"No Al Z here," replied the voice, all in a fast flow of heavily accented English so that it came out as "Noalseeher." It was followed by a click and the intercom went silent.
Louis hit the buzzer again.
"Yes," said the same voice.
"Man, just open the damn door, okay?"
The intercom clicked off, then buzzed, and we passed through, the reinforced door springing shut behind us. We walked up four flights of stairs to where a plain, unvarnished door stood open. A figure leaned against the window beyond, small and bulky, its hand resting midway between its neck and its belt, ready to move for the gun if necessary. The only ornamentation on the wall was a cheap-looking black and white clock, which softly ticked away the seconds. I figured the surveillance camera was probably hidden behind it. When we entered the room and saw the television screen on Al Z's desk showing only an empty stairwell, I realized I was right.
There were four men in the room. One was the short bulky guy, his skin yellow as a beeswax candle, who had watched us from the doorway. An older man, his flesh heavy at the jowls like a basset hound's, sat on a worn leather sofa to the left of the doorway, his legs crossed, a white shirt and red silk tie beneath his black suit. His eyes were hidden by small, round-framed sunglasses. Against the wall, a young buck leaned with his thumbs hooked into the empty belt loops of his pants, holding his silver-gray jacket away from his sides to reveal the butt of a H &K semiautomatic at his waist. His gray suit pants were baggy, narrowing to pipe-cleaner thinness where they met his silver-tooled cowboy boots. The eighties revival was obviously still in full flow where he came from.
Louis was looking straight ahead as if the room was empty apart from the fourth man who sat behind a teak desk inlaid with green leather, the desktop clean apart from a black telephone, a pen and notebook and the TV screen, which kept up its unceasing vigil on the stairs.
Al Z looked like a well-groomed undertaker on vacation. His thin silver hair was swept back from the broad expanse of his forehead and slicked tightly to his skull. His face was craggy and wrinkled, the eyes dark like opals, the lips thin and dry, the nostrils on his long nose slim and strangely elongated, as if he had been bred for his powers of smell. He wore a three-piece suit of autumn hues, the fabric a mix of reds and oranges and yellows, finely interwoven. His white shirt was open at the neck, the collar narrow pinpoint, and there was no tie. In his right hand he held a cigarette; his left lay flat on the desk, the nails short and clean, but not manicured. Al Z acted as the buffer between the upper reaches of the organization and the lower. He solved problems, when they arose. It was his gift to be a problem solver, but there was no point in a manicure if your hands were always going to be dirty.
There were no chairs in front of his desk, and the man in the dark suit remained spread across the sofa, so we stayed standing. Al Z nodded at Louis, then looked long and appraisingly at me.
"Well, well, the famous Charlie Parker," he said at last. "If I knew you were coming, I'd have worn a tie."
"Everybody knows you, how you gonna make any money as a private dick?" muttered Louis. "Hiring you for undercover work be like hiring Jay Leno."
Al Z waited for him to finish before turning his attention from me to Louis. "If I knew you were bringing equally distinguished company, Mr. Parker, I'd have made everybody else wear a tie too."
"Long time no see," said Louis.
Al Z nodded. "I got bad lungs." He waved the cigarette gently as he spoke. "The New York air don't agree with me. I prefer it up here."
But there was more to it than that: the mob was no longer what it once had been. The world of The Godfather was history before the film ever hit the screen, the image of the Italians already sullied by their involvement in the heroin epidemic of the seventies, and since then walking disaster areas like John Gotti Jr. had debased it even further. RICO-the racketeer-influenced and corrupt organization laws-had put an end to the construction shakedowns, the garbage collection monopolies, and the mob control of the Fulton Street Fish Market in New York. The heroin-smuggling business that had operated out of pizza parlors was gone, busted by the FBI in 1987. The old bosses were dead, or in jail.
Meanwhile, the Asians had spread from Chinatown, crossing the divide of Canal Street into Little Italy, and the blacks and the Latinos now controlled operations in Harlem. Al Z had smelled death in the air and had receded even further into the background, to the north, watching events in New York while dealing with the problems of the troubled New England operation. Now he sat in a bare office above a comic book store in Boston, and tried to maintain some element of stability in what little remained. That was why Tony Clean was so dangerous: he believed the old myths and still saw the potential for personal glory in the tattered remnants of the organization. His actions threatened to bring down heat on his associates at a time when the organization was in a weakened position. His continued existence endangered the survival of everyone around him.
To our left, the young gun eased himself from the wall. "They're carrying, Al," he said. "You want me to lighten their load?"
From the corner of my eye, I saw Louis's eyebrow raise itself about a quarter of an inch. Al Z caught the gesture, and smiled gently.
"I wish you luck," he said. "I don't think either of our guests are the kind to give up their toys so easily."
The young gun's glow of confidence flickered, as if he was unsure whether or not he was being tested. "They don't look so tough," he said.
"Look harder," said Al Z.
The gunslinger looked but his powers of perception left a lot to be desired. He glanced once again at Al Z, then made a move toward Louis.
"I wouldn't, if I were you," said Louis softly.
"You ain't me," said the younger man, but there was a hint of wariness in his voice.
"That's true," said Louis. "I was you, I wouldn't be dressed like no crack pimp."
A bright light flashed in the young man's eyes. "You talk to me like that, you fuckin' nig…" The word died in a kind of gasp in his throat as Louis's body twisted, his left hand closing tightly on the man's neck and propelling him backward, his right quickly slipping the gun from the Italian's belt holster and tossing it to the floor. The young man gurgled once as he hit the wall, spittle flying from his lips as the air was forced from his body. Then slowly, his feet began to lift from the floor; first his heels, then his toes, until the only thing holding him upright was Louis's unyielding left hand. His face turned pink, then deep red. Louis did not release his grip until a hint of blue began creeping into his lips and ears, then the fingers of his hand opened suddenly and the gunman sank to the ground, his hands fumbling at the collar of his shirt as he struggled to draw painful, choking breaths into his parched lungs.
During the whole incident, nobody else in the room had moved, because Al Z hadn't given any indication that they should. He looked at his struggling soldier the way he might have looked at a one-clawed crab dying on a beach, then returned his attention to Louis.
"You'll have to excuse him," he said. "Some of these boys, they learn their manners and their speech patterns in the gutter." He turned his attention to the bulky man at the door, waving his cigarette at the figure on the floor, who now lay with his back against the wall, his eyes dazed and weak. "Take him to the bathroom, get him a glass of water. Then try to explain to him where he went wrong."
The bulky guy helped the younger man to his feet, and accompanied him outside. The big man on the sofa didn't move. Al Z got to his feet and walked over to the window where he stood for a moment, watching the street below, before turning and resting against the windowsill. The three of us were now on the same level, and I recognized the gesture of good manners after what had taken place.