“Tell Ronnie that I’ll give Suzette a call when we get back,” she said. Suzette was Ronnie’s wife. For now, anyway. She couldn’t get pregnant, so Ronnie was already looking for somewhere else to put his dick.
“Keep the car running,” Billy said.
“Do you need anything else?” Arlene asked. The glove box was still open, his pistol there.
He looked into the backseat again, Sal’s head down in his coloring book. Maybe this would be the last day his son ever saw Chicago. Last day as Sal Cupertine, anyway. Maybe he’d come back as an adult, with a new name, barely any memories of this time when his father was in deep with this gangster bullshit. Who would Billy be by then? He saw himself owning a bar. One of those places where you could get a decent steak and a cold beer and on weekends, a little spot out back for BBQs.
Or he’d be dead.
“No.” Billy closed the glove box. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Ten minutes.” He gave Arlene’s hand a squeeze. “Hey,” Billy said, and Sal met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Look up at the top floor. I’ll wave.”
RONNIE CUPERTINE WAS A COUPLE YEARS YOUNGER THAN BILLY, BUT HE WAS already going gray at the temples, which made him look surprisingly dignified, so Ronnie played it up, wore nice suits, spent some money on shoes, styled his hair, even when he was going to be at a construction site seven hundred feet off the ground. He was also starting to do things like donate money to cancer research, ever since Dandy Tommy ended up with a bum pancreas that killed him in two months.
“You got a luncheon or something today?” Billy asked when he found Ronnie on the south side of the building, done up in a blue suit, white shirt, red tie, looking like the fucking flag.
Ronnie pointed out the window, which wasn’t a window yet, just a square covered in clear plastic tarp. “You ever been inside that building?” he asked.
Billy looked down at the eight-story building across the street. “The Sun-Times? Fuck no. Spent my entire life trying to keep my name out of that fucking thing.”
“I got a meeting there today,” he said, Billy thinking he sounded pretty satisfied. “I’m buying some advertising.”
“You fucking crazy?”
“Full-page ad,” he said. “Color. Gonna run every Sunday, starting this week. Then I’m gonna have smaller ads in Sports and Business on weekdays. Thinking I might start doing some radio, too.”
“How much is that?”
Ronnie shrugged. “Way I see it,” he said, “once I buy into the paper and the radio, we’re partners. I think they’ll see it the same way. Might be I start doing TV ads. That’s the next thing, Billy. They’ll have more room to talk about Nixon if they aren’t talking about me.”
“You mean us?”
“You know what I mean,” Ronnie said. Billy was afraid he did.
“What would Dandy Tommy say?”
“Eh,” Ronnie said. “He’s dead. It’s a new era, right?”
“Doing shit in the open,” Billy said, “is gonna piss people off.”
“Who? The Outfit? New York? Fuck them. Let them come at me,” Ronnie said. “It’s about complicity. The newspaper, they aren’t gonna piss on me if I’m giving them twenty Gs a month. Cheaper than paying off the cops. Cleaner than moving H, and no one’s stiff in an alley because they OD’d on Mike Royko.”
“Someone wants to write about you,” Billy said, “an ad isn’t gonna stop them.”
“We’ll see,” Ronnie said. “In the meantime, you’re holding the first month’s rent.”
Billy reached into his pocket, came out with the envelope. Ronnie flipped through the bills absently, then waved over a new guy, gave him the cash. Big Kirk, they called him. He was a big white kid, but his last name was Biglione. His sister Tina was married into The Family, hooked up with some motherfuckers out in Detroit who had a bingo skim going at a bunch of retirement homes. This was Big Kirk’s summer job, getting sandwiches and coffee for Ronnie, standing around, looking imposing. He was maybe eighteen. Next year at this time, Billy figured Biglione would either be dead or in college. Billy hoped, for his sake, college. He counted the money.
“Twenty-five,” Big Kirk said.
Billy said to Big Kirk, “You ever count my money in front of me again, your mother will be on a fucking feeding tube.”
Big Kirk stared blankly at Billy, like he hadn’t been taught that part of algebra yet. “I’m sorry?”
“Give us a minute,” Ronnie said. Big Kirk went and stood beside the elevator. “Give him a break. He’ll learn.”
“I’m serious, Ronnie,” Billy said, not that it mattered. But he couldn’t suddenly be a pussy on his last day. “Count my money? Some Detroit fuck? His balls even drop yet?” Billy looked back over his shoulder at Big Kirk. Kid had a crooked look on his face, like he didn’t know if he should smile or scream. “Fucking Bigliones,” he mumbled, but with his eyes, he tried to will the kid to leave, go downstairs, hop on the L, never come back. “Isn’t his dad a cop?”
“How you think we got into Detroit?”
“I don’t like that shit.”
“He’s just doing what he thinks is right.” Ronnie took a few steps, motioned Billy to follow him. “You know what’s going on this floor?”
“I don’t know,” Billy said, “a thousand typewriters?”
“IBM has a government contract,” Ronnie said. “Making computers for the CIA. Up here, it’s gonna be all spooks and G-men. Want the walls soundproofed. They’re building an interior room back over here.” Ronnie pointed to an area on the floor marked off with red Xs. Maybe twenty by twenty. “They want it to have exterior walls made of metal, covered in cement. Survive a bomb. What do you think goes in there?”
“Mr. IBM?”
Ronnie considered this. “Not a bad idea.” He stopped walking once they were out of earshot from Big Kirk, looked out another plastic window. “What the fuck happened last night?” Ronnie asked quietly.
“Germaio went sideways on him.” Billy shook his head at the memory. “And then the fucker stroked out. Started shaking, frothing at the mouth, and then he was toast. Maybe a minute all in.”
“So if I determine that we need to dig him up,” Ronnie said, “coroner isn’t gonna see a broken neck or missing fingers or anything?”
“Might be absent a couple teeth,” Billy said.
“That can be explained. Anything unexplainable? A fucking wrench up his ass or something?”
