The Family Corleone (7 page)

Sonny took the route they had planned, and in a few minutes he was driving along Rockaway Parkway in light traffic, followed by Cork—and that was it. The shooting part was over. Sonny said to Nico, “You see Stevie get in the truck?”

“Sure,” Nico said, “and I seen him shootin’ up the dock.”

“Looks like nobody got a scratch.”

“The way you planned it,” Nico said.

Sonny’s heart was still beating fast, but in his head he had switched over to counting up the money. The long bed of the pickup was stacked high with crates of Canadian hooch. He figured three thousand, give or take. Plus whatever they could get for the truck.

Nico, as if reading Sonny’s mind, said, “How much you think we’ll get?”

“I’m hoping five hundred apiece,” Sonny said. “Depends.”

Nico laughed and said, “I still got my share of the payroll heist. It’s stuffed in my mattress.”

“What’s the matter? ” Sonny said. “You can’t find dames to spend your money on?”

“I need one of those gold diggers,” Nico said. He laughed at himself and then was quiet again.

A lot of the girls said Nico looked like Tyrone Power. The last year of high school he had a big thing with Gloria Sullivan, but then her parents made her stop seeing him because they thought he was Italian. When she told them he was Greek, it didn’t make any difference. She still couldn’t see him. Since then, Nico’d gotten quiet around girls. Sonny said, “Let’s all go to Juke’s Joint tomorrow night and find ourselves some Janes to spend our money on.”

Nico smiled but didn’t say anything.

Sonny considered telling Nico that he still had most of his share of the payroll heist stuffed in his mattress too, which was the truth. The payroll job had netted more than seven grand, a little less than twelve hundred apiece—enough to scare them into laying low for a few months. Meanwhile, what the hell was Sonny supposed to spend it on? He’d already bought himself a car and a bunch of swell
clothes, and he figured he still had a few thousand in cash lying around. Not that he ever counted it. Looking at the money gave him no pleasure. He stuffed it in his mattress and when he needed dough he took some out. With a big job like the payroll heist, he’d been dizzy for weeks with the planning, and the night of the job was like Christmas when he was little—but he didn’t like the big splash that followed. The next day it was on the front page of the
New York American
and the
Mirror
, and then everybody was talking about it for weeks. When word got around that it was Dutch Schultz’s gang, he was relieved. Sonny didn’t like to speculate on what would happen if Vito found out what he was doing. He thought about it sometimes, though—what he would say to his father.
Come on, Pop
, he might say.
I know all about the business you’re in
. He rehearsed these talks with his father all the time in his head. He’d say
I’m all grown up, Pop!
He’d say,
I planned the Tidewater payroll heist, Pop! Give me a little credit!
He could always come up with the things he’d say—but he could never come up with what his father might say in response. Instead, he saw his father looking at him the way he did when he was disappointed.

“That was really something,” Nico said. He’d been quiet, letting Sonny pilot the truck through the Bronx. “Did you see that guy dive off the pier? Christ!” he said, laughing. “He was swimming like Johnny Weissmuller!”

“Which one was that?” Sonny asked. They were on Park Avenue in the Bronx, a few blocks from where they were going.

“The guy riding shotgun,” Nico said. “You didn’t see him? He heard the guns, bang!—right off the pier into the water!” Nico doubled over, laughing.

“Did you see the Romeros?” Sonny asked. “They looked like they couldn’t hold on to those tommy guns. They looked like they were dancing with ’em.”

Nico nodded and then sighed when he quit laughing. “I bet they’re all bruised up from the kickback.”

Sonny turned off Park and onto a quiet side street. He pulled up to the curb in front of a warehouse with a rolling steel door, and Cork
pulled up behind him. “Let Cork do the talking,” he said to Nico, and he slid out of the car. He got into Cork’s Nash and drove away.

Angelo and Vinnie were on the sidewalk, waiting. Cork stepped up onto the running board of the truck and said to Nico, “There’s a bell next to the side door. Give it three short rings, wait a second, and give it three more short rings. Then come back to the truck.”

Nico said, “What’s the secret password?”

Cork said, putting on the Irish, “Ah, for Jaysus sake, just go ring the feckin’ bell, Nico. I’m tired.”

Nico rang the bell and then headed back for the truck, where Cork had gotten into the driver’s seat. The rain that had been threatening all night started to come down in a light drizzle, and he turned up his jacket collar as he came around the front of the car. Behind him, the steel garage door rolled up, spilling light out onto the street. Luca Brasi stood in the center of the garage with his hands on his hips looking like he was dressed for a dinner date, though it was probably one in the morning. He was well over six feet tall, maybe six-three, six-four, with thighs like telephone poles. His chest and shoulders seemed to go right up to his chin, and his massive head was dominated by a protruding brow over deep-set eyes. He looked like Neanderthal man dressed up in a gray pin-stripe suit and vest, with a gray fedora tilted rakishly to one side. Behind him, spread around the garage, were Vinnie Vaccarelli, Paulie Attardi, Hooks Battaglia, Tony Coli, and JoJo DiGiorgio. Cork knew Hooks and JoJo from the neighborhood, and the others by reputation. They were the big kids on the street when he was little. They all had to be in their late twenties at least by now, given he’d been hearing about them since kindergarten. Luca Brasi was a lot older, maybe late thirties, around there. They all looked like tough guys. They stood with their hands in their pockets, leaning against the wall or a stack of crates, or they had one hand in a jacket pocket, or arms crossed over their chest. They all wore homburgs or fedoras except for Hooks, who was the oddball in a plaid porkpie hat.

“Son of a bitch,” Nico said, looking into the garage. “I wish Sonny were with us.”

Cork rolled down his window and motioned for Vinnie and Angelo to get on the running board. “Let me talk,” he said to them once they were on the truck. He started the pickup and pulled it into the garage.

Two of Luca’s boys closed the warehouse door as Cork got out and joined Vinnie and Angelo. Nico came around the truck and stood beside them. The garage was brightly lit by a line of hanging lamps that cast a bright glare onto an oil-stained, cracked concrete floor. There were piles of crates and boxes here and there, but for the most part the place was empty. The gurgling sound of water running through pipes came from someplace above them. At the back of the garage a partition with a door next to a large window appeared to be an office space. Light bounced off white venetian blinds in the window. Luca Brasi went to the back of the truck while his men closed in around him. He dropped the tailgate, threw back the tarp, and found Stevie Dwyer wedged between liquor crates and pointing his tommy gun at him.

Luca didn’t flinch, but his men all went for their guns. Cork yelled, “For Christ’s sake, Stevie! Put that thing down!”

“Hell,” Stevie said. “There’s no room to put it down back here.”

Hooks Battaglia shouted, “Well, point it at the ground, you fuckin’ moron!”

Stevie hesitated a second, a smirk on his lips, and then pointed the muzzle at his feet.

“Get off the truck,” Luca said.

Stevie jumped from the bed of the truck, still grinning and holding the chopper, and a heartbeat after his feet hit the ground, Luca grabbed his shirt with one meaty paw and yanked the gun away from him with the other. While Stevie was still off balance, Luca switched the chopper from his right hand to his left, tossed it to JoJo, and threw a quick straight punch that landed Stevie in Cork’s arms. Stevie’s head wobbled as he tried to pull himself to his feet, but his legs went out from under him and Cork wound up catching him again.

Luca and his gang were quiet watching all this.

Cork handed Stevie to Nico, who had come up behind him with
the rest of the boys. To Luca he said, “I thought we had an agreement. Are we in for trouble now?”

“You’re not in for trouble,” Luca said, “ ’long as you don’t have any more half-wit micks pointin’ guns at me.”

“He wasn’t thinkin’, is all,” Cork said. “He didn’t mean no trouble.”

From behind him, Stevie yelled, “That fuckin’ dago knocked one of my teeth loose!”

Cork leaned over Stevie. He said softly, but loud enough to be heard by everyone, “Shut the fuck up. Or I’ll plug you myself.”

Stevie’s lip was split and already swollen fat and ugly. His chin was smeared with blood, and the collar of his shirt was bloodstained. “I don’t doubt you would,” he said to Cork, and in his tone there was an unstated and unmistakable meaning: They were both Irish and he was going against his own.

“Fuck you,” Cork whispered. “Just shaddup and let us get our business done.”

Cork turned around to find Luca watching him intently. He said, “We want three thousand. It’s all Canadian whiskey, the best.”

Luca looked at the truck and said, “I’ll give you a thousand.”

Cork said, “That’s not a fair price, Mr. Brasi.”

“Can the Mr. Brasi crap, kid, will ya? We’re doing business. I’m Luca. You’re Bobby, right?”

“That’s right,” Cork said.

“You got that good-lookin’ sister. Eileen. She runs a bakery over on Eleventh.”

Cork nodded.

“See,” Luca said. “This is the first time two words have passed between us, but I know all about you. You know why?” Luca said. “Because my guys know all about you. Hooks and the others, they vouched for you. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be doing business. You understand?”

“Sure,” Cork said.

Luca asked, “What do you know about me, Bobby?”

Cork studied Luca’s eyes, trying to read him. He came up blank. “Not a lot,” he said. “I don’t know much about you at all.”

Luca looked at his men, who laughed. He leaned against the bed of the truck. “See,” Luca said, “that’s because that’s the way I like things. I know all about you. You don’t know nothin’ about me.”

Cork said, “A grand is still not a fair price.”

“No. It’s not,” Luca said. “Probably twenty-five hundred is fair. But the problem is, you stole this liquor from Giuseppe Mariposa.”

“You knew that,” Cork said. “I told Hooks and JoJo the whole story.”

“You did,” Luca said. He crossed his arms over his chest. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “And JoJo and the boys have done business with you on two other occasions when you helped yourself to some of Mariposa’s liquor. I don’t have any problem with that. I don’t like Giuseppe.” He looked at his gang. “I don’t like most people,” he said, and his boys all looked amused. “But now,” Luca said, “word has come around to me that Giuseppe is particularly angry about this. He wants to know who’s ’jackin’ his whiskey. He wants their balls on a platter.”

Cork said, “The guys told me if we dealt with you, you’d keep our names out of it. That was the deal.”

“I understand,” Luca said. “And I keep my word. But I’m going to have to deal with Mariposa. Eventually. He knows I’m the one buying his liquor. So eventually I’m going to have to deal with him. And for that, I need to make a larger profit.” When Cork didn’t say anything right away, Luca added, “I’m the one taking the bigger risks.”

Stevie shouted, “And what about the risks we took? We’re the ones getting shot at!”

Without looking at Stevie, Cork said, “I told you to shut up.”

Luca offered Cork a generous smile, as if he understood the difficulties of dealing with goons. “I’m stuck with the business end,” he said to Cork, “which is no fun and where the real trouble starts.” He pointed at the pickup. “I’ll tell you what, though. What did you boys plan on doing with the truck?”

Cork said, “We got a buyer lined up.”

“How much he giving you for it?” Luca walked around the truck,
looking it over. It was a late model. The wood of the stake-bed still held its polish.

“Don’t know yet,” Cork said.

When he completed his circle around the truck, Luca stood in front of Stevie Dwyer. “Not a bullet hole in it,” he said. “I guess all those goons shooting at you must have been lousy shots.”

Stevie looked away.

Luca said to Cork, “I’ll give you fifteen hundred for it. With the grand for the liquor, that’s the twenty-five hundred you were looking for.”

“We were looking for three thousand,” Cork said. “For the liquor alone.”

“All right, then,” Luca said. “Three thousand.” He put his hand on Cork’s shoulder. “You drive a hard bargain.”

Cork looked back at his boys and then turned to Luca. “Three thousand it is, then,” he said, glad to be done with it.

Luca pointed to Vinnie Vaccarelli. “Give them their money,” he said. He put his arm around Cork and led him back to the office. To the others he said, “Mr. Corcoran will be right back with you. I want to have a word with him.”

Cork said to Nico, “You guys wait up the block for me.”

Luca went into the office first and then closed the door behind Cork. The room was carpeted and furnished with a rosewood desk cluttered with papers. Two big stuffed chairs faced the desk from opposite corners, and a half dozen black straight-back chairs were lined up against the walls, which were concrete and unadorned. There were no windows. Luca pointed to one of the stuffed chairs and told Cork to have a seat. He went around to the desk, came back with a box of Medalist cigars, and offered one to Cork.

Cork said thanks and put the cigar in his shirt pocket.

“Listen,” Luca said. He pulled up a chair in front of Cork. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you or your boys. I just want you to know a few things. First,” he said, “the guy you’re stealing from, when he finds out who you are, he’s gonna kill the whole lot of you.”

“That’s why we’re workin’ with you,” Cork said. “Long as you keep us out of it, he won’t find out.”

Luca said, “How do you know someone won’t recognize you?”