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  When he didn't talk, Loretto pulled the slab back as if getting ready to slam him. When he still didn't talk, Mike said, "Everybody's a fuckin' tough guy." He went to the mug's feet and twisted them like a corkscrew, forcing him onto his back. "Hold that to his neck," he said, and he gestured to the water-tank cover. "Where do you keep that famous stiletto of yours?"

  "It's in my pants pocket." Loretto pushed the edge of the porcelain into the torpedo's throat hard enough to keep him still but not hard enough to cut off his air.

  Mike found the stiletto, knelt between the torpedo's legs, and sliced his pants open at the crotch.

  "Ah, bullshit," the guy said, as though he were talking back to someone who wasn't in the room. To Mike he said, "What do you want to know?"

  Mike stuck the tip of the knife into the guy's balls, pinning them to his groin. When he tried to struggle out from under the knife, Loretto pressed down on his neck. Mike said, "I don't know, Fuckyou. What have you got to tell me?"

  "You got it wrong," the guy said. He cocked his head over the slab so that he could look past Loretto to Mike. "My name's Jimmy. Take the knife out," he pleaded, his voice an octave higher, which made it sound something close to normal. "Take the knife out, I'll tell you."

  Mike took the knife out and wiped it on the guy's pants.

  "The Mick didn't kill Maranzano," Jimmy said. "Luciano did." To Loretto he said, "Take that thing off my throat, will ya, kid?"

  Loretto took the pressure off but held on to the slab.

  "Why would Luciano kill Maranzano?" Mike asked. "They were working together."

  "Bad blood," Jimmy said. He looked to his partner, who hadn't budged since he'd gone down. "Is he dead?"

  "What's his name?" Mike asked.

  "Joey Pizzolatto."

  Mike put his ear to Joey's mouth. "Still breathin'," he said, and he gestured for Jimmy to continue.

  "Maranzano hired the Mick to kill Luciano. When Luciano found out, he took care of Maranzano first."

  "And what happened to Vince?" Loretto asked.

  "Nothin'. I heard Luciano's boys were on their way down the stairs

  after taking care of the don when they ran into Coll on the way up to see Maranzano. They told him to beat it, the cops were on the way."

  "Yeah, and?"

  "And nothin'. He beat it."

  Mike turned to Loretto. "That's an easy twenty-five grand."

  Loretto wasn't amused. "So with Maranzano out of the way, Cabo sent you to settle the score with me and Dom—but what about the rest of the Castellammarese? We looking at a war?"

  "I told you what I know," Jimmy said. "Cabo sent us here to take care of you."

  "To take care of me and Dominic," Loretto corrected. When Jimmy didn't answer, Loretto's face turned white. He didn't breathe for a second while he quickly replayed the moment when Jimmy was pointing a gun at him, about to kill him. Neither Jimmy nor his partner was worried about the empty bed. They weren't worried about anyone else being in the apartment. "Dominic and his uncle Gaspar," he said, the words coming out breathy, his fear showing, which made him angry, "did you take care of them, too?"

  "Not us," Jimmy said.

  "But somebody?"

  "Loretto," Mike said, "if Maranzano got rubbed out, there's gonna be a lot of guys dying tonight."

  Loretto snatched his knife from the floor and held it to Jimmy's throat.

  "I can't tell you what I don't know," Jimmy said, "'cept your buddy's right. Lot of guys on the spot tonight."

  Loretto told Jimmy to stand up, and Jimmy pulled himself to his knees. He looked for a moment like he might throw up or fall over. One side of his face was streaked with blood, and his pants at the inner thigh, below where the crotch was slashed, were soaked black. He clasped his thighs to brace himself and then finally stood upright—and as soon as he did, Loretto clipped him with the slab of porcelain and he fell on top of his partner.

  Mike put his hand to Jimmy's throat. "He's gonna have a hell of a headache," he said, "but he's alive."

  Loretto found his clothes and started to get dressed. "Let's go."

  "Where we going?"

  "To Gaspar's. Maybe they haven't gotten to him and Dominic yet."

  "You don't have a telephone?"

  "I don't," Loretto said. "It's only a few minutes from here."

  "I know that," Mike said, "but a phone call's a lot less risky."

  "You don't have to come."

  Mike said, "I've known Dom since we were both bambinos," and he went about getting dressed.

  2:45 a.m.

  A dozen newspaper pages floated along a slate sidewalk like birds skimming water before wind lifted them higher, some smacking into the brick walls of the surrounding two-family houses, some flying up and disappearing over rooftops. Mike and Loretto were alone on the street. They'd parked a block away and were heading for the narrow alley that separated Gaspar's building from his neighbor's. Loretto touched the gun holstered under his jacket and scanned the streets, where a few cars were parked along the curb. Beside him, Mike had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the wind. He didn't appear especially worried, though he too watched the streets. The two of them walked purposefully, fast but not hurried, hats pulled down, heads lowered into the wind. When they reached the alley, Loretto checked the street one more time—and then the two of them disappeared into the dark, narrow corridor. At their approach a black cat yowled and bolted out of the alley.

  "Black cat," Mike said. "I hate that."

  At the back of the alley, they climbed a cyclone fence, jamming a toe into one of the links and jumping into Gaspar's yard. Loretto took his gun from its holster and pointed to a pair of metal cellar doors over a triangle of concrete rising out of the ground near the back wall. The doors were closed but not padlocked. Mike nudged him and nodded toward the discarded lock where it lay in a patch of grass next to the doors. There were no lights in the house and only silence coming from beyond the walls.

  "What's in the basement?" Mike asked.

  "Nothing much that I know of."

  "Why the padlock?"

  "Wine cellar. They got one dug in down there."

  "Is it usually locked?"

  Loretto nodded.

  Mike knelt to one of the doors and pulled it open. Loretto opened the other. Beneath them was only darkness and silence and the acrid smell of earth.

  "They got a light down there?"

  "Bottom of the steps." Loretto went in first, holding his gun out in front of him as though it were a flashlight. He found the switch and flipped it on, and the basement erupted in light from a bare bulb hanging off a crossbeam.

  Yard tools hung from the walls, and a table was covered with terracotta pots and long-dead plants in crumbling dirt. In a corner was a lawn mower with a sharpening tool propped up against one of its wheels. "I don't see nothin'," Mike said.

  "Me neither." Loretto crossed the dirt floor to a shadowy corner of the basement and the wine cellar's wooden door, which was circular and looked like a manhole cover. He had seen Dominic climb down there on occasion, fetching a bottle of wine for his uncle. It was tube-shaped, maybe ten feet deep, dug straight down into the earth, a circle barely wide enough to permit one person entry. A long yellow flashlight hung from the wall over the cellar cover. Loretto pulled open the cover and saw nothing but a black hole. He took the big flashlight from the wall, pointed its bright beam into the wine cellar, and saw Gaspar's and Dominic's faces looking up at him. They'd been stuffed into the hole belly to belly. Their faces were bloody and their heads were bent back so that they were both looking up, as if waiting for someone to find them.

  Loretto dropped to his knees. "Ah, Jesus," he said. "Dominic."

  Mike joined him, looked down into the wine cellar, and said nothing.

  "Who did this?" Loretto turned off the flashlight. "Luciano?"

  "Or Terranova, maybe Cabo, maybe a dozen guys . . . It don't really matter."

  "What do you mean, it don't
matter? That's Dominic stuffed in the ground like garbage."

  Mike put his gun away and touched Loretto's shoulder. "Let's go."

  "And leave them here?"

  "We've got to go," Mike said, and he closed the wine-cellar door.

  Loretto looked over his head as if he could see up into the Gaspar's apartment, where he imagined Gaspar's wife sleeping soundly in her bed.

  "They wouldn't have hurt anybody else," Mike said.

  "Yeah, I understand." Loretto pulled himself to his feet. "But I want to know who did this to Dominic."

  "Loretto," Mike said, "think. Gaspar and Dominic were loyal to Maranzano. They would have gone after Luciano and anybody that was with Luciano. There would have been a war. They had to go, Loretto. That's the way it is with these things."

  Loretto put his gun back in his holster. Something inside him felt like it was melting or breaking down. He could feel it in his gut, something churning, coming apart. He set his jaw against it and held himself tight.

  "Let's go," Mike said again. He took Loretto by the arm.

  "Where? Where am I going?"

  "With me," Mike said. "You can't stay here. It's too dangerous."

  "Where am I going with you?"

  "To Albany," Mike said. "Vince'll put you to work. You got no choice now. You can't stay here."

  "You're crazy," Loretto said. "Why would I go to Albany?"

  "You're not thinking straight." Mike yanked on Loretto's arm, pulling him toward the cellar doors. "Cabo's looking for you. Schultz's looking for you. Luciano might be looking for you."

  "Maybe––" Loretto said and stopped. Mike was right. He wasn't thinking straight. He was about to say that maybe Gaspar could help him.

  "Maybe what?"

  "Nothing."

  Mike turned off the light. In the darkness, he said to Loretto, "If you stay here, you could cause trouble for Gina and my family. You understand, Loretto?" He took him by the shoulder and shook him as if trying to rattle him to his senses. "We're going to Albany," he said, and he pulled Loretto up the cellar stairs.

  Monday - September 14, 1931

  12:15 p.m.

  Maria Tramonti poured herself a cup of coffee and rejoined Gina at the kitchen table. They were in Gina's apartment, and both women wore black sweaters over black dresses. At Dominic's burial that morning, the mourners had huddled together around the grave site while a blustery cold wind kicked up leaves and dirt. Summer, it seemed, was long gone. A handsome young priest, new to Saint Raymond's, shivered in his black cassock as he said a few words about Dominic and read a passage from the gospels before sprinkling holy water over the grave. When workers lowered the casket into the ground, Gaspar's wife fainted and was carried to a nearby car. Dominic's cousins and aunts and uncles and a dozen friends of the family wept and moaned and held handkerchiefs to their eyes while Maria and Gina stood shoulder to shoulder, for the warmth and the comfort. Next to them, Augie and Freddie each clasped one of their mother's arms as she held her hands to her face and cried. After, there was food and talk, the women clumped together in circles telling stories and crying; the men talking solemnly, sometimes angrily. Now Gina and Maria were alone in a quiet apartment, sipping black coffee while they talked.

  "That poor woman," Maria said. "Her nephew in one viewing room, her husband in the other."

  "Dominic was more like a son than a nephew to her," Gina said. "She couldn't have children of her own. Dominic was still a baby when she took him in."

  "What happened to his parents?"

  "I think the mother died in childbirth. The father got beat to death. I don't know the story."

  "Mother of God," Maria said.

  Gina went to the stove to refill her coffee. She took a cookie jar down from the cupboard and carried it to the table. "I was in the ladies' room with her." She retrieved two lemon sugar cookies from the jar and put one on her plate and one on Maria's. "She was moaning and pulling her hair out. I never saw anything like it."

  "What did you do?"

  "Talked to her," Gina said. "Held her hands like I was comforting her." She dipped the lemon sugar cookie into her coffee. "Her sister came in and fixed her up."

  Gina's living room was simply furnished with a couch, a coffee table, and matching stuffed chairs. A pair of tall windows that faced the street were hung with floral-patterned chintz curtains pulled back to let in the sun. The apartment was spacious, with a big living room and kitchen and two bedrooms, the second of which went unused.

  "Sometimes I worry . . ." Maria said. Her eyes filled with tears.

  "Patsy?" Gina asked. "You worry about Patsy?"

  Maria took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes.

  "Patsy's a big boy," Gina said. "He can take care of himself."

  "Sure," Maria said. "Just like Dominic."

  Gina sipped her coffee. Suddenly she was both sleepy and angry. Grumpy, she supposed, after a difficult morning.

  "Patsy's so dopey," Maria said. "You know he still can't tell his left from his right? He's got a little scar on his left wrist and he's gotta look whenever anybody tells him something's to his left or to his right." Maria made a face as if she were dismayed with Patsy, though it was clear that she found this endearing.

  "Forgive me," Gina said, "but I've got to ask. What are you doing with Patsy DiNapoli? You're smarter than him, you got a college education, you're married to a wealthy man . . . I don't get it."

  "I thought you did get it," Maria said. "I thought that was part of the reason we're friends."

  "Well, I don't," Gina said. "I don't get it. Sorry."

  "I love Patsy," Maria said. "Why are you mad all of a sudden?"

  "I'm not mad." Gina threw up her hands, a gesture that said many things, including that she didn't know herself why she was acting the way she was and not to pay any attention to her.

  "I get so scared . . ." Maria's voice dropped to a whisper. "I hate the bastard I'm married to, you know that. I was miserable before Patsy came along. Now . . ."

  "Now what?" Gina asked. Try as she might, she still sounded angry.

  "Now I'm scared something will happen to him," Maria said, and she burst into tears. She used the shreds of the tissue in her hand to dry her eyes. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be sorry." Gina rubbed her back, massaging small circles at her shoulders.

  "Here poor Dominic's dead—your friend since forever—and I'm crying 'cause I'm worried about Patsy. I should be ashamed."

  Gina hugged Maria and kissed her on the cheek. "You're honest," she said. "I admire that about you." She picked up Maria's empty cup and carried it to the sink.

  "I should go," Maria said. She joined Gina at the sink. "I'm sorry about your friend Dominic." She gave Gina a hug and kissed her on the cheek. "If there's something I can do to help his family," she said, "please let me know."

  "Don't worry," Gina said, and she was surprised and taken aback by the bitterness that welled up in her. "After they're dead, there's always plenty of help."

  Maria took a step back. She looked hurt.

  "Gaspar's family, all the women," Gina said, softening her tone, "they'll be there to help. But it's generous of you," she added, "to offer."

  "I mean it," Maria said. She embraced Gina one more time before leaving, crossing the kitchen and living room with her shoulders uncharacteristically hunched forward as if carrying something on her back.

  Alone, Gina poured herself another cup of coffee, knowing she wouldn't drink it. She carried the cup to the table and sat where Maria had been sitting a moment earlier. She held the coffee cup in the palms of her hands and looked past her curtains out to the red brick building across the avenue. The sun was bright on the window, though it was still unseasonably cold. She was sleepy and considered taking a nap on the living room sofa, but her thoughts held her at the table. Not thoughts, really. She saw Gaspar's widow kneeling at Dominic's casket during the days of viewing, the way she knelt with her head on the lip of the casket and her arms stretched o
ut as if to embrace the whole length of it, as much as she could hold in her arms. She laid her head on the casket and muttered prayers, embracing it with her eyes closed while her sisters stood on either side of her dressed all in black, nodding their heads as if in confirmation of her mourning. Gina had watched from her seat in a line of folding chairs set out in front of the casket. Dominic looked all wrong. He looked like a statue of himself, his face too pink and rosy. His ugly mug fixed up with makeup in a way that would have humiliated him. She wanted to take a wet rag to his face and wipe away all the cosmetics hiding that little bit of impishness that had defined him ever since he was a boy. When she thought of him in the ground that way, his face covered in rouge and paint, she put her hands to her face and cried.