“Why not?”
“First off, it’s a high-hat joint. That’s one expensive, tony place. I didn’t see one serviceman. And it’s not exactly a defense worker hangout, either.”
“But there is prostitution.”
Michael shrugged. “If that’s what you’d call it. From what I understand, these 26 girls and some other hostesses just latch onto a high roller, and if he goes bust, give him one more free roll…in the hay, this time.”
“It’s still prostitution.”
“I’m not going to tell you your business. But you raid that place, you’ll make all kinds of enemies. I saw politicians there, and rich people. And with that wide-open casino, you know the cops are protecting them.”
Ness said tersely, “Let me worry about that. What’s the story on Calumet City?”
Michael told him how Nitti had laid down the law; there’d no doubt be individual girls selling their wares, but the Cal City cathouses were closing down.
“Kinda rough around there, I hear,” Ness said.
“I don’t follow.”
“Don’t you? Surely you saw the papers. Frankie Abatte turned up on a roadside outside Hot Springs, Arkansas—nude and with a bullet in his head.”
“Wonder what he was doing down that way?”
“Yeah, and without his two watchdogs, Vitale and Neglia. Of course, you probably saw that in the paper, too—how Vitale turned up dead in a sewer, and Neglia was found in a trunk on La Salle Street, also dead.”
Michael made a clicking sound in one cheek. “Wages of sin.”
“Tell me you weren’t responsible, Michael.”
“For hauling Abatte down to Hot Springs? And stuffing those other guys…what were their names? In a sewer, and a trunk? Hell no!…You mean a car trunk, or a steamer trunk?”
Ness studied the blank face, looking for sarcasm, because there hadn’t been any in the tone.
“Car,” Ness said patiently. “Michael, I told you when we began this undertaking—”
“Poor choice of words, Mr. Ness.”
“I told you that your status as an operative does not extend to committing crimes, just to stay credible among these lowlifes.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Any crime you commit, if you’re called to an accounting, you’ll stand for.”
“I know.” He looked at Ness, his boyish face hard. “Hypothetically, let’s say, if I were in a situation where gunmen had me cornered…would responding in kind be out of line?”
“In self-defense, you mean.”
“Self-defense, let’s call it.”
“Well…”
“Or should I, in such a case, pull the plug on the operation? Go to the police, and explain that I was undercover and had to defend myself?”
“…If it was self-defense, then…well.”
“Hypothetically, Mr. Ness.”
“Hypothetically…I wouldn’t expect you to break your cover, no.”
They sat and looked at the painting for a while. Michael had to move his head to take in the big painting, due to his mono-vision.
The young man nodded toward the vast canvas. “Lovely, isn’t it? It’s all made out of little dots.”
“Yes. The eye kind of blurs them into colors and shades.”
Michael nodded, saying, “But the artist really just made a lot of little points…and they added up to something meaningful. That’s nice, isn’t it?”
“It’s a nice painting.”
“Just goes to show you. Sometimes you have to make a point, to make an impression.”
Ness, not liking the sound of that, moved on to a new subject. “I’m going to be out of town for a week,” he said. “Possibly two. I have eleven other offices around the country to supervise, you know. You have Lieutenant Drury’s number, if you need something, or learn something.”
“Actually, I may be out of town, myself.”
Ness frowned. “Oh?”
“Nitti’s meeting with Capone, soon, in Miami Beach. He’s talking about sending me down there, as a sort of advance agent.”
Urgency in his voice, Ness said, “Try to get a good look at Capone. Get close to him.”
Michael said, “I intend to…What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing, really. Our people down there have seen damn little of him, lately. He’s more and more reclusive.”
“Don’t worry,” Michael said, “I plan to get very dose to Capone.” He rose. “Good afternoon, Mr. Ness.”
Ness remained for another five minutes, not wanting to be seen exiting with Michael. He just sat and stared at the huge painting and wished he could walk into it, and feel the sunshine, and hear the lap of the river, and disappear into a simpler time.
SIX
Behind the wheel of his rented ’39 Packard convertible, heading out the causeway linking Miami with the face-lifted sandbar of Miami Beach, Michael wondered if the salt breeze was conspiring with the golden-white sunshine to make him feel more relaxed than was, under the circumstances, wise.
He was tooling down Palm Avenue, which bifurcated Palm Island—villas on either side, their backs to Biscayne Bay—on his way to the Capone estate, on this three-quarter-mile-long, man-made key the shape of one of Big Al’s trademark cigars.
In the company of numerous servicemen, he had arrived on the Dixie Flyer this morning at seven. On Flagler Street, he selected sunglasses in a curio shop, purchased a tropical white suit and panama-style fedora at a department store, at a pawn shop picked up a spare army Colt .45, and bought white wing tips with black toes at a shoe store and two boxes of .45 ammo at a sporting goods shop.
Michael had a midmorning breakfast at a one-arm joint called the Dinner Bell, and was relieved to find that the food went down easy. He’d had a little trouble on the train last night, and wasn’t sure if it was nerves or just the rattle and bump of the ride.
Not that this job for Mr. Nitti looked at all taxing. Yesterday the ganglord had filled him in at a table in a private dining room at the Capri Restaurant. Other than Nitti, Michael, and occasionally the waiter, no one else was there; even Campagna had been left downstairs.
After lunch, Nitti smoked an expensive, sweetly fragrant cigar while Michael mostly sat and listened, arms folded.
“You’re going in a day ahead of me,” Nitti said, “to make sure the security is up to snuff, for my meet with Al.”
“Will they know I’m coming?”
“Of course—you’ll report to Al’s brother John…‘Mimi,’ only you call him ‘Mr. Capone’ until or unless he says otherwise. Mrs. Capone, Mae, Al’s wife, lives there with a few of her family members. There’s a good fifteen, twenty armed guards working in shifts, protecting Al.”
“Sounds sufficient.”
“It’s mostly just for Al’s peace of mind. Ever since he got out of stir, he’s been…anxious, about somebody out of his past maybe showin’ up to settle scores.”
“Really.”
Nitti shrugged, blew a smoke ring. “I know, I know—it’s what the head shrinkers call paranoia.”
How did Nitti know that term, Michael wondered; did the gang boss have his own psychiatrist? Campagna said their chief had been depressed after his wife’s death last year.
“Anyway,” Nitti said, “make sure the security team’s still sharp—that they ain’t got fat and sloppy. Been three years since Al’s release, you know, with never an attempt of any kind.”
“Guys can get lazy under such circumstances.”
“Exactly, kid.” Nitti leaned forward. Sotto voce, he said, “And you do know I’m also concerned about…certain parties. Certain factions.”
“Yes,” Michael said.
While little direct information had been shared with Michael, he’d gathered from both Nitti and Campagna that Paul “the Waiter” Ricca was contemplating a power play.
“Now I trust Mimi,” Nitti said, gesturing with the cigar as if it were a baton and Michael the band. “Al’s little brother is a harmless boy…‘Boy
,’ hell, he must be forty, now. But that’s still how I think of him—a damn kid.”
“Why’s that, Mr. Nitti?”
“Well…Mimi never was an achiever. Ran after skirts, mostly…but he’s got a clean record, and speaks well, so he handles the press for us down there, in Florida. And he supervises the estate…and, like me, Mimi cares about Al’s welfare.”
“Sounds like a good, loving brother.”
“He is. But Ricca goes back a long way with the Capones—Al was best man at the Waiter’s wedding. So when we put the security staff together, some of ’em came from Ricca’s crew.”
“I see.”
“This meeting I have scheduled with Al, to get approval on my new prostitution policy, among other things…that’s an ideal opportunity for somebody to take us both out.”
“And with you and Capone gone,” Michael said, “Ricca steps in.”
“Not a goddamn doubt in the world, kid…So check out the lay of the land. Talk to people, sniff around, listen to your gut.” Nitti clasped Michael’s arm. “Report to me when I get down there, and when I do…watch my back.”
“Mr. Nitti,” Michael said, actually feeling a little guilty, “I appreciate the trust you’ve given me.”
Nitti beamed at the young man. “Michael, when I first saw you, I felt like I knew you for years.”
“…I felt the same way, Mr. Nitti.”
“If it don’t embarrass you, me saying so…if I’d had a son, I’da been pleased to have him turn out like you.”
Michael frowned in confusion. “But you do have a son, Mr. Nitti…”
“Yes, and I’m sure not disparagin’ my own fine boy.” Though they were alone, Nitti whispered, “He’s adopted, you know.”
“Oh.”
“Anna and me, we never had a son. Or daughter. And my boy…you’ve seen him, he’s nine. Smart kid, very smart kid. I don’t want him to go into this kind of work. Or if he must, I pray it’s when we’re one hundred percent legit.”
“You think that day will come, Mr. Nitti?”
His eyes tightened. “Under me, it will. Under Ricca? And those crazy wild kids from the Patch? The Outfit’ll be peddling heroin on schoolyards.”
“I believe that.” Michael applied a smile to his face. “It’ll be an honor to meet Mr. Capone.”
“But you won’t,” Nitti said, his expression darkening. “At best you’ll glimpse the Big Fellow from afar.”
“Because he values his privacy?”
“It’s more than that. Al developed health problems in stir—his syphilis kicked in, it’s as old an enemy of Al’s as Ness…who’s fightin’ the syph himself, right?”
“Right,” Michael said, summoning another smile.
“Anyway, Al’s got his pride. He’s put on some weight, hair’s gettin’ thin—and once in a while he has a little attack, kinda on the order of epilepsy.”
“How sad.”
“Some convulsive side effect of the crud. Fear of that happening in front of the boys…that’s what made Al turn reclusive. And become the elder statesman, and rule through me. Capeesh?”
“Capeesh,” Michael said.
“I had my way, you’d sit and talk with him for hours. Got the stories, Al has, still sharp as a tack—just prefers to be remembered as he was in his prime.”
“I can understand that.”
“You can pay your respects to him, and to me, by taking a good hard look at the Palm Island security.”
Which was the job Michael had to do here for Frank Nitti. But he’d also come to Miami to do something for himself, somewhat at odds with the ganglord’s goals.
Michael intended to kill Al Capone.
But first he had to tell Capone who he was. He wanted Capone to know that betraying Michael O’Sullivan ten years ago had finally come back to bite him in his fat evil ass. Michael wanted to see in the Big Fellow’s eyes the fear and anguish and the realization of just who it was that had come calling.
On the train, thoughts that had danced, tauntingly, at the periphery of his consciousness from the beginning, only now came to the fore, forcing Michael, with the deed a day away, to confront certain realities…
Could he find a way to settle this score without losing his own life? Was there a way to be alive two days from now, with a future of some kind ahead of him? Could he dupe the shrewd Frank Nitti into thinking Michael Satariano had no role in Al Capone’s death?
If so, the possibility of a normal life—the small-town life with Patsy Ann he’d brushed aside for this opportunity to avenge—nagged at him. Wasn’t that what he wanted most of all, to replace what had been taken from him, so long ago? A normal life, a family life, with a loving wife and healthy, happy children, in the secure warmth of hearth and home…?
That would have been his dream, at least if he’d allowed himself to dream it. If he had dared dream it. In a world where men like Capone and Ricca thrived—for that matter a world where the leaders of great nations like Germany and Japan and yes, Italy, behaved no better than the gangster chiefs of big cities like Chicago—could such a small, mundane dream ever be a reality?
For all the home-front flags and bands and warm welcomes waiting for a “hero” like him, Michael saw around him an America where telegrams announced the loss of a son to loving parents, where a pretty girl of eighteen was a shattered grieving widow, where a high school baseball game was canceled because last season’s star player had been killed in action. And somewhere in the Philippines, right now, his friends and comrades were in prison camps, possibly facing torture, if they were lucky enough to be alive…
Michael Satariano—Michael O’Sullivan, Jr.—was a soldier. He could no longer fight the Japanese or the Germans; but he could do his country—and the memory of his dead father, brother, and mother—the service of removing from the face of the earth the blight of Alphonse “Scarface” Capone. Who even now, from a distance, ruled the Chicago Outfit, barely having to lift his pudgy fingers.
Little of the mansion was visible from the road, thanks to an eight-foot concrete-block wall. Michael pulled in at the spiked-iron gate before heavy oak portals. No guard met him, but, using a house phone on a stucco pillar, he announced himself while still in the Packard, receiving no acknowledgment. He was just starting to think that the phone was dead when a slot in one oak door slid open, speakeasy-style, and dark eyes under bushy dark eyebrows gave him the once-over.
The portals swung open, and then the gate, courtesy of a tall, solidly built guard in white slacks and a white short-sleeve shirt, cut by the dark brown of a shoulder holster. Michael waved at the deeply tanned guard and received a nod for his trouble; the Packard headed down the graveled drive, the doors and gate closing behind him.
To his right was that white concrete wall, to his left an elaborate rock garden; ahead the gravel drive ducked under the archway of a mission-style gatehouse, to curve around to the looming mansion itself. Perhaps a dozen palms surrounded and shaded the impressive beige two-story neo-Spanish stucco structure; the arched windows wore green-and-brown-striped canvas awnings, the flat tile roof also green.
A castle fit for a king—in this case, King Capone.
Michael pulled up into the area where the gravel drive widened to accommodate parking, though only one other vehicle was present, a 1941 aquamarine Pontiac. As Michael got out, a slender dark-haired man in a white suit mirroring his own came out the front door, followed by a colored servant in a black vest and white shirt and dark trousers.
Holding out his hand, the man spoke in a slightly squeaky tenor: “Sergeant Satariano, a delight, an honor, sir…I’m John Capone, but my pals call me Mimi.”
Michael’s host had an oblong, pleasant face that seemed a more handsome if less forceful version of his famous brother’s. His white shirt was open at the neck (Michael had worn a light blue tie).
“Thank you, Mr. Capone,” Michael said, shaking hands with Big Al’s younger brother, whose grasp was mild despite much enthusiastic arm pumping.
/> “Make it Mimi, please. This is Brownie, our houseboy—he’ll get your bag.”
Michael nodded to the “boy,” who was about forty. Brownie nodded and smiled back.
Mimi slipped an arm around Michael’s shoulder and walked him to the side of the house. “Michael…is it Michael or Mike?”
“Either.”
“Mike, Frank Nitti has nothing but good things to say about you. I was thrilled to get to meet you, and I know Mae feels the same. Medal of Honor! Damn! And you haven’t forgotten your Sicilian roots, good for you!…I think Sonny’s coming over tomorrow to shake your hand, too.”
“Sonny?”
“Al’s son. He’s about your age. He’s a mechanic over at the Miami Air Depot—tried to get in the army, but he’s got a bum ear.”
As they strolled along the side of the house—a paved walk and mosaic patios edged it—Michael noted a stocky, swarthy tough in a yellow sport shirt and tan trousers; he wore a shoulder holster with a revolver, and was ambling up and down that side of the mansion. Another guard, again in a sport shirt with shoulder holster, sat on a beach chair on one of the patios, reading Ring magazine. Another guard, next patio down, sat engrossed in Spicy Mystery, a pulp with a naked woman tortured on the cover.
The guards in their casual attire looked like they should be lugging golf clubs on the links, not weapons around the grounds of a gangster’s palace…though the lawn and shrubs were as carefully tended as any country club’s.
Mimi noticed Michael tallying the help and said, “We have five outside, including the gate guard, and two in the house.”
“Day and night?”
“Yeah, three shifts. Usually we only have four on the grounds, but ’cause of Frank’s concern, I canceled days off. Beefing up, a little.”
“Good to hear. Good-size staff.”
“Twenty-one guys, all from Chicago. Know their stuff.”
Maybe, but every guard was in his midthirties or older; in the Outfit, Michael knew, if you hadn’t made a mark by your early thirties, you weren’t going anywhere. King Capone or not, these were not the first team.
Not that that made them pushovers or any less deadly than any thug with a gun.
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