Whacking Jimmy

by William Wolf

Genres: Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

It's 1975. Don Vittorio Tucci, head of the Detroit mob, lies on his deathbed as his family and associates secretly jockey for power. Meanwhile, his grandson Bobby Tucci--just an ordinary college student and rock musi-cian, who until now has steered clear of the family business--is drawn into the middle of a power play among the don's hotheaded first lieutenant, his consigliere, and Bobby's own mother, who has designs on being the first woman to lead a major crime family.
It seems simple: His grandfather promises him a $40 million payday if he'll just stay around for a while, lending some stability as the next rightful heir to the Family. But there's a little complication: He's going to have to "make his bones"--prove himself to the Family. His assignment? Kill Jimmy Hoffa.
Whacking Jimmy is a seventies flashback, mafia-style--a classic caper built around one of the greatest unsolved crimes in history. It is a hip, hilarious thriller for those who love writers like Elmore Leonard and for anyone who wants to know one possible, though a bit implausible, solution to the Jimmy Hoffa mystery.

Vittorio Tucci sat with Bobby on the Tillmans' screened porch and watched the little sailboat bob on the water. The sight of it sent a wave of nausea through him. He wanted to lie down with a wet towel on his head, but he wasn't finished with Bobby yet. He summoned the will to keep his voice strong and said, "In a few weeks, things are gonna pop around here. Maybe I'll be dead by then, but it don't matter, they're gonna pop with or without me. When they do, you're gonna be in the middle of it. People are gonna come to you--your mother and her old man, Catello, Relli, the New York Families, and I dunno who else. They're gonna promise you big money, tell you about your responsibilities, warn you about each other. You understand what I'm sayin'?"
"Why would anyone bother with me?" asked Bobby. "They know I've got nothing to do with the Family."
Don Vittorio paused. "You're the last Tucci," he said. "You got the name, and whoever gets you on their side has the strongest claim. In a battle royale the name's gonna carry weight. Now do you understand?"
Bobby nodded.
"Fine," said Don Vittorio. He reached into the pocket of his suit coat and took out an envelope. "This is for you."
"What is it?"
"Swiss bank-account numbers and the name of a guy in Zurich. The dough in the accounts is yours. Forty million bucks."
"Holy shit," said Bobby. "I never knew you had that much."
Don Vittorio's ravaged eyes flashed. "Kid, forty million ain't even the interest on what I got," he said. "But it's all you get."
Bobby wanted to tell his grandfather that he'd miss him. Instead he took the envelope and said, "Thanks for this."
"That's okay, kid," said Don Vittorio, rolling up the window. "I hope you live long enough to spend it."

Release date: January 5, 2011

Publisher: Villard

Print pages: 256

Sample

Chapter
One
 
Detroit, 1975
 
IT WAS FOUR in the afternoon. A mild June rain cleansed the already immaculate Grosse Pointe sidewalks and nourished the fat green grass on the grounds of the three brick mansions at the end of a narrow cul-de-sac. These had been built in the twenties by men who founded automobile companies. Today they were all owned by Vittorio Tucci, although only one, the four story Federal-style mansion in the center, was occupied. The others stood empty but guarded, mute brick testimony to Vittorio Tucci’s wish to be alone.
 
In the very center of the mansion, in a dimly lit, mahogany-paneled, windowless room, Vittorio Tucci sat sipping grappa and listening to Frank Sinatra’s Songs for Young Lovers. He was seventy-four years old and dying.
 
Despite Tucci’s love of privacy, there were seven people in the house at that moment, each there to assure his physical safety and personal comfort. Such was the orderly nature of the household that he knew where every one of them was likely to be.
 
Johnny Baldini, once a sous-chef at “21” in New York, would be in the large kitchen in the rear of the house, along with his assistants, two Sicilian sisters of a certain age, distantly related to Don Vittorio. They were preparing the Tuesday meal: pasta primavera, chicken diavlo, and, lately, tiramisu. Over the years Don Vittorio had rarely indulged in dessert, just as he had seldom sipped grappa during working hours, but he was confident that alcohol and sweet, rich cream could do him no harm now that cancer was feasting on his blood. Don Vittorio was not indifferent to his imminent demise, but a lifetime of observation had taught him that every adversity had its benefits. Even death.
 
Still, he had no intention of dying in pain, which is why Joey Florio and a young nurse named Felice were on duty in the third-floor dispensary. Florio, whose father had been a member of the Tucci Family, had been put through medical school by the don. After his residency he became the Family doctor, dealing competently and discreetly with the Tuccis’ various medical problems. There was a bed in the dispensary, and Vittorio imagined that Joey and Felice were in it now, making love, as they did every afternoon.
 
His information on Florio, like most of the information he received these days, was provided by his consigliere, Luigi Catello. Catello’s domain was the basement, from which he had removed the bowling alley, the indoor pool, and the other entertainments of the mansion’s former owner. He had replaced them with a secured electronic command-and-control center fit for a small NATO nation. From this listening post Catello maintained contact with the other Families and the politicians, judges, union bosses, journalists, stockbrokers, law-enforcement officers, and divines of various faiths with whom the Family did its business.
 
There was a guard on duty inside the house and three more outside, all supervised by Carlo Seluchi, commander of the afternoon shift, who sat in the security office on the second floor monitoring the closed-circuit TV screens that covered the grounds. It was on one of these screens that Seluchi saw Annette Tucci’s black Lincoln Continental arrive at the gate, stop briefly, and then head down the private road in the direction of the house. He buzzed the don, two short rings to let him know that his daughter-in-law had arrived.
 
Don Vittorio heard the signal without enthusiasm. Twenty-five years earlier, when his son Roberto had married, he had been pleased. Annette was the daughter of Tommy “the Neck” Niccola, then a rising hood, now boss of Chicago. At the time, Don Vittorio was still fighting to consolidate his grip on Detroit and the alliance with such a feared man had been helpful. But now Detroit was at peace, Roberto was dead, and Don Vittorio had no further use for his shrewish, demanding daughter-in-law or her vulgar father.
 
Don Vittorio took a hard black Di Nobli from his humidor, lit it, and expelled a mouthful of acrid smoke. Annette hated the smell of cigars—she said it gave her cat, Scratch, a headache. Since this meeting was not one he was looking forward to, he hoped the air pollution would keep it short.
 
There was a soft knock, and Seluchi ushered Annette and her arrogant tan Abyssinian cat into the room. Annette wore black, as usual, but she didn’t look like a grieving widow. Her dress was low-cut, exposing cleavage, tight across the hips, and short enough to show off her long, slender legs. Annette Tucci wasn’t a beautiful woman—her skin was acne-scarred under her makeup, her nostrils were too large, and her jaw protruded slightly—but she was provocative and, now that her husband was dead, predatory.
 
The don knew this from personal experience. Several weeks after Roberto’s funeral, Annette had propositioned him with an unemotional directness that shocked and impressed the old man. He had been tempted, too, although he turned her down. He let her think that he had refused out of a sense of propriety. In truth he was simply following his lifelong practice of not getting into bed with a woman he feared.
 
Now Annette took a seat across the desk from the don, closed her brown eyes briefly, and said, “Songs for Young Lovers. Roberto’s favorite. I had to play it for him in the hospital, over and over.”
 
“I remember,” said Don Vittorio. He remembered, too, that Annette hated Sinatra, which is why he had chosen him for today’s soundtrack.
 
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
 
The don recognized this as a real question, not a pleasantry. He shrugged and raised his hands, palms up. There was no reason to pretend; Annette knew he was dying.
 
“You’re going to have to choose someone to take your place,” she said evenly. “It’s time.”
 
“Maybe I won’t choose,” said Don Vittorio. His voice was heavy, accented with just a touch of Sicily. “Maybe I’ll just go to heaven and let Catello and Relli fight it out.”
 
“That will never happen.”
 
The don smiled, revealing a set of strong yellow teeth. “You don’t think I’ll go to heaven?”
 
Annette ignored the question. “This is a family business,” she said. “It belonged to Roberto.”
 
“Roberto is dead,” said the don. “He died listening to Frank Sinatra.”
 
“Roberto’s heir is alive.”
 
“Roberto’s heir? A woman can’t head a Family. That’s the rule.”
 
“It’s a stupid rule,” said Annette. “Women run corporations these days. You think I couldn’t run the Tucci Family? I’m not as smart as Relli? Or as tough as Catello? Get outta here, I’ve lived my whole life with men like them.”
 
Vittorio nodded at the justice of her remark; Annette Tucci was certainly capable of running the Family. She had a shrewd understanding of the realpolitik of their world—too shrewd, Vittorio knew, to imagine that she could actually become a don. And so he merely smiled and held up his manicured hands. “I don’t make these rules,” he said mildly.
 
“Fine, we go by the rules. According to the rules, the control belonged to Roberto,” she said, fixing her father-in-law with a fierce glare. “Now it belongs to Bobby.”
 
They stared at each other for a long moment, brown on brown. It was Vittorio who lowered his gaze first and chuckled. “How old is he?”
 
“Twenty-one. What were you doing when you were twenty-one?”
 
“Bobby’s a sissy. He’s got hair like a girl. He plays the guitar. Last Christmas he told me he wants to write novels, for Christ’s sake. He wouldn’t last ten minutes.”
 
“He’s got Tucci blood and Niccola blood. And he’s got me. He’ll do what I tell him.”
 
The don had no doubt that his daughter-in-law was right; it would take a far stronger character than Bobby Tucci’s to resist such a determined woman. “Even so, the men would never follow a boy,” he said.
 
“They will if you say so.”
 
“While I’m alive, yes. But afterward?” The don shook his head.
 
“If there’s trouble, I can lean on my father.”
 
“I see,” said Tucci. Annette was telling him that if he refused to anoint Bobby, she’d use it as an excuse to start a war and bring her father in to take over Detroit.
 
In the old days Don Vittorio might have murdered his daughter-in-law, but now, in the face of his own mortality, he had no heart for committing mortal sins. He cleared his throat and said, “You would be putting your son at risk.”
 
“That’s what life’s about, risk,” said Annette. “Bobby could crack up that Porsche you gave him. Or get himself shot in one of those nightclubs he plays in. Believe me, he’ll be a lot safer where I can keep my eye on him. And once he makes his bones, the men will look after him.”
 
“Jesus,” muttered Don Vittorio, his voice a mixture of admiration and contempt. He had been right to fear this woman, a mother cold enough to make her son a murderer in the service of her own ambition.
 
“You know a man who doesn’t make his bones will never get the respect,” she said.
 
Don Vittorio acknowledged to himself that she was right. That was the rule. He leaned back in his padded chair and drew thoughtfully on his cigar. Suddenly he felt exhausted. “I’ll consider it,” he said.
 
Annette rose and gave her father-in-law a gaze of frank appraisal. “You better decide quick,” she said. “No offense, Vittorio, but you’re starting to smell like a bad oyster.”