Chances

  Of course he had not told his parents why he wanted to go. He suspected that if they had known the sole purpose of his journey they would have said no. So he had talked of museums and parks and art galleries. “I would just like to get away before college,” he had explained, and miraculously they had agreed. They were good parents.

  Franklin was counting out a hundred dollars’ worth of bills and handing them across the desk to Costa. “You’ll have a good time, son,” he said gruffly. “My sister and her husband are fine people and will look after you. And be sure to show them plenty of respect.”

  “Yes, sir.” The word respect jolted Costa back to reality. “I certainly will, sir.”

  Gino visited Vera once a week at an arranged time. Fed up with interrupting her at work, he told her to keep Wednesday nights free. She did as he told her, looking forward to their evenings together. Usually they went to a movie and then to a drugstore for a hamburger and milk shake. They made an odd couple: the cheap aging prostitute with the missing front teeth and the strong-looking young man simmering with hidden energy.

  “I got enough bucks for y’to give it all up,” he informed her every Wednesday.

  “Keep it,” she would reply. “What would an old hag like me do with free time? ’Sides”—a gummy grin—“I kinda enjoy my work.”

  Gino was not quite sure how Leonora would take to Vera. But he was determined they would meet and hoped they would get along. He would explain all about Vera to Leonora, and that should make things right. Leonora was just going to have to accept the fact that there was more to life than a nice family existence in San Francisco.

  Every time he thought of her, a mounting excitement crept up on him. He was going to be a married man and he couldn’t wait! A married man!

  Gino Santangelo.

  Leonora Santangelo.

  Mr. and Mrs. Santangelo.

  “Whassamatta, Gino?” Vera slurred. “You’re not eatin’ your ice cream.”

  “Hey,” he questioned, slapping his palms together. “Whatcha think? Leonora Santangelo. Sound good to ya?”

  Vera nodded. “Sounds wonderful.”

  Carrie

  1928

  Whitejack stayed away for a week.

  First Carrie was worried, then angry.

  “That man can look after himself, honey,” Lucille assured her, “and so can we. He’ll be back soon enough.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Carrie fretted.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sure. No way that Whitejack gonna walk on twenty-three suits!”

  And Lucille was right. He breezed in one morning relaxed and full of charm.

  “Where you bin?” Carrie screamed.

  He held up an authoritative hand. “Quiet yourself down, woman. I bin gettin’ us that big white platinum blonde I told you ’bout.”

  “I thought you’d crept on back to Madam Mae—”

  He laughed. “Back to that bitch? You kiddin’, woman?”

  “You could have told me you were gonna be gone. I was worried….”

  He cupped her breast and slid her robe aside, fingering the nipple. “Didn’t know I hadda check in.”

  “Oh, Whitejack!” She felt secure again. She wanted to please him. “Lucille an’ me, we pulled in three hundred bucks this week.” She put her arms around him and pressed close to his body. “It’s all for you, sugar.”

  He gave her a gentle shove away. “Get yourself dressed and packed. Today we move on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got us a bigger apartment in a better neighborhood.”

  Her eyes were wide. “How’d you do that? I thought we had no money.”

  “Leave it to Whitejack. I got us a whole new setup.”

  The fat man with the cigar beamed jovially around at his friends. There were about thirty of them, all told. An affluent group of middle-aged businessmen, well wined and dined.

  The occasion was a stag dinner to celebrate the retirement of one of them. His name was Arthur Stuyvesant, and he was retiring from the investment business.

  His fat friend had organized the dinner, and now, cigar aloft, he signaled for the real fun to start. “Gentlemen,” he announced, hardly able to control the excitement in his voice, “I have a small surprise for you this evening. Something that I feel is quite unique and will make a memorable ending to a fine dinner.” He nodded at the black man concealed behind a curtain at the end of the conference room. “Let the entertainment commence.”

  Whitejack pinched Carrie on the bottom. “Move it, woman,” he instructed.

  “I don’t want to do this,” she began.

  He rolled his eyes. “We bin through all this. Move it. You don’t like it, we won’t do it no more.”

  Reluctantly she moved out from behind the curtain.

  There was a mutter of approval and some embarrassed laughter from the men. Music started up from a hidden Victrola: sleazy New Orleans honkytonk. Carrie began to dance. She was wearing a skimpy red dress, rolled silk stockings, high-heeled strappy shoes, and ruffled garters. Underneath the dress she wore nothing.

  Whitejack watched her undulate between the tables. She wasn’t too bad. He slapped the rump of the large white blonde standing beside him. “Show the little lady how it’s really done, Dolly.”

  She grinned, horse teeth in a broad face. “You betcha, Whitejack.”

  She sprung out from behind the curtain, all wobbling breasts and big ass squashed into a tight orange dress.

  Whitejack shook his head and smiled. Dolly was a real find. It was she who had explained to him about the money there was to be made giving private shows. “What’s a smart jackass like you strugglin’ with johns and all that shit for?” she had asked when they first met in one of the jazz joints. “Give me the right girls an’ I can make us real big bucks.”

  So he had moved in with her for a week to discuss it. She had been delighted when he told her about Carrie and Lucille. “A spade an’ a midget!” she had screamed in ecstasy. “We will make ourselves one hot fat fortune!”

  Whitejack had wasted no time in collecting Carrie and Lucille, his twenty-three suits, and assorted possessions, and moving in with Dolly, who lived in an apartment big enough for all of them.

  Carrie had not been pleased. “I thought we was settin’ up a house,” she had complained.

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” he had replied. “First we’ll try it Dolly’s way.”

  “Are you sharin’ that fat bitch’s bed?”

  “‘Course not.” He had stroked her hair. “What I wanna do a dumb thing like that for when I got a hot tasty chicken like you?” Whores. Sixteen or sixty. All the fuckin’ same.

  Whitejack gave Lucille a shove, and she bounced out from behind the curtain to join Carrie and Dolly.

  The roomful of men roared their approval. They were loosening up now. Tight-assed white mothers. Not a black face among them. Black men knew how to have a good time. They would never need shit like this to give them a kick.

  Whitejack watched Dolly. She was a real professional the way she worked the room. She was whipping them up to a frenzy strutting her stuff.

  Carrie and Lucille weren’t doing so good, but it didn’t matter. Once they got their clothes off no one would notice their miserable expressions.

  Whitejack yawned. He would have to get things sorted out with Dolly. She was not pleased that he had backed off sharing her big comfortable bedroom. “So why can’t you?” she had glowered. “That little piccaninny got exclusive rights all of a sudden?”

  “Only for a day or two, Big Mama,” he had explained. “Shee-it. I be back givin’ you what you want ’fore you even know it.”

  “You’d better,” she had snorted.

  He would just have to wean little Carrie off his red hot cock. That was the trouble, really. Once a woman had him she never wanted to let him go.

  The girls were starting to take off their clothes. Whitejack yawned again. Fancy paying five hundred dollars to see three sets of tit and ass and
some well-used pussy.

  Shee-it. There was no accounting for some people’s idea of a good time.

  Gino

  1928

  The Trenton, New Jersey, job having gone without a hitch, Bonnatti lost no time in putting more connections Gino and Aldo’s way.

  “We’re gonna hafta expand,” Gino told Aldo and Pinky Banana. “We gotta get more guys in with us.”

  Pinky Banana picked his nose. “I got plenty of guys I can bring in.”

  “Shitheads,” Gino snarled. “Their loyalty is up their asses.”

  “You don’t know that,” Pinky complained.

  “I’ll do the recruitin’,” Gino said. “Maybe I can get us a coupla good guys in San Francisco wanna come back east.”

  “When the frig you goin’ to Frisco?” Pinky Banana jeered.

  Gino rubbed his scar impatiently. “Soon,” he answered roughly. Any day he expected a reply from Leonora or her father. He was on tenterhooks waiting.

  “You bin sayin’ that for weeks,” Pinky Banana sneered. “Sure you’re not gettin’ a runaround?”

  “Listen, fuckhead. Gino Santangelo don’t get no runarounds.” He was up and glaring at Pinky Banana.

  Aldo’s watery eyes darted nervously between them. There was trouble brewing between these two, and any day now it was going to explode.

  Pinky Banana extracted his finger from his nose and examined what he had removed. “So what’s the friggin’ delay?”

  “There’s no delay, asshole.”

  Pinky Banana gave a maniacal giggle. “She give ya a runaround, you’re the asshole.”

  Aldo interrupted. “How long you goin’ to be in Frisco, Gino?”

  “I don’t know. A week or two.”

  “What about Enzio? Does he know?”

  “Fuck Enzio!” Gino exploded. “I don’t hafta report to fuckin’ Bonnatti every time I take a piss.”

  “You got his share. What happens if he comes inta town while you’re away an’ wants it?” Aldo asked anxiously.

  “So I’ll leave it with you.” Gino glared at them both. Couple of deadheads. Aldo, scared shitless of his own cousin. And Pinky Banana, a big dumb ox. “Listen, I gotta go,” he snapped. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He stamped out of the garage where they had been meeting and weaved and bobbed his way along the street. Leonora. What the heck was takin’ her so long to answer his letter? He had expected an instant reply. Fuckin’ instant. The delay was killing him.

  “Hello, Gino.”

  He glanced up, slowed down. “Hey, Cindy.”

  She didn’t look as chipper as usual. More sullen than saucy.

  He wanted to keep walking, but she had stopped and laid a hand on his arm. “How you doin’?” she asked.

  He bounced on the balls of his feet. “I’m doin’ good. You?” How come she wasn’t razzing him with her usual little sarcasms?

  “Not bad. Everything’s fine.” And as she said “fine” two great tears welled up in her eyes and rolled slowly down her rouged cheeks. “Oh, Gino,” she wailed, “I’m so unhappeeee!”

  He glanced around the street. People were lookin’ at them. “Jeeze, Cindy. Wassamatta with you?”

  She was sobbing now. “It’s Pinky,” she gurgled. “I want to leave him but I can’t. I got no money. I can’t go home. I hate him and I don’t know what to do. Please help me, Gino.”

  Please help me, Gino, This from a broad who had handed him nothin’ but smart answers and trouble from the moment he had set eyes on her. Little Cindy cock-tease, heroine of a thousand jerkoffs. He fingered the scar on his cheek and remembered how he got it. Her fault—and she had never given him so much as a thank-you. “Hey,” he said quickly, “calm down.”

  “You don’t know,” she muttered darkly, “just how desperate I am.”

  “Aw, come on, Cindy.”

  She squeezed his arm. “If you could just give me some money, I could get on a train an’ go away somewhere. You see”—she paused dramatically—”he’s told me if I leave him he’ll kill me.”

  He laughed aloud. “Crap!”

  Her sobs increased. “It’s true. He’s even shown me his gun. He says if he can’t have me nobody else will.”

  Drama on 110th Street at three o’clock in the afternoon. He shrugged. There was nothing he could do. Unless of course he gave her the money to get away.

  He licked his lips and studied the sobbing girl. She seemed to be on the level. Of course, this could be one of Pinky Banana’s stunts; he always had been fond of a practical joke, and Cindy Cock-tease would be only too delighted to go along with it. “Er, Cindy. Let me think about it.”

  Her tears stopped. “Oh, Gino, would you really?”

  He nodded.

  She sniffed loudly and searched her purse for a handkerchief. “I know I was a fool for getting involved with him in the first place. But he seemed so nice then…. And he treated me real good…. Y’know, presents and things. Of course”—she stared boldly at Gino,—“it was always you I really liked.”

  He snorted with laughter. “Come on, Cindy, y’don’t hafta flatter me.”

  Her eyes widened. “But it’s true, I swear it is!”

  “Sure. Listen, I gotta go.”

  She nodded, then pulled him very close. “I want to show you something,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “You’ll never believe this.” She continued to whisper. “I guess I’m scarred for life.” Delicately she held her blouse forward, partially exposing the top of her breasts. Gino peered in. It was certainly some eyeful.

  “Do you see the burn?”

  “What burn?” He peered more closely, and there, near her left nipple, was a vicious red mark.

  “He did it with a cigarette. I just wanted you to know the kind of things he does.”

  Dirty lowdown bastard. Just like lousy Paolo. “How much ya need?”

  “I don’t know, a few hundred. Would that be enough to get me out to California? I can get a job when I arrive.”

  Gino nodded.

  “We’ll be in Fat Larry’s tomorrow night. If you could give it to me then, I’d be able to leave the next day.”

  “You got it.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Thank you, Gino, you’re a real friend.”

  Costa’s train arrived in New York early on a Monday morning. Dr. and Mrs. Sydney Lanza were at Grand Central Station to meet him. They eyed him suspiciously at first, exchanging secret glances of surprise that he was so nice-looking and polite. After all, the whole family had been in an uproar when Franklin Zennocotti had decided to adopt a boy of such dubious background. But he seemed to be a fine well-mannered lad, and they took to him at once.

  Their house on Beekman Place was not luxurious, rather more middle-class than the Zennocotti residence. But there were still signs of money around: a table of silver frames, good paintings on the walls, and polished mahogany furniture.

  Dr. Lanza conducted his practice in one of the front rooms. An adjoining room did duty as a waiting area.

  “The doctor is a very busy man,” Mrs. Lanza confided to Costa as she showed him his room. “He toils hard, and enjoys the good work he does. Healing is God’s work, you know, and the gracious Almighty chooses his disciples carefully.”

  Franklin Zennocotti had forgotten to mention that the Lanzas were devoutly religious people.

  Costa nodded. “I’ll try not to get in anyone’s way.”

  “I’m sure you will observe our rules. Please attend to your own bedmaking each day. And be present at every mealtime punctually. The good doctor abhors lateness.”

  “Of course I will,” Costa replied quickly, “when I’m not out, that is. I have plans to explore the city. Visit art galleries and museums… that kind of thing.”

  Mrs. Lanza pursed thin lips. “I expect you to inform me of your plans the day before. This household cannot be disrupted by your comings and goings.??
?

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Lanza, I’m not going to disrupt anything.”

  She crossed her arms firmly across a flat bosom. “We can both be sure of that, young man.”

  Costa smiled weakly. Fourteen days of Mrs. Lanza was not the most pleasing of prospects. “I thought I might go out this afternoon,” he ventured.

  “Not today, Costa, if you don’t mind,” she responded crisply. “Meals are already planned, and this household has suffered enough confusion today by your very arrival.”

  “Sure, Mrs. Lanza. I understand.”

  But he didn’t. And he couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the Beekman Place house and find Gino.

  Mr. Pulaski said, “No reply yet?”

  Gino shook his head.

  The old man closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples. “The mails are very slow, very slow indeed. I should not worry.”

  “Who said I was worried?” Gino snapped, leaping up from the chair he was sitting on and pacing around the small room. “I just wonder if my letter got lost or somethin’ like that. Y’know, pops, I was thinkin’. Maybe I should just get on a train an’ go there.”

  The old man opened his eyes and gazed out of the window at the crowded street below. He had been out of bed for two days now and felt frightened of ever leaving his room again. So many people out there, waiting to take his money, his gold watch, maybe even his life….

  “Whaddya think, pops?” Gino questioned, standing in front of him, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Ya think I should do that?”

  Mr. Pulaski frowned. “Do what?”

  “Go to Frisco,” Gino blurted in an exasperated fashion. The old guy was gettin’ senile. The beating had knocked a lot of the stuffing out of him.

  “Perhaps you should wait another week or two,” Mr. Pulaski replied, once more catching the thread of the conversation. “But then again…” He stopped, having suddenly forgotten what he had been about to say.