“Five grand. That’s all I could scrape together. But I assure you, you won’t regret it.”
Juan looked at his boss and knew immediately what he had to do. He snatched the suitcase of cocaine off the table and got safely out of the way, standing behind the three gorillas who instantly drew their automatic weapons from their jackets, aiming them at Damien and his men. Damien motioned to his men not to react.
“What kind of fucking stunt is this, Damien? The terms were clear.”
“Calm down, Segundo. Tell your men to take it easy. I have no intention of creating trouble. The terms will be respected. But in twelve hours.”
“Man, you’re soft in the head if you think I’m going to leave you my coke without payment in return.”
Segundo was adamant, and Damien knew he’d have to play the ace up his sleeve as his father had suggested. “Segundo, you have nothing to lose because I myself will be your insurance.”
“What are you talking about?” the Puerto Rican asked, pausing in the doorway of the mess room.
“I’ll come with you . . . let’s say as a hostage? We’ll wait for the transaction together. Then when Roy Foster brings the rest of the money, we’ll shake hands, and we’ll all be happy and have lots of bucks in our wallets.”
Segundo carefully considered the offer—and in the end gave in. “Deal. I leave your men the stuff, and you come with us. But if your father is pulling a fast one, I’ll send you back in pieces, in a suitcase.”
“You won’t regret it, pal,” said Damien. And with that, he took the suitcase with the ten kilos of coke and handed it to Foster, the bagman. “You know what to do with it,” he said. At the same instant, the three Puerto Rican gorillas surrounded Damien and took him in custody.
“Let’s go,” Segundo ordered, “this whole thing stinks of a scam.” He was about to leave the room when Cornelius’s tommy gun shattered the glass of a porthole.
Gabriel, with the second tommy gun, was behind the door that opened directly onto the main deck. Abraham, meanwhile, was to open fire with a short-barrel .38 from the passageway leading from the upper deck to the mess room.
Suddenly the room was overwhelmed with rapid sprays of machine gun fire. Having learned his lesson, Cornelius fired in short bursts. Gabriel threw open the door, and there stood Segundo. He fired without aiming, but Segundo was faster than him and dropped quickly to the floor. The bullets flew over his head and struck two of his men who were right behind him. At the first volley of shots, Damien had the presence of mind to plunge through the frosted glass wall on the only side of the room that the three intruders had not been able to protect. Segundo followed him, but a bullet struck him in the thigh, and he fell back on a pile of rope. He saw Damien run and hide behind the cargo crates. Though limping and bleeding from the gunshot wound, he kept up his pursuit, while behind him the tommy guns spewed out their grim litany of death.
Segundo managed to stop Damien before he reached the forward gangplank. He jumped on him, wrapping his arms around his legs. Damien toppled to the ground, kicking violently to try to free himself from the Puerto Rican’s grip. But Segundo wouldn’t release his hold. He got up, pinned Damien to the ground with his knee, and punched him between the eyes. “You backstabbing scum! Rotten bastard!” he yelled, pounding on Damien’s face, which was now a bloody mask.
“I didn’t sell you out—” the Irishman tried to say. Segundo kept clobbering him, consumed with rage. If he didn’t want to die, Damien had to do something. He felt the pressure of the semiautomatic at his side and with a last-ditch effort managed to grab it.
Meanwhile, the machine guns had stopped crackling. Gabriel wandered among the corpses piled up in the mess room. Abraham joined him, followed shortly afterward by Cornelius. They couldn’t believe their eyes. They had pulled off a bloodbath without suffering so much as a scratch. It had all gone down like that guy Mastrangelo had predicted. Gabriel went over to the leather bag, opened it, and saw several packets of bills. Cornelius, meanwhile, headed for the other bag. The guy who looked like a boxer, the one with the crew-neck sweater, was still clutching it to his chest, despite his death rattle, instinctively trying to protect it. Abraham approached him, stuck the .38 to the man’s temple and fired. Cornelius was finally able to tear the suitcase away from him. He opened it and saw that it was crammed with bags of cocaine. His jaw dropped in astonishment as he showed his buddies the contents. The two smiled.
At that instant, they heard a gunshot coming from outside. They raced out of the room and were just in time to see Damien run down the gangplank and hurry away from the ship.
Cornelius tried to center him in the gun’s crosshairs, but it was dark, and his outline soon merged with the shadows surrounding the port. Gabriel reached out and lowered the barrel of Cornelius’s tommy gun. Police sirens could be heard in the distance, coming closer and closer. The ship’s captain must have notified them on the radio transmitter. The three men, with two bags and the instruments of death stashed in the violin cases, calmly left the ship, and then silently vanished among the stacks of goods on the dock and headed toward the Ford.
Behind them, they’d left the corpses.
They had to drive through much of Manhattan to get to their hideout. Mastrangelo would be waiting for them there. They would be given passports with their new identities and tickets for the flight to Rio, where they would lie low for a few months. Later they could have their women join them. That devil Mastrangelo had thought of that too. The three men still couldn’t believe the good fortune that had befallen them.
Their hideaway was located uptown near a large maintenance yard for buses and trucks. Gabriel and his pals had set up their base of operations in one of the sheds no longer used by the workers. This is where they hid the goods they stole and the weapons they used for their jobs.
When they got to the hideout, they found Mastrangelo waiting for them. He had been listening to a radio quiz show, having fun answering the host’s questions about the movies and beating the contestants to the punch. Mastrangelo was a fanatic film buff and boasted that he knew almost all the lines of Little Caesar and The Beast of the City by heart. Edward G. Robinson was his idol.
When he heard the sound of the Ford’s engine, he stood up and went to the door.
The three newly initiated killers were revved up, the adrenaline still pumping. They were laughing and acting like braggarts, feeling invincible and untouchable. They knew they had pulled off something more momentous than the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre. Too bad no one would ever associate their names with the Paraguay Star bloodbath.
Gabriel threw open the door, beaming.
“Should I assume everything went according to plan?” Mastrangelo asked, still standing in the middle of the room.
“It was child’s play,” Gabriel said, setting the case with the Thompson gun on the floor. Then he went to get the whiskey bottle and took a long swig.
Cornelius came in next.
“How many did you kill?” Mastrangelo asked.
“Five, ten, who knows? We took out so many you couldn’t even count them.” Cornelius set his violin case down next to Gabriel’s.
The last to enter was bulky Abraham. He held the two suitcases by the handles, like a schoolboy coming home from school. He was happier and more satisfied than all of them: from that day on, everyone had better show him some respect, or else.
“The plan you worked out was perfect. Not a single hitch. Do you have the passports?” Gabriel asked.
“Sure.” And with that, Mastrangelo slipped his hand under his jacket and pulled a .45 Special out of its holster. Not losing a fraction of a second, he aimed first at Abraham, the only one who was armed, and then at Gabriel, and finally at Cornelius.
The three shots rang out sharply in rapid succession, and the three men slumped to the floor like sacks. Mastrangelo bent down to make sure they were dead, and then straightened up and took the two bags from Abraham’s grip. He stuffed the wads of bills into the suitcase with the coca
ine packets. Then he picked up the machine gun cases and went out into the night.
He took the Harlem River Drive south to Ninety-Sixth Street and then proceeded to Carl Schurz Park, where he tossed the two guns into the putrid waters of the East River. Then he broke up the two violin cases and threw the pieces in two different trash bins. He had done away with all the evidence that could connect him to that night’s killings. All he had to do now was go to Grand Central Station and leave the suitcase with the stuff in a locker.
Now came the easiest part of the script Ferdinando Licata had written.
Chapter 39
The meeting with the Stokers had been set for a half hour before midnight in the discreet offices of the Dirty Rat, a club south of Houston, on Broome Street. The place was in a neutral zone, under the jurisdiction of the Genovese family; the two affiliates, the Stokers and the Bontades, had no choice but to accept the boss’s hospitality with good grace. Besides, at that hour, the club was still full of customers, and their movements wouldn’t attract attention.
Tom Bontade had been right on time. He’d brought his most trusted men with him for the delicate transaction: there was, of course, Big Jordan, and then Vincenzo Ciancianna, along with Bontade’s bodyguards Barret and Cooper. And for the first time, he’d decided to try out Vito Pizzuto, the Sicilian who had recently joined the family.
It was now midnight, and there was still no sign of the Stokers.
“Those goddamn Irish Micks have never been reliable,” the elder Bontade muttered to himself.
He asked one of his men to call Brian Stoker. But Cooper reminded him that Brian had no phone in his house.
Bontade cursed the Irishman’s ridiculous, antiquated mentality. “Call that maniac son of his then. Actually, no, you do it, Vincenzo. You’re more diplomatic. Go on.”
The two men left to make the call. Tom Bontade had a bad feeling. If the Stokers didn’t show up with the rest of the stuff, the deal could fall through, and Sante Genovese would raise hell for having been fucked with.
It was a few minutes past midnight when a club attendant knocked at the office door and let in Jack Mastrangelo. Nobody in the room appeared pleased by his arrival.
“Don Bontade, is something wrong?” he asked, approaching the elderly family boss.
“Everything’s okay, Mastrangelo,” Bontade said, moving to a table that held several liquor bottles and some glasses. “You want a drink?”
“I’m not here to spend the evening chatting. Do you have the stuff?” he asked the boss directly.
Bontade had to swallow the man’s arrogant tone. He poured whiskey into two glasses. “What’s the hurry, Mastrangelo? Let’s enjoy life. Business shouldn’t spoil our pleasure.” He handed him the glass, and Mastrangelo, forced to take it, set it on the table without touching a drop.
“So you don’t have the stuff,” he accused in a tone that left Bontade no alternative but to answer him.
“Only half of it. I’m waiting for the other half to arrive.”
“That wasn’t the deal, Bontade.” He deliberately chose to demean him by avoiding the deferential “Don.” “My client hates glitches and people who don’t honor their word.”
“My word is law. My share is in that bag. It’s the Irishmen’s share that’s missing. I can’t vouch for them. However, sooner or later they’ll arrive with the rest of the goods. Come on, calm down. You just have to wait a few minutes. That’s not asking too much, is it?”
“I’m sorry, Bontade, but my client’s instructions were clear. I’m not to go ahead with the transaction if I see something I don’t like. For all I know, a gang of cops might even come through that door. Naturally, I don’t have anything incriminating on me. The money is stashed elsewhere in the city.”
“No cops will be coming through that door. Be patient a little longer, Mastrangelo, and we’ll bring this great opportunity to a successful conclusion, you’ll see.” Bontade moved closer to Mastrangelo, who pretended to be uneasy. He took a few steps back, toward the door.
“Take it easy, Mastrangelo, no one’s going to harm you,” Bontade continued, genuinely concerned about having frightened him.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, but my client was very clear about it. Our agreement is off.”
He backed up as far as the door. Barret and Big Jordan barred the way out, but Bontade motioned to them to let him go. “Sure you don’t want to think it over, Mastrangelo?”
“No.”
“When the second half of the stuff arrives, I’ll contact you, okay?”
“Okay.” Mastrangelo opened the door and went out, while Bontade cursed the Stokers for causing one of the most lucrative deals in recent years to go up in smoke.
He hadn’t yet finished railing against the Irishmen, when suddenly one of them materialized in front of him.
It was Damien, raging, pointing his gun at Bontade. He’d stormed into the room through the back door together with the Pole Fryderyk Marek and Boy Richard, an Irish kid who couldn’t have been even sixteen.
“Sicilian bastard!” he yelled before pulling the trigger. But Big Jordan tackled him, knocking him to the ground. The bullet only grazed Bontade.
At the same time, Barret drew his revolver and began firing wildly at the intruders, who dropped to the floor to dodge the bullets.
The Pole, who wasn’t as motivated as his boss, dived out the door, while Boy Richard tried to return Barret’s fire from behind a metal file cabinet. Meanwhile, Vito Pizzuto had rushed to Bontade’s aid, helping him retreat toward the door. Vincenzo Ciancianna, the only unarmed man in the room, huddled under the table.
Big Jordan was locked in a hand-to-hand scuffle with Damien, but his bulk didn’t favor him. He gripped the Irishman’s automatic with both hands, while Damien pounded away at his face with his free hand. But Big Jordan could take punches better than Jake LaMotta.
When Boy Richard, seeing his boss in trouble with Big Jordan, moved out into the open to help him, Barret took the opportunity to shoot him in the side. The kid fell to the floor, gasping. Damien, meanwhile, despite Big Jordan’s efforts, was able to direct the barrel of the gun at the big man’s head. A moment later he fired a shot that ripped into the giant’s flushed features, hitting him square in the face. Big Jordan fell on Damien with his full three hundred pounds. As Damien struggled to get out from under the ton of lard, Tom Bontade, seeing his lifelong friend on the ground, bleeding, snatched the gun from Barret’s hands. He rushed at Damien with an enraged roar, shooting him several times in the chest, until the magazine was empty.
In the final moments of his life Damien continued to spew out hatred, the feeling that had accompanied him throughout his existence. “Traitor . . .” he murmured to Bontade. “You wanted it all for yourself . . . You destroyed my family . . . but someone will avenge me.” With those words on his lips, he exhaled his last miserable breath.
Bontade was dazed and still beside himself over his friend’s death. He bent over Big Jordan. All he could determine was that he’d been killed instantly. He turned to Vito Pizzuto, who stood beside him.
“What could he have meant?”
“If I understood right, somebody bumped off his family. He talked about revenge. Boss, we need to get out of here now. The place will be crawling with cops before long.”
Tom Bontade understood Damien’s last words after reading the following day’s newspapers. The late city edition of the New York Times featured coverage of the bloodbath aboard the Paraguay Star, stating that a battle to the death between rival mobs had almost completely exterminated the Stoker family and a gang of Puerto Ricans. According to police, the journalist reported, it was a settling of accounts that ended with both gangs being almost completely wiped out.
Bontade, however, knew the truth: someone must have gotten wind of the deal that was under way and had contrived that ambush to make off with the cocaine and the money. Two birds with one stone, as they say. But who knew about the arrangement? Only the two families. Wha
t rotten bastard could have betrayed his own blood and brought about such carnage?
Tom Bontade decided to go talk to Brian Stoker. He would go alone, without bodyguards. Brian would have to listen to him, because Tom Bontade was now more than certain that someone was acting to destroy his family as well as the Stokers.
That morning, Ferdinando Licata learned from reading the newspapers that Mastrangelo had indeed carried out his plan. He had ordered Mastrangelo not to contact him for at least two weeks following the incident.
* * *
After three passionate days in Coney Island, Dixie and Isabel had returned to Manhattan, and had found lodging at a friend’s modest hotel on the Lower East Side, just across from Seward Park. Dixie started playing at a club in Chelsea, while Isabel went back to the Salvation Army. It was the easiest job she knew and left her quite a bit of free time, as long as the others in the unit didn’t keep a close watch on her and report her to their superiors.
Dixie was enjoying greater and greater success in the bands he played with, but his and his wife’s schedules didn’t coincide anymore. When Isabel left the house to go to the Army’s Outpost, Dixie, having just returned a couple of hours ago, would be sleeping soundly until at least noon. Then when she came home in the evening, her feet sore from long hours roaming the streets, he would be getting ready to leave.
Isabel wasn’t happy. She absolutely had to break that cycle.
Returning with her fellow soldiers one day from yet another mission in search of souls to redeem and bellies to fill, she asked Captain Virginia if she could leave early that day because she wasn’t feeling well. She had stomach cramps, and the cold weather made things worse. Virginia understood. Once a month shifts were relaxed a bit for women, so she gave her permission to go home to bed. Isabel thanked her with a contrite face and, without even taking off her uniform, hurried back to the hotel.
“I’ll go to bed,” she thought cheerfully, “but for a different kind of relaxation.” She was already looking forward to being with Dixie, and she laughed at the face he would make when he saw her. It had been almost two weeks since they’d been together.
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