Although Sammy looked hopefully at Johnny wanting him to solve this problem, Johnny shrugged and finished his beer. He couldn't be bothered with Sammy's stupid problems. He had too many problems of his own.
"Please yourself." He slid off the stool. "Well, see you next Friday, Sammy."
"Do you think there'll be trouble?" Sammy asked fearfully as he followed Johnny out into the drizzle.
Johnny saw the naked fear in Sammy's big, black eyes. He smiled.
"No trouble. Not with me, Ernie and Toni with you. Take it easy, Sammy . . . nothing will happen."
Sammy watched him drive away, then he set off along the street towards his pad. Friday was a long way off, he told himself. $150,000! the Boss had said. Was there that much money in the world?
Nothing would happen
. He'd believe that when Friday was over.
Johnny Bianda unlocked the door of his two-room apartment. He moved into the big living room and paused to look around. He had lived in this apartment now for the past eight years. It wasn't much, but that didn't worry Johnny. At least it was comfortable, although shabby. There were two battered lounging chairs, a settee, a T.V. set, a table, four upright chairs and a faded carpet. Through the door opposite was a tiny bedroom that just took a double bed and a night table with a built-in closet. There was a shower and a loo off the bedroom.
He took off his jacket, loosened his tie and parked his .38 automatic, then pulling up a chair to the window, he sat down.
The noise from the street drifted up to him. Noise never bothered him. He lit a cigarette and stared through the dirty window pane at the apartment block without seeing it.
Sammy had been right in guessing he had something on his mind. This something had been on his mind now for the past eighteen months. It had begun to nag him on his fortieth birthday. After celebrating with his girl friend, Melanie Carelli, and when she had fallen asleep, he had lain in the darkness and had thought about his past and had tried to imagine what his future was going to be. Forty years old! The halfway mark . . . always provided he didn't have an accident, got lung cancer or stopped a bullet. Forty years old! His life half over!
He had thought of the years that had moved behind him. First, he thought of his mother who hadn't been able to read or write and who had worked herself to an early death to keep a roof over his head while his father who had been able to read but not write had slaved in a fruit-canning factory: two decent God-fearing Italian immigrants who had loved him and bad hoped for great things from him.
Just before she had died, his mother had given him her only possession: a silver St. Christopher medal on a silver chain that had been in her family for over a century.
"There's nothing more I can do for you now, Johnny," she had said. "Take this: wear it always: as long as you wear it nothing really bad can happen to you. Remember that. I've worn it all my life and nothing really bad has happened to me. It's been hard, but not really bad."
He had been superstitious enough to have worn the medal and even now as he sat by the window, he put his fingers inside his shirt to touch the medal.
Lying by the side of the gently breathing Melanie, he had thought of the years after his mother's death. He hadn't settled to anything. He had got tired of his father's constant nagging and had left home. Although only seventeen, he had got a job as a bartender in a dive in Jacksonville. There he associated with the wild boys, the little crooks and the petty con men. He had hooked up with Ferdie Ciano, a small time heist man. Together, they had pulled a number of jobs, mostly gas stations until the police caught up with them. Johnny did a twoyear stretch and that decided his fate. He came out of prison, educated in crime and sure that next time he wouldn't be caught. For a couple of years he worked solo as a stick-up man. The money hadn't amounted to anything but he was always hoping for something big. Then he ran into Ciano again who was now working for Joe Massino, an up and coming gangleader. Ciano took him along and Massino looked him over. He thought Johnny was made of the right material. He had been looking for a young, reliable man, good with a gun, to act as his bodyguard. Johnny knew little or nothing about guns. As a stick-up man he had used a toy pistol. This didn't bother Massino. He had Johnny trained. After three months, Johnny proved himself to be a top-class shot and during the years of Massino's rise to power, Johnny had killed three times, saving Massino's life each time from certain death. Now, he had been with Massino for the past twenty years. There were no more killings. Massino was firmly in the saddle. He not only controlled the Unions in this big town, but also the Numbers racket and there was no one powerful enough to challenge him. Johnny was no longer his bodyguard. He had been assigned to take care of Sammy when Sammy collected the money for the Numbers pay-off. Massino believed in having young men to protect him. Anyone over thirty-five was too old, too slow for protection.
Lying on the bed beside Melanie, Johnny had thought about all this and then turned his mind to his future. Forty years of age! If he didn't do something soon, it would be too late. In another two or three years, Massino would begin to think he was getting too old to guard Sammy. Then what? No golden handshake for Johnny . . . that was for sure. He would be offered a job, probably counting Union votes, running errands or some such god-awful thing. It would be the kiss-off. He had never been able to save money. His mouth had twisted into a wry grin as he remembered the advice he had given Sammy. Somehow his money bad slipped through his fingers: women, his fatal weakness for listening to any hard luck story and betting on horses that never showed. Money came and went, so he knew when Massino gave him the kiss-off he wouldn't have enough to live on the way he wanted to live nor to do what he had always longed to do.
Ever since he could remember, he had dreamed of owning a boat. When he was a kid he had spent all his spare time down at the harbour where the rich had their yachts and the fishermen their boats. The sea had pulled and still pulled him like a magnet. When he should have been at school, he was messing around in boats. He didn't care bow hard he worked or what he was paid so long as be was allowed on board. He scrubbed decks, polished brass and spliced ropes for nickels. He still thought back on that time when he was a kid: the best time of his life!
Lying in the dark, he again felt the compulsive urge to return to the sea, but not as a kid working for nickels and sweating his heart out just to feel the lift and fall of a deck under his feet. He wanted to return with his own boat: a sleek thirty-footer and he would charter her for fishing: going along as Captain with one crew—someone like Sammy: even Sammy.
The boat of his dreams would cost money: then there was the heavy fishing tackle and the first running expenses. He reckoned he would need at least $60,000.
He told himself he was crazy in the head to be thinking like that, but that didn't stop him thinking nor dreaming. Like an aching tooth, the dream of owning his own boat, feeling the surge of the sea nagged him for as long as he could remember and was nagging him now as he sat at the window.
A dream that could come true if he could lay his hands on a large sum of money.
Some six months ago an idea had dropped into his mind which he had immediately shied away from . . . shutting it away like a man who feels a sudden stabbing pain shuts away the thought of cancer. But the idea kept coming back. It even haunted his dreams until finally, he told himself an idea was just an idea: it could be looked at, couldn't it? There was no harm in looking at it, was there?
And when he began to look at it, he realized for the first time what it meant to be a loner. It would have been so much better, so much more reassuring if he had someone to discuss the idea with, but there was no one: no one he could trust. What was the use of talking about a thing like this with his only real solid friend: Sammy the Black? What use would Melanie be if he told her what was going on in his mind? She would hate the idea of the sea and a boat. She would think he had gone crazy. Even if his mother had been alive, he couldn't have talked to her about it. She would have been horrified. His father had been too dumb, too much of a slave, to discuss with him any goddamn thing.
So he had looked at this idea when he was alone as he was now beginning to look at it again while sitting at the window.
Simply stated, the idea was for him to steal the Numbers collection, but to justify the high risk, he had, he told himself, to wait patiently until the big take came along as he knew it must from his past experience as a collector.
And now here it was! February 29th! Something like $150,000! The big take!
If I'm going to do it, if I'm ever going to own that boat, Johnny thought, Friday 29th is D-day! With that kind of money, I can buy a good boat, have money over so if the fishing charter idea flops, it won't matter. With that kind of money and living carefully, I can last out until I die and still have the boat, the sea and nothing to worry about. I swear I'll kiss the horses good-bye. I might even kiss the chicks good-bye and I'll shut my ears to any future hard luck story!
Well, okay, he said to himself, as he settled his bulk more comfortably in the old lounging chair, so on Friday night of the 29th, you go ahead and take this money from Massino. You've thought about it long enough. You have made plans. You have even gone so far as to take an impression of the key of Andy's safe. You have gone even further than that: you have made a duplicate key from the impression that you know will open the safe. That was where those two years in jail had' paid off: you learned things like taking key impressions and making keys from the impressions.
He paused here to recall just how he had got the impression and tiny beads broke out of his forehead when he remembered the risk he had run.
The safe was a big hunk of old-fashioned metal that -stood in Andy's tiny office, facing the door. The safe had belonged to Massino's grandfather.
More than once, Johnny had heard Andy complain about the safe to Massino.
"You want something modern," Andy had said. "A kid could bust into this goddamn thing. Why not let me get rid of it and fix you with something modern?"
Johnny well remembered Massino's reply.
"That safe belonged to my grandfather. What was good enough for him is good enough for me. I'll tell you something: that safe is a symbol of my power. There's no one in this town who dare touch it except you and me. You put the take in there every Friday and everyone in this town knows the take will be there on Saturday morning for the pay out. Why? Because they know no one would have the guts to touch anything that belongs to me. That safe is as safe as my power . . . and let me tell you, my power is very safe!"
But Andy had tried again.
"I know all that, Mr. Joe," he had said while Johnny had listened, "but there might be some out-of-town nutter who couldn't resist trying. So why take a chance?"
Massino had stared at Andy, his eyes like little pools of ice.
"If anyone busts into that safe, I go after him," he said. "He wouldn't get far. Anyone who takes anything from me had better talk to a grave-digger . . . but they won't. There's no one dumb enough to try to take anything from me."
But Massino hedged his bets. He had done that most of his life and it had paid off. When the Numbers money was locked in the safe on Friday, he left Benno Bianco locked with the safe in Andy's office. Not that Benno was anything special. He had once been an up and coming welter-weight, but he hadn't got very far. He was pretty good with a gun and he looked tough: a lot tougher than he was. But that didn't matter. Benno came cheap. He hadn't cost Massino much and the suckers of the town were impressed by his battered face, the way he walked and spat on the sidewalk. They thought he was real tough and that was what Massino wanted them to think. With Benno locked in the office, with Massino's reputation and that great hunk of safe, the suckers who parted with their money felt sure that when they came to pay-out day, the money would be there, waiting for them.
Johnny knew all this. The opening of the safe and Benno presented no problem. He remembered what Massino had said:
No
one would have the guts to touch anything that belonged to me.
Well, Johnny was going to touch something that belonged to Massino. Guts? Probably not, but the urge to get his hands on such a sum, the smell of the sea, the dream of a beautiful thirty-footer added up to a lot more than guts. A grave-digger? There would be no grave-digger if his planning was right, Johnny told himself.
The big safe remained empty all the week. It was only on Friday that it was used. There was no combination; just a heavy oldfashioned key. During the months, Johnny, passing by Andy's open door, got to know the key was often left in the lock. On Friday when the take was put in the safe, Andy took the key home with him. Three times, long after midnight, Johnny had entered the building, gone up to Andy's office, picked the door lock and had hunted for the key. Third time lucky! On a Wednesday night, he had found the key in the safe. He had come prepared with a lump of softened putty. The impression had taken only a few seconds, but God! how he had sweated!
No one was ever allowed inside Andy's office. If someone wanted to speak to him that someone stayed in the doorway and did his talking but never crossed the threshold. Andy had a thing about this. The only exception was when Benno guarded the safe on Friday nights, then Andy would clear his desk, lock every drawer and generally behave as if vermin was invading his holy of holies.
It took Johnny three nights to make the key, then on the fourth night he returned to the building, again picking the door lock to Andy's office and tried out his handiwork. A touch with a file, a drop of oil and the key worked perfectly.
Taking the money was now easy. Even fixing Benno wasn't too tricky. It was what happened when Massino found he had been robbed that mattered.