sad.
He looked at me, and said, “So how’s the dick?”
“Swell,” I said. “And you mean that in a good way, right, Rocky?”
He smirked; we knew each other a little—though I now knew him better, having glimpsed Model Train Land— and we always spoke, even kidded some. He was the kind of guy who expected respect but liked being treated like a regular joe.
“We been wanting to talk to you,” Rocco said, “Charley and me.” Rather resignedly, he plucked the railroad cap from his head and tossed it on the control panel. To his brother, he said, “Go on up and see Charley…I’ll get dressed and join you.”
The girl said, “Should I get dressed, too, Rock? Are we going out for dinner?”
He glared at her. “Did I ask you anything?”
“No.”
The flatness of their voices in the room was almost a surprise: yelling across the mountainous landscape between them, you’d expect an echo.
“Did I fucking ask you anything?”
“No.”
“That’s right. Go on and get dressed. Put something on that eye—it’s ugly.”
“Yes, Rock.”
“And call Augustino’s and get us the regular table.”
“Yes, Rock.”
But she hadn’t moved from her perch. She was waiting, respectfully, for us to leave. I guessed.
Rocco ushered me out of the railroad yard, putting a hand on my arm, giving it a gentle, friendly squeeze. He too smelled of Vitalis and Old Spice, though less potently than Joey, who trailed down the hallway behind us.
“You gotta be tough on these dames,” Rocco said. “Gotta know how to handle ’em.”
“You’ve certainly got a touch.”
He knew I was kidding him, and he liked it. “You’re a card, Heller.”
“Yeah, a joker!” Joey chimed in, grinning, pleased with his wit.
Rocco gave me a look that admitted his baby brother’s idiocy, but fondness was in there, too. And before we left, he patted Joey’s cheek and said, “Ask Charley to wait for me, before you talk business.”
So we were going to talk business. Wasn’t that a delightful notion.
We summoned the elevator and its cauliflower-eared guardian, who delivered us to the eighteenth floor. The entryway was identical to the floor below’s, only this time Joey pressed the sunburst doorbell.
“I don’t ever just bust in on Charley,” Joey said. “He don’t like it.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t bother him,” I said. “We can do this some other time….”
But Joey rang the bell again, and before long, Charley—presumably after checking the peephole—revealed himself in the doorway.
Broad-shouldered, kind of stocky, Charles Fischetti was around fifty, an almost-handsome guy with an oval face, bumpy nose, knife-scarred jaw and small mouth that could flash in a surprisingly mischievous smile. Under black slashes of eyebrow that reminded you he was Rocco’s brother, Charley’s hazel eyes beamed an icy, unblinking intelligence. Charley dyed his gray hair platinum and combed it back in traditional George Raft gangster style; he seemed taller than his brothers, but that was the elevator shoes.
“Sorry to drop in on you, Charley,” Joey said.
No dressing robe for Charley Fischetti: his pin-striped single-breasted Botany 500 was so dark a gray, it looked black; his shirt was a light blue and his tie a slip-stitched gray with dots of red, like precision splashes of blood.
“Joey,” Charley said, in a mellow, mildly scolding baritone, “I told you bring Heller around, but I didn’t say just pop by with him.”
Joey had a panicky look, so I jumped in with, “It’s my fault, Mr. Fischetti.” I didn’t know Charley very well, and couldn’t take the same liberties as with Rocco. “I got the date wrong, but Joey said I might as well come on up, anyway.”
Charley smiled at his forty-year-old baby brother, and patted his cheek, much as middle-brother Rocco had. “You’re a good boy, Joey. I shouldn’ta doubted you.”
I said, “If you have another appointment…”
“I do have somebody coming around…” He checked his watch. “…but that’s not for almost an hour.”
Joey explained that Rocco would be joining us.
“Well that’s fine,” he said to his brother. Then, as he gestured for me to step inside, he said, “And let’s make it ‘Charley’ and ‘Nate.’”
“Thank you, Charley.”
“Hey—any friend of Frank Nitti’s is a friend of mine.”
We had stepped into the living room when I replied: “Frank was a fine man. He was almost a father to
