Bloodline (61 page)

“What crime?” she asked.

“Aaaah, somebody turned up missing in the union business. He’ll try to stick me with the guy’s murder.”

“If it happens,
then
it’s time to act,” Sofia said. “But not you. Somebody else must do it, so no suspicion falls on you.”

Nilo was silent a long time, finally lit a cigarette, and said, “I missed you while you were gone. You’re very smart, Sofia. I am happy you are my wife.”

And I am happy you are my husband, because I know better than you what your future will be and why it is so. And I will do anything to make it happen.

*   *   *

“
T
HESE CRAZY BASTARDS ARE KILLING
each other all over the streets.” Meyer Lansky was clearly outraged; he paced up and down the living room carpet in Luciano’s hotel suite. “We’re going to have to do something.”

“Yeah. What we got to do is make sure nobody kills us,” Luciano replied. He was wearing a silk bathrobe and sipping coffee at a small glass-topped table.

“Well, you didn’t do such a good job when you wound up in Staten Island,” Lansky snapped. “Next time maybe you’re not so lucky and you’re just a memory.”

“Meyer, relax. Have a cup of coffee.”

“I don’t like your goddamn Italian coffee.”

“Have American coffee. I’ll get some sent up.”

“I don’t want coffee.”

“All right. Then listen without coffee. First of all, we don’t have any worries with the cops or city hall. That’s taken care of. Second of all, I don’t care if Masseria and Maranzano are shooting at each other twenty-four hours a day. If it goes right, one of them will get hit. If he does, we’ll take care of the other one.”

“And suppose neither of them gets hit?”

“Then they’ll have everybody so disgusted with them that when we do what we have to do, nobody’s going to complain about it,” Luciano said. “You’re the one who told me you can’t rush history. Meyer, we’re making history.”

“I just don’t want to make the obituary pages.”

“It’s going just the way it should. You just be careful out on the street. How’s it going with the businesses?”

“We’re buying them up right and left. It’s like we own a business on every block in Manhattan.”

“Prices are right?”

Lansky grinned. “My Jewish landsmen are all in hock from the stock market. They’re selling for a song. We’re bigger than U.S. Steel.”

“Why not? We’re smarter than U.S. Steel.”

“I think I will have that coffee,” Lansky said. “What the hell, we probably own the coffee company.”

Luciano smiled. He knew that Lansky was not nearly so worked up as he had pretended to be but simply wanted to make sure that Luciano was aware of what was going on and had a plan to deal with it. But Lansky knew that asking a question like that directly would have been insulting to Luciano, so instead he launched into his tirade to get the information and at the same time to make Luciano feel leaderly.

Meyer is very clever. He will live a long time,
Luciano thought.

*   *   *

S
OFIA WENT TO VISIT HER MOTHER,
who insisted on taking her to Brooklyn to the graveyard where Matteo Mangini was buried. Although she had no desire to be part of a wailing graveside death scene, Sofia called Nilo, who sent a car and driver to take them to the cemetery.

The two women stood wordlessly by the grave for a long time.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Sofia said, because she felt she should say something.

“I’m not. He was a bastard.”

“I hated him,” Sofia said.

“Not as much as I did. I hated him before you were born.”

“It’s a nice grave anyway.”

“Better than he deserves. If it wasn’t for Father Mario, I would have just thrown him out in the street and let the garbagemen cart him away like a dead horse.”

They were silent again for long minutes, still staring at the grave.

Sofia said, “Most of these graves have flowers. Maybe we should have brought something.”

“I did bring something for his grave,” Mrs. Mangini said. She hocked and spat. “Now you.”

Sofia spat, too.

“Hell’s too good for you, you son of a bitch. Good-bye and good riddance,” her mother said.

“Come on, Mama, I’ll take you home.” She smiled. “So we can grieve.”

“Anisette. A little anisette will make the grieving go better.”

Sofia got home late in the afternoon, and the telephone rang almost immediately.

A male voice asked for Nilo. When she said he was not home, the man said, “This is his friend, Harry. Do you know where he is?”

“I think he’s out of town today.”

“Give him a message. Tell him I called and said that the cops fished some truck driver out of the river.”

Sofia thought quickly, then said, “Harry, I think you ought to come up here and talk to me.”

“When?”

“Now.”

*   *   *

T
OMMY HAD BEEN IN HIS POLICE OFFICE
when the report came that the body found on a straggly piece of beach across the river in Jersey City had been identified as Eddie Cole. The truck driver had been shot in the head.

The detective Tommy had assigned to the case had not been able to find out where Cole had gone when he left the speakeasy where he had been drinking with Tommy. “Look again,” Tommy told him. “Somebody had to see something. Get a picture of Cole. Hang out on the street late at night. See if anybody wanders by and show them the picture. Somebody saw something.”

He himself could place Cole in the speakeasy with Harry Birchevsky. He had overheard the men arguing and heard Cole threaten to go to Lev Mishkin. But when Tommy left the bar, Cole was still there, still alive. He needed one more piece of evidence to grab Birchevsky for Cole’s murder.
And if I get Birchevsky, he will give up Nilo.

*   *   *

S
OFIA SENT THE NURSE OUTSIDE
with the children. When the doorman buzzed her, she answered, then stood by the door and straightened her hair. She unbuttoned her blouse just one button more than modesty allowed and looked in the mirror behind the flower-filled lavabo. If she leaned forward just so …

She was satisfied and opened the door.

“Hello, Harry,” she said.

She leaned forward as if to pluck a piece of lint from her skirt, careful to keep her eyes modestly averted. When she looked up, Harry was staring at her bosom.

“You’re looking beautiful,” he said. “Nilo’s very lucky.”

“Come on in. Nilo’s told me about this problem with the driver, but sometimes I don’t think he’s hard enough to deal with it.” She shut the door behind him. “I think it’s important for a man to be hard sometimes, don’t you?”

*   *   *

T
OMMY
F
ALCONE ROLLED OVER
in his sleep and reached out for his wife. She was gone. A flash of panic struck through him and he came instantly awake. The illuminated clock dial read 3:00
A.M.

He got up from bed and went out to find Rachel sitting on the sofa, sipping tea, staring at a partially finished painting on an easel.

“Can’t sleep?” Tommy asked.

“Something like that,” she said with a smile. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh, God, not that again,” Tommy said with a mock groan as he sat next to her.

“Quiet,
paisan.
I’ve been thinking that I’m a terrible painter. Look at this thing.” She gestured toward the oil painting, the face of a woman so hideously distorted that it looked as if the woman had been made of wax and was melting.

“I like it. It has a style all its own,” Tommy said.

“You hate it. I see you grimace every time you walk past it.”

“That obvious, huh?”

“I read you like a book, buddy. Anyway, I’m going to put the paints away and get a job.”

“What kind of a job?”

“I don’t know. I thought I might become a streetwalker out by the docks in Brooklyn. I don’t know what kind of a job, you nitwit. Some kind of job.”

“I don’t want you being a waitress or anything like that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want people yelling at you. And anyway, you’re always spilling things. You’d be a terrible waitress.”

“Well, just for your information, Jewish girls don’t become waitresses. We start at the top. Sewing clothes in an attic or something.”

“You can’t sew, either,” Tommy said.

“Stop being so literal. That’s just an example.”

“I’ve got it. You can be my sex slave.”

Rachel turned toward him and murmured, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” She kissed him hard and Tommy wrapped his arms around her before Rachel pulled away, stood, and led him back to bed.

“I’ll be glad when you’re usable again,” he said.

“No more than me.”

She turned on her side, and Tommy thought he could hear her breathing take on the rhythms of sleep. He began to doze off.

“Tommy,” she said suddenly. “I can’t sleep.”

“Try harder.”

“I was wondering if you’d be interested in a bit of sexual perversity,” she said.

“Anything’s better than thinking of you trying to be a waitress.”

She punched him playfully in the arm, then slipped her head under the covers. Afterward, they lay together in each other’s arms.

“I kind of liked that,” she said.

“I’m not sure if I did,” Tommy said. “You’ll have to do it a couple thousand more times before I’ll be able to make up my mind.”

She laughed and they fell asleep.

He was never certain what happened next. He was awake for only an instant. He thought he caught sight of a male figure in the dark bedroom, and then he saw flashing light as something clubbed him on the side of the head.

Every time he struggled back toward consciousness he was hit again. He heard Rachel cry once and then her cries were muffled. He tried to yell, but there was something across his mouth. He felt a needle sting his arm and he went into a deep sleep. Later, he felt the needle sting again. And then he felt nothing.

*   *   *

A
LL THE HOLIDAY SERVICES
and the New Year’s celebrations and his extra duties as assistant pastor had taken a lot out of Mario, and when his mother had seen him after Mass on Sunday, she had told him he looked like an Irisher and ordered him to come for dinner.

Now he sat at the kitchen table reading the paper while his mother fussed at the stove. “Look at the time,” she said. “It’s nearly six thirty. Tommy and Rachel were supposed to be here an hour ago. Dinner will be ruined.”

“Your dinner is never ruined, Mama.”

“It’s just not like them not to call if they’re going to be late.”

Mario laughed. “You worry too much.”

“For this wisdom, we sent you to seminary?”

The telephone rang.

“See?” called Tony, who was buried behind a cloud of smoke in the living room, reading the sports pages. Since he had retired, he was now permitted to smoke inside the house, especially since he often seemed to be in a dark, self-pitying mood and sometimes did not leave his seat on the sofa for hours on end. “That’s them calling now. I bet they just forgot the time.”

Anna answered the kitchen phone and when she hung up turned to Mario with a worried look.

“It was Tommy’s office. They were wondering if he was here.”

Mario nodded and rose. “Well, nothing to worry about, Mama. I think while we’re waiting, I’ll take a little walk before dinner.”

“I think I’ll join you,” Tony said. He vanished into the bedroom, and when he came back, Mario saw his police revolver under his jacket.

“We’ll be right back, Anna,” Tony said.

*   *   *

M
ARIO POUNDED ON THE DOOR
for a full thirty seconds, but no one answered, and finally Tony shoved him aside and slammed the heel of his shoe into the door below the knob. The door quivered and swung open.

Tommy was standing by the window in his pajamas looking out into the street. He did not even turn when his father and brother broke in.

“Tommy,” Mario called, and ran to his side.

His brother did not move. He simply stared forward.

“It’s all right, Tommy. We’re here now,” Mario said. He moved alongside so he could see his brother’s eyes. He had seen them like that before, thirteen years before, in that hospital in France.

Tony walked through the open bedroom door. Mario heard him groan, and even as he held Tommy, he turned toward the bedroom.

His father had tears in his eyes. He walked leadenly toward Mario. “She’s dead,” he whispered. “Rachel.”

“Rachel’s dead,” Tommy echoed in a hollow voice.

“Help your son,” Mario told Tony.

“You don’t want to go in there,” Tony said.

“I have to.”

Rachel was lying naked in bed. Her face had turned ash-dark and her tongue was sticking out like a lizard’s. Her lips were drawn back in a corpse’s rictal grin.

Mario pulled the bloody cover up over her and knelt at the bedside. He did not have his oils for the formal saying of the extreme unction sacrament, but he blessed her without it. He was not sure if she would have wanted it, but unbeknownst to Tommy or her father, she had talked to him and Tina often in the past few weeks about converting to Catholicism. The sacrament would do her soul no harm, he thought.

As he prayed, the tears coursed down his face.

*   *   *

A
YOUNG PRIEST WAS CALLED
in to take over Mario’s parish duties so he could attend to his family, but still those winter weeks early in 1930 were nothing but a blur.

Tony had gone to tell Lev Mishkin of the tragedy, but Mishkin could not be found. As day passed into day, he was not seen or heard from. In the absence of any known relatives, Mario took over responsibility for Rachel’s burial, and he shared with a rabbi the prayers at her grave.

Tommy was not at the funeral. Detoxification had been the easiest part. His body had been shot up with enough morphine to kill him, but much of it did not enter his bloodstream, and it was not over a long-enough period to addict him again.

But he had simply lost his mind. He lay in St. Vincent’s Hospital, motionless, wordless, oblivious. The family kept up a vigil at his bedside, taking turns, talking to him during all his waking hours, but they might just as well not have been there. Tommy responded to no stimulus; he merely stared at the ceiling.