Bloodline: A Novel

by Warren Murphy

  “A prima donna,” the older woman said admiringly. “You will be a real prima donna.”

  * * *

  NILO STOOD BEFORE one of the antique mirrors in the outer office. Instead of his usual suit and silk tie, he was wearing tennis whites with a sweater tied in a careless fashion, which had taken him a full minute to get just right. He thought he looked perfect—like the spoiled youngest son from a wealthy family.

  And if not that, at least a far cry from the wharf rat who sneaked ashore in this country nearly three years ago.

  When he was satisfied with his appearance, he glanced at Betty, who smiled her approval, then walked toward the door to Maranzano’s inner sanctum. The regular pair of bodyguards nodded to him and then went back to reading their papers. Nilo walked into Maranzano’s office without knocking.

  “Good morning, Don Salvatore,” he said. Maranzano glanced up from papers on his desk and grunted absentmindedly. He gestured with his head for Nilo to sit, and for five minutes Nilo watched the older man shuffle papers, occasionally scrawling his initials on a page. Finally, he shoved all the papers into a pile, as if formally done with them.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting that way,” he said, “but the bigger one’s empire becomes, the more paper one has to handle. Someday, Nilo, we will own a paper company and a printing plant and there will be jobs for everyone and everybody will need us and we will be rich.”

  “Everybody needs us now,” Nilo said. And you’re already richer than a hundred men. And I am richer than I ever thought I would be, if not as rich as I someday will be.

  “Because of the stupid Prohibition, yes? For now. But sooner or later, America will see that this is foolishness and they will call an end to this ‘noble experiment’ of theirs. And when that happens, what will you do?”

  Nilo looked at Maranzano in a way he had perfected: it was a shy sidewise glance as if the speaker were battling his modesty. “I will do whatever my don tells me to do.”

  “Oh, Nilo, you are already an American politician. You belong in Tammany Hall, except they are all thieves and scoundrels there and I would not expose anyone I care for to those influences. We will keep doing what we are doing, Nilo. We will take the money from the liquor, from the gambling, from the other vices, and we will use it to move into honest businesses. And when, one day, this government in Washington says we must put all these bad people behind bars, we will say, what bad people? We are just honest businessmen trying to earn a dollar. Not like that stupid gavone, Masseria, with his expensive cigars and his horse-blanket suits, who will never know what hit him.”

  Nilo nodded. He had heard the speech before. He’s right. It’s just common sense to plan for the future. Still we live in the present. We should not forget to act here and now. That is really what puts bread and wine on today’s table, not plans for tomorrow.

  “You look like a college boy,” Maranzano said. “Which reminds me. How are your lessons?”

  “Sofia says she can teach me no more.”

  “Your speech is excellent. You no longer sound as if you just got off the boat. And your reading?”

  “I can read anything, Don Salvatore. Latin too.”

  “Good. Read, read, read. You are still an uneducated street rodent. I will give you books. You read them, you learn things.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I heard you arranged for the Falcone girl to win the Mount Carmel prize drawing.”

  Nilo nodded and tried to show no emotion. He had wondered how much Betty told Maranzano. Now he had his answer. She told him everything. “She needed the money for music lessons, and I felt I owed something to Tommy—he’s the young policeman—for not mentioning me to the police.”

  “I have no problem with your generosity. After all, someone had to win. But did you let the family know the money came from you?”

  “I couldn’t. My uncle, Sergeant Falcone, is a very hard man and does not approve of me. He would not have let her keep it.”

  “Well, generosity has its place, but you should not give without the receiver knowing the gift was from you. Someday you may need a favor and it is good to have others indebted. Wait too long and no one will believe it was your gift. Always regard a gift as an investment in the future.”

  Nilo’s brow wrinkled. “But how do I do that without involving Tina Falcone’s father?”

  Maranzano smiled. “First, wait until she spends the money. She is a pretty girl?”

  “Most beautiful, Don Salvatore.”

  “Fine. Beautiful girls spend money as if it came out of a faucet; she will spend it soon enough. As soon as she does, then let word trickle out that it was a gift from you. Do not say it directly to her; that would be crude and impolite. Instead, have someone you know tell someone close to her. The story will get back. By the time it does, the money will be gone and it will be too late for this policeman father to do anything about it. Then, like it or not, he will owe you. And he will respect you for not having spoken yourself about your generosity.”

  Nilo nodded. “As ever, you know the way.”

  “Enough of your flattery. You think I am my secretary and you can work your will on me?”

  Nilo blushed and Maranzano smiled, then stood behind his desk.

  “And so. Now, we spend this beautiful day on a drive into Long Island? Is that your plan?”

  “It is, Don Salvatore.”

  “And will we come back richer than we left?”

  “Not only richer but tanner,” Nilo said confidently. Maranzano laughed heartily, clapped an arm around the young man’s shoulders, and led him from the office.

  Three hours later, they were driving east, along the narrow main road that traversed the south shore of Long Island. They had passed through look-alike town after look-alike town, and once, when the road passed right at the ocean’s edge, Nilo ordered the driver to pull over and he took Maranzano out onto a high sand dune that looked over the narrow beach.

  Nilo pointed toward the east, where far out, almost at the end of eyesight, a long string of boats of all sizes bobbed up and down in the water. “Have you seen this before?” he asked Maranzano.

  “This is what they call ‘Rum Row’?” Maranzano said. He had never been out here before to see it in person.

  “Yes,” Nilo said. “Hundreds and hundreds of boats, all out there at the three-mile mark, all of them carrying European liquor that is legal in Canada to be smuggled into America.”

  “Some of that liquor is ours,” Maranzano said.

  “Yes. And small boats will pick it all up, and some will get past the Coast Guard and deliver it to shore. But half of it will be seized and dumped in the ocean. And our costs go up and our profit goes down.”

  “You’re managing to ruin a beautiful day,” Maranzano said. As they walked back to the car, parked at the roadside, Nilo thought Maranzano did indeed look relaxed.

  Maranzano’s new driver was leaning on the front fender, watching them. He was a coarse, thick-looking thug who insisted on wearing black leather gloves, even on the hottest days. Nilo thought there was something familiar about his face, but when he could not place it he decided it was his imagination.

  Riding again with Nilo in the backseat of the car, Maranzano grew expansive.

  “You are still too busy with our activities,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve told you that I want you to be a businessman for our organization. Instead, they tell me that there is not a liquor shipment that comes in or out, not an interception of Masseria’s shipments, that you are not personally involved in.”

  “I blame myself if things go wrong. I want to be there to make sure they don’t.”

  Maranzano continued as if he had not heard Nilo. “People who are too visible get too well known. And then they are in danger. Think of that poor hijacker that was called Kid Trouble. Killed in a garage with a bullet in the head.”

  Nilo looked sharply at Maranzano and knew immediately t
hat the don knew that he had been running the Kid Trouble operation.

  “A person first winds up in the newspapers and then winds up in jail or dead,” Maranzano said.

  “I see,” Nilo answered. Don Salvatore may talk too much, but often there is wisdom. There are angles and angles and he seems to see them all. It must be in his blood. “I will have no nicknames,” he said. “I will be Nilo Sesta.”

  Maranzano held up a hand. “In years to come, you will be one of those who deals for us with the outside world. An American name will be a good thing to have. With us Italians, Sicilians, there is already so much prejudice. Everybody with an Italian name is thought to be part of a gang. You can escape that. I have given this a lot of thought and I think a good name for you would be Danny Neill.”

  “Danny Neill,” Nilo repeated. He grinned. “I am truly an American now.”

  “When we get back, go to our bank and start a small account in the name of Danny Neill. Use that name when you rent your apartment, when you pay your bills, when you have your clothes cleaned. On the street, with our people, you can remain Nilo. But for the Americans, you will become Danny Neill.”

  “Yes, sir.” And someday Danny Neill will run everything.

  Less than twenty minutes later, the big car rolled into the small town of Amagansett and Nilo gave the driver instructions on getting down to the waterfront.

  Maranzano was looking about through the car windows. “Are all these towns so ugly?” he asked.

  “Every one of them,” Nilo said.

  “Who would ever want to live here?”

  “Well, fortunately for your real estate business, many people do,” Nilo said. “That is how I came onto this place. And we are here.”

  The car parked on the dirt road in front of a large frame house whose back opened onto the beach. While the driver waited again at the car, Nilo took Maranzano behind the house. There, a man-made jetty reached far out into the water. At its end, facing out toward the sea, was a large boathouse. The beach, on both sides of the house, was deserted for half a mile in each direction.

  Nilo led Maranzano up onto the stone and concrete jetty.

  “Far out there,” Nilo said, pointing, “are all those boats waiting to unload. And between them and the shore are the Coast Guard and the federal alcohol agents.”

  “You showed me that before.”

  Nilo opened the wide wooden doors of the boathouse. Inside was as big as a three-car garage.

  “Your idea, Nilo,” Maranzano said impatiently.

  “We no longer send boats out to unload bottles from boats. Instead, inside this garage, we install a giant reel. We load it with three miles of hose. We bring in our liquor ships at night, without lights. They stay outside the three-mile limit. We run the hose out to the boat and we pump the liquor back into a truck that parks in this garage. Then drive it back into the city and bottle it ourselves. The whole unloading thing can be done at dark, without lights. There are no rumrunner boats for the Coast Guard to intercept, and by daylight, our hose is rolled up, back into the boathouse, and we are long gone.”

  “This will work?”

  “Yes, Don Salvatore. I’ve thought about it for a long time. It worked when I was a child when we brought water onto the tonnara boats. All we need out there is a boat with a pump and a hose connection. We bring the liquor in in bulk, so we have the added expense of bottling it ourselves. But we more than make up for that by not losing any to the Prohibition cops.”

  “It’s an interesting idea,” Maranzano said.

  “Right now, Don Salvatore, the big difference between your business and Masseria’s is that he has better sources of supply. He gets more liquor into the city, so he has more speakeasies under his control. But his liquor is sewer water. With this, you would overtake his business in six months.”

  Maranzano rubbed his clean-shaven face. “Who owns this house?” he asked.

  Nilo grinned. “You do. Or, at least, your secretary does. Betty’s name is on the purchase papers.”

  “Betty? Is that wise?’

  “Her name is on the papers, but I signed it,” Nilo said. “She knows nothing.”

  “It seems you think of everything,” Maranzano said.

  “Somebody taught me to be a real estate man.”

  They walked back to the car, and Maranzano said, “Not a word of this to anyone. Not even my driver. His face is still too new and I do not trust him yet. And the fewer who know, the safer we are.”

  “Yes, Don Salvatore.”

  As they got back into the car, Don Salvatore said loudly, “Nilo, it’s too far out for a house for me. And it’s just not big enough.” He winked at Nilo, who responded, “I’m sorry. I thought you might like it. But at least the day was sunny and the drive pleasant.”

  “A very pleasant day,” Maranzano agreed.

  When the driver left the car to get cigarettes, Maranzano told Nilo, “Yesterday, one of our collectors in Midtown was set upon and beaten by one of Masseria’s thugs and our money was stolen. This gavone was … let me think … a Joseph Doto. I think Mr. Doto needs a lesson in manners.”

  “How big a lesson?” Nilo asked.

  “A medium lesson with a promise of more lessons to come if he is a slow learner.” He looked over to Nilo. “Get people to do it. Do you have a problem with this? Should I give this assignment to someone else?”

  “No, sir. It’s just that I know this Doto. They call him Joe Adonis. He is one of Luciano’s men, and I see him often at Mangini’s Restaurant.”

  “Somehow I don’t believe that Luciano gave permission for such renegade outlaw activities,” Maranzano said.

  Nilo just nodded.

  “If Mr. Doto is rolling around on his own, without direction, I think Luciano would not complain if somebody were to muzzle him. But don’t make it more complicated than it is. And I don’t want you personally involved. You’re done with that. Stay out of sight. Get a couple of our men that you trust, and have them administer this lesson. Kid Trouble is no more, and you are finished with this kind of work.”

  “It is as good as done,” Nilo said.

  When the car parked in front of Maranzano’s office, the old don and Nilo got out and walked off to the side of the entrance to talk undisturbed. Maranzano’s bodyguards had come out of the office and were standing nearby, out of earshot but still watching the passersby.

  “Go ahead with your plans for the house at Amagansett,” Maranzano said. “But report only to me. You did good work on that.”

  “I want only to justify your faith in me,” Nilo said.

  “You thought well to use Betty’s name for the property. But don’t tell her anything. She is a woman and women are not to be trusted.”

  Nilo nodded.

  “And remember to open those accounts as Danny Neill. That will be your new working name.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re American as apple pie.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But I still want you to give a good wop beating to this thickheaded Joe Doto.”

  * * *

  WHEN SHE WAS TEN YEARS OLD, Sofia Mangini had once gone to Coney Island with the family of an aunt and had seen a white rat in a cage, running endlessly around an exercise wheel, while people stood there gawking. Every once in a while, the wheel would stop and the rat would be given a kernel of corn. And then it would run some more, until it was time for the next corn kernel.

  The crowd around the cage had seemed to think this was high, good fun, but Sofia wondered if any creature, even one as useless as a rat, should lead such a life. Wasn’t it cruel, she wondered, to always run and to get nowhere? What kind of life was it that could be measured in one kernel of corn after another kernel of corn, never any more, never a dream—if rats dreamed—of any more?

  And because her aunt was a generous, warm-bosomed woman who was always Sofia’s favorite, she had asked her, “Isn’t that cruel?”

  “Cruel? What is this cruel?”

  �
��To the rat.”

  “Fia, you can’t be cruel to a rat. Rats don’t have any feelings to be cruel about. They’re just rats. You put this one in a cage and you feed him corn, and at least he’s not hiding in your walls, eating holes under your sink. Corn’s gotta taste better than your walls. Rats got no complaint.”

  Rats got no complaint. Rats got no complaint. No complaint.

  Sofia cleaned the dirty dishes off one of the tables and looked up at the clock over the front door of Mangini’s Restaurant. Not yet nine o’clock. The night had hours to go. She had hours to go, nights to go, years to go, a lifetime to go, running around her exercise wheel in this restaurant, receiving an occasional kernel of corn, but never being free to leave. Of everyone she knew, she was the only one totally trapped.

  Nilo had spoken once of inviting her out for dinner, and she thought of that often. Nilo, she knew, was not as smart as he thought he was. If she let him have his way and then got pregnant, she might be able to marry her way out of this trap. It might not be love, but it was better than she had now, and she had no other options. Tommy was shacked up with a waitress, and soon he would be in law school. And Tina someday would be on stage, singing in opera houses all over the world, and Sofia would not be with her but would still be wiping off tables after sloppy diners.

  Rats got no complaint.

  She carried the dishes into the kitchen, stacked them on the new stainless-steel sink, and then winced with pain. She leaned against the kitchen wall to catch her breath. She was nauseated and tired and wanted to cry. It was like this always, every month, when her time was coming.

  She tried to will the pain out of her mind but could not. The summertime heat, the humidity of the kitchen, the pungent smells made everything worse. She felt herself sweating and shivering at the same time. All she wanted to do was go someplace dark and lie down. Sofia closed her eyes and let out a little gasp. When she opened them again, her mother stood there.

  “Is it the curse?” she asked her daughter.

  “Yes, Mama. It’s coming on.”

  “Ah. This is no place for you tonight. You’ll scare away the customers with your sour, pained face. Go, go upstairs and lie down. Sleep. We can do without you here tonight.”