Макс Коллинз - Road to Perdition

Nitti asked, “You expect any retaliation?”

“No — I took down his seven best men, too. Best, after me, that is.”

“Seven,” Nitti said, impressed. “You’ve tied the St. Valentine’s Day record.”

“I wasn’t keeping score. You want Rance’s records returned to you, Mr. Nitti, or should I send them to the feds?”

“Send them back addressed to me here at the hotel,” Nitti said. “What do you want in return?”

“The money I’ve taken from you... and a permanent truce between us.”

“Done... How long will it take you to get here?”

“I’m two hours from the city. I’ll have no opposition?”

“Those were your terms,” Nitti said, putting his shrug into his voice, “and I agreed to them.”

“Mr. Nitti, if this is a trap, pray I don’t survive it.”

Nitti sighed. “Mr. O’Sullivan, I have been sympathetic to your cause from the start. It was only due to business concerns that I couldn’t aid you, before.”

“Where does Capone stand on this?”

“With the old man dead, Al won’t give a damn about Connor Looney... in fact, with both of them gone, it opens the door wide for us in the Tri-Cities. But then, you’ve already figured that out, haven’t you, Mr. O’Sullivan?”

“Yes.”

“Are you still interested in working for us?”

“No.”

Nitti twitched a smile, but that he kept out of his voice. “If you change your mind, I’m sure we’d have a position for you. You’re the best at your trade I’ve ever encountered... Mr. Capone agrees. But in any event, he will want your assurance that, after this... it’s over.”

“You both have that assurance... My son and I will disappear.”

“Good... You remember where the Lexington Hotel is, I assume? Well, you’re looking for room 1032.”

“... You sure you want this done on your premises? Won’t that attract undue attention?”

“Oh, Mr. O’Sullivan — you of all people should not be so naive. Here we control things. Do you really think every dead body that turns up in a ditch died there?”

“... Remember what I said, Mr. Nitti — if this is a trap... ”

“Don’t lower yourself with a threat, Mr. O’Sullivan. Have a little dignity. Retain your aura of mystery.”

And Nitti hung up.

Then the Chicago mob’s top business executive — the real spider at the web’s center — considered going home; it was, after all, late on a Sunday night, though his wife Anna would be asleep by now. Perhaps he should stay until O’Sullivan arrived at the hotel, and this nasty business was over...

On reflection, this seemed to Nitti the prudent course of action, and he selected a file from a stack on the desk and, in a pool of yellow light from a desk lamp, went to work.

It had rained in Chicago, too, but on the drive from Rock Island, the downpour had faded to a drizzle and now it was a memory, the streets in the Loop taking on a slick, glisteny black sheen reflecting streetlamp glow and the neon of sleeping businesses, as if the pavement had caught occasional fire.

O’Sullivan parked down the block on 22nd, glad to be alone, pleased not to be making his boy part of this. The Thompson was in the car, in the backseat, still assembled; all he was carrying was a .45 in his shoulder holster and a.38 in his topcoat pocket. The wind picked up scraps of paper, which seemed to race across South Michigan Avenue, scrambling across toward the Lexington Hotel. O’Sullivan took his time. He was in no hurry.

This endless night had been long coming.

No doorman was on duty, not in the wee hours of early Monday morning. And the lobby was nearly deserted — a hotel man at the front desk; and by the elevators, skinny, edgy, snappily dressed Marco — who’d been his armed elevator operator on O’Sullivan’s last visit to the Lexington — seemed to be the only watchdog.

“Marco,” O’Sullivan said.

“Angel,” Marco said, with a respectful nod.

And the watchdog reached over and pressed the UP button for him; the grillwork doors opened, Marco stepped aside, and O’Sullivan stepped inside. The doors closed, leaving an unconcerned Marco behind.

On the tenth floor, O’Sullivan exited the elevator, taking the corridor at left, following Nitti’s instructions. His gloved hand was in his topcoat pocket clenching the.38 revolver. He moved down the empty corridor, glancing at doors, ready to react — trusting Nitti, but not trusting him.

At room 1032, with his left hand, O’Sullivan knocked twice — softly. Almost at once, the other brawny watchdog from his previous visit — Harry — answered the door.

The two men nodded at each other, Harry standing aside as O’Sullivan entered the comfortably plush, well-appointed suite. In the adjacent room, a radio — turned up perhaps a shade too loud — played Paul Whiteman music, jazz for white people who hadn’t heard colored people play it.

O’Sullivan gave Harry a look, and Harry nodded toward a door.

“Bathroom,” Harry mouthed, and pointed.

O’Sullivan nodded, and Harry moved back nearer to the entry, as the Angel of Death made his way deeper into the suite, approaching the door the watchdog had indicated.

He took a breath, and pushed open the door, a bright white-tiled bathroom, larger than some whole apartments; the mirrors were fogged, the air thick with steam.

Lolling back in the hot, soapy bath, a whiskey flask near his reach on the edge of the tub, Connor Looney — his eyes closed, dark hair plastered down — said, “Harry — take your piss down the hall, for Christ’s sake! A little privacy, please.”

O’Sullivan stood looking down at the pale figure — a scrawny-looking naked man, such a pitiful creature to have caused such a fuss.

Then Connor sensed something and his eyes popped open and his sallow complexion paled even further, his mouth open as if frozen in midbreath.

“I should take my time killing you,” O’Sullivan said, “but I can’t bear your company.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed, flaring in defiance, and he was coming up out of the tub when he said, “I’ll see you in hell!”

O’Sullivan shot him once in the chest, and again in the stomach, the naked man smacking against the tile wall, making a bloody trail as he slid back down sloshingly into the tub, not dead yet.

“Hell will be heaven,” O’Sullivan said, “if I can spend eternity making you pay for what you did to them.”

And O’Sullivan shot Connor in the head — just as he had the man’s father.

The corpse dropped down into the soapy, blood-frothy water, the white tiles surrounding spattered and smeared with crimson.

When O’Sullivan emerged, Harry said, “That was quick,” and the Angel said nothing, not waiting even for the watchdog to open the door for him. He walked down the corridor, staying alert, and at the end of the hall — as Nitti had requested — he dropped the murder weapon to the carpeted floor.

He would still have his .45 if the little gangster crossed him.

But Nitti was true to his word, and O’Sullivan’s exit through the Lexington lobby was as uneventful as his arrival. Within minutes he was in the maroon Ford, heading back to his son.

Michael had slept very little. He never did put on his pajamas. He tried to read the Big Little Book, but the Lone Ranger just seemed... silly, now. From time to time, he would kneel by his bed and pray for his father’s welfare.

But he was confused — because he wasn’t sure if God could protect Papa, if what Papa was doing was a sin. After all, his father wasn’t Mr. Looney’s soldier, anymore. Maybe he was God’s soldier, now — administering justice to sinful men like Mr. Looney and his son.

And Michael had never sorted out his feelings about his godfather. The man had been like a grandpa to Peter and him, and in these long weeks, in the boy’s mind, Mr. Looney had become a sort of boogeyman... and yet the good images of his godfather remained in his memory. Papa had said all men — and that included boys like him — were sinners. Could a sinner seem kind, like Mr. Looney, and really be a monster?