The Best Revenge (20 page)

You lean on him. Think of a way.

I need some cards.

Hear me out, Ben.

I've got a headache.

You'll have a bigger headache if you don't listen. How many times did I tell you that if you don't want people to pick on you, walk as if you're taller than they are.

How did a shrimp like you get by, Pop?

With women, charm.

With men?

By letting them know I don't give an eye for an eye, I give two for one. I'm not interested in revenge, I'm interested in prevention.

Then how come a mountain of trouble fell on you?

My father didn't stay around to talk to me. All I care is you come out all right. I made old Manucci need me. You've got to make young Manucci need you.

How the hell am I supposed to do that?

Every man's got trouble. Find out what his trouble is. Then make it worse in a way that you can make it better.

Ezra would say that isn't cricket.

You tell your friend that Americans don't play cricket. They play baseball.

Hardball.

You got it, Ben.

You think your way could have stopped Hitler, Pop?

Funny you should ask. I sometimes dreamed that I could talk each of the six million to put up a buck apiece. In the 1930s you could have bought every Mafia hit man here and in Sicily a thousand times over for that kind of money. I'd offer the jackpot to whoever knocked Hitler off first. Believe me, they would have lined up for the job.

You're a tough man, Pop.

Ben, if I didn't teach you to play tough, I failed.

“You didn't fail,” I said out loud.

“Talking to me?” Charlotte asked. “Where've you been?”

I opened my eyes.

“It's okay,” said Charlotte. “I won't tell.” She slid mail into my in box.

“Any of that good news?”

She shook her head.

“Looks like we'll have to make some of our own,” I said. “Get Steve Nissof on the phone. And don't look at me that way.”

*

“Oh, Mr. Riller,” Nissof said, in a tone that acknowledged an honor. Maybe he hadn't heard about the trouble I was in. “What can I do for you?”

“Depends.”

“Give me the name.”

“I'd rather see you in person.”

“I could make time tomorrow.”

“How about right now? Where's your office?”

He gave me the address.

“I'll be there in fifteen minutes tops.”

He'd charge more for an emergency. So what? There was zero time to spare.

*

Getting a cab in New York quickly always gives me a rush of triumph. I got in. The driver didn't say a word. That isn't reticence. It means he doesn't speak English as well as the drivers who speak it badly. I had to repeat the address twice and, in pidgin, told him how to get there. I didn't want to look up and find myself crossing one of Manhattan's bridges into another borough.

I persuaded myself to sit back in the seat. I'd never been to Nissof's office. He'd come to mine or we'd talked on the phone.

His address turned out to be one of those partially remodeled ancient office buildings. The front had been sandblasted clean only to slightly above eye level. The rest of it was New York gray.

Inside the lobby, the elevator starter, who looked like he had survived the Spanish-American War, tiredly held out a sign-in clipboard, which I waved away.

“It's rules,” he said, his voice a mixture of fatigue and rust. I scrawled
Al Pacino.
The man didn't look. He waved me toward the elevators.

The two self-service elevators had new, imitation bronze doors. I stepped into the one with the doors open and pushed seven. The creak of machinery made me think some mechanical giant with a hernia was trying to haul the elevator up on a single, frayed rope. Miraculously it reached the seventh floor. I stepped out and the doors immediately groaned to a close, abandoning me.

I faced an array of frosted glass doors. Number 704 was halfway down the hall. All it said was STEPHEN NISSOF. I wasn't the only producer on Broadway who used him to check out potential investors if they suspected dirty money.

The doorknob didn't turn. The sound of a chair scraping came from inside. I rapped on the glass.

“Coming, coming,” said a voice. Nissof, a tall, skinny man with freckles, had to open two deadbolts to let me in.

Arrayed against a wall was a row of steel filing cabinets, gray, beige, and brown, each with a vertical bar lock. The waiting area looked as if no one had ever waited there. “It's a real pleasure to have you here, Mr. Riller,” he said, nodding me into the inner office. He gestured to a wooden chair and took refuge behind a desk that must have been secondhand before he owned it. Fortified by a yellow pad and pen, he said, “Name?”

“Nick Manucci.”

Nissof put his pen down. “That's a name I don't have to look into.”

“Bad news?”

“Stay away from him.”

“Too late, Steve. He's buying a big share.”

“In what?”

“My new play.”

“The dog?” He coughed into his hand. “I'm sorry.”

“Steve, we've been doing business a long time. Your opinion about plays is not why I'm here.”

“I was just kind of repeating. The word's around. I didn't mean anything personal.” He poised his pen again. “What do you want on Manucci?”

“His short hairs.”

Nissof didn't move.

“How's business?” I asked. “Not too good?”

“What kind of short hairs?”

“Income tax filings. Audits in progress. Women. Wife's boyfriends. Kids on dope.”

“I can do income tax. Have to pay out so it costs you more. Women won't do you any good, his wife knows. I wouldn't play tiddlywinks with Manucci. If you want to play hardball, it'll cost.”

“How much?”

“Five thousand and no attribution.”

“How will I know it's worth it?”

“Mr. Riller, you didn't get where you are being Santa Claus. Have I given you your money's worth in the past?”

“Sure, Steve, at three hundred per name.”

“You don't want to find out if Manucci's money is clean. You want to negotiate better terms, right?”

“I sometimes forget you were a lawyer.”

“Don't get unpleasant, Mr. Riller. I am a lawyer. I practice more than some guys who still have their licenses. You want to play hardball with Manucci, my retainer is five thousand. That's backstage only. Your lawyer has to play out front. Deal?”

Where to get the five thousand?

“I need to know more,” I said.

Nissof smiled. “Seeing's we done a lot, I trust you.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “You got the five grand, don't you?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Ever hear the name Barone?”

“Lends money to actors.”

“Biggest shylock operation in New York State. Manucci's a pimple on his ass.”

“I know Manucci's family. I don't know anything about Barone.”

Nissof laughed. “I wasn't suggesting Barone as a substitute investor. He wouldn't get into anything as lunatic as play production. You asked about short hairs. Barone is Manucci's short hair. Barone hates him. Five thousand gets you a meeting with Barone.”

“What good would that do me?”

“Let me finish. A meeting with Barone and a script. I'll write the script. You know what to do with a script, don't you?” Nissof laughed again. “I'll call you.”

I stood up and put my hand out to Nissof.

“Cash,” he said. “No checks.”

“Nondeductible.”

“Tough.”

“Okay, cash.”

He shook my outstretched hand. “What'd you do to your cheek,” he said as if noticing the Band-Aid for the first time.

“My barber tried to cut my throat and missed.”

“You won't have to worry about things like that if this goes wrong,” Nissof said. “You won't have to worry about anything anymore.”

17

Nick

Forget what somebody else told you, I'm telling you a lawyer is a soldier. His job is to go out and kill the enemy. You wind him up, point him in the right direction, and get the hell out of the way. All the rest is bullshit.

My lawyer was a friend from school, Dino Palmieri. First, he was clean, which was good for my business when I started up. You don't need guilt by association from the wrong lawyer. Second, Dino did a good job on my loan agreements, mortgages, crap like that. Then I get hit with trouble. Twice I lent money to Golub, a beer distributor on Long Island. The second time, when it's due he twiddles me. We have a big argument in his office, he calls the cops to throw me out, you believe that? Worse, he throws a lawsuit at me for three times what I lent him on the grounds that I am interfering with his business.

Dino arranges a settlement conference in Golub's lawyer's office. I don't want to be in the same room with Golub, it's too tempting to reach across the table and grab him by his neck. Dino estimates what it's going to cost to fight this case, I swallow and agree to the conference, and what I see there makes my eyes bug out. This distributor has got a lawyer so short you wouldn't be able to see him if he sat behind a desk. And he's Yul Brynner bald. But when he shakes your hand you know this dude could squeeze an apple into apple juice. Golub's half-size lawyer is named Bert Rivers, and every time Dino opens his mouth, this lawyer pisses into it. In ten minutes, I wouldn't want to be represented by Dino if he was my brother. I want this Bert Rivers.

The meeting breaks so we can each talk privately about settlement money. For Dino, I got only one question. “How come you so fucking scared of Rivers?”

“His reputation is he doesn't lose too often.”

“And you're scared shitless of his reputation, is that it?”

“Hey,” Dino says. “Easy, Nick.”

“You expect to get paid, win or lose, right? How about you only get paid if you win? Don't answer me.”

I walk back into the conference with a check in my hand. “Golub,” I say to the distributor, “the way I see it is if we let these two lawyers fight it out in court, mine is going to get money he's not worth, anybody can see that, and yours is going to get money from you every month for how many years it takes, and then you're going to find out that N.M. Enterprises, Inc., which is what you're suing, is only one of eleven corporations I got, and by coincidence, N.M. Enterprises doesn't own enough assets to keep these lawyers in toilet paper. This check is for ten G's, drawn on one of my companies that has ten G's. I can tear it up or hand it over to you and you give me a release and that's it.”

I start to tear the check, just a quarter inch, and Golub is standing, saying, “You've got a deal.”

The first thing I do when we're out of the building is say, “Goodbye, Dino.”

He says, “Don't you want to talk about this?”

“Why? You going to pay me for my speech in there? I can't afford you, Dino. You're fired. As of yesterday.”

The second thing I do is arrange for someone I know to do a little night work in Golub's offices. I tell him not to bother with the bookkeeper's cash box, to go straight to Golub's office and I tell him two places to look. A guy who runs his business the way Golub does has to keep a lot of cash handy. I tell my guy whatever's in there, I want exactly ten G's, not a penny more or less. I want Golub to know. I pay my guy two G's, which is less than what Dino would have cost me. Then I call Golub. I'm hanging on a long time, but he takes the
call. I say, “This is a friendly call, Golub. I don't think you should
keep cash around the office. In fact, I don't think you ought to carry it because who knows what happens in the streets these days. Don't you agree?”

“I'm listening,” is all he says.

“About your loan, with the vigorish to date, you know what that comes to?”

“I can figure.”

“Can you figure you start paying that down like five G's a week minimum?”

I hang up before he can say anything because under the circumstances the only acceptable answer is yes.

The third thing I do is call Bert Rivers.

*

“I shouldn't be talking to you,” Rivers says. “I should only speak to your attorney.”

“I'm afraid I don't have an attorney anymore, Mr. Rivers, because I fired him and I'm expecting to hire you. You don't have a conflict of interest anymore because Mr. Golub and I settled our case, right?”

“I'm not so sure.”

“I'd like to tell you why I'm sure.”

*

In his office Rivers interviewed me like a machine gun—how did I make my money, did I know the New York State laws on usury, how many times did I get sued, how many times did I get threatened, how often did I threaten somebody else? I made zero impression until I told him my office was in the Seagram.

“Is that right?” he said.

“What kind of retainer do you get?”

“Money,” he said.

I gave him the ha-ha. “How much?”

“I believe,” he said, looking me straight in the eye, “you would take a lot of my time.”

“Hey,” I said, “I never sued nobody in my life. I never been arrested. I just want the paperwork done on time, good advice, and your phone number just in case ever, you understand?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Manucci,” he said, “genuinely sorry.”

Genuinely shit. You ever hear of a one-man law shop that turns down business? There's got to be a reason he isn't jumping into my lap.