Daughters of Castle Deverill (54 page)

‘Come in, O’Leary,’ he said in a heavy Italian accent, gesticulating through the cloud of smoke to the chair opposite.

‘Don Salvatore,’ said Jack, giving a small bow for he knew the Italians, especially Little Caesar, expected this sort of flattery. Maranzano offered his hand and Jack shook it.

‘Take a seat . . . Coffee? Cigarette? Cognac?’

‘I’m fine,’ Jack replied and took the chair opposite the Boss. Maranzano nodded at his bodyguards, who left, closing the door behind them.

Jack and the Boss were now alone; the small-town Irishman and the Boss of New York City. Jack reflected on how far he had come, but he didn’t have time for wistfulness for Maranzano was
staring at him intensely, his narrowed eyes appraising him to see if he really was the Mad Dog everyone said he was.

‘I heard you got balls and you can take anyone down,’ he said quietly.

Jack gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘If that’s what they say.’

‘Well, you gotta have something to be called Mad Dog – but then again there are lots of Irish boys called mad dogs. I want a dog that’s mad enough but not too mad, you get what
I’m saying? I want something done right and fast.’

‘Then maybe I’m your man,’ said Jack, returning Maranzano’s stare with his own fearless gaze.

‘You see, it can’t be an Italian and it can’t be a Jew, so it’s gotta be a Mick, and it’s gotta to be a
new
Mick. Someone fresh in town, someone not
everyone knows, and someone who can shoot straight. You know what I’m saying?’

‘You called and I’m here,’ said Jack, sounding a great deal more confident than he felt. He had wanted a job like this, a
big
job, but a cold sensation began to creep
over his skin, starting at the base of his spine and crawling slowly up, and he wondered whether it was
too
big. It was one thing bootlegging, quite another working for the Mafia. But he
knew that no one walked away from Little Caesar and lived.

‘You know your Roman history, boy?’ Maranzano asked, puffing again on his fat cigar.
Jaysus! Here we go
, thought Jack. ‘Let me tell you about my favourite, Julius
Caesar. He taught me how to organize my army, my centurions, my legions.’ Maranzano’s chair scraped across the floor as he got to his feet. Then he held up his forefinger in full
lecture mode. ‘Then there was Marcus Aurelius. He taught me the philosophy of ruling an empire. He said, “Don’t get over-Caesarified, that’s dangerous, keep sharp!”
You know what I’m saying? And Augustus,
he
knew an empire needed peace after war – and that’s what I gotta do right now. But he ruled with Mark Antony and in the end he
knew that Mark Antony had to go.
Capisci
?’

Jack did not understand but he didn’t want to guess either, because if he guessed wrong, it could cost him his neck. So he played dumb. Maranzano waved his finger again. ‘I’ll
tell you about another Caesar: Caligula. He said, “Let them hate me as long as they fear me.” He was crazy but he was no fool either,
capisci
? So, that’s why I got
you
here.’ He sat down again and put the cigar between his lips.

‘Why
have
you got me here, Boss?’ Jack asked.

‘I’ve got a job for you. It’s the biggest job of your life.’ He jabbed his finger at Jack. ‘If you fuck up, you’re finished in this city, but if you do it
right, you’ll be my guy, my Irish centurion,
capisci
? I asked you here for a reason. You saw the guy who just came out of lunch with me?’ Jack nodded. ‘You know who he
is?’ Jack nodded again. ‘Luciano, that’s who. But that fuck is trying to kill me after I made him my deputy and gave him so much.’ His voice grew louder and his eyes
narrowed with hatred. ‘He’s trying to kill me with his Jewboy friends, Bugsy and Meyer. You know Bugsy with his blue eyes and his movie star looks? Well, I ain’t scared of no
Jewboys. I got a guy in their house, and he told me, they’re already planning to get me! Well, I’m going to kill Luciano first and
you’re
going to do it for
me.’

‘That’s quite a job,’ said Jack, but he kept his eyes steady. He didn’t want the Boss to see any doubt there.

‘Fifty thousand dollars. Twenty-five now. Twenty-five after. That’s quite a lot of money for a Mick village boy who’s new in the city. Is it enough?’

‘Yeah, it’s enough. I’ll take the job, Don Salvatore, though I got to tell you, I don’t like to be called a Mick.’

Maranzano came round the table and took Jack into his arms. He smelt of garlic, chives, cigars and lemon cologne. ‘You’re a proud man, O’Leary, and I like that. I take it back.
I respect your people and I like your songs. I apologize. Are we straight?’

‘Yeah, sure, no problem,’ said Jack.

‘Good.’ The Boss kissed him on both cheeks and sandwiched his hand between his. ‘Luciano’s coming to my office in a couple of days. It’s nine floors up but he
always takes the stairs coz he don’t like being trapped in an elevator. Sensible, right? And when he comes out of the meeting, he’s alone and you’re going to whack him between my
office and the stairs.
Capisci
?’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Jack, although not a very solid one.

‘Here’s the first twenty-five,’ said Maranzano, pulling out an envelope from his pocket and thumping it down on the tablecloth in front of Jack, who had never seen so much
money before. Jack folded the envelope and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. He could do a lot with fifty grand. He could buy a house for him and Emer. He could give his children a better
life than he ever had.

‘No one knows about this,’ Maranzano continued. ‘None of my guys outside, you understand? No one. Just you and me. That’s why I’m making you a rich man. You know I
own every soldier, every block, every racket in this city, O’Leary. If you let me down, if you talk, if you miss, I will crush you, and if you run, I’ll chase you back to your Irish
village and I will kill everyone you love in the world, you know what I’m saying? If you succeed, I will
give
you the world. You know, Jack, I’ve killed many men and one thing
I know for sure is that you touch the end of the gun to the guy’s forehead so you can feel him, right there, and that way you know it’s done. Man is the hardest animal to kill. If he
gets away he will come back and kill
you
.’

Jack perched on the edge of a desk in a little side office near the reception of Salvatore Maranzano’s office. He sipped his coffee and read the newspaper, the
New
York World-Telegram
, and checked the racing scores. His thoughts drifted to the showgirl from the Cotton Club he had had the night before. He could still smell her perfume and feel the
dancer’s muscles beneath her skin. There were benefits to being an Irish hood in New York City. He would see her that night and have fifty thousand bucks to celebrate.

He smiled to himself and turned the page. The office buzzed around him. Pretty girls in elegant dresses passed his door without casting him so much as a glance, too busy with telegrams and
letters and documents to file. Others sat at desks, heads bent, typing. The offices were elegant and sumptuous, with wood panelling, high ceilings, ornately moulded cornicing and shiny marble
floors adorned with crimson carpets. The walls were cluttered with paintings of Rome, and Jack read the inscriptions beneath:
the Forum, the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, the Pantheon
,
St
Peter’s Basilica
and every couple of yards was a Roman statue of some emperor or other in his toga. Jack had heard that not everyone was so impressed with the Boss’s claptrap about
Caesar but no one would dare let their lack of enthusiasm show.

This building on 45th Street was like a palace, all shiny and new, built by the same men who had built the Grand Central. Inside, the hall was marble, the elevators gleamed, and Jack had checked
himself in the doors as they closed, and rearranged his tie on the way up. He looked good: dark suit, slim figure, his lucky trilby, seersucker shoes in black-and-white, not bad for a country boy
from Ballinakelly. He still had the gap in his teeth from where he’d been punched in prison, but his blue eyes and raffish smile were hard for women to resist. He knew why he had got the job.
He had no nerves. He was preternaturally calm, ice-cool, and he knew exactly what to do and when to do it. He carried a Colt Super .38 in a holster under his arm. Not many people had one yet but
his was already like an extension of his hand. He had the cash for the hit in his suit pocket. He gave it a pat and took pleasure from the thick wad of it.

Everything was in place. He’d wait here in this room until Lucky was in the Boss’s office, then he’d take up his position at the back by the stairs. When Lucky came out
he’d pop him in the forehead, like the Boss had said, with the barrel right against his head, and then walk calmly along the corridor and take the elevator down before Luciano’s
bodyguards, waiting at the door to the stairs, would even have registered the two pops. All he had to do now was sit here and wait.

He had arrived on time at 2.15 and Luciano had been due to arrive fifteen minutes later, but he had sent word that he was running late. Jack lit a cigarette and waited some more. He kept his eye
on the long corridor, where the girls in silk stockings and tight skirts stalked back and forth from Salvatore Maranzano’s office, and the antechamber, where dozens of ordinary men and women,
city officials, workmen, politicians, and the odd gangster, waited to be received by Little Caesar. Time was passing and Luciano was late.
Very
late. Jack looked at his watch. It was now
2.45. He turned his attention back to the newspaper. In this line of work patience was the greatest asset.

Just then four men came out of the elevator. They strode up to the reception desk where the secretary greeted them with a smile. However, her smile swiftly disappeared, replaced by an anxious
frown, and she shook her head. Jack’s interest was aroused. The men were not with Luciano because he and his guards would have used the stairs. Then Jack noticed their uniforms. He lowered
the newspaper and shifted so he could feel the snug weight of the Colt in his shoulder holster: if this was a police raid, he did not want to be caught with the gun or the cash. However, it was
unlikely to be a police raid because the Boss was friends with the police, so who were they and why were they here? An unexpected courtesy call? He thought not. He began to feel an uneasiness
crawling over him and his hackles rose like those of a dog sensing danger, but not quite knowing where it came from. He studied the men more closely. Two were in uniform, two in dark suits. The
first in uniform showed his badge to the secretary, who looked at it, then nodded and shrugged. Jack watched and waited. A calmness settled upon him as his senses sharpened. If these were tax
investigators and they were here when Luciano arrived, he’d have to do the hit another day. Everything had been planned but
this.

Jack observed the tall man in the suit. It was a well-cut suit, he thought, for a government employee. He dropped his eyes to the patent-leather shoes and his stomach gave a sudden lurch. His
gaze sprang up to the face and he recognized the dazzling blue eyes of Bugsy Siegel.

Then it all happened so quickly.

Bugsy’s gun was drawn and the Boss’s bodyguards were already on the floor, disarmed by the two men in uniform. Bugsy and his gang moved over them like cats. The secretaries froze
where they were and no one screamed. Then Jack heard Maranzano’s voice: ‘What the hell are you guys doing here?’ followed by the instantly recognizable wet sounds of plunging
knives and then the pops of gunfire. Jack was on his feet and running into the mail room further down the corridor, near the stairs. He hid under the desk just as the assassins walked briskly out,
passing the very place where only moments before he had been sitting. The men stopped and Bugsy spoke. ‘There was a guy sitting in there, a Mick – where is he? This broad will tell me.
Hey, you, where is he? He can’t have gone far!’

‘I don’t know,’ replied the terrified secretary. ‘I don’t know . . . please don’t hurt me. I think he ran.’

Bugsy slapped her hard. ‘Ran where?’ The girl was now sobbing.

‘Come on, let’s get outta here,’ said one of the men in uniform.

‘No, that was the Mick waiting for Lucky,’ said Bugsy. ‘I want to clip him right here. Right now.’

‘We gotta get outta here.’

‘Fine,’ Bugsy snapped. ‘But I offer fifty grand and a house in Westchester to anyone who kills that Mick, d’you hear me? Fifty grand and a house in Westchester.’
Then they were gone, their footsteps receding down the stairwell.

Jack had been holding the Colt in his hands and this time they were shaking. Slowly he climbed out from beneath the desk, keeping his pistol in front of him. People were emerging warily into the
corridor, blinking in bewilderment. The place was eerily silent. He hurried into the reception area and found the secretary who had saved his life. He touched her tear-stained cheek. ‘Thank
you,’ he said.

‘You’d better get out of here,’ she replied. ‘And make it snappy.’ Jack jumped over a shattered Roman bust and made for the elevator, but virtually everyone on the
floor had abandoned their offices and taken the elevator. He ran into Maranzano’s office to find the Caesar of New York, the
capo di tutti capi
, lying dead in the middle of the
floor. His legs were spread wide, his white shirt stained with blood and pulled out of his trousers to reveal his large belly still oozing crimson from the knife wound. His fingers were twitching
and blood was streaming over his face from the shot to the head – the
coup de grâce
, which he himself had always recommended, just to be sure.

Jack’s mind stilled and shifted into sharp focus. He could not stay here a moment longer. He had to get Emer and Rosaleen as quickly as possible and leave New York without a moment to
waste. Luciano was now the Boss and Bugsy was Luciano’s right hand, and somehow they knew that Jack had been here to kill Luciano. There was a bounty on his head and there was not a gangster
in the city, Irish, Italian or Jew, who would see ‘Mad Dog’ O’Leary without killing him on sight. He had to get out of New York and disappear forever. He would go down south, he
decided, and start a new life. He’d done it before, he could do it again. Ireland flashed into his mind and his heart lurched with longing as those green hills and stony cliffs rose out of
the mist like an emerald oasis in a vast barren desert. But he couldn’t go home for Ballinakelly was the first place they would look for him, and besides, there was nothing left but the ashes
of his old life. No, he’d start again, far away, where no one from New York would find him.