Shallow Graves

you?“
    “Kind of cumbersome.“
    “Yeah, cumbersome. So they decide they’re gonna shorten it, call it by the letters, the initials. Fucking coincidence, guess what they spell?“
    Danucci looked at me like he expected an answer.
    I said, “RICO.“
    “That’s right. RICO. Like the name of that guy Edward G. played in the Bogey movie. The one in the hurricane.“
    “ Key Largo . ”
    “Yeah, Key Largo. Only you get the idea, maybe they thought of using ‘RICO’ first, then come up with the words to fit later. RICO, it’s got that nice ‘wop’ sound to it. Give the boys at the station a good laugh, they pull in a friend of ours, they get to say to him, ‘You’re under arrest for RICO, Rico.’ Fucking assholes.“
    Danucci finished his course, then took some wine. Primo cleared the bowls and disappeared into the kitchen.
    “So, like I said, I got religion again after my Amatina got sick, and I started getting back to the church. Not since I’m eleven I go to Mass, but I start now every day, every fucking morning. My heart attack, that took me out of the loop. The rest of the Office—my friends, they understood, no problem, but I couldn’t do nothing from that bed. Just as well, tell you the truth. Wasn’t much after that, story broke that the Feebs, they had the Angiulos bugged over on Prince Street , they got them all, big falls.“
    Danucci leaned into the table but more in my direction. “I tell you something else, so you’ll know. Almost sixty years in the business, sixty fucking years, I never once got arrested. I’m not talking convicted, I mean not even arrested. You know why? I copied this man, I fucking idolized him, Mr. Detective. You ever heard the name, Filippo Buccola?“
    “No.“
    “You should read more. Buccola was a man, you saw him in the street, you woulda said, ‘there goes a doctor,’ or ‘there goes a lawyer.’ Guy wore little wire glasses and a bow tie. And he was a gentleman. He was the capo before Ray Senior down in Rhody. And he knew when to get out. He moved back to Sicily , he lived to be a hundred and one, Mr. Detective. He let me in on a secret. There are three things you gotta have, be a success in this business. You gotta have heart, you gotta have brains, and you gotta have ambition.“
    Primo brought in another course, this one veal in a wine sauce. Halfway through, I’d eaten more calories than I usually throw down in a week.
    Danucci rested his fork. “You know, in the old days, you had a problem with some people, you could talk to them, eh? You couldn’t settle it, sometimes you had them play a little Guts.“
    I said “Guts?“ before I thought to keep my mouth shut.
    “Yeah. Some of the old guys, they had these chrome revolvers, custom-made by gunsmiths back in Italy . A lot of guys had a pair of them, used to keep them in a box.“ Danucci gestured at the glass cabinet behind him. “Like my Amatina’s jewelry box up on the shelf there. A couple of your boys had a problem and they come to you with it, couldn’t talk it out, you took these revolvers. You put one bullet in each cylinder, then you put a spin on the fucking thing and closed it.“
    “Like Russian roulette?“
    “Yeah, yeah. Like that. Then you gave one gun to each guy, they’re standing maybe ten, twelve feet apart, and they point their pieces at each other. And the only other guy involved would be you, doing the calling. When you called out ‘One,’ they each got to pull the trigger once. Nobody’s gun went off, you let them think a little, then said, ‘Two.’ Nobody got shot, you let them think a little more. I tell you, Mr. Detective, a lot of problems got settled, before they let you get to three.“
    I said, “Any chance one of your people could be involved in Tina’s death?“
    Emphatic shake of the head. “No way. No fucking way. Family’s off limits. We’re siciliani, not like the fucking Camorra back in Napoli , wasting little kids on street corners. The colored do that over the drugs here, not us. Besides, I got a son in the business. Somebody wants to send me a message, they go after him.“
    “How about somebody who’s after your son?“
    “Same thing. They’d come after me, they got balls for brains. Anyway, I can see you don’t understand. They want to send a message, they don’t break in like some fucking sneak thief. They send a clear fucking message, they want to send one.“
    “Could the necklace be a message?“
    The blood rose right past