by Mario Puzo
“Yeah.” Sonny took his cap off, pressed his hair flat, and then struggled to get the cap over it and in place. “They cost us a lot of dough.”
“Worth it,” Vinnie said.
“Hey, you drove right past the alley!” Sonny had been looking into the backseat. He spun around and shoved Cork.
“Where?” Cork said. “And quit shoving, ya fuckin’ jelly bean.”
“Before the laundry,” Sonny said. He pointed to the plate-glass window of Chick’s Laundry. “What are you, blind?”
“Blind, your ass,” Cork said. “I was preoccupied.”
“Stugots…” Sonny shoved Cork again, making him laugh.
Cork put the Nash in reverse and backed it into the alley. He cut the engine and turned off the lights.
Angelo said, “Where are they?” just as a crooked alley door popped opened and Nico Angelopoulos stepped onto the littered pavement, between lines of overstuffed garbage pails, followed by Stevie Dwyer. Nico was a full inch shorter than Sonny, but still taller than the rest. He was thin, with a track runner’s wiry body. Stevie was short and bulky. They were both lugging black duffel bags with canvas straps slung over their shoulders. From the way the boys were moving, the bags looked heavy.
Nico squeezed into the front seat beween Cork and Sonny. “Wait till you see these things.”
Stevie had put his bag down on the floorboards and was in the process of opening it. “We’d better pray these tommy guns aren’t a heap of garbage.”
“A heap of garbage?” Cork said.
“We didn’t test-fire them. I told this dumb Greek—”
“Ah, shut it,” Nico said to Stevie. To Sonny he said, “What were we supposed to do, start throwing lead in my bedroom while the folks are downstairs listening to Arthur Godfrey?”
“That’d wake up the neighbors,” Vinnie said.
“They’d better not be rejects,” Stevie said. “Otherwise we might as well stick ’em up our arses.”
Nico pulled one of the choppers out of his duffel bag and handed it to Sonny, who held the tommy gun by the stock and then wrapped his fingers around the polished wood grip welded to the rifle barrel. The grip was carved with grooves for the fingers and the wood was solid and warm. The round black metal magazine at the center of the gat, an inch in front of the trigger guard, reminded Sonny of a film canister. Sonny said to Nico, “You got them from Vinnie Suits in Brooklyn?”
“Yeah, of course. Just like you said.” Nico looked surprised at the question.
Sonny faced Little Stevie. “Then they’re not no rejects,” he said. To Nico he said, “And my name never came up, right?”
“For Christ’s sake,” Nico said. “Did I suddenly become an idiot? No one mentioned your name or anything about you.”
“My name ever slips out,” Sonny said, “we’re all done for.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Cork said. He started the car and pulled out of the alley. “Put those things away or some flatfoot’ll be giving us trouble.”
Sonny put the gat back in the duffel bag. “How many magazines did we get?”
“What’s on it now and one extra for each,” he said.
Sonny said to the twins, “You palookas think you can handle these?”
Angelo said, “I know how to pull a trigger.”
Vinnie said, “Sure. Why not?”
“Let’s go over it.” Sonny nudged Cork. The Nash pulled onto the street and he leaned into the back. “Big thing is,” he said, “like before, fast and loud, so that everybody’s confused but us. We wait till the truck’s loaded. There’s one lead car and one trailer. Soon as the lead car passes, Cork pulls in front of the truck. Vinnie and Angelo, you get out throwing lead. Shoot high. We don’t want to kill anybody. Me and Nico go right for the cab and get the driver and whoever’s riding shotgun. Stevie’s got the back of the truck, in case somebody’s there.”
“But nobody’s gonna be there,” Stevie said, “right? You haven’t seen anybody riding in the back?”
“Alls that’s in the back is liquor,” Sonny said. “But you never know, so be ready.”
Stevie took a tommy gun from the duffel bag and tested the feel of it in his hands. “I’ll be ready,” he said. “Tell you the truth, I hope somebody’s back there.”
Cork said, “Put that away. And don’t go giving nobody lead poisoning if you don’t have to.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll shoot high,” Stevie said, grinning.
“Listen to Cork.” Sonny let his stare linger on Stevie, and then went on explaining the plan. “Once we’ve got the truck, we head out down the alley. Cork follows us, with Vinnie and Angelo still making a racket.” To the Romeros he said, “If they try to follow us, shoot for the tires and the engine block.” To everybody he said, “The whole thing should be over in a minute. In and out, and a whole lot of noise. Right?”
“Good,” the Romero brothers said.
“Remember,” Sonny said. “They don’t know what’s going on. We do. They’re the ones confused.”
Cork said, “Confused as a hungry baby in a room full of strippers.” When nobody laughed, he said, “Jaysus! Where’s your sense of humor!”
Stevie said, “Just drive, Corcoran.”
“Jaysus,” Cork said again, and then the car was quiet.
Sonny took a chopper from the duffel bag. He’d been dreaming about this night for a month, ever since he’d overheard Eddie Veltri and Fat Jimmy, two of Tessio’s guys, mention the operation in passing. They hadn’t said much, just enough for Sonny to figure out the shipments were whiskey from Canada, they were unloading at the Canarsie piers, and the whiskey was Giuseppe Mariposa’s. After that it was easy. He hung around the piers with Cork until they saw a couple of Hudson straight-eights parked on the docks alongside a long Ford pickup with a stake-bed covered by a blue tarp. A few minutes later, a pair of sleek speedboats came along, cutting cleanly through the water. They tied up at the dock and a half dozen men started pulling crates off the boats and loading them into the truck. In twenty minutes the boats were speeding away and the trucks were loaded. Coppers weren’t a problem. Mariposa had them in his pocket. That was a Tuesday night, and the next Tuesday was the same thing. He and Cork cased the operation one more time after that, and now they were ready. It wasn’t likely there’d be any surprises. Chances were no one would put up much of a fight. Who’d want to get himself killed over one lousy shipment of hooch?
When they reached the piers, Cork cut the lights and drove up the alley as planned. He inched the car along until they had a view of the docks. The pickup and the Hudsons were parked in the same places they’d been parked for the past three weeks. Sonny rolled his window down. A couple of sharp dressers leaned against the lead car’s front fender smoking and talking, a whitewall tire and chrome-capped wheel between them. Two more guys were in the Ford’s cab, smoking cigarettes with the windows open. They were wearing Windbreakers and wool caps and looked like a couple of stevedores. The driver had his hands on the wheel and his head back, a cap pulled down over his eyes. The one riding shotgun smoked a cigarette and looked out at the water.
Sonny said to Cork, “Looks like a couple of dockworkers driving the truck.”
Cork said, “Good for us.”
Nico said, “Easy pickin’s,” but with a touch of nervousness.
Little Stevie pretend-fired the chopper, whispering “Rat-a-tat-tat” and grinning. “I’m Baby Face Nelson,” he said.
“You mean Bonnie and Clyde,” Cork said. “You’re Bonnie.”
The Romero brothers laughed. Vinnie pointed to Angelo and said, “He’s Pretty Boy Floyd.”
Angelo said, “Who’s the ugliest gangster out there?”
Nico said, “Machine Gun Kelly.”
“That’s you,” Angelo said to his brother.
“Shaddup,” Cork said. “You hear that?”
A moment later, Sonny heard the hum of speedboat motors.
“There they are,” Cork said. “Time to go, boys.”
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Sonny held his tommy gun by the grip, with his finger on the trigger guard, and shifted it around, trying to get the feel of the thing. “Che cazzo!” he said, and tossed it back in the duffel bag. He pulled a gun from his shoulder holster and pointed it toward the roof.
Cork said, “Good idea.” He took a pistol out of his jacket pocket and laid it on the seat beside him.
Nico said, “Me too.” He tossed his tommy gun onto the seat and pulled a .38 out of a shoulder holster. He gestured to the chopper. “That thing’s like carrying a kid around with you.”
Sonny looked back to the Romeros and said, “Don’t get any ideas. We need you with the choppers.”
“I like my Chicago typewriter, ” Stevie said. He pointed the muzzle out the car window and pretend-fired.
At the dock, four men got off the speedboat. The two guys with the three-piece suits and fedoras walked over and exchanged a few words, and then one of them took up a position at the edge of the dock. He watched as the speedboats were unloaded, while the second one oversaw the loading of the truck. Twenty minutes later, the stevedores were closing the Ford’s tailgate, latching it closed with a hook and chain, while the speedboats started their engines and roared off, out across Jamaica Bay.
“Here we go,” Cork said.
Sonny leaned into his door, one hand on the latch. His heart was doing a tap dance and he was sweating, despite a chilly wind coming off the water.
When the lead car started moving, followed by the Ford and the second Hudson, Cork revved the engine.
“ ’Nother second,” Sonny said to Cork. To the others he said, “Remember, fast and loud.”
On the dock, the headlights of the lead car splashed onto the black water as it maneuvered around the truck to the head of the convoy. Then everything happened, as Sonny had been directing all along, quickly and with a lot of noise. Cork brought the Nash roaring out in front of the truck as Vinnie, Angelo, and Stevie leapt from the car, choppers blazing. Things went from quiet one second to sounding like the Fourth of July the next. In an instant Sonny was on the Ford’s running board, yanking the door open and throwing the driver to the ground. By the time he got behind the wheel, Nico was alongside him yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” If anyone was shooting back, Sonny couldn’t tell. The driver he’d tossed out of the cab was running like a greyhound. He heard the clatter of gunfire coming from behind him, and he figured that was Little Stevie. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone dive into the water. In front of him, the Hudson’s back tires were shot out so that the long hood of the car pointed up slightly, its headlights shining into dark clouds. Angelo and Vinnie were twenty feet apart, firing in short rapid bursts. Each time they pulled the triggers, the choppers looked like they were alive and struggling to get loose. They danced a jig and the twins danced with them. Somehow, the spare tire next to the driver’s door on the lead Hudson had been blown off, and it was doing a wobbly dance on the dock, getting ready to die. The driver was nowhere to be seen and Sonny figured he was hunkered down under the dashboard. The thought of the driver huddled up on the floorboards made Sonny laugh out loud as he piloted the truck down the alley. Behind him, in his side mirror, he saw Vinnie and Angelo on the Nash’s running boards, holding on to the car with one hand and firing bursts high over the docks and out into the bay.
Sonny took the route they had planned, and in a few minutes he was driving along Rockaway Parkway in light traffic, followed by Cork—and that was it. The shooting part was over. Sonny said to Nico, “You see Stevie get in the truck?”
“Sure,” Nico said, “and I seen him shootin’ up the dock.”
“Looks like nobody got a scratch.”
“The way you planned it,” Nico said.
Sonny’s heart was still beating fast, but in his head he had switched over to counting up the money. The long bed of the pickup was stacked high with crates of Canadian hooch. He figured three thousand, give or take. Plus whatever they could get for the truck.
Nico, as if reading Sonny’s mind, said, “How much you think we’ll get?”
“I’m hoping five hundred apiece,” Sonny said. “Depends.”
Nico laughed and said, “I still got my share of the payroll heist. It’s stuffed in my mattress.”
“What’s the matter? ” Sonny said. “You can’t find dames to spend your money on?”
“I need one of those gold diggers,” Nico said. He laughed at himself and then was quiet again.
A lot of the girls said Nico looked like Tyrone Power. The last year of high school he had a big thing with Gloria Sullivan, but then her parents made her stop seeing him because they thought he was Italian. When she told them he was Greek, it didn’t make any difference. She still couldn’t see him. Since then, Nico’d gotten quiet around girls. Sonny said, “Let’s all go to Juke’s Joint tomorrow night and find ourselves some Janes to spend our money on.”
Nico smiled but didn’t say anything.
Sonny considered telling Nico that he still had most of his share of the payroll heist stuffed in his mattress too, which was the truth. The payroll job had netted more than seven grand, a little less than twelve hundred apiece—enough to scare them into laying low for a few months. Meanwhile, what the hell was Sonny supposed to spend it on? He’d already bought himself a car and a bunch of swell clothes, and he figured he still had a few thousand in cash lying around. Not that he ever counted it. Looking at the money gave him no pleasure. He stuffed it in his mattress and when he needed dough he took some out. With a big job like the payroll heist, he’d been dizzy for weeks with the planning, and the night of the job was like Christmas when he was little—but he didn’t like the big splash that followed. The next day it was on the front page of the New York American and the Mirror, and then everybody was talking about it for weeks. When word got around that it was Dutch Schultz’s gang, he was relieved. Sonny didn’t like to speculate on what would happen if Vito found out what he was doing. He thought about it sometimes, though—what he would say to his father. Come on, Pop, he might say. I know all about the business you’re in. He rehearsed these talks with his father all the time in his head. He’d say I’m all grown up, Pop! He’d say, I planned the Tidewater payroll heist, Pop! Give me a little credit! He could always come up with the things he’d say—but he could never come up with what his father might say in response. Instead, he saw his father looking at him the way he did when he was disappointed.
“That was really something,” Nico said. He’d been quiet, letting Sonny pilot the truck through the Bronx. “Did you see that guy dive off the pier? Christ!” he said, laughing. “He was swimming like Johnny Weissmuller!”
“Which one was that?” Sonny asked. They were on Park Avenue in the Bronx, a few blocks from where they were going.
“The guy riding shotgun,” Nico said. “You didn’t see him? He heard the guns, bang!—right off the pier into the water!” Nico doubled over, laughing.
“Did you see the Romeros?” Sonny asked. “They looked like they couldn’t hold on to those tommy guns. They looked like they were dancing with ’em.”
Nico nodded and then sighed when he quit laughing. “I bet they’re all bruised up from the kickback.”
Sonny turned off Park and onto a quiet side street. He pulled up to the curb in front of a warehouse with a rolling steel door, and Cork pulled up behind him. “Let Cork do the talking,” he said to Nico, and he slid out of the car. He got into Cork’s Nash and drove away.
Angelo and Vinnie were on the sidewalk, waiting. Cork stepped up onto the running board of the truck and said to Nico, “There’s a bell next to the side door. Give it three short rings, wait a second, and give it three more short rings. Then come back to the truck.”
Nico said, “What’s the secret password?”
Cork said, putting on the Irish, “Ah, for Jaysus sake, just go ring the feckin’ bell, Nico. I’m tired.”
Nico rang the bell and then headed back for the truck, where Cork had gotten into the driver�
�s seat. The rain that had been threatening all night started to come down in a light drizzle, and he turned up his jacket collar as he came around the front of the car. Behind him, the steel garage door rolled up, spilling light out onto the street. Luca Brasi stood in the center of the garage with his hands on his hips looking like he was dressed for a dinner date, though it was probably one in the morning. He was well over six feet tall, maybe six-three, six-four, with thighs like telephone poles. His chest and shoulders seemed to go right up to his chin, and his massive head was dominated by a protruding brow over deep-set eyes. He looked like Neanderthal man dressed up in a gray pin-stripe suit and vest, with a gray fedora tilted rakishly to one side. Behind him, spread around the garage, were Vinnie Vaccarelli, Paulie Attardi, Hooks Battaglia, Tony Coli, and JoJo DiGiorgio. Cork knew Hooks and JoJo from the neighborhood, and the others by reputation. They were the big kids on the street when he was little. They all had to be in their late twenties at least by now, given he’d been hearing about them since kindergarten. Luca Brasi was a lot older, maybe late thirties, around there. They all looked like tough guys. They stood with their hands in their pockets, leaning against the wall or a stack of crates, or they had one hand in a jacket pocket, or arms crossed over their chest. They all wore homburgs or fedoras except for Hooks, who was the oddball in a plaid porkpie hat.
“Son of a bitch,” Nico said, looking into the garage. “I wish Sonny were with us.”
Cork rolled down his window and motioned for Vinnie and Angelo to get on the running board. “Let me talk,” he said to them once they were on the truck. He started the pickup and pulled it into the garage.
Two of Luca’s boys closed the warehouse door as Cork got out and joined Vinnie and Angelo. Nico came around the truck and stood beside them. The garage was brightly lit by a line of hanging lamps that cast a bright glare onto an oil-stained, cracked concrete floor. There were piles of crates and boxes here and there, but for the most part the place was empty. The gurgling sound of water running through pipes came from someplace above them. At the back of the garage a partition with a door next to a large window appeared to be an office space. Light bounced off white venetian blinds in the window. Luca Brasi went to the back of the truck while his men closed in around him. He dropped the tailgate, threw back the tarp, and found Stevie Dwyer wedged between liquor crates and pointing his tommy gun at him.