Макс Коллинз - Road to Purgatory

Michael had a midmorning breakfast at a one-arm joint called the Dinner Bell, and was relieved to find that the food went down easy. He’d had a little trouble on the train last night, and wasn’t sure if it was nerves or just the rattle and bump of the ride.

Not that this job for Mr. Nitti looked at all taxing. Yesterday the ganglord had filled him in at a table in a private dining room at the Capri Restaurant. Other than Nitti, Michael, and occasionally the waiter, no one else was there; even Campagna had been left downstairs.

After lunch, Nitti smoked an expensive, sweetly fragrant cigar while Michael mostly sat and listened, arms folded.

“You’re going in a day ahead of me,” Nitti said, “to make sure the security is up to snuff, for my meet with Al.”

“Will they know I’m coming?”

“Of course — you’ll report to Al’s brother John... ‘Mimi,’ only you call him ‘Mr. Capone’ until or unless he says otherwise. Mrs. Capone, Mae, Al’s wife, lives there with a few of her family members. There’s a good fifteen, twenty armed guards working in shifts, protecting Al.”

“Sounds sufficient.”

“It’s mostly just for Al’s peace of mind. Ever since he got out of stir, he’s been... anxious, about somebody out of his past maybe showin’ up to settle scores.”

“Really.”

Nitti shrugged, blew a smoke ring. “I know, I know — it’s what the head shrinkers call paranoia.”

How did Nitti know that term, Michael wondered; did the gang boss have his own psychiatrist? Campagna said their chief had been depressed after his wife’s death last year.

“Anyway,” Nitti said, “make sure the security team’s still sharp — that they ain’t got fat and sloppy. Been three years since Al’s release, you know, with never an attempt of any kind.”

“Guys can get lazy under such circumstances.”

“Exactly, kid.” Nitti leaned forward. Sotto voce, he said, “And you do know I’m also concerned about... certain parties. Certain factions.”

“Yes,” Michael said.

While little direct information had been shared with Michael, he’d gathered from both Nitti and Campagna that Paul “the Waiter” Ricca was contemplating a power play.

“Now I trust Mimi,” Nitti said, gesturing with the cigar as if it were a baton and Michael the band. “Al’s little brother is a harmless boy... ‘ Boy ,’ hell, he must be forty, now. But that’s still how I think of him — a damn kid.”

“Why’s that, Mr. Nitti?”

“Well... Mimi never was an achiever. Ran after skirts, mostly... but he’s got a clean record, and speaks well, so he handles the press for us down there, in Florida. And he supervises the estate... and, like me, Mimi cares about Al’s welfare.”

“Sounds like a good, loving brother.”

“He is. But Ricca goes back a long way with the Capones — Al was best man at the Waiter’s wedding. So when we put the security staff together, some of ’em came from Ricca’s crew.”

“I see.”

“This meeting I have scheduled with Al, to get approval on my new prostitution policy, among other things... that’s an ideal opportunity for somebody to take us both out.”

“And with you and Capone gone,” Michael said, “Ricca steps in.”

“Not a goddamn doubt in the world, kid... So check out the lay of the land. Talk to people, sniff around, listen to your gut.” Nitti clasped Michael’s arm. “Report to me when I get down there, and when I do... watch my back.”

“Mr. Nitti,” Michael said, actually feeling a little guilty, “I appreciate the trust you’ve given me.”

Nitti beamed at the young man. “Michael, when I first saw you, I felt like I knew you for years.”

“...I felt the same way, Mr. Nitti.”

“If it don’t embarrass you, me saying so... if I’d had a son, I’da been pleased to have him turn out like you.”

Michael frowned in confusion. “But you do have a son, Mr. Nitti...”

“Yes, and I’m sure not disparagin’ my own fine boy.” Though they were alone, Nitti whispered, “He’s adopted, you know.”

“Oh.”

“Anna and me, we never had a son. Or daughter. And my boy... you’ve seen him, he’s nine. Smart kid, very smart kid. I don’t want him to go into this kind of work. Or if he must, I pray it’s when we’re one hundred percent legit.”

“You think that day will come, Mr. Nitti?”

His eyes tightened. “Under me, it will. Under Ricca? And those crazy wild kids from the Patch? The Outfit’ll be peddling heroin on schoolyards.”

“I believe that.” Michael applied a smile to his face. “It’ll be an honor to meet Mr. Capone.”

“But you won’t,” Nitti said, his expression darkening. “At best you’ll glimpse the Big Fellow from afar.”

“Because he values his privacy?”

“It’s more than that. Al developed health problems in stir — his syphilis kicked in, it’s as old an enemy of Al’s as Ness... who’s fightin’ the syph himself, right?”

“Right,” Michael said, summoning another smile.

“Anyway, Al’s got his pride. He’s put on some weight, hair’s gettin’ thin — and once in a while he has a little attack, kinda on the order of epilepsy.”

“How sad.”

“Some convulsive side effect of the crud. Fear of that happening in front of the boys... that’s what made Al turn reclusive. And become the elder statesman, and rule through me. Capeesh ?”

“Capeesh,” Michael said.

“I had my way, you’d sit and talk with him for hours. Got the stories, Al has, still sharp as a tack — just prefers to be remembered as he was in his prime.”

“I can understand that.”

“You can pay your respects to him, and to me, by taking a good hard look at the Palm Island security.”

Which was the job Michael had to do here for Frank Nitti. But he’d also come to Miami to do something for himself, somewhat at odds with the ganglord’s goals.

Michael intended to kill Al Capone.

But first he had to tell Capone who he was. He wanted Capone to know that betraying Michael O’Sullivan ten years ago had finally come back to bite him in his fat evil ass. Michael wanted to see in the Big Fellow’s eyes the fear and anguish and the realization of just who it was that had come calling .

On the train, thoughts that had danced, tauntingly, at the periphery of his consciousness from the beginning, only now came to the fore, forcing Michael, with the deed a day away, to confront certain realities...

Could he find a way to settle this score without losing his own life? Was there a way to be alive two days from now, with a future of some kind ahead of him? Could he dupe the shrewd Frank Nitti into thinking Michael Satariano had no role in Al Capone’s death?

If so, the possibility of a normal life — the small-town life with Patsy Ann he’d brushed aside for this opportunity to avenge — nagged at him. Wasn’t that what he wanted most of all, to replace what had been taken from him, so long ago? A normal life, a family life, with a loving wife and healthy, happy children, in the secure warmth of hearth and home...?

That would have been his dream, at least if he’d allowed himself to dream it. If he had dared dream it. In a world where men like Capone and Ricca thrived — for that matter a world where the leaders of great nations like Germany and Japan and yes, Italy, behaved no better than the gangster chiefs of big cities like Chicago — could such a small, mundane dream ever be a reality?

For all the home-front flags and bands and warm welcomes waiting for a “hero” like him, Michael saw around him an America where telegrams announced the loss of a son to loving parents, where a pretty girl of eighteen was a shattered grieving widow, where a high school baseball game was canceled because last season’s star player had been killed in action. And somewhere in the Philippines, right now, his friends and comrades were in prison camps, possibly facing torture, if they were lucky enough to be alive...