Toughs Page 34

  "He's useful," Madden said, and he left the room with Luciano and Frenchy following behind.

  Thursday - January 14, 1932

  1:10 a.m.

  Somewhere someone was laughing and the sound of it snaked through the darkness and became something different, a voice speaking though Loretto couldn't make out the words. In his spare room, with snow falling beyond a curtained window, he tossed and turned on a bare mattress, fully dressed, a pillow clasped to his breast, a bottle of Canadian Club and an empty glass on a table beside the bed. He'd been going nonstop since hitting Madden's brewery: hijacking shipments, torching beer drops, bombing speaks, hitting Dutch's banks.

  In Harlem, they'd taken more than fifty grand out of one bank. Vince and Mike knew the setup from the days when they'd worked for Dutch. They'd pulled two mugs into a back room while Loretto held a chopper on a half-dozen runners, all with their faces to the ground, eyes closed. They might have all been holding up signs saying, I don't see nothing, I don't want to see nothing. Loretto was blind to what was going on behind him in the back room, but he could hear. For several minutes, the place was quiet as a stone, the only sounds traffic from the street and Vince and Mike, Vince asking one guy to open the safe and getting some cock-and-bull story about how the combination had just been changed and even he didn't know it, and Vince saying, I'll tell you one more time, and then the guy starting up on his excuses and getting only a few words out of his mouth before a gunshot brought his story to its end. Then Vince saying to another mug Open the safe and coming out of the back room a few minutes later with two bags of cash in his hands. Fifty grand, which Vince split up with the gang, Loretto's share, over six thousand, in a cardboard box under his bed along with several thousand more from the other banks and speaks and drops they'd hit, and all this in a few days, more money than he could earn in years of work clearing trails, more money than he could save in decades—in a few days.

  Loretto struggled to hear what the laugher was saying, something dark that made him nervous though he couldn't make out the words. He was half drunk and half asleep, half listening and half dreaming. It was cold in his room and he clutched the pillow tighter. He pulled himself up from sleep and poured another drink. Mike was in the kitchen, on the other side of his closed bedroom door, with Paul Martone and Patsy. They were drinking and telling stories and laughing. He pushed the curtain back and peered out his window, where a light snow was falling, the small flakes lit up in the glare of a streetlight, falling onto yesterday's snow already going sooty with the city's grime. He finished off his drink, found a crumpled blanket on the floor, and covered himself with it. He closed his eyes and drifted off. He hadn't slept three hours in a row in days. The rest of the boys were doing lines of coke, and he'd done a few but they made his heart race like it was raging out of his chest and he'd gone back to drinking, between jobs, before trying to sleep, soon after he woke, always a glass in his hand and a bottle nearby. He hadn't spent much time thinking about Gina only because he hadn't spent much time thinking. He was either on the move or trying to sleep. When he was on the move, all his thoughts were in the moment. When he was trying to sleep, Gina would come to mind but then he'd fall off into dreams where one minute he might be back at Mount Loretto with Vince and Peter and the next minute at the dinner table with the Barontis and a minute after that in a tunnel on his way into a brewery, blood and malt like a river at his feet.

  "Hey, ugly," Vince said. "You in shape for work?"

  Loretto opened his eyes to Vince sitting on the edge of his mattress. Mike and Patsy were in the doorway, grinning.

  "What is it?" Loretto knew where he was and what was going on, but his thoughts were sluggish. There seemed to be a lag between what he thought and what he said.

  Paul Martone pushed past Mike and Patsy with a mug of coffee, which he handed to Vince.

  "Sit up." Vince handed Loretto the coffee mug. "We're getting visitors."

  Paul found a chair and pulled it into the room. He was wearing a blue silk cravat around his waist, passed through the belt loops and tied in a knot at his side. He'd been told so often that he looked like Fred Astaire that apparently he felt he could dress like him, too. "What's the word?" he asked Vince.

  Vince patted Loretto on the back as he sat up and sipped his coffee. "We found Jablonski," he said. "He was hiding way out on Long Island, East Hampton or something."

  Patsy came into the room and took a seat on the windowsill. "He's coming here? Who's bringin' him?"

  "The Evangelistas." To Loretto he said, "You know that red bandana Frankie's been wearing to cover the head wound? Now Jo Jo's wearing one, too. He says it's stylish."

  "Stylish my patootie," Paul said.

  "They look like a couple of pirates." Vince was laughing, in a good mood.

  "Why are they bringing him here?" Loretto asked.

  "'Cause you're moving." Vince slapped the bed. "Let's go." He jumped up. "Help 'em get their stuff in the car," he said to the others. "It's parked out front."

  Loretto followed Vince into the kitchen, where he found a bottle of orange juice in the icebox, looked it over, and then lifted it to his mouth and drained it. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "Where we going?" he asked Vince.

  Vince took a seat at the table, laid out two lines of coke, and snorted both through a straw, which he put back in his pocket when he was done. "New place," he said. "I told you we'd be switchin' places regular."

  "Yeah, you did." Loretto went to the sink and splashed water on his face. In the living room, he saw Mike carrying a couple of suitcases out the door. One of them was Loretto's. "I'd better help," he said, meaning help the boys empty out the apartment.

  "Sit down a second." Vince kicked the chair across from him out from under the table. "The boys'll take care of it."

  Loretto sat across from Vince. There was a bottle of bourbon on the table. When he reached for it, Vince pushed it aside. "You're drinking too much."

  "And you're doing too much coke."

  "Coke don't slow me down," Vince said. "It makes me sharper. You want some?"

  "Nah. Makes my heart bang like it's about to explode."

  Vince smiled, amused. "You're doing good," he said to Loretto. "I was worried about you, but you're holding up your end."

  Beyond the window, snow was falling light but steady. "I got close to fifteen grand stuffed under my bed," Loretto said. "Lot of money. I could buy a house for me and Gina with that."

  "That ain't nothin'." Vince took Loretto by the wrist, his eyes bright and bloodshot. "That ain't nothin'," he said again, raising his voice, and he squeezed Loretto's wrist hard enough to hurt. Then just as suddenly he let go. "We're showing these sons of bitches, Dutch and the Combine."

  "How much longer?" Loretto asked.

  "How much longer we keepin' this up? Another couple of weeks. Then we head upstate."

  In the living room, the Evangelista brothers pushed Victor Jablonski through the door, followed by another guy. At first Loretto didn't recognize the second man; then he saw the scar across his cheek.

  Jablonski lumbered into the living room behind a gut big as a pregnant woman. He was an older guy, probably in his sixties. Other than the gut, he was an average-sized man. It looked like everything he ate or drank, it went straight to the belly. "I'm caught in the middle!" Jablonski yelled before anyone could say a thing. "I stay with you, Big Owney kills me. I go with Big Owney, and you're gonna kill me. What am I supposed to do, Vince? You tell me! I'm a businessman, that's all! I own a bunch of speaks. All I want is to do my business. That's all I'm askin'!"

  "Victor . . ." Vince was still seated at the kitchen table. The Evangelistas stood one on each side of Jablonski while Mike and Patsy held the bartender by the arms with a light touch. "Victor," Vince repeated, and he mussed his hair and shook his head as if trying to clear away the cobwebs, "you may find this difficult to believe, but I'm sympathetic. I understand. You're right. You're caught in the middle."

  Jablo
nski huffed and put his hands on his hips. "So tell me, Vince! What should I do?"

  "Too late for that," Vince said, and finally he got up from the table. He went to the kitchen cabinets and rummaged through the drawers and cupboards as if looking for something. "You made your choice," he said, not looking up from his search. "You decided you were more scared of Big Owney than you were scared of me."

  "Vince," Jablonski said, pleading, "I'm scared of both of you. I'm a family man," he added. "I got a wife and kids. I gotta make a living!"

  "Ah. Here we go." Vince took a ball-peen hammer from a kitchen drawer. "How in hell," he said, "could you be more scared of that old man's been pretending like he's high society . . . How could you be more scared of Big Owney than me?"

  "I'm scared of both of you," Jablonski repeated, his voice gone softer, weaker, at the sight of the ball-peen hammer.

  "But you were more scared of Madden," Vince said. He flipped the hammer in the air, catching it by the handle.

  "Why do you do this?" Jablonski got down on his knees and put his hands together in prayer. "I'll only buy from you from now on! I swear to you, Vince."

  Vince approached Jablonski but looked beyond him to the bartender. "You been with Victor a long time, I'm told."

  Jablonski said, "Since the beginning," answering for the bartender. "Bogda," he added, telling Vince the bartender's name. "He works for me, that's all. You don't have to hurt him!"

  Vince said, "I'm not gonna hurt him." He hadn't yet looked at Jablonski. He'd been staring at Bogda. He hesitated for a moment, and the room went quiet. Finally he looked down at Jablonski, who was still on his knees, his hands steepled in front of him. "Victor," he said, "you made the wrong choice," and he hit him once at the top of the forehead, viciously, with the round end of the hammer. It penetrated his skull like a bullet, leaving a round hole from which blood at first seeped and then poured. Victor fell over on his face. "Bogda," Vince said, trying out the sound of the bartender's name.

  "Bobby," the bartender said. "Everybody calls me Bobby except Victor."

  "Bobby," Vince said. He leaned over Victor, hit him several more times, violent blows to the back of the head, and then tossed the hammer aside. "Bobby," he repeated, "who scares you more, me or Owen Madden?"

  "You," Bobby said without hesitating. "You scare me more."

  "Good," Vince said. "Let's get out of here." He slipped into his coat and put an arm around Bobby's shoulders. He led him out the door with the rest of the gang following. "You're running things now," he said to Bobby. "What was Victor's is now yours. You own a gun?"

  Bobby shook his head, and Vince turned to Frankie Evangelista behind him. "Get this man a gun, Frankie, would you, please?"

  "Sure, boss." Frankie pulled a pistol out of his coat pocket and handed it to Bobby.

  "My boys, we'll protect you from the Combine," Vince said. "But we can't be there all the time. Meanwhile," he tapped the gun that Bobby was holding in his hand. "Meanwhile, if anyone tries to force you to buy their hooch, now you've got your own gun, right?"

  "Right," Bobby answered, though he sounded like he would have said right if Vince had asked him if he owned his own spaceship.

  "Don't be afraid to use it," Vince went on. "Like I said, we'll deal with the Combine, but we're stretched a little thin right now, so for a while you might have to take care of yourself."

  "That's okay," Bobby said. "I won't buy from anybody but you. I swear."

  "Good." They were all outside then, standing in the snow next to three cars parked on the street.

  Vince turned to the Evangelistas and smiled at the matching red bandanas they wore under their fedoras. "Take our man wherever he wants to go, gentlemen, would you, please?" He took a roll of cash from his pocket, peeled off four fifties, and handed them to Bobby. "You work for us now," he said. "We'll take care of you better than the Combine ever did."

  Bobby put the money in his pocket. Softly he said, "Thanks, Vince."

  Vince didn't answer. He looked around till he spotted Loretto. "Ride with me," he said and got into the back seat of the lead car.

  Loretto glanced up to the sky, at a line of dark clouds sliding over the rooftops like a low ceiling. Between the tops of the buildings and the black clouds a small space of moonlit sky looked bright in comparison, making the slab of dark clouds sitting over the city look like a black lid about to close. Loretto brushed snowflakes from his hair and then wiped the wet palm of his hand across his eyes.

  Vince had left the door open, and his voice came out of the darkness of the car. "Where are you, Loretto?"

  "Right here," Loretto answered, and he got in and pulled the door closed.

  10:45 a.m.

  Lottie woke with Vince wrapped around her: his face pushed up against

  the back of her neck; one arm around her waist, the other under her head; his knees folded into her thighs. He'd come in sometime in the middle of night and she'd awakened to him already making love to her, opened her eyes to his brightest smile, a boy pleased at having sprung a big surprise. She'd petted his hair, his face, wrapped her legs around his back, and when it was over she wanted to talk but he fell asleep within minutes, his head still propped up on his hand as if he'd been trying to listen before sleep overwhelmed him. Now she wriggled out of his grasp, sat up in bed, and looked out through a line of uncurtained windows onto a dreary day, the sky gray as ashes over an empty feld. They were someplace way up in Yonkers, in an old farmhouse. She climbed out of bed, found her heavy white robe in the closet, and went to the window, where she pulled a pack of Chesterfelds from the pocket of her robe, lit up, and inhaled deeply as she gazed at a long expanse of untrammeled snow that dipped and rose, following the contours of a plowed feld, the long lines of furrows flowing into shadows. Farther off, there was a farmhouse with a silo and a green tractor outside a barn.

  Behind her, Vince groaned and made a sharp, high-pitched sound, as if something had hurt him, and a moment later he jerked onto his back, waved his arms, and then turned onto his stomach and dropped off into stillness and silence. Lottie sat beside him and stroked his back. Most nights he was like this, flailing in his sleep, groaning and making noises. Once he'd bolted out of bed and made it halfway to the front door before he realized he was dreaming. More than once he'd soaked the sheets with sweat. On the floor beside the bed, she found an ashtray and stubbed out her cigarette. She noticed the corner of an old leather suitcase, pulled it out from under the bed, opened it, and found it stuffed with cash and guns. She took two hundred in twenties and put them in the pocket of her robe. One of the pistols looked like a small cannon with a long, fat barrel and a wooden grip. She picked it up, felt the weight of it in her hands, and placed it back where she'd found it, atop a pile of bills. She started to close the suitcase and then noticed, peeking out from the clutter of crumpled fives and tens, the corner of their marriage license. She put it back in the suitcase with the guns and cash and shoved the suitcase under the bed again. They were thinking that they'd get married upstate, where they'd be safer, and they might even be able to have a party, at least with their closest friends. She closed her eyes and imagined the real thing, a real wedding with a classy white gown and a long, flowing train. She knew that would have to wait till the fighting was over—but still she enjoyed the imagining.

  When Vince groaned again and turned onto his back, throwing a forearm over his eyes, she got back under the covers with him, found a copy of The New Movie on a bedside chair, and propped up a pillow under her back so she could read. The magazine was several months old, from last August. It was light green, with a picture of Helen Twelvetrees on the cover. Next to the actress's face, in bold type: COULD YOU Be a MOVIE STAR? Turn to Page 33 and Find Out. Lottie turned to page 33 and settled into reading, The New Movie in one hand, the other hand stroking Vincent's hair, comforting him as he wrestled with his dreams.

  Friday - January 15, 1932

  8:00 p.m.

  Capone was in a foul mood. Whenever some
one else spoke, he glared at him like he might pull a pistol out of his pocket and shoot him dead. He was one of a dozen men seated around a long table in a conference room at the Forest Hotel, where Madden had booked suites for his visitors and stocked them with booze and women. With Capone from the Chicago Outft were Frank Nitti and Paul Ricca. Luciano was also there, with Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. Dutch and Bo were seated directly across from Luciano with Richie Cabo, Ciro Terranova, Vannie Higgins, and a half-dozen more big shots from the city and upstate, New Jersey and Buffalo. Owen Madden sat at the head of the table, across from Big Frenchy at the other end. Madden had spent the last half hour pressuring the men around the table to stop whatever they were doing and put all their efforts into finding Coll and his gang and eliminating them. "Listen," he said, frustrated in particular at Capone's carping and complaining, "the Mick's costing all of us money. He's a lunatic. He'll kill your mother if he thinks it'll get him what he wants. He's a baby killer!" Madden yelled and slapped the table. "Ask Dutch about his wife! Ask him about Francis!"