Toughs Page 41

  "Don't know nothing about it."

  "Sure," Winchell said. He straightened up and tugged on his ear. "Then just tell me this, Duke. How much trouble is young Master Coll making for you and the Combine that requires convening a meeting of the sort that took place at the Forest Hotel? One kid and his scrawny gang's got the whole mob in an uproar? That's quite a story, don't you think?"

  Madden got up from his seat, went around the table, and put an arm over Winchell's shoulders. He led him away from the table. "Get out of here," he whispered in his ear, "before I lose my temper."

  "Ah, take it easy," Winchell said.

  "I am taking it easy. Try not to forget that you're on my payroll, Walter. As for Coll, here's a tip for you: tell the paper to get his obituary ready."

  "Didn't you tell me roughly the same thing last time I broached the subject?"

  "This time you can bet on it." Madden patted Winchell on the back, pushed him away, and returned to his table, where he offered the young woman his hand. She smiled and followed him out of the room.

  Monday - February 8, 1932

  12:25 a.m.

  Loretto followed Vince with his hands in his coat pockets, his collar turned up against the wind, and his fedora low on his forehead. They might have been matching figures drawn by the same artist, the four of them—Vince, Loretto, Augie, and Mike—all in long winter coats with turned-up collars and hats pulled low. They were on West 23rd, on their way back to the Cornish Arms, where Lottie and Vince were staying in the same room they'd stayed in many times before, the one that faced the street on the second floor. The trip to New Jersey had been a bust. They'd arrived at the meeting place, a warehouse on the docks, to find nothing but seagulls and rats. Vince had shot up the warehouse door for the hell of it. Then they'd taken the Hoboken Ferry back to 23rd, and now they were strolling along the avenue, a quartet of tough guys with hands in their pockets and backs to the wind.

  When they reached the hotel, Vince checked the lighted windows on the second floor as if he might see Lottie there, watching for him. "It's after midnight," he said. "That makes it Monday." Loretto and the others waited for him to explain. "Monday's Madden's deadline." They were outside a drugstore across from the hotel. The entrance was a narrow door between two plate-glass windows full of medical supplies. A banner on one of the windows announced that breakfast and lunch were served at all hours. Vince glanced up at the neon sign above the door—London Chemists—and then back to Mike. "What the hell," he said. "Let's get it over with."

  "What?" Mike asked.

  "I'm calling Madden. Tomorrow we're in business with him or we're at war with him."

  "You're the boss," Mike said without so much as a second's pause, "but I've got to take a leak." He gestured toward the Cornish Arms. "I'll be in the lobby."

  Vince said, "What's wrong with the drugstore?"

  "What's wrong with the hotel?" Mike slapped Vince on the arm. "Augie and Loretto'll keep you company in there. I'm about to bust a gut," he added, and he trotted across the street to the hotel.

  Vince looked to Augie and Loretto. "All right," he said as if Mike was acting like a goof, but what the hell. "Let's have a talk with Big Owney."

  Inside the drugstore, a couple of older men sat at the soda fountain. A clerk behind the counter was taking an order from one of them while the other sipped a drink and read the newspaper. At the drug counter, a woman talked to the pharmacist. Vince looked over the place, seemed satisfed, and started for a pair of telephone booths.

  Augie joined him. "I'm gonna call my girl," he said. "Tell her to wait up for me."

  Vince pointed at Loretto. He said, "Keep an eye on the door," and then pushed open the booth, stepped inside, and closed the glass door behind him. He dropped a coin in the slot atop the phone and dialed a number.

  Alongside Vince, Augie stepped out of his booth, having quickly completed his call. He joined Loretto where he'd taken a seat at the far end of the counter. When the clerk came for their order, Augie raised his hand and told him they'd only be a minute while they waited for their friend, and he gestured to Vince in the phone booth.

  "Since when do you have a girlfriend?" Loretto asked Augie. "And Mike's got a weak bladder all of a sudden? Something don't smell right, Augie. You have anything you want to tell me?"

  "Sure, I have something I want to tell you." Augie talked softly, his elbows on the counter, leaning close to Loretto. "Your friend Vince Coll, Irish over there," he glanced behind him to the phone booth, where Vince appeared to be waiting for someone to come on the line, "he's living in a dream world."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Open your eyes, Loretto." Suddenly Augie's voice was harsh and angry. "Vince has been beat," he said. "Except for you and Mike, his boys are dead or gone or in jail waiting to get the chair. He's got nothing, and he's in there—" Again he glanced behind him to the phone booth. "He's in there talking to the most powerful gangster probably in the whole damn country, and that includes Capone in Chicago. Owen Madden's got an army working for him. He's got connections that go up to the mayor and beyond. Vince has got nothin' left, and he never had much to begin with— and he's in that phone booth thinking he's got a shot at Madden bending over for him. He's living in a dream, Loretto. Understand? It won't happen. Owen Madden is not going to cut him in on his business. Owen Madden was never going to cut him in on his business. Owen Madden is going to kill him. That's done and over with, and it's been done and over with ever since he took on Madden in the first place."

  Loretto spun around on his stool. Vince was talking on the phone now. He'd say a few words, nod his head, listen, and then talk some more. He didn't seem at all unhappy or angry. "Looks to me like he's having a conversation about something," he said to Augie.

  "I'm sure he is," Augie said. "I'm sure somebody on the other end of that line is telling him everything he wants to hear. He's probably explaining what Vince's cut will be and what's expected of him. They're probably setting up a party for him at the Cotton Club."

  At first Loretto didn't grasp what Augie was getting at. "Who did you call?" he asked. When Augie didn't answer, Loretto grabbed his arm. He was about to ask a second time when Bo Weinberg came through the door with a chopper dangling from his right hand. Outside, a black Cole waited at the curb, its engine running, and Henry LaSalla stood at the store entrance, his clown's nose bright red in the cold, the barrel of a chopper protruding from under his coat.

  Loretto went for the pistol under his jacket, but Augie caught his hand before it got any higher than the counter. Bo noticed and froze where he stood, the chopper still dangling beside him. His eyes were on Loretto while his body was angled toward the phone booth. Maybe a second passed like that, maybe two, with Bo watching Loretto, his body angled toward Vince, Augie grasping Loretto's wrist.

  Augie said, "What are you going to do, Loretto? Shoot Bo Weinberg? Then will you shoot me? Because if you don't, Vince will."

  Bo shifted his body toward the phone booth. Loretto got up from his stool and stepped back from Augie. He pulled his pistol from under his coat and pointed it at Bo.

  Bo partly raised the barrel of the chopper. The way he was standing, when he lifted it again, he could aim at either Vince or Loretto.

  Augie held his hand up to Bo, asking for another second. At the same moment, Vince looked out from the phone booth and saw Bo holding a chopper, watching Loretto with one eye and him with the other. Augie said, "For Christ's sake, Loretto, are you standing with Vince against everybody? Against us?" he added, meaning him and Gina and the whole Baronti family. "This is enough," he said. "It's over."

  Vince was smiling, watching Loretto holding a gun on Bo. He had that cocky look that was typical Vince, like things were playing out one more time, against all odds, to his advantage.

  Loretto put his gun back in its holster. It took only a second and felt like an eternity. Vince's smile faded and then disappeared. He turned to face Bo, and Bo unleashed the chopper, which spit lead i
nto the phone booth, shattering the glass and pummeling Vince's body, knocking him about in the tight confines of the booth until he slumped down in a lifeless heap, his bloody face pressed into the glass, his sandy blond hair dyed black with streaks of blood.

  Bo turned to Augie and jerked his thumb toward the door. Augie grabbed Loretto by the arm and pulled him onto the street, past LaSalla and toward the waiting Cole. At the door to the car, Loretto resisted getting in the back seat as Henry got behind the wheel and Bo climbed into the passenger seat. Lottie was at the hotel window, looking down at the car, at Loretto, her face a solemn mask. There was no surprise in her look, no fear or hysteria in her eyes—only a glaze of sadness, of sorrow. Mike appeared alongside her at the window. He put his arm over her shoulders, and she rested her head on his chest. From the passenger seat, Bo said to Augie, "Get the kid in the car," just as a beat cop appeared on the corner. The cop first noticed a commotion as people fled the drugstore and then Augie and Loretto at the door to the Cole. He yelled, "Stop!" and raised his baton. A big guy with a mop of unruly hair, his Irish accent was evident in the single syllable. Augie shoved Loretto into the back seat, and Henry stepped on the gas. The Cole's V-8 roared as it sped out onto 23rd and turned quickly on 8th. When they looked back, they saw that the cop had commandeered a yellow cab and was following them, standing on the sideboard, his pistol in the air.

  "You got to love these micks," Bo said. "Look at that mug. He's got balls big as potatoes." He hadn't gotten the final word out of his mouth when a bullet broke the rear window and tore a hole in the seat back just over Henry's shoulder.

  Henry swore and hung a quick right. The Cole straightened out and lurched forward, quickly leaving the yellow cab far behind. Twenty minutes later, after maneuvering through a maze of side streets and quiet avenues, Henry pulled up outside a warehouse at the Chelsea piers.

  "This is your stop," Bo said. He got out and opened the back door for Augie.

  Loretto slid out of the car and found himself looking at an expanse of black water. A seagull swooped low, skimmed the river, and lighted on a nearby pier. It was quiet, the only sounds water slapping against the docks and a bell clanging softly with the rhythm of the water.

  Bo buttoned his coat and turned up his collar. He looked out over the water and then back to Loretto. "This squares you with Dutch," he said. "Charley Lucky, too, and Big Owney and all the rest of the boys. You and Mike both." He paused, thought a second. "Richie Cabo . . . I'd still stay away from him if I were you. But he's part of the deal, too."

  Loretto turned to Augie. "What deal?"

  Bo seemed not to hear the question. "He was a fearless son of a bitch," he said, talking about Vince. "I'll give him that. One of the few guys who ever put a beating on me. Once," he added, and turned and spit toward the river. "Now it's all over," he said. "Everybody'll be happier, and Dutch can come out of his hole." He shook hands with Augie and nodded to Loretto before he got back in the car with Henry and drove off.

  When the car was out of sight, Loretto asked Augie again, "What deal?"

  "Do you need it spelled out for you?" Augie put his hand on Loretto's back and directed him to a walkway between the pier and the warehouse. "My car's over here."

  "Go ahead," Loretto said. "Spell it out for me."

  "You're in the clear. You and Mike both," Augie said. "No one's looking to put one in you anymore. No one. Both of you. You're both free and clear. You can do whatever you want now." Augie paused and they walked together a moment in silence. "And I'm taking enough money out of the deal to move Mama and Gina out of the city with me, to Long Island. I already got a house picked out for me and Mama, with an apartment for Gina if she wants it."

  "Gina knows all this?"

  "No. Not yet."

  At the car, Loretto said, "And all it cost us was Vince."

  "Didn't cost us anything," Augie said. "Vince wound up exactly where he was going to wind up, only maybe a few days earlier, that's all." Above them, the moon came out from behind a long shroud of thin clouds. Augie opened the car door. "You did the right thing, " he said. "Get in. It's cold out here."

  "I'll walk." Loretto found a pair of gloves in his coat pocket and slipped them on.

  "You sure? It's a long way."

  "I'm sure," Loretto said, and he started back for the piers.

  "Where are you going? Do you still have your apartment?" Augie called after him.

  Loretto didn't answer. He continued toward the water and the piers. When he heard Augie drive off, he stopped at the dock's edge and sat with his back to a pylon. He watched a pair of gulls hurry along the dock side by side, their wings flapping now and then. He saw Vince again looking at him from the phone booth with a smile on his face, and then he watched the smile disappear. He saw Lottie looking down from the hotel window with Mike behind her. He heard the rattle of Bo's chopper and glass shattering and he saw Vince crumple and fall. He didn't have his apartment anymore, and so he had no idea where to go. He took off his heavy coat and his gloves and dropped them both in the river. Then he took off his jacket and his hat and his holster and gun. He threw them all in the river. He watched them sink and disappear into the murky water before finally, with the cold already cutting through him, he turned away from the piers and started back toward the lights of the city.

  Spring

  · 1977 ·

  Sunday - April 10, 1977

  2:15 p.m.

  Loretto wore a sweater against the chill in the April air and a straw hat to keep the sun off his head. He was stretched out on in a lounge chair with a copy of the New York Times in his lap, a picture of Walter Winchell staring up at him from the front page. Winchell had died some five years earlier, and the story appeared to be about gossip columnists—though Loretto hadn't read past the first few sentences.

  "Loretto!" Gina opened the screen door onto the backyard and stuck her head out. "Madon! Come in the house! The kids are already at the table. We're eating in a few minutes."

  Loretto raised a finger, meaning he'd be there in a moment. He put the newspaper aside and crossed the patio to watch one of his koi swim in a pond he'd built with his sons––slate, with a waterfall and a wide ledge where the grandchildren loved to sit and drop food in the water and watch goldfish swarm and peck flakes off the surface. He and Gina had raised their family in this house, a two-story colonial in Northport, Long Island. The yard had a patio and the pond and gardens—and up a small hill, a long in-ground pool. He sat down on the pond's slate ledge and rippled the water with his fingertips, drawing the goldfish to him.

  Winchell's picture in the paper brought the memories back, all the things Loretto could never forget, not through all the years, through the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren; through the depression, the war, the boom; through all of it the memories, the images, the dreams remained.

  The night Bo Weinberg killed Vince Coll, Loretto had walked in his shirtsleeves through the cold till he came to an all-night diner, where he drank coffee and sat in a booth till he stopped shivering and he could feel his feet and fingertips again. Later, he ordered food, and when the sun came up, he called Gina. She and Augie came to pick him up, and he moved back in with Augie and Mama until they left for Long Island that spring, for Northport, where Augie bought a house within walking distance of the house Loretto bought a couple of years later. Augie started a construction business that struggled through the depression, did well during the war, and exploded in the boom that followed the war. Now he was a wealthy man, with a second house on the ocean in Palm Beach, where he and his family spent the summers. He'd married late, in his thirties, but not too late to have five children with his wife, Karen, who was some ten years younger.

  Loretto and Gina married the summer of '32. They lived in Mama's apartment another year till Gina got pregnant and Augie lent them the money to buy their house. Later, Loretto put the skills he'd learned on his first job as a boy together with Gina's talents, and—with another loan from Augie—
they'd opened a bakery, which did well enough for the loan to be repaid within a few years and for Loretto and Gina to live a comfortable life and raise six children, the youngest, twins, born in '41, right before the war started. They were all grown now, and Loretto had lost track of the grandchildren. Between his family and Augie's, they were a clan—with only Mike missing.

  Once Vince was gone, Mike had taken up with Lottie, and the two of them had gotten themselves in more trouble with the law. Lottie wound up doing a couple of years in prison, after which she disappeared. Loretto liked to think that she had gone off somewhere to live an ordinary life and raise the daughter he hadn't known about till years later, when Mike told him—but the chances were better that she was at the bottom of a river, even her bones long ago washed away. She'd made a lot of enemies in her years with Vince. Still, she disappeared utterly once she was out, and it was possible she was still alive. It gave Loretto some small pleasure to think so.

  Mike had eventually gone to work for Luciano, and for the last thirty-five years he'd been in and out of jail. Augie washed his hands of him, and his name was never mentioned at family gatherings. In time, the kids came to know that they had another uncle—Mike turned up in the newspapers more often than anyone would have liked—but they learned not to mention him. He was the family's dark secret, the uncle in the mob. About Loretto's and Augie's past, they knew nothing. Only Loretto stayed in touch with Mike. Once a month he drove up to visit him in Ossining, where he was currently serving the tail end of a sentence for racketeering.