Gangster. - Gangster. Part 23
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Gangster. Part 23

So we made a lot of money without having to worry about the feds being on our backs. Angelo ignored the strong gusts of wind that were whipping past the pier posts. Besides, I never said there weren't subs in the waters. I just said we didn't see any of them.

Did you even bother to look for them? I asked.

Angelo looked at me and shrugged. His slicked-back hair rested defiantly in place against the wind's heavy onslaught and his handsome face was as rigid as stone. It would've been a waste of my time, he said. Finding submarines was not something I knew how to do.

We crossed against the traffic on West Forty-fourth Street, heading uptown, when I saw the car move in place behind us. There were three passengers in the four-door black Ford Comet, two in the front looking forward and acting casual, the one in the back sitting sideways facing the street, wiping a hand against his face and forehead. I looked up at Angelo and knew he had seen them long before I had, probably when they first turned the corner, against the light.

You know where Pudge is, am I right? He looked straight ahead, his body relaxed, his voice poised and in control. Don't turn your head. Just answer.

Yes, I said, my voice cracking from the cold and from fear.

When I tap you on the shoulder, you run to him and tell him where we are. Until you get back, me and Ida will try and hold these guys off as best as we can.

Why can't I stay and help you fight them? I asked, ignoring his request and stealing a glance at the car that was creeping up closer to us.

I've done this before, Angelo said. So has the dog. You haven't. On top of it, Ida doesn't care to run from a fight. It goes against her bloodlines. So she'd be plenty pissed if I sent her out to get Pudge.

Are they here to kill you? I tried hard to stop my body from shaking.

That's what somebody's paid them to do.

The guy sitting on the passenger side and the one leaning against the door in the back both lowered their windows, replacing thick miniclouds of cigarette smoke with fresh gusts of cold aur. The Comet had come to a slow stop just three cars down from us, its engine running in idle, all four of its doors unlocked. I turned away from the car and looked up at Angelo. The diner's only two blocks from here, I said. Why don't you run with me?

It's not what I do, he said in a soothing voice. And not who I am.

I stared up into a pair of eyes that were as dark as a crow's wing and nodded. Without another word, I turned and ran, sprinting up the street as fast as I could go, leaving behind Angelo and Ida to deal with three paid killers.

Angelo and Ida walked toward the Ford Comet. He was close enough to see their faces, which were nervous and streaked with sweat in the winter air. His experience told him he wasn't up against top-drawer professional talent. Prime shooters would not have wasted this much time getting ready to gun him down. They would have simply driven up, fired and sped off. So, whoever put up the money for these three did so in order to get Angelo's attention, make him aware that he was out there. If, in the process, these three left him sprawled and dead between two parked cars, then so much the better.

Angelo was several feet from the passenger side door when he saw his backup Cadillac turn at the corner and come up behind the Comet. There were four of his men in the Caddy, each one of whom would kill at the simple nod of their boss's head. Angelo glanced back at the three in the Comet. The two in the front had guns in their hands, the wild cowboy in the backseat had two cocked and ready. But they froze, their fear too strong for them to lift the guns and fire, the drugs and drink that had fueled their ride to this point not able to help them take it to the next step. Angelo looked into each of their faces, his eyes telling them what he already knew. They had left earlier that morning with pockets filled with money, eager for the kill and a chance to make a name in a business where murder is the fastest way to advancement. Back there, they were tough and hard and wanting nothing more than to be gangsters. Now, in the cold and the wind and the harsh light of reality, they were three scared young men, pumped up by bar talk and each other, confronting a man they had only read about in the papers or caught a glimpse of on television. They knew him the way a child knows about a baseball player after reading the statistics on the back of a trading card. He had been tagged Bones Vestieri by the tabloids, for all the bodies he left in his wake, and the name stayed as the decades passed. He was a mob boss from a time when wars lasted for years and only the toughest were left to stand. He was a real gangster standing in front of them, with a growling white pit bull by his side, neither one of them afraid to die.

Angelo's four men surrounded the Comet, their guns at their side, ready to be emptied into the bodies of the three shooters. Angelo leaned into the car and looked at each of them. He placed a hand on the car door, his jacket open and flapping in the wind. I get a name, he said into the smoky interior, and you live. If not, then you'll die wishing you had never made the deal that put you here.

Marsh, the one closest to Angelo, sitting on the passenger side, said. He tried to keep up his tough-guy front but was betrayed by the crack of fear in his voice. Jimmy Marsh was the one who paid us.

Angelo looked into the young man's eyes and saw a boy with a gun on his lap. He was dressed in black leather and jeans, smelled of whiskey and couldn't control the shaking of his hands. Who knows this Jimmy Marsh? he asked his four men.

I do, the tallest of the group said. He was young, handsome and had been with Angelo since he, too, was a child, abandoned in a tenement hallway by a drug-addicted mother on her last fix. He's a small-timer pulling meat market heists for quick cash. If he's got himself a crew, they can't be any better than the ones he sent here this morning.

Find him before he has his breakfast, Anthony, Angelo said. And kill him before I finish mine.

What about the three in the Comet? Anthony asked.

Help them find the highway, Angelo said, his eyes on the men in the car. And if you ever see any of them in my neighborhood again, kill them, too.

Anthony nodded and led the other three back to the open doors of the Cadillac. They got in, slammed the doors shut and followed the Comet as it eased its way down the street and onto the ramp of the West Side Highway, filled with young men who thought they were heartless enough to want to be gangsters.

I SAT IN Angelo's armchair, my feet curled up under me, watching Robert Stack as Eliot Ness put The Untouchables through their paces. Angelo and Pudge sat on the couch across from me, relaxed yet focused on the anticipated takedown of the television gangster.

They make this guy Ness out to be a one-man band, Pudge said with a dismissive wave of his hand. How good could he really have been? They brought him in from Cleveland.

He was good enough to catch Al Capone, I said, my eyes still on the large-screen black-and-white set.

Time caught up with Capone, Angelo said. A fed named Eliot Ness just happened to be there.

You can be headline material for just so long, Pudge said. Sooner or later, people get tired of reading about you. They want to read about the next new gangster. That's when the cuffs come out and the judge slams the hammer down.

You want to make a career in this business, you do it quiet, Angelo said. The only people who know you're in it are the only ones who need to know. Anybody can get their names in the paper. You don't need talent to do that. But keeping your name out of them is a skill. You have that, you get to play in the game for a long time.

I loved to watch TV or go to the movies with Angelo and Pudge. Before they came into my life, I hadn't watched much television and was aware of the popular shows only from what I picked up in passing conversation. Movies were my safety valve, as they are for most foster children. I would escape into the cool confines of an old movie house and find the solace I sought from the emptiness of a nonexistent home life. The movie theater also served as an avenue for safe adventure, where I could lose myself for two hours in the heroic exploits of others. Angelo and Pudge, as did every gangster I ever met, also had a love for the movies and the small screen. We more or less shared the same tastes in what we liked and in what we sought to avoid, which made it easy for us to sit through anything together, our viewing nights always ending with dinner in a back booth at Ho-Ho's restaurant on West Fiftieth Street.

Gangsters hate science fiction and romance. They would rather be shot dead in an alley than sit through a game show. Tell me what a game show is? Pudge would demand whenever I was brazen enough to turn one of them on. Better yet, let me tell you what it is. It's gambling, plain and simple. They take two people, put a mike in front of them and bet they won't get the right answer to whatever it is they ask. If they do, they get paid. If they don't, they walk away empty. So how come, when a guy in Hollywood does it, they call it a TV show, but when we do it here, without the cameras and the mikes, they call it a crime? That's really The $64,000 Question.

Gangsters love stories that are set either in the Wild West or during the height of World War II and are avid fans of thrillers, silly comedies and high-class horror. Above all else, however, gangsters love crime movies and police shows. Angelo and Pudge both would get a big laugh as they sat back and watched Hollywood's idea of what they did for a living, their every move glamorized and overdramatized. Most of the time, the movies and shows are so far offbase it's not even worth the time it takes to sit through them, Pudge the critic would often tell me between bites of an egg roll. Rod Steiger as Al Capone goes beyond stupid. The same goes for that guy Neville Brand on The Untouchables. Now, Robert Stack, I'll give you, looks like a fed, but so what? You still don't pick up anything from watching any one of them work. Not like you did with somebody like Cagney. Him you could study, take what you saw him do and bring it out to the street with you and not have to worry about getting gunned down. A couple of the other old-timers had it figured out the right way, too. George Raft was one. Paul Muni and John Garfield were two more. But Humphrey Bogart didn't make the final cut. None of us ever bought him as a tough guy. We never paid for his sell. To us, he always came across as a rich boy acting tough, which, from what I understand, is what he was in real life.

I like M Squad better than The Untouchables, I said, spreading my legs out and resting them on the coffee table.

Which one is that? Pudge asked, pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee.

It's the one with Lee Marvin, I said. He plays the tough detective.

I go for that one, too, Pudge said. You believe a guy like that, ex-marine, war hero, wounded in action. I could see him slapping the cuffs on me and tossing me in the back of his squad car.

I can't blame you on that one, Angelo said with not-so-subtle sarcasm. If I had to make a choice, I'd much rather be arrested by an actor than a cop. It would make it a lot easier to deal with.

You know who I don't buy as a cop? Pudge asked.

Who? I smiled at him, enjoying what for us passed as family conversation.

That old fat guy from Highway Patrol Pudge said. Tell me his name again?

Broderick Crawford.

That's the one. Pudge sat up on the couch, animated and filled with a fan's passion. I mean, seriously, how old is that guy that they still let him drive around in a car chasing after people? He should be retired, sitting on a nice stretch of beach somewhere, scratching the chicken fat on his belly. If a cop that old were chasing me, I would never stop. Keep my foot pressed heavy on the gas and keep driving until his nap time came around.

I wouldn't complain too much, Angelo said. The older the cop, the better it is for us. Young cops want to go out and make a name for themselves. Best way for them to do that is to bring down either you, me or maybe both. Old cops just want to go home and put in enough time to cash a pension check. And the best way for that to happen is to stay away from trouble. Their mind is sitting on a condo down by the beach. It's not on the next boost you and me have planned.

I sat back, happy to watch Angelo and Pudge link everything we saw on TV or in the movies straight back to the life they led, turning it all into yet another lesson for me to learn. I was now an accepted member of their family and with that came the burden of filling the void in my knowledge with their take on life and the honest, if skewered, view of the world they brought with them to even the most mundane of daily events. Angelo and Pudge boiled everything down to a basic scenario of black and white, right and wrong, profit and loss. They had fought off the challenges and survived and thrived for decades in a brutal business that was free of reasonable compromise and short on peaceful resolution. They did it by combining street savvy with a fearless determination that their will would not be thwarted, regardless of the odds and the opponent. They obeyed only a set number of structured commandments and never strayed far from those beliefs.

Over time, their numerous lessons would eventually take hold and their strong theories would be very much a part of my thinking and way of looking at the life around me. I would become like them, a bona fide member of their small society. I knew that whatever path my life took, it would be determined by the formidable will of these two men I had come to see as parents. No other solution would be acceptable to them. They were not interested in raising just a son. Much like Ida the Goose and Angus McQueen before them, Angelo and Pudge were just looking to raise a gangster.

And so, night after night, I would watch them, them, faces a blurry haze from the glow of the television set, close my eyes and smile. I was on the eve of my thirteenth birthday and I couldn't think of anything else I would much rather do than grow up and be one of them.

Be a gangster.

I GLANCED AT my watch and turned to Mary. I was thinking of heading back to my apartment, grab a shower and change into some fresh clothes. Maybe even take time to catch a smile from my kids and a kiss from my wife. Will you be here when I get back?

'Yes, Mary said. I may leave for a bit to do the same, but I won't be gone long.

He'll be okay, I said, looking down at Angelo as he slept in his bed, the green monitors blinking and beeping around him. The day nurses check on him every hour or so.

Can he hear anything at all? Mary asked. Is he even aware that we're here, talking about him?

The doctors say no, I said. They said his brain and body are barely functioning and that he's living moment to moment.

And what do you say? Mary asked me with a sweet smile.

I think he hears what he wants to hear and tunes out what doesn't interest him, I said. And I think he's happy that you and I are here together.

But you still don't know where I fit in, Mary said.

It just comes down to a question of time. Eventually you'll tell me everything you came here to tell me.

That sounds more like Angelo talking than you, Mary said with a slight tilt of her head. As much as you may want to try and fight it, a lot of who and what he is has rubbed off on you.

I'll pick up some soup and sandwiches for us on the way back, I said, ignoring her comment. I shouldn't be long. Two hours, three at the most.

Take as long as you need, Mary said. I wouldn't mind having some time alone with him.

I nodded and headed for the closed door. I turned to watch Mary walk over to Angelo's bedside and pull a chair closer to him. She sat down, rested a hand on top of his and stroked the side of his face with a gentle motion.

15.

Fall, 1968 I WAS FOURTEEN years old when I was sent out on my first official job for Angelo and Pudge. It was a cash pickup at an actor's rented brownstone in the East Seventies. The actor was late on a cocaine payment to an uptown dealer who had given up on any chance he had of collecting his money, so he'd sold off the debt to Pudge, willing to take half as opposed to nothing.

You heard of this guy before? Pudge asked me. I mean the name, it sound familiar to you?

I've seen him in a few things, I said. He's in that big action movie that's out now. I don't like him all that much.

That's good on all counts, Pudge said. You and Nico aren't going to see him to do a breakdown on his acting. You'll be there to pick up the cash he owes. Now, he's Hollywood and used to getting most things for free. Angelo and me ain't Hollywood and we're used to getting what's owed us. So, something's gotta change and we're way too old to start now. Nico will be there to make sure he doesn't give you more than a little lip when you go to collect.

What do I do? I asked.

You be polite at all times and never get angry, no matter what he says to your face, Pudge said. Leave the heavy work to Nico, he'll know what to do if it comes down to that. You're there to take the cash, put it in your pocket and leave.

What if he doesn't have it on him? I asked. Not many people have twenty-one hundred dollars lying around the house.

Then it's gonna be a bad night all around, Pudge said, standing to leave. We'll be outta cash and he'll be outta luck. No winners anywhere in the circle.

I won't let you down, I said.

It never crossed my mind you would. There's a folder about this bum up on your bed. Look it over before you leave. The more you know about your target, the more it keeps you in control. Be ready to go when Nico comes to get you.

What should I wear? My face turned beet red and I hoped the question didn't come out sounding as stupid as it felt.

Pudge came walking over toward me. He put both his large hands on my two shoulders, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, the smile on his face as wide as I'd ever seen it. You don't think the blue jean, T-shirt and sneaker look is gonna be enough to make him shit his pants? he asked. And before I could answer, There's some new clothes for you, on your bed, next to the folder. Wear those. It won't make him respect you any more than he's going to, but at least you'll look the part. This actor's gonna be laughing when he sees you. You go in like a kid, then he's got no reason to be scared. You go in like a man who wants his pockets filled with money that's owed him, you'd be surprised how fast that sense of humor disappears. A good gangster, no matter how young, old, tall or short he might be, always runs the room. Always.

Pudge's smile was long gone and he held that look on me for several seconds. Then he turned and walked quietly out of the room. I sat down on the soft upholstered couch and closed my eyes, trying to drown out the muted sounds rafting up from the crowded bar below. Above me, the floorboards creaked as I heard Pudge walk across his room and turn on the record player. He slid a Benny Goodman album on the turntable, rested the needle on the third cut, Sing, Sing, Sing, and turned the volume on high, knowing I was downstairs and wanting me to hear it. I sat back on the couch and smiled, my eyes still closed as I listened to Gene Krupa's ground-swelling drum solo mix in with Goodman's magical clarinet. Almost every career criminal I've ever met has a song of choice they play before they go out on a job. It is an important part of their ritual. Sing, Sing, Sing was Pudge's favorite song and it could always be heard blasting out of his stereo system whenever he and Angelo needed to attend to a crucial and often deadly piece of business. By playing it now, he was confirming the importance of my first job and his confidence that I would not fail in my task. It was also a way of handing his song down to me.

From now on, it would be what I would play whenever I prepared to head out to help quench a gangster's insatiable thirst for blood and money.

THE ACTOR, THIN, pale and shirtless, sat forward on a leather chair, slapped his hands together and laughed just like Pudge said he would. He was facing a glass coffee table, its top covered with coke spoons and empty silver tins. He was wearing dirty jeans and white socks, a pair of Dingo boots tossed casually off in one corner of the well-decorated main room. Nico stood in a far corner, his hands folded across his waist, staring silently at the back of the actor's head.

Tell me again why you're here. the actor said.

I stared down at him, his blue eyes glazed and trying to focus in on me, his hands shaking as they reached for a half-filled bottle of red wine. Like I told you, you're twenty-one hundred down from the drugs you bought and you need to pay it off, I said. Tonight. To me.

The actor put down the bottle, kicked his head back and let out a loud laugh. That's what the fuck I thought you said, he shouted, nearly choking on the mouthful of red wine he had just swallowed. You see, when I'm in New York, I get my coke from Charley Figueroa. I don't get it from some midget dressed for a funeral. You hear what I'm saying, shithead?

I shot a glance toward Nico and he shrugged his massive shoulders, eager to move forward and do some damage. I pulled a key from my black Perry Ellis jacket and showed it to the actor. I didn't ring the bell to get in here, I said. I used this key that I got from Charley Figueroa. But that's not all he gave me. He also gave me your drug debt. That's the twenty-one hundred I've been talking about. Now, just so you know the full story, I'm supposed to leave the key here and take the cash with me.

Would you settle for an autograph and a kick in the ass? the actor said, still laughing, turning around to glance at Nico, seeming to notice him for the first time.

No, sir, I said. Just the money. Once I have that, there's no need for you and me to ever see each other again.

I figure you to be about fourteen, maybe fifteen, tops, he said. Now, I've handed the kind of money you're asking for to girls your age, but at least I got to fuck them first. So why don't you get the fuck out of here, the both of you, before I stop finding this whole bit funny.

The actor leaned over the coffee table, picked up a razor and pieced together a line of coke from the residue spread across its top. He placed his nose right on the glass and inhaled, a grunt and a cough mixed in with the final snort. He wiped the base of his nose with his hand and looked back up at me. I know he don't talk, the actor said, jerking a thumb toward Nico. But I know you both can hear. The actor stood in the center of the room, his hands cupped around his mouth. I'm gonna go take a short nap, he screamed. When I come back out and see your faces still here, I'm going to kick some fucking guinea ass!

He turned and headed for the rear bedroom, walking with an unsteady gait. I looked at Nico and nodded. I glanced around me, past the clothes and empty food containers strewn throughout the expensive room and found an empty dining-table chair. I pulled it out, turned it toward Nico and the actor and sat down. I wasn't at all nervous. Instead, I remember an incredible rush of excitement flowing through me, the power I had over the situation burying any fear. I knew that violence would be inevitable, the actor would allow no other resolution to occur, and I was oddly comfortable with all of it. Though such a feeling surprised me, it also pleased me. For now I knew that if the gangster life was the path my life would lead me down, I could live with its results.

That fuckin' Charley, the actor mumbled to himself. Selling me out to some little punk kid.

You can sleep all you want, I said. We'll be here and we'll stay here. Until we get what we came to get.

The actor turned and came walking toward me, his temper lit beyond excess by the cocaine floating through his system. He stood over me, staring down, his blue eyes blazing with anger, his hands bunched into fists, his thin, hairless chest heaving up and down. Who the fuck are you talking to that way? he screamed at me. Do you have any idea who the fuck I am?

You're a bad actor with a bad habit, I said, fighting to keep my voice calm, the back of my black button-down shirt soaked with sweat. But that doesn't mean anything to me. The money does.

The actor took several deep breaths, his eyes bulged out so far they looked as if they would pop. He was blinking furiously and rubbing his hands against the sides of his dirty jeans. He bit down hard on his lower lip, cracking the skin and drawing blood as he leaned in closer, a foul mix of cocaine sweat and body odor causing me to flinch. He lifted his hand up and brought it down against my face, slapping me with the length of his fingers, the blow stinging and causing my left eye to tear. I looked up at him and saw a man long past the point of reason, running now on drug-fueled adrenaline. I don't let nobody talk to me that way! he shouted. Nobody! You hear that, you little motherfucker! You hear that?

He lifted his hand again, ready to strike me with another blow. Nico caught the hand as it came down, inches from my face. The actor looked up at him and gritted his teeth. Do I have to kick your ass now, too? he said.

Yes. Nico spoke his first words of the day, still clutching the man's hand. Before you start, let me just get a few things out of the way.

Like what, asshole? the actor said.