Casino Moon

by Peter Blauner

  “I’ll get it all back to you with interest,” I told Teddy. “Just be patient.”

  “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” His eyes tightened. “Watch my favorite niece and her children starve because you can’t provide for them?”

  “Hey, Teddy, I’m doing my best. I just haven’t gotten the right break yet.”

  It was like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

  “The right break?!” His lip curled. “My own son, rest his soul, should’ve got the same breaks as you.”

  His son Charlie hanged himself when we were in school together. He’d been a friend of mine. Skinny intense kid, who always listened to the rock group Kiss. Instead of saying “hello,” he’d say, “Love Gun!” I used to smoke pot with him under the Boardwalk. He couldn’t stand being part of his father’s life either. Every day he’d get teased by other kids at school: “Okay, Mr. Mafia’s son, let’s see how tough you really are.” And every day they’d kick the shit out of him. He didn’t have someone like Vin to protect him around the schoolyard. So he’d run home and have Ted ride him for being a weakling. As long as Charlie lived, his father’s enemies would be his enemies. He killed himself at the beginning of eleventh grade.

  I took his suicide as an object lesson of what would happen to me if I didn’t get out one day. And judging from the look Teddy was giving me, I should’ve already been buried on the mainland.

  “Charlie had problems,” I said, maybe a little too offhandedly. “He was, you know, like clinically depressed.”

  Teddy looked at me like I’d just tried to bite his nose off. “Clin-ically de-pressed? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m just saying he had problems. He hanged himself.”

  Teddy began stroking that spot below his stomach faster. “So what’re you saying, it’s my fault he’s dead?”

  “No, Ted, I’m just saying he was depressed. You know, he was always talking about ‘Love Gun.’”

  I heard Richie trying to say the word “clinical” in the background while Tommy Sick giggled and muttered, “That’s sick.”

  “You little motherfucker, I’ll give you something to be depressed about.” Teddy stood up abruptly and reached into his pants.

  You would’ve thought we were in the middle of a rodeo with the way all the other guys jumped up, trying to calm him down: “Whooa Ted! Down Ted! Chill Teddy!”

  But Teddy was like the bull about to charge. “This little prick’s saying it’s my fault Charlie’s dead!”

  He pushed them all away, snorting hard through his nose and staring me down with those beady red eyes. This was the way things started with them. You’d say you didn’t like the color of their car and wind up locked in the trunk.

  My father reached up and put a hand on Teddy’s shoulder. “Hey, Ted, take it easy. Anthony didn’t mean nothing.”

  But then Ted turned that same dead-eyed glare on my father. “You just watch it, Vin. You could die too.”

  I started thinking maybe I’d try talking Vin into retiring to Florida if I managed to get out of this place alive.

  “Hey, Ted,” my father repeated. “Sit down. We’re not done eating.”

  “... trying to blame me for putting a rope around my boy’s neck,” mumbled Teddy, his lips turning white.

  “Teddy?” My father cleared his throat. “Why don’t you just back off a little? Ha? Anthony did right by you the other night, didn’t he?”

  Teddy grunted.

  “So maybe you oughta cut him a break. Right?”

  I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but it stopped Teddy in his tracks. He dropped the fork and slowly sat down. The other guys at the table lowered their eyes and exhaled in relief.

  “Remember,” said my father, still keeping a hand on Ted’s shoulder. “Anthony’s had a lot of frustrations too. Like we talked about the other night. Maybe he thinks he’s owed something.”

  I still didn’t know what he was talking about, but Teddy’s mood was cooling by the minute. He took an enormous slab of meat off my father’s plate, and comforted himself by chewing on it. As his face began to soften, I knew I’d probably live through dessert.

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Teddy grudgingly.

  “You wanna tell him something about that?” said my father, holding Teddy’s gaze the way a lover would. “What we talked about?”

  Teddy wiped his mouth and looked over at me. “Thank you, Anthony,” he said, like a little kid who’d just been scolded for his bad manners.

  I was going to ask for what, but my father cut me off.

  “What about the other thing?” he prodded Teddy. “The thing you were going to see about.”

  Teddy just looked at him, not prepared to give any more ground. “I can’t do it, Vin. I’m sorry.”

  I realized there was a whole level of the conversation I was missing. Some of the old-timers at the other end of the table were getting it, though. They were whispering to each other and pointing at me.

  “Look, Anthony,” said Teddy, his mood shifting for about the third time in five minutes. “I know you been under a lot of pressure. We all been under a lot of pressure. I hear from your father that things haven’t been going exactly the way you might’ve planned with getting made and all. But I just want you to understand we appreciate everything you already done for us.”

  I must have given him a blank look. I hadn’t done anything for Teddy lately. But he coughed and went on.

  “Larry and his son were becoming pains in the ass to all of us,” he said. “Thanks for helping us send a message.”

  All of a sudden, everything was clear. When I saw my father folding and unfolding the napkin on his lap, I knew he’d told Teddy that I’d whacked Larry. And here was Teddy saying it out loud in front of a dozen potential witnesses. My mouth went dry.

  I saw my father and Richie exchange a look down the length of the table and understood instantly they’d made a deal not to talk about what really happened.

  “Now normally,” Teddy said, smearing some butter on his garlic bread, “that would be enough to get you made. But tradition is tradition. If you ain’t got the blood of Sicilians running through you, I can’t make you.”

  My father’s mouth twisted. “Hey, Teddy, we can bend the rules a little. Can’t we? It’s not etched in stone.”

  “I’m sorry, Vin,” Teddy said. “I already considered it. I know it’s hard and I know it’s unfair. But somebody’s gotta uphold the old ways.”

  That was maybe the biggest joke of all. Teddy upholding the old ways. The only reason he ever got to be a boss was because he happened to be living in exile in Atlantic City when the referendum on casino gambling passed. And by then, he’d been out of the Mafia mainstream for so long he actually had to call somebody up and ask them how to perform the induction ceremony.

  “So again, Anthony, I must apologize,” he said. “I can’t change what’s come before. It’s tradition that makes us stronger. If we lose that, we lose everything.”

  Actually what made Teddy strong was being willing to stab his friends in the back when they had something he wanted. My father passed a palm over his plate, signaling to me that he’d work things out later.

  “It’s all right, Teddy,” I said. “I understand.”

  “So that’s why you should do the right thing and listen to your father,” he said, taking half my father’s veal off his plate. “You may never get the button, but you can make a few dollars doing this casino thing he was talking about. Be smart is all I’m telling you. Take your breaks where they come. The rest is up to you.”

  “Yeah, I’ll think about that, Teddy.”

  He reached over my father and pinched my cheek so hard I almost yelped. “You know what I figured out?” he asked in a fake-affectionate voice. “I figured we’ve been too lenient with you and it hasn’t been doing you any favors. We been spoiling you. So maybe it’d be better if we put you on a schedule. Say if you don’t pay me the full sixty you owe in six months,
you come work for me full-time.”

  Which meant I’d have all the risks and none of the protection of a made guy. My butt cheeks slammed tight as a cell door. Made guys looked out for each other. But unmade guys, like I would be, had all the exposure. They wound up in prison or dead by the side of a service road with twenty-dollar bills stuffed in their ass. Not me. Now I had twice as much pressure to pull this boxing business off in six months.

  I stood up and asked to be excused.

  “Here’s looking at you, kid,” Teddy said, cramming the veal into one side of his mouth.

  I bowed to the other guys at the table and asked my father if I could talk to him a minute out by where the cars were parked.

  It was a cool night and all the stars were out. I could see Ursa Minor hanging over the red-brick housing projectacross the street. My car was parked by the curb right in front of the restaurant’s door. In the old days you could just leave it there, because even in a bad neighborhood like this, people understood the meaning of respect. Especially for guys who ate at Andolini’s. But now any little hood from the projects thought he could just slash your tires with impunity. So the owner had a guy sitting out front in a lawn chair, making sure nothing happened.

  “So you told him I pushed a button on Larry,” I said. “That’s terrific. I’m just overflowing with gratitude.”

  “I didn’t say nothing about it. I just told him you were man enough to do the right thing.”

  “Why’d you go and do that?”

  “I wanted him to show you some respect. Or at least set it up so you could handle the envelope.”

  “And now I got six months to pay him off. Very nice.”

  Across the street, I could hear the sound of children’s laughter echoing through the housing project. But all I saw were clotheslines full of sheets and shabby shirts strung up between the little red buildings. It was kind of eerie, like hearing the ghost of a good time.

  I thought of the dead-eyed look I’d seen Teddy give my father inside.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said suddenly. “What happened to Mike?”

  I don’t know why I thought to ask about my real father right then. The question just popped out of me. Maybe because I’d been thinking lately about how my life could’ve been different if he’d stayed alive.

  Vin looked like I’d just dropped a safe on his head. “Why the fuck you asking about that now? We been over it a million times.”

  And the answer I got from him was always the same. “I don’t know.” “He must’ve made a mistake.” “It’s better not to think about it.” But I wondered. Especially after seeing that look on Teddy tonight. I wondered if somebody gave my real father a look like that before he disappeared.

  “Why you gotta bring that up again?” asked Vin. “Ain’t I been a good father to you?”

  “Yeah, of course, but that’s not the point...”

  “Haven’t I always provided for you? Given you everything you ever wanted?”

  I could see he was hurt that I’d even thought to question that. He had been a good father, in spite of his obvious shortcomings. Vin wasn’t cut out to be a family man. He was put on this earth to scam and squeeze to muscle and murder. If he’d run a car dealership, he would’ve had me working out on the lot. But the mob was the only world he knew, and borrowing money from Teddy was the only way he could think of to help. So I cut him a lot of slack. Maybe too much, as it turned out.

  Above the jagged rooflines across the street, I could see light green laser beams shooting out of one of the casinos on the Boardwalk and crisscrossing the sky like marionette strings.

  “I don’t know what happened to Mike,” he sighed. “It could be he had a problem with the old man in Philly. Maybe one day you’ll find out and tell me. He was my best friend in the world besides Teddy.”

  For the first time, it occurred to me that he might be lying to protect someone.

  “Listen,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry if you were upset about what happened in there. Teddy and me, we’ve been getting all stressed lately.”

  “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have told him that I was the one who whacked Larry.”

  “I know, I know.” He ran the comb through his wild hair again, but it had no effect. “I’m just trying to get you the button, that’s all.”

  “But I don’t want that,” I said vehemently. “I want you to go back in there and straighten it out. Tell him what really happened.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” But I could see he was thinking about something else. His hair was still standing up higher than usual.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “Don’t help me with the button anymore. I’ll help myself.”

  “One day you’ll appreciate what I done for you,” he told me wistfully.

  “Yeah, right.” I gave him a hug just to let him know everything was okay between us. “So next year on my birthday, don’t get me anything, all right? The kind of presents you give, I’ll end up doing eight-to-twenty-five in a state prison.”

  8

  “WHEN I FIRST come out here, there was nothing,” Teddy was saying the next day. “We had to build it up. The Boardwalk was so empty, you could’ve fired a cannonball and not hit anybody.”

  “Yeah, I heard that,” said Jackie, the new mob boss visiting from New York.

  “It was right after the Democratic Convention in ’64,” Teddy went on. “When all the press said Atlantic City was a shithole. ‘The glory days are over.’ You know. Because people weren’t coming down to the shore anymore. But I tell you, it only really got bad after the stories in the media. Right? Correct me, Vin. Anytime anything goes wrong you’ll either find a lawyer or a newsman behind it.”

  They were sitting in Teddy’s backyard at the Florida Avenue house. A gentle breeze rustled the rose garden by the twelve-foot-high brick wall. Teddy and Vin were sitting on one side of a brown picnic table under a large white umbrella. Jackie “J.J.” Pugnitore and his underboss Sal Matera were on the other side. A platter full of cold cuts sat between them. Jackie still had not touched any food. He was forty-nine years old and wore a beige linen suit with a bright red shirt and a black handkerchief in his breast pocket. His nostrils were as wide and dark as his eyes. He’d first made his name as a street fighter in the Bronx, beating up blacks for being in the wrong neighborhood. He would’ve been disturbed to know that his ancestors in Sicily were referred to as “those Africans” by their neighbors on the Italian mainland.

  His underboss Sal had slicked-back hair and a closed-off face. His designer polo shirt was a size too small, to emphasize the roundness of his pectorals and the broadness of his shoulders.

  “Eat something,” Vin urged the guests.

  “In a minute.” Jackie touched his heart.

  “Anyway that’s what Vin and I inherited when we came out here,” Teddy continued, enjoying the sunny day and the attention of his visitors. “A pile of shit. We had to lay the foundations. Us and a guy named Mike Dillon.”

  Vin flinched a little when Teddy said the name.

  “In fact,” Teddy went on, “I got sent out here as punishment by the old man in Philadelphia. Vin and I beat up a shine liquor salesman who wouldn’t give up his parking space on Rosemount Avenue.”

  “There was a Mercury behind it we wanted to steal,” Vin explained, rolling up the sleeve of his blue-and-white running suit so he wouldn’t get oil stains on it.

  “It wasn’t our fault the guy dropped dead four days later in the hospital.” Teddy took two slices of salami off the platter and put them in his mouth. “Poor Vin got charged with manslaughter and did a five-year stretch in Graterford for the both of us.”

  Teddy laid a heavy, appreciative hand on Vin’s shoulder. “He never once opened his mouth either,” he said. “He did his time like a man. Not like these rat kids, running around now. Can’t wait to find a federal agent to snitch to.”

  Jackie seemed interested in something Teddy said before, though. “You were in Graterford, Vin?” he
asked, one eyebrow arching up toward his perfectly coiffed gray-black hair.

  “Five years.” Vin took two slices of rye bread and made Teddy a sandwich.

  “You know Billy Nose while you were in there?” Jackie asked.

  They were all quiet. Billy Nose had been boss of the biggest crew in New York. Jackie had had him killed two months before in a power struggle.

  “Yeah.” Vin put mayo on the sandwich. “I think he was doing a stretch for driving somebody else’s Rambler on the Turnpike with thirty G’s in the back.”

  Jackie gave his underboss a sidelong glance and then turned back to Vin. “And how’d he do his time?”

  “How’d he do his time?” Vin handed over the sandwich. “The worst I ever seen.”

  “Really?” Jackie seemed pleased.

  “I’m telling you.” Vin scratched his nuts. “He was always running to me whenever he had a problem. Always crying, always. He said, ‘Vin, when I’m with you, I’m so comfortable, it’s like I’m sucking on my own mother’s tit.’”

  Both of Jackie’s eyebrows shot up. “He said that? Those were his words?” His mouth twisted in disgust.

  “You show me someone who can prove he didn’t, I’ll let you fuck me in the ass,” Vin said.

  Everyone smiled. Teddy’s wife, Camille, came out of the house with a tray full of glasses. She moved slowly, as though permanently stunned, and wore a dark pair of Ray-Ban shades. She put the tray down with trembling, bony hands and returned to the house without looking at any of the men.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Marino,” Jackie called after her.

  Teddy poured each of the four of them a glass of Remy Martin and proposed a toast. “Here’s lookin’ at you, Jackie,” he said. “No one deserved to be boss more.”

  They raised their glasses and clinked them together. Teddy and Vin downed about half their drinks. Jackie and Sal barely sipped theirs.

  “Tell you the truth, I’m glad Billy Nose is dead.” Vin turned sideways and looked out toward the rose garden.

  “I heard he was an old scumbag,” Teddy added, biting into his sandwich.