My Kind of Town

by John Sandrolini

  “Nothing, Carpaccio,” I answered. “I just stumbled.”

  I began to turn around, stopped cold, the letters on the portfolio clicking home in my brain.

  S.F.O.P.

  Sacred Fraternal Order of the Potawatomi.

  “Gedouttathere!” Carpaccio bellowed. “Bring me dat last box. Let’s go!”

  I muscled the boxes upstairs, one by one. It was grueling work pushing them up the ladder, but far heavier when I saw the body of my friend lying motionless across the floor at the end of each haul. The big meat carver had me cart them all outside and stack them on the landing. I was exhausted, but I started to lift one to put it on the Pelecanos, hoping I’d get a chance to slip the mooring lines and set the boat adrift.

  Carpaccio cut me off midheft. “You start dat boat first. When it’s running, you load it up den cast us off. You stay behind—with your buddy. When dat crew gets here at seven, I’ll be long gone.”

  I sized up how it was going to go down. I would start the boat, then he would bury one in the back of my head. Claudia’s play had been heartfelt—she truly thought he might let me go if she went with him—but there just wasn’t any way he could let me live. He’d broken a major rule: He’d killed a cop. He knew there was no way I’d let him get away with it. He had to kill me too.

  And I wasn’t going to dig my own grave for him.

  “No,” I said.

  “The fuck you tawkin’? Start dat goddamn boat, Buonomo, or I splatter you right here.”

  “I know. Go ahead. I hope you’re a good swimmer. Otherwise you’ll be explaining to the seven a.m. shift what you’re doing here. Either way, you don’t get the gold.”

  I took the Water Works key out of my pocket, threw it in the lake. It disappeared in the dark green water with a sploosh.

  “What da hell did you do dat for?”

  “So you can’t lock that door. There’s scuff marks all over the floor upstairs and on the walkway below. You can’t cover those up. Guys are going to ask questions. One of those guys is Ralphie Bencaro, the cousin of the man you just killed.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A guy at the Water Department. He’s arriving on that seven a.m. boat.”

  That was another lie, but Carpaccio didn’t know it. He growled, began pacing heavily. Then he hit on an idea of his own.

  “I’ll kill da broad—right in front of you.”

  “Go ahead. She’s dead to me already. That happened the minute she agreed to be with you. Kill us both—you still burn.”

  Carpaccio became apoplectic, balling his fist up, swinging it wildly about. Then he came toward me, molten fury in his blazing eyes. “Den you burn, too, wise guy.”

  Something whizzed past his head in the predawn glow, splashed into the lake.

  “What was dat?”

  Another object rose up, struck him in the back. “Ahhh!” he yelled as a red bocce ball fell at his heels, careened down the banked landing, and slipped into the water. “What’s going on?”

  Claudia came forward, two more bocce balls in her hands. Her face was contorted, incendiary words spilling from her mouth in two languages. “Figlio della puttana! Kill me? After I give myself to you! Testa di cazzo!”

  She flung another ball sideways at him, then another, bitter testimony to her wrath splashing into the lake at twenty thousand dollars a pop. “Take this! And this! Stronzo!”

  She reached into the nearest box, pulled out two more.

  “And you . . . bastardo!” she cried, turning toward me. “Dead to you, am I? I show you dead!” She heaved a ball in my direction. It just cleared my head, hit the lake on the fly. I began to see her play then.

  “Nooo!” Carpaccio shouted, “Stop! You’re throwin’ it all away!” He took a step toward her, raising his weapon.

  She’d deked him perfectly. “Now, Joe, now!” she yelled as he turned, leaving me uncovered.

  I was on him in a second, over his back, swatting down his gun hand as he fired. He grunted angrily, bent his arm toward me, and squeezed the trigger again, but this time the weapon clacked emptily. Carpaccio spun around, whacking at my head with the muzzle. As he twisted, his wounded shoulder presented itself. I slammed a fist into it repeatedly, Carpaccio erupting in agony from the blows.

  The gold he’d slipped into his pockets earlier cost him now. As he writhed in pain, the swinging weight threw off his equilibrium and he crossed his feet. Feeling his stumble, I yanked hard sideways, arms locked around his neck. Down we went, spinning backward into the many tall stacks of open whiskey cases, which crashed down alongside us as we fell, dozens of bocce balls skittering free across the sloping concrete.

  We broke apart on impact. I rolled toward Claudia and came up in a crouch, eyeing the crib entrance. Carpaccio was too quick. He shot up with a snarl, cornering us on the far edge of the landing. Then he saw all the little balls of bullion splashing into the lake, realized that he was too late to save any of it.

  Snorting, he thrust a hand into his coat, unsheathing a fearsome knife. “Dat’s it!” he shouted. “Dat’s da end of bot’ of youse!”

  He started forward in measured steps, leading with the ugly blade.

  Claudia gasped. I fell back, hands out, pushing her behind me as Carpaccio drove us toward the water’s edge.

  Grim irony set in. Having spent a lifetime cheating Death around the globe, I was going to buy the farm back here in Chicago—on my first trip home in decades.

  But not without a fight.

  Carpaccio’s hand went up.

  These things never change—the eternal battle between the light and the darkness, the unending necessity of the struggle, the numberless sacrifices by the few on behalf of the many. These things endure.

  I dug in, squaring myself up in the boxer’s stance I’d learned in these streets, raising my fists before my face as the dark man closed in on us, my lips parting in grim determination as I readied yet again for the fight.

  Same as it had always been.

  Same as it would always be.

  87

  Carpaccio struck, his silver blade arcing down.

  Blood spattered my face as a thunderclap erupted in my ears.

  An echoing discharge rang out across the platform, rippling out over the water into infinity.

  The knife clanged onto the platform. A dark circle bloomed on Carpaccio’s upper chest, his eyes going wide with wonder. The mob boss hunched down, drawing in ragged breaths. Behind him, Sergeant Salvatore Bencaro of the Chicago Police Department emerged in the doorway, smoking service revolver gripped tight in both hands, mangled gold horn dancing in the day’s first light.

  Carpaccio took a step and lurched sideways into the last three whiskey boxes, launching a final flight of bocce toward the lake. His eyes spun crazily from the hole in his breast to the rolling balls to the woman who’d helped bring him down—everything he valued disintegrating before his unbelieving eyes.

  The hog butcher staggered toward his prizes, grasping belatedly for them as they skipped into the slapping waves. He stared aghast into the mocking water as if to track their fall. At length, he rose, then turned to face us, hanging there slump shouldered and bleeding, mouth agape.

  Claudia ran up, violently jammed her hands into his rib cage, venting twenty years of hatred with one blow.

  Carpaccio stumbled backward, teetering just a moment at water’s edge, arms gyrating hopelessly. Then he plunged into the lake.

  He surfaced thrashing, shouting threats, struggling to get back on the landing an impossible two feet above him. Claudi
a stood over him, radiating fury as she watched his life seeping into the water. Then she smiled slightly at something she saw.

  The mob boss had gotten one of the gold balls out of his pocket as he kicked to stay afloat. But even now he couldn’t bring himself to drop it, trying instead to set it on the wooden planking at the platform’s edge as Claudia stared in quiet detachment.

  Carpaccio clutched faintly at the board with his other hand, his strength ebbing. His fingers slipped, and he went under again. He forced himself up one last time, holding his treasure aloft, its gleaming surface aglow in the emerging dawn. He gazed up at Claudia one final time, a strangely beatific smile on his face.

  His eyes dimmed. The bocce dropped onto the landing. Claudia stopped it under her foot, gazed at it momentarily, then down again at the dying man in the water.

  “Buon viaggio, Carpaccio,” she said softly. “You can pay Il Diavolo with this.”

  She kicked the ball into the lake, watched it fall with a tiny splash.

  A last, strange look of bewilderment crossed Carpaccio’s face.

  Then he slid beneath the surface of the “Great Water,” slipping away from the churning waves and the concerns of men, spiraling through the cold smooth depths toward the lake bed forty fathoms down, where he would dwell with his spoils upon the gently shifting sands.

  For keeps and a single day.

  88

  Sunrise on Lake Michigan is a thing of ethereal beauty, especially behind a clearing wind like the one that had blown out the night’s gale. Iridescent rose hues cracked low on the Michigan side, giving way to piercing reds then a brilliant orange corona as the sun began its trek across the heavens.

  Claudia and I watched it all over our shoulders as I powered the Pelecanos back to Monroe Harbor, marveling at the majesty of it over a forty-year-old bottle of bootleg whiskey and a fine Cuban cigar I’d filched from the captain’s locker. Sal, unfortunately, missed out on the celebration as he was bent over the rail again, committing his pork sausage to the deep.

  But Sergeant Salvatore Bencaro was beginning a brand-new day of his own. He was about to become a police hero for slaying two dangerous mobsters in overnight gunfights. He’d suffered a superficial wound to the chest from an assailant’s bullet, but his famous horn, lost in the line of duty, had saved his life. A miracle, some might say.

  Sure, there’d be some eyebrows raised in a few places over a sergeant engaging in such action alone, but taking down Fiorello Carpaccio would be the lead, especially after I gave Sy Huser the details for an exclusive scoop. Chicago loves a good shoot-out, after all—and the city was damned short on Italian detectives anyway.

  I’d done all right myself. I had an amazing woman at my side and a brand-new start with my family. I had a host of new friends in town, too, each one of whom I owed a debt.

  And each one of whom would be paid—in gold.

  The bulk of Al Capone’s haul had been given to the spirits of the lake, but two of the balls had nestled along the seams at the edge of the landing and three more had turned up in the upended boxes. It wasn’t a king’s ransom, but it was no pig in a poke either.

  It would be enough to help Florence Scala wage her campaign another year. Enough to put Marco back in business aboard the Pelecanos. Enough to keep the wolf away from Ronnie’s door a few more years. And enough to get Pauly out of the Green Mill after so many years of slinging drinks and clubbing toughs.

  It would also be enough to help Vernon Pryor buy that house he’d been dreaming of, though I had a very strong suspicion he’d been kicking his share of the treasure up against the furnace room door for years.

  Most important of all, along with Old Blue Eyes’s assistance, it would be enough to settle any debt Claudia had with the mob so she could pursue her career where and how she wished.

  Mrs. Selma O’Hare had made it very clear that she would accept no recompense of any kind, but that was okay, too. The Navy Widows fund was always happy to receive anonymous donations, and they’d soon be getting a big one in the name of my friend, Edward H. “Butch” O’Hare, Medal of Honor winner.

  And the brace of pallini I’d slipped into my pocket while loading boxes would go a long way toward covering my “business” issues in California. Most of them at least.

  There remained the small matter of the deed to the Merchandise Mart lot I had in my coat pocket. I’d started to chuck that hot potato into the lake on the ride in, but held on to it at the last second. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with it—or McBride—yet, but there was plenty of time to figure that one out over an espresso with Signor LoGuardio.

  Halfway back, I clicked on the multiband radio, spun the dial to AM 720. Some guy named Wally came on with the morning news. Just six more days until Thanksgiving, he said.

  That made it Friday already, the beginning of another weekend—one I’d be spending in clover. Hell, I’d probably even stay for the holiday with Claudia and my family. I’d make another week out if it, maybe even a lifetime.

  “Friday, the twenty-second of November,” I beamed at Claudia as we hit the smooth water inside the breakwater. “As good a day as any for a fresh start.”

  Yeah, that was just the ticket: a fresh start—for both of us. Things had been dark for many long moons, but they were looking up this morning. Way up.

  I told Sal to break out a mooring line as I brought the boat alongside the dock, my very precious cargo at my side. The newsman was going on about the weather and politics and some other jazz, but it was all just so much white noise to me. I snapped off the switch and gave Claudia a big hug, breaking into a grin like Quartermain himself as we made landfall.

  What a beautiful morning it was. The sun was throwing some gold of its own on Lake Michigan, and I had the girl—and a hundred thousand dollars of bocce balls—in my arms. What did I care about the rain in the forecast or the president’s campaign trip through Dallas?

  And for the first time in a very long time, I knew that everything was going to be all right.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My deepest gratitude goes out to the following people, who aided or influenced the creation of this novel.

  My father, Dr. James Anthony Sandrolini: surgeon, brigadier general, and last man standing from the Old School, for his trenchant recollections of 1950s and ’60s life in the Taylor Street neighborhood, in which my brothers and I were born. A great deal of this book’s soul is owed to him and the people who made those immigrant streets bristle with life. I would have liked to have seen Granato’s with you, Dad.

  My brother Chris, the first Sandrolini to dwell on the native soil in a hundred years, for his visceral connection with the Italian heart, grasp of the language, and multiple readings of this novel as it developed. Mille grazie, fratello mio.

  Rebecca Ney, for her love, her tolerance of authors’ quirky habits, and the frequent use of the solarium at the Willmore Hotel, a wonderful place to write.

  Lifelong friends and authors Henry Perez and J. D. Smith, who provided valuable buddy reads and unvarnished advice on the direction of this book.

  Florence Scala. Small. Fearless. Indomitable.

  The Chicago History Museum and blessed Saint Vivian Maier.

  Dimitri Constas and George Cristodoulou, for assistance with the Hellenic language and for just being Greek.

  “Uncle” Bobby, Pauly, Chuckie, Brian, Rudi, Stach, Pat, and all the guys from the 126th Air Refueling Wing at O’Hare who taught me what it means to be a Chicagoan.

  And you, too, Angel.

  A very special acknowledgment for Studs Terkel, Nelson Algren, and Mike Royko, godfathers of Chicago literature. Algren’s brilliant Chicago
: City on the Make put the steel in the spine of this novel. It is, and will remain, the definitive work on this great city.

  For keeps and a single day.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  John Sandrolini (b. 1965), a native Chicagoan, is a captain for a major US airline, with more than 17,000 hours of domestic and international flying in his logbook. He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and a veteran of eight years in the Air National Guard. Living aboard his sloop, La Sirena, in Southern California, he encounters new characters at every port of call. My Kind of Town (2016) is his second novel featuring former fighter pilot Joe Buonomo.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by John Sandrolini

  Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

  978-1-5040-3644-3

  Published in 2016 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

  180 Maiden Lane

  New York, NY 10038

  www.mysteriouspress.com

  www.openroadmedia.com

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