Find Her a Grave by Collin Wilcox Read Free Book Online

be a hundred, who knows? All I know is, I’m sixty-six now, and I’ll be seventy-five before I get out of here— if I get out of here. Now—” He paused, took two long, deep breaths. Yes, he was tiring. Meaning that he wanted to get it done, give her the words, then get back to his cell and lie down. “Now,” he repeated, “I always expect the best and prepare for the worst, that’s something my old man always said. And, surprise, he had a point.” He allowed himself a brief smile, tentatively shared with his daughter. “So I’m preparing for the worst, which is that I don’t get out of this place alive.” He broke off again, watched his daughter’s face, looking for a reaction, a hint of sympathy. There was nothing.
    “So the question is,” he went on, “what’d happen to you if I died? And the answer is, right now, it’d be anybody’s guess. One thing’s for sure, though. You aren’t going to start getting any checks from insurance companies if I die, nothing like that.”
    She nodded. “I know.”
    “People talk about Communism,” he said, “they don’t realize that our organization’s always had it. Like it or not, that’s what we’ve got. Communism. Everything belongs to everyone—and no one. Everything belongs to the organization, in other words. The reason is, if we put anything in writing, we’re screwed. Houses, even cars, they’re all owned by dummies. Companies, usually—small corporations. The money comes in, the money goes out. But none of it sticks. Take me. As far as the feds’re concerned, I import olives. As far as the IRS’s concerned, my company pays me maybe twenty-five thousand a year—on which I pay taxes. That’s what happened to Capone, you know. Income taxes.”
    “I know that.”
    “Luciano and Genovese, they were both capo di tutti —and both of them died with chicken feed in their pockets. Vito, he was always good with money. He saw that his family was taken care of when he died. But Charlie Lucky, he didn’t give a shit. He lived like a king, over in Italy after they finally deported him. But that was it for Charlie. When he died, and the undertaker was paid off, then it was like you’d change the channel of a river. All that money, diverted.”
    Once more, she nodded. The next few minutes, she knew, could change her life.
    “So then there’s me and Maria. My wife.” He was looking at her intently. An answer, then, was required: an acknowledgment that, yes, she understood about his official Mafia family.
    She nodded. “I—I know about them.”
    “When I die,” Venezzio said, “the organization’ll take care of Maria. And if she wants to, she’ll send some to the two kids—our children. That’s up to her. But, either way, the organization’ll take care of her. Personally, for all the shit she’s given me, I’d as soon see Maria on Times Square, hustling. But there’re the children—and grandchildren, too. Maria, she poisoned all of them against me. I’ve got grandchildren I haven’t even seen, don’t even know their names, all thanks to Maria, that bitch. But the organization doesn’t like divorces. So—” He drew a long, deep breath. “So, like I said, Maria’ll be taken care of, when I die.”
    “Envelopes, you mean.”
    He nodded.
    “For Maria. Not for me.”
    Once more he spoke heavily, ponderously: “That’s what I want to talk to you about. That’s why you’re here. To talk about afterwards, if I die in here.”
    She made no reply, but only watched him—and waited.
    Now he spoke briskly, concisely, plainly having already decided exactly what he wanted to say. “What I’ve done is to tell Tony Bacardo to get together some jewels—diamonds, mostly—and some gold. Not much gold, because it’s so heavy. It’s taken Tony about six months to get it all together. And when he was doing it, collecting it all, he was taking a risk. The other dons, if they ever knew about this, well—” As if he were pronouncing a