We caught our breath, looking wild-eyed at each other and at the dim cavern around us, still coming to grips with what we’d just seen and done.
“Are you all right, baby?” I asked.
“I think so,” she said, examining her hands.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Let’s get out of here before the cops come looking. They’ve gotta be wise to this dodge after all these years.”
I grabbed her hand and started off down the corridor that ran under Broadway overhead. The stairway light faded away fast, so I pulled out my Zippo and spun the wheel as we scurried on, yellow-orange luminescence appearing at my fingertips.
The glow illuminated the mildewed brick archway above us, then an old iron door off to one side like the one Vernon had led us through in the Lexington. And like that one, it had the letters CWW in raised letters on its surface with a keyhole inside.
“Chicago Water Works,” I mused under my breath as I stared at it.
“What does it mean?” Claudia inquired.
I looked at her, back at the door again, then shrugged. “Nothing. Just an old water department access door. We better keep moving—it’s at least another block to the Aragon.”
I held up my lighter and we set out again. After several steps, I could hear Claudia giggling. It was not the reaction one might normally expect in those circumstances. I turned, gazed into her eyes.
“Oh, Joe,” she exclaimed breathlessly, “that was so much fun I cannot believe it! I hate those bastardi so much! So many years of them preying on me and my family. It felt so good hitting and kicking them!”
Now I knew we’d be needing a long sit-down to make that thing right, but nobody had died so far as I knew, and Bo’palazzo had had it coming. Tomorrow was another day, one that would require cooler heads and Frank’s assistance, but right now we were running scot-free in an underground tunnel with a half bottle of bourbon and the shank of the night in hand.
I held the Zippo close until I could see Claudia’s face. Her hair was mussed, her features sweaty, her mouth wide open as she gulped in air. She looked fabulous.
I knew we should have been hustling out of there, but it had been such a long day already. I’d been threatened, gut-punched, dipped in mud, shot at, and roughed up in a brawl. Suddenly, I just didn’t care too much. I took a country pull of the bourbon, handed the bottle to Claudia. She took it and drank deeply, flashed me a feral grin, her dark eyes burning bright in the flickering light.
Her lipstick was smeared. I smeared it some more. Then it was all up for grabs, our hands clutching for each other. I snapped the Zippo shut, jamming it in my pocket as we fell against the wall, the musty darkness of the cavern swallowing us whole as the night closed in around us.
57
I awoke at dawn in the Ambassador East, Claudia at my side. Clothing was scattered around the room like the after-Christmas sale at Carson’s, an empty bottle of Four Roses skewed sideways on a nightstand. Two crushed Luckys lay in the ashtray, a crimson splash on one. I grinned deeply as I played it all back, although my jaw ached a little when I did.
The message light was blinking red in the darkened room, a flare shot from the outside world into our den of tranquility. Maybe it had been there when we came in—I couldn’t really recall. It occurred to me that at some point I would have to see who it was.
I gazed down at Claudia as she slumbered next to me, her hand resting on my arm. Dark ringlets of hair ran off in curlicue tangents around her face and shoulders, her supple body rising and falling with the rhythm of her respirations under the fine sheets.
I reached over to the phone, hesitated, my hand hovering above the message machine as I rethought my move. Then I extended a finger, gently spun the telephone ringer to OFF, and lay back down.
“Screw the messages,” I murmured as I melted into the goosefeathers and closed my eyes.
There’d be a headache later—and some hell to pay. There always was.
Like I gave a tinker’s damn at that moment.
V
58
Room service rang at nine. Breakfast got a little cold on the table.
The coffee was still strong and hot when I poured it, a heavy-viscosity jolt back to the world of the living. I played back the messages while Claudia took a shower. I suppose MacArthur had received worse at Corregidor.
The first was from Frank and contained multiple obscenities, some of which contained hyphenations I had never heard. The second was from my brother letting me know how upset my mother was that I hadn’t checked in all day. The third was from my partner, Roscoe, who had apparently been taking grammatical notes from Frank.
I put the phone down, drained my cup, trying to stem the pulsing tide building in my temples. It was early in California, but I knew he’d be up.
“Hi, Frank. How’s the sunrise over the mountains?”
“Fuck the fucking sunrise! Good God, Joe, what the hell happened there? I got Carpaccio jumping down my throat at four o’clock this morning. Do you know how . . .”
I put the phone to my chest, closed my eyes, listened to the muffled ranting until it tapered off.
I put the phone back to my ear. “You done, Albert Schweitzer?”
He exhaled heavily. “For now.”
“Okay, first: enough with the yelling already. I don’t work for you. Go yell at George Jacobs or Jilly or someone else who gets paid to take your bullshit. You got me?”
He didn’t say anything for quite a while. Finally, somewhat chastened, he apologized. “All right, Joe, I’m sorry. But that call worried me. Carpaccio says you started a brawl with his crew, said there was shooting, cops, a real full-fledged riot.”
“There was shooting. One of Bo’palazzo’s Boy Scouts pulled the trigger—and they tried to kneecap me yesterday afternoon, too, so let’s not have any Goody goddamn Two-shoes crap from that side.”
“Jesus. Are you all right?”
“I am, thank you. Well, no. . . . My jaw hurts a little. . . . But other than that, I’m fine. So is Claudia.”
“Glad to hear it. I gather you two are getting on pretty well.”
The bathroom door cracked open. Claudia slipped out wearing some steam and nothing else. She grabbed a robe from the closet, smiled at me from across the room. “Thanks,” I said. “And, yes, we are.”
Frank shifted gears. “So you know about this contract business with her that Carpaccio mentioned to me this morning, right?”
“She told me last night,” I replied under my breath. “She’s going to need your help with that one. You got any juice?”
“Yeah. Believe me, I know a thing or two about mob contracts. Pretty sure I can help.”
“Good. How ’bout you start by getting Sam Giancana on the hot line? He’s the key to all our problems here.”
“Been trying. Left six messages over three days so far, even sent an urgent telegram. I’ve never had a problem reaching him before. Something very big must be up.”
I closed my eyes again, mashed the phone against my ear in frustration. “Here’s hoping we ain’t it.”
“No, I actually came away from Chicago feeling very good. I’m pretty good for business, as you know.”
He went on to tell me what a cinch it was that Sam would have my back, how the whole thing would get straightened out by the weekend even if he had to fly back to Chicago, et cetera, et cetera. My mind began to wander.
Claudia was still on the other side of the room, fiddling with the rabbit ears on top of the television and finishing her coffee. Her hair was wet and she wore only the robe but she still looked great to me. I studied her quietly as she sipped and fiddled, fiddled and sipped, murmuring inaudibly in the native tongue.
Frank was saying something, his voice buzzing in my ear like an insistent gnat.
“Hey . . . you listening to me there?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else to report? I gotta hurry over to West Lawn. . . . We’re filming a scene in a cemetery today of all places.”
“Yeah.”
“Well . . . what?” he demanded.
“I think I love her, Frank.”
“Oh, Christ. Are you certain?”
“Sh-boom sh-boom.”
“Here we go again.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll try Sam again before I go.”
“That’d be great.”
The call to Frank brought some relief. That left Roscoe and my brother. Roscoe gave me a boilerplate ration of grief, some of which I even had coming. I reminded him that most of the days off I’d taken over the years could hardly be construed as leisure time, so I was long overdue for an actual vacation. He called me a few more names before hanging up, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it.
Addressing my brother’s message wasn’t going to be as easy. For starters, he was at work and I wasn’t going to bother him there. Additionally, he’d said some pretty inflammatory things and it was just as well if we didn’t talk until later. The next call was the more important one anyhow.
“Ciao, Mamma. I’m sorry for not calling last night, I’ve been very busy.”
“Giuseppino . . . Grazie a Dio! Your brother just called me and said there was some kind of a shootin’ at the Green Mill last night. Stai bene, tu?”
“Sì, tutt’ a post’—I’m fine. Claudia, too.”
I heard her sigh, visualized her making the sign of the cross for the ten millionth time. When she came back on the line, her voice was surprisingly firm and composed. “You know your brother says you are a pecora nera, that we shouldn’t have anything more to do with you. I tell him not to talk this way, that you are a fine son, that we are all so happy to have you back.”
“Grazie.”
“But figlio mio . . .”
“Sì?”
“I’m beginning to wonder . . .”
“Mamma . . . aspetta . . .”
“Please, son, please don’t fool around with those bad people. We love you, and we missed you more than you can ever know, but please do not bring evil into our casa. If this is the price of you coming home”—she paused, composing herself—“it would be better if you had not come at all.”
Her words sucked the air out of me. I fumbled for a response, came up empty. In the silence, I thought I heard my mother sniffle. I had wanted to ask her if I could invite Claudia to Sunday dinner, but it was no longer the right moment to ask that. It was no longer the right moment to ask anything at all.
I clutched the receiver, holding quietly on the line. After a painfully long silence, I said, “I understand. Good-bye, Mamma.” Then I gently cradled the phone.
I dug out a cigarette, lit it, and walked to the window, cracking it open an inch at the bottom. Claudia was singing softly in Italian in the bathroom. I leaned into the frame, laid my bruised knuckles on the sill, watching the smoke escape outside into the cold air.
Down below, cars rolled south on State, in the general direction of Taylor Street—and my family. In the concrete miles between us, Marcos Kabreros hawked his hot dogs while Vernon Pryor limped silently through the belly of the Lexington Hotel and Florence Scala waged her heroic, hopeless battle against the city. On either flank, Jack McBride and Fiorello Carpaccio were closing in like rogue highwaymen, their gold-blind aspirations portending malevolence. The spaces in between were filled with memories of my lost friend Butch O’Hare, tantalizing fragments of long-ago conversations flitting through my mind but never coalescing into clear memories.
Above it all, an apparition hung in the ether above the city. From bungalow chimneys, skyscraper ventilators, and steel-plant smokestacks it rose, kite-dancing and swirling in the leaden skies, unseen but ever sensed.
And I knew that omnipresent specter was the mocking, grinning ghost of Alphonse Capone, dead set that his gilded treasures would remain his, and his alone, forever.
59
Claudia wanted to return home to her apartment. I convinced her to stay at the hotel until Frank had squared our little mess from the night before. The sobered-up fear of Carpaccio she felt was readily apparent in her face, and as the details of the night before returned to her, she quickly agreed to remain inside.
The manager set her up in a suite on a lower floor on the hush. That would keep her off the street and out of sight of any of Carpaccio’s crew if they came looking. It was no long-term plan, but it would do for the day.
After she was settled in her room, Claudia called up to let me know she was okay. I told her I’d be down soon. Then I depressed the hook and released it, cradling the phone under my chin as I sipped cold coffee while dialing the operator. It was time for me to make some more calls. They were a quarter apiece, but what the hell, Frank Sinatra was paying.
I tried Sal first, but Gina said he was out. Next, I tried the Green Mill to thank Pauly and make sure he hadn’t been put in the can, but no one picked up over there that early in the day. That left McBride.
“My, my, but you’re a pistol, Buonomo,” he began. “Busted up the whole goddamn North Side last night. You really are a tall, bold slugger, aren’t you? You’ve gotta be getting close to something to have those boys in such a tizzy.”
“Jack . . .”
“Mobsters, gunshots, sirens, paddy wagons—”
“I can’t do this.”
“Just like the good old days! Eighteen arrests, but of course not you, bucko. You’re too— What did you say?”
“I said I’m out. This scavenger hunt of yours is out of control. Florence and I will have to get by without the millions—they aren’t worth a damn thing to me if I’m dead.”
“The hell you say! You can’t quit on me—we’ve already settled this. You’re going to—”
“Quit. I’m sorry, Jack. Say good-bye to Ronnie for me. I’m going to miss him. You too, old man.”
“Nobody quits on Jack McBride! We’ve got a deal.”
“I gave it a good try. But it’s a mirage—there’s nothing here. Nothing to see, nothing to find, nothing valuable of any kind—just a lot of Outfit guys with guns.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of those guinea brigands, damn you. I’m not afraid of Joe Kennedy, so don’t tell me you can’t handle that hog cutter Carpaccio.”
I sat up, perfectly still. A cold sliver formed somewhere deep inside me, grew into an icicle running the length of my spine, crept outward throughout my body.
Joe Kennedy. Just the name numbed the senses.
“Did you just say ‘Joe Kennedy’?”
“I did at that. What of it?”
“Joe Kennedy, the father of the president of the United States?”
“Of course that one!” McBride harrumphed.
I could feel my fingers going cold on the receiver. “What’s he got to do with this, Jack?”
“He owns the Merchandise Mart. Everybody knows that.”
Moisture began to form on my upper lip. “I thought you said the Field family owned the Merchandise Mart.”
“They did—but they sold it to Kennedy in ’46. Who gives a buffalo nickel who owns it? I own the land beneath it—and that makes it mine!”
“Oh God . . .”
Memories, deep black memories from Baja, awoke inside me. Dust clouds, machine-gun fire, the shriek of a warbird. Rockets, roiling smoke, blistering heat.
Helen.
Chaos and bone-deep terror. Despair and impenetrable sadness. All of it all over again all at once.
“You still on the line, Buonomo?”
I shook myself free from the grim flashbacks. “Jack . . . Jesus . . . You gotta listen to me. Do not get involved with that man, do you hear me? You don’t know what he’s capable of. Do not ever cross him, you will live to regret it—but n
ot very long.”
“Now you get this straight, mister—”
“No, you get this straight. You’re a fun guy, McBride. I enjoyed this little game we played, at least until the mob got involved. But the Outft is paper-fucking-dollies compared to Joe Kennedy. You don’t think a man with his power, his connections, can bring the hammer down on you? His son is the president, for Christ’s sake, his other son is the attorney general. Did you not see the Bay of Pigs on TV? The Cuban Missile Crisis? Don’t even think of playing games with those people, Jack; they will disappear you so fast it’ll leave a vacuum!”
There was a long silence on the line, the faint hum in the connection the only sound. I thought maybe I had reached him. I was wrong.
“Well, well, well,” he chided. “So you’re deserting the old Irishman in his hour of need, are you? Joe Kennedy? A Paddy bootlegger trump Jack McBride? That’s a load of rubbish! Well, just you watch, mister, these Potawatomi ain’t too square. We’ve got reach—big reach. Joe Kennedy, my ass! We’ll see who gets his Irish up—just you wait and see.”
“Jack . . .”
There was a click and then a dial tone.
I held the phone numbly at the end of my outstretched arm, the dull hum of the ring tone in the empty room droning like the wail of an ambulance in the dead of the night.
I racked the receiver, stared absently through the window, stunned dumb by what I’d just heard. I glanced back at the phone one last time as the eventualities hit home.
“So long, Jack McBride,” I eulogized. “You were a hail-fellow-well-met.”
60
I took another hot shower. My world needed more clarifying. Fast.
Fires were breaking out all over the prairie now—before long, they’d be too big to stamp out. The one McBride was playing with could sear the whole city a second time if Kennedy brought the big heat. I’d seen what that man was capable of and I didn’t want any part of it. I really hoped my words had had some impact on Jack.
And I really, really hoped he left my name out of it if they didn’t.
My Kind of Town Page 20