Sweeney on the Rocks Read online

  Take Julietta Siegal. Pushing seventy now, diminished and hunched over a man’s wooden cane, back in the late sixties and early seventies she’d been a bombshell. Broad shoulders, broad hips. A mezzo soprano, photos show her in an evening gown beside Jackie Kennedy. Old and having drinks with a young Marcello Viotti. A publicity shot of Julietta in Carnegie Hall, scowling mid-gesture halfway through Bizet. Sweeney’s hip to opera, and, though she changed her last name with marriage, he finally put two and two together. This woman had been the shit, man.

  Four years ago she hired Sweeney to put in a rail fence around the half acre pasture behind her new cabin, replacing a rusted tangle of barbed wire. A discrete little cabin with a distant view of the river. One of those idyllic little spots of which there seem to be an unlimited supply, so long as you’ve got, you know, millions.

  She’d followed her husband (a fly fisherman) to Montana, but the grizzled old sonofabitch had a massive coronary three weeks after closing on the house. Lonelier than she deserved, she came out with a lawn chair to watch Sweeney work. Cane upright between her knees. He dug postholes, set rails. “What’s your story, then?”

  Sweeney sweated over his posthole digger, pried at rocks with a spud bar. “No story.”

  “Everybody’s got a story.”

  Sweeney, of course, diverted the conversation. “What’s yours?”

  Over the next week, he got it. Bits and pieces. By the time the job was done, Sweeney was half in love, Harold with his Maude. The highlight? He set the last post, pounded in the last nail. And to mark the occasion, Julietta stood up from her lawn chair, straightened her shoulders, and sang. A voice roughened by age, half an octave deeper, but still.

  L’oiseau qu tu croyais surprendre

  battit de l’aile et s’envola

  l’amour est loin, tu peux l’attendre

  tu ne l’attends plus, il est là!

  She reached for her cane. “Come into the house. I have lemonade.”

  Turns out, her husband, Leonard Siegal, had been one of those Siegals. His name on jewelry stores scattered through half the malls in America. The third act of Julietta’s life, she’d helped her husband build, manage, finally sell that business. “Had to learn it from the ground up, Ted. A bit of a trick, I’ll tell you.”

  The cabin was a nice little post and beam number, tricked out craftsman style. Stickley chairs and tables. And those small paintings over the stone fireplace were Fechins, Sharps, Berninghauses. But the showpieces—what drew the eye—were the displays of jewelry, framed in shadow boxes. A diamond and sapphire necklace, set in platinum. “I wore this when I met Richard Nixon for the first time. Poor man.” A ruby pendant surrounded by teardrop diamonds. “I wore this one to the Oscars when our friend Maximilian was nominated for that movie.” A diamond and amethyst choker. “Leonard had his affair in 1989. This was how he started making it up.”

  The gangster in Sweeney briefly snorted awake, rolled over and cracked a yellow eye. “Hope you have a good alarm system, Mrs. Siegal.”

  “Alarms, yes. And guns. Lots of guns. Guns and guns and guns.”

  Charming old diva packing heat. Sweeney fell another notch in love.

  But most interesting perhaps, in an office nook beside the kitchen—and where normally you might find a small curio desk, maybe a laptop, an answering machine—Julietta had set herself up with a jeweler’s station. Magnifier light. Ionic cleaner. Gem tester. Diamond sieves, parcel papers. “I still do some work. Keep my hand in the business. If I left it up to those kids…”

  Sweeney now dials her number from memory, pulling off the Interstate and turning south. “Mrs. Siegal? Hey, this is Ted Sweeney, not sure if you’d remember…well, thank you. Thanks. I’m good, good, thanks. Say, I have a question, maybe a favor…”

  ~

  In the four years since Sweeney had built her fence, Julietta Siegal has installed herself into a small and fervent community of like-minded, formidably-outraged old women. A pack of bridge players and placard holders, liberal democrats with unlimited time and a surfeit of self-righteousness. You see these flocks of dames and dowagers in the affluent corners of America, marching on post offices and courthouses, fervent with the belief that they can change things. And by believing it, of course, make it so.

  Pulling up to Julietta’s cabin, Sweeney passes a retired movie star in a Grand Cherokee. Fifty years ago, she’d made a career out of a great set of tits and a passable scream. A slasher movie ingénue who had a brief run at the A-list when she starred next to Rock Hudson in a red-mesa oater. Rock had caressed her hand in an extended, minimally-outrageous way. The same hand now hangs loose over the top of her steering wheel, and waves energetically at Sweeney as they pass. He installed a trash disposal for her a few months ago.

  He finds Julietta cleaning up the kitchen, rinsing tea cups. “Teddy. Dear.” She tilts her check for him.

  He kisses it. “You look fantastic,” he says, and means it, though her glasses are heavier, her wrinkles thicker.

  “So let’s see it.” All business, she throws off her apron.

  Sweeney goes to his shirt pocket, drops the stone into her palm.

  She hefts it in her hand. Raises her plucked eyebrows at him. “I love it.”

  “Love what.”

  “That someone whom I thought I knew still has the capacity to surprise me.”

  She puts a plug in the sink and holds the stone under hot water, rubbing it around with Joy dish soap. She dries it with a paper towel and produces a loupe from her junk drawer. A pair of tweezers. She steps over to the nearest window and starts with the squinting. A full minute later, she brings the stone up to her mouth, breathes a puff of hot air onto it. She glances at it again immediately. Nods.

  She hefts it in her palm. Passes it back. “You get yourself in some kind of trouble, Mr. Sweeney?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What you seem to have there is a slightly yellowed, near flawless dodecahedron glassy. Twenty-five to thirty carats. It’s got those two very slight occlusions in the heart, but assuming no further flaws, if you brought this into my shop with documentation, I’d offer you thirty thousand dollars and feel guilty about it.”

  “Thirty grand.”

  “If it’s cut well, and if it’s as flawless as it looks, you’ve got a hundred thousand dollar rock in your hand. Inherited, you said.”

  “Yeah….”

  “You don’t see roughs this size out in the open. Ever.”

  He tucks it back into his shirt pocket. “Well. Thank you. That helps.”

  She touches his pocket with a crooked forefinger. “You sure you’re not in any sort of trouble, Teddy?”

  “Me, I’m golden.”

  She keeps her finger on his shirt. Presses it at him. “Glad to hear it.”

  ~

  Eddie used to point out, we’re not criminals, we’re competition. “Wiseguys used to have numbers? But what’s Powerball if it ain’t numbers? Tell me please why the U. S. of A. can run Lotto and we can’t have numbers? And Shylocks? You ask me, Shys are the same as Chase credit cards. The Russians got their basement games over in Brighton Beach, which is like Atlantic City without the commute. No wonder RICO had to come along. Competition, man. And the Feds got the jails, they got the courts. What have we got? Nothing but each other, man. Nothing but each other.”

  Fifteen years later, Sweeney ushers Eddie’s wife (his wife) into Sweeney’s home. “It ain’t much,” Sweeney says, unlooping the black bungee cord he’s been using for a lock, “but it’s a calving shed.”

  “Cozy.” Tina’s tentative coming through the door, clutching her elbows, trying not to brush up against anything contagious.

  “Have a seat.” Sweeney indicates a chair leaking the least amount of stuffing. “Want some water? Diet Coke? Beer?”

  “Beer.”

  “I’ll break out the fine crystal, that’s how much you mean to me.” He comes back with a can of Budweiser and a Flintstones glass. Dealing with Tina
(it’s coming back to him now), you got to mix your messages.

  She ignores the glass and goes straight for the can. A good long healthy draw puts her in a better mood. She takes in the linoleum curling under the stove, the fern dropping leaves into the sink, Zeke lapping at his water bowl. Outside, the hot, bleached dust of the driveway. Inside, the residual odor of wet dog and bacon grease, a soupçon of engine oil.

  Sweeney flicks on a window air conditioner. “Give it a few minutes, we’ll be all right.”

  “You don’t mind me saying…Jesus, Cosmo.”

  “It ain’t Park Avenue.”

  “No shit.”

  “Maybe it’s better.”

  “Get out.”

  “I like my life.” He cracks a beer, lights a cigarette. “It just takes, you know, adjusting some expectations.”

  “Understatement of the year.”

  “Questions, Tina. I got questions.”

  “Sure you do.”

  He starts pleasantly enough: “Where’d your diamonds come from?”

  “Like I said, Cosmo. Need to know basis.”

  “Yeah, I remember you said that. The thing is, though, you only got one option here, while you drink my beer in my kitchen. You got to answer my questions.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’m sending you back to New York on the humble, hat in hand. I need reassurances. Otherwise, sweetheart, have a nice life.”

  “When’d you get so pissy?” She finishes off her beer, dimples the can meditatively with her thumb. “Anyway, you wouldn’t do that. Just cut me loose like that.”

  From his hip pocket, he withdraws a laser-printed photo from the dead wop’s briefcase. The one where Tina’s sitting among wicker and water glasses, face lost behind sunglasses. “Look familiar?” He pushes it across the table.

  She tilts it to the light. “That’s me.”

  Sweeney notes that Tina’s fingernails, holding the sheet, are a bright, fire-engine red. Last night, her nails had been bare. So. She helps him dump a body then goes back and paints her nails?

  “I was wearing my Dulce’s. So this was what, like, two weeks ago? That’s Bryant Park.” It starts to sink in. “Where’d this come from?”

  “Short version? We got two corpses in the river. This first guy shows up in my chair a couple nights ago.” Sweeney draws a finger across his throat. “Never seen him before in my life. I found his car, he had these photos. Then there’s that guy from last night. Hyenas travel in pairs, right?”

  “But, I mean.”

  “You been on somebody’s radar for what, two weeks ago you said? They’re following you, and now they know you’re here. If you’re still alive, maybe they’re watching you. Which means you’re valuable to them. I need to know who they are, where they come from. What they got to do with me.”

  She takes a breath. Considers her beer can. Finally says, “Right, okay. You’re right. So. Yeah. Luccheses.”

  “No. No way. If this was 1980, maybe.”

  “Nah, there’s still a few hanging on. Skin of their teeth kind of thing.” Having decided to spill, she’s already bored again. Staring at the window above his sink, tilting her head at a hummingbird suspended at his feeder. “That guy last night. Tony Castori. He’s muscle for Donnie Moretti.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a…Donnie Moretti? Those stones belong to Moretti?”

  “Yeah no, not really. But Eddie was earning for Donnie when he grabbed them. Donnie probably wants his piece.”

  “So Eddie got sideways with Donnie Moretti?”

  “Eddie said Moretti’s washed up.”

  “Things change, but things don’t change that much.” Sweeney takes a moment to dig through a set of jumbled memories, comes up with Moretti in sweat pants, Walmart sneakers. Three chins shiny with chicken grease. Dark, glittering eyes. He’s seen this face occasionally in his dreams, and never under pleasant circumstances. “That guy’s Genghis Khan, he’s thalidomide, he’s DDT, he’s…”

  “Anyway, it wasn’t Moretti. It was just that fag Tony. The other guy, probably his kid brother. They run together.”

  “Both of whom we tossed in the Yellowstone. Which means Donnie’s coming right behind, Donnie or somebody just as bad…” He briefly chews over possibilities. “The Luccheses. That’s just great. I mean, yeah. I just want to take a second and say thanks. Thank you for bringing this to my door.”

  “Jesus, Cosmo.” She slaps the table as she stands. Finds the fridge and another beer, popping it on her way back. “Grow a pair, right? I mean, I come to you with this opportunity, this chance where you might never have to work again, ever, and what do you do? You keep pissing and moaning about…what? Having to dump a couple bodies. Big deal.” She tilts the beer back at a generous angle.

  “You lied about knowing Tony.”

  “I knew you’d bitch and moan.”

  “You got that right.” Sweeney thinks a minute. Says, “There’s another player out here, too. Luccheses plus whoever’s killing Luccheses. The guy who’s messing with harmless old Ted Sweeney. Hey Tina? Who’s messing with me?”

  “No idea.”

  “Yeah right.”

  “Seriously. You think I’d hold something like that back?”

  He waits her out.

  “Here’s all I know, Cosmo. Okay? I’ll tell you what I got, then can we start figuring out how to move my rocks? Okay?” She sighs heavily. “God. So yeah. Okay. Eddie comes home about a week ago. And he’s freaking out. Three in the morning and I mean, pale and trembly. He puts this bag in my hand, says to me, we got to hide this somewheres.” She stares off. “So we find a place, right? Up in the attic. Eddie tells me, he says, any Russians come around, you take these rocks and go find Cosmo. He tells me, Rockjaw, Montana, he says. First time I’d ever heard of the place. Then he says, I’ll catch up to you, he says.”

  “The Russians.”

  “The next night. I’m lying up in bed, I hear somebody downstairs taking an axe to the backdoor. An axe, Cosmo. They left it in splinters, pretty much.”

  Sweeney flashes briefly on the crowbar work done on his place. “So you’re upstairs?”

  “We had an attic door right over the bed. One of those fold down ladders. I crawled up, pulled the ladder behind me, laid there listening while they trashed our house. My mother’s China, silverware, those nice clay pots I used to have? Gone. Just for the fun of it.”

  “Lucky they didn’t set the place on fire.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Russians and arson? It’s like bacon and eggs.”

  “Well, uh, yeah. So anyway.” This hadn’t occurred to her, and it takes her a moment to digest it. “So I, uh, I waited for a few hours. Got the rocks and got in my car. Hightailed it out to Montana. That was, what, five days ago now.”

  “Five days.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sweeney grabs another beer. Figuring his day’s pretty much shot anyway. “Got any idea what Russians we’re dealing with here?”

  “Breetvah? That’s a name I’ve heard. I’ve heard Breetvah.”

  The mouth of his beer foams, and he stares down into the boiling abyss of it. Breetvah. Donnie Moretti and now Breetvah.

  Fuhhhuck. Fuck me running.

  ~

  That cold spring when Sweeney was twenty-three, business was good enough he could afford the car of his wet dreams. A 1957 Eldorado Seville, lowered and chromed up, customized with a 454 Chevy. Even at idle, the compression ratio, the cam shaft rattle, they’d knock your fillings loose. A beautiful, lethal little rumble from the pipes. Some guys had posters of Farrah, he’d always had the ’57 Eldorado. It was a car that started conversations, just garish enough to walk the line of irony. DeCicco himself had complimented his ride.

  Eddie and Sweeney were full time partners, amigos, tres bon amis. They were Scorcese and De Niro. You got a gig? You got a score? It’s both of us or neither of us. More rightly, come to think of it, they were Mister Miyagi and the Karate Kid. Wipe on, wipe off. Eddie sayi
ng, “See, one of these days, when you seen what I seen….” Half-smiling it into a joke, but you don’t joke about shit like that. Eddie reminding Sweeney, constantly, who wore the pleated pants.

  But Sweeney kept his mouth shut. Long as they were making money, he’d let Eddie have his attitude. Plus, they were family. You put up with a lot from family. Plus again, Eddie did know some moves.

  That first Breetvah job, for instance. Eddie had an inside guy at a place called CorpCo Technologies. “So we jack the delivery van. Low risk, the driver knows we’re coming. Sit on the cargo, chips or something, then sell it back to my guy for half the price. Company gets the insurance payoff, you and me, we get a thirty grand payday. Everybody comes out ahead.”

  The heist went off smooth. A parking lot in Williamsburg, the driver waiting with an elbow on the hood of his van, a twenty-year-old kid with an Adam’s apple the size of your fist, a ponytail that didn’t quite cover the Aryan Brotherhood swastika tattooed on his neck. He opened the double doors, giving them a look. The van packed floor to ceiling with bagel-sized boxes. “Computer processers. Four times faster than what’s out there now.” An Apple logo printed on the side of every small box. “Oh and hey, mind giving me a ride back to my place? I’m over in Coney Island.”

  “Coney Island?” Eddie considered it a second before punching the kid in the mouth. A straight jab to the teeth. “That’s for the whatchamacallit. Hey Shakespeare, what do we call it?”

  “Verisimilitude?”

  “Yeah. Coney Island? My partner here can give you a ride. No problem.”

  Sweeney thinking: An hour’s drive one way. Sure, no problem.

  The guy reached in to wobble at a tooth. “Could have warned me.”

  Eddie stashed the van in a storage shed in Jamaica, Queens. Twelve days later, two o’clock in the morning, Sweeney and Eddie rode slow through empty streets in Sweeney’s Caddy. The tires whispered against rain. Eddie said, “New interior?”