"I ain't gonna waste the best years of my life loafin' on some Mexican beach, with some Mexican bitch sucking my dick! What kind of life is that for a man?"
Sal had contemplated that, and said, "Not a bad one at all," and got on the plane.
Goddamn him!
Well, fine. Who the fuck needed him. Angelo would have the whole goddamn business to himself. Sal and Polizzi and the others were acting like this was the end of the damn world, or at least the damn numbers racket. Hell, as long as there were niggers, there'd be numbers! And as long as there was numbers, there'd be big bucks to be made, and as long as there was big bucks to be made, the Mayfield Road gang-with Little Angelo Scalise as top man, from now on-would own the east side.
All it would take, he knew, was bumping off one of the big witnesses. Bump 'em off big and bloody. It couldn't just be anybody: It had to be somebody with a name in Central-Scovill. Then those niggers would turn their black tails and run.
Scalise's laughter echoed in the little cement room. Pins clattered out on the lanes. He flinched.
Before he'd gone into hiding, he called on some freelance torpedoes from Detroit, who were part of the old Purple Gang. Two brothers, Harry and Sam Keenan, who it was said worked look-out in the St. Valentine's Day massacre back in Chicago in '29, and a fellow named Greene and another named Berns. They were all Jews, but Scalise didn't give a fuck. He wasn't prejudiced.
The Keenan brothers had done jobs for Scalise before-including an important early hit in the Mayfield Road numbers takeover. It was the Keenans who blew Rufus Murphy all to shit in his driveway back in '33. They did good work. Not cheap-they were Jews after all-but value for the dollar. And tough bastards-they wouldn't talk if you fed their nuts to 'em one at a time.
Angelo had turned the Keenans and Greene and Berns loose on the east side last night. Waving fat wads of cash under nigger noses, looking for Ness witnesses. But they hadn't got anywhere, and-at Angelo's suggestion-went on to the home of Johnny C., a policy king who "retired" when Ange turned up the heat a few years back. Ange figured Johnny C.-who word on the street said was "out of town, on business"-was a sure bet to be one of Ness's sequestered witnesses.
So the Keenans and company shook the house down and Mrs. Washington up. Then-also at Angelo's suggestion- one of them, Greene, hung around the neighborhood, staking out the house. Sure enough, first the cops showed, then Ness himself, and pretty soon Johnny C. shows, too, chauffeured by that hard-ass coon cop Toussaint Johnson. The place was crawling with uniformed cops and plainclothes dicks, so there was no way Greene could make a play for Washington.
But when Washington came out of the house-looking like nigger royalty in his fancy English suit with black-and-white shoes and homburg hat-with a white uniformed cop as his driver, Greene tailed them and saw the cop escort Johnny C. to the Outhwaite public housing project, barely two blocks away.
Imagine that fucking Ness, hiding his witnesses out right there on the east side, close to home but out of sight, minutes from downtown and the courthouse. Scalise had to give the guy his balls, and his brains. Outhwaite was perfect, in a crazy way. The housing project was finished but for a central, X-shaped building that was supposed to be ready for residents in a couple months. Chances were Ness had all his key witnesses in that one, new, nearly finished building.
But all Scalise needed was Washington. Johnny C. was a name on the east side; he was still a powerful businessman, respected and even feared. If Johnny C. couldn't make it to the witness stand without dying, nobody else would risk it either; all that Ness talk in the papers about "safety in numbers" and "protection from reprisals" would look like the bullshit it was.
And the numbers racket would be up and running again, in the hands of the Mayfield Road gang, under the leadership of one Little Angelo Scalise. Only maybe from now on it would be "Big" Angelo.
Today Scalise had sent the Purple Gang boys to hole up in a hotel in Warrensville Heights, while he sent for Freddy Douglass, the Frank Hogey policy controller into whom Ange had put a scare some months ago in the alley by the Elite Cabaret.
Freddy, who liked his fancy clothes and fancy women, was hurting, thanks to Ness and his policy-racket squeeze. Scalise gave him a grand in twenties to play with at the Outhwaite housing project.
"Find out which building Washington's in," Ange told him, "and you earn a C-note. Find out the apartment number, and you earn a grand. And either way, you can keep the change."
"You got it, Mr. Scalise," Freddy said, putting the money in the jacket of his snappy gray suit. The small cement cubicle in the back of the bowling alley seemed like a closet with two men in it, and the smell of Freddy's heavy cologne made Scalise a little sick.
But Scalise knew Freddy was a good boy, one of the best of the colored crew, maybe the best of those who didn't get caught up in Ness's numbers net.
"Careful, now, Fred," Scalise said, ushering him out. "There's gonna be plenty of cops around. Could be plainclothes. Dress down.. look like somebody who might live in the projects."
"They dress good over there, Mr. Scalise. You got to pass certain requirements to get in there."
Scalise snorted a laugh. "I thought 'poor' and 'colored' was all it took."
"No. You can't get in if you got a record. I oughta know: I tried. Those are nice flats."
"Better than this shithole I'm stuck in," Scalise said, with a smirk, and patted the Negro on the back, sending him on his way.
That had been this morning. At two in the afternoon he got a call from Freddy, who had the info.
"He's in the center building," Freddy said quickly. "That X-shaped building."
Just as Scalise had figured.
"That part was easy," Freddy went on. "I just asked around-cost me a double-sawbuck, is all. But I also finagled you the apartment number."
"Beautiful, kid! Give."
"Johnny's on the top floor. It's five stories, and he's in 514. Nobody up on top but witnesses and probably some cops standing guard. There's no cops on the grounds, that I could see, anyway."
"Makes sense," Ange said. "They don't wanna advertise-but there's cops there, all right."
"Up on the fifth floor there's got to be. I had a hell of a time gettin' this. I don't think nobody livin' at Outhwaite has got this info."
"How the hell did you manage it, boy?"
"There's some white workmen, finishin' up that building. Painters and carpenters. Good union guys who don't like cops."
"That's nice work, Freddy. You didn't leave a trail, did you?"
"Naw. I said I had a hundred bucks from a reporter to find out where Johnny C. was being kept. Said I'd split it with anybody interested."
"You did good, boy. Made out like a bandit, on that grand I gave you. I'm gonna leave your fifteen hundred in a paper bag at the bar with Louie. Pick up it after closing-they don't serve coloreds here."
There was a slight pause, then: "Fine, boss."
Ange had next phoned Harry Keenan at the hotel in Warrensville Heights.
"Go buy an old used delivery truck," he told Keenan. "Pay cash and use a phony name. Make sure it runs good, though. Then get a couple of them tin tool kits-big enough to stuff our heaters in. And find some second-hand shop where you can buy coveralls and work clothes, loose-fitting so we can wear regular street clothes under."
"We?"
"Yeah. I'm coming along. I wouldn't miss this for the fuckin' world."
Ange had been cooped up in his cement cell too long-just two days, really, but it seemed forever-and besides, he wanted the word to go out that he did this deed himself. Angelo Scalise himself put the bullets in that squealing nigger Washington.
That would earn him respect. Like his cousin Sal professed, but didn't live up to, respect was all-important in a business like this. The whole east side-the whole damn town-would know you don't fuck with Angelo Scalise, the big boss of the Mayfield Road gang.