Sicilian Defense (2 page)

“Yes, you. What the hell, if you hang around with us, you've got to get your feet wet sometime,” grinned Bobby Matteawan.

“Mike, get some tablecloths or something. I don't want this guy's blood all over my trunk,” said Joey.

Angie the Kid looked doubtful. “Somebody ought to go with me,” he said, staring at the body in the shadows between the cars.

“Okay, okay. Louie, go with him,” said Tony.

Louie the Animal shrugged. He took two tablecloths from Mike, bent down and started to wrap them around the body.

“But everybody's looking,” Angie the Kid protested.

“So much the better,” said Tony. “Everybody in the neighborhood heard him dumped here. We've got all these witnesses.”

“Then why the river? Why not leave him here?”

“Because we don't need the aggravation,” said Gus. “Come on, Kid, help Louie wrap up this stiff.”

Joey brought his car up beside them.

“Hey, we could put him in the meat grinder in the restaurant and make meatballs out of him,” Matteawan chortled. “And with his head we'll make
cappuzell
'.”

“You crazy bastard,” said Tony.

“Mmm, can't you just taste the fatty eyeballs of the
cappuzell
',” Matteawan said, rolling his tongue in his cheek.

Angie the Kid looked at him wanly.

“Come on, Kid, help me lift him,” said Louie, pulling the body into sitting position. They picked it up and stuffed it into Joey's trunk.

“Don't take too long,” said Joey. “He'll bleed through the tablecloths in a few minutes.”

“And don't dump the tablecloths with the body,” said Tony, “in case they can trace them.”

“Okay,” said Louie. “You drive, Angie.”

Angie hesitated, then reluctantly got behind the wheel.

Just inside the restaurant door the phone in the booth began to ring. Mike went in and picked up the receiver.

“You got that body we left for you?” purred a deep voice with a heavy Southern accent.

“Who's this?”

“Never mind who it is, baby, just listen. We got Sal. You got it, man? We got Sal.”

“Who
is
this?” Mike repeated.

“Man, you're not listening. We got Sal.”

“Just a minute,” said Mike. He dropped the phone. It banged against the wall of the booth as he ran frantically outside. “Listen! There's a guy on the phone. Sounds like a nigger. He says they got Sal.”

“What?” Tony ran inside. “Hello?”

“Okay, man, for the last time. We got Sal. And that present we just left for you is to let you know we mean business. Got it?”

Tony gripped the phone until his knuckles turned white. His mouth twisted evilly. “What do you want?”

The others were pressed around him.

“We want to talk to the man in charge now, that's what. Frankie the Pig. We got a message for him. We'll call tomorrow night at eight.” The line went dead.

“Hello, hello,” said Tony.

There was no answer.

“Son of a bitch. We've really got trouble,” said Tony. “They snatched Sal.”

Bobby Matteawan let go with a roundhouse left into the side of the telephone booth. The booth shook.

“Take it easy, that's not going to help,” said Mike.

“What the hell are we going to do?” asked Joey. “How're we going to find them?”

“We'll kill them,” screamed Bobby Matteawan. He punched the wall.

“First we've got to get hold of Frankie the Pig,” said Tony. “Who knows where he is?”

They looked at each other, shaking their heads.

“The Kid,” Bobby Matteawan remembered, “the Kid drove him over to see that Irish broad before. He knows.”

They ran to the door. The car was gone. They saw its tail-lights disappearing around a corner a few blocks down.

“Come on, we've got to catch that kid,” said Tony, sprinting toward his car. They jumped in and Tony burned rubber as he pulled away from the curb. The car swayed as it grabbed for traction on the slippery street.

“Where did he go?” asked Bobby.

“He turned left over here,” said Tony, spinning through a red light on the corner. About four blocks ahead of them they saw a car turning left toward Canal Street.

“That must be it,” said Joey, his eyes straining to see through the rain-splattered windshield.

Tony put his foot to the floor. The car lurched forward. When he got to where the Kid had turned, he put it into a power drift around the corner. The car drifted too much and hit the curb at the bus stop. Tony kept the wheels spinning forward, grinding his way back to the middle of the street. The car ahead made a right onto Canal Street.

“Somebody's following us,” said Angie the Kid nervously, looking in the rear-view mirror. Louie the Animal looked back, too late to see anyone behind them. He reached under the seat and took out a pistol that was stuffed into the padding. Angie speeded up and turned right again, now heading uptown on Lafayette.

“The Kid must have spotted the car,” said Tony, “but doesn't know it's us.”

“Son of a bitch,” Joey muttered. “Now he'll drive right past Police Headquarters, and he's speeding, too.”

“He can't turn again until he gets to Broome Street,” said Tony. “We'll go to Broadway and make a right and then up to Broome. We'll cut him off there.”

“Broadway's one-way going downtown,” Joey said.

“So what, his license is suspended already—they can't give him a ticket,” said Bobby Matteawan.

Tony sped to Broadway, then turned uptown. There was only one car headed downtown toward them. It started to flash its lights to warn them they were going the wrong way.

“Fuck you, Mac,” said Tony, flooring the accelerator. The car hurtled to Broome Street, slashed across the intersection with screeching brakes and blocked the street, just as Angie the Kid was about fifty yards from the corner, approaching fast.

Angie swerved and mounted the sidewalk, aiming his car around them. Joey jumped out, right into the oncoming headlights, waving his arms.

Angie, his eyes bulging, his hands locked on the wheel, kept coming. Suddenly a bellow filled the night: “Stop! You dumb Kid!” It was Louie the Animal frantically twisting the wheel. The car came to an abrupt halt.

“Jesus Christ,” Louie gasped. He eased out of the car, putting the pistol in his belt.

“It's us,” said Tony.

“Yeah, and it almost wasn't,” said Louie, looking back into the car.

Angie the Kid had his head down on the wheel.

“Don't die now, Kid,” said Tony. “You've got to get Frankie the Pig. Get him back to the restaurant right away. Bobby, you and Louie drive this stiff to the river.”

“Okay,” said Bobby Matteawan. “You're sure you don't want to make a
cappuzell
' out of him?”

“Come on, let's get going,” Joey ordered abruptly. “It isn't funny anymore.”

Tuesday, February 9

12:15 A.M.

“Those lousy fucking
tutzones
,” said Frankie the Pig, the veins bulging on his massive neck. He was pacing the length of the Two Steps Down Inn. At various tables were seated Tony, measuring Frankie the Pig with his steely eyes; Gus, his feet up on a second chair; Bobby Matteawan, who was sharpening a butcher's cleaver on a honing stone; Angie the Kid, who was watching Bobby Matteawan; Joey and Philly the Splash.

Philly the Splash was an old-timer, gray and thin with age, one of the lieutenants who was no longer very active but who, because he knew the ways of the street, was asked for his counsel. So far, the only thing accomplished was that Frankie the Pig had made Mike nervous, because Frankie was ready to break everything and anything in his way.

“Those lousy niggers, I'll kill them with my own hands,” spat Frankie the Pig between clenched teeth. “What did that son of a bitch say? Tell me again.”

“Frankie,” soothed Philly the Splash, who had got his name by diving off the piers into the East River when he was a kid. In those days, he was the only one in the neighborhood who could swim. “We all know what they said. It's more important to know what we're going to do. That's what we should be talking about.” As the old man spoke, his head nodded involuntarily.

Frankie the Pig looked at Philly the Splash, his eyes filled with the strength and anger that made him both feared and vulnerable. “We should find these miserable bastards and kill them,” Frankie the Pig said icily.

“I'll go for that,” chimed Bobby Matteawan, not looking up from the keen edge of his cleaver.

“I agree,” said Philly the Splash. “And where do we find them to kill them? That's the sixty-four dollar question.”

Frankie looked out the front window. The rain had washed the blood from the street. “I don't know,” he said. “But when we get them, we'll crash them—I can't wait to talk to that guy on the phone tomorrow night.”

“You talk like that and they'll kill Sal,” warned Philly the Splash.

“Splash is right,” said Tony. “First we've got to get Sal back—then we'll worry about getting them.”

“If only we had some word from him,” said Gus.

“Maybe we should send someone to talk to our friends uptown,” Joey suggested. “They might be able to get a line on these niggers for us.”

“No,” countered Frankie the Pig. “This is something we have to work out ourselves. I mean, how does it look if our boss gets grabbed from under our noses by some niggers?” Frankie looked at them. “We have to figure it out by ourselves, like a matter of honor.”

“That's true,” said Philly the Splash. “It's something you should work out among the lieutenants.”

Suddenly Frankie the Pig picked up a chair and began pulling at the back struts to which the cushioning was attached. His teeth bared as he strained to rip the chair apart.

“For Christ's sake, Frankie,” said Mike. “That chair cost me eighteen bucks.”

“Then put it on my tab,” Frankie grunted as the chair splintered, “before I wreck this whole fucking joint and pay you for nothing.”

Mike turned quickly and walked away.

“Anger doesn't accomplish anything,” said Philly the Splash. He was silent again. “You know, I was just thinking. I know exactly what would help us. But you may not like the idea—”

“What is it, Splash?” asked Tony.

“I think we could use someone's help.”

“A minute ago you agreed we should keep it among ourselves,” said Frankie.

“I still think so,” said Philly the Splash. “The man I have in mind is a close friend, not just ours but Sal's.”

“I think I know who you mean,” said Tony. “I think you're right.”

“Okay, tell us who it is so we can all get in on it,” said Frankie the Pig.

“I'm thinking of Gianni Aquilino.”

Suddenly, the restaurant was stone silent. All eyes turned to Frankie the Pig. Angie the Kid was too young to remember. But Tony remembered. Philly the Splash remembered. The older ones all remembered Gianni Aquilino—also known as Gianni Eagle, and later, when his hair had prematurely turned gray, as the Silver Eagle. Formerly the top man in New York, he was the one man whose ideas had helped tame the violent excesses of some of the bloody misfits sprinkled among the peasants who had come to the new world. Those misfits terrorized the nearest people at hand, their own countrymen, just as Negro junkies still prey not upon the rich of Park Avenue, but upon their own brothers.

Not that Gianni Aquilino ran the whole show, or controlled the other mobs. He didn't. He ran his own mob. The others respected him and listened to him, but they kept their own counsel and followed his advice when it suited their own purposes. Thus, when some of the mobs wanted to get in on the lucrative narcotics trade, the Silver Eagle warned against it. In addition to being dirty business, the Silver Eagle cautioned, narcotics were too hot to get involved with. Although other mobs were champing at the bit to deal junk, Gianni's reputation stood in the way.

Some rebels reasoned that if Gianni were dead, they'd be free to pursue their own vices. And if the other bosses refused to agree to kill him, the rebels intended to declare an all-out war in which many would be killed, energies and blood spent profitlessly. The bosses, except for the Silver Eagle, got together and agreed, some very reluctantly, that it would be easier to kill one man—the Silver Eagle, Gianni Aquilino—than to wage a catastrophic war.

It was Frankie the Pig who had been given the contract to kill Gianni Aquilino.

One winter night, twelve years before, he had staked himself outside Gianni's apartment house in the posh upper Fifties. When Gianni came home, Frankie the Pig entered the lobby behind him, drew a pistol and shot Gianni in the head. But Gianni had heard him coming and at the last moment moved just a bit—and the bullet only creased his skull. Gianni was questioned by the D.A. in the hospital—and afterwards, when he was well enough, by the Grand Jury. But Gianni always insisted that he had been mugged by someone he didn't recognize.

While Gianni Aquilino was in the hospital with this bullet wound, another meeting was convened. At this second gathering it was Sal Angeletti who had stood up against the other bosses and argued that Gianni had always been fair—he'd been a stand-up guy and was still a stand-up guy, and he should be allowed to retire as long as he agreed not to have a vendetta. Sal said he would be personally responsible for Gianni. The other bosses reluctantly agreed. And Gianni thereafter retired and went into real estate investments, where he made a formidable and legitimate fortune. Yet the Grand Juries continued to subpoena him anyway, mainly because his elegant presence guaranteed good press coverage.

“What the hell can Gianni do for us that we can't do for ourselves?” said Frankie the Pig finally, breaking the silence. He had been made Sal's underboss because of his undertaking the contract against Gianni. He could see it in his mind as he spoke, back over the twelve years—Gianni standing there and himself sprinting across the lobby, gun in hand. “And besides, you think he'd help us out?”