Mafioso, page 6
part #1 of The Mafia Chronicles Series
One of the grease pits in the Coffey Street garage had a trapdoor that led down into a tiny room that didn’t show on any real estate or city maps. He switched on a light and took a late model .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun from its rustproof wrappings. He wiped the gun with a paper towel and checked the 20-round magazine.
Upstairs, Pignataro was on the phone. “All set,” he told Lanzetta. “Hey, I nearly forgot. Some guy called just before you got here. Wants to get in touch with you real bad. Said he was a friend of Sarah Lawrence. You know what he’s talking about?”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
“Naw,” Pignataro grunted. “Sounded like he was talking through a handkerchief.”
Uncle Joe and Harry had to come first. “Tell the guy handling the phone to have him call back in a couple of hours. Tell whoever it is to sit tight.”
“I’m ready to roll,” Pignataro said. Then casually, “Who’s the hit? Anybody we know?”
“You’ll see when you get there. And listen, GeeGee—this one is direct from Don Corrasco himself.”
GeeGee whistled. “That big, huh?”
Chapter Six
IT WAS QUITE dark and quiet on Columbia Street. Lanzetta switched off the car lights and honked the horn. Before he opened the steel shutters to look out, Daniello switched off the lights in the library. “Okay,” he said to Harry Maione. “Let’s go.”
Daniello had grown up with the old, slab-sided Colt .45 automatic. He checked the big gun, then stuck it back in the waistband of his trousers. Carrying the suitcase full of money—nothing larger than hundreds—he went downstairs. He sighed. Half a million was an awful lot of money. The sacrifices a father made for his children!
Maione took the wheel and Lanzetta got into the back seat with Daniello. Looking at his watch, he said, “We got enough time. Go down Tillary to Flatbush, Harry. Then down Nassau and Flushing Avenue to Clinton. Clinton is a left turn. Watch for being followed. If we are, I’ll take the wheel.”
Daniello held the leather suitcase on his knees, patting it nervously as if to make sure it wouldn’t take off by itself. That was good. Lanzetta liked to have Daniello’s hands where he could see them. Maybe Daniello was getting old, but in his day he was pretty good with a gun. Harry Maione was nothing to worry about.
The Thompson gun was on the floor covered with a car rug. That was just for show unless something happened and he got unlucky. The real gun, the working gun, was in his outside coat pocket, a 9mm Beretta eight-shot automatic, one of a shipment stolen off the Manhattan docks two weeks before. It was fitted with a silencer.
The car sped down wide, glaring Tillary Street, waited for the long light at Flatbush, then made a left turn onto the avenue.
“I’ll be glad when this is done,” Daniello said. The closer he came to parting with the suitcase, the worse he felt. “You know, I wanted the kid to go to a good Catholic school. The kind of place where they look after the girls, know what I mean? These Catholic colleges are pretty strict. They got rules and guards. A couple of blacks in funny hats don’t just waltz in and grab some kid. But would she listen to me? Would she do what her father tells her?”
“You can’t blame the kid, Uncle Joe,” Lanzetta said. “Who could say this kind of thing would happen?” Daniello drummed his fingers on the lid of the suitcase. A lot of balls had to be busted to make up that much money. He’d busted his own balls plenty of times. It wasn’t all he had—about half he guessed—but it was nice, clean cash the Internal Revenue didn’t know about. As long as a man had enough cash, he could go anywhere, back to Sicily or maybe South America if something really bad happened. Now, after tonight, he would have to start building a cash reserve all over again.
“I don’t blame the kid,” Daniello said. “But I’ll tell you what I’m going to tell her. No more fuckin’ around is what I’m going to say. Your fault or not, you cost your father half a mil, so from now on—no fuckin’ around. You go where your father says to go. If that don’t suit you, there’s the door.”
“Take it easy, Harry,” Lanzetta said. “You nearly ran a light back there.”
They were on Flushing Avenue now, a long, dismal thoroughfare fronting on the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
“Clinton’s the only left turn,” Lanzetta told Maione. “Make a wide, slow turn and keep going if it looks all right. See anything doesn’t look right, straighten out and get out of there.”
Maione was sweating, though the heater was off. This wasn’t his bag. He was more of an inside man, helping Uncle Joe with the business end, supplying special information. He left the rough stuff to cowboys like Lanzetta. Family or not, he was taking a big chance helping Uncle Joe to spring his kid in defiance of the Don’s orders. He hoped Uncle Joe came across with something real solid this time—cash, not thank you bullshit.
“You’re coming to it,” Lanzetta told Maione. He checked the door locks on his side of the car. Maione and Daniello did the same. “The minute I get out, lock the doors behind me. They may get me but you’re okay as long as you stay in the car. Once I’m out there you’ll be all the cover I got. Still know how to handle a Tommy gun, Uncle Joe?”
The big car went down Clinton, a dockside street littered with garbage and abandoned cars. Weeds grew up through the ruined sidewalks and the wheels of the car crunched over broken glass. “I don’t see anything,” Maione said. “Maybe they won’t show.”
“There they are,” said Lanzetta. “Down there at the end. There! They switched on their parking lights. Okay, this is close enough. Stop the car.”
Maione turned the key in the ignition and Lanzetta pressed the automatic against the side of Uncle Joe’s head and pulled the trigger. The old man’s skull exploded, and Maione’s hands hadn’t even touched his gun when Lanzetta shot him three times, two in the head, one in the neck. Maione slumped against the steering wheel. Before he reached over to turn off the headlights, Lanzetta pressed the automatic against Daniello’s heart and squeezed the trigger. It was quick and neat—four silenced shots and it was all over.
Sitting at the wheel of the panel truck, GeeGee Pignataro didn’t hear anything. He switched on the headlights when Lanzetta got out of the car, then turned them off again. The motor of the panel truck started up.
“How goes it?” Pignataro said when he stopped the panel truck beside the Lincoln. Another man—one of the button men from Coffey Street—got out and stood waiting for orders. Lanzetta was inspecting his clothes with a pencil flashlight. No blood that he could see.
“Jesus!” Pignataro squealed when he opened the door of the Lincoln. “Uncle Joe!” He whistled, but didn’t ask any questions.
Lanzetta didn’t help to load the bodies into the panel truck. He turned people into bodies, and if the bodies had to disappear, that was GeeGee’s department. Usually, he left it to Pignataro. This time he wanted to oversee the job himself. Uncle Joe was a special case and Don Corrasco would want the job done right from start to finish.
After the bodies were loaded, the button man used a towel for a quick mop-up of the inside of the Lincoln. “Don’t wait for me to get back,” Pignataro ordered. “Go over the whole layout and tell Max to make up papers transferring ownership to himself.”
Pignataro didn’t say anything until they were at the end of Park, picking up the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. “Too bad, huh, Nick?”
Lanzetta said, “Yeah, I thought a lot of Joe.”
“That’s the way it goes,” Pignataro said sympathetically. GeeGee’s sympathy was for Lanzetta. It was a hell of a thing, having to hit the guy who sponsored you and the Family.
There was no more conversation until Pignataro stopped the truck in front of a high, rusted iron gate on one of the docks off Marginal Street. The chain and padlock that kept the gate closed were a lot newer than the gate. Pignataro got out and unlocked it. Lanzetta drove the panel truck inside and Pignataro relocked the gate.
Lanzetta drove slowly, using only the parking lights. At the end of the pier the bulk of the freighter was outlined against the lights in the harbor. He stopped the truck near the foot of the gangplank and they got out. An old man showed himself at the top of the gangplank, then came down. It took him a while, the way his left leg dragged. “Let’s go, Sal,” Pignataro said. “A double like I said.”
Once, Sal had been a killer like Lanzetta. He went way back in the wars, even before the Don himself. Behind his back they called him The Animal because of his needless ferocity. A five-year jail sentence kept him out of the Maranzano-Masseria war, a fact he much regretted. He was a dirty, hairy brute with a peculiarly simple nature. In recent years, after a mild stroke laid him low, he had been tending one of the Family cemeteries disguised as a New Jersey chicken ranch. He was always saying how much he missed New Jersey. It was healthy out there in Jersey, lots of fresh air and fresh eggs, and fuck the FBI for what they’d done to the Jersey Families.
“Hey, Nick,” he said. “You tell Uncle Joe working the boat is killing me ...”
“Tell him yourself, Sal. He’s in the back of the truck.”
In spite of his age, Sal was still powerful. He grabbed Daniello’s still warm body in a fireman’s hold and carried it up the gangplank. Then he came back for Harry. Lanzetta and Pignataro followed him down to the engine room. Two furnaces were fired up to capacity and Lanzetta felt the sweat start to crawl down his body in the fierce heat.
The old man hooked open the door and flame licked out. Bending his heavy shoulders, the old man shoveled in coal, then read the gauge and grunted with satisfaction. Daniello went in first—headfirst. Daniello was fat and it took some hard shoving to get him all the way in. The upper part of the body was burning and splitting before the old man pushed in the feet and slammed the door shut. A strong smell like burning pork came out and filled the engine room.
After the second body was in the furnace, Lanzetta was back on deck carrying the suitcase full of money. The cold, dirty harbor air felt good in his face. Pignataro came up after him and lit a cigarette. No attempt had been made to strip the bodies. Everything went in with the two corpses. Some hours later, after Daniello and Harry were reduced to ash, the old man would allow the fires to go out. After that the ash and cinders would be raked and sifted. Any bone fragments that remained would be pulverized with a hammer and the odd bits of metal would be hammered together and remelted. Then, after the furnaces cooled, the old man would spend hours scrubbing and cleaning. Nothing—absolutely nothing—would remain of the two men. Using the old tub was Lanzetta’s own idea. Some of Trujillo’s agents in New York had used the same method to get rid of some trouble-maker named Galindez, a college professor, back in the early Fifties. It was the most foolproof method ever devised. The FBI knew all about the car-presses and chicken ranches in Jersey. They had yet to catch on to the latest method.
“Let’s go, GeeGee,” Lanzetta said.
The old man had climbed topside after them. “Why don’t you guys stick around a while. Stuck out here, I don’t get a chance to talk to nobody. What do you say we crack a bottle and ...”
“Can’t do it, Sal,” Lanzetta said. “We got to get back.”
The old man was desperate for conversation. Sometimes his mind ran around in circles. He liked to save old copies of the Daily News. “Hey, Nick, you’re a smart guy. You think that Teddy Kennedy killed that broad on Cape Cod?”
“Sal, we got to take off,” Lanzetta said.
“Sure, he killed her,” Pignataro said. “He was dicking the broad and killed her when she tried to put the arm on him. Of course, the medical examiner didn’t find no traces of come in the snatch.”
“You want to know why,” the old man said, “Cause the fuckin’ guy used a scumbag. He ain’t going to rely on no birth control pill ...”
Lanzetta and Pignataro left him talking to himself. “What a character,” GeeGee said. “With two guys in the oven, he’s worried about Teddy Kennedy.”
When they got back to the Coffey Street headquarters fifteen minutes later, Lanzetta asked the guy handling the listed phone if that other guy had called back. He was told not yet.
Lanzetta gave the Beretta to Pignataro. It would be cleaned, reloaded, and replaced in the secret armory under the grease pit. It was a good weapon, no need to get rid of it. In the back of the garage three button men were working on Daniello’s car. Lanzetta walked over to see how it was. One of them was coating the leather upholstery with cleaning foam. “None of the bullets went through,” Lanzetta was told. “A cleaning job is all. Max is fixing the papers—no sweat.”
“I’m going upstairs,” Lanzetta told the man on the phone. “The call comes, that’s where I’ll be.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said. This was the first time any of them had called him sir. They were afraid of him, but in the past it was always Nick. Lanzetta decided he didn’t mind being called sir.
He went up in the elevator carrying the suitcase of money and poured himself a drink. He sat in an armchair looking at the suitcase. Making the hit, there was no time to think about the money. Now he thought about it. Jesus—half a million in clean cash! His passport was in order. He could walk out there, drive out to Kennedy and take a plane. Rio. Mexico City. Hong Kong. Maybe an island somewhere. Or maybe stash the money and say nothing about it to Don Corrasco. The story could be that Uncle Joe tried to surrender himself for the girl. Harry went along to drive the car and he hit them both.
Lanzetta poured a second drink, a thing he never did. That could be the story. No money—just the double hit. According to Family rules, the money should go back to Daniello’s own family, the wife and daughters. Screw the rules! But he knew it wouldn’t work. Don Corrasco would begin to check as a matter of routine. No matter how far he ran they’d come after him, six months from now, a year, five years. The national union of Families had connections everywhere; eyes and ears all over the world. Don Corrasco would take it as a personal insult. Even if Don Corrasco couldn’t prove anything, suspicion was enough. Just a single doubt and he was dead. But shit!—half a million.
He dialed Don Corrasco’s private number and was answered on the second ring. The voice was peaceful, a little tired. Lanzetta let his own voice identify him. “What we talked about happened,” he said. “A double problem. I took care of it.”
Maybe there was guilt in his voice. Don Corrasco said, “No other way.” There was a pause. “Anything else?”
Holding the telephone, Lanzetta looked at the suitcase. He found that he was holding his breath. He let it out slowly. “Yes,” he said. “A bundle. A big one.”
Don Corrasco’s laugh was thin. “I thought there might be. You were smart to remember it. I like a smart kid. We’ll talk later. Now, you must start on that other business. We owe it.”
Lanzetta hung up. The other business was the girl. The telephone rang again. “That same guy’s on the wire,” Pignataro said from downstairs.
“That you, Lanzetta?” the voice on the phone said. Lanzetta didn’t recognize the voice, not thick and drunk the way it was.
“Yeah,” he said. Then he got it. “You got something to tell me, Charlie? About the kid? You got the word Harry put out?”
“You got to believe me. It wasn’t my idea snatching the ...”
“Not on the phone,” Lanzetta cut in. “The word Harry sent was on the level. Direct from the top. For the right information we wipe the slate. We need the information bad, so that’s the deal. Come home, all is forgiven. Suggest you take the offer. It will not be repeated.”
“You swear on your mother’s ...” Charlie Esposito started to say. “Okay, it’s a deal. I’m trusting you, Nick.”
Lanzetta was smiling when he hung up the phone.
Chapter Seven
CAPTAIN FRANCIS CLIFFORD didn’t like FBI agents. He especially didn’t like Assistant Regional Director Richard C. Passalaqua. “What makes you so sure Corrigan’s on the take?” he asked. “Maybe I know he’s on the take, and worse, but why this sudden cooperation. You boys don’t usually volunteer information to the lowly police. What’s the matter? J. Edgar run out of ideas—and neckties?”
This was an old anti-FBI joke with city police. Back in the Thirties, J. Edgar had flown to New Orleans to make a grandstand play by personally arresting some tired Public Enemy who was ready to give up. Except that J. Edgar forgot to bring his handcuffs and so did everyone else in the party. J. Edgar used a borrowed necktie to bind the mug.
Passalaqua was thin, dark, intense. He ignored Captain Clifford’s ancient joke. Passalaqua was a fanatic with no time for jokes of any kind. If he had his way, the country would have a national police force with headquarters in Washington, with Mr. Hoover in charge of everything. Everyone would be fingerprinted and photographed. There would be a uniform code of national laws, not the mishmash of conflicting statutes now in existence ...
“If Corrigan’s on the take, why don’t you do something about it?” Passalaqua asked.
“Why don’t you?” Clifford said. “You’re the boys tapping the phones.”
“Wiretapping is illegal,” Passalaqua declared. He didn’t smile. “We know Corrigan’s working with the DiSalvo Family, but we can’t prove it. Corrigan is careful. On the phone he talks in riddles.”
“I thought you said ...”
Passalaqua was impatient. “Captain, something big is happening. This war between DeSalvo and the others has gone on for months. The killing of those seven men in the Village has brought it to a head.”
Clifford had five years to go to pension age. He had thick white hair, a County Wexford-Brooklyn accent, and he was still tough as barbed wire—but tired. The DiSalvo-Esposito war was happening right in his territory, and he couldn’t expect much help from the senior Irish officers in the Department, because he had sided with Garelik during the power struggle that followed Lindsay’s election when the Mayor began to appoint Jews and Negroes over the heads of the old-time, conservative Irishmen. It was no accident that he was no longer invited to the All-Ireland Counties Association Annual Dance at the Yorkville Casino.
