“What if he’s not thinking of making us partners?” Angelo said, stopping the car and looking across at Pudge. “What if he’s planning to kill us? What do we do then?”
Pudge pointed over Angelo’s shoulder to a restaurant and smiled. “It’s a little late to be asking that of me now, Ang,” he said, “seeing as how we’re already here.”
• • •
GANGSTERS LIVE FOR the action. The closer to death, the nearer to the heated coil of the moment, the more alive they feel. Most would rather succumb to a barrage of bullets from a roomful of sworn enemies than to the debilitation of old age, dying the death of the feeble. A gangster becomes as addicted to the thrill of battle and the potential to die in the midst of it as he does to the more attractive lures in his path. In his world, the potential for death exists every day. The better gangsters don’t shy away from such a dreaded possibility but rather find comfort in its proximity.
“You’re born waiting for the bullet,” Pudge would say to me. “So when it does come, that second before it hits is not a surprise. You can’t survive, let alone be any good in this racket, if the idea of getting killed makes you nervous. You need that extra edge going into the room. The guns on the other end will be looking out for that fear. If they don’t see it, they hesitate and maybe that gives you the couple of seconds you need to make it out of there alive. I tell you, kid, if you want to make a killing in this business, you can’t ever be afraid to die.”
• • •
ANGELO AND PUDGE walked toward the restaurant, their heads up, their manner casual and relaxed. They were a two-man team working as one. They had learned to feed off each other’s strengths and hide their weaknesses from all other eyes. Angelo was quiet force where Pudge was all fire. Pudge was a hitter, walking into any situation and expecting nothing less than a showdown and a shoot-out. Angelo would balance his friend’s attack mode with a thoughtful sense of diplomacy, looking to convert yet another believer to their side. Their unique style had garnered attention from rival gangs and earned them the respect of a number of underworld bosses. As with any corporate structure, even one as primitive as 1920s organized crime, young talent was always in demand.
So it was as no surprise to either Angelo or Pudge when the call came from Danny Fanelli, a Jack Wells bodyguard, asking them to join their boss for an informal meeting. Wells was a short-tempered and ill-mannered thug who had motored swiftly through the criminal ranks. He held the butcher’s cut of all the action coming into and out of the Bronx and was looking with hungry eyes to expand into the other four boroughs, Manhattan in particular. He craved a chance at the nightclub and speakeasy money that Manhattan generated. But making a move into the most sophisticated borough meant taking on Angus McQueen, and Wells was savvy enough to know a blood war would be inevitable as well as risky. For two decades, McQueen had held on to his turf, beating back every threat and challenge. In order to take him down or at least cripple his power base, Wells looked to plant doubt into McQueen’s troops, make them think there was a dent in their boss’s thick shield. The first step to achieving that goal was to secure Angelo Vestieri and Pudge Nichols to his side.
• • •
“HELLO, MR. WELLS.” Angelo stretched across the dark booth in the rear of the empty restaurant to shake hands. “Thanks for asking us to come around.”
“Call me Jack.” Wells tightened his grip around Angelo’s hand.
“Business must not be so good,” Pudge said, gazing around at the empty tables. He glanced at the two gunmen still standing by the front door and the two others behind him, sitting in the corner, sipping coffee. “I hope you don’t have a piece of the action.”
“Why don’t you boys relax,” Wells said. “Maybe have a little something to eat.”
“What’s good here?” Pudge slid into the booth next to Angelo and across from Wells.
“The apple pie’s top-shelf,” Wells said. “And the milk’s farm fresh. It comes from a place I own up in the northeast Bronx.”
“I’ll try it,” Pudge said. “And a glass of milk with a scotch on the side.”
Wells nodded, his narrow eyes focusing on Pudge before they moved slowly over to Angelo. “How about you, kid?” he asked. “You want to give the pie a shot?”
“I’m not here to eat, Mr. Wells.” Angelo watched one of the men from the back lift the glass lid off the top of an apple pie platter, cut a thick slice and scoop it onto a plate, then walk the plate to the booth, sliding it across the counter to Pudge. “And I’m not much of a talker either. So why don’t you tell us what you want us to hear?”
Wells turned to one of the two goons at the back table and pointed down to his empty cup. He waited while one of them ambled over and gave him a hot refill. Wells lifted the cup, took two long gulps, then turned his attention back to Angelo and Pudge.
“I’m gonna make a move on McQueen,” Wells said. “By the time I’m through, I’ll be holding all his action.”
“Why are you telling us?” Angelo asked, his voice free of any emotion.
“I want you both to leave McQueen and come work for me,” Wells said. “I’ll pay you more and give you each a bigger cut from the clubs. When your boss goes down, you boys will have to work for somebody. Why can’t that somebody be me?”
“Angus hasn’t given us any reason to leave,” Pudge said. “Least none that I ever saw.”
Wells smiled and nodded. “You’re loyal to him,” he said. “I respect that. It goes a long way with a guy like me.”
“But you still want us to leave him and join up with you,” Angelo said. “Loyal or not.”
“Loyal doesn’t mean stupid. You have to be smart enough to know when it’s the right time to make your move. I’m here to tell you that time is now.”
“Thank you for your offer, Mr. Wells,” Angelo said.
“Forget the thank you. What’s your answer?”
“No.” Angelo’s face was a barren mask.
“That’s a big mistake, kid,” Wells said. “Things’ll only end bad for you if you leave this meeting and you’re not on my side.”
“Then things will end bad.” Angelo kept his hands folded in front of him.
“What about you?” Wells asked Pudge, tapping him on the arm.
“We came in together,” Pudge said, standing. “We go out together.”
“That’s it, then,” Wells said, watching Angelo ease out of the booth and adjust his jacket. “The meeting’s over. There’s nothing more for us to talk about.”
“There are two things you should know,” Pudge said, standing over Wells.
“And that’s what?” Wells asked, his manner now reduced to a low-boil anger.
“I never did get my drink,” Pudge said. “And your apple pie stinks.”
Angelo and Pudge walked out of the quiet restaurant, their backs to Wells and his four gunmen.
Behind them, an angry Jack Wells stared down at his empty coffee cup, his two hands balled into fists, violently punching the sides of his red-leather booth.
• • •
ANGELO WAS WALKING across Third Avenue, ignoring the uptown traffic and a light, misty rain, when he first saw Isabella Conforti. She was standing in a doorway next to an open-air fruit stand, an Italian language newspaper folded over her head. She wore a checkered red dress, a handwoven blue sweater and two-inch wood clogs. Her long brown hair only partially obscured a push-button nose, charcoal eyes and a magical smile. She scanned the street, her right foot tapping impatiently against the edge of the concrete entryway.
Angelo stopped in front of the fruit stand, selected two fresh peaches and handed them to the vendor. He watched as the small, muscular young man in a long-sleeved white shirt wrapped the peaches inside a single sheet of newspaper. Angelo handed him a five-dollar bill.
“The change is yours to keep,” Angelo said, “if you can tell me the name of the girl waiting in the doorway.”
The vendor held the five in his right hand and turned to look at the tenement. He came b
ack to Angelo and smiled. “Isabella,” he said, sliding the bill into the front pocket of his work pants.
“Do you know her family?” Angelo asked.
“You only asked for her name,” the vendor said.
Angelo stepped up closer. “And now I’m asking about her family.”
“Her father is a macellaio,” the vendor said, lowering his head and voice. “You know, how do you say it in English?”
“A butcher,” Angelo said.
“That’s it, butcher,” the vendor said, snapping his fingers and smiling. “He works downtown in the place where they kill the animals.”
“What about her mother?” Angelo asked.
“She died, maybe five years ago,” the vendor said. “She was sick for a very long time.”
“She have anybody else?” Angelo took the peaches from the vendor.
“A brother,” the vendor said. “Three, maybe four years younger. Nice boy and a hard worker. I use him sometimes to help clean up the store. Now you know all that I know and you have your peaches.”
“What’s your name?” Angelo asked, putting out his hand.
“Franco,” the vendor said, meeting Angelo’s firm grip with one of his own. “Franco Rasti.”
“Thank you, Franco,” Angelo said. He looked at the wet and gleaming racks of fruits and vegetables. “You have a good business here. I will buy from you again.”
“Two peaches for five dollars,” Franco said with a wide grin. “At those prices, I will bring the fruit to you.”
• • •
“WOULD YOU LIKE a peach, Isabella?” Angelo stood in front of her, the rain getting stronger, slapping at his back and shoulders.
“How do you know my name?” she asked in a voice soft as a cloud.
Up close, Isabella’s beauty was even more striking and the look of suspicion etched across her face only added to its allure.
“I paid Franco five dollars for these peaches,” Angelo said, ignoring the question. “Have you ever eaten a fruit which cost so much?”
“No.” She watched Angelo undo the newspaper wrapping and hand her a peach. “That’s because I have never met a man stupid enough to pay such a price.”
Angelo smiled as Isabella took the peach from his hand. “The stupid man is the one who keeps you waiting in the rain,” he said.
“My father would not like a stranger calling him stupid,” Isabella said. “Especially a young stranger who pays so much money for fruit.”
“And he would be right,” Angelo said. “I apologize. To you and to your father.”
Isabella smiled and tilted her head to one side. “It would be easier for me to accept an apology if I knew who it was from.”
“The wet fool before you is Angelo Vestieri,” he said.
The rain was coming down now in hard sheets, soaking through the back of Angelo’s jacket and pants. He lowered his head against its force, but kept his eyes locked on Isabella. He watched as she split the peach in half and pulled the pit from the core. They both smiled when she took a small bite, a pearl of juice hanging off her lower lip.
“And why are you here, Angelo Vestieri?” she asked, her early caution wiped away by the rain and Angelo’s warmth.
“I love the rain,” Angelo told her. “And I hate for a good piece of fruit to go to waste.”
“But when the rain stops and you have eaten your fruit, what will you do then?” Isabella’s face gleamed from the splashes of water bouncing off her cheeks and neck and Angelo thought her bright smile could melt a demon’s heart.
“I will still be hungry. So I will go and look for a place to eat.”
“Why not at home with your family?” Isabella bit off another chunk of the peach.
“I like to eat alone,” Angelo said. “In quiet restaurants.”
“My father and I are going to my aunt Nunzia’s for dinner,” Isabella said. “You can come with us if you like.”
“I would need to ask your father for permission.”
“That’s a good idea.” Isabella finished the last of the peach and broke out into a schoolgirl’s laugh. “That way, you’ll have something to say when my stupid father sees you and asks why a young man is standing in the rain talking to his daughter.”
“Where is he now?” Angelo asked, the cold wetness seeping through his jacket and shirt onto his skin.
“Right behind you,” Isabella said, pointing a finger past Angelo’s shoulder.
Angelo turned and faced a middle-aged man about his height, but carrying a hundred pounds more in weight and muscle. He was wearing a black striped shirt, its front turned dark by the rain, and a white bloodstained butcher’s smock. Angelo offered him the remaining peach.
“You won’t believe what I paid for it,” Angelo said.
“Was it worth it?” Giovanni Conforti asked, taking the piece of fruit.
“Every penny,” Angelo said.
6
* * *
Fall, 1925
THE OVERWEIGHT MAN in the soiled white shirt sat with his back pressed against the thick pillows of the cigar-colored couch. The room was small and sparsely furnished, littered with the remains of half-eaten meals and empty pints of back-door whiskey. Angelo, his hands inside his pants pockets, looked out the open window and stared down at a young couple walking into Charley Sutton’s East Side restaurant. Pudge was across the room, his fists resting on his hips, standing directly over the overweight man.
“I was gonna bring you the money,” Ralph Barcelli said, his voice a series of heavy rasps. “You know, save you guys a trip over here.”
Barcelli was a forty-year-old low-level drug dealer and numbers runner. He earned just enough to feed his hunger for whiskey, horses and underage girls. What he couldn’t earn he borrowed at exorbitant street rates, putting himself forever behind the financial eight ball.
“But you didn’t,” Pudge said. “You made us come and get it.”
“I had to go and make a run for Tony Faso,” Ralph said, a slight trembling of his lower lip betraying his fear. “If it weren’t for that bit of business, I would have done like I said. But I couldn’t be in two spots at the same time. You understand my position, right?”
“I don’t care where you went before we got here and I don’t care where you’re going after we leave,” Pudge said. “What I care about is seeing the money you owe me while I’m here.”
“You got no worries on that count,” Ralph said, scratching at a patch of gray-tinged stubble. “I got it all wrapped up for you, you know, like a birthday present. It’s in the little room in the back.”
Angelo looked away from the window. “I’ll get it,” he said, walking with his head down into the narrow corridor.
“You need for me to do anything, just ask,” Ralph said. He was blinking nervously as his sleepy brown eyes followed Angelo, bubbles of perspiration forming in circular patterns on top of his bald head.
“Sit there and shut up ought to cover your end,” Pudge said.
• • •
ANGELO OPENED THE door leading into the small back room and took a step back, thrown by the stench of dry urine and the sight of a young girl curled up under a soiled white sheet. Resting next to her, in a corner of the rumpled bed, was a shoe box with a nylon cord tied around it. Streaks of sunlight filtered in on long strings of dust lines through the glass of a closed window, its grimy shade rolled to the top.
Angelo walked into the room, stepped over to the bed and removed the sheet, tossing it to the floor. The girl didn’t flinch. She was naked except for a cream-colored blouse covering her rail-thin upper body. She stared up at him with eyes that were as clear as they were distant.
“What’s your name?” Angelo asked.
“Lisa,” the girl said in a fuller voice than the one he expected.
Angelo placed her at somewhere between fourteen and seventeen, the clear-skinned, soft-glazed brilliance of her years chewed up during the time she spent in the sour embrace of Ralph Barcelli. She was bone-frail,
her long brown hair hanging over her shoulders like thin strands of straw. Her sunken cheeks were ash-white.
“How old are you, Lisa?” Angelo asked, briefly distracted by the two empty pints of whiskey on the nightstand.
“How old I am depends on who you are,” Lisa said as she propped herself up on one elbow, her small breasts resting flat against her chest.
Angelo pulled a black pocket knife from his vest pocket, snapped it open and held it against his thigh. He sat down on the edge of the bed and cupped one hand across Lisa’s face.
“What is he to you?” Angelo asked, tilting his head toward the open door behind him.
“Who do you mean?” Lisa asked, her eyes moving from Angelo’s face to the six-inch knife he held in his hand. “Ralph? He’s just a friend. He gave me a place to stay when I needed one.”
“This place?” Angelo asked.
“I guess it ain’t much to the likes of you,” Lisa said. “But it’s a lot nicer than where I come from and a whole lot better than being on the street.”
“Do you have any family?” Angelo asked, removing his hand from the girl’s face.
“Family’s not what I would call them,” Lisa said with a shrug. “And living with Ralph may not be heaven, but it ain’t hell neither.”
“Where would heaven be for you?” Angelo asked.
Lisa smiled for the first time, the thin rays of sun bouncing off her tobacco-stained teeth. “A place where there’s a lot of pretty mountains,” she said. Her vacant eyes looked past Angelo, out toward the closed window. “I used to dream about a place like that all the time when I was little. I would see horses running loose and cold water coming down off the rocks. I don’t even know if there are places like it anywhere in the world. I just saw it in my dreams.”
Angelo lifted the knife, leaned across the bed and reached for the box. With one quick swipe, he sliced open the cord and jammed the blade back into its slot. He tossed aside the lid, reached inside and pulled out a handful of cash. He put the knife back in his vest pocket and began to count the money.
“Jesus Christ!” Lisa said. She sat up and stared down at the money in Angelo’s hands. “I never thought Ralph had that kind of money,” she said.