Bloodline (62 page)

Even though they found it distasteful, the police’s murder investigation centered on Tommy for a few days, under the theory that he had made himself crazy with drugs and then killed his wife. But the physical evidence soon made it clear that Tommy had been a victim, too. The morphine had been injected in places Tommy could not have reached himself; there were signs that Rachel’s and Tommy’s mouths had been silenced with tape. Tommy’s head wounds, clearly not self-inflicted, were more evidence of unknown assailants, as was the sheer brutality of the vicious sexual attack on Rachel.

Sofia was not at the funeral, but Nilo came with Tina and stood with the Falcone family.

Later, he told Mario, “I don’t know who did this, but I’m going to find out. When I do, they are dead men.”

*   *   *

D
ESPITE A CONSTANT STRING
of needling newspaper stories from John F. X. Kinnair, after a few weeks the police gave up on the investigation. Lev Mishkin was still missing, and the detectives handling the case believed that perhaps he had been involved in Rachel’s murder. But on March 18, with the first glimmering of spring, Mishkin’s body was found in a landfill dumping ground near Yonkers. He had been shot six times at close range and had been dead for several months. The police went through the motions, then added Mishkin’s murder to that of his daughter in the unsolved file.

No one seemed to care, particularly Tommy Falcone, who was back at the convent of the Sisters of Quietude in Monticello, New York, ninety miles north of the city. He had been placed on leave of absence by the police department, and Mario had pulled some strings to get him admitted to the small convent hospital soon after Rachel’s murder, just in case his life was in danger.

Tommy lay in bed like a vegetable, able to talk but not wanting to, able to move but not caring to. One of the doctors who treated the nuns at the convent told Tony that his son had suffered a great emotional trauma.

“When’s he going to come out of it?” Tony asked on one of his visits.

“Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never,” the doctor said. “I’m sorry. There’s just too much that we don’t know. He’s in the right place. Prayers can help him as much as medicine.”

We don’t need prayers,
Tony thought.
Mario has enough prayers for all of us. We need a doctor who knows something.

The first time Tony had visited him, he had looked in on his son, then gone out into the hallway to weep. The life force had gone out of Tommy and he did not respond to questions or conversation.

When Tony got back to the city, he decided his retirement was over. Since putting in his papers, he had spent day after day sitting on his sofa, reading the newspaper, but now he was out of the house at dawn, often returning home only late at night. The police might give up on the investigation, but Tony vowed that he never would.

He went to see Captain Cochran and asked what Tommy had been working on that might have triggered mob retribution.

“If I tell you, you’re going to start looking into things,” Cochran said.

“Captain, even if you don’t tell me, I’m going to start looking.”

Finally, Cochran told him that Tommy had been particularly interested in the apparent murder of a garment district truck driver named Eddie Cole and in a man named Harry Birchevsky, who had worked for Mishkin’s union.

It was a starting place. Using his old gold badge for identification, Tony interviewed everyone who lived in Tommy’s apartment building several times over. Everybody who lived on the same block was grilled, as were deliverymen, mailmen, milkmen, cabdrivers—anyone who might have been on the street during the time of Rachel’s killing and who might have seen something, anything. All Tony got was two reports from people who had seen a stranger in the neighborhood, a husky, disheveled man they could not identify but who walked duckfooted.

With Lev Mishkin missing, his union was in a total state of confusion, but Tony was able to find out that Birchevsky was a husky, disheveled man who walked duckfooted. Tony knew that Lepke Buchalter, who was allied with Luciano, had been making inroads into the garment makers’ union. Had Luciano been behind Rachel’s killing? As far as he knew, Luciano had nothing against Tommy, but was it some kind of convoluted scheme to get at Tony, for Luciano to pay him back for the late-night ride that left the gangster scarred and bleeding on a Staten Island beach?

Would I have been better off killing the bastard, like O’Shaughnessy wanted to?
Tony wondered.

But he could not make himself buy that scenario. Even allowing for his belief that Luciano was the lowest form of scum, he did not believe the gang leader would have approved the brutal murder of a policeman’s wife.

There was also the question of Tommy being shot up with morphine. It was clearly an attempt to pin Rachel’s killing on him, but who would have known about Tommy’s wartime morphine addiction?

Finally, it was Tim O’Shaughnessy who gave him the tip. Tony met with his old partner one day for lunch, and O’Shaughnessy remembered telling Tommy that Harry Birchevsky and Nilo had been in Dannemora together.

Tony went back to the union and started hanging out in the small speakeasies near union headquarters, and after one long evening of too many beers, he heard from one of the drivers about the day that Lev had ordered Nilo Sesta and Harry Birchevsky thrown out of his office and down the stairs.

That same night, Tony showed up at Nilo’s apartment and rapped on the door. Nilo answered and said, in surprise, “Uncle Tony.”

“Don’t ‘Uncle’ me, you thug. I’ve got to talk to you.”

He brushed by Nilo into the apartment and stood in the center of the living room floor.

“All right, then talk,” Nilo said, turning back from the door.

Tony heard a sound behind him and saw Sofia coming out of one of the bedrooms, which was probably the nursery for their two children.

“Hello, Uncle Tony,” she said.

“I’ve got to talk to your husband,” Tony said.

Sofia shook her head. “We have no secrets.”

“Whatever you want. Nilo, Lev Mishkin threw you and his own organizer out of his office. What was that about?”

“Union business. How does it concern you?”

“Because Tommy was there and his wife’s been killed. Because Mishkin is missing. Because, dammit, I want to know why.” He held his hands, balled into fists, tightly at his sides, trying to hold his temper in check.

“Harry Birchevsky,” Nilo said.

“Yeah?”

“Harry and I were trying to organize the garment drivers. Mishkin didn’t like it.”

“Let me get this straight. This Birchevsky was Mishkin’s organizer, but he was working with you against Mishkin?”

“He liked me better,” Nilo said with a grin.

“I doubt that,” Tony said. “Where do I find this Birchevsky?”

“I don’t know,” Nilo said. “When Mishkin found out what we were doing, that was the end of our scheme. I haven’t talked to him since then.”

“You don’t know where he lives?”

Nilo shook his head. “We were never close.”

Sofia said, “If you’re thinking that Harry had something to do with Tommy’s poor wife…” She shook her head. “Harry wouldn’t do anything like that. He’s not that kind of man.”

Nilo glanced sharply at her as she spoke. Tony shook his head. “I’ll have to convince myself of that.”

“But you can’t—” Sofia started.

“I can,” Tony said. “Until I find out what happened.” He turned back to Nilo. “How’d you feel when Mishkin had you thrown down the stairs?” he asked.

“I wanted to kill the bastard,” Nilo said. “But I didn’t. And I certainly wouldn’t hurt Tommy or his wife.”

“For now, I’ll believe you. But whoever did it knew a lot about Tommy. It was somebody family-close,” Tony said. He walked toward the door.

“How is Tommy?” Nilo asked.

“He’ll live,” Tony said as he left.

When he had gone, Nilo went and stood before Sofia, who sat on the couch.

“‘Harry’?” he said. “What do you know about Harry Birchevsky?”

She shrugged. “I was only trying to help you.”

“Harry’s ‘not that kind of man’? How do you know that?”

“I don’t know anything,” Sofia said airily. “I was just talking.”

“You heard what Tony said. Whoever did this knew a lot about Tommy. Who knows more about him than you?”

“You’re not serious,” Sofia said, but she was unable to meet his eyes and looked down at the coffee table.

“I’m gonna find Harry myself. You better just hope that he doesn’t say you—”

“I
what
?” Sofia snapped. “Tried to protect my husband? Tried to protect my children’s future? I’ve worked hard for what we’ve got, as hard as you have. I’m not letting anybody take it away. Certainly not any of the Falcones. Not even you.”

“Jesus Christ, you did it, didn’t you? You got Tommy’s wife killed,” Nilo said. Sofia stared at him stolidly, then walked from the room.

• The war rolled on. Buster from Chicago continued his brutally efficient work. On February 26, in the Bronx, Gaetano “Tom” Reina, a Masseria boss, got frightened by all the violence and telephoned Nilo.
    
“I want to come over,” he said.
    
“Don Salvatore will be glad to have you on our side,” Nilo said politely.
    
“It has to be quiet until it’s done,” Reina cautioned.
    
“It will be,” Nilo promised.
    
Nilo waited until he was alone in the car with Maranzano and only his driver to let Salvatore know that Reina was ready to defect from the Masseria gang.
    
“Should I go talk to him?” Nilo asked.
    
“No. Remember, you are Danny Neill and no part of this. Just tell him to call me to set up a meeting. Tell him his deal will be better with me than it ever was with Joe the Stupid.”
    
Nilo nodded. Maranzano’s chauffeur just listened. Two hours later, Luciano got word and sent Vito Genovese to reason with Reina not to leave the side of Joe the Boss.
    
When Nilo tried to reach the Bronx boss later that night, the operator told him the telephone had been left off the hook. Reina’s body was found the next morning, clutching the telephone, three bullets in his head.
    
Genovese reported the results of his meeting to Luciano, before returning to his own club in Little Italy. After he left, Luciano told Lansky, “I hate that son of a bitch, but Vito Genovese is a good dog to have in a fight.”

• After the body of Lev Mishkin was found, Mario broke the news to Tommy. While Tommy’s body had healed and he was working at the convent as a handyman, his mind seemed, to Mario, to be damaged beyond repair. He took the news of Mishkin’s death with no emotion at all, as if he had never heard of the man. When Mario talked to him, Tommy was silent. It was not even clear that he knew Mario was his brother. He said few words, commenting mostly on the weather. He never questioned who Mario was or why he was there talking to him. It was as if he had lost his critical faculties, and Mario there and Mario not there were exactly the same to him. One of the priests who served Mass at the convent said that Tommy came to church every morning but seemed not to know the ritual, instead he sat awkwardly in a back pew, just watching.

• After the death of Gaetano Reina, Joe Valachi took Buster from Chicago across the river to Fort Lee, New Jersey, and pointed out to him a Masseria lieutenant named Peter Morello. Even in a business built on greed, Morello was exceptional, earning the nickname of “the Clutching Hand.” No one could rush Buster. He waited until the summer, until he was sure, and one evening went into Morello’s office, where he found the gangster and a visitor. Buster put two revolver rounds into Morello, but the Masseria man refused to fall. He staggered wildly about the room, and Buster, laughing aloud, began to practice fast draws with his gun, pegging occasional shots at Morello. Buster stopped to reload, and only after Morello had been hit six times did he drop to the floor. Buster walked to his body, fired another round into his head, then turned and wordlessly shot the office visitor, one Joe Pariano, who had only stopped by to return Morello’s car keys.

• The shooting of Morello brought even more of the Masseria gang into Maranzano’s tent. From Chicago came a pledge of five thousand dollars a week to Maranzano to finance the war. The money came from Joseph Aiello, who had taken advantage of Al Capone’s jail sentence to try to install himself as a leader of the Chicago mob. Capone, freshly released from jail after the Philadelphia gun charge, called Luciano to complain. “I done my time, Lucky, and you promised you was going to quiet things down, and I come out and everybody’s shooting everybody up again and I don’t know what’s going on.” Luciano replied, “I’m taking care of it, Alphonse.” Capone answered, “You do that, but I’m gonna take care of myself, too.”

*   *   *

I
N EARLY
A
UGUST,
Mario took a train upstate to visit his brother, Tommy. They went for a long walk in the green rolling Adirondack hills. Tommy had said nothing, and while they sat on a rock atop a hill overlooking a small valley, Mario wondered if the life Tommy faced was even worth living.
Would he be better dead?
he asked himself. He looked down at the forest floor teeming with life and death and wondered if Tommy would not be happier if he were lying there at the bottom of the hill, ready for the journey to meet God. He thought for a long time about it before he realized,
God will have to decide that. I can’t.

“Mario,” his brother said.

Startled to hear his brother call his name, Mario gasped, “Tommy?”

“Birchevsky.”

“Who?”

“Harry Birchevsky. Nilo’s friend. It was his voice I heard. He killed Rachel.”

“You have to tell the police,” Mario said.

Tommy had already started to his feet. “Sure,” he said.

*   *   *

“
I
T WILL NOT BE LONG,”
Maranzano said. “Every day, we hear from more of Masseria’s men, anxious to join. The war will soon be over. I think it is time to tell our friend from Chicago to hunt even bigger game.”