Liam Mulligan: Cliff Walk Part 38

"Then don't try," she said.

"What about the p.o.r.nography business?" I said. "n.o.body being exploited there, either?"

"It's pretty much the same as with the clubs, except for one thing."

"What's that?"

"With p.o.r.n, the men aren't exploited, either. They get laid and paid."

"A perfect world," I said.

"Smart-a.s.s."

"I can't help it. It's genetic."

"Then I'll try to make allowances."

"So how does child p.o.r.n fit into this perfect world?"

"It doesn't."

"Never dabbled in that?"

"Of course not. It's an abomination."

"Never cut up any little kids and fed them to Cosmo Scalici's pigs?"

"And we were having such a nice conversation up till now, Mulligan. I can't believe you would ask me that."

The waiter cleared away our plates and took our dessert orders. Vanessa ordered the chocolate tower truffle cake. I asked for another club soda.

"While you're mulling our job offer," Vanessa said, "do you think you could refrain from poking into my family's business?"

"Hard to say."

"I could have the ex-SEALs pay you another visit."

"Wouldn't do any good," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "I kinda figured that."

52.

"The Maniellas offered me a job," I said.

"Doing what?" Lomax said.

"They were a little vague about that."

"I've seen you in the shower at the Y, so it can't be on-camera work."

"f.u.c.k you."

"What's it pay?"

"A hundred grand to start."

"Then if you don't want it, I'll take it."

"This could be our chance to find out what the h.e.l.l is going on," I said.

"How do you mean?"

"I take the job undercover, see what I can learn from the inside."

"No way."

"Why not?"

"Because we don't do things that way. You know that."

"Maybe we should reconsider."

"Uh-uh. These things always go badly. ABC's undercover investigation of the Food Lion grocery chain ended up costing them a fortune in legal bills. We don't tell lies in order to report the truth, Mulligan."

53.

A mystery that began with a single murder more than five months ago now had tentacles that stretched from Newport's scenic Cliff Walk to a b.l.o.o.d.y bedroom in the Chad Brown housing project, from a Pascoag pig farm to a bullet-riddled strip club in Providence. It had taken the lives of an exnavy SEAL, three snuff film producers, a Brown University dean, a New Jersey child p.o.r.n aficionado, and a pedophile priest in Michigan. I didn't give a s.h.i.+t about any of them, but it had also snuffed out an uncertain number of children.

I'd gotten some page one stories out of it, but I still didn't know what the h.e.l.l was going on. I decided to take another stab in the dark.

A half hour on Google turned up several dozen charities dedicated to finding missing children and protecting them from s.e.xual predators: the Polly Klaas, Amber Watch, Bring Sean Home, Child Alert, Tommy, and Molly Bish Foundations, the National Child Safety Council, and a bunch more. Most were organized as 501(c)(3) charities. That meant the names of their benefactors were a matter of public record.

As it turned out, Sal Maniella had donated money to five of them-more than three million dollars over the last ten years. His daughter, Vanessa, had contributed another quarter of a million. I wondered why. I figured the easiest way to find out would be to ask them, so I called the lake house and got them both on speaker.

"Your numbers are correct," Sal said, "but is it necessary to put this in the paper? We understand that it's public information, but we prefer to keep a low profile."

"That's right," Vanessa said. "We don't want every bleeding heart on the planet hitting us up for a donation."

"I understand that," I said, "but can't help wondering why you are so generous with this particular cause."

"Because it's a worthy one," Sal said.

"Well, sure, but so are the Jimmy Fund and the American Red Cross. Is there some personal motivation behind these donations?"

"Personal reasons are, by definition, personal," Vanessa said.

"Were either of you abducted or molested as children?"

"Absolutely not," Sal said.

"Any members of your family?"

"No."

"So I'm supposed to believe that the state's top madam and one of the country's biggest s.m.u.t peddlers just happen to have a soft spot for kids?"

"There's no need to insult us, Mulligan," Maniella said. "Haven't I always treated you with respect?"

"You have," I said. "I apologize for my choice of words. I would defend their accuracy, but perhaps they were unnecessarily indelicate."

"I accept your apology," Sal said.

But Vanessa had the last word: "Go f.u.c.k yourself, Mulligan."

Wednesday afternoon, I pointed Secretariat north toward the Bryant University campus in the bedroom community of Smithfield. Back in 1966, when the school granted Sal Maniella his business degree, it was called Bryant College and operated out of a handful of antiquated buildings in Providence. I found the 1966 yearbook in the library's reference room and flipped through the pages of sports and club pictures in the back, scanning the captions.

Sal showed up in two action shots of the basketball team. In the first one he was in the background, sitting on the bench as the team's star forward let a jump shot fly. In the second one he was leaping in the air, celebrating the final win of the team's undefeated season under coach Tom Duffy. The Bryant Indians-later renamed the Bulldogs in a bow to political correctness-won the NAIA national champions.h.i.+p that year. I'd had no idea Sal had been on the team.

I flipped to the page with the formal team group photo and got another surprise. Dante Puglisi, Sal's dearly departed double, was in it, his arm draped over Sal's shoulder. I hadn't realized the two went that far back. I copied down the names of all seventeen players, returned the yearbook to its shelf, and asked the reference librarian for directions to the alumni office.

"I don't understand," Paloma McGregor, the alumni director, said. "Why are you interested in the 1966 men's basketball team?"

"Because they won the NAIA national champions.h.i.+p."

"What's the NAIA?"

"Sort of like the NCAA, but for really small colleges."

"We're in the NCAA now, Division Two," she said.

"I know."

"Nineteen sixty-six was a long time ago," she said.

"Forty-four years."

"Before my time," she said, but I already knew that. I put her at thirty, with a trim body and a wild mane of black hair that a few guys were probably still lost in. A dancer's legs flashed beneath the hem of her black pencil skirt.

"Before my time, too," I said.

"You're a news reporter," she said. "Why do you care about ancient history?"

"Next year marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the only national champions.h.i.+p in Bryant history. I thought it would be a good idea to contact the members of the team and write a tribute for the Dispatch."

"Oh, that is a good idea," she said. "And you want my help with contact information?"

"I do."

She turned to her computer and tapped on the keyboard, red talons flas.h.i.+ng.

"Ronald Amarillo and Dante Puglisi are deceased," she said. "Of the remaining fifteen, I have addresses for eleven and telephone numbers for six, but I can't be sure how much of this is current."

She clicked her mouse, and a laser printer hummed and spit out a sheet of white paper. She folded it in threes, slipped it into a white business envelope with the Bryant logo on it, and handed it across the desk to me.

"If there's anything else I can help you with, don't hesitate to call," she said, flas.h.i.+ng a smile that made me want to know her better. She was so pleasant and helpful that I felt guilty about deceiving her. Maybe I'd have to write a story about the team after all.

That afternoon and all the next morning, I worked the phones. I learned that the team's star forward had suffered a stroke and was living in a nursing home in Pawtucket. But the starting center and shooting guard were both well and living in Rhode Island, and they were still the best of friends. They remembered Maniella as a slow-footed forward who was a tiger on the boards; but, no, they'd never hung out with him, and they never got to know him well. The phone numbers and addresses for a couple of bench players turned out to be no good, and I couldn't find any listings for them in the Internet telephone directories. It was nearly noon when I called the Brockton, Ma.s.sachusetts, telephone number for Joseph Pavao, who had been the team's starting point guard.

"Of course I remember Sal," he said. "He, Dante Puglisi, and I roomed together. We were darn near inseparable back in the day-working out, drinking, chasing skirts. Even cracked a book or two every now and then."

"Did you hear what happened to Dante?"

"Yeah. A d.a.m.n shame. Cops catch the guy who did it?"

"Not yet, but they're still looking."

He agreed to meet me at nine the next morning at a Brockton coffee shop creatively named Tea House of the Almighty. He was already there, pouring a whole lot of sugar into his mug of black coffee, when I walked in and sat down across from him.

"Nice place," I said.

"I like it."

"The Almighty ever show up to check the till?"

"He never shows his face, but I sense his presence every day."

I put him at five feet ten, with stringy arms, a sunken chest, and a bowling b.a.l.l.size potbelly. He wore a red plaid work s.h.i.+rt with a gold cross showing at the neck and a green baseball cap with the words "World's Best Grandpa" above the bill. It was hard to imagine him as an athlete.

"Tell me more about you, Sal, and Dante," I said.