He walked up the gray carpeted flight of steps to the second floor and knocked on the white painted door.
"Come in," said Mr. Gasso.
Willie entered, closing the door behind him. It was a well-lit room with wide bay windows, soft plush furniture, a 27-inch colour television set, and doilies over everything. Even a bedspread made of white doilies. Mr. Gasso made the doilies with little hooked needles and some sort of thread or string. Needless to say, his strange hobby failed to draw ridicule.
Mr. Gasso occasionally gave doilies to people he knew. When you got a doily from Mr. Gasso you put it on the most noticeable thing closest to your door lest Mr. Gasso should happen to visit you and happen to ask you what you did with his doily. Or worse, not ask.
Mr. Gasso sat on the edge of his doily covered bed, in his underwear. He had shoulders like cement drums used to anchor bridge supports. These shoulders extended to arms like steel beams. The arms ended at table sized fists. There were no wrists, just the giant arms ending in giant hands. All of this was covered with thick black hair from the top of his bulky head down to his ankles. His ankles and his palms and the soles of his feet were the only parts of Mr. Gasso's body not covered with hair-if you didn't count eyeballs and tongue. Mr, Gasso had hair on his lips.
His ankles looked as if someone had massaged them with a depilatory. Or maybe he could pull off his hair like long underwear, and it was a bad fit at the ankles.
Mr. Gasso apparently felt no embarrassment about his body hair. At least his peer group had never ostracized him for it.
"It's so good to see you, Mr. Gasso," said Willie the Plumber.
Mr. Gasso concentrated on his stitching. "What do you want?" he said.
"Don Dominic needs your help."
"Why didn't he come himself?"
"That's the problem, Mr. Gasso. He trunks someone is on to the big thing."
"He doesn't want to see me."
"Oh no, Mr. Gasso. He'd love to see you. Really. He has great respect for you, like we all do, Mr. Gasso. But there's this magazine writer who he wants to play it smart with. Like we keep a tail on him, and we get you to size him up and then if we need you, you know."
"I know," said Mr. Gasso.
Willie the Plumber smiled a very sincere and honest smile of true joy.
"Did he say anything about this guy?"
And it was here that Willie fought for control of his bladder. From time to time, certain people were sent to Mr. Gasso with messages. Sometimes the message meant for Mr. Gasso to kill the hit, but sometimes it meant for Mr. Gasso to hit the messenger. Willie the Plumber had to be very careful with the words lest he say a wrong one and suffer for it. Then again, he might get everything right and still suffer for it.
Willie said very slowly:
"He said this guy was a butterfly so be careful of the wings. That's what he said."
Mr. Gasso cast his dull brown eyes on Willie. Willie was smiling very broadly.
"He said that?"
"Yes sir," said Willie as if the tidings could have nothing to do with his personal safety.
"Okay. This is what you do. You set up the sizing and you get Johnny the Duck, and Vinnie O'Boyle. They'll be the tail. And get Pops Smith, the coloured guy. I like him real good."
"You really want a nigger on this?" asked Willie the Plumber.
"A lot of niggers is better than you. A lot of niggers is good people. I trust Pops Smith. I don't trust you, Willie the Plumber. We'll meet at the Monarch Bar in half an hour."
"I like Pops Smith. I like him. I like him real good. I'll get Pops Smith."
"Shut the door on your way out, Willie the Plumber."
"Awfully nice seeing you again, Mr. Gasso."
"Yeah," said Mr. Gasso and Willie was out the door in an instant. He shut it quietly, but quickly, and bounced down the steps, thanking Mrs. Rosenberg and saying how nice it was to meet her again; what a lovely home she had and weren't those splendid doilies she had on her sofa, why Willie had one just like it at home.
"I use them because it makes Gaetano feel needed," said Mrs. Rosenberg sharply. "Good day."
"Good day, Mrs. Rosenberg," said Willie the Plumber. Then it was into his beautiful Eldorado and thence to the Monarch bar and an old-fashioned which he brought into the telephone booth.
"Hello, O'Boyle. Willie the Plumber. I want you at the Monarch now. Don't give me that shit about you being in the saddle. If you don't pull out now, you may never be able to use it again."
Willie the Plumber hung up, waited for the disconnect, deposited a dime, then dialled again.
"Pops Smith . . . oh, it's you. This is Willie the Plumber. Get your black ass over to the Monarch now. I can go what? Are you coming over now? You want me to tell that to Gaetano? You want I should let him know you told him to go fuck himself? Yeah, he wants you. And make it snappy."
Willie hung up and when he heard the disconnect, spoke loudly into the mouthpiece, "nigger."
Then he dialled again. "Johnny? How are you? This is Willie the Plumber. Got something good for you. I'm at the Monarch. Yeah, Mr. Gasso would like you to come. Okay, but hurry if you can."
Then Willie hung up and strode to the bar, looked around menacingly at the workingmen and city hall officials, ignoring the eyes of the two plainclothesmen at the far end of the bar.
He was going to have real respect soon. Didn't he arrange for the drivers of the Ocean Wheels trucks? Didn't he direct them to the warehouse where Mr. Gasso took over? Hadn't he kept his mouth shut when they never came back, even though one of them was his brother, and his sister-in-law had thrown a pot of hot pasta at his head when the brother never reappeared?
So he didn't know where the big shipment was. You couldn't tell everyone. But he knew a lot of things. Like he knew Verillio had a boss and that it wasn't Verillio who planned the big drug import.
Willie the Plumber knew, because on certain key moves, Verillio would close the door, make a telephone call, and then come out with his decision.
Willie the Plumber knew, but he was telling no one, until the time was just right. Then, he'd have some respect.
He pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket to let the bartender and customers ogle, then peeled off two tens.
"Get the bar a drink," said Willie the Plumber, who one day soon would do to the perfect human weapon what Gaetano Gasso and squads of men could never do.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Remo left the taxicab at city hall and noticed the two cars of hoods sizing him up. Dugan or Verillio. He would bet on Verillio. Dugan could have used his cops. Whoops. On the far side of the street, plain-clothes men in an unmarked squad car. Well, Dugan and Verillio.
"All's well that begins well," he thought. Up the well-worn city hall steps he bounced, stopped to give one and all a profile, then went into the building. A candy and soft drink stand was to his right. Clerk's office to his far right. Tax office on his left. Mayor's office, according to the black and gold sign in the middle of the double staircase, up one flight.
Up one flight he went, glancing into the city council chambers where democracy and various other kinds of public stealing occurred. The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship, he thought, is that thieves tend to rotate more in a democracy. But the thieves in a democracy had to be organized.
If he believed this way, what the hell was he doing in his job? he asked himself.
He already knew the answer. The same thing ninety per cent of the rest of the world was doing in its jobs. He did his job because that was what he did and no exploration of his inner psyche ever provided a better explanation.
He read the sign, Mayor's Office, knocked, and walked in. A very attractive, gray-haired woman sat at a typewriter in the outer office.