Gangster (41 page)

    I knew he didn't even know I was there at this moment. I knew he was alone in the company of the one man in this world he could call a friend.

    I also knew that after this day Angelo would never be, could never be, the same. His final link to the past had been stripped away.

     *     *     *

I LOOKED OVER at Mary as she took a bite of her Reuben sandwich and wiped the corner of her lips with the folded end of a cloth napkin. I took a long drink from a glass of mineral water and shrugged my shoulders. That was the worst day of my life, I said to her. Losing Pudge in that way is something I don't think I've ever recovered from. It showed me a side of their world that I just didn't want any part of. Being with people you love and being able to do what you want, not having to worry about money or work, that was fun. But the reality of it is that those periods only last a short while. Most of the time you're trying not to get either yourself or the people around you killed.

    Pudge didn't want that life for you. Mary rested her elbows on the counter, ignoring the cigarette smoke from the table behind her.

    Maybe, I said. When I think back on it and remember all the things he told me, they applied as much to the outside world as they did to his. That was his way of teaching me there weren't too many differences between the two, and that I had to get ready to face one of them.

    Who were you closer to, Angelo or Pudge? Mary asked, pushing her platter off to one side of the ceramic tabletop.

    Pudge was always easier to talk to, I told her. He's the guy you went to after a first date or a first kiss or pretty much a first anything. And whatever you had to say, he made you feel good about it. I wanted to be more like Pudge. But inside, I felt more like Angelo. I didn't act like him or treat people the way he did and, God knows, I talked a lot more than he did. But I felt closed off from the world, much like he was. And I always felt different from those around me, as if I was holding a secret that no one else could know. Maybe more of him rubbed off on me than I thought.

    He had a stronger personality than Pudge, Mary said, sitting back in her chair. He didn't have to say as much to have an impact. Plus, you didn't have as much time with Pudge. He died when you were still a boy. And what other people thought never really mattered to Pudge, as long as their thinking didn't affect the way he lived his life. Angelo looked to force his will on others, align them to his way of thinking It was a part of his power and he was very good at it.

    You talking from experience? I asked, signaling a hovering waiter for a check. Or just as a casual observer?

    I'm talking as a victim, Mary said, a slight crack to her voice. Just like you.

     *     *     *

COOTIE TURNBILL SAT across from Angelo, finished off the last of his bourbon and took a long, full drag on his cigar. Sitting around him, each holding a drink and a lit cigar, were his three main lieutenants. Sharpe Baylor was the youngest of the trio, a thirty-five-year-old hard case who controlled the streets for Turnbill's team. Gil Scully handled the crew's money, his clean hands capable of washing thousands of illegal dollars, turning them into solid investments overnight.

    Then there was Step, who had been running rackets out of Harlem since the early 1930s and had been Cootie's partner since the start of World War II. Angelo sat across from the four, his hands resting flat on top of his desk, an untouched glass of milk sitting on a coaster to his right. There isn't time to think this over, he told them. I need a yes or a no now.

    Carson's adding muscle every day, Sharpe Baylor said. The hit on Pudge added seriously to his presence on the street. The word we get back is that the young guns all believe he's one bullet from the top spot. That means, right now, we're looking at a crew that's at least four hundred deep. Maybe more.

    Step stood and walked over toward Angelo's desk. It hurt me a lot to see Pudge go out the way he did. If my vote means anything, then we go out and start shooting down some of these bastards.

    Before I put out my vote, I'd like to ask you a question, Gil Scully said, his voice the least emotional of the group. I want to know why a tough boss like you needs to reach out to a gang of niggers?

    I'm a gangster, Angelo said. That's the same as being a nigger. In this room or in any other, I don't see the difference and I never have.

    How you want it to break down? Cootie Turnbill asked, placing his empty whiskey glass on the side of Angelo's desk.

    I don't want anything from the new action he's picked up or what he had before it, Angelo said. That's yours to give out.

    We'll need your guns in this as well, Gil Scully said. Alone we about match up. Your boys give us enough timber to send them off.

    I've told Nico to walk with you on every step, Angelo said, lifting the glass of milk to his lips. Whatever you need--men, guns, cars, money. It'll be there.

    You ain't the type to sit back and let other people run your fight card, Step said. You'll want a place on the ticket. Now tell me, where's that place gonna be?

    Angelo stared at Step and nodded. Do what you want with Little Ricky Carson's crew, he said in a low, powerful voice. How they die, and where, is your business. Except for one. No one but me touches Little Ricky.

    Humor an old friend, Angelo, Cootie Turnbill said. What if we take a pass on all this? Sit down with Little Ricky and cut our own deal with him. We do that, where does that leave you?

    Angelo pushed his chair back and stood to face the four men. On my own. And believe me when I say that alone or with you, I'll make sure every member of that crew, from Little Ricky on down, ends up dead.

    Cootie cleared his throat. A handshake seals it, he said. I don't see a need to take it further. Especially coming from one nigger to another.

     *     *     *

THE THIN YOUNG drug dealer sat in the hard-back chair in the center of the empty room. He was stripped down to a T-shirt and boxer shorts and was shivering from the overhead fans that were blowing a cool wind down at him at full speed. He had been in the room for more than an hour, placed there by the three strong arms that had dragged him out of his bed in the middle of the night and tossed him into the backseat of a large car.

    You guys ain't been to enough movies, he said to them at one point during the one-hour ride downtown to the warehouse. If you had, you woulda known that you blindfold a guy after you lift him. This way when he comes gunning for you, he won't know which way to go.

    The driver, a large man with a hard body, shook his head. Take it all in, he said to the dealer. Take some pictures if you got a camera. It won't matter. Everything you see is the last time you're gonna see it. So, knock yourself out. If nothing else, it'll make the ride go faster.

    The drug dealer jumped in his seat when he heard the dead bolt on the center door snap open. Angelo Vestieri stepped through the doorway and made his way slowly toward the dealer, a gun in his right hand. He stopped when he was directly in front of the dealer and stared down at him. Nico followed him into the room and stood off to the side.

    Since the agreement with Cootie and his crew, there was only silence and death surrounding Angelo. True to their word, Turnbill let loose his well-organized mob with a vicious fury not seen since the big gang wars of the 1930s, and combined with what was left of Angelo's gang, they inflicted heavy losses on Little Ricky Carson and his troops. As the body count rose by alarming numbers, Carson looked for an escape route out of the war and arranged for his brother, Gerald, to meet with Cootie, hoping to see if a truce could be arranged. He got his answer when one of Sharpe Baylor's hit men left Gerald's decapitated body hanging by the shoulders on the electric garage door chains for Little Ricky to see when he left the next morning to check on his overnight business.

    Angelo rested the barrel of the gun on top of the drug dealer's knee and pulled the trigger. The sound of the bullet going through flesh and bone was displaced by the dealer's screams. He sat in the chair, rocking back and forth, his eyes looking up to the tin ceiling, his mouth filled with spit and foam. Both of his hands were wrapped around his leg, blood gushing through his fingers and down the sides.

    I ask one question, Angelo said, waiting until he knew he had the dealer's attention. And I want one answer. If it's the right one, all you have to worry about is one more bullet. But if it's not, this will be the worst last day of any man's life. Are you ready for my question?

    The dealer didn't speak, but through the sweat pouring down the sides of his face and the tears welling in his eyes he managed a nervous nod. Angelo took a step closer to him, put out his hand and gripped the dealer by the chin. I know you do your work for Little Ricky, Angelo said in a voice as cold as a winter grave. I know you sell his drugs and you kill people he asks you to kill. I know the two of you grew up together and have stayed good friends. I know he likes and trusts you. What I don't know is where I can find him. And that's the one question I want you to answer. Where can I find Little Ricky Carson?

    The drug dealer swallowed hard, more out of fear than need. The hesitation was enough for Angelo to lift the gun and bring it down on the dealer's other leg. He pressed it against the soft flesh of the man's thigh and pulled the trigger. The dealer's screams came from out of a hidden place that was welled solid with pain and misery. He rocked violently back and forth, alternating pitiful moans with massive shrieks, his puffy eyes looking up to Angelo for relief. But Angelo shook his head. This was not a day for relief.

    You scream loud, Angelo said. Talk the same way.

    He's in a building on the Upper West Side, the dealer sputtered, the space around his feet thick with blood. Top floor. He keeps it quiet. Most of his top guys don't even know about it. When he doesn't want to be found, he cribs up there.

    Don't make me guess the number of the building, Angelo said.

    I got it on a piece of paper in my wallet. In the pants your boys took off me. Don't remember it right off.

    Angelo glanced at Nico who nodded back and walked down the length of the long warehouse floor to where the dealer's clothes were stacked in a corner pile. Nico pulled a black leather wallet out of the back pocket of a pair of crisp jeans, scattering its contents on the floor until he found what he wanted. He held up a folded piece of yellow paper. It's an address, he said. And an apartment number.

    Angelo's dead eyes moved from Nico back down to the dealer, whose upper body was trembling, his lower half washed over with blood. I gave him up, just like you asked. Gave you what you wanted, didn't I?

    Angelo nodded, lifted the gun and rested it on the dealer's forehead. He looked down and saw the young man's eyes bulge, his lips moving but lacking the ability to form words. He held up two bloody hands against Angelo's rich dark suit and tried to push him away. Angelo squeezed the trigger and blew out the back of the dealer's head, sending him crashing to the floor in a rubbery heap. He slipped the gun into his pocket and walked over to Nico. He put his hand out and looked down at the yellow piece of paper Nico handed him.

    Let's go, he said, crumpling the paper and tossing it behind his back. I want to make sure Little Ricky's best friend didn't die a liar.

     *     *     *

I SAT IN the backseat next to Angelo, Nico driving at a fast clip through the side streets of Washington Heights. We had spoken very little since Pudge's death. His burial on Ida the Goose's property in Roscoe had been a somber affair attended by only a handful of mourners. Neither Angelo nor Pudge cared much for those large, flower-drenched funerals that were so often a highlight of a gangster's newsreel footage. They thought those events were only put on for show, to give the appearance of power and deprived such moments of the privacy they deserved. Tell me this, Pudge would often ask me, as he sat and read about the exorbitant funeral of a rival. If he was the guy with all the power, then how come he's riding in the lead car, stuffed inside a coffin?

    I looked out at the crowded streets as they rushed past, eager young faces in sweaters and skirts mingling with old women pulling shopping carts filled with a few days of groceries. I turned away to look at Angelo, his head against the leather rest, his mind lost in the moment, his eyes ignoring all the activity taking place around him. The weight of Pudge's death had taken its toll. Angelo already felt that he was a danger to anyone he drew close to, that he was cursed to bring a painful death to those who took the time to befriend him. I was starling to sense that such fears were now being directed my way.

    I'm sorry you had to see him die the way he did. It was the first time Angelo had spoken to me about Pudge since his death.

    I know it's crazy, but I always thought he was like Superman, I said with half a smile. That nothing could kill him, nothing would bring him to a stop.

    Now you know better, he said.

    I didn't say anything to him. He was wrong. I didn't know better. I still felt the same way about him.

    We sat in silence as Nico drove. Then suddenly, Angelo started talking again. The edge was gone from his voice and there was an eerie gentleness to his tone. Me and Pudge, we built what we have from scratch, Angelo said. We put it together with our blood, with a lot of people's blood. You can't take something like that and give it away. It's a part of what I am and it deserves to be handed down. And not just to some guy from another crew who did me a favor. What we built should go to someone who will build off it and make it even more powerful.

    I stared at his profile, his head rising slowly, his eyes settling on my face and knew that the someone he had in mind all along was me.

     *     *     *

I WASN'T SUPPOSED to have seen any of it. I was not meant to have been at the middle-of-the-night pickup of Little Ricky Carson from the rear bedroom of a six-room Manhattan apartment. I should have been at home and not standing there next to Angelo, watching a mask of chilled fear penetrate Carson's once solid confidence. I should not have heard the only words Angelo spoke to him in that room. Never give an old man an extra day to live, Angelo said to Carson, in a manner cold enough to cause a shiver. I should not have been there for any of what followed, none of it was meant for my eyes. I was still a boy and even Angelo sought to spare me from the sight of another man's murder. Even if it was the man who had killed Pudge.