Gangster

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  Pudge put an arm around the boy and walked him over to a clean table. “Don’t worry about spilling any,” he said, casting a glance over at Tyler. “I don’t think anybody’s gonna mind if that happens.”

  • • •

  PUDGE HAD A passion for violence. He had a taste for fight and a thirst for battle that were matched by few in his profession. His fists and his guns had been the engines that propelled him to succeed in the only life he fully understood. Few people knew him well; most feared him and were willing to pay any price to keep him clear of their lives.

  But I knew him and I loved him.

  Where others saw a sociopath eager to pistol whip a reluctant victim, I saw a man who was quick to smile and offer a young boy a place at his table. I knew he was a man cold enough to kill, but I also knew him to be warm and sensitive to those he cared about. He had no tolerance for acts of betrayal or cruelty and lacked Angelo’s taste for the minute details of a business deal. He was a man totally in the moment, who knew only to respond to an action with an action. He was pure gangster.

  “Pudge cared whether people liked him or not,” Angelo once told me, years ago. “It never entered his mind that what we did left little for people to like. It’s always better to like a gangster from a distance anyway. Like a tiger cub in a cage. They always look soft and cute and warm behind those iron bars. Everybody’s happy, smiling, waving, taking pictures. But you take away those bars and all that goes away. All that’s left then is the fear. That’s Pudge. That’s every gangster.”

  • • •

  THE BLACK FOUR-DOOR sedan was parked on a dirt embankment, half a mile from the Cloisters, headlights shining down on the dark currents of the Hudson River. Angus McQueen stepped out of the car’s left rear door. He had a bowler hat clenched in one hand and an unlit cigar in the other. He took a few steps forward and turned back toward the tall man sitting behind the wheel.

  “You bring something to read?” he asked.

  “No,” Spider MacKenzie said. “Just smokes and a pint.”

  “You don’t need lights for any one of those,” Angus said. “Am I right?”

  Spider smiled and clicked off the headlights. He watched McQueen walk toward the rocky edges of the embankment and disappear behind a clump of thick trees. Spider tipped a row of tar-black tobacco onto a thin strip of paper, rolled it carefully between two fingers of his right hand and put it to his mouth. He tipped a match with a sharp flick of his thumb and lit it. He rested his head against the back of the car seat and closed his eyes. Spider held the cigarette in his mouth and kept the flask cradled between his legs.

  The voice crept up on McQueen. It came from out of the trees, whisked along by a mild breeze. He knew it would be there, was expecting it from the moment Spider pulled the sedan off the road and out to the directed spot. It is a voice every gangster expects to hear at some point in his life. A voice that often brings with it a dire warning or a fatal bullet.

  “Glad you found the time to make it up here, Angus,” the voice said.

  “The way I heard it, it didn’t sound like I had much say in the matter.” McQueen had his hands in his pockets, the hat back on his head and the cigar in his mouth, still unlit. He leaned over the edge, peering down at the dark river several hundred feet below.

  “Could be all a bluff,” the voice said. The man behind it was now a few steps closer, just outside the range of the tree coverage.

  “A bluff can take you a long way in a poker game,” McQueen said. “It can get you killed if you try it in life.”

  “Don’t worry, Angus,” the voice said. “It’s all for real. There’s a call out for you to die. Put out by Jack Wells himself.”

  “If you know that much, then you know who he handed the job to,” McQueen said. “Am I right on that?”

  “Yes,” the voice said.

  “I pay a lot less if I have to guess the answer,” McQueen said. He turned in the direction of the voice and saw a figure standing off to the left, shrouded by the hanging branches of an old tree.

  “It’s my job, Angus,” the voice said, stepping in closer to McQueen. “You’re supposed to be my hit.”

  “I have to give you credit,” McQueen said, nodding his head with approval. “You picked the perfect spot. By the time my boy Spider hears the shot, you’ll be long past gone.”

  “He would have heard the shots by now,” the voice said. “I’m not here to kill you. I came to hear you make me an offer.”

  “Just out of curiosity,” McQueen said. “What does Jack Wells say my life is worth?”

  “Ten thousand,” the voice said. “Five’s already in my pocket. I get another five when he reads in the paper that you’re dead.”

  “Sounds about right,” McQueen said with a shrug. “There’s no sense in paying more than street value.”

  “A hit on Wells would be worth at least twice that,” the voice said.

  “Not to me,” McQueen said.

  “He always said you were a cheap bastard,” the voice said.

  “You got a name?” McQueen said. “Or you expect me to hire you on a hunch?”

  The voice stepped up closer to McQueen and lit a cigarette. He was a young man with a pale, pockmarked face and a black mustache that looked penciled on. His lips were thin and his teeth were crooked.

  “Jerry Ballister,” the voice said.

  “You’re the one they call Kid Blast, am I right?”

  “Never to my face,” Ballister said, his dark eyes turning killer hard.

  “Life’s filled with firsts,” McQueen said, a wry smile spread evenly across his aging face.

  McQueen came to the meeting expecting a gunfight, not a recruitment plea. His body was relaxed and at ease. He gave a quick look around and was surprised only in that a voyage that began in the slums of England could have ended on such a dark and silent bluff. In the currents of the river below, he knew there floated many of the men whose deaths he had ordered.

  “Why do you want to come over to my side?” McQueen asked.

  “I figure you to be out of the rackets in a few years, maybe less. You’ve stashed away enough to make an easy old age for yourself. Wells is in this for the long haul. Let’s just say I don’t have the patience to wait him out.”

  Angus stared at the young killer and saw the look of a man who took pleasure from the pain he brought others. “Okay with you if I think about it?” Angus asked. “Get back to you with an answer in a week or two?”

  “Take all the time you need,” Ballister said. “Wells didn’t put any time limit on the hit, though I expect he wants to see it happen sooner than later.”

  “Hello, Kid,” Pudge Nichols said, standing in Ballister’s shadow, one gun in each hand.

  “What the hell are you doing up here?” McQueen said, as shocked as he was pleased.

  “Angelo’s never seen the Cloisters,” Pudge said, keeping both eyes on Ballister. “Hope we’re not breaking up anything too important.”

  “Me and the Kid were just standing around, shooting the shit,” McQueen said. “Getting to know one another better.”

  “Let me guess,” Angelo said, stepping out from the shade of an oak tree. “He wants to come over and work with us.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Pudge said. “I met your boss.”

  Ballister turned from McQueen and shifted his gaze to Angelo. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

  “They call you Kid Blast, not Kid Genius,” Pudge said. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

  “What happens now?” Ballister asked, shrugging his shoulders.

  “You wait,” McQueen said, stepping up to him. “Until I decide if you’re for real. Like Angelo and Pudge. Or just another name looking for a headline.”

  “You won’t be disappointed, Angus,” Ballister said. “Believe me.”

  “I’m never disappointed,” McQueen said.

  Pudge nudged Ballister with the palm of his right hand. “You’re not a partner yet, which makes it time f
or you to leave.”

  Ballister looked at the three faces surrounding him, giving each of them a slow nod. “I hope we see each other again,” he said.

  “We will,” McQueen said. “One way or another.” He watched Ballister walk back into the woods, then turned to Angelo and Pudge. “You think he came up with the idea to leave Wells on his own?” he asked. “Or did somebody hand it to him?”

  “He doesn’t seem the type to have a lot of ideas,” Angelo said. “Let alone good ones.”

  “Spider will take it from here,” McQueen said. “You boys take the rest of the night off.”

  “Cold beer and warm women, that’s where I’m heading,” Pudge said. “You guys want to tag along?”

  McQueen stopped short, kicking up small dust clusters at the base of his feet. “I’m married,” he said. “And drinking is against the law. Or don’t you bother to read the papers?”

  The three of them shared a laugh as they walked across the cooling shelter of the Cloisters.

  • • •

  GANGSTERS THRIVE ON feuds. The feuds are almost always genuine, deadly and last for decades, spilling over into subsequent generations. These underworld hatreds and grudges usually start with the most minor offense and end in the most horrendous forms of death. And they almost always begin in the most innocent of places. “You want to stay away from any function that involves going to a church,” Pudge would say. “It’s the feeding ground of feuds. It could be a wedding, a baptism, a confirmation, a funeral—I don’t care what, it ends up deadly. You sit in the wrong pew. You pay too much attention to the bride, or maybe not enough. You don’t bring a big enough gift or you bring one so big it offends the host. You get stuck in traffic and you’re late for the funeral mass, that becomes a sign of disrespect. Believe me, inside a church, there is no way a gangster can come out ahead.”

  My sense of Angelo was that he enjoyed feuds. He had the perfect mental makeup for dealing with them, especially feuds that spanned decades. He seldom exhibited any emotion, keeping both his anger and his respect hidden well below any visible surface. With the exception of his cramped inner circle, no one ever knew those against whom Angelo held a grudge. No one other than Pudge was told when he would strike against an enemy and what form his retribution would take. Angelo was the perfect gangster in that sense, a silent and deadly terminator capable of waiting a lifetime for his payback or choosing to launch an attack within a matter of days. Only he knew when the moment was ripe and the time at hand.

  • • •

  PAOLINO VESTIERI WAS asleep in a corner bed, facing the wall of the small back room. He was in number sixteen, on the third floor of a run-to-the-ground Baltimore rooming house catering to a client list working their way south of the poverty line. The doors were plywood thin and sounds of discord carried through the halls of the five-story building. Paolino was once a strong man with an insatiable desire for work. But now, still shy of fifty years, he had surrendered his will to the facts of his life. He no longer held out any large-scale ambitions, but had settled down into the oddly comforting routine of a job-to-job and place-to-place existence. He had been living at the Burlington Arms for six weeks, paying the three-dollar-a-week rent from his salary as a bootblack at a shoe-shine concession on the lower level of Baltimore’s main train terminal. He lived alone and had few friends, and would fall asleep with one hand loosely holding an empty bottle of red wine. He had not seen Angelo since the day he walked out of their New York apartment and never made mention to others of having a son. Paolino Vestieri was living his life as it had come to be. He was neither bitter nor angry, but simply accepted it as the way it was meant to unfold. In his wallet he kept only two reminders of a past life—his wedding photo and a torn picture of him holding his son Carlo above his shoulders, both with full, bright smiles, the gleaming waters of the Mediterranean Sea behind them.

  Angelo walked into the room and stared down at his father. His sleep was heavy, the weariness of the workingman compounded by the bottle of wine. Angelo had taken the train down from New York alone, not needing Pudge, not needing anyone, for his meeting with Paolino. He sat next to a window in a parlor car, gazing out at the passing scenery, his mind racing to conjure up the few warm memories he had of his father. Through the underworld network, he had kept tabs on Paolino as he moved from city to city, knowing he would never venture far from water nor be able to afford anything other than a cheap flophouse. He knew his father was short on money and low on hope. But little of that mattered. Paolino Vestieri needed to be confronted.

  The time was now. Angelo was set to begin a new life with Isabella, the wedding less than two weeks away. He did not wish to have that life clouded by shadows. She, along with Pudge, Ida and Angus, knew about his father and Angelo was confident that they would take whatever happened to their grave.

  “Wake up, Papa,” Angelo said in a strong, quiet voice.

  Paolino stirred but did not open his eyes. His breath was heavy from the drink and his body fatigued from the long day spent slumped over other people’s shoes.

  “Papa, wake up,” Angelo said, leaning over to shake him. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Carlo,” Paolino muttered, still half asleep. “Carlo.”

  “Carlo’s not here,” Angelo said.

  The words forced Paolino’s eyes open and he turned on his cot to glance down at the feet of the man in his room. The shoes were expensive, black lace-ups with thick heels. The cuffs of the pants just above them were also black and tailor-made. Paolino looked up and saw his son’s hard eyes boring in on him.

  “What are you doing here?” he said, quickly sitting up. “Who asked you to come here?”

  “No one asked, Papa.”

  “Then why are you here? To stare at me? To prove to yourself that your way is better? Is that it? Well then, look around, gangster. Have your laugh and then leave.”

  “I have come for Carlo, Papa,” Angelo said. He was calm and confident, standing erect and a short distance from his father. Paolino’s thick hair was tousled from his sleep, stacked to one side and coated with shards of gray. His blue work pants were soiled by shoe polish and grease and his white T-shirt was smudged with the remains of past meals.

  “You have nothing to do with Carlo.” Paolino spit out the words. “You have not even earned the right to speak his name.”

  “You made two mistakes,” Angelo said. “You murdered your own son, then you had another one who found out about it.”

  “So what will you do now?” Paolino wearily got to his feet. “Kill me, too? Are you that stupid? Can’t you see, gangster, that I already walk among the dead?”

  “I’m here to make your pain go away, Papa. You have suffered enough.” Angelo slid a hand inside his jacket, slowly pulled out a revolver and held it, pointed at Paolino’s chest. He twisted the gun in his hand and clicked open the chamber. He slid a bullet into one of the empty slots then snapped it back shut. He stepped forward and placed the gun on a rickety nightstand next to the cot.

  “There is one bullet in it,” Angelo said. “It’s time to make your peace and use it.”

  “Why don’t you do it yourself?” Paolino asked quietly. “Do you lack the courage to end my misery?”

  “Yes.” Angelo stared at his father. “But for once in your life, I pray that you will have such courage. I leave it to you, Papa. Bring it to an end. For both of us.”

  “I loved my Carlo,” Paolino said, tears forming around his eyes.

  “I know,” Angelo told him. “And I know you loved me, too.”

  He took a slow look around the room and then turned back to his father. He walked over to the night table and pointed down at the gun.

  “You made a mistake and it did nothing but ruin your life,” Angelo said. “I am leaving you with a chance to make it right.”

  Paolino Vestieri picked up the gun, cradled it in two hands and sat back down on the cot.

  “Good-bye, Papa,” he heard his son say.

  Angel
o walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. He was turning a corner, heading for the first-floor landing, when he heard the shot echo down the thin walls. He sat down on the top step, his head pressed against his chest. His eyes were closed and he bit down on his lower lip.

  He sat there well into the late hours and mourned the death of his father, Paolino Vestieri.

  • • •

  ANGELO GOT OFF the train and saw Isabella standing on the jammed platform, waiting for him. He walked toward her and reached for her as soon as she was close enough to touch. “I am so sorry,” she whispered between sobs. “So sorry.”

  “I hope he finally has the peace he always wanted,” Angelo said. “He more than earned it.”

  Isabella looked up at him, her face smeared with tears. “You have both earned it,” she said.

  “I gave my father nothing to be proud of,” Angelo said. “I became what he most hated. My hand was not on the gun that killed him, Isabella. But in every other way, I was the one who helped pull that trigger.”

  Isabella stared into Angelo’s eyes and stroked the sides of his face. On both sides, harried commuters rushed toward final destinations, dragging luggage and reluctant children in their wake. They stood between them, holding one another, both shedding tears over the death of a good man. Alone in the middle of a crowd.

  • • •

  “HE COULD HAVE just left his father alone,” I said, handing Mary a fresh cup of water. “Let him live out what was left of his life. Treat him as if he were already a dead man. It wasn’t as if he was a threat to him or anyone else, for that matter.”

  “It would go against the way he had been raised,” Mary said, speaking with subtle authority. “Against all the tenants of the life he had chosen. His father’s death haunted Angelo, probably to this very day. But he had to answer for Carlo’s murder. There was no way out, for either one of them.”

  “Why not give the job to somebody else, then?” I asked, staring over at the dying man. “He could have ordered it done. It would have had the same effect.”

  “It was personal,” Mary said. “And he had been raised to separate the business from the personal. He could never have allowed anyone else to kill Paolino. To him, that would have been an even bigger crime.”