• • •
THE NIGHT OF the Vespers was the most violent twelve hours in mob history. It was a story I would always ask to be told when I was a child. It was better than any bedtime tale I could find in a book, because its bold power and cold-blooded precision were all true and not bred from any imagination. In the days prior to the night in question, Angelo and Pudge, young, brilliant and brutal, were ranked in the second tier of the nation’s criminal elite as ordained by the National Commission. The men on the list above them, spread out as far west as Chicago and Cleveland, but mostly centered in New York and New Jersey, ran crime on a day-to-day-basis. Their rulings were law and were meant to be followed. All the men were older and far more experienced in the ways of the racket business. It would take decades for Angelo and Pudge to move up the corporate criminal ladder in order for them to be in a position where their decisions were the final ones.
Neither one was willing to wait.
“We picked from the top thirty shooters in the country,” Angelo said in a tone more common to a Wall Street takeover. “Gave them each a job and paid them in full before the hit was made. One contact, one meeting. It was made clear to them that if they failed, they, too, would die. Me and Pudge split the other nine. Then we moved out to do what we do best. By the next morning, I was ranked number one and Pudge was number two and we didn’t have to wait for anybody anymore. We were now in charge.”
Among the nine killings attributed to Angelo and Pudge were two men, Tony Rivisi and Freddy Meyers, who once worked as killers for Jack Wells and moved up to Buffalo after his death. Within a year, they ran most of the action coming out of upstate New York and were ranked in the mid-thirties by the commission. The mob rumor mill had always linked their names to Isabella’s shooting. “Angelo never said if they were the wheel men or not and I never asked,” Pudge told me. “But he made it very clear that those two belonged to him. And he killed them as if it meant something to him. They were both found in a downtown slaughterhouse, a hook shoved into the back of their necks, their bodies gutted like a cow’s, their eyes taken out. That last thing was an Italian superstition that meant they would never find their way to peace after they died. And if they were part of the team that led to Isabella’s death, they more than earned their pain.”
• • •
I SAT IN the bar, ate everything they put in front of me and watched the Yankees lose the seventh game of the World Series to Bob Gibson. I pushed my chair back and gathered my books, ready to leave and walk back to the reality of my world. I checked the clock above the bar and saw that it was already ten minutes past the time the Websters liked to sit down to eat their dinner, something that was sure to agitate them both. They were as dependable as a sunrise, eating all three of their meals at the same time each and every day, never veering from their routine. I had been living with them for three weeks and this would be their first meal without me since my arrival.
A muscular older man with thick forearms and a relaxed smile walked up to the table carrying a blueberry pie. “You’re not gonna leave without having dessert, are you?” He rested the pie on the center of the table and raised two fingers to a man sitting with his back to the bar. “Tommy’ll bring us over a couple of forks,” he said. “You should have at least a taste. It’s a fresh pie. Just took it out of the oven.”
“I’m going to be late for dinner,” I said, glancing down at the empty platter and soup bowl that was on the table.
“Seems to me you just had your dinner,” the man said, gently pushing back a chair with his foot and sitting down. “And besides, if you’re already late, the worst you can be is later. Tell you what? I’ll even toss in a fresh cup of coffee, help you wash down the pie. Now I know nobody is gonna make you a better offer than that. At least not today they won’t.”
I smiled at him, pushed my chair closer to the edge of the table and sat back down. Tommy from the bar came over and handed him two forks. “You want plates with that?” he asked.
“No,” he said to Tommy, shaking his head. “We’re good as is.”
He handed me one of the forks and looked down at the pie. “Time to dig in,” he said. “And let’s not be shy about it.”
He cut at the pie with his fork, broke away a large chunk and jammed it into his mouth. He looked across the table and motioned for me to do the same, watching with approval as I repeated his move. Tommy came back, this time carrying a small tray that had a pot of coffee and two cups on it. He placed the tray next to the pie and walked back to his seat at the bar. The man lifted the hot pot by its black handle, filled the two cups and pushed one toward me. “Milk and sugar are up by the bar,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Go up and help yourself.”
“I’ve never had coffee before,” I said. “This is my first cup.”
“Then get used to drinking it black,” the man said. “The less you need in life, the better off you’re gonna find yourself.”
I sipped my coffee, the bitter taste coating my tongue and warming my throat, and watched as he drained his cup with three fast gulps. “What do they call you?” he asked, brushing the empty cup off to one side of the table.
“My name’s Gabe,” I said, holding the cup away from my face.
“Pudge,” he said, thrusting a thick hand across the table for me to shake. “Pudge Nichols.”
I shook his hand and watched as my fingers disappeared inside his formidable grip. He was dressed in charcoal gray slacks and a black V-neck sweater, the collar of a crisp white T-shirt visible underneath. His thick hair was as white as fresh vanilla ice cream and he had a half-moon scar just below his left eye. He wore no jewelry and kept his watch around a belt loop on his pants. Pudge was sixty-one when we first met, but had the upper body of a ranking middleweight, his muscles flexing whether he was at rest or moving with graceful ease across a room.
“Are you the owner?” I speared another piece of pie and looked around at the well-kept bar.
“I’m one of them.” He leaned back against his chair, his hands flat on the surface of the table. “The other one is the tall quiet guy who let you in to watch the game.”
“He never told me his name.”
“If that’s something he wants you to know,” Pudge said, “then he’ll be the one to tell you.”
“I should get going,” I said, pushing my chair back. “It’s pretty dark out now and the people I live with might start to think that something happened to me.”
“You need somebody to walk home with you?” Pudge stood next to me, his hands at rest by his side. “Have them back up your story, just in case things start to look like they’re gonna get out of hand?”
“Thanks anyway,” I said, shaking my head. “They won’t care enough to be asking me lots of questions.”
“Does that bother you?” Pudge asked as he walked with me toward the front door of the bar.
I stopped at the door and opened it, letting the cold autumn night air rush in and mix with the stale odors of the bar. I thought about what he’d asked, then turned back to look at him when I had the answer. “Not yet,” I said.
Pudge nodded at me and turned away, the door closing slowly behind him. I stood outside the bar for several minutes, my eyes closed, a smile on my lips, savoring the final seconds of a day I knew I would never forget. I then lifted the collar of my jacket, lowered my head and began the slow walk back to a place I knew I didn’t belong.
• • •
FOR THE NEXT several weeks, I made it a point to walk past the bar on my way home from school each afternoon. I stood on the opposite corner and tried my best not to be noticed, content to watch the quiet comings and goings of bar activity. I was hooked after just that one memorable afternoon. In a youthful imagination charged by living most of my life in isolation, the importance of that day took on a greater significance than it would have for another boy who came to it from a more normal background. It was the first time I had been treated as an equal by any adult. Instead of entering into a
strange place as an intruder, I was made to feel wanted as well as welcomed. Such feelings are a rare treat for a foster child.
I had lived my life as an outsider, forced to look at my limited view of the world through other people’s windows. I was too young to know it at the time, but gangsters live their life pretty much in the same manner. The only difference is that they choose to close off the outside world, content to live within the spaces they have designated as their own. And they very seldom allow a civilian a peek through the glass. For one brief and glorious afternoon, I had been allowed such a peek.
I had been leaning against the lamppost for over an hour when the first drops of rain began to fall. I looked up at the dark clouds overhead and, after taking one final look at the bar, turned to leave. I was walking alongside a row of parked cars, my head down, dreading yet another dreary night that lay ahead, an uncomfortable evening of stolen glances, heavy sighs and forced chatter between myself and my foster parents. With the rain coming down harder, wetting through the shoulders of my windbreaker, I knew my time with my new family would be a short one and that eventually my fear of living in an orphanage would become a reality. I walked past the red taillights of a black Lincoln Continental, the lines of water running down the sides of the trunk and rear fenders giving it a glow, reflected in the glare of an all-night diner across the way. I was about to come up to the driver’s side door when it swung open, blocking my path.
I stopped and turned to look inside, the car’s interior lights illuminating the face of the tall man behind the wheel, casting him in half shadows, but not enough that I didn’t recognize him. He was the same man who had led me into the bar that day to eat a meal and see a baseball game. He looked up at me, one leg outside of the car, his foot hugging the edge of the curb. His eyes were the color of night and his hands were resting on the bottom of the steering wheel as he watched the water run down my face and the sides of my neck.
“If you’re going to spend most of your time on the street, an umbrella wouldn’t be that bad of an idea,” he said.
“I don’t mind the rain all that much,” I said. “And anyway, I don’t live too far from here.”
He eased his leg back inside the car. “In that case, I don’t need to offer you a ride.”
I shook my head. “You never did tell me your name,” I said. “That day you let me into your bar.”
“You never asked for it.” His eyes scanned the rearview mirror for any visible activity behind him. “If you had, I would have told you to call me Angelo.”
“If I don’t move soon, I might drown out here. And I’m getting the inside of your car wet, which can’t be making you too happy.”
“It’s not my car,” he said, ignoring the water dripping off the top of the door onto the interior. “But before you go, I want you to do something for me.”
“What?” I leaned in closer to better hear his low voice against the sound of the rain.
“Tell the people you live with that you’ll be home very late Monday night. Tell them you’ll be out with me and for them not to worry.”
He slammed the door shut and kicked over the engine. He flicked on the headlights and pulled out of the parking spot, his tires denting the center of the flowing curbside puddles. I watched the car brake at the corner, make a sharp right and disappear from sight. I was soaked through from head to socks and had begun to shiver. I walked down the four quiet, poorly lit streets back to my foster parent’s apartment building, giving up the losing battle to shield myself from the downpour. I knew that when I got inside, the lights would be out and they would both be locked silently behind their closed bedroom door. There would be a cold meal waiting for me on the small kitchen table and maybe a hand towel draped over the back of a chair. I would take off my clothes in the hall and leave them there in a wet heap, so as not to have a heavy water trail follow me through the apartment. I’d lock the door behind me, rush into my room in the rear and jump into bed, drying my body and trying to get warm as I huddled under a double layer of thin white sheet and thick quilt blanket.
I also knew that on this night, I would fall asleep with a smile on my face.
• • •
MOST GANGSTERS NEVER live long enough to see retirement or prison, and if they’re lucky, they don’t see the bullets that seal their early doom. But the ones who were smarter and more brutal were often the ones to live long enough to see the late-day sun. Carlo Sandulli ruled his New York crew until his death from a heart ailment at eighty-five. In his entire life he never once used a telephone and stayed clear of the modern-day habit of doing business out of social clubs, which were under the vigilant eye of federal agents. Giacamo Vandini gave orders through nods and hand gestures, the death of an enemy decided by the flipping of a palm. Chicago crime legend Jerry Maccadro ruled with a Roman fist until his mid-eighties, defiant to his final breath. “It takes a lot to make it to old age in the rackets,” Angelo said. “You need good luck when it comes to your health and you have to be smart about how you go about your life. You also have to make sure all your enemies end up in cemeteries. The older you get, the deadlier you have to be and you use age to your advantage. You make it a strength. Most of us are more dangerous the longer we live. If we didn’t care about dying when we were young, we’re not going to be too concerned about it when we have two feet in our own grave.”
Pudge had matured, softened with age. He was a rare gangster, one who never married or sought out the comforts of family. He enjoyed his life, the freedom and power it afforded him. His reputation in mob circles was still fierce and deadly enough that few dared challenge him. He was still quick to kill and just as quick to charm. He had grown into a favorite uncle who was warmly welcomed by those whose path he crossed.
A favorite uncle who also happened to be a remorseless killer.
Through the years, Angelo had shuttered his small world even tighter, limiting his contact to just a handful of those he trusted. He now reigned over an organized crime universe changing with the times, forced to confront younger members eager to embrace the lucrative allure of drugs. He knew only one way to calm such a desire. He and Pudge were the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of gangsters, still in the game years after most other players had either retired or died, and still sharp enough to lead their world in hits.
• • •
GORILLA MONSOON HAD Johnny Valentine in a headlock, stomping his large foot on the ring mat each time he tightened his grip. The packed house inside Madison Square Garden booed Monsoon as he sneered at them, mocking Valentine’s meager attempts to pin him. I was sitting in the center of the front row, facing the middle of the large ring, wedged in between Angelo and Pudge. I had a container of popcorn on my lap and a Coke in a paper cup next to my right foot.
“You think Monsoon’s going to be able to take him?” I asked them, keeping my eyes focused on the action above me.
“You talking about real life, then it’s not even worth the question,” Pudge said with a shrug. “But inside of that ring up there, there’s no way they’re gonna let Monsoon leave here with his arm raised.”
I turned away from a vicious-sounding Monsoon body slam to the mat and looked at Pudge, Valentine flat on his back grimacing in pain. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Are you saying the match is rigged?”
“This is wrestling, little man,” Pudge said. “It’s supposed to be rigged. They have it all worked out even before they slip on their trunks. Everybody’s in on it, from the referees to the crowd.”
I looked around me at the nine thousand men, women and children, most of them standing up from their seats, screaming out words of encouragement to their favorite wrestler, booing when a move or a call didn’t go their way, and then came back to Pudge. “What about them?” I asked him, pointing at the rows across from the ring. “Do they all know, too?”
“Everybody knows,” Pudge said. “And if they don’t, they should.”
“Doesn’t that take away from the fun?” I asked.
&n
bsp; Pudge shook his head, continuing with the life lesson, one that was similar in setting to the early schooling given them many years ago by Angus McQueen. “Why should it?” he asked. “You still root for the good guys, boo the bad ones and go back home having had yourself a good time.”
I looked up and saw Johnny Valentine swing Gorilla Monsoon off the center ropes, then catch him, squeezing his arms around the much bigger man’s waist, locking his fingers across his spine, forcing him to tilt his head back in pain. The house cheered its approval as Valentine’s seemingly powerful hold forced Monsoon’s knees to buckle and his lungs scream for air, his bulky arms hanging limply by his side. The referee lifted one of Monsoon’s arms and watched as it fell back down like an airless balloon. He did it a second time with the same result. A third time would officially bring the match to an end.
“Looks like it’s all over,” I said, holding a handful of popcorn. “The big guy looks like he’s going to faint.”
“It’s too early for it to end,” Angelo said with a casual indifference. “They haven’t given the crowd enough for their money yet. When they do, that’s when it will be over.”
“And then who’ll win?” I looked over at Angelo, the popcorn crammed into a corner of my mouth.
He looked back at me, his eyes cold and distant. “It doesn’t matter who wins. If Valentine wins, the crowd goes home happy. If Monsoon wins they get upset. But by next week they’re back rooting and yelling as loud as ever.”
“That’s the only thing that counts,” Pudge added. “That they come back every week.”