The Mobster’s Lament

by Ray Celestin

  The Navy approached Luciano in prison, said if he kept the dockers onside, reported any mysterious characters coming and going, at the end of the war he’d be free. Lucky asked Costello and Lansky to take care of it, and they did. For the duration of the war, while half the Mafia was running a black market in rationed goods and forged ration cards, or setting up doctor’s surgeries where men could have their eardrums punctured to be excluded from the draft, Costello was running surveillance on the docks, and Lansky was a regular visitor to the Navy Intelligence HQ on Church Street. He was Jewish; he wanted to destroy the Nazis more than anyone.

  But even that didn’t buy them what they were after. The war ended and rather than be freed, the government welshed on the deal, and deported Lucky back to Italy. While he was awaiting deportation, he was locked up on a boat docked at Ellis Island. Costello and the boys threw him a goodbye party. Copa girls, food, drink, a ring of longshoremen on the pier to stop the government from breaking it up, the press from reporting on it. The last didn’t work. The next day Mayor La Guardia was in the papers complaining about it all.

  And as Luciano was deported, sailing one way across the Atlantic, look who was being deported the other way: Vito Genovese. Coming back to New York to face the murder rap he’d run away from years ago. Italy and America were slinging their mobsters across the ocean like it was a tennis court.

  They’d held a welcome-back party for Genovese at the Diplomat Hotel when the trial was over. Costello had walked him to his spot at the head of the table. Gave a speech in his honor. It couldn’t hide the fact that the cards had been dealt, the order had shifted; Costello, who’d been the number-three mobster in the family when Genovese had fled to Italy, was now Genovese’s superior.

  Costello asked himself again why Genovese was getting involved in the Waldorf meeting. He played mental solitaire, shifted cards around in his head, created parallel lines, structures, grids. It was a more satisfying mental exercise than mulling over Dr Hoffman’s advice.

  The cab pulled up at the address, an auto-mechanic’s on 11th Avenue. Joe Adonis was already there, parked up opposite in his Cadillac. Albert Anastasia was with him, dressed in a plain gray suit and red tie, his fingers strewn with gold rings.

  They got out when they saw the cab, stepped into the snow.

  Costello met them on the street and they said their hellos.

  The apartment was in a walk-up above the auto mechanic’s. They filed down an alleyway and through a yard of clotheslines and garbage. Went through a door, climbed two flights, reached a murky hallway whose only illumination was the red light above a gas meter on a far wall. Adonis knocked on a door and as they waited, Costello stared at the red light, at the network of pipes it illuminated.

  They entered a railroad apartment. They walked through into a living room and there was the kid, sitting at a table, smoking a cigarette, while two goons kept an eye on him. The place was cold. They’d kept the heating off, and the kid was there in his vest, freezing. He looked younger than Costello expected, mushroom pale. When the kid saw who had walked in, he went paler still, especially on seeing Anastasia, whose triple-digit body count tended to precede him.

  Costello sat in the chair opposite the kid, next to a bricked-up fireplace. He blew into his handkerchief, wiped his nose. Popped two cough sweets. He looked at the kid smoking. He craved a cigarette.

  ‘You know why you’re here?’ Costello asked.

  The kid shrugged. He knew but pretended he didn’t.

  ‘Monday night you were arrested in a basement cafeteria off Washington Square Park,’ said Costello. ‘Selling dope. When the cops searched your pad they found enough of it to have you sent away for fifteen to twenty. In an attempt to swerve the jail time you offered to rat out your boss, Vito Genovese.’

  The kid stifled a sob. Costello wanted to press him some more but had to break off to sneeze, blow his nose. The cough sweets were making his eyes water. He got the feeling Adonis and Anastasia were sniggering behind his back. God knew what the kid thought.

  ‘The police detective you made the offer to, he’s a friend of ours. He came to me and told me what happened. You’re a lucky kid. The detective could have been friends with Genovese, and then you’d already be dead.’

  The kid nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Mr Costello.’

  Costello waved it away, he was getting to the nub.

  ‘Kid, you’ve got two choices. You can start working for us, feeding us information from Vito’s camp – what he’s up to, what he’s talking about, who he’s meeting. Or you can tell us to jump, and we’ll let you walk out of here.’

  The kid frowned.

  ‘Our friend in the police force will have you brought in for further questioning. He’ll grill you for a few hours, and then d’you know what’ll happen?’

  ‘I’ll get charged?’ the kid said.

  ‘No,’ Costello said. ‘You’ll be released. Which is even worse.’

  The kid frowned again.

  ‘The only bird that flies out of a jail is a pigeon,’ Anastasia chimed in from somewhere behind Costello.

  The kid looked confused.

  ‘What Albert’s trying to say is Genovese’ll see you’ve been released and think you squealed,’ said Costello. ‘We won’t even have to kill you. He’ll do it for us.’

  The kid’s hands started to tremble, the glowing tip of his cigarette shaking in the gloom. For some reason Costello thought of the old lady’s apartment in Little Italy, the phosphorescent Jesus glowing in the dark.

  ‘No one likes a rat,’ said Costello. ‘Sure, you could tell Genovese we set you up, but would he believe you? And if he did, would he care? Would he be willing to start a war over a little punk selling dope?’

  Costello paused. Sniffed. Crunched one of the cough sweets in his mouth, felt the pleasing shatter.

  ‘So? You in?’ he asked the kid.

  The kid looked at Costello, he looked at Adonis and Anastasia behind him, who must have appeared even more menacing in the murk. It took all of five seconds for the kid to nod.

  ‘I’m in,’ he said.

  Costello was glad of it. It’d take a while for the kid to rise up the ranks, for the effort they were putting in now to reap rewards, but it was all a long-game, you had to think three steps ahead, you had to arrange the lines early.

  ‘Good,’ said Costello. ‘I’ll talk to my friend in the police, make sure no stories get out.’

  The kid smiled nervously, even though he was freezing.

  ‘I can go?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ said Costello, letting him labor under the misapprehension a little longer.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Costello. I won’t let you down,’ the kid said.

  He rose, headed for the door.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ Costello said.

  The blood drained from the kid’s face. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘How do we know you’re not lying?’ said Anastasia. ‘You were going to rat out Vito at the precinct. How do we know you’re not going to rat us out to Vito too?’

  As Anastasia spoke he moved his hands and the rings on his fingers glinted in the gloom.

  ‘I don’t …’ said the kid, trailing off.

  The boy looked at Anastasia and back to Costello, trembling. ‘I don’t …’ he said, stumbling again. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Give us something so we know you’re … what’s the phrase?’ Costello asked.

  ‘In earnest,’ said Adonis.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Costello. ‘Tell us something important, so we know you’re in earnest.’

  ‘Something about Genovese?’ the kid asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Anastasia. ‘Something that’d get you in trouble if Vito found out. Something to prove you’re in earnest.’

  The kid couldn’t even look at Anastasia he was so scared. He looked down at the linoleum, at his shoes, trying to come up with something. After a few painful seconds he looked up at Costello.

 
; ‘I know about this coon Vito’s looking for,’ said the kid.

  Costello frowned, gestured for the boy to continue.

  ‘This jazz musician. He’s a pusher, too. Vito’s been looking for him for months now. He put the word out to my boss, if this guy comes looking to score to let him know.’

  ‘Why does he want him?’ Costello asked, trying not to sound too interested. It was the first he’d heard about it, and he didn’t want the kid to think he was too clueless.

  ‘That’s the thing,’ said the kid. ‘No one knows. This guy’s just a two-bit dealer from Harlem. We couldn’t figure out why Vito’s so crazy to find him.’

  ‘What’s the guy’s name?’ Costello asked, thinking he could pump Bumpy Johnson for information if the man was from Harlem.

  ‘Gene Cleveland,’ said the kid.

  Costello turned to look at Adonis and Anastasia.

  They both shrugged. This was all news to them, too.

  Costello turned back around. ‘All right, get out of here, kid,’ he said.

  ‘For real?’

  ‘Scram.’

  One of the goons tossed him his shirt and coat. The kid grabbed them and all but ran out of there.

  Costello turned to look at Adonis and Anastasia.

  ‘Does that make any sense to you?’ he asked them.

  ‘Maybe the kid heard it wrong,’ said Anastasia.

  ‘Maybe Vito’s a jazz fan,’ said Adonis.

  Costello sat at the table thinking, trying to play the cards in his head, failing.

  Lunchtime. Costello’s cab pulled up outside the Astoria. His usual table was waiting in the Starlight Roof. He paid and got out. Walked past a row of government tail cars pulled up by the hotel’s side entrance, tail cars he’d given the slip to that morning. The agents in them knew he was a creature of habit, would be back at the hotel for his lunch. As he passed them, he peered in. The agents glared. Angry, bitter men in cheap suits and cheap cars.

  Dr Hoffman had told him about the theory of projection. You took the things you hated about yourself and projected them onto other people, so you could hate them instead of yourself. He’d always thought the agencies following him had a similar problem. They worked in organizations with hierarchies, with rigid, military-style structures, so they assumed the Mob was organized the same way. They didn’t realize it was much looser than that. People paid for the privilege to use the family name. Once they could use the name, they could do whatever they wanted with the insurance that no one would mess with them. All the family asked was a slice of the profits in return. And so the Mob wasn’t an institution, it was a franchise operation, and the authorities’ failure to see that was what cost them, trying to uncover lines of command that didn’t exist, in a hierarchy that was mostly flat.

  Costello went to his usual booth, sat, looked at the sunlight streaming in through the Starlight’s stained-glass ceiling. On Monday morning, in one of the floors below, the movie men would begin their heated discussion about what to do with the Hollywood Ten. Why was Genovese getting involved? Why was he looking for a jazz musician?

  A bellboy brought Costello the phone messages that had piled up at the hotel while he was gone.

  ‘There was also a Mr Cheesebox who came in looking for you,’ the bellboy said.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Costello.

  ‘He said he needed to speak to you urgently.’

  ‘Thanks, kid,’ said Costello. ‘Hold the lunch. I’ll be back soon.’

  He rose, exited the hotel, and crossed the street to Cheesebox’s listening station in the office block opposite.

  The room smelled even worse than the last time. The men with the headphones looked even paler.

  ‘You came,’ said Cheesebox, rising when Costello stepped in.

  ‘Sure. What is it?’

  ‘Those producers Genovese met with.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘The younger one’s a pansy,’ said Cheesebox. ‘We caught him bringing a boy back to the room.’

  ‘Caught him on tape?’ Costello asked.

  Cheesebox grinned.

  Costello played the cards in his head and started to figure a way out of his bind.

  31

  Friday 7th November, 11.00 a.m.

  Louis sat in the reception area of the Associated Booking Corporation and waited. He looked about the offices and noted how plush they were – crème silk wallpaper, sheer-glass partitions, the furniture all sleek and modern, walnut and chrome, the sofa you sat in and didn’t stop sinking into for half an hour. This was the trick to running a talent management agency, you had to look successful to clients, but not so successful they might think you were taking too large a cut.

  Along the wall opposite was a row of photos of the agency’s clients; Louis had top billing, Billie Holiday was there, Lionel Hampton. All the photos were of jazz musicians, almost all of them were Negro; yet everyone working in the offices was white. That was another trick. Jazz musicians had worked in Mob-run speakeasies back during Prohibition, now they worked in a Mob-run music business. From the Musician’s Union to the talent agencies to the record companies, mobsters had managed to parlay Prohibition-era nightclub jobs into professional legitimacy. From due-bill offices run by spewing threats and rubber-checks, to control of the music industry itself.

  ‘Mr Glaser will see you now,’ said the receptionist, rising from behind her desk, revealing a figure that could have made her a Copa girl. Louis rose, too, and they walked into Joe Glaser’s corner office.

  ‘Louis,’ he said on seeing his client. ‘I’m sorry about what happened the other night. I called the bus company; they received the check in the post yesterday. It must’ve got delayed.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said Louis. ‘Sorry I had to call you up.’

  Glaser waved the apology away. Louis sat opposite him at the desk.

  Glaser was a tall man, upright, gray-haired, thin-faced. He never drank, was in bed by ten most nights, hardly ever went to nightclubs, was more interested in sports than music, often referred to his clients as shines and schwarzes. As hard a man as Louis was accommodating. He’d raped two teenagers back in his Chicago hoodlum days, had only managed to avoid jail time by agreeing to marry the first girl, and having Capone intercede with the court when the trial came up for his second victim.

  This was the man Louis had come to twelve years earlier when he was on the skids, when he was tied to a management contract with a gangster he despised and his estranged wife was threatening to sue him, as were the two records labels he’d signed ‘exclusive’ contracts with. At a concert in Turin Louis’ lips burst, meaning he couldn’t play his trumpet for six months. Besieged by lawyers and unable to work, he’d slunk back to Chicago and sought out Joe Glaser. Louis knew him from when he was the manager of the Sunset Cafe, one of Al Capone’s jazz clubs that Louis had played in. Louis came to Joe with an offer – get the gangsters and lawyers off his back, take over management of his business affairs, and they’d split the profits fifty-fifty. He was smart enough to know even then that a manager with Mob connections was better than a manager without.

  Glaser wasn’t a music manager, the closest he’d come was a failed attempt at being a boxing promoter. But he called up some friends, the Chicago mobsters who ran MCA, the largest talent management agency in the country, and pressed them for a loan. He used the money to pay off Louis’ contracts, his wife, the record labels, the gangsters, and opened a small office. Within a few years, the two of them not only turned around Louis’ career, they’d made him a mainstream star.

  Twelve years later, Louis was back on the skids.

  ‘He’s not here yet?’ Louis asked.

  ‘He’s late,’ said Glaser.

  Louis nodded.

  On the wall over his manager’s shoulder was a painting that clashed with all the other decor in the office. It depicted the antebellum South, an Arcadian cotton field dotted with happy darkies sitting around playing banjos and singing, looking ecstatic t
o have been ensnared in the slave trade. Louis thought on the turkey tours of the South he’d had to endure over the years, the danger he and his bands had to navigate, the race hate, the constant threat of violence, being run out of towns simply for trying to find somewhere to eat, having to buy food from colored chefs at the back doors of restaurants, having to sleep on the bus because no hotels would offer them beds.

  He stared at the painting before turning back to look at his manager.

  ‘You’ve got a tan,’ he said.

  ‘I was in Los Angeles the last couple of weeks,’ Glaser said.

  Louis nodded. ABC had opened up an LA office a few months previously, another milestone in the corporation’s expansion.

  ‘Things are moving west, Louis,’ said Glaser. ‘I keep telling you.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said Louis. ‘Music and movies.’

  He must have said it bitterly, because Glaser grimaced.

  ‘Forget about that New Orleans mess,’ said Glaser, referring to the turkey Glaser had put Louis and Billie in the previous year. ‘I was talking to some studio bosses. We might have you in another picture soon.’

  Louis nodded. Thought about Hollywood, the ongoing HUAC hearings, how they’d dented Louis’ career and obliterated those of countless others. He thought about Glaser’s treatment of Billie Holiday, wondered again if he really had set her up for her prison sentence, if he really would send her to that health farm. Or if her career was over. That was always the fear in the background. The fear of black artists working in an industry controlled by white gangsters. The same fear felt by all the suckers trapped in the teeth of the Mob’s racketeering machine. The dock-workers, the boxers, the market traders, the restaurant owners, the garbage haulers. Sometimes it seemed like the whole of New York was under their thumb. And it didn’t matter if you were young or old, rich or poor, famous or nameless.