Instead of saying And this is how you thank me? Joe said, “So if I can’t be in charge because Charlie says ‘No Irish need apply,’ what can I be?”
“What I tell you to.” This from Digger, finished with his second orange, wiping his sticky palms on the sides of the armchair.
Maso gave Joe a don’t-mind-him look and said, “Consigliere. You stay with Digger and teach him the ropes, introduce him to people around town, maybe teach him how to golf or fish.”
Digger fixed Joe in his tiny eyes. “I know how to shave and tie my shoes.”
Joe wanted to say, But you have to think about it, don’t you?
Maso patted Joe’s knee once. “You’ll have to take a little haircut, financially speaking. But don’t worry, we’re going to muscle the port this summer, take the whole fucking thing over, and there’ll be plenty of work, I promise.”
Joe nodded. “What kind of haircut?”
Maso said, “Digger takes over your cut. You assemble a crew and keep whatever you make, less tribute.”
Joe looked at the windows. He looked out at the ones overlooking the alley for a moment. Then the ones overlooking the bay. He counted down slowly from ten. “You’re demoting me to crew boss?”
Maso patted his knee again. “It’s a realignment, Joseph. On Charlie Luciano’s orders.”
“Charlie said, ‘Replace Joe Coughlin in Tampa.’ ”
“Charlie said, ‘No non-Italians at the top.’ ” Maso’s voice was still smooth, kindly even, but Joe could hear a bit of frustration creeping in.
Joe took a moment to keep his own voice in check because he knew how fast Maso could drop the courtly old gentleman mask and reveal the savage cannibal behind it.
“Maso, I think Digger wearing the crown is a great idea. The two of us together? We’ll take over the state, take over Cuba while we’re at it. I have the connections to do that. But my cut needs to stay close to what it is now. I step down to crew boss? I’ll make maybe a tenth of what I’m making now. And I gotta make my monthly nut on—what?—shaking down longshoremen unions and cigar factory owners? There’s no power there.”
“Maybe that’s the point.” Digger smiled for the first time, a piece of orange stuck in his upper teeth. “You ever think of that, smart guy?”
Joe looked at Maso.
Maso stared back at him.
Joe said, “I built this.”
Maso nodded.
Joe said, “I pulled ten-eleven times out of this city what Lou Ormino was fucking making for you.”
“Because I let you,” Maso said.
“Because you needed me.”
“Hey, smart guy,” Digger said, “nobody needs you.”
Maso patted the air between him and his son, the kind of calming gesture you used on a dog. Digger sat back in his chair, and Maso turned to Joe. “We could use you, Joseph. We could. But I am sensing a lack of gratitude.”
“So am I.”
This time Maso’s hand settled on his knee and squeezed. “You work for me. Not for yourself, not for the spics or the niggers you surround yourself with. If I tell you to go clean the shit out of my toilet, guess what you’re going to do?” He smiled, his voice as soft as ever. “I’ll kill your cunt girlfriend and burn your house to embers if I feel like it. You know this, Joseph. Your eyes got a little big for your head down here, that’s all. I’ve seen it happen before.” He raised the hand from Joe’s knee and patted Joe’s face with it. “So, do you want to be a crew boss? Or do you want to clean the shit out of my toilets on diarrhea day? I’m accepting applications for both.”
If Joe played ball, he’d have a few days’ head start to talk to all his contacts, marshal his forces, and align the chess pieces correctly. While Maso and his guns were back on the train heading north, Joe would fly up to New York, talk to Luciano directly, put a balance sheet on his desk and show him what Joe would make him versus what a retard like Digger Pescatore would lose him. There was an excellent chance Lucky would see the light and they could move past this with minimal bloodshed.
“Crew boss,” Joe said.
“Ah,” Maso said with a broad smile, “my boy.” He pinched Joe’s cheeks. “My boy.”
When Maso got out of his chair, Joe did too. They shook hands. They hugged. Maso kissed both his cheeks in the same spots where he’d pinched them.
Joe shook hands with Digger and told him how much he looked forward to working with him.
“For,” Digger reminded him.
“Right,” Joe said. “For you.”
He headed for the door.
“Dinner tonight?” Maso said.
Joe stopped at the door. “Sure. Tropicale at nine sound good?”
“Sounds great.”
“Okay. I’ll get us the best table.”
“Wonderful,” Maso said. “And make sure he’s dead by then.”
“What?” Joe took his hand off the knob. “Who?”
“Your friend.” Maso poured himself a cup of coffee. “The large one.”
“Dion?”
Maso nodded.
“He hasn’t done anything,” Joe said.
Maso looked up at him.
“What am I missing?” Joe said. “He’s been a great earner and a great gun.”
“He’s a rat,” Maso said. “Six years ago, he ratted on you. Means six minutes from now, six days, six months, he’ll do it again. I can’t have a rat working for my son.”
“No,” Joe said.
“No?”
“No, he didn’t sell me out. That was his brother. I told you.”
“I know what you told me, Joseph. I also know you lied. Now, I allow you one lie.” He held up his index finger while he added cream to his coffee. “You’ve had yours. Kill that hunk of shit before dinner.”
“Maso,” Joe said. “Listen. It was his brother. I know it for a fact.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
“You’re not lying to me?”
“I’m not lying to you.”
“Because you know what it means if you are.”
Jesus, Joe thought, you came down here to steal my operation for your useless fucking son. Just steal it already.
“I know what it means,” Joe said.
“You’re sticking to your story.” Maso dropped a cube of sugar into his cup.
“I’m sticking to it because it’s not a story. It’s the truth.”
“The whole truth and nothing but, uh?”
Joe nodded. “The whole truth and nothing but.”
Maso shook his head slowly, sadly, and the door behind Joe opened and Albert White walked into the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
How You Meet Your End
The first thing Joe noticed about Albert White was how much he’d aged in three years. Gone were the white- and cream-colored suits and fifty-dollar spats. His shoes were one step above the cardboard worn by the people who lived in the streets and the tents all over the country now. The lapels of his brown suit were frayed and the elbows thin. His haircut was the kind you got at home from a distracted wife or daughter.
The second thing Joe noticed was that he held Sal Urso’s Thompson in his right hand. Joe knew it was Sal’s because of the markings along the breech. Sal had a habit of rubbing the breech with his left hand when he was sitting with the Thompson on his lap. He still wore his wedding ring, even though his wife had caught the typhus in ’23, not long before he came to work for Lou Ormino in Tampa. When Sal rubbed the Thompson, the ring scratched the metal. Now, after years of cradling that gun, there was almost no bluing left.