Sicilian Defense (9 page)

Bobby Matteawan stood on the sidewalk in front of 6930 Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, studying the windows on the second floor. Gold lettering indicated
JOHN MARASCO
,
REAL ESTATE
,
INSURANCE
. Matteawan entered the building and climbed the stairs. Once inside the office, he took off his fedora, which he always wore with the brim up all around, and waited for the secretary to finish a phone call. She wasn't a bad piece, he thought as he watched her. She didn't have a tit in the world, but she was cute. He knew Frankie the Pig wouldn't have looked at her; he liked them with big bombs.

“Can I help you?” she asked, turning to him without a smile. Her face was hard, even under the heavy eyelashes and make-up. Her hair was the metallic black that comes with dyeing.

“I want to see Mr. Compagna.”

“Mr. Compagna isn't here right now. Who can I say was here to see him?” she asked, poising her pencil over a pad.

“Gianni Aquilino sent me to see him,” Bobby Matteawan said flatly.

The girl studied him for a moment. “Maybe Mr. Marasco can help you.” She picked up the phone and pressed a button. “Someone here wants to see Mr. Compagna. He says he was sent by a Mr. Aquilino.”

Marasco, a short, heavyset man with a mustache, appeared in the door behind her.

“Can I help you?”

“I wanted to see Mr. Compagna,” Bobby Matteawan repeated.

“He's not here right now,” Marasco replied. Another man, young and powerfully built, who had been inside with Marasco, also came to the door. A hand of cards was still furled in his right fist.

“You know when he'll be back?” Bobby Matteawan asked. “It's important. Gianni Aquilino sent me.”

The man with Marasco put down his cards on the girl's desk and went out the front door. Bobby Matteawan heard him going downstairs.

“If you'll have a seat,” said Marasco, “I'll see if I can get in touch with him.” He went back into his office.

Bobby Matteawan sat on a chair and picked up an issue of
Life
. He leafed through it even though he had read it six months before. The girl took out a compact, primping her hair with one hand as she looked in the mirror. She moved her head this way and that to view the entire black mound atop her head. Bobby Matteawan thought it all looked like a cake up there.

Footsteps sounded on the stair. Bobby Matteawan watched the door. The man who had been with Marasco entered, followed by Compagna. The boss of one of the Brooklyn mobs, Compagna was tall and slender, with graying hair. Then came another man, a bit younger, heavyset, with black eyes.

“You wanted to see me?” Compagna said to Bobby Matteawan.

Bobby Matteawan looked at the two now standing behind Compagna. He stood up. “Yes. Gianni Aquilino sent me to talk to you: it's important.”

“Come inside,” said Compagna, walking into the office. The other two followed him. Marasco nodded and wordlessly left the room as Compagna sat behind the desk. On the wall over his head was a real estate broker's license with the name Philip Compagna typed in. “Now, what's your name?”

“Bobby Matteawan.”

“Okay. Where is Gianni Eagle now?”

“Right now?”

Compagna nodded.

“He went to a crime hearing this morning, but he should be back at the—” Bobby Matteawan was about to say garage, “—at the place by now.”

“What place?”

“Two Steps Down Inn.”

“Angeletti's hangout.” Compagna nodded to the young, powerful man who was leaning against the wall. He left the room. The other man sat in a chair next to the desk, facing Bobby Matteawan.

“How is Gianni? I haven't seen him in years,” said Compagna, “even though we're both in real estate. He handles big deals in New York and all around the country. I'm just a small broker in this area. How is the Eagle?”

“He's fine,” said Bobby Matteawan.

Compagna and the other man remained silent, waiting for something.

Shortly the powerful young man returned. He nodded. “Aquilino isn't there, but this man's okay with them.”

“Good meeting you, Bobby,” Compagna said, leaning over the desk. Bobby Matteawan stood up to shake his hand. “Shut the door, Sonny,” Compagna instructed. The young man did so, remaining inside. “This is Nat, my
comparda
,” Compagna said, introducing the man in the chair. “And this is Sonny.”

Bobby Matteawan shook hands with them. Then he recited the events of the evening before, of the body dumped at the Two Steps Down Inn, and of the meeting with Gianni and his instructions. He inquired if Compagna had heard anything or knew anything which might help in tracking down the kidnapers.

“
Minca
,” said Nat. “They even dumped a body—they're not fooling around.”

“Since when do coloreds go around snatching us?” Compagna jutted his chin forward. “
Atzo!
They must be nuts. Who was the stiff they dumped? One of your people?”

“No. We didn't know who he was till we saw his name in the papers this morning. We dumped him in the river and the cops found him there,” said Bobby Matteawan.

“Imagine it, snatching one of our friends; I can't believe it,” said Compagna, shaking his head. “What kind of world is this getting to be?” He looked around at them.

“What kind of respect can you expect from a
tutzone
?” Nat asked.

“I expect to chop their fucking nigger heads off,” Bobby Matteawan said, “but first we've got to find them. That's why I'm here. Gianni wanted to check with all the mobs to see if anyone knew anything.”

Compagna shook his head. “You know anything about it, Nat?”

“Nothing except what I read in the papers. But if the guy they fished out of the river was the one dumped on your doorstep, I know who he's connected with.”

“He's the same,” said Bobby Matteawan anxiously.

“His name is Mike Wallace. I remember him from the time we had that business with Jerry the Jew in Manhattan.”

“Oh yeah, all the way up on the other side of Harlem,” said Compagna. “He was with Jerry?”

“He controlled one of his banks,” Nat said. “I remembered him when I read about it. That's all I can tell you.”

Compagna shrugged. “In this section—Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst—we don't have much to do with coloreds, you know? You go see Jerry,” he said to Bobby Matteawan; “I'm sure Gianni knows him. Otherwise you can use my name. Meanwhile, I'll send Sonny around to see all the people we're friendly with, and I'll find out if anybody's heard anything more.”

“That's good,” said Bobby Matteawan, rising.

Compagna extended his hand, looking in Bobby Matteawan's eyes. “And say hello to Gianni Eagle. Tell him I send him my best regards.”

“I will.”

“Don't forget—my best regards.”

“I won't forget.”

Sonny opened the office and nodded to Bobby Matteawan as he made his way toward the stairs. Bobby Matteawan put his hat on as he walked past the secretary, looking at her again as he left. Again she was twisting her head this way and that, looking in the little mirror at the cake on her head.

Gus was driving along Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. Next to him was a young man whom Mario Siciliano, boss of the Fordham Road section, had sent along to introduce him to a wise guy over on Webster Avenue. Wise guy, in street talk, means someone who engages in illegal activities. This wise guy on Webster Avenue, Charlie Guglielmo, was not connected with Mario Siciliano's mob or any of the others. He was an independent, an outsider, ostracized because he dealt in narcotics, mostly in the colored sections. None of the connected wise guys openly dealt with drugs; if they ever did, they had to be extra careful—fearful in the first place of the authorities, and more so in the second place lest the mob bosses discover it. In that event, punishment could be less just and more rapid.

Mario Siciliano told Gus that he had heard through the grapevine that this Guglielmo, called Gugi, had been the victim of a kidnaping extortion involving his grandson and some colored people.

The young man instructed Gus to turn a corner. He was dark-haired and handsome, wearing a leather jacket and a blue knit shirt and his hair was styled. Gus thought that if some of the older bosses saw him they'd think he was more a
riccune
than a wise guy.

“This is the place.”

The place was a sleazy bar named The Horse's Tail. Inside, the bartender was adjusting the levers on the beer draughts.

“
Minca
,” said Gus, “he really ought to fix them—this joint smells like they poured the beer all over the floor.”

The bartender, sleeves rolled to the forearms, white apron tied in front of his barreled torso, looked up.

“Gugi around?” asked the young man.

The bartender wordlessly jerked his head toward the back.

Gus and the young man walked on. In the first booth was a man about fifty years old. He was not stocky but he had a full jowled face, and when he looked up, one of his eyes was at a weird angle. He needed a shave.

“Gugi?” asked the young man.

The man nodded. With napkin tucked under his chin, he had been bent over a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. He looked up at his visitors as, with fork and spoon, he finished pushing more than a mouthful of spaghetti into his maw. He sucked up the straggling strands, nipping the rest with his teeth.

“That's right,” he said. He reached for a piece of bread and dipped it into the sauce.

“Mario sent me to see you,” said the young man with regal authority.

Gugi put down the bread and studied the young man warily. He glanced at Gus, then back to the young man, his bad eye rolling sharply.

“What's the matter?”

“No trouble. We want some information.”

Gugi seemed relieved. He leaned back and took a toothpick out of a shot glass on the table. “You guys want a drink or something?”

“No thanks. This is Gus. He's a good friend of ours,” said the young man.

“Hello, Gus,” Gugi nodded. “Sit down.”

“Listen Gugi, I've got a lot of things to do and I don't have much time,” said Gus. “One of our guys was snatched by some niggers. I understand you had the same kind of trouble recently. Is that right?”

Suddenly, Gugi's bad eye started to go wild. He rose in the booth with a full head of fury. “Those
putigida madonna sfarcime
niggers,” he bellowed, standing now in the aisle. “Sure I had trouble—
bitze fidend, cournoud e merda
.” Gugi's clenched fist crashed on the table. The plates jumped. “Those miserable coward bastards come into my house to snatch me, you know? I was there with my grandson Charles, and that
disgratziada
, scum of the earth, that black
mulanyom merda
comes in with a gun—right in my house—and then instead of snatching me, he says he's going to kill my grandson!” The mere repetition of the fact made him shake with fury. “Those miserable black cocksuckers,” he raged. “My grandson!—the poor little kid was scared to death. I'll kill those black, miserable spineless bastards with my bare hands. I'll cut them into little pieces!” Gugi grabbed a knife and plunged it into the tabletop, where it quivered in the formica.

The bartender looked back momentarily and continued with his work.

“That's really scum, ain't it?” the young man said to Gus. “I mean, it takes scum to threaten a kid.”

“Scum of the earth,” said Gus, now more concerned than ever. People who would threaten a kid wouldn't care what they did to Sal. “You know them?” he asked Gugi.

“If I knew them, they'd be dead already—dead, cut in pieces.
Putigida
,” he fumed, turning in a circle, his clenched fists raised to the ceiling.

“Did they hurt the kid?” asked Gus.

Gugi shook his head. “I gave them fifty big ones. What else could I do?”

“I understand you do business with
yoms
,” said Gus. “Maybe they work for you or know someone who does?”

“Believe me I've figured all those angles,” Gugi said.

“I put all the guys who hustle for me against the wall, and none of them knew anything—nothing.”

Gus frowned. “Did they say anything that could help us figure out where they're from?”

“Nothing,” said Gugi. “They only talked about getting back what belonged to them; said they were through making money for whitey. Believe me, I wish I could help. If you find them just call me—before the dime goes down, I'll be there and I'll kill them with my bare hands. I'll …” Gugi was speechless. “Ah,
madonna me
',” he said quietly now, looking toward the ceiling, “you can have my soul if you just let me find them,” he vowed. He turned toward them. “The kid is still scared. Whenever he sees a
tutzone
on the street he grabs my hand—I feel like stomping every nigger I see.”

Gus nodded. “Okay,” he said, “thanks a lot.”

“Thanks,” said the young man. He didn't shake hands with Gugi as he left.

“Yeah, I paid them twenty-five thousand,” said Abe Handleman, the little man with bald head and close-set eyes sitting across from Tony.

After Tony had finished with Big Diamond, he had called Gianni, who told him to continue uptown to the Inwood section and stop at the Holiday Lounge, another bar, and talk to someone Gianni called Jerry the Jew. Tony followed instructions, and located him, a rather tall man with lacquered fingernails and a pinky ring who puffed a big cigar. Jerry the Jew advised Tony that some
schwarzes
had snatched Mike Wallace, one of his key bankers, about a week ago and dumped him in the river just last night. He also told Tony where he could find Abe Handleman, Mike Wallace's partner.

“How much ransom did they want?” Tony asked Handleman. He peered over his cup of coffee at the little man who looked more like the corner news dealer than a rackets man.