25. Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I couldn’t contain my smile. “Picked up on that, did you? Yeah, we are. Nico told the two of us that you had some interesting stories about organized crime here in St. Louis. I’m a professor of criminal justice at the University of Kansas, and I’d love to hear any stories you have about Ramon Blanco.
He was the subject of my thesis and someday I’d like to write a book about him. ”
I held my breath to see if she’d take the bait, and without skipping a beat Mary Jane began singing like she was the lead soprano for the New York City Opera. I exhaled at my silent victory. A beauty salon was generally the head of the gossip grapevine, and we seemed to be looking at its leader.
“So, uh, Marcy’s former partner is Nico’s father. He was in the DeLuca family. Have you heard of them?” Mary Jane scraped her gel nails over my scalp as she washed my hair, and I couldn’t say I hated it.
“Yes, of course I know about the DeLuca family from my research while I wrote my thesis. The family was headed by Johnny DeLuca. He was rumored to be the most powerful of the five families, or so I’ve heard.”
Mary Jane pushed the chair to a sitting position and patted my hair with a hand towel. “Come with me. I’ve got a lot to say on the history of the families in St. Louis.”
She led me to her chair at the front of the salon as other stylists reported for work and greeted Mary Jane with happy smiles and huge hair.
From what I’d witnessed, Mary Jane was a jovial person, but it was easy to see she was in charge when Marcy wasn’t there.
It might be interesting to see how they acted when Marcy was there.
“So, please, tell me. The whole history of the St. Louis families is fascinating,” I said.
Mary Jane fluffed a plastic apron with the Beauty Bar logo on the front, fastening it around my neck before she smiled in the mirror. “So, just a trim?” Mary Jane asked.
“Please. And carry on.”
“Okay. So, Johnny DeLuca was the head of The Hill family for a very long time. He pulled people in who would do his dirty work and promised them prosperity. They didn’t anticipate that busting skulls would be part of the job in the beginning, but they soon learned.”
Mary Jane gave me the most incredible haircut as she told me a story that intrigued me immensely.
“I was married to Santino—Tino—Gallo, one of Johnny DeLuca’s capos.
Tino screwed around on me with that bitch, Angela Tortelli.
She had two of his bastard children, but Tino didn’t take care of them like Ramon took care of Marcy and the other mothers. ”
That perked me up. “So, Ramon took care of his family? He had several mothers and kids, right?”
“Oh, five whores and eight kids, but he took care of all of them. That guy worked his ass off to provide for all of them. They each had nice homes in the neighborhood, and he made sure they were all taken care of, I mean, yard work and trash pickup. The kids all had tutors if they needed them, and they all had memberships at the Y so the kids could learn to swim and have a place to play. Heck, we wouldn’t have this shop if Ramon hadn’t bought it for Marcella. ”
She picked up a pair of scissors and began snipping away at the front of my hair, combing it this way and that. I searched my mind for a minute and came up with another strategy.
“I’ve researched this for a while, so I have a question. Who do you think killed Ramon Blanco?”
Mary Jane squirted my hair with water and combed it another way to snip the ends. She looked into the mirror and met my gaze. “Tino, my ex, was a real prick, and he knew Sonny was in love with Marcella. Ramon knew it too, but he never made a big deal of it. It was what it was.”
I sucked in a breath. “He didn’t make a big deal of another man being in love with his girlfriend? Shouldn’t he have been pissed about it? Did he and Sonny have beef about it?”
As I looked into the mirror, Mary Jane was smiling kindly.
“Ramon was truly a lover, not a fighter. I remember once when Tino had to go collect from a shop owner because his guy wasn’t willing to do what it took.
Tino went to do it himself, and the guy pulled a knife on him, so Tino beat the hell out of him and got picked up by the cops for assault and battery.
“Ramon tried to bail him out, but there were these unsolved crimes in the neighborhood that the cops were trying to pin on Tino, so they put him in a psych hospital for a seventy-two-hour hold to buy time before Tino got his arraignment hearing.
We had crying babies at home, and I had no cash to buy groceries.
“Ramon showed up at our house and gave me an envelope filled with money.
He stayed at my house with the babies while I went to the store to get groceries.
When I got back, he took my minivan and filled it up with gas, and he cleaned up the kitchen after dinner while I bathed my kids and put them to bed.
“Before Ramon left our house that night, I asked him why he went to so much trouble for me. He said, ‘Don’t tell Tino where it came from because it will make him feel like less of a man. If you need more help, no matter what it is, you let me know, MJ.’ Ramon was that way with everyone under his protection and in his neighborhood.
I didn’t like him because he was a fuckhound, but I loved him for his tender heart. ”
I sat in the chair as she continued to snip my hair, and I knew at that moment I’d discovered something Ramon probably didn’t want anyone to know. He might have been a son of a bitch in many ways, but he wasn’t a cold-hearted monster. He wasn’t beyond redemption.
Once Mary Jane was finished with me, she turned to Clay. “Okay, handsome. You’re next. Let’s fix that mess.”
I could see my guy wasn’t exactly thrilled with her assessment of his hairstyle, but he didn’t argue, rising from the couch and dropping into her chair with a smile.
“Whatever you want to do, Miss Mary Jane.” Clay was the ultimate gentlemen when it came to dealing with people, especially women.
I couldn’t imagine another partner to deal with this bullshit besides Clay.
Mary Jane turned to me, put her hand over her heart, and winked. “He’s absolutely adorable. How do you not just smother him in kisses?”
I just smiled.
She then turned to Clay. “Just a trim, Heath?” Clay nodded.
So, we sat in the salon, me in a chair for a stylist who hadn’t come in that day, and my gorgeous boyfriend flattering the woman to the point that she gave us more insight into the family than we needed.
Once we were both groomed, I put money on the counter for Mary Jane and we left. After we were outside, I turned to Clay with his newly shorn locks that weren’t exactly as he preferred them to be.
Mary Jane cut Clay’s hair very short, and when she finished spiking it with gel, she turned to me. “What do you think? It looks good, right?”
I stood from the chair next to Clay’s. “It looks great, Mary Jane. So, Marcy’s view of Ramon? Does she hate him? Does she think she’d have been better off without him?’
Mary Jane turned to me and smiled. “Ramon Blanco was a good man in many ways. He cared about everyone on The Hill and he’d have given the shirt off his back to a stranger. He didn’t deserve anything that happened to him.”
I nodded as I handed her a hundred-dollar bill for our haircuts. “Who do you think killed Ramon? Sonny or Tino?”
Mary Jane shook her head. “I don’t like thinking about shit that happened back then, but I have no doubt that Tino was the one who killed Ramon. He took over Ramon’s crew after he died, and I’d venture a guess he killed Johnny DeLuca because he wanted to take over the family.
“Unfortunately for Tino, Sonny Russo shot him out behind the social club because of their history. Marco knew it. Hell, I’d bet Marco sanctioned it because nobody can kill a made man without permission from the head of the family.”
That was something I didn’t know but was grateful to learn. “Thank you, Mary Jane. We look damn good, and you’ve given me new things to research. I appreciate it.”
She hugged both of us. “Thank you for giving me a fun beginning to my day. Come back if you’re in town again, guys. Be safe.”
We left the salon and hurried to Clay’s truck. Once we were inside, he turned to me and grinned. “So, darlin’, where to next?”
“Home, Clay. Let’s go home.”