Bloodline (12 page)

“Yes, sir. Can I help you?” the young woman said.

Awkwardly, Nilo stuck out his hand, holding Maranzano’s business card. The woman took it, looked at it, and smiled again.

“Yes?” she said.

Nilo was confused for a moment. He had not expected that he would have to do a lot of talking.

“I would like to see Don Salvatore,” he said.

The redhead nodded. Nilo found it hard not to look down into her cleavage. He was nervous about it, but he knew he must tell her that her dress had come undone.

“What is your name, please?” she asked.

“I am Nilo Sesta,” he said. Without realizing he was doing it, he stuck a forefinger inside the collar of his shirt and pulled it from side to side, trying to loosen the stranglehold the shirt had on his throat. He quickly added, “I am from the don’s home village in Sicily.”

“Well,
Mr.
Maranzano is not in yet,” she answered, stressing the “Mr.” as if to let the yokel know that in New York men were called “Mr.” and not “Don.” “If you wish to wait, you could sit over there,” she said, nodding to a row of chairs on the side of the room.

Nilo started to turn away, then looked back at the girl.

“Miss, I don’t want to be…”—he struggled for the word—“… rude.…”

“Yes?”

“Your dress … the buttons…” Nilo looked down helplessly at the woman’s cleavage. So did she.

She nodded, then opened another button and spread wider the two halves of the top of her dress. Nilo’s mouth dropped open; he beat a hasty retreat to the other side of the room, and he heard the young woman giggling derisively behind him. He sat and waited for Don Salvatore, casting occasional sideways glances at the young woman’s bosom, trying not to be noticed.

He had not slept with any American women. Tina had seemed to lose interest in him, and there was something wrong with her best friend, Sofia, who, although she was very beautiful, was cold and unapproachable. In truth, Nilo stood a little in awe of American women. They seemed always to be well dressed and highly perfumed, and their hair was always carefully combed—even the girls he saw on the street down in Little Italy—all of them so different from the girls and women of the little towns of his native Sicily.

But this one,
he thought,
is very different. She is a
puttana,
a whore, and if Don Salvatore favors me with a job I will climb between her legs and she will never again mock me. Unless of course, Don Salvatore himself is already crawling between her legs. In which case, of course, I will protect her virtue against all other assailants, as if she were the Blessed Virgin herself.

The thought must have brought a smile to his face, because the young woman caught his eye and asked, “Something’s funny?”

His months on a sailing ship had taught Nilo how to deal with whores. “Someday, when I think you’re ready, I will show you,” he said solemnly.

She smiled at him, a little more than was necessary. The young man was really cute, she thought, all nervous and sweating, but despite that, pretty to look at, a big improvement from the goons who hung around most of the day, trying to make time with her. She was sure he was looking for a job, and she hoped Maranzano would hire him.

*   *   *

S
ALVATORE
M
ARANZANO ARRIVED
at 10:30
A.M.
He moved into the lobby like an ocean liner flanked by two tugboats, they being the pin-striped men Nilo had seen the day before.

Nilo jumped to his feet and moved forward toward Maranzano, a smile set on his face, but one of the men blocked his way, and without even noticing Nilo, Maranzano walked quickly past him, the receptionist, and vanished through one of the rear office doors. The two men followed him in.

Nilo was confused, unhappy, and he looked toward the secretary, who said reassuringly, “In a minute or two, I’ll let him know you’re here.” She looked down at the appointment pad on her desk. “It’s Nilo Sesta?”

Nilo nodded, then added quickly, “Danilo. Maybe he remembers that name better.”

It was a full ten minutes—ten painful minutes that seemed an eternity to Nilo—before the buzzer rang at the receptionist’s desk. She stood, nodded toward Nilo, smoothed her dress out over her lush hips, moistened her lips with her tongue, and walked through the same door Maranzano had used.

Another ten minutes. Another eternity
. He will not remember me. He gives his business card to everyone he meets. I am just a peasant from the old country. Why should he care what happens to me? I will speak to him, and he will laugh in my face and throw me out into the street.

He was on the verge of running away, walking out onto the sidewalk and never looking back, when the woman returned.

“Will you follow me, please?” she said politely, and smiled at him again.

Nilo followed her through Maranzano’s office door, but it led just to another large office. It was simply furnished except for a large number of oil paintings on the wall. They all seemed to be landscapes or other pictures of places and things in America, and almost all of them seemed to be distorted, twisted. Nilo had never seen such paintings. At the end of the room, the two pinstripes, like bookends, sat on hard wooden chairs on either side of another doorway. They looked at Nilo as if he were a particularly uninviting bug that had wandered onto their dinner plates.

He followed the receptionist through the heavy oak door. Behind a gigantic wooden desk, pouring steaming tea from a delicate china pot, sat Salvatore Maranzano.

When Nilo entered, Maranzano rose, and with a large smile he came from behind the desk to greet the young man.

“My young friend. At last we meet again.”

He embraced Nilo, startling him with his vigor, and said over the other man’s shoulder, “That will be all, Betty. I’ll ring if I want you.”

“Yes, Mr. Maranzano,” the secretary said. Behind him, Nilo heard the door close as she left the office.

Maranzano looked different from the last time Nilo had seen him, dressed in a black cassock, at the palazzo near Castellammare del Golfo. Now he wore a sleek silk suit and looked like a prosperous banker. His voice was still soft, sweetly resonant, but his eyes remained wary and cautious.

Clothing changes,
Nilo thought.
But underneath, the man is always the same.

When he finally released Nilo from his embrace, the young man bowed to him, formally from the waist, and Maranzano waited patiently, accepting it as his due, until Nilo met his eyes again.

“Don Salvatore, I have come looking for work.”

Maranzano laughed. “Only in New York a few months and already you have learned the American lack of patience. No time for pleasantries. No time wasted on friendship.”

Nilo blushed and murmured an apology.

“Oh, I joke. Come, sit here by the desk. Have tea. Tell me what you have been doing since last we met.”

Maranzano poured tea for both of them. Nilo looked around for cream and sugar, saw none, and followed the older man’s lead in sipping the tea straight, unsweetened, from the cup.

It tastes like horsepiss,
he thought.
When I am rich, I will drink only cappuccino.

He smiled at Maranzano.

“Do you like the tea?” Maranzano asked.

“Very much.”

“I think it tastes like horse urine,” Maranzano said. “But rich Americans drink it and therefore we must learn to tolerate it. To make one’s way in a society, we must learn the ways of that society.”

Nilo nodded.

“Tell me, Nilo. Have you learned to read yet?”

“I am trying, sir. But no, not yet. Not well.”

“Good. I admire your honesty. A Roman virtue that seems lost in much of contemporary youth. What have you been doing?”

Glad for the opportunity to put down the teacup, Nilo told of his arrival in New York, his brief stay with his aunt and uncle, his job as a ditchdigger, and how he had quit when the foreman had insulted him. He thought it best, for the moment, not to tell Maranzano that his uncle Tony was a New York City police officer.

“A typical story,” Maranzano said. “I have heard it many times before.” He set down his own teacup. “And so now you want to work for me?”

Nilo nodded. “Yes, Don Salvatore.”

“You must learn to read. If you are to work for me. If you are to be a success in life.”

“I will do whatever you say, Don Salvatore.”

The old man nodded. “Perhaps you wonder why I should give you a job. What do you have to offer me?”

He looked at Nilo and waited, as if expecting an answer, and finally Nilo said, “Loyalty. I have nothing else.”

“You need nothing else,” Maranzano said exuberantly. “America is a powerful and growing country. By providing services that people want, we can become powerful, too. But when one becomes powerful, he finds he has many enemies—even people he has never met. It is in times like those that loyalty is in great demand. Trust me, Nilo. In life, surround yourself with family. All wise men know that.”

Nilo nodded, then said, “I am not of your family.” He was surprised to see Maranzano reflect for a moment before smiling broadly.

“Time will tell,” he said. “Do you have skills? Talents?”

Emboldened, Nilo said, “I am young and untrained.” He paused. “I know how to kill, however.”

“Ah, yes. Those evil fishermen. You have killed. And you think this interests me?” Maranzano said.

Nilo swallowed hard, then decided to risk it all. What had he to lose? He said crisply, “I had heard talk that an enemy of yours was killed yesterday. It happened soon after I saw those two men out there leave this office, carrying weapons.”

“Very good, Nilo. You keep your eyes open. That is also a virtue. And I presume you keep your mouth closed as well?”

“See all, speak nothing,” Nilo said. “My father taught me that.”

“Your father,” Maranzano repeated softly. “He has shown you the path to wisdom. And to long life.” He rose from behind his desk.

“Danilo,” he said, “I like you. You are just the kind of young man I want in this new organization. One day, you could even be its leader.”

“You will lead forever, Don Salvatore,” Nilo said.

“No man lives forever,” was the sad answer, “except in memory.” He came around the desk to stand in front of the young man. “As a fellow Castellammarese, are you willing to join with me?”

“I owe you my life. I will do anything my don wishes.”

“Many say that, but few perform. Tonight. Perhaps you can do a small favor for me. And then, afterward, we shall consider your future.”

*   *   *

I
T WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT
and Nilo was cold and scared. He stood in a darkened doorway, watching a tenement on the other side of White Street. The drizzle of the afternoon had turned into a sleety kind of rain, and Nilo pulled his big navy peacoat tighter around him. He felt the cold metallic touch against his thigh of the shotgun that was jammed down into his trouser leg. He had been here now for more than an hour, and in that time not one person had walked down the street. The weather was on his side, for often the streets teemed with people, even late at night. But it was too cold tonight for the Mediterranean blood.
We are not made for this weather,
Nilo thought.

He had felt elated after the morning’s interview with Salvatore Maranzano and had gone back to the Falcones’ apartment. Neither Tommy nor his father was there, but Mrs. Falcone had been cooking in the kitchen.

“Don’t you look like a million dollars?” she said.

“Tommy’s suit, Aunt Anna.”

“Yes, he said he lent it to you. So did your job hunting go well?”

“I think so, Aunt Anna. I’ll know more tomorrow.”

After Nilo changed his clothes, his aunt insisted upon feeding him.

Then she seemed to want to talk. “Do you miss your family?” she asked.

Nilo shrugged. “In a new country, I have not really had much time to miss them.” The truth was that Nilo hardly ever thought of his parents; America was bewildering enough to consume all his time.

Anna nodded agreement. “We cannot replace your family,” she said. “But we are always here for you.”

Nilo nodded, kept eating, and left quickly. He did not want to have to talk to Tommy or Uncle Tony about where he had been, what he had been told. Especially not Uncle Tony.

Now he was standing in the doorway in the cold and sleet. Time passed slowly, but finally all the lights in the basement—the place Nilo was watching—went out. Nilo waited another fifteen minutes, but no one came out of the building.

Good,
he thought.
They’ve gone to bed the way they’re supposed to.

He crossed the street. Taking a small glass cutter from his pocket, he sliced a half circle of glass from the panel in the door above the lock, the way Maranzano had shown him, carefully opened the door, and stepped inside.

He instantly smelled the distinctive yeasty aroma of fermentation. In a bakery or in his mother’s kitchen in Sicily, that aroma meant bread was baking; but here, in this basement, it meant that a still was busy cooking bootleg liquor—a still owned by the two Valenti brothers who had somehow offended Maranzano. Nilo guessed it meant that they were trying to cut in on his business.

Nilo’s job was to destroy the still. He hesitated inside the hallway. He knew that he was now at a crossroads in his life and the path he took would irrevocably dictate his future. He had no illusions. Back home, Don Salvatore Maranzano might be as respected as a nobleman, but here in America, he was a criminal. A successful criminal but a criminal nonetheless. If Nilo continued with this mission tonight, he would be a criminal, too. He would have cast his lot with Maranzano and whatever future that might bring. Nilo had spoken boldly to Maranzano, but those were only words, the words of a bragging child. Now he was being called on for deeds—the deeds of a man.

Could he do it? Did he want to do it? He thought of Maranzano and his palazzo with the beautiful woman and his fancy offices with the sluttish secretary and men ready to murder at his bidding. Then he thought of the others in America whom he knew—the Falcones. Uncle Tony working his whole life and just barely able to support his family. Tina with no money for music lessons. Tommy with no money to go to law school, even though he had almost died in the service of the United States. They all obeyed the stupid laws, and what had it gotten them?