Sicilian Defense Read online

  Sicilian Defense

  A Novel

  John Nicholas Iannuzzi

  A MADCAN Book

  To Geri

  Contents

  Monday, February 8

  11:15 P.M.

  Tuesday, February 9

  12:15 A.M.

  2:30 A.M.

  3:00 A.M.

  9:45 A.M.

  1:00 P.M.

  3:00 P.M.

  3:30 P.M.

  7:30 P.M.

  8:45 P.M.

  10:00 P.M.

  Wednesday, February 10

  10:00 A.M.

  10:30 A.M.

  1:15 P.M.

  3:00 P.M.

  4:30 P.M.

  7:50 P.M.

  8:30 P.M.

  Thursday, February 11

  9:30 A.M.

  10:00 A.M.

  11:30 A.M.

  12:30 P.M.

  7:45 P.M.

  8:00 P.M.

  8:25 P.M.

  9:30 P.M.

  11:15 P.M.

  Friday, February 12

  1:00 A.M.

  11:00 A.M.

  Monday, February 8

  11:15 P.M.

  Icy wind lashed the constant rain; beams of light from the streetlamps slithered across the deserted sidewalks of Mulberry Street. Cars huddled at the curbs. From the brick tenements above, life glimmered through frost edged windows.

  A white neon sign flickered TWO STEPS DOWN INN through the plate-glass front of the small restaurant in the middle of the block.

  Within, lights were shining brightly; several men sat at tables near the front. The jukebox pulsed with the tones of Sergio Franchi’s Male Femmina. Franchi dominated all the jukeboxes since Jimmy Rosselli had become temperamental about appearing at the Italian Civil Rights League concert.

  The restaurant had fifteen white-clothed tables in front. Toward the rear, behind a small divider, were a few more tables, a television set hung from the ceiling, and a glass-faced refrigerator, its shelves filled with wine, fruit, vegetables and whipped-cream pastries. Further back was a small service bar and, through a passage, the kitchen.

  “Hey, Mike,” called one of the men sitting in front, “turn off the jukebox and let’s have the news.” This was Gus, about forty-five, thin, balding and tough-looking.

  Mike, the owner of the restaurant, walked forward, stood on a chair and tuned the TV, then moved to the jukebox, cutting Franchi in midnote.

  “Shepard and the other astronauts are on the way back, aren’t they?” asked Angie the Kid. He was at Gus’s table. Angie was young, dark-haired, tall and very strong. He was just learning the ropes that, he hoped, would help him to earn a living later on. He drove some of the older men, most often Gus, around town, ran errands and wanted much to belong. Angie the Kid’s greatest asset at the moment was that he had a lot of heart, which meant he didn’t step back from a fight, and could take it as well as give it.

  “Tomorrow’s the splashdown,” said Bobby Matteawan. He sat alone. “You know, it rains every time they go to the moon. It rained three days the first time. It’s been raining two days now already.” Bobby Matteawan was about forty, short, dark, thick-necked and thick-bodied. His family name was actually Vinci, but the name by which everyone knew him had been derived from the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he had spent an unpleasant five years. In all, Bobby Matteawan had spent sixteen of his first twenty-eight years in various state institutions reserved exclusively for criminals. Since then he had been clean of police trouble. Bobby Matteawan had something other than heart—when aroused, he was an uncontrollable fury.

  The front door opened. The angry wind forced its way into the restaurant as Tony Mastropieri came in. Tony, small and thin, had no nickname. He was known only as Tony, but people around town knew who was meant when someone mentioned Tony. Those who didn’t know got the vibrations of his awesome reputation just by looking at him—at the thin lips that never smiled, the dark steely eyes that never wavered. Tony unbuckled his long leather coat. Beneath it, he was dapper in a dark suit and shirt and pale silk tie. He and Louie the Animal, his driver, had just finished snaking their way across Manhattan, picking up the weekly take from the bookies, numbers men, and shylocks for Sal Angeletti.

  “Hiya, Tony,” said Angie the Kid. The others nodded absently, still absorbed in the space mission.

  “Where’s Sal?” asked Tony, looking toward the empty table behind the divider where Sal usually held business meetings or settled disputes throughout the afternoon and evening.

  “He hasn’t been in all night,” replied Bobby Matteawan.

  “Where’s Joey—he should know,” suggested Tony. He took a napkin and wiped his shoes.

  “He just went over to Sal’s house to check.”

  Sal Angeletti was, not in the ordinary sense, a banker. He supplied money to the smaller lights in the underworld cosmos for a percentage of interest called “vig.” Sal didn’t take bets or numbers, didn’t even have runners or controllers working for him. That was small potatoes. Sal was a money man, a banker’s banker who, like J. P. Morgan, dealt only with professionals. Since Sal knew the people he dealt with, and they in turn—only too well reminded by his collectors—knew who they were dealing with, his risk was small and he could therefore charge an interest rate of just 1 or 2 percent a week. The money men in the street, dealing with such high risks as gamblers and people in a bind, charged a higher vig—3-5 percent a week. As the collections were made each week, Sal would wheel the money, that is, like a bank, put it out’ again in the street, earning interest on the interest. Sal had five top men, or lieutenants. The second in command was Frank Grossi, called Frankie the Pig. Then came Joey, who was closest to Sal, then Tony, Gus, and Bobby Matteawan. All were assigned certain areas in which to make weekly collections, all earned 10% of their weekly takes; none was ever arrested, nor did their names appear in the newspapers—that was for hoods involved in violent and large-scale crime.

  In addition to collecting for Sal, the five lieutenants each had men of their own to direct and control, and each had invested their money in legitimate acivities. Gus operated B-girl bars in the mid-forties for tourists who wandered off the beaten path from Times Square. Bobby Matteawan had fag joints in the Village. Tony and Joey were more unattached in their operations; they had interests in trucking and other ventures.

  A couple of men entered the restaurant and looked toward the empty table in the back.

  Gus recognized them as some of Sal’s friends from uptown. “He’s not here right now. You want me to tell him something?”

  “We’ll come back,” said the shorter man. “We’re going over to the Grotto for some linguini. Is Frankie the Pig around?”

  “No, he probably won’t be back tonight.”

  The two men left the restaurant.

  “Where’s Frankie, with a cummad’?” asked Tony. He ordered an espresso with anisette.

  “Where else?” Gus laughed. “When he gets involved with a new cummad’, that’s the end of him—he bangs himself out for two weeks, then he’s ready to come around again.”

  Frankie the Pig was six-foot-two-inches tall, 275 pounds heavy, and he had plenty of strength and heart, cunning and viciousness. He had plenty of temper, too. Everybody feared Frankie.

  “Who’s he with now?” Tony continued.

  “Some dame from the West Side, an Irish fidend,” replied Bobby Matteawan.

  Tony made a face. “What good is a bony, cold cummad’ you’ve got to get drunk to bang?”

  They laughed and turned their attention to the television again.

  “I wish they’d give the track results,” said Gus. “It’s too cold to go to 14th Street for the papers.”

  “Yo
u dopey bastard, I bet you’d walk through snow up to your ass to see if your lousy horses came in,” said Tony.

  Gus shrugged. “Frankie’s got his cummadas and I’ve got my horses. At least once in a while one of my horses gives me something, like a two-horse parlay or a fifty-dollar winner. What the hell?” Gus was thoughtful for a moment. “If I had all the money I’ve gambled away …”

  “You and Sal. Boy, the money he spends at the track is really wild,” said Angie the Kid. He looked around with a smile.

  “Maybe that’s where he’s gone,” Tony suggested. “Maybe he’s up in Yonkers.”

  “On a night like this? Besides, you know he doesn’t go without Joey.”

  The door opened. Joey walked in. He was the youngest of Sal’s lieutenants, tall, trim and dark-haired. He shook his head. “He isn’t there. I don’t know where he could be. His wife doesn’t know either. She started to get worried, but I told her I just missed him somewhere else, and I’d meet him here.”

  “Where the hell can he be?” Gus began to get agitated. “When did you see him last?”

  “This afternoon,” said Joey. “He wanted me to do something for him and told me not to pick him up afterward.”

  “What time was that?” asked Tony.

  “About five-thirty.”

  “I can’t figure it out,” said Joey. It isn’t like Sal to go off and not tell anybody where he is. Especially me.”

  They fell silent. In the background the TV weatherman was predicting continued rain and cold.

  As they sat, a car was heard approaching very fast. No one paid it any attention, but the rising drone as the car sped on the wet asphalt crept into the restaurant. Suddenly there was a tremendous sound of crashing metal, as if a car had struck something at high speed. The men whirled around.

  “What the hell was that?” Bobby Matteawan snapped. The others rose and looked out. “Holy shit,” mumbled Angie the Kid. They all stared incredulously. Tony was the first one into the street.

  The body of a man was sprawled on the rear deck of Mike’s car, which was parked in front of the restaurant. Blood was dripping onto the white trunk, mixing with the rain, running black over the trunk and down the fenders. They stared at the body, momentarily shocked into inaction. It began to slide on the wet, rounded trunk. No one moved, each fighting the same fear. They couldn’t see who it was, because the streetlight was behind the body and blood obscured the head. The corpse slid slowly off the trunk and landed in the gutter; the head bounced off the curb like a slab of beef, with a dull thud, and landed under the rear of the car.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Joey, springing forward. He knelt and pulled the body, which was lying face down, sliding it from under the car. “Sal, Sal,” he called, as he moved the body out and turned it over. He stared, unbelieving, then looked at the faces hovering above him.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Tony said, looking into the dead man’s face.

  “What kind of joke is this?” asked Gus. “I’ve never seen this guy before.”

  Mike looked down the street after the car, which had long since disappeared. Up above, people were peering out of their rain-streaked windows. “Hey, the whole neighborhood’s watching.”

  The others looked up. The people in the windows shrank back.

  Louie the Animal, who had been outside waiting for Tony, came running through the rain. “Some niggers were just racing up the street holding that guy at the car window—I saw them throw him out. They must have been going a thousand miles an hour when they dumped him.”

  “And right on my car, the bastards,” said Mike.

  “Niggers?” Tony asked.

  “Those miserable tutzone bastards,” said Mike, “throwing a stiff in front of my joint.”

  “We’d better dump him someplace else before the cops think we stretched him,” said Gus.

  “The guys down at the precinct won’t want to find him here either,” said Tony.

  “Why not push him in front of the next car that comes along,” Matteawan proposed, “then we’ll call the cops to the accident.”

  “Are you crazy?” Mike blurted out, before he realized whom he was speaking to.

  Bobby turned slowly and stared at him.

  “Nothing personal, Bobby,” Mike said hastily, “but we can’t leave a dead body in front of my place.”

  “We’ll need a car,” said Gus.

  “Mine’s across the street,” Joey volunteered.

  “Pull it over here, quick,” said Tony. “Angie, you drive this stiff over to the piers on the West Side and throw him in the river.”

  Angie was stunned. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. What the hell, if you hang around with us, you’ve got to get your feet wet sometime,” grinned Bobby Matteawan.

  “Mike, get some tablecloths or something. I don’t want this guy’s blood all over my trunk,” said Joey.

  Angie the Kid looked doubtful. “Somebody ought to go with me,” he said, staring at the body in the shadows between the cars.

  “Okay, okay. Louie, go with him,” said Tony.

  Louie the Animal shrugged. He took two tablecloths from Mike, bent down and started to wrap them around the body.

  “But everybody’s looking,” Angie the Kid protested.

  “So much the better,” said Tony. “Everybody in the neighborhood heard him dumped here. We’ve got all these witnesses.”

  “Then why the river? Why not leave him here?”

  “Because we don’t need the aggravation,” said Gus. “Come on, Kid, help Louie wrap up this stiff.”

  Joey brought his car up beside them.

  “Hey, we could put him in the meat grinder in the restaurant and make meatballs out of him,” Matteawan chortled. “And with his head we’ll make cappuzell’.”

  “You crazy bastard,” said Tony.

  “Mmm, can’t you just taste the fatty eyeballs of the cappuzell’,” Matteawan said, rolling his tongue in his cheek.

  Angie the Kid looked at him wanly.

  “Come on, Kid, help me lift him,” said Louie, pulling the body into sitting position. They picked it up and stuffed it into Joey’s trunk.

  “Don’t take too long,” said Joey. “He’ll bleed through the tablecloths in a few minutes.”

  “And don’t dump the tablecloths with the body,” said Tony, “in case they can trace them.”

  “Okay,” said Louie. “You drive, Angie.”

  Angie hesitated, then reluctantly got behind the wheel.

  Just inside the restaurant door the phone in the booth began to ring. Mike went in and picked up the receiver.

  “You got that body we left for you?” purred a deep voice with a heavy Southern accent.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Never mind who it is, baby, just listen. We got Sal. You got it, man? We got Sal.”

  “Who is this?” Mike repeated.

  “Man, you’re not listening. We got Sal.”

  “Just a minute,” said Mike. He dropped the phone. It banged against the wall of the booth as he ran frantically outside. “Listen! There’s a guy on the phone. Sounds like a nigger. He says they got Sal.”

  “What?” Tony ran inside. “Hello?”

  “Okay, man, for the last time. We got Sal. And that present we just left for you is to let you know we mean business. Got it?”

  Tony gripped the phone until his knuckles turned white. His mouth twisted evilly. “What do you want?”

  The others were pressed around him.

  “We want to talk to the man in charge now, that’s what. Frankie the Pig. We got a message for him. We’ll call tomorrow night at eight.” The line went dead.

  “Hello, hello,” said Tony.

  There was no answer.

  “Son of a bitch. We’ve really got trouble,” said Tony. “They snatched Sal.”

  Bobby Matteawan let go with a roundhouse left into the side of the telephone booth. The booth shook.

  “Take it easy, that’s not going to help,” said Mike.


  “What the hell are we going to do?” asked Joey. “How’re we going to find them?”

  “We’ll kill them,” screamed Bobby Matteawan. He punched the wall.

  “First we’ve got to get hold of Frankie the Pig,” said Tony. “Who knows where he is?”

  They looked at each other, shaking their heads.

  “The Kid,” Bobby Matteawan remembered, “the Kid drove him over to see that Irish broad before. He knows.”

  They ran to the door. The car was gone. They saw its tail-lights disappearing around a corner a few blocks down.

  “Come on, we’ve got to catch that kid,” said Tony, sprinting toward his car. They jumped in and Tony burned rubber as he pulled away from the curb. The car swayed as it grabbed for traction on the slippery street.

  “Where did he go?” asked Bobby.

  “He turned left over here,” said Tony, spinning through a red light on the corner. About four blocks ahead of them they saw a car turning left toward Canal Street.

  “That must be it,” said Joey, his eyes straining to see through the rain-splattered windshield.

  Tony put his foot to the floor. The car lurched forward. When he got to where the Kid had turned, he put it into a power drift around the corner. The car drifted too much and hit the curb at the bus stop. Tony kept the wheels spinning forward, grinding his way back to the middle of the street. The car ahead made a right onto Canal Street.

  “Somebody’s following us,” said Angie the Kid nervously, looking in the rear-view mirror. Louie the Animal looked back, too late to see anyone behind them. He reached under the seat and took out a pistol that was stuffed into the padding. Angie speeded up and turned right again, now heading uptown on Lafayette.

  “The Kid must have spotted the car,” said Tony, “but doesn’t know it’s us.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Joey muttered. “Now he’ll drive right past Police Headquarters, and he’s speeding, too.”

  “He can’t turn again until he gets to Broome Street,” said Tony. “We’ll go to Broadway and make a right and then up to Broome. We’ll cut him off there.”

  “Broadway’s one-way going downtown,” Joey said.

  “So what, his license is suspended already—they can’t give him a ticket,” said Bobby Matteawan.