by Jim Fusilli
“With who?”
“In your own head. Don’t tell anybody, Sal.”
“That’s why they sent you to Mimmo?”
“I think that was an experiment.”
“A dumb experiment,” Benno said as he cleaned his glasses on his sleeve. “You ain’t gonna find no intelligence there.”
After his second trip over to Narrows Gate, Bell told Tyler a guy half as suspicious and twice as dim-witted as Mimmo would realize something was up, a man in uniform sitting at a soda fountain and asking questions. Better you should let me read the reports on Farcolini’s crew you get from the Army and the cops and let me tell you what they mean. Tyler agreed and soon Bell learned the feds were tailing Corini and were still sitting on Gigenti’s phones but as long as the New York crew stayed out of the war effort, they let them run free. Pretty soon, he was relegated to reviewing copies of booking sheets and interview logs pulled from precinct houses throughout Hudson County.
“They asked me why Bruno Gigenti fled to Argentina,” Bell told Benno.
“You tell them there was a war going on in Europe?”
“I told them that since Gigenti came over from Nunzio Patti’s crew a million years ago, he had no shot at taking over.”
“You figured that out?” Impressed, Benno patted his pal on the thigh. “Good for you.”
They sat in silence for a while, people going up the library steps empty-handed, coming down cradling books. Surveying Fifth, Bell wondered if GIs had already returned to their jobs in the office towers. As lunchtime came to an end, the streets seemed more crowded than they had in several years.
“So what’s next?” Benno asked.
“I’m hoping they can use me overseas. You read about the Morgenthau Plan? They’re going to need people in Germany and Poland.”
“Messengers?”
“Don’t be a wiseass, Sal.”
Benno didn’t respond. Already he knew Bell felt he didn’t do nothing to help the war effort, which was bullshit and if it wasn’t, it was somebody else’s fault, not Leo’s, who could’ve been killed just like Scat’s boyfriend or every other dead GI who were real heroes in Benno’s book.
“And if they don’t need you?”
“I guess I go back to the A&P.”
“You don’t have to spy on Mimmo no more?”
“Unless he knows something about the Soviets, probably not.”
“’Cause I got something interesting if you want it,” Benno said. He leaned back, his elbows on the step behind him.
“Farcolini’s got his eye on Stalingrad?”
“Not close, but you got the right guy. The feds ain’t letting him back in the country. The deal’s off.”
“No kidding? There goes the waterfront.”
“Nope,” Benno said. “It’s hands off. The crew don’t do nothing and the feds owe.”
“You think the feds will come through?”
“They got to. They’re the feds.”
Bell stood and dusted off the back of his uniform pants. “I ought to get back—”
“You ask me, I think you should tell your guys what I just told you,” Benno said, looking up. “This way, they don’t send you to Poland.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Frankie Fortune took the Canarsie Line to Brooklyn and walked south, the morning sun peeking over the Williamsburg Bridge and warming the October air. The plan was to meet Anthony Corini on the Queens-bound platform. No phone was safe, said Corini, who assumed his car radio was tapped, too. Now he had guys on the payroll who did nothing but clean listening devices out of his clubs. Couple of weeks ago, he had dinner with a city councilman and a Wall Street broker at a chop house in Greenwich Village. Three days later, he and his wife treated two executives from U.S. Steel and their wives to a Broadway show; afterward, they had dinner at Rosoff’s—the same hovering waiter in both joints, fed haircut, fed shoes.
Fortune turned the corner and looked up at the El. Except for a trip or two to Luger’s for the porterhouse, he hadn’t been to Williamsburg in years and he couldn’t remember the last time he took the subway. But what the hell. Maybe Corini knew best. As Fortune approached the steep stairs to the platform, a train rumbled into the station. He looked at his wristwatch. Not yet. He had five minutes until it was time to jump onboard, third car from the back end.
Two decades ago, Corini was a vain wiseass who couldn’t string together a sentence without three fucks in it, a reliable button man who helped take down Gus the Boss. Farcolini thought he ought to apply the kind of polish he needed to cozy up to politicians and industry captains. As Fortune dressed this morning, he conceded that Don Carlo picked the right man to implement Cy Geller’s plan, though he wondered if Corini’s veneer would wear off under pressure, the old thug showing through.
“Hey.”
Fortune turned.
Corini stepped from behind a pillar. He had his fedora pulled down, shading his hooked nose, and as a disguise, wore an old gray topcoat, baggy slacks and scuffed shoes.
Despite the cold snap, Fortune hadn’t worn a coat. His blue silk suit, white shirt and cream tie were out of place in the working-class neighborhood.
“Walk with me,” Corini said. “There’s cops on the train.”
They headed along busy Havemeyer Street.
“Carlo wants Bruno to come home,” Corini said as they passed a shoe store with a display table on the sidewalk.
“Now? The DA’s still hiding the driver,” Fortune told him. “Pellizzari.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
At the curb, they watched a taxi turn the corner.
In Sicilian, Corini said. “Bruno comes back and it’s bad.” He faced Fortune. “He’s trouble for us. You know this.”
“How? Everything is moving. Don Carlo is pleased, no?”
“Whatever we do,” Corini said bitterly, “we have to deal with Bruno before it goes. We waste time, we waste money.”
The crosswalk clear, the men continued their stroll.
“What do you think?” Corini asked.
“I can’t argue,” Fortune replied carefully. “But we stand with Don Carlo, no?”
“Sure, sure. But maybe he doesn’t see the big picture from where he is. Maybe the feds fucking him over has him confused. Nobody wants to make a move on Don Carlo. Clear. No one is saying he’s not the boss. The feds, they can put him on the moon and he’s still the boss.”
“No question,” Fortune said in English.
“But he has to see what we see. Bruno is what they call a demerit.”
A detriment, Fortune thought.
“Don Carlo needs to see we don’t need trouble on the other side of the house.”
Fortune decided to take a chance. “Anthony, I’m not saying I disagree. But I take my orders from Don Carlo.”
Corini stopped directly in front of a five-and-dime. “Listen to me. You know what fuckin’ Bruno can do to what Don Carlo wants? I’m sitting in the mayor’s office and he’s shooting union guys and whores. What the fuck is that?”
Fortune suppressed a smile. Last year, Corini asked him to blow up a rival club in North Bergen.
“Now you know and I know, you had the go-ahead to take him down if he refused the order to leave the country. Am I right?”
Fortune shrugged.
“What does that tell you?” Corini asked.
A delivery truck pulled to the curb. A man in shirtsleeves came out of the five-and-dime to open the grate to the cellar. Corini gestured and the two Sicilians resumed their walk. For a moment, the conversation stalled.
Truth told, Fortune didn’t give a damn for Bruno Gigenti. But Don Carlo went to the trouble of stashing him in Argentina rather than have him put down.
“The fuckin’ idea, Frankie, is to make sure Don Carlo gets what he wants all the way around.”
“Until Don Carlo says Bruno goes, Bruno stays. What else can we do?”
“Ah. So you’re telling me you can’t listen.”
<
br /> “I can listen.”
“You like delivering messages and blowing up nightclubs?”
“Anthony…”
“You can’t see how if we help Don Carlo, it’s good for you? You know, owning a club is different than running a club, Frankie. It’s what they call esteem.”
Another curb and this time a Buick was waiting for a parking spot to open. Corini went one way around the idling car, Fortune the other.
When they came together, Fortune said, “I told you I can listen.”
“I’m taking a chance on you,” Corini said as he began to reveal his plan. He turned up his collar when they crossed into a stretch of shadows.
Soon, the two men were in agreement. The scheme would profit Don Carlo, as well as Anthony Corini and Frankie Fortune.
Phil Klein did what he could with the press, but the truth of Bill’s breakdown was too big. Any reporter who didn’t write about it was bound to come off an asshole, especially with the Hearst chain gloating. The war over, the men home and the show-business scenery had changed. No one needed a boy singer. Almost overnight, Bill Marsala’s music seemed part of the past, a time best forgotten.
Yet Bebe was on a high. He said he saw a future with golden rays coming through the clouds to show the way. Something happened? When? Tides ebb and flow, the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, but I’m still standing, no? I’m still singing my tune. Box me in and this baby zooms.
“We need a plan, Bill,” Klein said carefully. For weeks, he felt like he’d been talking to a kid on a pogo stick.
“What are you worried about? I told you. I’ve shown them before. I’ll show them again.”
Here we go, Terrasini thought.
They were in Bebe’s bungalow on the MGM lot, Terrasini sitting over by the piano, Bebe with a script on his lap, shooting to start next week. Like he needed a script to know his role: a scrawny “dese, dem, and doser” from Brooklyn who, it turns out, can sing and dance, which allows him to blossom. No longer a sailor or a GI, this character is a stock boy trying to win a girl and please his boss who—what a surprise—is her father. Gene Kelly had all the big numbers. Bill Marsala sang a ballad to a cat.
“Here’s how you boot their asses to hell,” Bebe said, jumping off the sofa and clapping his hands together. He wore a white shirt open at the collar, boxers, black socks and shoes; his jacket and slacks were on the suit rack. “You book the Palladium. You book the Paramount in New York. You tell them I’m changing with the times. America’s at a new stage and Bill is, too. I’m growing with my fans. You know how to play it, Philly boy. Whip up a frenzy.”
Klein nodded. “Sure, Bill, but—”
“We bring in some new material. Nino?”
Terrasini was sipping an iced tea. “Maybe it’s not the material. Maybe it’s the arrangements.”
“Needs balls, right?”
Terrasini nodded.
“Phil, talk to the label. Tell them I want to meet some new blood. Tell them Bill Marsala is ready to fly.”
Klein decided he’d better write down his instructions. Marsala had a way of denying he’d given an order when it flopped.
“The press,” Marsala continued, his energy mounting. “Bring in the friendlies.”
Klein looked up from his notepad. “You sure you want to talk to the press?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Make it the music press,” Terrasini said. The regular columnists would ask about Rosa. Bebe’s constant catting didn’t do much to combat the rumors that their marriage was on the rocks.
“I don’t care who,” the singer said as he went for his suit. “Friendlies. Guys who can dig where I’m headed. Guys who know this train is an express to the land of milk and honey.”
Terrasini stood.
Klein looked his watch. “Bill, don’t forget your three o’clock with the second-unit director.”
“Blow it off.”
“Bill, you asked for the meeting.”
“I’m gone, Philly. Gone.”
He checked himself in the full-length mirror. The suit sat right. It’d better. Handmade. Eight hundred bills. “Never—never—count out this beautiful boy,” he said as he stared into his own eyes.
“Bebe, you need a lift?” Terrasini asked.
He shook his head. “Flying solo.”
Klein followed him toward the bungalow door. “Bill, where can I reach you?” he asked urgently.
“You can’t.”
A broad, Terrasini thought.
Klein and Terrasini could hear him whistling a happy tune as his Cadillac convertible turned over with a roar.
Snapping his notepad shut, Klein let out a long, tired breath.
“Yeah,” said Terrasini. “Boing boing.”
Leo Bell was lying on his back, hands behind his head, Imogene’s naked thigh slung over him, wiry auburn hair between her legs tickling his hip, her head on his shoulder as she purred contently. He was staring at the ceiling, water stains, light bulb and string, when the telephone in the hall rang.
He wriggled free. Imogene stirred and pulled up the top sheet.
Bell slipped into his trench coat, his bare feet creaking the coarse floorboards. Only Benno had the number, but he thought the phone was in the Bells’ brownstone, not in a one-room flop under the 14th Street viaduct that he rented from a liquor distributor he met at the A&P. The apartment wasn’t much—bed, third-hand dresser, little row of books, some blinds and curtains Imogene contributed—but it allowed Bell and his girl to get away.
“I need a meet,” Benno said. He was in a booth in the Lackawanna station, the morning rush gone. “Come for lunch.”
Bell returned to his room, threw off his coat and tossed back the sheet, exposing the candy-cheeked girl.
“Leo,” Imogene groaned, “please.” She rolled onto her stomach.
Bell gave her a gentle slap on the rump, then leaned down and kissed her where the blow had struck.
She spun and sat up, raising her knees, her thighs pressing against her pink nipples and plump breasts.
“I’ve got to run,” he said.
“Tyler?”
He groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
“Don’t remind you that your former lieutenant says he sees big things for you?”
“Big things. Giant things. Sure.” The war ended almost a year ago, but Bell believed if he hadn’t decided to return to Fort Jay on Governors Island, he’d still be sitting in the library staring at the phone. At least they boosted him to sergeant before the Army sent him packing.
“Let’s shower at your dad’s house,” she teased.
“No can do. They’ve got showers in the dorms, right?”
“Showers, soap even. But not my Leo.” She bounced to the side of the bed and opened her arms. Bell stepped in and put his thigh against her cheek.
As she stood, she said, “Escort me to the bathroom?”
He helped her slip into his coat.
“That shin isn’t getting better,” she said, pointing with her brush to his purple egg. Offloading a truck behind the supermarket, he’d bashed it on a hand truck. “We ought to lance it.”
“You’re not a nurse yet,” Bell replied as he opened the door.
“And you’re not a college boy yet, either. But I think we’re cute.”
She scurried toward the rusty bathroom, Bell watching her freckled calves, the bottoms of her bare feet. She blew him a kiss before closing the door.
“What’s this? Halloween?” Benno said.
Bell wore a gray V-neck sweater and white T-shirt, chinos with cuffs, argyle socks and penny loafers. He carried a book from the Narrows Gate library.
“What’s up, Sal?” Bell replied wearily. On Benno’s table was a braid of fresh mozzarella, some sliced capicolla and salami, a loaf of bread from Dommie’s and carciofi in oil with peperoncino. As he sat, he rolled up a sliver of salami and took a bite.
“Maybe you want some mayonnaise?” Benno asked. He tilted his head to read the
book’s spine. “Philosophy of the Common Task. Means what?”
Bell pushed the book across the table, spreading the silverware.
Benno turned the chair, sat with his arms on its back rails. “Mimmo says Frankie has a task for me.”
“A task? What’s a task?”
Beyond the door, hunched widows in black navigated the aisles, Vito following with a wire basket to help while Sal was on his lunch break.
“He don’t say. You think this is it?”
“All through the war they leave you alone and now…” Bell paused thoughtfully. “A guy like you—no jail time, comes and goes, eager, loyal.”
“I’m useful. To do what?”
“Pick up and deliver,” Bell said as he reached for the bread.
“You know, Mimmo said not to tell you.” He popped a piece of cheese in his mouth and closed his eyes in bliss: It was like eating a milky cloud. “So walk out like I ain’t said.”
“I can finish the fuckin’ sandwich, Sal?”
Benno wiped his fingers on his apron. “Put your nose in the book. Look like you don’t know nothing worth nothing.”
“Sure. But don’t kill anybody until I come back,” Bell said.
“Leo,” Benno said seriously. “You think that?”
Bell shook his head. But he was thinking they were giving Benno a task Fortune couldn’t assign to Boo Chiasso or Fat Tutti. Maybe that fuckin’ primate Mimmo is serving up Sal.
They ate in silence. Benno’s aunt waddled in with a cannellini salad, patted Bell’s cheek and stood on her toes to kiss him on top of his head. “Ti amo, Leo,” she said.
“Me too, Aunt Gemma,” he replied.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Paramount was elbow to elbow all the way to the upper mezzanine. Not a sellout, but damned close. With Broadway and the jazz haunts nearby, almost any other singer in the country would kill to draw 2,800 fans in New York on a Tuesday night.
He’d hit a home run at the Hollywood Palladium. “Marsala Magic,” the West Coast press called it. The boy singer could make it work as a man after all. His music might trump the crude element in his personality. “I’ve made mistakes,” Marsala admitted to a writer from Metronome magazine. “But true-blue fans who gave their hearts—and I’m lucky I’ve got them, believe me—they forgive.”
