Макс Коллинз - Road to Perdition

Capone got up. He seemed unsteady. “Fuckin’ flu... ”

But Nitti knew it wasn’t the flu: Big Al’s syphilis was kicking in again. The Big Fellow had started really having problems with the old Cupid’s itch lately, a doctor on staff fulltime at the Lexington these days.

“Al, the Looneys killed his wife and son. O’Sullivan was a loyal soldier, and they sold him out.”

“The old man didn’t do it,” Capone said. “That old mick and me go way back... Life ain’t all ledger books and balance sheets, Frank. Life — and business — has to do with respect. We cave in to O’Sullivan, we look soft.”

Nitti could see that. “Well, I have my best man on it. A real pro... ”

“What, Maguire? That screwball photographer? He makes my skin crawl.”

“You’re not takin’ him home to mother, Al — he’s a coldblooded killer, and a kind of bloodhound... and that’s what it’ll take to find O’Sullivan, and stop him. Already caught up with him once.”

“Yeah, and he slipped through this so-called pro’s fingers.” Capone, cigar in his mouth, flopped onto a couch and mopped his brow. “Call the old man, in Rock Island. Call Looney, tell him to get his ass up here. I want to talk to him.”

“All right.”

“And this photographer — this ‘pro’ of yours, Maguire, him, too. Tell ’em both to come with answers.”

“Answers to what, Al?”

“Questions.”

“What questions, Al?”

“The answers are their problem, Frank — I’ll handle the fuckin’ questions.”

And the next afternoon, in the executive suite at the Lexington, John Looney and Frank Nitti were seated on a small sofa adjacent a larger couch where Al Capone — suitcoat off, in the vest of his sharp green suit, his green-and-black floral tie loosened, his shirt soaked with sweat, forehead beaded — lay propped up behind a pillow, a thermometer in his mouth.

The most famous criminal in America, on his back, removed the shaft of glass from his full, sensual lips and studied the line of mercury, muttering, “Fuck Mike O’Sullivan... and fuck this flu.”

Nitti exchanged glances with Looney, in a dark vested suit and tie. Both men knew what the “flu” really was. To Nitti’s left, arms folded, his expression as cool as it was unreadable, stood Harlen Maguire, bowler hat in hand.

“Well, this goddamn thing says I died Tuesday,” Capone said. “Close my eyes, strip me down, and fry fuckin’ eggs on me, already!”

The gangster hurled the stick of glass across the room, into the fireplace, where it made a small breaking sound. With surprising grace for a big man — and speed for a man as sick as he seemed to be — Capone climbed off the couch and began to pace. In his left palm he was tossing a baseball — a signed gift from Babe Ruth — up and down.

“How can this be, gentlemen? How can one man... one man and a goddamn kid... cause me so much pestilence?”

Nitti asked, “Pestilence, Al?”

“Pestilence, Frank — biblical shit, curses and plagues. Raining down frogs on our ass — and me, I’m hemorrhaging from his shit... He’s got me bleeding C-notes all over six states!”

Maguire, quietly, said, “Eight.”

Capone stopped and looked at Maguire, hard — it was a gaze that would send Medusa running, but the photographer just received it placidly. “Don’t you ever fuckin’ blink ?”

Maguire just shrugged.

Scowling, Capone paced like a caged cat now, in front of a wall that already bore a series of mysterious dents, as if a hailstorm of mythic proportions had had at it. The gangster stopped and threw the ball into the wall, catching it on the rebound.

Capone did this again and again, and every time he did, both Frank Nitti and John Looney flinched — they were hard men, fairly fearless men, Nitti and Looney; but they were not crazy, and one thing that separated Nitti and Capone... and Nitti knew this well... was Big Al having a screw loose. This advancing VD wasn’t helping, either.

Perhaps the baseball reminded Nitti of the time Capone threw a banquet for John Scalise and Albert Anselmi; in the midst of his guests-of-honor speech, Snorky (as his pals called him) had declared them disloyal soldiers and caved in their heads with a baseball bat. Few murders have ever been committed before more witnesses; and yet no one had ever dared whisper a word to the authorities... though the act had served to seal Capone’s legend, locally.

Maguire, on the other hand, neither flinched nor (as Capone had pointed out) blinked, when Al Capone played catch with himself, rattling every object in the room.

“People are laughin’ at me, Frank,” Capone said, punctuating his speech with more hurls of the ball against the wall. “I don’t like bein’ a laughingstock. I got a phone call from Luciano, last night, expressin’ his concern, laughin’ up his fuckin’ sleeve... This morning Dragna out in LA calls, to see how he can help... Probably bust a gut when he hung up.”

“Al,” Nitti said, pacifyingly, “nobody’s laughing at you. Your friends in the business know they could be hit the same way. Remember what your doctor said, Al... sit down.”

“Fuckin’ useless quack,” Capone said, smacking the ball in the wall, catching it in a fist.

Nitti was saying, “You need to relax, doc said, drink lots of water... ”

Capone, calmed down a little, turned to Looney. “John, I ask you — what is this shit? Drink a lot of water!”

Looney, who’d been trying to disappear into the woodwork, said, “They say water’s good for a fever.”

“And this you’d know how? You who never had a drink of water in your life... ’cept maybe bourbon and branchwater!” But Capone wasn’t as worked up now, and he walked over to his old friend, stood before him, and said, “John, explain this to me... I extend a helping hand to an old friend, take in his one and only son, protect him like he’s my own.”

Looney nodded, his expression conveying his deep appreciation.

Capone continued: “And in return, what do I get? Robbed. I get robbed... Does this make sense to anybody? I got a biblical goddamn plague rainin’ down on me, and I’m supposed to write it off to, what? The Lord moves in mysterious fuckin’ ways?... Why doesn’t the Angel steal your money, John? It’s your beef.”

Looney, quietly, stated what they all knew: “Mike O’Sullivan thinks you’ll give up Connor to stop him. He doesn’t understand our friendship... or that you’re a man of honor.”

Capone smiled, paced a little, playing gentle one-handed catch with himself, obviously not taken in by this shameless blarney. “So, then, maybe you can tell me, John — how much of my money is your son worth?”

Looney’s eyes flared. “Is that what this performance is about, Al? Money ? Well, then, I’ll write you a goddamn check! I’ll fill it out and leave it fucking blank... Is that what you want to hear?”

Capone stood there quietly. Nitti tried to read him — and couldn’t. After all these years, a quiet Al Capone remained an unreadable thing to Frank Nitti.

Looney, the eruption over, his voice weary, melancholy, said, “If it had just been about the money, all these years, Al... none of us would be alive today.”

Capone was a statue in a sweat-stained shirt and vest with a sweat-beaded forehead and a blank expression. His thick lips puckered, as if he were about to blow a kiss.

Then he exploded in laughter: “I love the fuckin’ Irish!... So full of shit, but full of heart, too. Thank you, John, I appreciate your remarks. We need, now and again, to be reminded not just of who we are, but who we were.”

Looney nodded sagely.

“And I mean no disrespect,” Capone said, his tone reasonable now, “but the fact remains, I am bleeding money at a time when this Ness character is killing me and these revenue clowns are throwing indictments around like fuckin’ confetti.”