The Gangster

“You know I can’t tell you. I would never ask who brought the job to him. Just as he would never ask that man where it came from. In silence we are safe.”

What blinders men wore. “Kid Kelly” Ghiottone seemed unable to imagine that he was linked — like a caboose at the end of a speeding train — to a titan who could pay fifty thousand dollars for one death. Branco pictured in his mind jumping from the roof of that caboose to the freight car in front of it, and to the next car, and the next, running over the swaying tops, one to another to another, all the way to the locomotive.

* * *

“They came to you,” Branco mused. “Why do they come to an Italian?”

Ghiottone shrugged. Branco answered his own question. The conspirators wanted someone to take the blame, a killer who is completely different from the titan who wanted the victim dead. What better “fall guy” than a crazed Italian immigrant? Or an Italian anarchist.

“What do you say?” asked Ghiottone.

Branco sat silent a long time. He did not touch his glass. At last he said, “I will think.”

“I can’t wait long before I ask another.”

Antonio Branco fixed the saloon keeper with the full force of his deadly gaze. “I don’t believe you will ask another. You will wait while I think about the man you need.”

“Fifty thousand is a fortune,” Ghiottone persisted. “A third or a half as a finder’s fee would still be a fortune.”

Branco stood abruptly.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ghiottone.

“This is no place to discuss such business. Wait ten minutes. Come to the side entrance to my store. Make sure no one sees you.”

Branco made a show of thanking him for the wine and saying good night as he left the crowded saloon.

* * *

“Kid Kelly” Ghiottone waited five minutes, then walked across Prince Street and down an alley. Looking about to see that no one was watching, he knocked at the grocery’s side entrance.

Antonio Branco led him through storerooms that smelled of coffee, olive oil, good sausage, and garlic, and down a flight of stairs into a clean, dry cellar. He unlocked a door, said, “No one can hear us,” and led Ghiottone into a room that held an iron cage that looked like the Mulberry Street Police Station lockup from which Ghiottone routinely bailed out fools in exchange for their everlasting loyalty.

“What is this? A jail?”

“If a man won’t repay the cost of getting him to a job in America, he’ll be held until someone pays for him.”

“Ransom?”

“You could call it that. Or you could call it fair trade for his fare.”

“But you hold him prisoner.”

“It rarely comes to that. The sight of these bars alone focuses their mind on repaying their obligation.”

Ghiottoni’s eyes roved over the thick walls and the soundproof ceiling.

Branco said, “But if I must hold him prisoner, no one will hear him yell.”

He exploded into action and clamped Ghiottone’s arm in a grip that startled the saloon keeper with its raw power. Ghiottone cocked a fist, but it was over in a second. Outweighed and outmaneuvered, the saloon keeper was shoved into the cell with a force that slammed him against the back wall. The door clanged shut. Branco locked it and pocketed the key.

“Who asked you to hire a killer?”

Ghiottone looked at him with contempt and spoke with great dignity. “I already told you, Antonio Branco, I can never betray him, as I would never betray you.”

Branco stared.

Ghiottone gripped the bars. “It’s fifty thousand dollars. Pay some gorilla to do the job for five — more than he’ll ever see in his life — and keep the rest for yourself.”

Antonio Branco laughed.

“Why do you laugh?” Ghiottone demanded.

“It is beyond your understanding,” said Branco.

Fifty thousand was truly a fortune. But fifty thousand dollars was nothing compared to the golden opportunity that Ghiottone had unwittingly handed him. This was his chance to vault out of “pandemonium” into a permanent alliance with a titan — escape chaos and join a powerhouse American at the top of the heap.

“I ask you again, who brought this to you?”

Ghiottone crossed his arms. “He has my loyalty.”

Branco walked out of the room. He came back with a basket of bread and sausage.

“What is this?”

“Food. I’ll be back in a few days. I can’t let you starve.” He passed the loaf and the cured meat through the bars.

“Kind of you,” Ghiottone said sarcastically. He tore off a piece of bread and bit into the sausage. “Too salty.”

“Salt makes good sausage.”

“Wait!”

Branco was swinging the door shut. “I will see you in a few days.”

“Wait!”

“What is it?”

“I need water.”

“I’ll bring you water in a few days.”

BOOK II

Pull

17

Isaac Bell paced the New York field office bull pen, driven by a strong feeling that he had misinterpreted the Cherry Grove conversation. The words were clear; he had no doubt the brothel owner had heard most, if not all, with his ear pressed to an air vent.

What are you waiting for?

An opportunity to talk sense. Would you please sit down?

My mind is made up. The man must go.