Chapter 3 — Friends and Acquaintances
Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
— Ambrose Bierce, American Author
Everything starts to blur together when people are shooting at you. One part of you is thinking, this is nothing like call of duty; there are bullets going everywhere and nobody is getting hit. Then, assuming you don’t freeze and panic, self-preservation kicks in. That’s the point I had just reached; head down, gun blindly firing out the window. I could see our driver, Dantini, mashing pedals and spinning the wheel in his own attempt to keep us from becoming another blight on Chicago’s violent crime statistics.
My gun’s slide jammed back, indicating that I had fired all seven rounds with what appeared to be no effect. I scrabbled under my jacket for the spare clip. Dantini spun the wheel, and the cab violently swung to the right streaking into a narrow alley. The Reillys followed us in without hesitation. I slammed another clip into the .45 and listened. The bad guys were still out there. A ratatatat of machine gun fire sent chips of glass and showers of brick dust raining down from the buildings around us. I poked the gun barrel back through the window, laying as flat as possible on the seat to present a low profile, and squeezed off another volley.
The cab was bouncing, bits of cardboard and garbage flying around us in all directions. As we careened down the alley, bullets were pockmarking the brick walls all around us. Dantini swung the wheel to the left, scraping past a graffitied dumpster. I stuck my head up again. The sedan behind us was a hair to wide. Its front fender caught the corner of the dumpster and instantly the sedan’s linear acceleration was transferred to rotary motion. It spun in a circle wedging itself between the alley walls. Dantini floored the accelerator, shot through a gap between two buildings, and back onto the street. I poked my head up to see if we were being followed. I saw no sign of our attackers. Dantini drove fast and aggressively, clearly trying to put some distance between us and the Reillys. Once he was sure we weren’t being followed he stopped the cab.
I have decided that there’s nothing like a near death experience to clear the mind. The flood of adrenaline makes little things like the phone bill, and cold coffee seem like irrelevant trivialities. When Dantini stopped the cab, I had already worked out a plausible story for why his car had been shot up, and what he could do about it. My brain had clicked so far into overdive that if I had been a theoretical physicist, I could have come up with a unified field theory on the spot.
Up until that point, I had some serious doubts about my new client. Now those doubts evaporated like a hardboiled egg in a microwave. No matter what conspiracy he was involved in, he couldn’t possibly put me in more danger than my relationship with the Reillys already did. Which just goes to show that adrenaline doesn’t actually improve your IQ.
“Which one of you is in trouble with the Reillys?” Dantini asked, dark brown eyes glaring. This snapped me out of my brilliant expose of the mysteries of the cosmos. I felt like a man who wakes from a dream, where he is flying like a bird in the sky; only to discover that he is falling from said sky like a rock. Suddenly, my brilliantly concocted story seemed as much a part of the real world as a Dr. Seuss story.
I decided to ignore the falsehoods which my mind was rapidly generating and put a brave face on it. “I believe that I am the individual who has mortally offended the Reilly Clan.” The gorilla looked at me with a sneer, which suggested a doubt about my ability to do anything that would offend the sensibilities of a violent south-side mob. I often get this response when I declare myself to be a dangerous individual. I think it has something to do with my size. I stand in at a whopping five feet seven inches, which is just short enough to be viewed as a less than lethal opponent. This is one of the reasons I carry so many guns.
Anyway, back to the taxi cab. “Actually,” I said, realizing that my first statement was inaccurate and trying to change the story without sounding like a prize chump. “I didn’t offend the Reilly Clan.”
He gave me a glare which said, I thought so. I quickly carried on. “I actually offended the Delaney clan. I owe them an insignificant sum of money. But you know how it is; or maybe you don’t,” I added, remembering his brothers and not wanting to insinuate anything. “It’s important to have a ruthless reputation when you’re a mob boss. You can’t afford to let any debts go unpaid, no matter how insignificant. It’s bad for mob morale.”
“How much do you owe?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t have my accountant on hand at this minute.” I laughed nervously, trying to inject some levity into the moment. “A few thousand is probably a realistic estimate.”
“They hired the Reillys, one of the most expensive hit teams in Chicago, because you owe them a few thousand dollars.” Dantini was not buying my story.
I wanted to know, how he knew, how much the Reillys charged for a contract. I figured that the mafia wouldn’t outsource their hits. But I quickly put that line of thought behind me and focused on the problem at hand. “Ok, I stiffed pop Delaney for twenty-two thousand dollars in a poker game.”
The driver looked impressed, “And you’re still alive. I’m impressed.” He reached a hand the size of serving platter back over the seat. “Fernando Dantini, any enemy of the Delaneys is a friend of mine.” I shook the proffered hand. He turned to Dr. Telmar, “If you are going to have a last meal as a free man, you might as well do it in a place that serves decent food.”
I shot Telmar a look which I hoped said; “Nod your head. Agree with him. Just don’t say anything stupid.” Either I am a burgeoning telepath, or Dr. Telmar displayed a stroke of intelligence, which my time with him had not foreshadowed.
“Where do you suggest we eat?” He asked with the proper note of deference for someone who is speaking to a mob enforcer.
“I know this great little Italian place, very exclusive but also casual. It’s impossible to get into unless you know someone.” I took that phrase to mean, that unless you were a member of the mafia, the place was off limits.
We traveled a few more blocks, into neighborhoods which I would never have entered, under any normal set of circumstances. The buildings rose high on either side of a narrow street; like canyon walls around a party of settlers about to be massacred by hostile Indians.
I thought I saw a gun barrel tracking the car as we drove toward the shady end of that dead end street. In front of us was a neon sign which said “Siciliano’s Italian Food”. Half the letters were burned out. The red and white striped awning over the door was torn. Assuming someone was stupid enough to follow a GPS down here; the sight of the place would turn most of them around and send them back up the alley toward a more congenial dining experience.
Dantini parked the taxi in a spot which said, “No Parking”, in stenciled letters a foot high. The sun still blazed overhead, but it felt like it should be dusk; maybe with a slight drizzle and a cold wind. But this wasn’t Hollywood, and so the sun stayed shining. Dantini stepped out of the car and opened my door. “Wait and follow me,” he said. He helped Telmar out and led the two of us under the tattered awning to a heavy wooden door. He pushed it open. The smell of garlic, butter, and tomato sauce wafted out into the alley. I started salivating. We stepped inside a small foyer; where a second gorilla, who could have been Dantini’s twin, stood in a fancy three-piece suit. I was pretty sure the suit cost more than I made in a month. He scowled at me and Telmar; and for the umpteenth time that day, I felt like I was getting in over my head.
“Fernando, who are these people?” The gorilla on guard duty asked.
“Friends, no worries, they won’t cause any problems.”
“They’d better not.” He waved Dantini through the curtain and turned to Telmar. “I’m going to have to check you for weapons.” Telmar nodded, and the man quickly patted him down. “Ok, you can go through.”
It was about at this point that I realized I was going to be in trouble. I was carrying Telmar’s briefcase full of gold ingots. I had a snub nosed .38 in an ankle holster; a Colt .45 in my shoulder holster, and to top it off I had a set of lock-picks tucked into the inside pocket of my sport coat.
He turned to me. “You’re next.” I carefully set the briefcase down. I glanced at the heavy velvet curtain through which Dantini and Telmar had just disappeared.
I paused, my mind racing furiously, trying to figure out a good way to tell the bouncer of a mafia safe house that I was armed to the teeth. My mind, as it has on so many other important occasions, failed me. Brutal honesty had worked with Dantini, maybe it would work with this guy. “I’m heavily armed.” I said, trying to infuse my voice with a suave urbanity which I did not feel.
He responded in a fashion atypical to bouncers. He pulled a silenced pistol from under his jacket and leveled it at my face. I raised both of my hands, lacing fingers together behind my head, hoping that my teeth would not start chattering. Everyone was pointing guns at me today. While he covered me with the gun, he whispered something into a lapel mike. A few seconds later Dantini walked back through the curtain. I blamed this entire fiasco on Dantini. If he had been paying attention in the cab, he would have noticed that I was shooting bullets at our assailants and would have deduced that I had a gun.
There was some sort of hurriedly whispered conversation; then Dantini frisked me. He set the handguns on the small counter that ran along one wall. Then they both turned and looked at the briefcase. I suddenly realized, that as bad as this had already gone, it was about to get a lot worse. “What’s in the case?”
“Valuable items.” I replied. “I’m just the courier.”
“Who owns it?”
I paused momentarily, “Dr. Telmar.”
Dantini walked back through the curtain and returned moments later with Telmar. “Open the case.” The bouncer ordered. Telmar looked at me, and I shrugged. He spun the combination knobs quickly, and the case popped open. The room fell silent. I wish I had a snapshot of the faces of the two Italians when they saw the contents.
Dantini closed the case quickly and handed it back to Telmar. “I suggest you don’t show that to anyone else.”
“That’s what I told him,” I interjected.
Dantini ignored me and led us past the bouncer into the small dining room beyond. The place was empty but judging from the furnishings, little tiny two-person tables spaced acres apart, it looked extremely formal; so formal in fact, that I began to doubt Dantini’s statement that our casual clothing was not a problem.
He led us over to one of the small tables. “You two can sit here. I would join you, but I need to report the damage to my taxi. When the waiter arrives, tell him you’re friends of Fernando. I will be back to pick you up in a couple of hours.” He walked out, and I felt like a sheep which walked into a costume party, only to discover that all of the other guests are wolves.
Telmar had recovered his poise and aplomb to a surprising degree. He picked up one of the menus and stared at it. He looked up, “I would recommend the Linguini Peschereccio. Or if you prefer something other than seafood, Pollastra alla Usanza is also an excellent choice.”
I just stared at him. One moment he was a neurotic paranoid, and the next he was acting like the maître de at a fancy restaurant. Never mind the fact that we were in what appeared to be a mafia holdout.
A waiter approached and Telmar smiled, wiping imaginary dust from the cuffs of his jacket. “We are friends of Fernando.” Telmar said, as if he was conferring dignity upon this waiter by addressing him. “I would like the...” He rattled off that same incomprehensible Italian phrase which he had suggested to me. “Could you recommend a wine to go with that?”
“Yes, I would recommend a Toscana or a Chianti Riserva.”
“Excellent.” Telmar said. I didn’t think that it was excellent. I distinctly remembered that you were supposed to pair seafood with a white wine. Of course, I wasn’t going to say this to a waiter who looked like Michael Corleone, and probably had a silenced pistol tucked under his evening jacket.
The waiter turned to me. “And what would you like, Sir?”
The entire menu was in Italian, a language of which I only spoke a few words, none of which were suitable for polite company. I looked for something familiar. He continued to stare at me. I gave up and said the first thing which popped into my head, hoping that he would go away. “I’ll try the house spaghetti.”
The man looked at me with withering disdain. I felt about seven inches tall. “Very well,” he said and left the table.
Telmar and I sat in silence for a while, finally I spoke. “So, what was so secret that you couldn’t tell me about it in my office?” I managed to get this out just as the waiter returned with a platter of calamari, and the bottle of Chianti.
Telmar picked up a piece of calamari and dipped it in the marinara sauce. He popped it in his mouth and chewed contemplatively, if one can chew contemplatively. “It started about three months ago. I walked into a laundromat.”
This sounded like the beginning of a bad joke, along the lines of, a horse a parrot and a slug all walked into a bar. “Wait a minute.” I said as I took the time to notice an irregularity in his statement. “You are a millionaire, what were you doing in a laundromat?”
“I was on a book tour.”
“And you’ve never heard of the hotel’s laundry service?”
“Are you joking? I never let anyone else touch my clothes. The last thing that I want is some Black Hand agent infiltrating the hotel and slipping anthrax into my sportscoat.” I nodded, remembering that paranoia ruled his decision making paradigm and waited for him to continue.
“This laundromat had the new credit card operated machines. A wash cost me $1.99, the dryer was also $1.99.” I nodded; I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. But at least this was pretty tame stuff compared to the Roswell Incident and anthrax laced sportscoats. “When I got the bill,” Telmar continued. “It had charged me an extra penny on each load, rounding it up to four dollars even.
“How is this important?”
“It was the beginning of the pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“Every laundromat which I have visited since has done the same thing. So, I contacted a friend of mine who works on international tax fraud. He traced that extra charge to an offshore account which belonged to El Rey Industries.”
“El Rey?”
“Yes, El Rey Industries, they build credit card readers.”
“So, what? That’s not an evil plot to take over the world. Report them to the Better Business Bureau and get on with your very interesting life.”
“No, you don’t understand; El Rey is a holding company owned by the Black Hand.”
“Even so, a few million washing machines are not enough to fund a secret society.” I couldn’t believe that I was discussing this as if it were a rational proposition, but such is life.
“El Rey Industries builds more than 100 million credit card readers each year. If each of those machines is used once a day; that is almost a half a billion dollars a year for the Black Hand. And most machines could be used ten, a hundred, a thousand, times as often.”
I was spared the indignity of replying to his madness as, at that moment, the waiter brought our meal. Telmar’s plate appeared to contain a blend of every type of seafood on God’s green earth; or rather briny blue deep, sautéed and served in a light tomato sauce.
I began to wish that I had taken his advice. After all, spaghetti does not appear that spectacular compared with the Linguini Peshtigo, or whatever it was he had ordered. I soon learned how wrong I was. The spaghetti was the best I have ever had. It had meatballs, whole links of Italian sausage, roasted peppers, garlic which had been baked in butter, and a combination of herbs and seasonings that still make my mouth water every time I think about it.
We both dug in, and any discussion of the Black Hand faded from our minds for a few minutes. Those few minutes didn’t last nearly long enough.
“The Black Hand is using money, stolen from El Rey credit card readers, to fund its evil machinations. Telmar said digging an oyster out of its shell with his fork.
“So how did they fund themselves before the advent of credit cards?” I hoped that would silence him long enough for me to eat more of the delicious pasta.
“Stolen Nazi gold.”
“Nazi’s, right. Next thing, you’ll be telling me that they smuggled the gold back on the USS Eldridge during Project Rainbow.”
“Mr. Chase, the entire Montauk Conspiracy has been shown to be a ridiculous load of tripe. If you must know, the gold was captured by the same team of soldiers who recovered the V2 rockets from Peenemunde.”
I resigned myself to another horrible alternate history lesson. “Ok Mr. Telmar, what is your plan; assuming we make it out of this place alive?”