“Don’t say that.”
Nitti’s eyes tightened; he wasn’t exactly pleading. “You could be my successor. You have the guts and the mind and the heart to take this Outfit where it needs to go! And leave all the illegitimate shit in the past where it belongs. Listen to me, son…”
“Don’t call me that!”
Nitti nodded. “I understand…I understand. But I know…no matter what you say, I know there’s a bond between us.”
“Stop it.”
Slowly Nitti shook his head. “You don’t want to do this. You’ve already lost your father, the rest of your family. If you do this thing, you’ll burn in hell, and you won’t even have to die to get there.”
“Satariano!”
Without taking the gun off Nitti, Michael whirled to one side, and he saw the two bodyguards, Rat and Pocky, heading toward them, guns in hand, down the sidewalk.
Michael swung the .45 toward them, when Rat called out: “We know you’re with Ricca, Mike!” Toothpick tumbling from his lips, Rat added, “Get down, the fuck down!”
Nitti, eyes and nostrils flaring, shoved Michael, knocking him to the cement, and ran pell-mell across the street toward the row of trees and bushes, topcoat flapping. Gunshots rang in the afternoon air, hollow little sounds, like the firing of a starting pistol before a race.
Which was apropos, because the shots had missed Nitti and he was slipping between the trees, stepping over bushes, crawling through the gaping hole in the fence. The ganglord had the revolver in hand now, and paused to turn and throw one sharp shot their way.
The bullet flew well over Michael’s head: he lay on the sidewalk, .45 in hand, and Nitti’s shot seemed intended for the two approaching on-the-run bodyguards-turned-hitmen.
Rat paused to help haul Michael to his feet. “You want in on this, come along!”
And then Michael was standing on the corner, watching Rat and Pocky pick their way between trees and brush and through that hole in the fence.
Things were happening fast, and reflection was not an option; but somehow he knew, no matter what Frank Nitti had done ten years ago, that he could not allow that man to be brought down by these traitors.
As he ran across the street, cutting between the trees, bursting through the fence, .45 in hand, Michael was unsure whether he was acting so that he could kill Nitti himself, or to protect this man, about whom his feelings were decidedly mixed…
…but he fell in behind Rat and Pocky, who were up ahead about fifteen yards, wading through waist-high grass, the way slowed by clumps of shrub brush and wild skinny trees that leaned like modern dancers in the gentle wind.
As if chasing through mud they went, Michael at the rear, the bodyguards up ahead, the pair throwing rounds at the fleeing Nitti out in front, their shots cracking the air, sounding firecracker-small under the big gray sky.
Nitti only paused one more time, to toss a wild shot back at his pursuers, and then the man was slicing through the dead undergrowth toward the train tracks, where the grass and brush had been cut back to accommodate passage. Michael knew at once what Nitti was up to: the dark buildings of that sanitarium loomed, and the tracks went right by there, meaning the fugitive could find refuge among a wealth of witnesses; taking this road also allowed the little gangster to run faster, the topcoat flying behind him like a cape.
But Nitti also made himself a better target for his bodyguard pursuers, and two shots took the fedora right off him, sending it flapping away like a wounded bird.
Michael stopped running, planted himself, and aimed at the back of the Rat’s head; he squeezed the trigger and the bodyguard stopped dead, literally, his head coming apart in red and white and gray chunks.
Pocky, who was just a few steps behind Rat, almost fell over his own feet, coming to an astonished stop as he saw the corpse of his partner do a final limp bow, as if seeking applause before curling up awkwardly in the grass, just another dead animal.
Startled but enraged, Pocky wheeled and saw Michael coming and ran right at him, shooting the revolver. Michael fell face down on the grass and when Pocky ran over to check the body, the “corpse” reached up and shot him in the head.
Pocky’s face, with wide surprised eyes, one pockmarked cheek, and a single new red pock in his forehead, was haloed in his own prematurely gray hair and a mist of scarlet.
Then he, too, dropped, swallowed by weeds.
That left Nitti, about twenty-five yards up ahead, on the rail road tracks. He was clearly winded, and staggering along, not making much headway.
Michael quickly cut over to the tracks and was coming up behind the man when Nitti glanced back, saw him, and cut off the tracks, running through the grass to the dead end of more wire fencing.
Breath heaving, his back to the barrier, Nitti raised the revolver as Michael pushed through the grass, slowly now.
“Stop, Michael! Right there. Stop.”
Michael kept moving, brushing aside the prairie jungle. The .45 in his hand was held waist-high.
“I’m not going to let you do it!” Nitti said, his eyes wild, the little revolver pointing unsteadily at Michael.
“Mr. Nitti…”
Nitti laughed. “So respectful. Respectful to the end.” And Frank Nitti raised the revolver to his temple. “I don’t want to see you in hell, son. Understand? Okay?”
“Mr. Nitti!”
Nitti fired the .32.
Only a small spray of blood exited his left temple, and he slid like a cloth doll down the fence and sat slumped there, chin on his chest, the revolver loose in his hand.
Michael stood staring for several long seconds, then, shaking his head, said, “I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to…”
A clanging and a whistle and engine noise signaled an approaching train and, keeping low, Michael rushed through the grass as voices rose above the wind-whisper, two voices, back and forth, coming closer all the time, a flagman and a switchman, hanging off a forward-moving caboose:
“Shot himself!”
“You’re tellin’ me? I saw him do it!”
Retracing his path, more or less, Michael stayed low as he headed for the hole in the fence. He’d already slipped the .45 in its shoulder holster when he stepped through, to find a breathless Louie Campagna waiting.
“What the hell happened, kid?”
“Nitti’s bodyguards turned on him.”
“Pocky and Rat?”
“Yeah. They’re out there in the weeds, dead as hell. I made them that way.”
Michael felt sure Louie knew all about the turncoat bodyguards—else why was Campagna here? But he kept that to himself.
Together they walked across the street, back to the corner where Michael had revealed himself to Nitti. The neighborhood remained quiet, the sidewalks empty; it was as if the world had ended.
Campagna asked, “What about Frank?”
“He thought they had him cornered. Didn’t know I’d taken care of it. Turned his gun on himself.”
Shaking his head, genuine sorrow on his lumpy mug, Campagna said, “Aw. Ah hell. Ah Frank.”
Michael pointed toward the fence. “Cops’ll be here soon. Better have some men pull those stiffs out of the weeds, or this’ll get uglier than it has to.”
Campagna nodded, patting Michael on the back. “Done. You get the hell out of here, kid.”
Michael nodded.
He was just heading off when Campagna stopped him, with a hand on his arm.
“I know how you feel, kid.”
“What?”
Campagna swallowed thickly. “He was a great man.”
Michael didn’t know what the hell Campagna was talking about until, behind the wheel of the Ford, he saw his face in the mirror.
Saw the tears streaking his cheeks.
SEVEN
Michael Satariano and Patsy Ann O’Hara sat on the same stone bench in Huntley Park in DeKalb, Illinois, as last July Fourth. The cement-and-boulder bandshell was bare, and the park itself seemed abandoned. On t
his chilly afternoon in late March, under a sky as gray as gunmetal, Michael and Patsy Ann were rare sweethearts holding hands here.
They looked young, but then she was a college student and he wasn’t much older. He wore a brown leather jacket and chinos, she a soldier-blue wool coat and lighter blue slacks. Neither wore a hat, and an easy wind ruffled Patsy Ann’s blonde hair without really mussing it.
Michael sat staring at the empty bandshell. Frank Nitti was in the ground—hallowed ground, for this good Catholic who’d condemned himself to hell; on earth, at least, the fix was in. He’d left behind a loyal wife—who conveniently was at church, praying, during the killing—and a nine-year-old son he adored. Paul Ricca considered Michael to have been responsible for Nitti’s demise (officially suicide), and Louie Campagna had informed Michael—with a smile that said just how quickly Nitti had become yesterday’s news—that “the Satariano star” was rising.
This was the same Campagna who’d told Michael the way one leaves the Outfit, after the blood oath over dagger and gun: feet first. Nitti had left that way. His bodyguards, too, though they hadn’t even made the papers—Campagna’s Sicilian clean-up crew had quickly stowed them in the trunk of a car and, before any cops showed—or honest ones, anyway—whisked them into eternity. The pair were in a landfill by now (Mad Sam was in the garbage trade), or maybe at the bottom of Lake Michigan making it a foursome with Estelle Carey’s “friends,” the Borgias.
Michael knew all too well that Ness’s offer to help him parlay his Medal of Honor into some kind of government badge was no real option. Despite the Outfit’s reluctance to kill cops, particularly feds, a made man who became a G-man would surely be an exception.
Michael Satariano was one of them now. Like it or not.
At the Bella Napoli, Michael had sat with the Outfit’s new top capo at a rear table, just the two of them. Michael’s peculiar tastes were honored with an iced glass of Coca-Cola, while Paul Ricca again sipped an espresso. Bodyguards were on either side, at their own tables.
“Mr. Ricca,” Michael said, hands folded respectfully, “I am weary of bloodshed. I had my fill overseas, and found more awaited me here.”
Ricca’s eyes were hooded, though their dark brown seemed oddly gentle, in the angular, cruel face. “I understand. But a soldier goes where his general bids him go.”
“This I know…have I earned the right to ask a favor?”
Ricca nodded.
“As soon as possible, I would like to leave Chicago. My father…in DeKalb…is in the restaurant business. I spent years around that trade. A restaurant, a nightclub, perhaps something in show business would please me.”
Ricca nodded slowly. “Like your late capo, you prefer the legitimate. The whores, the juice, the gambling, narcotics, none of these things appeal to you.”
“They do not. I say this in respect.”
He sipped the espresso, then, conversationally, said, “You know, Michael, Nitti’s the only one who’ll beat this federal rap. We’ll be gone, many of us, perhaps as long as five years. While we’re away, Tony Accardo will hold my chair. I’ve recommended you to him.”
Not relishing these words, Michael nonetheless said, “Thank you, Mr. Ricca.”
The gash in Ricca’s face that was his mouth formed something that could be called, charitably, a smile.
“Michael, when I return, I’ll grant your request. We’ll send you to Vegas or possibly Hollywood…Despite this setback, we still have interests out there.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ricca.”
“Until then, here in Chicago, you serve Joe Batters.”
“I am honored.”
Ricca lifted a lecturing forefinger. “Now, Michael—do not mislead yourself. You can be in a passive part of our business and still be called upon. With your talents, from time to time—this will happen. This…will…happen.”
“I know.”
Ricca, lighting a cigarette with a silver lighter, studied Michael. He drew on the cigarette, exhaled a wreath of gray-blue smoke, then said, “You need to live your life.”
“I…I’m not sure I understand, Mr. Ricca.”
Ricca snapped shut the lighter. “We will not speak of your parents…your real parents again…but I will say now that you must not let what happened to them stand in the way of your living a normal life. You’re an American hero, Michael—you deserve the best.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Go out and find a good wife and raise little micks who’ll think they’re Sicilian—okay? And someday get yourself a mistress. You’ll need the outlet. Believe me.”
Michael nodded.
Ricca reached out and patted Michael’s folded hands. “We don’t bother each other’s families. When you’re made, we don’t fuck your wife, let alone kill her. Capeesh?”
“Capeesh,” Michael said softly.
“Do what I tell you. Wife and family. House in the suburbs.” Ricca shrugged elaborately. “It’s the American dream, my son.”
And now Michael was next to Patsy Ann on a park bench. The sky was bleak and the air was cold, but he handed her the little black box, which she opened, and the two-karat diamond ring in the silver setting on the velvet bed sparkled so brilliantly that Patsy Ann saw nothing but brightness.
He helped her on with it and then she did that thing women do—outstretching her hand, as if making sure the diamond was big enough to be seen at a distance—and finally she hugged him and kissed him and kissed him and hugged him…
With her in his arms, he stared into her lovely blue eyes and said, “You don’t have to sell your soul for me, baby. I’m gonna work in strictly legit areas.”
She touched a forefinger to his mouth. “Loose lips sink ships,” she said.
And those same eyes told him that she would not ask him about his work, nor would she judge him for it; she loved him. No strings. No small print.
“All I ask is that you always love me,” she said, not smiling now, her voice trembling, “and our children. Promise me that—and that our children will be safe.”
He drew her closer. “I promise you, baby. These kiddies are gonna have a better life than I ever did.”
Kissing her again, tenderly, slowly, lingeringly, he did not tell her that keeping such a promise should not be difficult. Not when the standard was his life…
But he did promise himself he would protect her and their kids-to-be. They would have a happy and prosperous life, and nothing would touch them; he would not let it. If some small voice of reality spoke from the recesses of his mind, he batted it away—he had once thought he could never put at risk those he cared about; but he now knew he could not face a life without those he cared for around him.
And right now, this smart, painfully pretty college coed, who was foolish enough to care for him back, was the only person on earth he loved. Not the only person he cared for—but the only one he loved…
At Pasquale’s Spaghetti House, they showed his parents the ring, and told them of their decision, and the Satarianos were beside themselves with joy, fat old people bouncing like babies. Patsy Ann called her parents, who dropped everything and, with sister Betty in willing tow, came over to the restaurant, where they all sat at a big table and the two families, about to become one, had mountains of spaghetti, and plenty of vino, too.
Patsy Ann said that she had three good offers in the Chicago area for teaching jobs, and hoped Michael wouldn’t mind if they waited a while to start their family.
“You can support me forever, if you want,” Michael said, gesturing with a wine glass. “You’re a modern woman, I’m a modern man.”
He told her they would live in Chicago for a few years, but that he’d been promised a position out West, mostly likely in show business.
“Oh, Michael,” Patsy Ann said, clutching his hand with her newly diamond-adorned one. “It’s like a dream come true. Is it terrible to be so happy, when the world is at war?”
Papa S., across from them, lifted his wine glass and said, �
�Wars don’t last forever. And in the postwar world, everything will be possible.”
Patsy Ann’s burly, handsome father raised a glass and made a toast any Buick dealer in the USA might well have made: “To the American dream!”
Voices all around the table echoed: “To the American dream!”
Only Patsy Ann noticed that Michael hadn’t joined in. He was remembering Ricca using the same phrase: It’s the American dream…
…my son.
He only prayed he would never wake up screaming from it.
A TIP OF THE FEDORA
Despite extensive speculation, supposition, and fabrication, this novel has a basis in history. Many historical figures appear under their own names, including John and Connor Looney (and their minions and contemporaries in early twentieth-century Rock Island, Illinois) and of course Frank Nitti and Al Capone (and their minions and contemporaries in mid-twentieth-century Chicago).
Michael O’Sullivan, Sr., is a fictional character grown out of several estranged lieutenants of ganglord John Looney. As with my original graphic novel, Road to Perdition (1998), I have taken the liberty of moving up the Looney activities a few years; and time compression has been used in both the Looney section and the two longer Nitti ones.
Eliot Ness did head up the wartime Federal Social Protection Division, and was concentrating on the Chicago area when Frank Nitti decided to cut back on prostitution. From these two obscure facts I have spun a central conflict of this novel. Similarly, my notion that Frank Nitti downplayed Al Capone’s mental incapacity to shore up his own power has some basis in reality.
Before I acknowledge my two stellar research associates, I must state that any errors here, historical, geographical, or otherwise, are my own.
On the Chicago Outfit sections, I was abetted by George Hagenauer, my longtime research assistant on the Nathan Heller historical detective novels. We drew upon research material that had pertained in particular to the first three Hellers—True Detective (1983), True Crime (1984), and The Million-Dollar Wound (1986), known collectively as The Frank Nitti Trilogy—specifically, photocopies of Nitti-era newspaper accounts. I have never lived in Chicago, whereas George was born and raised there, and spent much of his life in that great city; any sense of the town that I’ve achieved derives from George’s counsel and input. In addition, George gathered much of the Bataan material, and offered many good ideas on how to utilize and organize it.
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