by Jim Fusilli
“They could’ve. But they didn’t.”
“Drop me off on the boulevard,” Bell said.
“Why?”
“I got to go back and get the truck.”
“My uncle’s truck?”
Bell parked it behind a diner maybe a quarter mile from the Palace.
“Let me bring you down to Tonnelle—”
“Sal, drop me off and get back to the store. Be there when the cops come.”
“The cops ain’t coming after me.”
“When they round up all the one-eyed delivery boys…”
“Minga.”
“You knew nothing about this. Right? Sal?”
“Nothing. Except Frankie Fortune sent me.”
At the red light, Bell jumped out, then leaned back in the car window. “You’d better figure out whether you want to tell them that.”
Benno watched his friend tug his lapels, run his fingers through his hair and return his hat to his head. Then, like he didn’t have a care in the goddamned world, he started walking down toward the sirens.
Boo Chiasso was leaning on the mailbox when Benno strolled onto Polk Street.
“So?” he said.
“Nobody paid me nothing,” Benno replied.
Boo followed him along Polk, which was busy with kids out of school and widows shopping slow and sloped. Rolling back his awning, Pete the Butcher greeted Benno but looked warily at Chiasso.
“Slow down,” Chiasso said.
“Somebody owes me at least ten bucks,” said Benno, who kept walking.
Chiasso snatched Benno by the collar.
Benno spun and shook free. “Boo, I’ll drop your ass right here you don’t step back.”
Looking down, Chiasso laughed. “There’s blood on your shirt,” he said.
“Yeah and in my mouth, too. Also brains, Boo. Understand?”
“But not yours. Right?”
“Luck,” Benno said.
Chiasso shook his flat head. “Not luck.”
Benno paused to wonder who could make a shot like that, but he was too rattled to reason.
“It was Santucci who asked you to cover for him. Right?” Chiasso said. “You got a telephone call…”
“Vinnie Santucci.”
Chiasso nodded. “You give Pellizzari the note?”
He said he did.
“You read it?”
Benno was offended. “It was sealed, for Christ’s sake.”
With that, Chiasso went back toward the candy store.
Pride battered, searching for solace, Rosa Marsala left Narrows Gate and took the jitney up to Bayonne to see her parents, sisters and brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews; hugs, hugs, kisses. “No, no I’m fine,” she told them. “Don’t believe those rumors. Really. It’s all part of the game. When you don’t hear something is when you worry.”
Soon they grew quiet, reflecting on her impossible situation: living 3,000 miles away in a house that was hardly a home; life in the spotlight—the glare, but not its warmth; and a husband whose career meant more to him than anything or anyone. Rosa’s mother saw a grim reality. Out in Hollywood, they divorced and remarried, divorced and remarried, playing a sacrament like it was hopscotch. “What can we do, Rosa?” she asked.
Fighting tears, Rosa left the table. Her father patted his wife’s hand. “A private matter,” he reminded her. “Not our business.”
Bill Jr. stayed with Hennie and Vincenzo: an evening with doting grandparents and neighbors eager to see Bill Marsala’s son. But the kid was colicky and cried constantly; he didn’t respond when Hennie put a little scotch on his lips. Agitated and needing to get out, she passed the baby off to her sisters. Though Klein had arranged tickets for her and Vincenzo, she chose the Chatterbox over the Paramount, thinking her absence would pressure Bebe to visit. In her mind, he’d notice her empty seat and would well with regret.
“Bebe’s coming home,” she announced as she burst into the Chatterbox. The crowd at the bar cheered, hailing the mother of the local boy who made good, a few flakes of stardust landing on their shoulders. As always, drinks on the arm and Marsala on the jukebox. “There will be other lips that I may kiss…” he sang, an accordion putting a satin pillow under his voice. One drink in, she looked at her son’s picture over the bar and in an instant, she saw it like it already happened: teary-eyed Rosa on the front page, baby in her arms, abandoned by the draft-dodging wolf, the Sicilian with questionable friends, the perpetual child who rang the bell then flaunted his victory. Somebody wins, somebody loses. Guess who and guess who.
The vivid imagery drove Hennie to a booth in back where she sat alone with her elbow on the table, her head in her hand, an ache in her chest, acid in her throat. Klein told her he’d heard a rumor that wouldn’t go away. Bill had fallen for someone, a Hollywood actress, divorced. A big name. The feeling was mutual, people said. He was skipping work to see her, keeping it a secret, even from Terrasini. It was more than recreation, more than a boost to sagging self-confidence. They hadn’t been seen in public and their discretion gave the gossip its wings. It was only a matter of time until the story broke—and it would be big. Klein said his boss, Rico Enna, needed to be told, which meant Anthony Corini would know. For Bill, it could be serious trouble.
A song from ’42 came on the jukebox and soon she was remembering how it used to be. Kids from all over the country would drive to the Marsala home, point, take pictures, mistaken in their belief that their Bill grew up in the Irish section rather than downtown. Here, they thought, is where he sang for pennies on the front steps, shoeshine box nearby, his newspapers delivered and duty as an altar boy done for the day—the story Klein spun. Every now and then Hennie came out dressed like Eleanor Roosevelt to offer milk and cookies and some words of comfort: “In America, you can be anything you want. Look at my beautiful boy…”
Lately, though, they didn’t drop by like they used to. They weren’t camping out, trying to steal the mortar between the bricks, rooting through garbage, putting pictures with telephone numbers into the statue of the Virgin Mary. The fan clubs liked to forward hundreds of letters from mothers seeking her advice, but now, few came.
Still, there was this engagement at the Paramount, following the triumph out in LA. Fuck the fickle ones, she thought suddenly, the newspapers, the magazines with their photographers from the sewers, turncoat fucks, green-eyed hypocrites. Who needs them? The Jersey Observer said the hometown boy was still bigger than Crosby ever was. A contract with the most important studio in Hollywood, his name above the title from his first picture. Bebe talked to presidents and millionaires, for Christ’s sake. So who the hell are these nobodies with notebooks and pencils?
Wriggling out of the booth, Hennie hurried back to the crowd, elbowed her way to the bar, demanded another drink, a double. Soon, her throaty laugh rose above the music, troubles, if not forgotten, at least swept aside.
Rosa returned to Hennie and Vincenzo’s at 11 o’clock, her body still on West Coast time. She felt a little better for the comfort of her family. But she was heartbroken. Confused. Humiliated. Lost. Sophie and Dee looked on as she went up to check Bill Jr. and change her dress, trying like hell to be more than a plump, pretty Italian housewife from Bayonne in case Bill came in. “Lovely,” they told her while remembering the glossy magazine photos of Bebe with this gorgeous band singer, that knockout dancer, all over Hollywood, nightclubs, restaurants, the track.
Hennie led Vincenzo through the door a little before midnight. The lights still on, she thought a prayer had been answered. “Bebe,” she shouted, arms extended.
“Ssh!” went Dee. Sophie jumped awake, her hair flattened by the sofa’s bloated arm. “The baby.”
“Hello,” said Rosa, standing in the kitchen doorway, fist on her hip.
Vincenzo got the message. He kissed his daughter-in-law on the cheek, whispering, “Buona notte, cara.”
With a swipe of her finger, Hennie dispatched her sisters.
At the kitchen table, Ro
sa poured espresso. Hennie brought down the sambuca, but it remained untouched.
“Hennie, I’m leaving him,” Rosa said as she sat. “He doesn’t want me and I’m leaving him.”
A rush of blood and who the fuck are you to leave my beautiful boy? But Hennie swallowed the thought. She knew it was coming.
Rosa’s thick hands trembled on the table.
“Tell me why, honey,” Hennie said, lowering her voice.
“It’s no good. He’s…he’s different.”
“Sure. He’s Bill Marsala. But you’re Mrs. Bill Marsala, no?”
“I’m Mrs. William Rosiglino, Hennie. We married at St. Matthew the Apostle, right here in Narrows Gate.”
“What I mean is…” Hennie squirmed. “The women, sure. It’s…it’s embarrassing for everybody. A husband running around like that. But he comes home to you.”
“It’s more than that,” Rosa said. “He’s changed. And I don’t mean he’s, you know, a star now. That I can accept. When we saw him at the Lakeside Inn, we knew it could be big—”
“Not this big.”
“No, but I knew I wasn’t going to be like my sisters, my husband walking through the door every night at the same time.”
“But you love him. So you compromise. You adapt.”
Rosa tried to lift the tiny espresso cup, but her hand shook. She started twisting her rings, the thin gold band and the four-carat diamond Bill delivered two years ago as an act of contrition. She looked at her mother-in-law. “I think there’s something wrong. If he’s not sky high, he’s wrestling with the blues. He fights with everybody, tells everybody to go to hell. He throws his weight around. It’s dangerous.”
Hennie dropped her meaty forearms on the table. “He didn’t threaten you, did he?”
“No, no,” she said. “I’m not—It’s the pressure, I’m sure. But nobody’s right but him. The people at the studio, the record company…He’s making enemies.”
“Like who?”
“Big shots,” she replied.
“Oh, I don’t think Bebe has to worry about big shots, Rosa. He’s got plenty of friends, believe you me.”
“I’m not talking about the Farcolinis. I’m talking about people who can take away his career. Don’t you read the papers, Hennie?”
“Yeah. They say he’s doing good.”
“I’m not talking about the past couple of weeks. I mean the past couple of years. Where do you think those bums get that information?”
Hennie heard Bebe’s voice when Rosa said “bums.” Her own, too. “And poor Klein—”
“You think it’s Klein?” Hennie asked, drawing up.
“God no. Klein…Phil Klein is the only one who tells Bill the truth.”
Hennie sat back, the truth seeping in. Rosa was pure. Not a schemer, no two-bit cheat. She loved Bebe when he was nobody. Rosa would’ve married Bebe if he’d jerked soda at a luncheonette and sang weekends at the Elks Club. The image Klein and the studio built for Bebe—the good child, the loyal friend, the helpful neighbor, the good Catholic, true-blue American, now the loving parent—that was Rosa.
And look at this. She comes up golden, the power in her lap. Rosa was simple but never stupid. Now she sips Champagne with those Hollywood wives and maybe they’re giving her a tutorial on divorce, knocking Bebe to his knees, the whole thing blown.
The sambuca could wait no more. Hennie filled her empty espresso cup and drank it until it was gone, the scent of licorice lingering in the air. “You really want to leave him, Rose? With Bill Jr. and the new home? Is that what you really want—to give up without a fight?”
“I want a father for Bill Jr.”
Hennie nodded. Sure.
“And I want Bill to be OK. You know, Hennie, OK. People out there know how to play the game. They know the score. But Bill, he’s got to have it like he wants it and to the devil with the rest.”
Hennie took another tug on the sambuca, its warmth spreading across her aching chest, as Rosa dabbed at her nose with a lace handkerchief, the letters RM embroidered in pink and green.
“I’ll talk to him,” Hennie said finally. “Maybe you’re right, maybe he can’t see clear. Maybe he needs a good whack.” She stood, her chair squealing on linoleum. “Rosa, remember the time he brought the bandleader over and you made manicotti and we had the sausage from down Benno’s and that trumpet bastard ate like there’s no tomorrow?”
“You gave them meatballs for the bus.” Rosa nodded with a thin smile.
“Maybe you should put up some gravy in case Bebe brings some of the guys home. Make him remember, right?”
Hennie saw it so clear she could smell it. Blue flames, garlic frying in oil at the bottom of a beat-up old pot. In go the peeled tomatoes and dried herbs. Rosa barefoot, her brown shoes set neat by the refrigerator, an apron wrapped around her new dress. Bebe comes up the steps, the guys behind him, laughter ringing as he pushes through the front door.
“Hennie, he’s not coming,” she said. “We both know that.”
Yeah, Hennie thought. We do. Bebe had a stupid streak a mile wide. Thank God he could sing.
Bell decided they needed a drive. They went north in Benno’s truck, the big moon following. When Narrows Gate was well behind them, they parked on a side street and finagled a couple of Yoo-hoos from the guy closing his roadside joint.
They took a bench outside Palisades Amusement Park, shuttered for the night. The Cyclone was quiet, but if you tried you could hear echoes of kids screaming in terror, the thing quaking under them like it could collapse.
The bulldog edition of the News told them the guy hit at the Palace was Fredo Pellizzari, a soldier from the old Broadway gang. He’d fingered Bruno Gigenti for the murder of some union leader. The district attorney’s office had been moving him like checkers, keeping him breathing while trying to extradite Gigenti from Argentina.
Benno chided himself for not figuring out while he was still wearing Pellizzari’s brains that Eugenio Zamarella made the shot. The crew had knife men and garrote men and concrete men and pistoleros. Zamarella was handy with a gun, but he liked the rifle too—capping some rat bastard from 50 yards out made it easier for him to return to invisible.
He told Bell, who’d never heard the hit man’s name before tonight.
“Why aren’t you dead?” Bell asked.
“Why should I be? I did what they said and I don’t know nothing. In clean, out clean.” He lifted his hips to dig into his pocket. “Frankie told me to give this to Pellizzari.”
Bell reopened the blood-speckled envelope. “‘AC is downstairs,’” he read aloud. “‘Move.’” He looked at Benno. “What do you think it means?”
“It’s amateur hour, that note. The cops could figure AC is Anthony Corini, but why would he want to spring a guy who could nail Gigenti?” he said. “Gigenti comes back from hiding and he’s running the streets again. Now, you got Don Carlo in Sicily, Gigenti in Argentina and Corini don’t have to listen to nobody but maybe Geller in Miami.” Benno shook his head. “Only some desperate cooped-up fuck like Pellizzari would buy that note.”
“Which Fortune knows.”
Benno nodded while he rattled the Yoo-hoo, the chocolate syrup stuck to the bottom.
“You know, Sal, the cops find this note on the body, and you’d be fucked worse than Corini.”
“How so? I gave it to the guy sealed.”
“You’re part of a conspiracy.”
“But I don’t know what’s in it, the cops ask. I brought food. For all I know, it’s a bill.”
Bell stood. On the sidewalk lay a discarded book of matches. Retrieving them, he set the note on fire, turning it as the flame rose. “Forget you read this and don’t be cute,” he said. “Let Boo and Tutti play with blood.” The charred paper floated to the concrete.
They sat in silence, elbows on their thighs, Yoo-hoo bottles dangling. Benno stared at the ashes. “You think Frankie’s double-crossing Corini?” he asked.
“Let it go, Sal, huh? Fuck
them.”
A couple buses passed and then a guy with a hose started spraying the amusement park’s asphalt so it sparkled until it got dirty again.
As Benno looked up at the stars above the playland, Bell fell on the thought that had gnawed at him since he considered the possibility of being sent overseas: Mimmo and Frankie Fortune were going to drag Benno in deep and deeper. They’d already flipped him. Now Sal is the kid who was in on the Pellizzari hit. He’s the kid they can trust. Which meant, sooner or later, they were going to use him until he bled. Bell had not an iota of doubt. He was certain if he left Narrows Gate now, one day in the bright distant future when he was sitting in a government office somewhere, he was going to get a phone call from his father and it would begin, “Leo, I have some terrible news…”
By dint of his history, personality and ambition, Bell wasn’t made to stack vegetables the rest of his life. He was better than those Ivy League boys, he was better than Charlie Tyler. He was eager to prove it.
But Sal Benno was going to spend his life on Polk Street and those Farcolini sons of bitches, who didn’t give a shit for nobody, were going to take him down.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Summer was going pretty good in Narrows Gate. Baseball on the radio filled the steamy air that capped Polk Street. Between jingles for razor blades, everybody heard about the DiMaggio brothers, Berra, Rizutto, Crosetti, Furillo, Mickey Grasso from Newark, Lavagetto and Lombardi. The fruit peddler sold penny slices of watermelon. The stout Sicilian women tied kerchiefs around their necks and sat on their stoops, the floors mopped, the wash done. When their husbands came home from the piers, shipyards and factories, they were greeted with icy bottles they rolled across their foreheads before gulping down the beer. Trudging upstairs, the men washed like surgeons, put their heads under the faucet, took down a dish towel. Then they went over by St. Francis to watch kids smack a rubber ball with a broomstick, roly-poly Father Gregory sweating through his heavy brown robe. Soon dinner and then a walk along the river, maybe a cool breeze, a lemon ice. Plus the swish and sway of girls in their colorful dresses and, when the wife gave her guy a disapproving glare or a clap on the arm, he protested. “Hey, wasn’t you young once?” Then he pinched her cheek and gave her a hug. “Give me a choice, I still want you any day of the week.”
