The Family Corleone (18 page)

One guy, two guns blasting away out of the dark. All Luca saw was a shadow unloading fire. All he heard was the squeal and thunder of the passing train punctuated by gunfire. When it was over, when the shadow flew away as quick as a ghost, he was pulling the trigger on an empty chamber, so he knew he had fired back and kept firing but he’d be damned if he could remember anything past that first shot and the window shattering and then crouching over Paulie, who’d been hit and was moaning and then waiting for whatever might happen next in the shadows and the stink of gunpowder and the quiet after the train was gone and the shooting over. It was the surprise of the thing that had stopped him dead, and when he shook that off and he realized what had just happened, some torpedo openin’ up on them with two guns like a fuckin’ cowboy, he bolted up the stairs after him.

On the roof, he found nothing. There were two fire escape ladders, one on each side of the building. He made a note to have them removed. On the rooftop across the alley, a half dozen workers in overalls were hanging around the ledge and looking over. Behind them, the roof was loaded with crates. Luca yelled across, “You birds see anything?” When no one answered, he shouted “Well?”

“Didn’t see a thing,” someone with an Irish brogue said. “Just heard the shootin’.”

“That wasn’t shootin’,” Luca said. “It was kids with fireworks left over from the Fourth.”

“Ah,” the voice said, “so it was.” He retreated with the others.

When Luca turned around, he found Hooks and JoJo standing one on each side of the roof door like guards, pistols dangling from their hands. “Put the guns away,” he said.

Hooks said, “Paulie and Tony are shot up.”

“How bad?” Luca passed between them and went down the stairs. The staircase was dark and he had to hold on to the handrail and feel for the steps.

JoJo said, “They’ll live.”

Hooks said to JoJo, “What are you, a fuckin’ doctor now?” To Luca he said, “Looks like Tony took a bullet in the leg.”

“Where in the leg?”

“Couple of inches to the left and the kid’d be a eunuch.”

“Paulie?”

“Right through his hand,” JoJo said. “Looks like Jesus Christ on the cross.”

On Luca’s landing, where the wind blew into the hallway through the shattered window, Hooks said, “Luca, we can’t fool around with Cinquemani and Mariposa. They’ll put us all in the ground.”

JoJo said, “Hooks is right, Luca. This is crazy. For what? A few shipments of hooch?”

Luca said, “You scared, boys? You scared of a little action?”

Hooks said, “You know better than that, boss.”

In the doorway to Luca’s apartment, Tony was cursing and groaning, pressing the heel of his hand into his leg, trying to stop the bleeding. Luca knocked out a few shards of glass from the tattered remains of the hall window. It was dark, the only light coming from the open door to his apartment and up from the street. He figured if the coppers were coming, he’d have heard the sirens by now. He leaned out the window and looked down at the El. The street was empty, no one to be seen anywhere, not a kid running or an old lady sweeping her stoop.

Behind Luca, Vinnie wrapped a bandanna around Tony’s leg. “He’s bleedin’ like a pig,” he said. “I can’t get it to stop.”

“Take him and Paulie to the hospital,” Luca said. “Make up some story. Tell ’em it happened out on the docks.”

“The hospital?” Hooks asked. “You don’t think Doc Gallagher’ll take care of them for us?”

Luca said, “You worry too much, Hooks.” He nodded to Vinnie.

Vinnie went back into the apartment to get Paulie. On his way through the door, he said to Hooks and JoJo, “I’ll need you to give me a hand carrying Tony out.”

Hooks took his hat off and toyed with the feathers. To Luca he said, “So what now? What about Cinquemani?”

Luca knocked shards of glass out of the window frame with the butt of his gun. He looked up to the sky and a few stars that were faint points of light in the dark. A couple of small dark birds flew toward the window ledge and then veered away. “Let’s set up a meeting with Cinquemani,” he said. He sat in the window frame. “Tell him we got the message. Tell him we want the meeting someplace public—”

“Where?” Hooks asked. “A restaurant, someplace like that?”

“Don’t matter,” Luca said.

“Why don’t it matter?” Hooks asked. He took his hat off and put it back on again while Luca watched him. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Don’t we want to pick the place?”

“Hooks,” Luca said, “you’re startin’ to get on my nerves.”

“Hey, boss,” Hooks said. He opened his hands, a gesture that said he was done asking questions. “I’ll tell ’em it don’t matter. They can pick the place.”

“Good,” Luca said. “Just make a big deal about how it’s gotta be public, okay? For everybody’s security.”

“Sure,” Hooks said. “When?”

“Soon as possible,” Luca said. “Sooner the better. If you look a little scared, that’s okay.” He pointed to his doorway, where Tony looked to be on the edge of passing out. “Take the boys to the hospital,” he said, “and then come back here and I’ll fill you in on the plan.”

Hooks watched Luca, trying to read his eyes. He opened his mouth, on the verge of asking one more question—and then thought better of it. “Come on, JoJo,” he said, and then the two of them disappeared into the apartment.

Luca’s headache had quit as soon as the shooting started. In the hallway, in the dark, with Tony moaning behind him, he wondered about that.

Outside Eileen’s bakery, Sonny pulled to the curb, cut the engine, and slumped down in the driver’s seat. He tilted his hat over his eyes as if he were about to take a short nap. The neighborhood was noisy with the rumble of trains coming from the rail yards and a line of cars and carts clattering along the street. He’d just left Sandra’s and he’d walked along Arthur Avenue awhile, feeling pent up and at loose ends—which wasn’t unusual for him—and then he’d gotten in his car without really telling himself that he was going to Eileen’s. He still thought he probably should just go back to his place and call it a night, but he didn’t like spending an evening alone on Mott Street. He didn’t know what to do with himself there. If his icebox had food in it, he’d eat it—but he didn’t like shopping. He felt like a
finocch’
buying groceries. Usually he’d go home to eat and his mother would give him something to bring back with him, and that’s how food wound up in the icebox—leftover lasagna or manicotti and big jars of sauce. He never went home without coming back with enough food to last him a few days before he went home again, and so on. At his apartment, he’d lie on his back in bed and look at the ceiling, and if he didn’t fall asleep he’d get up and go looking for one of his boys, or try to find a card game somewhere, or hit a speakeasy—and then he’d drag his ass in to work the next morning half dead. Sandra had gotten him riled up. In his mind he unbuttoned her blouse and peeled away her clothes till he got to those breasts, which would be delicious and ripe to be touched—but he might as well forget about it because it would take at least a bunch more dinners and maybe even an engagement ring before he got anywhere near those naked breasts—and he wasn’t ready for that. But he liked her. She was sweet and beautiful. She had him going.

Sonny tilted his hat back, leaned over the steering wheel, and looked up to Eileen’s apartment. The lights were on in the living room windows. He didn’t know how she’d react if he showed up like
this, without calling, in the evening. He checked his wristwatch. It was almost nine o’clock, so Caitlin was likely in bed. When the thought occurred to Sonny that maybe Eileen’s evenings alone in her apartment were as boring as his, that maybe all there was for her to do was listen to the radio before going to sleep, he got out of the car and rang the bell to her apartment, and then stepped back on the street. Eileen opened a window and stuck her head out, and he opened his arms and said, “I thought you might like some company.” She was wearing a blue dress with a wide collar and her hair was marcelled. “You had your hair done,” he said, and she smiled a smile he couldn’t quite read. It didn’t say she was happy to see him, but it didn’t say she was unhappy either. She closed the window and disappeared without a word. Sonny took a step closer to the door and listened for the sound of her apartment door opening or her footsteps on the stairs. When he didn’t hear anything, he took off his fedora and scratched his head. He stepped back to look up to her window again—and then the door flew open and Cork was out on the street.

“Hey, Sonny!” Cork said, holding the door open. “What are you doing here? Eileen said you’re looking for me?”

Sonny said, “What the hell happened to you?” He said it a little too loud and too blustery in an effort to hide his surprise at seeing Cork, though Cork didn’t seem to notice.

Cork’s shirt was smeared with bright red handprints over his heart. “Caitlin,” he said, frowning at the stains. “Shirt’s ruined.”

Sonny swiped a fingertip over the red stains and it came away clean.

“Some kind of kid’s paint,” Cork said, still looking at the handprints. “Eileen says the shirt’s a goner.”

“That kid’s a holy terror.”

“She ain’t so bad,” Cork said. “So what’s going on?”

“I went by your place,” Sonny lied. “You weren’t there.”

“That’s ’cause I’m here,” Cork said, and he looked at Sonny cockeyed, as if to ask if he had suddenly turned into an idiot.

Sonny coughed into his fist while he tried to come up with
something to say. Then he thought of the plan for their next job. “Got word of another shipment,” he said, lowering his voice.

“What? Tonight?”

“Nah.” Sonny moved alongside Cork and leaned against the doorframe. “Don’t know for sure when yet. I just wanted to tell you about it.”

“What about it?” Cork glanced back up the stairs and then motioned for Sonny to come into the hallway. “It’s cold,” he said. “Feels like winter already.”

“The shipment’s small,” Sonny said. He took a seat on the steps and pushed his hat up on his forehead. “It’s coming in a car rigged with an undercarriage. Plus there’ll be more bottles stuffed in the upholstery.”

“Whose is it?”

“Who do you think?”

“Again? Mariposa? What’ll we do with it? We can’t sell it to Luca.”

“Best part,” Sonny said. “Juke’s buying it from us direct. No middleman.”

“And if Mariposa finds out Juke’s selling his hooch?”

“How’s he finding out?” Sonny said. “Juke sure as hell’s not telling him. And Mariposa’s not in Harlem.”

Cork sat down next to Sonny and stretched out on the steps as if they were a bed. “How much money will we make with a small shipment like that?”

“That’s the beauty,” Sonny said. “It’s high-class champagne and wine direct from Europe. The classy stuff: fifty, a hundred simoleons a bottle.”

“How many bottles?”

“I figure between three and four hundred.”

Cork laid his head back on a step and closed his eyes, doing the math. “Holy Mother of God,” he said. “Juke’s not paying us that much, though.”

“Course not,” Sonny said, “but we’re still gonna make a bundle.”

“Where’d you get the tip?”

“Don’t do you any good to know that, Cork. Why, don’t you trust me?”

“Shite,” Cork said. “You know we’re all dead men if Mariposa finds us.”

“He ain’t gonna find us,” Sonny said. “Plus, we’re already dead men if he finds out. Might as well be rich dead men.”

“How many guys—” Cork said, and the door to Eileen’s opened at the top of the stairs.

Eileen leaned over the steps with her hands on her hips. “Will you invite your friend up, Bobby Corcoran,” she said, “or will you be stayin’ out there in the hall making your wicked plans?”

“Come on up,” Cork said to Sonny. “Eileen’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

Sonny tugged at his jacket, straightening himself out. “Are you sure it’s okay?” he asked Eileen.

“Didn’t she just tell me to invite you up?” Cork said.

“I don’t know,” Sonny said, “did she?”

Eileen’s little girl came out of the apartment behind her and took hold of one of her legs, “Uncle Booby!” she shouted.

“She’s a pip,” Cork said to Sonny, and then he jumped up the steps and charged her as she ran away into the apartment screaming.

“Come on up,” Eileen said. “No need to be hanging around in the hallway.” She went back into the apartment and left the door open.

In the kitchen, Sonny found her looking relaxed with a cup of coffee and a plate of brownies on the table in front of her. “Sit down,” she said, and she pushed an empty coffee cup across the table. Her hair seemed brighter with the new hairdo. The waves glittered under the kitchen light with every movement of her head.

Cork came into the room with Caitlin on his shoulders. “Say hello to Sonny,” he said. He plopped himself down at the table, lifted Caitlin off his shoulders, and dropped her into his lap.

“Hello, Mr. Sonny,” Caitlin said.

“Hi, Caitlin.” Sonny glanced back and forth between Caitlin and Eileen and said, “Wow. You’re almost as pretty as your mama.”

Eileen looked at Sonny askance, but Cork only laughed and said, “Don’t be giving her a fat head.” He put Caitlin down, patted her on the butt, and said, “Go play by yourself for a minute.”

“Uncle Booby,” she said, pleading.

“And quit it with the Uncle Booby before I give you a shellackin’.”

“You promise?” Caitlin said.

“What?” Cork said. “That I’ll give you a shellackin’?”

“That you’ll come play with me in a minute?”

“Promise,” Cork said, and he waved her off into the parlor.

Caitlin hesitated and glanced quickly over to Sonny before skipping off into the living room. She had her uncle’s fine blond hair and her mother’s hazel eyes.

Sonny said, “Uncle Booby,” and laughed.

“Isn’t that perfect?” Eileen said. “Out of the mouths of babes…”

“Don’t be encouraging her, now,” Cork said to his sister. “She only says it to get a rise out of me.”

Eileen toyed with her coffee cup, as if thinking about something, and then said to Sonny, “So have you heard that one Mr. Luigi ‘Hooks’ Battaglia is still huntin’ down Jimmy’s killer?”