Bloodline (54 page)

The two women had barely talked in all the time since the day Nilo had come home from prison and found them together, and Tina looked forward to seeing her old friend. Maybe, at last, things were going well for her. Nilo had said she was pregnant again.
Maybe, at last, there’s some happiness in her life.

When she entered the office, Sofia was seated behind her desk, looking out the window at the traffic along Forty-seventh Street.

For a moment, she considered telling Sofia to get out of her chair, and then she dismissed the thought, settling on a casual, “Hello, Fia.”

As Sofia turned, Tina sprawled out in a rocker set in a far corner of the room.

“You look wonderful. Pregnancy agrees with you,” Tina said.

Sofia’s face was hard and expressionless.

“I won’t beat around the bush,” she said. “Opening this club puts you in constant touch with Nilo.”

“It’s his money.”

“It’s his money and
my
money,” Sofia said coldly. “Our money, just as it’s our marriage. I don’t want you doing damage to either.”

“Fia … what are you talking about?”

“I want you to keep your hands off my husband.”

Tina shook her head. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she said.

“Oh, no? You’re holy and moral, all of a sudden?”

“No,” Tina said. “But something’s happened to me. I can’t stand to be touched anymore. It makes me physically ill. You have nothing to worry about.” She suddenly felt weary and too tired to argue. All she wanted to do was sleep.

“I don’t believe you,” Sofia said.

“I can’t help that.”

“From the time Nilo came home, he’s been climbing on me day and night, all the time. And now, for the last three months, he’s barely touched me. Three months. That’s how long you’ve been working around here.”

“It’s not so,” Tina said. “Whatever your marriage problems are, they’re not my doing.”

Sofia grabbed her fur coat off the table near the door and put it on. “I don’t know just how much you hear from Nilo in your pillow talk,” she snapped, “but let me make it clear for you: Nilo fronts a lot of businesses, but all the money is handled by me. I will give this club special attention. Don’t make any mistakes, and especially don’t make the mistake of thinking you can get away with something by sleeping with my husband.”

“It’s not so, Sofia. And I’m sorry you feel that way. Truly sorry.”

“Harm my marriage and you’ll really be sorry,” Sofia said as she left the room.

*   *   *

I
T WAS ALMOST 4:00
A.M.
before Nilo returned home and found Sofia working at the desk in the living room. He seemed to be a little drunk and was clearly startled. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“I like to go over the books. And when you’re out this late, I can’t sleep. I just worry.”

As he peeled off his jacket, he said, “You’re pregnant. You should get more rest.”

Sofia went across the room and hugged him. She saw a smudge of lipstick on his shirt collar, and she could smell someone else’s perfume on him. She held him tighter. He stood still, with his arms hanging down at his sides.

“We should talk about some things,” she said.

Nilo shrugged, walked to the bar, and poured himself a glass of wine. “So? Okay, let’s talk.” He sat on the couch facing her across the room.

“What are your plans for the future?” she asked.

Nilo sighed. The look on his face was a clear signal that he hated these kinds of conversations. “I was waiting for you to tell me,” he said in a bored voice.

Sofia sat down at the desk again “Mr. Maranzano has had a wonderful idea in taking all his mob money and putting it into legitimate businesses. By now, everybody knows that Prohibition doesn’t work. Before too long, liquor will be legal again, and those who don’t prepare for that day are going to be left out.”

Nilo sipped at his wine but said nothing.

“Because Don Salvatore has decided to put many of these businesses in the Danny Neill name, that puts us … you … in a wonderful position, because if anything happens to Maranzano, you control the wealth.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to the don,” Nilo said.

“Oh, Nilo, stop kidding yourself. When you go out, you have a bodyguard. Don Salvatore has an army of them. There’s a war going on out there. Before it’s over, Masseria’s going to be gone and Maranzano too. But nothing has to happen to you.”

“If anything happens to Don Salvatore, I will follow in his footsteps,” Nilo said officiously.

He is terribly stupid,
Sofia thought, striving to mask her anger.
I hate it that I wasn’t born a man. Doesn’t he see that if Maranzano were dead, the war would be over?

“You can do that,” Sofia said in a reasonable voice. “But you have one child sleeping inside and another inside my belly. We have to think of them and the lives they’re going to have. They’ll be a lot prouder of their father, the businessman, than they would of their father, the gangster. I want us to build something for our children, something that nobody can take away from them.”

“I do, too,” Nilo said, but his voice was listless and unconvincing. Sofia knew that she had already exceeded his usual short attention span.

“I guess what I want is for you to acknowledge that you and I are partners. We’re not in this for ourselves. We’re in it for our children, and we have to work together to build for the future.”

Nilo came over and kissed her on the neck. “Great,” he said.

“So when I ask you questions, it’s all business, you understand?”

“Naturally,” Nilo said.

“For instance, how’s the club working out?”

“We’re doing all right,” he said. “We should be ready to open before the holidays.”

“I stopped in today and saw Tina,” Sofia said.

“She’s doing a good job,” Nilo said. “With her fronting this place for me, it’s going to do a lot of business. You’ll see.”

“For me.” Those were his words,
Sofia thought.
He will never accept that we are partners.

“Nilo, please don’t fool around with Tina.”

“Just one time,” he said, “and then I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I haven’t touched Tina. We’re not screwing. The only time I talk to her is about the club. That’s the way it’ll stay. Okay?”

I don’t believe him,
Sofia thought.
I don’t believe either of them.
She said, “Okay.”

“Now I’ve got to get some sleep. A long day tomorrow,” he said, and gave her a brief nod before going into the bedroom.

Sofia sat at the desk, idly tapping the pencil on a green blotter, wondering why her husband was content to live day by day, never thinking things through, never trying to shape the future.

I cannot even tell him that our own interests would be best served if Don Salvatore were to die. Peace would come and we would thrive. But someday, perhaps, he may hear me.

*   *   *

E
IGHT DAYS LATER,
on a crisp Tuesday evening in early October, Sofia came into the Manginis’ restaurant in Little Italy. She did not visit there much anymore, having no desire to see her father, but her mother had called to let her know that Charlie Luciano would be dining there that night.

She sat alone at a table in a far corner, drinking espresso, and when Luciano came in, accompanied by his usual gaggle of hangers-on and bodyguards, he saw her and nodded in a friendly fashion before disappearing into the back room.

Sofia waved to her father and told him to send Luciano a bottle of his best wine, courtesy of Sofia. The old man looked as if he were going to say something, to protest, but Sofia silenced him with a glare.

“I am here on business. Do as I say,” she commanded.

The years had not been kind to Matteo Mangini. His hair was shot through now with white, and his tall, stately figure was shortening, as he was crippled over more and more by arthritis. He moved slowly and his hands often trembled, and as Sofia watched him, she thought,
Good, I hope one of his sluts has given him syphilis.

She saw her father go into the back room, and a few minutes later, as she expected, Luciano came out alone and walked over to join her at the table.

They think nothing of women, these people,
Sofia thought.
Surely, with all these killings on the street, Charlie must be taking great caution. And yet, without a guard, here he is at my table because he thinks that he is safe because I am only a woman. If I wanted to kill them all, I would round up a half-dozen pretty women, give them guns, and they would all be dead before midnight.

“You’re looking beautiful, Sofia,” Luciano said.

“Thank you. I’m glad to see you.”

“How long before the baby?” he asked.

“Early in the year. Maybe four more months,” she said. “It’s because of the baby that I hoped to talk to you.”

“Oh?”

“I was wondering, Charlie, what kind of life my baby will have. Will this war ever end?”

“All wars end,” he said.

Sofia could tell that her broaching the subject had made Luciano nervous. He looked around almost skittishly.

“But no one can tell the future,” he said.

“I know some of the future,” Sofia answered. When Luciano just looked at her quizzically, she went on: “Prohibition’s going to end soon. The real money in the future will be made by people who invest in legitimate businesses. Maranzano is doing that very thing right now, getting ready for the day the bootleggers are out of work. If both sides did that, there would be very little to make war over, wouldn’t there?”

“When strong people hate each other, they will always find a reason to have a war. What does your husband think about all this?”

“Nilo thinks nothing,” Sofia said. “Some people think about tomorrow. My husband thinks about yesterday and considers today a great mystery. The stock market is going to crash soon. Companies, good companies, will be for sale for pennies on the dollar. Yet I could no more tell Nilo about this than I could tell him about the beauty of poetry.”

“But you’re telling me?”

“Because I think about tomorrow, and you are tomorrow. It is a shame sometimes that our lives are ruled by people who know only the past.”

“Things change. People pass on,” Luciano said casually. “You really think the stock market will fall?”

“It has to,” Sofia said. “It’s become just pieces of paper being used to buy other pieces of paper. All the reality has gone from it. Eventually, air leaks from even the biggest balloon.”

“And fortunes will be lost,” Luciano said softly, as if to himself.

“And greater ones made by those who are wise or cunning.” Sofia looked at her father standing near the door of the restaurant. “What would happen if the generals left the battlefield?”

“You have something in mind?”

Sofia shook her head. “I was just wondering what you thought.”

“What I think is that you should leave these problems to men who deal with them every day. Someday I’m sure peace will return because a lot of us worked to bring it about.”

“I hope so, Charlie,” Sofia said. “If there’s anything I can help you with, please let me know. I think of you often, how kind you’ve been to me in the past. Perhaps I could pay you back.”

“Maybe someday,” Luciano said, and rose from the table. “In the meantime, take care of yourself and the baby. I’d send my regards to your husband, but I don’t think he’d want to hear them.”

“No, not very much, I’m afraid,” Sofia said. She finished her espresso and left soon after.

Riding back to her apartment in a taxicab, she felt pleased with herself. Luciano was no fool; he understood quite well that Sofia was making herself available as an agent inside the Maranzano camp.

He might not think much of the offer now, but someday he may need something and come to me. That favor could buy my future. Mine and my children’s.

Everything takes so much time. But I have time, plenty of time. I’m not going anywhere.

Rats got no complaint.

• The one person whose advice Luciano always took without question was Arnold Rothstein. New York’s secretive “Mr. Big” had fixed the 1919 Black Sox World Series; he had bankrolled scores of criminal enterprises around the city, and he had never spent a single day in jail. It was on his recommendation that Luciano had encouraged Frank Costello to become the “paymaster” for graft at city hall. Rothstein had taught Luciano how to dress and worked to help him get rid of his coarse New York accent, and on his say-so, Luciano had left his old neighborhood and moved uptown to a luxury hotel suite. Rothstein, himself, was tall and elegant; he looked and acted like an investment banker. And, almost as if he actually ran a bank, the gambling money rolled in. Every night, he would get out of his limousine at Forty-ninth Street and stroll down Broadway to Times Square. Inside his pocket, he had a quarter of a million dollars in thousand-dollar bills. He would pay off losing bets and collect winners. Then he went to Lindy’s and took more bets until the sun came up.

• But on the night of September 2, 1928, when Luciano met him at Forty-ninth Street and Broadway, he knew something was wrong. Rothstein was pale and looked ill. His clothes were wrinkled and almost shabby looking. But he brushed off any questions about his health. Luciano asked the mob financier about the chances of a stock-market failure. Should he start investing mob money now in legitimate enterprises? Or would it be wiser to wait until a market drop when everything would be for sale cheaper? The usually confident Rothstein was indecisive. At first he said Luciano should buy businesses immediately; five minutes later, he said it would be better to wait. Yes, the market was going to crash. No, it wasn’t; the boom would last forever.

• Luciano left him paying off bets on Broadway and went back downtown to Ratner’s, a small kosher restaurant on Delancey Street, where he found Meyer Lansky and spirited him into a back room where they could talk privately. “When was the last time you saw A. R.?” Luciano asked. Lansky answered laconically, “Couple of months ago. Why?” “He’s on dope,” Luciano said. “I was just with him and his mind’s not straight. You can’t even get an answer from him.” Lansky was silent for a while. “Does he have anything that can hurt us?” he finally asked. “I’ll try to find out,” Luciano said coldly. “I don’t trust nobody who’s sticking needles in his arm.”