The Mobster’s Lament

by Ray Celestin

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ asked Gabriel.

  ‘I’m from Look, sir. The photographer from Look magazine.’

  The boy was stammering, scared, clearly he hadn’t recognized Gabriel from behind when he’d taken the photo. Gabriel frowned, he didn’t remember anyone having told him about a photographer visiting.

  The boy rummaged around in the pocket of his cardigan, and passed Gabriel a business card: Stanley Kubrick, photographer, Look Magazine, 488 Madison Avenue.

  And only then did Gabriel remember. A chat with an editor weeks ago, a pitch for a puff-piece photo story – Backstage at the Hottest Club North of Havana. Gabriel was overcome by weariness. Things like that never used to slip his memory. There were punch-ups going on, girls not taking the stage, photographers in the club, and Gabriel didn’t have a lid on any of it. He was starting to lose his edge just when it mattered most.

  ‘Kid,’ said Gabriel, ‘you can take all the photos you want, just two exceptions. No shots of anyone crying. OK?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

  ‘And absolutely no photos of me.’

  The kid nodded again.

  Gabriel headed off down the corridor. Through the roar and heat of the kitchen into the roar and heat of the floor. The band filled his ears, the blaring multicolored lights, the rush and blur of the dancers.

  When he got back to the bar, Beatrice was gone.

  He looked about.

  Miranda was halfway through the finale of her act – ‘Let’s Do the Copacabana’. Where the hell was Beatrice? Then something else caught his eye – the table full of Gagliano goons had emptied, just before the climax of the twelve o’clock show. They hadn’t even stayed to drink out their minimum.

  Worst-case scenarios streaked through his mind. Beatrice came here to tell him something, and the Gaglianos had stopped her. He imagined Beatrice dragged out of the club into an alley by Faron, cut up, sliced, bloodied, ripped open by blades.

  He pushed through the crowd, up a ramp, past mirrored columns, through the shafts of blue unfurling from above. The band had dropped out now, all but the congas, driving Miranda on, her hips vibrating, shimmering as rapidly as the drums. He reached the Gaglianos’ empty table.

  ‘Where’d they go?’ he shouted to the captain who was overseeing the waiters clearing it. The captain shrugged, pointed to the exit. Gabriel turned and barreled off.

  Miranda finished shimmying. The band came back in and crescendoed in a crash and swoop of horns and drums and the crowd went wild.

  Gabriel burst into the foyer, out onto the street. The bouncers turned to look at him, the line was a block long, taxis parked up, limos, the van with the antennas on its roof from the radio station broadcasting out of the Copa Lounge.

  No Gaglianos, no Beatrice, no Faron. He spun about. The alley at the back. The fastest way was through the lounge. He turned. He ran up the steps, past the bouncers, into the bar. The Lounge was different to the Copa, all chrome and black leather and a more fashionable crowd.

  Gabriel pushed past them, skirted a ringed-off area from where the radio show was being broadcast. Jack Eigen interviewing Walter Winchell. Both holding cocktails. Both looking drunk. Gawkers watched. Cables trailed to the van outside. The show’s tag-line boomed: The later the greater, now there’s a late show in the Copa Lounge.

  Gabriel rushed past them, into the store room, out the fire exit, into the alley behind.

  Nothing.

  He kept going, turned onto the alley that ran along the side of the club. A cleaner was mopping up blood by the stage door. He froze a moment, then realized it was the blood of the dancing girl’s ex-boyfriend. He stared at the size of the puddle, looked at the cleaner.

  ‘Mr Leveson,’ said the cleaner.

  Gabriel needed his gun, and the keys to the Cadillac, both of which were in the backroom.

  He rapped on the door. The bouncer from earlier opened up.

  Gabriel ran down the corridor. The dancers were heading back the other way now that the floorshow was over. That post-show buzz in the air. Excited chatter. Carmen Miranda glowing. Gabriel turned the corner and saw her – Beatrice, sharing a cigarette with one of the Samba Sirens.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, exhaling.

  He approached Beatrice and the girl. They looked up at him.

  ‘Where the hell did you go?’ he said.

  ‘I came back here,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘You said you were going to wait for me.’

  ‘I saw Selma in the chorus,’ said Beatrice, flinging a thumb at the girl next to her. ‘She’s one of my old students. She invited me back.’

  Beatrice frowned at him. So did Selma. Staring at him like he was crazy. Because, of course, he was. The missing money, the drugs, the stress, the crash, the sleeplessness. All of it driving him crazy.

  ‘I thought,’ he said, and stopped. Realized he hadn’t thought, he’d simply jumped to conclusions.

  Beatrice turned to Selma.

  ‘I’d better go, honey,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to see you doing so well.’

  The girl glowed, headed off to the dressing rooms. Beatrice turned to look at him.

  ‘You don’t look too good,’ she said. ‘You wanna have that chat now?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  ‘Anywhere quiet we can go?’

  Five minutes later they were sitting in Gabriel’s Cadillac a half-block from the club. They’d gone via the cloakroom for Beatrice to pick up her coat, but even though she had it on now, she still looked cold. Gabriel switched on the car’s heating, but it would take a while to kick in.

  ‘So?’ he asked, his breath steaming in the icy air.

  Beatrice sighed. ‘I’m not sure where to start,’ she said. ‘I had a visit last night.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Two thugs I’d never seen before. They told me they had pull with the Gaglianos. They told me if I did them a favor they’d get the contract on my brother torn up.’

  ‘What was the favor?’

  ‘To lure you back to mine,’ she said. ‘And they’d take care of the rest.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I’d think about it. Then I came to tell you.’

  There were tears glistening in her eyes. She’d had to choose between her brother and Gabriel, and she’d chosen Gabriel.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  She paused, then nodded.

  ‘They were here tonight,’ he said.

  ‘I know. Did you see the goon? The wiry one?’ she asked. ‘He’s the one who’s got the contract out on my brother. You think it was a coincidence?’

  He shook his head. ‘They come down here a lot. But if it’s a coincidence, it’s a hell of a strange one.’

  He couldn’t tell her about the crash, about the two dead cops who used to be connected to the family.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ she asked.

  He thought. He wondered why they had approached her of all people. Everyone knew they’d been split up for years. Had someone been following him when he’d visited her dance studio on Tuesday? Had someone been following him when he’d picked up the passports? How much did they know? He tried to find an advantage. He rubbed his temples.

  ‘They have it planned for tonight?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘They say where they’d be waiting?’

  ‘Outside my apartment.’

  ‘Where d’you live these days?’

  ‘West Fourteenth. Near the dance studio.’

  ‘Give me your address and phone number,’ he said.

  She wrote them down on a scrap of paper for him.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘You get a cab back to yours. They’ll probably call you to see what happened. Tell them I’m coming to yours, this morning, when I’ve closed up the club. About six. Then just wait in your apartment.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, concern writ large all over her face.

  ‘Get them before they get me.’
r />   She stared at him. Nodded.

  They got out of the Cadillac, crossed to the line of taxis outside the club and Gabriel watched her get in one of them and head off to West 14th.

  He went round the corner to the side entrance, knocked on the stage door. The bouncer opened up. ‘Mr Leveson.’

  ‘Any other night,’ Gabriel said to him, ‘you’d get sacked for what you and Pete did to that girl’s fella. But you’re in luck. I need help with a job this morning when the club closes. You and Pete help me out and keep your mouths shut, you get to stay.’

  ‘Anything, Mr Leveson.’

  ‘You two have guns?’ he asked.

  ‘We can get them,’ the bouncer said.

  Gabriel nodded, explained what he wanted them to do.

  37

  Saturday 8th, 8.19 p.m.

  The exhibition opening was being held on East 57th, in a newish gallery in one of those buildings with cast-iron fronts and giant windows. Costello had caught a cab over there alone, wandered in. The place was packed with people in evening dress. Although he didn’t recognize any of them, he recognized the types. Wall Street bankers, industrialists, Madison Avenue ad execs, young heirs to great fortunes, all of them there to catch an art-scene buzz. Waiters and waitresses sifted through the crowd with trays of champagne flutes. There were tables dotted about with canapés on them, dainty, elegant-looking, even by Upper East Side standards.

  The place itself looked clinical in that way a lot of the art galleries Costello visited did. All white walls and bare floorboards with no decorations. Costello picked up a champagne flute from a passing waitress, put it down, blew his nose, picked it up again.

  He looked at the crowd, chatting and laughing and schmoozing and he had that feeling he got sometimes, that this was it. The center of things.

  People liked to say the heartland of America was in its middle, in hick towns in the mid-West populated by a farmer and two cows, some muddy fields where salt-of-the-earth types tended the land. It wasn’t. The heart of the country was here. This was where the nation’s economy was based, where its corporations were, where its ideas and innovations came from. These were the people the rest of the country relied on for its products, its imports, its radio and music, its novels and magazines, its ads, its art, its culture. New York created it all, and the rest of the country sucked it up. This was the center, the heart within the heart.

  Costello relished the feeling, let it warm him a moment.

  Then he searched the crowd, but couldn’t find who he was looking for, so slipped through into the exhibition itself.

  The first room he entered contained five giant paintings. A smattering of people staring at them, sipping champagne, discussing. Costello looked at the paintings. Each of them was just a big blob of color, with a few strips of other colors here and there. What were they supposed to be paintings of? He looked at the titles for a clue, but each title was just a number. He looked at the name of the artist. Rothko. What the hell kind of name was that? It sounded like a Jew name cut in half.

  A doorway led into the second room. Costello walked through it to see another set of blobs. There were fewer people in here and the party noises from the reception sounded more distant. Then he noticed something odd, a door leading to a third room, this one almost completely dark, lit only by a murky orange light, as if the room was illuminated by candles.

  Costello walked over and peered in. There were more of the same paintings, these ones in dark blues and reds, and standing in front of them, a young man in his twenties, wearing a suit in a Hollywood cut, horn-rimmed glasses, black suede shoes. Costello looked around for candles. Couldn’t see any. Saw the ceiling lights had been dimmed all the way down.

  He wandered in. He stood next to the young man, looked at the painting he was staring at – a deep-blue blob, a few streaks of yellow and black around the edges.

  The young man seemed to be lost in the painting, like he was staring at a cinema screen.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Costello, breaking the silence.

  The young man jolted, as if woken from a trance. He turned to look at Costello with an annoyed expression. Costello felt the young man take him in, imagined what he saw – an older Italian man in an expensive suit, who didn’t quite fit in with the surroundings or the crowd.

  ‘It’s just a blue blob,’ said Costello. ‘What’s the point?’

  He turned to look at the man with an open expression, seeking guidance, genuine in his desire to learn. Perhaps this disarmed the young man.

  ‘They’re multiform,’ he said. ‘Fields of color. Why start a painting with sketches, with lines, when you can start with color.’

  The man gave Costello a superior sort of look.

  ‘But they don’t look like anything,’ said Costello.

  ‘They don’t need to look like anything,’ the young man sighed.

  ‘They don’t?’ Costello sneezed, blew his nose, popped two cough sweets. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ he said. ‘I can’t shake this cold. How comes the room’s so dark?’

  ‘The paintings are supposed to calm you down. The dimness helps. That’s how the painter wants them exhibited. In a dark room.’

  Costello thought about this, turned to look at the painting once more, appraised it as a psychological aid, wondered what Dr Hoffman would make of it. He forgot about the cough sweets in his mouth and took a sip of champagne and the two tastes curdled instantly on his tongue. He winced. He swallowed.

  ‘I’ve got a Howard Chandler Christy at home,’ he said, proudly.

  The young man’s face soured. He gave Costello a contemptuous look and turned to leave.

  ‘Don’t go, kid,’ said Costello. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  The young man turned around, frowned. ‘Do I know you?’ he asked.

  ‘No, but I know you. Come back and explain the painting.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Frank Costello.’

  It took a second, then the color drained from the young man’s face.

  ‘Come on back and let’s look at the painting.’

  The young man considered, then returned to Costello’s side.

  ‘How are you enjoying New York?’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, and Costello could detect the first traces of fear in his voice. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ the young man asked.

  There was a pause, then he added a ‘sir’ to the end of the question.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about the price tag on this painting and why anyone would pay that kinda money for it.’

  ‘I don’t know. You’d have to talk to the gallery owner.’

  ‘I’m just joking,’ said Costello with a grin. ‘I couldn’t give a shit how much someone paid for a painting. Excuse my French. I wanted to talk to you about Vito Genovese.’

  ‘Genovese?’

  ‘Sure. You’re a movie producer, right? A junior executive.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I know things. I know you and your boss flew in early for the producers’ meeting that’s going to happen at the Waldorf on Monday, and after you got here, you both went and met Vito Genovese. An old friend of mine. I just came down here today to ask you why you two met him and what you talked about. I’m intrigued. Of course I could ask Vito himself, him being an old friend of mine, but he’s a busy man and I don’t like to bother him.’

  Costello turned to look at the young man, kept his expression flat. He desperately wanted a cigarette, but he still had the goddamn cold.

  ‘I …’ the young man stammered. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘It’s my town, son,’ said Costello. ‘I know things.’

  ‘I don’t think I can reveal what we spoke about.’

  ‘Sure you can.’

  ‘Mr Genovese spoke to my boss, sir. I didn’t hear what they spoke about. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.’

  He turned to look at Costello through the gloom and smiled, as if he’d found a way out of
his bind.

  ‘Too bad,’ said Costello.

  The young man smiled again.

  ‘I have to go now, sir,’ he said, turning to leave.

  ‘Oh, say. How’s your friend?’

  The young man paused, turned back round. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Quit with the sir shit. Your friend that you took back to your hotel the other night. What was his name? Peter? It was Peter, wasn’t it?’

  The young man trembled.

  ‘You picked him up outside one of those cinemas on Times Square. With all of the other chicken hawks. Personally, I find these things, what’s the word? Disreputable? But that’s just me. What happens between two consenting adults, it’s none of my business. Like if someone wants to spend enough money to buy a house on a painting of a blob, it’s none of my business. Same thing. You’re a young man. Peter’s a young man. These things happen. But when one of the young men is in his twenties, and the other young man is only sixteen. Well, when that happens, the courts, they don’t have the same laid-back attitude I do. And let’s say they did, you’d never work in Hollywood again. Best job you’d end up doing with that kinda rap is spotting pins in a bowling alley.’

  The young man lifted a hand up to his face, seemed to freeze for a few moments, then he sobbed into his palm.

  ‘Come on, kid. Don’t cry,’ said Costello. ‘What are you crying for? We’re at an art exhibition, half the guys in here eat pillows.’

  The man tried to say something, but it wouldn’t come up.

  ‘Look at the blob,’ said Costello. ‘It’s supposed to calm you down, right? Look at the blob.’

  The young man paused his sobbing, was about to say something then let out a wail.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ said Costello. He put an arm around the young man. The young man continued sobbing.

  Two people walked into the room, appraised the scene, turned and headed back out again.

  ‘Come on,’ Costello said. ‘It’s gonna be all right.’

  The man’s sobbing eased down a little.