Toughs Page 28

  Loretto held her tighter, enfolding her in his overcoat. "Do you remember a lot of what happened?" he asked. "You were so young."

  Gina was surprised that Loretto would ask such a question. "I was twelve. I remember every little detail. I can close my eyes . . ." She could close her eyes and remember her father pacing the apartment while Mama slept behind the closed door to her bedroom and the boys shared a single bed opposite her, a curtain hung from the ceiling dividing the room. She remembered pulling the covers to her chin and watching the shadowy figure of her father as he passed her doorway muttering to himself in Italian. He was skinny and wiry, an older version of Augie, with the same big Adam's apple. Every once in a while she could make out a word or two of his rambling, whispered monologue—inferno, demoni, malvagita—enough to understand that he was off again on one of his rants about the devil and hell and the corruption of the world.

  Talk of the devil had started many months earlier, at first more like sermons than rants, warnings of what the devil could do if you allowed him into your life, but gradually becoming more and more frightening until he was pacing the dark apartment at night mumbling about the devil in his head, the devil eating his heart, demons inside him gnawing on his guts, and then a few days earlier getting fred from work for falling asleep on the job, and then sleeping through the days and muttering through the nights while Mama conferred with the priests and nuns—and then he was standing in the doorway with a knife in his hand, a silhouette Gina could never get out of her mind ever again, the shadow image of her father in the doorway with a knife in his hand. Papa, she said. She said it loud to wake the boys, to wake Mama. When he took another step toward her with the knife raised over his head, when he said Puttana, she called for Augie; when he said, Ti taglio il demone del tuo cuore, she screamed for Mama and turned over not to see him, burying her head in her pillow; when he fell on her with the knife, with the terrible sharp gashing pain in her back, she heard Freddie and Augie howling for him to stop; she felt their boys' bodies on the bed wrestling with their father, but the gashing pain happened again and again till it was Mama in the room with them, the heat and bulk of Mama's body pushing everyone aside, and then she could remember being lifted in Mama's arms, being held to Mama's breast, and it was as if she fell asleep there, with her head against her mother's breast. She remembered nothing after that till much later in the hospital; but everything before, her father's muttering, her father in the doorway, the blows of the knife—all that she remembered as if it had happened only a moment ago. All that, she recalled in great detail.

  "I remember," she said to Loretto. "It's hard to forget."

  Loretto brushed snowflakes from Gina's hair. "It was a long time ago."

  "We've got company," Gina said. She pulled back from Loretto as Mike climbed up to the roof.

  "Mama's gonna have a heart attack down there." Mike snatched Loretto's coat away from him and quickly slipped into it.

  Loretto laughed and Gina said, "Jeez, what's she think? I'm gonna jump?"

  "Go on down," Mike said. "Don't make her think you're mad at her."

  "I'm not mad at her! Why would she think that?"

  Mike gave Gina a look that said the answer to her question was obvious if she'd take a second to think about it.

  "Jeez . . ." Gina paused a second and then kissed Mike on the cheek before climbing down through the skylight.

  When Loretto tried to follow, Mike stopped him. "Listen," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, "with Jack out of the picture . . . and Shorty nowhere to be found . . ."

  "Shorty? Why would anybody want to kill Shorty?"

  "Who the hell knows?" Mike said. "Point is that it don't look good at all for Vince, now he doesn't have an alibi."

  "Maybe they can get somebody else—"

  "Please. Vince is paying lawyers big money to worry about that stuff. What I'm sayin' here is, with Jack out of the picture, we have to move fast or Dutch and the boys'll take it all before we know what the hell happened."

  "So?" Loretto asked. "What are you thinking?"

  "I'm not thinking anything," Mike said. "I'm saying we've got to pull ourselves together and show strength if we want to keep the warehouses and supply routes and bring Jack's people in line." He jabbed Loretto in the chest with a finger. "That means we need everybody, includin' you."

  "And who's gonna be running things in this new situation?"

  "Depends on what happens with Vince," Mike said. "But we can't wait to find out."

  "Okay, so I'm asking you again, specifically: What are you thinking about doing?"

  "Specifically? Right now we need more men to cover the warehouses, plus to deal with the drivers and ride shotgun on the deliveries and to make sure we keep the speaks we already got."

  "What about Jack's organization? What about all his men? Are they workin' for . . . who? You? Us?"

  "Bigger problem," Mike said, "is what about Dutch and Luciano and all the rest of the boys? If they think we're weak, it's all over. I'll be out there digging ditches with you and the rest of the chumps." He took hold of Loretto's shirt, feeling the rough fabric with obvious disgust. "What do you think you're doing, Loretto? You're no broom-pusher. Since when?"

  Loretto looked up at the few snowflakes falling here and there—more like a random gust of ashes than a snowfall. "I have to figure out what to do about Gina."

  "But you're with us," Mike said. "Right? I can depend on you?"

  "Yeah," Loretto said. "But I still don't know where I stand with Vince. Last I heard, he wanted no part of me."

  "That's only a problem," Mike said, "if Vince gets off and if he's running things again."

  "What do you think his chances are?"

  "I don't think they're any good," Mike said, "but what do I know? Vince thinks this big-deal lawyer's gonna be just the ticket."

  Loretto touched his cheeks. "Hey," he said, "I can't feel my face. Let's go in."

  Mike put a hand on Loretto's chest, asking him to wait another minute. "So you're quitting this baloney park job?"

  "Give me till after Christmas. That's a week. You can live without me till then."

  "What's Christmas got to do with anything?"

  "I don't want to ruin it for Gina, if she finds out. Plus Freddie and Augie . . . It's gonna be a mess."

  "Don't be all dramatic," Mike said. "I'm still here, ain't I? They know what I do. Plus, Freddie won't be happy workin' in no restaurant. Believe me. He'll want to come in with us. We just got to give him time to get over Elmira."

  "I don't know about that," Loretto said. "I think Augie might put us both in the ground we bring Freddie along."

  "Let me worry about Augie." Mike patted Loretto on the shoulder. "He ain't so high and mighty."

  "Yeah, well, I'm scared of him," Loretto said.

  "Don't be." Mike rubbed his hands together and started for the skylight. "Come on, before we both freeze to death up here."

  8:00 p.m.

  Vince was still in the courthouse, in a dreary, windowless room some

  where down a long corridor where Strenburg and Leibowitz had escorted him, along with a bunch of coppers. He sat at a short metal desk sipping some of the good Scotch that Strenburg had smuggled past the guards. The lawyers had left a few minutes earlier, and now it was just him and Lottie, also smuggled in. Strenburg said he'd give them ten minutes and they should use them to talk. When he said it, he emphasized the word talk and winked at Vince. Lottie pulled up a folding chair, sat beside Vince, and put her hand in his lap. She massaged him there in a way that was more comforting than sexual, but he was quickly aroused nonetheless. He had spent the last few minutes reassuring her. It was a tough break, sure, that they'd got to Jack, but that wasn't a death sentence for Vince or anything like it. Leibowitz had his doubts about Neary's so-called eyewitness. If he wasn't on the up-and-up, Leibowitz had said, he'd make mincemeat of him. If he was on the up-and-up, well, that would make it tougher, all right, but they'd deal with that when the time ca
me. But he smelled a rat, he'd told Vince, and he had an excellent sense of smell. "Without a legit witness," Vince reassured Lottie, "they got nothing."

  Lottie kissed Vince on the neck, snuggled closer to him, and undid his belt. She had on a black skirt and a simple white blouse, courtroom attire. "You're the handsomest guy in the courtroom," she said. "I swear, all I do is sit up there in the balcony and look at how handsome you are. Do you feel my eyes on you?" she asked. "Do you know I'm watching you every second?"

  "When you're not in the bathroom throwing up." Vince tilted his head back and finished off his drink.

  "I shouldn't have told you about that," Lottie said, and she peeled open his pants.

  "Listen, dollface . . ." Vince kissed Lottie on the temple as her head dropped down into his lap. "Listen," he repeated, "doll . . ." He stroked her hair.

  Lottie stopped what she was doing and offered Vince a coy smile while her hands kept busy. "What are you trying to say, handsome?"

  "Just," Vince said, and he pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes, "if the law doesn't get me, the boys will. You get that, doll, don't you?"

  The smile dropped away from Lottie's face. "Ah, don't talk that way, Vince. Not while I'm doing this."

  "Sure," Vince said. He gently nudged her head, and Lottie went back to what she was doing. "Mike's the toughest of the gang," he said as he laid his head back, his thought slowing down. "Loretto's the smartest."

  Lottie worked harder, feeling Vince relax and tense at the same time, feeling his body melt into the chair while his thighs tightened and lifted, helping her along.

  Vince took a clump of Lottie's hair in his hand and pulled. He heard a small sound issue up from her chest when he tightened his grip, and his body leaned toward it, toward the sound, as, for a moment, all the cares in the world disappeared.

  Tuesday - December 22, 1931

  2:15 p.m.

  The witness against Vince turned out to be a guy named George Brecht who talked out of the corner of his mouth. He was twenty-seven years old, and nobody had ever heard of him before or seen him around town, but he claimed that he'd been walking along 107th when he'd heard what he thought was a truck backfring. He had turned around to see a car with five men in it, two in the front, three in the back. For seven years prior to that summer, he claimed he'd worked as a chauffeur and that it was his opinion the car was cruising at no more than four miles per hour while two of the men in the back seat were fring pistols out the car window toward the sidewalk. The man in the front seat had a shotgun, and he fred once. When the DA asked if any of the men in the car were also in the courtroom, Brecht made a big drama out of getting up from the witness stand, walking to the defendants' table, and pointing to Vince as the man in the back seat fring the pistol and Frank as the driver with the shotgun.

  Leibowitz questioned Brecht about his finances and established that he'd been in police custody for months, drawing a weekly income from the police department and having all his expenses covered by the city. He even sent home fifteen dollars a week to his family in Chicago, courtesy of the police department. When Leibowitz asked him about the thirty-thou sand-dollar reward he would be in line to get if Vince Coll was convicted, Brecht said he'd only learned about it days ago. This would have required him to have read virtually none of the newspaper stories about the shooting, and when Brecht insisted that was the case, Leibowitz made him look like a fool. Then he stopped in the middle of that line of questioning, as if something had just occurred to him. "I have another question I'd like to ask you," he said. "I notice you speak out of the corner of your mouth. Did you ever spend any time in an institution of any sort that might have led you to learn to speak that way?"

  There was a flurry of objections to the question, which the judge eventually overruled. Everyone who knew anything about prison life knew what Leibowitz was getting at. Prisoners often spoke out of the corners of their mouths to avoid being overheard by guards.

  Brecht said, "No, I ain't never been in prison, if that's what you're suggestin'. Ain't never been in prison, ain't never been charged with a crime. I'm a law-abiding, decent citizen."

  "So you've never been on the witness stand before?"

  "Never."

  "Ever seen the inside of a courtroom before?"

  The DA adamantly objected to the question, to the whole line of questioning, and this time the judge sustained the objection.

  "One more thing," Leibowitz said, changing course. "You say you'd been looking for work that day, the day the Vengelli child was murdered."

  "That's right."

  "At a belt factory on 1st Avenue—that's what you testifed, am I correct?"

  "That's correct."

  "You went to this belt factory looking for a job, the watchman told you there were no jobs available, and then when you were walking back from this belt factory, that's when you witnessed the shooting."

  "That's correct."

  "At this point, Mr. Brecht, I don't think anybody in this courtroom will be too surprised"—Leibowitz stepped away from the witness stand and turned to face the jury—"when I tell you that there is no belt factory on 1st Avenue."

  Over the mumbling and scattered tittering in the courtroom, Brecht said, "Well, I got the address wrong, that's all."

  Leibowitz turned back to Brecht with the air of a teacher disappointed in his student. "There are no belt factories anywhere in the area, Mr. Brecht."

  "Well, like I said!" Brecht again raised his voice. "I got the address wrong is all."

  "That leaves us with the question, again, of what you were doing on 107th Street on the day of the incident."

  "I was coming back from applying for a job," Brecht said. "Maybe it wasn't a belt factory. Maybe I'm misremembering what kind of a factory it was after all. That could easily be what's going on."

  Leibowitz sighed as if more saddened than exasperated by Brecht's answer. "Let me ask you again, Mr. Brecht." He approached the defendants' table and stood behind Vince and Frank, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. "Are you sure these men look like the men you claim to have seen on the day of the shooting?"

  "I don't claim it!" Brecht said. He pounded his fist down on the witness stand. "I say it! And they don't look like the men that were in the car, they are the men that were in the car!"

  Leibowitz patted Vince and Frank on the shoulders, paused to collect his thoughts, and then continued with his questions. Lottie, though, couldn't take another minute. She got up and left the balcony and went out to the street, where she lit a cigarette with a shaky hand and smoked it furiously, ripping the smoke down into her lungs and fring it out at the crowded avenue, where hordes of people walked by all caught up in their own lives, without some liar trying to put them in their graves for a thirty-thousand-dollar reward, without Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano and all the rest waiting in the wings to take over if the law didn't get the job done. She quickly smoked her cigarette down to the filter and immediately lit another one. When she was finished, she'd go back to her seat in the balcony. Maybe her hands wouldn't be shaking by then. A minute later, with the second cigarette already almost down to the filter, she was surprised when she started to silently cry. She hadn't felt the tears coming. Her eyes were dry one second and wet a moment later. She'd never liked Jack Diamond, and she'd been trying not to think about him, but every once in a while a picture of him all shot up came into her mind and made her sick with the thought of it. The newspapers said they'd put three bullets in his head. Then imagining Jack all shot up turned to imagining Vince with three bullets in his head, and a quiet voice inside her reassured her, told her she'd be all right, she'd figure it out, no matter. The voice seemed almost to be another person, someone both angry and determined. She'd be all right, the voice said. She'd find a way. Her thoughts flashed to Mike Baronti standing in the bathroom doorway, holding her robe out to her. He was the toughest of the lot, Loretto the smartest. She'd be all right, the voice said yet again, and she took a handkerchief from her dres
s pocket, blotted her eyes, stomped out the remains of the cigarette, and went back into the courthouse.

  Wednesday - December 23, 1931

  1:15 p.m.

  Lottie was eating her lunch alone in a Horn & Hardart a few blocks from the courthouse. Where she was seated, she could watch people walking along the street under a moving canopy of umbrellas, keeping themselves dry as best they could in a driving rain that was predicted to turn to snow and ice by the evening when the temperature dropped. She was already dreading the subway ride back to Florence's apartment. It wasn't the crowded cars that bothered her as much as the indignity of it, having to ride the subway at all.

  By the time she finished her sandwich, the downpour had let up. She watched a little boy on the street dart out from under an umbrella and stomp both feet down in a puddle before the woman holding him by the hand could yank him back to her side and yell something at him that Lottie couldn't make out. She made eye contact with the boy and his face lit up with a mischievous grin. She winked at him, found her umbrella, and left her sandwich half eaten on the table. Outside, on the way back to the courthouse in the rain, she thought about Christmas again and what she could get for Vince. She'd bought a frilly dress and new shoes for Klara, and she liked to think about her daughter handling the package, wondering what was in it, anticipating Christmas morning when she could open it. Those thoughts, though, always led her to Jake's people, especially his mother, and she had to snuff them out or spend the rest of the day angry. Easier and better to think of Vince. She didn't know what to get for him. All the regular gifts, clothes and jewelry and such, were out of the question: the guards wouldn't let him take anything like that back with him to his cell. She'd only get an hour to visit with him on Christmas morning. That was it. An hour.