Narrows Gate

by Jim Fusilli

  “No,” Corini replied.

  “Can you tell us what you have done for your country?”

  “Paid my taxes,” he said, sitting upright and hanging his elbow on the back of the chair.

  “We’ll discuss that assertion with you in executive session, Mr. Corini,” Dunney replied, jotting a note.

  “Anything you want to ask me, you ask me here. In public.”

  “I’m sorry to inform you of this fact, Mr. Corini, but here you don’t make the rules. Here you are no better than any other citizen of this country, many of whom fought and had family and friends who died in its service.”

  And with that, Corini collected his hat and coat and walked out. Bamberger’s shouts of contempt of Congress trailed him into the corridor, where photographers waited.

  On the advice of his attorney, Corini returned the following morning, his voice hoarse, his eyes showing signs of a flu. He was prepared to cooperate, he said, if he was afforded the same level of respect as any other taxpayer. But it was too late. He’d proven himself a creep, a thug, a gangster. Any politician—and the former mayor of New York was the next witness to testify under the unforgiving lights—linked to him was scarred by the association. The Daily News reported that he was the first mobster to be rubbed out by television.

  Rosa called Vincenzo as soon as Nino told her about her husband’s suicide. “He was taking the air and fell,” she said to her father-in-law. Then she asked her father and sister Bev in Bayonne to go stay with him until she flew in with Bill Jr. She took charge of the funeral arrangements, greeting old friends at Kalm’s and withstanding the pity in the sad eyes of the thousands of fans who were ushered in to touch the closed coffin, a few sobbing like they lost a lover, a brother, a trusted friend.

  Despite the spectacle, she couldn’t avoid sentimentality. She no longer loved him, not after he’d captured her heart and then betrayed her. But it had been a hell of a ride, as he would’ve said, and there were memories. As she explored them, she found herself feeling terribly sorry for him. He’d suffered his whole life, never having enough to satisfy his need for the sort of unattainable perfection Hennie demanded. Everything threatened him; everything conspired to make him unworthy. The applause wasn’t enough, the acclaim, money, the fans, women. Fear and anxiety came in waves, happiness out of an eyedropper. If only he could’ve taken a step back to see what he’d done: for a while, this skinny little kid from Narrows Gate made it to the top of the world. If only he could’ve been happy with the music, his family, Bill Jr. Then nobody could’ve touched him.

  Marsala’s short, remarkable life was celebrated to an overflow crowd at St. Matthew’s. A tenor from the Metropolitan Opera came over and sang “Ave Maria,” the Sicilians in attendance nodding respectfully. They’d already started scheming how to get Polk Street renamed Marsala Way; you could make good money off tourists with a thing like that. The radio played Marsala music nonstop. Everyone all over Narrows Gate could hear it floating across the river from New York City. Maybe they were listening to it all over the country, that voice, the tenderness, romance, the spunk and maybe they couldn’t help but think, Gee, I wonder what Bill Marsala would’ve become when he grew into a man and sang about what he’d learned of heartache, loneliness and the bitter nectar of life and love. They didn’t know his head was never coming out of his ass, that Hennie had beat him down for good, that his demons taunted him even when he was filled with joy. The fans listened to the testimonials, remembered the comfort he brought during the war and they thought he was bound to do more, to give more, to continue to add sparkle to life. They didn’t know.

  The press made a big deal out of who hadn’t attended the services—Anthony Corini, Bruno Gigenti, Alvin Dunney and Eleanor Ree, who got as far as London, where she was photographed in tears, though with her eyes behind dark glasses, who can say? Many celebrities attended; most politicians didn’t. Neither did Louis B. Mayer, who had someone send flowers. Guy Simon came across country, feeling guilty that he’d convinced Marsala to eat horseradish for his throat. A childish prank, compensation for losing Ree to an inferior intellectual. But a good one, was it not?

  Terrasini cried, remembering Bebe as a gutsy kid desperate to sing, desperate for applause. You did good, Bebe, he thought. Jesus, Bebe, don’t you know you did good?

  Marsala was buried in the crypt with his mother where, Benno told Bell, she could bust his balls for all eternity.

  The next day, Rosa held a wake for Mimmo and nobody outside the Mistretta family came and half of them stayed away. “Don’t even think about it,” Bell warned Benno, who was curious to see how Mimmo looked defrosted.

  Benno was dying to go settle up with Gigenti’s men at the candy store, but Paolo the cop said no, the Jew lawyer said no. Bell said, “Game’s over, Sal. They’re through with you.” It came to Benno that he’d done Gigenti a favor, clearing the last scraps off the plate, and maybe they should leave it at that.

  Where could Anthony Corini go? Sicily was out; by now, Carlo Farcolini knew that he had been manipulated by his former trusted associate into believing Bruno Gigenti had provoked the petty violence among the New York–area leadership. Corini wouldn’t last one hour if he traveled to his native land.

  Canada? No. Since the death of Eugenio Zamarella, the authorities were eager to take down other U.S. gangsters. It produced a stirring of national pride: in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Miami, Los Angeles, crime reigned, but not here, they said, ignoring the links between U.S. crews and operations in Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal and Vancouver.

  Argentina? Gigenti had made a fortune in South America, money he used to secure the services of his street gangs while he watched Corini’s plans crumble. The organization Gigenti grew in Rosaria still prospered.

  Cuba? Impossible.

  But Corini had to leave the country. He faced a contempt of Congress charge for his evasion during the Dunney hearings and his remark about his taxes had provoked an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. His friends in business and entertainment were now loyal to Gigenti, who reluctantly acknowledged that owning a town like Las Vegas had its advantages. Even Saul Geller, who now occupied his father’s seat and Ziggy Baum’s, refused his calls.

  In New York, he couldn’t walk down the street, couldn’t order a sandwich in a coffee shop. People who once bowed and stepped aside now looked at him like he was something stuck to the bottom of their shoes.

  He would go to England, he decided. It would take a while to establish himself, but he’d open a club and book talent. The musicians who came overseas wouldn’t care that he no longer had Farcolini’s power behind him. He’d pay good wages. The plan Cy Geller proposed for Vegas and the organization’s nightclubs—maybe it would play in the UK. Maybe Corini could find a singer like Bebe he could groom. He took an atlas off his shelf. Surely there was somebody in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Dublin or Glasgow who could profit from his support.

  His wife, humiliated by his performance on TV, declined to go along with his latest scheme. For the past decade, she’d allowed herself to believe that he was a legitimate businessman and that the politicians, industry leaders and their wives were their friends.

  His passport was registered under his real name. He decided he would take a train to Boston and fly across the ocean from there.

  There was no one to say good-bye to.

  He packed one valise. He sewed $42,000 into its lining and in his coat another $16,000. He still had almost $3 million in offshore accounts. He’d instructed his attorney to sell his investments and settle with the IRS.

  Suitcase at his side, standing in moonlight, he looked around the vast, immaculate Central Park West apartment. A long way from a stone house outside Canicatti, Sicily. A long way from that rat trap in East Harlem.

  He pressed the elevator button but he heard nothing in response: no whoosh of the lift in its cradle, no rattling chains.

  “Even the fuckin’ elevator operator,” Corini muttered as he walked
to the stairs.

  When he arrived at the lobby, 12 flights later, the attendant’s desk was empty. The bellman was gone.

  Corini headed to the revolving doors.

  “Anthony.”

  Corini turned.

  Bruno Gigenti raised a pistol and pulled the trigger.

  As Corini crawled toward the door, Gigenti stood over him and fired five more shots into his body, the last into the back of his head, blood spatter leaping to the gunman’s face and onto his gritted teeth.

  Back in his club on Mulberry Street, Gigenti dictated a message to Don Carlo in Sicily to confirm that the task he’d approved had been done.

  Six days later, a cable arrived. “Thank you, my dear friend,” wrote Farcolini in Sicilian.

  Benno and Bell were dressed up to go to the Avalon to see some picture and maybe go to the Grotto for zuppa di vongole. They had to drive to Jersey City to retrieve Nina and Imogene, which made no sense since the movie theater was about three blocks from where they started. Benno was behind the wheel of Tyler’s car, a gift from Bell to Vito and Gemma.

  Bell said, “I’ve been thinking. I think we should open a Benno’s uptown.”

  Benno laughed. “For the Irish? For what, cabbage and boiled fuckin’ meat?”

  “Your uncle says they come to the store and buy regular.”

  True, Benno thought. But like little kids confronting the ocean.

  “I’ll run it for you,” Bell added.

  “You? A Jew runs a Sicilian food store for the Irish. That’s some thinking, Leo.”

  “We’ll call it Benno and Bell’s.”

  “You serious?”

  “Next we open one in Kearny out by Imogene’s.”

  They rattled up the plank road.

  Bell said, “I’m going to major in business and I’ll do the books. Plus I know produce and we can bring in Vernon Buie to help.”

  “The colored gimp from the A&P? The guy shot in the war, he cleans the chickens?”

  “He’s solid, up and down,” Bell replied.

  Benno was thinking all those taps to the head Boo Chiasso gave him had sent Bell to Wackyland.

  “What happened to Poland? To seeing the world?”

  “First, I settle down.”

  “With Imogene.”

  “Sure. Of course,” Bell replied. “Besides, the world ain’t going anywhere.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photograph by Andrei Jackamets, 2008

  Jim Fusilli serves as the rock and pop music critic of the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of six books: Closing Time; A Well-Known Secret; Tribeca Blues; Hard, Hard City, Mystery Ink magazine’s 2004 Novel of the Year; Pet Sounds; and Marley Z and the Bloodstained Violin. He served as the editor of, and contributed chapters to, the award-winning serial thrillers The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet. He developed Narrows Gate as a setting in numerous published short stories. “Chellini’s Solution,” which appeared in the 2007 edition of the Best American Mystery Stories, features Narrows Gate in the years following World War II. “Digby, Attorney at Law” portrays the fictional city in the early 1960s. “Digby” was nominated for the Edgar and Macavity awards in 2010. Fusilli lives in New York City with his wife, the former Diane Holuk, a senior public relations executive. Their daughter Cara is a graduate of the New School.