Lullaby Town

Great. Just what you want to hear.

We turned off Fourth onto Sixth and started south toward Little Italy. When we were waiting for a light to change, Maxie suddenly growled and ran sideways, back legs moving faster than his front legs, drool trailing from the corners of his wide shovel mouth like wet streamers, trying to bite something that wasn't there. A couple of guys in watch caps waiting next to us traded looks and moved out of range.

Roland looked sad and said, 'It's hardest when their minds go.'

Maxie snapped at the air until he wore himself out and then he broke wind again and sat down. One of the guys who had moved away frowned and shook his head. I said, 'Sounds like digestion problems, too.'

Roland made more of the sad nod. 'Yes.'

When the light changed, Roland helped Maxie up and got him pointed in the right direction and we crossed.

We turned off Sixth onto Spring and went into a little place called Umberto's. A bald guy in a vest hustled up to Rollie with a lot of smiling and a lot of buon giorno and brought us to a booth across from the bar. A couple of dozen people were already eating and more than half of them were speaking Italian. Dark eyes moved with Rollie and voices lowered. The maitre d' snapped his fingers and a kid with spots on his face brought water. Maxie sat on the floor next to Rollie and panted. When the maitre d' and the kid were gone, I said, 'They don't mind the dog?'

'Max and I been eating here for years. When I was with the cops, I kept book on half the guys in this place. We nod, we smile, it's like a game we play. This place is owned by the Gamboza family.'

'Here in DeLuca territory?'

Rollie sipped his water and nodded. 'Used to be there were only five core families, with everybody killing everybody else over territory and business, but now there's eight, nine families and these guys all like to make like they're Lee Iacocca, everybody polite, everybody doing business with everybody else as long as the other guy pays rispetto. You know rispetto?'

'You want to do business in another guy's territory, you don't just move in. You pay respect. You ask permission and you give him a piece of the action.'

'Yeah. Vito Ratoulli, the guy owns this place, he's a soldier for Carlino. He pays the DeLucas six percent of his gross to do business here. Vito makes the best calamari diablo around, he treats DeLuca with respect, old Sal even comes here to eat sometimes. Works both ways. Some of DeLuca's people have businesses in Carlino territory.'

The maitre d' came back and put a large white plate between us. There was a little white bowl of olive oil and basil in the center of the plate and a dozen paper-thin slices of prosciutto fanned out around it and a row of small hot rolls around the edge of the plate. The rolls were warm and slick with olive oil and little pieces of garlic. Rollie folded up a slice of the prosciutto, swirled it in the olive oil, ate half of it along with one of the little rolls, then gave the rest to his dog. He said, 'You like spicy food?'

'Yes.'

Rollie told the maitre d' that we wanted the calamari. The maitre d' went away. I said, 'What part of Italy are your people from?'

Rollie made a booming laugh. 'You eat enough macaroni, you lose your taste for red beans and fat- back.'

I said, 'Why'd the families make peace?'

Rollie spread his hands. 'Organized crime isn't just the dagos and the kikes anymore. The brothers up in Harlem used to be under the mafia's thumb, but now you got civil rights. The black man figures he can do his own crime and not have to pay the dago. You got your Crips and Bloods and they ain't just street punks anymore. You got your Jamaicans and your East Indians, and those cats come up here believing in voodoo and shit. They don't give a damn about no Sicily. You got your Cubanos and your Chinese Triads and all these little bastards from Southeast Asia. Shit.' Rollie frowned and thought about it. 'The families knew that if they didn't hang together, they'd be run out of business, but it ain't an easy peace. There's still plenty of bad blood. No one likes showing polite, and no one likes showing respect, and a lot of bodies were buried before the families decided how they were going to divide up the crime and the territory. Your DeLucas and your Gambozas hate each other all the way back to Sicily, but they hate the niggers and the chinks worse. You see?'

'Anybody do business with the other guys?'

'Shit.'

'I want Charlie DeLuca to turn loose somebody he owns.'

Rollie ate another piece of prosciutto. 'Charlie the Tuna isn't a guy you can talk with.'

'They never are.'

Rollie smiled. 'You got anything to give him?'

I shook my head.

Rollie made a little shrug. 'I'll ask around. Maybe I can help you out.'

'I figured I'd go talk to him, see how he feels about it. You know where I can find him?'

'Try the meat plant.'

'I did. He's sorta tough to see.'

'Probably ain't there most of the time, anyway. The wiseguys own these businesses, but they don't like to work. Try a place called the Figaro Social Club up on Mott Street, about eight, nine blocks from here.'

'Okay.'

Rollie frowned at the last piece of prosciutto, picked it up, then swirled it in the oil. 'This guy, he gets hot, he ain't so good at controlling himself. That's why he's always in trouble. That's why his daddy has to clean up after him.'

'I know.'

'He's a nut case, Elvis. Certifiable.' He spoke slowly. 'This ain't L.A.'

I said, 'Rollie, in L.A. we got Richard Ramirez and the Hillside Strangler.'

Roland stared at me for a minute, then nodded again and ate the prosciutto. 'Yeah. I guess you do.'

Maxie suddenly charged sideways, snapping and barking at something that only he could see. Roland George got the sad look again and gently reeled him in and mumbled soft things that the dog could not hear and petted him until he was calm. I thought I heard him say Liana.

After a while the little dog took a deep breath and sighed and sat at Roland's feet. He broke wind loudly. Everyone in the restaurant must have heard, but no one looked. Showing polite, I guess. Paying respect, I guess.

When the calamari came, it was excellent.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Figaro Social Club was on Mott Street, squeezed between a shoe repair shop and a place that sold fresh ground coffee, looking sharp with one of those padded doors upholstered in red naugahyde. The naugahyde was cracked and had maybe been wiped down in 1962 but not since, and the doorstep and the gutter were littered and oily and wet. A small CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC sign was hanging on the door. I thought it all looked sort of crummy, but maybe I was just suffering from West Coast Bias. On the West Coast, big-time mobsters spent a lot of money and lived in palaces and acted like they were related to the Doheny family. Maybe on the East Coast such behavior was considered gauche. On the East Coast, the well-established mobster probably went in for the rat-hole look.

I pushed through the red door and stood in the entry for a moment, letting my eyes adjust. Charlie DeLuca and a couple of guys built like bread trucks were sitting at a bare wooden table, shoveling in pasta with some sort of red sauce. Behind them, Joey Putata and a short, muscular guy were wrestling a full beer keg onto the bar. An old guy in a white barman's bib yelled at them to go easy with the goddamned thing. In the back of the place a tall bony man with a long face and a hatchet nose was shooting pool by himself. His shoulders were unnaturally wide, as if he should have been twins but wasn't, and he was X-ray thin, with pale skin pulled tight and lean over all the bones. His hair was black and shaggy and stuck out in spikes on top, and he wore black Ray Ban Wayfarer