The Little Brothers

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “Get the hell down from there, kid. What do you think you’re doing?”

  A uniformed cop had come in, a Chinese boy with him. The Chinese kid hung back.

  “Come on, down to the other end,” the cop said to his prisoner.

  Angie wondered what the Chinese kid had done. Marks returned just as he sprang off the table, his weight on one hand.

  The detective stared at him, his hands on his hips, a humorous, questioning look on his face.

  “Jumping up and down like a goddam monkey,” the cop at the end of the table said. “King Kong.” He turned to his own prisoner and said sarcastically, “If you’ll excuse the expression.”

  Marks didn’t answer him; nor did his prisoner except with a hate-filled dart of the slanting eyes.

  Marks motioned Angie to sit down and then sat beside him. “Peanuts, right? From peanuts to monkeys?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We ought to find something more constructive to do with that imagination of yours—before you do something destructive. Unless you’ve already done that.” He waited.

  So did Angie.

  “Angie, how would you like to level with me if I level with you? I know you’re in some trouble that connects with Grossman’s murder. The Little Brothers are tied into it and you’re up front in a way I don’t understand. You seem like a nice kid. Are you covering for Bonelli? What?”

  Angie shook his head. He did not dare look at the cop, the way he was coming closer and closer.

  “Tell me this. I know you’ve been around Grossman’s lately—did you notice a patch of clean glass in his window?”

  He started to shake his head again and realized that the girl might have seen him there. “Yeah, I did.” He tried to sound as though he had just remembered it. “I even looked in the shop. I don’t know why.”

  “What did you see?”

  “An old man teasing a cat with his finger.”

  “Now that we’re in the neighborhood, Angie, what were you doing at the entrance to the factory across the street?”

  The peanuts. He remembered eating them there during a vigil, and there had been so much junk on the ground, he’d emptied the shells out of his pocket. “I was going to try and get a job there, but it’s closed for the summer.” He had once intended to do that.

  Down the table the cop was making a lot of noise, slamming down a chair, shouting, trying to scare the Chinese kid who sat, silent as a stone. Angie wished he was like that: he talked too much and fidgeted.

  “How long do you think Ric Bonelli would cover for you, sitting where you are now, Angie?”

  Angie shrugged. Ric would have to, on his Little Brother’s oath.

  “Don’t you see he’s using you for a cover to what he did Thursday night? He didn’t beat up on his father, he didn’t hit him over the head with a bottle …”

  “I know,” Angie said. “I mean I know Ric brags a lot.”

  “Something that strikes me as damn peculiar, boy—at the very time you were supposed to be dancing on that roof, your friend Ric was somewhere in the area, somewhere between your hideout and his house. He wasn’t home, Angie. You know that too, don’t you?”

  Angie’s heart began to pound again. “No.”

  “Dancing on a roof—who the hell do you think you’re kidding?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Didn’t you steal that coat for an alibi?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you tell me about it then?”

  “I was scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “You. I’m just scared of cops. That’s all.”

  “A Little Brother? They love cops, Angie. They think they are cops.”

  “But I’d stole the coat!”

  The cry came at a moment of silence down the table.

  The Chinese boy raised his voice, the first time Angie had heard it: “Get a lawyer!”

  Before Angie realized the words were meant for him, the cop down there shoved his hand over the boy’s mouth. Just for a second. The cop pulled his hand away and began to scream, “You yellow-faced son of a bitch, you don’t bite an officer and get away with it.” He began to shake the kid as though he could make him fall apart.

  Marks said to Angie: “Go on. Get out of here.”

  Angie went without looking back. The kid couldn’t have heard him if he had said thanks. Ordinarily, Angie did not like the Chinese although he was not afraid of them the way some people in Little Italy were; they just weren’t his idea of American. And they smelled so different. But he wished that he could help the boy and hoped that maybe Marks would.

  As soon as he got out of the stationhouse he went looking for Louis Fortuno. He found him at the Police Athletic Gym near the old cathedral. Louis was in gym clothes, skipping rope, counting every skip. His eyes recognized Angie, but they didn’t welcome him. There were several men watching Louis. They didn’t pay any attention to Angie. One of them had an unlighted cigarette dangling from his lip. It was like an old movie on television. The place was air-conditioned, but it smelled of Louis’ sweat.

  Angie waited for Louis to go through a whole workout. Then Louis, in bathrobe, introduced Angie to somebody he called “Coach” as the fastest kid in Little Italy. “You ought to clock him.”

  “Mañana,” the coach said. He couldn’t have been less interested.

  Angie followed Louis into the shower room.

  “What are you doing here, Palermo? I got a college career to protect, and maybe a lot of money if I get picked up by the pros.”

  “I got to talk to somebody.”

  “Not here.”

  In the end, they talked as they walked back and forth like two novices in a passageway between the gym and another building. Angie had rehearsed himself on how he was going to start about Ric, but he started on himself. “I was supposed to stay with Grossman, you know, the Ordeal—till midnight. Right?”

  “So?”

  “I got scared and left at eleven. And now the lieutenant says Ric could’ve been there after that.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So what do you want from me, a knighthood or something?”

  “It’s just that Ric lied to you about the black man dropping the statue and all that. He couldn’t …”

  Faster than he saw it coming he felt the back of Louis’ hand across his face. “I don’t want to know!” Louis shouted.

  “I don’t either! I never in my whole life wanted to know anything about Ric, but he made me.”

  “Look, I could wipe up the floor with you, Angie. I’m sorry I hit you but you got to understand: the Little Brothers don’t talk. I mean we cooperate with the police, but in a case like this you can’t even trust them. You saw the cop with Grossman. And when it comes to protection, man, you’re not going to get it. I’m not going to get it, Ric won’t get it.”

  “How come I had to put the Eye on Grossman then?”

  “Somebody opened a can of worms. I ain’t saying who because it’s too late …”

  “Only I’m supposed to pick ’em up.”

  Louis gave a snort of laughter and put his arm over Angie’s shoulders. “I’m glad you’re in the organization. I like you, Angie, and I’m sorry you got that particular Eye job.”

  “So am I.”

  “I’m going to tell you something I got from my confidential police source: they’re after that guy, Ruggio, who lives upstairs with his wife and kid. What I think, when you put the Eye on Grossman and saw the black guy and the black guy figured you dug what was going on, Ruggio got orders to close up the shop, including Grossman—for good. The police got the place staked out, but Ruggio hasn’t showed up since he went to work yesterday. Maybe he’s wiped out too. And that scares me even more.”

  Somehow, that part wasn’t scaring Angie. He simply could not in his bones believe in a Mafia. “Louis, if that black man is pushing heroin, and us feeling against drugs the way we do, I could tell the cops som
ething about what he looks like.”

  “A gold earring, Angie? That’s like saying he’s got gold fillings in his teeth practically. Look, give it a couple of weeks to cool. I’ll call a meeting, and I’ll include you in.”

  Angie left Louis with a soft good-bye. Ric had been to the captain about the black man with earrings—which description had come entirely out of Angie’s imagination. Ric was defending himself to the Little Brothers in spite of what Louis said about the guy upstairs. Defending himself … or trying to make himself a big shot? He wanted to be captain after Louis. Something occurred to Angie that shook him up in a different way: man for man, the Little Brothers were not the smartest kids in the world, even Louis who was set for college.

  18

  DETECTIVE HERRING HAD COME on duty when Marks and Tomasino returned to division headquarters. “Here’s something you might be waiting for, gents,” he said without prior greeting. He read the State Department communication: “No record of immigration of or alien resident under name of Alberto Ruggio.”

  “Which confirms the suggestion that he entered the country illegally, doesn’t it?” Marks said.

  “Dig that legal jive. Good morning, boss.”

  “The same to you,” Marks said.

  Tomasino said, “And therefore a possible Syndicate import.”

  “With wife and child?”

  “Family people have families like everybody else,” Tomasino said.

  “And the Ambrose Corporation—does that put them in the Family way, too?”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no,” Tomasino said.

  “Who gets the social security checkout?” Herring asked.

  “Let’s have it,” Marks snapped. He was in no mood for dribbles and maybes.

  “It’s kosher, but Albert, not Alberto.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Marks said.

  “That’s not only kosher, that’s chutzpah,” Tomasino said.

  Marks corrected his Yiddish pronunciation. “I don’t suppose they gave us the date when he got the number?”

  Herring said, “What you don’t ask, they don’t tell.”

  But Marks was more interested at the moment in the telephone company’s report on one out-of-town phone call made from Ruggio’s. It was made to an unlisted number in New Jersey at 1:35 A.M., Friday. Which had to be within an hour of the Grossman killing. It lasted under a minute. “He could sleep through a howling murder a few feet from his door, and then get up to make a phone call an hour later.”

  “Who did he call?” Tomasino asked.

  “Unlisted, but I’m going to find out.” Marks waited on the phone while the supervisor got him the information that the service for the Jersey number was billed to a legal firm in Jersey City, Galli and Frascotti. She gave him the number of the firm and volunteered that it was listed.

  “Thanks,” Marks said, but he neither felt nor sounded grateful. He shoved the phone away. “They’re covering for a client obviously.”

  “Or the client of a client,” Tomasino said.

  Herring said, “Why don’t you just dial the number and see what happens, Dave? Somebody comes on, try and sell ’em a piece of real estate. That’s what some bastard did to me at ten-thirty last night.”

  Marks shook his head. “No more tipoffs to make us look further ahead than we are. How far did you get, Wally?”

  “Almost twenty-four hours I’ve been waiting a call-back from the Narcotics Bureau. I’ve tried them four times. It’s a deliberate stall somewhere along the line.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to unload what they’ve got on hand,” Tomasino said.

  Nobody laughed.

  Marks said to Herring: “Don’t you have a contact?”

  “Not on the inside. I got one or two on the outside, if you want me to try them.”

  “On the street?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’d call it on the street.”

  “Hold off,” Marks said. “If there’s a wide spread to the operation, Narcotics may have to take it slow.”

  “Then why the hell don’t they say so?” Herring said. “Why don’t you try them, lieutenant?”

  “Because I wouldn’t get any further than you, Wally. Don’t go paranoid on me. In fact, that’s the best advice I’ve got for everybody, including myself. I’m pushing. We’re all pushing.”

  “A bunch of pushers. Speak for yourself, man.”

  Marks grunted.

  “Why not the all-points on Ruggio now?” Tomasino persisted.

  “I’ll think about it. You’re on regular today, aren’t you, Wally?” Westcott was off-duty.

  “Till 6 P.M. and they’re waiting for me over on Avenue D, a family shoot-out. We need rain, that’s what we need, a nice cooling rain.” Herring checked his shoulder holster and pulled on his jacket.

  When he had left, Marks suggested that Tomasino and himself knock off for a few hours. “Like normal cops and see what catches up with us.”

  Tomasino wanted to go to a wedding. He was not long in departing.

  Marks called his father again.

  “It’s too soon, Dave.”

  “I know. Are you playing golf this afternoon?”

  “I could be persuaded.”

  “Got an entré to any club in North Jersey, dad?”

  “I think I can manage one.”

  “Sign us up and I’ll be at the house for you within the hour.”

  19

  WHEN ANGIE OPENED THE apartment door his mother was sitting opposite it like a cat at a mouse hole. She had a rolled up newspaper in her hand which she tested for strength on the arm of the chair. Not a word.

  “How come you’re home early, mama?”

  “I want to know what’s going on with you, Angelo.”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ll knock your ears off if you tell me nothing. You had to go to the police station. Why?”

  “I wasn’t the only one. Ric was there, Louis …”

  “I know Ric was there. He tells me. You don’t. But you they keep to talk to special. What about?”

  “If I seen anything they could investigate about the murder.”

  “Grossman, the Jew?”

  Angie nodded. It was a wonder Ric hadn’t told her that, too. But he wouldn’t—just enough to sic her onto Angie.

  “And what did you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me the truth, Angelo. The cops don’t investigate somebody for nothing.”

  “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anybody. It’s my oath to the Little Brothers.”

  “What’s the Little Brothers got to do with you stealing? With you going to a whore?”

  “That’s a lie. That’s what Ric says and it’s a lie.”

  She got up and took his chin in her hand, a grip that hurt, but Angie determined to take it without flinching. Her eyes went into his like screwdrivers. “I want the knife, Angelo. Where did you get it?”

  “I bought it.” He could hardly say the words with her hold on his chin.

  She let go. “I want it.”

  “No,” Angie said.

  She flew at him, beating him with her fist and with the paper. The more he stood still for it, the harder she beat him, making noises as though it was her getting hurt. Then she started to kick at his shins. “No? You don’t say No,” she was shouting.

  Angie pushed her. He couldn’t take the pain in his shins.

  She fell back more than she had to and huddled like he’d been beating her. Her mouth hung open, a look of wild surprise on her face. She staggered to the chair and plopped into it, and dropped the paper. She’d gone limp all over.

  “Your father I always expected to hit me. Not you, Angelo.”

  “I didn’t …”

  “Not my little Angelo.”

  “I’m not your little Angelo,” Angie screamed. He hadn’t hit her, but neither had he ever before even pushed her to defend himself.

  “Is that what you learn at the Little Brothers, to hit your mother?”

 
; “The Little Brothers got nothing to do with it.”

  “Such good boys, good to their parents, respectful …” she crooned sarcastically.

  “They are good!” Angie shouted, wildly loyal. His voice broke into falsetto.

  “What is the meaning of good, will you tell me?”

  Angie said nothing. He had to fight crying. When he hit the false note he hated himself even more than her.

  “I asked you a question, what is good?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s what I thought. Even in school, they don’t teach you that anymore.”

  “I didn’t push you so hard … I didn’t mean to …”

  “All right, you didn’t mean to, but you’re changed so much—always such a good boy, the nicest boy on the street. I don’t know, Angelo. Is it my fault? Is it because of Mr. Rotelli?”

  “It’s my fault,” Angie said. “It’s me.”

  “It’s Mr. Rotelli,” she said gloomily.

  “He’s all right.”

  “He’s not all right at all. He wants my son to be a dancer. How dares he?”

  “It’s not him that wants it, mama. It’s me. He’s only trying to help.”

  “Don’t you tell me what he’s trying to do. I’m in this world a lot longer than you are. Don’t you understand, Angelo, everything I do is for you? I want you to have something for yourself, not like your father and me. You’re all I got left, and I think Rotelli’s got money. Be nice to him for Angelo’s sake …”

  Angie was shaking his head. “Don’t, mama, not for me.” He had to get out of there. He could hardly get his breath. “Marry him, mama. I don’t care. I’d rather if you wanted to. I can take care of myself.”

  “Look at you—you can take care of yourself.”

  She was trying to make him sound helpless. He had not said what he wanted to, not the right way. He turned and fumbled at the door. She reached it just as he got it open and pushed it closed. She put her arms around him in a way that made him think of Alice. But her muscles then tightened like a man’s and she lifted him from the floor and whirled him around before she let go.

  “Not till you tell me, where is the knife, you don’t go out of here.”

  “I threw it in the river.” It was what he intended to do with it … as of that minute.