Blood Money by Thomas Perry Page B

read a few books, so once in a while I’d recite one out loud to them. When I got out, Sal told the family about me. They didn’t know exactly what to do with me, but they put me on the payroll. I was a city housing inspector. I had to show up bright and early every Friday for five minutes to get my pay.”
    “I take it that wasn’t impressive enough for her father.”
    “Worse than that,” he said. “At those big meets there were lots of people around, so a lot of little side deals got made.”
    “What kind of deals?”
    He sadly shook his head. “You have to understand. These were—are—people for whom everything is for sale. The only issue is price.”
    Jane said, “He arranged a marriage for his daughter?”
    “No,” said Bernie. “Two things were decided that week. Thefirst was the reason the Augustinos brought me along. They sold me.”
    “Sold you? Like a baseball player?”
    “Yeah, it was a lot like that. They wanted something from the Langustos in New York. You got to remember what happened after Capone. They got him for tax evasion, and everybody realized that was the easy way to get all of them. I had been keeping the books for the Augustinos in my head, moving money around and keeping track of it. If having a lot of money you can’t explain is a crime, you have to hide it. The Augustinos didn’t have that much, so it didn’t take a lot of time. But the New York families had a lot. I was supposed to go live in New York under the care of the Langustos. The Langustos had worked out a side deal in advance. I would start keeping track of money for all five families in New York. That way, all of them had some protection from the government, and they all had a stake in protecting me.”
    “When I heard of you I always wondered how that came about,” said Jane. “I mean, these people don’t seem to trust each other very often.”
    “It was a special time,” he said. “Some of these guys hated each other, but the idea of going to jail just for having money was new, and it was killing them. And the New York families had been breathing down each other’s necks for thirty years by then. I was a way to protect their money from each other, too.”
    “And you agreed to the arrangement.”
    “Who asked me?” said Bernie. “What happened was that my friend Sal got called upstairs. When he came back down, I’d barely made it back from meeting Francesca in her room. I was almost into the bar before I noticed I’d forgotten to tuck my shirttail in my pants. Sal hugs me and says, ‘Bernie, I just got the best news in the world about you. You’re going to be an important man, and you deserve it.’ ” The old man sat silent for a moment. “I told him, ‘Sal, I met a girl. I can’t go to New York.’ He said, ‘Bring her with you.’ I told him who she was. I told him all of it. He looked sick. After about a minute, he says, ‘You’re my friend, and I’ll try to help you. If shereally loves you, then no father is going to stand in the way. Just go to New York and I’ll call you when I’ve got it arranged.’ I told him, ‘I can’t go to New York.’ He said, ‘Bernie, if you’re in New York, you’re an important man. You’ll have money, respect.’ He could see I wasn’t getting it, so finally he said, ‘If you’re with the five families, he can’t kill you.’ ”
    “And you said yes.”
    “I went to her and asked her what to do,” he said. “She told me that Sal was absolutely right. She said I had to go to New York, so she could help Sal work it out with her father. That night I got on a train with Carmine Langusto and eight guys.”
    “I take it her father didn’t go for it,” said Jane.
    “I’ll never know,” said Bernie. “I said there were at least two side deals arranged that week in Florida. That was the second one. She and her father and his guys went back to Detroit. About two days later, he comes out of a restaurant and gets his head blown off in the