The Prince (38 page)

“What does it mean?” asked Isabel, not at all impressed.

“It's the New York chapter of the Musicians' Union,” Dixie disclosed. “I joined it. Someday I'll be able to play the cornet in one of these clubs.”

Isabel and Dixie seemed to be a steady couple for most of the night, even though he was captivated by the trumpeter's phrasing and watched ecstatically, not caring much about the girl's attentions. She got bored and asked Saro to dance, but he said he had two left feet and would rather sit than have the whole room make fun of him. Isabel laughed loudly, got up, and forcibly dragged him to the center of the dance floor. Even without heels she was taller than Saro. She put her arms around him and said simply, “Follow me.” Fortunately, a languid blues number had started, and the two held each other close, letting themselves sway to the notes of “Mood Indigo” by the great Duke Ellington. When the last note faded away, the two lingered in each other's arms a moment, in the middle of the floor. Then they broke apart, looked at each other in silence and smiled. Out of the blue, Isabel kissed him passionately for a few brief seconds, and then stepped away and headed back to the table. But Saro stopped her as the other dancers were coming back to the floor for a new number, this time a livelier arrangement with a beat.

“What was that about?” Saro asked, completely bewildered.

“Nothing, I just wanted to feel if you gave me a thrill,” she said.

“And did I?”

“What do you think?”

Isabel went to the table and sat down next to Dixie, who, unaware of what was going on, was accompanying the piece the orchestra had begun, drumming along on the tablecloth.

“This is ‘Jumpin' at the Woodside' by Count Basie!” he shouted to Isabel as she sipped a martini. “Feel that rhythm.” He continued along with the orchestra, beating out the tempo with his fingers. He didn't notice that Isabel's eyes had grown moist.

Saro, however, noticed a change in the young woman. He had never seen her display her feelings so openly. On the contrary, despite her magnetic allure, he had always imagined her as always in control and capable of concealing the slightest sign of weakness. He didn't know what to make of her emotion. Was it due to Dixie's indifference, or was he the cause of her mood?

For Johnny Scalia, Monday took forever to come. Keyed up over the deal he'd made, he had read and reread the sale agreement, looking for some clause that might have escaped him at the time, but he found nothing. The license specified the number, type, and serial number of the slot machines, everything was according to law—or almost. Tampering with the mechanism that governed the winnings was a detail that the authorities no longer even paid attention to now. All of the slot machines in the country had been tampered with, so that kind of inspection would be highly unlikely.

At ten o'clock sharp, he was standing in front of 454 East 117th Street. He went in and made his way toward the gambling parlor's offices. The place was in perfect order, all the slots had a stool, the tables stood ready to welcome the patsies, the staff was bustling about. Someone came up to him and said, “We open in half an hour; we're still setting up.”

“Go right ahead. I'm the new owner.” So saying, he walked directly to the office, leaving the man puzzled.

Scalia knocked and went in without waiting for a response. He saw a sixtyish fellow in shirtsleeves sitting behind the desk. Raising his head from a mountain of papers he was sorting through, the man looked at him questioningly.

“Hi, I'm Johnny Scalia, the new owner of the slots. Are you the manager? Mr. Marangoni's done a great job sprucing up the place.”

As Scalia spoke, the man with the rolled-up sleeves rose from his chair and came around to the front of the desk.

“Ma chi minchia siete?”
he asked in a mixture of American and Sicilian, wagging his joined fingers under Scalia's nose in a challenging gesture meant to say “Who the fuck are you?”

“Weren't you informed by Mr. Marangoni?” Scalia's face was no longer cordial now.

“Who the fuck is this Marangoni? Who ever heard of him?” the man in shirtsleeves continued in the same harsh tone.

“His office is at the National Blue Joy Company, on the forty-fourth floor of the Irving Trust Company. I've been there myself. Look, just a second—” He pulled the license and sale agreement out of his pocket and handed them to the man. “You see? This is 454 East 117th Street. There, see the license? And this is the sale agreement for the slot machines.”

The man read the two documents quickly, turning increasingly livid as he read. When he had finished reading, he looked up at Scalia who was beginning to feel uneasy.

“Everything is in order, I hope—” Scalia managed to say to the man, whose only response was to rip the papers to shreds. “
Now
everything is in order!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, tossing the pieces of the contract into the air like confetti. “Who sent you? Which family do you belong to?”

The shouts made the staff come running, among them two bouncers.

“A problem, boss?” one of the two asked.

“Ask him,” he said, pointing to Scalia, who was now beginning to fear for his safety.

The bouncer turned to the lemon merchant. “What's your beef, buddy?”

“Saturday morning Mr. Marangoni sold me the slot—” But he didn't get to finish the sentence because the two thugs took him by the arms and forcibly lifted him up.

Scalia was on the verge of passing out and felt a vague infirmity spread through his body. He thought he was paralyzed, but when he fully regained consciousness he saw that he was propped up against the wall of a building. A passerby threw a coin into the hat at his feet. Still in shock, Scalia stared at the quarter, and the sight of it made him remember.

He hurried to his bank with his heart in his mouth, glancing at the clock as he went in. It was 10:40—maybe he was still in time. He spoke to the manager, who called over the teller. The teller's words were a cold shower for the poor lemon merchant: “Yes, a young man came in this morning; he was one of the first customers. I remember that he was well dressed, and he had a mustache like Errol Flynn. Given the amount of the check he cashed, I have a clear picture of him in my mind.”

Scalia now raced downtown to the Irving Trust Company. He got into the elevator and asked the operator to take him up to the forty-fourth floor. “The National Blue Joy Company” he said.

“Forty-four, that is,” the young man confirmed.

At the forty-fourth floor Johnny Scalia stepped out of the elevator and headed toward the office of the National Blue Joy Company, trying to stay calm. He was determined not to lose his temper. He would threaten to call not the police but someone who would do the job better than the cops. His heart was pounding.

He rang the bell at the imposing mahogany door. A middle-aged woman opened it: evidently another secretary. Scalia stepped into the corridor. The office was in full swing. Behind the glass, clerks and professionals were busily at work and did not look up from their desks or drafting tables.

“Is the red-haired secretary here?” he asked after looking over the place.

“So you don't like the color of my hair?” the middle-aged lady replied tartly. “May I ask whom you're looking for?”

“Mr. Marangoni,” he said quickly.

“Mr. Marangoni?” the secretary repeated.

“Yes, Mr. Marangoni.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Johnny Scalia was beginning to breathe freely again. At least the man was there. “No, but tell him that Johnny Scalia is here, and he'll understand.”

“Have a seat,” she said, indicating the reception area, and went off down the long corridor.

Scalia watched her walk away and couldn't help but notice her big behind jiggling.

“What a difference,” he thought, remembering the redhead from Saturday.

While he was lost in reflection, the secretary returned accompanied by a distinguished gentleman wearing an English tweed jacket and a bow tie. Seeing him approach, Scalia automatically rose from his chair.

“Good morning, I'm Robert Marangoni. Were you looking for me?” He reached out and firmly shook the merchant's limp, sweaty hand.

“Do you have a son, maybe?”

“I'm not married. But may I ask the reason for your visit?”

“I bought a batch of slot machines from you here, license and all.”

At these words, the man turned on his heel and said to his secretary: “Regina, please take care of it.” He strode off, extremely annoyed by that intrusion into his realm of geometries, curves, and angles.

“Do you realize what you're saying?” The secretary took him by the arm and led him to the door. “This is an architectural firm. We design bridges, buildings, tourist resorts. Don't you know that? Whatever possessed you to talk about slot machines? Mother of God, you hear all sorts of things nowadays.”

She opened the door and shoved him out. Johnny Scalia felt a strong burning sensation in the center of his chest and leaned against the wall, waiting for it to pass.

T
here was no need for the police to get involved in finding Ginevra because the morning after the raid on La Tonnara, a car dropped the child off a few blocks away on East Seventh Street, at the edge of Tompkins Square Park. The little girl was rescued by a woman who recognized her immediately, thanks to the photos that had appeared in the morning newspapers. She took her to the restaurant, where Betty, with a cry of joy and tears of relief, held her tightly in a suffocating embrace.

They brought her to the hospital, and the doctors were able to verify that she had not suffered any injuries of a sexual nature. However, the child was still clearly in a state of shock.

The damages to La Tonnara were substantial. The episode had demoralized the small family, which until then had lived in relative peace.

With their fears for Ginevra behind them, life resumed its normal rhythm. They had to pick up where they'd left off.

Ferdinando Licata offered to pay the damages sustained by the trattoria, but Betty refused her uncle's help. Ferdinando pointed out the danger of falling into the clutches of loan sharks: the couple would run the risk of ultimately finding themselves with an unwanted partner. Not to mention the fact that Stoker would be able to buy their debts from the moneylenders, and they would thus find themselves in his hands. This point made Betty reconsider her decision. In ten days, La Tonnara reopened to the public.

But people were afraid. Their regular customers chose instead to go to other restaurants in the area.

In the end, fixing up the trattoria had cost much more than paying the “insurance,” as Stoker's people called the protection money.

Brian Stoker was the undisputed king of the northern portion of the Lower East Side, which many decades later would become known as the East Village. The Irish had settled in that part of the city when New York was a huge shantytown. His father had witnessed the city transform itself, and had physically helped build it as a bricklayer. Brian remembered him coming home at night to their hovel, having barely enough strength to gulp down the supper his wife had made before he collapsed on the horsehair mattress in a troubled sleep.

He worked as long as eighteen hours a day, eating a bit of bread and cheese to assuage his hunger around eleven in the morning, after the first six or so hours of work, and then not eating again until nine at night, before going to bed. The young Brian, seeing his father slave like a dog under such inhumane conditions, swore to himself that he would not end up that way. When he turned fourteen, before his father could force him to work at the construction site, Brian informed him that he had already found a job at the port as a dockhand for the Jeson family, who ruled the Lower East Side in those days.

Whatever the Jesons said became law. Woe to anyone who crossed them.

Brian began working as a drug runner for the top brass in the union and the police force. It was an easy job that earned a weekly income equal to what his father brought home in a month.

A few years later, when he became a bit stronger, they made him take part in a beating.

Over time Brian proved to be coolheaded and unconcerned about death, and was allowed to participate in “wet work,” as the Irish called missions involving bloodshed.

Mama Jeson admired the young man with the icy gaze and held him up as an example to younger members of the family who may not have wanted any part in killing people.

From that time on, Brian Stoker's career continued on the upswing. His legendary ferocity kept other criminal elements away from the Lower East Side when even the police wanted nothing to do with such hoodlums. “Let them slit each other's throats,” the cops said.

A couple of times, they tried to put Stoker in jail, but when the cases were about to go to court, the witnesses pulled out or said they didn't remember anything.

The Jesons realized too late that a snake like that, harbored in the family's bosom, would sooner or later turn against them. They therefore decided to do away with him, much to Mama Jeson's regret. But Brian hadn't been idly twiddling his thumbs. He'd managed to effectively work on the family's affiliates, bringing them over to his side, and one night he seized control, killing his benefactress, Mama Jeson, before the eyes of her husband and all the brothers. The sight of the woman being garroted, without any of them being able to do anything to save her, drove the younger children into shock and made such an impression on the others that the Jesons chose to disappear forever from New York.

And so in a single night, Brian inherited all of the Irish family's operations, including the cemetery plot racket, which became one of his leading ventures.

In recent years, he'd been trying to expand farther south in the Lower East Side, toward Chinatown, but had met strong resistance from the Italian Bontade family, under the protection of the Genovese clan.