Turning to Horshak, Satariano flashed a smile as awful as it was brief. “That’s the story, isn’t it?” Then he returned his gaze to Tony. “But Frank Nitti also betrayed my father. The O’Sullivans have a sort of family trait, you see — we settle scores.”
All of it rushed through Accardo’s brain: the loyal Looney family enforcer whose wife and youngest son were viciously murdered by Connor Looney, and when Old Man John Looney stood by his son, the Outfit had backed them up — putting business ahead of loyalty. And the Angel of Death and his son, who’d been all of eleven or twelve, traveled the countryside, robbing banks of mob deposits and leaving a trail of dead Outfit guys behind them like bloody breadcrumbs.
That was who was sitting across from him: the killer’s kid who had grown up into some kind of psycho Audie Murphy war hero. For decades Michael Satariano had been a front man, a nonviolent liaison with the straight world, because of his Medal of Honor celebrity; but Mooney Fucking Giancana had to go and wake up the Michael O’Sullivan, Jr., slumbering inside that soft-spoken casino manager...
Great. Fucking great.
“Why tell me this?” Tony asked. “I can better understand you just shooting me — I don’t deny letting Giancana sic Mad Sam’s crew on you.”
Satariano’s shrug was barely perceptible. “Giancana lied to you. You thought I’d taken Mad Sam out.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. Listen, I swam in these waters for a lotta years of my own free will; I understand the kind of barracudas I’m liable to run into. Something bad happens to me, such is the life I chose. However... if somebody touches a hair on my daughter, Anna’s, head, I’ll stuff the guy’s cock and balls in his mouth and then kill him.”
“Fair enough,” Tony said with a knowing nod. Then he turned to the lawyer, who seemed about to throw up, and said, “Don’t. You smell rank enough already, Sid.”
“And let me explain something else,” Satariano said. “Something... related.”
“Please,” Tony said.
“Mr. Accardo, no matter what happens — even if you personally sanction the killing of my entire family, including Anna, who is all I have left in this life — I still would not harm your family. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Tony said, “I think I do.”
“You and me, Mr. Accardo, we’re bad men. We’re killers. But we are not monsters.” Satariano shook his head, his mouth twitching in something that was not exactly a smile. “Do you even know?”
“Know what, Michael?”
“Know that Giancana sent three men into my house — the one in Arizona, where the feds put us to be safe? Sent them in dressed like Charlie Manson and they murdered my wife. They butchered my wife, Mr. Accardo.”
Tony swallowed slowly. “I... Michael, I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Michael... truly sorry. The feds must’ve put a lid on it, and Giancana sure as hell didn’t come to me for the okay.” The gangster leaned forward. “You have to know I wouldn’t sanction that.”
“That’s why you’re not dead, Mr. Accardo.” Satariano leaned forward, too, turning the snout of the .45 toward the ganglord. “But you do understand that I could have killed you? And that I may be one man, but I won’t be easy for your people to kill; I’m my father’s son, and if they try and fail, I won’t have any trouble repeating tonight’s little lesson... with the slight difference that you’ll be among the dead in the sum total.”
Tony lifted his palms up, as if in provisional surrender. “I do understand. But I’m not sure I understand why you wanted to talk to me.”
Satariano sighed. “Mr. Accardo, I owe the government nothing. They promised me safety for my family and they did not deliver. So all they have from me is a couple of weeks of interviews. Nothing they can use in court. I’m not saying what I told them won’t help them; but I am saying... I am pledging you, giving my word as a man... as a made man... that I will not testify for those people.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Michael.”
“Do you believe me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Good... I’m going to kill Sam Giancana. Do you have a problem with that?”
Tony smiled. “None at all. Help yourself. We owe you that one.”
Satariano studied the gangster, then said, “I have an idea I might be helping you, taking Mooney out.”
Tony shrugged. “I won’t lie to you. You would be doing us a favor, yes.”
A nod. Then: “When this is over, Mr. Accardo, I intend to disappear.”
“Good idea.”
“I don’t need money. I’m just going to take my daughter and drop off the edge of the earth.”
“Which is what I would do, your shoes.”
Satariano leaned forward again. “Mr. Accardo, you’ll be pressured to do something about me. You may feel, as Al Capone felt, as Frank Nitti felt about my father, that letting me live would cause you to lose face.”
“Let me worry about that, Michael.”
“No, I prefer to do my own worrying.”
Tony thought for a moment. “You’ll settle for my word, son?”
“I will, sir.”
“Then you got it.”
Satariano sucked in a breath, cocked his head. “Anything you can do, clear a path for me, with Giancana would be helpful. Starting with... where is the bastard?”
Tony chuckled. “Right at the first place you’d look: that crummy house of his in Oak Park.”
Satariano’s eyes tightened. “With the steel door in the basement?”
“Yeah. But maybe that could be unlocked, by accident; Sam goes out to tend his garden and sometimes forgets to lock up proper, when he comes back in.”
A single humorless laugh. “I can see how that could happen, Mr. Accardo.”
Now Tony’s head cocked. “Michael, I could give you a phone number... so we can stay in touch.”
“Why don’t you do that, Mr. Accardo?”
“Want me to write it down?”
“Just tell me.”
Tony did.
Then Tony Accardo stuck his hand out.
And Michael O’Sullivan, Jr., shook it.
Finally the slender figure with the World War II rifle slung over his shoulder, and the World War I automatic in his fist, trotted off the patio, heading around the side of the house, going for the gate.
Next to Tony, the attorney slumped. He was breathing hard, almost sobbing.
“You all right, Sid?”
“Angel... Angel of fucking Death? Who’s gonna show up next? Dillinger’s kid? Bonnie and Clyde’s niece? Fuck me!”
Tony put a hand on the lawyer’s shoulder. “Everything will be fine, Sid. Why don’t you go in the house and change your pants?”
The attorney, embarrassed suddenly, nodded, and almost ran inside, stealing a shuddery glance at the skinny corpse of Jimmy T.
And Tony Accardo, in his terrycloth robe, sat in the dark in the presence of the corpses of two of his men. He found a cigar and a lighter in his robe pocket and lighted up; then he sat and smoked, rocking just a little, eyes narrow, thinking about the bargain he’d made, and the word he’d given.
Eleven
Palm Springs had an unofficial ban on the word “motel” — you could find lodges, inns, villas, manors, and even the occasional “guest ranch.” But the Solona Court on the outskirts of the swanky resort town consisted of a dozen modest cabins whose sole creature comfort was television with rabbit ears. With the exception of the latter, this dreary little mission-style motel with its framed bullfighter litho, pale plaster walls, and featureless furnishings could have been one of a dozen such fleabags where Michael and his father stayed in 1931, on their six-month road trip to Perdition, Kansas.