Page 96 of The Furies

CHAPTER XXVIII

It took forty-eight hours for the Genoveses to start worrying about Angioni. Like all those who live in fear of betrayal, their main concern was that he might have been induced to turn federal witness, but all such inquiries came up negative. Whoever had him, it wasn’t the FBI’s Strike Force unit, the section of the Boston office responsible for investigating organized crime in the region, and it certainly wasn’t any of the state authorities in the Northeast. By then the foundations were already being laid at the Revere Beach site, and Angioni’s body was encased in cement.

Within a week, the Genoveses began looking at outside enemies, particularly those whom Angioni might have crossed. It was a long list, discretion and diplomacy not being part of his limited skill set. Two men picked up Leo Sirola as he was leaving the Smith & Wesson factory and broke a couple of his ribs, but even when they threatened his daughter with the same fate that Angioni had once planned for her, he didn’t buckle, and so they ruled him out. Finally, in the second week, they commenced circling Mattia Reggio.

“They want to talk to you,” said Dante Vero, as he and Mattia walked along Parmenter Street drinking coffee from Polcari’s, Vero with a package of meat from Sulmona’s under his left arm, carefully sealed so the blood wouldn’t leak.

“Because I asked about the Sirola thing,” said Mattia. There was no point in pretending he didn’t know why.

“You ought to have let it run its course.”

“I had a problem with that. You would have as well, in my position.”

“Yeah, but how much of a problem did you have with it?”

“Are you asking if I killed Angioni?”

“I’m not asking anything,” said Vero. They turned left onto Hanover. Mattia noticed that Vero was keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. “But the Genoveses are going to want to know if you killed him, so you’d better have an answer prepared.”

“I didn’t kill him,” said Mattia.

“Which would be the right one.”

“If that’s what happened to him.”

“You think he changed his name and entered a monastery? The Catholic Church has enough on its plate. No, he’s dead, and whoever took care of him was smart enough not to leave the body where it could be found.”

“Not yet.”

“Not ever.”

“You seem very certain of that,” said Mattia. “You sure you didn’t kill him?”

“That’s not even fucking funny. But it was a pro job, whoever did it. To make Angioni vanish quietly like that, you have to be smart and lucky.”

“Two men,” said Mattia. “Even three.”

“That was the Genoveses’ thinking.”

“ ‘Was’?”

“It didn’t make sense to them. Angioni pissed off a lot of people, but not enough to want to put him in the ground. That means it was personal, which was why they beat up on the father. You heard about that?”

“I heard.”

Vero stopped at the Prince Street intersection and removed the lid from his cup so he could drain the last of the coffee.

“We’re vulnerable right now,” he said. “We need the Genoveses off our backs.”

“I understand,” said Mattia, as a gray panel van pulled up to the curb.

“You keep in mind that answer you gave me,” said Vero.

Mattia didn’t even try to resist as a sack was placed over his head and he was bundled into the van.

CHAPTER XXIX

They worked Mattia over hard, but not as hard as they might have. The Office had consented to pressure being applied, but no bones were to be broken, and any injuries were required to heal quickly. But there was also the fact that he was Mattia Reggio, the man the Office sent when hopes of a nonviolent solution to a problem still remained. He was a talker, a negotiator. He wasn’t a killer. Everyone knew that.

---