by Debra Dunbar
“And I’d find him where?”
The man gave Hattie directions to Masseria’s business office. Satisfied he was frightened enough that he wouldn’t bother trying to lie, Hattie turned to Maria with a nod.
Maria swept her hand toward her hip, easing the column back into the earth a few feet before dropping it entirely. The Ford bounced on its front suspension as the man whimpered in relief.
Hattie marched back to the main street alongside Maria, peering over her shoulder at the Ford as it spun its wheels trying to escape the brash and indefatigable Brigid O’Toole.
“Consigliere, huh?” Maria muttered as they stepped into the evening pedestrian traffic. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“Heck if I know.” Hattie held up her hands. “It’s probably an Italian thing, although I’ve never heard that word around the Crew.”
Maria snorted. “Vito might have had a vineyard, but I doubt he’s important enough to have a Consigliere, whatever that is.”
“It must be an advisor, or the second in charge.” Hattie giggled. “Maybe it’s the man who scrubs the floors.”
“Or the one who meets with troublesome females,” Maria teased. “Either way, this Masseria seems more organized than Maranzano.”
“That’s for certain,” Hattie replied, dropping her illusion. “You’re not sitting this one out, I’ll tell you that for nothing.”
“About time. As you pointed out, I’ll need a dress if I’m going to be rubbing elbows with the muckety-mucks.”
They stopped on a street corner and Hattie peered between buildings to the west. Rows of tall buildings sparkled in the balmy late-spring evening air. “We ought to do this properly.”
Maria followed her gaze toward Manhattan. “Fifth Avenue?”
Hattie shrugged. “Might as well see the sights while we’re here. We might both end up dead tomorrow.”
The two took a long stroll across the promenade of the Brooklyn Bridge, pausing beneath its colossal gothic arches to admire the view. A beat cop urged them on as they lingered, and at length they found themselves in the thick of Manhattan.
Hattie had spent most of her childhood wondering what shopping in a fine clothing store might be like. It was only ever a fantasy, though. Their family was poor, barely able to buy food. And she’d never assumed she would need that sort of outfit. But times had changed. She’d packed a healthy bankroll from the recent Pittsburgh runs, and Hattie decided it was time to indulge a fantasy.
They stepped through a gleaming storefront, marveling at the enormous interior space bright with electric light. The dresses were a touch more daring than she could find in Baltimore. The hemlines were higher. The fringe longer. The spangles brighter.
Hattie nudged Maria, wide-eyed with awe. “Here, then. What’s your style?”
Maria ran her hands over the sides of her thighs. “I’m not sure I have the legs for these dresses.”
Hattie nodded at the men’s section. “If you like, we could dress you in trousers and a jacket. You’d look fine in a bowtie.”
Maria laughed. “I don’t think so.”
After an hour of shopping, they left with a dress each, a cloche for Maria, and new shoes. The store closed shortly after they’d paid, and they found themselves in Manhattan well into the entertainment hours. Unlike Baltimore, however, the Volstead Act had been enforced to the point that jazz clubs and dives weren’t open. The streets, though busy, were devoid of music and mirth.
They walked back to their room, a chill in the night air finally descending over the East River.
“Where are we going first?” Maria asked as they reached their rented room. “Masseria or Maranzano?”
Hattie hung the garment bag on the back of the wardrobe door. “Has to be Masseria. I don’t know how to play Maranzano until we know what the competition expects.”
Maria dropped onto her side of the bed. “Tomorrow, though? My feet are killing me.”
“Aye. We’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
Maria fell asleep almost instantly. Hattie, however, lingered by the window while Maria snored lightly. Her body was heavy with fatigue. Her feet ached. Her mind hummed with colliding thoughts while her stomach twisted with anxiety over the task at hand.
Pinching light helped Hattie feel a little more invincible—perhaps even invisible at times. But this wasn’t a matter of hoodwinking some two-bit rum-runners on the Bay, or side-stepping Corbi’s oblivious muscle in the streets of Baltimore. This was big league ball. The stakes here were higher than she’d ever dared to gamble. And with everything running around in her head, Hattie couldn’t escape her thoughts for even a few hours of sleep. She closed her eyes, slouching in her chair as the street noises persisted throughout the night, managing to find that twilight between waking and sleeping, a sort of trance state where the buzz in her head dulled to a hum, and the nightmares of flames and demons simmered just beneath an inky surface.
The sun rose eventually, and Hattie pulled herself out of her chair, stretching her neck. She stepped into slippers and shuffled down the hall to the bath, where she ran some water over a cloth to clean herself up. When she returned to the room, she found Maria awake, regarding the dress they’d bought her the night before.
“We should make an effort to find an audience with Catena,” Maria said without looking at Hattie.
“Aye. After lunch, though.”
“I think we should go in the morning.” She turned to Hattie, the dress held over her front. “The man’s a consigliere, not an enforcer. Unless that word actually means he cleans the floors, then I’m thinking his business is morning business.”
Hattie nodded. “You know more about’t than I.”
“It’s why you brought me, right?”
“That and keeping me from getting killed.”
“A man in Catena’s position would respond to etiquette more than that bruiser we thumbed last night. Are you ready for that?”
Hattie shuffled off her robe, stepping half-naked across the room to reach for her new dress.
Maria squinted at her as she unzipped the garment bag.
“I’ll have to be,” Hattie replied.
They stopped by a corner bakery for rolls. Maria munched on hers as they made their way for the streetcar. Hattie pocketed hers.
The building their source described was a square three-story chunk of masonry. Arched windows adorned the front of the edifice, with iron bars covering the glass. It looked more like a bank than a gangster’s hideout. Hattie pinched Brigid O’Toole over herself, then marched for the front door. A bronze plaque set into the stone just before the wide double doors confirmed her suspicion. First Empire Bank and Trust. Did Masseria truly operate out of a bank building?
Maria held the door for Hattie, adopting equal air of a valet and an enforcer. It was crisp and professional, the sort of etiquette this Catena fellow would expect for a nascent kingpin.
They stepped inside an anteroom set before a wide open-air atrium. Hattie paused to take in the view. Rows of accountants’ desks ran in a grid along the center axis of the room. What had been a series of tellers’ windows had been renovated to create a lounge area just beneath a sweeping marble staircase leading to a mezzanine. Gentlemen in suits stood watch on the railing, peering down on the handful of men in long-brimmed visors tapping away at adding machines and scribbling with pencils.
A clutch of men stepped through the doors behind them. Hattie stepped aside as they brushed past. Her eyes widened, and she held her breath as familiar faces peered back at her.
Vincent!
He peered at her with alarm. She nodded him on discreetly, and he stepped into the atrium. Lefty followed with a thin boy who looked to be in his late teens trailing behind. Lefty offered her a gentile nod, but otherwise seemed not to notice her. The last was a man Hattie recognized, but couldn’t place.
They proceeded up the stairs, winding around the first corner of the mezzanine to another set of double-doors. Vincent
shot her another quick glance just before heading into the mystery office.
A man stepped from a side office, nodding to Hattie and Maria. He was tall and lean, a pate of silver hair greased away from a scalloping hairline. His face bore the wear and tear of decades, though nothing about his movement seemed aged. He slid through the desks, the tips of his fingers tucked into his front panel pockets.
“Can I help you, ladies?” He asked as he approached.
Hattie dug deep to unearth the finest Brigid O’Toole condescension.
“I’m here to speak to Carlo Catena,” she declared. “Would you be a dear and let him know Brigid O’Toole would like a moment of his precious time?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You must be this Brigid O’Toole I’ve heard about.”
“And how have you divined that?” Hattie asked.
“One of my men came back last night warning you’d be paying us a call. Along with your earth pincher.” His eyes shifted to Maria, narrowing a hair. Then he gestured for her to follow, adding as they reached the far end of the atrium, “Your pincher will have to wait outside.”
Hattie turned to Maria with a steady gaze. “Very well.”
The man gestured to the couches beneath the stairs. Maria lingered a second, then nodded, taking a seat as the man held the side office door open for Hattie, closing it behind her. An ornate desk sat before a series of floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. He gestured for one of two seats as he rounded the desk.
“You’re Catena, I gather?” she muttered.
“And you’re sniffing around New York for muscle, I gather.” He took a seat, gesturing again for Hattie to do the same.
She took her seat. “You’re well informed.”
“We haven’t risen to the top of the New York families by burying our heads in the sand.”
She nodded to the bookcases. “Have you read all those?”
He turned with an amused smirk. “Most. Not word for word, naturally. New York Consolidated Civil Code. United States Federal Regulations. Some law reviews, though I tend not to keep those here.”
“You’re a lawyer?”
“Harvard.”
“Impressive.”
His eyes dipped as he fingered his ring. Hattie took heart in his nervous tic.
“One does one’s best,” he declared, folding his hands on the desktop. “What is it you want, Miss O’Toole? Specifically. I gather you’re interested in unseating Vito Corbi, and that you’ve already acquired magical assets toward that end. And you’re looking for…what would you call it? Hardware?”
“Guns, Mister Catena. And men to use them.”
“Why New York?” he asked, his demeanor completely businesslike. “Of all the places to drum up foot soldiers, you’ve chosen the most competitive market on this continent.”
“Is that a fact?” she said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs at the ankle.
“Five families are vying for dominance in the boroughs. After three long years, one family is ready to emerge. Three years of quiet, back-alley fire fights and entrenched loyalties. Fatigue has set in. The greatest challenge will be in maintaining morale as the final silent bullets are fired.” He leaned forward. “And this is the climate you’ve chosen to enter and do business in? That tells me you’re not here for men. Not only men, anyway. This isn’t about hardware. It’s a calculated move. You’re coming out. Presenting yourself as an option to Vito Corbi. Presenting…to the New York families.” He leaned back in his seat with a wave of his hand. “You were seen speaking to Pockets Polizzi yesterday.”
Hattie plastered a scowl on her face, suddenly feeling very outmatched in this game she was playing.
“Oh,” he chuckled. “Don’t take it personally. Precious little happens in this city that I don’t know about. I’d be a poor second if it were any other way.”
“Yes, I met with Polizzi yesterday. Maranzano is interested in doing business, and it’s in my best interests to see what he has to offer,” she said.
“I’ll save you some time, Miss O’Toole. He doesn’t have much to offer. He’s poised to lose the Bronx. He’s already lost most of his territory in Brooklyn. Next will be Queens, and he’ll be on a boat back to Sicily by Christmas.”
Hattie shrugged. “Then he has little to lose in doing business with an upstart such as myself and everything to gain.”
Catena smiled. “An upstart. Indeed, that’s how he sees you.”
Hattie leaned back in her chair, getting an odd notion about that smile. “And how do you see me, if you don’t mind my being direct?”
He stood and wandered over to a sideboard. “Brandy?”
“Isn’t that illegal?” she quipped.
The smile turned charmingly conspiratorial. “Only if we get caught.”
“Then I graciously accept.”
He poured two tiny glasses, handing one to Hattie as he sat on the corner of his desk.
“How do I see you, Miss O’Toole? I see a woman with abilities and promise.”
Hattie paused over her brandy before taking a sip, eyeing him from the rim of her glass.
He continued, “But you’re a name, and nothing more—at least, at the moment.”
She lowered the glass. “I seem to have impressed Maranzano a degree more than I have you.”
“Let’s ignore Maranzano for the time being.” He sipped his drink. “What you want, he can’t provide.”
“And what is it that you think I want, if not the guns and men I came here for?”
“You want recognition,” Catena replied. “I’m about to say something that will likely upset you. Please understand that I don’t mean this as an insult. But the truth is, this is a man’s game. Women can’t succeed with us Old World fossils.”
She tilted her head, acknowledging his point. “Yes, but perhaps you haven’t met the right woman.”
“Perhaps.” He set his glass down on the desk and leaned forward. “If you want to supplant Vito Corbi in Baltimore, you’ll have to find a way to earn the respect of your peers. And none of your peers will accept a woman as…well…”
“As a peer?” she finished.
He shrugged his way into a nod.
Hattie eyed him over the rim of her glass. “Jonas O’Donnell didn’t see me as a peer, either. Look where that got him.”
Catena slid off his desk with a nod. “O’Donnell was a poorly-conditioned weapon of destruction. A bomb waiting to go off.” He added with a lift of his brow, “And don’t think I missed your suggestion that you had anything to do with O’Donnell’s death. We both know better.”
“I was there. It was my people who took him down, with Corbi cowering in his wine cellar.” She set the brandy snifter on the desk and regarded him boldly.
Catena stared at her, then sat back down into his chair. “If I were to grant you that, that you were behind our Iron Pincher’s downfall, wouldn’t that make me less predisposed to do business with you?”
“Not if it meant I was something more than just a name.”
Catena considered her for a moment. “There’s a meeting I should be in, but I feel as if I’m shorting you the attention you deserve. Might I be so forward as to request dinner tomorrow evening?”
“You may be so forward,” she replied.
He stood up again, motioning for her to join. “Tomorrow night, then. The Julietta Social Club on Thirty-First Street, at say…six o’clock?”
She strolled for the door as he held it open. “Until then, Mister Catena.”
He offered her a gracious bow as she took her leave and went to collect Maria. The two filed back between the desks toward the front doors. Hattie glanced over her shoulder to the double-doors atop the mezzanine, brow furrowed.
Outside, Maria asked, “What did you learn?”
Hattie exhaled, trying to shake off the spike of adrenaline from playing verbal chess with the consigliere. “I learned that I’ll need to watch my step around Mister Carlo Catena.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s smart, sharp, and dangerous. I’ve got to be careful. This will be work. I have a follow-up with him tomorrow night. With luck, that’ll give us time to work Maranzano.”
They made their way down the street, pausing at a delicatessen for sandwiches. As they ate their lunch, Hattie considered the scheme at hand. Maranzano’s man seemed easily pressed by a pincher, almost desperate to get her in the room with his boss. Catena, on the other hand, seemed far more cautious and circumspect.
“I want to speak with Vincent before we meet with Maranzano,” she leaned over the table and whispered to Maria.
“Why?”
“He was there. At Masseria’s. You didn’t see him?”
Maria shook her head. “I was trying to keep my spine straight.”
“He and Lefty. And I suppose their new blood.” She shook her head. “Vincent seemed panicked that I was there.”
“Okay,” Maria mumbled around a bite of pastrami. “Then we wait.”
Hattie nodded with a sigh.
“Will you do me a favor, though?” Maria asked.
“What?”
She pointed down to Hattie’s plate. “Stop worrying and eat!”
Chapter 13
Vincent unbuttoned his jacket, slinging it over his shoulder in the morning sunlight of the Red Hook pier. A warm breeze blew off the Upper Bay, swirling through the fish market. Summer was coming. He wondered if he’d be back in Baltimore before the solstice. Baltimore had only a few tolerable weeks of weather in the year, and he didn’t treasure the notion of whiling them away in New York doing the bidding of two masters.
“For the love of Mary, Vincent,” Hattie grumbled a few feet away. “Could you find a warmer place for us to meet?”
He cocked his head at her. “Are you cold?”
“Aye, I’m freezing my kneecaps off.”
He shook his head. “I thought it was nice out.” As he reached out to embrace her, he noticed a tension around her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“I’m quite well, boy-o.” She smiled up at him, the tension easing. “I feel I’m treading on very thin ice with some of these gangsters, that I’m playing a game I where I don’t know all the rules.”
