House Reckoning (6 page)

Bullshit, he was apologizing.

“But I’m gonna find out who it was,” Gino said. “I saw him clear as a bell and I got most of his license plate. I’ll find him.”

Goddamnit,
Carmine had thought at the time.
He probably will find him.
Gino didn’t own a bunch of cops and bureaucrats the way Carmine did, but he was smart, stubborn, and resourceful. Yeah, he’d probably find him.

Carmine drove back home thinking that Brian Quinn might be the unluckiest fucking Irishman on the planet.

When Carmine got back home after meeting with Gino, his wife told him a man had called, said it was urgent, and to call him back. He called the number, which turned out to be a phone in a restaurant. He didn’t identify himself. All he said was “A guy told me to call this number.”

“Yeah, I know who you want.” A moment later, Quinn was on the line.

“I need to talk to you. Right away,” Quinn said.

Shit. He told his wife he had to leave the house again and she said, “What’s going on? How many girlfriends you got?”

It was kind of a running joke with them, his wife acting like he had girlfriends all over town, him pretending he did. The truth was, he’d stopped caring about sex years ago.

He met Quinn at an Indian restaurant near the Queensboro Bridge, a place Carmine was confident nobody he knew would ever visit. Quinn was sitting there drinking some kind of stinky tea, pretending to be calm. He liked that about Quinn, the way he could control his emotions. Quinn got right to the point and told Carmine he’d killed Kennedy, but another man had been with Kennedy.

“I recognized him,” Quinn said. “I’ve looked at the files our organized crime people have on you . . .”

Carmine almost smiled at that, picturing Quinn poring over the files, studying him the way he’d studied Quinn.

“. . . and I know I saw his face in the file. I have a good memory for faces. Tomorrow, I’ll get his name and call you. I need you to make sure he doesn’t talk.”

Carmine didn’t say anything for a moment. For one thing, Quinn was starting to piss him off, telling him what he
needed,
like Carmine should give a shit what he needed.

“I already know who he is,” Carmine said. “I met with him half an hour ago. He came to tell me Kennedy had been killed and that he was going after the guy who killed him.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I did my best to convince him that whoever shot Kennedy probably worked for the guy in Trenton whose dope Kennedy lost.”

“Good.”

“No, it’s not good. He saw your face, too, and he got part of your license plate, and Jerry Kennedy was his best friend. I figure in a few days, less than a week, he’ll know who you are. Then he’ll kill you.”

Quinn didn’t say anything immediately but Carmine saw him squeezing the teacup so hard he was surprised it didn’t crack.

“What’s his name?” Quinn finally asked.

When Carmine didn’t answer the question right away, Quinn said, “I’ll get his name from the files tomorrow, so you might as well tell me.”

“It’s DeMarco,” Carmine said. “Gino DeMarco.”

And five days later, Enzo came to Carmine’s house while he was feeding his fish and told him that Gino had identified the man who had killed Jerry Kennedy: a young cop named Quinn.

6

Joe DeMarco walked into the house and the odor of whatever was cooking in the kitchen made him smile. His mother, an Irish girl who barely knew how to scramble an egg when she first got married, was one of the best Italian cooks in Queens. She was so good that Joe rarely went to Italian restaurants because he knew the food wouldn’t be as good as his mom’s.

He dropped his bag on the floor by the front door and walked into the kitchen. His mother hadn’t heard him come in, and she was standing at the counter, whacking an onion into small chunks with a big knife, like she was mad at the onion. He could also see her lips moving, talking to somebody who wasn’t there, which would have made him smile if she hadn’t looked so angry. Which meant the imaginary person she was talking to was most likely his father.

“Hey, Ma,” he said.

She jumped. “Oh, my God! You’re gonna give me a heart attack, sneaking up on me like that.”

She put down the knife and rushed over and hugged him. “Are you hungry?”

It seemed like that was the first question she asked every time she saw him, like he’d walked from D.C. to New York, foraging for food on the way.

“You want me to make you a sandwich?”

He held her for a moment and looked at her. She was slim but not frail, and there wasn’t that much gray in her hair. But she was starting to look old, older than his dad looked, and they were both the same age. He figured it was fear etching the lines into her face: fear that her husband was going to be arrested one day, fear that he would be killed one day, fear that she wouldn’t be able to support herself when he was gone. And maybe the biggest fear: fear that her only son might be sucked into his father’s world.

He had seen pictures of her when she was young, before he was born, and she looked like . . . well, like somebody who would be
fun
. Now there was nothing fun about her, nothing joyful, nothing playful. Now she looked like who she was, a person always knotted up inside, perpetually angry at the man she married, maybe angry at the whole damn world.

But Joe knew she would never leave his father. Being Catholic was one reason why; the other reason was that she came from a class and generation that equated divorce with failure. More than anything else, however, he knew she still loved his father; he knew this even if she didn’t. No, she’d never leave Gino DeMarco—she just wouldn’t ever forgive him for being who he was.

Joe didn’t feel the way she did about his dad. He loved the man unconditionally.

When he was young, like when he was eight or nine, he’d ask his mom what his dad did at work and why he didn’t come home some nights, and she’d put him off saying things like “Oh, you know, he just works for a man. He fixes things for him, like the way he fixes things here around the house. And sometimes things have to be fixed at night. Now go clean up your room like I told you.”

He was ten when he found out his dad worked for Carmine Taliaferro and who Taliaferro was. A kid named Jimmy Moskovey had asked him if his dad was a gangster and if he had gun. “What?” Joe had said. “What are you talking about?” “Well, he works for old man Taliaferro and everyone knows Taliaferro’s a big gangster.” The only thing Joe knew about Mr. Taliaferro at that time was that he was rich and he donated the uniforms for his Little League team. “My dad’s no gangster,” Joe told Jimmy, “and if you ever say that again, I’m gonna punch you.”

But when he got home from school that afternoon, he asked his mom, “Does dad work for Mr. Taliaferro? Jimmy Moskovey said he’s a gangster.” His mom closed her eyes, like she’d been dreading this moment all her life. Finally she said, “Yes, he works for him but nobody knows for sure what Mr. Taliaferro does. People make up stories about him. And your father isn’t a gangster.” “But what does Dad do for him?” Joe persisted. “He just does stuff, but he doesn’t do anything bad. Now quit pestering me. I’ve got work to do.” His mother had never been much of a liar—she was too blunt and almost always said what was on her mind without caring what the consequences might be—but Joe, even at the age of ten, could tell she was lying. And that night, after his parents thought he was asleep, he could hear his mom yelling at his dad in the kitchen.

By the time Joe was in his teens, he knew from the neighbors, the newspapers, and the kids in school exactly what Taliaferro did. He was involved in loansharking, prostitution, and drugs. His guys shook down store owners for protection money, hijacked trucks, and fenced stolen goods. He bribed politicians and cops to stay out of the can. He also had his hooks deep into the garbage haulers’ union, meaning everyone in Queens was basically paying him to take away their trash.

But no matter what people said about Taliaferro, Joe couldn’t picture his father smacking around some little shopkeeper for protection money or beating up some guy who owed Taliaferro’s sharks. He couldn’t imagine him sneaking into some place and ripping stuff off. If anyone had ever said to his face that his dad was a thief or a drug dealer, Joe would have taken the guy’s head off.

He eventually developed his own theory about what his father did. He didn’t have any facts to back up this theory, but it was one that fit his perception of the man he knew. He decided his dad probably provided protection for Taliaferro. Taliaferro had to have enemies, and his dad made sure they didn’t kill him. He could see his father’s broad form, like in a movie, standing in the shadows behind Taliaferro, silent and unmoving, arms crossed over his chest, being Taliaferro’s bodyguard. He probably also made sure that Taliaferro’s men—who really
were
thieves—didn’t steal from their boss. Plus Taliaferro, as everyone knew, had a lot of legitimate businesses: an auto body place, a company that painted houses, and half a dozen others. He had property all over the five boroughs. Joe could imagine his dad involved in some hazy way in those businesses, taking care of things, managing things, doing like his mom had told him when he was little: fixing things that were broken.

Joe knew that his perception of what his father did for Taliaferro might be wrong and some might even consider him naïve, but he knew one thing for sure: Gino DeMarco was, and always had been, a great father to him. Gino didn’t just love him—he cherished him, he doted on him, he was always there for him—and Joe had never lacked for anything important. He knew one other thing about his dad that was hard for him to articulate but that he knew to be true: his father might do things that were illegal, but he’d never do something that was dishonorable.

Joe really had only one complaint about his dad, and it was the same complaint his mother had: Gino DeMarco was a man who never opened up to anyone. Joe had tried countless times to get him to talk about what he did for a living—or if not
what
he did, then just how he
felt
about what he did. He just wanted to understand why a man like him would be associated with Carmine Taliaferro.

But every time he tried to draw his father out, all he usually got in the way of a response was a head shake. The most his dad ever said to him was “Look, Joe, you need to quit asking me about what I do because I can’t tell you. All you need to know is that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I didn’t even graduate from high school. I ended up where I am now because I’m stupid and because I thought I didn’t have a lot of other choices.”

Joe knew his father wasn’t stupid but he could tell he was ashamed about what he did.

“The main thing is, you stay away from the people I work with. You don’t go near them. You get an education, then you move away from here, and you make your mother proud.”

He had no idea, not then, that his father was a killer.

Maureen DeMarco smiled as she watched her son eat a meatball sandwich. She had a secret recipe for her meatballs she wouldn’t share with anyone, not even her sisters. She laughed when he said, with his mouth full, “God, Ma, this is delicious.” It felt good to laugh.

She was always amazed how much he looked like Gino, particularly now that he was a young man. He had the same powerful build, the same dark hair, the prominent nose, the cleft in his chin. The only difference between him and Gino was his eyes. They were blue like hers instead of brown like Gino’s. His eyes, as near as she could tell, were the only physical characteristics he’d inherited from her.

When it came to his personality, he wasn’t much like either her or Gino. He wasn’t serious about much of anything—especially school—and was usually easygoing and in a good mood, although God help you if you made him mad. But with sports, he was different. He was very competitive when he played in high school and had been an outstanding catcher; he hated to lose. Gino said that if Joe had been able to hit a curve, he could have a gotten a scholarship to college.

She liked that he was nice to people, too, and he’d never been cruel to the type of kids other kids were cruel to when he was in school. She remembered his sophomore year in high school, how he went to a dance with this incredibly homely girl because she asked him and he couldn’t bring himself to say no and hurt her feelings. She loved that he had the courage to do that.

There was one thing he had in common with her husband beside his looks, however: he never confided in anyone when something was bothering him—and just like with Gino, that pissed her off.

“How’s school going?” she asked.

“Great,” Joe said.

Maureen DeMarco rarely swore out loud; she thought women who cursed were cheap and tacky. So all she said was “Well, that’s good to hear.” But she was thinking:
Bullshit.

He looked tired, with dark smudges under his eyes, and she knew what was going on. He was cramming like crazy to pass his final exams, trying to make up for goofing off when he should have been studying. He’d been like that as an undergrad, and would never have come close to getting into law school if it hadn’t been for Gino. His junior year, Gino sat him down and told him that if his grades didn’t improve, he was going to stop paying his tuition and make him enlist in the army. She didn’t think Gino was serious about making him enlist—Gino loved him too much to ever put his life at risk—but Joe believed him and finally knuckled down. Or maybe he just grew up and realized if he wanted a good life he needed to apply himself. Whatever the case, he was now paying the price, having to study his butt off.