence of at least one of Carmine’s bodyguards wasn’t a threat but a steadfast warning. No one was above suspicion as the fallout from Paulie’s death began to settle and accumul
ate like the snowflakes upon the ground.

  Through it all, my job was to maintain life as normal—as normal as it could be living in the boss’s home with a newborn baby.

  Understandably, as time passed, my concept of normal skewed. It was already so far from what I imagined as a young teenager living near the docks that in many ways I couldn’t comprehend it.

  My world was now made up of babies crying, women chatting, cash making its way onto my books, and soldiers in dark suits with guns at the ready. It wasn’t quite what Hollywood tried to portray, yet it wasn’t anything I could have ever conjured on my own. The little boy who accompanied his father to the dock to pay taxes was now living with that tax collector’s bosses. Day in and day out, they knew me by name and by sight. Though Carmine kept me out of the discussions, my presence within his home was a clear message.

  I didn’t question my reality, nor did Angelina.

  It was what it was.

  I worked to comprehend all of its elements. Books and movies made the higher-ups in LCN look like crazed killers. And yet I knew the men behind the office door. I’d met them and their wives. I knew they were good men with families whom they’d vowed to protect. They were determined men who knew a way of life that had served them and most of their fathers before them. We were in the middle of the world within the world that many stated was only make-believe.

  While Giuliani was planning his big ‘Commission’ RICO case, the world was questioning the true existence of organized crime. Perhaps it was a way to save his state, to make it a less scary place, I could only speculate, but following Big Paulie’s death, the governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, came out publicly to denounce the existence of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra. He called the reports an ugly stereotype. When asked if the Mafia existed, Cuomo replied, “You’re telling me that the Mafia is an organization, and I’m telling you that’s a lot of baloney.”

  It felt at times like I was living in reality and make-believe at the same time—a fine line separating the two worlds. My office and Demetri Enterprises was the world I’d wanted to build. Maybe not completely, but it was growing. Within most of that umbrella, Oren Demetri was an entrepreneur who now received the elevator pitches, instead of giving them. Men called me Mr. Demetri and women offered me solace from the stress of my life and home.

  And then there was the imaginary world that wasn’t—the one that existed within the Costello brownstone. In this alternate reality, the dichotomy separated by the wooden door at the end of the hallway was astounding.

  As I drove the snowy streets from Manhattan to Brooklyn, I sometimes wondered what my father would say. Could I explain or justify my decisions? I wasn’t sure. What I knew with some certainty was that I’d do anything to place my son in my father’s or mother’s arms. Since that wasn’t possible, I’d do all I could to keep Angelina and Lennox safe and move beyond this line between make-believe and reality.

  Despite all that occurred beyond that door, the home as a whole was safety personified. I found comfort in leaving Angelina surrounded by so much love. She and Bella were like two peas in a pod, their little sons asleep in their arms or lying side by side in a playpen while the three women baked and cooked like there was no tomorrow.

  Amazing scents wafted continually from the kitchen as did the ring of female laughter and babies’ coos. If one spent time in the kitchen, dining room, or living room, it would be easy to forget that the fates of families and the Cosa Nostra way of life was literally hanging in the balance.

  The office was empty after a day of intense discussion. The six of us—Carmine, Rose, Vincent, Bella, Angelina, and I—sat around Rose’s dining room table late one night. It seemed that something was bothering Rose, yet she wasn’t saying. Finally, Carmine asked the question I too had been wondering.

  “What is troubling you?”

  I inwardly laughed at his words, certain her list was as long as mine.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Not at dinner. This is our time.”

  She had all of our attention.

  “Fine.” She sat straighter. “I’m heartbroken by the church.”

  Of all the issues happening, her response caught me off guard.

  It was Angelina who explained, shaking her head. “Aunt Rose got a call today. The mass for Paulie has been canceled. Well, it has to be private. Very private. No one outside the immediate family.”

  “What?” Carmine asked, his face contorted in obvious confusion. “Who said? It’s not right. Let me—”

  Again, it was Angelina. “Zio, I know you don’t want us to talk about it...especially at the table, but I saw the news. It wasn’t the priest’s decision. It came from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. They sent a ruling banning a public mass. They claimed it was due to Paulie’s notoriety in his background.”

  I stared at my wife, not questioning her information. She was a news junkie. If there’d been a report, she’d seen it. However, it was as I looked back at Carmine that I understood Rose’s angst. What would happen when his time came? What if it’d been Carmine on the street? Would the church that they’d supported their entire lives turn its back?

  “That’s ridiculous,” Carmine said, his tone lighter for one reason, and she was seated beside him. He covered her hand with his. “Tesoro, you heard our governor; it doesn’t exist.”

  “But...”

  “But we eat. Christmas is soon, and we have all our family here. Enough.”

  And of course it was. Carmine had spoken.

  Conversation moved from Paulie Castellano’s ultimate shaming, not from the goons who murdered him on the street, but from the church that accepted his offerings and reserved a pew for his family near the front, to the way Luca was starting to pull himself to his knees.

  The snow waxed and waned as the days turned to weeks, and the temperature fluctuated. During it all, my information regarding the doings of the family came in bits and pieces and mostly through Vincent.

  Sometime in the last two years, I’d been deemed worthy—at least in Angelina’s cousin’s eyes. As Christmas passed and we skirted closer to the New Year, the talk within the office and on the street grew louder: the family formally run by Big Paulie was meeting to determine their new boss. It would have to be one of their made men, and all eyes were on the capo John Gotti.

  The word finally came about two weeks after Paulie’s death. As per the commission, the other four families would have a voice in approving the family’s decision. Not approving would potentially single out a family, unless the entirety of the commission chose to disapprove. The information had been leaked. Tomorrow each boss would need to send an answer. It made sense that they would meet in secret before and determine how to proceed.

  Tensions were high as the meeting—the one that no one knew about—occurred. I didn’t know where it was happening, only that while it did, it made each boss’s home a target. Within the Costello brownstone, I was stationed as the last line of defense. While in the city at the office, I’d received a call from Vincent telling me to come home immediately. It didn’t matter that I had appointments. I hurried back to Brooklyn.

  By the time I arrived, Vincent and Carmine were gone, and Testa was inside the front door. The outside was well protected with soldiers watching the front and back entrances. From what I understood, the goal of the ‘non-occurring’ meeting was for the other four families of the commission to stand as one.

  I couldn’t imagine the pressure of being in the room with those eight men, the bosses and their underbosses. It was a different world than it had been merely a month before. Momentarily, Luchi’s heroin was tabled. Each man had the weight of many on his shoulders. And yet as I looked about the living room, seeing Rose, Angelina and Lennox, and Bella and Luca, I hoped that whatever decision was made, that the Costellos were on the right side. I’d heard the voices through the door, the angry arguments for and against Gotti. Gioconda, Vincent, Morelli, and more. None of it would matter. When it came time for Carmine to
voice the family’s decision, only one answer mattered.

  His.

  Would the rest of the family unite or revolt? What would happen between families? My mind had difficulty keeping the questions from multiplying.

  Helplessness enveloped me as we all congregated together; no one said a word about what was or wasn’t happening. If Paulie’s family got wind of the meeting and any of them still thought the hit had been approved by the commission, then all eight men were sitting ducks. If Castellano’s death had made national news, the extinction of four New York bosses would be on the cover of every newspaper all over the world.

  I didn’t want to think about it or look into Angelina’s eyes clouded with worry.

  The clock continued to tick.

  With a rerun of Dynasty playing softly on the television, we all turned as Testa rose to open the front door. I sat forward, reaching for my gun as the door opened. There was a collective sigh of relief as first Carmine entered, followed by Vincent and Stefano.

  We all stared in silence. It was then I realized that someone must have turned down the volume on the television. It was dead silent. In a miracle from heaven above, even the boys were quiet.

  Carmine’s deep voice rumbled through the room. “We all stay together through the New Year. Then, you will all go to your own homes.”

  Angelina exhaled and reached for my hand.

  “Carmine? It’s safe?” Rose asked.

  “Sì. I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t.”

  “A few more days,” Rose said, looking around the room with glistening eyes. “I love having you all here.”

  “They live but minutes away,” Carmine said, dismissively waving his hand as he turned and walked up the stairs. “They’ll be back.”

  It was the first time I could recall seeing him go to his bedroom in the two weeks we’d been there. It was the first time that he didn’t go straight to his office. I wasn’t sure why it struck me as significant, but it did. It meant he was satisfied. It meant that whatever happened, it was in the best interest of his family, his beliefs, and his way of life. It meant he’d made the right decision. I was certain.