Princes of the Lower East Side: A 1920s Mafia Thriller (A Scalisi Family Novel)

by Meredith Allison

  “No, I…” She trailed off and swirled her coffee. “That’s very wise. Thank you.”

  He nodded. After a moment, he added, “I thought you did a real nice job last night.”

  “Thanks.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “So how does the Iowa hick like the big city?”

  Something that was as close to a smile as she would ever get from him crossed his face. “The Iowa hick liked the big city very well, though it’s a trifle smelly here.”

  “I saw you being a gentleman with my cousin,” Mia added. “That was kind of you.”

  He cleared his throat and scratched his neck. “She seemed a little out of place, like me. Thought she could use the company.” He sipped his coffee and adopted a casual tone. “Nice girl.”

  “Pretty, too,” Mia said, narrowing her eyes slightly, but smiling.

  “That’s a fact,” he agreed. “Might I inquire as to how long she’ll be in town?”

  “Quite a while. Her brother wants her to find a husband while she’s here.”

  Will spluttered into his coffee.

  Mia grinned, then set her hand on his shoulder. “She’s twenty, Will. A woman grown. But she’s a country girl. She’s innocent. She needs someone to take care of her, not look at her like a good time.”

  “I don’t look at her like a good time,” he said quietly. “She’s…sweet.” His mouth curled up in a slight, sardonic smile. “I’ll forgive her on account of the fact she looks an awful lot like you.”

  Mia returned the smile with a snort and an elbow to his ribs. Then the sound of Charlie’s raised voice drew their attention toward the window. He paced, his shoulders tense.

  “…we still don’t know,” he was saying. “All that matters is we buy a little time to get them a replacement. I don’t fucking know, Morrie. That’s up to you. You made the contact.” He paused, staring out the window and shaking his head. “Look, just call them, all right? Run that slick mouth of yours and ask them for more time. It’s your ass, too.” He slammed the receiver onto the base’s hook. “Goddammit.”

  “Sounds like he was very willing to help us out,” Mia said.

  “Yeah,” Charlie muttered. “Willing. For him.”

  “So can he do it?” Will said, spreading his hands.

  “Says he’ll probably be able to, but he can’t guarantee nothin’ without talking to Canada.”

  “Will,” Mia said. “How soon can you get trucks on the road? From Iowa, straight to Canada.”

  “Today,” he replied. “But oughtn’t we wait for Morrie to confirm?”

  “You can always turn a truck around, or stop it in a place we distribute,” Mia said. “I want trucks on the road immediately. If Canada says they’ll give us a bit more time, I want them to have that booze no more than a day after they were supposed to. The rest of it, we’ll deal with.”

  “Fine.” Will gave a laconic shrug. “I’ll place a call. But who stole the first shipment?”

  “That’s what we’re working on,” Charlie said.

  A single, sharp knock sounded on the adjoining door, then Gloria said, “If you’re coming, we’re leaving.”

  Mia had been up and dressed since dawn. She glanced between the two men. “I have to go. You two are welcome to stay.”

  “We won’t stay long,” Charlie said. “Will and I got some work to do today, anyway.”

  “And you best not keep Gloria waiting when she sounds that het up,” Will added.

  Mia gave him a half smile. “You’re not leaving right away, are you?”

  “Bought a one-way ticket here,” he replied. “Didn’t know how long I should stay.”

  “Well, don’t hurry off.” Mia reached for her cloche and handbag. “I’ll see you later.”

  Paolo drove them to Most Precious Blood. Gloria was silent, and Raquel was uneasy at the tension between her and Mia, so Mia did what she could to put the girl at ease and rattled off nonsense stories from her childhood about Sundays. Soon, Raquel seemed to relax.

  Mia walked inside behind Gloria and Raquel and dunked her fingers in the small font of holy water mounted on the wall just inside the door, scanning the packed church for Joe, Connie, and Emilia.

  Gloria spotted them first, her face breaking into a wide smile. “Up there. I see them.”

  “Lead the way,” Mia said.

  They’d made it halfway up the aisle when Jake Morelli stepped into their path. “Ladies, Mia. Good morning. Happy Sunday.”

  He smiled innocently at them, giving Mia a long look before settling his gaze on Raquel. He put a hand over his heart. “Holy Christ, who’s this?”

  “My name is Raquel,” she said shyly.

  Her accent seemed to give her away. Jake bent over her hand and a stream of flowery compliments poured out of his mouth in Sicilian as he kissed her knuckles, his lips lingering a beat too long. His dark eyes cut to Mia, and she felt her face turning red with rage.

  Finally, she reached out and snatched Raquel’s hand away. “That’s enough.”

  “What, I can’t say good morning to…who is this? Your little sister?”

  “Cousin,” Raquel said with a smile. “I just arrived. From Sicily.”

  “Cousin,” Jake repeated. Before she could move, he grabbed Mia’s hand and tugged her close, then kissed her cheek in the same lingering manner he’d kissed Raquel’s hand. “Me and your ol’ cuz Mia here, we’re dear friends. Aren’t we, dollface?”

  “I wish that pin had been a knife,” she hissed in his ear.

  “Oh, come now,” he said loudly. “That ain’t real Christian of you.”

  She shook him off. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I told you last time. I go to church here. What, you think you own this place, too, dear?”

  She glared at him.

  “Maybe I’ll see you in the Communion line later, huh?” He flashed a charming smile at Gloria and Raquel, then gave Mia’s arm a friendly squeeze. “Mm,” he said in her ear. “You should have finished what you started last night, ’cause I ain’t letting up now.”

  If she could have, she would have shot him right there, church or no. Instead, to the shock and horror of her sister-in-law and cousin, and the awe of her niece, Mia spat at his feet.

  He chuckled in her ear. “Be seeing you, toots.”

  She couldn’t contain a low growl as he returned to the pew, adopting an earnest expression as he chatted with a couple of middle-aged people Mia recognized from the neighborhood but couldn’t identify. He caught her eye and winked.

  She turned on her heel and stalked up the aisle to catch up with her family, acutely aware of his stare on the back of her head the entire Mass.

  At the end of Mass, Aunt Connie went to chat with some of the women while the rest of them waited near the aisle. Mia checked the back of the church where Jake had been, but he seemed to have left. Good.

  An anguished cry came from the front of the church near the altar. Mia whipped her head in the direction of the sound. Aunt Connie had her arms around a younger-looking woman, who was supported on her other side by Father Alessio. A third woman stood off to the side, silently clutching her rosary, eyes shut as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “What on earth?” Gloria murmured, sliding an arm around Emilia’s shoulder.

  “Who’s that lady?” Raquel asked.

  “That’s Signora Cancio,” Mia said as she got a better view. She blinked. She hadn’t been as present at the shop since Friday as she would have liked, but Trudy had not called to give her any indication there had been a problem.

  “And that other woman is Signora Franco,” Gloria added.

  “Excuse me,” Mia said to her family before striding across the pews toward the front.

  Aunt Connie caught her eye as she approached, and hers were filled with aggrieved tears.

  Mia touched Signora Cancio’s shoulder. “What is it?”

  The woman turned and blinked, then collapsed into Mia’s arms. She stumbled back a few steps from the woman’s weigh
t, but held her steadfast. “Signora Cancio, what’s wrong?”

  “My boy,” she said in a voice choked with grief and devastation. It was practically guttural. “My boy. Figghio mio!”

  A knot of dread tightened in Mia’s stomach. The small boy from the alley, whom she’d rescued from bullies and given money to. She pictured his big, gentle, dark eyes that had been filled with terror and then with awe. He’d had such a sweet face. A tender face that had seen too much for his youth and been hurt by it. He’d been a child she’d instinctively wanted to protect. He reminded her of herself when she was a child.

  And something had happened to him. Something terrible.

  The idea of what that might be was too horrendous to utter aloud. Mia drew back and cupped the signora’s face in her hands, silently pleading with her to say it all and say nothing, at the same time.

  “They killed him,” the boy’s mother whimpered, clutching Mia’s wrists. “They killed my sweet boy. They cut him down in the streets like a dog. My little boy…”

  A tremor rattled Mia’s heart.

  “This is God’s will,” Father Alessio murmured helplessly. “You must seek strength through Him.”

  God’s will.

  Mia jerked her hands back as her grip tightened on Signora Cancio’s face.

  “What is becoming of our home?” Aunt Connie said, weeping with the signora. “Who would murder a child? Rape a young girl?”

  “Rape?” Mia whispered.

  Connie nodded to Signora Franco, on her knees clutching her rosary. “Two nights ago. Her daughter is eight. Brutalized in an alley. And now early this morning, Signora Cancio’s boy.”

  Mia’s hands shook at her sides. A strange sense of guilt made her head go light. Was this her fault? What could she have done to prevent this?

  They looked helpless, these mothers who’d had their precious children ripped from them and defiled. And they were helpless to do anything against the men who destroyed their lives. It wasn’t fair. They needed someone to stand up for them, to strike back at those who had struck them and send the message that it wouldn’t be tolerated.

  “Who will give me vengeance?” Signora Cancio cried in a broken voice.

  Vengeance…

  “I will.”

  The words were out of Mia’s mouth before she was aware she had spoken.

  The three women and Father Alessio slowly turned their gazes on her.

  “T-to seek vengeance is to sin,” the priest stuttered.

  She stared at him. Through him, past him. The church faded. She was in a dark room, staring down at Kiddo Grainger where he sat tied to a chair. She saw his bloody mouth, the look in his eyes that had gone from hope at being released to a horrifying realization when she’d given his death order and turned her back. She saw Vincenzo Fiore, his smug, self-satisfied expression, thinking he’d gotten over on her, thinking he’d won his life back. She saw the terror bloom in his dark eyes in the instant before she’d leveled Charlie’s pistol at his face and pulled the trigger, twice.

  And she saw Salvatore Bellomo as she confessed to him she’d planned his hit so he would spend his last few moments on earth understanding it was she who had killed him.

  All men she had killed, one way or another. All men she had sought vengeance against in the name of the brother they’d taken from her. They’d stolen her blood, so she’d claimed theirs in response. The weight of that blood was so heavy upon her shoulders, upon her conscience, that she hardly noticed it now.

  She had sinned. She would likely go to hell when her time was up. And for avenging her brother, she would go, her chin held high.

  And now these women, the simple, goodhearted people of the neighborhood she cared so much about, had suffered horrible losses. She felt their pain, down to the last atom of her being. She understood the devastation, the anguish, the agony.

  They could not avenge their losses. But she could do it for them, for the people she thought of as hers.

  Mia walked toward Father Alessio in slow, measured strides.

  His eyes widened. If her face even remotely reflected how she felt inside, she understood his alarm.

  “Then I will sin,” she said. “I will accept their blood on my hands, Father. And I will not seek forgiveness, because I am not sorry for what I will do.”

  Her voice carried through the church, which had gone silent when the sounds of Signora Cancio’s aggrieved cries caught the attention of those left inside.

  Mia turned, catching the remnants of the congregation watching her closely, as though she were a wild animal outside its natural habitat. Only a few dozen people remained, but she scanned each of their faces. In them was a kinship that went deeper than sharing the same small neighborhood in the Lower East Side. It was ancient, a bond born in blood from the dawn of time, shared with men gone for centuries, awakened with the death of her brother.

  “I will take vengeance on those who have wronged these women,” she said to them in Sicilian, her voice rising to the rafters, maybe to heaven itself. “I will take vengeance on anyone who wrongs any of you. Anyone who helps me find the people responsible for these crimes will become my trusted friends. I offer my protection, my loyalty, my friendship to all of you today, as I have offered it to Signora Cancio, as I offer it to Signora Franco.” She paused, making eye contact with each person who remained inside the church. “But this offer goes both ways. Anyone who protects the men responsible will become my enemies. I swear that to you.”

  She let her words linger in the air as she glanced from face to face again. She wondered if anyone would laugh at her, but no one dared utter a word, not even Father Alessio.

  The silence stretched on before it became unbearable. Without another word to anyone or a backwards glance, Mia walked down the aisle toward the double doors, shoved them open, and went outside.

  She just needed to walk. She didn’t know where she was going, but she picked a direction and went that way.

  Her heart was sick and sore at what she’d just learned. She felt lost. On the unlikely chance she hadn’t already, she was sure she had become God’s enemy today by declaring vengeance by bloodshed, by murder, in His house. What had come over her to say such things?

  Mia clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. The force of her emotions was so strong that if she stopped moving, she feared she would collapse on the sidewalk. Fury. Sadness. Hopelessness. Helplessness.

  Someone wanted to make her look foolish. Someone wanted to cut her off at the knees. Someone wanted to torment her by tormenting the people she cared about.

  What had Jake said to her that morning?

  You should have finished what you started last night, ’cause I ain’t letting up now.

  Her instincts told her he was behind what had been happening—the shooting, the hijacking, and somehow the murder of Signora Cancio’s son and the rape of Signora Franco’s girl. But she had no proof. She had staunchly refused to move on him without proof, because no matter what she had done in the past, no matter how much she loved her brother, she did not want to be a coldblooded murderer as he had become.

  But when would enough be enough?

  Spring was warming up in New York, tinging the air with a touch of humidity to temper the chill that stubbornly clung to the breeze. Ahead was a small café owned by Signor and Signora Bagnoli, whom she’d met at the reception following Signor Bruno’s daughter’s funeral. The baker had told her of his troubles, how he’d recently fallen on hard times and had been unable to repair the front windows broken out by a vandal. Mia had given him the money to repair the glass and the damage to the hand-painted sign the following day when he’d visited her at the grocery. Seeing the new, shining windows and the fresh, gleaming paint brought a faint smile to her face. She ducked inside.

  Almost instantly, Signor Bagnoli spotted her. “Signorina Scalisi!” he said warmly. “I was hoping to see you today. Ah, my wife and I could not make it to Mass this morning.”

  “The windo
w looks very nice,” she said.

  He bowed, shaking her hand vigorously. “If it weren’t for you, we would still be struggling.”

  “I am always here to help you, Signor Bagnoli.”

  “Have you come for a cup of coffee?” He gestured to a small table near the back of the café. It was mostly empty, since most of the neighborhood had been at Mass. “Please, rest your feet. I will bring you refreshment.”

  She knew better than to argue, and let him lead her to the small table. Besides, it would be nice to hide out here for a moment. She was sure Paolo was furious with her for walking away like this, and he was likely prowling the streets looking for her right now. It was interesting how a man who could not speak could still scold her like a child with just one reproachful glare.

  Signor Bagnoli brought her a cup of strong coffee and a plate of freshly baked biscotti.

  “It looks wonderful. How much do I owe you?”

  He shook his head. “You have already given me so much. Please, accept this with my gratitude. Is there anything else you desire? A cake to share with your family, perhaps, or some cookies for your niece?”

  “I won’t let you give anything else away.” She placed a hand over his. “You’ve shown me so much kindness as it is.”

  A twinkle came into his eyes. “Well, perhaps I can ask one more favor.”

  “Anything, Signor Bagnoli.”

  “My daughter’s wedding is next weekend. On Saturday. We would be honored if you attended.”

  Mia smiled, genuine, warm pleasure blooming inside her heart. “The honor would be mine.”

  “Please bring your family. We will have more food than people to eat it, with the way the women have been carrying on, and I’m baking her wedding cake myself. So many honored guests,” he added proudly. “Including Don Masseria. We’d love to have you among us, too.”

  “Yes, of course we’ll be there,” Mia said. “Thank you. The groom, is he from New York?”

  “He’s a fine lad,” the baker said with a nod. “His family hails from Palermo, but he was born here. A real American boy.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  He left her in peace with the day’s newspaper and retired to the back, where the smell of baking bread wafted out in thick, pleasant waves. It made her hungry, as she never ate before Mass. Not because she wasn’t supposed to—she hadn’t been taking Communion, so it didn’t matter—but because Aunt Connie always cooked a small feast on Sundays. She’d learned after her first Sunday home not to eat all day in preparation.