Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

by Jimmy Breslin

  At 10:30 Mario and Angela sat next to each other in a booth in the coffee shop on the corner near his flat. The windows of the shop were frosted in the cold and the wind. Brightness from the unseen sun flooded through the frosted windows and spilled onto the aluminum and formica of the coffee shop. Angela tucked her legs under her on the seat and leaned against Mario. She spooned grape jelly onto a half-piece of toast and held the toast up to Mario. He took a bite of it. They smiled at each other. Mario sat and drank coffee with the steady, gentle weight of her body against him.

  It was nearly 2:15 p.m. when the waiters in the Della Palma moved through the dining room, changing tablecloths and putting out water glasses and silverware shining from the dishwasher. Three salesmen, sitting over espresso, were the last customers in the restaurant. One of the men picked up the espresso pot and tilted it over his cup. A small black trickle ran out of the thin spout. He put the pot down and asked the men with him if he should order another pot. They shook their heads no. The man waved for a check. When the three salesmen took their coats out of the checkroom and walked past the bar to go out, Jackie Dunne slipped a hand under his jacket and patted the gun stuck into his belt. I’m on next, he said to himself.

  Dominic Laviano walked in at a quarter to three. He nodded to Jackie Dunne and stood at the breakfront until a waiter came and helped him out of his coat. “There be three or four of us,” Dominic said. The waiter led him to a table in the middle of the room.

  Ten minutes later a black Cadillac pulled in front of the restaurant. Two black suits got out of it and came into the restaurant. They waved to Dominic Laviano and went back out to the car. Baccala, flanked by black suits, paraded into the Della Palma. He walked past the bar without looking at Jackie Dunne. He took no notice of the waiter helping him out of his coat. If royalty were to acknowledge each chambermaid, royalty would become painfully common.

  Baccala went to the table. The two black suits took up posts at the bar.

  “Help you fellas?” Jackie Dunne said.

  “Gimme dimes for the meter,” one of them said. He put a dollar on the bar.

  “Somethin’ to drink too?” Jackie said.

  “I said gimme dimes for the meter, that’s all I said,” the black suit said.

  Jackie gave him ten dimes. The black suits walked out to the car. The Water Buffalo had already eaten lunch. He did not care to sit through a conversation with some priest. If Baccala wanted to talk and buy his way into heaven, that was fine. But the Water Buffalo was not interested. “I’m going to take a ride aroun’ for a half-hour or so,” the Water Buffalo said. The black suits asked him for the dimes back. The Water Buffalo spat at them and started the car up.

  “What am I, a dope? He beats me for a whole dollar,” one of them said. The black suits came back and sat at the bar and kept looking out the window to check the street. Jackie Dunne could see the outlines of the pistols in shoulder holsters under their suits.

  Mario’s knees buckled when he came through the door. The two black suits jumped up, hands inside their jackets. Mario threw open the raincoat to show the priest’s collar. Dominic Laviano, who had been watching for Mario, waved to him. Mario walked to the table, torn by a tremendous fear of what was behind him and a tremendous greed for the man in front of him. Baccala had been breaking off pieces of bread to chew on with his wine. He had the tablecloth and the floor around his feet covered with brown breadcrust. Dominic Laviano presented Don Mario Trantino to Baccala. Baccala grunted. For a cardinal, perhaps, Baccala would extend a hand and rise.

  “Now I bless this table and all who eat at it,” Mario said.

  “Grazie,” Baccala mumbled.

  Mario’s right hand rose. He murmured in Latin.

  “You say one more prayer?” Baccala said.

  “Certainly,” Mario said.

  “Say a prayer that all people who don’t like Baccala will get cancer.”

  Mario pretended not to hear this.

  Dominic Laviano waved for a waiter. The waiters were all in the kitchen, reading newspapers and listening to a radio. None of them got up. Dominic sat with his hand waving over his head like he was a helicopter.

  Baccala took a breath. “Hey!” he shouted.

  Waiters spilled out of the kitchen, the napkins over their arms flapping as they ran to the table.

  Mario looked at the menu. He was about to talk to the waiter when Dominic Laviano nudged him into silence.

  “You like-a shrimp and clams oreganato?” Baccala said to Dominic.

  “Yes.”

  “You like-a?” he said to Mario. Dominic nudged again.

  “Yes.”

  Baccala smiled. “Then we have spaghetti alla Carbonara, right?”

  “Right,” Dominic said.

  “And veal alla marsala.”

  “Good,” Dominic said. He nudged Mario again. Mario smiled that it was fine.

  Mario waited until Baccala finished mopping a piece of bread through the last gravy from the shrimps and clams before bringing out the picture. He handed it to Baccala.

  “When did you leave Catanzia?” he asked Baccala.

  “I come from Sicilia,” Baccala said.

  Mario’s throat stuck together. Baccala studied the picture. He turned it over and read the note. He went back to the picture again.

  “Che peccat’,” Dominic Laviano said. “And the people from Catanzia who are here, they don’t have so much money.”

  Baccala looked at the picture. He seemed indifferent. He put it down and leaned forward.

  “You hear my-a confess’?”

  “Yes,” Mario said.

  “And when you hear this-a confess’, you give the absolution?”

  “Oh, of course,” Mario said.

  “You guarantee I go to heaven?”

  Mario nodded vigorously.

  Baccala leaned back in his chair. He pursed his lips. “Now, what if I no tell you everything in this confess’? You still put me heaven?”

  “How could a man of such bearing as yourself not tell the truth?” Mario said.

  “I no lie,” Baccala said. “I just no tell.”

  “If you don’t tell me a thing in confession, why, it means you just forget to tell it,” Mario said. “This does not mean you lie, or you hide something. You just forget.”

  Baccala poked Dominic Laviano. “Young priests, they the best of the best. These old geepos, they sit there and they say, ‘Baccala, go ’way.’ ”

  Baccala leaned forward with his chin almost touching the table. He whispered.

  “Besides, I only peek up the little girl’s dress. I no touch.”

  “Oh, you are a man of honor,” Mario said.

  Baccala raised his wineglass. “Salut!”

  At the bar, Jackie Dunne was getting a little nervous. The two black suits had ordered nothing. Jackie fingered the chloral hydrate in his pocket.

  “Time for a drink, fellas,” he said.

  “Screwdrivers,” one of the black suits said. Jackie’s eye caught the fish truck pulling up outside.

  Big Jelly pulled the truck into the same space the Water Buffalo had pulled out of. Kid Sally sat alongside him. Both were wearing long white deliverymen’s coats, gray truck-driver’s caps, and big round sunglasses.

  “Don’t look, but the two bums is right there in the window,” Big Jelly said.

  “What the hell is Jackie doin’ in there?” Kid Sally said.

  “We’ll just have to wait, what can I tell you,” Big Jelly said.

  Beppo the Dwarf crouched in the back of the truck. Two baskets of chopped ice and codfish were on the floor by the doors. Tony Lombardo was asleep with his head against one of the baskets. The ice water seeped out of the basket and went into his hair. Tony shivered in his sleep. He was dreaming that he was in Antarctica. Beppo sat with coils of nylon rope, four sets of handcuffs, and Johnson & Johnson five-inch adhesive tape. He had to be ready for fast moving. The plan was to load Baccala onto the truck, kick Tony Lombardo off it, then tru
ss up Baccala while the truck sped away.

  He had one other thing to do. He reached into a paper bag and brought out three of the stolen blue-black Savage automatics. He opened a box of the stolen bullets. He had a little trouble loading the automatics.

  “Here you go,” Beppo said. He held out two loaded automatics. Kid Sally took them. Beppo stuffed the third into his belt.

  Just up from the Della Palma, in front of the supermarket, Mrs. Rosalind Seneca Wiggins, who is known to her friends as Roz, sauntered along in her brand new size-46 blue-gray Meter Maid uniform. Roz was big enough to be listed in Jane’s Fighting Ships. Roz had been on the job for three days. She was hired at a salary of $75 a week by the City of New York. Her job was to patrol a six-block stretch of Queens Boulevard and put tickets on all vehicles that were illegally parked. Illegal parking includes all those cars parked in front of meters which have a red flag showing to indicate the half-hour has expired.

  Roz loved her new job. Instead of scrubbing floors for white people, she could walk along and give them $15 tickets. She stopped in front of the supermarket for a moment. She had a few more meters to check; then she could start on the opposite side of the boulevard. She glanced at the clock in the supermarket. It was almost 3:30. Roz quit at four.

  From the window by the bar, the two black suits were unable to make out who was sitting in the front seat of the fish truck. They began muttering about the truck being parked and nobody coming out of it. Jackie Dunne heard this and picked up two glasses and began grabbing ice cubes, swirling orange juice and vodka bottles around. He made two drinks and put them on the sink under the bar. He went to his pocket for the chloral hydrate. The crystals dissolved into the orange juice. They dissolved into a heavy smell of chlorine, a stronger smell than a swimming pool gives off. Jackie let the drinks stand for a moment. He hoped the smell would go away. He was becoming very nervous now. He had never used knockout drops before. All he had ever done was hear about them. Just put them in a drink, everybody said, and the other guy never knows the difference and the next thing you know, he’s on the floor. Like most of these things, it was nonsense. Jackie Dunne bent over and sniffed the drinks again. His stomach turned. The odor was even heavier now. Nobody sane would touch a drink like this. Jackie draped a towel over his hand and went to his belt for the pistol. He kept the gun hand down. He put the drinks on the bar with the other.

  “Fellas,” he said.

  The two black suits turned around. They picked up the glasses. The smell hit their noses at once.

  Jackie’s hand brought up the pistol under the towel. “Right there,” Jackie said. The hands were tense and shook a little. They stayed motionless holding the drinks, but Jackie knew he had only a few seconds to keep them under control.

  Jackie made sure the gun did not move a fraction of an inch. One show of motion, even tiny motion, would send both these guys flopping to the floor and pulling out their guns. Jackie could feel his weight automatically come back on the heels so he could pull away if one of them threw a glass.

  “Very slow, bring your mouth down to the glass. Down, not up.” They bent over, their eyes glaring up at him the way a dog does when he has a bone in his mouth. Look out, look out, or here they go, Jackie said to himself.

  “Now drink the whole thing,” he said quickly.

  In the tension and fear, the two black suits knew the smell was there, but they didn’t really notice it. The word “poison” ran through their minds.

  Jackie Dunne pushed the gun at them and their bodies jumped. “Drink!” he said.

  Each of them took a small gulp.

  “I said drink!” Jackie said. His nerves were beginning to take over his voice and his body. His voice was tight, and the gun waved quickly.

  The black suits, still looking at him, began swallowing. When they got near the bottom, Jackie waved the gun at them again.

  “All right. Slow. Glasses down. Both hands on the bar. Slow.”

  The two stood hunched over the bar and Jackie held the gun on them. Three pairs of hands were twitching, and three sets of lips were trembling. Jackie knew it was going to start any fraction of a second. His finger was wet on the trigger.

  One of the black suits felt his insides falling into his pants. He put a hand over his mouth and threw up into it. The other black suit exploded from every opening in his body except his ears.

  They were coughing and retching and Jackie went inside their jackets and pulled out the guns. He dropped them into the sink. He stuffed his own pistol back into his belt. With a deep, free breath he came out from behind the bar and took each of them by the arm and tugged them to the stairs leading to the men’s room. Jackie glanced into the dining room. Through the breakfront, he could see the three at the table busy talking. He pushed the two black suits onto the stairs. Throwing up, gagging, coming out of both ends, the black suits staggered down the steps.

  Jackie stepped into the checkroom. He took off the red jacket, grabbed his suit jacket, and swung out of the checkroom. He was out on the street in two steps, heading for the subway.

  Kid Sally jumped. “That’s it,” he said. He fumbled with the door and tumbled out of the truck onto the street side. Big Jelly, wiping the hangover sweat from his face, came onto the sidewalk. He felt himself bumping into something while he was heading for the back of the truck.

  “Please watch where you goin’,” Roz said. She was standing with her Meter Maid book open, standing right in front of the meter the fish truck was parked at, the meter with the red flag showing.

  In the back of the truck, Kid Sally and Big Jelly were grabbing the baskets of fish from Beppo the Dwarf. They each put a basket on a shoulder and started for the restaurant.

  “What’s this?” Kid Sally said. Roz was copying down the license-plate number from the front of the truck.

  “Get rid of her,” Kid Sally said. He kept walking to the door.

  “Come on, lady,” Big Jelly said to Roz.

  “Just as soon as I finish my job,” Roz said.

  Kid Sally was in the Della Palma vestibule now, leaning against the cigarette machine. The ice water was running out of the fish basket and down his arm and onto his hand. He was afraid the hand would be slippery when he held the gun. Come on, Jelly, he said to himself.

  Big Jelly was standing chest to chest with Roz. “Hey, lady, we’re workin’, go bother somebody else,” he said.

  “When I finish,” Roz said. She said it slowly and without looking up from the pad on which she was writing.

  “Come on,” Big Jelly said.

  Roz did not answer.

  “Oh come on, you fuckin’ nigger,” Big Jelly said.

  Roz put the top back on her pen.

  “Black cunt,” Big Jelly said.

  Roz put the pen back into the breast pocket of her uniform.

  “Old nigger cunt.”

  Roz tore off the parking ticket from her pad. She was careful to tear it on the perforated line.

  “I’ll piss on your leg, you fuckin’ nigger.”

  Roz walked over to the truck and began to stick the ticket to the windshield-wiper.

  “Fuckin’ nigger cunt.”

  “You know,” Roz said very softly and very offhandedly, “you know, you should of been a cop. Yes, you should of been a cop. Because your father was a police dog, you fat motherfucker.”

  Big Jelly held the basket of fish over his head like he was King Kong. He brought it down onto Roz’s head. He threw a kick at Roz’s legs. Roz twisted away, and the kick missed. She pulled the basket off her head with one hand. The other was out in front of her, reaching and pawing and finding Big Jelly’s fat cheek. Big Jelly threw a wild left hand onto the side of Roz’s head. Mrs. Rosalind Seneca Wiggins, who has a head that has broken a thousand bottles, took the punch, blinked, and reached for Big Jelly’s private parts. She had to dig hard through the apron, but she got them. A scream went up from Big Jelly’s mouth. His left knee came up to his chest.

  Kid Sally banged h
is head against the cigarette machine. He dropped the basket onto the floor and pulled out the automatic. Now there was no plan and no time. Now he could only do one thing: go inside and kill Baccala cowboy-style and come running for his life. Kid Sally’s lip came up in a sneer. He began to giggle. The gun out, giggling, the giggle becoming very loud, he came into the Della Palma Restaurant for a shooting that would go down in gangland history, go down with the killing of Albert Anastasia in the barber chair and Vincent Coll in the phone booth and Willie Moretti in a clam bar.

  The waiter and Mario saw Kid Sally at the same time. The waiter was coming out of the kitchen with a pan of spaghetti alla Carbonara to serve the table. The spaghetti alla Carbonara went into the air and the waiter belly-whopped under a table. Mario saw Kid Sally because for the last fifteen minutes Mario had been watching the door out of one corner of his eye so he could run the moment the fish deliverymen came in. Now, when Mario saw Kid Sally coming in with the gun out, a roar filled his ears. He came out of his chair with his hands out and a scream.

  “Gesù!”

  Dominic Laviano dove to the left. Baccala, mouth open, eyes wide, tried to get off the chair. He could not move.

  Kid Sally brushed through two tables, giggling, the gun coming out farther. Mario fell over him.

  “Gesù!”

  Kid Sally’s left hand pushed against Mario. The giggle now turned into a shriek. Kid Sally jammed the gun against Baccala’s temple. Baccala’s eyes closed. His face twisted. Kid Sally could hear Big Mama in his mind, Big Mama shouting at him, “No miss!” Kid Sally pulled the trigger, and the explosion filled the room and Baccala tumbled from his chair. Kid Sally had wanted to empty the automatic into Baccala’s head, but he could not do this because the wrong-sized ammunition blew up the gun right away. In one flash Kid Sally’s hand was shredded and his dreams and chances were gone and he was in shock, with blood from his hand running all over him. He turned and did not remember running out of the place and into the brightness and the wind and the cold and Big Jelly screaming on the sidewalk.