“Impressive, isn’t it? It’s like a silent-era comedy film. There’s simply no space to tidy up, you see. I can’t get to the chair from there, so lately I’ve been coming and going through the window, by ladder. I had a police officer point a gun at me once.”
The telephone bells were still ringing, but the voice reached Keith’s ears quite clearly.
“Now then, how much of the information do you have already? From the reports that a poor wretch was dragged into your hideout, I expect you’ve learned who you’re dealing with and what they’re after, correct?”
Provided they happened in a place where people were around, this information broker was able to learn about most incidents before anyone else. The brokerage had modest contracts with all sorts of individuals within its system; it received a wide variety of information by telephone and through hearsay, and in exchange, it made regular payments. Its informants were the residents on the top floors of each tenement building, florists on street corners, policemen on patrol, and even members of the mafia themselves.
Keith had come here with a perfect understanding of all this, so he showed no particular reaction to the voice behind the documents. He simply listened, his expression quiet.
“Your enemy is a Runorata Family executive, Gustavo Bagetta. He’s the man who’s been put in charge of creating a foothold for their advance into Manhattan. True, the Runoratas are one of the largest organizations in New York, but there’s one area in which they have no territory: Manhattan Island. Five big syndicates vie for space in Manhattan, and all of them have pipelines to major outfits in Chicago and San Francisco, or in their home countries. In other words, it isn’t worth it to fight them just to create a foothold. As a result, they’re planning to drive a wedge into gaps like your organization, then gradually expand their territory from there. Are you with me so far?”
Keith waited silently for the man to continue. The president seemed to take this as assent, and in the spaces between the sound of the bells, he began to speak again.
“To these newcomers, an outfit like yours, which doesn’t deal with any of the major syndicates, must have looked terribly appetizing. The Martillos’ circumstances are similar; however, their boss and Bartolo, the Runorata boss, are from the same town. Although their organizations aren’t linked, Gustavo probably considered the impression it would make on his boss and chose you instead.”
The momentum of the words showed no signs of slowing, and they entered Keith’s ears with the force of a flowing river.
“Gustavo is partial to rough methods, you see. He’s spreading drugs around your territory before he steals it. In doing so, he may be attempting to increase the burden on you, but unfortunately, there’s nothing about his intentions in the information. He doesn’t negotiate, give warnings, or even declare war. He simply destroys, unilaterally, over and over. He rose to the rank of executive through his abilities, but he seems to have hit the ceiling. Bartolo isn’t all that determined regarding Manhattan. The idea of a big syndicate like the Runoratas cutting into the town at this point is ridiculous in the first place. In other words, Gustavo’s been demoted…although the man himself doesn’t seem to have caught on yet.”
Lowering his voice slightly, he began to speak about the opposing organization’s internal situation.
“Gustavo’s one thing, but I’d advise you never to underestimate the Runorata boss. After all, he managed to survive the Night of the Sicilian Vespers.”
The Night of the Sicilian Vespers was a purge that had been carried out all across America in September of that year by Lucky Luciano’s men. In order to build a new system for the mafia, they’d killed more than thirty mafia bosses with old-fashioned mind-sets. Then, they created “the Commission,” an organization with a new system, one of meetings and a seven-member committee.
“Runorata was one of the so-called Mustache Pete bosses, an old-school boss, but not only did he make it through that wave, he’s taken a step back from the Commission and kept his syndicate together. In other words, he’s just that powerful. You’d better assume Gustavo has a man like that behind him. However, as I said earlier, he’s only there. He isn’t directly cooperating with Gustavo. As long as you understand that, it should be enough.”
When he’d spoken that far, abruptly, the telephone stopped ringing.
“I cut the circuit temporarily. I want to be able to hear you clearly.”
Behind the mountain of documents, the voice of the information brokerage president was quiet, but it clearly held something like curiosity.
“All right, Keith. You may already have known everything I’ve said here. What sort of additional information would you like, and for what purpose? Of course I’ll be asking for information and a reasonable sum of money in compensation, but words you speak are valuable all by themselves. It’s been three years since I heard you speak more than five syllables. That was when you and the Martillos were on the verge of a conflict, if I recall. I was surprised at how well things cooled down, and I couldn’t be more pleased that the information proved useful to you.”
The voice from behind the documents stopped dead, and for a moment, silence flowed through the room.
Then Keith opened his mouth…
After putting his subordinates’ reports in order, Gustavo abruptly pounded the desk with his fist.
“Dammit! What the hell is going on?! One of their bosses is dead. It’s gotta be chaos over there; we poured in all that manpower, and we couldn’t take one single hair off their ass?! And on top of that, they actually snatched one of our idiots!”
Since he thought Luck had been killed, the other organization’s levelheaded response had taken him completely by surprise.
In thinking of the Gandors as a tiny, two-bit outfit, had they taken them too lightly when they’d struck? To make matters worse, although they’d found out where the guy who’d stolen the drugs lived, by the time they’d gone in, all they found was the sour smell of vomit. If things went on like this, Gustavo would be in serious trouble. Forget delivering good news to his boss; he might end up having to sweat and strain over a letter detailing even worse news.
In a room of the Wall Street hotel that they were using as their temporary hideout, Gustavo tried desperately to think of a way to break through the situation. However, he was a man who’d climbed to the top through brute force. There was no way he could come up with other methods easily at this late date.
He would have liked to use bombs and blow them and their businesses to kingdom come, but he didn’t have the explosives. If he asked Bartolo, he’d probably arrange for some right away, but how in the world was he supposed to explain this failure?
“For Chrissakes, did we really just not have enough people? Next time I’ll get a heavy concentration of men together, and—”
“Are you…all…right? You…look…ra…ther…pale.”
Gustavo flinched at the abrupt voice from behind.
“B-Begg! What are you doing here?! You startled me, dammit!”
“I…told…you…I’d be…coming…today. I…wanted…to…see…the effects…of…my…drugs…with…my own…eyes.”
“Tch! I’m busy right now. Do it later.”
“I…can’t…do…that. I…have…to…pick up…some…cargo…at…the…station…at the end…of…the…month. It’s…big…cargo, so…I…want you…to…loan…me…a…few…people.”
“Screw that! You think we’ve got that kinda… Wait, cargo? Drug materials?”
If that was it, they couldn’t treat it carelessly. However, Begg’s next words weren’t even close to what Gustavo had expected.
“More…delicate…than…that.It’s…something…my…friend…made. High…performance…explosives.”
Chewing the meaning of those words over in his mind, Gustavo slowly—and absolutely—understood them.
Firepower.
“Tell me more about that. Gimme details.”
“That’s how things stand, so if you would… Yes, alth
ough we still can’t predict which way the situation will go.”
In the office in the jazz hall basement, Luck was in the middle of a phone call. The people around him were watching him with tense expressions, but to whom he was speaking wasn’t clear.
“That’s right. In that case, we’ll be waiting for you at the end of the month. No, we’re the ones who’ll be looking forward to it.”
As he hung up, Luck turned to his brothers, who were next to him, and raised both hands.
“He said it’s okay. He’s coming in on a train at the end of this month.”
In spite of himself, Berga whistled, and—unusually—the corners of Keith’s mouth softened.
“All right, gentlemen. For a little while, until you have orders, I want every one of you to avoid all independent action. We’ll suspend business at the gambling dens and speakeasies for a time, too, on the pretext of remodeling. Until you receive orders, go deep underground to ensure you don’t become a target. Is that clear?”
At that order, confusion ran through all the nonexecutive members.
“Um…”
As if representing the rest, Tick spoke up, sounding mystified.
“Who’s coming, exactly?”
“Oh, that’s right. I can’t expect you to understand if I don’t tell you that. My apologies.”
With a smile that was genuinely happy, unlike his usual smile, Luck quietly said the name:
“The living legend, the world’s most egotistical hitman, Vino…Claire Stanfield.”
USE
December 29, 1931
“…Well. Things have gotten very odd indeed.”
A clear voice sounded from behind the document stacks.
Several people, including Nicholas, Elean, and Henry, were standing in the newspaper president’s office.
After he’d heard their reports, the president began to summarize the situation.
“Elean gave Miss Eve Genoard the Gandor Family’s name, I provided the Gandors with the Runoratas’ circumstances, and Nicholas sold information on Roy Maddock to the Runoratas… Does that sound about right? Nothing happened on your end, Henry? You said that Roy himself stopped by…”
“Unfortunately, we failed to reach a financial understanding, and so no business took place. He left without purchasing any information.”
As he brazenly talked away, Henry’s lips were very slightly warped.
“I see. Well, there’s no help for that. Nicholas, have one of your people casually check up on Lia. That bag really could be a trump card of some sort.”
“—That idiot!”
Edith was furious.
After giving the black bag to Lia, she’d gone straight to the Gandors’ speakeasy, but she was late, and apparently, before she’d arrived, the place had been attacked. They said they didn’t yet know who the assailants had been, but even she knew the Runoratas were probably behind it.
Since she’d been late, she’d been lucky enough to avoid getting pulled in, and for the moment, they’d cleaned up and opened the shop for business as usual. Her duties there had finally ended, and she’d returned home at dawn, but…
“Why is a timid guy like him being considerate when nobody asked?! What on earth is he thinking…?”
Her hands gripped a message from Roy, written on a little scrap of paper.
It said, in a terribly roundabout way, that he was going to try to do something about things himself, to keep Edith from getting involved. It also said that, until the matter was resolved, he wouldn’t be coming back to the apartment.
“I-is this the place?”
He’d left Mulberry Street and was in the area near Central Park on Fifth Avenue. The surrounding scenery was gradually being buried in things Roy wasn’t used to seeing. He’d almost never visited this area except to use the train station. One reason was that Roy detested the bourgeoisie and had actively avoided it.
The district in this area with a concentration of particularly high-class residences was commonly known as “Millionaires’ Row.” It was lined with the mansions and luxury apartments of the wealthy, including the Carnegie family.
Aware that he clearly wasn’t dressed for the neighborhood and feeling inferior, Roy managed to find the mansion that Henry had told him about.
While obviously a rung below the great mansions that surrounded it, it was still in a completely different world from the hoi polloi. On the contrary, it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that its age gave it dignity. This building was the Genoard Family’s former main residence, and at present, it was being used as a second home, serving as one of the symbols of the Genoard fortune.
“So she’s in there…”
He’d reached the house, but he had no idea what to do next.
He couldn’t go in, and even if he met her, what in the world could he say to her?
He’d considered kidnapping her, but that seemed like a last-ditch method. Besides, any woman who lived in a mansion like this one was bound to employ bearlike bodyguards.
If she was ever on her own, at least… If she went somewhere even a little ways away from this area…
Knowing there was no point in thinking anymore, for the moment, Roy decided to keep watching the house.
“Oh, miss! Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, Benjamin. I’m still a little tired, but I’m fine. I’m very sorry to have caused trouble for you.”
“What are you saying? I am prepared to do anything to aid your recovery, even offer up my own heart, should it come to that. If such is a servant’s duty…”
“Good heavens. It isn’t a demonic ritual, you know.”
Eve giggled a little, but her heart was filled with resolution.
I’ll go meet them. The members of the Gandor Family. I need to hear the truth from them. If my brother really has died, if possible, I’ll avenge him—
She wasn’t thinking of actually killing them, but she might be able to get the police to arrest them, somehow. Even as she thought this, in her heart she’d considered one more possibility.
If they were the ones who killed Dallas, then did they kill Father and Jeffrey as well…?
The car that had sunk into Newark Bay. Conditions that could have been either murder or an accident. Their horribly changed bodies.
As all this simmered in her heart, before long it led her to a single resolution.
Wishes and prayers would reach no one anymore.
Consequently, she’d just have to do this through her own strength.
That was how she’d atone for her brother.
If she told Benjamin and Samantha about her idea, they were bound to either stop her or tell her to let them take care of it. She couldn’t do that. This was a selfish, personal desire.
If the Gandors killed her…
Would Benjamin and Samantha grieve for her?
No matter what the answer was, if she died a worthless death here, she’d be betraying them.
The thought hurt her, but her resolution couldn’t be checked that easily.
In short, she simply had to avoid dying.
She thought she understood just how difficult this would be, but—possibly because she’d been raised in a very sheltered environment—she didn’t seem able to visualize a concrete terror of the mafia.
They planned to return to New Jersey early next month. Before that happened, she needed to establish contact with the Gandors somehow.
First, she wanted to hear what they had to say. For now, that was her only objective.
Several guests were visiting the hotel where Gustavo and the others were staying.
“Well, that’s how it is. I hope you’ll help us out, Mr. Gustavo. Mr. Bartolo’s a great man, and we all have a lot of respect for him. Make sure you don’t do anything to disgrace him.”
With those sardonic words, the guests left the hotel.
Gustavo, left behind, ground his teeth and watched them go.
“The little bastards are getting cocky…”
Gustavo’s mind replayed the words they had said a few moments ago:
“We’re here for just one thing. We came to deliver a warning.”
“It sounds as if you got up to some pretty flashy stuff yesterday.”
“We don’t care what you do in the Gandor or Martillo territories. But—”
“Don’t forget that that area’s a boundary line, and our turf is right on the other side.”
“If you cause even a little trouble in our territory, we’ll take it as direct provocation.”
“Oh, we’re not saying we’ll start a war or anything. We’ll just lodge a complaint with your boss, Mr. Bartolo. You know what happens to your position if we do that, don’t you?”
“Anything, no matter how small. For example, if one of the Gandor men comes onto our turf, don’t you nab him or do him harm.”
“You’ve only got three free zones in that area: the Gandors’ turf, the Martillos’ turf, and the Daily Days newspaper. That’s about it… That and police headquarters, I guess.”
“The Daily Days is almost completely neutral. As far as appearances go, anyway.”
“That said, I wouldn’t recommend making enemies of those three places.”
“People like us and Mr. Bartolo are one thing, but you, Mr. Gustavo…”
“Do you know why we don’t mess with those three spots?”
“Of course, if we wanted to, we could crush them anytime.”
“It just wouldn’t pay, that’s all. Well, the Daily Days’s situation is unique, I suppose.”
“That place is a sort of underworld public facility, so to speak.”
“We don’t know how long that information brokerage has been around.”
“However, it’s a fact that it was here before our syndicate moved in.”
1932 Drug & The Dominos Page 7