The Mobster’s Lament

by Ray Celestin

  ‘I’m not sure I buy that,’ said Ida. ‘Faron would be an American in Italy during the war. He’d have been locked up or shot.’

  ‘Who’s to say he’s American?’ said Michael. ‘No one knows where he came from.’

  Ida thought, conceded the point, nodded.

  ‘So the war ends and he comes back to America to pick up the old trade,’ said Ida. ‘Helms is being blackmailed by Cleveland, wants a killer to take him out. Maybe he knows Faron from the war and asks him.’

  ‘Or he asks around,’ said Michael. ‘And someone suggests Faron.’

  ‘Helms hires him ’cos he doesn’t know about Faron bungling the diner job.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  They looked at each other, both of them excited to be bouncing theories around like the old days.

  ‘We still don’t know for sure Cleveland and Bucek served in Italy,’ said Ida. ‘We need to check. And Cleveland’s colored, he couldn’t have been in the same battalion as the others.’

  ‘We need to find out where they served,’ said Michael.

  ‘We can go back to speak to O’Connell,’ said Ida. ‘He was friends with Cleveland, he’ll know. What about Bucek?’

  Michael thought. ‘His parents,’ he said. ‘His home address is in the police reports. It was somewhere in Queens.’

  ‘Who d’you wanna take?’

  ‘I’ll take O’Connell,’ she said. ‘I reckon you’ll have better luck in Queens.’

  They rose and headed to the door.

  Michael hailed a cab and Ida jumped into it.

  ‘I’ll come by the apartment when I’m done,’ she said.

  The cab sped off, Michael waited for another, hopped in, told the driver to head uptown. He popped back to the apartment and checked the case file, found Bucek’s address in Astoria, Queens.

  Back on the street it took him three tries before he found a cab driver willing to take him. They headed east. They hit the bridge. It whisked them into the sky, high over the river. Above them the strut-work of the bridge shuttered past, stanchion after stanchion. All around snowflakes rushed in the wind. To the south he could see all the way down the curve of Manhattan, the river flat and gray, studded with a weight of boats and ships. The tip of Welfare Island poked out of the water, its trees and rooftops spitting past underneath them, almost as if they were flying.

  Then the bridge tapered downwards, and they descended into Queens. Passed through nameless neighborhoods. Arrived in Astoria, and finally stopped on a pleasant, tree-lined street of small box houses.

  Michael paid the cabbie and got out into the snowfall. Walked up to the house, his earlier excitement tempered by the fact that he had to go and talk to the parents of a murder victim. He thought back to his years as a cop, how these kinds of visits had been routine. How had he ever managed it?

  He stepped onto the porch, rang the bell and waited.

  A middle-aged woman opened the door, dressed in an angora sweater and a pleated skirt.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, looking at Michael warily, at the smallpox scars across his face.

  ‘Mrs Bucek?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My name is Michael Talbot,’ he said. ‘I’m a private investigator. I wanted to talk to you about your son, Arno.’

  For an instant she gave no clue as to what was going on in her head. Then her eyes clouded over, became dim, suffused with pain and loss. He thought what the woman must have gone through, the worry she must have experienced for all those years her son was fighting in the war. Only for him to return and within a few months be slaughtered at home.

  ‘Talbot?’ she said.

  The same name as the accused.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Michael said, ‘I know this is difficult. My son is the boy accused of the crime. I’m trying to clear his name. I think the murder had something to do with your son’s war service. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions.’

  She frowned, looked puzzled.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she said. ‘The man accused is a Negro.’

  ‘He’s my son.’

  She continued staring at him, couldn’t seem to understand it.

  Michael took the family photo out of his wallet, handed it to her.

  She took it. Looked at it.

  A moment passed.

  Then a look of revulsion spread across her face.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she hissed, and slammed the door shut.

  Michael watched the photo fall to the ground, into the snow.

  He listened, didn’t hear her footsteps receding from the other side of the door.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘they lied about my son, just like they lied about yours. I know he wasn’t a drug addict. He didn’t have a single needle mark on him. They killed your son, ma’am. Please don’t let them kill mine.’

  He waited, prayed it would do the trick.

  It didn’t.

  He sighed.

  He kneeled down and picked up the photo from the front step. Wiped the snow-water off it. Looked at the faces of his wife and children. He wondered how much of the woman’s reaction was due to the fact that he was claiming to be the defendant’s father, and how much was simple disgust at the nature of Michael’s family. All his life he’d been aware of prejudice, had seen how it affected Annette, but it wasn’t until he’d had colored children that he had really understood, only when the gun was turned towards them did he really feel its presence, there, every day, the baseline of race hate that could rear up from the background at any moment. Annette had told him years before that the color of her skin was the first thing white people saw, and often the only thing they remembered, and eventually, sadly, he knew it to be true.

  It would have been hard for Mrs Bucek to let him into her house, the father of the accused, but Michael couldn’t help but feel that maybe, if his family had been white, the woman might just have been a little more willing to hear him out. Maybe.

  Just as he was putting the photo back in his wallet, he heard a noise. He looked up to see the door opening, Mrs Bucek standing there with tears in her eyes.

  ‘I spoke to the police,’ she said. ‘Told them he wasn’t an addict. They told me I was hysterical.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ said Michael, tears welling up in his eyes too. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to your boy. Please don’t let them do the same to mine.’

  Forty minutes later he was on the subway back to Manhattan. Thirty minutes after that he returned to the apartment. He poured himself a measure from a bottle of rye. He thought. He went through his wallet. When he’d walked into the fund-raiser that morning, he’d been given an information sheet. Among the details was the number for Helms’s office in Washington.

  Late on a Saturday afternoon. He wondered if it was too late.

  He went to the phone and dialed the number.

  After a half-dozen rings a man picked up.

  ‘Congressman Helms’s office.’

  ‘Afternoon,’ said Michael. ‘My name’s John Brown. I’m calling from the Times in New York. I was at the fund-raiser Congressman Helms spoke at this morning.’

  ‘Yes?’ said the voice. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I’m writing up a piece about it, and I just wanted to check the Congressman’s war record.’

  ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘When was he stationed in Italy. He mentioned Naples but I’m not sure I got the dates.’

  ‘One moment, please.’

  There was a minute or so of rustling on the other end of the line and then the voice came back.

  ‘He was stationed in Naples for eighteen months, from 1944 through to 1945.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Michael.

  He hung up and allowed himself a smile.

  He moved a chair to the window and sat. It had a decent view: the intersection of West 58th and 7th Avenue, the trees of Central Park to the north. Postcard Manhattan. He watched the snow falling, watched the
people on the sidewalks, watched the sun setting, night come on.

  At twenty past six, he heard the keys in the door. Ida entered, shaking snow off her coat.

  ‘Cleveland served in the Eighth Army,’ she said. ‘He was in a Negro battalion so they weren’t allowed to see active duty, they were given quartermastering duties in the Naples docks from ’44 through on to ’46.’

  ‘That’s where Bucek served too,’ he said. ‘His mother told me. He was assigned to the Allied Military Government in Naples. It’s also where Helms was stationed. I called his office earlier.’

  She grinned.

  ‘That’s where they met, then,’ she said. ‘Naples. That’s how they knew each other, that’s how Bucek ended up hiding out in a flophouse in Harlem.’

  Michael smiled. Nodded. ‘You look freezing,’ he said. ‘Come sit by the radiator. I’ll fix you a drink.’

  She crossed the room and sat on the sofa, put her hands up above the radiator.

  Michael poured her a glass of rye, passed it to her.

  ‘What’s your take?’ he asked.

  She took a gulp of the drink, looked at him.

  ‘Bucek and Cleveland were out in Naples during the war,’ she said. ‘And they saw Helms, and maybe Faron, do something bad. And then they all got back to the States and went on with their lives. And then out of nowhere Cleveland bumped into Helms at a party, recognized him, realized he was the same Helms from the war, realized he was a congressman now, realized he could blackmail him over whatever the hell happened back then. So he tried to blackmail him, along with help from Bucek. Then Helms and Faron retaliated. Bucek bought it in the hotel, but Cleveland got away.’

  Michael looked at her. ‘I guess that’s the shape of things,’ he said.

  ‘We need to figure out what the hell happened in Naples,’ she said.

  ‘There’s something else,’ he said. ‘What if it wasn’t just Cleveland and Bucek? What if there were other blackmailers? Or just other people who know what happened in Naples. If Helms and Faron have been going around tying up loose ends …’

  ‘Then there could have been more murders,’ Ida said, finishing off Michael’s thought.

  He nodded. ‘We need to find out exactly how many they’ve killed.’

  PART FOURTEEN

  ‘The judicious policeman most correctly reflects the policy of the Department. To transients and visitors he is the public representative of the city. His demeanor and deportment in dealing with the public create impressions either favorable or unfavorable to himself, the Department, and frequently to the city.’

  NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT,

  MANUAL OF PROCEDURE, 1949

  34

  Friday 7th, 8.14 p.m.

  After the crash, Gabriel gave a statement to the cops, then, when he was supposed to have been going to the hospital, he skipped out. He wanted to go home, take a bucketful of pills and sleep off the concussion, the shock, the adrenaline. But he didn’t want Sarah or Mrs Hirsch to see him bloodied and bedraggled, and he knew it would be impossible to sleep, despite his tiredness. He was too wired, too amped up, so instead he made plans.

  He went to a bar and washed the blood off as best he could in the restroom, then he called a mechanic to pick up the Delahaye from the pound the police had moved it to. Then he called up Salzman and arranged to meet him later that night, called Havemeyer and told he him he wouldn’t be going to work. Then he caught a cab downtown, went to a car service he knew and rented a car – a black Cadillac Series 62.

  Then he drove back uptown to meet Salzman.

  Clear skies, a splash of stars. The moon sweeping silver over the city. He wondered what the hell he was going to tell Costello. That he’d had the money and lost it? That Faron had it now? Would Costello buy the story? That a man almost everyone thought was a myth had jumped out of a police car and taken the money off Gabriel? Or would Costello just assume it was a ruse?

  Gabriel parked up on the same East Harlem street he’d met Salzman last time. Waited. Smoked. Waited some more. Wondered how long it would take for the adrenaline to work its way through his system, for his pulse to slow, his heart to stop smashing against his ribs like a caged animal. Now and then a pedestrian ran down the sidewalk with their coat buttoned-up, seeking shelter, a car slow-rolled through the gloom. Gabriel watched every movement like it was a potential threat, edgy and anxious and paranoid.

  After a few minutes Salzman’s cruiser pulled up, and the man hopped out of it and into the passenger seat of the Cadillac.

  ‘What happened to the sports car?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said Gabriel.

  Salzman eyed him.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t ask that either.’

  Salzman frowned, working things out, making connections. When Gabriel had called him earlier, he’d told him he wanted info on the cops involved in the crash that afternoon.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘It was you they were chasing?’

  Gabriel gave him a change the subject look and Salzman caught it and whistled through his teeth.

  ‘So who were our two friends that took a dive in the river?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘Lieutenants Doyle and Higgs,’ said Salzman. ‘Irish. Low-level. From the precinct chatter sounds like they used to be bagmen for the Gaglianos in East Harlem before they moved on to better things. You wanna tell me what this was all about?’

  Gabriel drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘They tried to stick me up,’ he said.

  Salzman stared at him through the gloom, unsure what to say. ‘Maybe the Gaglianos put them up to it,’ he said eventually.

  Gabriel tried to draw connections between the Gaglianos and Faron and the missing money. Were they the family behind the conspiracy? Them and not Genovese? Italian Harlem was where Benny had stashed the money after all, Gagliano territory.

  ‘They still alive?’ Gabriel asked.

  ‘Doyle and Higgs?’ asked Salzman with a frown. ‘No chance. One of them cracked his skull in the crash, the other one drowned.’

  Gabriel nodded. Let the news of their deaths sweep through him. The guilt would come soon, when the shock wore off. In the meantime he assessed the angles, how their deaths complicated matters in some ways, made them easier in others.

  ‘How’d you get on looking into those murders?’ he asked Salzman.

  ‘Still working on it, buddy,’ he said. ‘Gimme a couple more days.’

  It was Friday night. Gabriel was supposed to be leaving on Thursday. Six days and counting.

  Salzman eyed him. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘You seen a doc?’

  ‘No need.’

  He could tell by the look on Salzman’s face he didn’t believe him, but he nodded.

  ‘Well, take care, Gabby. I’ll be in touch.’

  He opened the door, walked back to his car.

  Gabriel watched his cruiser drive off and he lit another cigarette.

  He wondered if the two dead cops had been following him, or if it was the building super who’d tipped them off. If they had been following him, he wondered who they were working for and how long they’d been at it. He wondered if they’d seen him pick up the passports from the forger; if so, his plan was compromised. He made a mental note to call the clinic in Toronto and make sure the man had actually checked in.

  It was Friday night and he had a chest full of anxiety and fear to burn off. He put the Cadillac into gear and sailed through New York. Did what he hadn’t done in years. He cruised the city looking for Faron, cruised the necropolis, a wraith in search of a wraith, his way lit by the glowing billboards that filled the city’s skies each night, guiding lights to the consumer promised land. It was the billboards that split the city, into haves and have-nots, into those who lived in the neon Olympus above, and those who lived in its shadows, the criminal underworld in which Gabriel, fallen angel, had found his home. Faron was out there
too, somewhere in New York’s hinterland of factories and alleyways and tenements, in amongst the poor, the exploited, the outsiders. He was figuring out who Gabriel was, where he lived, when to attack. It wouldn’t be tonight or tomorrow, but at some point in the next few days.

  Gabriel cruised the strips in Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea, Midtown. The East Side docks. He checked the red-light zones where Faron picked up his victims, the wastelands where he dumped their bodies. He crossed the bridge to the Brooklyn waterfront. There were other places he could have gone, in Long Island, the Bronx, Jersey. But there weren’t many people out; an icy cold was keeping the streets unusually empty. Even the skyscrapers, those giants whose shoulders made up Manhattan’s skyline, seemed to be huddling together for warmth. A few shivering hookers, telegram messengers, cops, ragged vagrants hunched around trash-can fires, looking for sunrise in paper bags. Gabriel knew there was no chance of finding him just by driving around, not unless he was amazingly lucky. But he felt he had to do something to kill the time while his head was reeling. Pay lip service. Conduct a ritual. Ward off a demon.

  After a couple of hours, he pointed the Cadillac west, and crossed the city once more, back to the apartment.

  He crept in. Sarah and Mrs Hirsch were asleep.

  He went into his bedroom, stripped out of his bloody clothes. Studied his bloody nose, his bruised knee. He took a shower. He put on clean boxers and a vest. He walked around the apartment, checking the locks, checking the windows, checking all the guns in all the stash spots.

  He drank a whisky and downed two Seconals and two Nembutals. He slipped into bed. What he craved now was sleep. Dreamless and black. He stared at the white ceiling of his room, and in the frame of the sconces a film of his sister being murdered played out, of Faron attacking him, of the crash, of Sarah being murdered, too. A horror show, laid on by his fear. As he watched the ghostly images, he wondered if this was what he had led Sarah into. He tried to think of plans to avoid them becoming real and realized that maybe it was all his plan-making that had got him into this mess in the first place.