Sicilian Defense (5 page)

Turning the corner Yank walked quickly toward a small building with a stoop. On one side of the stoop was a railing with a gate in the center, which led to the apartment of Sheila Cummins, the landlady. Usually Sheila was sitting in that basement window watching the street, but her lights were off now. Yank went up the stoop and opened the outer door. A bare bulb overhead revealed a set of four mailboxes in the left wall. None of them had name-plates; one had its door missing and two had holes where the locks should have been. Yank entered the inner door and was assailed by an acrid smell of urine. He stepped gingerly over a heap of plaster beside the first-floor apartment where some junkies had attempted to bore through the walls. The wooden wall studs and metal laths were exposed. Several sets of plaster-caked shoes had ascended the steps before him. He wondered if the others had all arrived.

Yank reached the top floor, then continued to the roof. He hesitated just inside the roof bulkhead for a few minutes, listening for footsteps behind him. It was totally silent except for the hum of a refrigerator out of phase somewhere. He pushed open the door and stepped onto the roof. In the darkness he put his foot into a puddle; immediately he felt the cold water soaking into his sock. Yank cursed as he moved deftly across the roof, over the parapet wall onto the adjoining roof, then ducked into the doorway leading down into the next building. Quickly he moved his tall, powerful frame down the stairs. Yank was about six-foot-three, well muscled from his basketball days in the playground and then Benjamin Franklin High School. His hair was moderately Afro, topping off his strong, handsome dark complexion.

Yank knocked on the door of apartment seven. He heard movement inside, then the peephole moved and the door opened.

“Where the fuck you been, man?” asked Hartley, the one who opened the door. Hartley was short and thin, with a black pencil mustache. He was darker-skinned than Yank.

“Doing a little scouting,” Yank said, moving into the apartment.

The other three were already there. Bull, who was just that—chunky, thick-necked, bald, very black. Alfred—light-skinned, sinister-looking, tall and thin—had a scar from the left corner of his mouth to his left cheekbone. The third was Duck, who like Yank was tall and powerfully built.

“What'd you see?” asked Bull.

“Nothing. I took a drive past the Two Steps Down Inn. Naturally, I didn't spend too much time—I just drove by. Nobody was there. The restaurant was closed and the lights were out. I didn't even see anybody on the street.”

Bull raised his eyebrows, a little surprised. “I'd have figured them having a council of war, getting their guinea torpedoes all lined up.”

Yank sat on the threadbare couch; Bull took a chair at the table in the middle of the room. Hartley went over to the sideboard, poured himself a drink from a bottle of Four Roses and cut it with Coke.

“Hey, Hartley, you really punishing that stuff,” said Alfred.

“You mind?” said Hartley. “I don't mind you when you do your thing, sniffing your brains out.”

“Can it!” yelled Bull, his eyes, which seemed small in his large head, blinking furiously.

“What do you figure, Bull?” asked Duck, his arms folded across his formidable chest as he leaned against the wall.

“What's to figure? They paid for the other three. These pigs'll pay too.”

“Yeah, but the others were just trash compared to this guy, man—guys who controlled local numbers and books. This is the big leagues compared to them.”

“They weren't that little, Duck. One guy handled all the bookies in upper Manhattan; another the same over in Boston Road and around there. And the other guy pushed half of all the junk in the south Bronx. We're going to shake whitey up so bad, he won't want the rackets in our territory—he's going to leave our turf to us. Besides, we got ourselves a hundred-fifteen thousand already, didn't we?”

“And killed a guy,” said Hartley unhappily. “Don't you think, Bull, maybe we got enough already? I mean, a hundred-fifteen …”

“Can it! You want out?” Bull demanded, looking at Hartley with fierce eyes.

Hartley smiled placatingly. “No, Bull. You know I'm in, it's just that, well, why push our luck? We're doing all right now. I mean, a hundred-fifteen …”

“Man, you don't understand,” said Bull. “It's not the money. It's getting out from under.” He pounded his fist on the table. Hartley froze with apprehension. The others watched silently. Bull rose, his muscles rippling. “We been running errands, picking up numbers, booking bets, pushing junk for whitey too long! Black people's bread belongs to us blacks that can part them from it—not whitey!” Bull was snarling through clenched teeth. “We're going to run our own rackets and steal from our own people. The money we're making them cough up with the kidnaping and the guy we killed are only to show we have balls, man, balls, not watermelons between our legs—you got it?”

“Sure, Bull. I know all that,” said Hartley.

“Well, remember it when you tell me we got enough. Nothing's enough until we have it all. All of it for ourselves. We're going to make whitey scared shitless to come into our neighborhoods.”

“But how come this old man?” asked Duck. “He has nothing to do with Harlem or south Bronx. What are we grabbing him for?”

“Because he's a big man in the syndicate. All them wops and organized crime are going to know we got them between our legs now. We grab him like we did, and all the small local guys'll shit green apples. We'll crack this town open in one shot, man—one shot!”

“Right on,” said Yank. “Big Uncle Tom Diamond and everybody else'll fall right into line, ‘cause we're going to pull this whole thing down from the top. They know we mean business now.”

“Man, they must have shit when that body hit the street,” said Alfred, smiling.

“And those guys uptown paying us twenty-six thousand,” Bull roared. “Man, when we played them that recording and they heard that guy's voice, they paid us for a dead man.” He walked over to the sideboard and poured a neat drink of whiskey. He sipped it, laughing, and slapped Alfred's palm in jubilation. “That was a cool idea.”

“That's right, baby,” said Alfred. He took out a small envelope and drew a pinch of cocaine, tapping back the excess before sniffing it deeply.

“They all small-timers compared to us now,” said Bull. “We just hit our stride, man. We're in the league we belong in.”

“Are we going to kill this old guy too?” asked Hartley.

“I haven't decided yet. If they don't pay, we'll cut his head off for them. If they pay, well, maybe we won't. Why stir up all these guinea torpedoes if we don't have to? We want to make money, not war.”

“How much we going for, Bull?” asked Alfred.

“Plenty. This is the big league, isn't it? Say about a hundred thousand.”

“You think they'll pay a hundred for that old man?” said Yank. “I wouldn't.”

“They better,” said Bull. He sat down again at the table. “They been squeezing money out of our shoe leather for a long time, baby, a long time.”

“Man, let me cut him open and see what's inside a guy they'd pay a hundred thousand for,” said Alfred with his sinister, crooked smile.

“Yeah, man, if we let this cat go back, he'll know what we look like and he'll have his boys come after us. Why leave witnesses?” asked Duck.

“Man, you know we all look alike to them pigs. Where they going to find us?”

“Me, I'm going to be gone with my bread,” said Hartley..

“Oh, no you're not,” said Bull. “We going to stay around here and take over when they start to thin out—that's the whole bit, man. We going to stay, doing our regular thing just like before, until it cools down a bit.”

“What?” Alfred moaned. “After all this scheming and dreaming, we got to hold onto the bread and not spend it?”

“That's it,” said Bull. “Unless you want someone to give you a real fine funeral with your share—which they'll do if they see some no-count nigger runner going around spending all kinds of bread.”

“Oh, come on Bull, we got to spend some of it,” said Yank. “Momma needs a nice warm heater attached to a nice new Coupe de Ville.”

“Patience, baby. I want to sport with all the loot too. But in good time, baby. In good time we'll live like kings.”

“What's good time?” asked Duck.

“Three, four months,” said Bull.

“Shit, man,” said Hartley, “that's like the Chinese water torture. Ain't we been doing without long enough?”

“And is three or four more months going to break your little ass?”

“Maybe, maybe it will, with all that bread sitting in your pocket doing nothing,” said Hartley.

“Well, let me put it to you real straight, baby. What would you rather have break your ass: three or four months, or me?” Bull glared at Hartley menacingly. “'Cause you start sporting around town, and we all going to have our ass in a sling.”

“Okay, okay, Bull,” Hartley said.

“Alfred, you sure the old man is safe in Newark?” Bull asked.

Alfred nodded slowly, emphatically. “Sure is, man. He don't even know where he is. Duck had him blindfolded in the back of the car.”

“And lying face down on the seat. He ain't got no idea where he is. And nobody else does either, except my cousin and Charlie, who're watching him.”

“We going to give them a recording on this guy?” Hartley asked.

“Why, you soft on pigs today?” Yank smiled.

“Man, don't you pull that shit on me. I'm in this the same as you. I been dragging my ass pushing junk a lot longer than you, and my dues book is fuller than yours, so don't be talking trash to me. I just want to know we going to off this cat.”

“Let's see what happens,” said Bull, pouring another neat drink. “Let's just see what happens when we call them tonight.”

“What'll you tell them?” asked Alfred.

“I'm going to tell them we want the hundred and no fucking around.”

“When you going to tell them to have it?”

“By tomorrow night.”

“You think they got that kind of bread hanging around?” Alfred asked, almost licking his lips.

“If they don't, they'll get it. That's their problem, baby. We got our own troubles.”

9:45 A.M.

Gianni Aquilino looked at his wristwatch as Sandro Luca, his lawyer, opened the huge wooden door of the New York County Lawyers' building. Sandro was young, dark-haired and well-dressed. Gianni had known him since he was a boy; his uncle, before he had been deported to die in Italy, had been Gianni's friend and associate for many years.

“What time will this start, Sandro?” Gianni asked, thinking of the myriad things he had to do, details to sift and analyze, before eight this night.

“It's supposed to start at ten,” Sandro replied, “but I don't know how many witnesses they'll call ahead of us.”

The Chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee for the Investigation and Control of Crime, Maurice Stern of the New York State Senate, had chosen the County Lawyers' building not only because its auditorium and other facilities were more conducive to a crime probe than the State Office Building on Broadway, but also because it was a more dramatic and imposing setting for television and other news coverage. And, in the eyes of Senator Stern, news coverage was always a most important consideration, particularly in an election year.

Just inside the entrance was a sign marked
HEARING
with an arrow pointing up the marble staircase. Gianni and Sandro started climbing.

“Do you want a slip of paper with the Fifth Amendment typed out?” Sandro asked. “I brought one with me just in case.”

Gianni smiled. “Sandro,
caro
, I could recite the Fifth Amendment in my sleep. I'm going to have it carved on my tombstone.” He paused to light a cigarette.

They reached a center landing where the stairs split into two curving marble banks, rising to a large, somber anteroom. On one side, the anteroom opened onto the auditorium; on the other, into a large waiting room with a fireplace at each end where television cameras and lights were being set up.

Many small groups of men were huddled around the edges of the anteroom. As Gianni reached the top of the stairs, a wave of excitement quickly whipped through the reporters and cameramen. They surged toward him.

“Mr. Aquilino will testify inside, gentlemen,” Sandro announced. “He won't make any statements other than that. I know you'll get pictures whether we want them or not—I only ask you to wait until we're leaving.”

“As long as we get them then,” said one of the cameramen.

“What's your name, counselor?”

Sandro told them, spelling it out.

The reporters were like ducks voraciously lunging for pieces of bread tossed in the water.

“Can we get a filmed interview, counselor?” asked one of the well-known ABC newscasters.

Gianni stood silently at Sandro's side, letting him handle it all.

“No. You'll get your pictures as we leave, but no interviews.”

“How about inside when Gianni's testifying, counselor? Can we get a couple of shots in there?” asked another TV man. His cameraman stood next to him, camera in hand, focusing on Gianni.

Sandro and Gianni moved forward. “No pictures inside. You'll be able to take them on the way out.”

“See if you can speed this up, Sandro,” Gianni said in a low voice. “I've got to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Sandro said. “Will you be all right by yourself for a moment while I go inside?”

Gianni nodded with faint amusement.

“Hiya, Gianni,” said one of the reporters, “how've you been?”

“Fine. How've you been?”

“Okay,” replied the reporter. “Remember, I asked a lot of questions you didn't answer back when the Grand Jury was investigating that time you were shot?”