Bloodline: A Novel

by Warren Murphy

  With unalloyed delight, Tony took a squad of detectives to Luciano’s hotel.

  Tony walked up to the tony-hotel clerk.

  “I want the key to Thirty-nine-C,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. That’s Mr. Ross’s suite. You’ll have to be announced.”

  Tony drew out his badge. “His name’s Luciano, not Ross, and he’s a goddamn killer, and this is all the announcement I need,” he said. “Now give me the key or you’re going to jail, too.”

  The nervous clerk withdrew a key from a locked box under the desk. Tony waved to one of his men.

  “Keep an eye on this guy. Make sure he doesn’t make any phone calls.”

  Half a dozen of them got into the elevator and told the uniformed operator to take them to the thirty-ninth floor. When he saw the looks on their faces, the operator said, “Look, I’ve got to go to the bathroom. Just pull this lever. The light tells you when you reach thirty-nine.” Without waiting for a response, the operator fled. Tony sent another of the cops after him, again to insure Luciano got no sudden phone calls.

  On the thirty-ninth floor, two Luciano guards were sitting on hard-back chairs in front of the elevator. The police disarmed them before they could react. With three men behind him, Tony quietly unlocked the door to Suite 39-C.

  It was quiet inside, although the living room was still brightly lit.

  Tony led the men across the thick plush carpets to a side door. From inside they heard sounds.

  Quietly, Tony pushed open the door and saw Luciano in bed with a seedy-looking tart, who later gave her name as Nancy Presser. Holding his revolver out in front of him, covering Luciano, he strode inside the bedroom.

  When he saw the men come through the door, Luciano sat bolt upright in bed and his hand reached for the drawer of an end table. Then he recognized Tony Falcone. He let his hand drop away from the end table.

  “Hell of a time to come visiting,” Luciano said.

  “It’s not a visit. You’re under arrest.”

  “Any special reason or just the same old horseshit from you?” Luciano asked.

  “For murdering Red Cassidy and Simon Walker.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Tell it to the judge,” Tony said. “Get up and get dressed.”

  Luciano, naked and slim, slid out of bed and walked without apparent embarrassment toward a closet.

  “You’ve gone too far this time, Falcone,” he said. “I’m not going to play games with you anymore.”

  “You’re lucky I’m feeling generous,” Tony said. “Some cops might regard that as a threat and charge you with that, too. But I’ll settle for just suspicion of two murders.”

  “You’ll settle for nothing,” Luciano snapped, even as he was drawing on a pair of trousers. “I’ll be out before you even finish writing up your report.”

  Luciano was as good as his word. A lawyer was waiting for him when Tony brought him to headquarters, and within minutes a judge had been found who freed Luciano on his own recognizance, before he even had to give the police a statement.

  As he left the police headquarters, he passed Tony. “You’ll pay,” he said. “You’ll pay.”

  Legs Diamond and Charles Entratta seemed to have vanished, and Tony got warrants issued for their arrest, based on the statements of the eight witnesses.

  Tony felt strong this time. Even a corrupt legal establishment would have trouble dropping murder charges, especially when there were eight witnesses. Maybe, at last, Luciano was going down.

  Then the first witness in the speakeasy killings, the bartender at the Hotsy Totsy Club, was shot to death. The three customers who had given the police statements were also killed over a period of one month. But none of the reports on their killings had linked them to the Hotsy Totsy murders, and by the time Tony stumbled across the reports on their deaths, a week had gone by.

  He instantly sent police out to protect the four remaining witnesses, who included the club’s hatcheck girl—the one who had identified Charlie Luciano in the melee.

  All four witnesses had vanished.

  A week later, Legs Diamond and Charles Entratta returned to town with a story that they had been on vacation out west. Tony had them arrested immediately. The case went to a grand jury three days later, but since all eight witnesses against Luciano and the two other men had died or disappeared, the charges were dropped.

  Tony took the news like a personal defeat. That evening, Tommy found him in the family apartment, sitting at the kitchen table, a gallon jug of wine on the table in front of him.

  “What are you going to do?” Tommy had asked.

  Tony reached into his jacket pocket for the paper he had been carrying for more than six months.

  “My retirement papers. I’m filing them tomorrow.”

  “Do you really want to do that?” Tommy asked.

  Tony poured them both glasses of wine from a gallon jug. “You got any suggestions?”

  “Papa, with this Flying Squad, you’re giving the mob fits. If you leave, who’ll take your place?”

  “What difference would it make? None of them go to jail anyway.”

  “No chance at all if you quit,” Tommy said. “Papa, you told me once that what you did was important. I believed that. I still do. I think you should stay and fight them. Someday, Luciano, all of them, you’ll get them all.”

  “Don’t hold your breath waiting,” Tony said disconsolately. “It’s not just the courts, Tommy. I hear rumblings around. I think city hall might come after me.”

  “How could they do that?”

  “The police commissioner’s in the mob’s pocket. If they want to hang me, they can. They’ll hit me for not protecting those eight witnesses. Or it’ll be because I spent too much money on pencils. Back when I was running that carnival, I met with Masseria and Maranzano’s guys. I’m related to Nilo. By the time they’re done smearing me, I’ll look like the head of the Mafia. My pension’ll be gone. I’ll be lucky I don’t wind up in jail.”

  Tommy did not answer and Tony took his silence for disagreement. “Don’t tell me what I shouldn’t do unless you can tell me what I should do,” he snapped.

  “You always told me to do what you think is right,” Tommy said. “Not what you think is easy.” He finished his wine, then stood. “I’ve got to get home. I’ve got a pregnant wife.”

  Stung by his son’s attitude, Tony did not file his retirement papers the next day. But his longtime former partner, Tim O’Shaughnessy, did. He was leaving the force at the end of the week, and Anna had insisted that Tony invite O’Shaughnessy to a home-cooked farewell dinner.

  “Ten years you worked with that big galoot,” Anna said. “Least we can do is feed him.”

  Tommy had brought Rachel, and Mario had shown up for dinner, too, while Tina had telephoned her regrets that she was working at the club and could not attend. Kinnair, the Daily News reporter who was O’Shaughnessy’s nephew, had shown up also, and even though Tony was uncomfortable around reporters, as the homemade wine flowed and Caruso records bellowed from the old phonograph everybody wound up having a good time. Tommy found himself sitting with O’Shaughnessy on the windowsill, while everybody else was out in the kitchen gabbing with Rachel about her pregnancy.

  “I’m surprised you retired so young,” Tommy said.

  “To be a cop today, you got to be crooked or get your ass kicked,” the big Irishman said, slurping noisily from a water glass filled with red wine. “As you very well know. Neither of those appealed much to me. So how’s it with you? Tony worries that you don’t seem ever to want to go to work.”

  “I’m just doing a little union work with my father-in-law,” Tommy said. Abruptly, he thought that O’Shaughnessy, who had all kinds of contacts around the town, might have heard something, so he told him about the slowdown in union recruitment.

  O’Shaughnessy was no real help and did not, in fact, even seem interested. He nodded and grunted a lot while Tommy talked, but when Tommy mentioned the
union organizer Harry Birchevsky O’Shaughnessy’s eyebrows lifted.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Harry. Harry Birchevsky.”

  “Tommy, you didn’t hear it from me, okay?”

  Tommy nodded.

  “When Nilo was in Dannemora, he was very close with Harry Birchevsky.”

  Tommy stared at the big cop, unable to keep the surprise from his face.

  “I had a friend up there who let me know what was going on. I wanted to know in case any of it concerned your father,” O’Shaughnessy said. “I remember this Birchevsky’s name. Course, I don’t know if it’s the same man.”

  “Lev never told me about it. I don’t know if he knows.”

  O’Shaughnessy laughed his musical Irish laugh and leaned closer to Tommy, glancing toward the kitchen before he spoke.

  “You might try to find out. From what I heard, they were more than just friends. If you get my drift.”

  Tommy had nodded slowly. Birchevsky and Nilo, working together. He had wanted to talk more, but Kinnair wandered into the living room holding a glass of wine and looking more than a little drunk. He shook his head.

  “You’re quitting, Uncle Tim, and you, Tommy, you left the force too soon. Tony’s going to have all this Flying Squad fun by himself.”

  “It’s never fun,” Tommy said.

  • All through September, the stock market drifted downward. From its high of 381 at the beginning of the month, the Dow Jones average fell to 370 … 360 … 330. By month’s end, the market had lost 15 percent of its value.

  * * *

  SOFIA WAS WATCHING carefully, sure that even worse lay ahead. She pointed it out one morning to Nilo, but he was more interested in modeling for her the bulletproof vest he had just acquired. Safety had become a big interest for Nilo recently. He always was armed before going out and rarely ventured outside the apartment door unless his bodyguard was waiting for him. He never showed any concern, however, for Sofia, but she knew it was because of the unwritten Mafia rule that wives and children of enemies were not fair targets.

  He made her feel the thickness of the bulky vest. “Three guys killed this month. The next one isn’t going to be me,” he said.

  “Maybe if you stayed home … off the streets … spent some time with—”

  Nilo pulled away. “Now don’t you start.”

  “But—”

  “But, my ass,” he snapped. “Don’t go giving me any of that wifey crap. I just don’t want to hear it.”

  “Nilo, you’re my husband. I—”

  “Don’t say ‘love,’” Nilo snapped. “Don’t even think about saying it. What you and I got is kids. It’s business, nothing else.”

  He walked angrily away into his bedroom. A few minutes later, he came out, fully dressed, ready to leave.

  “It’s Tina, isn’t it?”

  “You haven’t heard a goddamn word I said, have you?” Nilo said, disgust coating his words. “Sure, it’s Tina. We screw every night when she comes to work. And most nights when she’s finished work, I hump her again. She says she likes playing with me even better than playing with you.” He reached across the table and touched her face gently.

  “Happy now?” Nilo said with savage courtesy, then walked from the apartment.

  Sofia sat at the table for a long time, looking at the door through which Nilo had gone. Then she looked down again at the morning paper, trying to follow the stock market reports, but she could not concentrate. She lowered her face to her hands, cupping them over her tired eyes. An old phrase sounded in her mind, over and over again.…

  Rats got no complaint … rats got no complaint … rats got no complaint.…

  She realized she must have dozed off, because she was startled by the knock on the door. She stood against the wall next to the door and called out, “Who’s there?”

  “Salvatore Maranzano,” answered the familiar voice.

  Before opening the door, Sofia checked through the peephole to make sure it was indeed the don, then let him inside.

  He quickly made himself at home and sat with Sofia in the kitchen, drinking coffee.

  “Where are your beautiful children?”

  “The nurse has them out in the park,” Sofia said. “One of your men is with them.”

  “And they are well?”

  “Yes, Don Salvatore. They’re well; we all are.”

  “I noticed you were very careful at the front door,” he said.

  “I always am.”

  “It is wise. There are rules, but there are always galoots who do not understand or abide by the rules. And I fear it will only get worse.”

  He stirred three spoons of sugar into the coffee and sipped it black before going on. “So I think you ought to take your children and go on vacation for a while.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. You and the children will be safer out of town. I fear things around New York are going to be dangerous for a while. Nilo will be very busy. I do not want him to be worried about his family.”

  Sofia bit back her impulse to laugh, to point out that Nilo cared nothing about her and not much more about his children. She simply nodded.

  “Where would I go?”

  Maranzano shrugged. “Go anywhere you wish. Someplace maybe you have always dreamed of visiting. Take your nurse with you. You have been working very hard; it is time to see some reward for all that effort.”

  He took another sip of his coffee and stood. “Make plans quickly,” he said. “If you need cash or help, please…”

  “Thank you, Don Salvatore. I can manage.”

  He looked at her appraisingly. “Nilo has been very blessed. He has a wife not only beautiful, but intelligent and talented. Sometimes I don’t think he knows how lucky he is.”

  Sofia blushed and walked with the don to the apartment door. After he left, Sofia walked to the front window and looked across the street toward the park. She could see her two boys with their nurse and the squat man in a dark suit, who sat on a nearby bench, watching them carefully.

  It would be nice, she thought, to get the boys out of New York City for a while. Especially with the violence ready to escalate. Maranzano, she knew, would not have brought up the subject unless it was certain to happen.

  Not for a moment did she worry about whether or not her husband would be killed. He seemed to invite occasions of violence, and there was nothing she could do about it; if he was going to be killed, it would happen, and her staying in New York City would not change that outcome at all.

  Let him get shot and let his whore, Tina, mourn for him. My sons and I will be away.

  The more she thought about it, the more pleasant the idea of a vacation sounded. In her whole life, she had gone on vacation only twice—both times, as a child, when she went to visit relatives on Long Island and found they lived in the same depressing conditions that she had left behind in the city. This would be a real vacation, with money in her purse, and hotels and restaurants, and it all made her a little giddy and more than a little nervous.

  She might have to buy luggage, she thought. She went into the bedroom, where she was pretty sure that Nilo had stashed an old suitcase on one of the top shelves. She decided if it was too worn or threadbare, she would buy new luggage.

  As she pulled the tan canvas satchel down from the shelf, a paper bag that was behind it fell, too, and spilled some of its contents onto the floor. She bent over to pick them up and then saw they were photos.

  She picked up the bag to replace the pictures. Inside, she could feel a large roll of film. Then she looked at the pictures that had spilled out.

  They were of Tina having sex with a tall blond man. She sat down heavily on the floor and sighed in confusion, then looked through the pictures. Not just the blond man. There was Tina having sex with other men.

  She looked at Tina’s face, trying to read its expression, but it was blank; her eyes were closed.

  When were these pictures taken? And what is Nilo doing with them?r />
  She looked through the pictures again. There were more than two dozen of them. But Nilo was not in any of them.

  Would it be any surprise if he were? First Charlie. Then Nilo. Men cannot resist women who will do anything.

  She put the pictures back into the paper bag and replaced it on the shelf. She also replaced the suitcase the way it had been.

  Sofia closed the closet door.

  “Slut,” she said.

  • In the first ten days of October, the stock market rallied. Then the panic began. U.S. Steel dropped 7 percent in one day and then closed down twenty-two dollars for the week. General Electric collapsed at almost thirty-four dollars a share.

  * * *

  TOMMY HAD STARTED tailing Birchevsky at odd times and places. And late at night, letting himself into the closed union offices with a key he got from Mishkin, he studied Birchevsky’s appointments and outgoing and incoming phone calls. Gradually, the pattern had begun to emerge. More than once, he had met with Nilo in the offices of the speakeasy run by Tina. Most of the people he talked to were truck drivers who moved the clothing in and out of the factories.

  It took a little while for the implications of that to sink in, and then it was obvious. There were fewer than a hundred drivers moving goods from one place to another, and without them, the garment industry would close down. Lepke had gotten a lot of power in the industry by taking over the cutters’ union, but Maranzano—and Nilo—were trying to trump him by capturing the drivers.

  Control the drivers and you control the industry. And Nilo figured it out, and that traitorous son of a bitch, Birchevsky, is helping him do it.

  Tommy started hanging around in the neighborhood joints frequented by truck drivers. Eventually, he learned that Nilo was trying to take the truck drivers out of the garment makers’ union and start a separate union for them. When he had done that, it would be a simple step to back-organize and take actual garment workers away from Lev’s union.

  We’re headed for bloodshed, Tommy thought. If Nilo gets the drivers for Maranzano while Masseria’s man already has the cutters, they’ll be machine-gunning each other in the streets. Whoever wins, it won’t be the union members and it won’t be Lev.