Gangster

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  “I always thought Paolino’s death was just another way for Angelo to finally bury his past,” I said. “Help to clear away everything that happened before that day he was taken in by Ida the Goose. He always thought of that as the most important day of his life. What came before it didn’t matter.”

  “There’s some truth to that.” Mary nodded. “His father’s presence reminded him of the life he would have had without Ida or Angus. And those were images he didn’t want to keep alive.”

  “I’ve thought about his father quite a bit,” I said. “I don’t really know why it’s stayed with me as much as it has all these years. I guess because I could never really figure out whether what Angelo did was an act of courage or just one of cruelty.”

  Mary rested her cup on the small tray cart behind her, then turned to look at me. “I think it was both,” she said.

  • • •

  PUDGE NICHOLS SLEPT with his back to the open window, its curtains furling against the early morning breeze. He was naked except for a pair of cream-colored boxers. His muscular body rested on the soft feather mattress, his burly arms curled against a stained pillow. Shirley lay next to him, one arm draped across his back, the other shoved beneath her thin frame. Strands of brown hair flowed down her face and neck. She was awake, her eyes peeking above the curve of Pudge’s shoulder, looking at the two men on the fire escape, guns in each of their hands. She lifted her left hand and waved them into the room.

  The two shoved aside the curtains and slid carefully through the window, their eyes fixed on their sleeping target. They stood there, poised and steady, their backs to the bathroom, its door slightly ajar. As the men lifted their guns to waist level, one motioned to Shirley, asking her to move away from the bed with a nudge of his head. Shirley slid her arm off Pudge’s shoulders, fingers skimming the hard skin. She leaned over and kissed him on the flat of his cheek, the cascade of her hair hiding his face. She moved back and lost all her breath when she saw him look up at her and smile.

  “I got a lot to learn about women,” Pudge said, the sound of his voice getting the two men’s attention.

  Pudge rolled off the bed just as the first volley of bullets plunked through the mattress, sending feathers flowing through the air and knocking Shirley to the floor. He landed in a crouch position, the hand that was shoved under his pillow now holding a gun and firing rounds aimed at the two men.

  The bathroom door swung open and there was Angelo. He stood, feet firm between toilet and sink, his two guns firing bullets in the direction of the shooters. Within seconds, both men crumpled to the ground, one on top of the other, their suits stained with dark blotches. Pudge walked over and looked down, his bare feet stepping into puddles of blood. He stared up at Angelo and gave him a relieved wink. Angelo glanced past Pudge and saw Shirley standing at the foot of the bed, a gun in her hand. Pudge caught his look and knew it was too late.

  The two bullets ripped into the center of Pudge’s back. He fell to his knees, still holding onto his empty gun.

  Angelo walked out of the bathroom and stepped over Pudge, careful not to slip on the blood-slick floor. He looked at Shirley, the warm gun still grasped in both her hands. Her face was ashen, stunned that she had actually managed to shoot Pudge Nichols.

  Angelo looked at her for several long seconds and then lifted his gun and fired a bullet into Shirley’s chest. The force sent Shirley crashing back onto the bed, her face up and her eyes closed.

  Angelo slid the guns inside his hip holster and walked back over to Pudge. He cradled his friend’s head in his arms and rocked him back and forth. “Don’t you die, Pudge,” he whispered to him in a shaken voice. “Don’t you dare die on me. You have to live. You hear me. You have to fight. And you have to live.”

  Angelo looked around him, on his knees in a room now filled with the remains of the dead. He reared back his head and let out a series of loud, anguished cries for a doctor’s help, the words echoing down across the cold, barren walls of the silent tenement.

  9

  * * *

  Winter, 1927

  ANGELO DELAYED HIS wedding until Pudge recovered from the shooting. He lost half a lung to one bullet and fragments of the other were left just above his rib cage, too close to a vital artery for doctors to remove. He had lost a great deal of blood and teetered close to death for several days. Pudge was confined to a hospital bed for five weeks. Angelo stayed by his side throughout, spending his nights on a thin cot shoved next to the IV bottles. While he watched his friend sleep through his pain, he made the plans that were needed now that an all-out gangster war was at hand. Angus McQueen had ruled the lucrative streets of lower Manhattan since the turn of the century and had fought back many a challenge. But no one had yet come as close as Jack Wells to wreaking havoc on his domain. Wells, using a great deal of care and cunning, had positioned himself to take over the top slot in the city. With James Garrett on his side, Wells had total control over the corrupt branch of the New York City Police Department, using them as enforcers and leg breakers whenever needed. With Jerry Ballister, whose overtures to McQueen had been rebuffed, still on his payroll, Wells had a fearless and now angry trigger willing to go up against anyone at any time. Ballister was a terrifying man because he was willing to die not for money or a cause but because he knew no other way.

  McQueen, meanwhile, had made his gang members wealthy. That, in turn, had given them all something a gangster should never have—a feeling of security. A number of his lieutenants were ready to walk away from the rackets, their money safe, their children grown, their bodies intact. McQueen was left with an inner circle that was strong on loyalty but weak on experience. With Pudge not yet back to full strength, McQueen was missing his most feared and dangerous weapon. Spider MacKenzie was a solid soldier but untested in battle. Ida the Goose was retired and too old to call back into the mix.

  Which left the outcome of the upcoming war in the young hands of Angelo Vestieri.

  • • •

  “HE COULD GO either way,” Angus said to Ida on one of his monthly visits to her farm. He had a white cane stick in one hand and his customary unlit cigar in the other. “I don’t know if he’s cold enough to pull that trigger and walk from it.”

  “He’ll come through,” Ida the Goose said as they walked up a grassy slope. “Probably in ways neither one of us has even thought about.”

  “What makes you so sure? He plans well, but when it comes to the guns, that’s usually left to Pudge.”

  “Trust me,” Ida insisted. “The only way for you to win this war is to let Angelo do it for you.”

  Angus McQueen stopped and grabbed Ida the Goose by the hand. “I’ve trusted you all my life,” he said. “I’m not going to start doubting you now.”

  “I wish I could come in on this with you,” Ida said.

  “You got a good life up here,” Angus told her. “If I was as smart as the papers say I am, I’d be up here with you. Got more than enough money saved. I could live to a hundred and still have a dollar left over. Been through four gang wars in my time. Came out scarred but still alive and still on top.”

  “You can’t quit it, Angus.”

  “You’re not going to fill me up with that live by the gun, die by the gun broth now are you?” When Ida shook her head, Angus said, “Good. I never bought into that and I never will. I got into the rackets looking to die old and rich, not young and filled with bullet holes. Nothing I’ve seen or heard since has changed my thinking.”

  “Then you need Angelo and Pudge more than you think you do.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because they care more about winning than they do about living. And that kind of thinking is what wins a gang war. If you’re so eager to die fat and with a full wallet, let those boys loose and stay out of their way.”

  • • •

  ANGELO AND ISABELLA walked along the water down by the South Street piers. The night was cold and breezy, an angry wind screaming off the Hudson’s wav
es and running out toward the railroad tenements. They both wore wool coats buttoned to the neck with the collars up and their gloved hands were entwined around one another. Above them the clear dark sky shone with an impressive array of stars.

  “Do you mind walking in the cold?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I like the wind against my face. It is so different here than the winters I remember in Italy when I was little.”

  “I’ve never been to Italy.” Angelo glanced over at Isabella. He was always taken aback by the simplicity of her beauty. Her embrace-me eyes shone like torches against the lapping water beneath them, her cheeks were flushed red by the harsh wind, and her long hair hung over her coat, thick and rich as a horse’s mane. But most of all it was her smile that gave his heart pause and eased the nagging pain in his lungs.

  “You will see it after we’re married,” Isabella said. “It’s the best place in the world to go on a honeymoon.”

  Angelo stopped and grabbed Isabella gently by both arms and held her close, gazing into her eyes. “I cannot go with you on our honeymoon,” he said. “We will both get on the ship, but I will get off just before it leaves harbor. One of the tugboats will take me back and you’ll go without me.”

  “Angelo, what are you talking about?” Isabella said, pulling free of his hands. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. No one goes on a honeymoon alone.”

  “The men who tried to kill Pudge will try again,” Angelo said. He still looked at her, but spoke in a firmer, more direct manner. “They will try to kill me, too. I can’t let that happen.”

  “And what will you do to stop them?” she asked, but the expression on her face told him she already knew the answer.

  He turned and began to walk, his arm under the sleeve of her coat, their heads down against the bracing gusts of wind. They walked for several blocks, both lost in the deep silence of their very separate thoughts.

  “You know what it is I do,” Angelo finally began. “I have not tried to hide it from you or your father. It is what I am now and what I will be after I am your husband.”

  “I knew what you were on the first day we met,” Isabella said. “It does not change what I feel for you.”

  Angelo turned to her and smiled. “Then you know that until this is finished, I will owe you a honeymoon.”

  “You will also owe my father an explanation,” Isabella said. “Wait until he hears about this one.”

  “He already knows,” Angelo said, taking Isabella in his arms. “And he couldn’t be happier.”

  “When did you see him?”

  “Early this morning. He’s going with you. I gave him my boarding ticket so you wouldn’t be all alone for two weeks.”

  “On my honeymoon with my father,” Isabella sighed. “What more could a bride ask for?”

  • • •

  “IT’S HARD FOR me to imagine him being in love with anyone,” I told Mary as we made our way back to Angelo’s hospital room. “Especially enough to want to get married.”

  “No one really looks to fall in love,” Mary said. “It usually happens by accident. But you can teach yourself not to love. I think that’s what Angelo did with every woman he met after Isabella.”

  “Where did you fit in?”

  “I was the one in love with him,” she said, staring straight ahead at the dark, empty street, the neon store lights highlighting her clear skin and handsome features. “To him, I was someone he felt comfortable having around. I never expected it to be more than that.”

  “Did you want it to be?” I asked.

  “It was never a question of what I wanted,” Mary said. “You accept things for what they are. Especially with a man like Angelo. We had a strong friendship. And that was enough.”

  “Would you have married him if he’d asked?” I held the main entrance door to the hospital open for her.

  “Do you know anyone who ever said no to Angelo?” Mary asked as she walked past me into the elevator.

  “Not anyone who’s still alive,” I said.

  Spring, 1928

  “ARE YOU SURE you’re strong enough for this?” Angelo asked as he followed Pudge toward the tenement stoop.

  “You can stop nursing me, Ang,” Pudge said, bouncing a rubber ball against the concrete pavement. “Even that one-eyed doctor Angus found says it’s time for me to get back out.”

  “I don’t think he’s a real doctor,” Angelo said. “He doesn’t have any diplomas hanging in his office.”

  “He doesn’t even have an office,” Pudge said. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’m finished with doctors. Now, let’s play some stoopball.”

  Pudge bounced the ball four times, keeping it low and against his right thigh. He lifted his right arm high, at a sharp angle, and slammed the ball down against the side of the stoop. The ball hit off the curve of the step and shot out on a straight line, two-hopping against a tenement doorway.

  “That’s good for a double,” Pudge said slapping his hands together. “Would have given myself a triple if I were at full strength.”

  “We’re not playing against anyone,” Angelo said.

  “I need the practice,” Pudge said. “For when we do.”

  • • •

  STOOPBALL WAS A sacred tenement game. The standard rules were the same as those of baseball minus the bats, gloves, bases, pitchers and a playing field. The length of a game depended more on traffic conditions than players’ abilities or the weather. The location of parked cars and trucks, vendor stalls, garbage bins and baby strollers determined whether a ball slammed off the stoop was either a long single or a short home run. A ball had to be caught to be called an out, no matter how many bounces it took. Any ball that bounced off the first floor of a tenement wall was signaled an automatic home run.

  Pudge loved stoopball and played it every chance he got. He was always rounding up neighborhood kids, breaking them down into teams and playing games well into the night for a penny a run. In his eyes, the game was the street equivalent of chess and he treated it as an opportunity to both think and relax.

  “This one’s going over that fire escape,” Pudge said, taking a ball out of his back pocket and pointing to a building across the street.

  “Try not to hit any old women walking by,” Angelo said. He was as casually indifferent toward the game as Pudge was passionate. “And then tell me you’re not worried about any of the moves we talked about.”

  Pudge stopped bouncing the ball, held it in his hand and looked at Angelo. “I haven’t worried about anything since Ida put you and me together,” he said. “But just know that after this war is done with, it’s all going to be different for you and me. This is big-time movement we got planned and if we come out the other end alive, it’s going to put us in a place we might otherwise never see.”

  “Are you sure they won’t try anything at the wedding?”

  “It’s not their style,” Pudge said, shaking his head. “They want you out of the way and as far as they know, you’re going to Italy for two weeks, so that’s that. Plenty of time to kill you when you get back. They’ll look to hit me and Angus, maybe even Spider, sometime during your honeymoon.”

  “I invited them,” Angelo said. “Just to be sure.”

  “Invited who?” Pudge asked.

  “Jack Wells and his crew,” Angelo said. “I had invitations sent to Ballister and Garrett, too.”

  “To the wedding?” Pudge was incredulous. “Are you serious or crazy?”

  “Both,” Angelo said. “Maybe you’re right and they won’t try anything that night. But just to be safe, I like knowing they’re someplace where I can see them. And if they behave, then they have a good time at the wedding and Isabella has three more gifts to open.”

  “You scare me sometimes with how you think,” Pudge said, bouncing the ball again and smiling at the simple logic behind such a maneuver. “I would have loved to have seen their faces when they got the invites, that dog-eared cop especially.”

>   “It’s a free night of food and drink,” Angelo said. “It would be too hard for a man like him to pass up. And Wells and Ballister had only one choice. Turning down the invitation could have been seen as a sign of fear on their part from some of the other crews.”

  Pudge nodded and bounced the ball again, taking aim at the stoop, ready for his second shot. “Where’re they going to be sitting?” he asked as he lifted his arm and slammed the ball hard against the stoop. It flew off on an arc, landing high up against a closed first-floor window.

  “I put them at your table,” Angelo said as he handed Pudge his jacket.

  Pudge stared at him, his mouth slightly open, his fists resting against his hips. “You got a good reason for doing something like that?”

  “The doctor doesn’t want you to drink too much. He said it’s still too soon, your insides need a little more time to heal. I figure with them at your table, you got a lot of reasons to stay sober.”

  “You’re some friend, Angelo,” Pudge said, putting on his jacket and leading the way back to his car.

  “I know,” Angelo said, following behind him.

  • • •

  ANGELO WAS THE first to do it. Now, in the years since, it has become an organized crime tradition to invite enemies to a wedding celebration. Such a gesture serves a number of often clear, sometimes subtle purposes. The clearest of which is to demonstrate a lack of fear on the part of the gangster issuing the invitation.

  “It’s all a game,” Angelo would tell me. “You always need to have the upper hand, or at least act like you do. It plays to your advantage to have a sworn enemy at a wedding, make him feel welcome and treat him like a close friend. It doesn’t cost anything and it keeps the edge on your side of the table. He’s got to wonder why you did it and what you’re thinking and what else you’re planning. All the concern is thrown back at him. All you have to do is make sure the wedding comes off without any problems.”