Part 30 (1/2)
”Peter Wohl says it is,” Pekach said. ”I asked him for a good place to go, and he said Ristorante Alfredo is very nice.”
”You like him, don't you?”
”He's a good boss. He doesn't act much like a cop, but from his reputation and from what I've seen, he's a h.e.l.l of a cop.”
What Peter Wohl had said specifically were that there were two nice things about Ristorante Alfredo. First, that the food and atmosphere were first-cla.s.s; and second, that the management had the charming habit of picking up the tab.
”The Mob owns it, I guess you know,” Wohl had said. ”They get some sort of perverse pleasure out of buying captains and up their meals. You're a captain now, Dave. Enjoy. Rank hath its privileges. I try to make them happy at least once a month.”
Dave Pekach had made reservations for dinner at Ristorante Alfredo because of what Wohl had said about the food and atmosphere. He wasn't sure that Wohl wasn't pulling his leg about having the check grabbed. If that happened, fine, but he wasn't counting on it. He even sort of hoped they wouldn't. It was important somehow that he take Martha someplace that she would enjoy, preferably expensive.
There was a young Italian guy (a real Italian, to judge by the way he mangled the language) in a tuxedo behind a sort of stand-up desk in the lobby of Ristorante Alfredo. When Pekach said his name was Pekach and that he had made reservations, the guy almost p.i.s.sed his pants unlatching a velvet rope and bowing them past it to a table in a far corner of the room.
Dave saw other diners in the elegantly furnished room looking at Martha in her black dress and pearls, and the way she walked, and he was proud of her.
The Italian guy in the tuxedo held Martha's chair for her and said he hoped the table was satisfactory, and then he snapped his fingers and two other guys appeared, a busboy and a guy in a short red jacket with what looked like a silver spoon on a gold chain around his neck. The busboy had a bottle wrapped in a towel in a silver bucket on legs.
The guy with the spoon around his neck unwrapped the towel so that Dave could see that what he had was a bottle of French champagne.
”Compliments of the house, Captain Pekach,” the Italian guy said. ”I hope is satisfactory.”
”Oh, Moet is always satisfactory,” Martha said, smiling.
”You permit?” the Italian guy said, and unwrapped the wire, popped the cork, and poured about a quarter of an inch in Pekach's gla.s.s.
I'm supposed to sip that, to make sure it's not sour or something, Dave remembered, and did so.
”Very nice,” he said.
”I am so happy,” the Italian guy said, and poured Martha and then Pekach each a gla.s.sful.
”I leave you to enjoy wine,” the Italian guy said. ”In time I will recommend.”
”To us,” Martha said, raising her gla.s.s.
”Yeah,” Dave Pekach said.
A waiter appeared a minute or so later and delivered menus.
And a minute or so after that the Italian guy came back.
”Captain Pekach, you will excuse. Mr. Baltazari would be so happy to have a minute of your time,” he said, and gestured across the room to the far corner where two men sat at a corner table. When they saw him looking, they both gave a little wave.
Dave Pekach decided the younger one, a swarthy-skinned man with hair elaborately combed forward to conceal male pattern baldness, must be Baltazari, whom he had never heard of. The other man, older, in a gray suit, he knew by sight. On a cork bulletin board in the Intelligence Division, his photograph was pinned to the top of the Organized Crime organizational chart. The Philadelphia Daily News ritually referred to him as ”Mob Boss Vincenzo Savarese.”
Jesus Christ, what's all this? What's he want to do, say h.e.l.lo?
The Italian guy was already tugging at Dave Pekach's chair.
”Excuse me, honey?”
”Of course,” Martha said.
Dave walked across the room.
”Good evening, Captain Pekach,” Baltazari said. ”Welcome to Ristorante Alfredo. Please sit down.”
He waved his hand and a waiter appeared. He turned over a champagne gla.s.s and poured and then disappeared. Then Baltazari got up and disappeared.
”I won't take you long from the company of that charming lady,” Vincenzo Savarese said. ”But when I heard you were in the restaurant, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to thank you.”
”Excuse me?”
”You were exceedingly understanding and gracious to my granddaughter, Captain, and I wanted you to know how grateful I am.”
”I don't know what you're talking about,” Dave Pekach said honestly.
”Last June-defying, I have to say, the orders of her parents-my granddaughter went out with a very foolish young man and found herself in the hands of the police.”
Pekach shook his head, signifying that he was still in the dark as he searched his memory.
”It was very late at night in North Philadelphia, where Old York Road cuts into North Broad?” Pekach continued to shake his head no. ”There was a chase by the police. The boy wrecked the car?” Savarese continued.
Dave suddenly remembered. He had been on the way home from his Cousin Stanley's wedding in Bethlehem. He had pa.s.sed the scene of a wreck and had seen a Narcotics team and their car and, curious, stopped. What it was, was a minor incident, a earful of kids who had bought some marijuana, been caught at it, and had run.
There had been four kids, the driver and another boy, and two girls, both of them clean-cut, nice-looking, both scared out of their minds, in the back of a district RPC, which was about to transport them to Central Lockup. He had felt sorry for the girls and didn't want to subject them to the horrors of going through Central Lockup. So, after making sure the district cops had their names, he had turned them loose, sending them home in a cab. ”I remember,” he said.
”My granddaughter said that you were gracious and understanding,” Savarese said. ”Far more, I suspect, than were her mother and father. I don't think she will be doing anything like that ever again.”
”She seemed to be a very nice young woman,” Pekach said. ”We all stub our toes from time to time.”
”I simply wanted to say that I will never forget your kindness and am very grateful,” Savarese said, and then stood up and put out his hand. ”If there is ever anything I can do for you, Captain ...”
”Forget it. I was just doing my job.”
Savarese smiled at him and walked across the restaurant to the door. The Italian in the tuxedo stood there waiting for him, holding his hat and coat.
Pekach shrugged and started back toward Martha.
Baltazari intercepted him.
”I think you dropped these, Captain,” he said, and handed Pekach a book of matches.
”No, I don't think so,” Pekach said.
”I'm sure you did,” Baltazari said.