Rackets, p.6
Rackets, page 6
His crow’s-feet were more pronounced, his brow was starting to deepen, but his eyes were bright and alert, his hair still pure black. Not a trace of gray. Christ, he was still a good-looking man. He took care of himself. Ate right, worked out like a teenager, did not smoke, drank in moderation. Most guys his age could pass for his father. He let loose with a loud fart and wiped a speck of shaving cream from his ear.
“Marie, honey, I’m ready.”
Every weekend he and his wife made the journey for a day of food and goombah bullshit. He followed his wife out to the car. As he was climbing in, Bill Mulrow, his Wall Street prick neighbor, waved hello with his copy of that morning’s paper. Keefe grunted and slid behind the wheel. He was not used to dealing with embarrassment. He made his way down from Westchester, through the resurgent Bronx, and crossed the Throgs Neck Bridge. With a heavy foot, he made it to Howard Beach in thirty-seven minutes.
Keefe pulled into the driveway of Tommy Magic’s house. It was a dull two-story ranch on a block of Cape Cods populated by firemen, construction workers, mailmen, and various other peasants. Magic was overly concerned with downplaying his wealth. The lawn was well kept and a row of perennials bordered the walk on either side. But the house was in need of a fresh coat of paint and the driveway was pocked and cracked like a hillbilly highway. That was one thing he had over the rotten fuck. Keefe lived a nice life. There was a plushness to it. He afforded himself luxuries that were beyond his imagination when he was young. World travel, fine food, opulent comforts. Magic, on the other hand, lived like a low-rung civil servant. It was all a sign of the decline of the guineas anyway. Just the fact that this was the boss now. In the old days, Tommy Magic would have been one of two things, a killer or a gofer.
Since the demise of John Tuzio, the market had gone south. Feds seemed to be everywhere. Stool pigeons, once the rarest of birds, were a thriving species. Tommy Magic saw betrayal everywhere and had amended his ways. Tuzio had died in prison, alone and racked by madness, betrayed by his right hand. His sanity seeped from him in that cold concrete cell. He lasted less than three years. Keefe shuddered thinking about that. But none of that could touch him. He had built up elaborate insurance policies for himself over the years. He played many sides against each other, and was a lot smarter than these goofs he had to do business with.
Magic’s wife, Ruthie, that frail and demented shrew, greeted them at the door. She wore a faded flower-print dress that reached nearly to her bony ankles. There was a crooked line of black hair visible above her lip and she was slightly walleyed. They exchanged hugs and kisses, goombah hellos, hearty, yet false. Marie proffered the cake she had picked up earlier. In the living room there was the boss, the godfather, the good fella king, dressed like a Guatemalan gardener. His moonlike face, pitted and scarred by poisonous hormones and a tortured youth, sported a tiny piece of bloody toilet paper where he’d nicked himself. He reeked powerfully of cheap cologne. As usual, he wore glasses tinted a shade of piss yellow. Christ, Keefe thought, this guy is a discredit to his race.
“Hey, Frankie, come check out the garden.”
Magic conducted almost all his business out of doors, head bent mumbling through his fingers. What a fucking life. Keefe followed the shuffling wide behind of Magic through the kitchen. The room smelled of sautéing garlic, onion, tomato, and spices, of meat baking and sea creatures stewing. It made Keefe’s mouth water in anticipation. They stepped out into a postage-stamp backyard.
Magic went right to the point, said, “You got an election?”
“No problem, guy’s a Bolshevik,” Keefe replied. “A dreamer, nobody takes him with more than a grain or two of salt.” In truth he was starting to worry about Dolan. His spies told him the guy was actually enjoying a groundswell of support.
Magic picked up a bag that reeked powerfully. He dumped the contents, a pile offish offal, into a garbage can. “I get this from Billy Spiro, down the Fulton market. Nice fertilizer. Plus, I always get a little extra for the agents.”
“Agents?”
“I seen on the TV, America’s Most Wanted. These government guys, they look through your garbage. For evidence. It’s legal. I give them a little something nice to dig through.”
Magic tossed the bag aside and half of a rotten cod flopped on his grass. He snatched it and flipped it over the fence into his neighbor’s yard. “Donkey Irish ’lectrican. Local 3. Fuck him too.”
Christ, Keefe thought. The guy was always waging wars.
Magic selected a type of garden tool, then waved it at Keefe. “Your election. A grain or two?”
There were times when Keefe pondered smacking Tommy Magic to his knees right in his own backyard, rubbing his face in the dirt of his quaint little garden. Maybe piss on his head, help the tomatoes grow.
“Tommy, it’s me talking here. Not to worry.”
“I don’t like the fact you can’t take care of your own situation. It makes me nervous. You know what happens when I get nervous.”
Keefe nodded, felt his stomach start to flutter. It was not a question. When Magic got nervous, people got dead.
“Come on. It looks good, union democracy at work. Guy will get maybe ten percent of the vote.”
“Ten percent, huh? We can’t afford to lose you, Frankie. We can’t afford it. More important, you can’t.”
By now Teamster Local 383 was the most profitable and consistent endeavor in Magic’s empire. Keefe controlled delivery to half the construction sites in the New York area and personally handed the man a hundred thousand dollars a month in cold cash from shakedowns on job sites. Keefe knew that losing his election would not be healthy. Brother-in-law or no, father of Magic’s sister’s kids or no, business was business with the Magic man. He wanted to raise the issue of that Dolan kid, but you had to be careful raising things like that. The guy could get touchy. Besides, he was not so sure he wanted Magic involved, after all. The guy was likely to start whacking everyone in sight. Keefe felt his own ire ease a bit. He’d get through the election, then the kid could disappear on his way to school.
Magic was on his hands and knees now massaging the soil with his thick ropey forearms. He had surprisingly long fingers for a man of his build. They were pale in the black spring earth. Keefe had a vision of Magic smoothing over his own shallow grave with those same fingers. There were rumors of a body or two right there beneath them, nurturing Magic’s tomatoes and zucchini, his eggplant and spicy peppers. He thought of skeletons and rotted flesh, a twisted rictus grin of the dead. He toed a rock that Magic had displaced. No matter how hard he tried to control it, the guy made him nervous.
“I never use gloves. I like to feel the earth.” He picked up a loamy handful and considered it. “You can never start too early, Frankie. The soil, this earth, it needs special attention. You want things to come forth from it later on, you got to treat it nice now. It’s like an investment.”
A bead of sweat had formed across the top of Magic’s nose. He looked up at Keefe. He wiped the sweat with the back of his left hand. “That Irish truck make the rounds?”
Keefe nodded yes, but he was amazed. Magic, through a combination of his own shrewdness and misfortune on the part of others who were in cages or graves, was the head of a family, yet he was asking about a single truckload of corned beef that had been hijacked just in time to sell the meat at a discount to Irish gin mills for St. Patrick’s Day. The guy could be so fucking nickel-and-dime if was almost comical.
“Of course, Tommy. Sure.”
“Makes your people happy, no?”
Magic’s emphasis was on your people, as in: not my people. Keefe bit his tongue and fought a suicidal impulse to kick the old dago in the ribs. The prick just could not help rubbing it in. He watched Magic stand and brush his hands together, knocking off loose black clumps of earth. Pots rattled in the house. He heard a faucet turned on, then off. A jet plane came loud and low on its approach to Kennedy. They both looked up and followed its trajectory. Magic’s wife called out that dinner was ready. The sun came out from behind a cloud bank and splashed them with harsh light.
Magic handed Keefe tools. “Here, I gotta wash up. Put these in the shed for me.”
Keefe took the tools. The dirt offended him. He spent his life getting away from making a living dirty. Still, he smiled, a pleasant peon smile to keep the fat man happy. He looked over to the shed. He hunched his shoulders slightly, a nod of subservience, the grateful, obedient lackey. He had no problem playing the role for the asshole. He took an envelope out of his jacket. Magic snatched it like a starving urchin grabbing an apple off a cart and shoved it down the front of his shirt.
“I love this garden. Remind me, I’ll put aside some of my peppers for you and Marie. Now, what the fuck was that in my morning papers yesterday?”
Keefe knew it was coming. “Sure, Tommy. Ah, listen, that.”
“Yeah, that.”
“It was more an accident. Fucking kid. I tripped more than anything.”
A darkness the color of an old bruise crawled across Magic’s face, his lips tightened. He took off his glasses, something he did for emphasis. “An accident? Some kid smacks you like a jamoke, and you tell me it’s an accident. You should’ve smacked him back, is what you should’ve done. I got every type of degenerate fucking immigrant crook circling around waiting for the G to shove me aside, so they can plunder what the fuck is mine, and you get slapped like a girl for the whole world to see.”
Keefe blanched. “Tommy, I’ll take care of it. Teach the little prick some manners.”
“Is that right? You think ‘cause you go to that fucking gymnasium and look in the mirror half a day you’re some kinda tough guy? You make me fucking laugh. You just keep bringing me my fucking money like a nice mick, keep your hands off of my sister, and we’ll all be happy.”
“Tommy.” Keefe was put off by the sharpness of Magic’s response. He had not expected a reprimand.
“You what? All of a sudden you’re gonna start taking care of your own work? I been cleaning up after you for years. Now you got the balls to make me look like a fucking gavone for all the newspapers, the fucking television. The kid just happens to be the son of the guy you got an election with. You believe in coincidence?” He put his glasses back on.
Keefe did not know what to say.
“Well, I don’t” Magic stared at him in silence.
Keefe shrugged. He wished he had the balls to put this fat bastard in the ground. God only knew what the lunatic might do now. Magic leaned forward, and with his finger pushing one nostril closed, snorted a line of snot out of his other. Keefe had to look away.
“Now let’s eat, huh? I’m starving. Put those fucking tools away.”
“Yeah, Tommy, sure.” Keefe shot the finger at Magic’s turned back. One of these frickin’ days.
Tommy Magic watched his brother-in-law pull out of the driveway and turned back to the kitchen for another piece of cake. He knew it was time to make a bold move. One of his bookmakers was slapped around in the middle of Queens Boulevard by some Colombian. The Russians were nosing around all over, and now this Dolan kid pisses on his number one earner for the whole wide world to see. He couldn’t pick up a paper without a story in it about how they were finished. Nobody was taking them seriously anymore. Maybe it was time to do away with some of the old rules, make a statement, take some action on this kid, or his old man. Do it off the record, keep Keefe wondering what happened.
Lately Tommy Magic was having a recurring dream of being buried alive. Feds, friends, capos, and victims, they all passed the shovel around laughing. He would scream and curse and try to claw his way out, but the dirt got heavier and heavier until everything went black. He would wake up in a cold sweat unable to catch his breath.
RICO was choking them all. The law had changed everything. All the government needed was a few rats. Evidence meant nothing. Every move he made was scrutinized. He watched his wife clean the dishes. There was a tightness to her now, like any minute a spring would snap and she would be gone. They’d had her to those head doctors a few times. Once, after some asshole FBI guy had followed her into the supermarket, she had cried for three days straight. They gave her pills for it, and now she lived on the things. He was feeling more and more claustrophobic, hounded and hunted. He scaled back his direct involvement to a point where he was not sure of his level of control anymore. Outside was the usual sedan with the agents. Their presence on his street was as certain as the rising of the sun. He was not going out without a fight. Maybe back in the day the rules meant something. Well, the other side changed the fucking rules. He scarfed down the last of the cake and washed it down with black coffee. We’ll see who’s running this town.
Up on the dais the Cardinal was droning on about charity and forgiveness, the brotherhood of man, and, of course, the sanctity of the unborn. Punchy Dolan drank the remainder of his sixth, or maybe his eighth, Jameson and fidgeted in his seat. His hemorrhoids were acting up again, like a blowtorch on his rectum. He had hoped the spirits would cool the pain. He considered the occupants of his table. Ten in all, most, like himself, were thickening white men with red faces and a fair amount of money, except for the two junior associates from his firm. They sat dully regarding their mineral waters, looking as if they were being forced to endure an obscure tribal ritual. Kids today, Punchy thought as he shook his empty rocks glass.
The rest were the sons or grandsons of workingmen. The immigrant cops and firefighters and laborers and longshoremen and trades men who had built the city and fought in this country’s wars. Most had even toiled some in their youth, but that would be hard to tell this March night. Many had been street kids—some star athletes in high school, some soldiers and sailors before heading to college on the GI bill. They used their hustle and street smarts to carve a place for themselves in the city’s hierarchy, breaking their families’ long line of peasantry.
Now they sat here at the Sheraton in black tie and feigned thrall to the man with the hat, his eminence. Punchy Dolan had not been to church, save for weddings and funerals, since the early sixties, when he was twelve and bounced out of Good Shepherd’s altar boys for running a minor gambling ring among his fellow fresh-faced acolytes, a little sports book that the priests objected to.
The room was packed with an assortment of luminaries. The Mayor and Governor shared a table with two United States senators and the HUD Secretary. Punchy noticed Frankie Keefe, who had recently buffed the floor of Grade Mansion with his ass, muttering into the ear of an actor who had been killed at least a dozen times while playing mobsters on the big screen. Life meets art, Punchy thought. His nephew Jimmy had better watch his back. He did enjoy seeing the arrogant prick on his keister. But the kid had worked hard to get where he was. Tough break blowing it because of a skel like Keefe. He wondered if he could help Jimmy out of this one.
Bernie Shanahan was nodding off to his left, his head pressing his several chins out to the sides like pink pincushions. Bernie the Bank. A kid from Jerome Avenue who had traded his way up the social ladder. Fordham Prep, Yale. Harvard MBA. The Rent Guidelines Board, the City Charter Commission, a brief tenure running the MTA. Now he was on a half dozen boards and was the number two man at the number one bank in the city. While Punchy’s ascent had been far less formal, it was no less spectacular. But now, on this night, the specter of an even more spectacular plummet was gnawing on his consciousness. He forced it away. No time for panic.
Punchy needed to get out of there. He needed air. He needed a drinking buddy. He needed the warm escape of a night on the town, bar stories and laughter. He nudged Bernie, Shanahan came to with a start. “Wha?” A bit of spittle rolled down his chin. People cast censorious glances in their direction. Punchy nodded and smiled, nodded and smiled some more, thinking, Up yours, you uptight hypocritical pricks. He leaned into Shanahan’s ear. “Bernie, I got to get the hell out of here. Whadda you say we hit Rosie’s for a brewski? Just a quick cold one.”
Bernie waved his butter knife at Punchy like he was a magician with a wand trying to make an elephant disappear. “No way. Early meetings.”
Punchy started to goad him, but Bernie turned toward the Cardinal and leaned all the way forward in his chair, showing Punchy the back of his perfectly coiffed hair. Punchy might have persisted, but there was the little matter of the four-car pileup the last time they ducked out of one of these snoozers. And a DWI for Bernie the Bank. Not to mention an angry wife; humiliated children, local media coverage, and glee in the eyes of his Westchester neighbors. He’d let Bernie the Bank slide this time.
Punchy excused himself with a whisper, muttered “bathroom,” and made tracks for the door. The night crystallized with promise the moment his tasseled loafers hit the sidewalk. He was a man on a mission. On Seventh Avenue there was a line of tourists huddled behind the doormen, who, costumed in bright top hat and tails, looked like attendants at some fanciful court. Their jaded expressions contrasted sharply with those of the wide-eyed tourists. Many of them looked like they expected to be set upon at any moment by a teen wolf pack out of a nearby ghetto. Not under this mayor, you rubes. They obviously did not read the crime statistics, Punchy thought. He stood up straight and adjusted the jacket of his tuxedo, realigned his bow tie. He ran his fingers through his gray hair. White, he liked to call it.
Inside Rosie’s there was a nice crowd. Strains of Sinatra from the jukebox, dark, deeply oiled wood and brass railings. The assembled imbibers were a mix of white and blue collars, accountants and cops, lawyers and electricians. Punchy found himself readily at home. This was his kind of crowd. He made his way to the bar, caught the eye of one of the Irish bartenders, and waved him over. The bartender leaned in so he could hear over the din. Punchy ordered a Jameson on the rocks, paid for it, then tipped the bartender a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “Keep an eye on me, young man. I don’t like to go thirsty.”
