Gangster. - Gangster. Part 28
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Gangster. Part 28

Carlos stood up, stared down at Pudge, raised his right hand and slapped him hard across the face. Pudge took the five-finger blow, ignored the glances from the other patrons, and smiled up at Carlos. I didn't come here to scare you, he said in a calm voice.

Pablito and Carlos reached into the sides of their jackets, their fingers on the handles of high-caliber revolvers. The brunette next to Pablito pulled a .38 special from behind her back and jammed it against Pablito's temple. The two businessmen in the next booth turned and held two .44s against the back of the Colombians' heads. I won't stay for dinner, Pudge said, sliding up and out of the booth. The food here's too rich for my stomach. Old guy my age has to watch what he eats.

Pudge smiled at Pablito and Carlos, then nodded at the brunette and the two businessmen with guns. He walked through the main room of the restaurant, never turning to look back, as he heard the gunfire and watched the patrons scatter and scream. When he reached the front door, Pudge shook hands with the maitre d' and patted him on the shoulder. I hope to see you again soon, the maitre d' said to him.

Not until we do something about the noise in here, Frank, Pudge said, smiling at him. He waited as the maitre d' held the door open, then walked up the three short steps to his waiting car, a brisk breeze from an early fall night blowing against his face.

THE TWO PLANES taxied down the dark runway, their lights low, rumbling toward an old hangar on the outskirts of a small Long Island airport. I sat next to Nico in a car at the rear of the hangar, Angelo in the backseat, his eyes fixed on the planes coming his way. Alongside us, cars were parked three deep, lights and engines down, each with a driver and a detailed set of instructions. The two-engine prop planes had come in from Canada, each of them weighed down with forty heavily armed men, on loan to Angelo from affiliated crews nationwide. They were on a forty-eight-hour turnaround and would be back on their own streets in less than three days.

The planes came to a stop, their engines idling as the side doors slid open. A small team of airport personnel placed wooden blocks under the wheels and lodged ladders up against the doors. A long line of men in coats and hats, each one carrying a black leather case, stepped off the planes, walked to the waiting cars and got in. As soon as each car had its full complement of passengers, it kicked into gear and sped out of the airport hangar.

This was my first exposure to this level of organized crime power. I had not yet grasped the reach that gangsters like Angelo had, the fact that through a series of clandestine phone calls and early morning meetings, they could muster an army from cities throughout the United States, an army determined to eliminate any enemy at their door. It was a power few had and fewer still knew existed. By the time those men re-boarded the waiting planes for the return flight back north, every member of Pablito Munestro's crew would be left for dead. What time remained for the assassins would be spent working to wipe out the renegade Red Barons team, holed up in Queens and Nassau County safe houses since the night Tony Mesh's body had been found.

Wait five minutes after the last car pulls out, Angelo said to Nico, both of them standing in the rear of the hangar. Then we head back to the bar. Pudge should be waiting for us by the time we walk in.

This was the danger and the power of Angelo Vestieri that so many feared, and for the only time in my life I felt uncomfortable in his company. I was even more uncomfortable in the knowledge that he would know. A true gangster can smell out a person's strengths and weaknesses in a matter of minutes, but what they can sense most of all, what their bodies are most attuned to, is the scent of fear. I also knew, standing there next to Angelo inside an airport hangar that had been turned into an assault center, that I could never be a great gangster. Angelo was indeed one, any small doubts that I may have had were scraped away by this impressive show of force. He had planned and maneuvered a total elimination of his enemies. He had sacrificed the lives of many of his own men, hiding his coldness and ruthless abilities under the protective cloak of an aging boss. It was a battle plan few would ever be able to match.

Angelo tapped me on the shoulder with the edge of his folded-up newspaper. Does this bother you? he asked, watching the last of the cars drive out.

A little. I nodded, turning toward him in the dark interior, his face half-lit by the lights off the underbelly of the two empty planes. I know who those men are and I know what they're here to do.

But you don't know who those men are. Angelo leaned forward, one hand on my elbow. And you don't know what they're here to do. Which means there's no reason for you to be scared.

I stared back at Angelo, peering into the semidarkness, realizing that I had been brought to the hangar to be taught an important lesson. Of course, he could never just tell me directly, that was not his way. And I was never certain if what I surmised was the lesson he was trying to teach. Even now, I hope that I was wrong. Because after that night, what I thought was that regardless of how much Angelo loved me or how devoted we were to one another, he would not hesitate to have me killed if I posed the slightest threat to his domain. In all the lessons of the gangster life he would give me across the span of many years, this unspoken one would have the most lasting impact. And it was on that night that I also first wondered, during those long, quiet moments standing inside an empty hangar in a small Long Island airport, if I would ever be able to do the same to him. Was I filled with enough hate to order the murder of someone I cared about? Had I been touched enough by death to be rendered a cold witness to it? I honestly did not know. What I did know was that if I could not, to Angelo I would be a failure. In the real world, such failings are viewed as blessings.

To a gangster, they are a curse.

What happens now? I asked Angelo, my mouth dry, my neck and back cold with the sweat of a young man's terror.

What's meant to happen, he said in a distant voice. He turned back toward the open rear door of his Cadillac and got in. I followed in his steps, shutting the door behind me. Nico slid the car into drive and slowly pulled out of the airport hangar. Outside, as a heavy rain enveloped us, I sat back, closed my eyes and tried to erase from my mind the horrors I imagined.

THE OLD WOMAN gently eased the key into the door lock and slid it to her right. The thin wood door creaked open and she nudged past it, two plastic bags filled with milk, eggs, cheese, bacon and fresh parsley in her gnarled hands. Richie? the old woman shouted toward the back rooms of the quiet apartment. Richie, c'mon, wake up. I bought some breakfast. I'll make us a nice frittata and a pot of coffee. Let's go. Get out of that bed.

The old woman rested her bags on the small kitchen table and walked toward the end of the railroad apartment where her only son, Richie, spent the bulk of his mornings, locked in his room, sleeping off another night of drink and dope. Anna Maria-Scarafino had no illusions about her son. She knew he dealt drugs and was in business with people who ended their day with murder. She was well aware that the crisp twenty-dollar bills he often stuffed inside the front pockets of her apron were wrenched from the pried-open hands of hardworking people. But she had long ago resigned herself to such a fate, soon after her husband, Gennaro, took off with the Irish widow with the shapely legs and the longshoreman's pension half a dozen years ago. Since those bleak days, other than her son Richie, no one else had come forward to help pull the family cart. And if the rent and grocery money he gave her came from someplace other than a weekly paycheck, she had learned to turn a blind, if not so innocent, eye to it.

Anna Maria pulled a cigarette from out of her housedress, lit it and kept walking through the well-kept rooms. Richie, she shouted down the hall, exhaling a thick puff of smoke out her nose and mouth. What is it with you? Are you deaf, now?

She turned a small corner and stood at the entrance to her son's room. She turned the handle on the door and tossed it open. Her eyes moved from the empty bloodstained bed up to the wall, the cigarette falling out of her mouth, her hands clasped hard against her lips, squelching both a scream and a violent urge to vomit. There was Richie Scarafino, her only son, born two weeks premature, hanging from his bedroom wall, four thick nails pounded into his hands and feet, thick clots of blood bubbling off his cold skin and running down the blue paint and onto the white sheets. The dark end of a twelve-inch butcher's knife poked out of the right side of his rib cage. His eyes were beaten shut and his head was hanging to one side. Anna Maria fell to her knees, bowed her head and cried over the mangled body of her boy, Richard Scarafino, a young man who wanted so very much to be a gangster. She stayed that way for the rest of the morning, her low, painful moans echoing off cold, uncaring walls now streaked with the stains of death.

I STOOD NEXT to Pudge, both of us gripping the railing on the top deck of the Circle Line cruiser taking us down the Hudson River. I stared out at New Jersey, the spray of the salt water cooling my face. Around us, young couples held hands and older ones sat on wooden benches under warm blankets wrapped around their legs.

I like being out on the water, Pudge said.

I'll always remember that boat you rented for me and some of my friends last summer, I said, leaning closer to him. You told us all we were going to catch a hundred lobsters each.

I lied. But at least we had some laughs.

We don't do much of that anymore.

What did you think a war was going to be like, Gabe? Pudge asked.

I don't know what I expected. I shrugged. I didn't think so many people would have to die.

And it bothers you?

I didn't answer, except to ask another question. Doesn't any of it bother you?

No, Pudge said. Not now when I'm old and not when I was young and starting out. I always knew it was a part of what I had to be. And I was okay with it.

I used to love being a part of it all, I said, choking back the urge to cry. Now, I'm more scared than anything else.

You love the power, Pudge said. What you don't love is what you have to do to keep that power. He hesitated, not wanting to say the wrong thing. Angelo thinks you can be one of us. And he'll do everything to make that happen.

But you don't think that?

Don't get me wrong, Pudge said. You got the head for it and the respect for it. But you're too nice. And there's no room in our life for anybody nice.

What happens if Angelo comes to think the same thing?

That's when it'll get rough, Pudge acknowledged.

And you'll go along with whatever he decides to do? I asked.

I don't pick anybody over Angelo, little man. Not even you. Pudge's eyes were hard now and strangely distant. For the first time, he scared me. That'll be your war to win, he whispered. Or lose.

PUDGE PARKED HIS car under the highway overpass and walked toward the dark, abandoned pier. Overhead, the passing cars rattled the road foundation, for decades now in desperate need of repair. He walked up to the pier entrance, stopped, looking to his left and right for any sign of activity. The combination of a full moon and the reflected lights that came down off the cars rushing out of the city cast the outside of the pier in a hazy glow. The old battered doors were shuttered and the moorings were rusty and loose. In its younger days, this very same pier was clogged with ocean liners and cargo haulers, bringing in thousands of dollars each week in swag earnings for Angelo and Pudge. The money they had earned working off the piers had given each of them the capital to expand into other business ventures. Pudge walked forward and shook his head, saddened to see yet another remnant of his youth reduced to rubble.

The Mercedes came at him at a high speed from his left. The headlights were off, the tires squealing on the cobblestones. The shadowed silhouettes of four men sitting inside the car were all that Pudge could make out. He faced the oncoming car, his back to the splintered wood of the pier's front doors, his hands resting flat against the side of his legs, the fingers of each gripped around a cocked gun. Pudge took a deep breath and waited, the car now close enough for him to see the driver's face. He relaxed his body and then threw himself to the ground, rolling to his right, coming up on his knees, facing the right side of the car, his arms held out, the two guns up and firing bullets into the tinted windows. He saw the driver's head slump against the wheel as the Mercedes crashed into the pier door, its front end bursting through the weathered old wood.

Pudge kept walking toward the car, firing bullets with each step. When one gun emptied he tossed it into the river behind him, reached into the back of his trousers for a third and pumped six fresh bullets into the interior. He stopped when he reached the rear door of the car, looked down with experienced calm at the four dead men scattered inside like broken dolls. He put his guns back inside his jacket, turned around and it was then that Pudge Nichols, a gangster his entire life, knew he had made a fatal mistake.

That wasn't too bad for an old white man, Little Ricky Carson said, standing there in his standard long rider coat. Three men were behind him as backup.

Pudge turned to look back at the four bodies in the smoldering Mercedes. Is that how you treat your crew? he asked Put them in the middle of a setup situation?

I hope I stay as tough as you, when I turn old, Little Ricky said, his hands in the deep pockets of his coat.

I wouldn't waste money betting on it, Pudge told him.

And then Pudge swung the Mercedes door open and dove inside, landing on top of the two dead bodies in the backseat. He searched frantically through the insides of their coat pockets, found two guns, turned on his side and started firing. Little Ricky reeled from the line of fire, diving against the pier door, an alley cat scurrying from his late-night prey. The three gunmen pulled semiautomatics from inside their long coats and, with legs apart and arms braced, started firing a steady stream of bullets inside the dark Mercedes. Pudge braced one of the dead men up and used him as a shield, firing wildly in the direction of the three men. He felt the heat of the bullets whiz past him, several cracking the car windows behind him and a few lodging in the thick leather upholstery. He dropped one empty gun and reached into the pocket of the dead man next to him for a fresh weapon. Wrapping one hand around a .44 bulldog, he turned away from the three gunmen, trying to open the door on the other side of the car. As he lifted the handle, he felt a piercing burn in his shoulder and was sent crashing forward, landing facedown on the dirty street. He leaned against the rear tire, blood rushing out of the wound and down his back, and checked the gun in his hand as a wave of bullets popped holes into the Mercedes exterior. Pudge used his feet to lift himself up, turned and fired three quick volleys, hitting one of the gunmen square in the chest, then shifted his attention to the second gunman. He aimed the large gun, the pain in his shoulder sinking down into his back, and put pressure on the trigger. He squeezed off one round, catching the shooter just below the jaw. Pudge watched him fall, then turned to the third gunmen, who was walking toward him now in a bent position, moving his gun from left to right, looking to get off a final shot. Pudge closed his eyes and knew he was one bullet away from making it a battle between himself and Little Ricky Carson. One bullet away from walking clear of a trap he should have been smart enough not to get caught in. Pudge had been around enough of these last moments to know that they would have little to do with skill. It was now all about luck and how much of it he had left.

As Pudge Nichols felt the cold barrel of the gun lodge against the base of his neck, he knew that his long streak had come to an end.

Fun's over, old man, Little Ricky Carson said.

THE SUN CAME in through the cracked wooden slats, highlighting the grease and the rummy shacks huddled in corners of the pier. A long line of pigeons draped the upper planks, sitting perched and cooing. Angelo Vestieri stood in the center of the empty port of entry, dirty river water splashing onto his new shoes and wetting the edge of his cuffs. He looked down at Pudge Nichols's body, bound and tied to a thick wooden board. I stood offin a corner, leaning against a shaky wall, my head resting against the wet wood, my hands covering my face, trying not to let Angelo hear me cry.

Nico, let me have a knife, Angelo said. He bent down and ran a hand across his friend's face, staring at him, his eyes hard but moist, his hands shaking in the filthy shadows of the abandoned dock. He slowly moved his fingers down each of Pudge's many wounds, some of which had already been gnawed at by the water rats that patrolled the piers. Pudge had been shot several times, but it was the blade of a knife that had ultimately killed him.

Nico came up behind Angelo and handed him the knife, then walked back into the shadows, leaving the two men their final moments together. Angelo clicked open the switchblade and cut the thick cord away from Pudge's body. He worked his way from chest to feet and, when he was done, closed the blade and tossed the knife into the murky waves. He gently shoved his arms under Pudge's body, lifted him to his chest, rose to his feet and began his slow walk out. I followed him, Nico in step alongside me. I had never seen a dead body before, let alone that of someone I loved, but I was numb to any reaction other than sorrow.

I touched the top of Pudge's head, cold and wet from the long night floating in the hull of a port he had once brought to life. I wanted so much to tell him that I would miss him more than I could even imagine. I never needed a brother or a sister or a mother as long as Pudge was around. He always made it his business to be everything to me that Angelo could never be. Now that was all gone.

We'll stop at the bar first, Angelo said. Get Pudge some clean clothes. Then, we'll go up to Ida's farm and bury him the right way.

I knew he didn't even know I was there at this moment. I knew he was alone in the company of the one man in this world he could call a friend.

I also knew that after this day Angelo would never be, could never be, the same. His final link to the past had been stripped away.

I LOOKED OVER at Mary as she took a bite of her Reuben sandwich and wiped the corner of her lips with the folded end of a cloth napkin. I took a long drink from a glass of mineral water and shrugged my shoulders. That was the worst day of my life, I said to her. Losing Pudge in that way is something I don't think I've ever recovered from. It showed me a side of their world that I just didn't want any part of. Being with people you love and being able to do what you want, not having to worry about money or work, that was fun. But the reality of it is that those periods only last a short while. Most of the time you're trying not to get either yourself or the people around you killed.

Pudge didn't want that life for you. Mary rested her elbows on the counter, ignoring the cigarette smoke from the table behind her.

Maybe, I said. When I think back on it and remember all the things he told me, they applied as much to the outside world as they did to his. That was his way of teaching me there weren't too many differences between the two, and that I had to get ready to face one of them.

Who were you closer to, Angelo or Pudge? Mary asked, pushing her platter off to one side of the ceramic tabletop.

Pudge was always easier to talk to, I told her. He's the guy you went to after a first date or a first kiss or pretty much a first anything. And whatever you had to say, he made you feel good about it. I wanted to be more like Pudge. But inside, I felt more like Angelo. I didn't act like him or treat people the way he did and, God knows, I talked a lot more than he did. But I felt closed off from the world, much like he was. And I always felt different from those around me, as if I was holding a secret that no one else could know. Maybe more of him rubbed off on me than I thought.

He had a stronger personality than Pudge, Mary said, sitting back in her chair. He didn't have to say as much to have an impact. Plus, you didn't have as much time with Pudge. He died when you were still a boy. And what other people thought never really mattered to Pudge, as long as their thinking didn't affect the way he lived his life. Angelo looked to force his will on others, align them to his way of thinking It was a part of his power and he was very good at it.

You talking from experience? I asked, signaling a hovering waiter for a check. Or just as a casual observer?

I'm talking as a victim, Mary said, a slight crack to her voice. Just like you.

COOTIE TURNBILL SAT across from Angelo, finished off the last of his bourbon and took a long, full drag on his cigar. Sitting around him, each holding a drink and a lit cigar, were his three main lieutenants. Sharpe Baylor was the youngest of the trio, a thirty-five-year-old hard case who controlled the streets for Turnbill's team. Gil Scully handled the crew's money, his clean hands capable of washing thousands of illegal dollars, turning them into solid investments overnight.

Then there was Step, who had been running rackets out of Harlem since the early 1930s and had been Cootie's partner since the start of World War II. Angelo sat across from the four, his hands resting flat on top of his desk, an untouched glass of milk sitting on a coaster to his right. There isn't time to think this over, he told them. I need a yes or a no now.

Carson's adding muscle every day, Sharpe Baylor said. The hit on Pudge added seriously to his presence on the street. The word we get back is that the young guns all believe he's one bullet from the top spot. That means, right now, we're looking at a crew that's at least four hundred deep. Maybe more.

Step stood and walked over toward Angelo's desk. It hurt me a lot to see Pudge go out the way he did. If my vote means anything, then we go out and start shooting down some of these bastards.

Before I put out my vote, I'd like to ask you a question, Gil Scully said, his voice the least emotional of the group. I want to know why a tough boss like you needs to reach out to a gang of niggers?

I'm a gangster, Angelo said. That's the same as being a nigger. In this room or in any other, I don't see the difference and I never have.

How you want it to break down? Cootie Turnbill asked, placing his empty whiskey glass on the side of Angelo's desk.

I don't want anything from the new action he's picked up or what he had before it, Angelo said. That's yours to give out.

We'll need your guns in this as well, Gil Scully said. Alone we about match up. Your boys give us enough timber to send them off.

I've told Nico to walk with you on every step, Angelo said, lifting the glass of milk to his lips. Whatever you need--men, guns, cars, money. It'll be there.

You ain't the type to sit back and let other people run your fight card, Step said. You'll want a place on the ticket. Now tell me, where's that place gonna be?

Angelo stared at Step and nodded. Do what you want with Little Ricky Carson's crew, he said in a low, powerful voice. How they die, and where, is your business. Except for one. No one but me touches Little Ricky.

Humor an old friend, Angelo, Cootie Turnbill said. What if we take a pass on all this? Sit down with Little Ricky and cut our own deal with him. We do that, where does that leave you?

Angelo pushed his chair back and stood to face the four men. On my own. And believe me when I say that alone or with you, I'll make sure every member of that crew, from Little Ricky on down, ends up dead.

Cootie cleared his throat. A handshake seals it, he said. I don't see a need to take it further. Especially coming from one nigger to another.

THE THIN YOUNG drug dealer sat in the hard-back chair in the center of the empty room. He was stripped down to a T-shirt and boxer shorts and was shivering from the overhead fans that were blowing a cool wind down at him at full speed. He had been in the room for more than an hour, placed there by the three strong arms that had dragged him out of his bed in the middle of the night and tossed him into the backseat of a large car.

You guys ain't been to enough movies, he said to them at one point during the one-hour ride downtown to the warehouse. If you had, you woulda known that you blindfold a guy after you lift him. This way when he comes gunning for you, he won't know which way to go.

The driver, a large man with a hard body, shook his head. Take it all in, he said to the dealer. Take some pictures if you got a camera. It won't matter. Everything you see is the last time you're gonna see it. So, knock yourself out. If nothing else, it'll make the ride go faster.

The drug dealer jumped in his seat when he heard the dead bolt on the center door snap open. Angelo Vestieri stepped through the doorway and made his way slowly toward the dealer, a gun in his right hand. He stopped when he was directly in front of the dealer and stared down at him. Nico followed him into the room and stood off to the side.

Since the agreement with Cootie and his crew, there was only silence and death surrounding Angelo. True to their word, Turnbill let loose his well-organized mob with a vicious fury not seen since the big gang wars of the 1930s, and combined with what was left of Angelo's gang, they inflicted heavy losses on Little Ricky Carson and his troops. As the body count rose by alarming numbers, Carson looked for an escape route out of the war and arranged for his brother, Gerald, to meet with Cootie, hoping to see if a truce could be arranged. He got his answer when one of Sharpe Baylor's hit men left Gerald's decapitated body hanging by the shoulders on the electric garage door chains for Little Ricky to see when he left the next morning to check on his overnight business.

Angelo rested the barrel of the gun on top of the drug dealer's knee and pulled the trigger. The sound of the bullet going through flesh and bone was displaced by the dealer's screams. He sat in the chair, rocking back and forth, his eyes looking up to the tin ceiling, his mouth filled with spit and foam. Both of his hands were wrapped around his leg, blood gushing through his fingers and down the sides.

I ask one question, Angelo said, waiting until he knew he had the dealer's attention. And I want one answer. If it's the right one, all you have to worry about is one more bullet. But if it's not, this will be the worst last day of any man's life. Are you ready for my question?

The dealer didn't speak, but through the sweat pouring down the sides of his face and the tears welling in his eyes he managed a nervous nod. Angelo took a step closer to him, put out his hand and gripped the dealer by the chin. I know you do your work for Little Ricky, Angelo said in a voice as cold as a winter grave. I know you sell his drugs and you kill people he asks you to kill. I know the two of you grew up together and have stayed good friends. I know he likes and trusts you. What I don't know is where I can find him. And that's the one question I want you to answer. Where can I find Little Ricky Carson?

The drug dealer swallowed hard, more out of fear than need. The hesitation was enough for Angelo to lift the gun and bring it down on the dealer's other leg. He pressed it against the soft flesh of the man's thigh and pulled the trigger. The dealer's screams came from out of a hidden place that was welled solid with pain and misery. He rocked violently back and forth, alternating pitiful moans with massive shrieks, his puffy eyes looking up to Angelo for relief. But Angelo shook his head. This was not a day for relief.

You scream loud, Angelo said. Talk the same way.

He's in a building on the Upper West Side, the dealer sputtered, the space around his feet thick with blood. Top floor. He keeps it quiet. Most of his top guys don't even know about it. When he doesn't want to be found, he cribs up there.

Don't make me guess the number of the building, Angelo said.

I got it on a piece of paper in my wallet. In the pants your boys took off me. Don't remember it right off.

Angelo glanced at Nico who nodded back and walked down the length of the long warehouse floor to where the dealer's clothes were stacked in a corner pile. Nico pulled a black leather wallet out of the back pocket of a pair of crisp jeans, scattering its contents on the floor until he found what he wanted. He held up a folded piece of yellow paper. It's an address, he said. And an apartment number.