"Whatis it, honey?" Mrs. Baltazari asked. "Who is that?"
"Go back to sleep, for Christ's sake," Ricco said. "Okay. I'll take care of it. You just keep your mouth shut, Tony, you understand?"
"Ricco, I'm scared!"
"Just keep your goddamned mouth shut!" Ricco said, and hung up.
He got out of bed, and found a cigarette, but no matches.
He walked to the bedroom door.
"Where are yougoing!" Mrs. Baltazari demanded.
"Just, goddammit, go back to sleep."
Mr. Baltazari then went downstairs and into the kitchen and found a match for his cigarette, and lit it, and then banged his fist on the sink and said, "Shit!"
He then picked up the handset of the wall telephone and started to dial a number, but then hung up angrily.
If the cops have the cop, they maybe have this line tapped. I can' t call from here. I'm going to have to go to a pay phone.
But shit, if the cops have the cop, they're as likely to have Gian-Carlo's phone tapped as they are to have this one tapped.
I'm going to have to go to Gian-Carlo's house and wake him up and tell him the cops have the cop. And that means they have the shipment for the people in Baltimore!
Jesus Christ! He's not going to like this worth a fuck! And Mr. Savarese!
It's not my fucking fault! I don't know what happened, but it's not my fucking fault!
But they 're not going to believe that!
Oh, Jesus Christ!
****
Salvatore J. Riccuito, Esq., a slightly built, olive-skinned thirty-two-year-old, was a recent addition to the district attorney's staff. Prior to his admission to the bar, he had spent eleven years as a police officer, mostly in the 6^th District, passing up opportunities to take examinations for promotion in order to find time to graduate from LaSalle College and then the Temple University School of Law, both at night.
Understandably, because he knew how cops thought and behaved, if he was available, he was assigned cases involving the pro
secution of police officers. When this case had come up, via a 3:15 A.M. telephone call from Thomas J. "Tommy" Callis, the district attorney himself, Sal had pleaded unavailability. Callis has been unsympathetic.
"We'll rearrange your schedule. Get down to Narcotics and see Inspector Peter Wohl."
Sal knew there was no point in arguing. Wohl had been the investigator in the case that resulted in Judge Findermann taking a long-term lease in the Pennsylvania Penal System. Callis had prosecuted himself. The publicity would probably help him get reelected.
In a way, Sal thought as he drove to the Narcotics Unit, it was flattering. Wohl almost certainly had not asked for "an assistant DA." He had either asked for "a good assistant DA" or possibly even for him by name.
"Let me tell you how things are, Vito," Sal, who had grown up six blocks from Vito, but didn't know him personally, said.
Vito was sitting handcuffed to a steel captain's chair in one of the interview rooms in the headquarters of the Narcotics unit. He was slightly mussed, as it had been necessary to physically restrain him on his arrival at Narcotics, when he had seen his mother similarly handcuffed to a steel captain's chair.
"Tell me how things are," Vito said with a bluster that was almost pathetically transparent.
"You're dead. That's how things are. They saw you steal the suitcase. They saw you sneak it out to the parking lot. They havephotographs."
"The sonsofbitches, fucking cocksuckers, had no right to do that to my mother!"
"Let's talk about your mother," Sal said. "She gave the suitcase to Detective Martinez. They have photographs. They have witnesses, a detective, a sergeant,a staff inspector. The chain of evidence, with your mother, is intact. The suitcase contained about twenty pounds of cocaine. Nine Ks. They just got the lab report. It's good stuff. If they decide to prosecute, she's going down. Simple possession is all it takes for a conviction."