Kiss Me Once

by Thomas Gifford

  Thomas Dewey gave a jaunty little wave, put his homburg straight on his carefully barbered head, and was out the door.

  Cassidy sat in the back of the Cadillac, unaware of the clogged, snowbound Times Square traffic, wondering just what Tom Dewey expected him to do about putting Max Bauman away. Did Dewey simply believe that Cassidy knew Bauman better than he actually did? Dewey’s performance had been so carefully constructed that there had been no room or time for Cassidy to say his lines. It had been a very underwritten part, as his father would have said. Just Tom Dewey giving a lecture about a mobster. To a football player. Former football player.

  And how much of it was true?

  What had set Dewey off about Max, anyway? Surely none of Max’s past had come as news to the former special prosecutor, so what made it so important all of a sudden? Why hadn’t he gone after Max when he nailed Luciano? Was it the acquisition of all the gas stations? The forged gasoline rationing stamps? And why the hell would Max Bauman blow up the Normandie for the Nazis? There was something wrong with that … And what happened to Max’s Harvard years?

  The stories and rumors making the rounds about the Normandie were unavoidable. German saboteurs were being blamed by most people, since the huge French liner was in the process of being converted into a troop carrier capable of taking an entire division to fight in Europe. Built in 1935, it had cost an unheard-of $56 million and it was said that no liner afloat was more luxurious. The silver service for the dining rooms had cost more than $150,000. The walls of the three-story-high main lounge were fitted out with immense slabs of Algerian onyx, and the bronze doors weighed six tons. The floor was covered with the world’s largest Aubusson carpet, the size of several tennis courts, and the 2,170 passengers had shopped at countless Paris boutiques ranked along promenades wide as Madison Avenue. And now, having been partially transformed by 2,000 dockyard workers hard at it in round-the-clock shifts, it lay in rusty, scorched, smoldering ruins in the Hudson.

  Somebody had set it on fire and for twelve hours it had burned out of control, sending up smoke so thick it turned day into night and night into a vision of glowing, steaming, burning hell. The metal alloy superstructure melted and buckled, and molten steel ran into the Hudson. And then it had rolled over and died.

  And Max Bauman was supposed to have done it?

  Terry Leary had said Max was legit, that his mob days had been just an ornamentation of Prohibition. He’d never said Max was a pal of Luciano, Siegel, and Meyer Lansky …

  Terry had a lot in common with Dewey when you thought about it. The sense of style, that same kind of confidence, the presence. But his moustache was better, if you were determined to have a moustache. If Dewey was passing out jobs in his political organization, he’d have been a lot better off approaching Terry, not Cassidy, who wasn’t much of an angle man. Cassidy saw the guy up ahead, ready to take you down, and his natural inclination was to accelerate and run him down. Politics was all angles and nobody was better at angles than Terry. Dewey had made his pitch to the wrong man.

  Reagan had inched through the snow, slush, and traffic, and it was well past noon by the time they were heading north up the Hudson with the Cloisters up above on the right, the hilltop obscured by the heavy-laden clouds.

  Cassidy came out of his reflections and looked over at Harry Madrid, who was reading a newspaper, the sports page, about a big basketball doubleheader at the Garden. He’d put his reading glasses on, and the pipe, still clenched in his molars, was forgotten, dead, cold.

  “So what was that all about?”

  “Dewey? Oh, Dewey needs the police to work with him on nailing Bauman. Maybe you noticed, Bert and I are cops—”

  “But why you guys? Why not two other guys?”

  Harry Madrid chuckled, folded his newspaper. “Hear that, Bert? Why us? Well, I tell you, Lew, it’s because we’re the ones know Terry Leary best.” He found the thought amusing.

  “Terry? But Terry’s one of you. If Dewey wants Bauman, why not go to Terry? He knows Max best—”

  “Get this straight, Cassidy.” Madrid’s shiny little eyes came up out of their hiding places. He yanked his pipe out of his mouth and pointed the teeth-marked stem at him. “Terry ain’t one of us. Never was. He ain’t our kind, y’get my drift? Long time ago he put his money down on Max. Looks like maybe he made a mistake—”

  “Harry, I hate to tell you this, but you’re not scaring me. And you’re full of shit, too. Terry knows the guy. Not a crime. You really ought to introduce Dewey to Terry, not me.”

  “Hear that, Bert? Lew’s got lots of good ideas back here. Lew, Dewey already knows Terry. A long time already. They sort of worked together once …” He thought better of pursuing that line of discussion. “That’s why he came to you. He can’t go to Terry because Terry’s first loyalty is to Max. Terry won’t help him nail Max. Period. Now, just stop with the questions. We’re not through yet. Sit tight.”

  A half hour later Cassidy said, “Where are we going?”

  “To see a man. Just enjoy the ride, Lew. It’s a surprise, like a birthday present.”

  A little later they got to Sing Sing. Even through the snow, you could smell the acrid stink of disinfectant. It was the smell of prisons everywhere and it was a hell of a long way from the Waldorf Towers.

  “Mr. Luciano,” a prison functionary in a gray suit that matched his big-house pallor spoke softly, like someone approaching a prince of the Church, “this is Mr. Cassidy. Of course, you know Detectives Madrid and Reagan.”

  “Sure, sure,” Luciano said. He clamped Cassidy’s hand in his own and offered a bitter smile, the kind that turns down in irony at the corners. “Tough about your leg, kid. I heard the game on the radio. Tough.” He was almost a foot shorter than Cassidy, thick and muscular—like a pit bull with broad shoulders that wouldn’t give an inch even if he were overmatched. Cassidy took one look and was glad they weren’t climbing into a ring to fight it out. Luciano had a slightly triangular face with a pointed chin, a long nose with flared nostrils, and thick black hair with a widow’s peak like Dick Powell’s. In middle age he had laugh lines at the corners of his mouth but they’d soured a bit with time. Cassidy wondered what made Lucky Luciano laugh. But it was always the same: You heard about a guy, all the things he’d done, good or bad, whether it was Lucky Lindy or Lucky Luciano, and then you met him and he was just a guy. Maybe they had that stage presence, maybe they had a look about them that filled the room, but then you sat down and started shooting the breeze and they were just guys. Cassidy knew what made Lucky Luciano laugh. Amos and Andy, Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, Groucho. The same things that made everybody laugh.

  “You guys have lunch yet?” Luciano asked.

  “Not yet, Lucky,” Harry Madrid said.

  “Well, they brought me down here from Dannemora this morning, crack o’ dawn, and I had some oatmeal before it was light and I’m so damn hungry I could eat a horse and chase the rider.” Luciano was ushering them from an anteroom into a private interview room that had been set up with a dining table, chairs, and a sideboard. There was a small dark man in a business suit who was introduced as one of Luciano’s lawyers. Luciano turned to the man who had made the introductions and spoke softly, patting his back. “Okay, Al, take a hike. You, too, Tony. I’ll let you know when we’re through.” The two men nodded and left, closing the door to the dining room behind him.

  “So I hear you guys had breakfast with Mr. Dewey.” Luciano was just making conversation as he inspected the lunch arrayed on the sideboard. The table was set with starched linen and the platters might have come from the Waldorf catering offices. “How was Tommy?” There were three opened bottles of Chianti and crystal goblets, china service, and at the head of the table, two bottles of Dr. Brown’s Celery Tonic, obviously intended for the host.

  “He was fine,” Harry Madrid said. “All in a lather, of course—”

  Luciano’s laugh was soft, tolerant. “So what else is new? He’s in a permanent la
ther, our Tommy. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m not standing on ceremony here.” He took a plate and began to load it with lobster, rare roast beef, cold sliced chicken, linguine with white clam sauce, crusty bread, butter, salad. He filled two plates and made way for the others to follow suit.

  When they were arranged around the table and he had taken the edge off his appetite, Luciano took a deep swig of his Dr. Brown’s and leaned back in his chair to let his digestive juices put in some hard time. “It’s not always like this,” he said, “in case you guys are gettin’ any ideas. This is special. We owe it all to you, Cassidy. It’s like you’re the state’s key witness in an Edward G. Robinson movie.” He chuckled softly again. You didn’t see them at first but they were there, all the scars on his face, all the stitches holding him together from the old days.

  Cassidy said, “I feel like I’m being fattened up for the kill.”

  “Naw, nothin’ like that. But the way we got it figured, you’re a key man and Tommy and I, we thought we’d ease you into the picture, nice and gentle. Make it fun. You having fun, Mr. Touchdown?” His eyes were large, liquid, dark, like Valentino’s. They were filled with a peculiar mixture of cruelty, humor, and wary distrust.

  “I’m not actually beside myself,” Cassidy said, “but it beats sitting around all day listening to The Romance of Helen Trent—”

  “Hey, one of my favorites,” Luciano said. “I got a lotta dead time on my hands. That Helen Trent, she must be a looker. A little stiff but a tiger in the raw.

  “Look, I been inside six years now. It’s not a great life, Cassidy, not even if you’re Lucky Luciano. Mainly it’s boring. No action. Do I still run things on the outside, you wanna know—I say, a little yes, a little no. The Outfit’s big; some days it runs itself, like General Motors, y’know.” He speared a chunk of lobster, drizzled some mayonnaise over it, and ate it thoughtfully.

  “The name of this game is I gotta get outa here. There’s a lot of things I can do to help my country in this time of war. Like dock security. You heard about this Normandie thing. I’m gonna level with you, Lew. I did that. Yeah. No shit, Lew. Ya wanna know why? I needed an angle. I control the docks still. Nazi saboteurs loose on my docks? That’s a laugh, kid. But I hadda make ’em come to me. I do the Normandie, they come to me, ‘Lucky,’ they say, ‘can you do this favor for us, for your country? Can you tighten up security on the docks?’ Sure, I tell ’em, no problem.” He winked at Cassidy. “That’s the end of Nazis on my docks.” He chuckled at the idea of his own ingenuity. “And the government boys owe Lucky one, a big one. Guy stuck in fuckin’ Dannemora makes the docks safe … They know Lucky’s word is good. I wouldn’t shit ya, Lew. From Lucky you get the truth, the whole truth, nothin’ but the truth.

  “I can help back in the old country, too. Mussolini, he’s made it real bad for our people there, but when the time comes to invade Italy, believe me, I can help clear the way, I can mobilize an army inside the country to join up with the Allies … I want to get outa here, though, see? It’s tit for tat, like they say.” He finished the first bottle of Dr. Brown’s, buttered a piece of bread, and talked while he chewed. “Now, how do I get out? I’m in here for fifty fucking years, Mr. Touchdown. Long time. Man my age, I can kiss off gettin’ out. I need a parole, is what I need. Only one way to get a parole now these bastards got me in here. I need my own man in Albany. I need the governor to lean on the parole board. You follow me so far, pal?”

  Cassidy nodded. Madrid and Reagan were continuing to eat like a pair of starving Armenians.

  “Now, the only governor I’m likely to get is Tommy, the same guy who framed me and put me in here. We understand each other, Tommy and me. We musta read the same rule book when we were kids. He’s a shitheel, you understand, but he’s a shitheel I can understand. We need each other. He’s a sharp little guy, not as dumb as he looks with that stupid moustache. Tommy, he comes to me a while back, he says he’s got a deal he thinks I’m gonna like, I should listen to him. Okay, I listen and he tells me he wants to get Max Bauman and Terry Leary, am I interested? I says sure, I’m interested—”

  “You want to get Terry? Cassidy shook his head. “I think I just missed a chapter—”

  “Listen to me. Am I some jerk you interrupt? Just eat your chicken and drink your wine and listen to Lucky, Mr. Touchdown. I want Bauman and Leary. You wanna know why? You ask Luciano for reasons?” Suddenly the ferocity that had been building stopped. His shoulders relaxed, his face unfurrowed, and he shrugged. “Okay, so Leary’s your pal, I’ll give you reasons. Ask anybody, Luciano’s an honorable man. There are things I do, things I don’t do. Lansky and me, we decided a long time ago, no whores, no drugs. Whores are more trouble than they’re worth, drugs are bad, a man of honor doesn’t sell drugs … it’s like selling poison gas. Any of my boys get into whores or drugs, they know what happens when I find out. What happens ain’t pretty, Mr. Touchdown. So when Tommy decides he’s gonna put Luciano away, what does he do? He can’t make a case, an honest case, that’ll even get him an indictment, let alone a conviction … so he’s gotta frame me, he’s gotta fix it. Tommy’s good at that, he knew where to go—he went to my fancy Harvard friend, Maxie Bauman. Maxie, says Tommy, it’s you or Lucky gonna do a long time in the slammer, who’d you rather have it be? Maxie guesses he’d rather have Lucky do the time. That’s good for Maxie, it works for him no matter how you look at it. Maxie’s got the whores and he’s got the muscle. He puts the squeeze on sixty of his bimbos to testify against me …” His voice had begun to tremble, his fists white-knuckled on the table. “Me, Luciano, they frame … and the world thinks Luciano … runs … whorehouses!” One perfectly manicured fist slammed down on the table. The empty bottle of Dr. Brown’s bounced off and shattered on the floor. Bert Reagan blew about half a pound of roast beef up his nose and Harry Madrid looked nervous, like a man who’d just noticed he was locked in the gorilla cage.

  “That’s why I want to get Bauman and Leary. You get that? Okay. I was framed, I want to get even. I’ll help Dewey get Bauman if he throws Leary in … but that’s just the beginning of the deal. Tommy and I both want him—I mean Dewey—in Albany. When he came to me with his plan for Max, he asked me something else.” Luciano paused to open his second Dr. Brown’s and wet his lips. “Dewey’s a Republican, and any Republican who wants to be governor is scared of New York City. There’s only one sure way he can carry the city and guarantee a win—he can get me to put the Outfit behind his campaign. I can carry the city for him, no ifs, ands, buts, nothin’. Getting Bauman gets him all over the papers again, makes him the big hero again … and the Outfit carries the city. Now, what do I get? You don’t have to be a college man to figure that out, eh? As Governor Dewey, he paroles me.” Luciano sank back in his chair. He was wearing a white shirt with the collar open and now it had begun to wilt. Sweat stains were spreading from his armpits.

  “Sounds like you got yourself a deal,” Cassidy said, “but I don’t hear anything that sticks to Terry …”

  “Oh, that.” Luciano’s voice was so soft Cassidy leaned forward. So did Madrid and Reagan, three men on a single string. “Terry was a young cop and Max bought him, put him in his pocket for keeps. Terry was the guy muscled the hookers for him, for him and Dewey. All three of them in on the frame. Two hoods and Dewey. Dewey is the only one who can do me any good now. Fuck the other two.”

  “Terry Leary’s my friend,” Cassidy said. “You? You’re just a con I don’t know from Adam. So, Lucky, fuck you.”

  Harry Madrid said “Aw shit,” under his breath, and looked at the remains of his lunch. Bert Reagan went into another coughing fit. Lucky Luciano stared at Cassidy. Cassidy stared back and couldn’t keep from smiling.

  “You got some mouth on you, Touchdown,” he said at last. “A real smart mouth. Figure you’re a big tough guy. I don’t know. You’re a cripple too.”

  “You’re a little greaseball punk,” Cassidy said. “In here for the duration. We could sit here, call each
other names all night. But I didn’t ask to see you and as far as I’m concerned I’ve seen about enough. Unless there’s a hell of a dessert, I’m for wrapping this up and getting back to civilization. Harry? Whattaya say?” Cassidy pushed his chair back, stood up.

  “Don’t be a cornball,” Luciano said. “Who you tryin’ to impress? Any ladies here I hadn’t noticed? So you’re loyal to your pal. You’re a Boy Scout.” Slowly he began to clap his hands, applauding. “You’re a nice wholesome boy. Loyalty’s a nice quality as long as you’re loyal to the right people. I’m suggesting that Leary’s not quite as worthy of your loyalty as you think he is. I’m asking you to think about it.” He sipped from his Dr. Brown’s again. “Come on, kid, siddown. We’re almost done, anyway. I get gas when people get mad at me, I really do. I’m a real easygoing guy. Siddown.”

  Cassidy slid his chair over, sat down. Madrid sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

  “Y’know,” Luciano said, “this war ain’t gonna last forever. The Krauts are so dumb, they don’t know it but they’re all wet, they’re pissin’ in the wind and getting it back in the kisser. They didn’t have a chance once the Japs bombed Pearl. Once we were in the war, the meter started running on the Krauts. Couple, three years, there won’t be enough Germany left to fill your cat’s shitbox. It’s gonna be bad over there. We’ll either turn Germany into one big farm or we’ll have to build the whole damn country again to keep the Reds from taking over all of Europe. Either way, the Krauts get the shit beat outa them in this war. And when it’s over, there’s gonna be a boom over here like you never dreamed of. There’s gonna be more money, more people wanting to spend it, and I’m gonna get my share. Casinos, travel, resorts, airlines, money just layin’ around waiting to be picked up—”

  “Look, I don’t know why you’re telling me all this—”

  “I’m thinking of your future, Touchdown. Once we get Max and Terry where they belong, you’re still gonna be a smart, mouthy, bright-eyed young guy. You may not like me yet, but I think you’re okay. You’re gonna help me, I’m gonna help you. Say the war’s over, all this is behind us, I might put something in your way … a casino maybe, or the travel business, or something else. You know what’s gonna be big? Pro football. Maybe I’ll buy me a football team, it’d need a top man, wouldn’t it?”