My head hurt. I had smoked too many cigarettes and drunk too much strong espresso. All these people ever seemed to do was smoke and drink, eat rich Italian food, pasta and meatballs and sauces made with red wine and sweet-tasting herbs. Seemed to me their food looked like the aftermath of a multiple homicide.
‘Five families, and it really ain’t no different from remembering all the players in a football team or somethin’.’ Don Calligaris went on. ‘Five and five only, and each of them have their names, their bosses, their underbosses, names that you need to know if you’re gonna mix with these people and have them take you seriously. You need to think Italian, you need to speak the language, you need to wear the right clothes and say the right words. You need to address people in the correct manner or they’re gonna think you’re some poor dumb fuck from the countryside.’
New York was cold. It was confusing. I had figured New York to be a single place, but it was made up of islands, each of them with different names, and where we were seated – in a small diner called Salvatore’s on the corner of Elizabeth and Hester in Little Italy – was a district on an island called Manhattan. The images, the names, the words that surrounded me were as new as the people who accompanied them: Bowery and the Lower East Side, Delancey Street and the Williamsburg Bridge, the East River and Wallabout Bay – places I had read about in my encyclopedias, places I had imagined so different from how they appeared in reality.
I believed Vegas to be the backstop of the world, the place where everything began and ended; New York disabused me of all I had believed. Compared to this Vegas was nothing more than its origin: a small jerkwater nothing of a place hunkering at the edge of the desert.
The sounds and images dwarfed me; they frightened me a little; they created a tension within that I had not experienced before. Crazy people wandered the streets asking for change. Men were dressed as women. The walls were painted with crude garish symbology, and every other word uttered was
‘So there’s the Gambino family,’ Don Calligaris said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Albert Anastasia was boss from ’51 to ’57. He started something you might hear of around here, a little club called Murder Incorporated. After Anastasia was killed the family was taken over by Carlo Gambino, and he’s been the boss since ’57. Then you have the Genovese, and these guys are Lucky Luciano’s family. After him came Frank Costello, and then Vito Genovese was boss until ’59. After Vito came a three-man council until 1972, and now the Genovese family is run by Frank Tieri. The third family, our family, is the Lucheses. Long history, lot o’ names, but all you gotta know is that Tony Corallo is the boss now. You’ll hear people refer to him as Tony Ducks.’ Calligaris laughed. ‘Gave him that name ’cause of all the times he ducked out from under the Feds and the cops and whoever the fuck else might have been after him. Then you got the Colombos, and they’re headed up by Thomas DiBella. Lastly you got the Bonanno family. They got Carmine Galante in charge, and if you ever meet him you don’t look him straight in the eye or he’ll have someone whack you just for the sheer fucking thrill of it.’
Calligaris drank some more coffee. He ground his cigarette out in the ashtray and lit another.
‘You got your New Jersey factions down here as well. Family has always been stronger in New York and Philly, but they got an established outfit in Newark, New Jersey, and the boss down there until ’57 was a guy called Filippo Amari. Nicky Delmore ran from ’57 to ’64, and now they got Samuel De Cavalcante-’
I was looking at Don Calligaris with a blank expression.
He started laughing again. ‘Hell, kid… think you better take a bundle of serviettes here and make some fuckin’ notes. You look like your face was a blackboard and someone just wiped you clean.’
Calligaris raised his hand and attracted the attention of the guy behind the diner counter. ‘More coffee,’ he said, and the guy nodded and hurried away.
‘Anyways, all you gotta remember is you’re here so’s we can use some of your special talents.’ Calligaris smiled broadly. ‘You got yourself somethin’ of a rep for the work you did for ol’ Giancarlo Ceriano, dumb fuck though he was.’
I looked up, raised my eyebrows.
‘Stupid fucker thinks he can rake off the cream from the milk and get away with it, you know?’
I shook my head.
Calligaris shook his head and sighed.
‘Don Ceriano-’ Calligaris crossed himself. ‘May he rest in peace… Don Ceriano, wise in the ways of the world he might have been, but he was given a specific instruction of how the Vegas business was supposed to be handled. He was only supposed to use certain men for certain things, he was supposed to pay over certain percentages to certain officials at certain times of the year. This is the way things work, and they’ve always been that way. Don Ceriano was an underboss for the Gambinos. Historically there’s always been a good relationship between the Gambinos and the Lucheses, and that’s why I was asked to go down and sort things out with Don Ceriano, make sure he understood who he was working for and why. Anyway, we sorted that little thing out, and now the Gambinos and the Lucheses have a part-share in the whole thing in Vegas, and it’s gonna get done right. You can’t run a business without a few dollars getting shared out between the right people at the right time, you know?’
Calligaris paused while the diner guy brought coffee for us both. He reached into his pocket and took out a twenty-dollar bill. ‘Hey kid,’ he said. ‘Buy your girl a necklace or something, eh?’
The kid took the twenty, stuffed it into the front pocket of his apron, and then he looked momentarily dejected and said, ‘Thanks, but I ain’t got a girl right now.’
Calligaris started to smile, and then he frowned. ‘What the fuck is this? What the fuck you bustin’ my balls about, you dumb schmuck? You want me to go out and get you a freakin’ girl or what? Get the fuck outta here!’
The kid stepped backwards, a flicker of fear in his eyes.
‘Hey!’ Calligaris snapped. ‘Gimme the fuckin’ twenty back, ya little fuck!’
The kid snatched the twenty-dollar bill from his apron pocket and threw it towards the table. Don Calligaris snatched it from the air, and then rose and started after the kid. He made to kick him and the kid started to run. I watched with amusement as the kid hurried down the length of the diner and disappeared through a door at the back.
Don Calligaris sat down. ‘Jesus Mary Mother of God, what the fuck is all this shit? Kid can’t even be grateful for a tip, has to get all smartmouth and wiseguy with me.’
He reached for his coffee, lit another cigarette.
‘Anyways, as I was saying, all you gotta do is keep your eyes open and your ears closed. You work for me now. You get an order to clip some fuck, then you go clip the fuck, right? Things is done right and clean and simple here… and none of that weird shit like what went down in New Orleans, okay?’
I tilted my head to the side.
‘That freaky shit with the heart, you know? Whatever the fuck his name was, Devo or something, right? Dvore, that was the fucker! That thing that you did when the guy’s heart was cut out.’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t cut anybody’s heart out,’ I said.
‘Sure you did. You went down there and did some work for Feraud and his politician buddy. Cleaned up some shit a few years ago. Word got out that you whacked that Dvore fucker for some shit he was pulling and took his heart out.’
‘I never heard of anyone called Dvore, and I never cut anybody’s heart out. I did something for Feraud because Don Ceriano asked me to, but that was back in ’62, and I ain’t been down there since.’
Calligaris laughed. ‘Well, shit, kid… seems someone has been using your name to make a mark on the landscape. I got word that you whacked this guy Dvore for the Ferauds and this politician buddy of theirs, and just to make the fucking point you cut his heart out.’
I shook my head. ‘Not me, Don Calligaris, not me.’
Calligaris shrugged. ‘Aah what the hell… you should see the things they got my name down for. Never did any harm, helps to build your reputation, right?’
I listened to what Don Calligaris was saying, but my thoughts were back in Louisiana. From what I was being
