R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

There was a consensual affirmative from the gathered crew.

‘Down here you got politics and kickbacks and folks in high places who wanna stay high. They don’t wanna get their shoes dirty kicking shit down the sidewalk. That’s where we come in, and if we do what we’re asked then there’ll never be a shortage of money or girls or respect. Key to all of this is knowing your place on the totem pole, and while we may not be feeling sand between our toes we sure as shit ain’t the fancy bit on top.’

Where we were on the totem pole was the hired hands, the wet crew, the guys that got a call in the early hours of the morning to go down to The Sands, come in quiet through the back kitchen doorway, turn left, left again, and there in the meat locker find some poor dumb schmuck who figured he could take the place with a blindside hand fat with Schaffners; figured he could get the dealer to catch the eye of some pretty cigarette girl and slip a jack where it shouldn’t have been; where we were was hammering that poor schmooze’s thumbs to a pulp and then kicking his ass six ways to Sunday so he and his confederates got the message loud and clear; where we were was driving a trailer jammed to the gunnels with stolen liquor and Luckies out of the desert at three in the a.m., parking it up behind a cheap bordello, unloading those cases into a lockdown garage, slipping away quietly and losing the trailer down a ravine near Devil’s Eyelid, and walking four miles back on foot as the sun rose and the heat got mighty and the shirt you were wearing stuck to your back like a second skin.

Where we were was things like that, and though there was always an element of edge to such things, though the fun you got out of it was never more than the fun you made, there were times I believed that I was destined for so much more. And that’s why I spoke to Carlo Evangelisti, and that’s how I ended up involved in the death of Don Ceriano and taking an audience with Sam Giancana’s cousin, Fabio Calligaris.

Early part of 1970. Six months and I would be thirty-four years old. I was all grown up in some ways, other ways still like the kid from way back when. Watched the people around me, watched them well, saw them married, having kids, and then walking out on their wives and screwing some two-bit floozy who shifted smokes from a tray at one of the smaller casinos. Never made a deal of sense to me, but then I don’t know it was ever supposed to. Couldn’t understand how a man could have a family and then do such a thing. Taking a wife and children was the farthest thing from my mind at the time, but right back to my father and the way he treated my mother I could never really understand the seeming absence of loyalty that these people demonstrated. I spoke with Don Ceriano. He took me aside, and quietly he said, ‘There are some things you see, some things not. Likewise, there are some things you hear, and just as many you don’t. A wise man knows which is which, Ernesto,’ and we never spoke of it again.

Business was varied but good. There were younger men earning their scars in my place. Days came when I would be despatching one man to make collections, another for enforcement of an agreement made with the Ceriano crew. I would spend most of my time with Don Ceriano himself, there at his right hand, listening to him, speaking with him, learning more of the ways of the world. Only once during that year was I directly involved in the death of a man. A mile or so from the house, back of the intersection that split that quarter of the city in half, we ran a bookmaker’s shop out of a factory warehouse. Warehouse fronted for some frozen orange juice exporting scam, good-sized operation turning over something in the region of five million a year. Warehouse was owned by one of Slapsie Maxie’s cousins, man by the name of Roberto Albarelli. Fat guy, too fat by too much, and the way he’d lumber across the yard shouting and badmouthing the Ricans and niggers who worked the joint made me smile. Asshole was a good enough guy, but sure as hell he looked like a gunny-sack full of shit tied at the neck and busting in the middle. Rumor had it when he fucked his wife she always had to ride on top, otherwise he would’ve suffocated the poor bitch.

Weekend came around. Me and Slapsie, and another pair from the Alcatraz Swimming Team, went down there to make some book, to collect some dues for Don Ceriano. Found Roberto sweating like a stuck pig on barbecue day in the trailer office he managed on the backlot. Those days I was old enough to do the talking when Slapsie didn’t feel like it so the conversation went down between me and the lard-ass.

‘Jeez, stinks like a Turkish sauna bath in here, Roberto. What the fuck you been doin’?’

‘Got trouble,’ he started, and his voice went high-pitched at the end and I knew there was something he was excited about.

‘Trouble? Kinda trouble?’

‘Got skinned by some asshole Puerto Rican motherfucker for eight grand and change,’ Roberto said.

Slapsie pulled me up a chair and I sat down facing the fat guy. ‘Eight grand? What the fuck you talkin’ about? What Puerto Rican motherfucker?’

‘Puerto Rican motherfucker who skinned me for eight grand this morning,’ Roberto said. ‘That Puerto Rican motherfucker.’

‘Whoa there, slow the fuck down, Roberto. What the hell you talkin’ about?’

Roberto took several deep breaths. He murmured some Italian prayer under his breath. His shirt was black beneath the armpits and he smelled ripe like a sour watermelon.

‘Took a long shot on a mare that should’ve made it no further than the boneyard,’ he said. ‘Thing was nothing more than three pints of glue and a handbag. Took a thousand dollars and knew I had it made… dumb stupid motherfuckin’ Puerto Rican asshole wouldn’t know one end of a horse from the next. So anyways and whatever, I took the fucking bet, okay? I took the goddamned stupid fucking bet and the boneyard mule came in just before a pony that’d lost its rider halfway down the lane. Figured I had it made. Cut for Don Ceriano, cut for me, and we’s all happy as Larry for the weekend. Puerto Rican motherfucker comes down with his tab and claims an eight-to-one payback placing first in the line-up. I tells him he’s got a mouth full of shit and a head full of piss, and then in comes three of his asshole Puerto Rican motherfucker friends, and they got heat on them, one’s got a lead pipe and whatever the fuck. He shows me the ticket, and even my blind grandmother, may her soul rest in peace amen, coulda seen that they scratched out the name of the boneyarder and wrote in the name of the winning horse.’

I was watching Roberto with both my eyes going the same way. Roberto was family, as good as family got, but he had a reputation for varnishing the lies with a gloss of truth. He knew well enough that any lie around this place walked with mighty short legs, but that wouldn’t have stopped him hitting on the race winnings for a few grand. From what I could see he was telling the truth, and already my mind was asking premature questions.

‘So these assholes demanded a payback of eight grand, and shit I didn’t wanna die, Ernesto, I really didn’t wanna die today, so what the fuck was I gonna do? There was four of them and one of me, and you know I don’t move so fast these days, and they had heat and they had a freakin’ lead pipe, and it was right there in their eyes that they didn’t give one single scrawny rat’s ass about whacking me and taking everything I got.’

Roberto started blubbering then, shaking like Jell-O near a drum roll, and I gripped his shoulder and held it firm and made him look in my eyes and tell that what he was saying was the truth so help him God.

‘Sure as shit is brown and the Pope ain’t never got laid,’ he said.