The Mobster’s Lament

by Ray Celestin

  ‘Budget won’t stretch to a live band on weeknights,’ Jasper explained, over the noise of the record.

  Gabriel scanned the crowd once more. The place was doing a roaring trade. He wondered which mobster Jasper was paying, how much he was being squeezed, if the booze he was forced to serve up was legitimate stuff the Mob had stolen, or the counterfeit stuff that rotted your gut.

  The New York State Liquor Authority, or any beat cop for that matter, could write up a violation and get a fruit bar closed down for allowing undesirables to congregate. A situation that led to a non-stop series of bar openings and police raids and court dates and re-openings.

  Until the Mob had stepped in.

  They offered to use the kickback-protection system they’d set up during Prohibition to allow the bars to operate without interference, in return for a cut of the profits and agreements that the bars would buy their booze from them. So the bars paid the Mob, and the Mob paid the authorities to look the other way. When the cops did decide to raid somewhere, for appearance’s sake, they’d call the owners beforehand to let them know. The papers would print an article on the boys in blue busting another daffodil den. And so in the fruit bars and clubs of the Village, it was almost like Prohibition had never been repealed. And maybe some of the customers enjoyed it that way – the furtive, underbelly buzz, the drinks laced with a seam of danger.

  ‘How’s life in the big leagues?’ Jasper asked, meaning the Copa.

  ‘Ten times the size of this place and half the atmosphere,’ said Gabriel.

  Jasper laughed. ‘You know, I have a theory,’ he said. ‘That the more expensive a night-spot’s decor, the less interesting the people inside it.’

  Gabriel shrugged. ‘Yeah, I buy that,’ he said.

  ‘So,’ said Jasper. ‘To what do I owe the honor? You finally seen the light?’

  ‘I’m here looking for info.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Gabriel lit a Lucky, offered one to Jasper, who turned him down on seeing the brand.

  ‘Anywhere we can talk that’s a bit more quiet?’ Gabriel asked.

  Jasper thought, nodded, led Gabriel behind the bar, through the doorway that was screened off by the floral curtain, down a corridor, into a backroom. Bare walls, a single bare light-bulb, the smell of drains backed-up. The place looked like it tripled up as staff room, kitchen and drinks store. There was a Negro woman standing at a sink, running dirty glasses through a bucket of brown water. There were crates of booze stacked up, hangers with coats, a table and chairs. The floor was strewn with broken, empty Benzedrine tubes, the ends of dope cigarettes.

  ‘The staff,’ said Jasper, following Gabriel’s gaze to the litter on the floor.

  Gabriel nodded. He leaned back on the wall behind him and Jasper raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, Gabby,’ he said. ‘Roaches.’

  Gabriel straightened up.

  ‘Harriet?’ said Jasper, turning to the woman at the sink. ‘Would you give us a moment?’

  The woman looked at him and nodded, turned and left the room, closing the door behind her, dimming the music.

  ‘You got running water in here?’ Gabriel asked, nodding at the bucket in the sink.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should get some.’

  ‘Everyone’s a critic,’ Jasper said. ‘You know how much of a slice Ianniello’s taking from my profits? I can barely afford to stay open, even though the place is packed every night. And the booze he stocks me with …’

  He shook his head. Gabriel nodded. He knew Ianniello, an up-and-comer who ran protection on a number of bars in the Village under the front of a soft drinks distribution company – the Hi-Fi Beverage Corporation.

  ‘So?’ asked Jasper.

  ‘I heard Benny Siegel paid you a visit last summer.’

  Instantly Jasper’s guard went up.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, relaxing into it. ‘He came by one night. Then a couple of weeks later his corpse was splashed across the front page of the Daily News. Shame. He was a good-looking man.’

  ‘What was he doing here?’ asked Gabriel.

  Jasper thought, shrugged.

  ‘I was as shocked as anyone when he came in the door.’

  Unconvincing. Jasper was hiding something. The man played the bon vivant but he wasn’t soft. If he was being cagey, it was for a reason, and if Gabriel wanted to find out what it was, he’d have to bargain.

  ‘Give me something,’ said Gabriel. ‘And I’ll get Costello to talk to Ianniello about taking a smaller slice. Or at least stocking you with better booze.’

  Jasper thought. Evaluated.

  ‘What reason would you give?’ he asked.

  ‘That you’re a friend of mine, and Costello’s a friend of mine.’

  Jasper evaluated once more.

  ‘I’m here on Costello’s behalf,’ Gabriel added for more weight. ‘Let me know. One night spot manager to another.’

  Jasper stared at Gabriel and Gabriel got the sense he was being weighed up.

  ‘You can’t let anyone know what I’m about to tell you,’ said Jasper.

  ‘Sure,’ said Gabriel.

  Jasper nodded. ‘Benny came here looking for information.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On whom,’ said Jasper. ‘A jazz musician. A Negro by the name of Gene Cleveland.’

  Gabriel frowned. ‘Why’d he come here?’

  ‘Cleveland was in the band that played here Saturday nights sometimes.’

  ‘Why was he looking for him?’

  ‘He didn’t say. And I didn’t ask.’

  Gabriel nodded. What the hell did Benny want with a Negro jazz musician?

  ‘Where can I find Cleveland?’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Jasper. ‘He disappeared. A good while before Benny came looking for him. The disappearance was probably why Benny was looking for him.’

  ‘What’s this Cleveland like?’

  ‘I hardly knew the man,’ said Jasper, and Gabriel noted the use of past tense. ‘He played saxophone in a jazz band. He sold dope. He hung about the Village. The bohemians delighted in him.’

  ‘He was a pusher?’

  ‘He hawked to his friends, to support his own habit. He was hardly Bumpy Johnson. I think the word is two-bit.’

  ‘You know any of his friends?’

  ‘Just his band-mates, but none of them have seen him since he disappeared either. It’s been months since anyone saw him, Gabby. And as to why Benny wanted to find him, your guess is as good as mine.’

  Gabriel nodded, started to get the feeling this was all a dead end.

  ‘Thanks, Jasper,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to Costello.’

  ‘Sure.’

  They returned to the bar, said their goodbyes and Gabriel headed through the roar. As he got to the front door, he saw there was a sign stapled to its inside – Exit if you dare. He smiled. Stepped out into the cold, walked towards his car.

  Benny had gone to the Village chasing a guttersnipe. It was strange, especially for Benny, but could it have anything to do with the missing money? Gabriel knew someone he could ask.

  He got in the Delahaye and headed for the Copa, cutting north out of the Village, past the hulking mass of the Women’s Prison. He sailed through Midtown and the skyscraper canyons looked like voids in the dark. He drifted into that necropolis state of mind. The buildings like tombstones, Manhattan a graveyard, Gabriel flying through it like a wraith.

  21

  Wednesday 5th, 11.44 p.m.

  When Gabriel arrived at the Copa, he saw the mirage was in full swing. The dance floor was packed, the tables overflowing. The staff were gearing up for the midnight floorshow. He cast his eye over the place, made sure all was in order, headed through into the back.

  Havemeyer and the others were in the office when he entered. Havemeyer gave him a sour look.

  ‘What?’ said Gabriel, sitting down. There was a stack of letters on his desk, even though he’d only been gone a day.

&
nbsp; ‘You talk to him?’ Havemeyer asked.

  ‘Talk to who?’

  ‘Genovese.’

  Gabriel frowned. ‘He’s here?’

  ‘Sure, he’s here,’ said Havemeyer. ‘Been here an hour.’

  They shared a concerned look. Since Vito Genovese had returned from Italy the previous year, he’d not looked in on the Copa once. It made sense; Vito wasn’t a nightclub kind of guy, especially when the nightclub was owned by his rival for control of the crime family.

  ‘He ask for me?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘No,’ said Havemeyer. ‘But why else would he come here?’

  ‘Maybe he’s a Carmen Miranda fan.’

  Havemeyer gave Gabriel another of those looks.

  ‘Try probing for weaknesses,’ he said.

  ‘Who’s he here with?’

  ‘Half of New Jersey, by the looks of it,’ said Havemeyer. ‘You really didn’t make him when you came in?’

  Gabriel shook his head, startled that he’d missed them. Maybe all the stresses pulling at his mind were stopping him from focusing like he used to. Like he needed to. Now most of all.

  ‘I gave him ringside seats and comped all the Krug he could handle,’ said Havemeyer.

  ‘Good,’ said Gabriel. ‘He’ll like that.’

  Genovese was a notorious cheapskate. Gabriel rose and headed to the restrooms. He checked his face in the mirror. Wondered what the hell Genovese was doing here. In his fourteen-year entanglement with the Luciano crime family Gabriel had seen countless vendettas and quarrels and feuds, many were of Byzantine complexity, many were left to ripen and sour over decades. The bad blood between Genovese and Costello was relatively recent by those standards, had started some time in ’36, when Luciano was sent to prison and Vito Genovese became acting boss. He only held the position for a year, as he had to flee to Italy to escape a murder charge. From his prison cell in Siberia, Luciano made Costello the new acting boss. And Costello started turning round the family’s fortunes. And maybe it was this as much as anything that angered Genovese – how his former underling had proved to be so much better at the job that Genovese so desperately coveted, and had so quickly forfeited.

  Gabriel splashed cold water over his face. Popped two dexies and downed them dry. He left the restrooms, walked down the corridor, turned right, turned left, walked through the chaos of the kitchen, its bright lights, its French section, its Chinese section, pushed through the service door and the slam of the music filled his ears, the blaring lights, the rush and blur of the crowd.

  On stage, the band was all set for the start of the show. Gabriel scanned the space, saw Genovese and a dozen goons sitting in prime seats at the edge of the dance floor, drinking up Gabriel’s champagne, trying to look like they weren’t enjoying themselves. Most of them were young enough to fit into the crowd, but not Genovese. He looked fifty, going on eighty. Stocky and square-faced, wearing those odd amber-tinted glasses that gave him the air of an accountant. He was dressed in clothes that must have looked fusty even in the Sicilian backwaters he’d been hiding out in for the best part of a decade. He seemed out of his depth, in unfamiliar waters, which Gabriel hoped gave him something to play with.

  He slid through the crowd towards their table. When Genovese saw him he grinned slyly.

  ‘Vito,’ said Gabriel. ‘Welcome to the Copa. I hope you’re enjoying yourself.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure to be here,’ said Genovese. ‘Thanks for making us feel so at home.’

  He gestured to the men sitting around him. Gabriel scanned their faces, he recognized most of them, spotted Nick Tomasulo – Costello’s mole in Genovese’s clique. Gabriel made sure his eyes didn’t linger on him.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Genovese. ‘Join us.’

  Gabriel didn’t want to, but he nodded, gestured to a captain for an extra chair. Genovese grinned, looking like he’d won some kind of victory. Just then the emcee came on stage, things shushed down, and he introduced the show. Carmen Miranda and the Samba Sirens entered to rapturous applause, dressed in chiffon, sequins and feathers.

  A look of disapproval clouded Genovese’s face, and Gabriel could guess why. When Genovese was hiding out in Italy, he set about ingratiating himself into Mussolini’s regime. He got in with them so good, the Duce made him a commendatore, the highest civilian rank in Fascist Italy. It didn’t take much to figure out that everything about the Copa – its Latin decor, its Chinese food, the pulsing samba music with its hint of Africa – would be distasteful to a commendatore.

  ‘So how’s life over in Jersey?’ Gabriel asked.

  Genovese shrugged. ‘I’m glad to be back on American soil. A free man,’ he said. ‘But I come back from the war and see a lot has changed. Some good, some bad.’

  Genovese waggled his head. Gabriel had to suppress a smile, Genovese was acting like a returning veteran, liked he’d actually fought in the war. The way Gabriel had heard it, when the Allies invaded, Genovese switched sides, became a fixer for the American Army, used the position to turn a profit on black-market goods. All until someone realized he was the same Vito Genovese who had an outstanding arrest warrant for murder in New York. And so he was deported back to the States.

  But between his return and his trial, all the witnesses in the case either changed their statements or were killed. So in June the previous year, Genovese walked out of prison a free man, and had moved to a mansion in Middletown, New Jersey, still angered by the fact Costello had usurped him. Pretty much immediately he set about regaining control of the family, and now, seventeen months later, he was paying Gabriel a visit.

  ‘What about you, Gabriel?’ he said. ‘I hear you’re doing well. Here, and with the interest at the race track in Saratoga, and living on the Upper East Side with the old money.’

  ‘I’m doing OK,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘You have a good summer this year at the race track?’ Genovese asked with a glint in his eye. ‘How’s it working with old Albert there?’

  A spike of panic stabbed through Gabriel. Did Genovese know about the skim at the race track? The cooked books? Was he going to use that to put the squeeze on Gabriel somehow?

  ‘We had a good season,’ said Gabriel, his eyes fixed on Genovese’s face, looking for some clue as to the extent of what he knew.

  Then another spike of panic. Maybe this had to do with the missing two million. Maybe Genovese was Benny’s partner in stealing the money. Maybe Genovese had heard Gabriel was investigating. He ran through the list of people he’d seen, the questions he’d asked, wondering who could have ratted him out. Gabriel needed to talk to Tomasulo, their mole, to check if Benny had seen Genovese over the summer. Tomasulo was only sitting three chairs away, but in the current situation, there was no way Gabriel could do anything other than pass the time with the man.

  ‘With all that money coming in,’ said Genovese, ‘it makes me wonder why you’re still working here? Spending all night in a smoky basement with this nigger music in your ears.’

  And with that statement, Gabriel realized why Genovese was there. It might still have been about the money, but it was also about something much, much larger.

  ‘I enjoy it,’ said Gabriel, eyeing him closely.

  ‘Sure,’ said Genovese. ‘You look so happy.’

  The skin round his eyes crinkled and a smile appeared on his lips, a cheerless smile, as if some unseen hand had pulled back the muscles of his face.

  He gestured to the Copa. ‘These junkie musicians and faggots and hookers. Don’t you got a girl to raise?’

  ‘I’m a night owl,’ Gabriel said. ‘The musicians aren’t junkies and the girls aren’t hookers.’

  Genovese nodded, lit a cigarette and played with the lighter between his fingers.

  ‘You’re the best fixer in New York,’ Genovese said. ‘You got the city in the palm of your hand, and this is what Costello’s got you doing? What’s the sum of all this?’

  Genovese waved his hand about the place again, at the mirage that disap
peared each morning, highlighting the fact that Gabriel never had anything concrete to show for all his work. Genovese might have been blunt and brutish, but he knew the measure of a man. Havemeyer’s words floated into Gabriel’s head – probing for weaknesses. Genovese had honed in on Gabriel’s disillusionment, had mentioned the race track, Anastasia, Sarah, Gabriel’s home address. Like all the best power plays it was so subtle it almost wasn’t there.

  Gabriel wondered at his approach, the mix of insults and soon-to-be job offer, and while he waited for it to come, he thought about how he could use this to his advantage, if there was some way he could weave it into his escape plans, rather than see it as the complication it was.

  ‘I got plans, Gabriel. I know it, you know it, Costello knows it. He’s got the same bug Luciano and Capone had, turning themselves into celebrities. You turn yourself into Mr Big, you’re putting a neon sign over your head, a flashing arrow for the Feds to follow. If there’s one thing the Feds love, it’s a Mr Big to go and bust. It gets them in the papers, gets them promotions and pay rises, pats on the back. You attach yourself to a Mr Big, Gabriel, you’re attaching yourself to a sinking ship.’

  Gabriel nodded. He agreed with Genovese on this, but Genovese created fame in another way to Costello; through ruthless violence he, too, placed a neon arrow over his head for the Feds to follow.

  ‘You need to ask yourself,’ said Genovese, ‘if maybe there’s more interesting work you could be doing.’

  There was the job offer, the opportunity to swap sides. It wouldn’t be repeated. Genovese was presenting Gabriel with a pass that, much like a bullet, could only be used once.

  Gabriel nodded, signaling he understood what was going on.

  ‘Think it over, Gabriel,’ said Genovese.

  Gabriel smiled and stood.

  ‘Enjoy the champagne,’ he said. ‘Anything you want is on the house.’

  He headed back to the office. After the job offer always came the attack. War. Sooner than Gabriel had anticipated. He needed to make sure he wasn’t around when it started. They were sliding towards the solstice, to winter dark, and maybe this would be the year the light didn’t return.