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I said, “People get assimilated. Americanized.”

“Yeah, sure, I know that. Believe me, for the last few years, I did nothing but read magazines. I know all about that, when you’re Americans you got no roots, you move around, all that stuff. No family homestead, no traditions, nothing. Who gives a shit about cousins, brothers, parents, anybody? Only if they’re rich, huh?”

We grinned at each other. I said, “Okay. So what difference does it make?”

“I’ll tell you, boy, there isn’t a man in the world doesn’t want to be respectable.” He pointed a finger at me, and looked solemn, as though he’d spent long nights in his cell thinking about these things. “You hear me? Not a man in the world doesn’t want to be respectable. As soon as a man
can
be respectable, he
is.
You got immigrants, they come into this country, how long before they’re really Americanized? No roots, no traditions, who cares about family, all that stuff. How long?”

I shrugged. He wanted to answer the question himself, anyway.

“Three generations,” he said. “The first generation, they don’t know what’s going on. They got funny accents and there’s a lot of words they don’t know, and they’ve got different ways of doing things, different things they like to eat and wear, and all the rest of it. You see? They aren’t respectable. I’m not talking about honest and dishonest, I’m talking about
respect.
They’re not a part of the respectable world, see? Same with their kids, they’re half and half. They’ve got the whole upbringing in the house, with the old country stuff, and then grade school and high school and the sidewalk outside. See? Half and half. And then the third generation, Americanized. The third generation, they can be respectable. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

I said, “I don’t think respectable’s the word you mean.”

“The hell with that.” He was impatient, brushing it away. “You know what I mean. It takes three generations. And the third generation has practically no crooks in it. I mean organization crooks, the mob. That’s almost all first and second generation, you see what I mean? Because every man in the world wants to be respectable, but a lot of guys are going to say, ‘Okay, if I can’t be respectable, I can’t. But I still want to make good dough. And only the respectable types like in the
Saturday Evening Post
can get the good jobs with the good dough. But my brother-in-law drives a liquor truck bringing in the stuff from Canada and makes great dough, plus sometimes a bonus for an extra job doing this and that, so what the hell. I can’t be respectable, anyway.’ See what I mean?”

I nodded. “Yes, and I see what you’re driving at. The first and second generations aren’t Americanized. So they’ve got the old feeling for family.”

“Right! And that’s where you come in, boy.” He leaned far forward over the table. “I tell you, family is
all
to these people. You kill a man, his brother kills you. Or his son. Like you, for Christ’s sake, going after the guy killed Will Kelly. Or things like this, there’s maybe a dispute of some kind, somebody in the mob gets killed by somebody else. And the guy who did it, or ordered it, he sends like a pension around to the other guy’s wife. You know what I mean, a few bucks every week, help buy the groceries, get the kids some shoes. You know what I mean. There was a time in Chicago, ’27, ’28 I think it was, there was almost forty widows getting bootleg pensions all at one time. You see what I mean?”

“You said something about this being where I came in.”

“Damn right.” He stopped and laughed. “You know, I’m not used to all this talking, all at once like this. It makes me thirsty. And I’m not used to this Kings & Lords, whatever it is.”

“House of Lords.”

“Yeah. I can feel it in my head already, and what is this, my third?”

“Third, yes.”

“Let’s make it fourth.”

We did, and he said, “The twenties, those were the years. We organized faster than the law, that was the main thing. We were one jump ahead all the time. Until this income tax thing, and I tell you that was unfair. That was a cheat. I’ve got no respect for the Federal Government; if you can’t get a man fair, you just can’t get him, you see what I mean? Now, who in the whole damn country ever filled out a tax form honest? Up till then, I mean.” He shook his head. “No respect for them at all, they don’t go by the rules. Anyway, the point was, we all got organized and we had thirteen good years, and then along came Repeal and we had a tough time getting readjusted, you know? Like the March of Dimes, when this Salk vaccine came along. Shot their disease right out from under them, huh? They had to go quick find some other disease. Same as us. Liquor’s legal again, so there isn’t the profit in it any more. So we’re diversifying, there’s dope and there’s gambling and there’s whores. Gambling’s best, it’s safest. The other two, dope and whores, the people you have to deal with, by the very nature of the business they’re unreliable. You see what I mean?”

I nodded, while he paused and drank.

“Of course,” he said, “there’s also the unions. Lepke led the way in that field, around from strikebreakers to trade associations to pocket unions. But Dewey got him, in ’44. Four years after the Federals got me. Frankly, I was one of the people always thought Lepke overdid it. He gave Anastasia more work than you can imagine. Lists of fifteen, twenty people at a time. After a while, it got so that was all he was doing, making up lists of people for Anastasia’s group to kill. So the unions are something else again. It’s a funny thing, that’s the only area with the legitimate base—you know, there’s nothing illegal about unions to begin with, like there is with gambling and narcotics and whores—but it’s the worst for killing and breaking things up. You know what I mean? The only area where just an innocent citizen who doesn’t have anything to do with anything can get beat up or shot, because of where he works or something like that.”

“What’s all this got to do with me?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I’m goddamned, boy, this House of Lords is going right up into my head. I can feel the fumes going right up into my head. The point was, I was trying to give you some of the background, you know what I mean? ’33, Repeal, it all started to fall apart. Everybody’s looking for a new way to make a living, fighting it out for territory and what’s whose and all. And Dewey came along to make life tough. And then the Federal Government, with this cheating income tax thing. A lot of us got moved out, one way or the other. Died or retired or went to jail or one thing and another. And these new people came in. Businessmen, you know what I mean? Respectable. No more of this blood bath stuff, that’s what they wanted. Just a quiet business. Buy your protection and run your business, and let it go at that. I could see it in the papers, all through the forties, everything quieting down. Like a few years ago, the meeting at Appalachin. I could see in the papers and the magazines, everybody was surprised. Like nobody knew there was a mob any more. It called itself the Syndicate now, and people figured it wasn’t real, you know what I mean? Here’s a guy, he runs a bottling plant for soft drinks, and he’s got sixty-five guys out to his house for a meeting, and everybody was surprised.”

“That’s right near Binghamton,” I said. “Appalachin is. I was eighteen then. Some of us rode out in a guy’s car to look at Barbara’s house. Where the meeting took place.”

That made him laugh again. “You see what I mean? Sightseers, for Christ’s sake. People don’t believe it any more. There was a time, in the thirties say, when all the people around a place like that would have stayed miles away, you never know when the shooting’s going to start. Now, things’ve been so nice and quiet for so long, a bunch of kids go out in a car and look at the house.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Why, there was a time, if word got around that somebody like the Genna boys, say, were in town, all the innocent citizens would have gone inside and locked the doors and crawled under the beds. The same as when Anastasia got it in ’57. Nobody believed it. There he was on the floor in the barber shop with five bullets in him, and pictures in the
Daily News,
and if you say the word mobster, everybody thinks of the thirties.”

“Not me,” I said. “One of them shot my fa—my father.”

“Just a hired gun. You’ll never find him.”

“Wrong. I found him today. He was the guy in the Chrysler.”

“The one you hit, or the driver?”

“The one I hit.”

He grinned and nodded. “Good boy. You’ve got a lot of Eddie Kapp in you, I swear to God.”

“Yeah. We were up to ’57.”

“Wait.” He ordered another round, took a first sip, and said, “The last few years, some of the older guys have been coming back. Back from overseas, with the heat off at last, or out of jail, or one thing and another. And these smooth new types say, ‘Yeah, Pop, but we don’t use shotguns any more. We use inter-office memos. Why don’t you go write your memoirs for the comic books?’ And what can they do? Here’s organizations they set up themselves, and now they get the cold shoulder. They try something, and the lawyers and the tame cops come around. Nobody throws a bomb in the living room any more, they just nag and niggle and slip around. Typical businessmen, see what I mean? Every once in a while, there’s an Albert Anastasia, he just won’t get reconstructed, and the guns come out. Or like with you. But not so much any more. A good press, isn’t that the phrase? Good public relations. Everything nice and quiet.”

“We still haven’t got to me.”

“You’re the ace in the hole, boy. Family, didn’t I tell you? We’ve got all these old boys, hanging around now, waiting to move in again. But they can’t move. There’s nobody to set himself up for boss, that’s all it takes. They’ve met, they’ve written to each other, they’ve talked it over. And they’ve decided on somebody they’ll all accept to run things. Me.”

He gulped down all of the drink. “I’m getting the taste back.” His grin was lopsided. “I wasn’t going to do it. I was going to Florida with Dot. Or without her, the hell with her. Because of you. The symbol. In 1940, I was ready to make my move. Not just New York City. Half the Atlantic Seaboard. Everything from Boston to Baltimore, the whole thing. It should have been mine years before, but I’d moved too slow. Only now I had it. I had the support. Hell, I was part of the new look myself! And then these goddamn Federal people came along with this goddamn income tax thing. And I said to some of the boys, ‘When I come out, this pie is mine.’ And they said, ‘Eddie, you’ll be sixty-four years of age. Twenty-five years is a long time.’ And I said, ‘They’ll remember Eddie Kapp. You people will remember Eddie Kapp.’ They said, ‘Sure, but you’re going to be an old man, Eddie. Who’s going to follow you?’ And I told them, ‘Edith Kelly has a kid of mine. When I come out, he’ll be grown. And he’ll be with me.’ That’s what I told them.” He nodded loosely, eying his empty glass. I motioned the waiter. He came and took the glass away.

Kapp watched him go. Softly, he said, “Don’t you think that meant something to them?
Family.
A goddamned symbol, boy, that’s what you are. A
symbol.
Eddie Kapp is bringing new blood. Eddie Kapp and his boy. That’s why they want me. They got a symbol to come around, something to tie them all together.”

“When my father came into New York to pick me up,” I said, “somebody must have recognized him.”

“Sure. For twenty-two years, who cared? Before I went in, I told Will to get out of New York and stay out, not to ever come back as long as he lived. He knew I meant it, and he did it. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t have to know why.”

“He didn’t know I was yours?”

Kapp shook his head, grinning. “He knew you weren’t his. That’s all he knew.”

I emptied my glass. All I could see was Dad looking at me, that last second before he vomited blood. “He didn’t know why they were killing him. Jesus, that’s sad. Oh, good Christ, that’s sad.” When I waved at the waiter, my arm was stiff. I said to Kapp, “He never once let me know. I was his son. Mom was dead, he brought me up by himself. Bill and me, we were the same, exactly the same.”

I couldn’t talk. I waited, and when the waiter brought the glass I emptied it and told him I wanted another.

Kapp said, “They knew I was getting out soon. They saw Will Kelly in town. They got panicky. They had to get rid of Kelly, and they had to get rid of his sons. They couldn’t take the chance on the symbol still meaning something.” He nodded. “And it still means something,” he said.

I lit a cigarette, gave it to him, lit another for myself. The waiter came with more drinks. Kapp had the cigarette in his right hand. He picked up the glass with his left hand, then grunted and dropped it, and it fell over on the table. His face looked suddenly thinner, bonier. He said, “Good God, I forgot my hand.”

“Let’s see it.”

It was gray. A swollen oval on the back was black. I said, “The hell with this. We’ve got to find you a doctor.”

“I didn’t feel a thing,” he said. “Not until I picked that glass up.”

The waiter was there, looking irritated, mopping up with a red-and-white-checked cloth. I paid him, and we left, and got the name of a doctor from the desk clerk. And directions, just down the street.

We went there, and the doctor looked him over. He cut the hand, for drainage, and bandaged it up, and said it would be a couple weeks before Kapp could really use it. In the meantime, keep changing the bandage every day. And stop back in three or four days. Then he checked the left knee, because Kapp was still limping. He said that was nothing to worry about, just bruised. Kapp told him he’d walked into a chair. We both had liquor on our breath, so the doctor didn’t question us.

Then we went back to the hotel and up to the room. Bill was lying on his bed. His forehead was bloody around a small hole, and he had the Luger in his right hand.

There were three cops I talked to. One was a local plainclothesman, a comic relief clown who chewed cut plug. One was from the county District Attorney’s office, a ferret with delusions of grandeur. And the third was State CID, an ice-gray man with no tear ducts.