Gangster Page 8

  • • •

  ANGUS MCQUEEN SAW an emotional opening in Angelo Vestieri and exploited it from the day the two first met. He fed the boy’s need to belong and nurtured him in ways he knew would be irresistible to one so young. McQueen was a good gangster and an expert at exploiting any perceived weakness. He knew that Angelo’s silent nature represented a cry for a father figure, someone he could look up to and emulate. The boy would never get that at home. But he could easily get it from Angus McQueen.

  In return, McQueen won the loyalty of a young man he had shaped and defined. There are no acts of kindness in the underworld. There are only favors done for a price and payback that is sought with a vengeance. Angelo Vestieri’s gangster education was a long-term loan from Angus McQueen. A loan Angelo would one day be expected to repay.

  • • •

  THEY SAT THREE across in the front row of the crowded and smoke-filled arena, Angus comfortably in the middle, between Pudge and Angelo. It was halfway through a ten-bout semipro boxing card and the trio was already seventy-five dollars richer, thanks to Angus’s can’t-lose wagers.

  “How come you always know who’s going to win?” Pudge asked.

  “I listen to my gut,” Angus said with a smile. “Which is easy to do when you know the winner.”

  “So all the matches are rigged?” Pudge asked.

  “Except for the last bout,” Angus said. “That’s straight-out legit. And only a fool lays his own money on that.”

  “Does everybody know the fights are fixed?” Angelo asked. He was looking into the ring, watching two middleweights go through their prefight routine.

  “Only the ones who need to know,” Angus said. “Like us.”

  “If they’re all rigged, then where’s the gamble?” Pudge asked.

  “The gamble is in the rig,” Angus said. “Just like anything else we do, before we go in we know where we stand. Never make a bet you can’t win and never take a risk unless you know where it’s gonna take you.”

  “What if you can’t find out?” Angelo said, ignoring the clutching pain in his lungs caused by the clouds of cigar and cigarette smoke.

  “Then make sure the papers spell your name right,” Angus said. “Because you’ll be a dead man before you’ll ever be a rich one.”

  The bell rang to start the first round. The two fighters circled each other slowly, their fists up, feet firm to the ground, breath coming in snorts through the rubber mouthpieces.

  “I like the short guy in the black trunks,” Pudge said. “I’ve seen him fight once before. The guy he was up against beat on him like a rented mule, but he never went down.”

  “Cheer for him all you want,” Angus said. “But your money’s working on the tall gent with the tattoo parlor running up his arms. ’Cause that’s who’s gonna win.”

  Angelo looked around the arena, at the excited faces of the hardworking men wagering table money they couldn’t afford to lose on fights whose outcome was predetermined. They were easy targets for experienced thieves as they sought simple pleasures and a few hours of relief from their sad lives. Even this rare free time was controlled by others, men who never once lost their grip on the reins of power. Angelo found himself staring at the crowd, at these men who seemed to him to be mirror images of his father, Paolino, stubborn souls who believed that the willingness to work hard would earn them the right to live well.

  I heard Angelo use the phrase “sucker money” many times in our years together. To a gangster, it refers to everything from a hard-earned weekly paycheck to a bet placed on any event where the outcome seems to be in doubt. It is money that quickly rotates from a boss on gangster payroll to a working man and then back to the gangster. It is the sustaining blood of the underworld.

  “There are only two ways to go in this life,” Angelo once told me. “The sucker’s way and our way. And you always have a choice as to which way you take it. Don’t let anybody tell you different. You don’t fall into it, and it doesn’t land in your lap. I chose to be what I am. I didn’t want to live in the dark and leave it to others to decide what time I got up, how much money I made or what kind of house I lived in. I picked my way and I never looked back. No regrets.”

  • • •

  THE FIGHT ENDED in the middle of the third round, when the thin boxer with the string of tattoos landed a half-dozen soft blows to his opponent’s midsection. The short fighter crumpled to the canvas, gloves flailing, eyes closed, listening as the referee counted ten.

  “My mother’s hit me a lot harder than that and I didn’t get close to being put down,” Pudge said.

  “You were never told to go down,” Angus said. “Now, let’s go find Hawk and pick up our winnings. Then we’ll take ourselves a walk.”

  “It’s pouring out,” Pudge said.

  Angus stood up and stared down at the boy. “Water scare you?” he asked, his voice a bit harsh.

  “Nothin’ scares me,” Pudge said.

  “Then we’ll walk,” Angus said, making his way down the aisle and out of the arena.

  • • •

  THEY STOOD UNDER the awning of a shuttered restaurant, the rain around them beating the streets with an angry rush. Their clothes were soaked through and dripping onto the thin red carpet still lining the entrance. Angus reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a damp sheet of paper and some tobacco and hand-rolled a cigarette. He lit the wet end and took a deep drag, swallowing most of the smoke.

  “This is as good a place as any we’ll find tonight,” he said.

  “To do what?” Pudge asked, casting a concerned glance toward Angelo, who was shivering in his thin jacket and slacks.

  “To go over some business,” Angus said, trying to protect the cigarette from the wind and rain. “You two been getting by pretty well with the scores I been giving out. Every job comes in clean and with a nice payoff.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?” Pudge said, moving closer to the doorway.

  “It’s a very good thing,” Angus said. “But now it’s time to make a good thing even better.”

  Angelo stared at him as he finished off his cigarette and tossed the remains into a large puddle. He liked Angus McQueen and respected him as a boss. But he also knew, from his many talks with Josephina and Ida the Goose, not to grant him his total trust. So long as he and Pudge maintained their value and kept up their profit flow, they would be held in high regard. The minute they slipped, Angus would toss them aside as casually as he flipped that last cigarette.

  “I’m taking over one of the downtown piers,” Angus said. “Curran and Eastman are givin’ up their end for a small piece of my numbers action. In return, I take my cuts from the workers’ checks and whatever swag we can lift off the ships.”

  “Which pier?” Angelo asked, moving closer to Angus.

  “It’s one you know pretty well,” he said. “Pier sixty-two. The one your old man works on.”

  “Carl Banyon runs that pier,” Angelo said, remembering the name as easily as he remembered the cut above his eye. “You going to keep him on?”

  “That’s up to you two,” Angus said. “Your job is to watch that pier. Make sure the money’s flowing in the direction it should be, meaning toward me. Pick up the collection from the workers on payday and bring it down to me at the Maryland.”

  “My father’s, too?”

  “Why should I cut him any favors? He’s nothing to me. You want to take it out of your end, then that’s your business. So long as the cash in my hand is the cash I’m expecting, you’ll get no beef.”

  “When do we start?” Pudge asked.

  Angus pulled his pocket watch from his vest and peered down at it in the darkness. “The pier opens in about three hours. Make sure both of you are there. It don’t look good if the boss is late on the first day.” He put the watch back in its slot and lifted the collar of his tweed coat. “You get any trouble, I’m expectin’ you to handle it,” he said. “You might still be boys to those that look at you. But you’re my b
oys, and that should give you all the edge you’ll need.”

  Angus turned and walked back into the storm, leaving Angelo and Pudge standing under the awning, watching him disappear.

  “Looks like we got ourselves a pier to play with,” Pudge said.

  Angelo looked straight ahead and nodded, his right hand inside the side pocket of his jacket, his fingers wrapped around the hard barrel of a revolver.

  • • •

  CARL BANYON STOOD in the center of a circle of forty men, a thick wad of chewing tobacco rammed inside the corner of his mouth. The doors to the pier behind them were closed and padlocked. An extra-tonnage cargo ship, The Tunisia, was docked by the side, waiting to be loaded with crates of fresh-cut lumber and sent on its way.

  “Angus McQueen’s taken over this pier,” Banyon said to the men. “That don’t mean a damn thing to me and it sure as shit don’t mean much to any of you. You still wanna work, you still gotta pay. And the person you pay is always gonna be me.”

  Banyon saw the men’s eyes shift away from him and over his shoulder. He turned and saw Angelo and Pudge, dressed in clean dry clothes, walk around scattered puddles and toward the circle. The rain had turned to early morning mist, the heat causing thin lines of steam to rise from the hard ground.

  Angelo looked at Banyon and smiled when he saw a hint of recognition in his face. He gave a quick glance to the other men in the circle and stopped when he saw his father, Paolino, standing among them. Pudge was the first to reach the group, his hands inside his pants pockets, a slight smile on his face.

  “If you’re lookin’ for your school, it’s up the other street,” Banyon said, easing his way into the front of the group, facing down Pudge, spitting a stream of tobacco juice into a puddle inches from his feet.

  “McQueen sent us,” Pudge said, loud enough for all to hear.

  “What’s the limey been doing?” Banyon shouted with half a laugh. “Liftin’ his crew outta cribs?” He leaned over, poised to spit another line of tobacco, this one aimed even closer to Pudge.

  “That’s a bad habit to have,” Pudge said, opening his jacket to show the gun jammed in his waistband.

  Banyon looked first at the gun, then in the boy’s eyes. He had been around long enough to know when intentions were real. Whatever fear, if any, Pudge Nichols had was buried deep inside a harsh exterior and far from any man’s gaze. Banyon swallowed and took a step back.

  “Nothing changes,” Angelo said. “Instead of paying you every week, they pay us.”

  “Is that how McQueen wants it?” Banyon said, walking over to Angelo, his temper at idle, his hands balled into fists of frustration.

  “It’s how we want it,” Angelo said, running a hand over the scar above his eye.

  “I ran this pier for almost ten years,” Banyon said, a degree of resignation in his voice. “And I ran it good, too. My crews always sent the ships out on time.”

  “You ran it with your mouth,” Angelo said with disdain, looking past Banyon and catching his father’s hard gaze. “You just sat back and watched other men sweat out the work. But even that wasn’t enough for you.”

  “I can run it for you the same way,” Banyon said, looking from Angelo to Pudge, sweat running down the sides of his face. “Or any other way you like.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pudge said, the fingers of his right hand wrapped around the gun barrel jutting out from his pants pocket.

  “You work the hole,” Angelo said, stepping up closer to Banyon. “With the rest of the men.”

  “You can’t put me in with the dagos,” Banyon said, lowering his voice, his eyes shifting from Angelo’s face to the hand on Pudge’s gun. “They hate my guts. They’ll leave me for dead the first chance they get.”

  “So will we,” Angelo said in a harsh and distant voice that lifted him past his tender age.

  “Where do you keep the key to the doors?” Pudge asked Banyon.

  “In my pocket,” Banyon said, patting his shirt softly, the arrogance floating out of his body.

  “Then you better open them and let the men get to work,” Angelo said. “And you either lead them in or deal with us out here.”

  “Whichever way you go, make it quick,” Pudge said. “That ship needs to be loaded and my guess is it ain’t gonna do it alone.”

  Angelo and Pudge stood their ground and stared hard at a defeated Banyon. The dwarfed dock boss took in a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his face, nodded and turned away, leading the workers toward the pier doors and a full day of work. They followed in a tight group, eager to extract their revenge for a decade’s worth of torment.

  All except for Paolino, who stood in his place and stared at his son.

  “Anything wrong, Papa?” Angelo asked.

  “You take money from me now, too?” Paolino asked. “Just like all the rest.”

  “You can keep your salary, Papa,” Angelo said, his voice returning to its normal tones. “Your payoff’s covered.”

  “Covered by who?” Paolino asked. “You?”

  “Yes,” Angelo said. “By me.”

  Paolino reached into his pants pocket and pulled out two crumpled dollar bills. He tossed them into a puddle by Angelo’s feet.

  “I pay my dirty money now!” Paolino said, his voice filled with rage and hatred. “And I pay it to you! My son!”

  Paolino turned and walked away from Pudge and Angelo, his head down, his eyes filled with tears.

  “I still think we should have tossed Banyon in the drink,” Pudge said, turning his back to Paolino and the pier. “Let the rats have their way.”

  “He belongs to the workers,” Angelo said. “They’ll do a better job than the rats. Believe me, Banyon won’t live long enough to earn a week’s salary.”

  “And what about your pop?” Pudge asked.

  Angelo looked at Pudge and shrugged. “He’s happy when he’s working,” he said. “It’s what he wants and it’s what he’ll get.”

  Angelo clutched his stomach, turned and started a fast walk away from the pier. Pudge, surprised by the sudden move, ran after him.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I need to find a place where nobody can see me,” Angelo said.

  “See you do what?”

  “Throw up,” Angelo said.

  4

  * * *

  Summer, 1923

  IT WAS A busy time.

  Twenty-four-year-old bond salesman Juan Terry Trippe quit his job to join his friend John Hambleton to start a plane taxi service called Pan American World Airways. The nation’s first supermarket opened in San Francisco and Frank C. Mars, a Minnesota candy maker, earned $72,800 in less than a year, with a new bar he called the Milky Way. Time published its first issue and more than thirteen million automobiles clogged the roadways. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini began their push to power in Europe. Stateside, workers and executives forked over larger chunks of their money to the government in the form of a federal income tax, led by John D. Rockefeller Jr. who paid $7.4 million under the existing rates.

  And in New York City, the gangsters got richer.

  It was a period of expansion and upheaval and it all helped to serve the gangster interest. No one law did more for their personal gain than what was first called the Prohibition Enforcement Act and later the Volstead Act, which made the sale of alcoholic beverages anywhere in the United States a crime. The law, which passed on October 20, 1920, served as the midwife to the birth of twentieth-century organized crime. It opened wide the vault and gave the enterprising gangster free reign in dozens of untapped markets, including trucking, distribution and nightclubs—all of which served the public’s desire for a nickel glass of beer.

  Wherever the opportunity for making money existed, the gangster was quick to marshal his resources.

  When race riots erupted across twenty-six cities in 1919, sending urban blacks scurrying deeper into the pockets of poverty, Angus McQueen and his ilk were ready to cash in. They tripled the number of
betting parlors in the poorer neighborhoods, charging only a penny a wager on the number of the day. Soon, the gangs were hauling in profits of over ten thousand dollars a week in what was referred to on the streets as “the nigger numbers.”

  The circuslike trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, arrested for a Massachusetts payroll robbery and murder, convinced a silent minority of Italian-Americans that justice could never be had in their adoptive homeland, making them more than receptive to the recruitment overtures of Italian gangsters. In addition to those willing workers, there were 3.5 million more Americans without jobs and, with twenty thousand businesses failing each year, the prospects would only grow higher. The gangsters were again quick to capitalize on such an availability of cheap labor, offering tax-free solid wages in return for a pulled gun or a late-night heist.

  In 1922, the New York Daily Mirror began publication and, along with the still-infant New York Daily News and a cluster of other tabloids, devoted full, detailed coverage to the better-known hoodlums, turning many of them into recognizable names and faces, helping to fuel the public image of the gangster as celebrity.

  “I can’t think of any other time in history where it would have been better for us to get our start,” Pudge once told me. “It was almost as if the people wanted us to come in, set up shop and take over the place. Anywhere you turned, things broke our way. Prohibition, the Depression, the trouble over in Europe, what have you. You name it and we figured a way to turn misery into money. We went to bed poor and we woke up rich. In those times, nobody could make something like that happen faster than a hood.”