World Gone By: A Novel (21 page)

“What about his cake?”

“Huh?”

Tomas was kneeling on the front seat, looking at the dog blankets in back. “Uncle Dion’s
torta al cappuccino
?”

“What about it?”

“It was in the backseat.”

“I thought he got shot in the bakery.”

“He did.”

“So . . . Wait a minute, what?” Joe looked over at his son.

“But he put the cake in the car.”

“
After
the shooting started?”

“Um, yeah. He came over to tell me to get down. He yelled at me. He said get on the floor.”

“Okay,” Joe said, “okay. But, but this was during the shootout?”

“Yeah.”

“And then what?”

“And then he put the cake on the floor of the car and went back outside.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Joe said. “You’re sure you’re remembering it right? There was a lot going on and you were—”

“Father,” Tomas said, “I’m sure.”

COUGHLIN-SUAREZ IMPORT/EXPORT transported much of its product on a Grumman Goose seaplane. Back in the late 1930s, Esteban Suarez had purchased the plane from Joseph Kennedy, the banker, ambassador, and movie producer, after Kennedy decided to distance himself from the illegal liquor business that built his fortune.

Joe had met Kennedy on a couple of occasions. They were both Irishmen named Joseph from Boston, Joe from the south side of the city, Kennedy from the east. They were both hustlers and bootleggers. Both ambitious men.

They hated each other on sight.

Kennedy, Joe assumed, hated Joe because he embodied the worst stereotypes of the Irish bootlegger and made no attempts to hide it. Joe disliked Kennedy for precisely the opposite
reason—because he’d embraced the street life when it suited his greed but now that he wanted respectability, he acted as if the fortune he’d amassed had been bequeathed from on high as reward for his piety and moral fiber.

His plane had served them well for five years now, though, aided by the aeronautic gifts of Farruco Diaz, one the most insane men to ever put on a pair of pants but a pilot so talented he could thread the Goose through a waterfall without getting wet.

Farruco was waiting for them at Knight Airfield on Davis Islands, a ten-minute drive out of downtown and over a squeaky bridge that swayed in the softest breeze. Knight Airfield, like most airfields in the country right now, had leased a lot of its land and its runways to the government, in this case as an auxiliary landing field for the Third Army Air Force Group out of Drew and MacDill. Unlike those airfields, however, Knight remained primarily under civilian authority, although that authority could be superseded on a dime by Uncle Sam, something Joe was unfortunately reminded of when he pulled down the main road and saw Farruco on the other side of the fence standing by the Goose.

Joe pulled over and got out. He and Farruco met at the fence.

“Why isn’t the engine warming?”

“Can’t do it, boss. They won’t let me.”

“Who?”

Farruco pointed at the control tower, which rose from behind the single-story Quonset hut where the passengers waited. “Guy up there. Grammers.”

Lester Grammers had taken at least a hundred bribes from Joe or Esteban over the years, particularly when they picked up marijuana loads in Hispaniola or Jamaica. But since the war started, Lester had started spouting off at the mouth a bit too much about
his patriotic responsibilities as an air warden, a neighborhood watch captain, and a reborn believer in the racial superiority of Anglo-Saxons.

He still took their money, of course, but he showed more contempt as he did.

Joe found him up in the tower with the two traffic controllers, and thankfully no uniformed personnel in sight.

“Is there a weather front I don’t know about?” Joe asked.

“Not at all. Weather’s fine.”

“So, Lester . . . ?”

Lester dropped his heels off the edge of his desk and stood. He was a tall man and Joe was not, so Joe had to look up at him, which was probably Lester’s intention.

“So,” Lester said, “you can’t leave. Good weather or bad.”

Joe reached into his pocket, careful to keep the flaps of his trench coat closed over his bloody shirt. “What’ll it take?”

Lester held up his hands. “I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you would.” Joe kicked himself for not asking Blake’s guy, Marlo, to grab him a clean shirt when he’d gotten the fresh clothes for Tomas.

“I sure would not, sir,” Lester said.

“Lester, listen.” Joe didn’t like the smug pleasure he saw in Lester’s eyes. Didn’t like it one bit. “Please. I need to fly out right now. Name a price.”

“There is no price, sir.”

“Stop calling me sir.”

Lester shook his head. “I don’t take orders from you, sir.”

“Who do you take orders from?”

“The United States of America. And they don’t want you flying tonight, sir.”

Shit, Joe thought. Matthew Biel of Naval Intelligence. You vengeful motherfucker.

“Fine.” Joe looked Lester up and down, took his time about it.

“What?” Lester said eventually.

“Sizing you up for an infantryman’s uniform, Lester.”

“I’m not joining any infantry. I serve the war effort right here.”

“But after I take your job, Lester? You’ll be serving the war effort on the front fucking lines.”

Joe gave him a clap on the shoulder and left the tower.

VANESSA EXITED THE HOTEL SERVICE DOOR into the alley. Joe had pushed back the flap of his trench coat to fish for his lighter and she saw the blood on his shirt and suit jacket.

“You’re hurt. Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Oh my God. The blood.”

Joe crossed the alley to her, took her hands in his. “It’s not mine. It’s his.”

She looked over his shoulder at Dion slumped in the backseat. “Is he alive?”

“At the moment.”

She dropped his hands and scratched nervously at the base of her throat. “There are dead people all over the city.”

“I know.”

“A group of Negroes shot in a barbershop. And six—I heard six?—men shot in Ybor. Maybe more.”

Joe nodded.

“You were involved?” She looked up at him.

No point in lying. “Yup.”

“The blood is—”

“I don’t have much time here, Vanessa. They’re gonna kill me and my friend and maybe even my son if they decide he saw too much. I can’t stay another hour in the United States.”

“Go to the police.”

Joe laughed.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t talk to cops. And even if I did, some of them are on his payroll.”

“Whose?”

“The guy trying to kill me.”

“Did you kill people today, Joe?”

“Vanessa, look—”

She wrung her hands. “Tell me. Did you?”

“Yes. My son was in the middle of that shootout. I did what I had to do to pull him out. Kill a dozen more men if they were threatening my son.”

“You say that with pride.”

“It’s not pride. It’s will.” He exhaled a long slow breath. “I need your help. And I need it now. Sand’s almost out of the hourglass.”

She looked past him at his son kneeling on the front seat and Dion slumped in the back.

When she looked back at him, her eyes were bitter and sad. “What’ll it cost me?”

“Everything.”

UP IN THE TOWER, Joe kept his trench coat belted as Mrs. Vanessa Belgrave asked Lester Grammers to consider his options.

“That plane isn’t just carrying corn and wheat,” she said. “It’s carrying a personal gift from the mayor of Tampa to the mayor of Havana. A private gift, Mr. Grammers.”

Lester looked anxious and pained. “The government man was explicit, ma’am.”

“Can you get him on the phone?”

“Ma’am?”

“Right now. Can you get him on the phone?”

“Not this time of night.”

“Well, I can get the mayor on the phone. Would you like to explain to him your hostility toward his wife?”

“It’s not hos— Jesus.”

“No?” She sat on the edge of the desk and removed her right earring as she lifted the receiver off the cradle. “Could I have an outside line, please?”

“Mrs. Mayor, please listen to—”

“Hyde Park 789,” she told the operator.

“I need this job, Mrs. Mayor. I—three kids, all in high school.”

She patted his knee in agreement, crinkled her nose at him. “It’s ringing.”

“I’m not a
soldier
.”

“Brrring,” Vanessa said. “Brrring.”

“My wife, she . . .”

Vanessa raised her eyebrows, then turned back to the phone.

Lester reached across her lap and depressed the cradle.

She looked at him, at his arm hovering over her lap.

He removed the arm. “We’ll clear Runway Two.”

“Stellar choice, Lester,” she said. “Thank you.”

“SO WHAT IS THIS?” Vanessa stood in front of Joe at the base of the runway, both of them shouting over the clack and roar of the propellers.

Farruco had helped Joe load Dion inside; they’d lain him on
a pile of the dog blankets while Tomas took one of the seats by the window. Joe had removed the blocks from the wheels, and the plane was starting to shimmy a bit in a sudden warm gust off the Gulf.

“This?” Joe said. “It’s the rest of your life. It’s me and you and that baby.”

“I barely
know
you.”

Joe shook his head. “You’ve barely spent time with me. You know me. I know you.”

“You’re . . .”

“What? I’m what?”

“You’re a killer. You’re a gangster.”

“I’m mostly retired.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not. Look,” he shouted, the gusts and the propellers blowing his coat and hair all around, “there’s nothing left for you here. He’ll never forgive you for this.”

Farruco Diaz appeared in the doorway of the Goose. “They’re telling me to wait, boss. The tower.”

Joe waved him off.

Vanessa said, “I can’t just get on a plane and
vanish
.”

“You won’t be vanishing.”

“No.” She shook her head, trying hard to convince herself. “No, no, no.”

“They’re telling me to put the blocks back in front of the tires,” Farruco called.

“I’m older than you,” Joe said to Vanessa, his words rushed and desperate, “so I know you don’t regret the things you do in this life. You regret the things you don’t. The box you didn’t open, the leap you never took. Don’t look back ten years from now from some drawing room in Atlanta and think, ‘I should have gotten
on that plane.’ Don’t. There’s nothing left for you here and the whole
world
is waiting over there.”

“But I don’t know that world,” she yelled.

“I’ll show it to you.”

Something stricken and merciless entered her face. Something that immediately covered her heart in black rock.

“You won’t live long enough,” she said.

Farruco Diaz called, “We gotta go now, boss. Now.”

“One second.”

“No. Now!”

Joe held out his hand to Vanessa. “Come.”

She stepped back. “Good-bye, Joe.”

“Don’t
do
this.”

She ran to the car and opened the door. She looked back at him. “I love you.”

“I love you.” His hand still hung in the air. “So—”

“It won’t save us,” she called and got in her car.

“Joe,” Farruco called, “the tower’s telling me to shut the engines.”

Joe saw the headlights on the far side of the fence then—at least four pairs of yellow eyes, floating up the airport road through the heat and dust and dark.

When he looked back at Vanessa’s car, she was driving away.

Joe hopped into the plane. He slammed the door closed and threw the bolt.

“Go,” he called to Farruco and sat on the floor. “Just go.”

WHEN CHARLIE LUCIANO WENT TO PRISON IN 1936, control of the outfit was divvied up between Meyer Lansky of New York and Havana, Sam “Jimmy Turnips” Daddano of Chicago, and Carlos Marcello of New Orleans. These three men, plus three junior officers, Joe Coughlin, Moe Dietz, and Peter Velate, presided over the Commission.

A week after his flight from Tampa, Joe was summoned to meet with the Commission on
El Gran Sueño,
a yacht owned by Colonel Fulgencio Batista but, as often as not, on loan to Meyer Lansky and his associates. Joe was met by Vivian Ignatius Brennan at one of the United Fruit Company piers and boarded a launch for the ten-minute ride out to the yacht in Havana Harbor. They called Vivian “Saint Viv” because more men had prayed to him just before they died than had ever prayed to Saint Anthony or
the Blessed Mother. He was a trim, short man with pale hair and pale eyes and unimpeachable manners and taste in wine. Since his arrival in Cuba with Meyer Lansky back in ’37, he tended to dress like a Cuban—short-sleeved silk shirts that flared moderately at the waist, silk trousers, two-toned shoes—and he’d even taken a Cuban woman for a wife. But he was all Outfit when it came to his loyalties. A native of Donegal who’d grown up on New York’s Lower East Side, Saint Viv discharged his duties without complaint or error. When Charlie Luciano came up with the concept of Murder Inc.—hit men with no affiliation to the towns in which they killed people—he put Vivian Ignatius Brennan in charge of it until Meyer talked Lucky into letting him take the Saint to Cuba with him, whereupon the reins were handed off to Albert Anastasia. But even now, if Charlie or Meyer wanted absolute certainty that someone walking upright today was going to quit that practice by tomorrow, they sent Saint Viv to fulfill the contract.

Joe handed Viv the satchel he was carrying and Viv opened it and looked at the two matching binders inside. He removed them and patted the satchel all over until he was satisfied. He placed the binders back inside and stepped back so Joe could board the launch. Once he was aboard, Vin handed him the satchel.

Joe said, “How you doing?”

“I’m grand.” Vivian gave him a sad smile. “I hope it goes well out there.”

A small laugh escaped Joe’s lips. “I hope it does too.”

“I like you, Joe. Hell, everyone does. Break my heart if I had to see you out.”

See you out. Jesus.

Joe said, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Let’s.” Vivian steered the launch away from the pier, the clanging
motor exhaling small clouds of blue smoke up toward the greasy orange sky.

Heading toward what could be his death, Joe realized he didn’t fear dying so much as he feared orphaning his son. Yes, he’d made provisions. There was plenty of money socked away for Tomas to live a life without want. And, yes, the boy’s grandmother and aunts would raise him as their own. But he wouldn’t be their own. He was the product of Graciela and Joseph, his parents. And with both of them gone, he would be an orphan. Joe, who’d grown up an orphan even though his biological mother and father lived full lives under the same roof, wouldn’t wish a parentless life on anyone, not even Rico DiGiacomo or Mussolini.

Another launch approached, heading back toward the UFC piers. There was a family in it—father, mother, child—all standing ramrod straight. Joe recognized the blond hair on the boy. It didn’t surprise him that the ghost had reappeared now of all days; it actually made a kind of sense.

What did surprise him was the man and the woman in the boat, who refused to look at him as the two launches passed each other. The man was trim and fit, his flaxen hair cut tight to his scalp, his eyes the same pale green as the shallows. The woman was also thin, pinched, her hair piled up in a tight bun, her features so stern with terror disguised as propriety and self-loathing masquerading as imperiousness that it took a second look to realize how pretty she must have once been. She too ignored Joe. Which was the least surprising aspect of the whole experience, since she’d spent the whole of his childhood ignoring him.

His mother. His father. And the boy with the featureless face. Crossing Havana Harbor with the grim fortitude of Washington crossing the Delaware.

They passed, and Joe turned to watch their backs and the core
of him shriveled. Their marriage, by the time he came along, was a sham. Their parenting, by the time he came along, was an afterthought, a burden to be borne with self-righteous irritation and short fuses. They spent eighteen years trying to break his spirit of any spark of joy, ambition, or reckless love. And all they produced because of that was an unstable and insatiable organism.

I’m here,
he wanted to yell after them.
Maybe not for long. But I was here, and I lived fucking large.

You lost,
he wanted to yell after them.

But yet . . .

You won
.

He faced forward again and
El Gran Sueño
loomed before them, a blaze of white against smudged blue sky.

“Good luck in there,” Vivian said when they reached the yacht. “I wasn’t kidding when I said it would break my heart.”

“Break your heart to stop mine, uh?” Joe said.

“Something like that, yes.”

Joe shook his hand. “Some business we’re in.”

“Ah, beats a dull life, sure, though, doesn’t it? Watch your step on the ladder. It gets wet.”

Joe climbed the ladder and stepped onto the deck and Vivian handed his satchel up after him. Meyer was waiting there, smoking as always, four other men with him—button guys or bodyguards by the look of them. Joe only recognized Burt Mitchell, a Kansas City gun monkey and bodyguard for Carl the Bowler. No one acknowledged Joe. They might be feeding his body to the sharks in half an hour, so there was no point in getting cozy.

Meyer indicated the satchel. “This it?”

“Yup.” He handed it to Meyer, who passed it off to Burt Mitchell. “See that gets to the accountant in my stateroom.” He put a hand on Burt’s shoulder. “No one but the accountant.”

“Yes, Mr. Lansky. Absolutely.”

When Burt walked off, Joe shook Meyer’s hand, and Meyer gave him a hard pat on the shoulder. “You’re a talented orator, Joseph. I hope you can bring all your skill to bear today.”

“You talk to Charlie?”

“A friend did on my behalf, yes.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said he doesn’t like publicity.”

There’d been way too much of that coming out of Tampa in the past week. There was talk the Feds were commissioning another board to investigate organized crime in Florida and New York. The papers had plastered Dion’s face on the front pages for days, along with garish pictures of the dead Joe had left on Seventh Avenue and the four dead in the Negro barbershop. A couple of newspapers had even linked Joe to the shootings, though they were careful to use words like
purportedly
,
allegedly
, and
rumored to
. It was noted in all news reports, however, that neither Joe nor Dion had been seen since the afternoon of the bakery shootout.

“Charlie say anything else?” Joe asked Meyer.

“He’ll say it by proxy at the end of this meeting.”

So Meyer was the final judge. Ironic that the guy who might pass the death sentence on Joe had been his partner and biggest benefactor these last seven years.

Then again, not the exception but the rule in their thing. Your enemies rarely got close enough to kill you. So the dirty work usually fell to your friends.

Down in the stateroom, Sam Daddano and Carlos Marcello sat with Rico DiGiacomo. Meyer came in behind Joe and closed the door after him. So, besides Rico, the only other three men present were the lords on high of the Commission, which meant this was as serious as a meeting got.

Carlos Marcello had been running New Orleans since the teens; he’d inherited it from his father and grew up with the business in his blood. If you stayed out of his territory, which also included Mississippi, Texas, and half of Arkansas—Carlos was a perfectly pleasant human being to deal with. But if, on the other hand, you sniffed for money anywhere near his turf, the bayous occasionally burped up parts of someone who’d confused where Marcello borders began and their right to breathe ended. Like most of the men on the Commission, he was known for a calm demeanor and a desire to be reasonable until reason had exhausted itself as a business model.

Sam Daddano had been the Outfit’s entertainment and union guy for a decade before his success there got him bumped up to the top Chicago slot when old man Pascucci had himself a stroke in Lincoln Park one rainy spring morning. Sam had advanced the Outfit’s interests out west and had pulled all the movie unions into the fold. He’d even gotten out ahead of the record business. They said if Sam glanced at a nickel it turned into a dime. He was very thin and had been going bald since his teens. He was only in his early fifties but he looked fifteen years older, always had, his skin flaky and mottled with liver spots, as if their business consumed all the fluid inside of him, just sucked him dry all day long.

Meyer took his seat on the other end of the table. He placed his briefcase down and neatly laid out his cigarettes, gold lighter, gold pen, and the notebook where he occasionally scribbled an idea—never a fact, never a fact—and always in code and always in Yiddish. The Little Man himself, Meyer Lansky. The architect of all they’d built, and as unflappable as any man with a pulse could get. The closest thing Joe had to a mentor in this business. He’d certainly taught him most of what he knew about the casino business, while Joe had taught Meyer most of what he knew about Cuba. As
soon as this fucking war ended, they’d be able to make some real money here.

Or would have been able to. Meyer might be making that money all by himself if Joe didn’t convince his jury that he was worthy of more days in the fresh air.

Joe took his seat across from Rico, who stared at him with his true face for the first time. In it, Joe saw the bottomless appetite for empire that he should have seen the first time he’d met him fifteen years ago, when Rico had still been mostly a boy. But even then Rico had possessed the most priceless gift for a man of his ambition—people couldn’t see into him; they only saw their own images reflected in his eyes. Rico managed to keep you out by making you feel as if all he dreamed of was for you to let him in. Now he stared across the table at Joe, an open smile on his open face, and looked like he might just dive across the table and tear Joe’s limbs off with his bare hands.

Joe had no illusions about his own physical capabilities—he’d been in three fistfights in his life and he’d lost them all. Rico, on the other hand, grew up in Port Tampa, the son, grandson, and nephew of longshoremen. Joe looked across the table at his betrayer and Dion’s usurper and showed no fear because anything less would have been an admission of guilt or lack of balls, both of which would seal his fate in this room. But the truth was, if he made it back out of here alive, he knew that Rico would never stop wanting him dead.

“The concern,” Carlos Marcello said to open the meeting, “is how much damage you did last week, Joe.”

“
I
did,” Joe said, looking at the table. “How much damage I did.”

Sam Daddano said, “You met with the nigger Dix, and ten minutes later he killed four nigger associates of Rico’s. Was this a coincidence, Joe?”

“I told Dix he couldn’t talk or fight his way out of the jam he was in and he needed to make peace with his maker. I—”

“Might end up being good advice for you.” Rico smiled across the table at him.

Joe ignored him. “I didn’t know Dix was going to take that to mean he should shoot up a barbershop and kill Little Lamar.”

“And yet,” Meyer said, “it happened. And then this business at the bakery.”

“He’s dead by the way,” Rico said to Joe.

Joe looked over at him.

“Montooth. Got in his car yesterday morning and that car went
boom
. Somebody found his nutsack melted to the side of a hydrant across the street.”

Joe said nothing. Just gave Rico flat eyes as he lit a cigarette. Last week, Joe had made his peace with Montooth Dix’s death. But it hadn’t happened. So, unbeknownst to him, his heart had opened to the possibility that Montooth could stay aboveground a few more years.

Now he was dead. Because a serpent cloaked in a man’s body decided he wasn’t satisfied with the chips on the table, decided he was owed the whole fucking casino. Fuck you, Rico. And everyone like you. Make you a prince, you want to be a king. Make you a king, you want to be a god.

Joe turned back to the man at the head of the table. “You wanted to discuss the bakery.”

“Yes.”

“Was the hit sanctioned, by the way?”

Sam Daddano held his gaze for several seconds. “It was.”

“Why wasn’t I consulted? I’m part of this Commission.”

“With all due respect,” Meyer said, “you couldn’t be trusted.
You’ve described Dion Bartolo on several occasions as your brother. Your judgment would have been clouded.”

Joe took that in. “And that plot to assassinate me? That was all smoke?”

Meyer nodded.

“My idea,” Rico said, helpful as ever, hands folded on the table in front of him, voice soft. “I wanted to get you clear of the danger when the hit went down. Believe that? I figured you’d grab your son and light out for here, sit the whole thing out. I was looking out for you.”

Joe couldn’t think of a reply to that, so he turned back to the room. “You sanctioned a rubout on my friend and boss. Then my son got caught in the crossfire when all these hitters came down from . . . Brooklyn, I’m assuming? Midnight Rose’s Candy Store?”

An affirmative flick of the eyelids from Carlos Marcello.

“Bunch of out-of-towners standing in my territory taking shots at my boss while my son’s in a car on the same street, and I’m somehow to blame for my reaction?”

“You killed three of our friends that day,” Daddano said. “You crippled another.”

Joe narrowed his eyes at that, confused.