KISS-OFF

by Mike Dobrovolsky

The short, neckless man came into my South Side Pittsburgh office just as I was finishing lunch. I recognized him, even after ten years. He hadn't changed his look—he still wore a suit a size too large over a shapeless nylon shirt with the top button undone and a screaming sunset tie, drawn down to let his neck fur breathe.

“Pig Eyes,” I said. “How you doing?”

He came up to my desk and rasped, “Nobody calls me that no more.”

“Seems like a waste. What do they call you?”

“'Eyes.' Just ‘Eyes.' ‘Cuz I'm Don Dominic's eyes. And ears.”

“So why don't they call you ‘Eyes and Ears'?”

“'Cuz that's a hospital!” He laughed, grunted, really, until it sounded like he was going to run out of breath and fall down.

“Funny, I've always thought of you as Don Dom's butt. Maybe they should call you Joe Culo. ”

He narrowed his eyes as well as he could and stared at me hard.

“Don't push your luck, Stojanovic. There are still fishes in the rivers here.”

“It's that Coppola again,” I said.

“Huh?”

“You guys see The Godfather and ever since you all talk like you're in the movie. You all sound the same. Whatever happened to variety in the world of punks and killers?”

He shook his head back and forth, clearing out the stuff he couldn't process.

“Whatever the fuck you're talking about, I got an invitation for you. Don Dom is gonna treat you to lunch up at the Shangra-La Chinese joint in Mt. Lebanon . Be there at one in the afternoon tomorrow. You know what I mean? Be there.”

“I'll have to check my engagement calendar. I think I'm having champagne and caviar with the mayor.”

“One a' clock tomorrow,” he said again, turning away towards the door. “And if you ain't there, it will personally be my job to—”

He thought a moment about the legal fallout from what he might say.

“ — escort you to a meeting at some other time.”

He went out the door without looking back.

After some thought and a cold bottle of Squirt I decided to go. It came down to, in no particular order: I didn't have time for a problem with a running sore like Pig Eyes, I wasn't, in fact, booked for champagne and caviar with the mayor tomorrow, and I was curious. Why would Don Dom, a.k.a The Plumber (for his working class background and certain persuasion techniques he had allegedly used on the way up), the never-publicly-acknowledged king of Pittsburgh 's South Hills mob scene (which was also not publicly acknowledged to exist) want to see me?

* * *

Tomorrow arrived the way tomorrows do. The sun came up. I couldn't see myself accepting lunch from Don Dom, so I ate a big brunch. By 1:00 PM, I had miraculously found a parking spot along Washington Road in Mt Lebanon and headed into the Shangra-La. I figured that Don Dom would keep me waiting, but it was me who was five minutes late. Pig Eyes was sitting at the bar, near the door. Don Dom was installed in a far corner booth, and faced the restaurant from his side of the bank seats.

He smiled graciously—as sinister a sight as you'll ever see—and pointed a hand to my seat.

“Mr. Stojanovik,” he said. “We meet again.”

“StojanoviCH,” I said. “Here we are. Just like the old days.”

“It's good that we're not in court this time. I never understood why you wrote those articles about me,” he said in a friendly way, as if it had all been a lark for both of us, the lawsuits, the death threats. “But they were smart. The way you stayed just on the edge of the libel laws, and yet made me look bad, so bad.”

He shook his head, apparently disappointed in me. His blue tropical shirt, raw silk, was covered with green and yellow parrots. His arms still looked strong, plumber-strong, and his gold watch and ring and his wavy white hair were set off by a tan he didn't get in Pittsburgh .

“You are bad, Don Dom. Everyone knows that. But the law grits its teeth and has to treat everyone the same.”

He blew a soft raspberry and beckoned to the waiter. A young Asian woman in dark slacks, a white shirt and black bow tie, possibly a movie star in her spare time, came over, ready to memorize.

“General Tso's chicken,” said Don Dom. “And another Corona .”

He raised his eyebrows at me.

“A Vernor's with lots of ice,” I said.

The young woman left and Don Dom glared at me.

“So you won't eat,” he said. “You won't accept my food, my peace offering.”

“Conflict of interest. Who knows, I might write about you again. But I accept the drink.”

“A fucking ginger ale.”

He went silent for a long time. Long enough for the food to come, for him to eat half, and to push the plate away.

“Someone is trying to kill me,” he said.

“And you're surprised?”

“Just cut the wise-guy act and listen. The other day, I was taking my morning run in the park—I use the back trails—and almost got my neck cut by piano wire. Eyes was running ahead of me and it took his cap off or I might have. Lucky he's short.”

I smiled at the thought of Pig Eyes in a track suit. But the story didn't ring true.

“Piano wire isn't going to kill you when you're just jogging.”

“No, but it's a message. The trouble is, I don't know what the message is. I mean, there's guys, if they wanted to kill me, I'd be dead by now. I don't get it.”

I didn't get it either.

“And how does this affect me?”

“I want to ask you to do something for me—no, not paid, don't worry. Call it a favor.”

“Don't know that I want to do anything for you, Don Dom.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm unclean. Put that aside. I'm old, my hair is white, my kids are grown.”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice.

“I might be changing things in the business, you know, re-arranging things. Got to stay strong. There's new types in town, very nasty people. No sense of honorable dealings like the old days.”

“Dom, you guys were about as honorable as any other cheap killers. Just because you had families and dressed in sharp suits and held meetings with each other now and then to carve up territory, you thought you were honorable. Don't try to make my heartstrings tremble with nostalgia for the good old days of protection and running whores, and guys in cement overshoes.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if he had heard it all before.

“That's the problem with this world. Too many moralists. Well, then, think of it this way. You do yourself a favor, not me. You do something you might not otherwise get a chance to do. And then maybe you get to write about it.”

He had me there. My interest was piqued.

“Such as?”

“I can make it so you can have an interview with Basilio. Kind of feel him out, see what's on his mind these days. You know what I mean. Size him up, tell me what you think. Is he behind this threat?”

“You can do better than that.”

“No, it's like this. You send him a message, tell him you're asking for an interview. I got a friend of a friend of a friend who will put it in his ear that it's a good idea. He's older now too, he might want to get some stuff on the record.”

An interview with Basilio, who was a heavyweight in the rackets next to Don Dom's respectable middleweight, was a once-in-a-lifetime shot. I processed the pros and cons and said,

“What the hell. But it's for myself. If I have any impressions at all about him and you, I'll let you know, but only if you tell me what this is all about before I say a word.”

He gave me what for him was a sincere smile.

“One lousy ginger ale, that's all you accepted. You don't owe me.”

He said it so I knew that he knew that I did. Anything for a story. I left an extra two dollars on the table to make myself feel better.

* * *

Two days later, far too early in the morning for me, I was walking up the front walk of Basilio's mansion in Fox Chapel. Don Dom lived well in a high-class suburb. Don Basilio lived large in an exclusive enclave of the rich. They vetted me at the gates. Then I was ushered into the mansion by a young, huge, beefy guy with a low forehead who looked like his hobby was killing puppies. He led me silently to the study, which was a kind of library not much larger than a baseball diamond. A distinguished-looking gent sat behind a vast desk. His hair was still dark, combed straight back and graying on the sides. He wore a dark suit with fine pinstripes, a white shirt, and a quietly expensive silk tie which had a thumb-sized diamond stickpin in it so he wouldn't be mistaken for just another millionaire CEO.

He regally waved me towards a leather wing chair and came over to its mate. We were seated at an angle to each other with a small table between us, which was charged with whisky, ice, and glasses. The same creepy factotum who had escorted me in poured without asking my preferences and left the room. Basilio was a very tall and thin guy; he was folded into the chair with one leg resting on the other, knee over knee. He raised his glass to me about a quarter of an inch and drank.

“You have fifteen minutes,” he said pleasantly, in a mild deep voice that for a change didn't sound like it came from a mob movie. What is it you hope to get from this interview?”

“I'm interested in the changing scene,” I said, trying to mimic his condescending manner.

“The scene? What ‘scene' are you referring to?”

“The organized crime scene, Don Basilio. If I only have fifteen minutes, there's no sense playing patty-cake. How is the change affecting you? The arrival of the new guys on the block, the Columbians, the Asians.”

He seemed happy that I had come straight out with it. He smiled and swirled his drink.

“Playing patty-cake. Very nice. Well, since we are not having this conversation, and you will of course make no reference to me, ever, I will tell you this. Yes, things are changing. Pittsburgh is of course not New York . We are not at the cutting edge of these things and so far there has been very little turmoil. I speak from hearsay, of course. I know nothing of this first hand.”

He smiled, a refined smile, such as you might see on the director of a high-quality funeral home.

“What about the local situation? Any new arrangements? How are you, excuse me, some of the people you have heard about responding to the change?”

“You know,” he said reflectively, “all this…” He waved his raised hand vaguely and spoke to the room. “This is a life's work. Nobody wants his life's work to be for nothing.”

“And so?”

“Oh, one thinks of possible changes, re-organization, consolidation.”

“Everyone? Even, say, Don Dominic?”

He turned his head slowly.

“Why do you mention him?”

“Your territories touch. You've always had problems with each other.”

He smiled again, almost warmly.

“Don Dom and I are old-timers. We would not willingly give in to the newcomers. I will tell you this, between us, and be sure it stays that way for now. There may be changes, changes for the good between Don Dom and myself. I have a son. He has a daughter. You see? Watch the newspapers.”

Don Dom hadn't mentioned this to me. Why not?

A soft knock on the door. The hideous guard came in. He went to the desk and tapped out a command on the computer keyboard. Then he swung around the big monitor. Basilio and I both got up and went over. The Post-Gazette website. At the top in yellow, a Breaking News ticker tape crawled across the screen.

DOMINIC RAGONE, ALLEGED ‘SUBURBAN DON', SHOT DEAD IN HOME.
BODYGUARD ALSO KILLED. POSSIBLE MURDER-SUICIDE SUSPECTED.

I said to Basilio,

“Is this why you set our appointment for this morning?”

But I knew at once that my question was pointless. Basilio had gone as white as his shirt and his hands were shaking.

I was led out of house straightaway. That suited me fine. I wanted to make a beeline to Mt. Lebanon to see a guy I knew.

* * *

Judge William Otis was presiding when I eased into his courtroom and sat in the back. He gave me an eyebrow flash and continued dealing with another small-timer's troubles. As usual he was as tough as he needed to be, no more. I sat through another case, a thriller involving multiple parking tickets, and he was through. He came down from the bench and gestured for me to follow him to his office.

“You're a sight for sore eyes,” he said once the door was closed. “Haven't seen you in, what, five years.”

He was a six-footer, a little stooped over, his teeth a little big for his mouth in a friendly way, and he still had the same shock of Tintin hair that he had had when we graduated from Mt. Haven high school together. He had a muffled voice that hinted at laughter and sadness at the same time. Only a sealed file downtown knew why he had given up a higher court position to move back to the South Hills to be a district judge again. All he had ever said to me, or anyone, was that he felt he was making more of a real difference here.

“You're here about Don Dom, right?”

“I'd see you more, Bill, except you're always so damn busy.”

“I know, I know. This is a hectic job. Let me guess. You want me to let you interview some people out there beyond the police tape.”

“Shamelessly true,” I said. “But first, off the record, way off the record, what's your take on this? As a private citizen, I mean.”

He laughed once.

“I'm afraid I'll never truly be a private citizen again. Frankly, I'm mystified. I thought the old guys had pretty much settled down and the young guns were quiet. Everything rolls along smoothly. The money comes in, goes back out, the police can hardly notice it, try as they might.”

“What about the newbies moving in, say the Asians?”

“None of that here, yet that I know of, not in any quantity. Individuals pushing drugs of course. Some networks. But no new overlord yet.”

“But you don't buy it that Pig Eyes shot Don Dom and then himself.”

Otis opened his mouth and then paused. He was a judge, after all, and didn't like to rush into things.

“That's the other half of the mystery. Who would do it and why, and how could they get to Pig Eyes? I don't know. Here, I have a meeting. I'll just make a call and write you a note.”

As he wrote, I quickly filled him in about my lunch with Dom and where I was when I got the news of his death. He said he'd send a detective around to take a statement. I took my note and left.

* * *

A half hour later I was in Don Dom's house, waved through by a cop I knew who didn't bother to look at the note. The detectives were pulling out and Dom's wife Margie was sitting in the kitchen. I headed back to her.

“Margie?

Sorry about all this. Not a good way to go.”

She looked up slowly. Her hair fell forward over her face and she gave it a push back. It was still thick, wild, and black, though the black was probably from a bottle. During my legal battles with Dom I had come to know Margie a bit. I found her to be clear-eyed and smart.

“Pete? Never expected to see you around here.”

She pushed a chair away from the table with her foot.

“Sit. Dom always called you a parasite. Funny, considering his business. But I gotta ask you—are you writing this up? I mean, isn't this a little ghoulish? They just took him—them—away.”

“I can't say what'll come of this, Margie. Did you know that Dom and I had lunch two days ago? That he invited me?”

Her eyes opened a little wider. They were beautiful large eyes to begin with.

“No, he never mentioned it. What did he want?”

“He though someone was trying to kill him.”

“That piano wire thing?”

She shook her head.

“I told him it was just schoolboys, dangerous, stupid kids. But he wouldn't buy it.”

“How about your kids? How do they feel?”

“You know Tony's been in France for the last year and a half. Big blowup with Dom. Wanted nothing to do with the Dom's line of work. Gonna be a historian. He's a strong- minded boy. I say good for him. I called. He said he won't be back for the funeral.”

“So they didn't get along?”

“Worse. Dead to each other. ‘You're not my son!' ‘You're not my father!' The whole melodrama.”

“Angela?”

“Angela is Dad's girl. Would do anything for him. But still odd. She's always been I don't know, passive about things, about life, what to do with it. She's nineteen and hasn't got a clue what do to with her life.”

“Earlier today?”

“Out with friends since ten this morning drinking coffee and talking about God knows what. Just got back a few minutes ago. Up in her room crying and crying, my baby. It's killing me to hear it. She can't make sense of this so she just cries. A girl and her dad, you know. Something special there. I suppose you want to know where I was?”

“I'm curious.”

“Out shopping.” She pointed to some slick, brightly colored bags on the floor. “Have receipts. You know, we have all this money I have to spend. Spend and spend. That's my job, lookin' good.”

She stood up and rotated like a model. Not coquettishly, just to make her point. Sure, she was pushing sixty or already beyond, but had only thickened out a bit, kept her figure from total sag, still dressed to emphasize her long legs.

“Homecoming Queen, Prom Queen, all that, way back then. I supposed I should cry, but I can't.”

“Grief can do that,” I said.

“Grief,” she said, flatly.

“Did Dom ever talk to you about Basilio? Some deal between them?”

She looked over my head into the next room.

“Why would he talk to me about business? Business was none of my business. He used to say that. Thought it was funny, and it was, the first five hundred times or so.”

We said so long, shook hands, and I left.

* * *

I had gotten up so early to see Basilio it was still lunchtime, barely. I went to the Shangri La and ordered some Palace Chicken from the waitress in the bow tie. The place was almost empty, the lunch crowd back at work. The food was good, but not Chinese. Bland, adapted, denatured for the suburbs, but still good quality. After I paid the waitress and overtipped her again I made as if to go to the men's room but took a turn and went to see if David Wong, the owner, was in his office. I figured he'd be there totting up the lunch receipts, him being the kind of careful guy he had a reputation for being.

He was sitting at his desk, glaring at some papers. I tapped on the door frame. He looked up and didn't recognize me as anyone who might be important to him.

“Busy. Go away!”

I took that for an invitation and strolled into the office. He looked up and stuck out his lower lip in anger. I waved the note from Judge Otis at him and told him I had a right to talk with him. He grabbed the note, looked at the signature and handed it back to me. Maybe he wasn't as careful a guy as I had heard.

“Detectives may be here,” I said. “Don Dominic is dead.”

D-d-d, like the sound of shots.

“I know,” he said. “Nothing to do with me.”

“They'll be checking, “ I said.

“Can check all they want. Nothing to do with me.”

“No Asian gang connection?”

He looked at me and twisted his mouth around.

“No Asian gangs out here,” he said. “Some pushers, but no organized gangs, no Asian mob. Everybody knows that.”

It was beginning to look that way.

“And you had nothing to do with Don Dom?”

He shrugged.

“I pay him a little protection money, no big deal. Courtesy arrangement, he called it. It's to remind me who runs things out here. No big bite. He pays for his food when he comes here. I like the guy.”

Wong was unemotional, matter of fact. No squirming, no theatrical denials. I believed him.

“Thanks,” I said.

He was already looking at his papers.

* * *

Instead of hauling myself back north to Basilio's, I split the difference and went downtown, to the Post-Gazette building. My contact there was their archivist, Terry Duke. He was sitting in front of a large flat-screen computer when I came into his dark, crowded warren.

I told him what I wanted and got ready for a long afternoon and evening in front of the microfilm reader.

“You're in luck,” he said. “I'm working backwards to get it all on CR-ROM. Should only take me another hundred years or so. If you want to check out Dominic and Basilio you can do it over there.

I started with Basilio. Articles popped up on the screen. I scanned them but nothing caught my eye.

“What're you looking for? Anything specific?” Terry asked across the room without taking his eyes off his work.

“Just general stuff on Don Dom and Basilio, too.”

“If you're checking Basilio you might want to look his kid. “

The groom-to-be.

“That interesting? What's his name.”

“He goes by Sonny. Fasten your seatbelt.”

I vaguely remembered that Basilio's kid was rambunctious when he was a teenager. It turned out he was more than rambunctious. He had gone from playground bullying to assault (fists, deadly weapon), sexual assault, deviant intercourse with a minor … the list went on—all ‘alleged'. No cases prosecuted successfully. Witness trouble, mostly. Either they didn't show up or they changed their stories on the stand. I moved to the next article. There was a picture of him. I recognized him. It was the puppy-killer. The giant goon at Basilio's was his kid, finally under some kind of control, I guess, being groomed for the family business, and as the husband of Don Dom's daughter Angela.

Terry called over. “What do you think?”

I told Terry that I saw two things clear and bright in my mind: Sonny could have killed Pig Eyes and Don Dom without blinking, but he hadn't.

* * *

A calm evening light was descending on the suburbs when I pulled into Don Dom's for the second time that day. I buzzed at the gate and a guy in a dark jacket came round and looked me over. After some chat, he phoned up to the house and finally let me in. Past the gate there was a walk and another smaller gate you could open yourself, set in some hedges. Hidden behind the hedges was some low chain-wire fencing. Cameras and motion detectors peered from the house.

Margie let me in and beckoned me to follow. We went back to the kitchen again.

“You hungry? I can nuke some lasagna.”

“I'm good. Let's talk a little more, and I'll leave.”

“At least have a drink.”

She got us glasses of ginger ale and ice and put a bottle of bourbon on the table. I passed on the whiskey. She didn't.

“Well? Funny, isn't it, Pete. You and Dominic were going at each other in court and you and I always got along. I enjoyed our chats at the courthouse. ‘Course I knew you were just trying to get information out of me.”

“At first, sure. But I got to like you, Margie. Did he mind?”

“He didn't care, one way or the other.”

She poured herself another drink.

“How's Angela?”

“Still in her room. Really hurting. She loved her dad so much.”

I drank down half my glass.

“About Dominic. Margie, I've made a list and checked off names and there's only one name left.”

She cocked her head and looked me in the eyes.

“Who's that?”

“You.”

She laughed lightly.

“Think about it. It wasn't from the outside. This place is a fortress. Pig Eyes was stupidly loyal. No one was going to get to him. No one from Basilio or anyone else was here recently, right?”

She didn't answer.

“Of course not. Dom was getting spooked. Didn't want outside visits. Who's left? Angela and you. She was out with friends. You have a few receipts that say you were, too, but killing two people doesn't take all that long if you know what you're doing and have the right piece.”

“I came home and found them, remember?”

“You killed them before you went out. Went out for and hour or so, came back and found them. Simple.”

She sighed a long lazy sigh.

“Prove it.”

“You know I can't. Not just now. But you're no dummy. You've been around this kind of life for a long time. You probably wore a latex glove to avoid firing residue. Threw it out at the mall while you shopped. You shot Pig Eyes in a way that it would look like he at least might have shot himself. How did you do it? Pig Eyes preferred a silencer. Did you go in to Dom's office and pick up his gun and pop Pig Eyes while Dom sat there stupefied? And then kill Dom?”

She smiled and swirled the ice around in her glass.

“You know, Pete, I always thought you were smart. It could have been just like that. But I'm still not shedding any tears.”

“I noticed.”

“He was a piece of shit you know. Dominic. Took my life away from me and trashed it. I was only nineteen when we got married, eleven, twelve years younger than him. He popped me for a while until we had the kids and then stopped. Spent the rest of his sex life on bimbos. Once I wasn't his little teenage whore any more, once I was a Mama, my job was to raise the kids and to look good and to shut up. That was my whole damn life . We saw his friends, went to his events, lived the way he wanted to live. You were right in all you wrote back then, Pete. He was dirty as hell. They all are. But that wasn't the worst of it. Because then… well, smart guy, then what? What do you think?”

“The marriage. Angela.”

“The marriage. Angela, who loved him so much. Taking my little girl like a piece of meat, as if he and that prick Basilio were a couple of feudal lords. Turning her over to that psycho Sonny so she could have a life like mine, only worse, with that monster. I told him no, but he laughed at me. But I meant no, Pete. Not my baby. It's the damn twenty-first century. Let the Asians take over out here if they want. Angela and I are leaving town.”

I saw her for the first time as the hardened woman that she was. Made hard.

“I'll have to tell Judge Otis what I think.”

“Let them try to pin it on me. I don't think they can do it. And anyhow, did I say that I did it? Did I confess to anything? I'll sleep well tonight.”

She smiled, a relaxed and friendly smile, as if she had just stepped out of the confessional. She reached over the table and cradled my face in her hands.

“Too bad I'm not twenty years younger.”

I took her wrists and pulled her hands away, gently.

* * *

Later that evening, I was sitting in with Bill Otis in his office. “It's all up to the evidence,” he said. “They might be able to convict her, but it's not certain. You know why?”

“CSI isn't all it's cracked up to be on TV?”

“No, they're good enough, most times. It's this: it was all so simple. She walked in, or should I say, may have walked in, and shot them both, as you described. Maybe Pig Eyes had put his gun on the desk, you know, took it out of the holster. Those things are heavy. Maybe she had gone in there before and noticed that the gun was at hand. There was no elaborate plan that might break into pieces that we could put back together. No cracks in the plate. She shot them, went shopping, came back and said she found them. Right now, on the basis of what we've got, I wouldn't feel comfortable issuing a warrant for her arrest.”

“So she's a successful vigilante?”

“You're grown-up enough to know that the law and justice don't always match up. Why do you think I left downtown? I was on the bench for some of the cases involving Basilio's kid. Made me sick to my stomach. Out here I seem to have a slightly better chance of pairing up justice with the workings of the law.”

“Or Margie steps in and does the work.”

“It would be a shame if we can't solve this and get a conviction,” said Otis.