Bad Business Read Free

unforgivable.
    â€œHear me out, Mr. Zucchetti. Please.”
    Zucchetti tilted his head back and flashed the crooked smile. “Speak, Saint Augustine. I hear you. Tell me good story.”
    â€œI realize, sir, that you are far more experienced in this business than I am. I do know from the drug cases I’ve tried in New York that the basics of our plan are not particularly extraordinary. Giordano has lined up a solid connection in Colombia who will sell him cocaine which Nemo will bring here to you. Nemo takes your heroin in exchange for the cocaine and smuggles the heroin back to the United States.Nothing new about that. The specially designed Oriental rugs with the hidden plastic inner layers is new to me, but to be perfectly honest, it’s not a revolutionary advancement in smuggling technology. Nemo delivers the heroin to Mr. Salamandra, who distributes it to his network of barbershops and beauty parlors, where it will be retailed. The proceeds will be siphoned back to Giordano, who will launder the money and get it into Swiss bank accounts. There’s really nothing new about any of this. It’s all pretty standard for your business. Isn’t that so, Mr. Zucchetti?”
    Nemo bristled. “Hey, Augustine, who the fuck you think you’re talking to?”
    â€œAspett’!” Zucchetti glared at the little man. “Go on, Saint Augustine.”
    Augustine sucked in a breath. The drill kept grinding into his face. “What isn’t standard about this plan is my participation. I am the guarantee, the insurance policy. The major transactions will take place in New York, which is my jurisdiction. If it so happens that one of our people is apprehended by the police or any of the federal law-enforcement agencies, the case will have to come to my desk, and I can manage to dismiss it for lack of sufficient evidence. Even if arrests are made, I can make sure these people never see the inside of a penitentiary. In this way, I can guarantee you virtually uninterrupted business.”
    Zucchetti nodded in thought. “And what happen if the police catch Nemo with fifty kilos of heroina? You can make this many drugs ‘insufficient evidenz’? How? By magic?”
    â€œI would hope that Nemo would be more careful than to be caught with that kind of quantity. But for argument’s sake, let’s suppose he was. In that case, we would have to go to trial, and I would have to lose the case.”
    â€œYou can do that, Saint Augustine?”
    â€œIt can be done. There are many pitfalls in the American judicial system. It’s very easy to make a small technical mistakethat can be disastrous to a case. And it’s even easier when you’re trying to.”
    â€œAnd what does it cost to have a saint work in my business?”
    Augustine squared his shoulders and tilted his head back. “However much money it takes to get me elected mayor of New York City. Fourteen million or so, I’d say. Not an unreasonable price to have a friend in City Hall, when you think about it.”
    The old man stared at him. The crooked smile was gone. He looked at Salamandra and gestured with his head for the fat man to follow him. They walked back toward the vineyard together. The old man threw the bunch of grapes away and clasped his hands behind his back, staring at the volcano as his corpulent lieutenant whispered into his ear again.
    The drill bit was smoldering as it ground on and on and on.
    Nemo was in a state. “I told you to shut the fuck up, Augustine. You shoulda listened. You can forget about it now. Just forget about it.”
    Giordano was in shock. His eyes were bulging and his bottom lip hung slack. He looked like Lou Costello trapped in a haunted house. He was totally perplexed. Like all accountants, he knew numbers, not people, and people were never as predictable as numbers. If only they were.
    Salamandra pointed to Nemo then and summoned him over to the huddle. The