He sat quietly on the ride back, remembering other words Maranzano had spoken. He had said, “We Castellammarese are a good family and good friends.”
Unless someone crosses us, Nilo thought. And then we kill.
* * *
DRESSED CASUALLY IN A SWEATER and skirt, Tina Falcone looked over at her bandleader, raised her arm, and then in her signature gesture slowly let it drop. There was a split-second pause and the band lit into a slow, string-driven version of “Lover, Come Back to Me.”
Tina let them go through the introduction and then came in for the verse. It had been more than a year since she had sung, not since that nightmare in the warehouse in the Bronx. During the days of recuperating in her apartment, while Mario lied to her family and told them she had gone out of town, the question came back to her over and over: Have I brought this all on myself? Is God punishing me for my sins?
She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind. Keep singing, she told herself, and somehow she managed to get through the song. She glanced back at her bandleader and he was smiling without forcing it. She had done it all right this time.
“Okay, boys,” she said when she had finished. “You were great as usual. I think I’m even getting a little better.”
She was greeted with affectionate boos and hisses from the band. Things were coming along, getting looser. Last week and the week before had been a horror. She had been terrible and she knew it. No voice. No control. No passion. Nothing.
It was clear the band had felt sorry for her, although no one knew why they should. The gossip said she had gone into a sanitarium to dry out. Or away to have a baby. Or she was suffering from tuberculosis. There were a thousand explanations—all of them wrong—but they had all ended with the prediction that she would never be able to sing again as she had before.
Then three days ago, it had started to come back. The atmosphere at rehearsals had changed. Nobody felt sorry for her anymore.
“Okay, boys,” she said. “I want to do sort of a real low-down ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’ You know what low-down is, don’t you? Just think of your sister-in-law. And then we’ll sort of slide into a nice, ladylike—stop laughing, you—‘Bye, Bye Blackbird.’”
The band played better than she had expected them to. They were obviously starting to catch on to her rhythms and phrasing and framing them with their own tempos and volume. And when the rehearsal was done, she sincerely thanked them for their work, sent them off for supper, and began making an inspection tour of the new club.
The days with Charlie Luciano and Ross’s Club were over and done with. There was no going back to that, not ever. He had denied any part in her attack, of course. He had come to see her, and when he learned what had happened, he swore he was not involved. He even offered to find the young man, Congreve, and bring Tina his penis for proof. But Tina was beyond fixing blame for the evil humiliation she had suffered. She just wanted to put it behind her, put it out of her mind. To Luciano’s offer, she had said, “It won’t make any difference, Charlie.” And she had meant it. She was moving on.
Nilo had made it possible. After she had gotten out of the hospital and taken the job Mario had found for her, Nilo had bought a club on Forty-seventh Street, just off Broadway, and soon after, he visited her apartment.
“I need help,” Nilo said.
“The new club?”
“Yes.”
“You need a singer?”
“No,” he said, suddenly and flatly.
Before she could figure out what she had done wrong, before she could even speak, Nilo laughed aloud and said, “I don’t need a singer. I need a partner. I bought this place and all I’ve got is money going out, nothing coming in. I need somebody who knows something. If you’re willing, it can be our place. We’ll call it the Chez Tina … no, the Falcon’s Nest, and you can be my headliner and my manager. I’ll put up the money. You put up the talent and the work and we share fifty-fifty.”
That was a better deal than she had ever had with Luciano, who had paid most of her personal expenses but had kept her on a straight salary at Ross’s. This was a new world of opportunity.
“Well, what do you say?” Nilo asked.
“Nilo, we were never that close. And then, when you came home, that business with Sofia. It was innocent, but it looked terrible and I regretted it so much. You’ll never know how much. Why have you come to me?”
“We’re family,” he said, and smiled again. “I’ll be back tomorrow and I’ll bring you the club plans to look at.”
* * *
AFTER LEAVING HER ROOM, Nilo went downstairs to his car, sat behind the wheel, and laughed aloud.
He had in his pocket a set of the pictures of Tina, taken during the assault in the warehouse.
And I didn’t even have to use them, he thought. She came along without even a suspicion. So I’ll save the pictures for when I need them. When I want her to do something that she doesn’t want to do.
She’ll do it then. She’ll do anything I want her to do.
He had business to take care of in the Bronx, and as he drove slowly back to Manhattan, he passed the warehouse where Tina had been raped. He smiled to himself. It was one of the good things about the real estate business, knowing where vacant properties were located. And Don Maranzano, who had bought the vacant building to use for a liquor storage warehouse, did not even know what it had been used for.
No one knew. And no one would ever know, unless Nilo wanted them to.
* * *
TINA STOOD IN THE MIDDLE of the dance floor, watching the band leave, and surveyed the setup. It was basically the same as the Ross’s Club, only more so—better, plusher, more classy. She was proud of it, glad that Nilo had given her the chance to do it right.
* * *
“MISS FALCONE.”
She turned around. It was one of the nightclub’s young pages.
“Mrs. Neill is in your office.”
“Mrs. Neill?” It took her a moment to realize that Mrs. Neill was Sofia. Nilo had taken to calling himself Danny Neill in public, and obviously his wife was doing the same thing. She walked toward the stairs that led to the second-floor office. It had been hard thinking of Sofia Mangini as Mrs. Sesta. It would be even harder to think of her as Mrs. Danny Neill.
The two women had barely talked in all the time since the day Nilo had come home from prison and found them together, and Tina looked forward to seeing her old friend. Maybe, at last, things were going well for her. Nilo had said she was pregnant again. Maybe, at last, there’s some happiness in her life.
When she entered the office, Sofia was seated behind her desk, looking out the window at the traffic along Forty-seventh Street.
For a moment, she considered telling Sofia to get out of her chair, and then she dismissed the thought, settling on a casual, “Hello, Fia.”
As Sofia turned, Tina sprawled out in a rocker set in a far corner of the room.
“You look wonderful. Pregnancy agrees with you,” Tina said.
Sofia’s face was hard and expressionless.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” she said. “Opening this club puts you in constant touch with Nilo.”
“It’s his money.”
“It’s his money and my money,” Sofia said coldly. “Our money, just as it’s our marriage. I don’t want you doing damage to either.”
“Fia … what are you talking about?”
“I want you to keep your hands off my husband.”
Tina shook her head. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she said.
“Oh, no? You’re holy and moral, all of a sudden?”
“No,” Tina said. “But something’s happened to me. I can’t stand to be touched anymore. It makes me physically ill. You have nothing to worry about.” She suddenly felt weary and too tired to argue. All she wanted to do was sleep.
“I don’t believe you,” Sofia said.
“I can’t help that.”
“From the time Nilo came home,
he’s been climbing on me day and night, all the time. And now, for the last three months, he’s barely touched me. Three months. That’s how long you’ve been working around here.”
“It’s not so,” Tina said. “Whatever your marriage problems are, they’re not my doing.”
Sofia grabbed her fur coat off the table near the door and put it on. “I don’t know just how much you hear from Nilo in your pillow talk,” she snapped, “but let me make it clear for you: Nilo fronts a lot of businesses, but all the money is handled by me. I will give this club special attention. Don’t make any mistakes, and especially don’t make the mistake of thinking you can get away with something by sleeping with my husband.”
“It’s not so, Sofia. And I’m sorry you feel that way. Truly sorry.”
“Harm my marriage and you’ll really be sorry,” Sofia said as she left the room.
* * *
IT WAS ALMOST 4:00 A.M. before Nilo returned home and found Sofia working at the desk in the living room. He seemed to be a little drunk and was clearly startled. “What are you doing up at this hour?”
“I like to go over the books. And when you’re out this late, I can’t sleep. I just worry.”
As he peeled off his jacket, he said, “You’re pregnant. You should get more rest.”
Sofia went across the room and hugged him. She saw a smudge of lipstick on his shirt collar, and she could smell someone else’s perfume on him. She held him tighter. He stood still, with his arms hanging down at his sides.
“We should talk about some things,” she said.
Nilo shrugged, walked to the bar, and poured himself a glass of wine. “So? Okay, let’s talk.” He sat on the couch facing her across the room.
“What are your plans for the future?” she asked.
Nilo sighed. The look on his face was a clear signal that he hated these kinds of conversations. “I was waiting for you to tell me,” he said in a bored voice.
Sofia sat down at the desk again “Mr. Maranzano has had a wonderful idea in taking all his mob money and putting it into legitimate businesses. By now, everybody knows that Prohibition doesn’t work. Before too long, liquor will be legal again, and those who don’t prepare for that day are going to be left out.”
Nilo sipped at his wine but said nothing.
“Because Don Salvatore has decided to put many of these businesses in the Danny Neill name, that puts us … you … in a wonderful position, because if anything happens to Maranzano, you control the wealth.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to the don,” Nilo said.
“Oh, Nilo, stop kidding yourself. When you go out, you have a bodyguard. Don Salvatore has an army of them. There’s a war going on out there. Before it’s over, Masseria’s going to be gone and Maranzano too. But nothing has to happen to you.”
“If anything happens to Don Salvatore, I will follow in his footsteps,” Nilo said officiously.
He is terribly stupid, Sofia thought, striving to mask her anger. I hate it that I wasn’t born a man. Doesn’t he see that if Maranzano were dead, the war would be over?
“You can do that,” Sofia said in a reasonable voice. “But you have one child sleeping inside and another inside my belly. We have to think of them and the lives they’re going to have. They’ll be a lot prouder of their father, the businessman, than they would of their father, the gangster. I want us to build something for our children, something that nobody can take away from them.”
“I do, too,” Nilo said, but his voice was listless and unconvincing. Sofia knew that she had already exceeded his usual short attention span.
“I guess what I want is for you to acknowledge that you and I are partners. We’re not in this for ourselves. We’re in it for our children, and we have to work together to build for the future.”
Nilo came over and kissed her on the neck. “Great,” he said.
“So when I ask you questions, it’s all business, you understand?”
“Naturally,” Nilo said.
“For instance, how’s the club working out?”
“We’re doing all right,” he said. “We should be ready to open before the holidays.”
“I stopped in today and saw Tina,” Sofia said.
“She’s doing a good job,” Nilo said. “With her fronting this place for me, it’s going to do a lot of business. You’ll see.”
“For me.” Those were his words, Sofia thought. He will never accept that we are partners.
“Nilo, please don’t fool around with Tina.”
“Just one time,” he said, “and then I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I haven’t touched Tina. We’re not screwing. The only time I talk to her is about the club. That’s the way it’ll stay. Okay?”
I don’t believe him, Sofia thought. I don’t believe either of them. She said, “Okay.”
“Now I’ve got to get some sleep. A long day tomorrow,” he said, and gave her a brief nod before going into the bedroom.
Sofia sat at the desk, idly tapping the pencil on a green blotter, wondering why her husband was content to live day by day, never thinking things through, never trying to shape the future.
I cannot even tell him that our own interests would be best served if Don Salvatore were to die. Peace would come and we would thrive. But someday, perhaps, he may hear me.
* * *
EIGHT DAYS LATER, on a crisp Tuesday evening in early October, Sofia came into the Manginis’ restaurant in Little Italy. She did not visit there much anymore, having no desire to see her father, but her mother had called to let her know that Charlie Luciano would be dining there that night.
She sat alone at a table in a far corner, drinking espresso, and when Luciano came in, accompanied by his usual gaggle of hangers-on and bodyguards, he saw her and nodded in a friendly fashion before disappearing into the back room.
Sofia waved to her father and told him to send Luciano a bottle of his best wine, courtesy of Sofia. The old man looked as if he were going to say something, to protest, but Sofia silenced him with a glare.
“I am here on business. Do as I say,” she commanded.
The years had not been kind to Matteo Mangini. His hair was shot through now with white, and his tall, stately figure was shortening, as he was crippled over more and more by arthritis. He moved slowly and his hands often trembled, and as Sofia watched him, she thought, Good, I hope one of his sluts has given him syphilis.
She saw her father go into the back room, and a few minutes later, as she expected, Luciano came out alone and walked over to join her at the table.
They think nothing of women, these people, Sofia thought. Surely, with all these killings on the street, Charlie must be taking great caution. And yet, without a guard, here he is at my table because he thinks that he is safe because I am only a woman. If I wanted to kill them all, I would round up a half-dozen pretty women, give them guns, and they would all be dead before midnight.
“You’re looking beautiful, Sofia,” Luciano said.
“Thank you. I’m glad to see you.”
“How long before the baby?” he asked.
“Early in the year. Maybe four more months,” she said. “It’s because of the baby that I hoped to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
“I was wondering, Charlie, what kind of life my baby will have. Will this war ever end?”
“All wars end,” he said.
Sofia could tell that her broaching the subject had made Luciano nervous. He looked around almost skittishly.
“But no one can tell the future,” he said.
“I know some of the future,” Sofia answered. When Luciano just looked at her quizzically, she went on: “Prohibition’s going to end soon. The real money in the future will be made by people who invest in legitimate businesses. Maranzano is doing that very thing right now, getting ready for the day the bootleggers are out of work. If both sides did that, there would be very little to make war over, wouldn’t there?”
“When strong people h
ate each other, they will always find a reason to have a war. What does your husband think about all this?”
“Nilo thinks nothing,” Sofia said. “Some people think about tomorrow. My husband thinks about yesterday and considers today a great mystery. The stock market is going to crash soon. Companies, good companies, will be for sale for pennies on the dollar. Yet I could no more tell Nilo about this than I could tell him about the beauty of poetry.”
“But you’re telling me?”
“Because I think about tomorrow, and you are tomorrow. It is a shame sometimes that our lives are ruled by people who know only the past.”
“Things change. People pass on,” Luciano said casually. “You really think the stock market will fall?”
“It has to,” Sofia said. “It’s become just pieces of paper being used to buy other pieces of paper. All the reality has gone from it. Eventually, air leaks from even the biggest balloon.”
“And fortunes will be lost,” Luciano said softly, as if to himself.
“And greater ones made by those who are wise or cunning.” Sofia looked at her father standing near the door of the restaurant. “What would happen if the generals left the battlefield?”
“You have something in mind?”
Sofia shook her head. “I was just wondering what you thought.”
“What I think is that you should leave these problems to men who deal with them every day. Someday I’m sure peace will return because a lot of us worked to bring it about.”
“I hope so, Charlie,” Sofia said. “If there’s anything I can help you with, please let me know. I think of you often, how kind you’ve been to me in the past. Perhaps I could pay you back.”
“Maybe someday,” Luciano said, and rose from the table. “In the meantime, take care of yourself and the baby. I’d send my regards to your husband, but I don’t think he’d want to hear them.”
“No, not very much, I’m afraid,” Sofia said. She finished her espresso and left soon after.
Riding back to her apartment in a taxicab, she felt pleased with herself. Luciano was no fool; he understood quite well that Sofia was making herself available as an agent inside the Maranzano camp.
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