The Angel of Montague Street

by Norman Green

  He shook his head. “James Bond.” The coffeemaker stopped gurgling and she got up to get cups.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m listening.”

  “Yeah,” he said, thinking about it. The muscles in the backs of her legs flexed as she stood on tiptoe to reach the cups. He figured, then, that she became conscious of him watching her, because it seemed to him that she began to pose, just a bit, as she stood pouring the coffee. When she came back over with the coffee she leaned over in front of him to put his cup down. The top three buttons of her shirt were undone, how had he missed that before? Her shirt hung open and he caught a glimpse of creamy white skin where her tan ended, and then her hair cascaded down and spoiled the view.

  “Go on,” she said, watching his face as she straightened back up. She sat down across from him again and wrapped her hand around her cup. “Tell me what you did.”

  “Tell you one story,” he said. “The Army had a big drug problem, because Charlie made sure that the south was flooded with great dope, selling for next to nothing. A guy that’s wrecked all the time is gonna have trouble keeping his mind on his business, you know what I mean? Someone decided that the heroin, in particular, was coming from Laos, up in the hill country. Very remote, up in there, rough country. The villages were very isolated, basically they were on their own. Each village would have a headman, kind of like a warlord, and it was his job to make sure they got a fair price for their shit, that they didn’t get ripped off, because that’s how they fed their kids, that’s how they lived. So, anyway, we started flying up in there, we were like a civilian air taxi, you know, trying to work with the headmen, help them out if we could, give them arms and equipment, freight their product out in choppers. The idea was to get them to go back to normal channels, so that the dope would wind up on the street in Paris, or Detroit, or here, where it belonged, and not in Saigon.”

  “Funny. You go halfway around the world, you wind up working for Antonio after all.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Depends on how you look at it. Most of the time they’d work with us. Why not take the money? But we couldn’t stay and protect them, and sometimes you’d get a guy that was too afraid of the North Vietnamese, or you’d get one that was just too stubborn, and he wouldn’t go along.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Well,” he said, and he stopped for a heartbeat. “I heard stories about napalm and gunships.”

  “Jesus. That what you did? Fly a gunship?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “I was in logistics.”

  Gina was used to men lying to her. “Sure you were. Do you think all of that did any good?”

  He sighed. “Stand in the river,” he said. “Try to hold back the water with your hands.” He studied her face, trying to understand what he saw there.

  “You aren’t drinking your coffee.”

  “Sorry.” He tasted it. “Not bad,” he said, “not bad at all.”

  “Nothin’ but the best. What are you gonna do now, Sil? Suppose you find out about Noonie. Suppose you get past that. Then what?”

  He hadn’t thought about it. He shook his head. “No idea.”

  “Domenic is sick,” she said. “You could have said what you wanted about his dreams, maybe they were silly, maybe he could have never done it, but when you quit on what you love, Silvano, it don’t leave you nothing but what you hate. He’s sick, he’s not gonna get any better, and he’s coming after you.” She stared at him. “And if he gets you, Sil, it won’t even matter, he’s too far gone. He’ll just have to go on to the next guy, whoever else’s fault the whole world is. You get me? There’s nothing else left of him anymore.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe,” he said.

  “There’s no maybe,” she said. She looked at him oddly. “You don’t even care, do you? Him wanting you dead, and all. Am I right?”

  “No,” he said. “Maybe a week ago I would have agreed with you, but not now.”

  “Must’ve been a hell of a week.” She stood up again. “You really don’t want that coffee, do you?”

  “Not really. But thank you for—”

  “Please,” she said. “Stop.” She took both cups over and dumped them into the sink. “I just miss having somebody to do for once in a while,” she said. “That’s all.” She stood there at the sink, her back to him. He got up out of the chair and went over to stand behind her. He started to say something, but she cut him off.

  “Be quiet, Sil. I know, you don’t wanna ask me out, ’cause you know I’m going steady with Domenic, right?” She turned to face him, put her hands on his waist. “You think I want to use you to get back at him? Is that what you think?” She put one hand up on his cheek. “This ain’t the fifties anymore, Sil, you gotta come out of hibernation. It is 1973, and this don’t mean a thing. It’s just what it is. It don’t mean anything at all.” She pulled his head down to kiss her, and the last thing he saw on her face was that look, and he still didn’t know quite what it was, until it flashed on him how he’d felt, in Viet Nam, when he finally reached the point where he’d been afraid for so long that he didn’t much care what happened, anymore. He put his hands on her shoulders, held her out away from him.

  “Gina, I can’t.”

  “Oh, God . . .” She shook her head, stood up straight. “Why not? Did something happen to you?”

  Yeah, he thought, Elia Taskent happened to me. He didn’t want to talk about it. “You could say that.”

  “Well, I’m sorry.” She turned away.

  “So am I.” He could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead. “I guess I better go.”

  “Silvie,” she said, not turning around. “Be careful, okay?”

  HE STEPPED OUT of the bushes when he saw the turn signal, the driver slowed for him, and he was in the backseat before the car came to a stop. The driver looked back at him. “You get what you came for?”

  Silvano shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Where we headed now?”

  “You know where the St. Felix is at?”

  “Yeah.” The driver glanced over his shoulder at Silvano. “Someplace more normal, thank God.” At the end of the block, they turned left on Cross Bay Boulevard, the main artery into and out of Howard Beach, passing by Fortunato’s, a large and garish Italian restaurant, bright lights, dark windows, a valet out front waiting to park your car.

  THERE WASN’T ENOUGH of them to occupy all the seats around the long table, so they filled the ones nearest the end where Antonio sat. It was the only table in the long, narrow room, a private room in Fortunato’s, Antonio’s favorite restaurant. They were not there to eat, though some of them might, after they were done with their business. For now, though, no waiters would disturb their privacy. The lights were down, and Domenic squinted at the other faces in the gloom. No candles on the table, he thought derisively. We should have candles, and a secret handshake, we should have a dagger, we should all have to cut a finger with it and mix our blood. Ignorant people, he thought. They love ritual, mystery, and bullshit.

  Careful, he told himself. Things go bad enough tonight, there could be blood on the floor before they were done, it had happened before. This time it might be his. He went over the speech again in his mind while he listened to them debating over the fate of Ivan Bonifacio. Hell of a chance you’re taking, he thought, but if you never risk, you never win. He looked at his friend Ivan, who sat alone at the far end of the table, staring at nothing. The abrasion on his forehead stood out dark against his skin.

  It seemed to take forever for them to sort themselves out, and he didn’t listen to any of it. It was all bullshit, anyhow, macho posturing about honor, respect, and responsibility from men who had, at best, only a passing acquaintance with such things. It didn’t matter what any of them said, in the end, nothing mattered except what Antonio said, and he was sitting silent at the head of the table, his face an unreadable mask of stone. Domenic waited patie
ntly for silence, and when he finally got it, he calmed himself, took his life in his hands, and stood up.

  All the eyes in the room turned in his direction, all except Ivan’s. Ivan continued to sit and stare into space. Domenic called each man by name, starting with the man next to him, and ending with the only name that mattered.

  “Antonio Malatesta,” he said. “I must begin by saying these empty words to you, by telling you how deeply grieved I am by the death of your nephew Massimo, who I know was like a son to you. Although these words are true, they are truly empty because nothing I can say can bring him back. And the next thing I must tell you is that the blood of your nephew Massimo is not on the hands of Ivan Bonifacio.

  “It is on mine.” He felt like he was imitating James Caan playing a character.

  The old man scowled, and Domenic could swear that the temperature in the room went down several degrees. Even Ivan was staring at him now. Be careful, Domenic told himself silently. Stick to the script. You screw up and smile at the inanity of this act you’re putting on, even just a tiny bit, Antonio will have you strangled with your own guts.

  “Please do not think I say this out of loyalty to my friend Ivan,” he said, “because I do not. The truth is, Ivan Bonifacio could not have known what he was dealing with when he made his move on Silvano Iurata.” He felt his own hatred then, and he allowed some of it to show, in case Antonio had forgotten. He calmed himself and swallowed before he continued.

  “I could have warned him, but I did not, and now Massimo is dead. And worse than that, worse than that, it was my . . .” He paused, letting the tension build. Let Antonio think I don’t know he sent Ivan after Iurata, he thought. “It was me. I was the one who set Ivan watching for the return of my childhood enemy. I should have taken care of this business myself. I never should have involved Ivan, or anyone else. It was personal business. I should have kept it that way.” He turned in Ivan’s direction, making his voice louder, angrier. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  Ivan looked down at the table as Domenic’s voice echoed in the room. He can’t look at me, Domenic thought, he’s probably afraid of laughing, if he laughs Antonio will feed both of us to the crows. He also understands that I’m telling Antonio that it’s his own fucking fault that this happened. He never should have tried to keep me out of it.

  Domenic looked back at Antonio.

  “What’s done is done,” he said coldly. “But allow me, please, to atone in some small measure by telling all of you, here and now, what sort of animal we now have on our hands.” He turned from Antonio and stared at the other men around the table, and he allowed his voice to rise as he continued. “And every one of you, if you take nothing else from this room today, remember this one thing: be careful what you ask for. For years I have prayed for this, I have begged for Silvano Iurata to return to Brooklyn so that I could wrap my hands around his throat, so that I could avenge the loss of my father and my sister . . . or die in the attempt. Now he’s here and I wish he had never come.” He turned back to Malatesta. “I was wrong, Antonio. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how you can ever forgive me.”

  The old man, uncharacteristically silent, stared at him for a long count, and for one heart-stopping moment Domenic thought he might have misjudged him, might have overestimated his own salesmanship. This is it, he thought, this is where I find out if this works. You think the tigers at the zoo look tame, but you go inside the cage, you find out different.

  Antonio inhaled, held it, and sighed. The spell was broken. He cleared his throat, hacked, and spat on the floor. “Well,” he said, “what’s done is done, Domenic, you’re right about that. Go on and tell us all, now, what you should have told Ivan, before.”

  The danger is past, Domenic thought. Antonio doesn’t give two shits about Massimo. He just needs to save face, get through this without too much disruption. I’ve been making too much money for him, that’s his real problem. He doesn’t want to jeopardize that. He sat back down in his chair, spread his hands, palms down on the table in front of himself. “It’s a long story,” he said. “I’ll try to be brief. Some of you in this room are too young to remember much about my grandfather Domenic, the man for whom I was named.” He glanced over at Antonio, who did remember. “You may have heard the stories. You probably wondered if they were true, how they could be true. I’m here to tell you that they are true. My grandfather was all that you have heard, and worse.”

  He looked at his audience, warming to his story. “Don’t get me wrong, there are no priests here tonight.” That got a laugh. “I apologize to no man for what I am. But like every one of you, I am a human being. I care about my family.” You are such a hypocrite, he told himself silently. I can’t believe they’re buying this bullshit. Can’t believe I’m selling it. Never mind that, he told himself harshly. Focus.

  “I bleed for my friends. I wish evil upon no man. I walk with my head up. But there are some men who are not like us. Honor means nothing to them, they do not understand respect. To them, you and I are only prey animals, put here to satisfy their needs. They will sit at your table and eat your food, they will slap you on the back and call you ‘brother,’ and then if it pleases them, they will kill your sons, rape your daughters, cut your throat just to see if your blood is the same color as all the rest. God forgive me,” he said, glancing up at the ceiling, where these superstitious dolts thought that some cosmic male parent named God lived, “God forgive me, my grandfather was such a man.

  “He was a bloody-minded man. Violent by reflex. Look at us, sitting here at this table, talking to one another. If blood must be spilled, so be it, but we do it reluctantly, with regret. We do it only after we have tried, and failed, to find another way.” He shook his head. “My grandfather did it because it amused him. It satisfied his appetite.

  “My father, God rest his soul, he was not like his own father, he was a good man, he was a man of honor. I bear my grandfather’s name, but I struggle, every day, to live up to my father’s legacy, to be the man he taught me to be. But the evil that lived in my grandfather’s heart did not die with him, he passed it on, through his daughter Rachel, to her son, my cousin Silvano Iurata.

  “We were children together, we even slept in the same bed sometimes, under my father’s roof. My grandfather loved Silvano, loved him as he had loved nothing else in his life, because he must have recognized what I was too young to know.” Domenic was not playing a part anymore. His face was red and his hands were balled into fists. “I did not know what he would do to my family, to me.” He pushed his chair back from the table and made an effort to relax. He heard himself breathing, felt his heart beating, felt the tension in his muscles. “I thought the Army would kill him for me,” he said, “but they used him, instead. They found out what he was, and they sharpened him into something even worse than what he had been before. Now he’s back, and one of us is already dead. Antonio, give me permission. Let me do what must be done.”

  Antonio was looking down at Ivan, still at the other end of the table. “Ivan Bonifacio,” he said, and the blood drained from Ivan’s face. “I do not hold you responsible for Massimo’s death. I have listened, and I hope you have, too, to Domenic tell his painful story, and I thank him for laying himself bare. But I must say no, Domenic, and for this reason: Unless Ivan avenges Massimo’s death, he could never be sure, he could never know that I have truly forgiven him.”

  Ivan stood up, but he still looked down at the table in front of him. “Thank you, Antonio,” he said. “Leave him to me.”

  He doesn’t get it, Domenic thought, fucking old bastard doesn’t understand. He thinks he’s got me in a box, and he doesn’t want me getting out. “Be careful, Ivan,” he said. “Iurata will not make the same mistake again. He won’t let you walk away the next time.”

  OUTSIDE, IVAN PUT a hand on Domenic’s arm. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m impressed. That was quite a performance.”

  Domenic glared at him. “I don’t know who’s the bigger asshole,
” he said, “you or him. I’m telling you, you can’t handle this on your own. You need me.”

  “Is this guy as bad as you say? I thought most of that was for Antonio’s benefit.”

  “I tell you what,” Domenic said, “I still can’t believe he didn’t wax all four of you assholes. I don’t care what Antonio said, we have to work together on this.”

  Ivan looked at him. “I know I owe you for bailing me out in there. Antonio told me to take care of this, and he told me to keep it quiet. I fucked up on both counts. But you heard what he said.” He stopped, and the two of them stood in silence as one of the restaurant’s regular patrons came out of the building. They all waited without a word while the valet brought the guy’s car around. “All right,” Ivan said, as the guy drove off. “I’ll call you in a few days. We’ll set this up between the two of us. You can be in it, all the way up to when we take him down. But that you gotta stay out of. Okay?”

  We’ll see, Domenic thought, we’ll see who fucking stays home. “All right,” he said. He looked over his shoulder to see that they were still alone. “Is this gonna fuck up the timing on Black and White? What’s the holdup with that?”

  Ivan shook his head. “Cops are still all over the place. They won’t sit there and watch forever, eventually they’ll pack up and go home. Then we can do it.” He looked at Domenic’s face. “If you still want to.”

  “You bet your fucking life I still want to do it. You stay in touch.”

  SILVANO WALKED INTO the lobby of the St. Felix, and Bronson, standing behind the front desk looking like an extra from The Night of the Living Dead, froze when he saw him. As Silvano got closer he could make out the beads of sweat on the man’s forehead. Bronson looked at his cigarette, smoldering in an ashtray, and made a try for it with a quivering hand and missed, knocking it out of the ashtray and onto the counter. It rolled to the edge and fell off. “Shit,” Bronson said. “Dammit.” He steadied himself on the edge of the counter with his left hand and went for the butt with his right, came up with it cleanly, but then he dropped it again as he stood up. “Oh, shit,” he said, gave up, stomped it out. Silvano leaned on the other side of the counter, watching him.