Bloodline (26 page)

Riding again with Nilo in the backseat of the car, Maranzano grew expansive.

“You are still too busy with our activities,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“I’ve told you that I want you to be a businessman for our organization. Instead, they tell me that there is not a liquor shipment that comes in or out, not an interception of Masseria’s shipments, that you are not personally involved in.”

“I blame myself if things go wrong. I want to be there to make sure they don’t.”

Maranzano continued as if he had not heard Nilo. “People who are too visible get too well known. And then they are in danger. Think of that poor hijacker that was called Kid Trouble. Killed in a garage with a bullet in the head.”

Nilo looked sharply at Maranzano and knew immediately that the don knew that he had been running the Kid Trouble operation.

“A person first winds up in the newspapers and then winds up in jail or dead,” Maranzano said.

“I see,” Nilo answered.
Don Salvatore may talk too much, but often there is wisdom. There are angles and angles and he seems to see them all. It must be in his blood.
“I will have no nicknames,” he said. “I will be Nilo Sesta.”

Maranzano held up a hand. “In years to come, you will be one of those who deals for us with the outside world. An American name will be a good thing to have. With us Italians, Sicilians, there is already so much prejudice. Everybody with an Italian name is thought to be part of a gang. You can escape that. I have given this a lot of thought and I think a good name for you would be Danny Neill.”

“Danny Neill,” Nilo repeated. He grinned. “I am truly an American now.”

“When we get back, go to our bank and start a small account in the name of Danny Neill. Use that name when you rent your apartment, when you pay your bills, when you have your clothes cleaned. On the street, with our people, you can remain Nilo. But for the Americans, you will become Danny Neill.”

“Yes, sir.”
And someday Danny Neill will run everything.

Less than twenty minutes later, the big car rolled into the small town of Amagansett and Nilo gave the driver instructions on getting down to the waterfront.

Maranzano was looking about through the car windows. “Are all these towns so ugly?” he asked.

“Every one of them,” Nilo said.

“Who would ever want to live here?”

“Well, fortunately for your real estate business, many people do,” Nilo said. “That is how I came onto this place. And we are here.”

The car parked on the dirt road in front of a large frame house whose back opened onto the beach. While the driver waited again at the car, Nilo took Maranzano behind the house. There, a man-made jetty reached far out into the water. At its end, facing out toward the sea, was a large boathouse. The beach, on both sides of the house, was deserted for half a mile in each direction.

Nilo led Maranzano up onto the stone and concrete jetty.

“Far out there,” Nilo said, pointing, “are all those boats waiting to unload. And between them and the shore are the Coast Guard and the federal alcohol agents.”

“You showed me that before.”

Nilo opened the wide wooden doors of the boathouse. Inside was as big as a three-car garage.

“Your idea, Nilo,” Maranzano said impatiently.

“We no longer send boats out to unload bottles from boats. Instead, inside this garage, we install a giant reel. We load it with three miles of hose. We bring in our liquor ships at night, without lights. They stay outside the three-mile limit. We run the hose out to the boat and we pump the liquor back into a truck that parks in this garage. Then drive it back into the city and bottle it ourselves. The whole unloading thing can be done at dark, without lights. There are no rumrunner boats for the Coast Guard to intercept, and by daylight, our hose is rolled up, back into the boathouse, and we are long gone.”

“This will work?”

“Yes, Don Salvatore. I’ve thought about it for a long time. It worked when I was a child when we brought water onto the
tonnara
boats. All we need out there is a boat with a pump and a hose connection. We bring the liquor in in bulk, so we have the added expense of bottling it ourselves. But we more than make up for that by not losing any to the Prohibition cops.”

“It’s an interesting idea,” Maranzano said.

“Right now, Don Salvatore, the big difference between your business and Masseria’s is that he has better sources of supply. He gets more liquor into the city, so he has more speakeasies under his control. But his liquor is sewer water. With this, you would overtake his business in six months.”

Maranzano rubbed his clean-shaven face. “Who owns this house?” he asked.

Nilo grinned. “You do. Or, at least, your secretary does. Betty’s name is on the purchase papers.”

“Betty? Is that wise?’

“Her name is on the papers, but I signed it,” Nilo said. “She knows nothing.”

“It seems you think of everything,” Maranzano said.

“Somebody taught me to be a real estate man.”

They walked back to the car, and Maranzano said, “Not a word of this to anyone. Not even my driver. His face is still too new and I do not trust him yet. And the fewer who know, the safer we are.”

“Yes, Don Salvatore.”

As they got back into the car, Don Salvatore said loudly, “Nilo, it’s too far out for a house for me. And it’s just not big enough.” He winked at Nilo, who responded, “I’m sorry. I thought you might like it. But at least the day was sunny and the drive pleasant.”

“A very pleasant day,” Maranzano agreed.

When the driver left the car to get cigarettes, Maranzano told Nilo, “Yesterday, one of our collectors in Midtown was set upon and beaten by one of Masseria’s thugs and our money was stolen. This
gavone
was … let me think … a Joseph Doto. I think Mr. Doto needs a lesson in manners.”

“How big a lesson?” Nilo asked.

“A medium lesson with a promise of more lessons to come if he is a slow learner.” He looked over to Nilo. “Get people to do it. Do you have a problem with this? Should I give this assignment to someone else?”

“No, sir. It’s just that I know this Doto. They call him Joe Adonis. He is one of Luciano’s men, and I see him often at Mangini’s Restaurant.”

“Somehow I don’t believe that Luciano gave permission for such renegade outlaw activities,” Maranzano said.

Nilo just nodded.

“If Mr. Doto is rolling around on his own, without direction, I think Luciano would not complain if somebody were to muzzle him. But don’t make it more complicated than it is. And I don’t want you personally involved. You’re done with that. Stay out of sight. Get a couple of our men that you trust, and have them administer this lesson. Kid Trouble is no more, and you are finished with this kind of work.”

“It is as good as done,” Nilo said.

When the car parked in front of Maranzano’s office, the old don and Nilo got out and walked off to the side of the entrance to talk undisturbed. Maranzano’s bodyguards had come out of the office and were standing nearby, out of earshot but still watching the passersby.

“Go ahead with your plans for the house at Amagansett,” Maranzano said. “But report only to me. You did good work on that.”

“I want only to justify your faith in me,” Nilo said.

“You thought well to use Betty’s name for the property. But don’t tell her anything. She is a woman and women are not to be trusted.”

Nilo nodded.

“And remember to open those accounts as Danny Neill. That will be your new working name.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re American as apple pie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But I still want you to give a good wop beating to this thickheaded Joe Doto.”

*   *   *

W
HEN SHE WAS TEN YEARS OLD,
Sofia Mangini had once gone to Coney Island with the family of an aunt and had seen a white rat in a cage, running endlessly around an exercise wheel, while people stood there gawking. Every once in a while, the wheel would stop and the rat would be given a kernel of corn. And then it would run some more, until it was time for the next corn kernel.

The crowd around the cage had seemed to think this was high, good fun, but Sofia wondered if any creature, even one as useless as a rat, should lead such a life. Wasn’t it cruel, she wondered, to always run and to get nowhere? What kind of life was it that could be measured in one kernel of corn after another kernel of corn, never any more, never a dream—if rats dreamed—of any more?

And because her aunt was a generous, warm-bosomed woman who was always Sofia’s favorite, she had asked her, “Isn’t that cruel?”

“Cruel? What is this cruel?”

“To the rat.”

“Fia, you can’t be cruel to a rat. Rats don’t have any feelings to be cruel about. They’re just rats. You put this one in a cage and you feed him corn, and at least he’s not hiding in your walls, eating holes under your sink. Corn’s gotta taste better than your walls. Rats got no complaint.”

Rats got no complaint. Rats got no complaint. No complaint.

Sofia cleaned the dirty dishes off one of the tables and looked up at the clock over the front door of Mangini’s Restaurant. Not yet nine o’clock. The night had hours to go.
She
had hours to go, nights to go, years to go, a lifetime to go, running around her exercise wheel in this restaurant, receiving an occasional kernel of corn, but never being free to leave. Of everyone she knew, she was the only one totally trapped.

Nilo had spoken once of inviting her out for dinner, and she thought of that often. Nilo, she knew, was not as smart as he thought he was. If she let him have his way and then got pregnant, she might be able to marry her way out of this trap. It might not be love, but it was better than she had now, and she had no other options. Tommy was shacked up with a waitress, and soon he would be in law school. And Tina someday would be on stage, singing in opera houses all over the world, and Sofia would not be with her but would still be wiping off tables after sloppy diners.

Rats got no complaint.

She carried the dishes into the kitchen, stacked them on the new stainless-steel sink, and then winced with pain. She leaned against the kitchen wall to catch her breath. She was nauseated and tired and wanted to cry. It was like this always, every month, when her time was coming.

She tried to will the pain out of her mind but could not. The summertime heat, the humidity of the kitchen, the pungent smells made everything worse. She felt herself sweating and shivering at the same time. All she wanted to do was go someplace dark and lie down. Sofia closed her eyes and let out a little gasp. When she opened them again, her mother stood there.

“Is it the curse?” she asked her daughter.

“Yes, Mama. It’s coming on.”

“Ah. This is no place for you tonight. You’ll scare away the customers with your sour, pained face. Go, go upstairs and lie down. Sleep. We can do without you here tonight.”

Sofia managed a smile. “Thank you, Mama.”

She took off her apron and hung it up. In a corner there, her father was seated at a desk, looking over the books. Sofia did not know why he bothered; he didn’t understand them anyway. It had always been Mrs. Mangini who had taken care of the bookkeeping, and now the job was slowly being passed to Sofia.

For which, she thought, she would get kernels of corn, handed out grudgingly, one a day for the million years remaining in her life.

She walked past her father to the stairs that led up to the apartment hallway, and as she did, Matteo grumbled, “What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t feel good. Mama told me to rest.”

Matteo grunted something and went back to his records.

In her room, Sofia lay on the bed fully clothed but began to twist and turn. It was just too hot. The clothing bound too much. She slipped off her dress and her slip, then lay back down.

On a small table in the corner, she could see the half-dozen books of poetry she had bought when Tina insisted that she take some of the prize money from the carnival raffle. Sofia had protested but finally gave in and accepted one hundred dollars. She spent almost twenty dollars on books and hid the rest under her mattress.

She had not opened one of the books since buying them. Once she had lived for such books, lived for the chance to read of the freedom of the young poets who were making lives for themselves in Greenwich Village, just a few blocks away. Now it could just as well have been happening on the moon. Rats got no complaint and rats don’t read poetry.

She fell asleep.

It seemed like only a few minutes later when she woke up. Somebody was opening the door. For an instant Sofia was afraid; then she realized her mother was probably worried and just looking in on her.

“Papa,” she said, startled.

He closed the bedroom door softly behind him. “I have missed you.”

“No, Papa. No more. I don’t want to. You said you never would again.”

“To who I say this? To that snotty little policeman friend of yours who comes here to threaten me? Or his rat friend?”

She did not know what he was talking about. She said, “To cousin Charlie. You told him.”

Her father smiled. “But he will never know.”

She tried to get up, but he pushed her back on the bed. She fought him as hard as she could, but he was on top of her. She fought harder and he kept ramming himself at her. She cried out.

And then she stopped fighting.

Is there any other love I will ever know?

She heard singing far away and she thought of Tina Falcone. She would not scream.

Rats got no complaint,
she thought.

*   *   *

I
N THEIR APARTMENT
across the street, the Falcones were holding a meeting around the kitchen table. It had started as a family dinner, brought about by the fact that both Falcone policemen were off duty that night and Father Mario also had the night off.

After dinner, everyone had gathered in the parlor and Tina sat at the piano, singing Sicilian folk songs, in which everyone joined loudly and often off-key. But during one difficult aria, while the rest were just listening to her silently, Tina had suddenly stopped singing, and then, with a sob, dropped her face down, slumped, her chin resting on her chest.